Deliverance, atheism, fundamentalism and faith

Punishing the baddies is only fun in the movies. In real life it’s messy, expensive, and fraught with guilt and danger. So why not outsource it?

Almost anything can be outsourced. Forget the IT department in Bangalore – companies can outsource engineering or software development. Individuals can outsource breasfeeding or shirt ironing or dog walking or shoe stretching.

People also, although they may not realise it, outsource punishment.

Continue reading "Need someone to do your dirty work? Try God." »

The Queensland Maroons and their supporters in Melbourne for the State of Origin clash at Etihad Stadium are unlikely to seek the solace of a prayer room in the stadium to ensure success. The Blues and their supporters are facing a seventh consecutive series loss so the prayer room may be their only hope.

A prayer room, for all denominations, has recently been introduced at Etihad Stadium. The Australian Football League (AFL) wants all of its major football venues to house a place of worship.

The AFL intention comes after the Richmond Club’s mid fielder Bachar Houli a devout Muslim said the requirement for Muslims to pray five times a day was stopping many from attending AFL games. I know many Rugby League fans of the Muslim faith and they don’t seem deterred from attending games due to the absence of a prayer room.

Continue reading "Sport has room for prayer, but not in prayer rooms" »

The other day I was watching ABC’s The Drum where Peter Singer was talking about the importance of giving to charitable causes to help alleviate global poverty. Good stuff from Singer, but out of nowhere comes a reference to Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell from one of the panelists.

Apparently Pell, at some point, had said that there is no genuine altruism, people only do good because it makes them feel good (well duh, I’ve heard that before). Anyway, next thing I know the inference is being made that Pell would rather have us walk around flagellating ourselves than giving to charitable causes.

There I am, watching the show, and I’m just baffled as to how went from generous giving to medieval self-mutilation at the behest of George Pell. Then it finally dawns on me, “Of course, this is the The Drum, the final credits can’t roll without at least one Catholic being bashed.” I should have known better.

Continue reading "Where have all the good TV Catholics gone?" »

Progressive Christianity is alive and well. It hasn’t yet got much of a toe-hold in the Australian imagination. But it will. Why? Because the old language of dogma doesn’t speak to people anymore.

Spiritual needs have changed, the church hasn’t, and people have voted with their feet.

I wrote Being Gay Being Christian to say that the Christian church’s traditional teachings on gay sexuality are wrong, harmful and unjust. I also wrote it to encourage gay people of faith that their sexuality does not preclude them from having a faith in God.

Continue reading "Modern Christians can trump Bible thumping fundies" »

So by now we have all heard the story of Father Kevin Lee and his crusade to abolish clerical celibacy in the Catholic Church. For those who need a recap: this popular Sydney priest announced to his congregation last Sunday that he had secretly married a woman one year earlier and had since been living a double life.

As a consequence he has been removed from service as a Catholic Priest. Immediately Father Kevin was across the media in print and radio stating his case and decrying the Church for her laws on “forced” celibacy. And as was to be expected, the majority of commentary has come out in favour of him and against the Church.

Father Kevin has always been very diligent in teaching the faith and bestowing the sacraments which makes this story so disappointing but what is most disappointing is the harm and scandal such a situation does to the Catholic Community (and indeed the community at large).

Continue reading "Father Kevin knew the rules before he donned the cloth" »

In a recent Punch piece Australian Christian Lobby head Jim Wallace reminded us of our unquestioned right to religious freedom. In fact he went so far as to label the push for gay marriage a threat to religious freedom.

As a gay marriage advocate let me say this: Mr Wallace is right, we desperately need to maintain religious freedom.

The only problem is that Mr Wallace didn’t argue for religious freedom.

Continue reading "Hey Jim, let me teach you about religious freedom" »

The concurrent parliamentary inquiries on gay marriage mark a new low point in what has been the constant manipulation of truth and democratic process by gay activists in the pursuit of same-sex marriage.

As the inquiries closed it was evident that they had been reduced to the status of cheap public polls instead of what they should be - our highest forums for review for public policy.

The manipulation of truth over this issue has had a long precedent and we should question why it is necessary. 

Continue reading "Gay marriage is threatening our freedom of faith" »

Of all the words there are to describe the guttural, other-worldly sound of the Gyuto monks’ chant, beautiful is not one of them. Pure, yes. Transportative and uplifting, absolutely. But it’s far from beautiful. At least, not immediately. That part comes later. 

Musical experts have described the Gyuto chant as multiphonic. The sound, three octaves resonating in one note, was once thought humanly impossible, and the effect is just as complex.

At first listen it’s almost unpleasant. But keep your eyes closed and persevere, because the sensation is acute and entirely unique. You can feel your thoughts moving from your feet, up through the bridge of your nose, before spreading to the very edges of your forehead. When you finally open your eyes, you feel an incredible sense of clearing.

Continue reading "The monks’ droning was music to my ears" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a regular column on, well, bullshit. Today, dear readers, it’s a three-in-one unholy bonanza!

Thanks to the Global Atheist Convention, The Punch was inundated this week by the godly and the ungodly, and once again we rehashed all the arguments about good and evil and science and evidence and faith and proof, and we were hoping today would be our day of rest.

But we’re not at the seventh day yet, and there is much bullshit to wade through, so here goes.

Continue reading "ICB: Freedom of religion vs. freedom from religion" »

“Religion has wrought untold misery in human affairs. For the most part, it has been a squalid tale of bigotry, superstition, wishful thinking, and oppressive ideology.”

This damning indictment of religion, surprisingly enough, is not to be found in the work of the late Christopher Hitchens, or that of his compatriots Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett.

Rather, it prefaces Terry Eagleton’s book Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate in which he skewers both the Church as well as its most hard-heated critics - the New Atheists.

Continue reading "We need more religion but we don’t need its zeal" »

Esteemed cosmologist and popular atheist Lawrence Krauss wrote: “It sometimes surprises me, although it shouldn’t, how religious devotees feel the need to regularly reinforce their own convictions in groups of like-minded individuals”.

It is curious then, that he has made the long trip down-under to join the faithless as part of the weekend’s Global Atheists Convention.

Following a debate with analytic philosopher William Lane Craig last year, a frustrated Krauss took a passing swipe at the historical evidence for Christianity. As a student of history, I am getting weary of the a priori assumptions of secular fundamentalism that infect the blogosphere and are routinely trotted out as fact. Don’t get me wrong, theists circulate more than their fair share of bullshit too - but it benefits nobody when the discussion degenerates into the intellectual equivalent of a freestyle gangsta rap battle.

Continue reading "Five irrational myths peddled by lazy atheists" »

Dawkins was snooty. Pell was outwitted. The questions were predictable, as were the mentions of Hitler and Stalin. There were titters at Pell’s reference to ‘preparing’ boys and sniggers when he clumsily criticised Jews as intellectually inferior shepherds.

Last night’s Q and A starring Cardinal George Pell and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins went pretty much exactly as expected.

But then, an epiphany.  According to Pell, the highest Catholic authority in the land, a man with a direct line to God, ATHEISTS CAN GO TO HEAVEN.

Continue reading "Atheists would find it hard to believe they’re in Heaven" »

Good on Christine Forster and her partner Virginia Edwards for coming out. The more the merrier. Most of us in the marriage equality movement have known about the relationship for a couple of years, so we have been viewing Tony Abbott’s comments on the issue of equality through the prism of knowing he had a sister who had left her marriage for another woman.

