Sea of Faith, Yorkshire

Download Conference Presentations - University of Bradford

2011-11-25T17:42:00.000Z

Download Conference Presentations - University of Bradford

Programme for 2011

2011-04-03T14:39:00.010Z

Sat 15 Jan 2011, 1.30 for 2pm
Bradford Central Library, Meeting Room 2
The Paradox of Religious Atheism

Introduced by Ken Smith, former SOF Trustee and Chaplain, Whitgift School

Sat 9 Apr 2011, 1.30 for 2pm
Religion, Transcendence and the Visual Arts
LEEDS: South Parade Baptist Church
Kirkstall Lane, Headingley LS6 3LS

Sat 2 July 2011, 1.30 for 2pm

Books that Matter - Members' Choices

SETTLE: Quaker Meeting House, Kirkgate, Settle, N. Yorks BD24 9DX

Sat 24 Sep 2011
Excursion to the Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield
Details tba

Sat 26 Nov 2011, 1.30 for 2pm
Religion, Drama and Poetry
South Parade Baptist Church (The Parlour Room)
Kirkstall Lane, Headingley LS6 3LS

SoF at Leeds Reason Week 2011

2011-03-10T15:46:00.001Z

We had a good turn-out of SoF people at the 2011 Leeds Reason Week Panel on 'Religion as a Human Creation' (Monday 7^th March). Two of us were panellists.

We were primed to defend the non-realist view of religion, along with the positive aspects of religious life. But a little surprisingly it turned out that these were well understood and even largely accepted by the atheist and humanist audience. Rather, their fire-power was directed at aspects of religion that we (SoF) do not endorse, but perhaps after this encounter should pay more attention to. These were:

faith schools (seen as socially divisive)*
indoctrination of children into literalist beliefs; also fear and guilt before a supposed all-seeing and punitive deity
social exclusion, eg of homosexuals
failure to educate congregations out of literalist and fundamentalist attitudes
blocking of medical advances, eg stem cell research
taking public funds for religious institutions which claim exemption for practices outlawed for the rest of the population (eg gender discrimination)

While this would be a shift of focus for us (tackling the negatives, rather than, as we have tended to do, promoting the positives), what was revealed was an unexpected target shift on the part of the atheists and humanists. Their campaigns target beliefs, rather than practices, but it became clear to us during this session that it is practices that they really object to.

* We have already had a session on this, from Allan Hayes.

'Christmas is for life, not just for Christmas' Bishop Nick Baines

2010-12-19T16:42:00.003Z

Nick Baines, 'controversial blogging bishop' has just been named as the next Bishop of Bradford. I have to confess that I had never heard of him before, but a little research reveals that his Christmas book last year 'Why Wish You a Merry Christmas?' raised a storm because it seemed to criticise Christmas Carols.

Naturally, the book was wilfully misconstrued by the media, though some of his remarks do sound non-realist: “I always find it a slightly bizarre sight when I see parents and grandparents at a nativity play singing Away In A Manger as if it actually related to reality.” This, along with his quip about Christmas being for life, not just for Christmas, suggest he may be someone for SOF people in Yorkshire to watch.

There is a podcast (No.13, Nov 2009)about his Christmas book, a newspaper article, and of course his famous blog. There is also quite a bit of comment about him on the internet if you care to look, for example. He also has an entry in Wikipedia.

Opinion Piece October 2010

2010-10-12T21:43:00.009Z

Small and Imperfectly formed - but still in the Spirit.
A personal view of the Sea of Faith

The recent Papal visit was a perhaps overdue reminder that there are still many people with an attachment to Christianity in this country. Religion rarely features in the news unless there is scandal, controversy or conflict to report. It is true that attendance at the mainstream churches continues to decline steadily, but there are new Christian organisations springing up everywhere - witness the Abundant Life megachurch in Bradford, the Aire Valley Community Church, and Sheffield's Centre for Radical Christianity, among many others in Yorkshire.

Possibly more suprising is the existence of a small national group the Sea of Faith (now officially called just by its initials 'SOF'), with its own Yorkshire Network. Despite its original name, this is a group whose mission is 'exploring religion as a human creation'. Distinct from atheists and humanists, SOF people seek to conserve what is valuable in religion, while moving on from what they see as irrationality, naive superstition, complacent conservatism and just plain injustices in the traditional (and some of the new) religions.

What is left of value, then? SOF meetings focus on the unavoidable reality that philosophy, the arts, and even science all grew out of religion. Obviously these babies are not being thrown out with the bathwater of religion, but all of them have a spiritual aspect which it is at least impoverishing, and at most tragic, to deny. Science, and nowadays even philosophy, confine themselves to asking small-scale 'How?' questions, and have ceased to ask the big questions such as 'Why?' This practical, no-nonsense approach has been a fruitful one, by cutting out questions that were incoherent or impossible to answer. But it has borne many bitter fruits as well.

Modern philosophy, and especially the social sciences and psychology have become narrow, technical and arid. There are individuals who try to break out of the frame, sometimes successfully, but they are always seen as mavericks. The consequences of science and technology conducted without a wider humane vision have global impacts in weapons development, environmental damage, irresponsible methods of food production and processing, and the power of drugs companies to influence national health policies.

Only the arts have shamelessly kept alive their original link with spirituality, and where would we be without the drama, images and music that infuse our everyday life, even if only in the mass media, fashion, pop music and advertising? The energy, vigour and zest for life that the arts, and especially the popular arts express stem from the very opposite of the 'no-nonsense' attitude.

Dangerously, the arts all depend on our society's deliberate acceptance and cultivation of them, calling for investment, education and training. Luckily, the arts also depend on people's natural immediate responses to colour, shape, pattern, movement, music, drama, fantasy and imagination, and these responses are not likely to wither away any time soon. Business people may scoff at their 'creatives', yet must acknowledge the power of advertising that makes use of these natural responses.

Drama, fantasy and imagination are the ingredients, and expression, of the all-important questions of morality (questions about how we should live) that, in some form or other, exercise everyone. Outside the churches, we are faced with paradoxes like outright rejection of the idea of God (too fantastical), yet interest in the patent fictions of film, television drama and novels. Even Santa Claus rides out stronger every year.

These are the fascinating puzzles about modern spirituality that SOF seeks to explore - not hoping to promote Santa (he hardly needs it), but trying to understand the underlying contradictions of modern life that are dissolving the traditional expressions of spirituality.

Carol Sherrard (Yorkshire Network contact)

Meeting in Leeds 25th Sept 2010

2010-09-09T16:25:00.005Z

Anna Sutcliffe will introduce discussion on 'The Family', and what light Sea of Faith's view - of religion as a human creation - can shed on this increasingly controversial and contested way of living.

