Pray for Australia? Pray for Bulldozer!

Someone calling themselves The Worst of Perth has a site dedicated to the “worst examples of architecture, writing, design, culture and humanity in Perth Western Australia”. This one is a beauty.

Technorati tags: religion,  praying, 

in the news…

Family First deny harassing abortion clinic patients

Democrats Leader Lyn Allison says security guards at the East Melbourne clinic have told her protesters often yell at women entering the clinic and follow them down the street.

Whilst Family First deny harassing anyone, just their mere presence could be considered harassment by some.

Brethren, Brown square off before election

It seems the Exclusive Brethren are responsible for dropping election material in mail boxes around Tasmania.

The material, titled ‘To the Citizens of Tasmania’ and authorised by 51 church members, alleges the Greens are anti-development and have immoral policies.

US polygamist leader jailed

I reported on this a while ago, seems he’s been sentenced.

US polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed “prophet” of a sect of breakaway Mormons, has been sentenced to 10 years to life in prison for having forced a 14-year-old girl to marry her first cousin.

Technorati tags: atheism,  atheist, religion,  christianity,  news,  politics,  abortion, 

Bloging meme: earliest memory

I was tagged by Bruce from The Thinker’s Podium with this meme:

The rules for this one are simple.

1. Describe your earliest memory where this memory is clear, where clear means you can depict at least three details.
2. Give an estimate of how old you were at this age.
3. Tag five other bloggers with this meme.

Here goes:

I have a fairly hopeless memory recall, I often find it difficult to recall things from years ago. Memories usually come to me all of a sudden, something, often completely unrelated, will trigger off a memory and then away I’ll go. So…

My earliest memory is from when I was about 4 1/2 years old. I was watching TV and there was a documentary about the side affects of smoking (this was many years ago before the hazards of smoking were as well known as now) . I remember being quite upset because my Dad smoked at that time. I also remember it was a fairly graphic program, which at the age of 4 I probably shouldn’t have been watching. I remember my Mum was in the kitchen at the time and going in to see her after watching the program and discussing it with her. When my Dad came home from work that evening I pleaded with him to stop smoking (which he did).

Seeing as I was so slow in blogging this I got memed twice and most of the people I was going to tag already have been. So I’m going to tag some random blogs:

Friendly Atheist, Greta Christina, No More Hornets, Unorthodox Atheism, Lacrimae Rerum

“…rape victim gets 200 lashes…”

and some people wonder why religion is seen as bad

from news.com.au

A COURT in the ultra-conservative Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail.

Jesus Saves, or maybe not

After yesterdays blog I was thinking (whilst driving home) about the 500,000 people they were expecting at the RC World Youth picnic.

500,000 youths in one place at the one time; that’s a whole lot of hormones!

I know the Pope says they shouldn’t, but we all know some will give in to temptation. So perhaps we should organise a campaign.

Perhaps we should picket outside Randwick and handout free condoms?

Any volunteers?

Technorati tags: atheism,  atheist,  religion,  Christianity, condoms, World Youth Day Papal Mass, 

AAARRGH!!

I promised myself only 1 post today, until I read this: PM promises $20m to move horses for Pope

WTF. If the pope wants to visit here and have his stupid youth day let the F’in’ Xtians pay for the bloody thing! My taxes being used to move a few horses so the RCs can have a nice picnic? NO WAY Mr Howard.

“This funding will help make the youth day a big success while looking after the interests of the horse racing industry,” Mr Howard said.

I don’t care. I’d rather it was a failure, less brainwashing is always a good thing.

OK, now I’m going to have a prozac and a good lie down………..

Technorati tags: atheism,  atheist,  religion,  christianity,  politics, taxes, 

Do Ex-Christians Feel Guilty About Past Deeds?

Since becoming a ‘new atheist’ I’ve reflected on my past when I used to be a Christian and, at one stage, very ‘Religious’. One of the things I’ve thought about is – I wonder if I ever adversely affected someone’s life through my Christian efforts?

I remember ‘bible bashing’ on the street corner in Adelaide as an older teen and inviting people to come along to some shindig we were holding. We had comedians, bands and the guy who wrote and sang ‘On the Eve of Destruction’ (which I thought was way cool at the time) plus, of course, all the usual bible thumping, though in a friendly way, a bit like some of the ‘happy clappy’ cults these days.

