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Dig Deeper: Hindu Ideas of Creation - In our time Podcast

31/1/2016

Having just finished studying the Cosmological Argument with my Y12 students and starting the Science and Religion unit this week I have had my fill of western ideas of creation and logic over the last weeks. So it was interesting to listen to this pod-cast of In Our Time (a programme I blogged about last year) which comes at the issue of creation from a totally different perspective - that of Hinduism.

Whereas the western intellectual tradition has tended to look at the question "why is there something rather than nothing" and come up with answers that involve proposing that there must be an utterly different being to the universe to explain the existence of the universe (from thinkers such as Aquinas, Al-Kindi and Liebnitz) the Hindu tradition sees this issue in a rather different way. Rather than what happened in the west Hinduism was less interested in giving a complete explanation (of the kind Copleston is accused by Russell of trying to produce) but is happy to leave many of the questions open and unanswered.

Monotheism in the West leads to a belief in a God that must be the creator of all "Ex Nihilo" - out of nothing. This is arguably logical for an Omnipotent being, and as a result this style of creation God is omniscient as he is the creator of all. But by contrast the Hindu tradition is Polytheistic and so the gods are generally part of created order and instead of creating "Ex Nihilo" they create from themselves - "Ex Deo". So it is that the the Hindu myths have the gods creating the world out of themselves - they make a great egg or a primordial being who becomes the world. One might argue that his in many ways fits much better with our experience of the world and therefore is more coherent reasoning (after all we have never observed anything that creates out of nothing - but rather we always see things being created out of something).

Of course this doesn't pass muster for thinkers such as Libnitz and Coppleston who want a sufficient reason and suggest that a cause within the universe is not a sufficient reason at all. However the Hindu approach fits with Russell's conclusion that one cannot expect to come to a sufficient reason and the universe should simply be accepted as a "brute fact". Whilst this not be very acceptable and satisfying to our minds, one might concede this is as good as it gets. Indeed this programme shows how in different cultures, such as Hindu culture, there is not such a strong intellectual desire for a sufficient explanation. People are happy to simply ponder the mystery without necessarily hoping for an answer. It might not be as satisfactory, but it might be more realistic?

Listen to the pod-cast here:

In Our Time - Hindu Creation Stories

Word of the Week: w/c 01/02/16 - Genocide

31/1/2016

The act of systematically trying to wipe out an entire race or people

The term Genocide was first used in in 1933 by the Lawyer Raphael Lemkin in a paper presented to the League of Nations (the body that later became the UN) to describe the atrocities committed by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians between 1915 and 1918.

The act of systematically trying to wipe out an entire race or people was formally made illegal under international law in 1946. The UN defines the act as being “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. There of course have been many terrible historical examples of such acts ranging from The Holocaust (see last year’s WOTW; Shoah), the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the slaughtering of Muslims in the Bosnian War and the Civil War in Rwanda.

But how do such terrible events come about? They certainly don’t just occur overnight and indeed build up over years or decades. We would all like to believe that such an event could never happen in our own time and nation, but one can easily envision that this was also said by ordinary Germans in the 1930s or by Bosnians in the 90s. www.genocidewatch.org suggests that there is a process that tends to occur, based on the work of Gregory H Stanton:

One might argue that to ensure that we never reach stage 7, Extermination, it would be very sensible that we ensure we never even get to stage 1. But can you think of any groups in our society that may already be classified as different? Travellers (Gypsies) and significant populations of immigrants in the UK both strike me as groups that certainly run the risk of being classified as different - programmes such as “My big fat Gypsie Wedding” seem to fan the flames of such classifications. Whilst the actions of one particular landlord in Middlesbrough reported last week in The Times also serves as another example of behaviour that could contribute to the later stages of Stanton’s model.

This week our Year 11 IGCSE pupils will take part in a visit to Northwood Synagogue where they will hear directly from a survivor of the Holocaust. This is only one part of the work of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust to make young people more aware of the events of the past so they can ensure that it never happens again. To use the slogan of HMD 2016 #Dontstandby

Word of the Week: w/c 25/1/16 - Vivisection

24/1/2016

the practice of performing operations on live animals for the purpose of experimentation or scientific research

Animal research is carried out for a number of reasons: To ensure the safety of products for humans, such as pesticides, cancer treatments, and drugs (cosmetics’ testing is no longer in the UK but does happen in some other countries), or to discover the effectiveness of genetic engineering and surgical procedures. However there is a great deal on debate about the need for such experiments today given how effective and accurate techniques such as computer modelling are. There have been some very high profile protests in the news such as that which has taken place at Huntingdon Life Sciences and some highly criticised tactics by protesters. But why do some argue that we have the right to use animals in this way, and why do some argue that we have no such right?

