Australia's most well-known atheist - Phillip Adams

While I'm studying I like to listen to ABC radio from home, so I download podcasts of Radio National's program Late Night Live. The presenter, Phillip Adams, is an atheist and humanist. His interviews and commentary are insightful, thoughtful and always interesting. I'd recommend a listen for any atheists around the world.

Phillip Adams' Wikipedia bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Adams

Radio National's Late Night Live: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/default.htm

Late Night Live's podcast url: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/feeds/lnl.xml

Give it a try! Keeps me sane, especially hearing another Aussie voice while overseas.

The gospel according to Marty (not sainted)

We know the story as believed by christians, right? A virgin gives birth to the son of god, who grows up, does a few miracles and gets himself killed, then rises again and pisses off to heaven. Hmmmm.

For a start let's have a look at the "virgin" issue. Basically, some ecclesiastical nutjob bolloxed the translation from Hebrew. The term used in the original (ha‘almah) has been traditionally translated as "virgin", but further research shows it also means "a young woman of marriageable age". Which is the logical choice? Then there's the whole muddy waters of exactly when Jesus was born, where, the myth of Herod's baby-killing spree and the new star in the east that no one except for 3 wise men noticed. It's too long to go into here, but the full dissection can be found on this excellent site - http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/christianity_birthnarrative.html

So, when you remove all the bullshit you basically have a story about a Jewish kid who was born, somewhere, at some stage. It was only far later that the gospel writers tried to make him fit a 700-year old prophecy.

From there, the story goes that he argued theology with the religious teachers, became a carpenter, had a bit of biffo with some money lenders, recruited some followers, did a few miracles, and ended up executed.

Most or all of the stories about Jesus are no doubt exaggerations, myths, half-truths or outright lies. Don't forget that at this stage there was no media services or checking of facts, news was passed by word of mouth. When you consider that even today stories are twisted, "spun", and influenced on a daily basis, you can imagine the "chinese whispers" effect on news of those times. Someone found a forgotten stash of wine at a wedding that Jesus may or may not have attended; by the time someone wrote the story down he'd created it from water.

Then there's the execution, which again may or may not be based on fact. Even if it was real, victims of crucifixion usually died over the course of days. Jesus was apparently only on the cross (which was actually a "T" shape, thus buggering up the christian symbol completely) a matter of hours. The chances of him surviving this experience are therefore quite good, which would explain the resurrection story had he been spotted walking around afterwards.

In summary, the christians would have you believe that: A virgin gave birth to a child, who was the son of god, who died to take away your sins (bit presumptive really) and was brought back to life.

The realistic view is, of course, that there may or may not have been a man who became a bit of a folk hero for one Middle Eastern tribe. He cocked up politically and may have got himself sentenced to death, which it seems likely he survived.

People being what they are, of course, this myth has grown out of all proportion until you have the ridiculous situation that we have today; hundreds of millions of people believing that a 2000-year old semi-historical figure from a different culture has the power to "save" your imaginary soul.

It's funny, I don't see Tutankhamun's second cousin or a sergeant in Genghis Khan's army being worshipped around the world today!

Generational change - a solution to religion?

The idea that generational change may provide the eventual downfall to most recognised religions may seem an absurd idea at first. However while it's damn near impossible to change the mind of a believer, it is almost a given that following generations, exposed to different ideas, will have a different outlook on life.

My family are devout christians, of a little-known sect that claims to have no name but is known to others as "Cooneyites" after the founder. Out of 5 kids, I'm the only one to actually reject their beliefs (at age 20). Don't get me wrong; I love and respect my parents, and apart from my eldest brother, who's a bit of a twat, I get on pretty well with the rest of the family.

This sect is mainly comprised of families, and succeeding generations are brought up within the faith. Marriage outside of the faith is not encouraged. The point is, despite these strictures, there are encouraging signs that the current young generation are not conforming to a frankly outdated way of life.

My sister's family is a good example. Although devout herself, she married an "outsider" and now has two kids in their late teens. The boy takes after his father, fully and frankly rejects his mothers' beliefs, and seems from all accounts to be a happy and healthy individual with a secular humanist outlook on life. The girl, though at this stage still going to meetings with her mother, has an "outsider" boyfriend and has a social lifestyle similar to "normal" agnostic kids her age.

Just the thing to give the kids screaming nightmares! From inside the Duomo, Florence

The sad thing, in my family's case, is their belief that anyone not in their religion is going to hell. (As 99.999999% of the earth's population don't even know of their existence, that means that heaven is going to be pretty empty and it'll be standing room only in hell!) So, my parents would mourn the fact that I'm going to hell. My sister thinks her husband will. This irrational belief - not only in an afterlife, but that a smug few will gather around their god as he shuttles the majority through a cattle run to eternal flames, is one of the saddest aspects of religious belief.

