Nothing supernatural about the western suburbs of Melbourne

[Norfolk And Chance]

How come you get to complain that the place you were banned from treated you unfairly but you wont entertain the possibility that your buddies at AFA treated me unfairly?

I'm going to butt in here and tell you why - the reason your ban was fair was because you are deluded.

It cannot ever be fair that someone who lives firmly in the grasp of reality get's banned off a fairyland forum for living in reality.

You are comparing incomparable viewpoints and situations.

[Aractus]

I don't begrudge you your efforts on your own dollar, but you have no right to take money from my pocket to push your agendas.

Ah, yes we do. We have the same right as every other Australian to petition the government for grants.

I have examined Christian motives from within and from outside the faith and I cannot see anything other than self interest in the motives behind adhering to or promoting the doctrine.

What you and I see then are two different things my friend.

This is a false dichotomy. A nation does not have to be communist for the government to take care of its basic community needs.

Don't make a straw man. I didn't say "basic community needs" I said "community services". And yes we also provide a lot of real basic community needs that the government fails to, Anglicans do it so successfully that many clients are directed to our aid organizations from the government. Hmm, tells you something doesn't it?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Welcome WLB (sorry I forgot to copy and paste your full handle).

Interestingly your current interest (ie FBO involvement in public policy/regeneration/welfare) is a topic I am looking at for my research on the other side of the world (UK).

[worldslaziestbusker]

Sorry you werent able to help get my AFA membership reinstated. :-(
But at least we are BOTH free to discuss/debate stuff here at this fine venue.

It's not a matter of not able. I don't know if I was able or not. I was unwilling to try because you lost your membership for breaking rules you agreed to when you joined.
You enjoy freedom of movement in our society. If you break the rules of our society, that freedom can be curtailed by society placing you in prison. You had your freedom, you failed to value it enough to abide by the rules, that freedom was taken from you. I see this as exactly parallel to your treatment at the AFA forum. You had freedom of speech, you didn't value it enough to abide by the rules, you lost that freedom. It's not unfair, it's just how a community has to operate if you're not going to allow people to ride roughshod over each other. You tried to ride roughshod and you weren't allowed to do so. Tough biscuit if you don't like that.

Hang on, I'm a member at Reasonable Faith and I"m agreeing with YOU that your ban WAS unfair and unjust. How come you get to complain that the place you were banned from treated you unfairly but you wont entertain the possibility that your buddies at AFA treated me unfairly?

There's the difference. My ban was unfair and unjust. Your ban was fair and just. I abided by the rules I agreed to when I signed up. You did not.

But at least we are BOTH free to discuss/debate stuff here at this fine venue.

Your stated reasons for this being a fine venue don't add up to much and repetition doesn't make something true. I'm reserving judgement on the merit of this space until I've seen more of what goes on. You might contemplate Groucho Marx's thinking on the issue: "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member."

Why on earth are you whining about being unfairly banned. Sounds like you're glad they did you a favor.

I don't want to go back because I was banned for no reason. Why on Earth would anyone want to belong to a forum that banned them for no reason?
Oh, wait, that's exactly what you claim happened at AFA forum, so you should be able to answer that question for me.

At least we are BOTH free to discuss/debate stuff here at this fine venue.

Your tautological redundancies are unnecessary. Twice.

The Greeks kept running into the Persians. What is your point?

Ego much? The Greeks/Persians?
The point I am making is that if our judgment of good/bad forums wasnt similar we wouldnt both be here at this great place.

I didn't assign Greek or Persian labels to you or I. I simply pointed out that being vocal on opposite sides of a divide over religious privileges, it's hardly surprising that we encounter each other repeatedly.
That's the third time you've tried to bootstrap merit on this forum by repetition in just this one post.

You forgot to put a question mark after ''how about we...."
So I suppose that was a rhetorical question right?

No, it was an error. Rhetorical questions still warrant a question mark.

You were already demolished, you just didn't realise it.

Boy, I hear that a lot. You're wrong and wont admit it. You're wrong and dont realize it. You secretly know we're right. Youre just pretending to think that, you're lying, that's not an answer....blah blah blah...

