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and jettison 5 of their most extreme members kick the communists out then the socialists look extreme kick the socialists out then the new dealers look extreme soon nixon is viewed as moderate these days if you look at reagan s policies he s the new center when hillary clinton and john kerry are considered the extreme left and joe liebermann is the moderate you know some definitional changers are going on and yet the left keeps throwing out their 5 most left and wondering why our national discourse keeps shifting to the right asserting the government s right to torture suspects and wiretap non suspects suspending congressional elections limiting the right of the poor to vote all of these ideas were considered too extreme for even serious consideration when i was a kid but now although they are far right they not too out there for debate because the left bi annually disavows its extreme 5 that wasn t a digression that was a vision of the way atheists will be treated if they disavow discourage silence their angry extremists go back to that spectrum i described now i think that s a really good point but aren t atheists especially richard dawkins on whose site this article is hosted always complaining about how in religions the extremists hide behind the moderates i ve always said that not s even true because the extremists usually get far more media coverage than the moderates but maybe it s true that if religions kicked out their extremists the whole religious scene would move further to the right certainly it has been argued by religious liberals before that if they left the big powerful churches the evangelicals and fundamentalists would then occupy the seats of power that s why harry emerson fosdick never left the church he originally belonged to another thing in the article is a list of types of atheists you ve walked along the atheist spectrum right it ends at the angry in your face atheist stereotype goes through the don t be a dick activist past the my religion or lack thereof is my own business maverick through the i m still in the closet person and starts at the i m faking it every sunday for my family and friends misery he missed out a category there but then it s not really part of that spectrum spiritual atheists who enjoy attending churches because they like stories and inspirational poetry and meditation where they are welcomed as atheists and are not expected to turn into theists posted by yewtree at 2 42 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest quaker week i think quaker week is a great idea because whilst quakers are more visible than other liberal denominations the main reason most people have heard of them is probably because you have a breakfast cereal named after you and that image is a little outdated as a unitarian and a wiccan i am very much in sympathy with quaker views and values and think it is a good idea to promote peace social and environmental justice equality and inclusion religion in general is getting a bit of a bashing from certain quarters at the moment so any increase in the visibility of liberal religion is a good thing posted by yewtree at 8 57 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels peace quaker values thursday september 29 2011 a hopeful sign i was delighted to see that in scotland the unitarians quakers metropolitan community church the pagan federation and liberal judaism are backing members of the the scottish youth parliament in the campaign for same sex marriage in england the campaign for religious civil partnerships brought together the unitarians quakers metropolitan community church and liberal judaism but sadly did not include the pagan federation the issues surrounding marriage for pagans in england whether same sex or opposite sex are slightly more complicated in that pagan celebrants are not licensed to perform opposite sex marriages whereas in scotland where the marriage laws are different pagan celebrants have been licensed to perform weddings but still i hope that the pagan federation will also get included in the english campaign anyway it s great that liberal faith groups are getting together to campaign on this issue which as any regular reader of this blog will know is one i consider to be important and i hope it signals a move towards campaigning together on other areas of common ground a liberal interfaith alliance for peace and social and environmental justice just think what that could achieve and i hope it will soon include other religious liberals too posted by yewtree at 8 07 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels judaism lgbt mcc pagan quaker same sex marriage unitarian values monday september 26 2011 what is the source of morality recently when the us state of georgia decided to execute troy davis and the state of texas decided to execute lawrence brewer many bloggers wrote some heartfelt and moving articles arguing against the death penalty i wrote one myself outlining what i think are the reasons for abolishing the death penalty many of the christian blog posts on the subject focussed on the commandments of god and or jesus as a basis for the ethical argument for abolishing the death penalty the trouble is there will be many christians who think the opposite and will probably find some biblical text or other to justify their position i think you probably can make quite a good case that jesus was against the death penalty as in the story where he saves the woman taken in adultery from being stoned to death by saying let he who is without sin cast the first stone on the other hand he is also recorded as saying i come not to bring peace but a sword and if thy right hand offend thee cut it off so in order to work out what jesus ethical stance was on anything in particular we have to select the texts that support our argument so wouldn t it be easier to work out whether something is right or wrong without reference to jesus views or indeed god s commandments which are similarly ambivalent thou shalt not kill as part of the ten commandments but lots of injunctions to stone people to death for various infringements of the law the death penalty is not wrong because jesus was against it or because it s against god s commands as handed down in the bible it s wrong for far more basic reasons than that because you can never know to what extent the person was responsible for what they were doing when they committed murder or to what extent they might change they may well be innocent as evidence is not 100 reliable killing is wrong because it cuts short someone s life and does them extreme harm the golden rule attested to by every religion says that we should do unto others as we would have them to do unto us and being killed is pretty high on the list of things we would not like to have done to us the fact that a version of this rule has been worked out by every major religion suggests that it transcends cultural context and is based on universal human experience god s commands and jesus ethical stance can be interpreted one way by one group of people and another by a different group of people so the bible is not a reliable guide to ethics it s got some rattling good stories in it which when pondered can produce some interesting insights but i would not use it as a guide to ethics so what is the source of morality according to richard holloway author of