Susan Galloway, who is Jewish, and Linda Stephens, an atheist, felt uncomfortable sitting through the predominately Christian prayers that opened every town meeting in Greece, New York. For years they lived through their discomfort. Then they asked that the town meetings start instead with non-sectarian prayers that did not explicitly reference specific religious ideas. Eventually, the town council told both women that they could stand in the hallway or stick their fingers in their ears.

Instead, they filed suit.

This week, the US supreme court ruled, 5-4, in favor of the town of Greece, and opened up a new battlefield in the culture wars. What Galloway and Stephens experienced will unfortunately continue to occur in many communities throughout the country – those who are part of a minority religious tradition in a particular locale should just "put up or shut up" and wait their turn.

The part of upstate New York in which Greece is situated was historically known as the "Burned-Over District" in the 19th century for speed with which residents accepted (and some times quickly rejected) a diversity of religions. That diversity, which included Mormons, Millerites, Spiritualists and Evangelicals in the 19th century, looks different in the 21st: according to a 2010 survey by the Association of Religious Data Archives, those who are unaffiliated with a religious tradition made up the largest group in the county – more than twice as many people claimed no religion as said they were Catholic.

The trend toward non-affiliation in upstate New York mirrors the rise in non-affiliated and non-religious people across the United States. According to the Pew Foundation, the number of people unaffiliated with a religious tradition is just under 20% in America, and on the rise.

Rulings like the latest big one from the Roberts court do not take into account the changing landscape of belief in America. And it will only intensify the clashes between those who want to invoke specific deities, and those who have amorphous or other religious beliefs – as if both of those groups weren't preparing for future battles over prayer already.

The supreme court has now allowed the majority religion of the members of a city government to dominate the sectarian prayers offered at its meetings. In many towns throughout the nation, of course, these councils are populated predominately by conservative Christians (especially in the midwest and southern states).

While the majority opinion in Greece v Galloway affirms that the prayers should be non-coercive (as in, the government cannot force its constituents to participate), it does leave room for a type of coercion: the choice by these councils or groups to only offer the ability to pray at meetings to particular religious leaders who conform to the religious views of the officials issuing the invites.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/07/us-supreme-court-government-prayer-religious-americans

We think of religious teaching as informing the debates on same-sex marriage and abortion, but sideline its influence on our economic life, writes Andrew West.

We are having one of these periodic "national conversations", this time about the place of religion in our political life.

It has been going on for seven years, ever since Kevin Rudd declared himself a "Christian Socialist" to ABC TV's Geraldine Doogue in 2007. But it has intensified since the election of the conservative Catholic Tony Abbott as Prime Minister, and the appointment of seven fellow Catholics to his cabinet.

At Easter, The Sydney Morning Herald pointed out that the representation of Catholics in the cabinet was twice their proportion of the population. It was not a sectarian assault, but it did suggest that an active faith in politics was a subject of fascination, if not a cause for wariness.

Most of the critical commentary about religiously motivated politicians focuses, predictably, on the cultural, or "life", agenda: same-sex marriage, abortion and euthanasia.

But these issues are, despite intense media coverage, rarities in Australian politics. Our election campaigns are not animated by the pro-life, pro-choice debates. Gay marriage may be an obsession with audiences on Q&A but it will occupy but a fraction of the Parliament's time.

What the commentariat - liberal and conservative - overlooks or misunderstands is the impact of religious teaching on our economic life.

The Left is enraged that a faithful Catholic or evangelical informs his or her conscience on abortion or marriage with a traditional interpretation of the scriptures. But they don't object - or more likely don't acknowledge - when the Christian politician is inspired by Matthew's gospel on exalting the least among us or Leviticus on welcoming the stranger.

The Right defends the freedom of faith leaders from Cardinal George Pell to Brigadier Jim Wallace to speak in favour of faith and family but insist that Pope Francis, not being a Chicago-trained economist, really shouldn't pronounce on inequality or capitalism.

Tony Abbott has actually been rather quiet about his religion, despite having been a seminarian. Any close reading of his Catholicism would suggest he is in the small-c conservative mainstream - accepting of the moral doctrines, but wrestling a little more with the recent teachings on capitalism and the rights of employees.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-12/west-faith-and-politics-and-economics/5447236

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I DISAGREE WITH WEST...:

We need New Atheism to fight, say, an Abbott and his crew of bigots, who erode the gains secularity has made under the sun. Lazy atheism won't cut the cheese there, except in our own little space and I suppose we do not have to convert people. But if you think that Abbott bringing back Knights and Dames is a silly little game that happened because "one day" he though about it after having denied he would, don't be fooled. It's a highly calculated move that involves white-lying, white-anting and moving fast when nobody's looking, while appearing grinningly demure and ingenue. This specific tactic is part of making sure the divine regains a foot-hold in the Australian government's political innards. 