We had also been told the story was stitched up and kept out of the media for political reasons before the last election.

For goodness’ sake Mr Abbott - don’t you think your family is just like everyone else’s? We gay folk are everywhere.

Continue reading "Abbott’s one lame argument against gay marriage" »

The Parliamentary Christian Fellowship is a non-party political group of strongly Christian MPs in the federal parliament, who meet unofficially to discuss politics, parliamentary life and faith. Way back in 2004, the convener, Bruce Baird, put its membership at 60 out of a total number of 226 federal MPs.

However, one of his religious colleagues (who did not want to be named) said the figure was more like 75. Talk among non-religious members of the Press Gallery now suggests that there may be as many as 90. This means that the percentage of highly religious MPs in the parliament could easily be around 40 per cent.

The latest National Church Life Survey quotes a figure of 9 per cent of Australians who are regular weekly churchgoers. This could roughly be said to equate with the degree of religiosity evinced by most members of the PCF. This means that these people are over-represented in the parliament by four times that of the general community.

Continue reading "We have a right to know when God is in the House" »

Is your church plagued by plummeting attendance levels? Is your exorcism business in the red? Are the tea leaves telling you to tighten your belt? Well turn that frown upside down, because this could be the answer to all your prayers. The commercial world has known the secret forever, but the churches and other peddlers of the spirit world are only just catching on.

Sex sells. And the successful spiritual movements of the future will be those who learn to press people’s slightly less metaphysical buttons.

When the 2011 Census figures come out you can bet your tithe they’ll show a continuing trend of mainstream Christian churches losing followers while the Pentecostal churches pick them up. People want more Guy Sebastian, less The Lord Is My Shepherd. More rock, less clothes. More laying on of hands than laying on of hands.

Continue reading "An exorcise in making the supernatural sexy" »

Police wanted to capture Mohammed Merah alive, but in the end a sniper killed him as he jumped out of his window.

The self-proclaimed jihadist who claims to be al-Qaeda killed three French paratroopers, three school children and a rabbi in revenge for the French Army’s involvement in Afghanistan and the deaths of Palestinian children.

He killed them in cold blood, he taped it, he wanted people to see the footage. He is now dead, no tears here. But what if he had been taken alive?

Continue reading "Wanted dead or alive?" »

Topless men and women are strutting around in loincloths, the women “wearing” bodypaint on their torsos. A ‘70s rock song is playing over the speakers and there must be few times in history where so many vibrators have congregated in the same room.

This isn’t the beginning of an orgy in some cheesy porno flick. It’s Sexpo, the exhibitionist industry’s annual exhibition, which kicked off in Sydney yesterday. It’s the place to be if you need advice about “how to make your vulva happy”. Or if you want to witness the artist “Pricasso” painting portraits with a fairly untraditional piece of equipment. And if you’re in short supply of handmade, chocolate-scented, penis-shaped soap, well, you’re in luck my friend.

A sideshow spruiker was shouting “roll up, roll up and come whack some cocks” yesterday and it barely elicited a sideways glance. You wouldn’t hear that at the Easter Show. Whatever, it’s standard fare here. What isn’t expected, though, is for a sexhibition to be spruiking an evangelical Christian cause.

Continue reading "Pornstars of the world, Jesus really loves you" »

It has just been confirmed this morning that Australian graves were among those desecrated in Libya. Kuranda Seyit, founder of the forum on Australia’s Islamic Relations, examines the furore that set off this unfortunate turn of events.

Last year the mad preacher of Gainesville, The Reverend Terry Jones, created a furore in the Muslim world by his threats and call for a global burning of the Islamic holy book, the Koran. Thankfully, that was averted after some pressure from the Oval Office.

Yet, last week some rogue US soldiers have taken this call one step further and burnt copies of the Koran, in all places, Afghanistan. It’s a death wish.

The US Army denied that this was deliberate and just a mistake, but do they really think that we are that stupid? Burning any book is really not kosher but burning one’s holy book when you are in a country as an invading force is a big slap in the face. The reality is that they got caught and now they are trying to backtrack.

Continue reading "Grave crimes of desecration" »

As I took my seat at Alain de Botton’s “Religion for Atheists” last week, I caught sight of a postcard promoting the upcoming Global Atheist Convention.

It listed the usual suspects - Dawkins, Harris, Myers (and sadly not Hitchens). But then I was confused. Was the Atheist Convention trying to save money by co-advertising with the Melbourne International Comedy Festival?

Out of the 34 speakers, 10 are comedians: Ben Elton, Mikey Robbins, Lawrence Leung, Jim Jeffries, Catherine Deveny, Simon Taylor, Tom Ballard, Stella Young, Craig Foster and Mr Deity. Sounds like good news for Melburnians - buy one ticket, get two conferences.

Continue reading "God I’m sick of comedians laughing at religion" »

Imagine if a dumb trend like planking collided with something much more dangerous than a balcony railing, like say religious fanaticism, and an entire nation caught the bug.

Welcome to contemporary America, where the fad of “Tebowing” is both sweeping and dividing the nation. Tee-what? Tebowing, named after hyper-religious Denver Broncos quarterback, Tim Tebow, is the act of taking a knee in prayer, usually while you’re actually doing something else. Like playing footy.

Tebow has been doing it for months in Broncos games, although he won’t be doing it any more this season, or not onfield anyway, after his team was thumped by the New England Patriots on the weekend. Apparently God prefers a patriot to a believer.

Continue reading "A football field is no place for nutty religious fanaticism" »

You hear many complaints nowadays about pesky, outspoken Christians.  Across the West, a fashionable attitude has emerged: Beyond the doing of charitable works, and perhaps the soothing of the bereaved at funerals, “religion” should be an entirely private affair. 

The so-called New Atheists are vocal advocates of this position.  One of them, Michel Onfray, has admitted that his atheism “leaps to life when private belief becomes a public matter”.  Onfray hates it “when in the name of a personal mental pathology we organise the world for others”. 

Here in Australia, there are many like him.  The talented journalist-author Peter FitzSimons is fond of ridiculing sportsmen, like golfer Aaron Baddeley, who publicly give thanks to God.  FitzSimons rarely misses a chance to snipe at all “delusional” believers, and, in a recent spray in the Sydney Morning Herald, asserted ludicrously that belief in God “is entirely inimical to educational principles”. (Read Brian Rosner’s spirited reply.)

Continue reading "Why God botherers bother" »

Once your eyes adjust to the blur of big city New York, you start to notice there’s another world here. Like the botanicas, the curious little stores that are sometimes buried in basements or can be found in poorer parts of town.

You’ll push open the door to a room crammed with statues of Mary, candles, rosaries and bottles of strange oils and potions. And you get the immediate sense that Father McGuire from the Catholic Church across the road would not approve.

Up on West 96th street is Botanica Four Winds. Inside is an elderly woman, Molina Alicia, known to most as Ma, from Cuba; there’s her adopted son, Mark, who’s part Puerto Rican, part Colombian; and Joao, who was raised in Trinidad to a Haitian father and Brazilian mother.

Continue reading "Buried basements, witch hazel and bay rum" »

‘Tis the season for many predictions. Here’s mine: The world will not end. Earth will not be ripped apart by titanic tectonic shifts, swallowed by a black hole, or smashed to blithereens by another planet.

