One of the google queries that found my site was “How to spot a fake power balance“. I mean it’s an important issue right? These things are bloody expensive at $59.95 a pop and who knows what sort of impact a misaligned energy holographic sticker thingy might have on those pesky meridian lines or “natural energy”!

So when do I know I’m being scammed by a power balance bracelet?
Let’s for the sake of this define “getting scammed” or “ripped off” as “paying good money for something that doesn’t have any special ability and is just a piece of plastic with a sticker on it”.

So for the people considering buying one and worried about getting scammed: relax. I have a very easy guide as to when you’ve been ripped off.

1. If you buy it direct from power balance: you’re getting ripped off.

2. If you buy one from an authorised dealer or distributor: you’re getting scammed.

3. If you buy a fake one you will also be getting scammed, albeit slightly less. The difference is entirely down to a single metric to determine how much you’re getting scammed. If you pay $59.95 then you’ve been scammed 59.95 units on the power balance scam-o-meter (also known as Australian dollars or AUD). If you have some shifty looking guy (well.. a shifty looking guy who isn’t officially affiliated with the power balance company) sell you one for $29.95 you’ve been scammed out of twenty-nine bucks and ninety-five cents BUT that means when you stand next to the person who bought a “real” one: you’re actually $30 less scammed than that guy. So in essence you’ve got the same placebo for half the price.

Half price placebo is better than full price placebo.

So out of the possible options presented so far: your least scammy way of purchasing one is from the seedy non-genuine powerband guy offering you cheaper ones. The authentic power balance bracelet at full price is the biggest scam.

Avoiding power band scam!

Power balance bands: You can spot a fake one easily. They're all fake.

The only way you don’t get scammed is if you got it free (perhaps discarded by someone reading my earlier blog or other people exposing the hoax of power balance bracelets). I suppose you could steal one, but really: it’s illegal and there’s one thing stupider than buying one in the first place and that’s going to jail for one. But it would actually cost the original scammers (or their minion local scammers) some money, perhaps less than a dollar a unit. Go into a bargain/discount store full of kiddy’s toys and plastic crap and find the cheapest plastic wrist band and that’s probably what you’ve cost them. So not worth going to jail for. Perhaps the “fake” product will drive them out of business and they’ll have to get real jobs.

So, instead of the placebo peddlers of powerbalance products: trust honest Nathan’s snake oil detection services to steer you clear of scams: if you buy a power balance band, real or fake: you’re getting SCAMMED sweetheart.. Instead (or if by some miracle I’ve stopped you wasting $60), might I suggest a donation to one of these fine, secular, charity organisations:

• The Fred Hollows foundation (donate here) – restoring sight to the poor throughout the world
• Oxfam Australia (donate here) – a number of great charitable works around the world
• Australian Red Cross (donate here) – neutral humanitarian aid with an extensive history of helping.

Sorry if that last bit was a bit preachy, but fuck me: $60 for a bullshit plastic bracelet? I mean take a look at what that means to the above charities and what they can do with it versus your typical evil scumbag placebo scam artist rolling around in piles of $100 bills having cocaine snorting contests with $10,000 a night hookers.

At $60 a pop, I'd say they could just about afford it.

shinya kimura @ chabott engineering from Henrik Hansen on Vimeo.

If anyone wants to buy one of his bikes for me.. Well, I’d be a happy chappy they look pretty unique.

So much so that consideration is being given to either bringing the leaders’ debate forward by an hour, or delaying it until another evening so it does not clash with the series final of the hit show MasterChef.

I’m fine if you aren’t at the TV but given the choice and sitting at home stuffing your face with takeaway food while you pretend you’ll cook good food one day and you can’t pay a bit of attention to what’s going on in the election. Well…

Let’s be clear: Masterchef is big brother but without the shower and bedroom scenes. If BigBrother was entirely in the kitchen and the one on one interviews (completely and utterly staged post event I might add). Maybe with a bit of the apprentice thrown in (the drive away, low camera angle in the car). In 6 months no one will even remember it because they’ll be watching the next mind numbing but annoyingly addictive reality show.

Here’s the poll results so far:

Please tell me the public cares a bit more about the future leadership of the country than this!

Perhaps no one notices the bullshit

Perhaps Tony Abbott has a chance with his flat out liestatement that he can promise lower interest rates (for those not in the know: the reserve bank is independent of the government of the day and sets interest rates based mainly on inflation and other economic measures.. not on the whim of the politicians in charge). Perhaps both parties can overplay the significance of their “number one issue” and we will lap it up, just so long as it fits in the ad break of that TV show we’re watching!

The debate about the little things
The debate will hopefully revolve around the environment, jobs, education, healthcare, border security and immigration. You know, the “little things” in life. Obviously our future is not as critically important as watching these guys:

The hosts (image from the Age Newspaper)

• a pompous fat bastard (who needs to step away from the table more often and has to wrap his neck to keep his expansive jowls from exploding),
• a little bald English geezer (with small man syndrome and a knack for pointing out the blinding obvious in an urgent sounding voice) and
• a granite faced grump (I haven’t watched enough to know what he’s notorious for)

shovel a half billion calories into their already well stuffed gullets.

The meals are cooked by people who appeal to one of a handful of viewer-broad appeal stereotypes (e.g. the gay guy, the blokey clutz, the princess, the douche-bag, the “bit rough” tomboy girl, the ethnic “let’s keep this show from being a white wash” minority, the out of place awkward guy and the “jesus is my life” religious one that all the Hillsong cult mob will vote for). Not only are we dumb, we’re predictably dumb and don’t like seeing anything new it seems.

Step away from the cupcake fatty!
In a nation with over half the population overweight we shouldn’t be obsessing over food, particularly not the stuff on Masterchef.

MasterChef?