The venue is in Leeds - South Parade Baptist Church (Greenhouse Room), on Kirkstall Lane, Headingley LS6 3LS. The church is to the left off Headingley Lane/Otley Rd as you are heading out of Leeds, standing at the junction of Kirkstall Lane and Cardigan Road. There is parking in the roads nearby, or at the nearby Arndale centre on Otley Road (the continuation of Headlingley Lane). There are frequent buses up Headingley Lane from the rail and bus station.

As usual, the venue will be open from 1.30pm for a 2pm start, with hot drinks available. Please feel free to bring sandwiches and join us for lunch before the 2pm start. (If this will be your first visit, it would be helpful if you could let us know on sofn.yorks@gmail.com)

Meeting in Huddersfield 5th June 2010

2010-05-17T20:28:00.003Z

Peter Wrigley provided this synopsis:

The Steady State Economy

All political parties, with the possible exception of the Greens, seem to regard continued economic growth as a high priority, and most commentators seem to regard the achievement of continued economic growth as a measure of a government's success.

However, whether or not continued growth is sustainable or even desirable is being increasingly questioned by some economists and other academics. Peter Wrigley, a retired teacher of economics, will put and examine critically the case for prosperity without growth.

(Peter Wrigley has a blog at keynesianliberal.blogspot.com)

The venue is the Albert Hotel, 36 Victoria Lane, Town Centre, Huddersfield HD1 2QF‎. We have booked the back room, from where we can buy drinks but also bring our own food if people wish to join us with their packed lunches from 1.30pm.

There is a car park nearby, under the Kingsgate Shopping Centre.

Yorks and Sheffield Groups - Joint Outing

2010-05-15T21:27:00.001Z

The Yorkshire and Sheffield Groups' joint outing was to a destination we'd visited before: the RSPB wetlands reserve at Old Moor, near Barnsley. On a May Saturday - warm and sunny for the first time for several weeks - we assembled for coffee on the balcony of the visitor centre. Two Leeds folk had already done their birdwatching and were heading off for other activities. The rest of us enjoyed an hour admiring and identifying water birds in a hide beside one of the lakes. A leisurely outdoor lunch followed, accompanied by much SoF-talk. We then took a walk to a hide among the reed beds, where there were more bird varieties to be heard than seen. Calculations suggested we'd actually spotted over twenty different birds. Who would have believed it? - coot chicks have red breasts! It was still warm enough for us to have a late afternoon cuppa back on the balcony. What a day of re-creation!

Books that Matter

2010-03-15T23:49:00.001Z

BOOKS THAT MATTER

Saturday 24 April 2010

Westgate Unitarian Chapel, Westgate, Wakefield WF1 1X

This session will be (hopefully) a variation from the personal favourites that we have looked at in the past. A more selective discipline will be to review the books we think are important (whether we like them or not), and consider why and how they matter.

David Arthur has kindly secured for us the Westgate Unitarian Chapel for this session. It is just next door to the Westgate railway station. There is a map at http://www.ukunitarians.org.uk/wakefield/contact.htm

As usual, we will open doors at 1.30pm for informal talk with hot drinks available (bring a packed lunch if you wish). The session proper will start at 2.00pm, and we expect to end by 4.30pm.

Dying with Dignity 6th Feb 2010

2010-01-31T19:07:00.010Z

We discussed the many different attitudes to suicide and assisted dying, and suprisingly agreed on a conclusion.

Rodney Hooper opened discussion by pointing out something we had all failed to think of, namely that suicide has sometimes been viewed with favour, or at least honour, by some groups in history (and today). He mentioned the Roman and Japanese acceptance of falling on one's sword to expiate disgrace - not unknown in modern Europe among the officer and professional classes. He also mentioned the Japanese kamikaze pilots of WW2, and the suicide bombers of today. Last but not least, was not Jesus' submission to self-sacrifice in the crucifixion, in effect, a suicide?

The current debate focuses on other issues, namely the conflict of rights perceived in being allowed to choose the time of one's death, versus the slippery slope that might follow for others, who could feel pressure to opt for assisted dying should this become an accepted practice. Points made here were:-

hospices do not always ensure a pain-free death

there is no evidence of a slippery slope appearing in places where assisted dying is permitted (Oregon USA, Holland, Belgium)

assisted dying should not be confused with suicide as such (or with euthanasia), since most people who opt for assisted dying wish to live well for as long as they possibly can

the slippery slope has in fact overtaken abortion practice in the UK. The initial strict requirements for evidence of risk to the mother in continuing the pregnancy, plus consent from two doctors, have been swept away (though not everywhere in the USA)

the stance of the Roman Catholic church against abortion, assisted suicide and other forms of intervention seen as 'against nature', though anomalous in many ways (all medicine and all culture is against nature) can be understood as expressing the admirable higher principle that we should not treat each other instrumentally (ie as means to ends), or as mere biological material

there is irony in the fact that much effort and subtle argument is devoted to the relatively few cases where assisted dying is at issue, when currently lives are being sacrificed wholesale in wars, on all sides, without much forethought or concern by our political leaders. Some suspect a diversionary tactic in the hot debates over abortion and assisted dying in the USA particularly

Possible safeguards against a slippery slope developing in assisted dying were mentioned. These were: community tribunals (as proposed by Terry Pratchett); informal family councils (we thought these were unlikely to work well), and the Living Will (currently available). The practical information was given that Living Will forms can be obtained from the 'Dignity in Dying' organisation.

Power of Attorney was also mentioned: if properly drawn up by a solicitor, this can be costly, but current practice is designed to ensure that power is not given over until incapacity has been evidenced. Some religious groups (eg Quakers) are currently offering pro-formas that allow members to specify their preferred death arrangements, including their financial details.

The conclusion we reached was that (probably) more people will benefit from assisted dying than will suffer from a slippery slope developing.

________________________________________________________________
This is the first of a planned series of sessions when we will try to arrive at a Sea of Faith voice on important issues. Later in the year we will discuss 'The Family', 'The Steady State Economy', and 'Books that Matter'.

Saturday 28 November 2009

2009-10-31T14:55:00.006Z

Saturday 28th November, at Bradford Central Library, Princes Way, BD1 1NN. Helen Bellamy will start discussion from Don Cupitt's DVD 'The Meaning of the West'.

We also be planning next year's programme.

As usual we will open at 1.30 with hot drinks (bring sandwiches if you wish), for a 2pm start. The room we have been assigned on the day will be displayed on a notice in the foyer, but ask at Reception if you don't see it.

