When she said they’ll be praying for Kev I thought she was refering to the Labor party
Sorry Sheldon, I actually thought that she was part of the Labor Party ;)
A reminder that she actually said :
Julia looked at the camera and said “we wish Kevin Rudd well and WE ARE ALL PRAYING for his speedy recovery”.
So maybe she should have said “I and the other atheist Labor MP’s wish him well - whilst the Christians in our party are all praying for his speedy recovery”. Yes, that would have been better, wouldn’t it ? Unless one believes that expressions of good wishes work just as well as asking God for His help - and such words ( and prayers ) have no effect at all. An interesting topic - maybe we’ll pursue it some other time.
Anyway, despite her faith in atheism, I have a feeling that deep down inside her, Julia is definitely praying for no more leaks ;)
She should have said “I and the other atheist Labor MP’s wish him well - whilst the Christians in our party are all praying for his speedy recovery”.
You point out a good inconsistency amongst many Australians. Quite a few out there - Gillard included - I would consider to be actually ‘nominal Christians’; they don’t believe in God enough to engage in corporate worship or other church activities, but pray every once in a while. While I totally disagree about how well Labor has handled the economy (I have emphasised that we are the only Western country to have avoided recession, and done so with the second lowest %GDP government debt), I will agree with your point here. In fact, I’m surprised you haven’t sunk the boot into Labor about the Downer-Rudd ‘revelations’ (though I consider it to be another Utegate i.e. lie from Downer).
How ironic that my second preference vote will actually go to the Greens ( who I consider whackos ). You see I live in Werriwa - and, incredibly, we have only 3 candidates ! So my first vote will be for the Liberals - and then, in order to give my last preference to the Labor candidate, I will therefore HAVE to give Greens my number 2. Who would ever have thought that I would be placed in such an invidious position ? Now this really is ironic !!!
Not necessarily. The Greens have no chance of winning your Lower House seat - they are only an outside chance in three inner city electorates [fixed this bit]. Therefore you could put Labor 2 and Greens 3, if you feel comfortable about Labor being slightly closer to your political alignment than the Greens.
It’s also the same situation in my Lower House seat, with only three candidates from the major parties.
I said before that I’d be going donkey or reverse donkey in the Senate, so let’s analyse the situation (full electoral lists for NSW are available at http://www.aec.gov.au/election/downloads.htm#gvt).
Donkey = 1st column = vote no.1 Socialists. No way ho-sey.
Reverse donkey = last column = vote no.1 Liberal Democrats. This may be good enough for me. If Labor win the election (though AC Nielsen puts Abbott’s Coalition 52-48 ahead on 2PP for now, I hope it’s only because of the leaks and that there will be no more, and that it’s just another lie), then Liberal Democrats will be a reasonable control in the Senate.
They are centre-right, economically conservative, some parts of which are socially liberal, and would like the Government to have less of a role in managing our affairs. They have two or three policies which are not consistent with Christianity - mainly in the social liberalism section - but a) they are not big exceptions, b) the reason is not moral equivalence but rather they don’t want the Government to have strict controls over those areas and c) all parties have their fair share of dodgy policies.
They seem to be pro-nuclear power - which Dave will like.
They even have a quiz to determine your political alignment: http://ldp.org.au/quiz/index.html, and I seem closest to them i.e. slight bottom right quadrant than anyone else (though I don’t know whether it’s rigged that way). Give it a go!
Not necessarily. The Greens have no chance of winning your Lower House seat - they are only an outside chance in three inner city electorates. Therefore you could put Labor 2 and Greens 3, if you feel comfortable about Labor being slightly closer to your political alignment than the Greens.
You’re right Arthur. After due consideration of what they really stand for, as a Christian I will definitely be placing the Greens last.
Why is this incompatible with Christianity? What have I missed? Doesn’t that just refer to where you sit on the political scale?
@ Kevin
You’re right Arthur. After due consideration of what they really stand for, as a Christian I will definitely be placing the Greens last.
That’s just funny Kev. As if there was ever any question of you voting Green in the first place.
@ All
What do you make of this? I find it disturbing, but am at a loss who to vote for this election. I don’t want to lose scripture teaching in schools… but is that even up for grabs at a Federal level when education is a state policy?
My first point as you watch this Christian attack add on the Greens is try and count how many times they push STATE issues as a “Green concern” at this FEDERAL election. Isn’t that a bit dishonest for a “Christian” add? http://onevote.com.au/about/
1. Abortion:
Isn’t Abortion is a State, not Federal, issue? With “Christian” preferences going to the Liberal party, isn’t a vote for any party in Australia a vote for the status quo?
