Of Religion, Atheism & Fanatics...

WATCHED The Blind Side on the idiot box tonight. A nice enough movie, with Sandra Bullock managing to portray a feisty yet caring mother to perfection. Had my late grandmother been rich, American and from the South rather than relatively poor, Australian and from the Deep North I could see her being pretty similar to Bullock's portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy.

What got me thinking though was a comment on the movie's Wikipedia page. Apparently Bullock wasn't convinced she was right for the role. As she said in this interview, Bullock was intimidated by what the article describes as the Touhy's "evangelical Christian faith". It was only after meeting the Tuohys that Bullock felt she could take on the role:

"One of my biggest concerns stepping into this was how people use their faith and their religion as a banner, and then they don't do the right thing," explains Bullock. "They go, 'I'm a good Christian, and I go to church, and this is the way you should live your life.' And I'm like, do not give me a lecture on how to live my life when you go to church every week, but I know you're still sleeping around on your wife. I told Leigh Anne the banner waving scared me because I've had experiences that haven't been great. I don't buy a lot of people who use that as their shield. But she was so open and honest and forthright. And I thought, wow, I finally met someone who practices but doesn't preach—someone who blazes trails, and they do it as a family."


The Tuohy's religion is respectfully covered in the movie. You know that the family are strong Christians, yet it's not shoved into your face like the ground does when you fall over. You can argue that the Tuohys taking in the homeless Michael Oher is in the truest Christian tradition.

Do you know what? What to me is exactly what religion should be about. Right now religion's copping a hammering left, right and centre. Some of it's entirely self-inflicted, like the Catholic Church's continued paedophile priest problem or the various fanatics from all religions claiming theirs is the only true way and that if you're not doing it their way you're all going to burn in hell. The continued opposition to gay marriage by organisations like the Australian Christian Lobby doesn't help matters either. Some comes from our increasing scientific knowledge, which athiests suggest are proof you'd get just as much spiritual guidance worshipping a bag of Doritos as Divine Deities.

Question has to be asked though whether a evangelical atheist is any different to an evangelical religious types? As much as I hate people trying to convert me, calling someone's beliefs into question doesn't necessarily end with someone walking off in shock like in the movie Dogma. To use a personal example, I have a very religious friend while I consider myself agnostic, yet religion isn't something that comes up between us. She has her views, I have mine, and while they differ we respect that about each other.

And it doesn't matter if you're religious or not; the Ten Commandments are a pretty good way to live your life. Athiests and agnostics will probably ignore 3 (do not take the Lord's name in vain) and 4 (Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy), but the other eight are still pretty much spot-on.

Granted, there will always be people who do stupid and evil in the name of religion: seriously, where in the Bible does it say two people who love each other can't get married because they're the same gender, whereas a man and woman can definitely get married even if it's only because there's a child on the way after a one-night stand?
But while people like the Tuohys can use their faith to change someone else's life for the better then shouldn't we focus on that as being a positive for religion?

Of Being A Queenslander

BACK in the mid 1990s my grandfather remarried in the little town of Benarkin, just off the D'Aguilar Highway about 150 north-west of Brisbane.

The whole extended family headed bush for the event. Mum and Dad dragged the four of us boys out; Mum's surviving siblings were there; and for quite possibly the only time ever our four country cousins managed to look better than us as their parents made sure they were dressed up for the occasion. I'm personally blaming a spot of teenage rebellion, but that's neither here nor there.

The whole day had passed without a hitch. Grandad was marrying again after losing his wife back in 1991; Helena's family gave us our first real introduction to the wonders of the Dutch accent. My brother Matt was his usual funny self (and I mean that genuinely; as a kid there were few else that could raise a laugh out of everyone) - all in all it was that kind of family gathering that you remember fondly when everything inevitably implodes a few years down the track.

Then my uncle got up to give the best man's speech.

Now I should mention here and now that my uncle is one of the nicest blokes you'd ever want to meet. Always willing to lend a hand, genuinely happy to see family (including his godson), and always willing to share a beer with anyone.

On this occasion he'd shared a beer or two with everyone. So much so, that when he got up to speak, his focus may not have entirely been on welcoming Helena to the family.

"I'd like to welcome y'all to Queensland. Coz you're not in Australia anymore, you're in Queensland now and it's the best bloody country in the world. We've got the best bloody beer, the best bloody women..."

And so on.