All are welcome; if you are coming for the first time, it would be nice if you could let us know in advance if possible on sofn.yorks@gmail.com

Sat 26th September 2009, Ilkley

2009-05-22T13:15:00.006Z

Jane Craske ‘Feminism and the Churches’

Jane Craske is a Methodist Minister, and co-author of Being Human (2007) and
Methodism and the Future of British Christianity : Facing the Challenge (1999).

The venue is the Clarke Foley Centre, Cunliffe Road, Ilkley, LS29 9DZ. As always, we will be meeting from 1.30pm for a 2pm start. Join us in the Centre's snack bar from 1.30pm.

The Clarke Foley Centre is directly facing the car-parking square in the centre of Ilkley. By other landmarks: exiting from Betty's Tearoom, turn right and Cunliffe Road is the first right again; or, exiting from Morten's ironmongers, turn left and the Clarke Foley Centre is just a few yards down on the same side.

Joint Excursion, Yorkshire and Sheffield Groups Sat 16 May 2009

2009-05-06T13:57:00.010Z

Yorkshire Sculpture Park at Bretton Hall, near Wakefield.

From our last meeting: Evolution vs Creationism

2009-05-06T13:30:00.003Z

We had a lively and thought-provoking meeting in Bradford on 11th April. Here are some of the contributions.

Creationism versus Darwinian evolution
Joanna Dales

When Philip Gosse published his treatise Omphalos in 1857 he thought he had solved the problem of how an earth created less than 6000 years ago could contain the fossilized bones of extinct creatures which showed every sign of having been there for millions of years. Just as Adam was (presumably) created a perfect adult, complete with navel, despite not having emerged from a womb, so the earth was created with a built-in, if illusory, past. Gosse even takes the reader on an imaginary tour of the newly-created world, pointing out such things as the hippopotamus’s teeth, already ground down as by years of use, because pristine teeth could not do the job required of them.

Stephen Jay Gould, who writes engagingly about Gosse’s treatise in his essay, "Adam’s navel", says that Omphalos fell dead from the press – nobody would accept its fantastic thesis, wholly unscientific as it is because unfalsifiable. Perhaps, however, Gosse’s way of thinking is not altogether defunct: I have met somebody who said he believed in the creation of a "mature world", by which I took him to mean a world such as Gosse’s, with its "evidence" of a non-existent past.

Gosse’s work appeared two years earlier than Darwin’s Origin of species. Tennyson, too, was writing before Darwin’s bombshell fell, when, in the desolate central stanzas of In Memoriam, he tells how the "dragons of the prime" revealed in "scarped cliff and quarried stone" demonstrate the ruthless disregard of "Nature" for any of her offspring, whether individual or "type". Nevertheless, it was the Darwinian thesis of evolution by "natural selection" which then raised and still raises tempests of anger and dismay.

Tennyson, in the course of his poem, managed to work towards some kind of Christian evolutionary hope, and many devout Christians now are able to adapt their faith so as to take Darwin’s ideas on board. For many others, however, Darwinism constitutes a profound challenge not only to faith in a Creator God but also to any hopeful view of the place of humanity in the Universe, let alone literal belief in the Biblical narrative.

For if, as Richard Dawkins asserts, our behaviour, like that of all animals, is driven by our "selfish genes", impelled to replicate themselves at any cost, it follows, at least for some, that any appearance of altruism or "virtue" is an illusion. Andrew Brown begins his book The Darwin Wars with an account of the suicide of George Price, mathematician and biologist, who was putatively driven mad by his work, extending that of W.D. Hamilton, in which he demonstrates by mathematical logic that we can be generous towards others only to the extent that they share our genes and can therefore be expected to perpetuate them. Dawkins indeed sometimes denies that his thesis of the "selfish gene" implies that we are doomed always to be selfish – we can, he contends, use our reason to oppose our genes and behave virtuously.

Yet at other times Dawkins appears to endorse the views of Edward Wilson and the socio-biologists when they maintain that our behaviour is determined by our evolution as creatures in a desperate competition to survive. Moreover, since his version of evolutionary theory allows for no mechanism whereby genuine virtue, or altruism, can evolve we are left in the dark as to where this power to defy the dictates of our genes can come from. In any case, Dawkins notoriously claims that Darwinian evolution leaves no room for any concept of a creator God, let alone a good one.

There are other ways than that of Wilson, Price and Dawkins to draw conclusions about human nature and destiny from Darwinian theory. Notoriously, the social Darwinism popularised by Herbert Spencer led to support for eugenics and eventually to Nazi notions about a master race. Lynn Margulis, by contrast, has emphasized the place of co-operation rather than competition in nature, attacking those who "wallow in their zoological, capitalistic, competitive, cost-benefit, interpretation of Darwin – having mistaken him." Another more benign interpretation is associated with the philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin, who saw the Universe moving inexorably towards an "Omega Point" of ultimate complexity and consciousness, a view compatible with a Christian and Catholic sense of an all-determining, benevolent God, acting through evolution.

By contrast, many working scientists, of whom Gould is representative, see evolution as in itself value-free, and "progress" an illusion imposed on the facts by the egoism of humankind. Gould uses a sage quotation from Mark Twain to illustrate the folly of a teleological interpretation of Darwinism (Twain’s figures, as Gould points out, are based on Lord Kelvin’s estimates, and all wrong):

"Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare a world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the world’s age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle knob at its summit would represent man’s share of that age, and anybody would perceive that the skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would. I dunno."

Creationists, or proponents of "intelligent design", cannot accept that a universe as complex as ours could develop by means of random mutation. They do not necessarily begin from a religious position: Fred Hoyle, author of Evolution from space: a theory of cosmic creationism (1984), was an atheist, although his atheism was shaken by the conclusions to which his science led him. A more recent intelligent design advocate is Michael Behe, who, in Darwin’s black box, undertakes to demonstrate that at the molecular level there is an "irreducible complexity" in life forms which cannot have emerged accidentally. Fellow scientists, notably Richard Dawkins, have rejected Behe’s arguments, and Dawkins has written a whole book, Climbing Mount Improbable (1996) to confront the notion that what looks like design in nature actually implies an intelligent designer.

Dawkins is inclined to write as if any kind of non-rational belief is deeply threatening to science and to truth. Gould, despite his having had to defend Darwinian orthodoxy against those who want "creation science" to be taught in schools, is much more indulgent towards the creationists, as he is to religion in general. His Rocks of Ages (Cape, 2001), makes a plea for mutual non-interference on the part of science and religion: each has its own magisterium, its own area of competence, and neither should presume to comment on the other’s findings.

