Would a cloned human being have a soul?

This is a great question to develop thinking skills in RE.

Would a cloned human being have a soul?

It's good because to answer it you really have to identify a whole raft of related issues about what is a clone, what is a soul, why the two might be thought to be mutually exclusive.

C. Ben Mitchell, director of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, says, "The answer is in the question itself. A cloned human being would in fact be a person and would therefore be ensouled. To be human is to be a person is to be a soul." This is neither an argument in favor of human cloning nor the final answer to various theological questions about the existence or nature of a human soul, topics best left to mouthbreathing Pentecostals, infallible men in funny hats, and Mitch Albom. It is simply to say, as Arthur Caplan, chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania does, "If humans have souls, then clones will have them, too."

So far so good. Add to the mix the insight about identical wins being co-clones and you have a trail of extra questions about what is a human being, how does that all relate to God anyway, what do various religious positions say? And so on ...
I have my own approach to this but I think that posing the big questions is good for learning, so over to you!
WIRED Blogs: Bodyhack: Filed in: learning, souls, RE, questions, teaching

How green are my food miles?

It turns out, unsurprisingly to me, that the whole 'buy local' thing is more convoluted than a badger's pancreas.

some vegetables transported from abroad could still have lower carbon footprints than those home-grown inside heated polytunnels with bags of fertiliser.

Anyway, it's worth keeping an eye on the issues and it looks like it'll be over 'embodied carbon' that the arguments rage. Check out the article.
David Adam on food miles | Climate change | Guardian Unlimited Environment: Filed in: food-miles, ecological_footprint, food, production, transport

Hot civil war in Islam?

some scholars are even talking of a new "30 years' war" between the two branches of Islam - something akin to the struggle between Protestants and Catholics in 16th-century Europe.

And the reason why it might go on can be surmised from this:

Iran's assertiveness has reawakened dormant historical resentment. Sunnis now talk routinely of the Safawis - the Arabic name for the Shia Persian Safavid dynasty, which fought the Sunni Ottomans for control of Iraq in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Be interesting to see the effects of such a conflict in the long term.

Watch and pray ...

Fear of a Shia full moon | World dispatch | Guardian Unlimited: Filed in: Islam, Shia, Sunni, Middle_East, conflict, war

US still wriggling on climate change

The US government wants the world's scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming, the Guardian has learned. It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be "important insurance" against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a major UN report on climate change, the first part of which will be published on Friday.

Actually, fair enough, but am I being cynical to think that this is still trying to wriggle out of responsibility? Maybe, maybe not. I do think it's right to explore all possible things that could help, provided that doesn't mean some things are dropped. So this dimension is hopeful at face value:

"Modifying solar radiance may be an important strategy if mitigation of emissions fails. Doing the R&D to estimate the consequences of applying such a strategy is important insurance that should be taken out. This is a very important possibility that should be considered."

US answer to global warming: smoke and giant space mirrors | Climate change | Guardian Unlimited Environment: Filed in: USA, environment, greenhouse, technology, CO2

"Evangelical" in the USA

I found this a bit shocking but, on reflection, perhaps not surprising.

Although 38% of Americans call themselves evangelical, only 9% actually agree with key evangelical beliefs, says research firm the Barna Group. In a surveys of 4,014 adults nationwide, conducted over four months in 2006, "one out of every four self-identified evangelicals has not even accepted Christ as their savior," says George Barna.

While I don't hold too much to the formulaic thing about accepting Christ as saviour -after all it's minimally biblical- it is very surprising that more self-designating evangelicals don't accept it. What's the back story here then?
Evangelical: Can the 'E-word' be saved? - USATODAY.com: Filed in: Evangelical, Christian, USA, label, values

Dental Researchers Test No-needle Anesthesia, No-drilling Cavity Care

I've pretty healthy teeth, but I do have a small handful of fillings, so this news is good news...
ScienceDaily: Dental Researchers Test No-needle Anesthesia, No-drilling Cavity Care

Filed in: dental, treatment, ozone, anaesthesia

Brain, mind and self awareness

This is quite interesting and important for anyone interested in how human beings grow in mind and emotion and spiritually.

for the Edge 10th Anniversary Essay, we are pleased to present a new work, "The Neurology of Self-Awareness", in which "Rama" explores the concept of the self, tying in the ideas of researchers such as Horace Barlow, Nick Humphrey, David Premack and Marvin Minsky (among others), who have suggested that consciousness may have evolved primarily in a social context. This includes Minsky's ideas on "a second parallel mechanism that has .evolved in humans to create representations of earlier representations" and Humphrey's arguments "that our ability to introspect may have evolved specifically to construct meaningful models of other peoples minds in order to predict their behavior. "

"Have we solved the problem of self?", he asks in concluding the essay. "Obviously not — we have barely scratched the surface. But hopefully we have paved the way for future models and empirical studies on the nature of self, a problem that philosophers have made essentially no headway in solving. (And not for want of effort — they have been at it for three thousand years). Hence our grounds for optimism about the future of brain research — especially for solving what is arguably Science's greatest riddle."

