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Post by pim on Apr 24, 2019 5:51:09 GMT 10
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Post by KTJ on Apr 24, 2019 11:03:57 GMT 10
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Post by KTJ on Apr 24, 2019 12:21:25 GMT 10
from The Press…Threatening Folau with the sack seems triply unfairBy JOE BENNETT | 4:00AM — Wednesday, 17 April 2019 Israel Folau means well, writes Joe Bennett. “He believes we sinners are going to hell and not to warn us would be like watching a man
step into the path of a bus and not shouting out.” — Photograph: Photosport.WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE between the vice-president of the United States and Israel Folau, the footballer?
In case you missed it, Folau announced on Twitter that various sinners were going to hell. The sinner everyone has seized on is the homosexual, which is unfair on the drunks, fornicators, atheists and liars whom he also mentioned. They too deserve some fame before the torments start.
On a personal note, in Folau's poker hand of damnation I've got at least two pairs, and, if the definition of fornication swings my way, a full house. I could hardly be more proud. At the same time I could hardly be less upset.
And that's rather the point. Folau's warning about the wrath of god is Stone Age nonsense and few of the sinners he names are going to do anything but giggle. As is common today, the people getting upset are doing so on behalf of those who actually aren't.
Indeed the victim here is not us homosexuals, fornicators and drunks who will continue to have a fine old time to the extent that we are able. The victim is Folau. The poor fellow never stood a chance. He was raised a Mormon.
Now, as I have been pointing out in this column for years, all religions are fairy tales. But Mormonism is just about the fairiest of them all. If you feel in need of amusement look up the story of the angel Moroni delivering golden tablets to Joseph Smith, tablets which no-one else saw but on which the gigantic business empire that is Mormonism is founded. Smith, like all cult leaders, appropriated the name of prophet but actually, like all cult leaders, was a conman. Yet poor Folau from the day of his birth was taught Smith's words as gospel.
As an adult Folau has moved from the Mormon church to an Assemblies of God church, which is to leap from the frying pan of pseudo-Christian nonsense into the fire of very-Christian fundamentalism. Assemblies of God churches believe that the Bible is divinely inspired and that every word of it is true. Yeah, verily, even the bits about Adam and Eve and arks full of animals and Noah living to be a thousand.
So every Sunday for as long as he's lived Folau has been told fairy tales by adults in apparent authority. But when he repeats one of those fairy tales he finds himself threatened with the sack. It does not seem fair.
Indeed it seems doubly unfair, because Folau means well. He believes we sinners are going to hell and not to warn us would be like watching a man step into the path of a bus and not shouting out.
And it seems triply unfair because what Folau tweeted is bedrock Christianity, the moral orthodoxy of western culture for a couple of thousand years. It is only in the last half-century, as secular tolerance grew in the west, that some Christian denominations have stopped speaking of hell for fear of losing customers.
In sum then, Folau has been honest, open, well-intentioned and in the mainstream of western culture. Joe Bennett says United States vice-president Mike Pence is not as honest as Israel Folau on the question of his opinion of homsexuality.
— Photograph: Associated Press.The vice-president of the United States, meanwhile, is also an eager Christian, although that somehow does not stop him prostrating himself at the feet of Trump and declaring that he causes the sun to rise and the birds to sing.
Mr Pence was recently asked whether homosexuality was a sin.
Pence replied, “My wife and I are Bible-believing Christians.”
In other words yes, absolutely, but I dare not say so.
The difference between Pence and Folau is honesty.__________________________________________________________________________ • Julian “Joe” Bennett is a writer, columnist and retired English school teacher living in Lyttelton, New Zealand. Born in England, Bennett emigrated to New Zealand when he was twenty-nine. www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/112066045/threatening-folau-with-the-sack-seems-triply-unfair
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Post by KTJ on Apr 24, 2019 12:35:29 GMT 10
Okay, let's correct that slightly and it explains a lot of things…
There, I reckon that correction is about right. Well at least up until the time the idiot reverted back to mormonism.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2019 22:33:42 GMT 10
Folau doesn't get professional sports has a code of tolerance to others.....he has been warned before he made the choice.....religion before tolerance so he has to go or he will continue with espousing his negativity.
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Post by pim on Jun 29, 2019 0:52:26 GMT 10
Imagine the different sort of shitstorm if Izzy Folau had tweeted Matthew 19:24. That’s the one that says “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” so therefore “hell awaits all capitalists, usurers, financial advisors, stockbrokers, real estate agents, armaments dealers, media barons and Liberal Party politicians.” Would the shitstorm be about “religious freedom” or “keep yer fucking religion to yerself, STFU and just play rugby”.
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Post by Occam's Spork on Jun 29, 2019 22:38:03 GMT 10
I admire him standing up for his beliefs, in the face of reprisals.
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Post by KTJ on Jun 29, 2019 23:10:06 GMT 10
I admire him for being stupid enough to admit to the world that he thinks the god delusion inside his head is a REAL god.
Mind you, that means he has opened himself up to being quite rightly ridiculed as a simpleton idiot who prefers the dark-ages to the 21st century.
Just like a particular Canadian who posts at this group.