The truth, however, is that the magisteria do overlap: Darwinism does have implications for religion in general and for Christianity in particular, even if the nature of those implications is highly debatable. And the persistence of religious faith does challenge the atheistic certainties of a Dawkins, as the fervour with which he defends his brand of rationalism testifies.

The emotional heat which evolutionary theory continues to generate suggests that far from being of merely "academic" interest, it challenges or confirms attitudes cherished at a gut level. Inferences from Darwin’s theory may be widely divergent and open to challenge from within the Darwinist fold itself, but people who take their science and their religion seriously need to work out what the implications are for them. Is it, for instance, possible to be a good Darwinist and believe that there is "that of God" in everyone; that we are most fully ourselves, we "deal out that being indoors each one dwells", to the extent that we live loving and selfless lives? Can we believe that it is in some sense "natural" to us to seek to be like Christ? Or is this an instance of groundless "faith", to be jettisoned as we grow in rationality? Perhaps we can only say, with Edmund in King Lear, "Some good I mean to do despite of mine own nature."

Evolution - some thoughts

Anna Sutcliffe

1. The idea of an 'art instinct'

"Why is a certain type of landscape picture so popular? Studies have shown that landscapes with a bit of water, open spaces in the middle distance, some low-branching trees and other greenery, and an animal or two, beat all-comers in the popularity stakes. Such scenes decorate calendars and greeting cards the world over. Why? My own reply would probably start with a variation of the Kingsley Amis Principle of Aesthetic Preference: nice things are nicer than nasty ones. But a stock Darwinian response returns to mankind's prehistory in the African savannah, the habitat that meat-eating hominids evolved for."

So writes Roger Kimball, in his review of Denis Dutton's book 'The Art Instinct: Beauty, pleasure and human evolution' (TLS March 20 2009). The author ventures the possibility that art - by which he seems to mean visual art, may have afforded evolutionary advantage. The reviewer seems sceptical. After all, the term and concept - art - is very recent, not much earlier than the seventeenth century. The point at which a maker, say a practical potter or blanket weaver became a makere, the Anglo-Saxon word for a poet, is probably indiscernable. (I use the word to mean a maker of images in self-sufficient artefacts - de facto) How exactly does a person enjoying the possibility of doing checks and stripes according to the basic principles of weaving and whatever the practical or business imperatives, come to think "To hell with blankets, this is damned interesting"?

People who do not normally occupy themselves with making may under-estimate the physical joys, including those of rhythm which may be more obvious in the cases of dance and music. But, in tribal societies the making of artefacts may be too closely bound up with dance and music to be thought of as discrete - as in the case of masks, or ritual costumes that incorporate sound-making elements. Ritual performance has probably - often - much to do with sacred space, and visual art is about deployment of space. Such practices tend to induce a sense of identity in participants, and may indeed have had survival value.

Then, think of such phenomena as native Australian 'art'. I am no scholar here, but I believe these forms have much to do with comprehension and use of space in a culture without strong use of the built environment, with a need to, in a way 'reduce' the natural space in, as you might say, a culinary sense, not in the sense of a depletion.

All this is, I suppose, truistic. We should not forget that the elevation of tribal masks to the status of art owed much to Braque and Picasso. But - our author seems to be considering such renaissance-derived art as European landscape painting as a distinct genre. Such a thing entered European culture at any rate long after Homo Sapiens had evolved as we know it. I find the thesis puzzling - I must read the book!

I quite see how a certain formula with its best foot forward may provide refreshment and nourishment, psychologically. Though it should be noted that few may be equipped by education to tell a 'great painting' from one less great, given that the ingredients of the formula are present, presenting an organised 'reduction' (in my sense) of a kind of landscape. Thence, of course, works of art, being both cultural tropes and purveyors of idiosyncrasy, beam back - in our perception - upon the 'real' world, so educating, or conditioning our sense of landscape. In walking through parts of Leeds on a night one may say "Look! an Atkinson Grimshaw!" Such 'reductions' seem to make the world comprehensible and manageable - however stylised and economical, we feel that the world may be our home, despite the selection of beauties that we seldom see in reality. What we do see is tutored both by enhancing perception, and - in another sense, reducing possibilities even as a sense of 'otherness' may be conveyed.

Maybe all this is indeed a growing point of a coping technique that has been going on since the beginning. How much kinetic suggestion there may be, given our biological career - (do some muscles twitch at the sight of a high frowning mountain depicted?) I don't know. I suppose all or most works contain hints in the form of symbols, 'hooks' for the observer - castles, cottages, feral beasts, boats, many with mythologies as mere excuses.

Though highly determined, it may be interesting to note that these things come from late-ish, complex societies which, whilst enabling the formula permit much in the way of idiosyncrasy. Note, also, that, however innovatory some of the later (and still popular) forms may be (Turner, for instance), the works from which the formula derives were made for polite, often aristocratic, society - one touch of a certain formula, perhaps, makes the classes kin? Claude Lorrain worked for classically educated patrons, Monet was a revolutionary. Today, both appeal to people of serious education, or more or less none. If you enjoy Stubbs, you may differ less than might be thought from the Lascaux painters - but that may be simplistic.

All children have the physical impulse to draw, if they can. Most people in our society do not draw as adults. But maybe the contemplation of (putative) works of art does act as a release for many, of a physical sort. My emphasis here on the physical, the kinetic, may be due to a suspicion that scholars may underestimate such impulses though those may take us farther back in our history.

Bear in mind that few works of art have been undetermined by people in power. Romantic notions of how art got done may mislead. (Can anyone tell me of a form of art done by the 'top people' other than Chinese Mandarin landscape painting?) Some powerful people have been great enablers - in some cases despite themselves.

2. The idea of 'The City of God' - Can this mean anything to a non-realist religious person?

Maybe The City of God is - those things which we consider as good which may go - have gone - against evolutionary advantage? Certain kinds of altruism such as the use of time, energy and resources to help the old, the ill and the handicapped, may have impeded, one supposes - or are those part of an altruism that, by and large, does have evolutionary advantage?

In our society, as presumably, in most others past and present, it is difficult to love people, and one notes, almost daily, how the disadvantaged, though cared for, mostly, are elected as not really of us, as in: "Granny gets very naughty in the care home" or "Does she take sugar?". I do fear that these strategies go back a very long way.

3. Patriarchy an evolutionary advantage?

I do suspect that patriarchy had evolutionary advantage. Maybe there are groups today for which there is no other hope of stability. All the same I have hoped for societies in which gender relations might be negotiated in something like freedom. That would be a portion of The City of God, but I fear the likely thing will be a victory for the Taliban and further persecution of women.

