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Edition 2, page 12

Editor: Ben Peelman


Please recycle: either give it to your mate or wipe your arse with it and chuck it in compost.

Art by Ros Meeker

Edition 2, page 11

UPLIFTING PERSONALITY

Father Michael Tate – An Unauthorised Biography

Father Michael Tate is an old Virgilian who studied Law at UTas, and Arts at Oxford, before returning to Tasmania and specializing in constitutional law and becoming Dean of the Faculty of Law before entering politics.
In hindsight, Father Michael has referred to the key activity of politics as being the redistribution of wealth, and entered politics with Martin Luther King, being a firm believer in non-violent social change as the most enduring form of change.
Michael Tate used to be a senator for Tasmania, in federal politics for from 1978 to 1993, and served as Justice Minister in the Hawke government. While in politics, his focus was social justice, especially the injustice of exorbitant military spending compared to funding the relief of suffering. Amongst other things, he wrote the Australian Citizenship Pledge, which allows for the religious and the non-religious. Michael ended his political career over the first Gulf War, having to rationalize it, but knowing that his actions had betrayed his anti-war principles. He left politics for the ambassadorships to the Netherlands and the Vatican.
He still remains active in the field of politics, thanks to the Gold Pass afforded him as an ex-senator, advising Jim Wallace of the Australian Christian Lobby on human rights issues, e.g. the possibility of a national Human Rights Charter or Bill of Rights. Father Michael’s position is to have senators, rather than unelected judges decide on fundamental human rights issues.
The W.H Auden poem which inspired Michael Tate’s priesthood reads as follows:
When you appear before the judgement seat of God -
God will recite by heart the poems you could have written
And you will cry tears of shame...


Father Michael believes the Gospel has transformed Australia into the peaceful multi-cultural wonderland it is today, and the solution to conflict is the old adage “Think Globally, Act Locally”. His vision of Heaven is “…a situation where the soul is permeated with unconditional love”

Father Michael is not the crusty old dinosaur he perhaps could be – his stance on Genesis is one of “inspired literature, rather than insipid literalism”.

Father Michael’s youthful vigour even helped start up a dot.com: liturgyhelp.com, which Michael described with his typical humour as the “yahoo of the catholic publishing world”. He is “repulsed by … the emphasis on megastars and extravaganza”, and is challenged by physical ailments that often come with great age.

Father Michael did his 4-year apprenticeship in Claremont and Bridgewater, and now looks after 4 churches in Sandy Bay and Taroona, while assisted pastorally by Sister Kathleen Kennedy, and administratively by Claire Manthorpe.

Father Michael can be contacted on 0418 397 602, or mtate@bigpond.com, or at his UTas Chaplaincy on 6226 2385, or m.tate@utas.edu.au.

Father Michael Tate is currently on sabbatical leave and expected back in Hobart soon.

Edition 2, page 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10

GODWIN IS DEAD: Long Live Godwin

 

'Speaking theologically – pay heed, for I rarely speak as a theologian – it was God himself who at the end of his labour lay down  as a serpent under the Tree of Knowledge: it was thus he recuperated from being God … he had made everything too beautiful … The Devil is merely the idleness of God on that seventh day ...' 'Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future', Nietzsche.

