Postcards to say something: 010

An old friend, Anonymous Trad, sent me this. Like the lovely folk songs Mr Trad has been providing for a number of years now, the origin of this picture is shrouded in mystery.

As you look, observe the layers of meaning: an artist’s work is stolen and made into an image by people working to make an image, and somebody has come along and added yet another layer of meaning to the image.

And as for the big chairs? Takes a lot of chutzpah.

The Rise of Atheism – Global Atheist Convention, Melbourne March 12-14th 2010

Sending a strong message that atheism is gaining momentum as a political issue in Australia, thousands of non-believers will gather in Melbourne next March for a major international convention:  The Rise of Atheism.  The Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre has been booked for the event which is set to become the largest gathering of non-theists in Australia’s history.

President of the Atheist Foundation of Australia (AFA), David Nicholls, says that inquiries about the convention have exceeded all expectations and interest continues to grow as organisers confirm some of the leading names of the ‘New Atheism’ movement as speakers.

Leading the lineup is author of The God Delusion, British evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, along with American biologist, Professor P. Z. Myers, host of the world’s top-ranked science blog, Pharyngula.  Also confirmed is Dan Barker, a former evangelical pastor.  Barker, author of Losing Faith in Faith, now heads America’s Freedom from Religion Foundation and hosts America’s first atheist radio program, Freethought Radio on Air America.

Australian speakers include; philosopher and professor of bioethics, Peter Singer, broadcaster Phillip Adams, and Age columnist, Catherine Deveny.  More information on the convention is available at:  http://www.atheistconvention.org.au

The enormous contemporary interest in atheism as a social and political movement has been fueled by global religious conflicts and the increasing politicisation and influence of the ‘religious right’. A number of best-selling books on the subject, including Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Sam Harris’ The End of Faith, and Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great:  How Religion Poisons Everything,  have inspired thousands to join non-theist organisations and online atheist communities.

AFA president, David Nicholls says, “Non-religious Australians are fed-up with an unrepresentative Christian minority influencing important civil rights issues like abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research and gay marriage – all issues which the majority of Australians support.  They’re also concerned about the amount of tax-payers’ money being pumped into religious schools at the expense of the public education system.”

“People contact us at the Atheist Foundation every day, saying, ‘What can we do to stop this?’” says Nicholls.

Surveys show that only 7.5% of Australians attend church regularly. While the official Census figures show Australia’s ‘non-religious’ make up 20% of the population, several major international studies reveal that this figure is vastly underestimated.  Nicholls estimates that non-believers in Australia are probably closer to 50%.

The Rise of Atheism Convention will bring together atheists from around the country, and across the world.  “Make no mistake,” says Nicholls, “this is not just going to be a talk-fest.  The incredible level of interest should be a huge wake-up call to politicians and Christian lobbyists, alike, that non-religious Australians are preparing to stand-up and be counted.  Atheism is on the rise, and the non-religious will no longer sit quietly on the sidelines while good policies are derailed by religious dogma and prejudice.”

Relevant Statistics

Nationally, only 7.5% of Australians attend a place of worship weekly. Source: Zuckerman, Phil (2005), Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns, Cambridge University Press

A survey by Germany’s Religion Monitor (2008) found that 31% of Australians do not believe in God, a divine power or life after death, while a further 26% were uncertain to varying degrees.  Source: Religion Monitor (2008), ‘Australia: High level of religious identity paired with low level of Belief’, Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation, Sydney/Gütersloh (Germany)

Contact:

David Nicholls

President

Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc

Private Mail Bag 6

Maitland SA 5573

Australia

Phone:  (08) 8835-2269

International: +61 8 8835-2269

Email: info@atheistfoundation.org.au

Web: http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au

Forum: http://atheistfoundation.org.au/forums/

Convention: http://www.atheistconvention.org.au

Postcards to say something: 009

When I had a Jesus, he was looking out for the little guy, standing up against mercenary, heartless authoritarians.

Other people have a stern Jesus with a stick, making everybody do his bidding or else. Rich Jesus and Pharisee Jesus seem to be the Malibu Barbie of accessorised deities.

Part of the fun is that you can dress up Jesus just like your fantasies!

Postcards to say something: 007

Licensed to feel ill…

Looks like the fluffy bunny and kitty will have the legally-sanctioned hatred of the church to deal with in Victoria. (Let Sean the Blogonaut tell you about it.)

Sundays JesusAAL submitted picture

Ignoring the starving children, the Jesus All About Life campaign is focusing on cute pictures and claiming jesus gives answers, while really just ignoring them.

Here’s their Sunday contribution on FaceBook.

Maybe they should use ones like this?

Maybe caption this one? (Warning graphic images of dead children from natural disaster) You know, something about how jesus creates tsunamis that kills children then says ‘it’s to teach you to believe in me, so you can go to heaven’. What a bastard. This isn’t a laughing matter, I’d like to see exactly how this jesus is answering this.

I’ve actually asked on some christian sites about JAAL, and recommended a list of answers that christians really need to answer to gain some credibility, I’ll repost them here :

If you REALLY want to make a difference, and reach non-christians, you have to face and answer the massive evidence and critiques of your faith with actual ANSWERS. You don’t give any. You just state ‘Jesus is the answer’, with nothing to back it up. There is basically ‘he will make you feel better if you believe’.