Doomsday prophet Harold Camping had to crawl back into his shell after two failed predictions of the world’s end last year – this year there’s a broader belief that the end is nigh. This too will prove false.

The ‘2012 phenomenon’ is a meme, an idea that has spread across the world, gathering layers of bullshit as it goes. It was born from a murky misunderstanding of an ancient Mayan calendar.

Continue reading "The end is not nigh" »

One more sleep till D-Day… but this year, I’ve actually felt good about Christmas. It’s not a familiar feeling. In my adult life, Christmas tradition has involved ambivalence tending to hostility, a fortnight of creeping despair, then curling up after a bottle of cognac to cry in a corner and throw up mince on the rug.

Many of those years, if the bloke in the red suit had existed, I would have left him out a roast leg of venison and hoped that the reindeer could smell it on his clothes. No doubt many of us go through stages like this, where we want to go out and club a ringy-dingy elf right in the head.

And no wonder. The season can’t compete with how it was as a kid, when days were as long as novels and “Ten more minutes” was a judicial sentence. The heat somehow arrived earlier. The lead-up to Christmas stretched out to the horizon, as afternoons led a charge deep into the evenings and the grass dried to gold. Stepping outside to air already hot before we’d dressed for school. The toy shops excruciating in their possibility. The advent calendar crawling by, glue and crappy chocolate marking days that dragged out their final demise like a row of dying grandparents.

Continue reading "And so this is Christmas, which now I embrace" »

Many of us these days prefer to take our Christmas without the Christ or the Mas(s). It’s convenient to keep the name, though – the world’s not quite ready for Sockandjockmas or Drinkingwhitewineinthesunmas.

The hijacking of this pagan/Christian celebration by the irreligious is of concern to many – particularly when the predictable stories start to circulate about childhood institutions ‘banning’ Christmas in favour of the bland and Americanised ‘Happy Holidays’.

Last week Tracey Spicer revealed that a Sydney class had torturously removed all references to Christ from end-of-year Christmas carols. Utterly ridiculous, of course, an unnecessary and probably unrequested bending over.

Continue reading "Do they know it’s Sockandjockmas Time at all?" »

Cradle snatcher. Toy boy. Cougar. Child bride. Teen bride. Paedophile.

How old is too old, how young too young? We may have a visceral revulsion when we witness a large age gap in a relationship, but when does it go from odd to deeply wrong, sick – when should it be illegal? And what can we do about it?

The Daily Telegraph reports that more than 200 17-year-old girls and hundreds of 18, 19 and 20-year-olds have been granted prospective spouse visas to marry older – in some cases much older – men here in Australia.

Continue reading "Culture and religion are no excuse for child brides" »

In the name of God, why should anyone be force-fed the word of the Lord while they’re shopping?

That swarthy dude with his dulcet tones outside Roger David in Rundle Mall? He can convert me to men’s suits any day. But these sanctimonious sermonisers and their 100-decibel rantings? No way, Jesu.

Myer is My Sunday place of worship, thank you very much, and Adelaide City Council can have My Vote for ridding our secular shopping strip of these screechy preachers who are apparently just as deafening as chain saws, jackhammers and farm tractors.

Continue reading "Let’s tell these bloody street preachers where to go" »

World leaders and of course, many Libyans, have celebrated the death of Colonel Gaddafi. Many suffered under his brutal regime. There is no doubt Gaddafi was a tyrant and the head of a government known for torture and mass killings of dissidents.

He was either complicit or directly aware of major human rights abuses happening under his rule. He also took power of a country without the mandate of his people. He was eccentric and unpredictable and many world leaders accepted him and treated him as their equal, yet none truly admired the man. His death was a cathartic moment for many. 

But even though he was a mass murderer and rightly despised, his death should not have been treated in the undignified manner that we saw again and again on our screens.

Continue reading "Dancing on graves is appalling, even if it’s Gaddafi" »

So the world’s going to end again today. Panic! Or maybe wait a day. It’s never clear how the International Date Line comes into play with these things.

According to fruity American doomsday prophet Harold Camping, God forgot to carry the two, or screwed the equation some other which way, and the apocalypse predicted for May 21 is in fact now due today.

While it’s tempting to bang on in gloriously pisstaking tones about Camping and other prophets of doom – and don’t worry, I will – the serious side to all this is the gross distortion of the message of Jesus Christ, a man who had plenty of sensible advice for the world.

Continue reading "Festival of Obvious Ideas #9. Stop being nutty for Jesus" »

This is the final in our Adelaide Festival of Ideas series - the brainfest begins today. In this column Paul Collins talks about how important it is to recognise and protect religion pluralism.

Richard Dawkins and his atheist mates have done us a real disservice by caricaturing all religion as fundamentalist claptrap. The problem is that by pretending that all religions are the same, he obscures the important differences that have to be negotiated if we are going to live in a more peaceful and tolerant world.

This is especially true when we come to negotiate that most important contemporary divides between the West and the Islamic world. At the heart of this is the negotiation between Christianity and Islam, two faiths that really need to talk to each other for all our sakes. But this isn’t going to be easy.

Continue reading "Religions: Not same same, but different" »

Some people effectively work as plants; double agents within a lobby group, party or organisation who undermine the very thing they purport to be working for. It’s anti-astroturfing. Chameleon white-anting.

Dr Philip Nitzsche is, I suspect, one of these.

The ghoulish right-to-die campaigner has won Therapeutic Goods Administration approval to import Nembutal, a drug used for voluntary euthanasia, for suicide, and for executions – including in the recent case of Troy Davis.

Continue reading "Euthanasia: When Dr Death comes knocking" »

One of the ugliest aspects of the culture wars is dogmatism, the inability of either side to respect the other’s point of view. Nowhere is this vice more prevalent than among protagonists in the so-called God debate.

It’s fine to be passionate about your belief (or unbelief).  But it’s wrong to demonise dissenters. 

Far too often today Christians are dismissed by their critics as deluded fundamentalists, relics of a past era who have jettisoned reason and common sense.  Just as frequently, Christians disparage atheists and agnostics – even fellow Christians with whom they disagree on one point or another – as unprincipled or immoral. 

Continue reading "Dogmatism derails both sides of religious debate" »

The Gillard Government has taken the middle road in making changes to the national school chaplaincy program; $222 million has been committed to extend the program until 2014. But now schools can elect to have non-religious person fill the role as a secular worker and still use the $20,000 grant scheme.

Chaplains have really become budget student counsellors under the program. Since 2006, it has been rolled out to 2681 schools, 28 per cent are public schools. While the school applies for a chaplain to DEEWR, the funding is administered to a third party employer, in most cases a Christian organisation like Access Ministries who then engage a person to be a chaplain at the school. 

Chaplains have a set of guidelines from the Government which prohibit proselytising, which they adhere to by signing a code of conduct. 

Continue reading "Why the Christian right don’t like Gillard" »

Fanatical Christians and fundamentalist atheists are like a couple of kids bickering in the back seat during a long car drive.

“You’re a poo poo bum head,” yells one – applying a Mao-strength Chinese burn.

“I know you are but what am I,” the other retorts – striking back with an eye-watering nipple cripple. And so it goes.

Continue reading "With or without religion, we’re all desperately human" »

It’s a brave or foolish American who turns his back on God. But that’s what New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg has done.

He’s told security at the official 9/11 Ground Zero ceremony, on Sunday morning, to watch for an eccentric yet convincing bearded gent, possibly wearing flowing robes, who’ll be looking to crash the party.

