Recently, a tweet caught my eye.

Posted by @mmaryannwright - it was a link to a story about two couples who were suing a hospital for failing to detect that their children were carrying the condition Trisomy 21

The allegation is that ante-natal testing was negligent and failed to detect the presence of the condition.

The parents claim that had they been made aware of the presence of the condition that they would have terminated their respective pregnancies.

The couples are suing for the depression, shock and anxiety that they have suffered as a result of having believed that they were to have a healthy child, free from defect; only to discover that they in fact were presented with a child with a chromosomal disorder.

They are also seeking compensation for the continuing costs of raising a child with such a disorder.

One of the children also suffers heart, kidney and thyroid problems and can’t walk.

The tweet that accompanied the link was:

These kind of people make me sick

That is her opinion, that is fine. I don’t know her personal circumstance, whether or not she has raised a disabled child or has a disabled sibling and as such, it would be wrong of me to form an opinion about her as a result of her tweet.

What struck me though was that in saying what she did – that they made her “sick”, she appeared to show absolutely no empathy for what the couples in question experienced.

To declare my hand (I am not going to say “pro choice” – such a misnomer) – I believe that people have the right to make an informed choice about matters which have the potential to impact their lives, adversely or otherwise.

I replied and the conversation want this way:

What I took issue with was the arrogance implicit in what this person was saying.

“These kind of people” make her “sick”.

No explanation as to why, just a judgement, no explanation as to whether or not she had walked a kilometre in their shoes, just a scathing character assessment that throughout the fragmented Twitter conversation, appeared to show a complete inability of this individual to empathise with four distressed human beings.

In her final comment to me; she said “I hope for your sake you’re trolling.”

The supreme arrogance of such a statement, along with this persons willingness to condemn people for being so terrible as to be desirous of having a choice; tells me a lot about her character, values and morals.

I will leave you to make your own assessment of this person – without knowing her personal circumstances, it would be wrong of me to perform an analysis of her character.

What I will say however is that nobody has the right to judge a fellow human being without knowing what that person has experienced, what their personal circumstances are.

Unfortunately a driving force behind the judgement of the actions of others is religion.

To suggest that abortion is wrong, that same sex relationships are abhorrent, that an unmarried woman is unfit to be the leader of a nation, that women are inferior to men – these are the constructs of religion.

Interestingly, and I am not suggesting that the person who tweeted the original tweet is religious, not for one moment – but the religious who condemn things such as abortion, homosexuality and the like forget that in their sacred text, it says:

Leviticus 21:

16 Then the Lord said to Moses,
17 “Give the following instructions to Aaron: In all future generations, none of your descendants who has any defect will qualify to offer food to his God.
18 No one who has a defect qualifies, whether he is blind, lame, disfigured, deformed,
19 or has a broken foot or arm,
20 or is hunchbacked or dwarfed, or has a defective eye, or skin sores or scabs, or damaged testicles.
21 No descendant of Aaron who has a defect may approach the altar to present special gifts to the Lord. Since he has a defect, he may not approach the altar to offer food to his God.
22 However, he may eat from the food offered to God, including the holy offerings and the most holy offerings.
23 Yet because of his physical defect, he may not enter the room behind the inner curtain or approach the altar, for this would defile my holy places. I am the Lord who makes them holy.”

For mine, this is the “sacred book” of the Christians vigorously promoting abortion.

Of course they had to get the “testicles” in there didn’t they? Jesus Christ – why are they all so obsessed with sex?!

As such, no true Christian can condemn abortion for “theraputic” reasons if they wish to claim that they honour the word of their god.

UPDATE

After I posted this, the tweets from the individual in question were (read from bottom up) somewhat amusing. I didn’t bite back and was quite nice to her, providing my email address should she wish to discuss the matter and offering her an unfettered, unedited right of reply on this page.

To date, she hasn’t accepted.

Defamation?

I was inspired to write this little rant after having read this hilarious piece by “Pastor” Daniel Nalliah:

Religious nutter claims Australia is doomed because we have an atheist PM

Two screws loose and a microphone

Now you would be forgiven for thinking that the above link is a pisstake, but unfortunately; it isn’t.

Strangely though, I find myself appreciating the unprecedented audience that the Internet in its current form gives the religious nutters.

