The Llama on the Hill

The fundamental problem with religion is that it stifles inquisitiveness and learning, instead thrusting the worshipper into a world of blind acceptance.  I once had a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses come to my door and engage in trivial small talk which was no doubt a lead in to their usual sales pitch. One of them, a reasonably elderly lady for whom my concerns lay on how she made it up the hill of my street in the first place, started commenting on my, at the time, reasonably healthy looking garden. "That plant right there," she pointed to a lush looking Kangaroo Paw, "Have you ever wondered how it got there?" "Yes," I replied. "I planted it." Where she was going suggests that the answer lay at the feet of Jehovah, not me and my aching back from a day of gardening earlier in the month. She was also going to overlook chemistry, physics, evolution, the cycle of life and how one thing interacts with another in a scientific sense. For her, not onl...

"You pray for me, I'll think for you," I believe is attributed to Richard Dawkins. If it wasn't him, that's okay, the sentiment is there and is no doubt something he would say anyway. Fancy that, more than one reference book... It's clear Scott Morrison likes to touch people, and as inadvertently dodgy as that sounds, let me try to explain why it actually is dodgy. The 2016 Australian Census revealed that around 52% of Australians identify as being religious. Not being religious (the other 48%) doesn't equate to being anti-religious, so let me state that as an acknowledgement from the get go. But when people on the street are asked about religion, it's usually described as a personal thing, a private matter. Of the 52% who say they are religious, there is going to be a large part of that group who don't attend church and for whom private prayer or calling for divine assistance when confronted by trauma or a tricky situation is in fact their last re...

A lot of my posts are about how much I dislike conservative politics and often those espousing the virtues of that ideology, however for this post, I might just have a dig at some of my fellow lefties, you know, just to prove that I can be offensive to everyone equally. Back in the 1400s, people in Europe were working on the belief that the Sun and the "heavens" revolved around the Earth. This was just how it was and you weren't supposed to argue with it. This was largely because the Church called the shots and that was the end of that! Yes, I'm not a historian. However, good ol' Copernicus came up with the theory that the Earth actually was the one revolving around the Sun. Now there's a lot more to the whole story, but suffice it to say, a lot of folks weren't impressed by this and generally kicked up a stink. Troublemaker! How does any of this relate to anything else in 2021?  As I have mentioned in previous blogs, and this IS my personal belief, there ...

When describing long-term governments, the phrase "Out of Touch" usually crops up from time to time. Musical Interlude Indeed, the Morrison Government, and Mr. Morrison himself, regularly add to that perception of being out of touch. Whether it be rorty allocation of grant money or services, the treatment of the vulnerable via Robodebt, the demonising of an individual family seeking to return to their home in Biloela, inaction on Climate Change because of an inherent opposition to the situation thanks specifically to putting politics above all else, or as simple as respecting women in the work place, not sexually assaulting them or even acknowledging that your current attitudes are appalling, there's really no end to just how out of touch the Liberal/National Government remains. Just yesterday when referring to reduction of Carbon Emissions, the Prime Minister said that  " we will not achieve net zero in the cafes, dinner parties and wine bars of our inner cities. ...

It's been a long fucking 15 months and the bullshit we have to listen to isn't going away. The one thing that has got many people through this COVID time is the calm and reassuring words from experts. Here in Victoria, we had the very switched on Brett Sutton and Allen Cheng fronting the almost daily Press Conferences held by Premier Dan Andrews. The Premier would give us the stats and then discuss the current situation before turning the questions and "details" over to either Professor Sutton or Cheng to be the expert in the room. It was reassuring and they didn't talk down to us as can be the trap many politicians fall in to. In spite of the odd bit of criticism, Premier Andrews was steering the ship, but he wasn't performing all the roles of the crew. So then we look at the Federal Government and the balls up of the vaccine rollout.  Now sure, keeping in mind that Australia is spatially isolated from the rest of the world and so our numbers of infected resi...