Laurie Goodstein ‘Closing Arguments Made in Trial on Intelligent Design’, New York Times, 5 Nov. 2005, quoted on Australian Christian Lobby website (the ACL are creationist sympathisers):

[America's] first trial to test the constitutionality of teaching intelligent design as science ended Friday with a lawyer for the Dover school board pronouncing intelligent design ‘the next great paradigm shift in science.’

[So from now on you'll be able to earn a science doctorate by simply describing a complex problem and concluding with the following standard sentence: 'This is the way God wanted it.']

Warwick Marsh, Fatherhood Foundation, email, 6 Nov. 2005:

Our generation was also taken in by the lie … that men and women are the same except for the different body parts. The reverse is actually the case. Women are almost a new species.

[So that's why my wife keeps calling me a gorilla.]

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‘I Want a Man’, anonymous poem, Above Rubies, Jul. 2005 (distributed in October owing to financial constraints), 18:

No, I won’t sign the lib’s petition,
To do away with wife’s submission,
I’d be a fool to boss my spouse,
I want a man and not a mouse!

[And I thought their prose was crook!]

Australian Prayer Network, ‘India: Miracles Turn People to Jesus’, 17 Oct. 2005:

In Chattisgargh State, a deadly snake wrapped itself around a 15 year-old’s hand during a church planting seminar. He managed to brush it off but it fell on someone else. That person also managed to shake it off and it finally landed on an open Bible. It died on the spot. The witnesses who did not yet know Jesus were astonished and many have started following Jesus.

[My colleague Bronwyn Thompson immediately trumped this with a story about a two-headed Indian hermaphrodite - but you can't win 'em all.]

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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.]

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Bill Muehlenberg, National Vice-President, Australian Family Association and book reviewer for Australian Christian Lobby, 17 Aug. 2005:

Every day new anti-faith outrages are taking place and the obvious question to ask is, ‘How long before Christianity is outlawed altogether?’

Run a nice cold shower, Bill, and stand under it for about half an hour.]

Richard Egan, WA State President, National Civic Council, ‘Some Fundamental Problems with IVF’, The Australian Family, July 2005, 20:

No one has a right to access reproductive technology because no one has a right to acquire a child.

[By extension, any expenditure designed to achieve conception constitutes the attempted 'acquisition' of a child. Bad luck for the lingerie, wine and soft music industries. And if a condom slips, should the offending couple be charged with 'negligent acquisition'?]

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Arnold Jago, Mildura Vic., letter in New Life, 21 Jul. 2005:

Uganda’s President, Yoweri Museveni, said, ‘I’m against condoms in schools. I have grown-up children. My policy was to frighten them out of undisciplined sex.’ Despite conventional condom-peddler theories, putting the fear of God into young people’s heads works best …

[Meanwhile, back in the 21st century ...]

Barney Zwartz, ‘Catholic guest angers Presbyterians’, Melbourne Age, 9 Aug. 2005:

A Presbyterian minister who invited a Catholic bishop to preach in his church has run into trouble with his presbytery. Douglas Robertson, senior minister at the Scots Church in Melbourne, invited auxiliary bishop Mark Coleridge to give a service in May …A senior Presbyterian who did not want to be named said the incident had caused ‘quite a stir’ and that Mr Robertson had ‘overstepped the mark’. ‘We are Protestant, we are protesting against the Roman Catholics, and what is a man of Catholic heritage doing in our pulpit?’

[Meanwhile, back in the 16th century ...]

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Emil Silvestru, Answers in Genesis speaker, New Life, 30 June 2005:

When we get something new the first thing we take out of the box is the instruction manual. God gave us an instruction manual, the Bible, but people today are not interested in reading it.

[Emil, you're a Young Earth Creationist, believing that God created Adam and Eve only 6,000 years ago. Why did God take over 4,000 of those years to send us the full instruction manual? And why when we finally got it was it subject to thousands of different interpretations? I mean, only a small minority of Christians read this manual the way you do. Maybe we should invoke the warranty and ask God to send us the missing pages.]

Emil again:

Wearing clothing comes from the Bible. God made the first clothes for Adam and Eve. From an evolutionary point of view we should stay naked and grow more hair on our bodies to keep us warm in winter.

[Wearing clothing can't have 'come from the Bible', Emil, as the Bible did not appear for several millennia after Adam and Eve. And God definitely didn't make the first clothes for humans. According to Gen: 3:7, Adam and Eve made them all by themselves. Actually, of course, we evolved large brains enabling us to invent clothing and thus successfully adapt to living in a huge range of environments, a much more efficient arrangement than relying on body hair. Sorry, Emil, three strikes and you're out.]