              On Tuesday 15th December, 2009, new legislation was introduced in Australia to support mandatory Internet filtering, entitled 'Measures to Improve Safety of the Internet for Families'. The topics targeted for censorship include euthanasia, all circulation of higher than MA15+ video games etc. This followed the lead of many Western countries which have tentatively begun to cut back on the freedom of speech rights of their citizens, in order to strengthen State sovereignty in the face of a communication technology which breaks down social, cultural and territorial boundaries more than anything else before. This regressive movement is being peddled as socially progressive in that it seeks to make the internet safer for families and the community, as the internet becomes part of the stabilising infrastructure of the State. But as with all undermining of human rights, do the gains outweigh the losses, and do such regressive strategies serve only to weaken, rather than equipping and empowering people, today and into the future? For example, currently, website blacklists for ISP blocking are kept classified. Under the new laws (if they are introduced), these blacklists will have to be made public. Considering the blocks are still relatively easy to get around, these lists could serve to provide a complete list of the 'worst of the worst' websites.
              I am a child of the early eighties; I spent my early years cocooned inside the affirming world of a thousand Hawke-Keating Labour speeches, before being abandoned cruelly into the harsh paradigm of life under John Howard and the Liberal Party from 1996-2007. This seemed like forever to me, since it spanned my entire era of political awareness until adulthood. I began to dream of Australia on the day the Libs failed to be re-elected as like a prisoner freed from decades in a dungeon, coming to terms with life without such a tight, dehumanising structure. Perhaps the personal responsibility of life on the outside of the xenophobic regime would be too much for us; would we even remember who we were, or what it was we wanted to achieve as a free, democratic society? Maybe the nation would only end up re-offending, just to rediscover the safe certainties of chauvinism and finger-pointing. Could we still get it up, if at all we ever had?
              Then, immediately after Rudd won the election, it began to dawn on me just how traumatised we all were as a nation from living through the fear, the guilt and the stifling of creativity that the Howard years had doled out. I had been completely oblivious to the effect this regime had had on me culturally, politically and
emotionally (in fact in every facet of my life - psychologically, even sexually!).

               Despite being firmly against basically everything the government did, my entire direct experience of Australian politics existed inside a Howard box. I was so against them, I would often be caught comparing them to Hitler and the Nazis.1 But politically, Howard's career WAS actually very similar to Hitler's. They were both elected by a landslide popular vote the first time round. John Howard achieved the second-largest swing against an incumbent government since Federation. The Nazi Party achieved impressive election results. Even early on, before they had their opponents too intimidated to organize against them they had 32 seats in the Reichstag. During their career, both Hitler and Howard set about dismantling almost every democratic institution they ministered over. Hitler first introduced the Enabling Act in 1933, which gave cabinet total executive power, independent from the Reichstag. Although less extreme, Howard also sought to undermine the power of the senate and the states, in order to increase the power of the federal government. There are many other examples of the undermining and rolling back of democratic processes. They both resorted to extreme fear-mongering. Hitler did it by pointing guns at his own people, declaring war on countries that were not allies, and locking people up in concentration camps, before eventually 'ethnically cleansing' them. Howard did it by pointing guns at the terrorists and declaring war on 'terrorist countries', locking up people in concentration camps, before ethnically cleansing the very people they were claiming to be liberating from their non-Western terrorist oppressors. Of course, a lot less people died, and the Howard government was not totalitarian. It's the similarities in political, rather than military career which I seek to draw your attention to, simply because I believe that we are currently living in a post-tyranny, where even though we've been offered the reins back, we are too scared to take them up. Mandatory internet censorship is yet another example of people's desire for freedom FROM choice.
               In their persecution of the Jews (and other minorities, including gays, lesbians, Christians, intellectuals, the disabled, non-Europeans etc2) the Nazis claimed to be heavily inspired by Nietzsche's concept of the overman. The Nazis interpreted Nietzsche's text to justify genocide. But I think that is contrived, he was simply trying to put across the need for each individual to create themselves an identity transcending the previous limitations of human sociological paradigms;


'We, however, want to be those who we are - the new, the unique, the incomparable, those who give themselves their own law, those who create themselves! [...]'

[GS 335]


               After World War II, German national and cultural identity went through major philosophical crises, the effects of which can still be easily observed to this day. In 1959, Hannah Arendt, a prominent political theorist and exiled German Jew was offered the Lessing Prize in Germany as a gesture of reconciliation between German nationals and German exiles. In her acceptance speech, Arendt directly addressed the continued unwillingness and inability of the German people to acknowledge the Holocaust. She defined herself not as the self-consistent subject of the German people's newly 'regained' humanism, but as a world traveler, where, through an inner emigration, a refugee constitutes a citizen. But were it not for the German people's continuing paradoxical need for privilege and integrity of identity, this opposition of citizen and refugee could be dissolved; 'As well-intentioned as they were, I was left with the impression that no one existed for them who could not be governed by their intentions.' Public spectacles like this were more in aid of reassuring the national conscience, rather than doing anything to fix the real wounds and their consequences.

