strangling the catholic church? well, finally. it's really the only humane thing to do to put it, and all of us, out of our misery.

sure, steve, let's bend over backwards until we break our backs :-)

Comment 14 by Agrajag Comment 13 by Net

What are the two or more other meanings that the word "gay" has?

Google is your friend. Start HERE. Steve

steve, only the first one applies these days. i doubt very much that the other 4 meanings would be used let alone recognised by many, if any, people under 50 these days. words take on new meanings and lose older ones.

by the way, don we now our gay apparel, should really be rephrased into the politically correct don we now our gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender apparel, or the hyper correct, if less euphonious, don we now our LGBT apparel. better watch out or the pc police will get you!

Comment 10 by QuestioningKat Note to homosexuals- I am not in the least homophobic but when you are finished with it, I'd like the word 'gay' back as well.

Liar, if you weren't homophobic sharing the word "gay" would be the same as any other word that has two or more meanings.

What are the two or more other meanings that the word "gay" has?

he mentions linguistics, and i think he has a good point because words have connotation as well as denotation. so, i'm wondering whether his use of the word "pretending" is a linguistic measure he's taken. the word includes a sense of "at some level you know something not to be the case" ... does any know if that is his intention? this is actually a question and not a comment, by the way.

Shrodinger's Cat

Give me Pat Condell any day. He would not waste time tying to come to an accomodationist view with the inexcusable, or spend paragraphs trying to fathom the deep 'philosophical' reasons why people hold views that are clearly held for no good reason than that the holder is a retard.

Yes, I agree. Condell is very straight forward, and doesn't suffer people he sees as fools. I'd love to hear what he'd have to say about the Wily Waleed.

anyone, even an air head like waleed aly, who feels it is desirable or inevitable that church and state not be separated, should be viewed with suspicion. in aly's case, people should be especially careful because he is merely into celebrity. he just uses religion to attain the public attention he pursues. and, to quote judge john deed, "...celebrity is the pursuit of the talentless by the mindless..."

Comment 7 by Klaasjansch Wow, this Lady does have Sorrows...

Maybe they should also change their name.

I agree. Our Lady of Sorrows indeed! Does nobody see the irony in the very name??

not bad ... but disappointing that he uses the politically over correct LGBT instead of the original GLBT

what a question? why is it even being debated? of course churches should get no tax breaks on their income. why should the wider community have to pay for or subsidise the earnings of any institutions which are based on fairy tales? no matter what "good" work they may appear to be doing, it all comes down to their being institutions based on myth and delusion. this is the 21st century for goodness sake. we're not primitives!

so, it's not just the catholics? why should it be? perhaps it's got more to do with the personality types that are attracted to positions of unearned power, authority, and prestige; and to do something about their being the perpetrators is tantamount to admitting there's something wrong with their system? much better to silence the victims.

i'm an australian in australia, and i just went onto the delta airlines website to lodge my complaint about all this but got nowhere. does anyone know of a means of communicating my views on this issue to delta?

“Atheism” is ultimately about rejecting a certain idea

I disagree. It may be about rejecting an idea, but it may also be that the idea of a god is just something that never really occurred to one; much the same as the idea that there may be fairies at the bottom of one's garden ...

Comment 2 by gsciacca

More proof that Americans are the most gullible people in the world.gullible people in the world.

It's not just he Americans who are gullible. Here are a couple of links that show the lavishness and luxury of other leaders of religion enjoy. You might like to do some internet searches yourself to see how leaders of most if not all religions live.

Palace of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, England link text

The Pope’s Palace link text

Look, I know this is all about the more important issue of homophobia, but, if you follow the link to the blog, and then scroll down to the poster about punching your gay kids, you'll come across this instruction to (...to embiggen – must be the full size!) the poster. "embiggen"? I mean, really!

Our personality, decision-making, risk-aversion, the capacity to see colours or name animals – all these can change, in very specific ways, when the brain is altered by tumours, strokes, drugs, disease or trauma

...or meditation, mindfulness, learning can also change the brain in specific positive ways

any links to that episode of the brady show for those of us, in the antipodes, who have no access to the iplayer? ... sorry, i mean the nolan show

"I had absolutely no authority over Brendan Smyth. Even my Bishop had limited authority over him. The only people who had authority within the Church to stop Brendan Smyth from having contact with children were his Abbot in the Monastery in Kilnacrott and his Religious Superiors in the Norbertine Order.

