Bible guarantees! Wow, it must be true then.

Unclear on whether that’s Greenwich mean time or whether it’ll be a rolling event as the day tracks around the globe. So as an Australian I won’t get a chance to repent but those in later time zones will presumably get a bit of lead time, perhaps to arrange for their pets to be looked after by some left behind atheists.

So let’s look on the bright side of the rapture
Let’s assume that all the religious believers are taken up for processing with just the dirty non-believers left behind. Unlike each of those religions, I’ll assume they’re all going to be treated the same: you believe in god/gods then hey – you won the irrational thinking bonus of a lifetime.

Chaplains out of schools
It will get NSCP Chaplains out of our supposed-to-be secular public education system in Australia (so we’d save $222m from the budget recently announced) and stop me from having to complain about the dodgy NSCP mobs (e.g. Scripture Union, Access Ministries) that run this tax funded religious racket.

School time would be more ethical and less bronze age
The only option in SRE time in NSW would be the Primary Ethics course or “non scripture” (I dubbed the trial The first useful scripture lesson in NSW history). So ethics teachers still need to turn up to teach the kiddies next week as they’d be left behind having shunned the nuns. It’s possible other ethics teachers would need to be covered by the Atheists as it is a secular course after all and makes no religious claims.

Public education would no longer be playing second fiddle to private religious schools and would have billions of dollars to spend on much needed facilities, materials, staff and land acquisitions in cramped schools.

Special treatment at all levels. (Image from SMH)

The calls for creationism to be taught in science class would stop.

No more door to door
There’ll be no one knocking on doors in cheap white short sleeve shirts and black ties while you’re trying to get a sleep in. The plus side is that there’ll be little piles of exactly that sort of clothing left around the streets in the post rapture world. Might want to discard their magic Mormon underwear.

Style repellent too.

Peace and quiet
No church bells on Sunday.
No more ridiculously early morning call to prayer in Muslim countries.
No more wailing at the wailing wall.
No more batshitcrazy types picketing funerals.
No more rioting mobs any time a holy book is destroyed.

London's finest out in force.

Discrimination laws will have less exemptions
No religious run businesses/schools left with ridiculous exemptions from the discrimination laws (e.g. allowing the expelling gays or single mothers from schools).

Less nonsense in healthcare
All hospitals left running would offer IVF, abortion services, post rape medical treatment, contraception advice etc. Chemists/pharmacists would all give out medication based on medical need and wouldn’t veto for their own personal reasons.

No nut-cases like this lady picketing female health clinics.

Crazy old bat that pickets a clinic in Surry Hills

No people thinking that scraps of Mary Mackillop miracle placebo items are miraculous. HIV/AIDS treatment and vaccinations could move forward instead of having ridiculous religious leaders impeding the flow of medical aid and advice.

Business and property
The tax system would have a massive amount of money to spend on things as it would stop handouts to the tune of billions to religious organisations.

Sanitarium would have to start paying taxes on its weetbix profits, meaning the tax free status it uses to compete with other cereal companies would evaporate. A slew of other for profit religious owned businesses would no longer be rorting an unfair tax advantage to put normal businesses out of the market.

There’d be lots of prime real estate that could be turned into useful spaces rather than just sitting empty except for an hour a week when a few people get up on a Sunday to do work. The new users of those buildings would pay council rates like everyone else.

Politics and equality would improve a bit
We’d have no more Fred Nile in parliament so someone else would get a chance at the dumbest minister award (plenty of candidates, but Abbott will be gone so the position is open).

Top priorities for Fred.

Gays could get married and have equal rights… you know, like they should have always had.

Child safety
The world’s largest paedophile cover-up group would cease to exist meaning thousands of children would not be exposed to predatory Catholic priests and crimes not covered up then simply shuffled on to new areas. Previous victims could be given free right to loot some of the gold that the Catholic church loves to hoard.

Women’s rights
We’d no longer have clerichead bearded Islamic morons telling us how to beat wives or rape them in a Sharia compliant way and brave Muslim women having to stand up and tell them they’re dickheads.

There's nothing real funny about this, but it makes a point.

Environment and Science
A whole bunch of trees cut down to produce uninspiring religious texts would be saved or used to make more interesting or enlightened books. There’d be slightly more storage room in bedside tables in hotels without the Gideon minions doing their work.

