You people just don’t understand how hard it is to be a conservative Christian

46 Comments

1. You missed out Pyne. Apparently he’s been the subject of all sorts of harassment because he’s Catholic….e.g. all the working class Italians in Sturt (of which there are many) vote for him just because he attends their churches.

2. Not to mention that our ex PM feels “threatened” by homosexuality. I mean a good looking ex-seminary boy like him has every right to feel scared.

3. Kaye,You are a breath of fresh air in my day.
   Just imagine a political party full of pollies with a fraction of Kaye Lee’s sensibilities.

4. yup. I’d like to give Tony a backside wedgie. 🙂

5. *Super-califragic-religiosity.*

   There are so many things
   God wants me to see
   Supernatural beings
   Acting supernaturally
   And doing all sorts of things
   Super miraculously
   So super-califragic-religiosity

   I really like religion
   It’s awful fun to be
   Free of all that bullshit
   Rationality
   I’ve given up noticing
   Ambiguity
   So super-califragic-religiosity

   To think of the world
   Scientifically
   Is entirely precluded
   By my theology
   To any holy person
   Physics is a heresy
   Because super-califragic-religiosity

   I now trace my forebears
   Theologically
   Back six thousand years
   To when the almighty
   Made Adam to be handsome
   And Eve a bit naughty
   So super-califragic-sexuality

   So now we have the answer
   For all humanity
   If we want to live in Paradise
   For all eternity
   Everybody has to hate
   Gay sexuality
   Because super-califragic-religiosity

6. Was it Peter Cook or Dudley More who found the idea of a heaven boring. I can just picture Dudley sitting on the cloud, swinging his little legs and thinking, is this what have been good for…?

   If the heaven is humourless, then it sounds more like the hell to me….full of Liberal politicians, Anglican and Catholic.

7. The Gospel of Thomas I think might be the least corrupted.

   Jesus said, “If those who lead you say to you, ‘See, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty”.

   In other words heaven is enlightenment.

8. From Wiki

   “At least two of the Roman Emperors were in same-sex unions; and in fact, thirteen out of the first fourteen Roman Emperors held to be bisexual or exclusively homosexual. The first Roman emperor to have married a man was Nero, who is reported to have married two other men on different occasions.

   “In North America, among the Native Americans societies, same-sex unions have taken place with persons known as Two-Spirit types. These are individuals who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles in First Nations and Native American tribes. “In many tribes, individuals who entered into same-sex relationships were considered holy and treated with utmost respect and acceptance,” according to anthropologist Brian Gilley.”

   If Bernadi is worried that the modern world is heading for a Fall of the Roman empire type collapse, it is more likely to be due to his imperialistic capitalism views, than the opening up of equality. Indeed Christianity itself may have played a role it its collapse.

   http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/8-reasons-why-rome-fell

9. From Jacob, to Kings David and Solomon, Biblical men often had anywhere from two to thousands of wives. Monogamy became the guiding principle for Western marriages sometime between the sixth and the ninth centuries. Until the 1500s, the Church accepted a couple’s word that they had exchanged marriage vows, with no witnesses or corroborating evidence needed. The Church and state had nothing to do with it so this tosh that we cannot change the definition of marriage that has been around for thousands of years is just a lie. We have changed countless laws that discriminated against married women eg up until relatively recently marital rape was legal.

   We are continually told that religions preach “love and peace” but that message has been corrupted by dogma and intolerance. The emphasis on worship is a waste of time and money. Too many adherents insist it is their way or the highway and, throughout history, have been willing to kill to impose their particular rules/ceremonies on others.

   In Australia, they have chosen to take over our government so they can make laws that suit their beliefs. The ONLY reason religions have ingrained in their followers that homosexuality is a sin is because historically they were taught to believe that sex is for the purpose of procreation only and can only be condoned by marriage in a church with the promise to bring up any offspring as believers of the ‘one’ true faith.

10. as always, these clowns reality is the opposite to actual reality. time for them to be moved on.

