Ethics-based Complement to Scripture - WTF????

An email crossed my path today regarding a petition to "pilot a course in ethics to serve as a complement to scripture in NSW primary schools."

I would like to draw your attention to an important petition regarding
teaching ethics in schools as another option available for scripture
class time. It promises to more productively utilise scripture class
time for non-scripture students and provide an alternative for those
seeking a non-denominational basis for ethics education. It is an
initiative of the NSW Federation of P and C Associations and the St
James Ethics Centre. The website below ... blah blah blah blah blah

.


The website in question gos on to say that "all children have the right to ethical exploration, regardless of whether it’s tied to a particular religious tradition."


WTF ?

"another option" !!! when was scripture based ethics ever an option? I take energetic difference to the position that religious scripture of any denomination has any relevance to ethics or is in any way suitable to be given airtime in a classroom as anything other than, assuming, as we are in NSW the frame of reference is the Judeo-Christian tradition - the myths and stories of an iron age Canaanite culture.

Furthermore I posit that anybody who has had long term serious exposure to christian teaching should be required to undertake secular ethics training before they take any position of authority or public office.

I would like for them, and my kids, to know that unlike the teaching in the bible, it is not OK to burn your daughter alive because you have made a promise to god (Judges 11:29-40).

It is not OK to Burn pagans, priests or otherwise (2 Kings 23:20-25 NLT), nor is it OK to burn entire pagan villages (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT).

It is not OK to send your army to kill everybody in a town (except the virgins of course) and then, for want of more virgins, lay an ambush beside the road to kidnap and rape some more (Judges 21:10-24 NLT).

In the bible, it is not just OK to rape a woman, but she has to marry her rapist, (Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT) unless you gag and rape her in a city, in which case you have to stone her (Deuteronomy 22:23-24 NAB).

Rape the captives (Deuteronomy 21:10-14 NAB), yes, share them around (Judges 5:30 NAB).

The bible teaches that it is required to be intolerant, to kill witches (Exodus 22:17 NAB), gays (Leviticus 20:13 NAB, Romans 1:24-32 NLT), fortune tellers (Leviticus 20:27 NAB) fornicators (Leviticus 21:9 NAB), anyone who follows another religion (Exodus 22:19 NAB ,2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB, Deuteronomy 17:2-5 NLT), hell - kill the whole town, all it's animals and torch all the buildings if just one unbeliever is found (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

I want to sign a different petition.

Paleontologist strokes his bone and changes worlds history

(image pinched from here)

Alternate title: 2 wings good, 4 wings bad.

Flipping through Septembers edition of the journal Nature - vol 461 (7264): 640–643, if you must know - I flipped straight to the paper about a fossil dinosaur that has been found with 4 wings.

A few years back a paleontologist was fondling a fossil arm bone from a small raptor like dinosaur when he noticed bumps arranged in a particular pattern and separation that suggested they were the remnants of the attachment points for feathers. Specifically flight feathers. His find led to alot of further scrutiny of existing collections and we very quickly learnt a great deal more about the origin of birds and feathers. We now know that they adorned the hides of most raptors (think small front legs, long running hind limbs and big teeth - like a t-rex).

Well preserved feathers have been identified on Gigantoraptor, a 1.5 tone 70 myo ostrich like behemoth and a Microraptor, Microraptor gui which had feathers on both it's arms and legs. But a new find in China earlier this year has clarified some of the early stages in wing development. It seams that 4 wings was the norm for these early gliders and that, to nobodies surprise, birds are derived from Troodontidae.

Not found on good shit.

This hurt my work creditcard

I'm trying to get the desktop support officer to name them all after diseases.
Can you imagine: someone trying to connect via wireless to a fellow in a room full of people -"who's got syphilis? - I'm trying to get onto syphilis".

Red Fog

Sydney is carpeted in an amber fog this morning. We've had 100k+ winds overnight. It is all very wierd.

It smells like dust

-- update --
Everything is covered in a fine talk like dust, I'm breathing Dubbo.
Here is the view from outside my office - the sun is blue - obviously the red light is being scattered.


-- update --



ppl are bust with their cameras today: http://www.flickr.com/groups/redsydneyproject/


The end is neigh

Time to get your Gh33k on

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Have a read..

.. of this

Any knowledge of you burns in the pit of my stomach. It’s not the liquor. You are my ulcer. I want nothing to do with you. I want you erased from the present. I want to pretend you are dead.

Theodora

Theodora was the wife of the 6th century emperor Justinian. A hooker and a looker who always got her man or as a contemporary detractor put it "On the field of pleasure she was never defeated". She'd take on 10 or so gentlemen in an evening and then 30 or more of their servants.. She publicly appeared naked and is reported to have mounted a couch when her guest was slow in coming forward and famously bemoaned that three orifices were not enough - "though she flung wide three gates to the ambassadors of Cupid, she lamented that nature had not similarly unlocked the straits of her bosom, that she might there have contrived a further welcome to his emissaries." Not only did she have a great act appearing as Leda (complete with swan) but she became the most powerful women in the world, EVAH.

Back

Hope you had as relaxing a week as I did.

.. but I doubt it.

Holiday

Fiji

back in a week

memes, memes, memes,

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.