When “half a block of butter” and “a handful of salt” are in pretty much every dish: there’s a problem. Double problem because you’re watching the damned thing on TV and don’t get enough exercise. There’s perhaps a cross over opportunity for emergency room when they all (and they will) end up in hospital with a heart attack as their cholesterol encrusted arteries, basting in the umpteenth pork belly dish, finally give in. Or perhaps dig up “the biggest loser” hosts and get this mob to boot-camp.

Apathy is not a virtue!

It says a lot about the general apathy of people if they would rather watch a bunch of people chop up vegetables than take the slightest bit of interest in the policies and running of the country. One of my friends (Dave?) said that the ability to vote should require people to prove they have read at least two different papers in the week before the election so they’re at least somewhat aware of the issues. I’d settle for the average voter being able to put off watching some moronic cook off contest to watch just one political debate every few years.

Who elects these idiots anyhow?
In between elections there’s always plenty of moaning about how poorly the politicians are running the place: perhaps it is down to how poorly informed the voters make themselves by apathy and ignorant choices. Stupid voters deserve the stupid leaders they vote in.

Perhaps if people cared more about political issues than about which person goes on to the next round of the latest idiotic reality TV show of the moment: we’d demand something more from our elected officials. So we wonder why our politicians are a bunch of untrustworthy, back stabbing, gimmicky, slogan spouting twits! When they have to compete with reality TV shows to get elected: is it any wonder?

Power balance bands: Not endorsed by Harry Potter as yet, but bound to be eventually.

This “article” (I use the term loosely because it uses zero journalistic investigation skills): “Fake power band scam” bleats about the loss of a $59.95 scam by the power band people and a cheaper sale by someone else.

Performance technology company Power Balance Australia has issued a warning to potential customers that a man has been selling counterfeit versions of their performance power bands at the Moruya markets.
..
Power Balance Australia NSW manager Ryan Brustolin says the fake bands are made in China and are of no more than ornamental value, despite being virtually identical to the real thing. They are usually bought on Ebay.

“They are very, very similar but they have no technology in them so they are worth nothing,” he said.

Is he talking about his own products or the fake ones? I’m confused.

The idea that you can magically change your metabolism via strapping on what is essentially a “live strong” band with a hologram sticker is insane. I go exercise to try and increase my endurance, strength etc and even then it takes actual effort. This snake oil company is selling a placebo bracelet.

Power Balance: finest placebo wares for the bargain price of $59.95

The signs of a snake oil product

So let’s look at their claims (from their website):

What is Power Balance?

Power Balance is Performance Technology designed to work with your body’s natural energy field. Founded by athletes, Power Balance is a favorite among elite athletes for whom balance, strength and flexibility are important.

How Does the Hologram Work?

Power Balance is based on the idea of optimizing the body’s natural energy flow, similar to concepts behind many Eastern philosophies. The hologram in Power Balance is designed to resonate with and respond to the natural energy field of the body

Wow, I think I shall have to refer to any sticker now as “technology”. It’s not sticky tape: it’s a reel of technology! Those aren’t post-it notes, they’re yellow paper note technology! The makers of this shouldn’t be told to stick their product up their arses, they should instead technologify an orifice with the product.

How exactly does a bit of plastic “resonate and respond” in this most premium of snake oil bracelets? Do they mean “if you look at the holographic sticker from different angles it appears to be 3D”? Seriously? Does it have a drop of snake oil encased in the plastic somewhere?

The power band product has a number of characteristics of your standard snake oil product line:

• Vague claims like “natural energy field” and “optimising the body’s natural energy flow”.
• Expensive for what it appears to be: a rubber strap with a sticker
• Links to “eastern philosophies” to explain how the magic sticker (also found on genuine DVDs from China)
• Endorsements from laypeople, sportsmen/women but no actual scientific studies or verified results

So let me translate what “natural energy” means in a product such as this: it means “all in your head”. They’ve leapt up a level in quackery by claiming this piece of plastic with a sticker (erm.. sorry “technology”) is the reincarnation of a philosophy or some such garbage.
But hey, there are a lot of stupid people out there making these snake oil peddlers very rich. If you see anyone wearing one of these: I suggest you offer to sell them a nice block of land in the middle of Sydney Harbour.

Let’s try some science with some blind tests

Did some digging and found that Richard Saunders did a follow up on Today Tonight to show what a load of shit these things are:

Says everything really. Well, except that shining example of fine journalism Today Tonight didn’t run with the headline “Shocking power balance scam EXPOSED!”.

And a ratbags.com link on the matter of Power Balance Bracelets.

UPDATE: See the follow up post on how to spot a fake power balance bracelet.

For the unfamiliar: “negative equity” is a situation where people owe more on their mortgages than their property is worth. Those in the USA, UK and Japan are quite familiar with the term with over one-fifth of US mortgages in negative equity since their real estate market went kaput.

Pro property gambling media

The Sydney Morning Herald (and other Australian media) is very pro-property. Unsurprising really as they rake in a lot of cash from glossy real estate advertising. An article “Bubble-burst fears rise” is somewhat strange in amongst the business-as-usual real estate spruiking. There have, in the past, been articles proclaiming half of sydney siders would be millionaires thanks to property doubling though as one blogger points out the absurdity:

Maybe the illusive dream of six zeros is within reach for all people around the world. All you have to do is borrow a million dollars. The fact that you owe the money to the bank isn’t relevant. According to news.com, you are still a millionaire!

I know the trick to becoming rich that none of these people do: real estate!