I'm not sure that it is fair to claim that 3,000 years of philosophy have made no progress on the nature of the self: it seems to be one of those slightly arrogant statements that some scientists less schooled in wider cultural matters make from time to time. It seems to come down to "Philosophy hasn't given us an answer to how a sense of self arises from or in a brain; bad philosophy. But good us because we think we can show how it might have come about." It would have been good to check whether this was (a) what philosophy etc was trying to do (not really) and (b) whether it has actually come up with things that are germane (yes) even though looking at things differently with a different set of questions in mind. But that little quibble aside; this needs to be looked at.

Edge 10th Anniversary Essay



Technorati Tags: psychology, brain, mind, self, neurology, philosophy

Mapping, linking, making a point

Interesting don't you think? What's the link between the states pictured and the countries named on those states' images? Approximate wealth equivalence (GDP, I think)...
350816052_0a392a0d28.jpg (JPEG Image, 500x328 pixels)
Filed in: maps, global, wealth, USA, world

A Theology of Profanity

Here's a good set of links about the issue of profanity or swearing with a particular eye to Christian responses. Unhappily it misses my posts and so the perspective that I outline in relation to the sociolinguistics of the matter are not there.

A couple of the posts referenced seem to me to be worth a further look. One of them, from a Reformed perspective, usefully reminds us

these words began to cause negative reactions in some people because they considered them to be offensive. However, there is nothing magical/spiritual in the sounds or meanings of the words themselves that caused this association. Rather, it was the contexts in which these words were generally used. For nearly every profane word usage, there is another non-profane way to say the same thing that does not cause the same negative reactions in those who are more sensitive to profanity. But this does not mean that the words themselves are somehow evil sounds. ... I say this as someone who formerly used profanity extensively, but who now feels uncomfortable even to hear it used. I don't use that language because in my current society people don't appreciate it, and they take it as greatly offensive. I am among those who don't use it, so I don't use it. However, if my situation were reversed, it might be less offensive to use it than to appear "better than" the people whose company I was keeping.

Which pretty much lines up with my own posts.

A more novel, to me, approach is put forward by Richard Beck in Texas.

my analysis is this: Verbal profanity is "vulgar" because it goes from this:
Romantic Love = (Spiritual overlay (physical act of sex = animal reminder = disgust)) = Mixed but generally positive feelings
to this:
F**king = (physical act of sex = animal reminder) = disgust/profanity/vulgarity
where the spiritual overlay is ripped away by the vulgar reference, exposing two animals having intercourse. The vision is insulting (for the reasons I've outlined), thus the F-word is profane.

However, he hasn't factored in the matter of the plain use of 'sacred' words or religiously charged words nor the power dynamics of the sociolinguistic contexts. Nevertheless, I think it does expose one vein of the psychological dimensions -even without having joined that up with class and power dimensions.
two or three . net: A Theology of Profanity
Filed in: profanity, swearing, language, linguistics, sociology, theology

Huge cut in measles deaths

Just look at what we can do when we start to put our minds to it ...

Between 1999 and 2005, there was a 60% reduction in annual measles deaths worldwide, from 873,000 to 345,000, according to United Nations figures

Next stop: world peace and mitigating global warming.
Well, we can dream ... and pray?
Huge cut in measles deaths hailed as triumph | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited: Filed in: health, global, measles, deaths

What I Hate About Evangelism

Gotta say that this puts into succint words my main misgivings about a lot of evangelism I have been involved in.

Things I hate about evangelism:
1. It violates the golden rule - most Christians would not want to be approached by a member of another religion the way Christians approach others in evangelistic attempts
2. It calls the authenticity of relationships into question - are you my friend because you’re really my friend, or so you can convert me?
3. The moment of truth - we think we must identify a “no turning back” point where you pressure someone to make a decision, and if they don’t respond well, that jeopardizes the relationship
4. Asking someone about the Gospel feels like making a pass at them
5. If I like my friends, and want them to continue to be my friends, I have a major incentive not to try to evangelize them

I got to really disliking the way that friendship got turned into something instrumental almost 'I befriend you to change you into a Christian' rather than 'I befriend you because I like you'. I'm reminded that there is no command to evangelise in Scripture merely to make disciples. The evangelism seems to flow quite naturally from bringing changed lives and curiosity together.
It's worth noting that the author goes on to write:

Of course, none of these are evangelism - they’re caricatures, ... Jim Henderson suggests asking questions, and giving people attention (”free attention giveaways”). I would also add hospitality. Those are good places to start, and don’t harm the cause of Christ the way the items in the list above do.

But I think I'd have to add, myself, that these things are principally things that happen when we love other people. The issue then becomes the maintenance of these things even if the person we're befriending doesn't want to know. We have to trust that God is love and that those who live in love live in God.
As one of the commentists shared:

our family was flagged down by a young man whose girlfriend was in labor some thirty miles away. He asked for a ride to be taken to where she was and so we took a chance and did that.
During the thirty miles, we talked about childbirth. We discussed everything from the pain, what actually happens, to how wonderful you feel when you see your child. I never brought up any reference to God during that entire discourse, but as the young man exited our car, he thanked my husband and said, “God Bless you, April.”
Where did that come from? I didn’t evangelize this man, we only listened, talked, and gave him a ride. However, somewhere along the way he sensed that God was in it, and you know what?—He was.

