Friendly outgoing eclectic agnostic seeks one gram of soul
Ricky Gervais on Creationism (taking the piss, of course…). He even opens with a disclaimer:
Some of the things you’ll hear do sound a little bit far fetched, I’ll admit that. But then I found out that the other name for the bible is “The Gospel”. So it is all true. Luckily, the clue is in the title.
Ahh… the old “the bible’s true because it says so” argument… put much more eloquently, of course.
Link to Video
(Via Luke Pilarski)
Update (26/08): Thanks to all of you who are spreading the word, with any luck they’ll get their required members through this post alone! Two points to clarify:
- This post was in no way authorised or endorsed by the party - it’s just my way of trying to help out.
- If you’re not eligible to vote in Australia, don’t try and join up, but help spread the word if you know other Aussie Atheists.
Hey all you Aussies out there (if you’re not an Aussie, keep reading, you might still be able to help by spreading the word),
I recently received an email from Frank Gomez of the Secular Party of Australia (previously the Freedom from Religion Party), which I wanted to get your help with. Members of the Secular Party are hoping to run in this year’s election, but as the party doesn’t have enough members yet, they’ll need to run as independents, giving them a much lower chance of success.
All you need to do, if you want to help, is to fill out and mail (yes, snail mail) in the form below to join the party - membership is free. For 20 seconds of your time, and the cost of a 50c stamp, you could help Atheists get a stronger voice in Australian parliament.
Perhaps if you’re not an Aussie yourself, but might have Australian readers on your own blog, or know of some Aussie Atheists? Please help get the word out there, either direct them to this blog, or post something on your own blog if you can!
If anyone’s interested, I’m posting the full text of the email below.
Hi members and supporters,
The party’s executive has decided to contest this year’s Federal election. However, as we do not have the numbers yet to register as a party, candidates will have to run as independents. This means that we cannot use the words “Secular” or “Freedom From Religion” on ballot papers.
I am writing to all of you because we need your membership of the party to be official so that it can count for registration.
I have attached a membership form, and for those of you for whom I have a postal address you will receive (or may have already have received) these in the mail also.
I urge you all to complete and send back the attached form to the below address.
I also wish to ask you whether you know someone else who would be interested in joining.
We currently have around 300 members and need only 200 more in order to register as a party for this year’s election. Registering the party would mean being able to use the party’s name and abbreviations in how to vote cards and ballot papers, and would increase out vote many fold.
If every member of the party sent back two forms - their own and for someone else - then we would reach the 500 we need in a matter of weeks.
Otherwise we need to wait another 3 years to contest as a registered party. That’s another 3 years of more religion in politics - whoever wins the election. MAKE A DIFFERENCE !!
FRANK GOMEZ
SECULAR PARTY www.secular.org.au
NATIONAL VICE-PRESIDENT
19 Fishers Reserve
Petersham NSW 2049
I often feel very lucky to live in Australia. Particularly when I look at how other countries are ruled by illiterate intellectually void morons (not naming any in particular, of course). I’ve also always been happy that even though Australia is a predominantly Christian nation, religion (in my lifetime, anyway) has never played a large part in politics.
While I don’t think Australia will ever be as dominated by fundamentalist religious dogma as is the case in the USA, it’s scary to see religion and politics closely intertwined in Australia, as it’s certainly possibly that we could head down a similar path. Our two major party leaders, Kevin Rudd, and John Howard are both strong Christians (or, so they claim), as are many of the other Members of Parliament.
Democrats1 leader Lyn Allison says there are too many federal MPs with strong religious views.
Senator Allison says the separation of church and state is becoming blurred.
“The Prime Minister this morning said that there were a great number of Members of Parliament in Coalition ranks with very strong ties to the Christian church,” she said. “I know this is a Christian country but people with very strong religious views are heavily over-represented, if I can put it that way, in the Parliament,” she said.2
I’ve always been a swinging voter, and I don’t support either major Australian party - my votes in the past have gone to the Greens, the Democrats, or the odd independent (with the unfortunate necessity of nominating both of the major parties somewhere with my preferences). It worries me, however, when I can see the line between politics and religion in Australia getting blurred.
Some claim that comments like those of Lyn Allison are misguided, but I think it’s a legitimate concern. There’s certainly no problem with having a reasonable percentage of Christians represented in parliament (if 64% of the population are Christian, then their views might be well represented if we have 64% Christian MPs). My problem is that politics seems to be becoming more about religion than it should be, and who knows where that will lead? Honestly, I don’t care what religious views our leaders have, as long as they’re able to put their views aside when it counts. I worry that the efforts of our potential Prime Ministers to emphasise their Christianity will push the focus where it doesn’t belong.
(Oh, and sorry this post was late - I try to write one major post each Sunday, but I’ve had a rather busy weekend!)
Looks like YouTube is taking submissions for an upcoming presidential candidate debate.
I can’t imagine the atheist community would have anything important to confront them about? (*cough* evolution *cough*) Anyone skilled with a camera, and able to present a good case in 30 seconds or so?
If you’ve got some ideas, check out http://www.youtube.com/debates
(via Slashdot)
58% of USAians don’t realise that people might try and scam them online, and probably trust everything they get via email. In other news, 55% of USAians believe that God created humans in their present form.
Anybody see the correlation?
(Via The Consumerist)
I hadn’t really come across the argument from morality much before - at least not enough to seriously think about it. I’d heard people ask “if you don’t believe in God, then where do your morals come from?”, but rather than answer the question (I’d say honestly “I don’t know”), I’d retort with the observation that Christians “pick and choose” their morals from the bible, and clearly their morals come from the same place as mine - and it’s not the bible (an idea I’d always had, but one that Dawkins helped me articulate).
For those not familiar with the argument from morality, it basically goes like this1:
If God does not exist, then there are no objective (i.e. independent of human opinion) moral values and duties.
There are objective moral values and duties.
Therefore God exists.
My gut instinct when I first thought about this argument is that the first point has issues. I’ve asserted before that we can have morality without religion2, and I still believe that a moral code independent of religion is superior, but as for where this morality could come from - I have no idea. I seem to remember Dawkins talking about how morality could have evolved, but that wouldn’t be objective morality, would it?
Which as got me thinking about the idea of objective morality as a whole, and I can’t help but ask - do we really have objective morality (point 2)? Zach Moore says that, at least at a debate lecture he attended, the idea the objective morality exists seems to be generally accepted, but I can’t help but feel that there’s something wrong with that, too.
What morals do we have that are objective? “Murder is bad” - Surely there’s some times it’s justified3? “Do no harm” - but what if my survival is at stake? “Do the greatest Good” - but, what IS good? Even the golden rule isn’t objective (although the rule itself seems to be the most universal law of morality) - “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you” relies on our own opinions! Perhaps I really wouldn’t care if you stole my girlfriend?4
Do we really have objective morals? If so, what?
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman
Atheist Manifesto by Michel Onfray
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