Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Brown bigots etc.

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  • Michael Fitzgerald,

    Excuse my ignorance but I thought NZ was a Christian Nation, specifically Anglican. Must be just that Christchurch thing?

    Ties to the Queen and that pesky constitution that doesn't exist but kind of does with all the same leaps of faith required to get out of bed on a Sunday morning.

    I'm Catholic with Anglican cousies and swore at the King James Bible when I joined the Army & they had them at my state primary school too.

    Was the welcome more about Ngapuhi than religious zealots?

    Quite happy for there to be no state religion but who made this change?

    Why does god appear in both of our national anthems if we are not a Christian state?

    Since May 2007 • 631 posts Report Reply

  • Hadyn Green,

    Wow, Bishop Brian AND "Why does god appear in both of our national anthems if we are not a Christian state?"
    This is going to be great thread! I'll be back with actual comment when it really gets going.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2090 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen,

    Why does god appear in both of our national anthems if we are not a Christian state?

    Good question. We are not a christian nation we are a secular nation.

    On that basis I agree entirely we should absolutely ditch the national anthem (both versions) and replace it with something secular.

    Seriously, NZ is the country it is because it does not impose any religion on it's people. Believe what you like and the government will protect your privilage to have that belief and prevent others from forcing you to change your belief. That means we have diversity of belief and non-belief which makes this country a much nicer place to live than some less free countries (e.g. the USofA where we quickly learned than non-WASP belief systems were not tolerated).

    As for using open source office equivalents on school computers - surely it would be a good thing if kids were to learn not only how to type into a word processing program but also how to find bugs and participate if the open source environment that fixes those bugs. Surely that would result in more computer literacy rather than less.

    cheers
    Bart

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Sue,

    why indeed
    maybe because NZ now and NZ at the time of the creating of the anthem are two very different counties.

    what makes NZ special (to me anyway) is how we truly do open our doors to anyone who wants to turn up (well mostly). when i was a small person and went to church with mum every Sunday we had at least 1 or 2 refugee families our church supported, every year, some for years some for just a year. At no time were any of those families made to come to church, and most of them (according to my mum) were not Christian, but it didn't matter because that's what we did as a church.

    but then I'm a bit of a hippy like that and like to think of NZ as an inclusive nation

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 527 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Michael:

    Yes, the British Parliament has required the sovereign to be "in communion with the Church of England" for a little over three hundred years. (Which, to be pedantic, is a slightly different beast from being an Anglican. An Episcopalian, for example, would be no more eligible to become our head of State than a Catholic.) Among her titles is 'Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith'.

    That is not the same thing as New Zealand having a state religion, and it certainly does not make it a 'Christian Nation" - whatever the frell Brian means by that, which I can't quite figure out.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    I haven't looked at neooffice, but I presume it's a viable alternative.

    However I was listening to national radio this morning where the Ministry of Education person pointed out that this was curriculum computers, teachers and other staff would still have Microsoft on their computers.

    That's a bit of a nightmare. As technical support, you need to have and to use regularly the software that your 'clients' are using. For teachers to be able to help students with computers and teach them how to use them as tools in any subject, they need to be using the same software.

    Even if there aren't any compatibility problems, teachers need to know how to do the tasks that they're asking students to complete. They're going to have to learn two different software systems, and I'm not sure if they have a whole heap of spare time lying around to do that.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Michael, it all depends what you mean by a Christian state. If you mean one where most people are Christians, then possibly, by a very slim margin, you might be right. What do you mean by it?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    I don't recall the word "Christian" in the national song, btw. "God of Nations" could mean anything, looks to me like a deliberate fudge implying freedom of religion. Could even be secular, in the same way that Richie McCaw is a "God of Rugby". He certainly defends our free land nicely around the ruck.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Barnes,

