Muzzle critics of religion? Perhaps I've missed something along the way, but I have always thought the Left, 'progressive' censors only wish to muzzle criticism of one religion - Islam. These censors have no problem with criticism of the main religion of Australia, Christianity. In fact, they go out of their way to criticise and demonise Christianity themselves.

In relation to this excellent article, I have no problem at all with a Muslim cleric pointing out what his religion says and feels about homosexuality and sham marriages for two people of the same sex - as long as realises that, in Australia, a rule of law country, the unfortunate practice was decriminalised years ago, and we have never killed anyone for their sexual practices, and we never will. I also agree with the right of dedicated Christians to oppose homosexuality, with the comforting addition that they don't want to kill anyone, as Islamists do. In fact, it beggars belief that people calling themselves Christians could condone homosexuality under any circumstances.

What sticks in my craw is that the deluded Left will not say boo to a Muslim, but they will use the most foul abuse against a Catholic or conservative other Christian for having the same views as Muslim, but without the violence. This is probably because the atheistic Left has more in common with Islam than with civil, Western society. They hate their own society and Western religions just as much as Islam does.

//What sticks in my craw is that the deluded Left will not say boo to a Muslim, but they will use the most foul abuse against a Catholic or conservative other Christian for having the same views as Muslim, but without the violence.//

No, but then they don't say much about Jews or Hindus with the same views either. Maybe that's because it's the Christians that like to make a nuisance of themselves?

Because I don't know if you've noticed, but every time there's an article about gay marriage on OLO, it isn't the Muslims that are posting the small-minded intolerance.

And they're not the ones that are harassing women outside of abortion clinics.

Or claiming that Safe Schools is Communist propaganda.

Et cetera.

On the whole, Australian Muslims (Jews, Hindus et. al.) would seem to have a better grasp of the concept of secularism than the excessively noisy Christian right.

If only modern Christians would devote more attention to the traditional virtues of humility and silent contemplation.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, ttbn. That's why Christians get more attention from atheists than the less in-your-face faiths.

//This is probably because the atheistic Left has more in common with Islam than with civil, Western society.//

And what about the atheistic Centre and Right? Because I don't think those guys are any more keen on having Christianity - dressed up as 'civil, Western' values - thrust upon them then the godless hippies you've singled out.

//They hate their own society and Western religions just as much as Islam does.//

No, I think what they probably hate is being labelled as anti-Western because they aren't Christian.

What would Bertrand Russell do?

Good article. I stated similar opinions in my article Bad Religion.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=18216

Peter Sellick

Good article a few things i disagree with but first let's address the first to commentator.

@ttbn while you are true to form, it continues to be an amusement to me that you could possible be a functioning adult.

The don't blame religion blame the people is not a lefty thing it's a tactic by most thinking people. The religious right do have some members that go off script and have a go at Islam but they are a minority. Most organised religions (money making) understand it's a only a short term game to try to oppress another religion. If you succeed then sooner or later your will be.
Those that do openly rally against Islam a generally not fans of secularism either.

As a non Believer I think all religions are silly, but I also understand that most of the people waving the dusty old books don't actually believe most of the stuff in them.

Religion can be a great motivator for nut jobs, but so can any other flag of convenience.

Nothing I can or anyone else says will sway your foolish ideas but let's hope that readers will see your posts for what they are.

I stood with a crowd of Socialists, trade unionists and Anarchists at the Victorian parliament two sundays ago and heard their speakers calling for the building of more mosques while extolling the virtues of Islam.
This was a rally organised by Debbie Brennan from the NUW and backed by Trades Hall, all the prominent Left groups were represented on the day.
Not only are the left violently opposed to any person or group who criticise Islam they're wholly supportive of the faith and in particular the property developers who are now attaching Mosques to their housing developments so as to insulate the projects from any objections.

TTBN,
The problem is either Islam or Muslims, if the Koran really encourages peaceful co-existence then there's clearly something wrong with Muslims as people. The faith clearly isn't the primary motivational power behind the depredations and depravity of people from the near east and Africa, it's their low intelligence, their susceptibility to mental defects or illness and innate propensity for explosive acts of violence.
"Muslim" immigrants and their offspring have the same appalling reputation wherever they've settled, Brazil for example has a Lebanese criminal sub-culture, so do Germany, Australia and areas such as Wisconsin and Michigan in the U.S.

Two of the usual suspects,Tony Lavis and Cobber the Hound, blast off with their predictable empty denials of any criticism they rightly see as being levelled at their type of idiocy. Don't know why you bother, boys. You only prove what I say.