                A similar public spectacle happened in Australia following the election of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister – the apology to the Aboriginals. Previous to this, Howard had stubbornly refused to make the popularly requested apology, with the argument that it was not these contemporary generations who had committed the wrongdoings, and that it would leave the government open to claims of compensation. Perhaps there was also an underlying fear that the subtext of such an apology would be the indictment of current xenophobic and even potentially genocidal policies. When it came to exerting power, the Howard government's general modus operandi was to distract the Australian public from important changes directly affecting them, with cheap scandalous shots at various minority groups. The successive Rudd/Labour government's modus operandi was to distract the Australian public from the same kinds of important changes through public spectacles of vacuous positivity. The big media event did prove healing on the whole. It empowered Anglo-Australia to feel an integral sense of ownership of their nation. Yet this may have not led to custodianship. Civil liberties and the environment are being threatened more than ever before! And China has a big role to play in both.
              Mark Lynas from Guardian.uk claims that as a result of the mobilisation surrounding global warming, we are entering a new phase of global geo-politics, with China becoming the new global superpower. Speaking from personal experience, having been in the room, he also claims that China sabotaged the Copenhagen conference and made it look as if it was the fault of the West. Rudd made a big show of how disappointed he was, and was fighting hard to come to some kind of agreement with China by the end of the summit; a seemingly valiant gesture in the face of a no doubt hopeless situation. How convenient, though, that this global public spectacle of ineffectual positivity came at the same time as Rudd rushed extreme internet censorship laws through the House of Representatives; internet censorship laws which follow China's notorious lead. During the final days of Copenhagen, while news coverage was obsessing over every minute detail of the farcical proceedings, the Australian senate (the only truly democratic institution we have left) began to debate the new internet laws fiercely.
In Rudd's speech regarding these changes, he sought to justify the new policy by saying that Australia is a civilised country which doesn’t need free access to immoral or illegal material. This flawed circular logic reeks of culturally arrogant Christian morality, seeking to prove its own superiority, by differentiating itself in theory from anything it regards as immoral and unAustralian. Our laws should be based on objective ethics, not on some subculture's idea of what is immoral. If subjective immorality is illegal, where will it end?
              But it is too easy to scapegoat the Christian lobby groups. To me, the problem does not fundamentally spring from one politically extremist group as differentiated from regular practicing Christians, forcing it’s ideology onto the rest of society. It lies at the heart of religion itself. It ties in with the belief that once a person is caught committing a crime and sentenced, they are now a 'criminal', which is a different kind of person to the rest of us, as if there is some line written in the concrete that a valid person should not cross. Cultural values of virtue shift as we grow and change, and I think in light of the challenges facing our society in this new millennium, we need to make some intelligent and conscious changes to our belief systems. There is no such thing as a categorically defined innocent or evil person. All Christians sin just like everyone else. All humans have the potentiality to commit evil acts. The problem lies in the Christian mentality that irresponsible behaviour is something to oppose and eradicate, rather than something to understand and to heal. This mentality is general to all Christians who still believe in the social responsibility of the church, no matter how liberal they see themselves as being. It lies in the fundamental logic of the belief system which presupposes that there is such a thing as evil, and that goodness springs from eradicating it. Such dichotomies simply reinforce each other, and serve to justify ridding citizens of their basic human rights.
              I firmly believe that upon deep analysis of any kind of behaviour, that behaviour will be understood in the correct context of the universal human condition, and cease to have the power given to that which our so-called 'civilised' society deems to be 'evil' or 'bad'. The only way for a truly civilised society to deal with degenerative behaviours is to illuminate and make visible those behaviours, and to acknowledge the potential for their manifestation in all humans. Everything must be appreciated in itself. That is sublime beauty.
              When it comes specifically to the question of whether censorship serves any useful purpose, I think it comes down to whether or not the censorship stops the illumination of degeneracy or danger, or merely the proliferation of degeneracy or danger. To use the most uncommon, yet stigmatised example; in the case of child pornography (which isn't YET covered by the new legislation), the act of looking at an image could be deemed proliferation, since part of the violation of the child is the act of looking. But what if someone was doing their thesis on child pornography, to use an easy example? Wouldn’t they at some stage need to look at some? Isn't it about how they perceive the image, as a morally responsible subject in a politically secular country? If someone was to view such an image with a purely critical eye, is this still an act of proliferation? It may be true that reflective, responsible human beings are rare in our society, but does that mean we should act like they do not exist, and penalise them along with the rest of us? Appealing to the lowest common denominator is not going to change the country for the better. Is that what it means to be civilised?
              I strongly feel that neither euthanasia nor violent video games are necessarily immoral, nor degenerative or even dangerous, but that has no relevance to my argument. Even if they were, the government has no place, let alone ability to eradicate these kinds of social dilemmas. As Latham said when he exited politics to become a lollypop man for his local primary school; the only thing that is going to create positive changes in communities is people doing it for themselves, utilising a bottom-up approach. This does not mean private justice. This does not even mean playing Internet Nanny. It means facing the degeneracy in oneself, however it manifests, and coming to understand the world in a less knee-jerk, more mature and capable way. Citizens therefore, must have full access to media in order to be full morally responsible human beings and world travellers. This version of moral responsibility is what it means to be human, as this relationship with the human condition is what it means to be truly alive. 