I really scratch my head on abortion. I hate it, and it grieves our God deeply. But what are we to DO about it? Do you really want to outlaw abortion and see it go underground? Do we want the mother dying to backyard butchers as well as the child? Do we get to force our Christian values on others anyway? As CSLewis said: The most political thing you can do is convert your neighbour. As Jim Wallis shows, attempts to change abortion law have failed, but changing welfare practice can largely decrease abortions. So if we’re going for a positive abortion outcome the logical choice is to vote for a good welfare state!
I don’t see abortion being discussed as an election issue! There is no “Refuse abortion” box to tick. That’s a pretend protest from unthinking people. When Christian preference deals often go to the Liberal party, it’s also terribly hypocritical!
2. If the Greens get the balance of power in the Senate, they won’t be RUNNING THE COUNTRY! They’ll just be doing deals. This add makes out the Greens would be running the place!
3. Would it really stop you being a Christian if they stopped saying the Lord’s prayer in Parliament? Theologically speaking, wasn’t the whole point of the Lord’s prayer NOT to repeat mindless mantras in public? What do we think the majority of those in Parliament are actually doing?
4. Show me a Federal Christian party that actually accepts climate change science and has an energetically costed and quick to implement policy and I’ll eat my hat. Show me one that accepts the imminence of peak oil and I’ll eat my underpants as well!
5. Kev007 said climate change was the “Greatest moral challenge of our time”. There goes my 2007 vote! (In the lower house anyway!) Pfffft, nadda, zip, nothing.
6. So if you have a party that has a few REALLY important policies for the least harm to the most people, and yet it has a few policies that stick in your throat, what do you do?
7. If there was a Christian pro-nuke and fast-rail* group, with a whole lot of New Urbanism and local agriculture thrown in, they’d get my vote for sure. But I think right now they’re so busy living in the past glories of saluting the Queen, maybe even far back as fighting for “King and country”, that I’m going to ralph next time I hear one of their ‘vote for a Christian nation’ adds. Blaaaaragh! Don’t they read Romans?
*Fast-rail for between cities, but trolley-buses are for inside the city. They are the fastest way to rig up an electric transport system on existing roads. They are 5 times cheaper than trams, and heaps faster to build as well!
97% of our freight is by truck. When the oil crisis hits, we could be in real strife if we haven’t invested more in rail. I already think we’ve committed to some quite heavy rationing for city suburban drivers as the oil will have to be rationed to the essential farming and freight sectors, not to mention energy construction sectors! It’s going to be tight, but I think we can do it… if today’s governments stop messing around in climate talk-fests or green-armies planting trees (which I think is a great idea, but isn’t going to make us food secure as the oil runs low!)
We’ve GOT to get started on this soon. The Greens are the only party that KNOW peak oil is pretty much here and the decline is about to set in. The Greens are the only party that KNOW how quickly suburbs can be retrofitted with some New Urbanism density and trolley-buses. So when it comes to pretend protests about abortion, or mindlessly reciting the Lord’s prayer in parliament, I’m not impressed. I want to see REAL action that helps secure our food production. I want to see REAL action that helps prevent nasty oil wars. I want to see our nation free of this stupid, deadly oil addiction: as it is ALSO a matter of life or death. If we get this wrong, we could be in a world of hurt.
I don’t want Australia going down the same track as the UK, where political-correctness has gone so crazy it is overtly anti-Christian and ironically heading pro-Muslim.
If the Greens really want environmental action, why didn’t they at least vote for the ETS??? (They didn’t, did they?) All they come up with is ‘ooh, that’s not good enough for us’, and the only things they actually seem to do is introduce private members bills of the kind that are unhelpful for Christians or Christian values. Sorry I can’t provide concrete examples - that’s my impression built up over time, from specific instances, which I promptly forgot. I understand the point that it’s useless forcing CVs on non-believers, but I also think CVs are inherently good for society, if society is mostly accepting of them.
The Lord’s Prayer? Acknowleges God, and that’s important. I don’t think we’re quite far enough descended into apostasy as a nation that it would have become hypocrisy to God.
Does anyone do anything about abortion? I don’t see any warrant in associating anti- abortion with any political party. Not in reality. Is it really a poverty issue? It seems to me more like a sexual morality issue. And I hate the way vulnerable women get demonised over it. And they’re lied to, effectively, as if abortion somehow ‘undoes’ a pregnancy that shouldn’t have happened.