Another guy lost a bet to walk to the snowy mountains because the Government whipped out the best of all artificial price inflationary devices: the new home-owner’s grant. Basically this was a tax payer funded leap of people who hadn’t been able to save for a house or pass the necessary financial criteria into the real estate speculation game. Was it designed to increase the supply of new houses, new developments etc? Nope, not really. It was a chunk of money that went straight to banks, real estate agents and lawyers for the exchange of existing property (it did give more to new property, but let’s face it: in urban areas there’s not many spare blocks awaiting a new house). Additionally we had reductions in state revenue via stamp duty concessions and a bunch of people scamming the system for an investment property (“Oh, of course I live there..”). That decision to inflate the cost of existing houses was money that we as society were taking away from hospitals, schools, police, fire, universities etc in order to fuel a real estate boom.

Some unofficial free (non-financial adviser) financial advice*

Call me crazy, but I still cling to the idea that you shouldn’t buy shit you can’t afford. If you can’t afford it then.. wait for it.. Don’t fucking buy it! If you need to get a loan make sure you look at the historical rates and factor in some slack and money to still eat.

If you can’t afford it then at least do the political process a fair deal and not whinge when your foray into the world of debt fuelled real estate gambling doesn’t pay off.

If you are only able to get into real estate at the lowest interest rates in 20 something years and rates typically sit at double that (and have gone as high as 18-19%) then perhaps you should just save for a while longer or go with another plan. Asking a bank or someone making a commission from a bank as to whether you can afford a particular loan and them saying “yes, of course” is like asking the wolf whether he can mind the chicken coop.

* should not be taken as actual financial advice. I may work for a bank, but I have no formal credentials in this space whatsoever.. Purely interested in the topic from a rant point of view.

The spin can spin
It’s ok, the Sydney Morning Herald and other newspapers can go from inflating the bubble via puff piece real estate hype to handy guides on “dealing with negative equity” and “cooking gruel for the mortgage stressed”.
Perhaps “The reality of debt obsessed society” or “see, real estate prices DO go down”?
Either way I’d lay money we will we keep getting terms like “hardship” and “endure” used to describe people’s voluntary debt-to-the-eyeballs situation. I even had a religious workmate compare mortgages to slavery from biblical time. Such is the horrendous injustice foisted upon the public by evil banks dangling mortgages in front of people with future millionaire property mogul aspirations.

But Australia’s situation is special
Oh we’re special alright, just “needs to be told not to hit self in head with a brick daily” special. We’ve got the world’s most overpriced property, but that doesn’t mean a thing apparently.

Fight club quote on the matter.

We’ll continue to hear that unlike every other real estate bubble (US, UK, Japan etc) Australia is DIFFERENT, we’re UNIQUE. We’ll hear how it’s not crazy that people are paying a million bucks for a junkie infested rats’ nest, or an $800K “bargain” for living next to a toxic waste dump. Don’t worry about the toxic waste dump because soon you’ll just get another mortgage on a slightly better place once you’ve built up enough equity in your current place. *slaps head* Of course! Two mortgages on this notion of price increase gambling must be twice as safe as having just one.

Oh, of course we’ve got immigration.

The redneck approach to immigration control. Also funnily enough what the real estate industry is saying effectively with their "shortage of 200-300,000 houses" garbage.

That whole “big Australia” concept and some very dubious sounding “Shortage of 200,000 houses” (now 300K I saw somewhere, or just rounding up?) that keeps getting thrown into articles. Where did that number come from? If this was the homeless figure: perhaps. If it’s the number of people thinking of buying or who would like to buy: that’s a bullshit figure. Outside the unfortunate Asian students getting rorted by dodgy landlords stuffing them 3 or 4 to a room in the high-rises around Chinatown in Sydney I think density of living is pretty low in Sydney at least. I know of lots of people with spare rooms or a couple in a 2 or 3 bedroom flat that could quite easily move someone in if rental prices rose too much.

Never mind Sydney (and other places) have got a tonne of “kidults” (adult age, but never left home and don’t tend to pay bills, proper rent etc) perpetually living at home because they think that to move out of home they MUST buy a property (in amongst their instant CEO position at their first job). That’ll somewhat dent any future profits having to pay food, electricity etc for your useless 35 year old kidult sponging off you until you die.

The future?

Well, the USA has pioneered the concept of a “strategic default on mortgage“, I’m not sure that’s as much of an option in Australia because you can’t just put the keys in the mail (“jingle mail”) to the bank and walk away.

If we get higher interest rates perhaps that will make saving more attractive.  Those of us with savings currently are enjoying our 6 something percent returns on savings accounts that we can withdraw in a day or two (versus 6 months +) when needed or investing in the stock market (which at least has the honesty of an investment choice able to acknowledge it goes down on occasion). The sooner we start affording people the same tax advantages as negative gearing the better: we might get away from burying ourselves in debt.

As a thought for the future: it’d be nice if people were pouring money into research/development rather than property. Or banks devoting more time to business loans instead of housing mortgages (as one NAB banker said recently).

If ever there was “dead money” as far as the history of mankind is concerned it’s buying and selling land to keep up with the Joneses. Inventing things, solving the problems of the world: now there’s money that’s doing something.

And some other wisdom (lot shorter) on motivation from the movie “Office Space”:

Ceiling cat approves of the non scripture option.

But now we have the hope of a more structured approach to learning (something other than taking the vent off the air-con ducting): the NSW trial of an “ethics course” alternative to scripture. Or as I like to refer to it “the long overdue first death nail in the coffin of religious indoctrination in public schools”.

What happens currently in Scripture

Well, I’ve outlined a some of my thoughts in an earlier post: Letter to Dept. of Education about Scripture. But basically scripture is an unfiltered vomiting of religious garbage in government funded, supposedly secular schools. While mostly offering a Christian denomination (picked by the head master/mistress), some offer a choice to parents.

The people presenting this have somewhere between zero and some training, not usually qualified teachers or even particularly well read people (beyond their own book of religion). I guess the lord is guiding them through their poorly controlled, poorly planned and poorly executed classes.

