• Exemption to the anti discrimination laws so that Churches could take stone age prejudice into the modern world (can’t have gays or unwed mothers working near Christians: it’d be harder to demonise them if they actually knew some)
• Increased Govt funding of public school chaplains (to the tune of $400m+ rather than spending money on qualified counsellors, an action labelled as “dangerous” by the Australian psychological group)
• removing (or maintaining the lack of) a woman’s right to safe, legal abortion
• no progress on euthanasia laws (after all, if people are suffering then it is god’s will, right?)
• creationism to be taught in schools (see their comment on the national curriculum here)

The ACL's campaign issues bear remarkable similarity..

In fact, if it is a progression towards a more equal or compassionate society: these clowns are against it. If it is a step towards a Christian Taliban style government where every outdated, barbaric garbage law from the bible is blindly enforced by law: then they’re for it. Their version of religious freedom means “massive government legal and funding bias toward Christianity”.

A Secular, compassionate democracy (consistent with say our constitution!) isn’t high on their to-do list.

So here’s my suggestion for their prayer for the Victorian election on their page:

Nathan says:

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

14 November 2010 at 10:09 pm

So I hope you’ll be praying for fairness and equality for all people, (not just straight couples) lest more gay people get persecuted/driven to suicide. It’d be fantastic to see a call from good Christians to deliver fairness in the marriage laws extended to all men and women.

And for the environment as a moral duty to future generations..

And for politicians to launch an enquiry into the paedophiles that the church has continually covered up lest more people have their lives ruined by this organised campaign of deceit..

And perhaps also spare a prayer for a proper secular separation of church and state (e.g. religions pay taxes and contribute back to the rest of society via the tax system).. As freedom of religion can only exist if there’s no funding of religions by govt.

Look forward to seeing those sentiments included in your prayers, I hope the uglier aspects of Christian lobbying are shunned in favour of these more compassionate views.

Or you can censor my views.. Whichever sits best with your conscience.

What chance is there they’ll go that way? It’d probably take a miracle (and they can’t even rustle up anything remotely convincing for Mary Mackillop’s miracle).

If Jesus existed he seemed pretty accepting of people, it’s self proclaimed Christians who seem to be known for their lack of acceptance, misogyny etc.You know what Jesus said about banning gay marriage: nothing. What he said about forcing old terminally ill people to suffer no matter whether they want to die or not? Nothing.  But here we have people claiming to be Christians and making these things their key issues..

Jesus disagrees with the ACL

Perhaps I should say a prayer that they see sense on their prejudiced ways.. Perhaps be a bit less like bigoted scum-bags and more like their spiritual leader supposedly was.

As a side issue I’ve recently become a member of the Secular party of Australia because of the need to focus on separation of church and state (or lack thereof). Especially when we came close to electing candidates unlikely to respect that separation as well as deny science in general.

This weekend we had sky-writing (more on that another time), showing that the church funds scammeddonated for this purpose are certainly not helping anyone in need.* Wonder how many people could have been fed, watered, clothed or vaccinated? The dollars involved in sky-writing make my contributions to (genuine and secular) charities e.g. Oxfam, Fred Hollows foundation etc (By all means go donate too!) look trivial. I wonder if instead of spending money fixing people’s eyes Fred Hollows would prefer the dollars collected to go to writing up “Fred Hollows = vision” in sky writing.

I’d wonder why God can’t just settle this once and for all without the need for hiring planes to do what an almighty all powerful being could do with the snap of the fingers. Pull that burning bush out of storage and wave it around the sky if nothing else.

Jesus couldn't just do this himself? Or at least turn the wind down a bit, because it was gone in a matter of minutes.

*Unless your need was to have the sky drawn on for the briefest of moments before the wind blew it away.

The goal of the campaign was to encourage discussion on a mythical figure that has most certainly been discussed ad nauseam for, oh, about two thousand years or so with no conclusive results and no evidence forthcoming to back up the wild supernatural claims. Certainly no need for millions of dollars to be spent on the hope of converting some “cynical Sydney-siders”.

