education – Bruce Llama

New University is useless Christian College

Bruce — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 06:45:44 +0000

I’m all for education! Â But I did splutter when I read that the Melbourne College of Divinity(MCD) has beenÂ has been given permission to operate as a Specialist University.

Now MCD have been operating for 100 years, set up by a bunch of christian cultists from various sects to educate their people in their ways. Â But they don’t do any serious education at all. Â A look at their courses makes this quite clear.

Associate Diploma in Ministry
Diploma in Ministry
Diploma in Theology
Advanced Diploma in Ministry
Advanced Diploma in Theology

There’s plenty more listed on their website. Â All really good useless diplomas. Â Not contributing anything useful to the world at all. Â You can get government assistance if you undertake studies at MCD, even a research grant, and it’s good to know that our important research funding is being spent on things like:

Tracing the Pulse: An investigation into vitality in Australian Catholic parishes and the capacity of a social capital theory framework to identify it.

The Scandal of the Scandal of Particularity

Homecoming in Haizi: the resonance of the Gospel and the Chinese soul-search.

The Skilled Caregivers: Tending Godâ€™s People in the Myanmar Context.

It all adds so much to bettering the world by finding justification for the dogma of religion.

Australia, and Victoria, makes a mockery of education by granting MCD this special status. Â It undermines the serious educational value of real universities.

Bible Stories

Bruce — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 07:50:30 +0000

[SOURCE]

So, Julia Gillard, declared Atheist, leader of the Labor Party and Prime Minister says that we should read our bible stories.

She’s against marriage equality because it’s against her conservative up bringing. Â She was brought up a Baptist, but now she’s not religious¹.

“I’m on the record as saying things like I think it’s important for people to understand their Bible stories, not because I’m an advocate of religion – clearly, I’m not – but once again, what comes from the Bible has formed such an important part of our culture.”

Ok, but, the bible isn’t true. Â Our society, if you want to claim it’s built on bible stories, is fabricated. Â That’s why the PM, the Llama and plenty of others have rejected the bible. Â Coz it’s bullshit and not to be used as a weapon against gay people, or anyone else really. Â Once you’ve walked away from the crazy stories of the bible then you have to ask why things are the way they are. Â Why is it that people areÂ discriminatedÂ against, because the bible says so? Â That’s really her answer?

If she’s so conservative because of her upbringing she would still be baptist. Â Being an atheist is not something that would be acceptable to her, she’s demonstrated that she can think by walking away from her religion, why would you allow it to continue to direct your attitudes and actions? Â It’s not like god would be happy with her.

It suits Gillard to be conservative, it keeps the radical christians happy. Â They think she’s on their side. Â She’s clearly trying to keep the fundamentalists smirking, she’s admitted to being an atheist, but rather than call religion to account she takes the safe route. Â She declares that marriage is between one man and one woman because the bible says so. Â Alas, in Australia, marriage is between one man and one woman because former Prime Minister John Howard altered the Marriage Act², not because of any biblical directive.

Suggesting that Australia should use the bible stories as a basis for a system of government is one fucked up attitude.

SOURCE ↩
SOURCE ↩

Story of stuff

Bruce — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:48:02 +0000

[SOURCE]

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The story of stuff is quite important. The amount of shit we have is contributing to the financial, environmental and food problems that we are experiencing in the world. I’ve said it plenty of times, to help us survive we need to be nice to each other, we need to make sure everyone has enough food and money to get by, that means reducing the amount of products that we consume. It’s pretty straight forward. I’m trying to do my bit, I don’t think its enough. What are you doing? Oh, and get along to the website and watch the full 20 minute video. It’s very revealing.

Just think

Bruce — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 11:28:28 +0000

YouTube – Open-mindedness.

If I was to create a course “Introduction to Atheism” then this would be an instructional video under the compulsory unit titled “How to deal with fuckstick christians”

I think I’ll just pop off and watch that again….

