Grandstanding
In response to Josh Chandulal-Mackay's response to me (letters, February 14):
I apparently misunderstood the purpose of your apologetic introduction at the Waitangi Day anti-Trump rally. "Privileged white male" is a trending feminist slur used to silence the opinion of white males, and I took your words as a feeble attempt to curry favour with progressive feminists clearly present at the rally with their "I'm a nasty woman ..." signs.
You justified your introduction as a means of procuring for yourself and your audience an empathy, dispelling apathy because none of us have felt such "insecurity and vulnerability that many refugees and Muslims face".
Considering New Zealand is a colonial nation that was populated by Maori fleeing discord in Hawaiki and Europeans and many others fleeing oppression and economic hardship, I struggle to understand why you think we as a people would have difficulty empathising with modern-day refugees. We are a refugee and immigrant nation.
You seem to imply white males among us struggle with this empathy. I maintain that to qualify yourself publicly by gender, race and "socio-economic class" was unnecessary and, as a non-white male, felt this to be racist and sexist. Genitalia, skin colour and how many zeros in your bank account have nothing to do with one's ability to be compassionate.
In my original letter, I questioned the need to hold a rally on Waitangi Day against a US immigration policy already under debate in that country.
You replied that "the Trump administration adversely affects refugees, Muslims and other minorities all over the world". How? I am unaware of any nation in the world that has adopted a Trump-like immigration policy post his executive order.
If the rally organisers were truly concerned about the plight of refugees in an Australasian context, why was not the focus directed at Australia, where people are detained offshore in internment camps?
Australia has done this -- and many detainees have been there -- for years.
Perhaps you now might understand why I thought the rally was political grandstanding in the wake of the progressive left's global outrage at Trump's political victory.
JOACHIM PETERSEN
Whanganui
Fact-denying
Russ Hay demonstrates "fact-denying bias" (his definition of faith) in fallible human beings by believing that it is not possible for large numbers of scientists to be wrong.
For 1900 years most scientists believed that maggots spontaneously arose in meat (life from non-life or abiogenesis). Any scientist who questioned this widely accepted view was laughed at and ridiculed.
Scientists today who question spontaneous generation of life on our planet from a mixture of randomly combined chemicals are also frequently laughed at. That does not mean the mainstream is right.
Failure to consider all contributing factors, failure to test a hypothesis rigorously and failure to include data that disagrees with a scientist's anticipated results, lead to wrong conclusions.
Anyone can take issue with aspects of the written record of the Bible. However, a person who reads all of the Bible with an open mind and heart will find that God speaks his love to any who will listen and, while there is much we do not understand about him, there is also much we can know.
God is good. He loves all people everywhere and desires for them to have relationship with him. He can be trusted and relied on and will reveal himself to any who seek him.
MANDY DONNE-LEE
Aramoho
The work of God
I write in reply to the "mystical mumbo" written by Russ Hay (letters, February 21.
If belief in a god or gods is so silly, why do people in every part of the world come up with the idea?
Consider evolution. It starts with the simple and moves to the more complex. One-celled protozoa become the ancient ancestors of humans. Bacteria evolve into millions of different complex plants and animals.
It is easy to explain why plants and animals attack and eat each other. Chaos is what one would expect, but not the order that we see all around us.
I am watching the birds in the carpark at McDonald's. They have learned that humans tend to drop things that are edible and easier to get than their normal fare. And when the big things come around the corner they have learned that they do not hurt -- you just move to the side and they go past.
We tend to create order in all our writings and inventions. So when we see order and pattern it is natural for us to ask, "Who did this?" If it is obviously not the work of some animal or human, we say "God".
TOM PITTAMS
St John's Hill
