Wednesday
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - " Wind, Sand and Stars"
Thursday
EDUCATORS & PERFORMANCE BASED PAY
Why don't doctors have "performance/incentive based pay"? Exactly the same problem as with teachers. Which doctor will want to treat incurable diseases in patients if they are only paid when a patient is cured? Doctors would only be treating patients with diseases that they were absolutely sure they could cure.
Likewise, which politician would like "performance/incentive based pay" as voted by the community? If political decisions were only paid on value as perceived by the community, how many people would want to be politicians?
The business model does not work for a number of different professions. It's flaw is that it assumes a factory assembly line where all things can be measured equally. It is a wrong assumption but favoured by conservatives who value money over people in their economic rationalist worldview.
See
Merit Pay for Teachers: A Poor Prescription for Reform
| Harvard Educational Review |
http://her.hepg.org/content/
Wednesday
LIFE OF PI - Film and Book
From Yann Martel's "Life of Pi" - the book. Both film and book are well worth seeing. It is about story telling, God, humans, animals and varieties of truth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. p. 44
... There is Brahman, the world soul, the sustaining frame upon which is woven, warp and weft, the cloth of being, with all its decorative elements of space and time. There is Brahman nirguna, without qualities, which lies beyond understanding, beyond description, beyond approach; with our poor words we sew a suit for it—One, Truth, Unity, Absolute, Ultimate Reality, Ground of Being—and try to make it fit, but Brahman nirguna always bursts the seams. We are left speechless. p. 67
Reading Group Guide:
God, survival and tiger behaviour. It’s hard to imagine a more invigorating combination of discussion topics. We hope that the following questions will enrich your reading of Pi’s fantastic journey. ....
3. In the Author’s Note, Mr. Adirubasamy boldly claims that this story “will make you believe in God”, and the author, after researching and writing the story, agrees. Did Pi’s tale alter your beliefs about God? ...
5. Early in the novel, we discover that Pi majored in religious studies and zoology, with particular interests in a sixteenth-century Kabbalist and the admirable three-toed sloth. In subsequent chapters, he explains the ways in which religions and zoos are both steeped in illusion. Discuss some of the other ways in which these two fields find unlikely compatibility
7. There is a lot of storytelling in this religious novel. Is there a relationship between religion and storytelling? Is religion a form of storytelling? Is there a theological dimension to storytelling
11. In chapter 23, Pi sparks a lively debate when all three of his spiritual advisors try to claim him. At the heart of this confrontation is Pi’s insistence that he cannot accept an exclusively Hindu, Christian or Muslim faith; he can only be content with all three. What is Pi seeking that can solely be attained by this apparent contradiction? Is there something common to all religions? Are they “all the same”? If not, how are they different? Is there a difference between faith and belief? ...
12. What do you make of Pi’s assertion at the beginning of chapter 16 that we are all “in limbo, without religion, until some figure introduces us to God”? Do you believe that Pi’s faith is a response to his father’s agnosticism? ... pp. 365 -367
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Hjrs6WQ8M
Tuesday
SKEPTICISM (from D J Grothe - How To Be A "Perfect" Skeptic )
From D J Grothe - How To Be A "Perfect" Skeptic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sZZ6J0QkB4
2. Foster the "Mensa effect". ... I'm a skeptic therefore I'm really smart
and therefore I'm right. You're all skeptics therefore you should know that I'm
right. ... The skeptics best and most valuable friend. ...
3. (Use a purity test.) You must constantly be vigilant and on guard
against others not being pure skeptics or letting woowoo creep into their
skepticism. Do not shy away from phrases such as “you are not a true skeptic". ... make
sure that your fellow skeptic is pure and not polluted by any belief that does
not follow necessarily out of your skepticism that you've adopted.
4. Our enemies ... enemies of reason.... To empathise with the
unreasonable, to feel for the unreasonable, to try to figure out why they are
there in that place, why they have that lot in life. lowers your defences and
weakens your arguments. Empathy weakens your skepticism. ... Show little mercy
when it comes to those spouting nonsense. This is especially important when
dealing with claims that are central beliefs and very cherished and personally
deeply felt. ... As we are skeptics we don't really have any good news to
spread.... "Smile. Join our throng. Everything you believe is wrong - and you're
an idiot." ...
5. Eschew marketing.... Skeptics should pay no attention to their audiences
but only pay attention to the facts because the facts are all that matter. ...
facts are a "one size fits all" solution because ... it's the truth at all cost
no matter how painful. ... If you do it long enough and loud enough people will
buy it. ...