1. On internet forums in debating circles, this strategy is considered such a cliche, that a theory was put forward by a guy named Godwin that in every debate, Hitler or the Nazis or the Holocaust would eventually be brought up, and that when this happened, the perpetrator's argument would be deemed invalid. The opponent would deem the argument invalid then by 'invoking Godwin's Law. Note: Not dissimilar to the general foulness of comparing pro-freedom-of-speech campaigners to pedophiles.


2. Basically anyone likely to get in the way of the rolling tank wheels of obtuse logic simply by who they were and their social latitude and longitude. A logic which no longer required embodiment or reality to continue functioning.

Interesting article on China at Copenhagen:
‘How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas

Edition 2, page 5

Devil’s Rant

THE DEVIL KNOWS

i was walking with jesus for a long long time

til i came to a fork in the road

i was offered a deal i could not refuse

so now i walk with jesus no more

a lot bad luck lurks behind my trail

i guess i'll just call it my fate

the preachers begging me for my confession

but i know it's already too late

cause there ain't nobody gonna save my soul

lord the devil knows

lord the devil knows

of my crime i expect no forgiveness

i know the amount of pain i've caused

and when my death comes down a creeping

i'll be waiting at that fiery door

cause there ain't nobody gonna save my soul

lord the devil knows

lord the devil knows

and when they watch me climbing that ladder

and place a rope around my neck

they'll sit down peacefully waiting for my fall

and they'll smile when i'm swinging to my death

cause there ain't nobody gonna save my soul

lord the devil knows

lord the devil knows

of all the paths that i have walked

yes i know that i have strayed

i've pulled the trigger to my name

but i've never bowed my head down - in shame

cause there ain't nobody gonna save my soul

lord the devil knows

lord the devil knows

©Copyright Matthew Leary 2009

Edition 2, page 4

FOUNTAIN OF AGNOSTICISM

One day God’s brightest and most intelligent Angel addressed God, saying: “God, I reckon I can do it better than you. You should stand aside and let me have a go.”

That was the Original Sin.

Now, the Original Sin wasn’t the bit where Lucifer thought he could improve on God’s perfect creation. It was the bit where he thought of himself as somehow other than God. He addressed God as “the second person”.