    Hold yer horses there Russ. Bigots come in all colours, shapes and sizes. Scary religious bigots are one thing but techno bigots are, in my opinion, worse. Both rely on ignorance but at least the Brian Tamakis of this world can, at least pretend to, have the soul of this country at heart. The tecno bigot, on the other hand, would sell that very soul to the Devil (Microsoft). I did a little research on Mr Le Sueur, half expecting to find a connection to MS only to find him merely a "Microsoft-pushing school principal"
    http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2007/05/todays_herald_l.html and Auckland Primary Principals Association past president, show us your credentials as a software expert Mr Le Sueur.
    I totally concur with you on the abilities of Open Office, I have used it for quite a few years without any problems. On the other hand I am sure I am no alone in finding an astounding lack of compatibility between Microsoft's own products. An example of this, I discovered, was that Movie Maker (a bundled application with windows XP) would constantly crash and that Microsoft was aware of the problem, could I find the required patch on Microsoft's support site? Jeeez, the site isn't even up to date. The sooner Mr. Maharey adopts an open source solution to education the better.

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

  • simon g,

    "If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me." - as an American politician once said (or probably didn't, but a good line sticks). The Destiny Haka is similarly confused. Christ crossed the sea of Galilee in a waka?

    I'm happy to hear positive comments from various leaders about being inclusive and diverse and tolerant and so on, but sometimes I just wish they'd talk less about what we (rather patronisingly) alllow, and more about what we damn well proclaim, with pride.

    It's called freedom.

    Including the freedom to believe religious claptrap of all kinds and the freedom to protest with bad spelling. And if your faith can't cope with people freely rejecting it, that's your problem.

    PS Read a New Zealand history book, Brian. Watch out for the Jews!

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1333 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Open source makes so much sense for government. It's one of the few organizations that could afford to have dedicated support people either fixing, or finding the fixes to, what's busted out there. They could really make it work, in a way that paying Microsoft $100 million never seems to. Imagine that, schools having systems they're not forced to upgrade every 3 years just to keep corporate profits from declining. Imagine how much code you could cut for $100 million. It's a team of 100 programmers for 10 years, ffs. They could write the whole suite themselves from the ground up.

    From inside info I have to say I'm not really that optimistic about a nationwide rollout of any sense or plan though. Sensible software in schools is a truly massive task, no government will ever have the courage to give it the budget it needs. School IT departments will always be run by overworked maths teachers for the forseeable future. Which is why Microsoft wins - turnkey solutions always appeal most to least technical customers, whether they really are turnkey or not.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Graeme Edgeler,

    Ben - the word Christian may not appear in God Defend New Zealand, but the invocation of a Christian God (or at least a non-secular one) is pretty clear once you go past the first verse.

    Wellington, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 3215 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Including the freedom to believe religious claptrap of all kinds and the freedom to protest with bad spelling.

    Indeed, Simon. But at the risk of sounding like a slightly hysterical mayor ;), those freedoms come with a few responsibilities. Including, in the case of Bishop Tamiki, to make arguments from history that bear some faint relationship to reality. While I don't want to pretend inter-faith relations in New Zealand (particularly between Catholics and protestants) have all been group hugs and warm fuzzies. But there's a reason why we don't have any kind of analogue to the Shankill Road or the Kuta Beach bombings or Kosovo in our history books. And I'd argue that's in large part due to the fact that we never quite took the turn into sectarian politics or sectarian violence and terrorism.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • nzMM,

    i am not sure of what Titewhai's and indeed Tamaki's position is on the Treaty. Though, It would seem to me that in many ways to honour New Zealands christian identity, and heritage in general, would be to honour religious diversity, according to the so-called 'fourth article' of the Treaty of Waitangi. As it happens it was a proposed by a Bishop of christian faith and agreed to by a Lieutenant of christian faith and of course those that ultimately signed at Waitangi.

    Prompted by the Catholic Bishop Pompallier, Hobson also agreed that people in New Zealand could follow any religion they chose, including Māori custom. This has been described as the 'Fourth Article' of the Treaty.

    Auckland • Since Dec 2006 • 15 posts Report Reply

  • Jeremy Andrew,

    Off topic, but not irrelevant - Russell, I'm curious as to whether you've considered breaking up posts like this one into smaller, self-contained, single-topic posts? In the absence of threaded forums, it would make the comments flow, rather than having two very separate conversations going over the top of each other as in this one.

