Rev. Dr Andrew Cameron, Chairman, Social Sciences Executive, Anglican Archdiocese of Sydney, in Deborah Smith ‘The Cell Division’, Melbourne Age, 30 Sept. 2005, re stem cell research:

I don’t agree with the rhetoric that we have to be up with the rest of the world.

[Quite right, Andy, much safer to stay a century or so behind it.]

Helen Woodall, Blackburn Vic., letter in Melbourne Age, 30 Sept. 2005:

It is a waste of time Australian scientists blaming the Government because they backed the wrong horse and have been working on embryonic stem cells which have not healed anybody of anything.

[Yes, how dare scientists go around working on something that doesn't produce instant results? A complete waste of money, as computer scientists and NASA will tell you. You want to get healed, go to a Pentecostal faith healer.]

Pastor Danny Nalliah, Catch the Fire Ministries, Rise Up Australia 5th Anniversary Report, www.catchthefire.com.au, downloaded 26 Sept., 2005:

Rev. Fred Nile shared from his many experiences in Parliamentary circles bringing many into agreement with shaking heads …

[Sounds like the normal response to most things Fred says.]

Australian Christian Lobby, ‘Luke and Matt become Australia’s youngest legally married same-sex couple’, www.acl.org.au, 24 Sept. 2005:

… As [Luke and Matt] note, the ‘marriage’ has no standing in Australia. Luke and Matt’s next project may well be to redefine ‘quinces’ as ’strawberries’ and ’synchronised swimming’ as ‘golf’.

[Stick to the fatuous moralising, fellas, and leave the attempted comedy to us, OK?]

Bill Muehlenberg, Australian Family Association, review of Tammy Bruce The Death of Right and Wrong, www.acl.org.au, 29 Sept. 2005:

Her book contains a chilling look at the way radical secularist and leftist values have driven out other values and have left a trail of destruction in their wake. She looks at how a small group of people who are intent on imposing their destructive agenda on the rest of society are succeeding at a rapid pace … [Bruce] documents how feminists, radical black activists, homosexual advocates and other Leftist organisations are intent on destroying personal responsibility, morality and decency in the name of self-gratification and nihilism.

[Bill, you're starting to weird me out! People go blind writing this sort of stuff.]

Geoff Pickering, Gympie Qld., letter in New Life, 22 Sept. 2005:

There was only one piece of good news about [Hurricane] Katrina. It cancelled four days of debauchery that [were] planned by sodomites, paedophiles etc. and supported by the Mayor of New Orleans.

[And Lord, if next time y'all would kindly devise some way of stoppin' the debauchery without destroyin' the town and drownin' masses of innocent folks, why, we'd all be much obliged.]

Bill Muehlenberg, Australian Family Association, News Weekly, 24 Sept. 2005, 19:

Secularist regimes with secularist visions of heaven on earth have only led to hell on earth. Indeed, more people were killed by the secularists in the 20th century than all other ideologies combined before them.

[Is this a Year 10 Clear Thinking exercise? Start by defining 'the secularists' and go from there.]

Fred Nile, Christian Democratic Party, editorial in Family World News, Sept. 2005, 2:

It needs to be understood that in the current terrorist scare all Muslims are NOT terrorists but all modern terrorists are Muslims.

[Fred, when did 'modernity' start? Yesterday? What about Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber and the IRA? And should we be more worried about God-fearing Muslims or Bill Muehlenberg's 'secularists'?]

Mary Anne Layden, recent speaker at the Fatherhood Foundation’s Sexual Integrity Forum in Canberra, News Weekly, 24 Sept. 2005, 13:

Take job and educational problems. One study said that 45 per cent of those students who are capable of making it through college flunk out because of inappropriate Internet use.

[Really? I have a study indicating that 98 per cent of people attending Religious Right seminars are credulous nongs. Tell you what, Mary Anne, you show me your source and I'll show you mine.]

Warwick Marsh, Fatherhood Foundation, email no. 160, 19 Sept. 2005:

A father in the family is a lot like the pilot of the plane who is responsible for the safety of the passengers who are with him on the journey. He must have made those decisions about where he is going to travel to in consultation with his passengers.

[Just one question, Warwick. Is this man's wife one of the passengers, or is she the co-pilot? 'Co-pilot'? Yes, it's spelt 'c-o-p-' ...]