Looking at it like that, I have to admit that I am guilty of Original Sin at every moment of my life. I see myself as somehow other than God. In addition, I also think that things can be improved. An example would be “A cup of tea would be nice”. Which is another way of saying “Things would be even better if I drank a cup of tea.”

I am being very hard-line here. Even if I believe that I was created by God, or that I am connected to God, or have a spark of God in me, that is not the same as clearly seeing that there is only God, and nothing else.

This belief informs my spiritual practice. Whilst I see myself as existing, I am still on the Path. Whilst I think things could be improved, I am still on the Path.

Some questions:

-Can I will myself out of the picture?

-Would it be even better if I were without Sin?

Here is a mystery indeed!

Edition 2, page 3

FRONTSLIDER’S IRONING BOARD

Serbian-Russian Orthodox Church:

The orthodox church celebrates the birth of Christ on January 6 (and it is not the only cultural tradition to do so), and for those who tire of the pre-Xmas rush month and don’t want to succumb to ‘December rage’, setting the Christmas clock forward almost a fortnight can prove beneficial to family relationships, work-life balances, and the bank balance (Orthodox Christians don’t feel any pressure to buy presents before Boxing day sales!).

This frontslider needed to delve into the depths of stoicism to endure the full orthodox nativity service, at only two and a half hours of standing up, it’s not the shortest religious service available. Warning: those following this frontslider’s path will need patience, the ability to cross oneself and/or bow at the drop of a hat, and the understanding of the Serbian or Russian language would probably help as well. Not understanding Serbian or Russian, my focus changed from listening to the Word, to enjoying the Spirit, and enjoying the Word all the more when the priest spoke in English. This priest’s message was about being in/with/through Christ. *shrug* Don’t ask me, sometimes I don’t understand English. In fact, maybe I was just daydreaming, but the priest had a bit of the rapper about him – a cool hat, oversized clothes, a voice that had rhythm, backed by a vocal team that couldn’t sing in tune (maybe weren’t even trying). The visuals were glowing and iconic, strengthened by the strong smell of incense, even the bible that the priest read from was a work of art in itself.

The congregation was not static even though they were standing up, and in between bows and self-crossings, kept themselves busy with lighting, blowing out, and re-lighting candles that would get blown out by the wind. Orthodox Christian worship is like burlesque for pyromaniacs, and I’m sure obsessive-compulsive types are comfortable here as well.

The orthodox church maintains it’s status as one of the oldest and best-preserved of the Christian churches, along with the Armenian and Coptic churches, and as such, has a hardcore and severely mystical worship service, only enhanced by language barriers. But, if Ethiopian Christians can worship happily in a Russian orthodox church, why not you? This church is looked after by a sister of the cloth, and a lay minister, as a real priest only performs services once a month. The Russian Orthodox clergy has the same recruiting problems as the Roman Catholic church, but if you want to be a minister in the oldest international Christian church, I’m told a good degree can be organized online through some Finnish university.

Edition 2, page 2

Editorial Introduction


The mission of God’s Review will probably have to be re-stated for many (possibly several times over), so that they do not fall prey to prejudices, and understand the reason for GR’s existence. God’s Review is a bridge between the religious and the non-religious, an open forum for both sides of an extended divide to come together. It is a chance for evangelical religious people to extend their hand in friendship, and the completion of a broken feedback loop for religions of all kinds around Hobart. If you do not like what is published in here, send your own contribution to godsreviewhobart@gmail.com. You have the protection of anonymity for all written contributions. You need not fear repercussions for speaking your mind openly. The editors will cop any flak for you. We have thick skins; we can take it.

