WHEN Oz’s PM Julia Gillard expressed her heartfelt sympathy for the families of the victims of the Greymouth mine disaster, which occurred on November 19, she pointedly avoided religious language.
In a recorded statement, Ms Gillard simply expressed her:
Julia Gillard, not biblical enough for Oz's faith-heads
Condolences . . . best wishes, sympathy and support.
This omission has apparently pissed off the nation’s dwindling number of faith-heads, and Gillard is now being urged to get more biblical in her public pronouncements.
According to this report, professional political speech writer Dr Michael Fullilove praised Ms Gillard’s remarks for their directness and honesty, but said there was no stricture on her to avoid prayer or God in such circumstances.
The problem comes because Ms Gillard is both an individual and a representative of the nation.
He said modern Australian leaders, especially from the Labor side, tended to refer to God “lightly” or “obliquely”.
As an example, Dr Fullilove cited former NSW premier Bob Carr’s speech at Coogee Oval in 2002 in commemoration of the Sydney-based victims of the first Bali bombing.
Mr Carr, an atheist, said justice would eventually be dealt to the perpetrators of the bombing. He then added:
But for now, we pray in our different ways for those who are gone. We pray and remember. We celebrate their lives and mourn.
Dennis Glover, a former speechwriter for Mark Latham, said it would take time for Ms Gillard to “find her rhetorical range”.
A lot of people are atheists in modern Australia and people would expect her to be truthful rather than hypocritical. But the language of the Bible is now part of our culture and you don’t have to be a believer to borrow a sentiment or even to quote it.
He added:
Barack Obama and Tony Blair are Christians but feel no shame in quoting from the Koran. Julia Gillard could easily borrow from the Bible to make a powerful moral point, or she could just as easily appeal to secular philosophy or to classical literature.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
November 30th, 2010 at 10:47 am
you could certainly borrow from the bible for a powerful *immoral* point.
November 30th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Of course she *could* quotw from the bible or talk about prayer – or she could remain based in reality, and express sorrow and empathy without referring to fairytales and magic.
Just as she did – and good on her.
November 30th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Why would anyone quote anything they know to be complete bollocks? It beggars belief that moronic religious types would rather she pretend, so they can claim their particular brand of oppression is somehow vaid… within every single quote from the bible comes the threat of eternal torture unless you submit. It may not be spoken, but it’s there. The Australian pm should be applauded for avoiding such hollow sentiments.
November 30th, 2010 at 11:10 am
I am sure there is some fancy logical fallacy for that type of thinking. But I could not be bothered to look it up. The Aussies voted in a Godless women as their boss, now let them enjoy it, as they deserve to.
November 30th, 2010 at 11:16 am
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had said of Mr Carr:
“Look! See! He’s talking about praying to god. He says he’s an atheist, but as we all know, there are no atheists in foxholes. We all recognize the truth of god when we have to face a crisis.”
Or some other such BS.
Gillard is dead right – she does have to represent all people, but she has to do it as herself. Her comments don’t exclude people from praying – a call to prayer excludes those who don’t.
November 30th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Awww! They’re inviting her into their game of “Let’s Pretend.” How sweet.
November 30th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
He’s right. She should make the occasional shout out to Zeus,
Apollo, Odin, Shiva, Set, Cthulhu, etc. Depending on the situation.
November 30th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Condolances in combination with ‘God’ sound more impressive than ‘shit happens’, which is what we’re talking about. In Chili, the miners survived thanks to ‘divine’ intervention, the miners in Oz were not so lucky, and no faith-head ask why this is so, so why the insistance on ‘god’?
November 30th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
He stated ‘Julia Gillard could easily borrow from the Bible to make a powerful moral point’ or, in this instance, ignore it completely and avoid sounding like a fuckwit.
November 30th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
So, we have “shit happens, but it’s part of god’s unknowable plan, so that’s all right?”
November 30th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
The religionuts are suffering and desperate. Now they want an atheist to “borrow from the bible.” Seems anything will do as long as they get a few words from the book of their fantasy fairy. I suppose if she did quote from one of the many versions of the bible that would be used to indicate that she was either a crypto christian or the biblical message was so ingrained she couldn’t do without it.
A massive division has opened and is now obvious between “people of faith” (this gets you on that pits of a programme Thought for the Day) and non believers. The faith groupies are, on the whole, poorly educated, often lack even basic academic qualifications, unintelligent while the non believers are well educated, well qualified and intelligent and able to read, analyse and, most important, write cogent English. So the faith groupies depend on the potted idiocy (thought to be the wisdom of divine revelation) of their often none too bright preachers. This enables them to be vain and certain without the effort of actually reading and studying anything.
November 30th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
This seems like just an excuse to have a go at someone who dared to be an atheist while succeeding. There is absolutely no compunction on Gillard to quote the bible or reference any god. By the tortured logic quoted in the article she might as well say ask everyone to pray to Thor the miners make it to Valhalla. She said something perfectly intelligible and sincere in an attempt to offer comfort in a situation that no words can help. Retrofitting an insincere god reference onto the statement would just be playing politics and would probably have pissed off theists because “she’s an atheist, she can’t possibly have meant it!”
These people go through life looking for something to be annoyed and offended about. I really hope they can find a way to shed that inclination and enjoy a bit more peace.
November 30th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Maybe she should casually mention that their God created three explosions in the mine.
November 30th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
My standing-ovation to this great lady for NOT resorting to hypocritical language in expressing her heart-felt sentiment. We need some of her in the US!
November 30th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Funny how no religiots have started a bandwagon claiming it was their god wot dun it. They weren’t so slow off the mark about claiming responsibility for the chileans being saved and how much their god loved those miners yet none want to say it was their god that killed these miners cos he obviously hated them. Wonder why that is?
