And what a way to celebrate my return from the ‘blog wilderness’ !
Quote from Australian Senator, Nick Xenophon : “Scientology is not a religious organisation. It is a criminal organisation that hides behind its so-called religious beliefs. What you believe does not mean you are not accountable for how you behave”
Wow. Now, that should put the cat among the proverbial pigeons!
In his speech - the full video and transcript of which is here - he says what many have believed for years but were too afraid of the scientology lawyers to say. He questions the ‘churches’ tax exemption status, maintains that questions should be asked about the various deaths within scientology families and brings to light all the allegations by former members that should be properly investigated by a parliamentary enquiry in this country.
Even our P.M, Kevin Rudd has voiced his ‘concerns’ over Scientology’s practices.
It will be very interesting in the coming weeks to see the responses by the ‘church’. I’ll keep you posted with developments - by all accounts Senator Xenophon is a bit of a terrier when it comes to following through on whatever he takes on. Let’s hope this one is no exception…
Tags: churches & cults, scientology
I still pop into the myriad of atheist and humanist sites and blogs around the world and found this gem in one of my favourites that I had to share.
Daylight Atheism posted this on 12th August. He started with explaining that he understood why the world’s religions existed and why people chose to believe. He ended with the very concise and powerful few paragraphs that I’ve quoted below:
“I understand, but I do not believe. No matter how comforting these faiths may be to their followers, they are still based on supernatural claims for which I see no good evidence. Worse, most of them make assertions that are plainly based on the superstitious ideas of primitive people, and are flatly contradicted by everything we’ve learned about human history and the laws by which the cosmos works. I understand the appeal of culture and tradition, but these are not good enough reasons for belief when these religions make factual claims that are so plainly untrue.
If these factual falsehoods were all that was wrong with religion, one might still argue that it’s worth believing for the sake of the comfort that belief brings. But religion has also wrought terrible evil in the world. And the unnecessary pain, suffering, and destruction that faith has caused is too high a price to pay for comfort. A total catalogue of these harms would be impossibly long, but I can list a few of the major ones: the terror of children who are taught they’ll be tortured eternally if they stray; the monstrous crimes of predatory clergy that were long concealed and abetted by their superiors; the suffering and degradation of women whose faith teaches them that they are inferior; the bloody holy wars waged in the name of God; the violent censorship of free speech and free minds; morality based on fear and obedience rather than reason and conscience; the opposition to the advance of human rights; the opposition to science and knowledge; the propping up of kings and theocracies; and most grievous, the stifling of curiosity, teaching people to be satisfied with ignorance.
Whatever comfort religion brings, whatever solace it brings, it isn’t worth it if this is the price we must pay. There are other, better ways to find comfort, ways that have just as much potential for good without so much potential for evil. There are countless philosophies that, like religion, accentuate the positive traits of humanity, but that, unlike religion, don’t intensify the negative ones.”
Tags: churches & cults, education, faith
Regular ‘drop ins’ may have noticed the lack of posts here. Want to know why? I’m just bored with the whole religion thing now.
The experience of setting up the site, writing posts and responding to comments has been a cathartic exercise for me. I’ve got it all out of my system and for now, I’ll leave the writing up to others.
Am I having second thoughts? Absolutely not. In fact, the process has helped me get over any lingering doubts I might have had.
Do I have more tolerance for those who choose to believe in an invisible father figure in the sky? Nope - in fact, I’ve probably got less now. I can have some tolerance for the under 40’s, but anyone - anyone who gets to forty and hasn’t worked it out yet, I just lose patience with.
Our future information provider, Gary the Geek, has found a worrying lack of news from after the early 23rd Century.
He said in a brief garbled phone conversation (he was still trying to get over a photo
of Sydney he found after the devastating floods of 2057 in an Australian newsfeed. See the photo to the right) that so far, he has been unable to find any news ‘css/rssxmtl headers’ - a term he uses to describe the technology used to deliver news in the future - from after September 11th 2201.
He said that it may just be that the technology changes to a new format that he can’t view yet, but we both share the view that the date is ominous…
Tags: fundamentalism, global warming, humour
Gary the Geek has been busy (he says he has a new technique for extracting the future news feed content. Whenever I visit him he seems preoccupied with cat entrails and chicken livers, but I digress…).
From ‘The Florida EvChristian Daily’ newsfeed dated 23rd February 2027.
The University of Saint George W The Redeemer released a press statement today condemning plans to reduce federal funding for smaller prayer universities. The spokesman, His Most Reverent Majestic Knob, said “While we acknowledge that our modest university has not yet received the same blessings from God in areas like medical and mental health breakthroughs we don’t have the same prayer staff.
The large institutions, with their 50,000 plus prayer scientists are obviously able to achieve much more as our blessed Lord takes more notice of them - but we are still able to contribute. Among our notable achievements are the increased rainfall for two consecutive years that has been praised by Kansas wheat farmers who have said that our university saved their farms.
We would strongly object to any funding cuts, after all, a 3.9 billion funding package and tax breaks are chicken feed these days”
Wow. Sounds like the future of the educational system in the US will be interesting to say the least.
Stay tuned for more from the … FUTURE
Tags: america, churches & cults, george w bush, humour
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