Given the current state of the economy, it comes as no surprise that many Egyptians are doing all that they can to revive international interest in their country. What is surprising, though, is that one man has somehow managed to convince himself – and a few others – that he can single-handedly “boost tourism in Egypt” by fighting a full-grown African lion in direct hand-to-paw combat, in front of the Pyramids at Giza.
I know I shouldn’t laugh but…..
Sad news today from one of the finest Christian bloggers to grace the Interweb.
Clayboy – Doug Chaplin – has announced he is to reduce his blogging output. His blog is on my very exclusive ‘must read’ list and I have learnt an awful lot from him.
Doug notes that blogging has been become something of a burden lately.
There is no doubt that blogging is a time vampire and I find myself in the ridiculous position of having 475 websites and blogs in my feedreader. I should guesstimate that I have something in the region of 1000 news items per day.
But I just can’t stop. I am indeed hopelessly addicted to blogging and God willing will be blogging for some time yet.
To give you some idea, last night I had a dream that my garden was inexplicably full of toast. My first thought. I must grab the camera and blog this.
If that wasn’t disturbing enough, the other day I had a vivid and horrifying dream that I was in central London with Gregg and witnessed an airbus crash. My first thought. I must get home and blog about this. Now that’s just plain sick.
Freud would have a field day with me.
Although, as far as disturbing dreams go, Gregg pips me at the post, as he once had a dream so terrifying he ripped down the curtains and rail in a h0tel room trying to get out!
I even recently blogged from hospital!
I will say that blogging is a thankless task most of the time. I’m fortunate that I have a fairly large readership for a low-level niche blog. I can’t help but measure success by traffic, which is probably not healthy nor valid. I will say that in the past when I was a fully paid up fundie literalist ‘sin’ basher, I attracted more traffic. Nuanced, balanced, and non-controversial, is not conducive to high traffic.
Although we shouldn’t blog for the kudos or thanks – as we would soon become disillusioned – once in a while we get a much needed boost, and I did so a couple of days ago via email.
I’ve had my ‘Echoes of God‘ page up for a year or so now and have never before received a positive comment, until now.
Your piece “Echoes of God” is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. I am always a little sad on the Feast of the Ascension. This certainly gives me a deeper appreciation and hope
Thank you very much.
Maria,
Ohio,United States
So, thank you Maria for taking the time to give me a boost, it’s more appreciated than you know.
And thank you Doug, for your wonderful blogging. I’m glad you’re not vanishing completely, and look forward to the ‘one or two ideas and projects on the horizon‘.
A few weeks back I blogged in support of the BBC’s decision to air the NATURAL dying moments of an 84-year-old cancer sufferer, as part of their ’Inside the human body’ series.
I argued:
The process of dying has become sanitised and detached from our experience as we relegate the process to hospitals. In the past of course, most deaths took place at home, exposing us to – and normalising – the dying process within the context of the family experience.
Consigning death to the hospital environment, even with our excellent palliative care, has gone some way in elevating our fear of the dying process. It’s made the experience alien to us and this has provided fuel for death cult assisted suicide advocates.
[....]
It’s about time we re-familiarise ourselves with the process of dying and this programme will go some way towards this. Hopefully our superb palliative care will be on show as this would help to undermine the euthanasia movement.
As a result of that blog post, I was invited by the BBC World News Service to debate with an ethicist in Canada, on the rights and wrongs of the BBC’s decision to broadcast this. I was arguing in favour of the broadcast, and the ethicist in opposition.
During our debate the ethicist – Margaret Somerville, McGill University, Montreal, Canada – argued a ‘slippery slope’ approach by broadcasters. I conceded that this was of concern, but shouldn’t deter us in this instance.
Towards the end of the debate Margaret asked me directly what I thought of the concept of broadcasting the dying moments of a suicide. My answer was that I would find it abominable.
Well, on June 13th at 9pm, BBC2 will do exactly as Margaret warned me:
The BBC will next week air a controversial documentary where a motor neurone disease sufferer takes his own life.
Sitting on a sofa with his wife at his side, viewers will see Peter drink a liquid, fall into a deep sleep and then die.
The five-minute sequence, filmed at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, is part of a forthcoming BBC2 programme fronted by Sir Terry Pratchett.