I now wonder if any of those people we spoke to ever ‘converted to god’, looking back on it, with my atheist eyes, I hope not! In fact I have had a few moments of guilt/shame lately about some of the things I did as a Christian (like the above story).

I was wondering; do other ex-Christians feel guilty about what they said or did whilst they were Christians?

I hope some of the people from Debunking Christianity  have a read and provide feedback.

 

Technorati tags: atheism,  atheist,  religion,  christianity, 

Trying to Understand? Try Harder!

I read all sorts of religious rebuttals online, but don’t normally waste my time responding. I thought I would to this one: 

ann_in_grace responded to a letter in her newspaper in which an agnostic had responded to an anti-abortionist letter. You can see the full transcript of the agnostic’s letter, and her response, here http://sveana.blogspot.com/2007/11/trying-to-understand.html.

I have responded to her commentary line-by-line, her comments are in italics, followed by my responses.

As she seems to confuse agnostics and atheists I’m going to use the term Non-Religious Person (NRP) to include agnostics, atheists, secular humanists, and any other person who is not religious. The letter was signed Heterosexual agnostic (HA) and then she has a go at atheists?

I feel very glad to see that agnostics care about religion, especially Christianity

Some NRPs ‘care’ about religion, in the way that you (I would hope) would ‘care’ about a serial rapist killer wandering your city. Some NRPs ‘care’ that religious dogma can have serious detrimental effects on society. Some NRPs are quite happy for people to be religious and ‘care’ about their freedom/rights to do so, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the NRP’s rights.

, even though they have no idea what they are talking about as well as no desire to learn

Many NRPs have a very good idea what they are talking about; many were religious at one stage; many study the Bible/Koran, often more than a lot of Christians; many NRPs have a desire to learn but want to learn rationally.

Their arguments are very emotional and humanistic, and their shaking their fists to God is so obvious, so well-recognized, that it has become boring.

Well that’s very nice that you think NRPs are humanistic, here’s one of many quotes about what a humanist is/does:

Humanists believe in solving the social and economic problems of society

NRPs get as emotional as anyone else, particularly when they think someone/some group is trying to impose their views on everyone else (i.e. Christians, in general, want to abolish all abortions). I haven’t seen many NRPs ‘shaking their fist to God’, mainly because we don’t believe in god. Any ‘fist shaking’ is at the people who follow a god, especially those that do bad things because of it.

Suddenly they think that the term “fundamentalism” is going to be perceived as a pejorative word.

It is.

Suddenly religion, according to an agnostic, is a social enterprise which can be adjusted to human needs, and the criteria for “natural” are being set dependently on trends and wishes.

Religion is a social enterprise, always has been always will be (I’m going to throw the burden of proof to the religious people to prove to me that my last statement is false). Religion, particularly the Christian religion, has always adjusted itself to human needs, and dictates of science. The church used to say the sun revolved around the earth, the earth was flat, and they used to burn witches and promote slavery. All these and many more concepts/ideas/decrees have changed over the years. See the current debate in Australia within the Anglican Church to allow women to become Bishops, the more enlightened diocese are voting for it, other not. This is a debate purely within the church. Religion has had to adjust itself to human needs to remain relevant in modern society (some cynics may say the church adjusts itself to get more believers, thus more money).

In other words: God needs to get upgraded, He is too dull and old-fashioned, time to rock&roll, right? At least…

“If the church wants to be a part of society, it has to adjust her view to the modern foundations of values, which means that no one may be excluded.” HA

Really? Well, it depends what we understand as ‘the church’. And who is giving the definition.
An atheist? And who cares what an atheist thinks about these things? Another atheist, probably, i. e. another God-hating rebel…

As per my previous paragraph, many of the churches have in the past, and are currently, adjusting to modern views (for whatever reason). Rock & Roll – hey, you obviously haven’t been to a ‘happy clappy’ church lately, that’s all they do!  🙂
What do you understand as ‘the church’? Certainly a lot of different churches can’t seem to define what ‘the church’ is, as evident by the vast number of different ones. Why can’t an NRP give a definition of ‘the church’? You will find that a lot of them have done a lot of research into what a ‘church’ may be.