Creationism and Evolution

2009-03-22T19:53:00.001Z

Next Meeting Saturday April 11th 2009
Our next meeting will be on CREATIONISM and EVOLUTION

The venue is Bradford Public Library, Princes Way, Bradford. All our meetings are on Saturdays, starting with hot drinks (bring your own sandwiches) at 1.30pm. The talk will start at 2pm, and we usually close between 4 - 4.30pm.

Saturday February 7th 2009

2009-01-03T22:46:00.011Z

Can there be Kingdom Religion without God?

Discussion led by Adrian Alker of the Progressive Christianity Network. Read about him and the PCN at http://www.pcnbritain.org.uk/index.php/people/detail/adrian_alker/

The venue is Bradford Public Library, Princes Way, Bradford. All our meetings are on Saturdays, starting with hot drinks (bring your own sandwiches) at 1.30pm. The talk will start at 2pm, and we usually close between 4 - 4.30pm.

Autumn 2008

2008-09-25T15:20:00.000Z

Programme Update 2008

All our meetings are on Saturdays, opening at 1.30pm for 2pm start, with drinks provided

22 November in YORK

"Does Jesus matter any more?"

Discussion to be led by David Boulton. See below for important details

Venue: Quaker Meeting House

(Friargate, near Clifford’s Tower. There is car parking nearby, but it is usually full and difficult to reach due to extreme traffic congestion in York It is strongly recommended to use the excellent Park & Ride services, or public transport)

Does Jesus Matter Any More?

David Boulton

David Boulton is a Quaker and passionate non-theist, for whom God is "no more, but, gloriously, no less than a symbol of the wholly human values... mercy, pity, peace and love". He is an accomplished broadcaster, journalist and author, formerly Head of Current Affairs, Arts and Religion at Granada TV. He was Editor of "World in Action", winning the Royal Television Society's medal "for creative services to broadcasting".

David currently writes on radical theology and Quaker history, his books including 'In Fox's Footsteps' (1998), 'Gerrard Winstanley and the Republic of Heaven' (1999), 'The Trouble with God' (2003), 'Godless for God's Sake' (2006), and most recently 'Who on Earth was Jesus? - The Modern Quest for the Jesus of History'. (His book 'Godless for God's Sake' gives us the intriguing information that there are more 'non-believers' among Quakers than there are in the population at large)

On Saturday 22nd November David will be speaking and leading discussion on the question 'Does Jesus Matter Any More?" from 2pm in the Friends Meeting House, Friargate (near Clifford's Tower), York. The event is organised by the Yorkshire Sea of Faith Group, but all are welcome.

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" David Boulton is a highly entertaining writer, with a great gift of being funny and serious at once. You'll love it!" Don Cupitt, Fellow, Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

"Will make sense to a lot of people who might describe themselves as lapsed atheists, doubtful about Christian doctrine but believing that there must be more to life than a purely materialist journey concerned solely with survival, sufficiency and self-aggrandisement. I recommend it to all who, whatever their personal faith may be, think deeply about the meaning of our existence and want to be stimulated and refreshed" Tony Benn, former Cabinet minister

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If you are travelling from outside York, it is far easier to use public transport, or to use one of the excellent 'Park and Ride' services, than struggling to find a parking space. York is exceptionally busy, and even more so on Saturdays.

What Matters to Me

2008-09-23T13:08:00.003Z

Our last session on 'What Matters to Me' ranged from keeping track of car keys to the possiblity of our self-annihilation (from nuclear war or, more slowly, from over-consumption of the earth).

More positively, there were our capacity to discover patterns in nature, and to bring together and clarify systems of ideas, including faith and belief. The full use of these capacities requires us to organise ourselves both personally and communally. Religion has tried to do this for us, but currently Christianity needs to reverse its false notions, especially those that lead to superstition and anti-feminism. Sea of Faith itself needs to make its ideas more accessible and appealing.

Although it is slow, social progress does happen. Our society is not as cruel and barbaric as it once was, but we do need the people in power to be trustworthy for this progress to continue. Exclusive reliance on logic and the demand for evidence, in both science and public policy, risk blocking straightforward intuitions about what is good. Yet, we must be wary of 'conviction politicians', and of thought systems claiming direct access to truth. Almost nothing is simple.

From our last meeting

2008-07-09T17:28:00.005Z

We had good attendance at the June meeting for an excellent talk 'Spiritualism in a post-modern era' by Bobbie Stephens Wright. Bobbie found herself, reluctantly, to have psychic gifts after undergoing a faith healing (in which she also had no faith). As a deep-dyed sceptic (her father was a marxist materialist, though her mother and grandmother belonged to the Spiritualist Church) Bobbie decided to research spiritualism for her postgraduate work at Newcastle University.

Her analysis uses concepts from the British school of psychoanalysis, especially from Melanie Klein. The self can undergo psychic splitting, where part of it is dissociated and seems to sense, and act, under external control. Full projection involves attributing one's own intentions to another person or agent. Splitting of the self (eg into good and bad parts) is a normal part of development, but, as for many psychological conditions, the process can go much further than the norm and become a hardened idiosyncrasy. Stress can start this sequence. Attention-seeking may also play a part, and where a 'psychic' has a credulous audience the ingredients are present for displays of psychic skills.

Psychic skills include empathy, in the specific form of being able to detect audience members with life experiences matching those of the psychic. Credulous audiences do not react sceptically to the psychic's (often inaccurate) first probings; rather, they seize on a hit when it comes, giving the psychic the start they need for more and more accurate hits.

Bobbie herself is not aware of how this empathic detection of targets in the audience is achieved, but she is convinced that shared experience plays a part. More than this, she thinks that projection of part of herself into the target is occurring. Supporting this idea is an incident told to her (by someone who viewed it as a religious experience) where the man concerned had spent several hours square-bashing with other soldiers. As they lay exhausted in the barracks afterwards, he felt he had sudden clear awareness of the other men's thoughts. Checking on some of these, he found they were accurate, and caused something of a stir (not least in himself).

Post-modernism highlights that there are multiple realities, depending on the different viewpoints and values of observers, which lead them to select differently from the basic physical reality, and cultural resources, around them. People experiencing psychic phenomena may interpret them as supernatural, rather than psychological, depending on their background. However, Bobbie argues, against Don Cuppitt, that there is more to this than creating the
experience through language alone. Cupitt's is a purely intellectual approach which leaves out the roles of emotion, and everyday patterns of social interaction, that can lead to specific skills and actions being acquired, and being interpreted as religious (or not).