On the one hand the traditional Judeo-Christian attitude that we can use Animals for testing comes from the Genesis narrative which points out that animals were not ‘companions’ for Adam: only another human, Eve, was. Humans are distinctive because they alone are made in God’s ‘image’ and likeness – spiritual creatures who are creative, moral, thoughtful and responsible, we have free will, conscience and the reasoning ability to build a different society. And in Genesis 1 humans are told to “subdue” the earth suggesting a dominance over the world. We have alone have been ‘Breathed into’ by God – Some call this a ‘soul’, an eternal part of a person which is their true identity and which will survive death; animals do not have this and therefore do not have the same value as us. Finally, God became man at the Incarnation – God became Man in .Christ to save us and not animals.

However many Christians would also argue that we are Stewards of God’s creation:This means we are managers on God’s behalf of His world. In Genesis Adam was put into Eden to “work it and take care of it”, that is, to develop it and to make sure it is well looked after. When The Lord’s Prayer says ‘Thy Kingdom come’ it is seeking God’s will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven – that is the job of the steward, to implement the boss’s purposes. Furthermore the Bible shows that God made his covenant with animals as well as human beings in the story of Noah; Human and non-human animals have the same origin in God; The Garden of Eden myth, in which human beings live in peace and harmony with animals, demonstrates God's ideal world, and the state of affairs that human beings should work towards; Animals are weak compared to us - Christ tells us to be kind to them because Jesus told human beings to be kind to the weak and helpless; and finally, in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus refers to the way God cares for the birds and the flowers as examples of ‘how much more’ He cares for us.

Which of these views do you find the more convincing?

Word of the Week: w/c 18/1/16 - Vision

17/1/2016

A vision is something seen in a dream, trance, or religious ecstasy, especially refering to a supernatural appearance that usually conveys a revelation from the divine.

A religious vision occurs when an individual believes that they have seen or heard something supernatural or a supernatural being. It is a form of religious experience that can be utterly convincing and life changing to those that experience them, but often fail to convince those that are sceptical. Often students I teach are rather obsessed by the question of whether visions of God, Jesus or the Virgin Mary prove the existence of God, however this question is in my opinion a rather fruitless one - it is much more interesting to think about what they tell us about religious belief and the insights they might give into human nature.

There are 3 broad ways in which the individual may experience a vision:

1. An intellectual vision brings knowledge and understanding such as a revelation from God. One such example is Julian of Norwich, the 14-15th century mystic. In The Revelations of Divine Love, she recounted one vivid experience: ‘And he showed me more, a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, on the palm of my hand, round like a ball. I looked at it thoughtfully and wondered, ‘What is this?’ And the answer came, ‘It is all that is made’. I marvelled that it continued to exist and did not suddenly disintegrate it was so small. And again my mind supplied the answer, ‘It exists, both now and forever, because God loves it. In short, everything owes its existence to the love of God.’

2. An imaginary vision where something that strengthens faith is seen with the mind’s eye such as Jacob’s vision of a ladder to heaven (Genesis 28: 10-22) or Joseph’s dream to protect Mary and Jesus and take them into Egypt.

3. A corporeal vision is where the figure is externally present such as St Bernadette’s visions of the Virgin Mary. St Bernadette was 14 years old when she had visions of the Virgin Mary over several months. At first the figure she saw did not even speak to her but later Bernadette was given instructions by ‘The Immaculate Conception’ (The Virgin Mary), that the spring water at Lourdes had healing powers and that a chapel was to be built on the site.

Bernadette's Vision - Source: Flickr.com

Julian of Norwich - Source: Wikipedia.com

What all these visions have in common is their sense of the Numinous - a term coined by Rudolf Otto in 1936 to describe the feeling of being in the presence of something greater than oneself. It is intriguing that this sense is reported by so many people over history and from a huge range of cultures - does this give it more credibility or is this simple evidence of a shared psychology brought about by a common Human nature? Either way the ramifications for our understanding of humanity are fascinating.

Word Of The Week: W/C 11/1/16 - Reformation

10/1/2016

1. The action or process of reforming an Institution or practice

2. a 16th-century movement for the reform of abuses in the Roman Church ending in the establishment of the Reformed and Protestant Churches.

The Corruption of the Roman Catholic Church was at the heart of Martin Luther's attack on it in 1517 when he wrote the "95 Theses" thus sparking off the German Reformation spread across the whole of Europe including Britain. However Luther was not always rebellious; Luther grew up a faithful Catholic Christian, well educated and intelligent. Having survived being struck by lightning in 1503 he dedicated himself to the religious life and joined an Augustinian monastery in Wittenberg, progressing in his studies there to taking on a university lectureship nearby at the new university.

