Animals, Atheism, Gaming, Dali

[tcpip]

Yesterday caseopaya, Chris Samuel and I spent the day at Healesville Animal Sanctuary. Full of iconic Australian animals (kangaroos, wallabies, emus, koalas, wombats, echidnas, platypuses, tasmanian devils, possums, quolls, numerous birds - including some very rare, various snakes, lizards and bats), it is certainly a thoroughly pleasant and well-maintained place for said critters. No drop bears tho'.

Gave a presentation at the Melbourne Atheist Society on Tuesday night on "Atheist Support for Religious Freedom?". It was well-attended and well-received, with some excellent questions and statements, mostly around the tax-exempt status of religious organisations, although there was couple of people in the peanut gallery who were paddling in the shallows (e.g., "Where do atheists get their ethics from?").

The latest issue of RPG Review has received some coverage in the comic scene, courtesy of Bleeding Cool and the good folk at Orang Utan comics. In other gaming-related news for two oddities, I ran Lords of Creation on Thursday (it's crazier than Rifts and not as broken) and today it'll be a grand Napoleanic agenda with Avalon Hill's historical War and Peace.

Like most of Melbourne (and I completed forgot to 'blog), we did go to the Salvador Dali exhibition a couple of weeks back. Not desiring to stand in the incredibly long queue took the opportunity to sign up as NGV members, thus applying the other 'rationing' mechanism. I was particularly thrilled to see the film Destino which I had quite an interest in about fifteen years ago (if you must know through a game of Mage: The Ascension) and the collaborations with Phillipe Halsman.

Comments

[sebastianne.livejournal.com]

re:"Atheist Support for Religious Freedom?"

Some very interesting arguments in the article! The religious education of children is very problematic imho, as all to often ideas of tolerance and equal rights are not part of this education and this breeds intolerance and all the unfortunate outcomes associated with it. I think the education department could have a fundamental role to play in alleviating this issue, but that boils down to controversy between parental rights to choose their child's religious education vs children's right for education and the broader issue of social wellbeing.

Not for profit organisations have recently been given some pretty scary powers to deny employment opportunites to individuals whose 'morals and ethics' and lifestyle dont fit with the organisations moral framework. This is concerning given these organisations are often funded to provide services to very marginalised and disadvantaged members of society. One has to question is their agenda social welfare or religious recruitment?- but maybe I am just overly cynical :)

Destino was amazing! :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

*nods* I must admit that I had some unease with the conclusions I was coming to; the first two sections were within my comfort zone, after that it got a bit tricky, as you say, with competing interests (including of course the rights of the child).

Comparative religious studies should be taught, of course, as religion is an important contribution to human history. But the 'comparative' part is antithetical of denominational schools. They often don't want people learning about other religions!

One thing that perhaps isn't clear in the presentation is that I am referring to institutional teaching, rather than any informal education in the home environment.

[sebastianne.livejournal.com]

I dont think there will ever be easy or black/white answers to these issues, but it's good to see that the discussions are being had :)