Dear Armchair Critic,

Jews like other people are a diverse bunch. Some people favour free sppeech. Some people are afraid of it. Some Jews favour free speech. Some Jews are afraid of it. All people don't have the same opinion. All Jews don't have the same opinion.

Stereotyping is to think that all people belonging to a group are the same. Why should it be ironic that all Jews don't have the same opinion?

//It seems to be like the old days when Catholic congregations didn't know Latin, and the priest could tell them what he wanted to tell them, until the Church came out of the dark ages//

The old days? The Tridentine Rite was used up until 1969. The exact definition of the 'dark ages' varies, but they generally finish no later than the 13th century. The Church certainly weren't using the vernacular mass in, say, the Renaissance, the Reformation or the Romantic period. However, partial translations of the Bible into Old English can be traced back to as early as the 7th century. The mass may have been said in Latin, but once the printing press had been invented and people cottoned on to the value of universal literacy, anyone could read the Bible in English.

The Koran is available in a multitude of languages in print and electronically. I just had a skim through a bit of two online English translations: it read just like all the other religious books I've read. A load of vague, abstract waffle that can be interpreted to mean absolutely anything you want. Which is exactly what Christians do, and the reason that you find Westboro Baptists and the Uniting Church both claiming to believe the same inerrant word of God even though their views completely contradict each other.

Muslims seem to do it as well, because they have a number of distinct sects which implies different interpretations of the same inerrant word of Allah. The Nation of Islam, for example, teach that the Moon was once a part of the Earth, and that the Earth is over 76 trillion years old. Which frankly sounds more like Scientology than Islam, and probably isn't a viewed shared by the predominant Sunni sect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Fredrick_T%C3%B6ben is an article about Frederick Toben.

Possibly it is the same Frederick Toben who has posted on this thread.

The current event at Parramatta and official responses indicate the bushfires that are predicted.