Author Archives: John Baxter

About John Baxter

John Baxter Teacher of Religious Education for 25 years and professional photographer for 16 years. Degrees from Rhodes (SA) Oxford and Bristol in Religion, Theology and the Philosophy of Education. Qualified as a Licentiate with the British Institute of Professional Photography. Interests Art, Photography, Religion and the issues it raises, Politics, Poetry, Writing.

WHY BUDDHISM IS TRUE summary of Robert Wright’s Book

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Robert Wright.                    WHY BUDDHISM IS TRUE

The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment. Simon and Shuster 2017  In this paper I summarise 9 chapters and comment on the whole book by this leading evolutionary psychologist who has come to see that the Buddha’s insights into the human condition are being corroborated by evolutionary psychology,  To read the whole paper click on RELIGION 

Notes by John Baxter www.johnbaxter.org  johnbaxter119@nullgmail.com.

FAT, FRIEND OR FOE. A talk by Dave Wrathall

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Fat, Friend or Foe.  Quaker Barn 5th February 7.30 p.m. 

ANVIL is Wincanton’s structured discussion group which tackles controversial subjects and you are invited to our first meeting of 2020, Science teacher Dave Wrathall will be speaking about diet, in particular our attitude to eating fat. This is his introduction:

“What if we have been misled about what is healthy and what is not? What if the food we eat is poisoning us? What if cancer, heart disease and dementia are not diseases of aging, but simply the consequences of the food choices we make?”  Continue reading →

ANVIL Nov 13th Julie Arliss Main Speaker, John Baxter Responder

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Title  THE AFTER-LIFE

Wednesday Nov 13th. Our last session for the year will have as our Main Speaker Julie Arliss with myself as the Responder.  Her topic is THE AFTER-LIFE and she introduces it by saying:

The reports of near death experiences, paranoral experiences, telepathy and the like, as well as the beliefs in many world religions, seem to point to some form of post-mortem existence, but the scientific and philosophical problems associated with these beliefs are considerable. This talk will outline the evidence and examine some of the crucial difficulties, such as what would make the person who died the SAME PERSON as the one who is resurrected. “

So we will be facing one of life’s great mysteries.  Continue reading →

BREXIT Some thoughts. 25-1-19

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Despite the defeat of her deal by 230 votes – May seems to ignore this by continuing to discuss only her deal or no deal.  She does this to prevent her party from splitting.  The danger which gets worse daily is that this no deal “default option” may go through on the 29th of March destroying trust in our Parliamentary democracy to prevent us from a catastrophic, irrational and irreparable step as we are forced out of the EU by a very small minority of pro-Brexit at any price MPs.    So what  needs to be done to stop this happening?

Continue reading →

ANVIL Wed. 19th Sept. ATHEISM the case. Dr Greg Atkins, Graham Stride

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This session consisted in Greg emphasising the need for a science based approach to deciding what is true and real and concluding that all forms of supernaturalism and belief in gods ,, one god, spirits and miracles are not based on evidence.  Graham responded that as he saw it there is far more too life than what can be weighted and measured by science and that intuitively many believe as he does that behind all that is happening there is a compassionate God .  Continue reading →