How did these people get elected? How stupid are the Australian people?

Kevin Andrews, keeping company with those who ‘can raise the dead through prayer’

Families Minister Kevin Andrews will not be withdrawing from the World Congress of Families conference in Melbourne, despite revelations that the hard-right Christian outfit is hosting talks by speakers peddling spurious theories linking abortion to breast cancer, presenting homosexuality as a disease, and pushing the line that condoms do not help in achieving safe sex.

Government leader in the Senate Eric Abetz was due to speak at a lunch for one of the key speakers at the conference, where Dr Angela Lanfranchi is also due to speak. However, the lunch has now been cancelled by organisers at the Endeavour Forum, who cited the illness and clashing engagements of some other guests as reasons for the cancellation. They did not comment on suggestions that the lunch had been cancelled at the government’s request.

The cancellation comes days after Abetz was publicly rebuked by the Prime Minister for suggesting that there may be a link between abortion and higher rates of breast cancer. Speaking on The Project, Abetz alluded to “studies from the 1950s” suggesting a link. These studies, conducted in Japan, showed no link, and the hypothesis was thoroughly tested and discredited in the 1980s and 1990s.

However, right-wing groups have continued to advance the abortion-breast cancer link, spurred by the work of medical researchers Joel Brind and his associate Lanfranchi. The pair split from the US National Cancer Institute, after it explicitly and decisively rejected the link.

Lanfranchi, who runs a cancer treatment clinic out of a New Jersey hospital system, has continued to advocate the link between abortion and breast cancer, relying on isolated studies that run counter to large meta-studies, which screen out response bias and other effects in small studies. Lanfranchi also notes on her website that she believes strongly in “complementary medicine”, the “mind-body” connection and “the power of prayer” to treat cancer.

Lanfranchi is also a major figure in “the pill kills” movement, an offshoot of the United States anti-abortion movement, which seeks to limit access to oral contraception...

The right of the WCF to run whatever conference they like is not in doubt. But a higher standard attaches to a government minister, especially when his portfolio covers matters of evidence-based medicine.

Substantial research has found that the “combined” oral contraceptive slightly raises the risk of stroke and some cancers — but this is offset by a reduction in ovarian and endometrial cancer, for an overall reduced mortality rate. Lanfranchi was a major supporter of “the pill kills“ day, held in the US on June 7 this year, and her website features a video address by her repeating a series of cherry-picked statistics and one-off medical events caused by the pill.

“Young women schooled in the idea that contraception should be used to prevent pregnancy at all cost learn to think of babies as the enemy that will destroy their lives,” the website reads.

“That fear of children that results from the contraceptive mentality, coupled with the abortifacient nature of the pill, is depopulating and destroying our society one child at a time.”

Other participants and sponsors include the Catch the Fire ministry, whose Danny Nalliah describes mosques (and Hindu and Buddhist temples) as “Satan’s strongholds”. A Catch The Fire minister, Daniel Scot, claimed that Muslims were responsible for 70% of the drugs in the West. Nalliah himself claims to have raised a girl from the dead by the power of prayer. Salt Shakers, the Melbourne-based group that continues to argue that condoms do not promote safe sex, will address the conference.

And one of the key guests will be Larry Jacobs, a co-founder of the World Congress of Families, who was also due to attend the Abtez lunch. Jacobs has become famous for his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he believes is “saving the world for Christianity” against a Western tide of homosexual liberation...

...Kevin Andrews’ spokesperson Jan LeMaitre, confirmed that Andrews would be addressing the conference...

...What sort of guests would a conference have to invite before government ministers did rule out the implicit support that attendance gives? If a group were advancing eugenic or racialist pseudo-science, would they attend? Anti-vaccination talks? The hypothesis that there is no HIV-AIDS link? The religious opinions on display are open for discussion — even if being in the same room as Catch The Fire is a funny way to promote harmony for “Team Australia”. But the endorsement of the pseudo-science peddled by Lanfranchi and others is simply another manifestation of the Right’s anti-science and anti-reason agenda. Andrews should withdraw, and if he does not, the Prime Minister should instruct him to.

Crikey

Does this mean Yadda that even you have doubts over the power of prayer to raise the dead?  Isn't that blasphemy against the power of God?   

Yadda wrote on Aug 19^th, 2014 at 12:17pm:


So?  How does that answer the question I asked?  Do I have to consult the auguries to divine your answer Yadda or can you give it to us in plain English?   

Team Murdoch,


Why do you [we, mankind] worship and mourn flesh ?

It is what our whole culture is worshipping, and revering - the 'perfect' woman, and the 'perfect' man.

How stupid.





We should honour the men who died, making a sacrifice [of their life] for what is good.

Nothing more.




John 3:6
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.


John 6:63
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.


John 18:36
Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.


1 John 2:15
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
17  And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.







+++



This age.



A time when Black is White, and White is Black.

A time when up is Down, and Down is Up.

A time when evil is good, and good is evil.




Strange times indeed.

Good [truth] is evil.

And evil is good.


Psalms 9:16
The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah.
17  The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.