Jesus Christ does not hold copyright for works published in his name, a German court has ruled.

Frankfurt's higher regional court this week ruled that the late American psychologist Helen Schucman, and not Jesus Christ, should be regarded the legal author of a book that Schucman claimed had been dictated to her by Jesus in a series of "waking dreams".

Germany's New Christian Endeavour Academy, a registered association, last year published extracts from A Course in Miracles, originally published in 1975, on its website. The association argued that Schucman had not considered herself the author of the work, and referred to a 2003 ruling by a New York court that it said had put the work into the public domain.

"For many there is no doubt that Jesus of Nazareth is the author of the course and that copyright law therefore doesn't apply to his work," the academy said.

However, the US-based Foundation for Inner Peace, which claims to have inherited copyright for the book after Schucman's death in 1981, protested against the publication and took the case to court. Now the Frankfurt judges have ruled that the law is on the foundation's side.

The court reasoned that Schucman should be considered the sole author of the work, and not merely an assistant or typist. The authorship of a work was not determined by the mental state of its creator but the "actual process of creation", the court said, meaning a writer was the legal owner of his work even if he or she had written it while mentally disturbed, in a trance or under hypnosis.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/15/helen-shucman-course-of-miracles-germany-jesus-christ

After a long wafty exposé of crappy thoughts, Scott Stephens, the editor of religion and ethics "domain" at the ABC ends up with with this silly tirade:

Abdal Hakim Murad once remarked, with biting concision, "The New Atheism is built on three pillars: human ego, priestly pederasty, and the Wahhabis of Mass Destruction." Like a once seemingly insuperable empire, the "New Atheism" itself has now all but collapsed from its own rapaciousness. It sought to conquer too many kingdoms too quickly, never realising that it had neither the philosophical underpinnings nor the imaginative resources to sustain itself amid the wastelands of late-modernity, until it was too late. Much like the mythical "spirit of Vatican II" (which never was), the "New Atheism" now exists only as a media epiphenomenon, an ambient irreligiosity that has mistaken visceral cynicism for a kind of professional virtue.

And yet there is no denying that Waleed Aly and I belong to the two religious traditions on account of whose hypocrisy "the name of God is blasphemed" throughout the West. The terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 and the torrent of revelations of clerical sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the first half of 2002 produced the ideal conditions of possibility for the emergence of the stridently antitheistic rhetoric and materialist reductionism that would come to be synonymous with the "New Atheism."

I am at least consoled that, within the vast folds of the Islamic and Christian intellectual traditions, the inherent potential for repentance, reform and rebirth is always present, as the unending internal struggle to reflect the Divine beauty in common life goes on. But what resources, I wonder, exist within secular liberalism for the struggle against human ego?

Scott Stephens is the Religion & Ethics Editor for ABC Online.

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/05/15/4005307.htm

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One can be lost for words to debunk such debbilic imbecilic conclusion designed to demonise atheism (or as Scott Stephens calls it "secular liberalism"). But I will try — not too hard since it's late in the day... I always try, to my detriment I suppose, but the "other side", the enlightened religious side, always annoys me by trying to push the head of atheists in the mud in whichever fashion they can, often with a soft form or hypocrisy.

The potential for repentance is senseless to an atheist. Sin does not exist.

What exists is the relative awareness of our ability to inflict pain or promote contentment in a social context and in a relative natural environment, to ourselves and onto others. Evolution brought humans (homo sapiens sapiens) to this strong stylistic position which has similar resonance — albeit no so developed as our limited observations so far show — in the world of other species. Whatever we do, whatever way we wrap this realisation either with divine concepts, religious dogma or simply an acceptance of the natural mechanics of life, we still all have ways to deal with the "ego".

Atheism is actually a far more powerful responsible position to be in, rather than dilute our personal self with the idea of some superior-being watching every move of our free will and keeping score... Our atheistic free will is truly free. It is also a far more demanding responsibility as it as no illusive gains in an afterlife and no redeemable points for being altruistic, should we be so. 

Being an atheist demands that we'd be aware of all the "traps" of ego. These are not traps per se, but they are such as narcissism, sadism, masochism and other traits in which the management of pain and contentment are blurred or reversed — contrary to the evolved reactive flexible mechanics of life. Often these traits are used by religious people to prove themselves superior to others. 

