There are times in our lives when we witness or hear something that belittles an individual, the act of which repulses us and the memory of it lingers with us over the years. These cruel acts offer an insight into how people who are different to us cope with the attitudes that persist in mainstream society.
Having spent many years working in remote Indigenous communities I have been blessed to have heard many wonderful stories about our old traditions and culture. I have also been exposed to the horrors of racism we endure and the sickening dogma of white supremacy. Two events stand out. They are ‘horror’ stories, made seemingly more horrific because the racism and white supremacy was inspired by the church.
I have related these stories on blog sites over the years and I make no apologies for repeating them again. The timing is appropriate, given that Aborigines have again been placed front and centre in the news and facing a barrage of negativity.
These are stories you don’t hear in the news.
The first involved my brother Russell: a shy bloke who might well be reading this and I don’t want to cause him any embarrassment.
Russell lives in remote South Australia and has done so all his life. Until a few years ago he’d never ventured beyond the borders of SA apart from the annual trip to Alice Springs to play in the Imparja Cup; a national Indigenous cricket carnival. It was thus with great excitement that he had the opportunity to visit Canberra a few years ago – his first big interstate trip.
We were at a busy bus stop in the city together. I was looking at the direction from which the bus would approach but kept talking to Russell, who stood behind me. After a couple of minutes a bus came into view and I turned to Russell to let him know this was our bus.
He wasn’t there.
A line had formed behind me and there he stood at the very end, having let a dozen or so people move ahead of him.
I beckoned him to come up the front with me.
He refused.
I beckoned again.
Still he refused, and he continued to refuse.
In frustration I walked up to Russell and asked why he wouldn’t come to the front of the line – a spot he had earlier occupied.
I was not prepared for his answer.
“Aren’t I supposed to let the white people on first?” he humbly asked.
It’s very hard to relate how I felt about his response. I can say that I felt like crying. The sadness turned to anger when he told me why he thought he had ‘to let the white people on first’.
You see, unlike me, Russell was raised on a mission. The Christian Father – apparently God’s representative – taught the Aboriginal kids from an early age that as black people they weren’t as good as white people, though assured them that “God still loved them”.
So our great white God prefers white people. How fickle.
The second incident was told to me by one of my greater inspirations in life, Dr MaryAnn Bin-Sallik. From humble beginnings, Maryann spent part of her early life in a mission in the Kimberleys.
One year the mission sent a teenage girl to work on a nearby pastoral station for the summer break. Upon her return to the mission she was frightened, distraught, crying. She told one of the nuns that the ‘big boss white fella’ had raped her.
What did the nun do?
She whipped the girl for telling lies. “You mustn’t tell lies about a white person”.
The following year she was sent to the station again, despite her desperate pleas not to go.
Again she returned frightened, distraught, crying. Again, she told the story of being raped.
Again she was whipped for telling lies. Black people, apparently, tell lies about white people.
Three months later it was discovered the girl was pregnant. She was carrying the rapist’s child. What did the nun do? She whipped her for being pregnant.
So again our great white God prefers white people.
Just like LNP governments do.
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Abbotts the best friend of :
Indigenous Australia.
Medicare.
Pensioners.
John Fraser. You forgot Women….
Michael Taylor, thank you for this blog post. It’s concerning to me that Australians, under this Government, are becoming more and more racist and generally more hate-filled. Just have to look at social media…
the church is dangerous and appalling … science denial, hatred and sexual perversion are the key themes
<
babyjewels10
I just wanted to get the ball rolling.
When I was 18, I worked as a governess in central Queensland. We attended the Sedan Dip Annual Picnic race meeting further north, staying with my bosses family for few days.
Now, I was bought up with In indigenous women in the house, from nearby missions and Cootamundra Girls Home. My mother was ill, could not manage house work.
Nothing prepared me for what I witness during that stay. There was a nice, very young, very pregnant young aboriginal girl working in the house.
The first shock I received, was when they fed her under a tree outside the kitchen door. This was someone good enough to clean the house, care fir the kids, Not good enough to sit at the meal table. I found that I could not accept the situation, as I was also only hired help, ate with her. Sis not cause a big stir, as will be explained later.