Parents have to write a letter if they want to avoid inflicting it on their children and the only non religious option (in our government secular schools I remind you) is to have kids sitting around doing nothing (I believe they are now at least supervised.. so no stress testing the tensile strength of aircon ducting attachments these days).

In the actual classes (which, if you’re Jewish and go to one particular school I heard about from teachers:kids have to paydonate sufficient amounts to be allowed in.. scumbags!) children are made to:

• say prayers or go through rituals of the religion,
• state they believe in God/Jesus etc and
• presented teachings of the religion as absolute fact
• fed all manner of information while the teachers hover around and try to keep order (because this routine is exactly the same as the previous session kids are bored shitless).

Kids naturally see the gaping holes in what’s been said and are only given childish answers in response. Teachers are unable to assure children that there’s no basis for the beliefs and it’s all reliant on having faith despite no evidence.

The results so far..

Best case scenario they just switch off, worst: they go home with the belief that someone is constantly watching them and has a long list of things they’re quite likely to be tortured in fire for all eternity. BUT they’re assured there’s a way out of that: just ask Jesus for forgiveness and believe in him.

Note: Kids at young ages still believe the Easter bunny is real, so when a grown up makes arguments from authority in a place of learning, they tend to believe them.

A little something I hacked up from a wallpaper from Sydney Anglicans. Jesus deserved bunny ears and the atheists deserved backup.

Hell, I almost went away thinking that if I just had enough faith I could walk on water (like the idiotic story we were told).

Other kids go away worried they’re going to hell if they don’t get baptised with magic water or punished for merely thinking something heretical.

Do kids get an ethical basis for dealing with strange situations? No, absolute morals (what little they teach) are always going to fall over in the grey areas. In amongst the good stuff (which is found outside the religions from earlier philosophers) there are damaging concepts and absurdities that contradict everything the kids are taught outside that hour or two.

I’ll concede something to the current approach: it does teach some kids a very important lesson: that religion is boring as hell, its followers often a little weird and that religion doesn’t make much sense.

So what happened on the 20th of April 2010?

A secular (despite the religious sounding name) mob from the St James Ethics Centre (and Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations of NSW) have developed an actual curriculum (unlike the “show up with a bible and wing it” that seems the norm) for discussing ethics and it had its first run through in front of kids.

This article gives an idea of the way the class would have operated:

Associate Professor Philip Cam, of the University of NSW, developed the curriculum and conducted the training workshop. Cam is an expert in philosophical and ethical inquiry for children, and recently co-authored guidelines on incorporating ethical behaviour for the draft national curriculum.

The two-day workshop was run in classroom mode, replicating the methods to be used when it is introduced to classrooms this week. Volunteers were seated in a circle and needed to have possession of the speaker’s ball before commenting. ”No put-downs” was also part of the rules.

Cam stressed that it was not the role of the volunteer ”teacher” to ethically instruct the children, but rather explore ethical ideas and facilitate a discussion among members of the class. Good listening, an awareness of when to intervene, and a light touch would be necessary.

He warned against buying into the discussion, as that could change the dynamic in the room and students would be listening for the ”right” answer.

”It is about dealing with kids making reasoned judgements, the business of thought. And learning to be reasonable with people you disagree with, not attacking them, and providing reasons as to why you disagree,” Cam says.

Now unlike this snooty moral high ground ethics course I don’t have a “no put down” rule on my blog (and I can hold my own balls when I want to talk on it). Perhaps that’s because instead of doing this ethics course I was twiddling my thumbs in the library.

I’ll happily call (and rationally defend calling it) what the churches have offered largely a useless pile of shit. It was when I went through school and teachers I’ve talked to think it is the same today.

Compare their offering which is person turns up, reads some fairy-tales which are presented as fact. If ethics even comes up (which is a bit if with all the time taken talking fairy-tales and praying to sky-gods): Kids are not encouraged to develop their own ethics if they step outside the drone’s interpretation of what their book says.

Gods views: Strangely indistinguishable from your own.

It’s certainly not a case of religious instructor indoctrinator avoiding buying into the discussion or avoiding changing the dynamic of the room: that’s exactly why they’re there to imprint young minds before they learn to question things too hard.

Why the churches are shit scared of this Ethics course

Churches love scripture in public schools, it gives them a very young, largely gullible audience on which to peddle their wares and slow their flock’s decline (if the census reports are anything to go by religion is dying). Without it they immediately lose access to imprint the idea that god exists from 2/3rds of the population and I suspect they realise that means a massive increase in the “no religion” group.

Given their revenue stream (e.g. necessary to keep the pope in gold bling, bullet proof cars and castles) often depends on poor saps believing that God wants them to give up X percent of their income to these paedophile harbouring rich beyond belief scumbags (ok, I’m picking on the catholic church here): they’re worried they won’t make quite as much tax free money to further promote their religion. Plus it’s pretty cost effective going after kids in schools.

If kids actually discuss ethics in a matter of fact way amongst their piers they’ll learn a bunch of things hopefully:

• ethics and morals are created by people (even kids!)
• there are many different ways of justifying different behaviours (equality, self interest etc)
• exploring ideas yourself is much more satisfying than hearing religious books regurgitated
• the act of considering all of the above gives you a framework to handle new situations

These lessons make it quite tough for religious indoctrination. A healthy scepticism in kids? Worst nightmare for religious “teachers”.

Realising this the religious leaders are lobbying hard behind the scenes because if they lose this they’ll lose the “by default” crowd and be left with the same lot they already have for sunday school. People will also get to see that the world will not implode: in fact perhaps less people will be seeking the comfort that religion often gives in a world torn apart by religion. Just imagine! If kids have a well developed sense of morality on which to test run their decisions against: perhaps crime/anti-social behaviour etc might fall.