Kiss Kiss

Bruce — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:00:30 +0000

Courage Campaign | Contribute.

NOM

The National Organization for Marriage is an American outfit who are trying to save marriage so that’s its between one woman and one man. All very christian and nice, you know the type.

So, they released a commercial about the ‘coming storm’ and made some outrageous statements – its worth looking at, just so you can laugh. Its high on emotions, but has no ‘facts’ as such.

The NOM seem to link marriage with having children. It is possible to be married and not have children, some people choose that.

The website of NOM has a download, Why Marriage Matters (catholic edition), you can get it in English or Spanish and for catholic, protestant or jew. It lists seven scientific reasons as to why marriage matters. Lets have a look at those reasons, just for the fucking fun of it.

The document quotes it source as the Institute for American Values that claim to contribute intellectually to strengthening families and civil society in the U.S. and the world. How noble of them, how very christian of them, and how revealing that the report from NOM comes from a self serving organisation.

You can find the information from the IAV website, however you have to cough up the money for it. There’s no indication that the survey or studies done are completed by independent bodies. I rather suspect its self interest.

Scientific fact 1:

Marriage reduces the risk of poverty for children and communities

Cool – let gay people get married then. Regardless of whether or not they have children, the risk of poverty is reduced. Mind you, if what you did was increase the pay of single parents, reduced the cost of child care then the fact that they have one income would help them. Married couples are lucky, one of them can stay home, or they can both work and use child care.

Scientific fact 2:

Fatherless households increase crime.

Great – then two father households would reduce the crime rate by 200%? Do they mean that boys are more likely to commit a crime if they have no father figure? Get them a father figure.

Scientific fact 3:

Marriage protects childrenâ€™s physical and mental health.

It can also fuck it up big time, especially if one of your parents lies and cheats, sexually abuses you, mentally abuses you, physically abuses you.

Scientific fact 4:

Both men and women who marry live longer, healthier and happier lives.

How do you measure happiness? Perhaps they just live longer lives because they don’t want to die before their partner, so as not to give them the satisfaction of driving them to an early grave. How many studies have been done on two married men, do they live longer than a man and a woman? What studies have been done if two women get married? How is this a scientific reason to keep the status quo. What if the evidence indicated that two men living together live longer, will marriage be banned because its a danger to the health of men and women?

Scientific fact 5:

Just living together is not the same as marriage.

Well no. Being married is a legally binding contract. Mind you, plenty of de facto relationships exist and perhaps that’s the same. Any way- why is this a scientific fact? Is it a legal fact?
Scientific fact 6:

Parents who donâ€™t get or stay married put childrenâ€™s education at risk.

Put it at risk? Put their education at risk? Even if I accept the ‘fact’, the risk is that they get lower point grade averages. Not “no education” their education is fine, they just get a lower score. They are also less likely to end up as college graduates. Umm…. less likely, so that means that its still likely.

Scientific fact 7:

When marriages fail, ties between parents and children typically weaken too.

Well yes, but this fact points more to the divorce process of one parent being given ‘rights’ over the other. Perhaps if the children were put first and parents agreed fully to co-parenting then this would be less of an issue.

The whole notion that marriage and children can only be done with a man and a women is flawed. Children are raised in all sort of circumstances, and a vast majority of them seem to turn out ok. Divorce has been happening in higher numbers since the 60’s and that generation now runs the world. Lets face it, when using statistics to prove your point, or even your scientific fact, you need to actually conduct your experiments in the correct manner, to allow for peer review, and to fully cover the broad spectrum, in this case, of human relationship.

These are not scientific fact, these are results of surveys and studies. Prone to error based on who and how the questions were asked. It’s self serving and does not indicate the ‘other side’ was even considered.

As far as I can tell, there is no evidence to suggest that my children, raised by me a gay llama, raised in straight and gay relationships are any worse off than my straight llama friend who has done it as a married man, a single man and partnered man.

These are not claims against gay marriage.

