June 7, 2011

Access Ministries: Professor Barry McGaw – Is There Something You’re Not Telling Us?

Posted by franc under education, ethics, Evonne Paddison, politics, religion | Tags: , , , , , , , |
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”I don’t see anything wrong with a special religious instruction that operates precisely on [the current] grounds. If we deny any place to religion in public education and wish to make it entirely [secular], we are actually basing it on a particular world view.”

Sound familiar? It should. It probably just looks unusual unaccompanied by any extended frothing about fundamentalist atheists, militant secularists, christophobes (or similar epithets) bent on destroying christianity itself. But other than that, it is the same tired, casuist misrepresentation that is framing the debate as one of absolute anti-theism vs. the decent christian world and not one of a protest against SRI and the NSCP being hijacked by incorrigible liars from various non-representative christian cults of the crusading, charismatic, snake-handling variety. This is the only real card the Access apologists have to play because the less that the average, census ticking Australian christian family knows about what folks like Access Ministries get up to in our schools, or what their “education” consists of, the better.

The problem with the above quote though is that it’s not from an actual (known) Access apologist/shill, but from Professor Barry McGaw who heads up the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) – who are ultimately responsible for the curricula in Australian schools from Kindergarten to Year 12. (more…)

 

May 26, 2011

Access Ministries: Meccano Set Propaganda

Posted by franc under ethics, Evonne Paddison, nonsense, politics, propaganda, religion | Tags: , , , , |
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"Please believes usssss... We means you no harm..."

The sophistry from Access ministries has entered a new phase. They have been through the stage of initial panic at being unmasked as filthy little liars and thieves, and then the damage control of denial – lying about telling lies. Then there was a mop up phase of lesser, but no more forgivable, deceptions where public perception could still be manipulated into a more positive light. Now Access Ministries is falling into a holding pattern to ride the fiasco out utilising what can only be described as Meccano set propaganda – deceptive, yet plausible, individual units of deliberately false information that can endlessly be reassembled in new configurations to create an illusion of a new article when in reality its just another reiteration of what has already been said, and eviscerated as nonsense. All in the hope that the public digest it uncritically the nth time around.

The latest steaming cow pat has been deposited for our consumption courtesy of The Australian, and disinterested, objective commentator Ian Harper – (more…)

 

May 25, 2011

Access Ministries: Pissing on Jesus

Posted by franc under ethics, Evonne Paddison, idiocy, nonsense, politics, propaganda, religion | Tags: , , , |
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In one ear and out the other

Proverbs1 –

14:5. An honest witness does not deceive,
but a false witness pours out lies.

14:8. The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways,
but the folly of fools is deception.

What seems to have been forgotten in this whole debacle of the Access Ministries, SUQLD, ACL et al. sideshow is basic, humble christianity. In fact, trapped in an anachronistic timewarp, they seem to believe they are crusaders and engaged in a war against those not of the faith and that the world appears to be one of crystalline black and white. The war they wage, for lack of actual might and numbers, is a guerrilla war – but nevertheless, it is a war and they are clearly on a war footing. There is a vast nebulous army of darkness bent on laying waste christendom itself (apparently), the tentacles of its conspiracy reaching everywhere, but especially into the media where it pulls all the strings and calls all the shots…

…But really, they are like frightened children who’s fervent imaginations amplify the slightest noises in the dark and invest them with unseen, imaginary menace and malice. (more…)

 

May 19, 2011

Of Persecution and Prevarication

Posted by franc under ethics, idiocy, journalism, politics, propaganda, religion, shrieking hysteria | Tags: , , , , , |
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Let’s start of with a basic fact. There is a huge number of reasonable christians and muslims out there, very likely a majority by a large margin. Those that are humble and non-sociopathic, who practice their faith in peace and in privacy, who simply want to coexist and understand that spiritual heterogeneity is not necessarily an evil that must be steamrolled into a one-eyed, fundamentalist monoculture. Some even tolerate the godless.

Unfortunately, this observation can be lost amidst the cacophony of the louder idiocies like the hajj or WBC protests or anti-abortion terrorism or acid attacks on immodest and uppity women perpetrated by their dumber and more shameless brethren1.

And here’s another basic fact – fundamentalism of both of the major dust religions in the west does far more harm in real terms to those who practice a more modest faith than it does to secularism. Yes, some accusations of supposed secular “militancy” and “intolerance” may be true. But you need to ask – who inspired this backlash? Jimmy Carter or Pat Robertson? Cat Stevens or Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei? In many ways, lunatic fundamentalism is the manure that has caused the renewed secularism to sprout and flourish. We owe our thanks to these maniacs – without them, our man Hitch would have been a different, probably tamer, man as just one example of the upside to this derangement. (more…)

 

May 17, 2011

The Passion of the Persecuted

Posted by franc under ethics, government, politics, propaganda, religion | Tags: , , , , |
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It has been an interesting week watching the merry band of jokers from Access Ministries – hopping around like frogs on a hotplate, caught with their pants down, after claims that they never proselytise or seek to convert children entrusted to their CRE program were exposed for the bald faced lies that they are.

What we are seeing here really is that the only thing that divides the religions of dust from each other is a coat of paint, a different superhero and a different PR slant. Underneath, they are really indistinguishible – they are glorified death cults that have no interest in making the earth a nice place to live (preferring to prick tease you with exhorbitant promises of heaven) and all want access to your precious children1 for the noble intent of saving them from eternal damnation and hellfire. The younger the better. (more…)