In discussion, we were able to share some similar experiences of projection and apparent clairvoyance. A Quaker's experience was feeling strongly pushed on the elbow to stand and minister, though no-one had touched her. This was an impressive and memorable experience, even though she interpreted it as a dissociation of part of herself. The only problem we were left with after Bobbie's analysis was that some of the instances of clairvoyance reported were highly specific in a way not fully accounted for by general shared experience, for example knowing personal names, and sensing (accurately) that an accident had befallen a close relative. These could perhaps be coincidences, or reflect subconscious reasoning. Research has shown that such reasoning does take place, and that coincidences occur more often than people habitually guess. We should also weigh accurate premonitions against the many that turn out to be false.

Programme for 2008 (see top of blog for updates)

2008-05-29T22:40:00.001Z

See the latest programme at the top of the blog

Y O R K S H I R E

G R O U P

Programme 2008

All meetings are on Saturdays, opening at 1.30pm for 2pm start. Bring sandwiches if you wish - hot drinks will be provided. We usually finish around 4.15 - 4.30.

9 February
“Constructive & Destructive Religion - A Response to the New Atheism”
Discussion to be led by Helen Bellamy
WAKEFIELD Westgate Unitarian Chapel (next to Westgate railway station, with a small carpark. NB not to be confused with Kirkgate station.)

19 April
“Metaphor in Religion” Discussion to be led by Carol Sherrard
BRADFORD Central Library (Princes Way, next to National Media Museum:
walkable from the rail/bus station; limited parking behind the Library, multi-
storey carpark on nearby Thornton Road). We will be in Meeting Room 2, second floor.

10 May
Excursion to SALTAIRE with the Sheffield SoF Group - Titus Salt’s
model factory village near BRADFORD. Salt’s Mill and environs is now an
attractive tourist area, with a river park, art galleries, bookshops, boutiques,
restaurants and an Italianate church.

21 June

"Looking at Spiritualism in a Post-Modern Era"

Discussion to be led by Bobbie Stephens Wright

BRADFORD Central Library
The Library is on Princes Way, next to the National Media Museum. It is walkable (10-15 minutes) from the Interchange rail/bus station. There is limited parking behind the Library, and a (better) multi-storey carpark on nearby Thornton Road. The Meeting Room we have been assigned will be posted in the foyer - or ask at Reception.

22 November
"Does Jesus matter any more?" Discussion to be led by David Boulton

YORK Quaker Meeting House (Friargate, near Clifford’s Tower. There is car
parking nearby, but it is usually full and difficult to reach due to extreme
traffic congestion in York. It is strongly recommended to use the excellent
Park & Ride services, or public transport)

Last Discussion: Metaphor in Religion

2008-05-28T15:49:00.005Z

Our last discussion was 'Metaphor in Religion'. As the presenter, I had gradually realised what a vast topic this is, and so I opted to set out a few selected (though linked) issues for us to ponder on.

PULLING JOHN ROBINSON'S LEG
Iin a book celebrating the 25th anniversary of John Robinson's 'Honest to God', the author mused that, in 1963, the preacher at an Oxford college had said "It seems that St Luke has pulled Dr Robinson' leg, and it has come off in his hand". The audience were meant to laugh, sharing the joke that of course everyone already KNEW that the imagery in the Gospels was not offered literally. Apparently only John Robinson was in the dark. Yet, ten years later, the author asked "What HAS happened to all the people who bought and read 'Honest to God'"? - this at a Diocesan Training Centre that had actually pursued some of John Robinson's initiatives - and was met with a resounding silence.

Our conclusion? It takes a very long time for change to happen in religion, and perhaps 45 years is not such a long time.

RELIGION AS THEATRE
Clearly no-one literally believes that Christ is born on Christmas Eve every year, and is crucified and resurrected at Easter. Yet Christian churches go through motions suggesting that they do (especially in the Easter vigil and the Stations of the Cross). So what, really, are these actions? Are they really more like theatre, where it would make no sense to say "But none of this is really true", because everyone at the theatre accepts the convention of 'willing suspension of disbelief'.

BUT in religion, it can be accepted that the observances are really theatre, while still believing that the original events referred to really happened.

AND theologians have tried to prove that the wine and the bread of the
Eucharist really do become the body and blood of Christ (theories of
Transubstantiation).

SO are there degrees of symbolism? - it seems yes! In other words,
symbolism, metaphor etc. are more complex than we might think.

WHO CAN SAY WHAT?
If mainstream Christians do hold a non-realist position, it is impossible for them to say so, especially if they are senior, without being attacked from outside the Church (let alone from inside it). Recall the furore that surrounded David Jenkins' words on the virgin birth and the resurrection ("a conjuring trick with bones"). The mass media do not appear to understand symbolism in religion, for they only have two categories: Literal Truth or Scandalous Falsehood.

BUT can you imagine a Daily Mail headline: "Lawrence Olivier denies Heathcliff really
existed!" ? No, because everyone understands that Heathcliff is a fictional character

SO there are acceptable, and unacceptable fictions. Despite how the media react to
statements about religion, there are some things that are known by everyone not to
really exist, yet are accepted as meaningful. It is not shocking, or even relevant, to point out that they are not 'real'.

SOME FICTIONS ARE MORE ACCEPTABLE THAN OTHERS
Why is this? Our discussion unearthed several different groups of figures that are non-real, yet accepted as significant. (We understood the lowest level of 'significant' would be - 'attack on the figure would arouse discomfort'.)

Group One

War memorial statues

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Grave statues

These all attract a degree of respect, even from people who disagree with the ethos producing them, and the fact that they also attract vandalism shows an awareness of this on the part of the vandals. We felt that graves generally fit here as well, and some also felt that body parts after autopsy etc. did. All of these are non-real representions of human figures, though not in a 'normal' state. (Some represent more than single individuals, and some less.) Everyone (even vandals) understands that these figures are non-real, yet significant.

Group Two - fictional characters
Although perhaps no fictional character commands universal respect as 'significant', no-one seriously challenges them on the ground that they do not really exist. Rather (as in the case of Robin Hood) attempts to find real historical figures behind them arouse some intrigue. In the case of Hamlet, the fact that there was a real Prince of Denmark of the same name is felt to be hardly relevant.

Hamlet

King Arthur

Robin Hood

Rob Roy

Jane Eyre

Heathcliff

This group falls off rather sharply in 'respect' terms, though till no-one challenges their status on grounds of 'reality', or fails to understand that they are 'meaningful' figures, even if not important to everyone.

Soap opera characters (Coronation Street, etc.)

