On 15 April 2016 the so-called "Fairer Parental Leave Bill 2015" was "Lapsed at prorogation" and the current status on the bill is (thankfully, at this stage) "Not proceeding". I'm not sure whether this is a permanent status, or whether they just ran out of time and will return to the bill later...
When I see the word "fairer" associated with this bill I can't help worry about the extent that we are living in an Orwellian Australia in which "discrimination is fair", "slavery is freedom", Read more [...]
Posts in category Truth
Orwellian Australia: the “[Un]Fairer Parental Leave Bill 2015”
On 15 April 2016 the so-called "Fairer Parental Leave Bill 2015" was "Lapsed at prorogation" and the current status on the bill is (thankfully, at this stage) "Not proceeding". I'm not sure whether this is a permanent status, or whether they just ran out of time and will return to the bill later...
When I see the word "fairer" associated with this bill I can't help worry about the extent that we are living in an Orwellian Australia in which "discrimination is fair", "slavery is freedom", Read more [...]
A new lens to view the world: the world as process
My PhD is essentially an exercise in communicating and examining the potential for an alternative worldview to the mechanistic materialism offered by process philosophy to contribute to addressing structural forms of violence and working toward peace.
Process philosophy is too rarely taught in university philosophy as the current fashion there is divided between analytical or postmodern navel gazing. Yet process philosophy contains deeply enlightening ideas for anyone's search for wisdom - which Read more [...]
Thoughts on a morning walk
On my walk this morning:
- I realised that truth, reality, and illusion, are completely relative and self created
- the truth of a religion is truth for that person, it is made real by the stories that are told, and because each moment is in a way timeless, these truths are eternally real
- yet when truths are examined from different layers, from groups, from societies, from species, from planets, different truths, realities and illusions are illuminated.
- Read more [...]
Boundaries between Self and World
"Your skin doesn't separate you from the world; it's a bridge through which the external world flows into you, and you flow into it."
More Alan Watts? Yes, it's always a good time for more Alan Watts. Over and over and over, repeat.
"The whole world is moving through you, all the cosmic rays, all the food you're eating, the stream of steaks and milk and eggs and everything is just flowing right through you."
Have you ever thought about your self in this way? In goes oxygen, water, sunshine Read more [...]
A Call to Philosophical Literacy
Philosophy, ideas, culture, intellectual development in the Arts, have been ridiculed by the right-wing "Liberal" political party in Australia. A Coalition Press Release yesterday read:
'The Coalition would look to targeting those ridiculous research grants that leave taxpayers scratching their heads wondering just what the Government was thinking.
Taxpayer dollars have been wasted on projects that do little, if anything, to advance Australians research needs. For example:
The quest for Read more [...]
Legitimate & Illegitimate Authority
On Thursday evening the widely acclaimed author Susan George presented the Ted Wheelwright Memorial Lecture at the University of Sydney, on the difference between legitimate and illegitimate authority. These are some of my scribbles.
Susan George started by reminding us that democracy is and will always be a work in progress—something you do not something you get.
The Problems with Neo-liberalism
She put into perspective the new neo-liberal model of politics, which continue to get Read more [...]
Blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
On Tuesday 18 June, I shook hands and looked into the eyes of the man who seems to be the happiest man in the world—His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. More than meeting him, at the end of our event I received a blessing from him. It was very real but also surreal.
As one might imagine, it takes a lot of work and preparation, and a bit of stress. Ok, a lot of stress. Every detail must be taken care of. Every person must have a seat, but no seat should be empty. This Read more [...]
You are the Big Bang, if it weren’t for your “Discontinuous Mind”
It is a common misinterpretation of the Theory of Evolution to think that there is a clear line between species—this is what Richard Dawkins calls “The Tyranny of the Discontinuous Mind.” If we are connected in time to all species, then are we not also connected to the big bang? In fact, within such a continuity, can we not define our selves as the Big Bang, expressing itself in different forms? Let's explore Dawkins' tyranny along with my all time favourite, Alan Watts.
In The Ancestor’s Read more [...]
“What if God doesn’t DO things? What if God is IN things?”
In his TED Talk, the Canon Pastor of Exeter Cathedral in the UK, Tom Honey, explained some of the dilemmas involved in challenging images and ideas attached to the traditional notion of God within his congregation. He explains the way that ‘most people, both within and outside the organized church, still have a picture of a celestial controller, a rule maker, a policeman in the sky who orders everything, and causes everything to happen,’ and how in time he had become ‘more and more uncomfortable Read more [...]