November 30th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Well it has all been said. I always bring up the fact to anyone preaching religion to me that their god must chose who he loves and does not love. Although on the other hand perhaps he needs this people in his heaven to work for him down heavens mines.Perhaps his computer broke down.
I believe that people like GeorgeBush and Obama together with priests should be made to read out the terrible and cruel passages in the Bible, but this would not happen would it. Any ideas how this could be made to happen.
November 30th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
“We don’t care if you mean it. Just say the magic words so we can pretend you do.” Isn’t this what Catholics were forced to do for years in Britain? Nice to see they’ve moved on on their ‘thinking’.
November 30th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
@Daz… Isn’t that what they still do? I know plenty of parents who ‘pretend’ to be catholic to get their kids into a (so called ‘good’ school). The teachers and priests know they have no faith whatsoever, but they just really don’t care! It’s moronic really!
November 30th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
It appears to me that these people are desperate for their religion to remain relevant and are distressed so see that it becomes less and less relevant over time. I am old enough to remember the many initiatives that the CofE launched over the decades that they really believed would reverse their decline, I don’t know whether these initiatives, or something similar occured in NZ and Oz but I would expect that they did. As each revival, doomed to failure as it was, yet again failed to happen, it has slowly dawned on the faithful that it never will. So they are now reduced to this helpless and pathetic bleating because they can’t think of anything else to do.
November 30th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
@Stonyground
You are absolutely on target. After 2000 years there has never been one iota of anything that might pass as evidence that their god exists. Not one single incident. And yet would it not be so simple just to have one, obvious, indisputable demonstration that he is there.
Now I know religionuts will say the evidence is there. I have had it said to me, “He has answered my prayers.” “My friend went to Lourdes and was cured.” “What about Jesus and the miracles.” My response has been that he seems selective about whose prayers he answers and the Lourdes miracles never include replacing a limb.
Religion is about power, a career choice, a need for fame and appearances on television, a seat, unelected in the House of Lords. And so they witter away, ever more desperate, and you will notice that the discussion that they avoid is the simple issue: let us discuss what you mean by god, what is his form, why is his book so contradicory, how can he be both all powerful and all loving etc. And as well as this they dare not allow the freedom of the airwaves to robust secular opinion hence the Stalinist sensorship of the pathetic Thought for the Day of all atheist opinion.
They cannot win; they know they are losing; the charade is exposed as more bogus by the day and Ratzi’s Gucci shoes and designer gowns, Rowan Williams high hat and flowing robes cannot disguise this. They know. The Emperor really has no clothes.
November 30th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Australia is probably one of the least Religious countries on earth.
You will find the average Aussie would be a deist at worst.
The problem is our parliament and media is full of God Bots.
November 30th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Fricken religious bullies at it again. Everybody has to kowtow to their ridiculous fantasies, or else.
December 1st, 2010 at 12:36 am
She could also quote from the script of Star Wars if she wanted to, if they’re going to urge her to quote from a load of made up bollocks.
Good to see some basic common sense and decency from the Aussie PM, and well done her for not feeling pressured to conform to “cultural” bible punching.
*is actually a fan of Star Wars, and doesn’t really think it’s bollocks*
December 1st, 2010 at 12:44 am
Oh, and since the subject of god and the miners is in circulation again with this latest tragedy, this is worth a repost:
http://i.imgur.com/J7UJg.jpg
December 1st, 2010 at 9:00 am
@DannyJ – “The teachers and priests know they have no faith whatsoever, but they just really don’t care! It’s moronic really!”
No, it’s quite sensible from the church’s point of view. Just like forced conversion to Islam. A person can’t be forced to believe. But if they go through the motions, who else is to know? Instead of an unbeliever existing and prospering and providing evidence that unbelief is at least possible, the church ensures uniformity of appearance and so makes any potential unbeliever feel totally isolated. Also, any children brought up in this environment will be successfully brainwashed.
It’s far from moronic. Despicable, but not moronic.
December 1st, 2010 at 9:15 am
@ Broga Isn’t it strange that the only ‘evidence’ they can point to happened when people were extremely superstitious iron-age goat herders? Why not a quick and simple appearance right now while we have modern communications, media, internet, etc? Then the whole world could agree instantly on which god is the true god – end of chat. Everybody lives in peace, etc, etc.
It just seems very odd to me that an all-powerful deity would miss this chance to assert his/her authority. It’s almost like there isn’t a god, perhaps.
December 2nd, 2010 at 1:39 am
How was it “pointed� Is any and all avoidance of religious language “pointed�
Did she also “pointedly avoid Russian language†in her speech? Did her speech “pointedly avoid Keynsian language� She has no obligation to use religious language any more than those.
The faith-heads don’t like their fantasies being ignored, and the more they squeal about it the more ridiculous they reveal themselves to be.
Congratulations to Gillard for not propping up a delusion.
December 3rd, 2010 at 9:23 am
Wasn’t this the lady who approved the extension of the sinister “School Chaplains” programme and increased its budget?
December 4th, 2010 at 7:33 am
In this sort of context, I’d suggest that “prayer” when used in this manner is more for a bit of bonding as opposed to actually communicating with a sky fairy. Politicians need to be representative of their constituents and even though only 9% of Australians admitted in the 2006 census that they attended church in the previous 30 days,there are still some remaining xians out there. Their numbers are rapidly dwindling and soon they’ll be able to hold their worshipping sessions in a phone booth, but they do need to be at least acknowleged, so a throw away line about offering a prayer will do no harm.