Every girl we had, slept in the house, sat at the table and was treated as a part of the family. Even if the Aboriginal Protection Board at the time, gave my mother regulations on how they were to be treated. Being my mother, she ignore every rule. I can still recall the woman at the Protection office mum dealt with. A elderly, spinster, named Miss England, I think. Many argument they had.
Back to Queensland. The day after the races, all with very big hang overs were sitting around talking.
The conversation moved onto how the Aboriginal girl became pregnant. Yes, a story that makes one shudder.
It appears the local copper in the near by town, father of six kids, had a reputation of raping these girls. She was not the first he got pregnant. Everyone belie he he was responsible. Yes, responsible for raping her.
They were saying how terrible it was. The girl was advise to keep quiet, or she would end up on Palm Island off Townsville. Had happened to others.
These good, and I believe good people, decided not to cause trouble for the copper. Yes, he married into one of the old local families.
Still cannot workout how they thought they were helping the wife.
The good thing about this story, the family she was working for, would look after her. Justice for her would have been better.
There were many other things I witness in that twelve months, but this was the worse.
Does not think the Irish leader has a sense of humour.
By some quirk of fate I navigated Church and lay schooling, including boarding school and the military, without meeting any sexual predators – although sadists were not uncommon – but more than half of my friends in subsequent life, including some in my wider family, suffered from sexual depravity at the hands of Nuns, Priests, and others in authority.
I suspect many more harbour terrible tales that they cannot let out – this is an aspect of the Australian character that makes me wonder if we are truly a perverted nation that lives in a fantasy albeit founded on the darkest of realities.
Thanks David for opening yet more doors on the terrible darkness that so many Australians are living with.
Alas Michael racism is alive and, lets hope, not well.
I can honestly say I do not understand racism as it has no meaning to me personally nevertheless culturally it is an abomination.
You meet decent people and bastards from all races and cultures.
Seems to me the the current government has a surfeit of intolerance and prejudice written daily in the cruelty and inhumanity of their policies.
I only hope that Labor looks in the mirror before it is too far gone.
Thanks for sharing your stories Michael Taylor it is bad enough for the average person to be ignorant and racist toward other people but when people with authority abuse their power it is so much worse. It surprises me that so many people still support the catholic church after covering up for priests who have molested innocent kids for decades.
Racism, prejudice? What’s this about inequality and inhumanity.
Refugee review tribunal given wider powers to deny asylum claims
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/24/refugee-review-tribunal-given-wider-powers-to-deny-asylum-claims
Oh that inhumanity.
Left, right, left, right marching onwards and downwards.
I also have a story I want to share.
My family comes from a mid north coast country town which had a mission outside of town where the Aborigines lived. My family owned the local pub where, in those days, Aborigines were banned (we had a buzzer at the back door and an early memory is sliding down the bannister to answer the bell and go tell my uncle they wanted a flagon of Mickey Williams Sherry). There was a small picture theatre in town where tickets were sixpence or a shilling for an Elvis movie. Aboriginal customers were corralled down the front directly under the screen.
I was young and didn’t understand any of this because I had an amazing Aboriginal woman as part of my white family. Originally she was hired by my grandmother as help in the house. She became the nanny/confidante/support for generations of my family. She saw us as family as we saw her. To explain why I admire her, to tell all the stories, is something that requires far more than is appropriate in a comments section.
This woman showed wisdom, dignity, integrity, compassion, selflessness…..as I say, to explain properly would require a book. She instilled these values into three generations of my family and I will be eternally grateful to you Clarice, xx
Thank you for this article.
it is not so much about supporting or not of the church, the church doctrine is simple compared to the reality as being further described due to research, many people are opting for the simple explanation
the thing is, the church must be challenged on the science denial, the hatred and the sexual perversion
the church must face up to those three facets of serious dysfunction and address the outcome of facing up to the dysfunction
science denial, the hatred and the sexual perversion is what dominates the discussion on religion in this era
There is a peculiarity here. When black and white meet and get on with each other they just become one with each other, not recognising colour; when black or white is appalled at the behaviour of the other, warranted, it is racism.
Adam Giles, chief minister of the NT, screams racism at the NT News because it reports a rape of a young girl in an Alice Springs town camp. Many rapes of young girls as young as 3 go unreported in the NT News. Is this also racist?