Three hypotheses (more available if needed) for the observed facts:
1) Atheists are all stupid and all fail to recognise the brilliance of your arguments.

2) Atheists recognise the brilliance of your arguments but are engaged in a worldwide conspiracy to deny their brilliance.

3) You are no good at arguing.

I don't doubt your sincerity regarding your opinion of your ability to argue and anyone who thinks you know you are wrong has failed to take the Dunning-Kruger effect into account.

I don't think this is true.

Yeah, well you would say that wouldnt you.

That's just gainsaying, which is not argument. It's not even something you see from most adults.

Isnt it great that we can both discuss/debate stuff here at this fine venue?

Four times? Really?

I really dont have any sense of shame, pride, vanity, ego, boastfulness, etc, etc, etc. Why arent I embarrassed by that?

Clearly it's not humility at work, or it would negate itself because you'd be so proud about how humble you are. Transparent ploy is transparent.

And fear of humiliation isnt something I lose any sleep over. PHEW! thats a relief.

Again, the Dunning-Kruger effect could be at play, creating humiliation absorbing crumple zones around your ego. A person has to have humility to acknowledge they're wrong about something and they have to realise they are in the wrong to be humiliated, so no danger there for you.

Yet, strangely enough the more atheist counter-apologists I talk to on the net, and theres been a few since 1996, and the more times I hear the same things from them, the happier I get.

\

Then your recursive joy is set to go exponential, because you aren't any more correct or better at argument than you were when I first encountered you, and I suspect your future holds many more people making cogent cases that you that you are wrong.

And I'm kinda happy with just being happy.

I hope you are as happy here at atheistforums.org as I am.

Are you sure you're not a Buddhist? You seem to be chanting.

---

I don't begrudge you your efforts on your own dollar, but you have no right to take money from my pocket to push your agendas.

Ah, yes we do. We have the same right as every other Australian to petition the government for grants.

No, taxpayers have that right. Churches don't pay tax, so that right should not extend to them.
What's more, it's not just the grants your church shouldn't be eligible to apply for that is at stake. Your church does not pay tax on its businesses, doesn't pay stamp duty on its vehicles and got its (very profitable) land free. The shortfall that religious turnover should be contributing to the tax pool has to be made up out of the pockets of all tax paying Australians. I don't mind paying my taxes iff the entire community benefits, but when I am expected to pay for your church's share of the roads, the power stations, the sewers (Max Wallace, writing in "The Purple Economy" estimated that the PAYE tax on the average Australian worker would drop by 2% if religions were taxed at the same rate as every other business entity) etc. I get annoyed.

What you and I see then are two different things my friend.

Don't make a straw man. I didn't say "basic community needs" I said "community services". And yes we also provide a lot of real basic community needs that the government fails to,

Don't use the genetic fallacy again. The government made the same mistake in trusting you to provide services that parents make in leaving their children in the care of clergy unchaperoned. Just because they're religious doesn't mean they're good. I hope to see change in the way these issues are handled in my lifetime. Just because that's the way things happen now doesn't mean that it's good, let alone the best possible scenario. You would need to apply a large logical fallacy to try to make that argument. Oh, wait, you already tried. And you did use a large logical fallacy.

Neither of the above points you made justifies your involvement in state funded schools, using my taxes for your agendas or interfering in legislation. All of these things happen, though, so I am justifiably upset. The only thing that would show that you are right to do these things is evidence beyond reasonable doubt that your deity exists and is the only deity. I set the bar at beyond reasonable doubt because if you expect to use your doctrine to influence legislation, you should use the same standard of evidence as the courts that will see that that legislation is acted on. Until such time as you have that evidence, kindly get your ghost out of my government and off of my lawn. Get your hand out of my pocket while you are at it.

Anglicans do it so successfully that many clients are directed to our aid organizations from the government. Hmm, tells you something doesn't it?

Yes, it tells me that past governments got a lot of stuff wrong and that the current government is too inept to do much about it.