Jesus isn’t about life

I’d have to question whether the campaign knows anything about Jesus. Saying Jesus was all about life is kinda silly when the whole Jesus concept is “God creates son to be sacrificed so that said god will be able to forgive mankind for various accumulated sins”.

The Jesus mythology is pretty clear that the whole point is blood sacrifice (e.g. DEATH): without the end of crucifixion there is no life-death-rebirth type mythology. Sure you can gloss over this and claim that he died for humanity to live, but it’s some pretty spectacular doublespeak to get to “all about life” from “all about death”.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the symbol of Christianity a tortured guy nailed to a cross?

Jesus: all about death. Nailed it!

Doesn’t look like much of a life eh?

Childish (and child targetting) posters making ridiculous claims

Check out some of the posters here (warning 3.2 meg PDF): here.

Let’s look at the claimed creation of a giant chair.

Chairs made by Jesus?

The poster thanks Jesus for it. Hmm.. Funny, because I found this little picture that shows a bunch of PEOPLE making this.

The real creators of the giant chairs

Funny, I don’t see Jesus in there or maybe he’s running the crane.

The real creator is Giancarlo Neri and the piece is called “The Writer”. Of the things claimed as inspiration I didn’t read anything about Jesus either (see here for a PDF archive of a tonne of articles on the work). There’s no mention of the word Jesus and one reference to “my god it’s vast”.
From an article on it:

Neri calls the design a “monument to the loneliness of writing” but says he hopes people in London will make of it what they will.

No dedication to Jesus there. But I guess the Bible Society made an ad of it to promote their religion without any basis. *shrug*

Another “bizarre” one mentioned in a newspaper article thanks jesus for hot chips: have these people never been into the local fish and chips shop? It sure as shit isn’t Jesus accumulating oil burns over the deep fry vats.

Then there’s one claiming Jesus created parrots (I’m a little fuzzy, but I don’t remember any mention of Jesus being around until long after genesis).

Poor evolution gets screwed again. This time outside the USA for a change.

So can just anyone claim natural processes as their own without a shred of scientific basis? I’d like to claim rights to the natural process of cow digestion so that I can claim royalties every time the churches put out future religious bullshit. Since my taxes are subsidising this sort of rubbish, it’s only fair I get my cut.

Then there’s the one I really think crosses (boom-tish) a line  (or two) that shouldn’t be in a public place directed at children. The R.I.P. cartoon one. Here it is:

Some disclaimers missing from this. Oh, and evidence.

Clearly aimed at children (or those of a childish mind I guess) and I think a pretty clear violation of the relevant advertising/marketing code for Children.

Firstly: there’s absolutely zero proof that there’s an afterlife. None. Zip. Zero. If this was a medical product making claims about care it’d need disclaimers and hard evidence.

Secondly: Substitute anyone’s name in there and it would have equal proof. If Christianity can claim it with no proof, why not (other) corporations?

Ronald McDonald looking after the dead. Just as much proof and just as misleading.

Muslims could run an identical ad thanking Allah or Mohammed for looking after their dead mother. Scientology could thank Xenu or thetan alien spirits whatever it is they believe in.

But perhaps more accurate would be the following (which falls within the findings of effectiveness of prayer studies e.g. like this one showing prayer not only doesn’t aid recovery, actually made recovery statistics worse):

Proof that praying really doesn't work that well.

Or perhaps if they’re going to claim parrots and other man made or biological things as the realm of things to thank Jesus for:

Also fair to say huh? Thanks Jesus for cancer, AIDS, pig flu, poor eyesight, birth defects etc.