Snap out of it black and white Australia. Learn to behave each of you and the problems will disappear. How about you start Tony Abbott and teach the rest of Australia the Catholic Christian way to behave? You can’t can you? Because you are imprisoned in white superiority.
Whilst we currently have the most rascist government in living memory, lets not forget we can send them to the bin next year. And we must, just as we must support our indigenous people.
Thanks Michael,
for telling this bleak insight into real life racism experiences.
I lived in the NT for over a decade and in that time I witnessed ugly stories also where rampant racism against Aboriginal people was ignored and condoned.
My wife told me a funny story about the stupidity of racism. She grew up in a Qld country town where there was a swimming hole in the river to enjoy during warm days. Apparently, the local white population told the Aboriginal population that they were not allowed to use the “white’ swimming hole because the white people did not want to catch diseases from them. So the Aborigines went to where the white people said that the Aborigines were allowed to swim. It was upstream
Many decades ago, I was in Wagga Wagga with my then partner. I met her paternal grandmother, who was good enough to take me on a walking tour of the town. She pointed out many properties with unusual structures in the rear yard, resembling brick fireplaces with chimneys. She explained this was where the ‘help’ did their domestics. The ‘help’ were good people, but they knew their ‘station in life’. We had many long conversations and, to this minute, I have no doubt that she was conflicted between what was a white reality and what was intrinsically wrong. The ‘help’ were black, but her sense of decency didn’t discern colour.
I have been trying to find a story my sister in law posted (alas, without success) about missionaries going to new countries with their ‘bible’ and telling the ‘natives’ they could swap their lands for a god, as the book says. The natives got to keep the book, the missionaries got the land (That’s my précis of the post). And Pell, great upstanding bloke that he is, told the commission in Victoria his church in Australia may be worth over $1trillion.
If I can quote stephentardrew “You meet decent people and bastards from all races and cultures.”
Oldfart, you nailed it. Quite rightly, the First People should be pissing on us from a height.
As for the great white god, I invoke no less than the great Dave Allen. “May you’re god go with you”. Take care
I suppose it’s merely coincidence that the federal government is stacked to the rafters with “christians” of every hue ?
I have (and do) known many Aboriginal people, and on the whole, consider them to be better company than most of my mob.
It was Ghandi who is credited with saying “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Can’t add much to that.
Gandhi’s comment is brilliant but not 100% accurate. I know good, kind Christians, who believe in similar social justice and reform issues as those espoused on this site.
Yes Jennifer, so do I. But small “c” christians (eg federal LNP govt.), I believe, outnumber them considerably
LAVINA’S SONG
Taken so young
A car was coming
Mama was out the back
She ran inside
never seen mama
run that fast ever
She knew
Word was out
The Government were out and about
To take the children
of the outback
Dont cry mama
I’ll be alright I whispered
as my tears fell silent
Please dont cry
I remember her cry oh no
Dont take my children away
the echo of total despair
I could see her till the dust to thick
as the car rambled away
down the dusty track
I dont understand
Why are they taking us
Despair gripped me right then
I knew I wasnt goin to see my mama again
Our future together stolen forever right then
Dont cry mama
I’ll be alright I whispered
as my tears fell silent
Please dont cry
Life changed dramatically
my family gone
away from everything I knew
in a strange place
So scared so scared
I was a little girl who had lost everything
thrown into white mans land
to be schooled
and groomed to fit into
an unknown land
Dont cry mama
I’ll be alright I whispered
as my tears fell silent
Please dont cry
I am from the stolen generation
with thousands of others
The injustice
oh the injustice
of what happened
for decades
the devestation
its left in its wake
to the many lives taken
and the many left behind
I am from the stolen generation
Proud of my heritage
and a survivor of
this lands governments
that showed us no mercy
as they stole our children
Me being one of them
Lavina Anne
Dont cry Mama
I’ll be alright I whispered
as my tears fell silent
Please dont cry………..
In Memory of
Lavina Anne
25/10/1948
6/10/2006
written by DanDark 2008
Lavina died of lung cancer ” white mans disease” she was a successful singer and stunningly beautiful
Her father was Irish and her mother aboriginal and she was stolen by the gov along with thousands of other children
The true number is not known as there was a lack of court proceedings and records.