It is a strange day when God is not invited or invoked at a day of national mourning or celebration in the US. But Bloomberg has decreed that no religious leaders will attend the ceremony, where the names of the 2,983 who were killed on September 11 will be read aloud by family members.

Continue reading "The day America said no to God" »

Many Norwegian stores have removed violent video games from their shelves after Christian Fundamentalist terrorist Anders Breivik claimed he prepared for his attack by playing them. Yet there’s been no word from bookstores on when they’ll remove the Bible from their shelves.

What a load of bollocks. After all, Breivik claimed he played video games to prepare, but the only reason he had anything to prepare for was due to a truly twisted ideology that certainly didn’t come from game play.

Every time we suffer an atrocity like this, people immediately look for somewhere to place blame, while ignoring the fundamental causes. More often than not it’s heavy metal music or violent video games that cop the accusations, which is nothing more than lazy scapegoating.

Continue reading "Thrash metal and video games don’t make you a killer" »

The 150th floor of the Dubai’s Burj Khalifa would guarantee a great view of the vast desert city. But if you’re Muslim and observing the holy month of Ramadan, it’ll also make you hungry.

Residents occupying the loftier levels of the world’s tallest building, will have to wait two minutes longer than their neighbours on the lower floors to break their fast, given how much longer their elevated position frames the sun on the horizon.

That’s how seriously the Islamic world takes their festival of Ramadan.

Continue reading "If only Christmas was more like Ramadan" »

Thank God census night has come and gone. Thank God literally. I’ve been bored witless by insecure atheists prattling on in the last few weeks and days about questions on religion.

For two things are sure. The census will show that a clear majority of Australians believe in a god. And religion is a clear force for good in our society.

“I wonder how many people still believe in God?” my 55 going on 15 year old DJ and artist brother in law Driller (that’s his real name) wrote on his Facebook page recently. “I certainly don’t. Do you?”

Continue reading "Good God, you atheists are insecure" »

The 2011 Census is likely to include a flawed question on religion that will continue to dramatically over-state the extent of religious belief in Australia in spite of the trend towards atheism, agnostic and the flight from organised religion.

The 2011 Census will take place tonight. Months after that, results will be released and much will be made about the demographic changes in Australian society and what they mean.

Yet Australians are again being asked to choose a religious affiliation in a way that is problematic.

Continue reading "Don’t tick the religion box unless you really mean it" »

As an amateur statistics enthusiast and avid filler-in of forms, I LOVE census time. 

It appeals to my social curiosity and love of ordered accuracy. It speaks to my sense of community and my enthusiasm for charting changes. It lets me stick my nose into other people’s business with the Australian government’s blessing.

It’s big. The Twitter account is funny. My standards are low.

Continue reading "Racist loonies have taken leave of their census" »

Sometimes you can meet a person and feel blessed. I don’t mean touched by the hand of God. I just mean you feel renewed, restored and pretty sure there’s goodness in the world. And that, in itself, is a blessing.

The man in question is the Reverend Dr Thomas Lane Butts Jr, aged 81, retired pastor of the Uniting Methodist Church in Monroe County, Alabama. His older brother was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The Rev Butts was not.

He battled the Klan for years, but particularly in the 1950s, when Alabama and neighbouring Mississippi were the Klan heartlands. They had always been a presence, but had in recent years been sleeping lightly. Their cause was fully awoken as the Civil Rights movement began its fight in the south.

Continue reading "The KKK kicked Butts, then Butts kicked back" »

The aftermath of news like that from Oslo leaves only numbness. The injustice of it, the disbelief that this was even possible. Bombs at least kill in a single action. The deliberate persistence involved in attacks like Anders Breivik’s make them all the more distressing.

For a writer with comedic inclinations, the usual set of responses are neutered. Laughter falters, mouth half open. Even in our bleakest political situations, there are moments of light. Something like this is all darkness.

As reports began to come in, it was the last subject in the world you would have imagined being used for political point-scoring. But if ever someone was going to do just that, it was Andrew Bolt.

Continue reading "Even the worst nightmares can’t keep Bolt upright" »

Despite our web-interconnected, frequent-flyer, globalised world, we are still predominantly tribal people. We identify or invent enemies to scrap it out with, and occasionally this tribalism ends in violence. Extreme violence, as we’ve just seen in Oslo.

Tribes were once small groups of families, communities that lived together. People survived and prospered because of their commitment to those groups. Now tribes might be religious, or cultural groups. They might be left wing or right wing, emos or nerds. Footy supporters. Gamers, Nazis, fetishists, gypsies, gun nuts or just plain nutters who’ve found something in common.

We huddle together, sometimes in peaceful solidarity, sometimes with spears raised to the outside world. We use clothing, our words, our beliefs, to signal our membership.

Continue reading "Tribalism can lead to terrorism and tragedy" »

It’s heartening to see Australian politicians taking a stand around Catholic clergy abuse, but the calls to action this week by Senator Nick Xenophon and Victorian MP Anne Barker don’t quite go far enough. 

We now need a Federal Government led, transparent national inquiry and mandatory reporting of all crimes revealed within the Church environment.

The Cloyne report, an independent state report released in Ireland into Catholic clergy abuse last week is the fourth inquiry in six years. All of the reports have been damning, chronicling the repeated failure of the Church to protect children, bring the guilty to justice and make the welfare of victims paramount.

Continue reading "Child abuse in churches is not yet history" »

My sister enrolled her son in primary school this week, and wrote ‘No’ on the enrolment form next to ‘Scripture’, boldly letting her share of the $165 million tax dollars used to fund the National School Chaplaincy Program gurgle godlessly down the plug’ole. Atheists are so wacky.

As nobody had volunteered to run non-religious ethics classes at this particular school, my sister was advised to perhaps just sign her son up for the general scripture classes, because “the little ones get upset when they’re pulled out of class”.

As opposed, of course, to how they feel when they’re being taught about eternal damnation, and the implication that Mummy and Daddy will spend it sipping sulphur in Hell’s hottest nite spot (which isn’t actually Minsky’s, very surprisingly).

Continue reading "School kids should walk the dog, not walk with God" »

Mainstream media holds a mirror up to society. If we take a look into that mirror, we see what is preoccupying our attention.

On a deeper level, we can gain significant insight into the way we tend to investigate and argue. Monday’s Q and A episode provided great insight into the superficial way we tend to approach philosophical and ethical topics.

The fast paced program is geared towards political discussion, but for this episode, the topic was God, Religion and Ethics. Disappointingly, There was a focus on sound bites, concrete current affairs and controversy, and as a result, many of us went away no more enlightened on the topics than before.

Continue reading "Q&A is the equivalent of intellectual McNuggets" »

Should circumcision be banned? Is it mutilation or a culturally and medically significant practice?

That’s the question facing legislators in San Francisco after a controversial, but successful, campaign lead by “Foreskin Man” Michael Hess to have the question put to a ballot.

In California in the last year, the anti-circumcision movement has gained enough public momentum to have the question put to a ballot. Under Hess’ proposal, the circumcision of a minor would be a criminal act and be treated as an assault.

Continue reading "Should we force kin to suffer the unkindest cut?" »

Modern-day defenders of orthodox Christianity – of any religion with a supernatural element – face a host of challenges. Chief among them is the widespread assumption that science and religion are hopelessly incompatible.