However in an information age it's going to get harder and harder for religious parents to "shield" their kids from heretical ideas. That's why it's great to see atheism blogs and sites all over the net; if they cause kids to question their parents beliefs, they're providing a huge service to humankind. Of course, hard core monotheistic religions do all they can to prevent this - especially islam, where in some countries there's no separation between church and state, and kids get taught religious bullshit instead of useful knowledge. Even so, knowledge has a tendency to ignore international and religious borders.

Through ignorance, people used to believe all sorts of strange things that they don't today. Religion is the same, just another idea that has continued past its use-by date. Give it time, and it'll fade away all by itself.

Religion: a (tax) free ride...

Why is it that secular businesses pay tax but churches don't? The sums of money involved are huge. Just talking about Australia, the combined wealth of churches and religious communities is estimated at over $1 billion. Cast your eyes further afield to the evangelical hyperbole in the USA and the worldwide empire of the Catholic church, and this would be a drop in the ocean. Yet in most countries not a dollar is given to the tax man.

If you ask a representative of any church, they'll tell you that they more than make up for the lack of taxes by charitable acts and volunteer work. In some cases, this may even be true. But there's no accountability to the rest of the tax paying public, where, in Australia, it's estimated that only 17% of the population regularly attends church. In effect, the churches are saying "trust us to do the best thing with our tax breaks as far as charity is concerned".

But what constitutes correct use of charitable funds? In its submission to the Australian Government on what constitutes a charity (http://www.taxboard.gov.au/content/charity_subs/Catholic_Church_in_Australia.pdf) the Catholic church argues that all of its parts should be tax exempt, as "All fulfil the requirements to be charities since all have as their objective the advancement of religion." (page 6)

Excuse me??? The purpose of a charity is to advance religion?? According to MSN Encarta, "organization providing charity: an organization that collects money and other voluntary contributions of help for people in need". Helping the poor is charity - religion has nothing to do with it.

Under their own (false) definition of charity, this gives the Catholic church carte blanche to use 100% of the money donated, raised, gained from business activities, gifts, legacies - any source possible - for whatever the church heirarchy wishes. Obviously, given their definition, their main focus is to advance their fairy tale instead of tangibly assisting those less fortunate.

In any case, the majority of Catholics throughout the world are not wealthy to begin with. This leads to the absurd situation of the poor providing funds to one of the wealthiest organisations on earth, for that organisation's expressly stated purpose of spreading ignorance throughout the world. Monty Python couldn't do a sketch this ridiculous!

I'm not just picking on the catholics - there's plenty of others out there. In contrast to most religions advocating austerity in earthly goods, the Pentecostals believe "God wants you to succeed in all aspects of life - including wealth." Don't forget though, they want 10% of that wealth back. What do they use it for? I'm willing to bet that the millions spent on huge new churches, pseudo-rock concerts and professional lighting and sound setups (in order to attract new, younger middle-class punters with good future tithing prospects) far outweighs any real charitable acts.

In my opinion charities should be FULLY accountable. If the churches want tax exemptions, they should prove comprehensive records that show that they spend at least the amount of business, payroll, and GST tax - that would otherwise be due - on charitable work for those in need. I'm not talking their dodgy definition of charity either - I mean money, products, goods or services directly delivered to poor people. If they can't, or refuse, then sorry mate - no tax exemption for you.

This doesn't even begin to address other problems with church-based businesses undercutting "real" businesses run by people who actually do pay tax. An example, sourced from the ABC's 7:30 report - http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2001/s421419.htm - the "Cornerstone Christian Community" runs a tax-exempt turf business - "Turf the Lot" in central NSW. Thanks to students labouring 25 hours a week for $15 (not $15 an hour, $15 a week) this "business" has grown by 80% in 5 years and now dominates the market. Real business such as Canturf in the same area obviously can't compete.

Churches make enough out of fleecing their gullible members. For a start, this income should be subject to tax. If they also want to start organisations that compete in the market place, they should be on the same level playing field as any other business - taxed and paying their staff award wages.

Oops!

Hiya,

If there's anyone that's actually read this blog more than once, you'll notice that the URL has changed to www.theatheisthaven.blogspot.com . This is because I only just realised that the original was misspelled - i and e reversed - and that only happened when my wife went in for a look, spelled it correctly, and came up with someone else's blog! Which, I must say, is a very good one and has much the same focus as mine. Check it out - www.atheisthaven.blogspot.com - and all the best to its author, Roy Chui. Although I only recently created this blog, there are several similarities to Roy's, even though I didn't know of its existance. Great minds and all that...
Anyways, that's it for housekeeping, next time inspiration strikes I'll be back!

Who's the real terrorist?