We’d (sadly) lose the learned Cardinal Pell and his climate science denial ways (because as a person who reads the bible he knows better than scientists).

Atheists/Agnostics and secularists can get back to adult matters
And finally Atheists, although they’d have been wrong if the rapture happens would finally get that evidence after thousands of years of waiting.
Secularists will get their separation of church and state they’ve been asking for..

Any others?

I won’t spoil it for you, but just watch as she not only demonstrates that the guy’s just plain wrong about the content of the show but also the inconsistency within the guy’s religion. Of all the problems in Pakistan that twit decides to complain about he picks an actress appearing on a TV show as a huge sin.

Islam has bigger issues than an Actress going on TV

But hey, these types pop up all over the world (including Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali from Australia), divinely inspired by the Qu’ran’s unenlightened views on women unfortunately.

It really speaks volumes when I posted this up on facebook a little while back that someone made the comment that “You do realise she’d be killed within a month right….”. I certainly hope not and hope that she inspires the wider community to examine and question the filthy moral lessons people like this cleric put out there.

Now you might think that the media would just ignore what an individual with no significant public standing might spout on youtube. Nope: the goal was to manufacture outrage by doing a bit of a ring around to firstly the police, then the guy’s work, then the professional group for his job title then the usual suspects of a priest and Muslim leader (who have devoted their lives to peddling misinformation and fibs as gospel truth).

Now the only one that mattered was the police: and they told the paper to politely get stuffed as there was no crime committed (this is a modern, secular democracy, not a dictatorship enforcing bronze age supernatural dictatorships). That really should have been end of story. If we’re going to ask religious leaders who put ordaining women priests in the same category of crime as paedophile priests or who blame rape victims as asking to be raped because they refuse to dress up in what Professor Richard Dawkins referred to as a “bin liner”.

I have absolutely no idea what Dawkins was getting at!

Anyone asking these twits what they think about anything is quite often going to get a load of rubbish. It’s like asking the pope (an elderly virgin who wears frocks) for sex advice.

So in light of all this: I’d like to put forward the idea that religions don’t have rights, only people have rights. Ideas don’t get to claim rights or make demands of people to not offend or question those ideas.

Suddenly the idea morphs into unquestionable religious idea.

Humanity had a very hard time making what limited progress it has made with respect to science triumphing over whatever some desert dwelling possibly mentally ill prophets have said happened. World not flat: blasphemy! Slavery not fair? Blasphemy! Sun not orbiting Earth? Blasphemy! Only trouble is that back then questioning what was written in those books meant you got tortured and killed. Still does in many places in the world sadly.

So I think Alex quite accurately said:

“It’s just a f—ing book,” he says.

“Who cares? It’s your beliefs that matter. Quite frankly, if you are going to get upset about a book, you’re taking life way too seriously.”

But it seems we have at least two organisations (his work and his professional organisation, both which should be defending him against such blatant blasphemy driven censoring efforts.

Letter to Chancellery at QUT
Showing how not to be a secular, sensible organisation: QUT.

To the Chancellery,

I was just wondering why you have taken the extraordinary step of placing on leave one of your staff exercising their free speech and freedom FROM religion? It appears the vice-chancellor hasn’t made the effort to stand up for their employee or our freedom of religion anti-discrimination laws, but hopefully someone will have some sense.

In an article in Brisbane times today:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/brisbane-atheist-burns-koran-and-bible-20100913-157ao.html

QUT Vice-Chancellor Peter Coaldrake moved to distance the university from its employee.

‘‘QUT does not condone the destruction of any religious artifacts. This was a personal view and action expressed in the person’s own time,’’ Professor Coaldrake said.

‘‘[Mr Stewart] does not associate himself with QUT in the clip.

‘‘QUT is tolerant of all religions and welcomes staff and students from many countries to our university and regularly celebrates their cultures and religions.

Your opinion should have been that a member of your staff was acting within the law and within the realm of his freedom of religion that you have no position on the matter. If you’re going to shuffle people off for distasteful beliefs: can I suggest you exclude anyone holding Christian or Islamic beliefs as a priority over someone demanding rational/proof for their beliefs.

That you seem to regard blasphemy as a matter worthy of condemnation and forcing them to take leave is pretty poor. I would have hoped freedom FROM religion would rate more highly in the grand scheme of things in an educational institution in our secular democracy.