In his best-selling book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins asserts that “religion is now completely superseded by science”. It’s a familiar line.  Religion, we’re told, is shadowy and value-laden – an exercise in “blind faith”.

And the Bible says that the Earth was made 6,000 years ago in the course of seven days. Anyone who believes that is crazy! These notions are deeply ingrained, but they are fallacious. And they distort the true beliefs of most Christians in Australia.

Continue reading "The best arguments for God are purely scientific" »

Last week’s decision by the Independent Education Union of Australia to split from the Australian Council of Trade Unions because the ACTU supports the Green’s stance against non-government schools is the correct one.

On reading the Greens’ education policy document, there is no doubt that Catholic and independent schools are in the firing line.  While the Liberal-National Coalition is committed to properly funding such schools and respects their right to manage themselves, the Greens are dedicated to cutting funding and destroying the autonomy such schools currently enjoy.

Given that the Gillard-led government is beholden to the Greens for its continued survival, and the equivocal nature of its commitment to properly funding non-government schools, then there is every chance that those opposed to Catholic and independent schools will get their way. 

Continue reading "Green with class envy and bent on change" »

There’s only one thing more cool than having a celebrity baby. Choosing a celebrity godparent.

The Beckhams want Kate and Wills for baby Harper Seven. Elton John got Lady Gaga. Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman share Rupert Murdoch’s two young daughters.  Michael Stipe and Drew Barrymore have Frances Bean Cobain. And Jake Gygenhall claims Matilda Ledger all to himself. 

Rarely a bastion of insight and wisdom when it comes to relationships, Hollywood’s take on godparents (rich, relatively famous, well-connected and good looking) don’t apply to many of us.  But what we do share is confusion about what the role means in modern day life. Just what is today’s godparent expected to do?

Continue reading "Godparents wanted: Messy, poor or ugly needn’t apply" »

The latest sortie in the war between Islam and Christendom involves a billboard which in the eyes of its critics is the most offensive bit of advertising since those signs asking us if we want longer lasting sex.

It reads “Jesus: A prophet of Islam” and has been displayed in Sydney and is now heading to Adelaide in a spectacularly muddle-headed gesture by creator Diaa Mohammed to foster greater understanding between the Christian and Muslim religions.

Mohammed has set up an organisation called MyPeace which aims to find common ground between the two faiths. Its thinking stems from the fact that in the Islamic holy book the Koran, while Mohammed is obviously the star of the show, JC also gets a pretty good write-up as a prophet of peace. If you contact the MyPeace website they will send you a free copy of the Koran. Call now, their operators are standing by.

Continue reading "Free to believe in God, free to keep quiet about it" »

It’s all too easy in Australia – set up a religion, get tax-free status, a bunch of followers willing to donate, and you’re set. Maybe predict the end of the world to get things moving along with a sense of urgency. 

Senator Nick Xenophon suggests that Australia needs a “cult-busting agency”, similar to those already operating overseas.

Mr Xenophon – who has previously tackled Scientology and questioned its tax-exempt status - says he wants a dedicated government agency to “monitor and control the activities of cults in Australia”. The issue’s come to the fore again with the arrest in Fiji of Rocco “Brother Rock” Leo for breaching his visa. Leo is the leader of the Agape Ministries of God group. Agape has previously run into trouble over fraud, illegal weapons, assaults and tax debts.

Continue reading "CultBusters: Who you gonna call?" »

The Bible is renowned for many reasons, but its capacity to elicit laughter isn’t one of them.  Profound, boring, thought-provoking, out-moded, terrifying, censorious … take your pick.  But funny it is not. The American intellectual Jack Miles claimed recently that the Bible “is morally serious to the virtual exclusion of charm”.

Such sentiments are understandable. There’s no disputing that the Bible’s concerns are, at core, as deep and weighty as they come.  Even so, there is humour to be found within its pages.  For the most part, however, it’s not of the side-splitting or slapstick variety.

Almost all the intentional humour is in the Old Testament. Sarcasm, irony, punning, wordplay, humorous imagery and exaggeration – each were liberally employed by the ancient Hebrew authors. Like all the best communicators today, they appreciated that humour is an excellent way to win over an audience.

Continue reading "The bible’s old stuff is way funnier than the new stuff" »

Once again, the censorial hand of the advertising industry - this time in the form of an arm of government - has moved to protect the public from the evil Atheist Empire. 

Railcorp, a government agency, has refused the Atheist Foundation of Australia advertising space at a billboard location in Queanbeyan, NSW.

Apparently supplying the wording and graphic to be advertised to Billboards Australia on 10 December 2010 wasn’t quite enough time for RailCorp to take in the message.  A sign of government efficiency no doubt.

Continue reading "Censorship shows need for a Bill of Rights" »

The Coalition loves to play up its family credentials with Christian voters.  But both the Coalition and pro-life groups talk big and do little to support women to have kids. This is the unspoken hypocrisy of the pro-life movement.

Under Howard, promoting family values became dogma, as a belief that American-style conservative campaigning - pro-life, anti-gay - would deliver dividends electorally.

Although the rise and fall of Family First suggests that the conservative Christian vote is overstated in Australia, pro-life lobbies have benefitted from an increase in influence on the Coalition (and at times Labor) as a consequence.

Continue reading "Family values and the hypocrisy of the pro-lifers" »

In 2010 Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa declared that the time had come, particularly for Africans, to stop the “wave of hate” and to stand up “against wrong”.

He was referring to the wrong to “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people” who are “part of the African family” and who “are living in fear.”

This news from Africa would be bad enough. But the same fear extends far beyond that continent.

Continue reading "Religion is helping the spread of AIDS" »

In the 2006 census, almost 14 million Australians said that they had some sort of religious affiliation - more than double those who chose not to answer combined with those who answered no religion.

Despite the numbers, there’s a push to kick religious education out of public schools.

And why not? I mean it has been over two centuries since the French Revolution established the principle of the separation of church and state. It can’t possibly make any sense for children educated by state institutions to be influenced in any way by the church.

Continue reading "Religious education is not mindless indoctrination" »

Politics. Religion. Combine the two and the result can be very nasty indeed. Think about a short list: the Crusades, the Inquisition, New York and the twin towers, the Holocaust, massacre of the Huguenots. It appears that when Church and State are combined into one, horrific things can happen.

Democracies usually separate religion and politics. The 1st Amendment to the American Constitution is absolutely clear: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. This has been interpreted firmly by the Supreme Court, including banning prayers in public schools and state aid to religious schools.

Continue reading "Thou shalt separate Church and State" »

End-of-the-world-is-nigher Harold Camping now says May 21 was the ‘invisible Judgement Day’, and that the Earth will in fact be obliterated in October. Here, Rachel Corbett talks us through the comedown.

According to the false prophet Harold Camping, we were all supposed to be stepping over fire and brimstone on our way to work this week, but instead we’ve been left oscillating somewhere between confusion and disappointment.

To be honest, when I didn’t wake on Sunday morning to discover my backyard engulfed in the flames of hell, I was mildly upset.  I’d really been looking forward to catching a ride to work with one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse but instead I had to go back to killing the planet slowly with my mindless consumption of fossil fuels, and take the car. How boring.

Continue reading "All aboard the Jeebers train. Again." »

Why, on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, are its praises being sung by so many prominent atheists? 