6. Become a left libertarian, vegetarian, gay activist, ... stamp out
homophobia ... adopt well-being consequentialism ... like Peter Singer ...
Ethical and social issues. ... Skepticism is the way to arrive at the one true
answer to any of these questions. ... Tell skeptics to stop focussing on trivial
paranormal matters and instead deal with other more important matters like
sexual and racial inequality, poverty, class, economics, all the social issues
that merit our attention much more than whether a ghost exits ... or even God
...
7. The history of the last 30 years of the skeptics movement is irrelevant
and you should really not let it become a distraction to you. ... You don't need
to know why ... skeptics have tried to avoid politics ... social issues which
they said skeptics might get distracted and divided over. ... There's no
meaningful difference, no significant contrast, between skepticism, atheism and
humanism. ... they are one and the same. ...
8. Skepticism leads necessarily to atheism. ... If you are not an atheist
you can't be a proper skeptic. People like Michael Gardner and others in the
history of skepticism who were deists or believed in Spinoza's God or believed
in panentheism or pantheism ... they were an anomaly and should not matter at
all for contemporary skepticism right now.
9. Our movement, our cause, already has all the spokespeople it needs. ... You fit best in skepticism when you are a consumer of our product rather than competing with us and advancing skepticism on your own. ... If you want to advance skepticism on your own you don't need any expertise or training to do so. ... You just need a deep commitment to the truth and you need ambition and that's all. No special training. It does not take any special expertise to advance skepticism just the commitment of telling other people that they are wrong. ...
10. You are a besieged minority. ... Racial and sexual minorities have had
their day in the sun ... now it is our time as skeptics.
11. Skepticism is for us. It is not for everyone. ...
12. Do the exact opposite of every single thing I've said today.
Wednesday
Favourite Bible Verses
The top verse from Numbers is Numbers 1:2 is ranked: 801 * (800 verses more popular)
"Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one." (NIV)
The lowest verse from Numbers is Numbers 7:62 rank: 31076 *(31075 verses more popular. There are 31,102 verses in the bible.) "One gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense" (NIV)
Compare this to ....
Top 10 Books
1. Ephesians
2. James
3. Titus
4. 1 John
5. 2 Peter
6. John
7. Philippians
8. Colossians
9. Romans
10. 1 Peter
Top 10 Chapters
1. 2 Peter 1
2. Psalm 1
3. John 2
4. James 4
5. Romans 12
6. Isaiah 53
7. John 3
8. Romans 1
9. James 1
10. Acts 1
One knows that one will hear these verses repeatedly in sermons and quoted by Christians though they make up a small percentrage of the bible.
I note that the very least quoted bible verse is 1 Chronicles 25:23 Rank: 31105
"The sixteenth to Hananiah, his sons and relatives, 12" (NIV)
Tuesday
Evidence for Adam's existence
That Jesus or Paul or the editors of the Genesis narrative (Elohist and Yahwist) may have believed that Adam existed is no proof that Adam actually existed in time and space history.
Assuming that fundamentalist Christians are correct and that Adam was created 4000 CE, then the "proof" they offer up for his existence is all hearsay written at least 3000 years after Adam's supposed creation, Genesis 2 ( written 960 BCE - Elohist editor) and as late as 4000 years after his supposed creation, I Timothy ( written 100 - 150 CE - a forgery).
Thus the oral tradition about Adam must have survived 3000 to 4000 years completely unchanged to when the bible stories were written ...... and pigs might fly.
Monday
PRAYER ON THE OCCASION OF UTTER BOREDOM IN CHURCH
PRAYER ON THE OCCASION OF UTTER BOREDOM IN CHURCH
Oh Lord,
This service is so dull that I think I must be dead. But if it be, Lord, by your grace and favour, that I am not in fact dead - merely stunned into mind-numbing oblivion by the overall tedium, and general inconsequentiality of the proceedings - grant your servant this: grant that the Vicar becomes 'called up yonder'* to that 'place which you have prepared for him' right away ... if that not be too forward a request, of course.
Amen.
* Note: For those whose theologies allow, "raptured" may be substituted here.
From Martin Wroe & Adrian Reith "101 Things to Do With a Dull Church: the Complete Guide For the Bored Again Christian" (Minstrel, Eastbourne, E. Sussex: 1989) pp 32-33.
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