You see, my uncle is your stereotypical Queenslander. He's proud of where he's from. Doesn't need to think too much about it. He is, as John Harms put it in this article:

"In Queensland you are born true. You start true, because you are a Queenslander. It’s as if growing up in Queensland confers on babies a purity. Queenslanders don’t have to look forward to a life of searching for truth. They have the truth. They live in a state of Queensland grace."

This is my uncle; he's a Queenslander.

FOR others, being a Queenslander hasn't always been something to be proud of, particularly during the reign of former Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. In his book Pig City, Andrew Stafford quotes singer Tex Perkins talking about Brisbane:

"Brisbane you have to leave. You come out of your mother, you go to school, and then you think, oh shit, what am I doing here?"

By the time you've got to this quote, you can understand why. Page after page describes life in Bjelke-Petersen's Queensland: men targeted by police for having long hair; journalists having their phones tapped because they'd spoken out against the government; and indigenous men and women thrown into the watchhouse just for being black. Throughout the book Stafford talks about Brisbane bands that felt they simply had to leave: The Saints, The Riptides, The Go-Betweens.

BUT let's not focus on the past, other than to remember that it's there. Let's fast-forward to 1988, where for much of my generation our first memory wasn't an aging Premier trying in vain to lead the whole country, but this very 80s tune on the tv:

Let's all join together

Our moment now has come

Let's view the golden future

Australian sons have won

Let's show them all what out-stretched arms

Of welcome can be worth

And welcome all the world to celebrate Australia's birth

...

Together we'll show the world

Under Bjelke-Petersen Queensland developed at a fast rate, with large numbers of immigrants making their way north from Sydney and Melbourne. By the time of World Expo '88 the whole state was changing: Bjelke-Petersen left office (albeit rather involuntarily) in December 1987; but his little festival meant that Brisbane was now in full world view. Hell, even the Soviets put Brisbane on a stamp! With Brisbane even bidding for the 1992 Summer Olympics, it seemed to us there wasn't anything Queensland couldn't do when we put our minds to it.

And slowly but surely, Queensland improved. Successive governments helped improve local infrastructure; police corruption was curtailed after the Fitzgerald Inquiry and restaurants and cafes begun to pop up. At first it was just one or two, before dozens appeared in places like Paddington, West End and New Farm. The Gallery of Modern Art now anchors the Queensland Cultural Centre, three words that once upon a time would have been an oxymoron right up there with Microsoft Works and Military Intelligence.

Over the past weekend I've had the pleasure of taking two friends from Perth around town. One of them commented to me about how he felt Brisbane was so much like a European city - not so much in architecture, but in the general feel of the place, in how there were people out and about of a night time. I thought about and reckoned that yeah, he's right. For me, moving from Europe back to Brisbane hasn't been as big a leap as I thought, with both of us growing during our time apart.

This is me; I'm a Queenslander.

SO where do these two Queenslanders meet? For all the talk of Queensland growing up, there's still a level of parochialism here that deeply unsettles an Canberra emigre friend. Notwithstanding that a mutual friend is quite possibly the only parochial Canberran is existence, he's right. Up here the local media still puts everything in Queensland terms; mind you there are born-and-bred Queenslanders that support New South Wales in the State of Origin these days. Can't imagine that back in Joh's day!

Perhaps trying to link Queensland old and new is beyond me at this point. I could try linking it to the Origin, where we all unleash our inner redneck and curse the men in blue, the ref in pink and anyone else that dare stop our boys; but that Queensland bond is surely too strong for three games of footy a year to account for. I am but a young man, one who has spent more time this century out of Queensland than in it. Perhaps it's back over to Mr Harms with some of his closing paragraphs:

"In the space of half an hour, listening to the radio between Cardwell and Tully, the announcer managed to assure me of the following Queensland qualities: resilience, resourcefulness, uniqueness, reliability, heroism. Billy Moore’s celebrated State of Origin moment, when he spontaneously yelled “Queenslander” in the tunnel before running out for the second half, is actually profound. It’s enough in Queensland to encapsulate the essence of the way of life in that single word."

"When I think of Queensland I still smile. That means, in my mind, that a romanticised view prevails, a view that has been conditioned to ignore the racism and bigotry, the materialism and hollowness. The tug is there. The tug is Queensland’s liberating fatalism, its acceptance of things beyond its control, its mood of freedom, its call to ratbaggery."

Sounds about right to me.