Richard Dawkins himself, best-selling author of The God Delusion, has led the charge.  In an article published in the Christmas issue of New Statesman, Dawkins hailed the KJV as an “astonishing piece of English literature”.  He hoped to “encourage our schools to bring this precious English heritage to all our children, whatever their background”. 

Here in Australia there have been similar calls.  A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Julia Gillard got into the act.  “It’s impossible to understand Western literature,” she opined, “without having that key of understanding [of] the Bible stories and how Western literature builds on them and reflects them”.

Continue reading "Atheists shouldn’t damn the Bible with faint praise" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit. There’s a clear contender in Harold Camping – the California-based guru of end times who says the Apocalypse is coming this Saturday. But don’t fret! Down Under we’ve got till Sunday.

The 89-year-old Camping, who looks like he sees his own personal Judgement Day in the bathroom mirror of a morning, has used maths to interpret the Bible to prove that believers will ascend in a shaft of light to eternal bliss.

He says that “at this time in history there is no valid, Biblical evidence or authority which indicates that we cannot know the precise day of judgement.”

Continue reading "ICB: Put on clean undies, the end of the world is nigh" »

Sharia should never be part of Australian law. In fact, Australian authorities should be making more concerted attempts to get to grips with sharia law as it is already practised in Australia, and to make sure that the benefits of a secular democracy are better understood in migrant communities.

First of all, though, let’s just be clear that what the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils has proposed in its submission to a multiculturalism inquiry is not about stoning women for adultery or lopping off hands for stealing. What they’re talking about – at this point – is family law; divorces and marriages.

And when AFIC says (in today’s news reports) that they want Government support for a wider spread of schools and halal shops to stop ‘enclaves’ forming, they’re not talking about empire building, but about community support.

Continue reading "I hear ya on sharia, but please no hysteria" »

It is 222 years since the French Revolution established the principle of the separation of church and state. It is three months since Cyclone Yasi and the Queensland floods ripped $9 billion from our national economy.

In Australia we have an ostensibly secular and progressive government, which also claims to be fiscally prudent. It’s just blown $220 million on a program which is offensive to the principle of state independence from religious influence.

The reason: having avowed her atheism, Julia Gillard is now desperate to appease the Christian lobby. As such, one of the biggest new spending measures in what was unconvincingly billed as a tough-minded post-disaster budget will see chaplains running about in 3500 public schools, filling kids’ heads with what many people regard as fantastic nonsense.

Continue reading "Let us pray that school chaplains are given the chop" »

Brendan Brown writes “Hey God, reveal thyself!” and puts forward his case of “noisy atheism”. 

He candidly speaks about the lack of evidence with regard to the divine and light-heartedly takes religion to task for the holes in their belief systems.

It’s a given that no evidence is currently available that supports the existence (or non existence) of god. Yet both atheists and theists continue to taunt each other for evidence.

Continue reading "Is Atheism beyond belief?" »

What is the National School Chaplaincy Program?

The National School Chaplaincy Program was introduced by the Howard Government and expanded by $222 million under Julia Gillard in yesterday’s 2011 federal budget.  The program allows for schools to apply for a grant of up to $20,000 per year to employ a religiously affiliated “chaplain” to provide students with emotional and spiritual guidance.

What is “spiritual guidance”?

“Spiritual guidance” is a vague and largely invented “discipline” that only exists to ensure the employment of its teachers.

Continue reading "God in the classroom: School chaplaincy FAQs" »

Another day, another non-appearance by a religious prophet.

As this article goes to press, neither Jesus, the Hidden Imam or John Maynard Keynes has returned to earth, which is unfortunate as religion has never been in greater need of validation.

It’s irrelevant if religion has practical benefits in terms of charity, community building and teaching ethical behavior, if religion’s key claims are not rooted in reality. Either religion is factual or it is not and either there are good reasons to believe something or there are none.

Continue reading "Hey God, reveal thyself!" »

Christians do support legal assisted dying.

This may come as a surprise to most readers, but it is true.  What’s more, 74 per cent of people who claim to have a religion strongly support the right of doctors to provide a lethal dose, according to a 2007 Newspoll. Newspoll - a reputable public opinion polling company, as distinct from newspaper polls that can give skewed results. Exclude religion and we find a massive 91 per cent are in favour of medically assisted dying.

Included in this support are four out of five Anglicans and three out of four Catholics.

Continue reading "The Christian lobby versus Christian compassion" »

The Catholic Church is in the headlines after the Vatican effectively forced the Bishop of Toowoomba, William Morris, to resign. Bishop Morris earned the ire of the church because he wanted to discuss liberal reforms such as the ordination of women.

Fellow ‘rebel priest’ Peter Kennedy, who was ousted from the church for his own ‘controversial’ views and subsequently formed St Mary’s-in-Exile in Brisbane, told us his story of clashing with the church.

“It was two years to the day on Sunday that we left St Mary’s and as a community we walked down to the Trades and Labor Council building. They took us in and we’ve been there for two years conducting our services.

Continue reading "Catholic Church: A cult that makes you ‘pray, pay, obey’" »

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope of the Roman Catholic Church (population 1.1 billion) on this day in 2005.

It’s Tuesday at The Punch. What’s on your mind? Share it here.

Every time you pay tax or rates you are subsidising other people’s religion. These include mainstream religions, and cult-like groups opposed to the values of normal Australian life.

Put simply, less than 20 per cent of Australians are seriously religious and the rest of us subsidise their religious organisations. There are a lot of wonderful people who do good work in the name of their particular belief, but do we need taxpayer-funded bureaucracies for them to be effective?

Australia is one of the few nations that make all investment earnings by religious bodies tax free, regardless of whether these are spent on charitable activities. And all the property they own is free of rates and land tax.  If they sell these assets for a profit they pay no capital gains tax. And often these are properties that were gifted to them many years ago by government.

Continue reading "Rich men in the tax-free kingdom of God" »

There’s a lot of religion on the site today – sorry. Then again, there’s a lot of religion in the world… anyhoo, welcome to this week’s edition of I Call Bullshit.

They love a good Muslim stoush, those Liberal MPs. Cory Bernardi on the burqa, Kevin Andrews on ‘religious enclaves’ – and now Bernie Finn on beheadings.  Scott Morrison in general. Mr Finn jumped into what has become a rather messy debate on assimilation by saying on Facebook that he failed to understand “how concerns about a religion that seems to sanction decapitation can be construed as racism”.

The halal butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

Continue reading "ICB: Does Islam sanction beheadings?" »

“It is not ideal that religious freedom is protected by so-called ‘exemptions and exceptions’ in anti-discrimination law, almost like reluctant concessions, crumbs from the secularists’ table.”

Cardinal George Pell’s recent lament to Prime Minister Julia Gillard about the “secularists’ table” seems odd, given that religion still defines our nationhood. Just ask our atheist Prime Minister. It is hard to imagine then how exceptions and exemptions are metaphorical “crumbs”, when they have a vast reach in excluding minority groups in Australia.

While each state and territory currently has anti-discrimination laws which protect against some forms of sexuality or gender identity discrimination, the inconsistency in terminology, and the wide-ranging exemptions (particularly for faith-based bodies) means there are considerable gaps in protecting the rights of individuals accessing health services, goods or services, aged care, employment and education.

Continue reading "The faithful are feasting on religious freedoms" »

So many words are spilt today arguing about the non-existence of an almighty that it’s easy to forget that atheism isn’t the end goal. Far from it.

Atheism is just the beginning. It’s the question of what comes after God where things become really interesting.

