Move towards the light ...

Scientists have developed wafer-thin sheets that fill a room with natural light at the flick of a switch, according to research published today.The sheets are designed to be transparent but radiate brilliant white light when hooked up to an electricity supply. Because they do not warm up like traditional bulbs they waste far less energy

If they really can be produced easily and a way found to easily modify them to work with existing wiring plans and fittings, these could be a lot of fun. The artist in me is already licking his lips, though some of the ideas are kitsch. I can think of some potentially very nice worship ideas with light panels ... hmmm ... would depend on just how they look but the not being hot thing is a definite plus.

Just one issue remains, how will this affect interior design, not least of public buildings, not least of churches...

Guardian Unlimited | Science | Bright idea could put old-fashioned light bulbs in the shade:
Filed in: energy, efficiency, lighting, altworship

old-fashioned light bulbs to become obselete

Scientists have developed wafer-thin sheets that fill a room with natural light at the flick of a switch, according to research published today. The sheets are designed to be transparent but radiate brilliant white light when hooked up to an electricity supply. Because they do not warm up like traditional bulbs they waste far less energy

Which is good news. It will obviously take a while for them to come into the fullness of their potential, and I hope that they develop ways to make it easy for us to modify existing light fittings to use them [that would be the killer app] ...
Guardian Unlimited | Science | Bright idea could put old-fashioned light bulbs in the shade:
Filed in: energy, efficiency, lighting

Disease Mongering

It's a new term to me: "disease mongering". But I have to say I keep bumping into the core idea as I think and read about the role of corporations in our lives. The problem is that pharmaceutical companies, like any corporation, need to shift product to continue. However, under the current legislative frameworks, they are really only and ultimately responsible to their shareholders to make a profit and as big a one as they can get away with. So in comes the dubious practices of persuading people that these chemicals are needed, whether the people are medics or us directly over the counter. I tend to feel that the alternative medicine movements have a point where they chastise western medicine for going down the route of fixing problems rather than promoting health and wholeness. The problem with pharma is the structural reflex of that written into a global capitalist system.

So can it be done differently? That's a good question. I suspect the campaign for reining in corporations by reviewing the way that their charters work in respect of widening their responsibilities may be a start. However, the bigger issue is how to devise a structure that is efficient and self regulating which will produce and research the production of drugs etc for the common good rather than for private profit in a way that makes sure that there are incentives to develop and yet not to disease monger. And I'm suffering a lack of imagination at this point. So we are left with reform of charters pro-tem.

I'm very open to having some further thoughts and links on this...
PLoS Medicine: Disease Mongering Collection
Filed in: health, wholeness, disease, pharma, corporations

Creationism of a different stripe

Oh what fun!
Turns out that it is more than just the fundy Christians who are watching developments with regard to teaching evolution and intelligent design in USAmerican schools. I was scratching my head: who on earth might be interested in it? Muslims? -I remember after the overthrow of the Shah, Iranian students at the university I attended were interested in the Christian Union bookstall, particularly the creationist pamphlets that were all the rage in some quarters of the CU. But no, the surprise is that it is Hundus, particularly the Hare Krishna devotees. Here's why:

Vedic creationists ... deny that different species of living beings, including humans, have evolved, or risen up, from simpler organisms, as Darwin claims. Instead, they claim that all species, including humans, have “devolved,” or come down from, a highly evolved, super-intelligent being, which is pure consciousness itself. Different species of plants and animals are simply material forms adopted by consciousness, Atman, as it transmigrates in endless cycles of births and rebirths over billions and billions of years. Spiritual growth is the driving force of evolution: higher species emerge when Atman trapped in all matter takes on a higher (more “subtle” and sattvic) life-form as a result of good karma, and lower species result when Atman “forgets” its purity and indulges in “gross desires.”

So there you have it. I guess since there is a certain circularity in dating rocks by fossils and then fossils by rocks then they can get some purchase on reinterpreting the fossil record in an analogous way to Christian fundies ...
Metanexus Institute:
Filed in: religion, Vedas, Hindu, Krishna, creation, science, USA

Act now to stop more incineration

UK resi's can use this site to encourage the government via their consultation on waste disposal to move away from incineration which requires fossil fuels and produces greenhouse gases. My tip is to have a go at tweaking the wording so that it doesn't look too manufactured and so be ignored.
Here's my tweak:
Dear Sir / Madam,

Why is the Government planning to force through a large increase in incineration capacity in England? In view of manifesto and treaty commitments to reduce global warming gas emissions, I think that the government should focus instead on increasing recycling and composting and on waste prevention measures.

So, I would like to see the following actions:

- A commitment to high recycling and composting targets for household waste, aiming for 75% by 2015. (This *is* possible: Belgian Flanders is already recycling 71 per cent of its household waste).

