Margaret Coffey sums up the GAC

[riddlemethis]

I am too mad to even craft a response to this blog effort, before the ABC site dedicated to the religious obscurantism of the GAC. Margaret Coffey (http://blogs.radionational.net.au/atheistconvention/?p=853#respond)is a real piece of work. Perhaps someone else can put something in response to her without losing their mind (I am still too sleep deprived!)

[riddlemethis]

Yes. In the end I did make a comment:

Ah Margaret, more (misplaced) intellectually superior, politically correct posturing in order to distort the depth of things actually discussed at the GAC? What a shock. Expecting more cohesion & inclusivity of the atheist community in five organised minutes than the religious one has delivered in thousands of years. Cheap shot. You got us on one point though, diversity; goodness knows there is no lack of this in religious thinking. I mean have you ever seen so many versions of “the Truth”?
Perhaps next time the ABC will see it’s way clear to actually include an atheist on their op-ed team covering an atheist convention, kind of like they do with representing the viewpoint of ALL other sections of the community by including someone who actually understands it. Maybe now though, in the interests of complete balance, they might send a team of atheists to the next gathering of the religiously inclined.
This entire thing has been an exercise in begging the question.

We'll see if it gets Mod'ed or not. But seriously, the voice of these people is infuriating & I'd like to torch the box hedge at her Armadale mansion right now!

[two dogs]

I’ve been challenged by some commentators on this blog to admit my bias, as if there is one telling bias, religious belief. Well here’s a bias and it’s not half joking: English accents of a certain kind remind me that I’m not so far removed from the colonial experience. I hear in Richard Dawkins and in A. C. Grayling that smooth voice of imperialism, going about quashing languages and symbolic structures as it ‘rationalises’ and ‘improves’, systematises and reduces, ruling out other voices, other experiences and complexities beyond its ken, erasing boundaries and setting up arbitrary borders – and not in the least interested in upsetting the way the imperium works.
Educated English accent = colonial imperialism. :confused:

[Goldenmane]

What did she want, Paul Hogan circa 1974? What a very strange criterion for condemning a person's words.

She should come have a chat with me, if that's the sort of shit that bothers her. My accent wanders all over the map, depending on mood and to whom I am speaking, but generally it's pretty fucking ocker. Ask any of the crew who met me. Then ask them if I'm also a colonialist thicko.

[Hossain Salahuddin]

Thank you Margaret Coffey for your dishonest coverage. I expected nothing better from you . . . Hoping you will come up with more lies and pathetic half truths in our next convention... until then ... :eek:

[two dogs]

...
going about quashing languages and symbolic structures as it ‘rationalises’ and ‘improves’, systematises and reduces, ruling out other voices, other experiences and complexities beyond its ken, erasing boundaries and setting up arbitrary borders – and not in the least interested in upsetting the way the imperium works.
...
Sorry, in my previous post, I neglected to ask if anyone (other than a postmodernist) had any idea as to what the fuck Margaret is on about?

[Goldenmane]

Sorry, in my previous post, I neglected to ask if anyone (other than a postmodernist) had any idea as to what the fuck Margaret is on about?
Even a postmodernist isn't going to help you on that. The whole point to postmodernism is to eructate as many syllables as possible without actually saying anything at all. Postmodernism is autofellatio (or in this case autocunnilingus).

[riddlemethis]

Sorry, in my previous post, I neglected to ask if anyone (other than a postmodernist) had any idea as to what the fuck Margaret is on about?

Yes, that's what happens when you are so stuck in the conflation that being philosophically religious is the same thing as being intellectually vibrant. She is so far up her own politically correct arse that she evidently doesn't recognise actual intellectual discourse even when she spends a weekend surrounded by it, not to mention the complete humour bypass she has obviously undergone at the hands of many years of mental gymnastics & entertaining every credulous supernatural idea man ever came up with as the highest use of our considerable brain power.

I actually wish there was some way that women like her could be exiled to a world where religion & the supernatural was the only basis for structuring society, just so she could see exactly what life was really like in the dark ages. She is a pathetic apologist for patriachy & hides under the catch-phrase "it's complicated" when defending even the most murderous fanatical behaviour of Islamists & other religious crusaders , but then sees no fucking irony at all in reducing the complexity of a gathering of people who really only have one thing in common & even then it's the lack of a thing.