11. Marriage was originally just a way for men to protect their goods and chattels until it was hijacked by the roman catholic church and turned into some sort of sacred bond from some magical and nasty overlord in the sky. Oh darn, “Every Sperm is Sacred” is running through my head again.
    Most Australians are civil and can’t see the end of civilisation if equal rights to marriage are enacted. It’s just the religious fanatics in our gummint that are keeping the horror of gay rights at bay and protecting everyone else whether they need protecting or not. Self appointed and self serving arseholes.

12. Would be funny if it wasn’t so appalling. Those LNP extremists who are hell-bent (pun unintended) on forcing their bigoted, repressive, deluded beliefs on the rest of us claim to be the victims!!!

13. Helvi

    Twas the original (and the best) version of “Bedazzled”, starring Peter Cook, naturally, as the devil with Dudley Moore. Also Talking Heads lyric “Heaven…. is a place, where nothing ever happens…”I owe a great deal to Peter Cook, by the time David Byrne became a pop star, I had parted ways with religion.

    Religion at best is rather funny; virgin births, resurrections, burning bushes, walking on water, people turning into pillars of salt…. religion at worst is freakin’ scary and dangerous.

14. diannaart, I have taken to reading something humorous at the bed time to cope with this very long and trying election campaign period…

    So far I have re-read Howard Jacobson’s Whatever It Is I Don’t Like It, now I’m chuckling myself to sleep after reading Kate Pullinger’s witty short stories Tiny Lies, makes me forget about the politicians’ lies, which for sure aren’t tiny or white…

    EM Forster’s Room With The View, a delightful social comedy (according to the back page blurb) is waiting for its turn, never mind I seen the movie…

    (It’s all quiet at the Sheep,)

15. @helvityni – Heaven is boring?

    That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking for decades. Why would I want to spend all of eternity with a bunch of stupid, ignorant, judgemental, bigoted, intolerant, proselytising lunatics?

    That would be my version of hell. ,

16. “According to Scott Morrison, he has been exposed to hatred and bigotry for his righteous discrimination against LGBTQI couples.”
    I laughed, and laughed, until I cried.
    Cried for the progeny of his first ministry. Cried for the progeny of his second ministry.
    Suffering from dehydration, I no longer have tears, for his third ministry. As he’s the treasurer, and the progeny of his treasury is ‘us’. We’ve gone full circle. This git couldn’t sell Australia overseas. WTF?
    With the greatest of respect, Ms Lee, please treat this git with the contempt and derision he deserves. He may end up with a fourth ministry, a prime ministry. Always grateful, take care

17. Great article, on point as usual Kaye, but you only barely scratched the fetid surface.

    Loved this take on it too: http://www.sbs.com.au/comedy/article/2016/06/22/day-life-scott-morrison-if-he-actually-faced-same-bigotry-lgbti-people

18. Kyran,

    Just to be clear, Morrison tops my list of dangerous politicians. He earned that position in 2011.

    “THE opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate’s growing concerns about “Muslim immigration”, “Muslims in Australia” and the “inability” of Muslim migrants to integrate….

    … after Mr Morrison’s comments this week on the cost of asylum-seeker funerals and his role in the controversial decision to cut a Howard government program to fund schools in Indonesia, colleagues are privately questioning whether he is trying to pursue an anti-Muslim political strategy unilaterally.”

    http://www.smh.com.au/national/morrison-sees-votes-in-antimuslim-strategy-20110216-1awmo.html#ixzz4COCCUp9d

    Morrison is the worst kind of cynical opportunist who will deliberately demonise people for his own political gain. He purposely foments hatred and division because he sees votes in it whether it be asylum seekers, Muslims, gays, pensioners, the unemployed….Scott is ready to throw them on the pyre of his burning ambition.