Real evangelism is about spotting where and how the Spirit may be at work and oh-so-gently blowing a little oxygen onto the flame (not too much lest we blow it out -snuff a smouldering wick, even) and letting people live with the next question rather than trampling over them with our armoury of answers.

What we're learning about learning is a help here: it's about finding out what people know, what currently is stirring and encouraging a little growth into the unknown. If you know the jargon; I'm thinking zones of proximal development, here.
Emerging Evangelism � What I Hate About Evangelism: Filed in: evangelism, Christian, critique

Learning A New Language May Make You Forget Your Old One

...but only temporarily. It actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it:

naming objects in another language inhibits the corresponding labels in the native language, making them more difficult to retrieve later. Interestingly, the study also showed that the more fluent bilingual students were far less prone to experience these inhibitory effects. These findings suggest that native language inhibition plays a crucial role during the initial stages of second language learning. That is, when first learning a new language, we have to actively ignore our easily accessible native language words while struggling to express our thoughts in a novel tongue. As a speaker achieves bilingual fluency, native-language inhibition becomes less necessary, accounting for the better performances of fluent bilingual speakers in the study.

It certainly chimes with my experience. I guess too that it shows up the necessity of helping people to consolidate new vocabulary in other kinds of learning too.

ScienceDaily: A New Language Barrier: Why Learning A New Language May Make You Forget Your Old One: Filed in: language, acquisition, learning, psychology

Even Beckham can't compete with the fanatical conservatism of sport

I seem to recall a number of occasions when I made the point that a reason for soccer to be taken seriously in the USA would be the demographics of immigration. And so it is.

peel back the economics of Beckham's move and it is not aimed at soccer-loving white Americans, let alone Hollywood and Tom Cruise. He will be preaching to the already converted. He will play for a (very good) Hispanic team based in the poor Hispanic suburb of Carson. Its fans are almost entirely Spanish-speaking and the games are currently shown only on the Spanish-speaking channel Univision. Beckham is not so much going to America as staying in Spain.

Aside from the rather gauche equivalence given to Mexico and Spain, an interesting comment.
Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Simon Jenkins: Even Beckham can't compete with the fanatical conservatism of sport: Filed in: football, economics, demographics, USA, soccer

Myths of Accelerated Learning

I've got to admit that I keep coming across these, still, and finding that I'm a bit surprised that they are still being trotted out, even though I'm happy with the general idea of exploring accelerated learning.

Myth 1 - We use less than 10% of our brain power
This is simply not true.The more we find out about the brain, the more we realise that we are using many parts of it for much of the time. And the more we find out, the more we realise how much more there is to know!
Myth 2 - VAK - We are all either visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learners
No we are not! Certainly we acquire habits and temporary preferences, but the simplistic suggestion that you can somehow work out which of these three types of learner you are is fanciful and occasionally damaging. For if a learner mistakenly assumes that VAK is like a blood group, something that s/he is stuck with for life, then motivation to learn to play a musical instrument for example, may vanish if a low auditory score is 'measured'.

The Evidence for Accelerated Learning | Teaching Expertise: Filed in: learning, accelerated_learning, myths, brain-friendly

The Spread of Faith?

Interesting article which poses an interesting question.

Are these signs of a religious renaissance in notoriously secular Europe - especially among the young? Or are the multitudes at the Holy See more groupies than true believers - a product of the same media hype that feeds our fixation with soccer icons, pop divas and Hollywood stars?

Actually, for different reasons, this is a proposal I have already made. However, what this proposal does is to make the point more as a reaction of the less committed, whereas my proposal is in relation to the very committed, but perhaps in both case the resources of popular culture are a formative influence. In one case by giving icons and in the other means of expression. In one case somewhat with the culture, in the other somewhat countercultural in appearance, while responding to 'deeper' cultural trends?

Both are easy enough to see as aspects of a change in the way that spirituality is expressed.

Some observers believe religion is not in decline at all; it is metamorphosing, becoming more individualistic and less ecclesiastical. The French historian Paul Veyne, for example, speaks of a transition “from religion as a set menu to religion a` la carte, where everyone gets to choose the god or sect they like most.”

I was also pleased to see, in a presentation of Jurgen Habermas's contribution to the debate on 'secularisation' that my own term 'post-secular' gets used.

Both sides of the debate had made the same mistake in viewing secularization as “a kind of zero-sum game,” according to Habermas, where “one side can only win at the expense of the other.” In fact, it was symptomatic of our “postsecular” society, he continued, that religious communities could flourish “in a progressively secularizing environment.”
This observation is not as original as the term “post-secular” would seem to suggest. For many centuries, religions have existed in progressively secular environments. It is Habermas and his new line of thinking that are “post-secular,” rather than the society itself.

The Spread of Faith: Religion, Born Again:Filed in: Europe, religion, trends, culture

Who do you think you are?

Some more food for thought on ID cards and the NIR.

Everyone has been talking about security. The real driver that I can hear as a secondary issue is efficiency; the trouble is that efficiency and security are not compatible. Secure systems introduce inefficiency as a means of safety, to stop the ease of the bad guy getting through. Efficiency is extremely dangerous, yet that aspect of it does not appear in the discussion at all.