This practice continued into the 1970’s with thousands upon thousands of little children stolen from their parents
And institutionalised in harsh conditions run by religions, the Catholic Church one of the biggest perpetrators of this crime against our first people that lasted for decades, it’s our true national disgrace that was hidden under the carpet by successive gov’s for years…..
From the article: “So our great white God prefers white people. How fickle.”
Anyone who engages in racism is behaving contrary to the teachings of Christ, but they certainly wouldn’t be behaving contrary to the teachings and opinions of Darwin. It was Darwin who believed in and taught the false and unscientific idea that there are different races (but, since all people can ‘interbreed’, then there is only one human race). But as we know today, and contrary to Darwin’s evolutionary opinion (which is today’s ruling paradigm) there is no such thing as different ‘races’. There are just different cultures.
“He has made from ONE BLOOD every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation…” Acts 17:26.
Although racism had been around for a long time, Darwin gave it scientific respectability. The full title of his most famous work being: ‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life’ (1859).
The following excerpt is from one of his later works.
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time anthropomorphous apes… will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian [Aboriginal] and the gorilla.” Charles Darwin: The Descent of Man, 2nd edition (New York: A.L. Burt Co., 1874) p. 178.
So our great Darwin preferred white people. How fickle.
Some of the colonial policies concerning indigenous people around the world a century ago and less were based on Darwin’s “scientific” opinion.
But the Bible says worldly status, politics, blood lines, religious affiliations and gender count for nothing… God shows personal favouritism to no man… (Galatians 2:6).
As for racism based on physical differences: it is not the shape or colour of the bucket, but the condition of the contents (spirit) that is important to God, since the vessel (body) is only temporary anyway:
…the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain… Then the dust will return to the earth as it was… Ecclesiastes 12:6, 7. (The vessel or container can only be taken back and forth so many times to get water before it wears out or breaks).
It should also be noted that Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao, leaders of atheistic ‘Survival of the Fittest’ regimes who murdered more people in the last century than anyone in the rest of history where great admirers of Darwin and based their philosophy on his ideas. The many millions that were murdered is a logical conclusion to these ideas, which view humans as just another animal, which have no spirit and are just lumps of meat walking around. (Some claim that Hitler was a Christian but this is quite obviously false. He was no more a Christian than the devil was. A criminal will say anything to gain political advantage. Read: Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview, by Jerry Bergman).
But as the Bible says:
For you are all sons of God through Christ Jesus. There is neither Jew nor Greek (Gentile), there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:26, 28, 29.
Jerry,
Apparently, God is anthropomorphic with male genitalia.
Apparently, God demands genital mutilation and blood sacrifice.
Apparently, God condemns blasphemy(name calling) more than rape.
I have read the Holy Bible. It needs extensive editing and redacting, if not a total rewrite.
Corvus, I think its a great item for starting BBQ’s, around which much smart thinking arises. Religion generally, has had its day, at the cost of far too many lives.
“I have read the Holy Bible. It needs extensive editing and redacting, if not a total rewrite”
Apparently it needs someone who understands how to read it properly and in context before they make comments on it and criticize it.
One problem, I do not know about God the Father, but it is highly unlikely God the son was white. More likely to belong to the same colour as those pesky Arabs. Well at least the from the same region.
I believe they do acknowledge him as a prophet.
When one looks at all different religions, claiming to follow the bible, some only new testament, I think it say what one wants it to say.
As A child and Catholic, I believe the church did not encourage reading of the bible. One struck to Blue Catechism, six sacraments and Cannon Law. I suspect one did not go past the ten commandments.
Jerry,
“Take you therefore, and put to the sword, all the boy children amongst them.
Put to the sword all the women who have known the touch of a man.
Keep alive for yourselves all the girl children who have not known the touch of a man.” (Numbers)
Attribute to Moses (alleged divine prophet and righteous recipient of God’s commandments) regarding the fates of captive civilians.
Justificational context? Or did I just not read it ‘properly’?
Corvus,
Well those people were warned by God through Moses that they would be the judged if they transgressed. That is the context. And no one died that wasn’t going to die anyway. Everyone has to die of something. We are all sinners who are under the curse of death, so we all die. That is the central theme of the whole Bible, and without a Savior, who is Christ/God manifested in the flesh (John 1:1-14), there is no hope for anyone.