Blame everyone else, Cardinal. Especially, if they are difficult to identify in an amorphous corporate structure such as your church. There was nothing to stop you from going to the police, or to the parents, or to the media, even if you were to have done it "discreetly". What a spoilt, pompous weasel of a man you are. Your only guiding principle is to protect YOUR arse in your climb up the corporate ladder. You're a sham, a careerist who exploits the gullibility of others to play out your own issues of power and authority, and to feel safe in an otherwise unsafe world filled with predators such as yourself.

yes, and what better example of this lack of compassion than george pell of australia who recently made a fool of himself on the australian broadcasting commission's programme, Q&A when "debating" with richard dawkins.

Comment 11 by Quine The trouble the Cardinal ran into is the modern world, itself, where he has to deal with facts. It was so much easier when the Church could just make things up (e.g. Original Sin) and people had to believe those things with no means of checking for truth. Well, that was then, and this is now.

I couldn't agree more. This is 21st century, secular, educated Australia after all. Yet, looking at that (stacked) audience, even in this day and age, and in this country, there exist young people who "believe"!! I just do not get that.

Comment 80 by IDLERACER

IDLERACER, are you joking? Whenever would you get a sentence like that, indeed, whenever would you get any sentence, without context, and in such isolation. Of course there's going tone ambiguity. What exactly are you trying to demonstrate about the English language.

in attempting to push forward into the realm of deadening conformity

I share Self's sentiments. For me, the above quote expresses my perception of what's going on, particularly when it comes to Australia's national broadcaster, the ABC. It's already happened with the commercial radio stations and television channels. Now, as the ABC hurtles towards populism, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to tell it apart from the commercials stations.

Comment 91 by Nordic11 I realize that debates like this give you guys the warm fuzzies about your hero, ... Francis Collin would be a good choice, but of course, he's busy running the National Institute of Health of the United States.

Or better yet, we could all just agree to disagree and treat each other with respect and civility. Of course, that does not fit with Professor Dawkins’ strategy of “mock them, ridicule them” ...

Nordic11, where is the respect in these embedded lines of yours? And, anyone can argue about/for religion. It is always a question of opinion, and never based on reason and facts. Professional religious people do not rise in the hierarchy because they are learned, but because they are astute politicians. On the other hand, a scientist generally draws acclaim and respect because of his tried and tested ideas; and for this, you need knowledge before you can debate. Opinion has little, if anything, to do with it.

Comment 129 by Mrkimbo Meanwhile, back to the subject of the thread. Pell is now in deep hot water and has been forced to apologise for his comments that the Jews were 'intellectually inferior' to the Egyptians and the Persians

Oh really? Where. I'd love to see it and pass it on.

does anyone know whether pell's supporters have been making public comments in a blog or something somewhere?

Australia votes: Does religion make the world a better place? 76% no 24% yes.

Yes, I guess you could say that. And what was the sample? Something like 20,000?

Oh, and I could go on about that Pell, but that business about Neanderthal man and cousins. It's just the sort of crack I eluded to in my previous comment: it is ignorant, and designed only to get a laugh and thereby ridicule the opponent.

Pell is like most religious people I've heard. His style of delivery, and his content make debate or follow difficult if not impossible. He inclines to ridicule, rarely answers questions as directly as they are put, and seems satisfied to please many of his followers by appearing to be well-read and informed by throwing out names and ideas willy nilly. He's an embarrassment, and, as an Australian, I feel a little ashamed that he is, too. Tonight, he barely disguised his homophobia and anti-Semitism. He's a corporate man, due to his position of authority and influence also an evil man. He's not interested so much in truth as he is merely to prevail. Dawkins, on the other hand, is easy to follow, and is not interested in prevailing but merely getting to the truth of things. If anything can be gleened from the straw poll the ABC ran about religion, I think it is clear that most people are in the Dawkins camp, if that can be said.

the original inhabitants of Australia

Dixiedog, I think you mean "prior inhabitants". Prior to European settlement. That's all we can know for sure. Who was in AUstralia before those prior to Europeans is a matter of debate, and not as certain as who was there prior to them.

wow! such speed! 2.4 million and 4.8 million kilometres in modern parlance ...

Sexuality may be the coefficient here.

what does that even mean?