Of course I’m forgetting the golden rules of this “God” concept which is:

• responsible for all good, even if you did it yourself
• testing your faith or a deserved punishment if bad stuff happens

Anyhow, I lodged a complaint with the advertising standards bureau because I think these ads breach a number of the standards on advertising for children. We’ll see how that goes. If making any and all unfounded claims to promote the Jesus corporation is fine with them then what’s to stop other businesses from doing so (assuming Religion doesn’t magically deserve an exemption to the rules about deceptive advertising and misleading children targeted information).

If you’re going to productise Jesus then just like other product advertisement you can’t make unfounded claims. Keep it nicely contained in that little book of fairy-tales and it isn’t as much of an issue.

Other links:

• Jesus about life (parody site as the idiots forgot to register the .com)
• The official site is here

Neumann’s daughter Madeline died from untreated diabetes on March 23, 2008, surrounded by people praying for her. When she stopped breathing, her parents’ business and Bible study partners finally called 911.

Prosecutors contend a reasonable parent would have known something was gravely wrong with Madeline and that her mother recklessly killed her by ignoring obvious symptoms, such as her inability to walk or talk.

Praying simply does not work and it’s particularly stupid to pray for things which you yourself can fix. In this case prayer was not necessary because no miracle was required just standard treatment of a diabetic child. Modern medicine shits all over this particular problem thanks to insulin. Prayer and wishful religious inspired thinking however do nothing.

Praying for a cure list of steps. Just jump to the last one right away

It’s such a shame that a child ended up dead because of their parents’ superstitious belief that appeals to made up beings could work better than a trip to a doctor. The only trouble is that tolerance of this archaic practice of prayer is pretty widespread.

During closing arguments, Falstad described Neumann as a religious zealot who let her daughter, called Kara by her parents, die as a test of faith.

I wonder though if the witnesses in the trial were ordered to place their hand on a bible before giving testimony?

So is it really any wonder that a Christian might be prepared to sacrifice their child as a test of faith? Isn’t the whole idea of Christianity about a father sacrificing a son. One of the appalling parts of the bible I remember vividly from my (albeit limited) exposure to the bible thumpers for some reason let into school was the story of Abraham and Isaac:

“Take your son, your only son – yes, Isaac, whom you love so much – and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will point out to you.” (Genesis 22:1-18)

A decent, moral parent would tell God where he could stick his idea and ask what kind of fucked up thing that is to be saying. Up there with “love thine enemy” and “turn the other cheek” type lessons in stupidity.

This woman probably blames herself not because she didn’t go to the hospital with its evil science and real medicine. No, she probably blames herself because she didn’t have enough faith. With more faith her prayers would surely have been answered. Or maybe she just thinks this is God’s will and she should be thankful for the chance to go to jail for 20-25 years to learn some divine lesson or fulfil some punishment.

I mean I really hope she has come to her senses and blames herself for believing that prayer was going to work. But sadly blaming lack of faith is how the logic of these religions work to strengthen their stranglehold. Hell, even the two faced Mother Theresa knew praying was bullshit and didn’t really believe it all.

It seems like never occurs that God must have been responsible for the bad thing the first place, or perhaps (if you have to have god in the picture) blessing you with close proximity to a fully stocked, clean, modern hospital.

Let’s hope this is the trigger for the people involved to realise that they need to stop just accepting “god speaks to me”, “I believe in the power of prayer”, “God will answer our prayers” and maybe religion will die out a bit quicker.

The Attorney said this in her closing statement:

“Basic medical care would have saved Kara’s life — fluids and insulin,” Falstad said. “There was plenty of time to save Kara’s life.”

It was an arrogant exercise in self delusion that meant that the real help (which they all knew was just a 911 emergency call away) was requested. It was the adults involved gambling a child’s life on the unlikely event that she might recover by herself (from a state of not being able to walk or talk) so that they could happy-clap each other and praise the lord. So for that reason alone they all need to go to jail.

I love how it appears that people involved still think the parent is praiseworthy.

He said Neumann was a devout Christian and took good care of her four children.