All those sweeping society-changing ideas (fast trains, urban renewal etc), Dave, it seems they’d need a ‘big government’? Is that right? (I’m not necessarily against ‘big government’, I’m just wondering how you might see it happening)
Bloomberg New Energy Finance found that direct subsidies for renewable energy from governments worldwide totaled $43-46 billion in 2009, an amount vastly outstripped by the $557 billion in fossil fuel subsidies during 2008.
The young and foolish are misled, and that is how Labor get into Govt every time.
(Until many of the young, like myself, wake up and change their vote next time they vote. But alas, up come a new batch of green, wet behind the ears suckers again.)
You’re helping me to decide to vote Green. What difference is there between Labor and Liberal anyway? What’s the point? None of them care about peak oil. None of them care about the Holocene extinction where 50% of the biodiversity is expected to be extinct by 2050. We’re on track for that. The Koorong at the end of the Murray-Darling has lost 9 species of bird in the last generation. Extinctions are sneaky little local affairs. Quietly, one by one, without much protest, they’re slipping into the night… and habitat loss and even habitat degradation are the main causes.
And oil dependent suburban sprawl and ever increasing farmlands to feed our ever increasing population is the main cause of habitat loss.
But it will come back to bite us. Anyone that has read up on ecosystem services knows that. Our economy DEPENDS on functional ecosystems that give us water, clean our wastes, protect our farmlands from encroaching deserts, and maintains genetic biodiversity with genetic answers for questions we don’t even know how to ask yet. We’ll lose all that and more as species, by species, by species is snuffed out. One species too far and you have an ecosystem crash, like Yellowstone when they killed off the Yellowstone Grey Wolf. The land started washing away!
The Greens are the only ones standing for this. The “L’s” are for business as usual.
It does seem to be a Labor trait to spend. But it is also a Liberal trait to so damage basic elements of civil society that we need the relief provided Labor policy. I prefer a shift from one party to another so that both the economy and civil society stand a chance to survive. Too long with either system is a problem. The damage that the libs did after a decade in power was pretty extensive.
That is a very interesting pendulum you’re on there mate. If peak oil and global warming and ecocide were not crashing down on us right now, I think I’d join you on that ride. However, as my rants above indicate, I think we’re running out of time on far more important fronts. The oil price rising is NOT like Coke becoming more expensive so we’ll switch to Pepsi. In this case, it’s as if Coke is the MEANS of producing Pepsi.
I’ve just spent some time debating a real peak oil doomer that insists there is no time to adapt because oil will decline so fast so soon that we’ll lose the means to build out the alternatives. I argued that we’re so inefficient with oil, and have a society so ‘fat’ on energy overuse, that there’s plenty of room to cut and ration oil use to get the important stuff built.
II can never see the reason one might vote for a minor party? They will never run the country, and they ultimately give their preferences to a major party. In the case of the Greens, how many of their preferences go to Liberals? So it is in fact a Labor vote in the end.
Why allow a minor party to dictate to the country and hold the parliament to ransom, on the basis of a few sideline issues?
If that’s how an intelligent voter such as yourself views our oil dependence, then heaven help us! When you can’t fill up because the oil has to be rationed for farmers and emergency train and trolley bus construction, I think you’ll see the folly in today’s election priorities.
We’re only a few short years off oil production actually starting to decline, and we’re having another Tampa election?
I guess the most exciting thing about this otherwise largely irrelevant and boring election has been the discussion on population. We could double or triple or quadruple the refugees we take in if we stopped stealing so many developing nation’s doctors and plumbers and carpenters!
That’s just funny Kev. As if there was ever any question of you voting Green in the first place.
You’re right there ;) But you need to have read my post at #49 to understand why I was concerned about where to give my second preference - in a situation where we have only three candidates ( Labor, Greens & Liberal ) in my local electorate.
BTW I am pleased to read about your recent conversion to nuclear energy being the way of the future ( actually it’s in use in many countries around the world already ). This source of God given energy provision is what I have believed in for decades - and I have a recollection of being ‘shot down’ over the years on Anglican Media forums by certain Greens supporters. Isn’t life ironic at times ?
@ Ros :
We heard an amazing comment on the weekend radio news, when an Islamic iman talked about their Friday mosque discussions where they had decided that Muslims could not possibly vote for an atheist. It was an amazing quote - and not sure how widespread an opinion that is amongst the Muslim population. ( I haven’t seen anything in the print media about it yet - and can’t recall which mosque it was. ) But it sure would be a worry in a few Labor electorates around Sydney.