Jay,

There is a lot wrong with Muslims. Even 'moderate' Muslims (have you ever heard a Muslim self-describe as 'moderate'. No? They leave their excuses to the useful idiot non-Muslim Lefty sympathisers, to make for them) are pretty stupid to continue identifying with a quasi religion, which is, in fact, a whole of life, dictatorship. All Muslims are, at worst, very nasty people; at best, they are simple-minded fools lacking minds of their own.

. "All Muslims are, at worst, very nasty people; at best, they are simple-minded fools lacking minds of their own."

Gee ttbn, do you know ALL Muslims? How very amazing!
If not, how can you possibly make such an ignorant statement? That would be like me saying all Christians are very nasty people, or atheists, or OLO contributors.

Surely you can't imagine anyone here, other than Jay ofMelbourne, would take anything you say as credible? Talk about willful blindness...

//Two of the usual suspects,Tony Lavis and Cobber the Hound, blast off with their predictable empty denials of any criticism they rightly see as being levelled at their type of idiocy.//

I'm not an atheist, you clown. 'Not Christian' is not the same thing as 'atheist'. Unless you think Hindus are atheists?

Why don't you try reading what I actually wrote and responding to that, instead of attacking strawmen?

Although I don't know why you bother: Australians are an irreligious mob who are very fond of their secularism. Arguments trying to persuade them that Christian theocracy is preferable are going to fall on deaf ears. But you keep on flogging that dead horse there, buddy.

Everyone is entitled to free speech but you are not entitled to a response from what you say. You can decide not to engage with those who express religious views because you have made the decision that all religion has nothing to say of benefit to anybody at all.

Everything religious people have to say about social issues is predicated on the belief that there is a God. Why would you engage with the finer points of their theology when you have already decided that the basic building block of theology is irrelevant? If you decide that it is irrelevant one way or the other whether or not there is a God then anything that follows on from that is obviously irrelevant. The only logical response is to allow them opportunities to speak and then to ignore what they say.

The problem is that too often those who believe this do not act like they do. People engage with religious people and try to reason with them which is futile unless you agree with the principle that underlies their views. Not only do they argue with them but they attack them. Calling religious people homophobes or any other name is to engage with them. It is this hypocrisy which causes friction because they retaliate because name-calling is an act of aggression.

Attacking religious people shows a lack of security in one’s opinions. There is no necessity to do so. What they say is irrelevant but what they do is not always so. When they act is such ways as to cause harm then they should be dealt with by the full force of the law but their freedom of speech should never be compromised.

the hatred of Christ and principles that made the western world great is largely what is destroying the west. Secularism has very much in common with Islam hence the reluctance to criticise. Never before have we been so educated and yet dumbed down. Week after week we see the educated dumb downed Q&A getup crowd cheer what is repulsive and scoff at decency. Anyone been to one of the numerous zoos (sorry public schools) lately. Wow what an achievement!

Toni Lavis,

I did not say you are an atheist, you idiot. You are the one who doesn't read what's in front of him. I have nothing against atheists, but a lot against idiots like you. Even then, I accept your right to be an idiot. You can go on demonstrating your idiocy if you wish. I suppose I should pity your idiotic ignorance, but I don't care enough. And nobody listens to idiots like you, anyway. Your ranting must make you a very unhappy person.

Very well put, Phanto.
Let everyone speak their minds freely and honestly; only then will we be able to judge their values, rationality and beliefs, and react accordingly.

//I have nothing against atheists//

Oh. So it wasn't you that wrote:

//This is probably because the atheistic Left has more in common with Islam than with civil, Western society.//

or

//Tony Lavis and Cobber the Hound, blast off with their predictable empty denials of any criticism they rightly see as being levelled at their type of idiocy.//

Ttbn, you started off attacking atheists and went on to accuse me of their type of idiocy (i.e. atheism). Now that I have corrected your misconception regarding my faith, you're suddenly going to turn around and pretend and that you didn't attack atheists in your first post on this thread? Or that you didn't accuse me of their type of idiocy (i.e. atheism) in your second post? Nice try, but we can all read here. Trying to claim you haven't said something which you demonstrably did isn't going to fool anybody, and diminishes your credibility.

Let me guess: somebody hacked your account.

Hi Toni,

Like ttbn, I fully support your right to be an idiot and to express your ignorant views. But when you put it out there, you have to expect the free expression of criticism of idiocy.

If we look at some crucial issues and compare how different religious doctrines support or condemn them, such as homosexuality, abortion, rights of women, freedom of expression, even you may be able to discern distinctions.