    Hamiltron - City of the F… • Since Nov 2006 • 900 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Oh, and one more comment: While I'm pretty obviously not a huge fan of the incumbent government or the Prime Minister, I draw the line at anyone throwing around the T-word. While Brian's taking a remedial course in New Zealand history and constitutional law, could he also explain to us what the frig **'religious treason' **is?

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    PS Read a New Zealand history book, Brian. Watch out for the Jews!

    Yes. I've been waiting for someone to pick up on that. Brian never seems to regard Judeo-Christian as being sufficiently in-the-tent. Jews too, it would seem, are "defiling our soil".

    In answer to Michael, yes, we developed in a largely Anglican tradition, it's clearly part of our cultural heritage, but the Bishop goes a lot further than that. It's basically anti-immigrant bigotry of a sort he's been expressing to his congregations for a while, but has now chosen to take public.

    And it should be noted that we New Zealanders are, in comparison with the rest of the English-speaking world, not very pious at all. Keith Sinclair's good value on that topic. Even the Australians are much more churchified than us.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Danyl Mclauchlan,

    In my experience open source software tends to be really great for people with degrees in computer science who don't mind rewriting the odd perl file or recompiling their OS kernal every now and then and a total freaking nightmare for the other 99.999999% of the population. Having worked in a government IT department and seen what a massive struggle it was just getting people to use Lotus Notes (shudder) instead of Outlook for their email client, the idea of rolling out utterly alien non-MS environments like Ubuntu or Fedora or whatever is simply unthinkable.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    i am not sure of what Titewhai's and indeed Tamaki's position is on the Treaty. Though, It would seem to me that in many ways to honour New Zealands christian identity, and heritage in general, would be to honour religious diversity, according to the so-called 'fourth article' of the Treaty of Waitangi.

    Interesting point. Someone should ask the question.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • jon_knox,

    As for using open source office equivalents on school computers - surely it would be a good thing if kids were to learn not only how to type into a word processing program but also how to find bugs and participate if the open source environment that fixes those bugs. Surely that would result in more computer literacy rather than less.

    But this kinda sounds like people have to overcome their ignorance. Many large organisations (be they corporations or religious organisations ) continue to survive because people accept what they are told to accept.

    Belgium • Since Nov 2006 • 464 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Graeme, perhaps a sample to make your point? From verse 2 (my emphasis):

    "Men of *every creed* and race
    Gather here before thy face,
    Asking thee to bless this place,
    God defend our free land"

    Verse 5 says "make us faithful unto thee", and " Preaching love and truth to man, Working out thy glorious plan." which sounds a bit Christian, but there's nothing explicit about it. Nor are any of the latter verses well known. Most religions that have large followings preach love and claim to preach truth, and most deities, and many non-deities, have glorious plans.

    I think it's left vague specifically to be open and inclusive of other religions and possibly even non-believers (so long as they are loving and truthful, and have a plan).

    It's only a side point what our song says anyway. I occasionally hum along to Ravi Shankar but that doesn't make me Vedic. I just like the music. I also like "By the rivers of Babylon" but that doesn't make me Jewish, or a Zionist.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Dave Patrick,

    Open Office isn't an utterly alien environment though - it looks pretty much like Word and Excel once you run it.

    And in my experience open source software delivers the same if not a better "user experience" than Microsoft's alternatives - Firefox, Thunderbird, any number of alternatives to Windows Media Player, Open Office

    Rangiora, Te Wai Pounamu • Since Nov 2006 • 261 posts Report Reply

  • Jonty,

    BT should take a moment for quiet reflection. Meditation is good ... better than sitting around doing nothing!

    Katikati • Since Mar 2007 • 102 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Ben - the word Christian may not appear in God Defend New Zealand, but the invocation of a Christian God (or at least a non-secular one) is pretty clear once you go past the first verse.

    But the words were penned by Thomas Bracken, a freemason. Freemasons aren't fussy about what God ought be followed, but require only a belief in a Supreme Being. So I don't think you can demonstrate a state religion from the words of that song.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    It's only a side point what our song says anyway. I occasionally hum along to Ravi Shankar but that doesn't make me Vedic. I just like the music. I also like "By the rivers of Babylon" but that doesn't make me Jewish, or a Zionist.

    Might you be a Rastafarian?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

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