They, better than any atheist – Dawkins and Hitchens included – provide a potent deterrent to those wavering in their “faith” or those considering absconding from reason.

They also do a better job of parodying religious belief than the likes of the wonderful people over at Landover Baptist

The fellow who wrote the article on that site is also the fellow who claimed that his god murdered people in  bushfires throughout Australia. The reason? Because he was angry with homosexuals.

This fraud then goes on to say:

“Then we stretched our hands over federal parliament and prayed for ungodly leaders in parliament to be removed and righteousness to be restored”

“Many Christian Leaders believed that Kevin Rudd was God’s man for the hour and promoted him as many Christians voted for Labor in that election.   Unfortunately, due to a lack of spiritual discernment by much of the Church , Kevin Rudd was elected as PM.  He was not God’s choice, but the people’s choice.  God gave the people what they asked for”

Yes with a maybe, no with a but.

Preach to me, preach to me now - 1902 GODHATESFAGS

This kind of rubbish, the “it is god’s will” or the “he is omniscient but gives us choice” type argument is not only illogical, but it makes it impossible to have a reasoned, logical conversation with anyone of religious belief.

Those of us who have engaged in debate or discussion with fundamentalists know that it can be frustrating – and is, indeed, ultimately a waste of one’s time.

It isn’t just the fundamentalists though, that it is pointless attempting to discuss “faith” rationally with.

Faith, by its very nature, is incompatible with reason.

Why? For many reasons, but one of them is:

Because there is always a caveat.

In the case of Nalliah, his twisted caveat invokes free choice in the face of omniscience.

He is loathe to admit that when he and his deluded friends talk to their imaginary friend, nothing more than a reinforcement of their own delusions is achieved – yet who is he to question the whims and fancy of this all knowing, all wise sky pixie?

Instead of admitting that he is delusional, or that he is – point blank wrong – it is so much easier to invoke the tired old cliché of “god works in mysterious ways”, or “he is testing his people”.

Put simply:

• - Nalliah and his deluded flock prayed that the godless heathens would be removed from power
• - The most pious and piously arrogant Prime Minister we have ever had assumed office
• - Said PM, Kevin Rudd – conducted pressers from his church every Sunday morning
• - Said overtly pious PM was replaced by, gods forbid, an atheist (and a woman – let not that significance go unnoticed)
• - Ergo, Kevin Rudd was a tool of Satan and has been replaced by a heathen who will lead all Australians toward a fiery pit unless they vote for the fundamentalist Catholic Tony “The Mad Monk” Abbott

This is his god’s plan.

Nalliah is obviously missing several vital synapses in the rats nest that he indulgently calls a brain, but how is he any different than the “moderate” believers who cherry pick from the bible citing such inanities as “well, it is an anecdote, a message on how to live your life”.

No.

You either take the bible chapter and verse or you don’t take it at all.

At least fruitcakes like Nalliah and his flock have the courage of their insane convictions and completely ignore modern science, wisdom, proof, evidence and logic in favour of the superstitions of ignorant shepherds of aeons past.

The worst kind of believer is he or she who decides instead to attempt to flirt with modern knowledge yet tentatively clutches at the straws of ancient ignorance through a disheartening fear of their own mortality.

If you think that that is harsh, ask a “moderate” Christian if they believe in the story of Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, if they subscribe to everything mentioned in Leviticus.

I would be willing to bet my left testicle that they present to you a caveat.

The “moderate” Christians will look you in the eye and tell you that their god didn’t answer their prayer for a child dying of leukaemia because it was “his will”, yet will happily turn around and claim that their prayer for rain or the success of a friends child at a job interview was granted.

Doesn’t sound like the will of an omnipotent being to me.

Of course we know better than to stone homosexuals and adulterers to death in this day and age (do we?), though yes, this man called Jesus died and rose again, turned water into wine and raised a man from the dead…

Yes, of course, and bushfires, earthquakes, tsunamis and the like can’t be explained by science – they are of course a sign from a sky pixie unhappy with same sex attraction, abortion or an atheist Prime Minister.

Personally, I am excited about the elevation of Julia Gillard to the office of Prime Minister of Australia.

I don’t give a toss that she is a woman (or more importantly, a ranga), unmarried and childless – how do any of those things impact on the ability of a person to conduct themselves in the best interests of the nation?

