Tony Abbott preaches all children must read the Bible

No, that title is not mine. It's the headline chosen by someone at the Courier Mail. Sigh. I do sometimes wonder about how some of these idiots get their jobs and how they managed to, apparently, finish a university degree. No, Abbott isn't saying this at all (though you can guarantee this will be repeated as a statement of fact by the Cultural Left from now on). He's saying no more than what a Marxist professor of English from Adelaide University said some years ago - you cannot be a culturally literate member of Western civilisation without some knowledge of the Bible and Christianity. Up until quite recently, our art and literature were shot through with Biblical and Christian allusions, and it is impossible to understand these (or indeed the history of our civilisation) without some appreciation of them. And this is not about whether you 'believe' or not. Tony Abbott is absolutely right, of course, and I say that as an agnostic. Yet in answering as he should, he’s fallen for a gotcha: I think it would be impossible to have a good general education without at least some serious familiarity with the Bible and with the teachings of Christianity. It seems unfair for that reasonable statement to be beaten up into this Mad Monk stereotype: BIBLE classes should be compulsory so children have a fundamental understanding of Christianity on leaving school, federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says. Andrew Bolt The media framing of Abbott as some kind of dangerous religious extremist has begun. I don't see any actual quote from Abbott in the article saying that 'Bible classes' should be 'compulsory'.But while they are so sure of their own virtue in relation to Abbott's "prejudices," they seemingly are blind to their own. How else to explain the decision of that ridiculous buffoon Laurie Oakes to think he was being clever asking Abbott if he believed in evolution. What? For Christ's sake Laurie, he's a Roman Catholic, not some evangelical or charismatic. The Church of Rome effectively made its peace with Darwin many years ago. So what was being showcased during that interview was Oakes' own appalling ignorance and his own prejudice on display.

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