Sherlock Holmes

Dixon of Dock Green

Dr Finlay

Inspector Maigret

Inspector Morse

Then there is an even sharper 'respect' fall-off at the lower end of this group, with characters invented for children

Santa Claus

Noddy

Golliwog

Desperate Dan

Pop-eye

Any of these children's characters can, and do, come under attack for various reasons - but never simply because they are fictional. On the other hand, there is some concern that figures such as 'Janet & John' should have more realistic features - a concern that reflects doubt about the figures' purpose and role as fictions. (My own sense about fictional characters is that, while the iconic figures near the top of the list are fairly well established, there is a tendency in our culture to lose confidence in the arts, and to collapse the whole category into the childish end, as if to say 'They are not real, so don't take them seriously'. This is not to say that people do not generally understand the 'non-real' status and function of fictional characters.)
We had some discussion of Santa Claus, and uncovered at least one cultural function - to downgrade concern or intensity over gift-giving. One family used Santa as a way of giving items that were practically needed (eg boys' socks), but too boring to give as presents. At the other end of the scale, a gift that revealed embarrassingly much thought and effort by the giver was also attributed to Santa. This seemed to us a possibly under-researched area!

Group Three - celebrities

Royalty

Dead celebrities (Princess Diana, Elvis, James Dean)

Current celebrities

Some figures start out as real people, but inhabit 'non-real' roles. The appeal of celebrity news and magazines has to do with the fact that these figures straddle, with much tension, the borderline between real and fictional. The media retail gossip dealing in their 'real' aspects - usually their actual 'everdayness' and weaknesses. Royalty are at the top of the scale, in so far as they are either fully accepted or vehemently rejected (two sides of the same coin indicating their significance, as for the vandals in Group One). Dead celebrities have moved firmly into the 'non-real', and they may attract cultic adoration (including claimed 'resurrections' in the case of Elvis) 'Everydayness' reporting about them now risks being repellent (as in the case of Diana). Some of our group felt that priests belong in this category. Some felt that the current interest in historical re-enactments also relates to it, with perhaps the motive of projecting one's (real) self into a glorified, non-real context, and again exploring the real/non-real boundary.

THINGS WE ACCEPT AS REAL WITHOUT EVIDENCE
Although it is currently acceptable to cite 'no evidence' as a knock-down argument against a (real) God, there are many other things we do accept exist on a daily basis, without evidence in our personal experience.

Places you've never visited

People you've never met

The reasons we accept their existence (usually without question) appear to be:-

Authority

Fit with other knowledge

Lack of motive to query

Cost incurred by querying (ie looking foolish or eccentric)

These reasons may explain why the idea of a 'real' God, at least, is less and less acceptable to the population at large, that is:

Authority in general does not support the idea; religious authority no longer holds wide sway

Lack of fit with other knowledge, especially with what is understood (often falsely) about science
Plenty of motive to query - i.e. fashion, conformity, educated consensus (to suggest a rising scale of motive)

No cost incurred by querying

CONCLUSION
Returning to the overall theme, really, my underlying question - is religion really a set of metaphors? we are left with the puzzle of why the idea of a non-real God should be so scandalising to tradition, and generally so difficult to grasp, when non-realism is accepted all around us. Whether in memorials, theatre, literature, television, comics, royalty or celebrity stars, everyone accepts that there is an aspect of non-realism in the persons represented. The notion itself - non-realism - is accepted and understood, even if not consciously. If there is a challenge, it is done in order to explore and play on the real/non-real boundary - or, to tease other people's lines of respect (pulling their legs!).

Gods and Quarks

2007-11-27T17:20:00.000Z

Notes from November 2007 Meeting - Gods and Quarks

"Making sense of a subject need not consist in portraying it as telling a true story"

Our November session was an exciting afternoon in York, when Helen Bellamy told us about van Fraassen's ABC in the philosophy of science (Acceptance, Belief, Commitment), and the striking parallels (not developed by van Fraassen himself) with views about religions. The main points were:-

1. Gods have roughly the same 'knowledge' status as unobserved (yet accepted) phenomena such as subatomic particles like quarks, known only through inference from observables.

2. Scientists take either a 'Laws of Nature'approach or a pragmatic approach to regular phenomena. In the 'Laws' approach, they assume that deviations from strict regularity are due to inaccurate observation. In the pragmatic approach, they assume that the regularity indicates how things work, more or less reliably, on current understanding of the phenomena.

3. When challenged as to the truth of their claims, 'Laws' - based scientists usually retreat to "the best-established claims of science are approximately true". But this begs the question of what underpins "best established", and it amounts to an incoherent claim of "nearly true" (incoherent in the same way as "a little bit pregnant").

4. The anti-realist (pragmatic, empirical) scientist asks not "Is it true?" but "Does it work?". Theories are seen as human constructs that are more or less successful in predicting practical outcomes.

5. Van Fraassen's 'Constructive Empiricism' says
- we can believe in the reality/truth of what we can see with our own eyes
- we cannot claim truth for what we construct in our own minds
- all our scientific claims must be empirically adequate

6. The following are the arguments for (and against) realism in science.

- We need theoretical objects in order to be able to do science (BUT indispensability is
no guarantee of truth)
- Realism is just common sense (BUT we are easily misled)
- 'It is the truth' is the best explanation for the success of science (BUT theories often turn
out to be wrong, eg Newtonian mechanics and the caloric theory of heat).

7. For much of the last three centuries scientists laboured to produce logico-deductive systems of propositions to represent the world, with correspondence rules linking theoretical to natural entities. Such systems were shown impossible to create and correspondence rules proved problematic to define. If not as a truth-bearing axiomatised system how does the theory represent the world? The possibilities are:-

1) partial isomorphism (like an artistic representation, it partly corresponds)
2) imagination (it is a fully fictional work of imagination)
3) a mixtureof the two

8. So where do we go from here? What is science based on, if not the search for truth? Van Fraassen's answer is:
- Doing science requires COMMITMENT to a theory. For the realist, this means
BELIEF that the theory is really true. If belief cannot be justified, commitment calls for
ACCEPTANCE that the theory is empirically adequate plus consistent, logically
coherent, and so on (these latter requirements constituting scientific values).
von Fraassen comments "Making sense of a subject need not
consist in portraying it as telling a true story" (1980 paper, Philosophy of Science Assosciation)

9. What happens, then, in a scientific revolution - when one theory is overturned by another, better one?
- The scientist makes a 'Leap of Faith'. This calls for emotional involvement. Reasoning,
as we know from other sources, is hardly ever truly free of emotional components. Van
Fraassen describes the scientist 'Taking a Stance' with respect to a theory.
'Stance' means standing someWHERE and someHOW. The WHERE is the theoretical base; the HOW is the emotional component - the values, goals, commitment of the individual scientist.
- A scientific revolution involves keeping the HOW, while changing the WHERE.