- Let local councils charge households for the amount of rubbish produced (after recycling is taken out). Rather than everyone paying the same through council tax, those who recycle and reduce waste production will pay less than those who don't.

- Tax incineration to encourage councils to maximise recycling, which is a more effective way of tackling climate change.

- Compulsory targets for supermarkets and other corporate bodies for reducing the amount of waste they produce, particularly waste which cannot be recycled or composted.

Please accept this email as a response to the consultation on England's Waste Strategy.


Yours sincerely,
...
Friends of the Earth: Campaigns: Waste: Press for change: Act now to stop more incineration

The silver screen and outreach: who's exploiting whom?

We should reflect on what happened with films like The Passion and Narnia. Loads of churches invested money and time in using them ostensibly as outreach. But, is that what happened? Not according to Barna's research. In fact, reading this article, I suspect that the churches have collectively fallend for the next phase of the film industry's exploitation of religion for marketting. The first phase was to leak hints of allegedly blasphemous or moral panic-inducing scripts and rely on 'righteous' indignation to produce free advertising [all publicity is good publicity, even -perhaps especially- protests and pickets]. But lately that tactic has not been so good. Perhaps Christians have collectively realised that high profile protest just encourages them by adding money to the project whereas letting bad films sink into obscurity achieves their aims more effectively in the longer term.
So what's a film company to do? Here's a clue:

Paul Lauer, president of Motive Marketing, says his company's primary mission isn't marketing movies, but rather “providing congregations with tools to further their goals.” Given that The Passion and Narnia have collectively earned nearly one billion dollars, while the church’s goal hasn’t measurably advanced at all, maybe Mr. Lauer needs to reassess his company’s mission.

Yep: if you can't offend them into boosting your sales, tell them it'll help them grow their membership and then let them do the work of driving people into cinema seats. Cheap ready made sales staff using their own money to sell your tickets. A marketting plan to die for!

Am I truly such a cynic now? No, don't answer that, I might find the answer hard to deal with!

Leadership Blog: Out of Ur: The Passion Reloaded: is the silver screen really an outreach silver bullet?:
Filed in: Christian, mission, evangelism, film, culture

Reciprocity in conversion [2]

A useful reference from a BF letter from a convert from Islam to Christianity about conversion in Islam. I think he did his doctorate on this.
I'm not qualified to comment on whether this is a reasonable take on sharia, but it is something that raises questions that non-Muslims need to hear answers to. If this understanding of what sharia says is not correct, how is it not correct, and what principles of interpretation are used to arrive at more humane positions. In other words, what evidence is there that the humane approaches are principled and not merely expedient? I've found Muslims very little inclined to explain the hermeneutics of a humane and equal approach on this matter and one or two others. I so want there to be a principled and humane version of Islam when it comes to things like this, but what we tend to find is inconsistent and prone to being re-hijacked by the less humane end of Islamic polity.
I have cut a few bits of this article.

CONVERTS FROM ISLAM - FREE TO CHOOSE?
... a number of Muslims in
the West have denied the existence of the classic Islamic teaching on
apostasy. For example, London-based Mufti Abdul Barkatullah said that the
Shafi’i school of Islamic law eschews the death penalty for apostasy. This
assertion is so easily refuted from the Shafi’i texts that one can only
think the mufti assumes that no non-Muslim would ever bother to check his
words.

The classical Shafi‘i manual of law, "‘Umdat al-Salik" [The Reliance of the
Traveller] by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (died 1368) is unambiguous on this
point. I quote from an English translation by Nuh Ha Mim Keller, published
in the USA in 1997:

"8.1 When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily
apostatises from Islam, he deserves to be killed.
8.2 In such a case, it is obligatory for the caliph to ask him to repent
and return to Islam. If he does, it is accepted from him, but if he
refuses, he is immediately killed."

Anwar Ahmad Qadri, a Pakistani lawyer, published "A Sunni Shafi‘i Law Code"
in Pakistan in 1984. This work is a translation of "Mukhtasar fil Risalah"
by the classical Shafi‘i jurist Abu Shuja al-Isfahani (died 1106), and
states, including footnotes:

"Art. 113 Rules for Apostates. It is obligatory to ask the person
apostatising from the religion of Islam, or on irtidad, (1) to offer taubah
three times; then it is good if he did it, otherwise, he shall be killed
(2); then, he will neither be given a bath, nor any funeral prayer, and so
also, he will not be buried in the graveyard of Muslims.
¹ May be a male or a female, as he or she refuses to accept Allah, or
falsifies any of the Prophets or holds as legal the things held haram by
consensus or ijma‘.
² If a free man, the imam will kill him but not by burning; if anyone kills
him except the imam, he will be punished by ta‘zir; if the apostate is a
slave, the master will kill him."

...

