When I first heard that the Australian Labor party had ousted Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister, I wasn’t happy. Labor wasn’t doing that badly in the polls, so I just felt they were panicking too much; indeed, I feel they’ve been doing this for some time now, which I think is the main reason why they ended up doing so badly in the polls in the first place. I think they’ve actually done a pretty god job of running the country under very difficult circumstances—for example, Australia survived the global financial crisis better than any other first world country. Yes, they’ve made some mistakes, but I feel their mistakes are vastly outweighed by their achievements. The problem is that their mistakes have all come in the last few months (with an election looming), and the electorate has a very short memory.

I also feel Kevin Rudd has been unfairly blamed for circumstances beyond his control. For example, he fought hard to get a deal with the Coalition on carbon trading, only to have it dashed at the last minute by a surprise change of opposition leader, accompanied by a complete reversal on climate change policy. Then he fought hard to get a deal at Copenhagen, but as we know that was dashed as well. Delaying further action on carbon trading was pretty much the only practical thing he could do under the circumstances, but the electorate saw this as a back down, and (I think unfairly) judged him to be without principles. Strange how his predecessor John Howard broke promise after promise, while the electorate just dismissed it as what politicians do, and kept voting for him. Ironically, Rudd was a victim of the fact that people actually believed he would deliver on his promises—and in fact he did when the circumstances allowed. But this back down made the electorate see him as another lying politician (once again, I think unjustly), and punished him in the polls for their disappointment.

Still, Rudd certainly wasn’t perfect. His devout Christian beliefs led him to make illogical decisions sometimes, such as his basically “go forth and multiply” population policy. This led him to continue the Howard government’s baby bonus, for example, which must be one of the worst social policies in Australia’s history: it is basically an inducement for people who can’t afford to have children to have them, which obviously has very negative consequences for those children and society as a whole. But like his predecessor, all Kevin could see was the fact that it raised Australia’s birth rate, which he saw as a good thing. His Christian beliefs also made him a social conservative, which meant that he refused to legalise gay marriage, for example. So while I felt he was a huge improvement over our previous Prime Minister John Howard (which he certainly was), it often seemed as though he wasn’t a true Labor leader; more a compassionate conservative. Hence, even though I was relatively happy with him as Prime Minister (compared to Howard), I would have preferred a more progressive leader.

So in spite of the fact that I don’t feel Kevin Rudd got a fair go from the media, the Australian public or his own party, I can’t help but feel elated about the leader who has replaced him. Much has been made of the fact that Julia Gillard is Australia’s first female Prime Minister, but for me the biggest thing about her is the fact that she is a childless and unmarried atheist—and even more remarkably, she has the balls to openly declare it publicly! And in the biggest policy shift since she came into power, she’s already announced a sustainable population strategy. This has been widely interpreted as simply immigration control, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she scraps the baby bonus after winning the next election (indeed, I’d be disappointed if she didn’t). And I believe Julia’s position is genuine: I do not think it is simply code for xenophobia and populism, unlike the opposition with their scare mongering over asylum seekers—Julia’s own comments in that regard have been very measured.

I feel very proud to live in a country where our leader can be a childless, unmarried, atheist female—and I’m even more happy about the fact that the Australian public seems to largely be responding to her very positively. I guess I shouldn’t get too excited until she wins the next election, but it has often puzzled me how politicians in Australia have always gone on about supporting nuclear family values by default, when in reality, the nuclear family is rapidly becoming the exception rather than the rule here. We have a so-called “Family First” party (although so far their only representative in the senate has just espoused the same old conservative values, often to the detriment of working families), but we’ve never had a singles first party, even though there are more and more of us here. Politicians frequently go on about Christian values, but until now, no one has ever been outspokenly secular, even though that’s what this country is really all about, and we have a huge (and growing) non-Christian population here, including many atheists. For the first time ever, we have a leader who represents these important, widespread, yet previously almost totally unrepresented values, which to me is a far bigger deal than the fact that she’s a woman (although that is of course significant).

In related news, there’s currently a senate enquiry looking into a proposal for religious organisations in Australia to have to pass a public benefit test to receive tax exempt status. Also, the Australian Secular Party (of which I am am member) has just been officially registered as well. At a time when we are threatened with having the most conservative, overtly Christian Prime Minister in Australia’s history (the leader of the opposition Tony Abbot), we finally have a completely secular alternative!