Because atheism is ultimately only a negative thesis: it simply states that there exists no god or gods. As such, to say I’m an atheist tells you something about what I don’t believe in, but it tells you almost nothing about what I do believe in.

Continue reading "Is there a life after God?" »

Mathematicians have released a study that made for great headlines, including:

(A fairly tenuous link but a mention of religious songs, and I’ll take any excuse to listen to Tim Minchin)

Faith no more! From New Zealand to Canada, religion ``to become extinct’’ in nine countries.

Study Finds Religion May Be Heading for Extinction in Parts of World.

Researchers Predict the End of Religion.

Continue reading "Reports of religion’s death greatly exaggerated" »

Welcome to I Call Bullshit, where we look at myths and mistruths, magical thinking and bad science.

And now for something completely different.

In all the fallout from the anti-carbon tax/anti-Gillard/anti gun control/anti grammatical correctness rally yesterday, an SA talkback caller – Mick from Morphett Vale – found one more thing to be upset about.

Mick’s a Wiccan, and he took exception to Gillard being called a witch. Because he’s one, and the word was obviously being used as an insult.

Continue reading "ICB: Julia Gillard is NOT a witch" »

This is a joint submission by Christopher Pyne MP, Shadow Minister for Education, and Alan Tudge MP. Federal Member for Aston.

As is often the case, the Gillard Government says one thing and does another.  If Julia Gillard thinks that people should know their Bible stories because they have “formed such an important part of our culture”, then she should make sure we have a national history curriculum that doesn’t try to hide and deny our western Christian roots. 

On Sunday, Ms Gillard advocated the learning of the Bible and said that “It’s impossible to understand Western literature without having that key of understanding the Bible stories and how Western literature builds on them and reflects them and deconstructs them and brings them back together.”

Apart from the Prime Minister’s jargon about deconstruction, all sensible people would agree with her statement.

Continue reading "God important to Gillard? You wouldn’t read about it" »

“Homosexual tendencies (are) one of many conditions that beset fallen humanity.”

According to Exodus International’s policy statements, those who embrace “homosexual behaviours” have lives that are “sinful” and “destructive”.

Rather than simply condemn non-heterosexual desire, Exodus International (A Christian organisation that condemns homosexuality) adopts what they refer to as a ‘redemptive’ approach – seeking to ‘reorient’ the ‘fallen’.

Continue reading "‘Pray away the gay’ app a sign of deeper bigotry" »

A radio host the other day was discussing the iPod-full of Australian artists that our Prime Minister gave to Barack Obama. Reviewing the collection of songs - which included Midnight Oil - he claimed it proved “political correctness has gone mad’.

(Glenn Beck on political correctness gone mad)

These sentiments were echoed in The Punch the other morning when Kevin Donnelly warned us that the proposed national curriculum was much too ‘politically correct’. The entire curriculum, Donnelly argued, is overwhelmed by politically correct messages and ignores Christianity.

Feeling under siege by political correctness I decided to do something about it: I called a Muslim friend and made some jokes about her cultural background. I figured it was OK, because some of my best friends are Muslim.

Continue reading "Economic correctness - the new political laziness?" »

In the lead-up to the 2007 federal election, ALP leader Kevin Rudd staked the middle ground in education by advocating a conservative agenda, embracing a back-to-basics curriculum and a return to traditional subjects.

During her time as Education Minister Julia Gillard also defined herself as an education conservative and described the ALP’s national curriculum as exemplifying a return to academic standards and rigour.

In one speech Gillard described herself as “a passionate believer in the benefits of a rigorous study of traditional disciplines”, and in a second speech she boasted, “What we’re on about is making sure that the absolute basics of knowledge, absolute basics of education are taught right across the country.”

Continue reading "Curriculum is substandard, PC, and ignores Christianity" »

Whatever happened to the separation of church and state?

I know, it’s actually the “principle of state neutrality” but let’s not split hairs right now.

Our schools are even more tainted than those in your country – the U S of A – where the teaching of creationism as science in public schools is deemed unconstitutional.

Continue reading "Dear God: Get the hell out of our schools!" »

Scooby-Doo and the crime-fighting gang are some of the most beloved children’s TV characters of all time.

The original series Scooby Doo, Where Are You! debuted in 1969 and the show ran for 17 years. Its latest syndication of films and straight-to-DVD movies makes Scooby-Doo the longest lived TV cartoon character.

Continue reading "Scooby-Doo, voodoo and woo-woo" »

Most people agree that we, as a society, want to decrease the number of abortions.

Like any grand statement, the means to getting to this end will be the judge of our seriousness and principles.

Tory Shepherd is right to point out our goals cannot be achieved through “guilt, hate and fear mongering”.

Continue reading "The abortion debate has gone beyond slogans" »

Cardinal George Pell has been a spiritual adviser to Tony Abbott and he would have provided welcomed guidance to the Opposition Leader over the years.

But a mild-mannered weather forecaster has raised the prospect that Cardinal Pell might have misled his closest friend in his political flock on the secular issue of climate change policy.

Dr Greg Ayers is director of the Bureau of Meteorology and on Monday night he used a Senate estimates committee hearing to take on the cardinal, his scientific adviser, and a handful of senators who thought they could talk him down.

Continue reading "Pell does not have the gospel truth on climate change" »

The Australian Family Association responds to Tory Shepherd’s Punch column on abortion.

Ah pro-choice warriors, methinks thou dost protest too much.

The sheer passion and vigour with which you attack anyone who gives off even the vaguest whiff of pro-life sentiment casts doubt upon the substance of your convictions.

Shout those evil medievalists down! Throw names, mud, whatever – just make sure you get ‘em good!

Continue reading "A response: (Unborn) Human Rights 101" »

If gay marriage is too controversial for some federal politicians to handle – with entrenched positions on both sides – why don’t we do what political pragmatists are taught to do, and compromise? Say, with civil unions?

After all – they have civil unions in the UK and NZ and many other countries. To conservatives you can argue that this gives the gays their relationship recognition but still keeps marriage exclusive to the heterosexual club.  And to the gays you can argue that it’s a huge step forward – they get their ‘weddings’ now and all the state recognition that goes with them … and that eventually society may feel relaxed enough to move to marriage … one day … down the track. 

Seems like the perfect solution for any politician who just wants this debate to go away.  Like Prime Minister Gillard for example.

Continue reading "Hey Julia, civil unions are no substitute for real marriage" »

I recently watched Ricky Gervais hosting the Golden Globe Awards and found it hilarious. He’s got guts. In his closing line he shouted out that he wanted to thank God for making him an atheist. I think that also took guts - on top of everything he mentioned during the night he finishes off the show with a jab at religion.

It makes me wonder sometimes, being a religious person myself, how different would life be if you’re an atheist?

I moved into a new house not long ago and on our first night’s sleep, we discovered a note was cellotaped to the back of our bedroom door. It was a prayer, one I hadn’t heard before. The following morning I looked it up and discovered that it’s a life prayer.

Continue reading "If I were an atheist I’d still believe in Ricky Gervais" »

The Jerry Springer of modern philosophy was in good form when he addressed a packed crowd on Wednesday evening in the Great Hall of the University of Sydney.

Peter Singer, now a professor at Princeton University in the US, was back in his native Australia for a visit.

