Almost all churches are now calling for stronger action on the climate emergency. The standout exception is Hillsong, the PM’s ACC [Australian Christian Churches] and other Pentecostal groups. The theology that underpins their apathy, especially concerning the end times, is no longer simply heretical, it is dangerous.
James Boyce
December 8, 2019
Glorified underachieving, proclaiming falsehoods as truths, and the derision of actual knowledge are banes on our society. The world is made objectively worse by every anti-science element present within it.
Ethan Siegel
December 1, 2019
In Tasmania, the Liberal government intends to legislate sentences of up to 21 years – more than many get for murder – for environmental protest, legislation typical of the new climate of authoritarianism that has flourished under Morrison. As Australia burns, what we are witnessing nationally is no more or less than the criminalisation of democracy in defence of the coal and gas industries.
Richard Flanagan
November 27, 2019
“Accepting the science” no longer means believing in climate change, it means accepting that catastrophic events are on their way unless we act pretty much immediately. We can ignore this if we like, go on deluding ourselves that politics can be discussed the way it used to be. But if we do, there will be consequences, and nobody will be able to protect us from them.
Sean Kelly
November 27, 2019
In Tasmania, the Liberal government intends to legislate sentences of up to 21 years – more than many get for murder – for environmental protest, legislation typical of the new climate of authoritarianism that has flourished under Morrison. As Australia burns, what we are witnessing nationally is no more or less than the criminalisation of democracy in defence of the coal and gas industries.
Richard Flanagan
November 25, 2019
Many political commentators tend to view Morrison as some political genius, the winner of the unwinnable election. But history may judge him differently: a Brezhnevian figure; the last of the dinosaurs, presiding over an era of stagnation at the head of a dying political class imprisoned within and believing its own vast raft of lies as the world lived a fundamentally different reality of economic decay, environmental pillage and social breakdown.
Richard Flanagan
November 24, 2019
Have you noticed if you rob a bank you go to jail, if a bank robs you they get a bonus.
Paul Bongiorno
November 21, 2019
Scott Morrison had time to meet 21 religious leaders in August about the Religious Freedom bill, but no time to meet 23 former leaders of fire services raising concerns about the coming fire season. It says much about his priorities.
Anonymous
November 20, 2019
Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity … The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversations with him one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
November 6, 2019
Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