OK, so far I have been nice and polite and tried to use rational arguments against your statements, but the last bit of the above statement of your’s is downright abusive, divisive, and wrong. Atheists do not ‘hate’ God! We just don’t believe in any gods, end of argument! We are not ‘rebelling’ against anything, unless you are so narrow minded that you think every human being on the planet should bow down to your particular religious way of thinking and belong to your particular church. Sure some NRPs come across sometimes as being a bit argumentative or even derisive, but that is only in response to unqualified claims by religious people, or in some cases (like your ‘God hating rebel’ statement) outright insults or untruths.

Rational arguments? Hardly. But convenient, for sure.

Rational, well thought out, well written, non-emotive (even whilst discussing a very emotive topic) letter. Yes I think Heterosexual agnostic’s (HA) letter certainly was rational and their arguments well put, far more than your response! HA’s letter quite clearly puts their point of view across without actually overly criticizing religion. In fact HA seems happy to accommodate religious views:

I want my children to be educated in a school where the teachers understand that there is a plethora of views and ideas in the world and that everybody has a place in it, no matter what religion or political views they follow.

unlike some NRPs, and some religions towards others (Islam V Christianity).

Religion is for us, another comfort next to a psychologist, a lover, an addiction. Let’s bend it to our needs – because we say so. And if those ‘fundies’ don’t listen – let’s slander them with intolerance and narrow mindedness. That will teach them!

I’m assuming you were trying to be sarcastic with these last sentences?

Religion is a comfort for you, how can you say otherwise? I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard religious people say things like “since I’ve found Jesus, I’ve found peace in my life” and other such comments. An addiction? Maybe. Heroin addicts can’t get enough of heroin, some religious people can’t seem to get enough of religious experiences; heroin addicts have been known to commit crimes because of their addiction, religious people have been known to conduct crimes in the name of their religion (the Inquisition, 9/11, etc, etc).

Again, I’ve covered the ‘bend it to our needs’, the churches are constantly doing that, look at the rise of evangelical, happy clappy, churches in America and Australia. All that televangelism, rock & roll, clapping and singing, why have they changed like that? To be more like the rest of society. (MTV generation, anyone?)

You (as in religious people; I’m generalizing a bit here, but for a large proportion of you I believe I’m correct in thinking this) are intolerant and narrow minded. No matter what arguments are provided you refuse to condone: abortions, gay marriages (in fact homosexuality of any kind), condoms (to millions of people dying of aids in Africa, which could, in large part, be prevented by the use of condoms) and thousands of other points of view.

Lastly I’m glad you didn’t send that to the newspaper, I think HA would be very disappointed with your response which doesn’t really argue against any of HA’s statements.

In words of one syllable…

Can you read this blog?

 

 

How readable is your blog? 🙂

Updated 10 Dec 07

I noted when I copied the code, that results from the test, that the alt=”” tag had a strange link to something called ‘cash advance’. Sensibly I deleted this and put in my own alt tag. I notice on Pharyngula today there’s a link to a story about this in the Guardian. Hopefully all you net savvy people edited out the sneaky spam code, but I’d check anyway if I were you.

 

Thanks to Protium for the link

Family First in Bed with the Devil?

It seems Family First Party (FFP) has given preferences to Pauline Hanson’s Party, above the Democrats and Greens.

I don’t know what Steve Fielding’s problem is with the Greens, and I also don’t know who he’s been talking to:

“Most Australians would be very shocked to know that the Greens could hold the balance of power in Australia and that’s not what most people want, they want commonsense and that’s what Family First stands for.” from news.com.au

I think Steve’s ‘Most Australians’ are just ‘most of his other church goers’.

I would like to think that most Australians would be happy for the Greens to hold the balance of power, I also think the Greens have a lot more commonsense and integrity than the FFP.

At least the Greens and Democrats are honest about who they are and what they support, unlike Family First which is really just an evangelical religious party, who are against almost everything:

In practice, the FFP promotes a strong Religious Right platform, including opposition to school sex education, euthanasia and prostitution, and outspoken support for censorship. The party would like pregnant women considering abortion to be shown scans of the foetus. Recently Peter Harris has called for the teaching of creationism in schools, in the name of ‘balance’. from unbelief.org

Reading their abortion literature they don’t explicitly say they are anti-abortion, but they want to make it as difficult as possible for women to get one. I wouldn’t be surprised to see FFP members picketing outside abortion clinics, as Fiery did with some other bunch of religious nutters.

Technorati tags: abortion, atheism, atheist, religion, christianity, election, politics, religion,