When I read about this story, I just had to do a post on it! The infamous 62-foot tall statue of Jesus outside Solid Rock Church (yes, that really is the name of the church!) in Monroe, Ohio has burned to the ground—after being struck by lightning! The statue is known by the amusing nicknames “big butter Jesus” (apparently a reference to its colour) or more commonly “touchdown Jesus” (referring to its rather absurd pose, which looks a lot like the touchdown signal given by referees in American football). Although it was destroyed—in the words of the insurance company—by an “act of God”, a giant Hustler Hollywood store across the road was untouched! Yes, the humour in this story may be endless, but this kind of incident really does pose some very serious questions for theists, such as:

Why would God destroy a statue of his own son, while leaving a shop selling pornography completely unharmed? Could it be that Christians are actually worshipping the wrong God? Perhaps they should be worshipping Thor (the Norse God of thunder) instead? (Seeing as Scandinavians are so sexually open, I guess it makes sense that their God would like porn.) Or maybe this is how God enforces the second commandment (no “graven images”)? But if that’s the case, then why doesn’t he destroy all statues and images of himself and Jesus? Indeed, why the hell are Christians so fond of statues and images of God and (especially) Jesus anyway, when the second commandment expressly forbids it?

And this is not an isolated incident: in fact, religious statues are among the objects most commonly struck by lightning. In 2008, lightning singed the fingers and eyebrows of Christ the Redeemer, the 130-foot statue of Jesus that stands over Rio de Janeiro. In 2007, lighting struck the 33-foot Jesus statue at Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden, Colorado, making one of Jesus’ arms fall off. And believe it or not, actor James Caviezel was struck by lightning in 2003, while playing Jesus in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ! None of this makes any sense from a religious perspective: God ought to destroy all graven images, or protect objects of worship (and those who worship them). Greater than normal lightning strikes on religious statues (but not all of them) is not what you’d expect from God.

However, if you take religion out of the equation and instead turn to science for an explanation, all of this makes perfect sense. The statues that are struck by lightning are large structures placed at the highest available location: they’re the tallest objects in their immediate vicinity, for maximum visual impact. And lo and behold, the first object lightning will strike in a given place is the tallest one. In the case of touchdown Jesus, it was made of highly flammable materials, apart from its metal frame—and metal attracts lightning. So as the tallest object in its immediate area and with a metal frame, it’s no wonder it was struck by lightning; and as it was made mostly from highly flammable materials, it’s no wonder that it rapidly burned to the ground when lightning did strike it. As is usually the case, trying to explain things as the work of God requires extreme contortions of logic, whereas science explains everything simply, clearly and accurately—intervention from God only complicates things.

The video above from my old favourite Darkmatter2525 makes another important point: if lightning struck some well known atheist figure such as Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens, you can be absolutely sure some theists would claim it was the work of God. Well I’m sorry, but you can’t have it both ways: you may try to pick and choose what you want to attribute to God, but it’s all or nothing.

Here’s my latest Bible reading video. And to go with it, we’ve also posted an extended, super high quality fully nude version for my web site members.

I am constantly astounded by Israel’s ability to commit outrageous acts of military violence against civilians, then cast themselves as the victims. The above video is a great example: it singles out attacks on Israeli soldiers, but for goodness sake—the Israeli military is conducting a raid on an unarmed vessel in international waters! The people on board are doing whatever they can to defend themselves—they have no guns, so they’re using what they have. In response, the Israeli military opens fire on them! The result is up to 19 people dead—and not a single one of them was Israeli.

So what terrible crime were the people on this boat engaging in to receive such treatment? They were trying to bring aid to Palestinians in Gaza. And why did they need to do that? Because Gaza has been blockaded from receiving aid from the outside world by Israel! So this is, in effect, one outrageous crime against humanity, that has come about as a result of another outrageous crime against humanity—both committed by Israel. Yet Israel still tries to claim that they are the victims!

As always, Israel’s actions have received the usual piss-weak response from western governments, especially (also as always) the US. While I have defended Obama’s performance in many areas, on Israel I’m afraid I have to give him the same score as every President who has gone before him: a great big fat zero. How many more atrocities will Israel have to commit before the west (particularly the US, who have always stuck by Israel through thick and thin) takes decisive action to stop them?