"For the materialist, science is what teaches us what to believe. For the empiricist, science is more nearly what teaches us how to give up our beliefs" (Van Fraassen 2002, pp62-63).

REFERENCES

VAN FRAASSEN Bas C 2002 The Empirical Stance Yale University Press
1989 Laws and Symmetry Oxford University Press
1980 The Scientific Image Oxford University Press

CHURCHLAND Paul M & HOOKER Clifford A (Eds) 1985 Images of Science Chicago University Press (responses to Van Fraassen 1980)

FRENCH Steven 2007 Science - Key Concepts in Philosophy Continuum
(an accessible background text)

2007-10-29T17:34:00.000Z

York, Saturday 24 November 2007, 1.30 at the Quaker Meeting House in Friargate, (near Clifford’s Tower). There is a very large car park at Clifford's Tower, but it is often crowded especially on Saturdays. York traffic is also very congested. If coming by car, you need to allow plenty of time to find parking.

Helen Bellamy “Acceptance, Belief & Commitment: van Fraassen’s ABC of Science”

Science and religious faith may have some unexpected
parallels. Helen will update us from her research in Philosophy of Science.

At this November meeting we will also be deciding on our programme and venues for next year. It is very likely that we shall be able to add Wakefield to our list of venues (the Unitarian Chapel in Westgate).

Please note that all our meetings open at 1.30pm for a 2pm start, with hot drinks provided (bring your own packed lunch if, as you are very welcome to, you wish to eat with us).

Coordinator: Carol Sherrard
email sofn.yorks@gmail

Pluralist Speaks: The Talk Talked

2007-09-23T21:50:00.000Z

Pluralist Speaks: The Talk Talked

Adrian Worsfold's Sociology of Progressive Religious Groups

2007-09-23T20:49:00.000Z

Adrian's full talk can be viewed at
http://www.change.freeuk.com/learning/relthink/libreldivs.pdf

Apologies to anyone who arrived at Bradford Central Library yesterday to find that Reception knew nothing of our meeting. Luckily we were able to provide evidence of our booking, and eventually a meeting room and urn (hot water variety) were found for us. We hovered in Reception to gather in any lost souls, but we do know that two people fully intending to come did not find us (perversely, Reception had kept a record of the enquiries that morning).

I hope not too many people are lost to Sea of Faith in this way, but my guess is that the rapid turnover of temporary staff in large public-sector venues leads to poor communication and poor service of this kind. We shall have to do much more work at this sort of venue ourselves, doing many checks in advance and arriving very early, or find a different kind of venue. We hope to be able to use a chapel in Wakefield next year, very near Westgate railway station.

After all the fuss, we finally settled down to an excellent talk from Adrian Worsfold. If you missed it, or are just curious, you can read it at http://www.change.freeuk.com/learning/relthink/libreldivs.pdf. Adrian achieved the mammoth task of mapping out the liberal religious groups like Sea of Faith, Progressive Christianity Network, Modern Churchpeople's Union, etc. and also the liberal wings and sects within denominations, and apply theory from sociology to suggest why they don't join forces and are unlikely to do so in future.

Although Adrian had to endure travel for about three hours to Bradford and back, not to mention the chaotic fuss at the start of the session, he felt he had some benefit in discussion with a group who, he said, knew what he was talking about. His paper could be the start of a very interesting book, and we hope he is able (and encouraged) to continue this piece of work.

Next meeting Saturday 22nd September, Bradford

2007-09-18T14:17:00.000Z

Our speaker in Bradford on 22nd September will be

Adrian Worsfold 'A Sociology of Scattered Progressive Religious Groups'

Adrian is a sociologist, published writer and former Unitarian who has
researched the emergence of new religious groupings, including Sea of Faith.

The meeting will open at 1.30pm for a 2pm start, with hot drinks provided
(bring your own sandwiches). There will be a notice at Reception giving the Meeting Room location. Bradford Central Library is on Princes’ Way, next to the National Media Museum. It is walkable from the rail/bus stations, and there is parking behind the Library.

Adrian's full talk can be viewed at http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/

9 August 2007

2007-08-09T16:03:00.000Z

The variety of experiences I have had in our Yorkshire Group meetings is starting to amaze me.

At our last meet, in Leeds, we heard a paper of sparkling quality from Anna Sutcliffe on the question "Does Social Justice Require Religious Values"?

In a word, her answer was 'No', but on the way we were treated to her view of religious response as essentially the same as the response to imagery. This reminded us of Austin Farrer's view of religious faith as akin to the direct response evoked by images and metaphor. (Austin Farrer was not only an ordained minister in the C of E, but also a theologian and widely esteemed philosopher.)

We also pondered the thought that the response to music is also a good model, because music impacts us directly, without having to pass through the level of reason or words.

For me personally, such clear models for the nature of religious response make arguments against religion such as Richard Dawkins' quite beside the point. Religion is a natural phenomenon, part of our human make-up as much as the rocks and the weather are part of the earth. It is not the kind of thing you can argue against, it just IS.

Of course, religion as an institution is more than the individual response. Communal experience is important to it, and ideas and words are needed for the ethical teachings that arise out of the basic experience. (In Anna's view, these are Love, Tolerance,Reason and Freedom - though we did not get around to the important questions of just how these arise from the basic experience, and how they frequently get lost sight of.) We should beware of identifying 'religion' with religious institutions just as much as we should beware of accepting self-declared 'rational' thinkers like Dawkins at their own self-evaluation.

We had some discussion about the importance of (the wrong) language as something that puts people off religion. Yet these same people may continue to seek out representatives of religion as solemnizers and legitimators of their rites of passage. This leads to anomalies like people wanting to be married outside a church, yet by a minister of religion,yet without a religious service.

I began this piece with my surprise at the variety of experiences I have had in the Yorkshire group meetings. What I really want to convey is how stimulating and renewing this is. The energy I drew from the last meeting was like that I have felt from an ecumenical group I also belong to in Bradford (BEACON - Bradford Ecumenical Asylum Concern). The recognition of similar strands of thought and feeling across apparently very different people is both exciting and reassuring, even if we (in Yorkshire Sea of Faith)have some dramatic confrontations from time to time.

Please note: a programme change for the September meeting in Bradford will be posted here soon, when the details have been finalised.

The November meeting remains as planned:

24 Nov - York Quaker Meeting House (Friargate, near Clifford’s Tower)

Helen Bellamy “Acceptance, Belief & Commitment: van Fraessen’s ABC of Science”.

Science and religious faith may have some unexpected parallels. Helen will update us from her research in Philosophy of Science.

Carol Sherrard
Convenor, Yorkshire Sea of Faith Group
sofn.yorks@gmail.com