Religion – Is This Thing On?

Once again, a somewhat baffling not-quite-spam message arrives in my inbox, intended for one of the other Matts.

I can’t help thinking that the author of this message could have phrased that last line a little better…

To: [A Different Matt]

Greetings All

Thank you Matt and Jennifer for your insights. I appreciate the distinction ..having a critical spirit or critical thinking. Many times when I take a hard line I question it after the fact.I I expect when we take a hard line it will be to the improvement of the overall Joac Ministry. If I am going to hold David’s feet to the fire…I expect my feet to be held to the fire. I look forward to us building relationship with each person on the Uganda Board, each child in the family home. I believe we have a unique Us Board that is helping the Lord build his kingdom in Uganda. Thanks Jenn for the photo of the kids with the black shoes. That makes what we do worthwhile. Touching each child.

Blessings
John

“…you’re a parliamentarian, in Australia, who believes that the world you live in is less than 10,000 years old…?”

An absolute pleasure, last night, while flicking through the small selection of terrestrial channels we have to choose from here in Australia, past the uninspiring Oscars coverage and dull US drama imports, to stumble across Richard Dawkins on Q and A, the ABC’s local version of Question Time.

If you watch this clip from the start of the show, you may be struck as I was by the gulf between Dawkins and the rest of the guests–juxtaposed with someone who can speak so articulately, the politicians on the panel seem spectacularly incapable of stringing a coherent argument together to explain their daft beliefs.

Steve Fielding, sitting to Dawkins’ left, came across particularly poorly by contrast, I thought.

People voted for this man?

Now I know that voting is compulsory here in Australia so it’s not like anyone went the extra mile out of their way to elect him, but do you really mean to tell me that there were choices and people chose him over the other candidates? Who was he up against?

[I see from his website that he’s also a Climate Change Denier, which is nice–I still don’t quite get how anyone in Australia can deny climate change. It’s a little bit like the turkeys voting for Christmas, because if there’s anywhere that’s going to bear the brunt of the increasingly extreme wacky weather we have to look forward to as a result of screwing up the planet, it’s surely Australia…]