George Pell on Intolerance

Bruce — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 02:46:24 +0000

George Pell on Intolerance.

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8812

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8656

Dress wearing, silly hat bearing George Pell has been making speeches.Â He’s been telling the world that we are becoming increasingly intolerant of the catholic faith.

Tolerance is a strange thing.Â While George babes appears to make some good points, fundamentally he is saying that we need to accept the churches stance on all their ‘moral’ issues and not pick on them.Â OK.Â I can live with that.Â I reserve the right to point out, however, that the church is wrong.Â There is no jesus to die for your sins, (its almost that time of year again), there is no god to deliver commandments, there is no prohibition on putting your pleasing organ in someone of the same sex.Â These ideals are just plain and simply wrong.Â Go ahead, you believe them, but I don’t.Â And I don’t accept your right to believe whatever you like either.Â It does damage.Â I know, I’ve been there.Â The education of young people in the catholic tradition (or any other religious tradition) is wrong and must stop.Â The sort of crap that young people pick up from being exposed to fancy tales of some almighty god is wearing thin when this same god does nothing to show his there.Â Now is the time to enact change and for people in high places to sing out and point out the futility of faith.Â This is gonna hurt.Â Its time religion was frowned upon, the same way you frown on someone who talks to the dead, or takes their horrorscope seriously, or runs a red light thinking nothing is wrong with that.

Dismantling religion is dead easy.Â Start to tax the church, land tax, payroll tax, goods and services tax, inheritance tax, no discounts for ‘charity’ concessions.Â Force congregations to correctly pay their staff, the sisters and brothers, the office workers, the pastors, the wankers in silly hats, all of them.Â Make it illegal for any form of discrimination just because your faith says being gay is wrong, being of a different faith is wrong, being female is wrong is no reason to deny employment or services to anyone at all.Â Make those church based hospitals do what ever other hospital does, abortions, contraception, helping people out the door.Â Make them expend public money just like everyone else does.Â Those places on public land need to be available to any public group to use, what’s the point in bloody big churches on crown land only being uses a couple of times a week.Â Make it illegal to wear any religious insignia, make the bible an MA 15+ book and have it moved to the fiction section in all bookshops and libraries.Â Make churches marry anyone who applies for a marriage, regardless of faith or personal sexual satisfaction poking styles.

Bill Muehlenburg make this comment on his blog last week:

George Pell is in many ways a modern-day prophet. He courageously takes on the many challenges to what is important, what is right, and what is true. He knows that faith, family and life are all under major attack, and he is unafraid to stand up for them, politically incorrect as this may be.

He of course has many critics, even within his own church. But that is always the case with prophets. They are the ones most people refuse to tolerate. But prophets are desperately needed in these dark days. May there be many more George Pells raised up to counter the gathering gloom.

He’s not a prophet, modern day or otherwise. He’s a throw back to old days. He’s living in a fantasy world where he can dress in black with a splash of red (or purple) he gets to wear a stupid hat and hold a stick that is probably worth a fortune. He is the reason why family and life are under major attack, its under attack because his lot don’t want to let go of the power base they once had. They don’t want you to think for yourself. They want you to listen to them and the crappy bible. George Pell’s sense of ‘what is right’ is based on an error and a myth. He’s concept of ‘what is true’ is wrong and a mistake. His life is based on a fairy story, and its time the world started point it out to them and laughing at what is so wrong about their faith.

My ambition this easter is to ask this question.

Just what is it that Jesus sacrificed for you?

According to the bible, he died for your sins. He gave up his life so that you could have eternal life. But hang on a tick, according to the babble, he rose on the third day, alive. So, what was it he gave up? The answer is nothing. He got it back again, and he was always going to get it back again.

Its time for religion to go out the door, its time we evolved to caring for each other out of mutal respect, not because of some notion that god told us to do it. Its time the silly hat wearing brigade joined the rest of the world and did some real work for proper money. (The could also do with a snut grabbing)

More on Education

Bruce — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:01:45 +0000

Look, I can’t help myself.Â I got this damn awful magazine in the newspaper recently and it really got me going, so I’m writing another one about education.