-Professor Ian Angell (Professor of information systems, London School of Economics)

On the comments to the source article is this interesting point:

Fingercopies were proved in the UKPS biometrics trials to be around 81% reliable there was a 19% false non-match rate, people could not use their fingercopies to verify their identity, and what do we find in the US? Every day, 19% of US-VISITors have to be referred to secondary inspection.
The government are offering us a 100% solution. “What identity systems do is lock you down to a single identity”, Liam Byrne, p.6. But they can only deliver an 81% solution.
There will be such a coach and horses driven through that 19% gap that the scheme is not worth pursuing. In a population of 50m ID cardholders, we’re talking about 9.5m of them not being able to verify their identity by appealing to their fingercopies. Nine point five million people! If the government have any respect for evidence and logic, they will abandon the system now and wait until biometric technology can deliver. Until then, they should not waste our money. They have no right to. They are playing an international game of charades.

And another commentist adds:

Best quote is from Mr Byrne: “What identity systems do is lock you down to a single identity”
So true. And when some ID thief steal it and commits fraud with it, you WON’T hear a conversation like this:
“Someone has stolen my ID card.”
“Not to worry sir… place your fingers here and we’ll amputate them and replace them with a fresh set. Much better than a new PIN for a new card eh?”
Are they REALLY this stupid?

ID in the News� Blog Archive � Who do you think you are?: Filed in: ID_cards, UK, costs, civil_liberties

Linux will eventually rule the world

Here's a thought:

Our grandkids will look back on our Windows vs Linux debate and wonder what the heck we were thinking even using Windows in the first place. I'm going to make a prediction here. Linux will be the operating system of choice for new PC's and the majority of desktops by 2020. Windows will be relegated to legacy hardware and computer museums.

I like the prospect that that kind of world.
Open Addict - Five reasons why Linux will eventually rule the world: Filed in: Linux, futuring, OS, Windows

Zero emissions building developments

Apart from anything else, I wanted to have a way back to these pages on zero emissions developments.

stm1

Filed in: ZED, building, green, UK

Is David Cameron for real?

I think this puts into words my feelings about David Cameron's rebranding of the Tories:

Cameron will doubtless win cheers for promising to end the target culture, to empower police, teachers and doctors, to hold back the meddling, clumsy, long arm of central government. It all sounds good. But our civil society is too weak to carry the load he wants it to, and that would spell disaster for the very people he claims to care about.

Given that I tend to think that the sociological analysis of Zygmunt Bauman is about right, I have to say that a Conservative trying to run the country after promoting the trend to commercialise or monetise everything thus feeding the very forces that undermine the kind of solidarity and other-concern that he now wants to draw on, well ...
Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Please don't laugh, but I think David Cameron has got a crush on me: Filed in: Tory, Cameron, state, professionals, democracy

Plug Play Construction

I'm concerned about housing and this is very interesting.

THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY to construct a house is to build it in a factory. This reduces a home's "embodied energy" – the amount of power expended in its fabrication and construction. And conventional homebuilding is dirty work. From the fuel used by commuting workers to onsite diesel generators, the construction and operation of homes and other structures generates 40 to 50 percent of all the greenhouse gases in the US, according to the US Energy Information Administration. On top of that, studies suggest that more than half of a home's leftover materials – drywall and lumber – winds up in landfills. Plus, as anyone who has ever remodeled a kitchen knows, construction work isn't exactly high tech. Raw materials are dropped off at the building site and then assembled by hand with hammers and saws. The so-called material systems approach developed by Kieran and Timberlake banishes this primitive model. Better still, it's future-proof: Homes may be built to last, but the modules of material systems structures are built to be upgraded.

Looks interesting from a relatively small crowded island ...
Wired 15.01: Plug Play Construction

Two more futile years?

I know what they are trying to do with education with the proposal to raise leaving age to 18 but I'm troubled by the idea, and this article pretty well articulates my concerns. Here's a quote that encapsulates much of it.

Accurate data on literacy and numeracy (even when analysed by such statistical wizards as Claus Moser) is pretty elusive. Is it 20% of the UK population that is functionally illiterate, or 10%? But bet, with a dismal certainty, that most of the problem teenagers are also the children who never quite mastered reading or writing to begin with - the hard core of the 20% of functional illiterates who came out of junior school at 11. Bet that they drop out at 16 for a desolate reason. Bet that the failures in GCSE maths and English that were revealed by making them mandatory in last week's school league tables are reflected worst of all among those with nothing to do and nowhere hopeful to go.
Do you solve that problem by adding two more years of the same? You haven't solved truancy or illiteracy or breathed new life into further education. You haven't (see asylum seeking) got either the time or the resolve to chase 17-year-olds who bunk out of apprenticeships.

The rest of it's worth pondering too.
Peter Preston: Two more futile years | Schools | EducationGuardian.co.uk:Filed in: education, compulsory, UK, post-16

Carbon footprint for meat

Further evidence that cutting down your meat consumption would help lower your carbon footprint.

livestock activities contribute to an estimated 18% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emmissions from five major sectors of greenhouse gas reporting:energy, industry, waste, landuse change and forestry (LULUCF) and agriculture.