You have to :

1/ Show logic and reason behind the existence of a supernatural entity other than pointing continually at your bible and using it’s phrases to point out positions that most all humans find totally obvious regardless as we are evolutionary socialistic beings.

2/ Show how your god is the one true god, amongst hundreds of others, and thousands that have gone before you.

3/ Show us the evidence of the claims for a young earth, and the ‘fact’ of creation that you claim is an alternative Theory (and look up how a scientific theory actually works) to the evolution of humans from a common ancestor to other life. Actually read up on what evolution actually is, that it is seperate from abiogenesis and cosmology, and approach the facts, not the straw man you put forward

4/ Stop trying to point at non-belief, and saying it is a belief (like not stamp collecting is a ‘hobby’) as it does not make sense to anyone but you.

5/ Explain why we have mountains of evidence that contradict the creationists claims, why the mass of evidence in radioactivity, tree rings, ice cores, corals, supernovas – from astronomy, biology, physics, geology, chemistry and archeology all combine and go against your faiths concepts.

6/ explain why your god has always existed, and the universe in some form, couldn’t. (you may want to actually read up on scientific concepts like singularities and bubble universes etc etc)

somehow I am pretty sure none of this will be answered, they’ll just keep on keeping on commoditising their jesus.

So what’s the answer? praying to Jesus? Or actually getting off your knees and doing something?

Scrapings from the comment bin

Golly, it must be one of those Jungian synchronicity things… I was preparing a visual response (above) to one of the many comments that just don’t make it, and a colleague was replying by mail to the same member of Generation SuperficialBook™.

Here’s what he had to say:

I guess another mod deleted your comment to save you from looking like an idiot for not actually reading content on the pages posts, but just looking at pictures, then judging us on that.

What drives me personally, is that christians continually force themselves to have more rights than others. They also fight basic concepts of science, where humanity has to deal with people who believe bronze age concepts of the earth, and push it into our schools. Religion has a status above and beyond any secular group doing the same thing. Our children are brought up in a world where your bigotry is continually being reinforced as moralistic.

YOUR religion pushes itself and tries to tell OTHERS what to do. You invade our laws and try and tell women what they can do with their bodies, their lives, you say who people can love and show commitment to, you actively stop secular parents from being able to have their children taught ANYTHING while your kids get brainwashed by scripture. You hypocrite.

Have a read of some of these articles, then come back and post something that doesn’t make you look like an uneducated bigot cheers!

Thanks to my colleague Gee Suss.

Postcards to say something: 006

Real estate, motorcycles, flash cars, Lear jets: use of the church’s this or that (even the this or that which was especially purchased for your use). The anointing greases the palm.

God wants you to have more money. (Actually, Bob McGuire can keep the poor people as long as the archbishop gets the Money!)

It’s a great lurk. The blokes in Acts, who used to serve in distributing to the needy, have been replaced by those who are ready to see their own wants as “needs”, and see to them pretty swiftly.

Government slaves to work on your house? No problem!

And if you’re the shepherd, who gets to say how you spend the wool-cheque, or tell you off for taking a ewe or little lamb to keep you warm at night?

No wonder the campaign points away from the churches, while trying to get people to connect with those churches. You’d be mad to point out the truth.

Religious bigotry in Victoria being made legal

THE Victorian government is expected to announce today that religious groups will be allowed to discriminate against gays and single mothers in a controversial compromise reached on workers’ rights.

Poor Christians!

Would these religious groups think it fair that it was enshrined in law, that one was able to discriminate against those with faith, based on the fact it undermines lack of belief?

I think not!

This is just plain bigotry.

Postcards from our friends: 001

Thanks to our friends who contribute postcards and comments: here’s the first few in an ongoing series.

We promise they won’t jump all over your screen or choke the household bandwidth like the other guys. (Also, contains no hot chips!)

More to come, and a big welcome to Gee Suss’s brother Mo Suss, who’s joing the Legion editorial cadre.

Religion wants to maintain a monopoly on ethics in Australia

Religious groups have traditionally found their power in maintaining that only through belief, and usually THEIR belief, are morals maintained.

The State Government’s religious education advisory panel is going to fight a pilot program that offers ethics classes to primary school students who have opted out of scripture classes.

We know whats best for your children

They are fighting against critical thinking. It’s dangerous to religion as they want people to believe that only their particular god defines what is moral. Bigots.

Are they saying, that without their belief in their god, they would run around raping and pillaging, murdering and abusing? How interesting. Morals and ethics can completely be explained with science, and are not the total domain of religion. Evolutionary biology and sociobiology. I find it degrading that religion passes this basic fundamental humanistic quality off to their god. Recently, the concepts of ethical evolution has become a major area of study in scientific circles, due to the overwhelming observable evidence.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzAuXwwEZCo[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIYQ4zK2HUA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo3be0F7sE8[/youtube]

The only controversy over it comes from the religious. But then again, it happens to everything that does not fit their world view.

Our morals came about from the fact we are a social animal, we have highly advanced social morals that are very well explained by science.

Indeed Darwin brought it up in Descent Of Man, it’s nothing new :

“any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man.” (ch. 4)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_ethics

Blatant assumptions of the total nature of everything being attributed to a god is degrading to the sheer enormity and brilliance of life. Always the ‘magic man’ did it for them.