Good chocolate
Our chocolate buying and eating habits can make an enormous difference, good or bad, to families living on the other side of the world.
Tag: Social Justice
Blowing in the wind
Race riots in the sixties drew a supportive response from young whites. Will it happen again? Will christians stand on the side of compassion and justice? Will it make a difference? The answer is blowing in the wind.
12. It works (mostly!)
This page in brief …. In the previous eleven posts in this series, we have seen that many different aspects of life (the universe, human life, the history of Jesus and human experience) all seem to make more sense if there is a creator God, than if there is not. In this final post, we […]
Do we live in a moral universe? How do human rights fit in?
When Martin Luther King said “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”1, most of us like to believe he was expressing a deep truth. We want to see justice done, at least for causes we believe in. But do we live in a moral universe? What does that even […]
There is no Planet B
Australians have had a polarised and sometimes ambivalent attitude to the threats to this planet, and to our comfortable Aussie way of life, from climate change. Most people, most of the time, want to make positive changes, but a sizeable minority follow the shock jocks and the Murdoch press in mocking climate change. Governments have […]
Light at the end of the tunnel for some of the world’s poorest people
Bithi started work in a Bangladeshi clothing factory when she was 12. Abject poverty and a sick father forced Bithi’s family to send the two oldest daughters to the garment factories to sew designer clothes sold mainly in North America. It was either that, or watch the girls slowly starve. Now 15, Bithi helps create […]
Christianity – the good and the bad?
The good and harm done by christianity is a topic of much discussion and argument, and I have written on it many times (e.g. Does religion poison everything? and Do religious believers have better health and wellbeing, like, really?). Keith Parsons is a US philosopher and atheist who writes about the philosophy of religion, and […]
No more! No more!
U2 on the Rattle and Hum tour way back in 1987, sang their old song Sunday Bloody Sunday, in response to an IRA bombing. It’s long been one of my favourite pieces of concert footage as Bono, outraged by the killing, emotes on stage, while the Edge, ever the steady rock around which the band […]
Wealth, poverty and inequality
Try this brief quiz: Which country is the richest in the world in terms of median wealth? Which countries come close? Which countries have the greatest and least disparity between the rich and the rest? In the richest country, what percentage of people live in poverty? Have a guess, then check out the answers.
How much did your T-shirt cost?
Aussies wear T-shirts. We wear them at the beach, or around the house, or under a shirt when we go out. So we buy lots of them. And we like to pick up a bargain. And we’re not alone – T-shirts seem to be popular all over the world. So how much did your last […]