Posts by Francis Ritchie
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Speaker: A conversation from belief, in reply to BenWilson,
The comeback is that the universal truth could exist without God’s involvement too.
True. That's what I point out in the article I wrote on the Stephen Fry comments where I state a case a non-theist could make in response to it.
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Speaker: A conversation from belief, in reply to David Hood,
That's a fascinating graph, David. Are you able to break that down into countries?
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I find the belief that you can’t absolutely terrifying, as if, were there not a church to tell you right from wrong, you’d just be running around stabbing people in the face whenever the mood took you.
I think the argument is often misunderstood.
It’s not saying that people who don’t believe in God can’t be moral and make moral decisions, or that it’s only a belief in God that can guide the ethics and morality of those who claim such a belief, it’s that they believe that grounding ethics and morality in an external determinant that is universally true makes it make sense and provides an overarching truth by which all else can be tested.
So they would point to universal truths of good and bad and ideas of what is harmful or not (such as your reasoning) and say that you have that reasoning precisely because God has endowed you with it. So with that reasoning it’s not that they would feel free to start stabbing people if the Church wasn’t there, rather they believe that the reason most people feel constrained in doing so is because all people are endowed with a morality that is seated in a universal truth set by God (and implanted in various ways, such as culture).
It’s not an argument that I can spend much time with beyond this as it’s not something I have delved into much (and I can see a million different ways to contradict it, each of which would require answers I’m not overly qualified to give), but hopefully that helps make it a little more understandable :) Of course, that said, there will also be some horrid variations of that in the mix as well, just as there are people who think Christians will all start stabbing others if they don’t have a church telling them what to do ;)
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Speaker: A conversation from belief, in reply to andin,
Acceptance is probably more important than humility and whatever else you said.
Good call. It's probably just splitting hairs but I would say that the ability to accept the 'other' where there are differences requires humility. Everything else I mentioned in that sentence, such as empathy etc, is about going beyond acceptance (if we view acceptance as a passive thing) and into a more active form of connection and embrace.
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Speaker: A conversation from belief, in reply to BenWilson,
Do you think this kind of attitude is in the majority amongst your fellow Christians? I mean at this time, rather than in the past.
Good question. It's hard to know as the Christian community is so big and diverse. Doubtless there will definitely be some who think it but I don't think it would be true of the majority of average Christians who attend church etc.
At a philosophical level there is the argument that some make (it was present in the debate that was sparked by Stephen Fry's answer to what he would say to God) around whether or not one can make claims to a solid sense of morality without God or some sort of objective determinant of right and wrong outside of ourselves. But that's not a debate had by the average person in the 'pews' and I touched on it in my blog post about the Fry discussion.
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Ben, thanks for taking the time. I'm not interested in trying to debate for or against religion or my own specific worldview, but I do want to pick up on this:
There are good principles in many other religions too, and in plenty of people who don't make a religious connection to their views, but merely argue or state their moral creeds.
I agree. One of the worst things us Christians have done (and you touch on it numerous times in your solid comment) is create an us vs them approach. I've found a lot of value in the religious expressions of others when I've spent time at various religious festivals and in the holy places of others. I'm also not someone who thinks that anyone who doesn't line up with my own worldview has no basis for an ethical or moral approach to life.
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Speaker: A conversation from belief, in reply to Russell Brown,
Russell, I’m really glad you had that experience with John. John is a good guy and the broader work of CBA is excellent. Sadly I don’t sit on their board, but I work as one of their announcers at Christmas and Easter when they do stuff for Newstalk ZB.
The board I sit on is Rhema Media. I’ve been connected to Rhema Media for years. I hosted a Sunday night talkback show on Life FM for about 8 years, did the night show for 2 years and the drive show for 2 years before moving to TEAR Fund. I’ve maintained a presence with Rhema Media and was voted on to their board recently.
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Speaker: A conversation from belief, in reply to Ross Bell,
A quick question: why is your board all blokes?
Ross, I forgot to also add that at this point it wasn't for lack of trying. There a couple of great ladies who came very close to being on this initial board, but in the end they didn't quite see it as fitting them and who they are.
Steven, thanks for your openness and honesty. I really appreciate you sharing that.
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Speaker: A conversation from belief, in reply to Ross Bell,
A quick question: why is your board all blokes?
Good question, Ross. My long term ideal is a more diverse board, or at least some functionality that enables a wide range of voices to feed into what NewsLeads does and how it is shaped. Informally that is happening but the board is made up of the initial people who fed into the idea and helped kick it off. It's simply the pragmatic reality of this 'start-up.' I expect it to change over time.
I strongly suspect his name wasn’t Jesus Christ
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Rae. I strongly suspect his name was Yeshua bar Yosef. Jesus is the English spelling of the Greek transliteration of that name. 'Christ' means saviour or messiah. It's not a surname, though it sounds like it when we talk about him :)
In response to another of your points, sadly the world has come to much harm by people who claim to follow him. Much argument could be had (and that argument is happening in the last post from Russell on the Media Take episode on religion) over whether harm done by such 'followers' truly stems from him, but it is what it is. I wish I could change that, but the best I can do is offer a better way.
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If Campbell Live goes, snapping John up for a current affairs show founded on investigative journalism would be a good thing to place back to back with Media Take on what has become our public broadcast channel. As has been said elsewhere, putting John back together with Mihingarangi Forbes would be a win. http://www.pmc.aut.ac.nz/articles/m-ori-television-nzs-real-public-broadcaster-speaking-nationhood