God’s Review is Hobart’s social response to the social responsibility of religions. What is social responsibility? Here is a real example: a church in Hobart has recently relocated, and in the process, redrawn property boundaries to accommodate mobility impaired people on council land, a development that was a long time coming. This is a social responsibility, and this church deserves respect for this. On the other hand, this very same church has also labelled homosexuals as wrong, sick and misguided, and this is socially very irresponsible – to promote homophobia. So we see that religions can be both socially responsible and irresponsible. For a church to promote homophobia in Uganda could be seen as socially responsible – homophobia is deeply rooted in culture in sub-saharan Africa, and for a church to openly support homosexuals would be more than scandalous, it could easily result in lynchings, riots, and the burning of churches, so strong is homophobia in some African cultures. So, GR’s ‘truth’, if you will, is context-specific. Another recent development we are unable to ignore is the recent Atheist bus advertisement campaign, echoed from similar campaigns in the U.K. and Ireland. It has been said that Atheism is the fastest-growing religious perspective in Australia. However, if Atheism is a religious perspective endeavouring to supplant religions, then it should have something to offer people in need beyond mere scientific answers to the deep questions of life, such as: Why are we here? What happens to us after we die? How can we be better people? And of course, Is there a God? Well, let us throw the gauntlet at Atheists by asking what do Atheists worship? Nihilism? Science? Materialism? Or is Atheism simply a negative perspective on religion?

Let us remember this parable: There was this dog, he had his own yard, got patted all the time, got fed whenever he needed to be fed, water when he was thirsty – everything he needed! And all of it from these tall creatures called humans. He thought to himself: “Surely these creatures are God!”

In the neighbours yard lived a cat, who got looked after very well by her owners, got pats whenever she wanted, food regularly, water was always around, and all of it came from these human creatures. The cat thought: “I must be God!”

Edition 2, page 1

God’s Review

January-February 2010

A local bi-monthly independent critical review

All written contributions anonymous

Contributions to: godsreviewhobart@gmail.com

Edition 1, page 6 & 7

Uplifting Personality – Nigel McBrien

Firstly, welcome to Hobart – how have you been finding Tasmania?
The best thing about Hobart is the people – they’ve got a great attitude, a great openness and good sense of humour that reminds me of the people of Ireland, where I come from. My wife when living in Sydney, traveled to Tasmania in her twenties, and loved the contrasting landscapes. I can see what she means - Tasmania has many beautiful places.
What is your spiritual background, and what has helped make you?
Well, I used to work in offices, and got into ministry late in life through volunteering, in choirs, youth fellowship, and youth work, and started ministering in a county parish in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. From this I studied for ministry and then spent some time in the Methodist ministry in County Tipperary in the middle of Ireland. From there, I left to spend time raising the children, who are now 5 and 6 years old. I was raised in a church family and one of the turning points in my faith was observing a flatmate, who had never been to church bringing a fresh perspective on the Christian faith. It was wonderful to see what Jesus can do and encouraged me to be more involved with God.
What is it that keeps you going when faced with setbacks?
My father was a minister, and there was a moment in my late teens that I felt God’s presence in a very real way, and that was the start of a journey of personal faith which has evolved. We change with age and I believe we are changed also into a growing understanding of God. There is an awareness, regardless of my frailties, of a loving God who is at work among people, through stories of change and transformative process. One of the stories of change are where there are practical changes in issues of social justice.
What do you find to be your greatest challenges?
These changing times are perhaps the greatest challenge we all face, especially young  families who are busy during a week. One area of change in society concerns technology. It's great that people are more 'connected' by electronic messaging. It's great to have rapid communication as long as it doesn't take the place of people continuing to meet up - to be community. People still need time to recharge their batteries. One of the aims in our church is to be an authentic, helpful and supportive community. Also, the aim is to slow down a bit and draw back to being community.


