See my updated poem about Jesus.  Go to poems, Rabbi Yeshua.

Michael Gove has really got an E minus this time.  Is it the case there has been grade inflation over the last decade? Yes, since the Tories set up the exam boards in competition with each other and surprise surprise they compete with schools to offer exams that will give the schools the best pass rates. To try and rectify this flawed system by either encouraging or allowing the exam boards to tighten the grades in the middle of the year without giving the schools a clear warning to prepare for tougher marking is unbelievable. It shows a complete lack of respect for the teaching profession working with those for whom a grade c is a real struugle .  It is also totally unfair and cruel to move the goalposts without warning during the course of the year so blocking entry for many aiming at further education courses who had been predicted to be up for a C. But then they are not the pupils Gove is interested in.

See Ethical Issues.  This often updated and carefully researched paper is the result of years of work.  It is a serious attempt to get to the heart of the arguments which continue to surface. Still I hope despite its length it is a clear and jargon free. My shorter paper “Who Suffers” makes similar points more briefly. Comments on either paper are welcome and will be published with or without your name as you wish.  Send comment  as an email to john@nulljohnbaxter.org. Read on here for the full paper. See also the poem Three Really Good Servants of God.

We live in a time when in our Western culture all the religions are generally seen as not being true but as “faith positions” which deserve respect not because they are true, but out of respect for those who hold to them. As a result they cannott be argued about outside their own sub-cultures. This makes the emergence of interest in Buddhist meditation techniques by neuro-scientists, psychiatrists, educators and others which has been labelled Mindfulness as exciting as it is unexpected.  Here is a religious tradition which it seems has something to contribute to the scientific understanding of how body and brain works. What is happening is that key elements of the tradition, the practice of sati, insight meditation, mindfulness or awareness is seen as having preserved a powerful tool for the promotion of well being, physical and mental health, happiness and  better human functioning. What is more the promoters of this approach, in the US Dr Jon Kabot Zinn and here in the UK Mark Williams Professor of Clinical Psychology at Oxford University, see the practice of Mindfulness as something which can either stand alone in a secular setting within the National Health Service, or if people wish it, be encouraged within the religious communities. How far this will go we have yet to see. There will soon be a lot more about mindfulness on the site now that I have completed the basic course in Oxford.

On a recent visit to Blackwells bookshop in Oxford I saw a whole pile of books, many by very eminent academics, all Christians, who have written taking exception to Dawkins book The God Delusion. I was amazed at how poor their arguments are and the way despite eminent scientific and philosophical careers, they fall back into accepting supernaturalism, the belief that God has confronted us with a series of real, objective but scientifically inexplicable events, of which the physical resurrection of Jesus is the most important, an event for which there is not and cannot be a scientific explanation but was reputedly done by God to encourage us to have faith in Jesus as his Son.  To counteract such thinking I have updated my paper in the Religion section entitled Clearing the Way for Rational Religion. See also the section on the resurrection in Christianity and Supernaturalism,

I have been looking over the site and revising articles and have been adding further comments, particularly to the World Views section. This process is not complete and I intend adding more.  I hope viewers will agree that a graphic approach aids one to both understand and remember what different religious traditions are saying. Again do email me john@nulljohnbaxter.org

Ed Org Artwork

A collection of papers, poems,notes and diagrams and some short blogs – This site is a way of exposing what I have thought hard about or what upsets me. Explore the content by looking at the Page Headings above.

Always ready for discussion and dialogue. To do so email john@nulljohnbaxter.org.  Do not try to fill in comments.  They just attract spam. I will then promise to reply and post your comments preserving your anonymity if you wish it..

REMEMBER – MANY OF MY ARTICLES ARE QUITE LONG. OFTEN YOU WILL GET MORE FROM THEM IF YOU PRINT THEM OFF RATHER THAN TRY AND READ THEM ON LINE – AND PLEASE SEND ME YOU COMMENTS. John