RSA Daily

For atheists, rationalists and secular humanists in Australia

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Good morning ,

The famous Cologne cathedral is truly spectacular - and dirty. Well, dirty from centuries of grime accumulating on its myriad Gothic surfaces. Cleaning those surfaces is easier said than done because it's made of sandstone and it's hard to find a cleaning agent that might not do more damage than the pollution.

A story that illustrates the rebellious and independent character of the Cologne inhabitants. Some years ago, Cologne cathedral was headed by an archbishop, Joachim Reisner. One day, music at a service was so beautiful the congregation spontaneously broke into applause. Reisner ran to the pulpit and shouted, "You cannot clap at a Catholic service!" There was silence .. for about 5 seconds. And then the clapping slowly resumed. 

Religion loses its power when it loses its power to coerce.

Lead stories

Bishop Grant Dibden (pictured), chair of the controversial taxpayer-funded committee of clerics known as the Religious Advisory Committee to the Services (RACS), said the Defence Force was becoming an “increasingly difficult climate of growing secularism and pluralism” (OMG!) for chaplains to operate and “It is critical, therefore, that clergy who become chaplains have a missionary mindset ..."

A "missionary mindset"??! Sixty percent of our serving men and women are non-religious. They need non-religious wellbeing support, not clerics with a mission.

Australian doctors in private practice may come under pressure to cease involvement in medicalised gender change of minors following a landmark insurance decision that stresses the significant risk of litigation...

A former Pentecostal nails it: "... Christianity itself does not have much appeal. It promises divine help that doesn’t ever manifest, a system of morality and ethics that somehow utterly fails to reliably produce decent human beings, groups that aren’t worth the price of admission, and a whole series of untrue claims that believers must embrace to belong to the religion." So why has Christianity been so dominant in times past? Read the real reason!

Other stories of interest

Patient M: The Man Who Was Shot in The Head And Woke Up Seeing The World Backwards

The bizarre case of a man who was shot in the head during the Spanish Civil War and woke up seeing the world 'backwards'...

Our government is being privatised by stealth: PwC scandal shows how

"The most highly skilled and experienced people are in the private sector ..  probably true – but only because private firms have poached the most skilled and experienced public servants from the public service"

Over 100 Harvard professors form council in fight for free speech amid 'crisis'

About bloody time.

End of life: quality versus quantity of days

Letter writers continue to urge law reform to allow prospective dementia suffers access to VAD.

Got a comment on any of these stories? 

Write to me at president@rationalist.com.au

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