Filed under: Books, Journalism, Philosophy, Politics, religion, Science | Tags: atheism, Christian Fundamentalism, Christianity, credibility, Evolution, Freud, Helen Clark, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Ian Wishart, Intelligent Design, Investigate, Investigative, Journalism, Journalist, New Zealand, Nicky Hager, Peter Davis, Political Correctness, Secularism
Polls conducted by the likes of Readers Digest magazine and others frequently find journalists alongside lawyers and used car salesmen as the publics’ least trusted professions. Considering that journalism students study ethics and are usually idealist people concerned with objectivity and impartiality (we are also naive!), from where does the public get this perception? Much of it must be for the gutter journalism that dominates the television in particular. Insensitive interviews, sensationalist stories, the hounding of victims and the pursuit of tragedy give viewers the impression of journalists as cold-hearted egocentric vampires. All it takes are a few bad eggs, and all journalists are unfairly smeared as untrustworthy. There is one I consider to be particularly rotten.
Ian Wishart. Helen Clark was kind when she called him a creep. I can think of another word starting with C that would be more appropriate. Continue reading
Filed under: Books, Philosophy, religion | Tags: atheism, Atheist, Bible, Christian, Christianity, credibility, Dialogue, Divinity, Evidence, Healthy debate, Koran, Monotheism, Polytheism, religion, Respect, Theism
This post is of a reply I wrote to another blogger’s post. Having some objections with the argument put forward, I considered a counter-argument. Hoping that my disagreements would encourage some debate, I sent the comment to her. Unfortunately she did not address my concerns. I am interested in creating healthy debate, so I’m posting both her initial post and my response. As her opinions are commonly held, I would like to know how a theist would address my response. Continue reading
Filed under: Philosophy, Politics, religion | Tags: Alastair Campbell, Britain, Catholicism, Christianity, God, Hypocracy, Inter-faith, Militant Secularism, religion, Speech, Tony Blair, Tony Blair Faith Foundation
Tony Blair is a lot of things. Then he is none of those things. Britain were smitten by the man, but just as quickly bitten by the same man. Then like a messiah he went to save the Middle East, but the Middle East is still a mess. Now he’s God’s little helper. Methinks God should have hired someone else.
In the speech at Westminster (today, Britain time.), former British Prime Minister will declare that religion must be rescued from extremism and irrelevance.
“It is this face that gives militant secularism an easy target. It mocks certain of the practices and traditions of organised religion which they define as ‘faith’. ‘Faith’ is to be found in the cassocks and the gowns and the rituals.”
I love the idea of militant secularism. People going around with guns separating church and state. Dressed in camos, hiding in bushes outside churches, bugging confession boxes, and blowing up cathedrals in the pursuit of keeping god out of politics. If only they actually existed, Mr Blair. Then you might have a point. But the only point would is it’s religion’s fault it has become irrelevant. Continue reading
Undergroundnetwork 