Scott Morrison's Divine intervention

"I have always believed in miracles..."

Anyone who focuses on Australian politics will certainly be familiar with that line uttered by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on election night 2019. He had claimed, what was for many, an unlikely victory and stood proudly on the stage thanking...who was it again? Who is responsible for miracles? Ah yes, God. He stood there proclaiming his win to be a miracle. 

And just a reminder - an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs the healing miracles described in the Gospels. 

Now I'm going to segue briefly before returning to this miracle.

Back in the mid-2000s, I worked for a business here in sunny Melbourne, which was run by two Directors, Both of them were nice enough guys and one day they informed the staff, half a dozen or so, that they were having someone come in to try and get us all fired up. You know the thing, a bit of team building to get the most out of us. I'd heard about this sort of thing, but here I was about to experience it. 

The lady arrived and sat us all down in the board room and got us to relax. A casual chat about how we saw ourselves was had, not just with respect to the business, but as a wider part of society and the world. This was weird, but I went along with it. Anyway, things then turned towards helping us to get rid of negative energy. At this point I was expecting her to break out the e-meter, but thankfully it was more about meditation. So we closed our eyes and had to imagine ourselves in a place we most wanted to be, quietly picturing the surroundings, detailing the scene in our minds. She asked us where we were and each of us had chosen a place from our past that was precious, a beach, a holiday, a cherished venue. We stayed in this place for a short time, allowing the positive memories to return. Then we were told that in front of us was a large wall made from clear jelly/jello bricks (I confess, I was largely yanked out of the zone right there and then). We each approached our wall and were encouraged to walk through it. Passing through the jelly would be sticky, but the only thing that would stick to the wall would be negative thoughts. It's safe the say that the negative thought I was having at about this time was going to require more than a jelly wall. As each of us passed through the wall, we were to let go of negativity and open our eyes, happy and encouraged by the path that lay ahead.

This was bullshit and I seemed to be the only person in the room who felt that way. I made a snide remark about wanting some custard with the jelly, but opened my eyes to see a group of smiling folks who had apparently successfully dislodged the shackles of their negative thoughts and were ready and open to moving forward. I sat quietly, teetering on the edge of "what the hell was that?" and "I should get back to my desk". It was a strange moment, but was about to take a turn as the lady running the session removed some Tarot Cards from her bag.

She described what was going to happen next, but directed her comment towards one of the Directors, acknowledging that he knew how to read Tarot Cards and if he wanted to run this session, he could. He looked slightly embarrassed, but not the sort of embarrassment one might have from being locked outside in their underwear, but one of false modesty, the "oh stop" with a wave of the hand. And that was it for me. My boss believed in making professional business decisions based on the use of Tarot Cards. He was putting his faith and the future of the company, as well as my job and the jobs of my fellow employees, in the hands of fortune-telling and divination. Divine intervention was the true Director of the company. 

How do you feel about this situation? How would you describe the boss I was referring to?  

"I have always believed in miracles..."

This is not a blog about bashing people's faith. I am an atheist, but do what you want and believe what you want, just keep those not involved out of it. As Christopher Hitchens said about people and their religion...

" [religion] is their favourite toy and it will remain so, as Freud said with The Future of an Illusion, for as long as we're afraid of death—which I think is likely to be quite a long time. Second—I hope I've made it clear that I'm perfectly happy for people to have these toys, and to play with them at home, and hug them to themselves and so on, and share them with other people who come around and play with their toys. So that's absolutely fine. They are not to make me play with these toys. Ok? I will not. Play. With. The toys. Don't bring the toys to my house. Don't say my children must play with these toys. Don't say my toys—might be a condom, here we go again—are not allowed by their toys. I'm not going to have any of that. "

Keep your toys to yourself is one thing, however more importantly, and quite separately from those toys, is having someone in charge of your business, or indeed your country, who puts their faith in divine intervention. This is exactly the same thing as relying on Tarot Cards to inform your business choices. 

Now sure, some people would say that Scott Morrison does a reasonable effort to keep his faith private and separate from his governing, but then I look at his background in marketing and how integral that seems to be not just in his own public persona, but also in the daily operations of his government. In fact, I would suggest that there has never been a government in this country that has been more focused and reliant on marketing and spin than the Morrison Government.

   Remember when prayer was quiet and reflective?

The marketing that takes place on behalf of this Prime Minister includes the staged photo opportunities of the daggy dad and the sport-loving larrikin, but it also includes the religious pentecostal. Morrison's religion is not private, it's not a secret and it's well-documented and photographed. It is on the record that he sought an invite from the White House to have his own pastor attend a state dinner a few years back. He even called on Australia to "have more love and more prayer to embody the amazing love of God." 

This is not a casual relationship that our PM has with religion, and while that's fine, again, I repeat, if this is your thing, go for it, but let's not fool ourselves into thinkng that he isn't making decisions independent of this relationship.

When the leader of your country thinks he is special in a religious sense, remember, his 2019 Election win was a MIRACLE, then we have to question EVERYTHING about him. His lies, his marketing, his dismissal of opposing views, his turning his back on opponents in parliament, his treatement of non-christian people of colour seeking asylum, his callous disregard for those who suffered under his Robodebt program, his smug smirk when he tells you that he doesn't "accept the premise of your question", his protection of awful and corrupt Ministers, his ignorant and dangerous approach (or lack of approach) towards climate change...I could go on, but these are all done with the belief that he reached his position through divine intervention.

I don't believe in God, but if I did, I'd like to think that he wasn't granting miracles to a horrendous cretin like Scott Morrison.

llama
@SirWonderLlama