We are a small, developing community that is aiming to provide a fun family atmosphere. One activity we do is Music Together - a music group for toddlers that is gentle and unhurried. Parents can relax over tea and coffee, while their children are having fun. We're hoping to develop the idea of sanctuary, a place to worship and be uplifted. We have a family oriented service that explores worship in various ways. We do modern music, with the language of the service being everyday and straight-forward. We do crafts also for the children, which they enjoy. Another challenge is the number of choices we make each day. A supermarket has maybe fifteen types of breakfast cereal, for instance. In wider choices, the challenge is to discern about what helps build us up, and what is not edifying. This is a challenge for us all in the community. Another challenge is the need to respect and understand other faiths and beliefs. To share what is real and what resonates for us.
What do you enjoy most in your personal interactions with members of your congregation?

 They are open and expressive of where they’re at. There is a “can-do” attitude; of giving things a go, even if they’re not used to it. They have made myself and the family so welcome and this has been deeply appreciated. 

The ability to have a sense of humour is also something I like in the interactions with the congregation and the interests/skills people have are always great to hear about. I also enjoy when people say what is helpful and encouraging in their faith life.

Have there been any moments in your ministry you wish you could go back and change?

There have been moments in the past where I should have been clearer about what truths are in God's word. There are words in the Bible that challenge us all to make a difference. It's all part of the learning process. I have also reflected on the need to balance church life with the bigger picture, the wider community where people from all walks of life and beliefs meet.

Nigel McBrien ministers at the Uniting Church on Melville St.

Nigel can be reached at families.wesley.uca@bigpond.com

Edition 1, page 4 & 5

Devil’s Rant

There have been some good analogies about religion in recent years.  In Breaking The Spell philosopher Daniel Dennett compared religion with a particular parasite that invades the ants brain and controls it so that it attempts to be eaten by a bird.  Oxford professor Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion compared religion to the way moths misunderstand candles and so fly into them.  Both of these analogies, although perhaps insulting to religious people, offer an insight into the large amount of progress science has made in recent years in explaining why we are religious.

The two analogies offer two different perspectives on religion, related to the two different fields of the authors.  Dennett, as a philosopher, sees religion as a "meme" (a word created by Richard Dawkins); almost a physical entity.  Memes behave like genes, at least for the purposes of natural selection and evolution.  Instead of being the discrete genetic code for a particular protein, they are discrete units of information.  Both genes and memes replicate themselves and have slight variations at the point of replication.

Like genes, memes "compete" with each other, but in a faster and more direct manner than genes.  A meme continues to exist as long as people accept it.  If nobody believed in God, there would be no "god meme."  A meme that is more likely to encourage its believers to behave in a way that supports the continued existence and replication of that meme is obviously more likely to continue to exist than one that does not.  When we evaluate the traits of different memes, this explains why religion has lasted so long, while popular music is far shorter lived.  Music memes don't offer any encouragement to continue to accept a particular song or to replicate it.  Religion does.  Religion encourages its followers to value "faith" instead of evidence, which is convenient since there is no evidence to support religion.  It constantly reinforces the strength of belief in its followers by taking credit for anything good that happens in people's lives, despite rational explanations.
In this world view we can see religion as a parasite or a virus, invading people's minds and causing them to spread the virus further and wider.  Over time, like most viruses, the religions that have survived are the ones that have been best at invading people's minds, while the least effective religions have died off - survival of the fittest religions.

On the other hand, Richard Dawkins sees religion as a misinterpretation of the world by our body.  In the circumstances in which it evolved, a moths attraction to light is a good thing, but candles are very recent and they haven't been able to adapt to this change.  Likewise Dawkins argues that religion is a consequence of traits we've evolved for our benefit, misinterpreting sudden changes in the world.  In particular our brains rapidly got bigger very quickly and suddenly we started applying useful evolutionary behaviours to much wider concepts than they were useful.  This idea is expanded in great detail by Lewis Wolpert in the fantastic book Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast.  

Of course these two theories aren't contradictory.  It's possible that religion is successful because our psychology is so easily exploitable, and religion has evolved to exploit the particular weaknesses our sudden rapid intellectual evolution provided.  