And you point out that one incident, but then overlook Noah’s flood which wiped out every living thing, and also Sodom and Gomorrah being burned to a crisp. But again, they were all warned against the behavior that would bring God’s judgment down on them, yet they provoked Him to his face by continuing on in their sins/crimes. So eventually He was obliged to judge them with flood and fire.
If God freely gives life then He can just as well take it again. He created it, so He owns it, and makes the rules, and does not have to answer to anyone.
So yes, you’ve not read it properly.
Florence you said “As A child and Catholic, I believe the church did not encourage reading of the bible.”
Well they should have, otherwise how would you know what God’s will is except from His written word? Then you would also know that Jesus was actually God manifested in the flesh (John 1:1-14) and not just a created human prophet as claimed by those “pesky Arabs” who follow the teachings of the false prophet Mohammad, and who only came along 600 years after Christ and had no idea what the Scriptures of the Christians and the Jews (the Old and New Testaments or the ‘Book’ as he called it) were saying. He didn’t truly understand sin or salvation and he denied Christ divinity, death and resurrection. In fact both Mohammad and the first pope and the papacy did not come into being until about 600 years after Christ. Just from that we know to avoid anything they have to say in regard to the scriptures, and just read it for ourselves, since, as history has shown, you will never get the whole truth from them anyway. They are really just a bunch of crooks.
There are no Gods and the bible and other crappola are just so much HOGWASH. 😛
When will you people learn that Jesus was just an failed politician……. no really. 🙄
Oh, ..and you Pagans with your Easter Bunny shit…. *UCK OFF…. do you know how much *uckin’ chocolate I have had to buy in the last few days…. “God save me from Religions” that’s what I say 🙁
Jerry,
I get it.
“Properly” means with complete disregard of every other piece of evidence I have gleaned through studies of history, science and other philosophical and theological literature, as well as the dictates of my own conscience and rational mind.
You are obviously able to rationalise and justify child murder as the will of your God with a penis. You share that with the Daesh.
I still think killing little boys and women and giving away little girls as possessions and playthings is reprehensible behavior.
You primitive fundamentalists truly do disgust me.
Corvus you say “Properly” means with complete disregard of every other piece of evidence I have gleaned through studies of history, science and other philosophical and theological literature…”
That sounds impressive, but all you really had to do was read the story as whole to avoid your false conclusions. Even just a couple of verses here and there would have been enough .e.g. Numbers 31:1
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the children of Israel…”
Why vengeance/justice? That is explained further along in verses 15 and 16 of the same chapter.
15. And Moses said to them: “Have you kept all the women alive? Look, these women caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the Lord in the incident of Peor (Numbers 25:1)…
We see this Balaam character and the incident involving him mentioned from time to time in the rest of the Bible (Deut. 23:4-5, Joshua 13:22; 24:9-10, Nehemiah 13:2, Mica 6:5, 2 Peter 2:15, Jude 11) as a warning against his type, who would lead God’s people astray. Christ also warns against following Balaam’s example in Revelation 2:14 where He says:
“…because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak [the king of the Midianites] to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.”
As with many of the tribes that surrounded Israel at that time, the Midianites and others had a long and crime ridden history, including child sacrifice, so God judged them righteously, and after much warning. God was obliged pass judgement (either through Israel or directly himself) on these people and completely destroy them. Hence in verse 17 “Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones…”. That He allowed the girls to live was actually a great mercy.
And many of the sins/crimes committed by these tribes would be completely unacceptable in today’s society. So you ought to be thankful for Christ and Christianity because it is a direct resistance against people like Stalin, Moa, Pol Pot and Mohammad in his time and ISIS today.
As the great God hater, Richard Dawkins himself said:
“I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, in so far as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.” The Times (UK), 2 April 2010
Lovo you say “God save me from Religions”
I would have to agree with you. Basically, any belief system outside of the actual truth is a religion. The very old pagan notion that the universe made itself from almost nothing (the ‘Big Bang’, or the laughable idea that everything in the material universe could fit into something smaller than a grain of sand) and that all living things started and evolved from non-living chemicals, or ‘evolution’, would be a good example of a religion. It is based on scientific sounding story telling/science fiction rather than the truth (For a very good refutation of this religion, read or watch Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels by 9 Ph.D. scientists).
