Atheist and Religous Meetings, Work-Related Activities

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Last Tuesday went to the Melbourne Atheist Society to hear Alex McCullie talk on "Progessive Christianity: A Secular Response". Alex claimed the theoretical and practical elements of progressive Christianity is really little different to an active secular humanist with the exception that they have a sense of a personal religious experience; so in other words he didn't have much of a response to offer! This Tuesday the Melbourne University Secular Society is holding an excellent forum on The Problem of Evil, with so absolutely top quality local speakers on the subject. Next month I am presenting at the Melbourne Atheist Society on "Atheist Support for Religious Freedom?" and this Sunday coming I am speaking at the Melbourne Unitarian Church on "The Other Half: The Universalist Tradition" (the Melbourne Church, coming from an English rather than American Unitarian tradition doesn't really have much Universalist influence). Last Sunday week at the same organisation I gave the service for Denis Fitzgerald, executive director of Catholic Social Services; I cited Óscar Romero and Populorum progressio.

Lateline reported last Thursday that Australian scientists are developing a new chemotherapy treatment, using a diamond-encrusted skin patch which slowly releases drugs into the body. Yes, that is me showing Dr. Amanda Barndard from CSIRO around the VPAC machine room. Have almost finished by first MBA assignment; a 3,000 word document on how VPAC is going to provide high-performance computing services in the future (actually, not that easy given item 2 of the organisation's constitutional objectives). Next assignment, due on Wednesday, is a Financial Management analysis. Apropos to this is an excellent article gaining wider circulation on how to manage IT staff; it's all about respect (hat-tip to certifiedwaif). The analogy with medical staff was particularly well put.

Comments

[keith418.livejournal.com]

"Alex claimed the theoretical and practical elements of progressive Christianity is really little different to an active secular humanist with the exception that they have a sense of a personal religious experience; so in other words he didn't have much of a response to offer!"

Thanks for this. I have been making this argument off and on, and more on than off, for the last 7 years on LJ and it is still - for reasons that escape me - hard to get people to see to the relationship between secular humanism and progressive, or liberal Christianity.

"Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation. To this day, there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of a postnational constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage. Everything else is just idle postmodern talk."

- Habermas

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

Evil certainly is a problem, and perhaps not in the most obvious way...

[discordia13.livejournal.com]

That IT management article is truly excellent.

It very elegantly explains what I have seen in current, and last two organizations I worked for.

[mozillafs.livejournal.com]

Ah, very good! Did you show her the machine that goes "bing"?

[mireille21.livejournal.com]

Is Russell Blackford talkign at one of the Melb Uni things?

[omnot.livejournal.com]

Ha -- I'm not surprised to see you post the link to that article. I read it and despite a couple of generalisations I'm not comfortable with, it describes what I've been hearing about breakdown and failures in IT management and managed environments.

One reason to pay geeks to manage geeks is that geeks know that punitive management techniques don't work on geeks! Very simple when stated like that (even if it forces me to use the (already dodgy) word "geeks" too many times for one sentence).

[tau-iota-mu-c.livejournal.com]

Hah! Your 2 second segment was longer than mine in Catalyst last week. How long were you in filming for?

(although, I was also in Scope and Totally Wild a few months ago, but forgot to set the VCR in both cases).

There's a lot of subversion going on around here. Between management especially. Fun times.