Religious leaders want right to censor/restrict the course

What really gets me mad about recent articles is that these religious leaders demand rights to censor/vet the secular ethics course. I don’t recall the Catholic church allowing Muslims to dictate what they teach kids. Or perhaps a bit on Xenu from our friendly scientologists would go well with the zombie Jesus story?

Uniting the causes..

Where’s my say as a secularist/humanist/atheist in their dealings?

For a start I’d rewrite some bits in the interests of harmony (and if you’re going to tell a crazy story, at least put some time travel in it!):

Lost and Heros did it to make things a bit more crazy.

Back on track: So basically they want to keep their stranglehold over access to children and want to remove the choice. One particular knob end (Fred Nile.. that’s not a put down for him really if you have been following his trail of fail over the years.. homophobic, sexist, racist etc voids his right to be described politely) type reckons he was given assurances the course would only be offered to those who have already opted out! Why would one set of kids get the offer and not another?

Fred Nile: WTF! How about we only let religious stuff be taught to those enrolled in sunday school? Or those who can recite the bible from memory perhaps (to prove they are actually Christian already)

Fred Nile and other religious leaders involved in this “not in MY school’s religious time” whinge: what you’re advocating there raises some ethical questions. Or perhaps you need to ask the St James ethical centre what “ethics” means?

Firstly you’ve brokered some sort of back room deal to suit your own completely out of whack morals to the exclusion of others and then you aren’t in any way giving concession to non Christians.  Secondly where’s the fairness in your model: you provide one viewpoint, so do the other religions therefore it’s natural that you can expect a secular one. To be honest your version of ethics hasn’t worked out too well in the past and present so perhaps you should keep your gob shut.

What is next (in the ethics course)

Here’s the list of topics for the course. Notice no need for fairy-tales and prayers (although perhaps the ethics of lying to children like that might come up):

• Getting started
• Fairness
• Lying
• Ethical principles
• Graffiti
• The use and abuse of animals
• Interfering with nature
• Virtues and vices
• Children’s rights
• The good life

I like to think I base my ethical framework on fairness (the good old “fair go” policy). It seems to me to be an important part of empathising if you can put yourself in other shoes and consider whether you’d like it. This idea has been around far before any of the bunch in scripture scrawled it down. It’s an intuitive concept. I’m glad it’s topic number two, because consideration of it is important across any situation. Sure they might get that from the bible (in amongst the praying, outsourcing to scape goat, loving enemies, praising men willing to sacrifice their children etc) but it certainly isn’t necessary to read the bible to get this. Any number of philosophers or earlier now dead religions had this message. There’s also a cost associated to almost any action, which is something worth considering.

There’s a section on lying, I guess if religious leaders want their material in there it can go under there as a case study in lying. Could also do the topical “religious scandal of the day” where kids discuss whatever the latest stupid Muslim Cleric or Idiot Christian pope has said and to what degree of poor ethical base it comes from.

I’d be interested in knowing where “the good life” discussions would go with a group of kids and the children’s rights would also be interesting. The Church leaders complaining about this course obviously don’t understand that with freedom of religion (essential for them to stay employed) there’s also freedom FROM religion. “No religion” is an equally supported stance under our constitution.

Really, the whole thing is damned interesting I really wish this programme had kicked off a hundred years ago. Never mind, that’s what late night discussions at the pub or BBQ are for I guess, but this is one thing that kids starting early would be great for society.

* Well, we sent a guy called Arron up into the vent as he was most keen. I believe someone blabbed later which cemented the non scripture group as agents of the devil and untrustworthy. Although I do recall something about our off the street local churchie scripture teacher being later embroiled in some sort of child abuse accusation (something which I actually was pretty upset hearing that the accusation was floating around as he seemed like a nice man, albeit spouting rubbish.. anyhow.. Note: I have no idea what happened, could have been baseless or just a rumour or the guy could be in jail now, I dunno..) Yes, we in the unsupervised non scripture group were the untrustworthy ones of course because we were bored and locked in a tiny room with nothing to do.

Not about a particular person, I'd be here all year filling these out!

Pretty big industry this tax evasion thing.

Let's be clear: negative gearing robs taxpayers and feeds bank profits.

Have my doubts it'll be fixed.. But..

Wonder whether they'll actually look into it?

Hope it gets a chuckle from someone at the ATO.. 

Proof the easter bunny exists!

It would actually work well with the toasted cheese sandwich one for a double imaginary friend quick breakfast.

As Easter (I’m going to call it Zombie Jesus weekend from now on and wish people a happyZombieWeekend) has rolled around, check out last year’s Easter funnies post of mine (the videos are well worth a watch).

PS Hell of a lot of talent in that barista by the way. Impressive!

The letter: Re: Scripture should not be taught in Government schools.

To Whom it may concern,
As it has been a concern of mine for a long time now: I’d like to ask is there any reason why we are still allowing religious people into public schools for the purposes of promoting their religion? I would have thought this would have ceased a long time ago.

It must NOT be opt-out requiring permission from parents, it must be a special opt in with strict syllabus if it is allowed at all. Having it opt out (with no material/alternative instruction) makes it seem like the parent is skipping an important aspect of their education to let their kid run around doing nothing.

The Education Act

From the Education Act, Section 30 – “Secular instruction”
“In government schools, the education is to consist of strictly non-sectarian and secular instruction. The words secular instruction are to be taken to include general religious education as distinct from dogmatic or polemical theology.”

I’m not sure at what point this got missed when Christian scripture in public schools was deemed to be the default choice and a secular education required parents to object in writing. I would think parents can assume that there will be no default religious element whatsoever (or else they would have sent them to a religious school surely?). In the several schools I’ve got knowledge of it is expected that parents either fill in a form and in some cases provide written and/or face to face justification for their reasons for not wanting religious indoctrination.

