"Clothes make the man, but nakedness makes the human being."

Spencer Tunick - Melbourne

A while ago I wrote a piece about Spencer Tunick and his photography. It was called "Now lies the earth all Danae to the stars." What I failed to include was this video when he organized some of the people from Melbourne, Australia to be part of one of his nude photographic sessions. The day was enjoyed by all who participated it seems, except for a lonely protester who wanted to use the photographic session to voice his religious opinion. There's one in every crowd apparently, but to the cheering of the crowd he was removed from the scene. Even the police at the end of the shot seemed a little sad for the poor man and gave him a consoling pat on the back. What needs to be remembered is that this was a legal photo shoot with willing participants who were not paid for getting naked. But at least according to the lone protester, god was upset with this display of nakedness. What do you think?

By the way, those of you who may be offended by naked Australian wobbly bits bouncing around in full view, should avert their eyes from the video.

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The Tu Quoque Fallacy: Or Atheism is a Religion Too.

From : Atheist Eve. (Click link to enlarge.)

~*~

I am going to start a series of posts which just involve a few lines of either my own thoughts on a specific subject, or a few lines of someone else's thoughts on various subjects. Comments are welcomed.

My understanding is that a religion would require an explicitly stated set of beliefs. There is no explicitly stated set of beliefs for someone who calls themself an atheist. However, if someone calls themselves a 1. Materialist 2. Naturalist 3. Existentialist 4. Humanist 5. Secular humanist - it could be argued that these philosophies display an explicit set of beliefs.

Would the evidence of explicitly stated beliefs mean that these philosophies were a religion? For that you would need to be able to demonstrate how a philosophy differs from a religion, or more pertinently, how it doesn't differ. Off the top of my head, I would suggest that a philosophy involves itself with arguments primarily based in reason and that a religion involves itself in arguments primarily based in faith.

Faith, in this context means that regardless of the argumentation or the processes used, that the argument would not under any circumstance change the position of the person of faith. Faith, in this sense, is an unwavering belief, which is not ameliorated or mitigated in the light of new or contradictory evidence or information. Secular humanists, materialists, naturalists or philosophers do not have "faith" of this nature. They may endorse a variety of beliefs, but those beliefs are open to review and to change in light of evidence to the contrary.

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'Praise the Lord' - Hill$ong Celebrates the National Day of Secularism

National Day of Secularism May the 26th

"Praise the Lord" - Hill$ong Parody - Brought to you by "The Chaser's War on Everything"

Introduction: - " Ladies and Gentlemen in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit let me hear you say "A - men." Let me hear you say "Praise the lord." Let me hear you say "I will empty the contents of my wallet into that little collection plate when it comes around. And it's all Tax free! Hallelujah! "

Lyrics: -
"Praise the lord for all the cash I've got. Praise him for my Rolls Royce and my yacht.

Serving god ain't hard with a credit card. Jesus died so I could make a lot.

Praise the lord he's made us millionaires. Wave your donations in the air.

We've replaced our hymns with ATMS. And soon we'll charge a fee on every prayer.

Jesus Christ was a poor man don't you know. He should have used our accountants for his cash flow.

Stop the sermon on the mount he should have had a bank account.

Two thousand years with interest he'd be rolling in the dough.

Praise the lord this song's out on CD just $40.95 plus GST.

Hallelujah plenty of moolah. Solid gold baubles on my christmas tree.

I've got all of heaven's riches thanks to all you stupid b*tches.

Praise the lord for modern christianity. Whoever said religion should be free."

~*~

Hillsong Church (formerly Hills Christian Life Centre) is a Pentecostal Christian church. Its primary location is in Australia where it is headquartered at its "Hills" campus near Castle Hill, to the north-west of Sydney in Baulkham Hills' Norwest Business Park.

The Hillsong Church has attracted support from high profile politicians, especially from the conservative Liberal Party of Australia. The Prime Minister, John Howard, opened its Baulkham Hills campus and the Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, spoke at its annual conferences in July 2004 and 2005. Mark Latham, the former Leader of the Opposition, declined Hillsong's invitation to the 2004 conference, although Bob Carr, the then Premier of New South Wales, (from the Australian Labor Party), did attend the 2005 conference. The former New South Wales Liberal Party state director, Scott Morrison (to November 2004), is a prominent member of Hillsong Church.

The Anglican Bishop of Western Sydney, Ivan Lee, has expressed concern that the extreme emotion of Hillsong services could be manipulative and said that "... their worship is in danger of being experience-centred rather than Bible teaching-centred".

Of course it is manipulative. It wants people to have an emotional experience, which will encourage them to part with their cash.

In the Australian Constitution - Section 116 - (Commonwealth not to legislate in respect of religion), it states that: - "The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth."

Unfortunately, the constitution doesn't say - "And no politician will kiss the arse of corporate religion in order to gain a few more votes."

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This Is Australia Too

"This Is Australia Too"

I mentioned before I went on holidays how I would take a few pictures and post them when I got back. Well, if you click the youtube presentation, you can view those photographs. I didn't take all that many pictures when I away, so you will see similarities in some of the shots. Usually, I would only select a few from each roll and use those, but in order to make the presentation of a reasonable length, I had to use all of them - even the less visually appealing ones. Anyway, to those who read my blog, I hope you enjoy them.

One of the reasons I decided to punctuate some of my writings with aspects of my own life, feelings and ideas, is so that people may get an understanding that skeptics, freethinkers, non-christians, non-muslims are real people who have real lives. They are just people who do not share your religious beliefs.

"Shoot straight you bastards. Don't make a mess of it." - Harry (Breaker) Morant - executed Australian soldier and poet.

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