tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13336104.post114495398211185570..comments2024-01-07T13:24:03.640+00:00Comments on Nothing Tra La La?: Faithless0tralalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06818587472660040921noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13336104.post-1145189362027353022006-04-16T13:09:00.000+01:002006-04-16T13:09:00.000+01:00Very little argument from me about most of that (a...Very little argument from me about most of that (apart from your conclusion, natch). I haven't read Couch's <I>Church Times</I> piece, but I did think much of <I>Back in Time</I> was wrongheaded. <BR/><BR/>I acknowledge that <B>Doctor Who</B> in general, and Davies' <B>Doctor Who</B> in particular, is essentially a humanist, and at times an explicitly atheist, text. <BR/><BR/>Of course, there's nothing about humanism that's intrinsically incompatible with christianity -- the earliest types of humanism were specifically christian ones. <BR/><BR/>The atheism some christians will find more problematic, obviously... but no belief-system can progress if it persists in isolation, rather than entering into dialogue with other systems. My Greenbelt talk was arguing that "we" need to engage with such texts and learn from them, and suggesting how we might go about doing that. <BR/><BR/>Clearly being honest about their atheism is an essential, and early, stage in that process. In <I>Back in Time</I>, Couch and his co-authors never seemed quite to manage that.Philiphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08870980082684845846noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13336104.post-1145020215226537252006-04-14T14:10:00.000+01:002006-04-14T14:10:00.000+01:00True, though I think that both sexuality and nazis...True, though I think that both sexuality and nazism have been bedfellows of the church <I>and</I> the scientific rationalists.<BR/><BR/>"Homosexuality" as a term was coined by Victorian psychologists, and it was still being treated as a mental disorder in the 1950s. <BR/><BR/>The pope did sign a pact with Hitler, while the greatest scientist of the century, Einstein, fled to America. But that's missing that the Nazi's themselves - through a twisted reading of Nietzsche and racial theory - thought of themselves as rational scientists. After the war, many Nazi scientists were pardoned so they could go work for the Allies...<BR/><BR/>Anti-semitism and homophobia are neither Christian values, nor rational ones. But they've been claimed to be.0tralalahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06818587472660040921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13336104.post-1145004626723547782006-04-14T09:50:00.000+01:002006-04-14T09:50:00.000+01:00And don't forgert the whole bisexual thing and the...And don't forgert the whole bisexual thing and the attitude of certain branches of Christianity...<BR/><BR/>Or even the Nazi-esque nature of Genesis of the Daleks andthe collusion of Pope Leo the something with Hitler!Andrew Tibbshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02592514889321509283noreply@blogger.com