Posts by Deborah
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A question to consider: If a discussion ends up being two people making long posts to each other, should it, as a courtesy, go to private email instead of being in the general discussion.
On the other hand, there may be people who want to read such discussions.I have been reading James and Simon's discussion with interest. The quality and tone of the discussion is fantastic.
Manakura's post was probably the best one...
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AFAIC
???
Could you translate this for me?
Ta.
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The Listener sucked when I was a kid, and that is a long time ago. I couldn't imagine why anyone would have bought it then (1970s and 1980s) and truly can't imagine why anyone would buy it or read it now. Not a good use of your time and money!!
Well, there's Russell's column, of course. Fortunately, it's available on line.
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but to have to come to terms with a personal being that might question us, challenge us, insist on being intimate with us and even require us to change -
I don't need to posit ghosties in order to explain the feeling of awe I have when I see Milford Sound, or Huka Falls.
As it turns out, the personal being who most challenges me, and most provokes me to change and grow, is my husband. And I'm certainly not going to worship him as a god!
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Ben Wilson made this point:
In the end, whether God exists or not, doesn't really change very much at all. We are still actually faced with all the same questions about our codes of behavior. We still don't know how we can come to know God's will, and it is still simply an assertion to follow one set of monotheistic dogma over another. Nothing has actually been settled at all by establishing God's existence. But if you do accept it, a subtle shift is usually made, in that because that is typically a leap of faith, it is tempting to make another one - to trust some church or other.
And what do you know? Neil Morrison leapt in straight away to prove it with this little gem.
There's also no need to throw the baby out with the bath water, there's more mystery now, since the advent of modern science, about the universe and the nature of consciousness than there ever was. All those philosiphical questions about existance, moraityl etc that religious thinkers pondered are still up for grabs.
It's the old 'god of the gaps' argument. There's a mystery about [fill in whatever you like here] so there must be a god.
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Thank you, Russell, for today's post, and for Public Address, especially PA System, and Hard News, which I have been reading since about 1997 now.
And even though I have long since given up on all belief, in the words of our old Irish parish priest back when I was a schoolgirl, may all the PA folk have a happy and holy Christmas, and a blessed New Year.
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The little yellow star beside the opinion pieces indicates premium content, for which you are supposed to pay, but so far I haven't had to pay a cent. Are they backing away from trying to get people to pay? (A silly strategy anyway, when the workarounds are so easy.) Any word on this?
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I would also think that those writing Pakeha may prefer they be lumped into "New Zealander" ahead of "New Zealand European" if they do have to be put into another category.
Not me. I would go for 'NZ European' way, way, way ahead of 'New Zealander'.
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Well, yes, but that doesn't explain why Stats can distinguish the 54 Gaelic from the 12,651 Irish, but not the however many Pakeha as a subset of the 2,381,076 NZ Europeans.
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Just took a look at the data on the Stats website - can't find Pakeha anywhere in the ethnic group counts.
Here's what Stats says ethnicity consists in:
An ethnic group is made up of people who have some or all of the following characteristics:
a common proper name
one or more elements of common culture that need not be specified, but may include religion, customs, or language
unique community of interests, feelings and actions
a shared sense of common origins or ancestry, and
a common geographic originSeems to me that 'Pakeha' is consistent with that, so why hasn't it been reported? Stats have reported the 6 Corsicans, and the 12 Orkney Islanders.
They seem to be exercising some sort of moral judgement about what is an acceptable answer. I have lucked out on two counts; I'm not allowed to be an aetheist (that's - "there are not gods", not just, "I can't be bothered to have a religion"), or a Pakeha (c/f NZ European, or New Zealander).