http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8812
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8656
Dress wearing, silly hat bearing George Pell has been making speeches. He’s been telling the world that we are becoming increasingly intolerant of the catholic faith.
Tolerance is a strange thing. While George babes appears to make some good points, fundamentally he is saying that we need to accept the churches stance on all their ‘moral’ issues and not pick on them. OK. I can live with that. I reserve the right to point out, however, that the church is wrong. There is no jesus to die for your sins, (its almost that time of year again), there is no god to deliver commandments, there is no prohibition on putting your pleasing organ in someone of the same sex. These ideals are just plain and simply wrong. Go ahead, you believe them, but I don’t. And I don’t accept your right to believe whatever you like either. It does damage. I know, I’ve been there. The education of young people in the catholic tradition (or any other religious tradition) is wrong and must stop. The sort of crap that young people pick up from being exposed to fancy tales of some almighty god is wearing thin when this same god does nothing to show his there. Now is the time to enact change and for people in high places to sing out and point out the futility of faith. This is gonna hurt. Its time religion was frowned upon, the same way you frown on someone who talks to the dead, or takes their horrorscope seriously, or runs a red light thinking nothing is wrong with that.
Dismantling religion is dead easy. Start to tax the church, land tax, payroll tax, goods and services tax, inheritance tax, no discounts for ‘charity’ concessions. Force congregations to correctly pay their staff, the sisters and brothers, the office workers, the pastors, the wankers in silly hats, all of them. Make it illegal for any form of discrimination just because your faith says being gay is wrong, being of a different faith is wrong, being female is wrong is no reason to deny employment or services to anyone at all. Make those church based hospitals do what ever other hospital does, abortions, contraception, helping people out the door. Make them expend public money just like everyone else does. Those places on public land need to be available to any public group to use, what’s the point in bloody big churches on crown land only being uses a couple of times a week. Make it illegal to wear any religious insignia, make the bible an MA 15+ book and have it moved to the fiction section in all bookshops and libraries. Make churches marry anyone who applies for a marriage, regardless of faith or personal sexual satisfaction poking styles.
Bill Muehlenburg make this comment on his blog last week:
George Pell is in many ways a modern-day prophet. He courageously takes on the many challenges to what is important, what is right, and what is true. He knows that faith, family and life are all under major attack, and he is unafraid to stand up for them, politically incorrect as this may be.
He of course has many critics, even within his own church. But that is always the case with prophets. They are the ones most people refuse to tolerate. But prophets are desperately needed in these dark days. May there be many more George Pells raised up to counter the gathering gloom.
He’s not a prophet, modern day or otherwise. He’s a throw back to old days. He’s living in a fantasy world where he can dress in black with a splash of red (or purple) he gets to wear a stupid hat and hold a stick that is probably worth a fortune. He is the reason why family and life are under major attack, its under attack because his lot don’t want to let go of the power base they once had. They don’t want you to think for yourself. They want you to listen to them and the crappy bible. George Pell’s sense of ‘what is right’ is based on an error and a myth. He’s concept of ‘what is true’ is wrong and a mistake. His life is based on a fairy story, and its time the world started point it out to them and laughing at what is so wrong about their faith.
My ambition this easter is to ask this question.
Just what is it that Jesus sacrificed for you?
According to the bible, he died for your sins. He gave up his life so that you could have eternal life. But hang on a tick, according to the babble, he rose on the third day, alive. So, what was it he gave up? The answer is nothing. He got it back again, and he was always going to get it back again.
Its time for religion to go out the door, its time we evolved to caring for each other out of mutal respect, not because of some notion that god told us to do it. Its time the silly hat wearing brigade joined the rest of the world and did some real work for proper money. (The could also do with a snut grabbing)
To a hard core theist, tolerance means that we (the atheists, non-religious, and insufficiently hard core theists) not only get it up the arse, we also have to buy the KY Jelly, the sand, the habanero pepper powder, and mix it all together.
Sounds kinky … where do I sign up?