Then He is not omnipotent.
If He is able, but not willing
Then He is malevolent.
If He is both able and willing
Then whence cometh evil?
If He is neither able nor willing
Then why call Him God?"
- Epicurus
I haven't slept in, oh, 23 hours. Am reading a bunch of stuff on the Atheist Foundation of Australia website. Very enlightening and very good - albeit being a passionate one myself, I'd always kinda imagined fellow Australians to be rather laid back when it came to the question of atheism/religion. Amusing and interesting that most of the dissenters who had sought out the page to have a whine were American Christians... on an Australian atheist site? They really do rear their heads everywhere. Very interesting articles on the site too, and letters to various government officials/sectors about legal issues that God had no place sticking his big boofhead into: abortion, voluntary euthanasia, gay marriage etc. I could not agree more with their belief that Church and State should be kept separate. These laws should be enacted so that those who aren't held by religious restrictions can participate in them should they see fit. Religiously-minded people do not have to participate if they believe it is wrong. It is not as though, were gay marriage legalised (most likely in the ACT, where just about everything else is fair go - all them foreign diplomat-types must have their fun., of course!), Catholics would be forced to marriage people their sex! What do they think? "Here, see, little Johnny. The gov'men' ha'said that gay marriage es legal, like, so you can't be playin' wit' lil' Polly no mores. You gotsa marreh Billy 'cross da street now. Y'all go along an' have you some anal!" If it doesn't suit them, fine. But it suits others. If a Catholic or a Muslim parent doesn't want their teenage, unmarried daughter to have an abortion when/if she falls pregnant, that is fine. They can do what their tradition says they should do. What was that again? Ohh, that's right. "Lead her to her father's door and there she shall be stoned to death by the village." Or some such. I can't see either how a moral, empathetic person could stand to let terminally ill patients in constant pain without hope of recovery suffer. It should be the person's choice when they want to end their life. Heck, it should be everyone's choice to die when they like, some just aren't that lucky. But in extreme cases like the final stages of a malicious cancer, the patient should be able to direct their carers to just "pull the plug" so they can die with dignity, without having to suffer prolonged and unnecessary agony.
As I was saying, though, before I digressed: I was stoked to find an Aussie atheist organisation online. I was rather proud that as compared to, say, US sites of the same subject matter, there was relatively little hate being espoused by Christians, Muslims, whoever disagreed strongly enough with atheist theories to spew filth where it was not warranted or invited. They don't like it when non-believers go on their sites and say negative shit about what they believe in - as the Light and the Way shouldn't they be setting a bit more of an example to us poor infidels and heretics and blasphemers and spawn of Satan? Show a little respect and get some back, eh. Live as you like but don't push your shit on people who don't want to listen and are happy with their lives as is.
I can hardly believe that this blog has almost exclusively become about atheism vs. Christianity. Not that it's a fair battle. Atheists are so diverse and believe (or, don't believe) in so many things that poor old narrow old-fashioned Christianity surely cannot withstand the barrage for too much longer.
Anyway, this is the link to the Atheist Foundation of Australia website, if anyone is keen for a geeze.
"One can take a nominal figure and say that humans have conceived of at least 10,000 gods. Christians say that 9,999 of these are false -- atheists reject the whole 10,000." (Keith S Cornish, Atheism, the Alternate Viewpoint.)
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