Would you care to comment on the content of the books in question as to whether you approve of their message (since you seem to be delving into matters well outside the scope of your duties). In particular:

• Qur’an 4:34 sanctions domestic violence (“beating”) for disobedient women. Do you have a position on this? I might direct you to the various campaigns in Australia (such as the “Australia says no”) which indicate a strong government/legal preference towards eliminating domestic violence.
• Scattered throughout the Qur’an and bible are references to slavery (“that which your right hand possesses”): do you have a position on slavery? I couldn’t find one on your website.. perhaps I assumed that like in any modern society: the position would be condemnation of any text which advocates such a horrible concept.
• Bible (and Qur’an) puts forward the concept of blood sacrifice (Isaac/Abraham), genocide (various times by an authoritarian dictator figure “God”), infanticide (again a vengeful god kills all the first born children of an entire nation). Can I infer from your stance that you are supportive of the notion of killing children as a way to pay the debts of some small number of adults. Perhaps that is standard practice in the HR department of QUT?
• Incest appears in both books with a man (Lot) having sex with his two daughters (in the bible there’s alcohol involved, not in the Qur’an). Both books later refer to the incestuous father as a good and just man. What is QUT’s position on incest? Would you shuffle someone off on leave if they advocated a pro-incest stance? Or just those who light up a few pages containing pro-incest stories like the bible/qur’an?
• A complete intolerance for other religious viewpoints (including stories of murder/torture of those with different religion). If you’re not going to demand every Christian/Muslim take leave for their religious beliefs that Atheists or other religions are evil etc then you aren’t in a position to single out a person who does not have a religious viewpoint.

So could you please tell me what your stance on those items, as you seem mortified by the possibility that someone may have, in their own time, burnt pages containing those stories/concepts (which are by our modern, secular society’s standards: completely and utterly abhorrent).

I’d suggest that as blasphemy is not a crime under Australian law: you re-instate Mr Stewart to full duties and perhaps show some defence of the freedoms we enjoy in this country as a secular, democratic and civilised society (very far removed from that described in those two books Mr Stewart used as cigarette paper).

As it currently stands QUT is taking a pro-censorship, anti-freedom from religion viewpoint and discriminating directly on the grounds of a person’s religion (which is a violation of your duties under federal law I might add). If I was Mr Stewart I’d be considering my legal options as you are well out of line in your actions as an employer subject to the anti-discrimination laws.

Regards,
Nathan Lee

Yet another "put to death" lesson from the Bible.

So on to the other target for a letter! Now if only I were able to rustle up a mob with pitchforks, these protests would be a lot less intellectual and a lot more bloodbath-like.. Just like the more superstition run parts of the world do it.

Letter to Queensland Law Society

The other, quite similar letter to the society that decided to distance themselves from his actions and from our secular legal system it appears:

To the CEO Noela L’Estrange or other,

I was just wondering why you would be unsupportive of one of your members exercising free speech and freedom FROM religion?
In an article in Brisbane times today:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/brisbane-atheist-burns-koran-and-bible-20100913-157ao.html

The Queensland Law Society condemned the clip but has not commented on Mr Stewart’s status as a registered lawyer.
“The Queensland Law Society does not support or condone Mr Stewart’s recent actions or views,” CEO Noela L’Estrange said.

Your opinion should have been that while ever a member of your profession was acting within the law and within the realm of his freedom of religion that you have no position on the matter.

That you seem to regard blasphemy as a matter worthy of condemnation is pretty poor.

Would you care to comment on the content of the books in question as to whether you approve of their message (since you seem to be delving into matters well outside the scope of your duties). In particular:

• Qur’an 4:34 sanctions domestic violence (“beating”) for disobedient women. Do you have a position on this? I might direct you to the various campaigns in Australia (such as the “Australia says no”) which indicate a strong government/legal preference towards eliminating domestic violence.
• Scattered throughout the Qur’an and bible are references to slavery (“that which your right hand possesses”): do you have a position on slavery? I couldn’t find one on your website.
• Bible (and Qur’an) puts forward the concept of blood sacrifice (Isaac/Abraham), genocide (various times by an authoritarian dictator figure “God”), infanticide (again a vengeful god kills all the first born children of an entire nation). Can I infer from your stance that you are supportive of the notion of killing children as a way to pay the debts of some small number of adults. It’s a little outside the legal system in this secular democracy, but..
• Incest appears in both books with a man (Lot) having sex with his two daughters (in the bible there’s alcohol involved, not in the Qur’an). Both books later refer to the incestuous father as a good and just man. What is the society’s view on incest?