19. Dickhead pollies have no idea what it’s like to work and struggle to pay the bills.

20. Ms Lee @6.31, I agree, but I reserve the right to disagree (It’s an Irish thing!). He is not to be feared. He is a git.
    Can I make that more unequivocal?
    As for dangerous politicians, apparently tiny is on the comeback trail. Apparently Dutton is the protector of right wing values, and therefore another pretender to the crown. Then there’s talcum. There is a lot to fear. Whilst we focus on the individuals, we lose sight of what they do, or don’t, believe in. This policy thingy. Apparently, personality is far more important than policy. I finally understand this is about values. We all have our own.
    I guess that is how we will vote.
    John Lennon. Imagine.
    Louis Armstrong. What a wonderful world.
    I guess that is how we will vote. As for Scumo, I’m sticking with derision and contempt. He is a git.
    Take care

21. Helvityni/Ando how could heaven be boring??? There is unlimited food and drink with no diabetes, obesity, anorexia, health issues. Whatever your fancy/orientation/experimentation there is a constant supply of give and take to and from repentant priests, nymphomaniacs, SM sex with no disease or pregnancy concerns.
    Wow no wonder they have closed diabetic centres letting chemists sell the paraphernalia over the counter. Of course the chemist will be forthcoming with the diet advice, checking weight and sugar levels over the counter in open view and free(oops laughable). No wonder services like podiatry will be charged at full price. Why have a plan? Doctors will have to charge full price.currently I have a diabetes plan and the doctor etc bulk bill but my wife pays $85 a visit. As from july1 I pay cash $69 to have my toenails cut not the $16.05 gap but the full price why have a plan?? Turnball et al have a plan and their aim is to kill medicare and send the poor to the public hospital queues or to an early death.
    Sadly the rabbott’s, turncoats and morrison’s have millions of religious followers who hold the world together only lying for the glory of god
    ps What a beautiful picture, Helvityni takes me back to miss australia 55 years ago.

22. So, this is where the party is happening? All my other discussions elsewhere appear to have died! 🙁

    …

    I love Kyran’s analysis by the way. Snotty, X’ensen et al are in government somehow by default because nobody else slit somebody’s throat at the opportune time to avoid these two imbecilic degenerates.

    They think they are smart right now but come their defeat, they will be in the wilderness and the knives of their inner circle competitors can account for their eternal dispatch.

23. I see Diannart.

    This is actually an embarassing thread in that it backs her contention elsewhere that righties not only don’t understand their victims, but shamelessly co-opt other people’s real life and often sad stories of suffering and oppression for their own myopic and self reinforcing motives.

    It is a side of the coin not be neglected. Morrison in particular gets on my goat with his sleazy, cynical reversals of truth and fact.

    For the rest, a gem from a less expected source, JimHaz’ comment re the obscured, probably censored out Thomas.

24. No stoushes, Jennifer?

    We will have to arrange something, try to drum up a bit of subversive stuff to get them Donald Ducking again.

25. Will you try the subversive stuff, paul walter or are you suggesting I do so? Sorry I don’t do subversive.

26. Good one.

    Nah, in a sour mood just now, just caught a fractile of Tony Jones referring to the ALP warnings on Medicare, including as a wedge for yet more privatisations, as “The Labor Scare Campaign”: Labor campaign yes, but it should not be for the ABC to Murdochise current affairs coverage.

    Rock bottom, just now.

27. And while Tony Jones lies about legitimate questioning on vicious neo liberal policy, nothing of the underbelly, the reality of ozpolitics will ever get exposure from that source.

    http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/gambaro-ignored-electorate-office-advice-foi-documents-show-20160623-gpqi6m.html

    No Star Chamber for this one tho, same as the likes of Sinodinos have had their game obscured while the press went after the likes of bunnies like Craig Thompson.

    That Royal Commission itself has never been exposed for the massive rort it has been, a gravy train for rightist lawyers and judges with contact with Brandis as well as a sick propaganda exercise, so blatant people have missed it for the cosmic noise of union bashing with a bit of Cabcharge rorting and the taken for granted presumption that the legal system is “fair”.

28. the push for same-sex marriage was coming from “radicals” who were determined to overturn the social fabric of Australian society and that it would inevitably lead to sheep shagging.

    Sheep shagging has been going on for decades, I think we exported it to NZ.