But during his adulthood and time as a priest he began to have serious misgivings about the way the church acted, it’s practices and the claims that it made upon it’s congregations.One day he saw what he needed in the text of St Paul’s letter to the Romans (New Testament) – God’s grace was there for him all the time if only he reached out by faith alone for forgiveness through Christ: Christ had died for him, he could not save himself however hard he tried, but God could! Fired by a new enthusiasm he set about declaring this truth to all around him and denouncing many Church practices such as penance, the veneration of the saints and the Virgin Mary, belief in Purgatory – indeed anything which could not be found in the Bible.

One day John Tetzel, a pardoner (a priest who toured round hearing confessions and pronouncing forgiveness) came to Wittenberg selling indulgences, the profits going to build a new cathedral in Rome (and to a local dignitary who had given him permission). This was the last straw for Luther, who in 1517 nailed 95 Theses against the errors of the Church to his own church door in Wittenberg. Among these he said –
All Christians are saints; the Virgin Mary has no special place in heaven

Priests have no special status – all believers are priests really
The Mass is a reminder of Christ’s Last Supper and sacrifice for our sins, it does not become Christ’s body and blood
The Pope has no authority to represent Christ on earth or to excommunicate anyone

But was Luther justifed in these claims? Well certainly at the start of the C16, the Roman Catholic Church was all powerful in western Europe. There was no legal alternative. The Catholic Church jealously guarded its position and anybody who was deemed to have gone against the Catholic Church was labelled a heretic and burnt at the stake. The Catholic Church did not tolerate any deviance from its teachings as any appearance of ‘going soft’ might have been interpreted as a sign of weakness which would be exploited.

Latimer & Ridley being burnt at the stake - www.wikimedia.com

Relic of the Nail of the Cross - Ipernity.com

Its power had been built up over the centuries and relied on ignorance and superstition on the part of the populace. It had been indoctrinated into the people that they could only get to heaven via the church.
This gave a priest enormous power at a local level on behalf of the Catholic Church. The local population viewed the local priest as their ‘passport’ to heaven as they knew no different and had been taught this from birth by the local priest. Such a message was constantly being repeated to ignorant people in church service after church service. Hence keeping your priest happy was seen as a prerequisite to going to heaven.

This relationship between people and church was essentially based on money - hence the huge wealth of the Catholic Church. Rich families could buy high positions for their sons in the Catholic Church and this satisfied their belief that they would go to heaven and attain salvation. However, a peasant had to pay for a child to be christened (this had to be done as a first step to getting to heaven as the people were told that a non-baptised child could not go to heaven); you had to pay to get married and you had to pay to bury someone from your family in holy ground.
To go with this, you would pay a sum to the church via the collection at the end of each service (as God was omnipresent he would see if anyone cheated on him), you had to pay tithes (a tenth of your annual income had to be paid to the church which could be either in money or in kind such as seed, animals etc.) and you were expected to work on church land for free for a specified number of days per week. The days required varied from region to region but if you were working on church land you could not be working on your own land growing food etc. and this could be more than just an irritant to a peasant as he would not be producing for his family or preparing for the next year.

However, unfair and absurd this might appear to someone in the nowadays it was the accepted way of life in 1500 as this was how it had always been and no-one knew any different and very few were willing to speak out against the Catholic Church as the consequences were too appalling to contemplate.

The Catholic Church also had a three other ways of raising revenue:

Relics: These were officially sanctioned by the Vatican. They were pieces of straw, hay, white feathers from a dove, pieces of the cross etc. that could be sold to people as the things that had been the nearest to Jesus on Earth. The money raised went straight to the church and to the Vatican. These holy relics were keenly sought after as the people saw their purchase as a way of pleasing God. It also showed that you had honoured Him by spending your money on relics associated with his son.

The Pope as the Antichrist, signing and selling indulgences, from Luther's 1521 Passional Christi und Antichristiby Lucas Cranach the Elder. en.wikipedia

Indulgences: These were ‘certificates’ produced in bulk that had been pre-signed by the pope which pardoned a person’s sins and gave you access to heaven. Basically if you knew that you had sinned you would wait until a pardoner was in your region selling an indulgence and purchase one as the pope, being God’s representative on Earth, would forgive your sins and you would be pardoned. This industry was later expanded to allow people to buy an indulgence for a dead relative who might be in purgatory or Hell and relieve that relative of his sins. By doing this you would be seen by the Catholic Church of committing a Christian act and this would elevate your status in the eyes of God.