Remember Jesus's diet was almost certainly mainly vegetarian except perhaps once a week and festivals ...
Climate Change Action: Filed in: meat, climate_change, footprint, carbon, greenhouse_gas, livestock

M&S £200m environmental action plan

It could be a start of a real competition to get green now, with M&S making the most wide ranging commitments yet in a five-year plan.

initiatives within the 100-point plan include transforming the 460-strong chain into a carbon neutral operation; banning group waste from landfill dumps; using unsold out-of-date food as a source of recyclable energy and making polyester clothing from recycled plastic bottles.

I saw their chairman on breakfast news this morning and he said pretty much what the Guardian reports here.

"If you believe that all of us are going to have to espouse this green issue - whether it is climate, waste or whatever else - then there is no alternative," said M&S chief executive Stuart Rose. "And I also believe this is another way of differentiating ourselves - rather than just going down the normal bog-standard supermarket tactic of all pretending we're reducing prices by £70m."

Now don't expect an overnight miracle, but this is the company that really does seem to have got the fairtrade habit, but this is a work in progress: Mr Rose, again;

"This is a deliberately ambitious and, in some areas, difficult plan. We don't have all the answers but we are determined to work with our suppliers, partners and government to make this happen."

M&S promises radical change with �200m environmental action plan | | Guardian Unlimited Business: Filed in: environment, shopping, M&S

'Chance to snoop on every Brit'

While I'm no fan of the Sun newspaper, I do have a sense of a sleeping giant awakening when it rouses itself to be worried about the National Identity Register. Particularly when this gets reported:

Yesterday it emerged confidential details sent to MI5 by thousands of people had been sent to a US mailshot firm.

The Sun Online - News: 'Chance to snoop on every Brit': Filed in: ID_cards, UK, data-sharing

Dublin imam takes on the fanatics

Read this for its implications as well as its affirmations.

The imam from Cape Town fled his native country following death threats, he says, from Islamic extremists in South Africa. His younger brother, Ibrahim, was shot dead in 1998 following a row with Islamic radicals in the city. When Satardien was told he would be next, he travelled to Ireland, the birthplace of his maternal grandmother, and pleaded for asylum.
‘I never, ever, expected that Muslims would come under the influence of extremists in Ireland when I arrived here with my family. So I was shocked to find support for Osama bin Laden, to discover the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood and even al-Qaeda here in Dublin.’
Satardien fell out with the main Dublin mosque at Clonskeagh, singling out the influence of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian born sheikh who has spoken openly in support of suicide bombers and issued fatwas on gays.

It's good to see a Muslim leader standing against the immoderate; I'm shocked at the cost to the guy.
Note also the implications of this:

‘The imam preaches the same kind of tolerant Islam that my family grew up with back in Bosnia. He is a moderate voice against the extremists. I also like him because he preaches in English, which is the language I have grown up speaking since I came to Ireland at the age of eight,’ he says.

That is the language issue and the heritage issue which so easily becomes a conflictual-generational issue.
Dublin imam takes on the fanatics: Filed in: Islam, Eire, jihadis, EU, moderate

Bullying needs culture change to improve

This is important.

We found bullying can be curbed, but that many common methods of dealing with the problem, such as classroom discussions, role playing or detention, are ineffective. Whole school interventions involving teachers, administrators, and social workers committed to culture change are the most effective and are especially effective at the junior and senior high school level

I hope we can get hold of more details in due course.
ScienceDaily: Bullying Can Be Reduced But Many Common Approaches Ineffective: Filed in: education, schooling, bullying, policy, research

Eta into Orwellian language

Those joining me in praying for the Basque country need to process this in prayer:

"Eta affirms that the permanent ceasefire started on March 24 2006 still stands," the group said in a statement sent to the pro-Basque independence newspaper Gara.
"It claims responsibility for the attack at Barajas," it added, not explaining the apparent contradiction.

It's hard to see how the two can go together. Unless it is admitting, perhaps, that there is a rogue element and they have not got them reined in; so they are taking responsibility because they view it as theirs to deal with maverick elements? But no:

In its statement, ETA reiterated a claim that the government had made, and was not keeping, unspecified promises as part of the process that began with the truce.
The group wants to promote the peace process, but reserves the right to "respond" if what it calls government aggression against the pro-independence movement continues, Gara reported.
ETA insisted progress in the peace process must come from a "political agreement" that includes "the minimum democratic rights owed to the Basque Country,'' an apparent allusion to Basques long-standing demands to be able to decide between independence and remaining part of Spain.

In the circumstances it is hard to disagree with

Spain's Interior Minister said the death of two people in the attack was "probably not part of ETA’s plan,” and added the attack was a complete surprise not only to the government but also to Batasuna.
Spain's Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said “there will never again be another credible truce with ETA.". He added the Spanish Government will never again negotiate with the armed Basque group ETA after the attack at Madrid's Barajas airport that left two people dead and about twenty people injured.
In an interview for the US daily The New York Times, the Spanish Interior Minister said "ETA broke their word, they deceived.”