The corporation has defended its decision to film Peter’s last moments as part of its exploration into the realities of assisted death.
BBC commissioning editor for documentaries Charlotte Moore said she did not believe the ‘carefully edited but unflinching’ scene could have been left out.
She said: ‘It is an extremely powerful and challenging scene – raw yet moving – but above all it is honest.
‘Some people may question why we included this scene in the final cut. But in my view I don’t see how we could omit it.’
Personally, I’m disturbed by this and believe the BBC has crossed the rubicon and are attempting to normalise suicide on TV.
I find myself in general agreement with Dr Peter Saunders:
By putting their extensive public resources behind this campaign and by giving Terry Pratchett, who is both a patron on DID [Dignity in Dying] and key funder of the controversial Falconer Commission, a platform to propagate his views, the BBC is actively fuelling this move to impose assisted suicide on this country and runs the risk of pushing vulnerable people over the edge into taking their lives. It is also flouting both its own guidelines on suicide portrayal and impartiality.
This portrayal of suicide by the BBC, along with Pratchett’s celebrity endorsement, breaches both international and BBC guidelines on suicide portrayal and risks encouraging further suicides amongst those who are sick, elderly or disabled. It is both a recipe for elder abuse and also a threat to vulnerable people, many of whom already feel under pressure at a time of financial crisis and threatened health cuts to end their lives for fear of being a burden on others. The dangers of portraying suicide on the media (Werther effect, suicide contagion, or copycat suicide) are well recognised in the medical literature.
[.....]
Where are the balancing programmes showing the benefits of palliative care, promoting investment on social support for vulnerable people or highlighting the great dangers of legalisation which have convinced parliaments in Australia, France, Canada, Scotland and the US to resist any change in the law in the last twelve months alone? One will not it seems, hear any of this from the BBC.
Indeed.
I should have heeded Margaret Somerville’s ‘slippery slope’ argument.
Little did I know just how slippery and steep the slope would be.
A few links I found interesting for one reason or another:
Random Ramblings of a Stay at Home Mum – Soul Cancer
The Vernacular Curate – The Pope Embraces The Digital Age
Royal College of Psychiatrists – Rates of common mental illness not rising, says new study
Scientia Et Sapientia – The Top 5 Regrets People Have on their Deathbeds
Near Emmaus – Prevent the Matrix (or why we need the humanities)
Biologos – In the Beginning, There Was Improvisation
Political Jesus – Sex In the Trinity: Wm. Paul Young’s The Shack, p2/6
As part of my ongoing revamping, I’ve been stripping this blog of extraneous features and code, to speed up download times, which I’ve now halved.
You might notice a new page at the top entitled: Search Archives, which features the Google search facility, the monthly archives, and the tag cloud.
As part of this process I’ve decided to remove the poll asking: Are Christians Persecuted in the UK?
In total 751 of you kindly responded and here are the final results:
No – 36% (273 Votes)
Yes – 27% (205 Votes)
We are moving towards persecution – 21% (157 Votes)
Infringement of some liberties – 12% (91 Votes)
Don’t Know – 4% (25 Votes)
Let us know if you have any thought on these results.
News broke over the weekend of a new private elite university, that will compete with the Oxbridge universities, set up by A. C. Grayling, Richard Dawkins, and other leading lights from the world of atheism and humanism.
There’s already been critical analysis of this development from the Christian blogosphere, and so I suggest hopping over to the Church Mouse and the Reluctant Sinner.
I’ve nowt to add to their commentary, but will link here to anything else of interest I find.
In the meantime let me know what you think.
This is the ninth installment of my posts based on the book: Spirituality and Psychiatry, which was kindly sent to me by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
The first part can be found here, the second here, the third here, the fourth here, the fifth here, the sixth here, the seventh here and the eighth here.
This chapter begins with the assertion that spiritual medicine has been shown to work. Put simply, a strong faith – among other factors – up-regulates the immune system, reducing the risk of cancer, improving general health, and protecting the cardiovascular system.
Hope is a key feature, with the hopeless having higher death rates. Thank God for our hope in Jesus.
Forgiveness has also been shown to reduce stress and facilitate healing.
Meditation is extensively covered in this chapter and looks at four studies, two of which involve nuns. MRI Scans have shown an increased activation in several brain regions and systems.
