Confirmation of why God and Gullible both start with a "G".

"That message is sold as a quick-fix for a feeling-lost problem. In this context, discovering Jesus is somewhat analogous to a bachelor meeting a spinster at a dance."

Actually, it's more analogous to turning to drugs to dull the pain.

There will always be a number of Australians who deal with our confronting and complicated world by taking refuge in simplistic bronze-age folk stories, but as silly as the Hillsong circus is, Australia is in no real danger of becoming a de-facto theocracy in the way the US has.

There are three main types of religious followers.

1)Those who are indoctrinated into religion at an early age. (Those who force children into religion should be jailed for life)

2)Those who are extremely gullible. (Wake up and get a life of your own) and......

3)Those who have had an extremely negative life experience and become so traumatised they feel the need to grasp at straws in the form of whichever church or religion they feel suits them best. (We have excellent mental hospital facilities these days)

I've studied religion as a scientist might study bacterium under a microscope and found religion to be the most destructive pestilence of all. Kevin Andrews is one of those most virulent strains. Howard is on the same level, made worse by the fact that he runs the country, whilst the Mad Monk Tony Abbott and Peter Costello bring up the rear.

While religious nut cases run Australia and indeed the USA, etc, there will never be a fix for Global warming and climate change. There will never be a weaning off our addiction to oil. Peak oil and destruction of our way of life will be the result of both. The disastrous consequences of what is to come will simply be seen as "God's work" by the followers of religion, but perhaps they should be thinking about their relationship with greed if they truly believe they'll see a judgment day. After all, what does their bible say about passing a camel through the eye of a needle?

Aime, now you have thrown a baited hook to the zealots here on OLO.

Just watch them retaliate ... hope they stay on topic and pare down the chapters and verses that they so often like to unleash.

Amen to that Brian.

Beyond the ability to recite I Corinthinians Ch 13 verses 1 - 13 my knowledge of the bible is sketchy but I think that the fundamentalist Christians are awaiting the rapture as revealed in Revelations. Because they believe the end of the world is nigh they don't see any need to plan for future generations and think its sensible to use up all of the world's resources - N O W. Waste not - want not.

Its strange that these uptight, earnest G*dbotherers pin their belief system on the writings of aesthetes who were mentally deranged due to a combination of malnutrition and administration of hallucinagenics.

Kevin Andrews and his ilk are about control and the abbrogation of individual autonomy, thus their opposition to contraception and euthanasia are opposite ends of the same spectrum. Contrary to church teaching that masturbation will make you go blind there is sound scientific evidence that smoking will make some people go blind and/or get gangreneous extremities.