Referring to Section 32 of the act:
“Children attending a religious education class are to be separated from other children at the school while the class is held.”
The language of this implies that they will be a minority, not the default choice with the “non scripture” group left to fend for themselves as it is currently. Currently the process is that those “opting out” are separated grudgingly from the religious class.

Content of Religious instruction

Assuming nothing substantial has changed in the religious types since I was growing up: it was nothing more than Christian indoctrination. A bit of investigation (discussion a teacher friend and several parents of infants/primary school age children) and the recent media attention reveals it has not changed. In particular parents are regularly upset at some of the messages (e.g. “You’ll go to hell for not believing in Jesus” or “I’m not baptised and I’m worried I’m going to hell”) they come home with. It appears that these concerns are not raised to the department level and are referred to the church bodies (sounds just like how allegations of child abuse are handled in the Catholic church), thus hiding the many instances of inappropriate messages delivered by (unqualified to teach) religious people.

There is also a school where Jewish religious people are demanding “donations” from children or else the kids are not allowed to return (several parents expressed concern over this.. with little action to immediately terminate any arrangement with those religious groups). This effectively turns our secular schools into a fund raising activity as well as an indoctrination opportunity.

Anti-discrimination policies violated by religious teachings

It appears to me to be a violation of the department’s policies to be allowing some of the teachings of religions which contain anti-gay, anti-other religions, anti-non believer content with a clear message that they will be tortured for eternity just for being themselves or thinking differently from a 1500, 2000 or 3000 year old set of stories.

One can find ample evidence that the reason we have to have a policy on homophobia is thanks to religious prejudices. Imagine the position of a child who is gay (or who has gay parents) sitting in on a lesson on what biblical sin is, or a child who does not believe in God and told that (contrary to our justice system) their punishment will be torture and hell fire. Or just any child presented with the Orwellian notion that they are under constant surveillance and constant evaluation of thoughts for “thought crime”.
That’s to say nothing of the incest, mass murder, slavery, genocide and other barbaric concepts contained within the bible making it unsuitable study material to be presented to young impressionable children as if it were fact or a source of good morals.

Church is the appropriate venue

It’s fairly obvious that if parents wish their children to be indoctrinated as Christians then they have an obvious avenue: Church. As Muslims: the Mosque. As Jews: the Synagogue. That scripture is opt-out (an option which only became available part way through my experiences) rather than opt-in (with no teaching time filling the gap) is particularly worrying. Parents are faced with having their children sitting idle or else in the company of people filling their heads with Christian mythology presented as facts. I can’t imagine other religions getting as easy a ride either (the recent outrage over Scientology in schools and certainly I haven’t heard of Islamic/Hindi content in scripture provided alongside Christianity in every school). I certainly haven’t heard of any attempts to introduce a humanist or ancient Greek philosophical moral lessons.

Of little educational value

When I was a child and subjected to the local “Churchies” attempting to convert us, there was no attempt whatsoever to take an impartial stand, consider other religions or provide reasonable answers to childishly simple questions. It was also never varied: always a Christian viewpoint presented as fact. It was merely an opportunity to force the kids to go through the motions of Christianity (making kids say prayers, recite verses etc).

Given the completely unsubstantiated claims made (that even I as a young child could see) it seems somewhat at odds with our secular, rational, fact based based curriculum.

The classes presented absurdities (“If only you had enough faith you could walk on water” which as a child I actually took as something plausible for a while) through to the most abhorrent immoral lessons imaginable (“A father prepared to slaughter his son for god was a noble thing”). They were there to make stone age arguments from authority and to instil a guilt at the “thought crime” of doubting the patently unbelievable stories presented as fact in a government school.

The strong message was that God absolutely exists, doubting that is a sin, accepting Jesus is the only way to heaven and that eternal torture awaits those who have heard of Christianity and rejected it. This is a very damaging concept to be polluting the minds of children with and unlike other material in the syllabus: absolutely no evidence to back it up. Might as well teach alchemy rather than chemistry, astrology rather than astronomy.

Qualifications of religious people to teach children

From the reports of the real teachers the educational abilities of the scripture “teachers” are often rather poor. Classroom behaviour is not maintained at any sort of acceptable level with the teachers having to step in to keep the peace (perhaps because the students realise the ridiculousness of the material presented).

There’s also absolutely no reason for religion to be taught by unqualified religious types (who as recent news stories have shown have a rather bad track record with respect to child molestation) rather than as a general topic on religion (not taught from the viewpoint of one within the religion). If a broad topic on religion is to be taught in school it MUST be from outside the religion and by those qualified to teach children. To allow anything else is pure religious indoctrination, not education. That teachers are currently unable to voice any opinion on religion even to console distressed students (“no, actually you aren’t evil because you don’t believe in Jesus”, “you shouldn’t worry about being constantly watched 24/7″ or perhaps later on “the pope is wrong on condoms and that position has increased the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa”) and the scripture “teachers” can say whatever they like.

Replace scripture with real education

I would urge you to immediately discontinue the teaching of scripture in all schools, to be replaced with a subject with a broad curriculum and taught by real teachers. A secular based course in philosophy and moral discussion would be far more beneficial to developing an awareness of right and wrong. This could be a part of the civics and citizenship subject to be introduced in coming years.

regards,
Nathan Lee

And you think you have it rough.

Probably applies to my recent post on real estate/housing bubbles huh? People claiming their lives are horrible because they can’t seem to find an affordable house, or those with mortgages complaining about interest rates going up 0.25% or perhaps those when the crash inevitably happens: whining about not being millionaires like the papers promised them.

Medicate! Medicate!

Not that kids have anywhere to play these days that isn’t sanitised and wrapped in bubble wrap and supervised by helicopter parents (parents that hover constantly stopping their child from doing anything remotely dangerous or fun).