They don’t, but we are, of course, going to see the tired old clichés that revolve around such issues wheeled out ad infinitum by the unthinking majority; particularly those of a conservative bent.

Such ignorance has already been displayed by a percentage of those commenting on a humourous article by Carrie Miller on The Punch:

http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/gillard-is-doing-it-for-all-the-unmarried-barren-atheists/

Miller is obviously pre-empting the drivel that will be sprouted by the ignoramuses who actually seem to genuinely believe that ones contribution to society can be mesaured by the amount of children they have or their dedication to “traditional Xian values”.

To those “good Christian people” who would argue that Gillard being unmarried and childless poses a threat to the very fabric of society, renders her somehow unfit to govern, I would ask one simple question:

- How many of their popes over the past several hundred of years have been married or fathered and raised children?

I suppose that that is where I feel that the bleating about those matters should be put to bed.

Onto the mumblings about Ms Gillard’s alleged atheism or agnosticism.

Why does that matter either?

In the 2006 Census, the religious affiliations (or lack thereof) of Australians was recorded like this (courtesy of abs.gov.au):

Total Xians – 12,685,836

of the total Xians, the following denominations were somewhat lacking in numbers:

Baptist    316,738
Jehovah’s Witnesses    80,919
Mormons    53,199
Hillsong    219,689
Salvation Army    64,200
Seventh-day Adventist    55,251
Uniting Church    1,135,427

A total of 1,925,423 vocal Xian minorities.

Of the non Xians, there were:

148,119 Hindus, 340,392 Muslims and 88,831 Jews.

Those who identified as having no religion number an impressive 3,706,555 and those who don’t list a religious affiliation are at 2,223,957.

In all, there are more “heathens” in Australia than there are Hindus, Muslims, Jews and fundamentalist Xians combined.

You will often hear politicians trotting out the loathsome adage that we are apparently a “Christian nation”, yet the figures don’t bear that out – particularly when one considers that less than 20% of all Xians in this country attend church on a regular basis.

Personally I feel that a lack of religious affiliation is a positive in a leader, particularly when the alternative option has allowed his fundemantalist Catholic views to influence his policy making when he was health minister under Howard and tried to prevent the legal use of RU486, the “abortion drug”.

Certainly, when Tony Abbott, the “Mad Monk” has also gone on the record saying that he “feels threatened” by homosexuals becayse they challenge “orthodox notions of the right order of things”.

http://www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-gay-people-challenge-right-order-of-things/story-e6frfkvr-1225838477260

Do we really want to go down the George W Bush path of allowing the separation of church and state to become so blurred with a Prime Minister who will allow his policy decisions to be shaped by his unwavering belief in superstitions from several thousand years past?

Do we want to regress and enter a dark age in a modern Australia whereby homosexuals are demonised, woman are not permitted to make their own choices – or do we want a progressive, modern Australia where reason and logic are valued above superstition?

Had Rudd stayed in power, I would have been unable to vote for either of the major parties and would have parked my vote as a protest, somewhere else.

Now that we have a clear and decisive choice – between a strong, dedicated, hard working, pragmatic, disciplined ranga and an emotional, superstitious, fundamentalist loose cannon – my decision has been made quite easy.

My tip – Labor with an increased majority at the next election (to be held in August).

PS – I reckon that Julia would look a lot better in budgie smugglers as well

I thought that I would try something different, I was going to do my whole rant via video, however after realising just how bad my webcam was (and the fact that I am not really a compelling onscreen presence) I decided to let my fingers to the talking for the rest of the rant.

Racism?

This whole shit storm came about as a result of a “blackface” sketch on an appalling Australian television “variety” show that someone thought it might be a good idea to rekindle.

“Hey Hey it’s Saturday“  was a boorish, low grade Australian “comedy” show that ran for 27 years after debuting in 1971.

It was buried in 1999 and should never have been exhumed.

They had a segment on it called “Red faces” in which, viewers would perform skits in an attempt to win prizes of little to no value and generally greatly embarass themselves in doing so.

That said, it was the original precursor to the “Got Talent” shows that now disgrace the airwaves.

Anyway, enough about the history.