And yet there is this

“Nobody really knows why ETA did it, because we’ve even seen that Batasuna has been completely shaken by it.” “ETA even deceived its own political arm. We knew there was tension with ETA and with Batasuna, but this was a surprise.

So maybe a version of my original idea may be right after all.
Eta admits to fatal December blast | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited:Filed in: Euskadi, ETA, peace, process, reconciliation

Iraqi Christians Look For Protection From The Storm

One of the things that the war in Iraq has made worse:

Militant gangs target Christians from all walks of life. Whatever the motive – financial, religious, territorial - they have one thing in common; they want the Christians out of Iraq. The anonymous notes posted to Christian families in Mosul in December say it all: ‘Leave, crusaders, or we will cut off your heads.’

� 12/01/2007 - Iraqi Christians Look For Protection From The Storm - Barnabas Fund: Filed in: persecution, Christians, Iraq

Conspiracy under our radars

Now this is fascinating:

The forthcoming paper, titled The hidden impact of conspiracy theories: ...reveals that participants are often unaware that their ideas and attitudes change after reading documents supporting conspiracy theories.
"People read things and it has an impact on their attitude, but they are unaware that their attitude has changed. In their eyes, nothing has changed," explains Dr Douglas. She argues that this does not apply to all messages received. "If a person reads a pro-racism message and they are not racist, they simply won't be convinced. So it does not apply to all types of messages,"

We need to pay attention to that, I think. It bears on things like the reception of the Da Vinci Code. Note that what it implies is that those who took the conspiracy ideas in that seriously, on the whole would have been predisposed to it. Nothing new there, perhaps. But it can definitely be taken to demonstrate, by implication, the widespread sense that institutional churches are not to be trusted and are 'economical with the truth' in pursuit of their own ends. It really points to the need to develop churches with a definite and positive post Christendem paradigm and I think we will need to repudiate some elements of the Constantinian compromise. We need an institutional apologetics that is carried out by a servant-mentality restructuring. As long as church is perceived to be a potential worldly power it will be susceptible to the conspiracy mentality's dismissal. We will need to pursue openness and transparency in a way that our hierarchies be they local or translocal have tended not to be. In fact I would recommend a thorough-going subsidiarity. And I remain an Anglican.
Easy to believe | Research | EducationGuardian.co.uk:Filed in: conspiracy_theory, research, psychology, learning, attitudes

School leaving age may be raised to 18

I'm not sure what I think about this.

Raising the school leaving age to 18 has become a realistic possibility after it was revealed today that the education secretary, Alan Johnson, is asking staff to prepare for the policy change.

Given that it seems at times that teachers end up being prison guards it sounds like some students have just had notice that their sentences have been increased. If the curricula on offer are engaging and 'authentic' to the learners, well and good. But I can't help thinking that giving kids entitlements to four years' full-time education at the age of 14 and then letting them choose when and how to spend that might be better. It'd certainly help a good number who have become disaffected to leave the system, orient themselves, discover what the value of education might be and come back at a later age. We all know some education seems to be wasted on the young. Let's get real about lifelong learning and about realising that academic qualifications are not the holy grail.
School leaving age may be raised to 18 | News crumb | EducationGuardian.co.uk:Filed in: education, UK, schools, government, age

A hint for securer passwords

if you want your password to be hard to guess, you should choose something not on any of the root or appendage lists. You should mix upper and lowercase in the middle of your root. You should add numbers and symbols in the middle of your root, not as common substitutions. Or drop your appendage in the middle of your root. Or use two roots with an appendage in the middle.

I've noticed that Bible references tend to score well on those sites (eg a university) which assess how secure a password is likely to be. Another good use for all those memory verses? Especially if you use your own abbreviations or even substitutions or put it into a foreign language. Such things meet the criteria that the Wired article are suggesting ...

Wired News: Secure Passwords Keep You Safer: Filed in: security, computing, passwords

Inclusion isn't what the education system promotes

How can it? It was designed in the Victorian period to produce factory and canon fodder: people who could just about read, do their sums so the better to fit their roles in life and to be able to look after their own affairs. Mass schooling to produce a set of skills. Not designed to be about developing the potential of learners, fostering higher-order thinking. And we now compound it by having targets that reinforce the worst forces in education.

Targets mean that schools are rarely concerned with liberating the potential of each child. Instead, teachers are preoccupied with meeting the criteria on which they are measured - the number of children who pass exams. In that environment, children who can't keep up are at best a distraction from the task in hand, and at worst an irritating handicap that a school or a teacher would rather ignore. Meanwhile, the specialised assistance that might help such children is simply not available on the scale that's needed.

This spoke to me because at university today we had a seminar where in one hour we had to construct arguments for and against the proposition that schools are a 19th century invention and no longer serve the needs of society, or something similar. I was on the for the proposition team. I felt we were never going to win the debate: on the whole, asking a bunch of trainee teachers to support a proposition that looks like doing them out of a future job is like asking the proverbial turkeys to vote for Christmas. It was a shame too, because now a whole load of them will also go away thinking that the education system only needs a bit of tweaking rather than thinking more radically. After all a hastily put together proposition is hardly going to shift vested interest especially as I now can think of all sorts of things and ways to put it and the fact that we really didn't have time to nuance: a lot of the against argument was more about what to do with children, how will people learn etc etc all of which is answerable.

