Nothing supernatural about the western suburbs of Melbourne

[Aractus]

I write of the land gifted to the Anglicans and the Catholics during the European colonisation phase of Australian history, but if you want to only discuss getting cheap land, you still need to justify the discount, and to do that you need to provide evidence that your god exists and is the only god that does.

The land is zoned for religious services, it can't be used for anything else, thus it's worthless to anyone else. Get over it.

Getting insulting just because you don't comprehend something is poor form. Please don't do it again.

Why don't you try making coherent arguments and then I won't have to?

The analogy I applied was that just because the community has historically trusted the clergy to be good people does not mean that the clergy are good people, and that we have no reason to leave our children with them unchaperoned based on their membership to the clergy alone.

You seem to be saying that the government sanctions it? Doesn't the government sanction children being left alone with teachers, doctors, lawyers, foster parents, and a variety of other situations where the child is unchaperoned and thus vulnerable to the ill intention of the people they're with?

But again, I would like some contact details so I can ask people to confirm your vague assertions regarding these calls for help. Evidence or go jump, as the polite version of the skeptical (sp) imperative states.

Why don't you go and ask your own local schools instead of demanding information from me. I myself have nothing to do with any schools, I only know what goes through our church office - that's what I'm attesting to. Our church has done programs in schools in the past, it is not presently involved in them.

So... What is your point here. You seem to be stating that the legal system is no good. I know that it's not perfect, but it doesn't need to be perfect for you to frame a case for your deity if you have compelling evidence, and what's more, I never said it needed to be tested in a court, just that it would need to achieve a standard of evidence beyond reasonable doubt.

Not the legal system as such - the justice system. Specifically courts.

Homosexuality could make your knees fall off, but that still shouldn't allow you any say in what consenting adults do behind closed doors.

That argument is totally incorrect. I was talking to a friend of mine last week, he brought up the subject of drugs. I already knew that he uses some drugs from time-to-time, I didn't know that he uses coke. He told me coke has little-to-no side effects. Well yes, if you use it a handful of times a year then it would be very much like the safety of taking pharmaceutical drugs correctly. That doesn't change the fact that I certainly wouldn't support the legalization of drugs. Does the government have a say in whether or not you're allowed to use drugs behind closed doors? You bet it does.

Smoking is harmful to people's health, but the churches aren't fighting against it on health grounds. Alcohol is harmful to people's health, and no sweeping anti-booze hate campaigns have been waged by the religious.

The SDA church is against both. Presently I'm a non-drinker FYI.

If someone says to a gay person, "Your lifestyle is unhealthy," or "your lifestyle is unnatural," their best response would be to say "So what?" Lots of things are unhealthy and unnatural which the churches are actually in favour of, so trying to turn a biblically mandated discrimination into a health or a naturalness issue is underhanded as well as just plain wrong.

The church doesn't come down hard enough on the weightier health issues like divorce, overweight/obesity, drugs, smoking, alcohol, gambling, irregular sleep, not enough exercise, poor diet, managing finances/budgeting, tv or video game addiction, caffeine addiction, etc. Some of these issues overlap.