Aah, what part of killing a child makes her a good parent? I’m no parent, but I’m pretty sure that’s a “you have failed parenting” situation. My parents never killed me as a child and I turned out ok.

From an Earthly and morally good (e.g. not Isaac’s old man) standpoint – parents should look after their kids by taking them to a doctor when they’re sick or injured. If this was “mother high on crack lets baby die of neglect” these religious types would be treating this entirely differently. Both are a tragedy for the poor kid, both are situations where someone’s mind is not working quite right. One gets special government subsidies (tax free status) to promote and pollute people’s minds with rubbish, the other is illegal under anti-drug laws.

I’d suggest that the prayer group who sat by with the parents should also be charged for contributing and not calling a doctor when it was pretty obvious that the kid wasn’t getting better. But maybe they thought an exorcism could fix it right at the end.

By the way, if you’re reading this in Ireland: it may be illegal to do so thanks to rediculous “blasphemous libel” laws proposed by the Irish PM.

After all, my saying prayer is stupid, useless and dangerous is insulting to a whole bunch of religions.. *shrug*

Anyhow, let’s hope we see less prayer and more action and maybe people won’t end up unecessarily dying while good people stand by looking skyward when they should just get in and do something.

Check out this disturbing post at a site called “rapture ready”.

I’ll quote..

..actually, you know what, I’m looking for something to quote that doesn’t make me feel like taking an ice pick to my head when I read of these nitwits who want to act like spoilt children in the hope that their sun god father will wipe out the world. I suppose it’s a natural progression given that prayer achieves absolutely nothing, their religions are fast losing followers and having an all powerful god who appears completely non-existant must sting a bit. I can only hope they work on keeping their virginity forever and thus take themselves out of the gene pool.

Ok, here’s one:

I don’t want the Rapture to happen now. I want it to have happened YESTERDAY!!! I wanna go home daddddddyyyyyyyy!

and another from “WaitingForJesus”:

I very badly want to go home, too. I feel alienated from this world with its ungodly ways. I know it’s selfish of me (because I guess we SHOULD want to stay a bit longer so we can evangelize some more…), but I wanna go RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!

and still more:

The rapture is the blessed hope which is a desire that the Lord puts in our hearts. I suppose its a lot like looking forward to Christmas as a child, the more you look forward to it and anticipate it, the more you enjoy it when it finally comes.

There’s at least hope for one on the forum:

I always thought that the cough syrup in California was a lot more potent than here in Iowa…you have confirmed my thoughts

I mean it’s a pretty sick kind of mindset I think that goes to bed each night and wakes up each morning hoping that the wrath of god will descend upon anyone who hasn’t accepted a bunch of unfounded stories about some guy called Jesus (that just happen to mirror a bunch of astrology based stories the Egyptian religions had long before). If this was anything other than religion these people would be on suicide watch.

To give you further examples of the insanity of this notion that the world will end thanks to rapture: there are a bunch of twits who think that Obama is the anti-christ.

I mean is it any wonder we had 8 years of George W Bush?

They really should put a child proof lid on the ballot box to stop these dickheads getting to vote.

For nearly 60 years, the town council here started its meetings by reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Council members felt the passage gave them guidance and inspiration.

That tradition ended recently after the council’s attorney advised members they should heed a request by a resident, an avowed atheist, to stop the practice.

Although I’m a little confused how one becomes an “avowed atheist”. Talk about contradiction of terms! To whom do I address the vows to declare my lack of having a religious/faith based belief. But I guess if you really think about it: the religious types to make their vows to god are just talking to the air anyhow, so I guess it could be the same.

But back on track: there are a number of these residual superstitions left in our society/government/legal system. I think it’s time for a concerted effort to cull them out and then maybe we can hold our heads high when we pour scorn upon countries with sorcery and witch trials. Might as well be sacrificing a chicken before we get down to business! At least the mess of blood, guts and loud noise would be symbolic of the process that follows.