Aug 13 2008
I find it bloody annoying how some Australians - church leaders and politicians mainly - describe this country as a ‘christian’ nation or a ‘christian’ society. Australia isn’t actually.
Our society, like most civilised Western democracies, is a secular society that tolerates religious belief.
I believe the word ’secular’ doesn’t describe our society well enough though - so I have come up with an alternative that I’ll run by you.
Jul 22 2008
I didn’t intend to write anymore about the WYD (well, it should really be named WCYD - add the word ‘christian’ in there), but all the media coverage just got up my nose.
I mean, look, as was reported by the Seven network - 25% of Australians classify themselves as ‘christian’ and presumably this would include hundreds of thousands who just put that down on the census because they can’t be bothered putting ‘other’ or ‘none’ down, from some deep sense instilled into us all that we must be christian (or some other faith) to be ‘good citizens’. Oddly though, catholic church sites reckon that 25% of AUSTRALIANS are catholic… ok, so something is odd there. By my maths, I make it around 6% of the population may have been indoctrinated into the catholic religion - but I bet that far less are actually ‘practicing’.
Jul 02 2008
from the Sydney Morning Herald 1st July - link to full article.
Edited July 9th.
Seems like Sydney-siders aren’t happy about being told what to do (or not do..) - this article on msn.com.au has the story. My favourite t-shirt slogan so far is “$5,500, a small price to pay for annoying Catholics“.
Love it.
May 04 2008
I seem to get few comments on this blog (but it gets it share of visitors - maybe they all agree with me!) and so have put a note that name, email & website entries are optional if you would like to leave a comment.
Also please note that comments are moderated, but not censored other than to remove bigoted and over the top abusive replies.
Seems odd to have to actually state this as you would have thought that christians and other religious believers would follow their churches teachings and treat people with respect even if you don’t agree with their beliefs (or lack of them).
For the record - I do respect your right to hold your beliefs but I don’t respect your beliefs.
Apr 16 2008
It just struck me today how many ‘churchies’ I come into contact with are more often than not, just plain bloody unpleasant and their so-called ’salvation’ sure doesn’t translate into any kindness to their fellowman (well, me anyway!).
I have a small business and do service calls for customers from all walks of life - pensioners, wealthy retired people and just your average ‘working men & women’. Nine times out of ten if I have an unpleasant experience eg: complaint about the bill, grumbling that I ‘didn’t fix it right last time’ (with the implication that they shouldn’t have to pay) and generally being pains-in-the-you-know-what - I discover later that they are christians.
Feb 16 2008
Yes, I’ve shifted to a new hosting company and what a breath of fresh air! Page loading times have dramatically improved and uploading files etc using the FTP program would have to be ten times as fast (the new host even commented how long it took to get the files from the old servers when they did the transfer process for me).
Twice the price, but worth every cent!
Who am I with now? GD Webhosting is the company and I’m happy to give them a plug!
Jan 18 2008
Honestly, I have had it with this current host I’m with. I’d tell you about them, but I won’t take the risk just yet.
I’d actually expect that the chap (I believe it’s a one-man-band) would be as likely to ‘accidentally’ delete my sites!
I’ll just say this - if you are considering cheap web-hosting,
AVOID THEM LIKE THE BLOODY PLAGUE!
My experience has been that I would have wasted hours and hours of time and energy creating sites only to have them become corrupted - usually for the same reason: lack of space on the shared hosting.
Jan 09 2008
This is something that I’ve had pointed out to me a few times ie: ‘ok, so you don’t believe in anything, but what’s positive about being atheist?’.
I think that all of us need to ‘vent’ our frustrations and anger about the dangers of religion and the actions performed by some who believe they have ‘god on their side’ etc, but eventually we come to the position of just accepting that there will probably always be religions, so just accept it.
I can understand that, but I personally feel the need to educate. If not for the sake of those generations to come (including our own grandchildren and eventually great-grandchildren), then for the current huge number of people who are in the ‘I’m a kind of believer’ category. They aren’t lost to rational thought and with a bit of encouragement can be helped to live a satisfying, normal life.
Dec 28 2007
I began getting this cryptic error message before Xmas whenever I attempted to access the Admin for the site. Didn’t have the time to investigate further and an urgent email or two to the useless hosting co that I’m stuck with for now wasn’t answered. I gave up expecting answers months ago - unless I whinge about changing hosts!
Google of course came up with a cure - to add a line like ‘php_value memory_limit 16M’ to the .htaccess file - and ‘bingo’ success!
I presume the reason is the shared hosting space is running low on the host’s servers. I don’t really care, all will be resolved soon anyway with a shift to a proper webhost.
Merry Christmas anyways (I prefer Xmas) but I’m feeling generous. I even put on some nice Xmas Carols at the family dinner and got some bemused looks from those who know my beliefs (or lack of them). I take the view that they are pleasant music and they invoke pleasant memories from my past. I can enjoy them without buying into the myth…
Dec 14 2007
When I first established this blog, I pondered the whole comment question quite carefully. Most (ie: non-controversial) blogs simply have no worry about keeping spam at bay, but sites like these are of course, more prone to the ‘crazies’ and ‘trolls’.
