The Big Issues: My 2 cents on Newtown CT

I haven't been blogging lately but I am sickened to the stomach by attempts to stop the conversation in the wake of yesterday's massacre, so I want to entrain my little corner of the Web to the avalanche of public outrage.

Yes, I understand why these dangerous fuckers want to stop the conversation, but I don't have time to scratch the surface of my thoughts on this whole armed civilian militia thing in the US...

Instead, I'm going to quickly respond to the gunnies who disingenuously claim that there is no point regulating guns in the US because massacres happen everywhere, even in highly regulated Norway.

Any rational person can see that this claim willfully misses the point. It misses the point because since Breivik, there has been a serious discussion in Norway about how to stop a similar crime from happening again. The Norwegian legal system has been consciously reconfiguring itself to deal with the new reality that there are seriously dangerous people at large in their midst. Norwegian society, and the Norwegian public psyche has been doing the same.

After Martin Bryant, a similar conversation led to a reconfiguration of the Australian legal system and of Australian society/psyche.

After Marc Dutroux a similar conversation led to a reconfiguration of the Belgian legal system and of Belgian society. (I admit that Dutroux was not a shooting massacre, but I could go on and on - I just picked those two examples because they are close to my heart, for obvious reasons.)

An open and honest (and yes, bloody emotional) public conversation is absolutely necessary at times like this! That conversation has been shouted down by NRA trolls and Tea Party crazies after every previous massacre in the US. Those children are dead today because the American legal system and American society has not managed to reconfigure itself, as it must. 

America, please have the conversation this time - please don't let those children's deaths be in vain.

President Obama - It is simply not possible for your side to lose votes on this issue, and as this picture demonstrates, it is really not hard to explain gun regulation to a rational person!

Religion, Fascism, and Norway

Last week, we heard the Norwegian courts sentence their country's worst ever mass murderer. We all know who he is and what he did, and everyone also knows the verdict and sentence. Everyone also has an opinion on it.

It is my opinion, however, that very few of those opinions reflect positively on the potential for Sustainable Human Flourishing. Most, in fact, have left me shaking my head sadly for our poor, oh-so-human race.

Even normally rational secular humanist groups have been seething with old testament "eye for an eye" insanity since the verdict was announced - Comment threads like this one left me feeling very disillusioned and more than a little pissed at my fellow "humanists".

In my funk, I unfairly lashed out at an old high school friend who posted his opinions on his Farcebook wall. This old school mate who I'll call Max (because he approved that I use his real name) also happens to be a pastor at a "Bible Christian" church in my old home town of Perth in Western Australia… As always, Max was gracious and patient with me, and our extended exchange took some interesting twists and turns over the course of almost a week. Despite my many uncharitable anti-theistic barbs, we remain friends, and he has graciously assented to our conversation being re-published here for (potentially) wider scrutiny than it received on our little corner of Farcebook…

Below is the thread as it appeared on Max's wall - apologies in advance from both of us that our logic lacks crispness in parts, but we were both time-stressed and just chatting amongst friends. Apologies also that it is so long - feel free to read it a bit at a time, over the period of a week to recreate the original experience if you wish ;-) I'm publishing it here in this form because I really want to continue exploring some of the issues for myself, and I find that writing stuff down helps. I left Max last right of reply on his wall and promised to stop bombarding his poor parishioners with my religion bashing, but I respond below and re-open the conversation to Max and anyone else who would like to pick up on the many threads we've left dangling…