Jerry,
I read the whole thing(from the espousal of sexism and ignorance(don’t eat the fruit) in Genesis to the apocalyptic ergot-induced visions of Revelation.
Some Midianite women fraternised with their new neighbors. They got speared for it.
Then the Israelites marched on the Midianites and killed everyone, except the virgin girl children who were given as slaves/concubines to the men who had just murdered their families.(Moses’ successor, Joshua, tended to just kill everyone when he went conquering).
You call all this ‘righteous’ and a ‘great mercy’.
I call it brutal atrocity. I also do not think that you can use a claim that a people sacrifice some of their children(like Abraham was so righteous for willing to do) as an excuse to murder their children.
I also do not think that “they were going to die eventually, anyway”, is is justification for the slaughter of women and children. I know that I am mortal, but this does not give someone else the right to kill me.
It is interesting that you shifted from blaming a theoretical treatise by a 19th century naturalist for the evil of racism, to justifying genocide based upon religious and cultural differences.
You should try reading some other books. Preferably ones that do not condone the murder of children.
@Jerry if we didn’t have religion we might have a world where peace prevails. You are as rabid about your interpretation of the bible as radical Muslims are about the Koran. We can all entrench our own beliefs into the scriptures but at the end of the day no one can categorically say there interpretation is correct. You only need to sit up late or get up early and listen to some of the American preachers on TV, they take a verse from the bible then crap on and on for an hour about what it means (in the name of the Lord), by the time they are done they have turned 100 – 150 words from a book into thousands of words that could be considered nothing more than bullshit!
Wally, that’s a very lazy answer. You haven’t refuted anything in the comments.
Lazy Jerry?
What the hell do you mean?
Seems pretty well thought out to me.
Wally,
Actually Jerry condones acts even more barbaric than those currently being committed by the daesh.
Note his responses to queries regarding biblical atrocities(5/4 3:16pm onward).
Apparently, the mass murder of women and little boys is OK because god said they were all bad(and “everyone has to die of something”).
Apparently, giving little girls to the brutal men who murdered their families(to do with as they please) is “great mercy” because they could have just killed them all(the Joshua solution).
Apparently, the bible is the only real ‘truth'(even after extensive tampering by the Romans[“a bunch of crooks”] at the councils of Nicea and Trent) and anything else(including all theories and hypotheses in the fields of science) is ‘religion’.
I do not think you are just debating a fanatic, I think you are also dealing with a psychopath.
Ps, Jerry, my apologies if you are merely trolling.
@Jerry your reply makes me believe that corvus boreus was correct in an earlier comment that suggested you need to broaden your reading list you are obviously fixated on the bible and have no interest in anything else. I think the Christian ideology is a great concept but unfortunately I see how people who go to church every Sunday behave on other days, it isn’t very pretty and there is no hint of Christian spirit to be seen. If I need to study or read the bible to be like them I will remain a religious ignoramus and continue to treat others the way I like to be treated by them, politely, honestly and sincerely. Sorry Jerry I will not be refuting your comments because there is nothing to be gained by doing so. Thanks for your comment stephentardrew.
“…I do not think you are just debating a fanatic, I think you are also dealing with a psychopath.”
Nice bit of hyperbole there corvus. What a drama queen. Someone makes a couple of good points and you resort to that rubbish.
Wally, you said,
“I think the Christian ideology is a great concept but unfortunately I see how people who go to church every Sunday behave on other days, it isn’t very pretty and there is no hint of Christian spirit to be seen.”
That is really no argument, since you should be focused on the Founder, not the followers. You cannot use the bad behavior of those who claim to speak in the name of Christ as an excuse since Christ already warned that there would be those kinds of people.
“Not everyone everyone who says to Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven… Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name?’…And I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” Matt 7:22-23
Your excuse has no legs at all. All you will have done is condemned yourself.
Corvus, you say:
“Actually Jerry condones acts even more barbaric than those currently being committed by the daesh…
But don’t you see Corvus, it is you that is condoning the slaughter of children because you say God should never have destroyed those evil societies who kept destroying their children and/or involving them in their sins which would condemn them to hell. Instead of putting a stop to it you would just let it go on and on. Just as well you are not running the show.