[DoktorZ]

Good comments, WLB. It seems to me that sanctimonious churches that ask us to thank them for reaching deep into our tax coffers quickly forget that those funds are collected by the state, which has a monopoly over the legal use of violence. This means that they are still using knights to squeeze the peasants.

One thing the Aussies do have in their favor, as opposed to the Brits, is that they have a constitutional mandate for separation of church and state. Unfortunately, it appears to have been diluted in the 1980s by court rulings in favor of faith-based initiatives. Churches then lined up to the trough to feed at the taxpayer's expense, just as they did in the USA. Britain's situation, with a state church, sovereign monarch, and peerage through which the C of E exercises non-democratic power, is a right mess when it comes to secularism. Untangling that web would be a truly daunting task.

What has really been burning the Christian nationalists in Britain, though, are the Islamic schools that use the same legal framework the C of E does to teach "Islamic science" to British pupils--and get Christians' tax money to do so. Apparently, there's more than one standard where other believers are concerned.

[Ben Davis]

Hi from the UK!

[Aractus]

No, taxpayers have that right. Churches don't pay tax, so that right should not extend to them.

I pay taxes, I have the right to petition the government for a grant.

What's more, it's not just the grants your church shouldn't be eligible to apply for that is at stake. Your church does not pay tax on its businesses, doesn't pay stamp duty on its vehicles and got its (very profitable) land free. The shortfall that religious turnover should be contributing to the tax pool has to be made up out of the pockets of all tax paying Australians.

We don't get land free. The land you're talking about is usually zoned for specific use and then sold cheaply. It isn't worth anything at all unless it can be rezoned.

Don't use the genetic fallacy again. The government made the same mistake in trusting you to provide services that parents make in leaving their children in the care of clergy unchaperoned.

What is that arrangement of gibberish supposed to mean?

Neither of the above points you made justifies your involvement in state funded schools, using my taxes for your agendas or interfering in legislation. All of these things happen, though, so I am justifiably upset.

Schools ask us to run programs. More often then not it is they who ask the churches, not the churches who ask the schools.

The only thing that would show that you are right to do these things is evidence beyond reasonable doubt that your deity exists and is the only deity. I set the bar at beyond reasonable doubt because if you expect to use your doctrine to influence legislation, you should use the same standard of evidence as the courts that will see that that legislation is acted on.

Right, because we actually have a working justice system in Australia??? Hahahaha, don't make me laugh. We don't get to make legislation BTW, and personally I don't like the ACL all too much at all. I don't much like Jim Wallace, and I've met him a few times. You might remember that Wallace said that the homosexual lifestyle is more hazardous to your health than smoking recently. While there is certainly some truth to the statement, it doesn't change the fact that homosexuality itself isn't a major health issue in society like he imagined. Personally, I think he's an idiot for saying that.

Yes, it tells me that past governments got a lot of stuff wrong and that the current government is too inept to do much about it.

Yeah get off my lawn too while you're at it!

[worldslaziestbusker]

I pay taxes, I have the right to petition the government for a grant.

Your church deserves no such right. Your church enjoys that privilege, currently, but that doesn't mean the church deserves it, and it is certainly a mistake to conflate privileges with rights.
The tax pool is collected from the community, so it should be used to the benefit of the community, not arbitrary fractions whose distinction is simply a common worship of an unsubstantiated deity.

We don't get land free. The land you're talking about is usually zoned for specific use and then sold cheaply. It isn't worth anything at all unless it can be rezoned.

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.

Don't use the genetic fallacy again. The government made the same mistake in trusting you to provide services that parents make in leaving their children in the care of clergy unchaperoned.

What is that arrangement of gibberish supposed to mean?

Getting insulting just because you don't comprehend something is poor form. Please don't do it again.
The genetic fallacy arises when someone points to a historical fact and attempts to use it as a causal explanation. To state that the government has historically trusted your church with X is not the same as making a case that the government should trust your church with X.
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.

Schools ask us to run programs. More often then not it is they who ask the churches, not the churches who ask the schools.

Schools are underfunded and might well turn to you for assistance they cannot otherwise pay for, but that doesn't mean that your church is good or that you are obliged to help.
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 imperative states.