High priest of the Atheists? More like word warrior..

The picture at top starts with a dig at Richard Dawkins:

Richard Dawkins – High Priest of the Atheists, and one of only two people to ever appear on the ABC’s “Q & A” who were more smug than host Tony Jones

I actually felt embarrassed that Richard was plonked amongst the group he was. Some slippery worms of politicians who had the most childish elusive answers and comebacks.
Sounds like Anthony’s just pissed that on his side of the religious the Jewish representative on the show that night was pretty vague and the Christian representative(s) downright embarrassing. Fielding certainly couldn’t give a straight answer as to whether he thought the world was less than 10,000 years old.

Family Guy on Creationists vs retarded intelligence.

But back to Anthony’s rant (I appreciate a good rant, especially when it’s in disagreement):

When people point out Nazis, Soviets, etc, then people like Richard Dawkins say that those atheists didn’t commit their atrocities in the name of atheism.

Dawkins is right in that atheism  “an absence of belief” does not provide any justification for atrocities. It’s like saying not believing in the Easter bunny would give me the arguments to justify me killing those that do believe in Easter Bunnies or justification for jumping off a building. Any justification for that has to come from somewhere else (either self made reasons or in the teachings of a political/religious viewpoint). I would also argue that without a belief in an afterlife: atheism provides a disincentive to lay down your life or jump into violence lest someone snuff out the one and only provable life we have.

God might tell you though
Not believing in a god doesn’t imply you have to kill those that do. Nor does it demand you force others to not believe (or kill if they refuse).
Let me think whether I could find justification for that sort of thing somewhere? Hmm…

Another swing and a miss for Biblical morality

Belief in another god might however provide reasons/justification if that god has supposedly told you in some book (or via some prophet) that non-believers need to die. There’s no book, list of sins, directives, moral suggestions or any such thing involved in simply “not believing in the fairy tales”.

Combining Atheism with Ideology to justify

There could be an atheistic viewpoint that the damage to society caused by religion was worth killing believers, but that would be justification found in utilitarian (greater good) philosophy, not atheism/not believing in itself.

The magic card from magic skygod religious book. Justify anything you want!

History lesson for Anthony
Anthony is also quite ignorant (or glossing over the realities) of history by the sounds of it (like most religious types who spend far too long reading bibles/torahs/qur’ans rather than anything useful).

Put it down, pick up another book, any book will do!

Atheism most definitely wasn’t the driving theology/philosophy of the Nazis, it was very much a Christian inspired thing if we want to get down to it.

Hitler the Christian

Hitler thought he was the chosen leader and was not an Atheist. The ever wise Vatican didn’t think he was an atheist either when it gave support back in the 1930s (oh, don’t worry, they realised that god’s first contact on earth wasn’t so faultless later.. but hey, it helped get rid of a bunch of their long despised Jewish followers).

From http://www.nobeliefs.com/speeches.htm we get an idea of Hitler’s religious views:

“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice…. And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people…. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.”
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech in Munich on 12 April 1922

Yep, ever the rampant Atheist there in old Adolf.. That’s how I identify myself as an atheist: by spouting on like a bible thumper about how much of a Christian I am. Although I guess maybe he was Atheist in private and a huge hypocrite like Mother Theresa (who did not buy the theology she was peddling to the poor and desperate).

The “Hitler was an atheist” and “nazis were atheists” is a Christian cop out because he was not only a very publicly declared Christian, but he used Christian theology to strengthen his own ideology (nothing adds that bit of marketing “wow!” like throwing God’s name around a bit). He also got approval from the church while he was doing his evil romp around the world. I’d go further and point out that god bears a lot of similarities with Hitler (authoritarian, genocidal dictator) except that Hitler only got to torture people up to the point when they die; God gets to extend that to “all eternity” if you fall on his wrong side.

Stalin and Mao the Atheist-ideologist butchers
Stalin/Mao however were more what you’d call atheists. But the justification for doing what they did was most definitely from something else (the old “Stalin had a moustache too (and Hitler too!!), was that to blame for killing people?” argument).

Socialism/communism which in effect created a living deity out of its heads of state (ask Chinese about the miracles and reverence toward Mao.. or go see their tombs) or an unquestioning belief in some prime directives a la “commandments of the party” type stuff.
Stalin and Mao viewed religion as weakening the authority of their regime and by the self serving rules of their regimes: it was just another threat. Just like higher education and the middle classes were a threat. Religions that have a head of the religion (e.g. exiled Tibetan leader, Catholic pope) are banned in their original form in China to this day. You can keep the religion if you ditch the leader nonsense is the Chinese view.

Killing off the “elite” under Mao had absolutely nothing to do with religious beliefs or not, it was just eliminating a threat to the communist movement. Just like clamping down on democracy protests and political activists is regarded as necessary under China’s current system: because it is a threat.

Piles of atoms
Anthony then strays into the topic of whether or not human beings are worthless if we don’t have a god watching over us at all times:

A genuine atheist ought to agree that there is neither anything sacred about a human being, nor any other living thing.  Thus, a living thing is simply a complex arrangement of a bunch of atoms or chemicals, as is a tennis ball, a tin of paint, or a laptop computer.

and:

“what is their justification for having a morality and a purpose?”  Why does a bunch of atoms (regardless of complexity) require a code of ethics and morality?

Define “sacred” as it is a bit of a bullshit word when used like this. If sacred means “belongs to god” then it’s meaningless, if sacred just means important: lots of things are important to lots of creatures without any idea of what god is. Food is important to everything from single celled organisms up to elephants. Is food sacred? Or are only things that can pick up a bible and switch off their proof centre of their brains?

I am not the centre of the universe

You are not a unique snowflake.