Michael L. Brown, ICN Ministries, ‘Itching Ears’, Salt Shakers Journal, Sept. 2005, 4:

Someone is going to have to tell Australia that she is sick and dying. Someone is going to have to tell her that the party is over. Someone is going to have to prepare her … for radical surgery … It’s time for the fire to fall – and wherever it falls it will scorch. Do our people smell the smoke in the air, or like Nero, will they fiddle their lives away while Australia (today’s Rome?) burns to the ground? The collapse of our society looms near.

[But Mike, apart from that, everything's OK?]

Jan Markell, OliveTree Ministries, ‘Harry Potter: Politically Correct Paganism’, Salt Shakers Journal, Sept. 2005, 12:

Harry Potter is a wizard. Excuse me, but how many times does the Bible warn us of wizards, witches, witchcraft, sorcery, spells, incantations and more? Aren’t Christians to have no fellowship with darkness? … [In the latest book, Harry] and his pals actually engage in between 75 and 100 practices forbidden in the Bible.

[Jan, have you ever worn a pair of slacks made of a wool/synthetic mix? If so, according to Deut. 22: 5 &11, you've engaged in two practices forbidden in the Bible. And yes, Jan, we are counting.]

Gary Bates, Head of Ministry Development, Answers in Genesis, letter to supporters, Sept. 2005, 1:

Even today, many have not realised that morals are the very next area of attack after Genesis belief has been discounted and compromised. It is sobering to observe that Romans Chapter 1 shows that homosexuality is only three short steps away as people tumble down this particular slippery slope of false teaching.First comes a rejection of Genesis despite what is clearly seen through the creation (vv. 18-20). Second comes the substitution of images of birds, animals and reptiles (evolution) (vv. 21-25). Third comes unbridled lust and unnatural relationships (homosexuality) (vv. 26-32).

[I believe I just heard the first cuckoo of spring.]

Peter Stokes, Salt Shakers, email, 12 Sept. 2005:

This week at the UN the World Summit will convene … to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals …. The goals were to reduce poverty, increase development and further basic ‘human rights’ such as education, security and health. All worthy of support, BUT NOT if ‘reduction of poverty’ will mean ‘reduction of people’ through contraception/sterilisation/abortion …

[Peter, there's a special name for Protestants who oppose contraception and IVF, think abortion is murder and idolise the Pope. They're called 'Catholics'.]

Mary Anne Layden, American clinical psychologist and recent speaker at the Fatherhood Foundation’s Sexual Integrity Forum in Canberra, News Weekly, 10 Sept. 2005, 12:

Now, I think the Founding Fathers of the United States didn’t mean Internet pornography when they defended freedom of speech. They were really talking about political speech.

[Quick, Dubya, short-list her for Chief Justice Rehnquist's spot. She has all the right ideas. An abysmal ignorance of constitutional law, it's true, but isn't that an advantage?]

‘Honour thy Father’, anonymous article in Good Report magazine, Sept.-Oct. 2005, 12:

Feminism is a form of terrorism much closer to home than Islamic terrorism. It’s a war against God’s design for marriage and family … And [feminism] continues to be propagated in the public education system. Any child that is being brought up under this system will be infected. Girls are being empowered and boys are being weakened.

[Heaven forbid that girls should become empowered! How can they aspire to wifely submission if they're not kept in a state of blissful ignorance about everything except cookery and needlework?]

Jim Wallace, Australian Christian Lobby, ACL National Newsletter, Sept. 2005, 1:

…[T]he great majority of homosexuals are satisfied with their gains of recent years and don’t share the ideological mania of the activists seeking to destroy the country’s Christian values.

[Evidence for this mania please, Jim? Don't have any? Didn't think so.]

Colin Bunnett, Focus on the Family Australia, ABC 7.30 Report, 31 Aug. 2005, pushing the crypto-creationist ‘Intelligent Design’ argument:

We’re not just mindless blobs of protoplasm floating around, but we’ve got meaning, we’ve got purpose.

[I don't know, Col, I seem to come across a few more mindless blobs every week.]

‘Biography of Dr Tas Walker’, Answers in Genesis (AiG) staffer, article in Good Report, Sept.-Oct. 2005, 3:

Tas Walker has a Bachelor of Engineering with First Class Honours and a doctorate in mechanical engineering … Recently, Dr Walker returned to university study, and completed a Bachelor of Science majoring in Earth Science, followed by First Class Honours in 1998.

[Tas, would you mind posting a couple of your Earth Science assignments on the AiG site? We're interested to see how you worked in your Young Earth Creationist (YEC) beliefs. Er, Tas, you did base all your assignments on a YEC paradigm, didn't you?]

Filed in: Their Own Mouths