The Secular Twins: Australia and New Zealand’s Secular Hertage and Its Future NSW Parliamentary Theatrette, SW Parliament, Macquarie St Sydney. Speakers: Jane Caro, Bill Cooke, Jim Dakin, Helen Irving, Joh Kaye, Lee Rhiannon, Max Wallace.
Gold coin donation.
Conference Dinner: Athenenia Restaurant, Barrack St, Sydney, from 7:30.
Secular Music Spectacular
Welcome the Pope to Sydney.
Jive to the Vatican Rag and Cowboy Jesus. Mic Conway’s National Junk Band, playing specially for WTD!
Friday 11 July, 8 pm
Harp Hotel, 900 Princes Highway, Tempe. Tickets at the door $15.00
Religions are best kept as a private matter of faith, with the state favouring none. When religion is in the heart or in the church, it can be happily ignored by non-believers or defended, if necessary, on the grounds of live and let live. When religion turns into a massive, publicly funded event that is in your face on a daily basis, the advocates of religious tolerance face a tougher task. Article fron SMH June 7th
——– World Youth Day is just an ego trip for The Pope.
The Pope is the only one who will benefit, he will be able to look at the pictures of his trip with smug satisfaction that he could draw a bigger crowd of hand wavers than Hillsong and Benny Hinn together.
The happy crossers will out number the happy clappers and for what? What is religion good for anyway?
What a joyous weekend the Pope will have.
It will be up to the secular fools of Sydney to clean up the mess left by Pope Benny and friends after their massive infocommercial!
Q
Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and the like have exposed a problem which emerged at the end of the 20th Century. There is a problem with religion in the light of the great advances in Science.
Religion has lost its purpose and way; we no longer need religion for protection from disease, pestilence, floods or earthquakes we now know how the world works and it is not daemons causing that genital itch.
Science and secular democratic forms of government have replaced religion in controlling lawlessness and fiscal policy has put a stop to invasions of foreign armies converting them to fee paying tourists.
What is religion left with?
The ability to control the thoughts of people, the ability to make people sacrifice and martyr themselves.
In past times a useful tool for the protection of the community and was institutionalized as a weapon for the protection of the community.
Now Religion is in the hands of individuals who have personal agendas from suicide cults to getting a thousand people to wave there hands in the air and donate large amounts of tax free money to already rich Pastors.
In the case of Osama Bin Laden to get educated adults to strap bombs to them selves and kill as many others as possible. Religion is a weapon that can be used to coerce money from people and can be used to kill.
Governments around the world need to look at what religion has become before they destroy our communities.
Legendary British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.
He came to fame when his story was made into the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, by director Stanley Kubrick in 1968.
Once called “the first dweller in the electronic cottage”, his vision captured the popular imagination.
Sir Arthur, who was born in Minehead, Somerset, and was a radar specialist for the RAF in World War II, become a full-time writer in the 1940s.
After a failed marriage he moved to Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, in 1956, where he lived, with a business partner and his family, and pursued his interest in scuba-diving.
‘Vision’
Sir Arthur’s vivid - and detailed - descriptions of space shuttles, super-computers and rapid communications systems were enjoyed by millions of readers around the world.
His writings are credited by many observers with giving science fiction - a genre often accused of veering towards the fantastical - a human and practical face.
A farmer’s son, he was educated at Huish’s Grammar School in Taunton before joining the civil service.
George Whitesides, the executive director of the National Space Society, on which Clarke served on the board of governors, paid tribute to Sir Arthur.
He told BBC News 24: “That particular enthusiasm of his was what I think made him so popular in many ways.
“He was always thinking about what could come next but also about how life could be improved in the future.
“It’s a vision that I think we could use more of today.”
