Sex seems to be on several people’s minds.
Ruth Gledhill reports in The Times that Enjoy good sex on a Sunday, Church course recommends which may raise an eyebrow here and there.
The Guardian godslot has Colin Sedgwick saying that “sexual lust will never banish our yearning for love”.
To balance this, The Times also has Jonathan Sacks considering the earthquake in After even the worst disasters, we will hear the still voice of hope and in the Telegraph Christopher Howse considers Human sacrifice in London.
The Times further reports on a nightclub in Maidstone [sic] with a Church Army chaplain, see Who’s in the house? Enter a new kind of spirit.
Of course, there is plenty of critical comment on religion in the newspapers as well. Yesterday in the Guardian, Polly Toynbee wrote this diatribe against the bishops who spoke in the euthanasia debate: The bishops have no right to restrict our right to die.
More gently, Robert Winston trailed his new TV series and book in Why do we believe in God?
And earlier in the week, Magnus Linklater had written in The Times about Church, old, bankrupt, empty, seeks saviour to which George Carey responded with this letter today: Church progress.
(The original report of his lecture was by Jonathan Petre in the Telegraph Churches near last rites, says Carey.)
A comment by AB on the Carey story:
http://www.thewormbook.com/helmintholog/archives/001601.html
And what right has Polly Toynbee, unrepresentative of anyone except herself, to demand that society begin disposing of those whose quality of life is seriously reduced?
No doubt she will be one of the first to urge upon us the social responsibility of a quick and cheap exit in order to reduce the burden on the National Health, and to give the kids a head start with the inheritance money.
She isn’t demanding that.
She is asking for people to be able to have the choice. It isn’t ‘society’ doing anything, but individuals making decisions for themselves without meddling bishops interfering in matters which, as Polly rightly says, they are way out of step with the vast majority of people.
Still, that wouldn’t be the first time!
Mike, where you and Polly Toynbee have got it wrong is that the Bishops aren’t trying to deny you a choice by using their relatively small weight in the House of Lords. Instead, like all democrats they are arguing their case based on what they believe to be in the common good. My view is that a case could also be made that euthanasia supporters are attempting to impose their choices on the rest of us, by seeking the aid of doctors and NHS resources to end their own lives – a step which many of their fellow patients and… Read more »
Oh please, Andrew: I have wildly ambivalent views about assisted suicide, but what you are presenting is *double-think* at its most duplicitous. To speak of a “common good”—as if this matter were equally of concern to all—over and against the interests of *people with extremely painful, terminal diseases* is to spit-in-the-eye of those truly *suffering*. [Then again, it’s also typical of a mindset which puts the status of a minority up for “majority-rule” vote: why shouldn’t we all get a say in what a woman with an unwanted unpregnancy can/can’t do about that? Why shouldn’t the heterosexual majority decide the… Read more »
Exactly, Andrew. If I want to commit suicide then I am legally free to do so. I do not have the right to demand the assistance of a doctor or anyone else in taking my own life. Once the psychological and cultural barrier is crossed between those boundaries, I will no longer just be free to commit suicide when ill, but under pressure to do so. Many elderly people already feel that they are an unwanted burden on society. If a quick “fix” is available from their GP then the pressure to end life will become irresistible. Those who argued… Read more »
And, Andrew, no-one is or would be compelled to take any action they did not wish to take.
Whereas you are trying to prevent either patient or medical practitioner from doing so based on your opinion of the common good – which is not mine. Thus, you are imposing your view, whereas i do not wish to.
The problem with conservatives is that they always wish to do this – they can’t allow people to make their own decisions, if they contradict the conservative opinion. I don’t actually think you should have that right of restriction.
Mike and JC Fisher the choice to involve a doctor in suicide is not purely a personal choice – it affects us all. It affects the patient-doctor relationship, it affects the severely disabled, and it affects those approaching the end of life under economic pressure – to give just three examples. Issues to do with the beginning and end of life are already regulated by free vote, by Parliament. The call for physician-assisted suicide is no different. It is therefore far from sinister that faith leaders will have something to say in advance of any crucial votes.
No, Andrew, that is purely supposition on your part. You are universalising the particular. It affects only those situations where this has been requested. I would prefer to respect the views of those involved, not the opinions of bishops trying to force aspects of their beliefs on those who do not wish it.
In the meantime, euthanasia is widely practiced, undercover. At least we have the option of advanced directives which are legal and now have similar status.
And so when a bishop speaks he’s ‘trying to force aspects of of their beliefs on those who do not wish it’? Bishops should not enter the debate ‘because’ they’re bishops? They have a constituency and they need to be heard. Most badly moderated debates and skewed democratic processes include at least one attempt to ensure that the opinion of one side is ruled out of order or that open discussion and due process give way to back room politicking.