Atheists (and all other humans, for that matter) do not need a divine intervention nor the illusion of an afterlife to be able to manage our selves. Atheists do not have any struggle to manage or "go against" their ego. We exist. We are. We do our best. Ego is irrelevant once we understand and are aware of what we do and share...

Stop Scott... please stop wondering about "secular liberal resources against ego"... Please stop writing crap about things you know nothing about.

Abdal Hakim Murad is also in the same boat of self-deluded blind ignorance. His biting concision is utter crap.

Gus Leonisky

Your local atheist

From Matthew Anslow

On 21 March a group of nine Christians, myself included, held a peaceful prayer vigil in the office of Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison. We were praying about and protesting the inhumane asylum seeker policies of the Australian government. Five of the group were eventually arrested for trespassing, though the charges were later dismissed in court. A similar vigil has subsequently been held in Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's office.

Our act of civil disobedience, taking the form of public prayer, generated numerous responses. We have received much support - far more, in fact, than we expected - from church leaders, people of all different faith traditions, atheists, and media. Our action also attracted its fair share of disapproval, ranging from personal abuse to theological diatribes. Much of this centred on our use of prayer.

On the one hand, there were the fashionably cheap shots taken at us by some atheists, those who ridicule the practice of prayer without, apparently, understanding what prayer actually is. (This is in contrast to those atheists who have shown a deep respect for our action, some having even attended our recent public prayer vigils, despite that it stems from a worldview they do not themselves hold.). One contrarian, in a comment on a Huffington Post write-up of our action, exemplified the kind of inanity I am talking about: "Well they should have been arrested for thinking that prayer was going to do anything at all." Such a comment betrays a common assumption that prayer has only instrumental value for Christians.

On the other hand, there were those Christians who, in addition to acontextually quoting parts of Romans 13:1-5 and Matthew 6:5-8, asserted the private nature of prayer, to the exclusion of public expressions such as demonstrated by our action. (Admittedly, this is even more puzzling given that many of the same people would be dismayed by talk of the removal of the Lord's Prayer from the opening of Parliament.)

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/05/07/3999778.htm

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Good for you, but please do not include me in "some" atheists... I may believe that your prayer may not reach the almighty but I admire your guts for doing it in an unfriendly, dangerous and dishonest environment of this minister's office.  Please carry on, especially in "religious" hypocrite bastards' offices, as they behave like little hitlers because of a stolen "mandate" to turn boats around.

Won't do any harm to pray on the location of their signing of the deeds. The disruption should unsettle their own religious beliefs, but between you, a lamppost and me, their hypocrisy is stronger in their heart than their professed religious adherence.

Diatribe from John Milbank

Blah blah blah,

...

Sometimes, by contrast, as with the French revolutionary terror or the Chinese cultural revolution, attempts have been made directly to impose the abstractness of ideals in their very abstraction. Since, as Hegel realised, this is contradictory, the result of the imposition of ideals is always terror: for the only way to incarnate an abstraction as an abstraction is by way of ceaseless subtraction of the determinate - a process also embarked upon at times for this false reason by modernist art. But subtraction in practice is death, violence.

It follows that an ideal is either pointless in its very knowability, and therefore really unknown, or else it is so well known that it is really an ideal of destruction. The only "third way" here would be the notion of an unknown concrete ideal in which we dimly participate by putting it into effect to a certain degree. But this is just the rationale for embracing Plato's forms or Augustine's ideas rather than modern ideals, as inculcated by our educational process. The entire argument is clinched once one recognises that without any ideas/ideals whatsoever, there could be no specifically human motivation, and therefore no existence of human culture.

One can therefore conclude that our desire to know the Good both ensures that we can in some degree realise it, while guarding against any totalitarian notion that we have the precise formula for its implementation. However, modern education - that very education which we are so strangely eager for our children to undergo - teaches them nihilistically that there is no Good, in which case they are, each and every one of them, a self-legislating god, or else suggests terroristically that it possesses the formula for its entire implementation here and now.

In either case, education not only fails to educate into virtue, but abundantly succeeds in the training of highly talented criminals, mostly skilled in the evasive exploitation of every human law.

John Milbank is Research Professor of Politics, Religion and Ethics at the University of Nottingham, and Director of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy. His most recent book is Beyond Secular Order: The Representation of Being and the Representation of the People.