Pilgrimages: These were very much supported by the Catholic Church as a pilgrim would end up at a place of worship that was owned by the Catholic Church and money could be made by the sale of badges, holy water, certificates to prove you had been etc. and completed your journey

Catholic areas (olive), Protestant areas (blue) and Muslim areas (red) after the reformation - wikipedia.com

It was the issue of indulgences that angered Martin Luther into speaking out against them - potentially a very dangerous thing to do. However, Luther avoided capture or burning at the stake, the fate of several previous (and later) rebels against the Church’s power. He married a former nun, demonstrating that the lifelong celibacy expected of monks, nuns and priests had no place in Protestant Christianity. He bought his former small monastery in Wittenberg and turned it into the family home! He died peacefully at home, having witnessed the transformation of Europe in his lifetime.

Eventually in England William Tyndale headed the reform movement, in Switzerland John Calvin established Geneva as a Protestant city, and princes across the continent joined in, sensing they could get free of the Habsburgs and the Church’s control. Thus a spiritual rebellion and reform movement became a massive political upheaval: for example Henry VIII in England broke with the Catholic Church (now nicknamed ‘Roman’ Catholic), became Protestant and took the entire Church in England with him. Wars were to follow for a new-look Europe over the next hundred years, and considerable conflict occurred under the Tudor and Stuart monarchs in England.

Everywhere Protestant churches were stripped of Catholic emblems or signs, such as saints’ statues or elaborate altars, service books and scriptures were produced in the local language, new Creeds were written for Protestant beliefs, the Bible took centre stage in Christian worship and Christians were encouraged to have a personal faith and to follow their own conscience. Countries gained independence from Rome and from the Empire, scholars were free to undertake new study (hence Protestants were at the forefront of science), and the New World, America, became the home of a vigorous Protestantism.

The question remains as to whether Martin Luther ever intended this all to happen? Did he just want to clean up the church or start a whole new movement? We will never know for certain, but what is for sure is that this single man shaped the destiny of Europe and ultimately the entire world. It shows the power of the individual and the importance of a powerful idea, but it also reminds us to be careful what we wish for!

Word of the Week: w/c 4/1/16 - Epiphany

5/1/2016

Epiphany, held on the 6th January, is a Christian festival which celebrates the revealing of Jesus as the Son of God and the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus

This week is the festival of Epiphany; celebrated in the West on January 6th. It commemorates the arrival of the Magi who came to worship the infant Jesus. I don’t really want to get into a discussion about the likelihood of this event or who the Magi were but I do think It is interesting to think a little more deeply about the gifts that Magi offered and what this tells us about the person of Jesus. At the very least this can tell us what the only gospel writer who records their visit, Matthew (chapter 2), wanted to convey about the Messiah.

Gold is an expression of kingship on Earth, Gold was a highly valued metal and worn by rulers in crowns or other jewellery. Christians believe that Christ is the true king who now reigns in heaven. Jesus was also descended from the line of David, the greatest King of Israel who the Jews of Jesus' day yearned to see return and free them from oppression at the hands of the Romans (although Jesus is ultimately not this kind of Messiah)

Frankincense is an aromatic resin that is burned to give a sweet smell at times of prayer and worship. It was burned in the Temple to cover the smell of blood from sacrifices there is also a sense that the smoke rising carries prayer to God. This therefore is symbolic of Jesus’ role as deity - God made incarnate.

Finally the myrrh is an embalming ointment that was used for anointing the dead. This therefore is representative of Jesus’ future suffering and death. Jesus' resurrection was indeed discovered by women coming to anoint his body - however there is no mention that this myrrh is what they intended to use.

One of my favourite Christmas carols that considers the symbolism of these three gifts is Bethlehem Downcomposed by Peter Warlock and written by Bruce Blunt. It picks up wonderfully on the duality of Jesus’ life - “gold for a crown” becomes “wood for a crown” and myrrh is given both for its “sweetness” and “embalming”. The juxtaposition of the first two major verses against the minor tonality of the last two works wonderfully. The last verse never fails to bring a lump to my throat. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do:

When He is King we will give Him a King's gifts,
Myrrh for its sweetness, and gold for a crown,
Beautiful robes", said the young girl to Joseph,
Fair with her first-born on Bethlehem Down.

Bethlehem Down is full of the starlight,
Winds for the spices, and stars for the gold,
Mary for sleep, and for lullaby music,
Songs of a shepherd by Bethlehem fold.

When He is King they will clothe Him in grave-sheets,
Myrrh for embalming, and wood for a crown,
He that lies now in the white arms of Mary,
Sleeping so lightly on Bethlehem Down

Here He has peace and a short while for dreaming,
Close-huddled oxen to keep him from cold,
Mary for love, and for lullaby music,
Songs of a shepherd by Bethlehem Down.