You tell us that you have read the Bible but you must have missed or turned a blind eye to a few things in there to maintain your distorted view of it. E.g. Where God gives this warning to Israel concerning the surrounding nations which included the Midianites:
“…for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.” Deuteronomy 12:31
The Mayans and Aztecs of South America used to do the same thing to try to gain favour and help from their gods. But they have also disappeared due no doubt to God’s judgement. He is not just the God of the Middle East He is the God of the whole world. In fact at one stage it was going on in many places around the world. Every man and his dog was into it.
But at one stage, despite God’s warning, much of Israel ended up following the evil practices of these surrounding nations (2 Kings 16:3; 17:8, 15, 17 Jeremiah 19:4-5) and nearly got wiped out for it (Isaiah 1:9).
“…They [Israel] even sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons…” Psalm 106:34-39
So it is not that difficult to read and understand Corvus since the events we are discussing are not allegory or symbolic language as are other parts of the Bible, but just a straight forward historical account. There is really nothing there that needs special interpretation. Anyone can understand it.
And I am not “condoning” anything as you allege. I think it is quite horrible and sad too (but logically still far better than letting them continue on). I am simply pointing to historical events and God’s righteous judgement. I mean how is He supposed to wipe out an evil society without killing everyone it? Hello.
Jerry,
Hello.
Do continue.
jerry @ April 9, 2015 at 6:09 pm said:
Simple question. Why did this all powerful ‘god’ allow such (sinful) societies (your definition) to develop in the first place?
jerry are you suggesting that we are simply the playthings of the god(s)? Along the lines of, first they allow, then they disallow?
Sort of gotcha moments?
As for the ‘logic’. Please.
Matters not, you said,
“Simple question. Why did this all powerful ‘god’ allow such (sinful) societies (your definition) to develop in the first place?”
Seriously? You didn’t think that one through did you. Have you never heard of free will? People have the choice to do the right or wrong thing. God does not make robots or puppets in his own image. If people want to be bad then they can do so, until the promised punishment arrives anyway.
This is a particularly heart rending and thought provoking article. It is a reminder of the ingrained racism that has caused (and continues to cause) such suffering/hardship/dispossession
* Russell, a man with a giant heart, being pushed and coached into subservience.
* A girl being pushed into acceptance of rape.
This is an outstanding narrative about the way white culture diminished and dismissed aboriginals and their culture.
May I suggest you prominently republish this article every few months.
It deserves far wider circulation
What is the point of ‘free will’ if the deity already knows what you are going to do with it?
Religion is chock full of non sequiturs which are the ‘bleeding obvious’. If Adam and Eve were the first people (and the ‘holy book’ does not suggest that the deity went in for mass production), then humanity sprang from incest. That may excuse humanity’s imperfections but does not explain why ‘Yer actual God’ downed tools on that exercise.
And on racism, I am just reading a highly-regarded crime novel written in the 1920’s in which a darker-skinned character is described as a ‘high yellow’ and later as ‘the dark meat’, neither description being deliberate pejoratives, rather – presumably – normal everyday speech.
A C,
Thank you for your comment.
This is actually the second time I’ve posted this article, the first being on Cafe Whispers.
I do regularly put a link to this article on Twitter, and I’ll take your advice and keep doing so. Interestingly, the last time I put in on Twitter I was flooded with comments from Americans, shocked to learn how our Indigenous people are treated.
I do avoid publishing it on Facebook: my articles on Indigenous Australia attract an army of racists. My article on “fire stick farming” during our bushfires really stirred up the hornets nest.
Here is the link to that article. You’ll see that it attracted a few “expert” comments. Not.
Hoy! What do you mean by “non-expert comments”???
Hi, Jen.
Whose comment are you referring to?
Lost in translation, Michael
It happens, Jen.
Hi Michael, being a relative latecomer to this site I’m unaware of these sort of posts from years earlier, but I know enough already from what you’ve said since my arrival that you’ve had extensive relationships with our indigenous communities over many years.
An anecdote, or two. My first job was in the middle of 1969, freshly out of school, not yet 17, kicked out of the house by my father, and sent to a sheep station about 30 miles NW of Coober Pedy, you’d know it but I’ll refrain from mentioning its name, where I slogged away for a weekly wage of $12 plus keep. The manager was an utter bastard. We started shearing, and the shearers took me into town on a Friday night, to the pub… the first time I’d ever been inside a drinking place.
