No peace among the nations
without peace among the religions.
No peace among the religions
without dialogue between the religions.
No dialogue between the religions
without global ethical standards.
No survival of our globe without
a global ethic, a world ethic,
supported by both
the religious and the non-religious.
- Hans Kung
*******
Victoria Childress is an unassuming and mild-mannered baker who operates a bakery business from her home in Des Moines, Iowa. Unknown to many, she is also a card-carrying evangelical christian.
And in the 21st century, “evangelical christian” often spells homophobic and religiously exclusive bigot.
True to her bloodwashed heritage, Childress was tossed into the spotlight by refusing to do business with a couple upon finding out about their sexual tastes. In this case, a fine taste for labias and vaginas.
Wedding Cake Battle brews between Couple, Baker
No – the duo were not promiscuous men – but two women who loved each other and wanted to take the next step in their relationship by getting married. They wanted to order a wedding cake for their big day scheduled for June next year and were at Childress’ bakery for a cake-tasting session when the mild-mannered bigot asked one of them if the other was her sister.
When she replied that the other lass was her partner, the devil came out of Childress.
Dressed in an angel of light, of course. With all the niceties about being true to one’s convictions, yadda yadda.
Many would support Childress and her “right” as an owner of a private business to choose whom she would do business with but I contend that as a baker, she is offering a PUBLIC SERVICE and as such should not discriminate against customers based solely on who they are as human beings. Just like owners of hotels and B&Bs should not prohibit LGBT couples from using their facilities.
Otherwise, Childress should have made it absolutely clear to potential customers by advertising her discriminatory tendencies on her website or her house front.
Theology aside, one wonders what would Jesus himself do in Childress’ place? Would he refuse the LGBT community from participating in the Eucharist? Would he ban them from becoming members of His body? Would he curse them to hell just because He himself created them that way?
Hmm…
*******
According to the Daily Mail, the person who was hired by the Catholic church in the UK to investigate allegations of sexual abuse happens to be paedophile himself!
Roman Catholic Church’s paedophile investigator jailed for possessing thousands of child porn images
And this presents more problems for the already embattled institution that has since sent tens of thousands to a burning eternity for leaving the embrace of the supposedly “holy” mother church.
Stubborn and refusing to change, it is no surprise that it continually invites the most pungent of criticisms and mockery from anti-theists who can’t seem to control their most barbaric of urges to burn the church at the stake. And rightly so.
Should there be a moratorium on the celibacy laws surrounding catholic ordination? Should the veils enshrining canon law be torn asunder so as to allow law-breaking priests to face the sweet music of justice?
Otherwise it might be very soon before the breaking of a new dawn…the demise of the Catholic church as we know it today.
*******
“I call upon the Church, in every situation, to persist in esteem for Muslims … If all of us who believe in God desire to promote reconciliation, justice and peace, we must work together to banish every form of discrimination, intolerance and religious fundamentalism.”
- Pope Benedict XVI
*******
by David Lahti
When I told my father I was going to Cambridge to give a talk on the question of whether humans were good or bad, he looked at me sternly over his glasses. “You know what the answer is, don’t you?” Total depravity and filthy rags he was hoping I would say of our nature – the first is a primary tenet of Calvinist doctrine, and the second is a phrase from Isaiah. I was about to say that we are at our root neither good nor bad, but pulled in contrary directions with the ability to make a decision. So I knew we were in for … a discussion.
From an evolutionary perspective, considering other social species on this earth, it is remarkable that a bunch of unrelated adult males can sit on a plane together for seven hours in the presence of fertile females, with everyone arriving alive and unharmed at the end of it. We could be a lot worse than we are, according to our common notions of right and wrong. We have certainly come a long way towards becoming a co-operative, sympathetic, even loving species.
Granted, this depends on your perspective: if you’re a biologist, as I am, you might notice how far we’ve come. If you’re a theologian, perhaps the more salient realisation is how far we haven’t. The meeting place between these perspectives is that we are full of conflicting tendencies and inconsistencies in our attitudes and behaviour. So we would do well to ask why this conflict exists, in addition to arguing whether we’ve done well or poorly in it.
At several points in our evolutionary history, sources of conflict have arisen, leading to moral tension and ambivalence. Perhaps the oldest and most significant is the fact that we as individuals have gained by looking out for ourselves in competition with others, but that we also have depended on our social groups and so gained by supporting and contributing to the stability of those groups. From this ancient situation eventually arose the tug of war between selfishness and altruism that is a common aspect of our moral experience.
We should realise, however, that these often contrary tendencies both evolved in our nature through natural selection based on individual advantage. Even more importantly, though, we should realise that an evolutionary mechanism does not necessarily trickle down into our intentions and motives – caring for each other may have evolved by natural selection, but this does not rule out the possibility of genuine love and kindness.
Furthermore, we can extend our moral consideration far beyond what was beneficial to our ancestors – to humanity as a whole, even to the natural world. This leads to another important source of angst in our moral life: the difference between attitudes and behaviours that would have been advantageous for our ancestors, and those we wish to embrace and promote today. We need not wait for evolutionary adaptation to catch up with our vision of goodness, if ever it would. We can do this on our own, but it requires that familiar battle between what we feel like doing and what we know we ought to do. The former very often comes from our past, our evolutionary heritage, whereas the latter comes from whatever is most important to us.
Many of the evolutionarily savvy among us have chosen one of two roads with regard to describing our moral nature. One is the comforting notion that we are generally prosocial nice folks except for those odd meanies who must be explained as having some strange allele or bad childhood environment. The other common option is a descent into moral scepticism or nihilism where nothing matters anyway because it’s all just a product of our evolution. These alternatives together look remarkably like a sour grapes attitude: either we are fundamentally good, or else forget it there’s no such thing as good and bad. The main reason for Isaiah’s admonition to remember how we fall short, as for most Jewish and Christian moral admonitions come to think of it, is to counteract our tendency to look at ourselves with rose-coloured glasses and become complacent. It looks like we could use a dose of my father’s old time religion after all.
***
This article was written by David Lahti, a lecturer in biology at City University in New York. He also has a PhD in Moral Philosophy. It was first published in The Guardian UK on 22 November 2011.
*******
Hidden, eternal, immeasurable God, rich in mercy,
there is no other God than you.
You are great and worthy of all praise.
Your power and grace sustain the universe.
God of truth without falsity, righteous and true,
you chose Abraham your submissive servant
to be the father of many peoples
and spoke through the prophets.
Hallowed and praised be your name in all the world,
and let your will be done wherever people live.
Living and gracious God, hear our prayer:
our guilt has become great.
Forgive us children of Abraham our wars,
our enmities, our misdeeds against one another.
Redeem us from all distress and give us peace.
Guide of our destiny,
bless the leaders and rulers of the states,
that they do not lust after power and glory
but act responsibly for the well-being of their subjects
and peace among all.
Guide our religious communities and their leaders,
so that they not only proclaim the message of peace
but live it out themselves.
And to all of us, and those who are not of us,
give your grace, mercy and all good things,
and lead us, God of the living,
on the right way to your eternal glory.
Amen.
Amid the tensive currents that underlie the recent brouhaha over certain islamophobic comments made by Singaporeans on Facebook, let this prayer be the desire of every spiritual descendant of Abraham in Singapore - jew, christian or muslim.
***
The above prayer was composed by the great catholic theologian, Hans Kung.
*******
