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UNBOWED ATHEIST
reason the enemy of belief
Unbowed
Atheist first appeared as a Demetrios Vakras
blog when 10 articles were published on 15 June
2013. These articles can still be found at http://vakras.blogspot.com.au
SLEEP OF REASON
BREEDS THEISM
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www.unbowedatheist.com/author_bio.html
(7/12/2014-27/12/2014)
THE AUTHOR
[gelded - re-edited, later]
Demetrios Vakras is an
Australian artist born in Melbourne.
He rejects that any
supernatural being, beings, or the stars can guide us, or can
be prayed to, pleaded with, or worshiped, or give our lives
meaning; he is atheist.
Demetrios lives with partner
Lee-Anne Raymond.
In 2009 both held an exhibition
at a now closed Melbourne art gallery run by Robert Cripps,
who, on his own admission knew nothing about art, art theory,
art history, and had the most difficult time understanding
much of anything at all due to his limited education.
Nevertheless, Cripps described
atheist criticism of religion as "anti-Palestinian" claiming
that it would cause people to not blame Jews for conflict in
Palestine.
Apparently being atheist can
constitute support for Jews or Israel.
Both Demetrios and Lee-Anne
were sued for defamation for writing about this.
Demetrios has not practiced his
art since being sued.
contact Demetrios:
ophion at
internode.on.net
this is a framed site, for a reason
–to understand a publication
one should understand the medium that publication appears in -
Australian judges do not, with the most famous
misunderstanding being that arrived at by Michael McHugh et al
of the High Court of Australia in the Gutnick case. In that
case judicial ignorance manifested itself as high farce posing
as profound wisdom which took the form of the judgement made
by the judges involved. That judgement still stands!
In the UK Openshaw made known
to an international audience how profound the shortcomings of
the English judiciary are - causing the British judicial board
to invent an extraordinary excuse for him (below) to blunt the
international scorn and ridicule directed at England's
deficient judiciary. The explanation by the Brits was that
Openshaw had utilised computers in the same way onagutans can
utilise computers and this meant that he was "computer
literate". Only a judicial board deficient in "computer
literacy" could or would make such a claim and believe it
proves a point.
Unlike the UK, Australia has
no international exposure that would necessitate its judges or
the judiciary to explain the shortcomings and deficiencies of
its judges.
Of primary concern for the Engllish judicial system is that the confidence of the court should be maintained at any cost.
CONTENT REMOVED
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Beach and Kyrou disregarded
the mode or manner of the publication. They both
assessed the page as a static printed page.
According to law their consideration of a static
page constitutes them considering a different
publication to the web-page over which I was sued.
The webpage is only accessible via the internet
without which no "publication" can exist. This,
under law, means that the ordinary or reasonable
reader accessing the publication in the "mode and
manner" it is made, has available to them the
resources of the internet when reading it and
consider the meaning of its content in that
context. Any ordinary or reasonable reader can
read the Koran, or Mein Kampf, which are available
on-line, or find out about "the Mufti", al
Husseini, and therefore dispel whatever
preconceptions and prejudices they have.
CONTENT REMOVED
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legalese WARNING 1!
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2002/1080.html
Jones v Scully [2002] FCA 1080 (2 September
2002)
FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
Jones v Scully
125 In the
law of defamation, the principles which apply
in determining whether material conveys a
pleaded imputation were summarised
in Amalgamated Television Services Pty Ltd v
Marsden(1998) 43 NSWLR 158 by Hunt CJ at CL
(with whom Mason P and Handley JA agreed) at
165-166, where his Honour said:
"The ordinary reasonable meaning of the
matter complained of may be either the
literal meaning of the published matter, or
what is implied by that matter, or what is
inferred from it: ... In deciding whether
any particular imputation is capable of
being conveyed, the question is whether it
is reasonably so capable (Defamation Act, s
7A, reflecting the common law: ...), and any
strained or forced or utterly unreasonable
interpretation must be rejected: ... The
ordinary reasonable reader (or listener or
viewer) is a person of fair average
intelligence ..., who is neither perverse
..., nor morbid or suspicious of mind ...,
nor avid for scandal: .... That person does
not live in an ivory tower but can and does
read between the lines in the light of that
person's general knowledge and experience of
worldly affairs: ...
The mode or manner of publication is a
material matter in determining what
imputation is capable of being conveyed: ...
The reader of a book, for example, is
assumed to read it with more care than he or
she would read a newspaper. The more
sensational the article in a newspaper, the
less likely is it that the ordinary
reasonable reader will have read it with the
degree of analytical care which may
otherwise have been given to a book ..., and
the less the degree of accuracy which would
be expected by the reader: ... The ordinary
reasonable reader of such an article is
understandably prone to engage in a certain
amount of loose thinking:... There is a wide
degree of latitude given to the capacity of
the matter complained of to convey
particular imputations where the words
published are imprecise, ambiguous, loose,
fanciful or unusual: ...
What must be emphasised is that it is the
test of reasonableness which guides any
court in its function of determining whether
the matter complained of is capable of
conveying any of the imputations pleaded by
the plaintiff. In determining what is
reasonable in any case, a distinction must
be drawn between what the ordinary
reasonable reader, listener or viewer
(drawing on his or her own knowledge and
experience of human affairs) could
understand from what the defendant has said
in the matter complained of and the
conclusion which the reader, listener or
viewer could reach by taking into account
his or her own belief which has been excited
by what was said. It is the former approach,
not the latter, which must be taken: ....
