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So - why the hell does less than 6% of the population (well, in Aussie anyways - I know there are countries that are more like 90% so inclined, lack of education causes insanity …) have the right to screw with our major city?

And now, Australia has contributed to the spread of this particularly noxious faith around the world by sucking-in possibly thousands more impressionable kids.

I come back to the same word time and again - education. Religious HISTORY must be made a compulsory subject at our High Schools (including the free loading ‘church schools’. The curriculum would be to provide all the facts about all the world’s religions - past and current - in a completely impartial way.

As Dan Dennet says in his book, Breaking The Spell:
“Let’s get more education about religion into our schools, not less. We should teach our children creeds and customs, prohibitions and rituals, texts and music, and when we cover the history of religion, we should include both the positive—the role of the churches in the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, the flourishing of science and the arts in early Islam, and the role of the Black Muslims in bringing hope, honor, and self-respect to the otherwise shattered lives of many inmates in our prisons, for instance—and the negative—the Inquisition, anti-Semitism over the ages, the role of the Catholic Church in spreading AIDS in Africa through its opposition to condoms. No religion should be favored, and none ignored.”

That’s the only answer, so as we farewell the silly guy in the frock and red shoes let’s all remember that education, real education is what is needed to bring about a kind of world that is finally free of religious dogma, hate and bigotry.

OzAtheist has a great post about WYD too - have a read here.

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EXTRAORDINARY new powers will allow police to arrest and fine people for “causing annoyance” to World Youth Day participants and permit partial strip searches at hundreds of Sydney sites, beginning today.

The president of the NSW Bar Association, Anna Katzmann, SC, described the regulations as “unnecessary and repugnant”

The thin end of the wedge? Nope, this has been quietly happening all over the world. Don’t agree with the ‘majority opinion’? Want to protest about it? You better not - Sep. 11 and George W’s insane rantings about ‘terrorists’ has handed world governments the powers they always wanted. Control and subdue, their citizens that is.

Sure, nobody wants anyone to get hurt - but remember the protests from the sixties? Well, some of us do - the civil rights, womens rights and other changes that we all enjoy today were brought about because of the protests.

Find me an offensive tee-shirt and I’ll get up to Sydney myself! Here’s some great ideas (courtesy of Atheists Online Shop) -

There’s A Sucker BORN AGAIN Every minute

The Hard Work Of One Does More Than The Prayers Of Millions

RELIGION Is myth-information

BLASPHEMY Is A Victim-less Crime

You get the idea!

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Explaining the new sins, Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary said that numbers have shown that less Catholics in Italy go to confession, with 60 percent no longer participating in what is considered one of the most important sacraments. Girotti also recognized the growing problems of abortion, pedophilia, and a widespread habit of “making do without God.”

I find it odd that he should lump ‘making do without god’ (I read that as no longer needing the primitive belief in a sky-god but taking responsibility for oneself) in with abortion & pedophilia. The latter is certainly a problem (and a crime) but the former is neither.

The catholic church’s ridiculous and criminal stance on birth control and condom use is a worse crime against humanity than any of the new ’sins’.

This church would have to be high on the list of outlawed/eradicated religions or cults - I wish in my lifetime, but I doubt it sadly.

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