Homosexuality ? Interestingly, in the Middle East, Israel is the only country to have legalise this, and to support Gay Pride festivals. So that's a 'yes' from Judaism. How do Christians handle it, in countries like Australia ? Some churches do not support homosexual marriage but others have homosexual clergy. I don't know how Buddhism and Hinduism regard homosexuality, but they do seem to be much more indulgent than others towards it, lady boys being able to use women's toilets in Thailand, for instance.

And in Islam, in 2016 ? Apart from the extremes of throwing gays off tall buildings and otherwise executing them on suspicion, Islam does not seem to have a very enlightened approach to homosexuality. This must also be a problem for the pseudo-Left, in trying to square its uncritical support for Islam and for homosexual rights. Good luck.

Abortion ? The Catholic Church and a few Christian fundamentalist groups, and Islam generally, would deny the right of a woman to choose: in Islam, the unborn child would be the property of the father (unless illegitimate, then of course it's the mother's responsibility alone), so a woman can be stoned or otherwise murdered for attempting an abortion. I don't know how the pseudo-Left squares that with women's rights.

Women's rights in 2016: as far as I can ascertain, Judaism and Christianity seem to have a more enlightened approach than, let's say, Islam, with its honor killings, child brides, genital mutilation, women's legal (property, family law) rights being far inferior to men's, stoning for suspicion of adultery (or adulterous thoughts), etc. Hmmmm ...... how to square all that .....

[TBC]

[continued]

As for freedom of expression ? I would respectfully suggest that, on a continuum of most welcoming to least welcoming, many Christians and Christian groups and churches would be up towards one end while supporters of Islamic dogma (and much of the pseudo-Left) would be up towards the other. [Of course, we shouldn't forget the Crusades and the Inquisition: bastards !]

As an atheist, I'm happy to criticise all religious faiths - and to call it as I see it. I'm happy to conclude that, on the whole, the rights that we take for granted these days have their roots, indirectly and amid bitter disputes over many centuries against religious fundamentalism, in Christianity - not intentionally, but necessarily.

For example, the distinction between Church and State was laid bare in the twelfth century in the struggles for power between Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory, and thanks partly to European geography that struggle opened the way, eventually, to secular state power and people's rights, and the confining of religion to religious matters only. Islam had yet to go through that process of moving away from the unity of state power and religion and absolutism, and towards democracy. I wish Muslims luck, they will certainly need it over the next century.

Joe

The Australian Citizenship Pledge should include:
“In a secular, democratic society, I acknowledge that religious freedom includes the right to hold and communicate religious ideas and beliefs and the right to condemn them; and I affirm that no idea or belief is beyond critical examination.”

Joe,

Very well said. After being 'driven' to Sunday School, then into church (Presbyterian), I decided, at 16 years of age, that I was an atheist, and went about my life as such until reaching the agnostic stage when I decided I couldn't really know one way or the other. It's the only thing where I sit on the fence. I do not regret my religious education, but I do regret not having allowed my children the opportunity to experience it in my atheistic stage.

I am in full accord with your expression of the fact that we would not have had freedom of speech if it were not for the fact that Western society was based on Christian ethics - accidentally or otherwise.

I am also accepting of criticism of Christianity and Christians, but I am really pissed off with with Christ-abusers who apologise for - or never crticise - Islam. These people either totally accept Islam, or they are cowards, only criticising those who they know are no threat to them.

Hi ttbn,

I had a very good friend, now deceased, who was at one time Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, very dedicated all of his life to the welfare and happiness of Aboriginal people, a truly good, decent man. I don't think he would have ever hurt a fly.

Maybe we should judge religious activity by the extremes to which adherents are willing to go, in order to fulfil what they perceive as instructions from their gods. On that basis, I would suggest that Presbyterianism is well up there on the scale of 'religions of peace'. Other sects, and other religions may be somewhat more 'judgmental', more inclined to throw gays of high buildings or burn young women in cages or machine-gun children and old ladies, in the name of a religion of peace. Their god must be weeping.

Of course, most people wear their beliefs pretty casually, perhaps giving lip-service to the more extreme demands of their priests or rabbis or imams. Most Christians and Muslims have never read their holy books right through, I'm sure. After all, in the Middle Ages, Bibles were all in Latin which very few people, except some priests, could read - thank goodness for the printing press. And proper Korans must not only be written in Arabic, which many Muslims don't actually speak, but must be kept at the highest point in the house, untouched. And un-read.

But we all need some ethical foundation, regardless of whether we believe in gods or not. Without gods and their priests, it is harder to achieve that. Actually, I suspect that many believers also go through struggles to work out what is right or wrong, they don't all believe what they are told.