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Post by pim on Jun 30, 2019 13:03:29 GMT 10
I admire him for being stupid enough to admit to the world that he thinks the god delusion inside his head is a REAL god. Mind you, that means he has opened himself up to being quite rightly ridiculed as a simpleton idiot who prefers the dark-ages to the 21st century. Just like a particular Canadian who posts at this group. Being delusional in your lights just means you think he’s delusional. That’s fine and (even though I say this through gritted teeth) you even have the right to bore the rest of us shitless with your own delusions. Mind you it also works both ways and the rest of us also have the right to take the piss out of your delusions. To be fair to you I do concede that unlike Trickles you don’t respond by throwing a wobbly and doing a dummy spit. You could cut the xenophobic slur about Occam. Unlike you he doesn’t spam or troll. The issue isn’t about whether or not Folau is “delusional”. It’s to do with a contract - and a multi-million dollar contract at that - that he signed with the ARU or Australian Rugby Union. By the way it wasn’t just people who are into the same sex stuff that he was targeting. By “idolators” he was also targeting Catholics. Shall I decode his tweet to identify all the objects of his hate speech? The fact is that in Australian sport there has been an ongoing movement to make it more inclusive. This encompasses both rugby codes of rugby league and rugby union, as well as AFL or the Australian Football League which is aka Australian Rules. And let’s not forget soccer. A lot of progress has been made in the winter codes in terms of addressing racism, homophobia and misogyny. You might remember the Adam Goodes case when a spectator was removed for screaming racist abuse at an AFL match where he was playing for the Sydney Swans. There was a shitstorm about that and Goodes came in for even more racist abuse on talkback radio and tv, as well as in the Murdoch hate media. It effectively ended his sporting career but it did highlight the issue of the lack of inclusivity in Australian sport. What’s happening now is a seismic shift as the understanding starts to seep through about the scale and scope of what “lack of inclusivity” means. Basically sport in Australia has been a club for boofy blokey misogynist homophobic racist white boys. Women’s sport barely got a look in as far as media reporting went, and the number of cases of prominent young rugby players finding themselves facing charges of sexual assault of young female fans was becoming a very bad look for the NRL which is the national rugby league, the ARU and the AFL. Once this culture began to be seriously looked at these peak sporting codes also found themselves coming under uncomfortable scrutiny for their racism and also their homophobia. You mustn’t forget Occam that it isn’t that long ago that the issue of homophobia got a very public airing here as the country voted overwhelmingly in favour of same sex marriage. Since then it’s become an Australian given that homophobia is not “OK” as a public standard. The battle goes on and it’s not over yet. Christian churches are big employers in Australia through the hospitals and schools that they operate and they are currently fighting a desperate rearguard action to remain exempt in their employment practices (and enrolment practices) from the provisions of human rights laws enacted by the Australian Parliament regarding the education/health professionals that they employ and even the students that they can choose to exclude. Watch this space. The jury is still out. The churches still insist on “No poofters!” If the courts rule in their favour they’ll effectively turn the Human Rights Act, enacted nearly 30 years ago in the Australian Parliament in more enlightened times, into a dead letter. And that’s effectively what’s at stake here. Folau is just a poster boy in a much bigger culture war with much bigger players than Folau. This one will go all the way to the High Court of Australia. All of the above is the context within which Folau put out his tweet. He is a superb rugby player and I love watching him play. I’ll miss him playing for Australia and our guys will be a weaker team for his absence. But I think that because of a long past history of quite disgraceful racism, misogyny and homophobia on the part of the major sporting codes down here and the bad optics that produced - particularly with the modern media - there are quite a few changes taking place at the policy level among sports administrators. So you’re now getting sporting contracts that include stipulations that public behaviour of the sporting athlete, both on the field and off, will not bring the code into disrepute. So much for the legalities. Those things can be changed by drawing up contracts. But changing entrenched cultures of racism, misogyny and homophobia takes quite a deal longer. The code which is still mired in old entrenched blokey bigotry is the summer code of cricket. We’ve got a long way to go. For Folau, his tweets are hate speech that condemn people not for what they do but who they are. If he were to tweet hateful stuff about Australia’s First People the shit would hit the fan, and rightly so. To tweet hatred about people of another religion or whose sexuality is different is, to his surprise, getting him into hot water. Not just morally but also in the law as it relates to contract. If he and his supporters in the churches and the Murdoch media think that by denying Folau the “right” to advocate discrimination on the basis of who/what people are that this somehow turns him into a “victim” then he’s got a fight on his hands. He’ll get his day in court, and I hope that the courts throw his case out and award costs against him. |
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Post by pim on Jul 1, 2019 17:21:36 GMT 10
Thus speaks NTBs very own exponent of Victimology and self-pity. What should the response be? Well, since this is the Religion Board ...  |
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Post by KTJ on Jul 1, 2019 18:30:51 GMT 10
Faaaaar faaaaarking out ... “Trippy Maaaaaaan!!” |
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Post by Occam's Spork on Jul 2, 2019 0:44:07 GMT 10
I admire him for being stupid enough to admit to the world that he thinks the god delusion inside his head is a REAL god. Mind you, that means he has opened himself up to being quite rightly ridiculed as a simpleton idiot who prefers the dark-ages to the 21st century. Just like a particular Canadian who posts at this group. Awww...Are you thinking of me? God bless your delusional little heart.  I'm always amused by how you wrap your head around things, fit them into your version of reality, and then label everyone who disagrees 'delusional.' ...As if you were some mental health professional.  |
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