Yeah, it was greenie Professor Barry Brook that helped me see through the greenwashing of renewables. Ultimately I hope there is a revolutionary (read ‘magic!’) breakthrough in renewables, but right now they can’t do the job without enormous subsidies. Even pro-renewables guys pretty much admit this. Beyond Zero Emissions have a renewable energy plan for Australia. It costs $320 billion. For *half* our energy! (“Energy efficiency” is supposed to reduce the need for the other half). But as far as I can tell, we are going to need MORE electricity over the next few years to cope with peak oil and provide the extra juice for electric cars.
That’s really exciting news about how advanced new reactors can now ‘eat’ nuclear waste and produce energy. Thanks for that link - I will certainly research it with enthusiasm. However, I continue to be amazed at how little money is being provided for research in these vital areas by governments and other key players around the globe.
To me: Why is this incompatible with Christianity?
1. Abortion:
Isn’t Abortion is a State, not Federal, issue? With “Christian” preferences going to the Liberal party, isn’t a vote for any party in Australia a vote for the status quo? ...
2. If the Greens get the balance of power in the Senate, they won’t be RUNNING THE COUNTRY! They’ll just be doing deals. This add makes out the Greens would be running the place! ...
3. Would it really stop you being a Christian if they stopped saying the Lord’s prayer in Parliament? Theologically speaking, wasn’t the whole point of the Lord’s prayer NOT to repeat mindless mantras in public? What do we think the majority of those in Parliament are actually doing?
4. Show me a Federal Christian party that actually accepts climate change science and has an energetically costed and quick to implement policy and I’ll eat my hat. Show me one that accepts the imminence of peak oil and I’ll eat my underpants as well!
5. Kev007 said climate change was the “Greatest moral challenge of our time”. There goes my 2007 vote! (In the lower house anyway!) Pfffft, nadda, zip, nothing.
6. So if you have a party that has a few REALLY important policies for the least harm to the most people, and yet it has a few policies that stick in your throat, what do you do?
7. If there was a Christian pro-nuke and fast-rail* group, with a whole lot of New Urbanism and local agriculture thrown in, they’d get my vote for sure. But I think right now they’re so busy living in the past glories of saluting the Queen, maybe even far back as fighting for “King and country”, that I’m going to ralph next time I hear one of their ‘vote for a Christian nation’ adds. Blaaaaragh! Don’t they read Romans?
Your other posts largely repeat what you already said in this quote, so I’ll just address this quote.
Question to me: Not incompatible per se, don’t know how you got that suggestion. Some parts of social liberalism are very desirable to me whether for Christianity, democracy or both. Especially the social liberalism stances against the net filter and for the R18+ classification on computer games.
1. It’s a State issue - another reason why I’m not too uncomfortable with the Liberal Democrats’ anti-nanny-state view on this (as opposed to moral equivalence). Coincidentally it is one additional answer to give to Ros.
2. Correct, but the Greens have a really good shot at winning 1-2 Lower House seats. If they get just one Lower House seat they can introduce bills on behalf of their party as opposed to just private members’ bills.
3. No, but politicians are currently exercising their democratic freedom of religion by reciting the Lord’s Prayer. No-one is forced to. That’s why the Greens generally aren’t doing it. However banning it is very anti-democratic, the other extreme.
4. Correct. I’d like to see a Christian party that is centrist or even slightly left - not between right and far-right (Family First) or far-right (CDP).
5. He was constrained by the Liberals who were always going to block an ETS.
6. I saw you ask that question on Sydneyanglicans. My answer is assign different weights of importance on certain issues depending on various factors. Then vote for the party which appears to have the least inconsistent policies.
7. There aren’t any parties let alone Christian parties that are pro-nuke and pro-fast rail. The Liberal Democrats would appear to be the only pro-nuke party today, but they haven’t said a thing about fast rail.
Liberal Democrats look like libertarians. What you vote for if the libs/nats are too right-wing for you, but without the Christian values.
Fixed.
I wouldn’t necessarily say they are anti-Christian as a whole. Their ‘socially liberal’ views on abortion, euthanasia and homosexuality are not based on a direct attack on Christianity as per what the Greens, Socialists etc are doing. It is merely based on a desire to see that Governments do not dabble in these matters, allowing for choice in a democracy where all opinions are respected (including by implication the church’s).