Even Mother Teresa is reported to have had very serious doubts about the existence of a god, back in the early fifties - (how could he allow such misery ?) - but still kept working with the poorest, non-Christians all, in Kalkotha, until she died. Now, that's my kind of believer :)

Cheers,

Joe

ttbn,

Atheism and agnosticism address different questions. They’re not mutually exclusive:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MDZPs8ROJXE/TNx7UFqbaII/AAAAAAAAB9M/XDfxPwyBVpA/s1600/Gnostic_Agnostic_Atheist.png

Welcome back to atheism, though you never really left us.

Joe,

I disagree that an ethical foundation would be harder to achieve without gods or their priests. I see no reason why empathy alone could not be a sufficient (or even superior) foundation for ethics. Ironically, religion is one of the only phenomena that is capable of eroding empathy.

As for Mother Teresa, she was not the saint that she was made out to be. Mother Teresa was a cruel and cynical person who left dying people to suffer without pain relief or adequate care because she believed in the virtues of suffering. Her hospices were conversion factories in which it was hoped that conversion could be achieved by emulating the suffering of Christ. Hitchens wrote a book about it (http://www.amazon.com/Missionary-Position-Mother-Teresa-Practice/dp/1455523003).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4nCaxHN-cY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65JxnUW7Wk4
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2008/05/mother-teresa

Great post!
This is basically the thing that makes me changing from someone who's being raised Christian to an agnostic. I still do believe that God, or someone out there that's basically beyond our understanding, exist. But I've always believe that religion is something that is being made by human. People nowadays use religion as an excuse of anything and to differentiate one person to another.

Gary Red,
The Blinds Gallery
http://theblindsgallery.com.au/products/awnings/

Religions seem to reflect the societies that believe in them.
As societies become more compassionate, enlightened and
educated the punitive side of their religion is replaced
with forgiveness and understanding.

The separation of church and state is what allowed this to happen
in Western Societies. Because people could defy the churches rules
and couldnt be sentenced to death for blasphemy etc.

People eventually defied the church on contraception, because the church had no power to
torture or kill the dissenters. That power rested in the hands of the elected politicians,not
in the hands of priest dictatorships.
Priest dictatorships, interested only in shoring up their own positions and power bases
using the wombs of women like factory conveyer belts.

Western society, can probably trace this separation of church and state back
to the despicable, Henry the Eighth.
It meant that the Kings and Queens had the power of life and death not the
churches.

We all know that eventually the Kings handed power to the people:- elected
parliaments.

And so the people had power over their family lives and bedrooms again
and not the church. They no longer had to struggle in poverty to feed
6-10kids

Perhaps the muslims would have fared better, with a King, like Henry the Eighth.
Women benefitted from his separation of church and state, although not until
a few centuries later.

I got off the subject a bit after reading some of the other posts.

Yes, there is a definite culture of appeasement towards the muslims by
certain, left wing, hippy love and peace types.

It also strikes me as the well known -"blame the victim mentality"

If they attack us, then we must have done something to provoke it,the
mentality being, if we make them feel more welcome and dont criticise
their centuries old beliefs, then we'll be safe.

The reality, that they actually do hate us and will kill us no matter what we do or dont
do, is just too scary for them to believe.
They want to believe they can control things,it doesnt compute with
their fairy la la land that people will love you if you are nice to them and so we
can have peace and love on earth, although that has never happened in all
of earths history..

Hi Cherful,

Yes, when you think about it, many ancient and backward societies presupposed EITHER the absolute control by the church/temple/mosque over the internal affairs of the family, OR the absolute control by the King/State over the internal affairs of the family, OR both at once, (in what they called Caeesaropapism, i.e. the power combination of both a king and a pope).

The long struggle for human rights in Western societies, really from Roman times, the equal rights of the peasant/worker AND the ruler, the equal rights of women and men, has painfully inched forward. What rights we have now shouldn't be devalued, as if a society can choose rights A or B or C, at will. No, any rights diminished or taken away historically are seized back with enormous difficulty.

And the rights of Australians are the precious heritage of ALL Australians, including Muslims, inkling Muslim women. Nobody should have the power to diminish those rights, no imam, no self-proclaimed sheikh or emir or caliph. We have to fight for the safeguarding of those rights for ALL Australians, including those who wear hijabs or nikabs.

If any of those assorted imams can't get that through their heads, and behind the scenes still try to pervert the legal rights of our fellow-citizens, then they should face the penalties of the law, whether it's child marriage, multiple marriage, honor killings, genital mutilation or any deprivation or diminution of the rights of women.

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Cherful,

There's a brilliant article on this theme by Paul Monk, in today's Australian.

Joe