The weblog of Matthew Walker: MatthewWalker.net.nz, Otautahi, Aotearoa / Christchurch, New Zealand  
I believe in God,
only I spell it Nature.
— Frank Lloyd Wright

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  • Key: past three months [all time]
  • Word count: 1394 [172615]
  • Online for: 2268 days
  • Total posts: 10 [1357]
  • Posts / day: 0.12 [0.60]
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  • Sunday, 20 November 2005

    • House sparrow attempts to break record

      The shooting of a sparrow on the set of a Dutch world record domino-toppling attempt sparked outrage among animal lovers and led to threats to staff.

      A special website received thousands of messages of condolence, but some say the bird did not do itself any favours by knocking over 23,000 dominoes.

      Hans Peeters of the Dutch Bird Protection Agency appeared on Friday's television programme and said that though it was a "very sad incident" it had "been blown out of all proportion".

      "I just wish we could channel all this energy that went into one dead sparrow into saving the species," he said.

      Posted by Matthew at 10:25:08 AM | Permanent link | Comments (1) | Email Matthew | Nature | Back to top

    • A person may have religion without spirituality or spirituality without religion

      This morning, I've been working through all the articles on this site, switching between reading these, responding to support enquiries, reading weblogs, drinking coffee, exploring Google Earth, programming and all the other things I shoehorn into multithreaded Sunday mornings. This one strikes me as I've been thinking about these things recently.

      A passionate lover of animals, Sarah refused to believe that animals had no souls, and doubted that humans had been divinely ordained to govern earth's other life forms. "If God put people in charge," she told her mother, "then He either didn't know people very well or didn't care very much about what He created." She felt far more in touch with what she referred to as "everything" when she was out in nature — under a bush or up in a tree — than she did in church.

      I like to consider myself tolerant, but I should probably consider it more a goal than an attribute. Something that really rankles with me is the disconnect between religious observation and spirituality. I have little time for people who consider themselves members of this or that religion or church but then don't act on it. Perhaps it's the religion of their parents so they consider themselves branded for life. I have difficulty respecting people who evince no religiousness, then get married in a church.

      But I'm not at all proud of that — I think it's more about me than them. I have difficulty believing that people could be so casual about such serious matters. Further, I guess I also struggle to accept that people could be unsure of their beliefs and hence appear to think one way and act another when I am so sure of mine. And I have been sure since childhood. And my beliefs are not those of my parents: I created my own (anybody who knows me knows I would think twice before believing something somebody else already believed).

      So my beliefs are that:

      • humans are hard-wired for spirituality;
      • spirituality is a personal search;
      • religion as an organised expression of spirituality can help or hinder an individual's search;
      • religious observation often forms a substitute for spirituality;
      • there's no God, creator, or supreme being (there's no logical need for there to be one, and there's no evidence there is one);
      • there is no mystical life force that permeates matter and is non-material (that is, there's nothing beyond the rational physical Universe);
      • the existential anguish of being (the comprehension that nothingness is just as likely as being) is a spiritual experience;
      • the wonder of nature is an extension of this — the realisation that beyond just being there is a miraculous richness to the Universe (take beetles for example);
      • everything and everybody is imbued with the miracle of this mechanistic Creation — we are all made out of supernovae, after all.

      And that pretty much explains me...

      Posted by Matthew at 10:17:32 AM | Permanent link | Comments (1) | Email Matthew | Nature | Philosophising | Back to top

Recent photographs

Smallness
Ocelot
Black
Stina and square
Royal spoonbills
Bachelor's button
Mimulus repens
Sea primrose
Saltmarsh ribbonwood
Eelgrass
Mudsnail
Selliera and glasswort