Yusuf’s ... repeats the familiar adage that the Qur’an says that
“there is no compulsion in religion” and suggests that everyone is free to
choose their own faith. The quote is accurate (from sura 2, verse 256) but
the interpretation is a special one for Westerners. The normal Muslim
interpretation of this verse is that Muslims will not be forced to fulfil
all their religious duties, it is up to them whether they do so or not.
This verse has nothing to say about freedom of conscience. In any case, it
is a verse that was “revealed” relatively early to Muhammad and therefore
many Muslims would consider that it has been abrogated [cancelled] by less
tolerant-sounding verses which were revealed to Muhammad in later years.

... He states that Islam’s death
sentence for apostasy is actually a death sentence for treason because any
Muslim who left their faith and yet wanted to remain in the Islamic
city-state of early Islam was “effectively committing treason”. But why
should it be considered treasonable to stay in one’s homeland after
changing one’s religion? Yusuf’s argument is nothing but a re-statement of
the classical Islamic position that a convert from Islam is by definition a
traitor. He does not require any evidence of treacherous activity against
the Islamic state; simply to have left Islam without going into
self-imposed exile is treachery enough.

Yusuf attempts to support his case by a further selection of examples. He
says that “it isn’t the practice in the overwhelming majority of Muslim
countries to kill people who leave Islam.” I thank God this is true, with
only five modern states to my knowledge including the death sentence for
apostasy in their legislation (possibly plus Afghanistan whose legal
position remains unknown following Abdul Rahman’s release) and none of them
putting it into practice very often. Even taking into account murders by
family and community, and illegal assassinations by the security forces,
the vast majority of Muslim converts to Christianity today do not lose
their lives. But why should there be a death penalty even in
theory?

Yusuf cites the Swiss Muslim Tarik Ramadan as arguing against capital
punishment in Muslim countries because the corrupt police and judiciaries
“will make sharia an instrument of injustice”. In other words, it is not
that shari‘a is unjust but that bribe-taking officials might not apply it
impartially. This is not an argument against the rightness of the death
sentence for apostasy, but a counsel of despair from one who thinks
corruption can never be rooted out.

...

Yusuf’s crowning argument concerns the high rate of illiteracy in
Afghanistan, which he says accounts for their ignorance of Islamic law.
Again he is determined to disbelieve in the existence of the abundance of
Islamic texts which endorse the death sentence for apostasy.

In fact it is Irfan Yusuf’s readers who are likely to be ignorant of
Islamic law, not the Afghan people. If he were not so certain of the
ignorance of most New Zealanders, indeed of most Westerners, he surely
would not have dared to write such an article.

It is better for Muslims to be completely honest about their faith. The
late Dr Zaki Badawi, who was president of the Muslim College in London,
wrote a paper on “Freedom of Religion in Islam” tracing the history of the
development of the apostasy law. He stated that “earlier jurists, with a
few exceptions, supported the death penalty for the apostate and this
remains the case to the present day”. Muslims can claim that the death
sentence for apostasy was never intended by their founder (and this may
well be true), but to claim that it was not taught by his followers as a
basic doctrine for the next fourteen centuries is ludicrous.

It is only when Muslims have admitted the true situation that there is the
possibility of change. A number of scholars of Sunni Islam’s leading
Al-Azhar University in Cairo have in recent decades suggested that the
apostasy law should be abandoned and genuine religious freedom allowed. We
non-Muslims must do all we can to encourage this move within Islam. It was
at Al-Azhar on 21st March that the Prince of Wales gave an outstanding
speech urging mutual respect between the faiths, indicating in particular
the need for reciprocity of treatment of each other’s minorities.

Muslims are rightly permitted to share their faith freely in the West and
to win converts who rightly suffer no penalty. But this religious freedom
must be reciprocated. Afghanistan is far from being the only Muslim
country which has signed up to international agreements guaranteeing
freedom of religion (such as Article 18 of the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights) and has also asserted the supremacy of shari‘a
(complete with apostasy law), thus creating a serious ambiguity over issues
such as freedom of conscience.

Al-Azhar has begun to grapple with the subject of religious freedom in
Islam. What can be done to help them with this ground-breaking task, which
is sure to face tremendous opposition from certain sections of the Muslim
community? Could the Prince of Wales, Jack Straw and the Archbishop of
Canterbury jointly urge Al-Azhar to issue a fatwa condemning the execution
of apostates? Could the Lambeth-Al-Azhar initiative issue a joint
statement ? Now is the time to act, while the example of Abdul Rahman, who
was willing to die for his faith, is fresh in our minds. For although he
may now be safe in exile, the plight of other converts is, if anything,
even more acute as Muslim governments may decide it is better to let them
be quietly murdered than for them to become an international cause.

Dr Patrick Sookhdeo
International Director of Barnabas Fund

A shortened version of this article was published in the Church of England
Newspaper, UK (April 7, 2006)

Barnabas Fund - hope and aid for the persecuted church
Filed in: Islam, conversion, religion, Christian, justice, law, sharia