I’m really upset you know, with teachers.Â Sure they do a great job, except for Sister Jean, she simply scared and scarred me for life.

Time to bring the teachers into the new world of work.Â Get this, and work with it.Â You get 4, maybe 6 weeks annual leave a year.Â That’s it.Â No more.Â I know, I know, you really only get 4 weeks a year already, and during the term holidays you’re simply not required to show up at school.Â The reality is that you get lots and lots of holidays a year, and you don’t want to give them up.Â Why should you?Â But, however, and that, you have no excuse for taking days off during the school term.Â There is no room for early finishes or late starts.Â There is no need for ‘student-free’ days.Â You have plenty of time during school breaks between terms to do all the professional development you need.

Don’t try and tell me you work hard.Â Duh.Â Of course you do.Â I do too.Â I only get 4 weeks grazing time per year, I work long hours, often more than I get paid for.Â Sometimes I have to work late, and sometimes I have to come in early.Â Its the way we work.Â There are a lot more stressful jobs than yours.Â Get back to school and do some bloody work will you.Â Oh, and stop simply copying the text books and giving it out as assignments.Â What you have no more ideas?

The trouble with boys

Bruce — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:54:06 +0000

Full Story

This stuff really gets on my alpaca (or goat if you prefer).

The sub-text is that somehow boys are broke and need to be fixed.Â Hey, we’re not broke, so stop trying to fix us.Â Different, yes, you don’t need a government grant to work that out.Â We learn in different ways, we do things differently and we think about sex a lot.Â But we don’t need to be taught how to be the sort of men that women want.Â I like me just the way I am.Â Well apart from the extra weight around my belly button.

There is no trouble with boys, there’s trouble with a system that refuses to allow for differences in the sexes and the way we learn.Â Sure, you can separate the sexes, but remember, in this world we all live as one on equal terms, so while it might be good for the girls to get a better start in life, in the end single sex schools teach exclusion and reek of sexism.Â Its about time we just got on and taught everyone to the best of their ability and stop trying to fix them.

There.Â I said it.Â Now I’m going to go and shit in the woods.

Schools Out

Bruce — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 03:35:03 +0000

Education is such a wonderful thing, no really it is. I guess we’re lucky llamas in Australia. I think we have a first class education system. Of course, plenty of people would disagree with that. One thing that gets me, is how much it costs to educate children. Oh, its a nice topic to get stuck into, but that’s a story for another day. Today’s story is about advertising education.

I got a copy of Dux Magazine in my letter box recently, (it’s the South edition) I think it appeared in the local newspaper. Its all about eduction. It says its “Your essential guide to education in Melbourne” There’s a website be sure to scroll down to the Dux articles and have a read of “The Trouble with boys” more on that in another post.

The magazine is really devoted to advertising schools and kindergartens. The language they use is just superb and reminds me of real estate advertising. I’ve never seen so many places offering high quality education with fully qualified teachers, claims of smaller class size and unique learning environments and of course academic excellence. I love that, a school that strives for academic excellence, like nobody had ever thought of that.

Why is it that schools need to compete? I get that different schools have different teachers, and maybe even different techniques, but come on – since when did education become competitive? Coke and Pepsi need to compete for a market share and profit. Schools don’t or shouldn’t be making a profit. Its about kudos? Why? Surely every school should have the task of educating their children to the best of their academic excellence.

Education is important, it’s a sad day when private schools are competing for students, it’s all so, well grubby and it makes me think that its not about the kids, its about bums on seats and money.

Here’s some of my favourite PR speak:

harmonising academic excellence
supported by specialist teachers
learning programs designed to stimulate
dynamic learning community
world leader
life long learning experience

Now, where’s that spell checker…..

education – Bruce Llama

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