It is people like this that assure me people like Dawkins, Harris & Hitchens are right when they brand the moderates as no better than the fundies. She's an enabler.

[riddlemethis]

Even a postmodernist isn't going to help you on that. The whole point to postmodernism is to eructate as many syllables as possible without actually saying anything at all. Postmodernism is autofellatio (or in this case autocunnilingus).

Yeah, I dunno, if she could actually reach maybe we'd all get some peace! Sure as shit, nobody's doing it for her.

[two dogs]

...
autocunnilingus
...

Cue joke about an Audi/Cunard/Aer Lingus merger.

[Loki]

if she could actually reach maybe we'd all get some peace!

Her flexibility may surprise you. She already has her head up her own arse, it's not far from there.

[Caio]

This lady so completely misses the point i'm wondering how many whiskeys she had in her for breakfast? Because her head clearly wasn't there at the convention.

[Annie]

Her last line - "Thank you for your attention – and thanks also to my collaborators in this enterprise. I think we’ve learned a lot!"
This dweeb has obviously learned nothing. From the few lines I think I understood, I can only draw the conclusion that although Ive read some crap in my time this pile takes the cake. Cant help but think that even the stick up her bum has a stick up it's bum.

[two dogs]

...
She is so far up her own politically correct arse that she evidently doesn't recognise actual intellectual discourse even when she spends a weekend surrounded by it, not to mention the complete humour bypass she has obviously undergone at the hands of many years of mental gymnastics & entertaining every credulous supernatural idea man ever came up with as the highest use of our considerable brain power.

That's the second longest coherent sentence I've ever heard, or read. ;)

[lilgirlblue]

It is my dearest wish to be able to quash language in the way that A.C. Grayling and Richard Dawkins do.

I see that Mags has denied everyone the possibility of furious rebuttal. Ah well. She who laughs last, laughs...axiomatically!?

Whatever that means. "Axiomatic laughter" sounds like one of the symptoms of a dire medical condition. If it progresses to being apodictic, see a doctor, seriously.

[riddlemethis]

It is my dearest wish to be able to quash language in the way that A.C. Grayling and Richard Dawkins do.

I see that Mags has denied everyone the possibility of furious rebuttal. Ah well. She who laughs last, laughs...axiomatically!?

Whatever that means. "Axiomatic laughter" sounds like one of the symptoms of a dire medical condition. If it progresses to being apodictic, see a doctor, seriously.

Ventolin and Atavan through a nebuliser - just one of the lifesaving things we've learned through Margaret's prefered (highest) intellectual pursuits of sitting around drinking tea, eating scones & playing with our god-zone together. . .oh hang on.

[riddlemethis]

That's the second longest coherent sentence I've ever heard, or read. ;)

I've been practising my long parses. . .;)

[Ateo]

This girl sucks:p.

The only thing I get from her rant is that she is pissed off about the success and massive participation of the GAC.

Poor bastard:eek:

[davo]

Yea this woman interviewed me at the bloggers breakfast, it was interesting her take (and an example of the media attitude) here is what she said about that in a report :

The Convention was, he said, designed as a point of consolidation rather than as a place for debate – hence the lack of invitation to non-atheists. (Again, I was intrigued that encounter with difference could only be conceptualised in terms of debate.)My response :

Margaret, the reason behind the ‘encounter with difference could only be conceptualised in terms of debate.’ is that the religious groups themselves that contacted us, were after just that.
We had a huge amount of christians specifically asking us via email why we would not debate.
Indeed, outside the venue, we had a creationist with a big sign stating that Richard Dawkins would not debate creationists.
Don’t you think this continual call for debate from the religious is reasoning enough to ‘conceptualise an encounter as debate’?
Personally, as with many at the event there is no reason to give religion yet another podium to speak.
Where was the atheists at World Youth Day?In fact, the only contact we had was about debate, but no, it's the atheists just conceptualising!

My basic surprise was the way the radio national blog kept a veneer of being differing views, but a lot of the posts were just propagandah.

Check out this one :

http://blogs.radionational.net.au/atheistconvention/?p=697

a second whole post on reading scripture, on a blog about the atheist convention?

'You are just not reading it right, here's someone who has spent 70 years writing scripture to lecture you on it ..'