When new viruses appear at first they are very powerful and spread very quickly.  Then the host evolves an immune system to fight the virus and if the virus doesn't change, eventually it's wiped out.  Over the last 200 years humans have started evolving our immune system response to the religion meme, and it's a meme with the ability to strengthen and improve itself.  It is, of course, the scepticism/rationality meme, and now atheism is the fastest growing perspective on religion in the world. Scepticism and rationality work so well because instead of advocating faith over evidence, they advocate evidence over faith.  They say we should accept the world how it really is, not how we'd like it be.  You could even argue that they're not a meme at all, but a meme anti-body.  Now that it's spreading so quickly, religion is going to have to evolve dramatically if it is to survive.

Edition 1, page 3

Frontslider’s Ironing Board

This particular Sunday morning service enjoyed a beautifully sunny day, flowers in full bloom, and singing birds outside. The church in question? River City Church, Lefroy St. North Hobart enjoyed the presence of our frontslider this Sunday. The service was practically full gospel, the congregation was in top singing form, and there were good musicians and singers leading the congregation. The drummer in particular, had a fine singing voice, and played Wizard of Oz from backstage, highlighting the fine-tuned harmonics of the congregational choir. Although this frontslider doesn’t personally speak in tongues, yours truly doesn’t mind it so much as when first exposed to others doing it. Hoping this church might sing in tongues, your frontslider was disappointed by the disproportionate amount of speaking in tongues amongst the older congregation The singing was led also by a couple of young female angels, who seemed at odds (even uncomfortable), with the rest of the grey-hair congregation. Perhaps these young devotees would be more comfortable worshiping in a similar youth church?

The ministers chose some good Biblical passages to launch from, although the last senior minister to speak was not expressing God’s message clearly or well. Surely the sanity and logic of a minister would be tested by the elders before allowed to speak for a church on Sunday morning?

All in all, this church certainly greased this frontslider’s forward motion, but more perhaps by how much better they could be, rather than how good they were. God certainly spoke to this frontslider that morning, but not because of how effective the ministry was.

RiverCity Christian Church is represented in the media by “The Communicator”, advertising it’s Worship Services every Sunday at 10:00 AM, Celebration Services on the last Sunday of every month at 6:00 PM, Healing Services every Tuesday at 10:00 AM, a Craft Group, a Children’s Church, and a Worship Team. Also mentioned in service was an upcoming conference – all enquiries to alanpaine@dodo.com.au.

Edition 1, page 2

Editorial Introduction

This inaugural edition of God’s Review is in response to several local and universal social conditions here in Hobart. Firstly, we recently heard in church that only 7% of Australia’s Christians go to church on any given Sunday, and only 4% of Tasmanians follow suit. Secondly, some churches are dying out in droves as their traditional parishioners get older and their progeny move away. Tides of Christians move between churches as they follow their own leanings towards a fuller experience of God. Tasmania being God’s own country, having a high proportion of churches, it also has a wide variety of churches - a veritable smorgasbord! Many of these churches already have their own publications, although they are a long way from objective, and are generally not recognized by other churches. We would like to approach our God-experiences from all areas of belief, while realizing that the Tasmanian religious population is dominantly Christian and that, for example Hare Krishna devotees may not have any choice at which temple to practice their religion in Hobart.

Who are we to dodge our duty to evangelise, when there are so many good churches out there to recommend? On the flipside, not all churches are perfect, and congregations may feel like they do not have a voice when they are all ears

This revue will feature personal profiles on some of Hobart’s favourite priests, ministers, lay preachers, and servants of God, while introducing readers to a different church every month. This will be an independent review of all God’s churches in the Greater Hobart area, in their various ministries and toils. This is not the place for revelations about which minister has been fiddling whom, nor will we publish your crush on that gorgeous youth leader, but we envisage a religious publication free from control by any one particular religious organization, including the Atheist Party.

Edition 1: Front page

GOD’S REVIEW


December 2009

A local monthly independent critical review

All contributors anonymous

Contributions to: godsreviewhobart@gmail.com

artwork by Ros Meeker