So could you please tell me what your stance on those is, as you seem mortified by the possibility that someone may have, in their own time, burnt pages containing those stories/concepts which are by our modern, secular society’s standards: completely and utterly abhorrent.

Perhaps while considering answers to my questions you can refer to our democratic, secular legal system for inspiration for an appropriate response.

Regards,
Nathan Lee

Now you’d think that a group charged with looking after a bunch of legal types would be more interested in Earthly legal matters. Sadly no. This isn’t unique I might add: if you look at what happened to Rushdie. Instead of defenders of freedom, there were any number of people clamouring to defend the indefensible: a death threat which lead to him having to uproot his life and hide from the nutcases. The pope also joined in on that too, so the Catholic mob can share some of the blame for not standing up for freedom (continuing their clean record of campaigning against the rights of individuals over the rights of religion).

Excercising your rights may piss off ignorant barbarians. That they get offended while hiding behind the same rights offends me. Well, as much as I tend to get offended.

Atheist outrage?
Let’s look at what would happen if someone burnt a copy of say, “Origin of species” or “The god delusion”. Would there be rioting? Murders? Riot squats and burning buildings?

Atheist inspired crimes throughout history.

Nope. That’s because if you aren’t driven by superstition then a book is just a book and certainly not worth killing someone over. That the immediate thought from the muslim leader was to ask his brothers (I guess the sisters are all so nicely divinely repressed and subservient that they don’t rate a mention) to remain calm. At what point do we stop trying to overlook the ease at which vile acts, vile viewpoints etc can find a solid divine justification in these most horribly outdated books. Until they get a major overhaul to incorporate the advances in the last thousand or so years. The Qur’an and Bible could do with an upgrade to include such things as equality for women, freedom of religion, gays as people, democracy rather than authoritarian dictatorship (would have to be able to vote in God however), geological record of the universe, the elimination of blood debts, no stoning, no beatings, no death penalty.. free acceptance of the marvels of bacon!

Not quite cooked enough yet though.

Until then, if someone wants to buy a book: they can do what they please with it (like any other book).

I wouldn’t mind staging an atheist/science book burning just to show the twits how sane people handle books getting a BBQ. It isn’t like the books vanish in these days of e-readers and amazon.com stockpiles.

First up the denouncements and excuses:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Islamic leaders have condemned a Melbourne Muslim cleric who told followers it was permissible to hit their wives and force them to have sex.

But Coburg mosque cleric Samir Abu Hamza has told a confidant his message has been taken out of context and that he was referring to hitting wives in a metaphorical sense.

So let’s tick off the standard excuses, as per numerous earlier times. Like former top clerichead of Australia Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali comparing women to uncovered meat.

I’m starting to see a consistent pattern here, how about I save the newspapers some time:

Prime minister [Insert current PM here] and Islamic leaders have [condemned/strongly condemned] [remarks/footage/comments made by] [insert offending Muslim cleric name here] who told followers it was [insert misogynistic “right” or absolution of guilt of men here].

Cleric [insert Muslim cleric name here] claims his comments were taken out of context and [were not meant to refer to all women/were a metaphor].

[… body of article here ..]

[Insert other Muslim person name here] said [insert offending Muslim cleric name here] remarks were [inaccurate/not representative of Muslims/not representative of Islam] and upsetting to the Muslim community.

That should just about cover all the stories to do with idiots given mosque audience to spout their primitive philosophy on life. We can also re-use this template for other religious fools like Fred Nile etc.

The latest divinely inspired dickhead cleric clerichead was evidently too busy with his nose in the Qur’an to notice the government campaigns in the past and present in Australia (see my old blog post) meant to educate anyone with screwed up enough morals to not inherently know that women are not punching bags, that violence or forcing a wife to have sex is unacceptable. That’s regardless what the Qur’an says or you think it says. The law does not respect religious beliefs when they contradict the real laws of the country.

He says:

“In this country if the husband wants to sleep with his wife and she does not want to and she hasn’t got a sickness or whatever, there is nothing wrong with her she just does not feel like it, and he ends up sleeping with her by force … it is known to be as rape.

