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Articles from THE BLOT REPORT

Confirmation

March 25, 2023 - 09:19 -- Admin

In 2021, I wrote an essay which referred, in part, to a Church and State Summit at which the then head of the Australian Christian Lobby, Martin Iles suggested that for the religious to retain power, violence may be “down the line”1.

The transition

March 23, 2023 - 09:19 -- Admin

I remember having a conversation with a Catholic person some decades ago, during which that person, in response to a question about gay people, replied with something along the lines of: ‘…we can’t let them into our schools’. This was because she conflated gay people with paedophiles. Little did she realise that the greatest repository of paedophiles in any organisation, was that in the Catholic church, a branch at which she worshipped1. 

Onward christian soldiers, again

March 20, 2023 - 12:15 -- Admin

The last of a previous series of four articles related some of the activities surrounding the 2021 Church and State Summit convened by one David Pellowe. At that summit, Pellowe implored the audience to join political parties, while attendees George Christensen suggested that Christians should be disingenuous when running for office by keeping their real motivations covert, and Martin Iles, the recently dumped head of the Australian Christian Lobby, said that violence was a possibility1.

Facts vs bullshit

March 12, 2023 - 14:18 -- Admin

I wrote an essay almost a week ago on the futility of arguing against conspiracy theorists (creationists, antivaxxers, climate change deniers etc.) but the utility of taking time to enlighten those who spout the same drivel out of ignorance rather than malice. In this, I said that a fair proportion of the world’s knowledge is online and readily available1.

Argument is futile

March 8, 2023 - 08:54 -- Admin

I stumbled across this Bertrand Russell story while farnarcling around on Mastodon (which is like Twitter but without the Murdoch halfwits and the racists). It was a response from the brilliant Russell to a 1962 enquiry from Sir Oswald Mosley, who had founded the British Union of Fascists thirty years earlier. Mosley was inviting Russell to engage in a debate, in which he hoped to persuade the moral philosopher of the merits of fascism. Russell responded with:

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