    The NZ’ers have really embraced this activity and unashamedly have become enterprising about it with their range of S.I.L.F. t-shirts. https://www.spreadshirt.com.au/silf-sheep-i-like-to-f*ck-t-shirts-A12091183

29. Scomo diddums, poor widdle thing, somebody was mean to you . . .

    What does a sociopathic sook look like? Well, I guess we know now don’t we.

30. It would be lovely for those jerks like Morrison, Abetz, Bernardi, Christensen, and the rest of them to be faced with their own abuse mirrored back at them.

    They never seem to be able to make up their minds:

    It should be legal for me to vocally hate and abuse others, but it shouldn’t be allowed that they vocally hate and abuse me. Abuse and bigoted beliefs are free speech so should be protected at all costs, but abuse of me and the belief that I’m a bigot should be stopped.

    Nah. They’d never get it. I don’t think their mirror neurons work.

31. Miriam

    I understand that the emphatically challenged are born without mirror neurons, hence expecting them to reflect and learn is akin to expecting such dross to grow wings and bugger off somewhere they will cause no further harm.

32. Very interesting analysis of possible Senate outcome(s) in NSW. May be the case that the Greens knew what they were doing after all.

    https://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2016/06/24/senate-day-new-south-wales/

33. paul walter, I did not see Tony Jones on Lateline, Leigh Sales’ harassment of Shorten was more than enough; she asked the questions but did not give him time to answer them. It was like Andrew Bolt with Mathison (just watched it).

    Years ago , when I was more tolerant, and still watched the Commercial Stations and all that rubbish, all their interviews were like battling the Northsea winds, or boxing matches, cruel. Not that I have ever seen one, but I have watched Sixty Minutes…

34. [I don’t think their mirror neurons work]

    They use up all their mirror neurons via reflection of political complaints. Morrison’s recent action of mirroring Wong’s comments was a commonly used LNP play in recent times. When an aggrieved party (that would not vote LNP) points out a factual problem that affects them, the LNP and conservatives generally looks for ways based on their own experiences to seek out sympathetic responses from current or potential supporters. A mirror does not absorb, it reflects, so what should be empathy for others is twisted into a self-serving output – it is a reverse image of what should be. Conservatives thought process all derive with the starting point being themselves – what is in it for me.

35. helvitiny, jimhaz, you both appear to possess the empathy component of intelligence so lacking in hard conservatism.

    Nice to know others are still alive after the ship has gone down, too.

36. Please do not refer to anti-choice people as pro- life

37. During my breakfast this morning I watched a documentary about men going to the moon. At one point they talked about Kennedy and his push to get to the moon and how sad his assassination meant he never saw it.

    It got me thinking about Martin Luther King’s assassination, and the Labour MP, Jo Cox, in England who was recently assassinated. And then I began thinking about all the hate crimes… the recent Orlando nightclub massacre of LGBT people; the recent church massacre of black folks by that half-wit, white supremacist kid; the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia where good Christians murdered, tortured, and expelled their Muslim neighbors they’d lived beside all their lives; the brutal ethnic cleansing in Rwanda fostered by good Christian ministers; the hate between two different variants of Christians in Ireland where they bombed and slaughtered each other for decades; the current hate and slaughter going on in many places between different variants of Muslims — Sunnis, Shi’ites, Sufis, Baha’is, and Ahmadiyyas; the genocide in Sri Lanka where militant Buddhist monks are murdering Muslims and destroying their buildings; the sarin gas attack in Tokyo’s subway by religious cult Aum Shinrikyo; the old, vicious, racist Apartheid in South Africa;, the good Catholic Christian Nazis and their “final solution” to rid the world of Jewish people, gays, blacks, and handicapped people…. I could go on and on and on.

    All those people did and still do these horrible things because a small number of influential people, who really should know better, infect the rest with hate.