“Amazing, how can a person rape his wife?”

What really amazes me is that the crowd doesn’t say something. If ever this was an opportunity for the great Aussie heckler or piss-take put down to be inserted it’s when some twit is vomiting up this garbage.

By the way, this guy was giving a lecture titled “The Keys to a Successful Marriage”. A spokesperson for the latest round:

“In regards to hitting your wife, his position is that it has always been metaphorical – it’s not a whack, it’s not a slap, it’s a wake-up call.”

Yes, the millions of battered wives worldwide can take comfort in knowing that their latest black eye, broken jaw or murder by spouse is all just a metaphor for a “wake-up call”.

“First of all advise them [then] you beat them … but this is the last resort,” he says.

“After you have advised them for a long, long time then you smack them, you beat them and, please, brothers, calm down — the beating the Mohammed showed is like the toothbrush that you use to brush your teeth.

“You are not allowed to bruise them, you are not allowed to make them bleed.”

So, the question has to be asked: is the brave Samir Abu Hamza happy if a bunch of previous domestic violence victims inflict a bit of smacking, beating that doesn’t leave bruises for educational purposes. You know: perhaps some blows to the back of the head, or chin (since he’s got a big ol’ cleric beard that will hide any bruises, just like virtuous women should have a big old veil to cover theirs). There’s someone in need of a wakeup call and it isn’t the pesky independent minded woman folk.

A nameless source chimes in with a denial:

“We do not hit our women, you can ask any Muslim woman and she will tell you that, it’s not part of Islam,” the male staff member, who did not want to be named, said.

and if she says they do, just give her a metaphorical punch in the face until she says it right eh? I mean what fucking planet are these guys on: by that reckoning we should find that there’s no domestic violence at all in Muslim communities? Well that’s just bullshit, it’s an across the board issue that Islam has to acknowledge a part in and no one is saying ALL Muslim men beat their wives (although if they regard the Qur’an as the only law: then they’re well within their rights.. As would they be able to have slaves too). I’d hope that a large majority (large large!) choose (as most sane people do) to just ignore the Qur’an and people like Hamza and obey the law and good morals.

Source in the Qur’an

So where do all these cericheads get their inspiration from? It’s always been a passage in the Qur’an that I go back to time and time again to show just how incorrect, irrelevant, backward and ignorant Islamic teaching is. Succinctly and elegantly destroys the notion that the Qur’an is a perfect book. I speak of the Qur’an 4:34 and it reads like so (in PowerPoint bullets for brevity):

• Men are superior to and in charge of women because god made them that way and they’re the breadwinners in the family
• Good women should know their place and don’t sleep around or flash their girl bits around when the man is out of town
• For disobedient women (or ones you fear are disobedient) you can “admonish” them, kick them out of the bed and then beat (or scourge) them

One translator tried to act as editor for the obviously insane Mohammed and put in “(lightly)” in front of “beat”. The clerichead in this latest fit of stupidity claims insanity via metaphor. But it seems the message hasn’t really been very clear for a perfect book if we’re supposed to not do what it says:

I really feel sorry for the host of this TV program having to let this twit spout his nonsense. As she says “What do you mean by light beatings? I’d really like to know”:

An improvement to the perfect word of god

The web is full of people trying to make sense of this nonsense passage in the Qur’an or exposing similar types of ignorant Islamic speakers. Ultimately the conclusion is that the Qur’an isn’t anything divine, or perfect or useful in today’s world. I, a mere mortal, could improve the “perfect” word of god in a very easy fashion: throw away 4:34 and read it thus:

Men and women are created equal and should have equal opportunities and responsibilities. Neither has the right to force the other to do something against their will. Neither should ever be violent towards the other.

Seems like my version would be a lot less open to interpretation. But who am I to question the perfect word of god eh?

Just like Qur’anic justification of slavery this line and others expose the source for the Qur’an as purely of men on this Earth and typical of a time when the minds of those writing it couldn’t comprehend a future where things were different. Sure: at the time perhaps having a multistep process to disciplining your wife was a step better than just taking her out and killing her, but we’ve moved on quite a bit since those days (at least in the developed world). The problems of domestic violence and rape are by no means restricted to religious reasons, but it sure doesn’t help when people take up these teachings as divine justification for barbaric actions.