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Fiona Hobbs, anti-sex shop campaigner, Shepparton, Vic., Salt Shakers’ email, 24 May 2005:

We declare a blood-line around this city (shut the door), we cut off and resist every defiling spirit associated with the activities of Club X and forbid (bind) their activity and entry into our region. We ask you, Lord, to block every point of entry … Lord, we pray you send in your warring angels to fight and push back the enemy …

[And Lord, if you could protect us from any more of these Pentecostalist ravings, we'd really be ever so grateful.]

Australian Prayer Network Newsletter, 29 May 2005:

Study shows American Christian Teens Theologically Shallow … Thus far, telephone surveys reveal that young people have a broad fondness for religion, although their religious knowledge is labelled as ‘meagre, nebulous and often fallacious’ … In other words, teens were unable to coherently express their beliefs and the impact of faith on their lives. In addition, many participants appeared so separated from the traditions of their faith that they viewed God as a feel-good problem solver who merely existed for that purpose. There were no indications of an absolute, truth-based theology among the teens.

[Best news we've had this week. And are American adults really very different?]

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Nigel Freitas, Roseville NSW, letter in Melbourne Age, 24 Apr. 2005:

When those on the extreme left push policies such as abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage, they are lauded as progressives … I and many others of religious persuasion are sick and tired of being labelled frothing, foaming fundamentalists simply for having faith.
[Nigel, the right to safe, legal abortion and to voluntary euthanasia is supported by a clear majority of Australians. A 2003 survey of social attitudes even found that 53 per cent of evangelical Christians agreed that a woman should have the right to choose an abortion. 70 per cent of Catholics were also pro-choice (Age, 16 Dec. 2004). As for gay marriage, an SBS Newspoll last year found 38 per cent in favour and 44 per cent against such unions, with a majority of the 18-34 age group supporting them. That's a pretty hefty 'extreme left', isn't it? And if I were you I'd see a doctor about all that frothing and foaming.]

Tony Abbott, Federal Health Minister, Melbourne Age, 28 Apr. 2005:

IVF treatment is not - it’s very important, obviously - but it’s not life-saving treatment.
[As many people instantly pointed out, IVF is certainly life-creating treatment and Tony is supposed to be 'pro-life'! John Howard is known for his pragmatism but surely this ministerial appointment is one of the least pragmatic decisions he has made. You put pure ideologues like Abbott in charge of bus shelters, not senior cabinet portfolios.]

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Peter Stokes, Executive Officer, Salt Shakers, letter in Melbourne Age, 23 Mar. 2005:

Marrying a virgin and being totally faithful within your marriage is the only way to be 100 per cent sure your child is yours …
[But since we can't be 100 per cent sure that our partners were virgins, nor that they are always 'totally faithful' within the marriage ...]

Bob Larson, American exorcist, recently on tour in Australia, New Life, 24 Mar. 2005:

… I found Jesus and felt called to some kind of ministry. I travelled the world and wherever I went I attended any exotic ceremony I could find. One was a self-mutilation and torture group who, after going into a trance and having seizures, pierced their bodies with 100 three feet long skewers, put knives through their tongues and cheeks and walked three miles to a temple to worship, yet never shed a drop of blood. I asked why they did not bleed and they said their gods gave them the power. I said, ‘This is like what happened in the Bible’.
[Those pages must have fallen out of my Bible.]

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Dwight A. Randall, Director, Life Ministries, WA and endorsed Parliamentary candidate for the Christian Democratic Party, ‘Commitment to partisan politics’, 14 Feb. 2005 -www.cdpwa.org.au :

I am puzzled as to why some Christians stubbornly refuse to vote for the Christian Democratic Party … I wonder how God feels about Christians who refuse to vote for Christians, and instead vote for socialists, secular humanists, agnostics and atheists whose objective is often to de-Christianise Australia.

[I don't know how God feels about them, Dwight. How does he feel about sanctimonious twerps who ask silly questions?]

Maryse Usher, letter in National Civic Council’s AD2000 Dec. 2004-Jan. 2005, 16:

… As a new parishioner in an indult [i.e. specially authorised] Latin Mass congregation, not only have I found peace, beauty, heavenly Gregorian Chant and blessed periods of silence after Communion, but Latin Mass-goers all seem to be unashamedly and naturally pro-life.

[As Homer said to Marge: 'Here's another bombshell for you: I like beer.']

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