The publisher is not held responsible, for
example, for an inference which the ordinary
reasonable reader, listener or viewer draws
from an inference already drawn from the
matter complained of, because it is
unreasonable for the publisher to be held so
responsible:..."
(emphasis in original)
126 The above principles were
recently followed in this Court by Tamberlin J
in Versace v Monte [2002] FCA 190 at pars
[144] - [146]. At [145] his Honour said:
"In determining what will be conveyed to
an ordinary reasonable reader, listener or
viewer of fair average intelligence, one
must not look at the statement or matters
complained of in isolation. Rather, they
must be considered in the whole context of
the material in which they are
published: John Fairfax & Sons Ltd v
Hook [1983] FCA 83; (1983) 72 FLR 190at 195.
The reference to the "context" of the
publication is a broad reference which
embraces all the attendant circumstances,
including both the surrounding matter and
the mode of publication."
 LawCite
(case law applications of above)
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legalese WARNING 2!
http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/vic/VSC/2012/254.html
Supreme Court of Victoria
JUDGE:
BEACH J
Cunliffe v Woods [2012] VSC 254 (18 June 2012)
The meaning of the letter
6 The question of what imputations are conveyed by a particular publication (in this case, a letter) is determined by reference to the standard of the “ordinary reasonable” reader.[4] In determining meaning, one must look at the whole of the publication (letter). It is not open to the plaintiff to simply pick and choose parts of the letter which, standing alone, might be defamatory or might convey some different defamatory meaning.[5]
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CONTENT REMOVED
The shortcomings of judges'
understanding "computer stuff" are not limited to the
anglosphere – they are international. The Greek judiciary made
itself an international object of ridicule. If only they knew!
From vakras.com bio page written in c.2002 and re-edited in 2004
The same criticisms made in 2002 were repeated in the exhibition Humanist Transhumanist in 2009. In 2014 Greek-born Australian judge Emilios Kyrou ruled that this criticsm could be seen to aid the Jew's cause for a state in "Palestine".
[Demetrios Vakras] Photographed at age 17 in 1980 wearing a T-shirt proclaiming "atheism shall prevail".
In the Australian state of Victoria, new blasphemy laws (the "religious tolerance act"), inconsistent with an "implied" constitutional right to freedom of speech (as per Australian High Court) mean that any statement made regarding any religion, regardless of whether it can be demonstrated to be the truth, is illegal if it is seen to disparage members of any religious faith. Under this state law what I am writing here is illegal! This law has yet to be tested in Australia's High Court..... This surrealist legislation however deems it acceptable to incite violence and hate in the context of the practice of a religion!
Much of my art intends to debunk human delusions... Religion, and its concomitant belief that we are an imaginary god's creation, is the most pernicious of humanity's delusions. It has caused inestimable suffering throughout history...An explanation of the art can be found: HERE
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Unfortunately for all of us religiosity is as vigorous a force as it ever has been, and continues to compel followers of particular faiths to commit acts of violence against others not of their own faith. In 2001, for example, followers of the religion of violence, Islam, committed acts of terrorism in the United States, acts which though consistent with the exhortation of their sacred text the Koran, were instead attributed (by some) as actions by men acting outside that religion's teachings. Indeed, as recently as the Muslim terrorist train bombings in Madrid, the Christian consensus was, as expressed by the Archbishop of Madrid (25/3/2004), that "the terrorists will have to answer to god for their crimes". Thus a fundamental ignorance of the message of the Koran which promises divine reward for those who kill on behalf of god, elicits surreal and bizarre responses...
There is a failure to realise that religious guidance is deemed morally good solely on the authority of a religious text - on its own say-so. Thus if violence is demanded by a religious text on behalf of God the corollary is that committing violence is morally good. When the kind of moral and religious guidance of a "holy" book orders the pursuit of violence as does the Koran, eg The Cow 2: 216 "Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it. But you may hate a thing although it is good for you..." you have a situation in which terrorism is itself an act of good as it is demanded by a holy book.
...thus we hit the pinnacle of madness that is the divine.
When Islam is criticised, for its violence, as it was by the former archbishop of Canterbury (27/3/2004), the response of Muslim leaders is one of outrage ... One suspects it is Islamic al-taqiyya at work: the moral right Muslims claim to have which permits them to mislead non-Muslims. As long as there is denial that Islam is a religion of violence then these responses of outrage serve only as an apologia for the violence Muslims commit and thus reinforces the Muslim self-delusion of being wrongly and unfairly targeted...: victims. As long as they maintain the delusion of victimhood Islam's predisposition to violence can only be exacerbated not resolved.
(Pious Muslims follow the teachings of the Koran .... and the Koran demands that its followers commit violence against the unbelievers - wherever they may be found and that the faithful who do not commit acts of violence against unbelievers will suffer divine retribution! Refer: Koran, Sura (chapters): 9:123; 61:10-12; 9:41; 9:38; 47:5-6; 8:60, etc.,etc.
The Christian New Testament isn't quite the book of peace it is claimed to be either: Matthew 10 : 32-34, Luke 22 35-38, although this is tempered by other passages calling for restraint and disavowal of the pursuit of violence.)
PREVIEW OF NEW SERIES
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| A belief
is not the equivalent to a logical corollary.
And, a logical corllary is not "an opinion".
Australia's judiciary conflate these concepts and deem
them to be of the same meaning. |
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