Painting Fakes

I've just finished the first of three weeks in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, working on a project that at least indirectly relates to Native Title issues.  Of course I've been thinking of the whole Native Title thing and it strikes me that it mixes triumph and tragedy on a grand scale. Native Title law in Australia is based the famous Mabo Case , in the High Court of Australia in 1989, in which Eddie Mabo (pictured) and other applicants from Murray Island in the Torres Strait claimed they had a form of traditional title to their land which should be recognised under Australian law. The court had to decide two things.  The first was essentially a question of fact - was there a recognisable system of land ownership in traditional Indigenous Australian societies?  Their answer to this was very clearly yes, and the convenient myth of terra nullius, the empty land the British explorers supposedly found, was finally laid to...

So, I'm having a change of scene for a little while.  Can you believe it, someone is paying me to travel to the other side of Australia and talk to people (or rather listen to them) about social issues for three weeks.  So here I am in the beautiful Dampier Peninsula in the far north of Western Australia, where I've never been before. Of course I'll have to work but since I've signed a confidentiality agreement I can't talk to you about that.  Instead, I just thought I'd mention that Australia is an EXTREMELY BIG PLACE.  In something like eight hours in the air we flew across over 5,000 km of territory.  As I looked out of the window I saw huge swathes of bushland, mountains, desert, coastline, and very occasionally a little sign of human habitation - a long straight road, a town, a distant light. Of course we so rarely see Australia this way because we are, naturally, always at the places where humans live.  For a city-dweller like me, I am nearly alwa...

Some of my family have been having a heated Facebook argument (as you do) sparked by recent troubles in the support base for Catherine Hamlin's Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia.  Sadly, there appears to be a dispute about the religious affiliations of supporters which is interfering with funding for this important work.  This charity is dear to the hearts of a number of family members and they are shocked.  I don't really understand the dispute and the ABC report of it is not all that enlightening. Still, my favourite and much-loved atheist relative's instant emotional reaction was to blame the Christian faith for the problem.  Religion poisons everything, as Christopher Hitchens would have said.  Of course Hamlin herself is also a Christian, but what are such details before the power of confirmation bias ? Anyway I know I shouldn't let my caustic wit get the better of me, but here goes.  Our current crop of New Atheists like to view religion as...

I have long been perturbed about the large number of Christians who uncritically support the state of Israel. This concern was strengthened recently when a copy of the latest edition of Israel and Christians Today found its way into my house. This news magazine is published every two months by an organisation called Christians for Israel . The edition sitting in front of me now is titled Israel and Christians Today Australia and is distributed by the Australian branch of the organisation, but it contains no Australian content and is identical to the international edition of the magazine produced by the head office in the Netherlands. Christians for Israel was founded in the Netherlands in 1979 and now operates in 15 different countries in Europe, North America, Australasia and Africa. As far as I can work out it is an independent organisation, funded by donations from supporters. Its aims include educating Christians about current issues in Israel and their view of the plac...

In my reading of various works of apologetics I noticed that quite a few Christian writers refer in approving tones to GK Chesterton's Orthodoxy, so I thought I'd have a read. Chesterton was one of those archetypal English "men of letters", a high-class journalist who churned out books on a massive range of subjects.  He was a jack of all trades and master of none, an eccentric individual famous as much for who he was as for what he wrote.  Most of his works are rarely read these days, but the Father Brown   mysteries are still popular, as is this little book.  It was published in 1908 when Chesterton was 35, and explains his reasons for converting from agnosticism to orthodox Roman Catholic Christianity. I find it interesting not only that this book is still read, but that it is beloved of more or less orthodox Protestants like CS Lewis and Philip Yancey, who wrote the foreword to this edition.  It's interesting because Chesterton is quite ...