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Keywords: Good Life

  • MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

    The ethics of giving service

    • Alice Johnson
    • 09 October 2013
    3 Comments

    In a contemporary society where the focus lies amid a whirlpool of egocentricity, self-gain and self-improvement, one must question where the true motive for giving service lies. While the 'ethic of duty' is the ethic of the social gospel movements, Kant believed religion was only valuable because it caused one to lead a good moral life. Thus it is possible to argue that the habit of giving true service lies in the 'ethic of love'.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Canberra's life of lies

    • Walter Hamilton
    • 02 July 2013
    9 Comments

    Kevin Rudd says he wants to purify politics, and make it kinder and more honest. And yet his own standards when it comes to telling the truth are at least as rubbery as Tony Abbott's. Politicians who tell us they are acting for the higher good or that their brand of dishonesty is less egregious than that of their opponents are deluded and dangerous.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Auden dines with Barry Humphries

    • Peter Gebhardt
    • 05 March 2013
    1 Comment

    What I fear is that on Judgment Day one's punishment will be to hear God reciting by heart the poems I would have written had my life been good.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Families only a means to an end

    • Michael Mullins
    • 01 October 2012
    8 Comments

    Family life  holds no value in itself but is an often fruitful means to a morally good life. There are other means for those who do not marry, such as voluntary work, single-minded dedication to a profession, or caring for ageing parents. Why, then, do the Catholic Bishops, and indeed governments, go to so much trouble to support the family?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Life in the Ramadan fasting lane

    • Pat Walsh
    • 05 September 2012
    2 Comments

    The fasting rule is interpreted flexibly. You are free not to fast if you have to travel, are pregnant, old, little, sick, or basically have a good excuse. Ironically, Ramadan can also involve an enormous amount of cooking, late night and pre-dawn binges. Households buy up. Restaurants offer discounts. One hotel lobby was decked out like Mecca.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    My life as a Florence tour guide

    • Benedict Coleridge
    • 22 August 2012
    6 Comments

    All is not quite lost. There's still Michelangelo's David in the Academia — that's 'famous' and always makes for a good Facebook album cover. But after queuing for two hours, you feel rather underwhelmed — David isn't the 20m high statue of a ripped male you had been expecting, and there isn't a secret passageway leading from his gluteus maximus to a torture chamber beneath the Vatican.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    When gamers rule Australia

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 25 July 2012
    2 Comments

    Imagine if life was a video game. You could earn health points for a good diet, citizenship points for catching the train, social awareness points for reading the news. But how many points would you get for helping a homeless person? And how would you measure an activity such as talking to your family?

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  • RELIGION

    Pope's equivocal view of social justice

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 04 May 2012
    27 Comments

    In his reflections on society and aspects of human life, Pope Benedict privileges charity. If any planning or struggle for a just society is to be effective it will depend on people's good will and generosity in the implementation. The Pope also says 'yes' to social justice. But his 'yes' is normally a 'yes, but ...'.

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  • RELIGION

    The problem of goodness

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 02 February 2012
    11 Comments

    The problem of evil has always been with us. The ills that befall us and the monstrous evil that people do challenge the belief that life has a higher meaning, and are corrosive of belief in a loving God. The problem of goodness is rarely spoken of, yet it too presents challenges.

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  • RELIGION

    Uncomfortable Easter and Anzac Day

    • Andrew Hamilon
    • 21 April 2011
    10 Comments

    Good intentions are not sufficient to give life meaning. Easter's significance comes not from Jesus' choice to die, but in God's gift of raising him from the dead. In the Anzac story, it may be comforting to say young soldiers died that others may live, but the comfort is too easy.

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  • EUREKA STREET TV

    Life after suicide

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 19 November 2010

    Around 2000 Australians die every year from suicide. Dr Diana Sands guides members of her support groups as they metaphorically try on the shoes of a loved one who has suicided, walk in their shoes, and finally take off the shoes and say goodbye. 

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  • RELIGION

    Queensland's abortion law shortfall

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 21 October 2010
    19 Comments

    Those who believe a good society must be built on respect for human life at its beginning and end must work to change public attitudes. Such an approach needs to be based on respect for the freedom of women whom child bearing and rearing touch most intimately.

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