Rhian, agree about taxes, the Major Mistakes are NOT advocating a simple increase in personal income tax rates for the Rich or very high income earners. Such a tax would mean that mining magnates like Twiggy Forest & Clive Palmer would be paying more tax, but also mean that other CEOs, Banksters, etc, would also be paying more tax.

The problem, however is that it might, also mean more taxes for Politicians, Bureaucrooks or even, Academics & University Vice Chancellor's. I hear the UQ boss is now on more than a million?

The Red/green/getup/labour coalition Government's have been encouraging Churches to lecture them about spending on education & charities.

Its a symbiotic relationship the loony, left, politicians, look good, in the, "Community" for encouraging, or funding, "good works" & the churches, get more funds for their NGOs. Its all extremely sick, corrupt, stuff, & Extremely, normal, for the Red/green/getup/labour coalition.

Oliver, 2 wrongs don't make a right. There are plenty of secular types in politics, bureaucrookracy, etc, who are corrupt, evil people. The "Catholic" church has avoided reporting abuse cases to Police, etc. Have they actively interfered in the justice system to cover up paedophilia? http://www.heineraffair.info/

There are plenty of religious people who have been involved in charitable work & realised that, they were only subsidising some poor, dysfunctional person's addiction, or enabling them to stay, "in the gutter".

All of the Welfare, Social Talk, Anti Family law, programs/policies of the Red/green/getup/labour coalition are designed to create & maintain Poverty, Loneliness, Hopelessness, Depression & Misery.

They are using your taxes to subsidise Tobacco, Alcohol, Drugs, Gambling. Together with Quit programs, Rehabilitation, Laurenorder, etc, etc, etc.

Shiztearer, An excellent comment, i only disagree about, "Climate Change" NOT being, a new pseudo Religion. See my earlier comments on that.

Experience has shown that religion & Science can co-exist. There are Churches like the Christadelphians for example. I also think a "Christian" Scientist, might be less likely to proselytise about Data.

While concerned about the environment i would not ruin the economy with an ETS or Carbon tax, in order to protect it.

Dear Formersnag
What's the opposite of your so called Red/green/getup/labour coalition?
By just juggling with words - I guess your favourite political movement must be called - the Black/brown/neocon/opposition coalition?
Your ideas seem not compatible with the so called "Australian fair go".
Fortunately the majority of Australians seem not share them.
That keeps me hoping for a better future.
Chris

Formersnag, thanks again for sharing with us your "moderate and mainstream" views about religion and politics. Yes, I'm quite certain that the Greens political party doesn't constitute a religion under any definition of the word of which I'm aware.

How unsurprising it is that you're attracted to runner's fundamentalist version of Christianity. It's people like you guys who give Christianity a bad name, and inspire otherwise indifferent atheists like me to call for an end to the special treatment that religions get under our laws.

Given your earlier characterisation of Left politics as "devil worship", I think I'll accord your political analyses the same intellectual status that I do with those of your buddies runner, Boazy et al. Keep them coming though - they're often quite entertaining.

I'm still chuckling over the "devil worship" lunacy.

@ Formersnag - those ""who proselytise about 'the greatest moral challenge of our time'."" include the chief proponent who likes a regular media conference outside his church (Rudd), and one who likes to preach his Christianity regularly (Garrett). Both ironically contribute to global warming thru their contribution to pyrotechnics thru the home insulation program.

McReal
That's what Tony Abbot wants us to believe - also kind of a religion: Whatever the government does is bad and he can do it better. I have another Philosophy: Don't believe any statements of politicians unless you have verified that the statement is correct.

The insulation scheme was botched by some incompetent companies.
Employers are responsible for OH&S of their employees at the work place and that they are educated to do the job safely and to the correct quality standard. The companies who executed the faulty installations should be prosecuted for endangering their workers, damage and death.

To blame the government for the complete mess is an easy diversion from the fact that trade education and quality standards in Australia are far behind central European countries. No wonder we have to import skilled workers with immigration schemes.

But I agree that the government should have made it mandatory all insulation to be checked by a licensed electrician and that foil insulation should not have been included in the scheme.

Blaming and believing does not help much.
Knowledge and education is better.
Acting on it helps.
If you do not it might be too late.
If it's too late you may go to church but not to Scientology.

Of course climate science is not a religion, ipso facto. Neither was Marxism, for instance. Yet, like Marxism in its time, "capital C" Climate Change (which I capitalize to distinguish reasoned climate science from "Alarmism"), and Environmentalism in general, have become an ersatz religion for many people in the secular West. Not all, but many.

Climate Change is a form of secular Millenarianism. Millenarianism, "the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society, after which all things will be changed ... based on a one-thousand-year cycle," first gripped the Western world during the 11th Century, in large part triggering the calamities of the Crusades. Similar hysteria could be seen in the immediate lead-up to the Year 2000, however in our largely secular society, it expressed itself through other channels than orthodox Christianity: first their was the brief mass hysteria of "the Millennium Bug", now it's transmuted to Climate Change.

This "faith-based" (if you will) belief in Climate Change and Environmentalism (which I personally call "Gaiaism", after its "Mother Earth" obsession) beautifully mirrors the structures of traditional Christianity for those Westerners too sophisticated to fall for the Church's line anymore.

It has a Holy Writ, the IPCC report (which, incidentally, is almost as much an admixture of truth and falsehood as the Bible itself); dogmas that fly in the face of all evidence, including the unshakeable belief such things as "organics", "natural is best", and the irrevocable mendacity of genetically modified organisms, and humans themselves; it has its High Priests, such infallible authorities as Al Gore and James Hansen, and its heretics, such as Bjorn Lomborg, Richard Lindzen, Freeman Dyson and Anthony Watts; and, like the Catholic Church of old, it even sells Indulgences in the form of Carbon Credits and Offsets.

cont ...