Whanganui letters: Politics and religion should not mix

Sir Lloyd Geering gives a good explanation of how religious belief has changed, one letter writer says. Photo / NZPA: Ross Setford

In the Whanganui Chronicle (Saturday, May 18), it was noted that Ruapehu district councillor Adie Doyle was uncomfortable with opening a public meeting with any formal system of religious belief. Fellow councillor Elijah Pue wants a solution to suit everyone.

Adie Doyle prefers that politics and religion do not mix; a stance to which I agree. Personally, I have never been involved in the political system, though I do have interest in and knowledge of religious beliefs and practices, some aspects of which I would like to share.

According to my Oxford dictionary, religion is the belief and worship of a superhuman controlling power. How religious belief has changed has been well explained by Lloyd Geering, formerly Professor of Old Testament Studies at Otago University and finally Professor of Religious Studies at Victoria University.

His latest book Coming to Earth (available at our public library) describes the process whereby much of the traditional religious belief system has become "desperately out of place in modern Western culture".

As an example, he explains how Europeans and Māori relate to the natural world. For example, "Māori still feel a spiritual bond with the Earth and Europeans do not".

"Our pre-axial forebears did not recognise the divide" between lifeless forms and living forms. I would agree with the idea that "not only rocks and mountains are not alive, but neither are volcanoes, rivers, clouds and storms, however much movement and vitality they appear to show".

According to the latest Census of Religious Professions in New Zealand, whether we like it or not, we live in a secular society whereby the majority of people turn their attention from worlds beyond and towards this world and this time.

JOHN STEPHENSON
St Johns Hill

Common sense candidates needed

The Chronicle (News, May 28) quotes councillor Nicola Patrick in a regional council budget debate saying that "the submissions of climate change deniers shouldn't carry much weight", and Palmerston North councillor Fiona Gordon added "and those submitting against were climate change deniers".

The "deniers" comprised half of the submitters (160 of 320). The term "climate change denier" arose about 15 years ago and comes from "Holocaust denier" - people who deny that the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis happened. The term was introduced by climate change activists (then known as global warming activists) to marginalise/cancel those who do not agree with them.

In my view, Nicola Patrick is a political activist, as her previous column in the Chronicle displayed. She ran for council as an advocate of a platform of green issues, as held by Greenpeace and allied organisations. In my opinion, her election was assisted by her name recognition and the lack of alternative candidates to a council election in which the public shows little interest and the voter turnout is low.

She is carrying out her mandate, on which she campaigned, and for this she cannot be faulted. The solution is the ballot box. We need more candidates who provide common sense and not ideology.

MARTIN ROTHMAN
Whanganui

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