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Section: Religion

  • RELIGION

    Downsizing as a form of modern asceticism

    • Paul Collins
    • 13 June 2007
    8 Comments

    We live in a world where the dogmas of economic rationalism and consumerism rule supreme. Rather than physical penance, today's asceticism involves a deliberate downsizing and an abandonment of infinite expansion as the measure of success.

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  • RELIGION

    Hitchens returns to bosom of Left to denounce God

    • Scott Stephens
    • 13 June 2007
    5 Comments

    In God is not Great, Christopher Hitchens dismisses religion as the invention of hucksters and frauds. Although he has abandoned his leftist position, this is a straightforward reiteration of Marx’s own critique of religion.

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  • RELIGION

    Happiness and the Inner Self

    • Clive Hamilton
    • 13 June 2007
    10 Comments

    We all want to live a happy life. But what do we think of when we ponder our own happiness? In today’s society, dominated by the techniques of marketing and the culture of consumption, we are being persuaded to think of our happiness in a quite different way — as the gratification of our desires.

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  • RELIGION

    Oath demands what many would willingly give

    • Geoffrey King
    • 13 June 2007
    7 Comments

    Whether the imposition of an oath will further its aim is extremely doubtful. An oath is a legal instrument of a rather blunt kind, of its nature demanding only minimal compliance, whereas what is needed is a positive atmosphere in which traditions and values can be learned and appreciated.

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  • RELIGION

    Is New Zealand a Christian country?

    • Peter Matheson
    • 13 June 2007

    The question of whether New Zealand should see itself as a Christian country has bubbled up in an unexpected way. The word ‘Christian’, itself, has become, almost unusable, associated in the public mind with fundamentalist bookshops and the like, or with short lived political parties which tout moralistic codes.

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  • RELIGION

    Power of polemic is self-perpetuating, but not persuasive

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 June 2007
    10 Comments

    The much commented-on recent books by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have reintroduced a broad brush anti-religious polemic. It has much in common with religious polemic against the secular world.

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  • RELIGION

    Jägerstätter, a man who acted on conscience

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 06 June 2007
    17 Comments

    Franz Jägerstätter has been recognised as a martyr by the Roman Catholic Church because he did what was right, not what was easy. His choices xcan teach us something today.

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  • RELIGION

    Book Review: Frank Brennan answers atheist manifestos

    • Frank Brennan
    • 05 June 2007
    6 Comments

    There can be no peace unless believers and atheists share an equal place in the public square of a free and democratic society.

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  • RELIGION

    Sustaining mission focus – Religious institutions in transition

    • Mark Raper
    • 05 June 2007
    3 Comments

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  • RELIGION

    Prochoice Amnesty means no choice for members

    • Chris Middleton
    • 18 May 2007
    81 Comments

    Amnesty International has improved the lives of countless numbers of people wrongly imprisoned for their beliefs, or subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. Now its decision to abandon its neutral stance on abortion could undermine the effectiveness in its main advocacy work.

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  • RELIGION

    Playful irreverence in the Town Common

    • Richard Treloar
    • 18 May 2007
    2 Comments

    Was Triple J's Jesus impersonation contest in Melbourne's Federation Square on the day before Good Friday merely a revival of the 'carnivalesque' tradition of playful irreverence that is linked with a destruction and uncrowning related to birth and renewal.

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  • RELIGION

    Why militant anti-theism is a God-send

    • Scott Stephens
    • 18 May 2007
    26 Comments

    The term “atheist” seems too respectable for the position occupied by commentators such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. They are anti-theists, opposed in principle to every last attachment to the divine, leading many to accuse them of a kind of inverted fundamentalism that lacks the core modern virtue of tolerance or respect for others.

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