11.04am - From the religious Right. Catch the Fire Ministries president Daniel Nalliah has just issued a statement giving five reasons why Australians should not vote for Julia Gillard: “1. A vote for Labor will be a vote for the Greens; 2. Ms Gillard is living in a de facto relationship; 3.Ms Gillard’s public declaration that she is an Atheist and does not believe in God; 4. Ms Gillard does not have children. 5. Ms Gillard’s refusing to take the Oath on the Bible.”
@Arthur. Not a mistake. I meant left-wing. ‘If the libs/nats are too left wing for you’ is an irony. I took the quiz. Economically, lib. dems. are positioned on the right of the libs. Socially, they are ‘lower’ than the mainstream parties (ie: more libertarian). And their list of policies seemed consistent with that to me. (I came out closest to FF on the quiz - how embarrassing!)
Okay, they’re not explicitly anti-Christian in their social policies, I get your point, it’s not as bad as the ones with an agenda.
This is one reason I’m pro-nuke. The other is that no nation has ever successfully run itself on wind and solar. Ever. And there are huge questions about the reliability of such a system! And so pro-renewables people are actually asking for more reliance on gas.
Look at it this way. After 20 years of wind Denmark is still at 650 grams Co2 / kWh. After 10 years of the French deployment of nukes they are at 90grams of Co2 / kWh. (Largely from the Co2 used in constructing nukes and mining uranium, and once these industries are oil free then they’ll be zero Co2 technologies).
Afterthought from previous post…Oddly enough, though, Labor preferences the Lib Dems right after the Greens. I wonder….could it be not just what your policies are on paper, but how the party or candidate is actually likely to act…whether they’ll be actively obstructionist, or open for trading?
Taking a different tack,
Does anyone have any ideas how one should pray for this election?
My idea so far has been:
“I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:1-4
Pray for our nation and the upcoming Federal election
• Give thanks for our national freedom, our religious freedom and our democracy.
• Pray for the conduct of the campaign.
• For fair and informative communication of issues
• For voters to have wisdom in weighing issues and deciding for whom to vote.
• Pray for Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott and the other high-profile candidates.
• For Christian politicians and the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship, in this pressure time
Doesn’t look like it’s been going too well on any of these.
I’m planning to put something in my church’s prayer sheet, so there can’t be bias in policitcal opinion.
But if you’re after a podcast because you’re too busy for all that reading, then this page has a bunch of Barry’s radio work. The debates between him and Ian Lowe are very good.
Basically, the IFR may be the best billion dollars the USA ever spent on science research that then never got adopted! We have 300 reactor years experience in general breeders, but the IFR is a bold new design that could RADICALLY cut costs, be deployed faster than any other nuclear technology, eat nuclear weapons, can’t make nuclear bombs and be deployed in 3rd world and developing nations at a convenient 300MWe rather than the bigger 1.6 GWe models we tend to build.
And as the poster says: 500 years of the WORLD’s energy supply is just sitting there in nuclear waste repositories. If one put all the world’s nuclear waste into standard oil drums they would only cover 1 football field! That’s a LOT of energy in a very small space. (The industrialised world for 500 years in one football field! Amazing! Miraculous!) One coal fired power plant probably produces that much toxic ash in a few days or weeks!
[null]Abuse victim 'tried to kill warden'The West Australian[{}]“L” said he had been brought up in a Christian family, but after being sent to the Anglican hostel, he “saw the hypocrisy of the church” and had no faith since then. Now aged 52, he also told the inquiry he had been an advanced “A student” in his early ...
[null]Jean Pakter Dies at 101; Women's Health AdvocateNew York Times[{}]Abortion was still illegal during Dr. Pakter's early years in public health, and she had the task of compiling reports about the commerce in abortion. These reports provided some of the few reliable estimates in the country about the number of women ...
[null]Is the Church Becoming Less Catholic?New York Times[{}]That said, there is more to the Catholic Church's position on abortion than Maureen Dowd cares to acknowledge. The church views abortion as the murder of innocents and thus as an absolute evil, so “absolute intolerance” is not an inappropriate response ...
[null]Does It Mean Anything that a Record Low Are 'Pro-Choice'?New York Times (blog)[{}]Asked to pick one of the two labels applied to the abortion debate, a full 50 percent said they were pro-life, whereas only 41 percent said they were pro-choice, down from the previous low of 42 percent recorded in May of 2009. Republicans are the most ...
RSS Feed