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/05/09/4001516.htm

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Obviously, John Milbank never understood the theory of relativity, though he tries to instil some uninteresting flexibility in his diatribe. And this relative scientific stuff being quite complicated, especially when marrying it with Quantum mechanics which make his mobile phone rings, he won't try too hard except in his little jar, like a fly trapped in it. I am unkind, I know, but it's much easier to fluff on and on at length about Good-security-blankets while weaving some big words amongst them. 

Let's say from the onset, under no circumstances has the education system of most western countries tried to eliminate the idea of choice by imposing an ideal or nihilism upon the learners of life. To the contrary, the western style of education is more open about widening the choices in points of views, including understanding relativity of these choices and learning some compassion, while pointing out to the iffyness of some viewpoints and the "unnatural" basis of others.

Religion for example has teaching qualities to a point — but its basis is set in the quick sands of fairy tales upon fairy tales while itself is hijacking the exclusivity of truth (Good?)... This is where the Islamic countries fail in educating Rita... They limit education to one single religious point of view and swat all others.

Abstraction is not a false reason. Abstraction can lead to the discovery and understanding of symbolism. Abstraction of abstraction is no more false than say a certified absolute about the existence of god... or Good — as I believe Milbank cumbersomely tries to hide his attachment to the absolute, while wading in the shimmering pool of reflected virtue.

Virtue is relative to the social context. Human laws can be flawed and are also relative to the corresponding social context. The laws in Iran are different to Australia. It is not illegal to kiss anyone on the cheek at Cannes. In Iran it is. As well in such country, adultery (proven or not — including by being raped) can be punished by death, by stoning.

We survive in the flotsam and jetsam of our relative culture, rejecting some part and accepting others. We create our own views. Including doing abstractions that may appear nihilistic. But most if not all of what we do is in favour of our own survival and that of the social context — sometimes contrarily to what we expect from our complex philosophical ideals. We tone down or up and we compromise gently or not.

And of course as we all (should) know, there is no "Good"... "Good" is a relative notion (not universally explained, practised or valued) that is based on our natural animalistic inheritance of pain and contentment... Thus the idea of "good" is only a relative virtue in a social environment in which some action are painful (to us and/or others) while other actions are providing survival and contentment. Not a hard choice once one knows these simple mechanics, but as a personal choice it can become confused when we add irrelevant concept such as the fear of god that constantly reminds us we're not worth the efforts of his (her) creation. Alleluia! Amen! Long live robed entertainment. 

To suggest that modern education leads to terrorism of indoctrination is beyond the pale. Yes modern education teaches more about self-responsibility than the fear of god (idealised Good). As well modern education teaches us that we live on the small planet with limited resources and of our "good and bad" influences on this little space. Nothing wrong with this. 

I believe that John Milbank is a great learned scholar with views on his own ignorance... Who knows.

Gus Leonisky

Your local ignorant educational geezer. 

Note: Hegel's views, as pertinent as they can be, are not absolute either... 

Can meditation really slow down the effects of age? One Nobel Prize-winner is finding the scientific in the spiritual, writes Jo Marchant.

It’s seven in the morning on the beach in Santa Monica, California. The low sun glints off the waves and the clouds are still golden from the dawn. The view stretches out over thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean. In the distance, white villas of wealthy Los Angeles residents dot the Hollywood hills. Here by the shore, curlews and sandpipers cluster on the damp sand. A few metres back from the water’s edge, a handful of people sit cross-legged: members of a local Buddhist centre about to begin an hour-long silent meditation.

Such spiritual practices may seem a world away from biomedical research, with its focus on molecular processes and repeatable results. Yet just up the coast, at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), a team led by a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist is charging into territory where few mainstream scientists would dare to tread. Whereas Western biomedicine has traditionally shunned the study of personal experiences and emotions in relation to physical health, these scientists are placing state of mind at the centre of their work. They are engaged in serious studies hinting that meditation might – as Eastern traditions have long claimed – slow ageing and lengthen life.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140701-can-meditation-delay-ageing

Unfortunately the search engine on this site is down but should be repaired within the next few days... But somewhere here I posted an article I wrote back in 1994 about non-spiritual meditation, which I called Non-Reactive Defocusing. It's a form of "meditation" that resets the mind in tune with the body... There are times when we push our body to do things, but eventually the mind and the body hormonal reactivity get out of step. We get tired, not so much because of lack of energy but due to the mind-body conflicts. We want to carry on, the body says no... We get edgy, annoyed and unsettled. The Non-Reactive Defocusing for about 20 minutes "presses the reset button". Find the whole article on it. I will try to find the link.