An atheist tends not to believe that the world was created specifically around the needs of themselves. They don’t believe that our sole purpose to hang around praising god until that god decides at some point to wipe out all life (again supposedly!) based on some rather poorly thought out morals that bear striking unenlightened resemblance to the rules men lived by in the barbaric time in which they were written.

Yes, we are just a complex arrangement of a bunch of atoms (but driven by some absolutely amazing biological processes). The insides of us are common amongst other animals (there’s no magic fairydust/god wound clock mechanism/soul keeping us going compared to them). Perhaps the author hasn’t poked their nose out of the bible long enough to hear an old saying “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.
Anthony: I’ll by your car for the sum of the raw components if you truly believe that anything is only worth what the smallest individual bits and the concept of value adding escapes you.

You might as well ask: why does a bunch of copper atoms need electricity passed through it? The answer is: it doesn’t, but if the bunch of atoms happens to be part of a light-bulb: then it can produce light/heat if it has it. Humans don’t need morals/laws so long as they’re happy with complete anarchy. Fortunately we’ve realised over time that we can achieve more if we have some laws (and collective agreement to stick to those laws) that stop people murdering you for food/sex/shelter. So the collective realisation of humanity is that with a bit of structure and some broad agreement to get along – the sum total of humanity can burn so much brighter than an anarchistic mess of individuals clawing over each other for basic needs.

So of course we’re more complicated than our atoms! Of course with a highly sophisticated brain we’ve developed the ability to reason (well, sometimes), so it’s part and parcel of being able to discuss, debate etc. that we would have communication and discussion of behaviour (aka “morals”). Or simply the lessons might be learned that if you often fight, steal, kill, rape etc: then your chances of survival are reduced simply through the process of “common sense karma” (e.g. piss enough people off: one will put you down permanently).

I really don’t know where to begin with how wrong the idea that conscious animals like humans would not use their brains to think without some belief in a god.

People have a brain, occasionally they use it.

One might ask the author as a believer, why, if your fate is so decided and you’re living at the whim of a universal dictator: you worry about doing anything at all if your life is so heavily influenced by a god.

Flip the switch you fool!

“Finally, I suspect that so-called atheists deep down aren’t really atheists at all.  Like most of us, I suspect they are agnostics.  They just lie at the atheistic end of the agnostic spectrum.  Likewise, deep down most God believers lie at the theistic end of that same spectrum.”

Atheist just means some variety of “without belief” not absolute denial (as religious people are used to). So it isn’t “in denial of god when faced with evidence”.
You can generally assume that Atheists = agnostic as the vast majority would be most welcome for evidence of a god. The religious have been dodging giving any proof for so many thousand years. Agnostic is a subset of Atheist. Difference with believers is that all that’s probably needed is some sort of evidence to sway an atheist/agnostic to accept that new piece of information; for the religious no amount of proof is required for any of their beliefs, they simply point at a cloud and say “see! God exists!”.

Can we vote God out?

I’d describe myself as Anti-theist. That is, I’m more than willing to accept some definitive proof (not walls leaking oil or cancer patients getting better after chemotherapy), but upon that realisation: I’m as opposed to supernatural authoritarian dictatorships as I am to Earthly authoritarian unquestionable dictatorships. It amazes me how people can want to fight for the right to vote, but accept that in the big picture (and with the notion of eternal torture if you disagree) they’re more than happy to have god in the picture. If we are to believe the religious texts: a consistently evil genocidal (more than genocidal, as all life was supposedly snuffed out by a global flood), murdering, eternal torturing (if we buy that there’s a Hell) sadistic being.

God's slaughterfest far outstrips the Devil. So who is the bad guy again?

If being god is put to a vote every few years and everyone has an opportunity: I might come around from my anti-theist position. But as there’s no even half way plausible proof as yet: I don’t have to worry really. I guess given the schizophrenic nature of the biblical god (old god = wrathful, new god: divided amongst father/son/holy spirit = schizophrenic) perhaps there already IS a voting, because without complete change of personality there’s no way to consolidate the stories of god.

So my dislike of the idea of a universal dictator doesn’t give me any justification for any earthly action, it’s just a particular position of thought. My experiences/views on speaking my mind or participating in debate might motivate me to talk about it (but not my being an atheist). My inability to just let illogical/irrational statements go unchecked might result in me speaking up (just like my view of fairness and views against violence might prompt me to break up a fight, as I did a few weeks back).

Fairness as a secular source for morality

As I am (I hope!) a decent human being and adhere to principles of fairness: I lack any drive to enforce my view on others via the sword or suicide vest (nor will I be likely to find any without the word of god and promises of supernatural rewards). So without need for reading the bible: we inherently know what is horrible/distasteful because it violates the concept of fairness.

Golden Rule in religion. Pity it generally conflicts with what the religion says.

If we wouldn’t want to put ourself in the other person’s shoes then we’ve got an answer as to how we judge morals.

Golden rule for Atheists.

We certainly don’t get them from biblical times (thankfully!), although the golden rule pops up in lots of religious texts in amongst the fluff and silly stuff.

The "Where the bloody hell are you?" campaign.

So there was something about a nude photo snapped by some other dodgy sportsman. That’s when she became truly noteworthy (the law of “flashed celebrity pink bits” kicks in.. a la Paris Hilton et al) and the frenzy began. Somewhere in there she and her meat-head sportsman decided to call it quits.

Latest development in the saga is plumbers called to try and retrieve “an item of value” from the toilet. So a $200K diamond ring is somewhere between toilet seat and deep ocean outfall. Although as a model it’s a nice change that she might throw something other than expensive meals down the toilet.

I wonder if at the moment we have Lara Bingle bent over the toilet yelling to her engagement ring “Where the bloody hell are you?”.

Boom tish.