    We’ve been pretty lucky here in Australia, but with nasty, spiteful people in government and the mainstream media fomenting hate, as if it was merely a fun tool that they can leverage for their own advantage, it is just a matter of time before something deeply awful happens here. People will point to the immediate trigger-pullers, but we should really all look at the wicked sowers of hate: Christensen, Barnardi, Abbott, Abetz, Morrison, and the rest. It is no surprise that all of them are religious. Religion abandons logic. Whether it does good or bad it is not accountable to good sense. This doesn’t matter when religious people do good, but when they do bad there is nothing that can deter them.

    So when the hate crimes happen here — and they will, if the current trajectory is reliable — then these pricks should be held to account for incubating them. The originating hate crimes are already occurring right now.

38. Christensen, Barnardi, Abbott, Abetz, Morrison, and the rest… did they start out bigots and religion gave them license? Or did religion inculcate those lacking mirror neurones, hence unempathic?

    Does religion make hating easier for some as it may engender empathy for others?

    As an atheist, I don’t see why we need religion at all, but clearly others need it – whether to get themselves through life, or as another tool in the arsenal of power.

39. Those who want to exploit and control others promote religion as a crutch for those who are convinced they need it to get through life.

40. Yeah, as an atheist, I’ve never understood people’s desire to believe lies, no matter how pretty they think they are… and most religious lies are about as ugly as can be when you scratch the sparkly surface.

    I’ve known many wonderful religious people of various faiths, but no matter how good they are, I’ve always had the worrying feeling that religion, lurking under the surface, could make them dangerous. In the end their their reasons for doing things are not necessarily open to logical discussion. Their allegiance is not primarily to humanity, but to an imaginary being who judges most of us worth burning in a lake of fire forever, no matter how they might sugarcoat it.

    Most of the Nazis were ordinary Christians obeying their church which told them Hitler was carrying out the will of god. Most of the worst in Bosnia was done by ordinary Christians who had been told to hate those neighbors of the rival religion. Both Germany and Bosnia were places of high culture. Those people weren’t backward morons. Think it couldn’t happen here? Think again.

    Thankfully religion is in decline all around the world. We just have to hope that with the pressures of climate change, massive population, and resource shortages causing strife in their own right, that religion falls away fast enough to let us live together in relative peace.

    Unfortunately religion seems attracted to power like flies to rotting flesh, hence the large numbers of bigots in this government.

41. “I’ve known many wonderful religious people of various faiths, but no matter how good they are, I’ve always had the worrying feeling that religion, lurking under the surface, could make them dangerous. In the end their their reasons for doing things are not necessarily open to logical discussion. Their allegiance is not primarily to humanity, but to an imaginary being who judges most of us worth burning in a lake of fire forever, no matter how they might sugarcoat it.”

    I feel the same way, Miriam. These ‘Christian’ politicians are not only making decisions that affect all of us based on their religion, but even when it doesn’t involve religion we know they don’t critically evaluate issues, so how can we have confidence in the decision? And voters are voting according to their religious beliefs, which impacts all of us.

42. Athena & Miriam

    …and there is the nub of it Their allegiance is not primarily to humanity..

    Nor is there any allegiance to the greater good by neo-cons, how well religion and hard-line conservatism fit together – the economics of the judgemental for the judgemental.

    With the now confirmed Brexit… how much further to the right are western nations going to go? This can’t mean Prez Trump, can it?

43. See Bill Mitchell’s blog: http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=33876 entitled ‘Britain should exit the European Union’. Bill Mitchell would be pleased with Britain’s decision today with Brexit.

44. Bill has written a number of blog posts suggesting that various nations should leave the EU and that the EU is an economic nightmare.

45. Jennifer & Athena

    Have done a skim read of Bill Mitchell’s opinion on Brexit – will give more time to topic when my brain agrees to return from “eff off, not in the mood for Bill Mitchell” – not my fave word-smith.

    I will keep an open mind as I would like to think the Brexit is better for all of us, however, a number of minds I respect do not think dumping the EU is a good thing.

    Therefore, I will wait and see; rather how I’m waiting and seeing what the USA election will bestow upon the rest of us.

46. Andreas makes a good case for Brexit too.

    See https://www.facebook.com/groups/1termtony/412528542227408/?notif_t=group_activity&notif_id=1466793737681335