I feel a bit concerned because actually the UK government's proposals about personalised learning are, if they are consistently followed through, going to spell the end of the 19th century school and give us community learning centres, personal learning mentors, entitlement-based education on a pull- rather than a push-model. I'm concerned that all these people in there twenties seem unable to get it despite learning about how learning happens and how it is most likely to take place best, they seem more interested in operating the system. Ho hum; why shouldn't they: after all they were largely the ones who benefitted from it as it is. They probably haven't got the experience to imagine it differently.

As I said to my tutor: at this rate I will have to get into management and policy, otherwise nothing will change...

This charming vision of inclusion isn't working | Guardian daily comment | Guardian Unlimited: Filed in: learner-centred, education, learning, personalised_learning, SEN

slow down week starts on 14 Jan

I hadn't realised and I'm not sure if I can think of what to do about it; my life isn't too frazzled at the moment, full but not grindingly so. But in case you need the encouragement ..
slowdownweek
Filed in: slow, adbusters, lifestyle, spirituality

A land tax is 200 years overdue

An aquaintance and sometime blogging buddy of mine is very keen on the idea of land tax, and I must admit I have felt he has a point. Here's one important point from the recent Guardian article on the matter.

Residential property is an unproductive asset. If all houses rise in price, we do not, as a society, get richer. As Mr Weale noted in a fine paper last year, rising house prices do not create wealth, they merely transfer resources from people who will own houses in the future to those who own them at present.

As someone caught up in the thing about not being able to buy a house because we are in accommodation tied to a clergy job so we don't get enough to buy a house (even leaving aside the debate on the ethics of second home ownership), but at the moment, the possibility of doing so on or close to retirement seems ever more distant as the goalposts seem to move up ahead faster than our savings. Furthermore this is linked to ...

Even allowing for Britain's lack of housebuilding and its rapid population growth, Mr Weale thinks house prices here are 20% or 30% above the level that can be explained by the supply and demand.

Furthermore

house price gains are not taxed, meaning it is has a tax advantage over any other type of asset ... The government builds a new school in an area. The school is a success. This pushes up the house prices in the area leading to a windfall, untaxed gain for home owners as a direct result of government spending. The teachers in the school, on their modest salaries, will probably not be able to buy a house close to the school. There is clearly a problem here.

So, not only for selfish reasons, but for reasons of equity as outlined in other parts of the article,

... what is to be done? Mr Harrison, Mr Weale and other economists say the burden of taxation needs to be shifted off income and profits and on to those untaxed gains in property values. In short, we need a land value tax.

And it turns out that the idea comes with a good pedigree:

This is a not a new idea. Adam Smith argued two centuries ago that such a tax was a "peculiarly suitable" way to raise revenue since it did not distort people's incentives to work, save and invest. Churchill favoured a land value tax, as did Lloyd George. Mr Weale advocates a tax charged on residential property at 1% of its value each year, replacing council tax.

And in fact we are told that it is in use in some places in the world already;

Many countries, such as Denmark and Australia, already have some form of value tax. Hong Kong - that bastion of free-market capitalism - has no private land ownership at all. Land is owned by the state and leased.

I gather there are some cities in the USA which use it too. It seems to me it would be a good alternative to a chunk of council tax. For me one of the stronger arguments for it is this:

Land has a scarcity value when it is in desirable locations. That value is not down to individual effort but derives from the community, and often from schools, hospitals and parks provided by the public purse. Therefore, as the economist David Ricardo explained, land has a rental value that can be taxed.

It does seem to me that there are resonances here with biblical laws on land, wealth and ownership ...

A land tax is 200 years overdue | Tax | Guardian Unlimited Money:Filed in: wealth, property, UK, housing, distribution, inequality

Missional Apologetics - commended new blog

I like the agenda and look of this new blog. I'm blogrolling it and so you may see the odd reference in future if you don't enroll yourself. There's a great post about what missional apologetics is, I particularly like these ... which turns out to be all of them!