Aboriginal men mixed with the white folk, and I drank beer for the first time in my life apart from the odd shandy I’d been allowed in my earlier teens. A middle-aged or possibly older Aboriginal man started up a conversation with me, along the lines of ‘if you give me money to buy some alcohol I will get a young girl for you to spend the night with.’ This wasn’t an unattractive proposition – I was a virgin – but I was also entirely naive and inexperienced in the ways of the world. And I was also, in any real sense of the word, broke, penniless, with perhaps only $20 to my name, though I expect I could have covered the cost of a flagon of sherry if things had proceeded.
The man was persistent though, and despite the passage of time and the fading of acuity of memory, possibly quite drunk. The whole thing was curtailed when the shearing team’s ‘expert’, the man who started the engines and sharpened the cutters & combs, intervened; sooling the elderly Aboriginal away, and sternly lecturing me about the dangers of interacting with the black folk. ‘He’ll whistle-cock you’, he admonished. ‘That’s what they do. You have to be careful when you’re dealing with the blacks’.
We stayed the night in town, as I also recall seeing an open Landrover driving up the dusty unsealed main street the following morning, driven by a white man, with an Aboriginal woman in the passenger’s seat; he stopped, and more or less shoved her out and drove off, with her running after him and shouting something along the lines of ‘You f*cked me all night, I want money, you said you’d give me money.’
It was a very rude awakening to a facet of life I had no idea existed.
And on the God thing; at the age of 21 I was asked by a guy I’d jackarooed with in the NE of SA to be his best man at his wedding. He was marrying a farmer’s daughter from Lameroo, and the wedding took place in that town. Her brother was a newly-minted pastor of some Christian denomination – I don’t recall which, but it wasn’t mainstream; not Catholic, Anglican; Baptist, Mormon, 7th Day Adventist etc. – but he’d been through a bible college in Adelaide, and he was down for the event.
As we suited up at her parent’s house prior to the trip into town for the ceremony, Mr Newly Minted Man of God suggested to my mate that we pray for God’s blessing. Then he turned to me and said – keeping in mind that this holy representative had never met me before this day – ‘but not you, you drink and you smoke, and you’re sinful in the eyes of the Lord’. Talk about putting a bummer on the day’s events! The post-wedding get together, feasting & celebration, offered only juices & cordial or a cup of tea. I really wished I could get drunk just to show that sanctimonious prick what I thought of him!
Canguro, I know Coober Pedy very well and I have some horrible stories of racism, but they’re for another day. One included “Big Pete” who I mentioned in the above article.
An uncle and one of my brothers were shearers north of Coober Pedy, btw.
One night in Berri – changing the subject – I crawled out of the pub drunk and grabbed a taxi with the intention of heading home to my sister’s in Glossop. The taxi driver offered something different than a ride to my sister’s: “For $10 I can take you to the mission (Gerard Mission) where you can f*ck a half caste.”
“Just take me to my sister’s,” I replied.
Prick.
We share some things in common Michael, the six degrees of separation thing. The first half of my childhood was in the Adelaide Hills, the second at Waikerie. As a teenager I got introduced to bird-watching and bushwalking by the high school teachers. I knew the local Dept of Lands district officer at Waikerie quite well; in a certain sort of way he became a kind of proxy role model of what a good father looked like. His brother was the Dept. Lands DO at Berri. They were both actively involved with bird watching, bird banding and general advocacy for better conservation practices. I’d often accompany the Waikerie brother on his banding expeditions, including up to Berri where he collaborated with another bander (not his brother, who was kind of a friendly rival to him). I also used to accompany one of the high school teachers on his snake-catching jaunts, where he’d extract venom for the CSL antivenene program – that would often take us further upriver to places like Chowilla. I have a few hairy stories of close encounters with tiger & brown snakes.
Canguro, you’re following me. 😁
After selling the farm on Kangaroo Island we moved to Blackwood. I had rellies in Lobethal, Hahndorf and Balhannah.
I didn’t know what racism was on KI. Soon found out when we moved to the mainland.
I’d write more but I’m heading back to bed. It’s calling me. 😁