Last night, there was a skit on “Red faces” that involved mockery of the Jackson Five with a number of “blackfaced” performers and one “whitefaced” performer.

An American fellow by the name of Harry Connick Junior was one of the judges on this segment and took umbrage at this performance, claiming that it wouldn’t have been aired in the US and that the skit made black Americans look like buffoons.

Some American writers went into overdrive, such as this uneducated shock columnist who advocated violence against the amatuer performers.

She suggested that people who painted their faces black and wore wigs were [sic] “the dumbest things I’ve seen” yet her column suggests that such a performance be rewarded with physical violence… hmmm…

Personally, I thought that the skit was sub par and not in the slightest bit funny -- but not for the supposedly racist overtones.

It appears that Americans are the only people outraged over this pathetic attempt at comedy, yet are they not the supposed creators and guardians of “free speech”?

Political correctness has gone too far, and without apologies to my American friends -- as they are exclusively “free thinkers” -- I have to point the finger of blame for this; squarely at America.

Why is it ok for an African American to refer to a white person as a “honky” or a “cracker” yet somehow outrageously offensive for someone impersonating a black person to don a wig and some facial paint?

There was absolutely no mockery or black people, no stereotyping, no racial slurs, no suggestion of racism whatsoever by the (and it must be pointed out) multi-racial performers. What seems to have caused this outrage is the fact that they painted their faces black.

Personally, I find it grossly offensive that your country has had a history of slavery, oppression of minorities, treating black people as second class citizens -- sending them to the back of the bus, treating them like sub humans long before it happened in South Africa…

… but I take umbrage at you forcing your guilt onto us.

We didn’t force you to forcibly raid Africa, kidnap Africans and then enslave them, so don’t fucking foist your guilt upon us for the history you chose to create for yourselves.

This is hypocrisy at its worst -- even alongside that of organised religion.

It is essentially saying:

“You are free to speak and do as you wish, so long as it doesn’t make reference to our historical shame”

Wake the fuck up. Whilst we in Australia have been guilty of treating our indigenous population terribly, we would never be so arrogant as to foist our domestic shame upon you.

Australia is not America, nor does it share the same culture, guilt or shame for what has happened in your history.

Free speech is free speech, always; not just when you agree with it.

Speaking of hypocrites…

Harry Connick -- hypocrite?

Oh, as a post script -- the performer playing Michael Jackson, adorned with “whiteface” makeup was an Indian.

Where is the outrage from Caucasians?

Without digressing too much into matters of my mental state however, I shall forge on with the train of thought that I briefly alluded to a mere paragraph ago.

I watched an old episode of Penn and Teller’s “Bullshit” last night from season three. It was called “family values” and the objective was to lay to rest the notion that the “traditionally accepted” nuclear family comprising of one man, one woman and offspring; was the only acceptable form of a family.

In their own inimitable way, they did a wonderful job of laying waste to the conservatives of our world have touted as being the only acceptable kind of family unit.

It would be surprising if anyone with a differing viewpoint was swayed, however compassionate and compelling the evidence though…

They canvassed various scenarios:

• a lesbian couple raising children
• two married couples who cohabited and had an all encompassing communal love
• “normal” marriage
• a “gay converter” (who apparently used to be gay – and in reality still is, he wasn’t foolig anyone)

They took views from people on both sides of the fence, and for mine, it did more than just highlight that we are a society that consists of many varied lifestyles, choices, beliefs, relationships, creeds and sexualities; it gave rise to some feelings of deep anger.

The anger was borne of the extrapolated consequence of the fact that there are some sections of society who deem it appropriate to discriminate against people based upon their sexuality.

Fear not dear reader, this isn’t going to turn into a gay bashers bashing rant, though that will form a pivotal point of the hypothesis that I will eventually meander around to.

I am straight (much to the disbelief of people in some of the establishments I frequent) and would probably class myself as being around 0.5 on the Kinsey Scale – the only reason that I wouldn’t be a 1 is because the thought of homosexuality is just a little too messy for me to get off on it (that and a lack of sexual attraction to men) though the notion of balls slapping together during double penetration has some kind of drunken kinky appeal – but enough of that.

Even though I personally find the thought of sucking another mans cock unappealing, does it mean that I should be outraged at the thought of two consenting male adults to whom it does appeal; offensive?