Most philosophers count themselves lucky if their mother appreciates their work. But Singer is regarded - by journalists, at least - as the most influential living philosopher. In fact, at Sydney Uni, he was introduced with the fulsome praise normally reserved for superannuated television stars: “If we had a collection of national living treasures, Peter would certainly stand tall amongst them.”

Continue reading "Peter Singer: the Jerry Springer of philosophy" »

American adventurer Aron Ralston is just about to fly home, after a whirlwind visit of considerably less than 127 hours to promote the Oscar-nominated film 127 hours, which recounts his amazing survival story.

Ralston, you’ll recall, is the guy who got wedged by a boulder in a Utah canyon in 2003, and cut his own arm in sheer, gruesome desperation after five days with almost no food or water. So dehydrated was he, his pee literally turned black.

In countless interviews over the years, and again this week, Ralston has used words like “epiphany” and “euphoric moment” to describe the instant he decided to self-amputate. It’s hardly the overtly god-bothering language which some American athletes use. All the same, I’m convinced he experienced a “god moment”. Let me explain.

Continue reading "Ralston: Divine intervention or a bloody strong will?" »

Former Premier Jeff Kennett has urged Australians to be vigilant about ethnic threats and told the Herald Sun that migrants should accept our way of life.

He was commenting in the wake of a claim by British Prime Minister David Cameron that multiculturalism had contributed to the threat of terrorism within the UK.

Multiculturalism is a hot button topic. And in Australia the topic is plagued by empty, yet dangerous phrases such as ‘way of life’.

Continue reading "Australia does not have a ‘way of life’" »

The floods have caused great devastation and have presented fundamental challenges to our society and lives.

This kind of crisis poses challenges to us on a number of levels – social, physical, emotional and existential.

Tory Shepherd’s article “Digging a hole while trying to find God” outlines the existential challenges provoked by the flood.

Continue reading "A response: Disasters do not negate the existence of God" »

Church leaders faced with a national disaster are struggling to find relevance and avoid hypocrisy. In the wake of the floods, people with religious convictions face an age-old question:

Where was God?

It’s a classic case of cognitive dissonance, where holding two conflicting thoughts causes the brain to implode. God is good, all-knowing and all-powerful and yet bad stuff happens.

Continue reading "Digging a hole while trying to find God" »

Andrew McLeod, addressing the United Nations last week, argued that the AFL must address racism in football, citing their laws that prevent insults and threats on the basis of a person’s race.

His address, on Australia Day, coincided with hundreds of speeches around the country assuring those taking up Australian citizenship that the nation’s racial vilification laws prevented discrimination against them on the basis of their race.

Race is also emerging as a hot topic in the controversy about a referendum on indigenous recognition in the constitution. Options for change are already citing “people of any race,” “racial groups” and “all racial backgrounds” and the race power contained in section 51 (xxvi) (1).

Continue reading "Science shows we should get rid of ‘race’" »

It’s 9am on Christmas morning and I am standing in a queue in a rather ornate, grandiose building in Sydney.

I am among the many worshippers at the Church of Mary Immaculate in Waverley. And I am about to receive Communion.

Except I am a Jew, a traditional Jew who only weeks prior had a candelabra flickering in my window for eight nights in celebration of the miracle of Hannukah, when the Greeks tried – but failed – to annihilate the Jews and our holy temple more than 2000 years ago.

Continue reading "Holy Dilemma! A Jew does Communion and Christmas" »

George Bernard Shaw once observed that the statistics about death are very impressive - one out of one people dies. So why don’t we give more thought to what happens after we die? A 10-minute cab ride on Christmas Eve reminded me of a question we all need to ask, but rarely do.

I jumped in the cab at Chatswood with a spring in my step - I’d successfully completed my Christmas shopping - shopping I’d foolishly left until the last minute. When I asked the driver where he was up to with his present-buying, he explained that as a Muslim, he and his family wouldn’t be celebrating Christmas.

Instead, they would be holding their own celebration a couple of months later in a traditional Persian celebration that would appear, on the outside at least, much the same as a traditional Australian Christmas, minus of course, any references to God himself dwelling among us as he is born as a baby.

Continue reading "What do you think happens when we die?" »

Growing up, I thought of Pantera as a heavy metal band. That was before I read the Greek philosopher, Celsus whose anti-Christian writings are recorded by the Christian writer, Origen. Around a century after the composition of the biblical Gospels, Celsus wrote various works opposing Christian doctrine.

One writer describes Celsus as “the first Nietzschean”, such was his vehement objection to the traditional (and historical) teaching that Jesus of Nazareth was born of a virgin, taught and ministered around Galilee to much acclaim, and was then crucified by Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, and seen alive again three days after his death.

Among Celsus’s claims about the fallacies of Christian history is the report that Jesus was fathered by a Roman soldier called Pantera (Origen, Contra Celsum, I:32, 34). This is the first known mention of this view, so we can’t know how prevalent it was (it was later picked up in some Jewish writings). However, it is attractive to those who would like to ‘domesticate’ the Christmas story.

Continue reading "Pantera is not just a heavy metal band" »

Religious extremism seems to be on the rise, and the reaction against extremism is only getting more … extreme.

We in the Western world do so like to talk about banning stuff. All sorts of stuff.

But is banning radicals right and, more importantly, does it help?

Continue reading "How do you solve a problem like religious zealotry?" »

What is the point of a “non-judgemental” ethics centre? It’s a serious question.

In my naiveté, I had always assumed that the whole point of ethics was to arrive at some sort of judgement about what is right and what is wrong. But take a look at the secular St James Ethics Centre’s website and it would appear I was wrong.

The St James Ethics Centre - headed by Dr Simon Longstaff – bills itself as offering a “non-judgemental forum” to explore ethical issues.
It won’t investigate unethical behaviour. It won’t help you make an ethical financial investment. But the biggest problem is that a “non-judgemental” approach lowers the stakes. It means your standard of ethics can only be judged by whether you are being true to yourself or not.

Continue reading "Who’s teaching the ethics teachers getting their ethics?" »

When I was young Catholic, I remember being struck by the contrast between two different approaches to spreading the Gospel – that of the conquistador Hernan Cortes, who did so by the sword and cannon, and that of Francis Xavier, who did so by word and example.

In the lives of the saints, Xavier was a hero to me. It appears the Churches in NSW follow in the steps of Cortes when it comes to evangelical ‘realpolitik’. Not for their state the freedom to choose a faith or citizenship tradition.

They will simply not tolerate neutral ethics classes in competition with Christian scripture classes. The Government must ban alternative perspectives and prohibit parental choice.

Continue reading "Intolerant Churches punishing non-believers" »

Today the parliament of South Australia is due to debate a bill to legalise medically assisted suicide in that state.

Should the bill pass, Australia’s “festival state” will assume the dubious and rather un-festive honour of being the first to make doctor assisted suicide available to its residents.

Unlike the Northern Territory’s 1996 legislation, the federal government would be unable to overturn the South Australian Bill should it pass into law.

Continue reading "South Australia risks turning doctors into agents of death" »

For one of the world’s most powerful men Pope Benedict has a big problem with clear communication.

Health experts around the world have rejoiced at a hint from the Pope that it kinda, sorta, maybe could be better for a male prostitute with AIDS to use a condom when having sex.

The Vatican has been quick to clear up that it’s not official teaching so headlines such as “Vatican makes first concession on condom use”, in one paper this morning seem a little hasty.

Continue reading "Thanks Benedict, that’s about as clear as mud" »