1. Missional Apologetics applies the insights of missiology, recognizing that all Jesus-followers are called to be missionaries wherever they are.
2. Missional Apologetics emphasizes the importance of cultural studies and cross-cultural principles.
3. Missional Apologetics understands the importance of contextualization.
4. Missional Apologetics flows out of relationships.
5. Missional Apologetics employs reason, experience, and emotion, understanding the limitations of all.
6. Missional Apologetics incorporates one’s ears as well as mouth.
7. Missional Apologetics relies on the gospel lived, as well as taught.
8. Missional Apologetics requires serious reflection flowing from a mature biblical and theological foundation.
9. Missional Apologetics is engaged in by people who are lifelong learners.
10. Missional Apologetics is patient, recognizing that most people process new or difficult ideas over time.
11. Missional Apologetics recognizes that sometimes the best apologetic is an apology.
12. Missional Apologetics isn’t afraid of mystery and wonder. Rather, this compliments our understanding of a God who is immanent, yet transcendent.
13. Missional Apologetics values honesty over pretending to know it all.
14. Missional Apologetics seeks to create an environment where it’s safe to challenge, confront, and critique the Christian faith.
15. Missional Apologetics is centered on the Gospel, which is for everyone who believes. Therefore, Missional Apologetics does not discriminate.
16. Missional Apologetics is most effective in an environment where practitioners are allowed to fail, risk, dream, and imagine.
17. Missional Apologetics is comfortable with doubt.
18. Missional Apologetics is sociologically informed.
19. Missional Apologetics encourages dialogue, not merely monologue.
20. Missional Apologetics takes questions seriously.
21. Missional Apologetics is used as a tool for mission.
22. Missional Apologetics stands on the shoulders of its historical precursors, yet presses forward to contextually and relevantly apply apologetics in today’s world.
23. Missional Apologetics is humble, recognizing the role of the Holy Spirit.
24. Missional Apologetics understands it’s limitations, and that there is One Savior, Jesus Christ.
25. Missional Apologetics is ethical, and therefore uses the mind and hands to address social injustices, evil, and suffering in the world.
26. Missional Apologetics is dynamic, not static, as will likely be demonstrated by the additions, deletions, and revisions to this manifesto as time and relevance demands.

Filed in: blog, Christian, mission, apologetics, methodology, ethics

Earthquakes and a new fact for theodicy

I hope I don't have to spell out why this is significant in a minor way for those wrestling with the issues of theodicy.

That quake was triggered by changes in tectonic forces caused by 200 years of underground coal mining, ... the monetary damage done by the earthquake exceeded the total value of the coal extracted in the area

Wired Science: Filed in: disasters, mining, theodicy, evil, anthropogenic, earthquakes

The Tory truth is out

I've been saying for a while that I like what David Cameron says about green issues but I think that his party probably don't in their guts. Well, I'm not the only one to think so and here we have some evidence...

It leaves Tory green credentials in disarray, since it is largely its rural seats that are blocking wind farms. David Cameron famously called wind turbines "giant bird blenders" when running for the leadership, needing Tory membership support. Now he is putting one on his roof (perhaps blending pigeons is not as bad as blending grouse). But he has a real credibility problem. His party hates wind farms, and in those Tory rural seats his people are not as green as their wellies and Land Rovers. His parliamentary private secretary, reporting to him last summer, revealed the depth of the party's hatred for wind farms. Caroline Spelman, his communities and local government spokesman, speaking in Scotland, called for a moratorium on all wind farms.

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Nimbys can't be allowed to put a block on wind farms: Filed in: wind, power, generation, domestic, UK, Conservatives, Tory

Educational agenda should also be the church's

Now I'm really interested in this because as a trainee teacher, I think it's the right way to go in principle and because of my prior experience and interests, I think that I'd be interested in the role of "learning guide" -in a church school that might even be a role a chaplain might fulfil... ? But I invite you dear reader to reflect on the idea of applying 'personalised learning' to a church context.

"All pupils should have at least one person in school who understands their learning needs in the round and monitors progress throughout their school career. In primary schools, this will generally be the class teacher. In secondary schools, it means refocusing pastoral systems more strongly on learning.
"The role of a 'learning guide' should be established in all secondary schools, drawing on the skills of existing teachers and support staff. This will help pupils focus on how they are learning and what they need to do to progress (rather than a focus on subject-specific tutoring)."

Report calls for personalised learning by 2020 | News crumb | EducationGuardian.co.uk:Filed in: learner-centred, education, learning, personalised_learning

An unusual new year's greeting

I'd like to use a quote from a greeting to an email list group I'm part of as my new year's wish for my readers...

May peace break into your house and may thieves come to steal your debts. May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet for $100 bills. May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips! May your clothes smell of success like smoking tires and may happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be that of joy. May the problems you had forget your home address!

A robust Celtic style greeting it is too. And not too twee either!

Oh, and happy new year!

I'd like to use a quote from a greeting to an email list group I'm part of as my new year's wish for my readers...

May peace break into your house and may thieves come to steal your debts. May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet for $100 bills. May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips! May your clothes smell of success like smoking tires and may happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be that of joy. May the problems you had forget your home address!

A robust Celtic style greeting it is too. And not too twee either!

Plodding

I thought that this posting on our responses to the bleakness of winter is interesting. So much so I left a comment.

I guess the thing is to learn to spot the bleaknesses as we perceive them and then be able to look for their 'unexpected gifts': for instance the bleakness of the loss of leaves means that when I walk down Peth Lane, I can see the river and I can see the shapes of the bushes, which I enjoy. I say 'spot the bleaknesses' because often we just let the bleakness happen to us and we take it onboard in our own spirit without really untangling the effect that it has upon us or recalling that we have choices about how we receive it and respond to it. God created all things good, it's more often our appreciation that needs training...

let the trees of the forest sing: Plodding:

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Filed in: bleakness, feelings, gift

ID cards and Labour

Well, I have to think there's something afoot when a former government minister who is worried about her seat in parliament puts a poll on her website with these current results ...

Have your say
Do you think everyone should carry ID cards?
Yes 17%
No 82%

Home: Filed in: ID_cards, UK, opposition, Labour