Of course it doesn’t.

Fuck me, I am kind of envious that it is something that doesn’t appeal to me – imagine those nights on the piss with your mates when none of you picked up and all ended up back at someones house playing Playstation or Euchre or just dribbling shit into the wee hours.

How much better would it be if you were all bi and could just fuck one another before retiring?

Anyway, that isn’t my point.

My point centres on two issues:

• hypocrisy
• intolerance

I will make some assertions here:

- I have never met an atheist who:

• is homophobic
• opposes polygamy
• believes that morality is defined by sexuality

- Conversely, a large percentage of the Christians I know:

• are homophobic (thank you Leviticus)
• oppose polygamy (except for the Mormons if they count as Christians)
• believe that morality is defined by a sun god and a dusty old book

To wander off for a moment…

The primary issue I have with organised religion is not the concept of an old bearded man who sits up there in the sky:

• casting judgement
• exhorting his followers to commit acts of vileness
• demanding obedience and obsequiousness
• sanctioning bigotry
• encouraging the abdication of responsibility
• giving his minions the desire to attempt to cast scientific though back thousands of years
• threatening all those who use reason to disbelieve with an eternity of sodomy in hades

… and everything else that one could argue a deity encourages in feeble of mind…

My primary issue with organised religion is that; without question; it engenders hypocrisy.

This has always been my foremost concern – probably because I was raised a Catholic, but that is a tale for another day.

Without meandering too much further, this hypocrisy can be illustrated in no better way than in the issue of tolerance/intolerance.

The push to repress homosexual men and women does not come from the secular portion of society, it comes from the theistic portion.

It is based not upon the teachings of “Jesus” with whom many of them (men included) claim to have a “personal relationship“, nor on any of the “teachings” of the new testament, rather it is based on the anachronistic diatribe of the old testament, particularly Leviticus.

I wont go into it here, @Monicks has already posted a superb article on it here – but the point is that the outrage shown by modern day Christians toward same sex attrition and unions is based upon the ramblings of uneducated, superstitious peasants.

It isn’t because these supposedly moral people who follow the teachings of a man who paradoxically said advised both:

“If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also” (Luke)

and

“I come not in peace, but to bring a sword” (Matthew)

… choose to discriminate based upon sexuality, or indeed discriminate at all:

It is because they bleat constantly about tolerance of their beliefs, their “faith”, their religious views and how terrible it is that they aren’t allowed, in a secular society, to foist them without restraint upon others; yet refuse to offer other people the same sanctity that they themselves seek.

They demand “religious tolerance”, so long as it refers only to their particular flavour of fairytale.

Whilst we live in a supposedly secular society, you can’t buy take away alcohol in some states in Australia on “Good Friday” because the Christians want us all to sacrifice something for their beliefs.

Every year, we hear some Christian religious leader on television and radio bleating about how “Christ has been taken out of Xmas”.

We hear Christian political leaders droning on and on about how marriage is the “sacred union between a man and a woman and needs to be respected”.

The leader of the Catholic church in Australia, a certified bigot, Cardinal George Pell refuses to give communion to gay Catholics and yet demands respect for the “Christian traditions” of Easter and Xmas (despite the fact that they were plagiarised from the pagans) by secular and non Christian society…

Is there a pattern here?

Do unto others only as I wish to do unto them, so long as it fits in with my rigid and antiquated, arcane belief structure and doesn’t contravene the contradictory teachings of superstitious peasants from many thousands of years ago, despite what we now know about morality and science.

It annoys me greatly that people are capable of demanding respect for their “faith” – something that they have chosen to immerse themselves in despite all logical evidence to the contrary, yet refuse to respect people based upon the sexuality that they were born with; and to play devil’s advocate; that their god created them with.

It is the “do as I say, not as I do” mentality, the inherent hypocrisy of so many religious types that annoys me more than their illogical belief structure, their fear of their own mortality.

What annoys me more though, is the damage that this hypocrisy has on innocent, moral, decent people who are merely living out a life in accordance with the way that genetics and evolution designed them.

My final word on the matter is:

If religious types want secular society to respect and tolerate their beliefs (which it has been for hundreds of years), then they need to reciprocate and begin tolerating others.

They could do a lot worse than following the example of @FatherBob.