Picture: from a news article "Terror in their sights", Tasmania's Mercury, 25/6/07 (http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,21961594-921,00.html)

I've just read an article from some right-wing retard named Andrew Bolt who writes for the Herald Sun, owned by News Corp, unsurprisingly controlled by Rupert Murdoch. (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21828247-25717,00.html)

This bloke is surprised and shocked that two white democratic leaders, ie our own Little Johnny Howard and the USA's George Dubya, were named by Amnesty International's Secretary-General Irene Khan as being named as examples of "trampling and trumpeting an ever-widening range of fears". He seemed to think this was unfair. When you read the report itself - not just this bloke's skewed slant on it - you find an accurate, balanced and truthful document. John Howard DID use fear of asylum seekers to win an election. He's good at it - he uses National Security as his cattle prod to steer a majority of voters into his camp every 4 years. Luckily, current polls seem to indicate that the punters have stopped listening to him. If Labor don't stuff up too much in the next couple of months we should see a change of government.

And how about G.W.B? Yes, the USA suffered attacks on 11/9/01. Around 3,000 civilians were killed. Now compare this with the subsequent "War on terror" casualty figures. How many has George killed? 130,000? Are their deaths 43 times less meaningful than those of Americans? Fear is a powerful motivator. A scared population is easily led. These two, along with other dodgy leaders around the world (not only Robert Mugabe and Omar Al-Bashir, but Vladimir Putin of Russia and Lech Kaczynski of Poland, to name a couple) use fear of difference to consolidate their power base for their own ends.

Take Australia, for example. Not one act of terrorism has taken place on Australian soil. Bali, yes. 88 Australian lives, along with another 114 from other countries (including 38 Indonesian citizens) were lost. In 2005, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau states that Australia had 8 road deaths per 100,000. That's about 1,600 road deaths based on population of 20million, as it was in 2005, and this is accepted as normal.

In 2001, the USA had a population of roughly 283,000,000. Their road toll figure for 2005 was roughly 15 per 100,000. Assuming it hasn't changed much from 2001, that's a whopping 42,450 deaths on the road. They lost 3,000 to terrorism. Who's the terrorist?

After 9/11 (why the Yanks put the month first I'll never know), the Australian government started their scare campaign. Every few weeks there was a news story about some new special forces group being trained in counter-terrorism tactics, high-publicity stunts like SOG cops dropping from Blackhawk helicopters over Sydney Harbour, leaflets mailed to every Australian household, new terrorism hotlines. This is all scare-mongering and window dressing - the need to be "seen" to be doing something to protect you, the helpless public, from these scary looking bearded men with tea towels on their heads. As such, it's a waste of tax-payers money. Why didn't it go somewhere useful? Make the roads safer, improve driver training, tax tobacco, legalise drugs (then tax them), fund research into the major diseases. These are things that save lives - but they just aren't sexy enough. The issues are too complex for the average punter. No, get yourself an outside threat, with high-definition shots of planes flying into skyscrapers, pictures of deluded saps like David Hicks holding an RPG - inflate the profile and the threat, and Mrs Blogs with her 50 excess kilos and her high blood pressure, or Mr J Citizen with his 40-a-day habit, or even 18-year-old Davo with his new licence and V8 ute will vote in a leader who promises to protect them from this deadly danger.

In the USA, just to make sure you don't forget your fears, there's a whole raft of TV shows featuring terrorism - 24, Sleeper Cell, The Unit etc.

Check out the UN's "academic concensus definition" of terrorism.

"Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby — in contrast to assassination — the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought (Schmid, 1988)."

Anxiety-inspiring, as in instillation of fear - repeated violent action, such as invasion of another country - seeking intimidation, coercion, or propaganda. Sounds like our government, doesn't it.

Yes, terrorists are dangerous. Heart disease is worse.

Marty 10/6/07

The creationist delusion

Welcome!

I've been thinking of creating a blog for a while now. While I occasionally get a chuckle from religious antics, I'm also concerned about the power and influence of the religious lobby on supposedly secular governments. The attempts (some successful) of the Creationists and their offshoot Intelligent Design(ists? ers??) to have their theory taught in schools, notably in the USA and Great Britain, is particularly concerning. Bobby Henderson's fantastic Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster brought much-needed opposition to the IDer's attempts to push their non-scientific views onto the educational community. However religions do have access to immense sums of money - easy enough to come by when you convince people that eternal life can be purchased - and with money comes political, advertising and educational power.
One example of this is the recent construction of the "Creation Museum" in Kentucky, USA - a multi-million dollar theme park for fundamentalists and evangelists. (The "Ways to Give" link on their website states that in April they crossed the 27-million dollar funds mark through donations). Through static and animatronic displays, each with video explanation (perhaps illiteracy is high in their customer demographic?) they attempt to validate their belief in the literal creation story in Genesis. This is obviously not science, but it is being portrayed as science - to a future generation of trusting and believing kids who are enticed by the exciting dinosaur displays. This pollution of young minds is perhaps the most pernicious aspect of religion. As any scientist will tell you, science relies on and welcomes vigorous and thorough testing of theories. Religion does not.
Let's teach the next generation to observe, use their brains, and question everything they're told.

Marty