Website of the YearIs He or isn't he?
John Malcolm and Martin Hanson (Letters, June 27, July 1) represent clear and opposing views. In our time, I would like to suggest we shall not survive the passion ( and "passion" is the right word) of this conflict unless we look for answers.
At the centre of these two opponents is the concept of the existence of God. It is fairly simple, He is or he isn't.
What does history, hinted at by John Malcolm, have to show us?
A 4000-year witness of people living, sometimes heroically, by the Ten Commandments. Did they make mistakes?
Oh, yes, the same we are making today, right now, but those laws in stone brought back the erring to build some solid civilisations.
They were, those laws, an anchor, so to speak, for continued discussion, unlike John Malcolm and Martin Hanson above, who, incidentally, have something in common, their humanity and love of serious thought.
Parallel with those millennia of faith by Jews and Christians, we have in the last 2500 years been given proof of the existence of God by the Greeks, by reason.
If you haven't read Plato, Socrates and especially Aristotle, and you are non-religious, you haven't learned about your enemy, you don't know the opposition to defeat him.
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Ignore them and you ignore some of the best minds the Western world has produced.
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It is not good to put aside the professors and teachers who rise above all professors and teachers. We owe it to our children to pass on the best we have accomplished.
This letter attempts to point out those philosophers and laws of stone have not just been lost through weight of time, it has been deliberate suppression, particularly in the last hundred years.
There is evidence of that fact in our papers and social media, the oped or opinion editorial.
All opinions are equal, no man or woman is wiser than another. Just imagine what would happen if our scientists and lawmakers behaved in the same way.
Where do we go from here, for our children? [Abridged]
FR HALPIN
Whanganui
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Waverley's water
Waverley's Ross Vallely isn't the only one disgusted that, besides making the local water supply safer to drink, the new treatment plant is also a dispensary (Waverley's water now fluoridated, Chronicle, July 3).
It is designed to dose the community with hydrofluosilicic acid, whether needed or not, on the pretext that this is a "justified limit" on one's individual rights. Invites the question as to why we have a Bill of Rights in the first place.
Odd that the legislation (still awaiting enactment) to give DHBs the power to enforce fluoridation was dreamed up by a National Government.
Thought their MPs would be pledged to adhere to the party's nine basic "values", one of which is "Individual freedom and choice". Perhaps this electorate's National MP would care to comment.
HEATHER MARION SMITH
Gonville