the excellent book godless morality morality is based on weighing two conflicting good things so in deciding whether abortion is ethical one weighs the good of the life of the foetus against the good of the mother who may or may not bring it to term in the case of the death penalty it cannot benefit the victim of the crime to have the perpetrator killed society should be protected from the possibility that the perpetrator might repeat their crime but the life of the perpetrator outweighs the cost of maintaining them in prison as opposed to killing them there is also the very valid point that carrying out the sentence places a burden of distress on the people who carry it out the source of moraliy is not some absolute command handed down from on high the very absolutism of which can often cause more distress than it alleviates but the pragmatic considerations of the context in which the ethical decisions must be made who benefits who suffers and to what extent posted by yewtree at 6 58 pm 1 comment email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels bible death penalty ethics jesus morality richard holloway troy davis thursday september 22 2011 let s not lose the momentum the death penalty is wrong no matter whether the victim of judicial murder is innocent or guilty here s some reasons why it s wrong the person being executed might be innocent even if they re guilty it s still wrong they may not have been entirely compos mentis when the crime was committed people on death row frequently have learning difficulties or mental illness if they weren t mentally ill to start with the conditions on death row frequently send them over the edge executing them means they will never have a chance to make good killing is wrong two wrongs don t make a right the judicial murder weighs on the consciences of those who carry it out the process of killing the person is inhumane the endless waiting on death row 20 years in the case of troy davis is extremely stressful for the person waiting to be executed and for their family we don t have the right to decide to kill others quite often it is the poor and disadvantaged who get executed while those who can afford a good lawyer get acquitted or get their sentence commuted how can any country that has the death penalty preach about human rights and democracy to the rest of the world as lindsay beyerstein points out the same logic that drives the death penalty is also behind a large percentage of murders the idea is that some transgressions are so bad that they can only be settled by blood encouraging people to think that their pain isn t honored and avenged unless the perpetrator is killed probably makes our society more violent on the whole not less what you can do about it write to a prisoner on death row support amnesty and reprieve if you cannot give your money give your time to raise funds and raise awareness update special amnesty page with campaign resources about the death penalty including a schools pack posted by yewtree at 7 13 am 1 comment email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels campaigns death penalty ethics troy davis wednesday august 17 2011 putting the riots in context the first thing that occurred to me when i heard about the riots was that this has happened before there were riots in the 1830s over the corn laws and the need for parliamentary reform the flames of bristol burning after the 1831 riot could be seen from cardiff rioters tore down the jail freed the prisoners and burnt a large number of houses research by the guardian has shown that there is a strong statistical link between government austerity measures and outbreaks of unrest riots revolutions and so on we must see these riots in the context of the widening gap between rich and poor notwithstanding a few high profile cases of rich people joining in with the looting the scandalous facts that the bankers have got away with wrecking the economy and the parliamentary expenses scandal has resulted in very few mps being imprisoned for fraudulently claiming for their extravagant lifestyles clearly the looters are simply emulating the bankers and mps it is of course very sad that people were killed in the riots and the murderers must be brought to justice but the disproportionate punishments meted out to some people involved in the riots seem ill considered and likely to fan the flames of unrest right wing social commentators have sought to blame poor parenting single mothers and the usual list of tired clichés there clearly has been some sort of breakdown in values but it is not confined to the rioters and looters the moral bankruptcy of the mps and the banks is merely a middle class version of the more blatant tactics of the looters one looter when asked what she thought she was doing said that she was getting her taxes back this implies that there has been a breakdown in the social contract the consensus that we pay taxes and the government represents us and delivers services many people remarked on the role of social media in spreading the unrest but people managed to riot just as much without social media in previous centuries the luddites who smashed machinery in the 18th century did not have social media in fact it was heartening to see how social media especially twitter and blogs was used to comment on and discuss the riots and to gather people together to clean up after the riots what can we do as religious liberals in response to the riots we must keep trying to build community and counteract the effects of social exclusion the efforts of bolton street angels an initiative of which bolton unitarians are part of oldham unitarians in helping asylum seekers and of many other unitarians up and down the country are the sort of thing we need more of the lack of cool places for youth to hang out in since most youth clubs were closed must be a contributory factor in the disaffection of youth the prospect of unemployment and homelessness looms large for increasing numbers of the population as the gap between rich and poor grows wider the increase in the activities of far right groups such as the english defence league is also disturbing and we must join with other liberal groups to present an alternative view we must also put pressure on the government to recognise that compassion and equality should be the central values of our society and its response to these riots and the the worsening economic situation not retribution and increasing inequality posted by yewtree at 8 58 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels riots unitarian values thursday july 28 2011 airbrushing the bible in a post entitled reinterpreting deuteronomy with sophisticated theology russell blackford critiques some theologians attempts to airbrush out the rather clear instruction to go and massacre the hittites i think the problem here is actually the attempt whether by christians or atheists to interpret the bible as a unified text actually the bible is a collection of different books compiled over several centuries from books written by authors with very different political and social agendas some books have been shown to have been rewritten versions of earlier texts as the accounts in them are clearly conflicting karen armstrong has pointed out in her book about the writing of the bible that the author known as the deuteronomist was very interested in smiting and genocide whereas other...