Peter Sellick, Deacon Associate at St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Subiaco, WA, ‘The same tired old arguments from the unbelievers’, Online Opinion, 31 Jul. 2007:

Inheritors of the scientific revolution, if they are to have access to the rich imagery of biblical narrative, must learn to hold these two things in their mind at once, that the [gospel] stories often could not have happened as they are told and that these same stories hold the key to our humanity.

[Back to meaningless obfuscation again. Peter, I think I'd better introduce to you to Steve Cornell. At least he's intelligible.]

Jubilee Resources International, Jubilee News, Aug. 2007, 2:

Try JESUS! If you don’t like Him, the devil will always take you back.

[Ascribing the virtue of forgiveness to Satan, eh? Careful, something like that could land you in hell.]

John Klose, Kempsey NSW, letter in Festival of Light Australia Light magazine, Aug. 2007, 4:

There is no justification for giving legal recognition to homosexual relationships. Sodomy has always been regarded as a betrayal of the natural creative male-female design … Homosexual relationships can never produce legitimate children - only marriages can do that.

[Now this is what I call a blast from the past. Apart from anything else, when was the last time you read the term 'legitimate children'?]

Michael Glatze, former gay rights advocate, as quoted in ‘Gay rights leader quits homosexuality’, ibid., 7:

Homosexuality came easy to me, because I was already weak … Homosexuality, delivered to young minds, is by its very nature pornographic.

[Michael explains that his new attitudes stem from 'a growing relationship with God', a fairly primitive Old Testament Yahweh by the sound of it.]

Peter Stokes, Salt Shakers, email to supporters, 9 Aug. 2007:

Homosexuality is a morally deviant, addictive, compulsive lifestyle - it is unnatural and harmful to those individuals who surrender to it and it will undermine those communities that normalise it …

[There have been a rash of these ferocious mini-diatribes against homosexuality in the Christian Right literature lately. Did someone put something in the water?]

Tim Cannon, ‘Canberra drags its feet over internet porn’, News Weekly, 4 Aug. 2007:

… ISP-level filtering seeks to make the internet safe for all children … Minor inconveniences incurred by the rest of the population pale into insignificance when compared to this duty we owe to children.

[On that basis we should ban or severely restrict literature, motion pictures, radio and television. Not to mention AFL football.]

David Perrin, National President, Australian Family Association, ‘No more abortions, please’, News Weekly, 4 Aug. 2007, 8:

Most Australians think there are too many abortions at present, according to recent opinion surveys. Recent proposals to remove abortion from the Victorian Crimes Act are going to encourage more mothers [sic] to have abortions, so these moves are flying in the face of public opinion.

[Leaving aside the gaping logical lacunae in your argument, David, can we expect to see you promoting better contraceptive and sex education in future? No, I didn't think so.]

Peter Stokes, Salt Shakers, email to supporters, 7 Aug. 2007, regarding the recent Intelligent Design tour of Australia by American Professor Tom Woodward:

Darwin himself said: ‘If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down’. New information through powerful microscopes shows us that there are now many such examples.

[Name one.]

Matthew Mulvaney, CultureWatch comment dated 26 Jul. 2007, regarding the Christian attitude to slavery:

Slaves had a unique opportunity to follow Jesus’s example of suffering (see 1 Peter 2: 18-21).

[Yes, let us see what the Word of God has to say:
18. Servants [i.e. slaves], be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to the kind and gentle but also to the overbearing.

19. For one is approved if, mindful of God, he endures pain while suffering unjustly.

20. For what credit is it, if when you do wrong and are beaten for it you take it patiently? But if when you do right and suffer for it you take it patiently, you have God’s approval.

21. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

In other words, slaves, smile through your tears and just stay focused on that pie in the sky.]

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch comment dated 25 Jul. 2007:

…[A]lthough homosexuals are relatively few in number, they more than make up for this as they continually push their agenda. They have cleverly and strategically got themselves placed in all the institutions of power and influence. They are well ensconced in the media, in academia, in groups like the [American Psychiatric Association] etc.

[As a thought-experiment, try replacing the word 'homosexuals' with the word 'Jews'. Remind you of anyone?]

Jonathan Sarfati, Creation Ministries International, CultureWatch comment dated 26 Jul. 2007, regarding public funding of the ABC:

It’s a matter of principle. People should not have to pay for the dissemination of views to which they are strongly opposed.

[Really? Great, that means I can stop paying taxes that fund religious schools and chaplains because they disseminate views to which I'm strongly opposed. Thanks, Jon, you're a champion.]

Ewan McDonald, Christian Democratic Party, CultureWatch comment dated 29 Jun. 2007:

… [T]o answer your other question - do ’some of you want sex outside marriage to be criminalised’? I would answer yes in some cases. We had such laws in the past and I think our society would be a healthier one if we still had them.

[Attaboy, Ewan. Adulterous wives wearing a scarlet letter 'A' around their necks; stocks, whipping-posts and the pillory set up outside all town halls. Yes, that'll teach those fornicators to be good Christians in a healthy society.]

Elaine Nile, Christian Democratic Party, Family World News, Aug. 2007, 5:

God does not play around with sentencing like the magistrates in the NSW courts of today.

[Shucks, and I was really hoping for a good behaviour bond.]

Fred Nile, Christian Democratic Party, ‘Brothels Legislation Amendment Bill 2007′, Family World News ‘Focus on Parliament’, Aug. 2007, 1:

I do not normally study brothel advertisements in newspapers …

[Pass.]

Peter Stokes, Salt Shakers, ‘Pornography - where does it all begin?’, Salt Shakers Journal, Aug. 2007, 12:

If young people watch MTV they will inevitably be confronted with scantily clad, sexually postulating girls and boys with wandering hands.

[I think he means 'posturing' rather than 'postulating', although the idea of under-dressed young people expounding theories of sex while simultaneously scoring does hold some attraction.]

Peter again, ibid., 13:

When desire is mixed with testosterone it becomes lust and ends with people being abused so someone can fulfil their desires.

[He's a marvel, isn't he? Fancy even thinking that, let alone writing it down.]

And one more from Peter, ibid., 14:

Unless [MTV] is stopped it will continue to be a gateway that introduces ever younger people to pornography, sexual promiscuity, violence, and ultimately to despair.

[Here's the scary part: he believes it!]

Peter Sparrow, Creation Ministries International, Prayer News, Jul.-Sept. 2007, 15:

One of the things I mentioned [during a talk] is the number of young Christians who go to university and lose their faith.

[Creationists can never quite understand why this happens. Says a lot about creationists, doesn't it?]

Charles Colson, convicted Watergate conspirator and New Life columnist, New Life, 5 Jul. 2007:

Civil disobedience may also be justified when the state ignores its divinely mandated responsibilities to preserve life and maintain order and justice. The resistance of the German church to Hitler was a clear modern example of this necessity … It was later modelled by those who took part in Operation Rescue sit-ins at abortion clinics.

[Hmm, equating opposition to Hitler with opposition to abortion rights. Not a bad definition of obscenity. Thanks, Charles.]

Clifford Wilson, ‘Current Comment’, New Life, 2 Aug. 2007, 4:

… [R]ecent research has shown that quite a number of patients who have had heart transplants have surprised medical and scientific personnel at the way they have taken over something of the personality of the donor and virtually have become a different person …

[No documentation of this claim, of course, but what do you expect from a creationist?]

Filed in: Their Own Mouths