Perhaps I'll get in touch with some contacts in waste water management and get them to ask for your help. See how far your alleged lack of self interest extends with regard to good works in the community.

Right, because we actually have a working justice system in Australia??? Hahahaha, don't make me laugh.

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.

We don't get to make legislation BTW,

Bullshit. The religious influence in our federal and state governments is powerful to the point we are effectively a soft theocracy. Politicians who are not actively engaged in pushing their faith based agendas are at least alert to the need to play to the religious voters. Religion wields a strong sway over what gets through our parliaments and the evidence for this is the inequalities evident in our legislation.

and personally I don't like the ACL all too much at all.

But we're not discussing what you personally like or dislike, we're discussing your church, and they are very big on preaching to children in schools and against equality in our community.

I don't much like Jim Wallace, and I've met him a few times. You might remember that Wallace said that the homosexual lifestyle is more hazardous to your health than smoking recently.

I'm well aware of who Jim Wallace is and what he promotes. That you dislike him is neither here nor there in the matter of whether or not your church should have access to my taxes, my children or hold sway in the development of legislation.

While there is certainly some truth to the statement,

Homosexuality could make your knees fall off, but that still shouldn't allow you any say in what consenting adults do behind closed doors. 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. Can't think that anyone's been denied their rights or beaten to death because they drink, but such religiously motivated campaigns have been waged against gay people.
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.

it doesn't change the fact that homosexuality itself isn't a major health issue in society like he imagined. Personally, I think he's an idiot for saying that.

Still lots of non sequuntur coming from you. None of this justifies your church's privileges.

Yes, it tells me that past governments got a lot of stuff wrong and that the current government is too inept to do much about it.

Yeah get off my lawn too while you're at it!

I'm not on your lawn. I am not calling for your religion to be banned to tell you that you are not free to worship as you see fit. I am calling for a level playing field. That a level playing field would require that you lose privileges that go back many centuries and that that loss might make you uncomfortable is of no interest to me. Those privileges cannot be justified and so should not be afforded you. Again, don't conflate privileges with rights, no matter how long the tradition that's attached to them.

[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.

[worldslaziestbusker]

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.

It's not as though your religion is a meth lab. We won't have to get crime scene cleaners in to get the divinity out of the floor boards when you're gone.

Get over it is never a useful rationalisation for unwarranted privilege or discrimination. I'm sure someone would have tried it on at Nuremburg if

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?

You never have to be insulting. Ethics fail.
I am doing my best to make coherent arguments. If you could point out the parts you don't understand more constructively, I'll do my best to articulate in a manner you might find easier to comprehend.

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?

We've had this discussion elsewhere. Are you a preach-only device? One way communication is not discussion, so please don't make myself repeat arguments needlessly. Here's where I've already answered your question.

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.

Because I'm not the one making the positive claim, you are. You have the burden of evidence. You want me to take your claim seriously, you stump up the evidence. Otherwise, your unsupported claim gets the respect it warrants, which is none.

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.

What a load of dominionist bullshit. You have no right to tell other people what they can and can't do with their body. You are a member of a religion, not a government health regulator, and even then, I can't find ethical space for them to tell people what they can and can't do to themselves.
People can drink themselves to death and I can't tell them not to. I can encourage them not to, I can try to help improve their situation so that they might not want to, but if they are determined to follow that path, there is no justification I can use to prevent them from doing so. You are again conflating privileges and rights. Where historically your church has been privileged to interfere in the business of others, it is not a right and you cannot justify that interference. I know you try, because it is in the church's interest to hold that level of influence in the lives of community members, but that does not make it right.

If you want to ban homosexuality because of it's health ramifications, you should really be targeting anal sex. But you don't. You ignore the heterosexual couples who have anal sex and only concentrate on the gay couples. Can you offer any explanation other than biblical mandate for this discriminatory behaviour?

If you want to play the naturalness card, you fail again. Natural is not automatically good. Natural for humans is a modal age of death of around thirty-five and forty percent infant mortality. If you want to ban homosexuality, ban vaccinations and flushing toilets while you're at it, so everyone can be nice and natural.