The effectiveness of prayer has thus far yielded mixed results and more studies are needed to formalise and quantify methods of prayer. Intriguingly, the limited evidence available suggests that the attitude of the person praying is all important, and that prayer for the general well-being of the prayee is more effective than directed prayer.
The following quote citing one of the inherent difficulties of scientifically studying prayer, really tickled me:
The Cochrane Committee, who keep a database on all medical subjects of reviews of double-blind randomised controlled trials that have been properly carried out, note that proper double-blind prayer trials may be difficult to do if God is involved in the process of prayer, as ‘God may not wish to comply with the conditions’ of such a trial.
Page 182
Classic.
This a very brief overview of the chapter which included detailed and technical changes in brain activity, due to practising spiritual methods, from the field of neuroscience.
I’ll leave you with this quote from the conclusion:
This chapter shows the close correlation between religious and spiritual practice and positive changes in a number of stress-related hormonal systems. The conclusion for patients is to remember that it is extremely important what we think, as this directly affects our physical health and the physical health of those around us. So far as the doctor is concerned, it is very important to find out what the patient believes, and the he or she understands the protective value of faith, of a committed belief and social structure such as that given by a church group. Social, religious and spiritual beliefs, when practised, can lead to an upgrading of the immune system, with positive changes in brain function and a positive attitude, all of which may contribute to a healthier life and the possibility of an extended life span.
Page 186
Chris alerts to us of an excellently written and thoroughly insightful critique of “Movement Humanism”, written by Joseph Hoffmann, himself a Humanist.
The whole piece is well worth reading, but here’s a couple of choice quotes I particularly enjoyed:
While often claiming the protective cloak of science and reason as their aegis for intellectual rectitude, movement humanism was really all about creating straw-men, stereotypes and bogeymen and unfortunately came to believe in its own anti-religion discourse.
[.....]
To be blunt, movement humanism with its straw men and reductive techniques, its stereotyping and bogeymen, is not just stuck in the past but stuck in a religious past of its own making. It is a past that an authentic and fully inclusive humanism would want to reject. It is a past that many religious thinkers have already rejected.
OK, I seem to be on a bit of a roll this week revamping some of the functionality of this blog.
First we had the Twitter Follow button.
Then the mobile functionality.
And now the comment edit feature.
This allows you to edit or delete your comments, saving you from that horrible realisation that your comment has gone awry, and there’s nowt you can do about it. Well you can now. I’ve allowed for 15 minutes editing time, which I think will be ample.
I’ve opted for the WordPress Ajax Edit Comments plugin, as this is being utilised by two blogs I personally comment on, and I’ve found this a very useful and practical tool.
I would appreciate if you’d test this for me and let me know what you think. Thanks go to Simon for suggesting this.
All of this is long overdue, but now I’ve made these changes hopefully it will enhance your experience of this blog.
And finally, just as a little plug, in the hope you’re overcome with a sudden bout of philanthropy, following this recent post, I’ve now set up an Amazon wish list, which can be found at the bottom on the left hand side.
I know these books are a little pricey, hence why they’re on my wish list, rather than on my desk!
I will always endeavour to bring us positive news coming out of the Muslim world, no matter how slender the morsels.
This is a case in point and revolves around the the Hamayouni Decree, which is a draconian law dating back to the Ottomon empire regulating Church construction and maintenance, which does not apply to mosques.
This from Wiki:
The law requires that each permit must be issued by the Egyptian President.
The requirements are complex, and frequently arbitrary, for building and repairing churches or church-owned buildings. These culminate in the requirement that the State President must personally approve all building applications, and the Provincial Governors must approve all applications for repairs, even for something as small as repairing a toilet or a broken window.
This law is of course wielded to inhibit Church construction and renovation.
The good news is that a proposed new law would overturn this:
During a meeting on Wednesday, the Egyptian government approved a unified law on the construction of places of worship. Under the law, governors will be authorized to license the building, demolishing, replacing, restoring, or modifying of places of worship, as well as associated expansions or repairs, so long as they follow certain conditions.
According to a government statement, the legislation will be put up for public discussion before final approval.
Let’s pray that final approval is forthcoming, as it would serve to reduce much sectarian strife.
