Folau - Whats this all about?

I have not been following but did read that a god-fearing Mr. Folau allegedly said "homosexuals, among other so-called "sinners", would go to hell"

Seems to me that we are all big enough to decide on whether we agree with various interpretations of various Gods or not.

I don't mind saying that I do not agree that the statement above makes a useful contribution nor that even if I believed there were a heaven or hell would people of this persuasion be assigned one place or another on the basis of that persuasion.

I do believe that people should be able to speak to their beliefs; that it is better to know what people are thinking than not and that as a society we should learn to differentiate opinion from compulsion to behave in certain ways and from fact.

Despite his beliefs Folau seems like a fine young man committed to and prepared to risk all for his beliefs. The only thing I could ask beyond that is that he and billions of others were sharp enough to take this God thing out of the equation...though that would be..."Godist", superior and certainly solidly PC.

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The fundamental question being asked is whether Israel Folau broke his word. It is not an argument of freedom of religion as far as I understand. According to Rugby Australia, one of the key clauses in the code of conduct Folau allegedly violated says players cannot “make any public comment that would likely be detrimental to the best interests, image and welfare of the game, a team, a club, a competition or union”. Rugby Australia argue Folau’s comments about hell awaiting gay people risk costing the sport fans and sponsors - and there is no sponsor more valuable to it than Qantas and its CEO Alan Joyce.

Folau’s basic argument is, Rugby Australia violated section 772 of the Fair Work Act, which details all the reasons an employer cannot use to terminate a worker’s contract. Religion is one of them. My personal opinion is, even though I think Folau made mistakes, he is basically a good person. In his eyes, and as ridiculous as it seems to some (including myself), he was trying to help people, not hurt them. The disproportion of his punishment to his offence is absolutely insane. The idea that he should lose his ability to earn a living for the rest of his life for expressing his beliefs is grotesque.

I think this video provides a good argument for Folau’s case. A bit long but worth your while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2RUZHVlJXI

 

Great post mate. This whole Folau thing has gotten out of hand. There is a war brewing in the middle east, people starving, children orphaned, jeez, wish some people would give the more important things in life the oxygen they deserve. 

In regards to the "hell" saga, well, there are three ways of looking at it. There's Dante's  nine circles of hell or Milton's view “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..” 

I like this one best, LOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut116mBuPpg

Ray — "This whole Folau thing has gotten out of hand."

Have to agree Ray.

:) Enjoyed your link, e.g.

Looters and pillagers over here, thieves if you could join them ... and lawyers, you're in that lot.

Ray,

you have convinced me not to repent if Rowan Atkinson is in charge of hell

Hilarious!!!

Mr Bean has no chance of topping some of the CEOs of major corporations for that role.

 

Banjo, post vid - tick

Ray, more please, laughing all the way to the cellar

One question

Image result for we're all going to hell animated gif

The QANTAS sponsorship of the Wallabies has been in place decades before Alan Joyce was appointed. Were there any player contracts terminated on similar grounds prior to Joyce's appointment in 2008?

 

after Folau and his very expensive lawyers exited the meeting they all piled into a taxi to go to a very expensive restaurant for lunch....obviously courtesy of the donors to his cause!

Usually  I don’t have much time for Joe Hildebrand, but he’s really nailed it here.

"If you want to understand the firestorm that has ignited Australia with a single social post, you have to go way, way back", writes Joe Hildebrand.

There is no point going back to Twitter or Instagram. You have to go back to the German town of Munster in 1534.

This was the age in which the Protestant Reformation met the printing press, when for the first time in history masses of people were able to read and hear the Bible in their own language.

Prior to this the good book had been very carefully kept, curated and interpreted by an elite clerical hierarchy who preached the Word of the Lord in Church Latin to parishioners who often literally didn’t even know what they were saying.

Now, with the Bible printed both scandalously and illegally in the language of the people, they could read it with their own eyes — or, more probably, listen to it with their own ears — for the first time. This was in itself a revolutionary act.

For centuries the Roman Catholic Church had established itself as an institution which propped up corrupt kings and waged bloody crusades, often for no particular purpose other than to propagate its own power. However the church had also gradually started filling the void of the collapsed Roman Empire, setting up schools, hospitals, monasteries and universities as well as providing some semblance of piecemeal welfare.

In other words, the church became a de facto state, providing a social order and moral framework that reflected the values of the time and the ritual of Mass was used to reinforce that, for both good and ill.

But with the Bible now scandalously — and illegally — translated into the common languages of Europe all that was suddenly thrown out the window. Now people were reading and hearing first hand about a radical preacher who drank copious amounts of wine, consorted with prostitutes and declared no rich man would get into heaven.

Moreover they were discovering for the first time the countless crazy, colourful and contradictory verses in the Old and New Testaments passed down by word of mouth, then written by a thousand unknown authors in Hebrew and Greek, then translated into High Latin and then translated yet again into all the languages of Europe. And with the priests removed as gatekeepers of this knowledge, with no one now required to interpret or make sense of it, any individual could open up the world’s most rambling and powerful book and take from it whatever they wanted.

As a result, everybody completely lost their sh*t.

And so it wasn’t long before the good citizens of Munster were stripping people of all their worldly goods, frogmarching infidels out of town and staging wild wife-swapping orgies. And they were doing it all in the name of the Lord.

Half a millennium later and it’s hard not to feel that it is all happening again. We live in an age where anyone can have their most absurd prejudices reinforced and effortlessly spread their most extreme ideologies. Social media is the new printing press and the internet is the new Bible. Anyone can take from the world wide web whatever they want and spread revolution like the plague.

Now insert into this petri dish a young man who just happens to be extremely good at football who has done what the residents of Munster did 500 years ago: He read the Bible for himself and decided it was his duty to spread the word. This is the story of Israel Folau.

It simply cannot be overstated how big a story Folau has become: It has been a front page fixture on newspapers from both major publishers, the lead story on countless TV and radio news bulletins, the top trending topic on Twitter and the subject of endless public debate.

Indeed, the coverage has been so saturating that many people are now complaining of Folau fatigue and yet many more are breathlessly obsessed by it.

Another by-product of the internet age is that editors and executive producers no longer need to second guess what audiences want, nor are able to tell them. Every click can be recorded, every angle can be gauged and every measure tells us that people simply cannot get enough.

No newsroom is shoving this story down anyone’s throat — the nation is gorging at the trough.

Indeed, it is almost as though the revelation itself is upon us: This is apparently the ultimate titanic struggle between the faithful and the disbeliever. Or between freedom of speech and freedom from oppression. Or between the individual and the corporate machine.

And apparently all of this hinges on a hokey evangelical meme that Folau posted on his Instagram feed listing the various types of sinners whom he believes will go to Hell.

According to the list this includes “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters” — basically all the people who are the best fun at parties. 

As is obvious, Folau’s Hell-train would have to carry virtually the whole population of Australia, assuming that even the most God-fearing virginal teetotaller has once picked off a grape at the supermarket or told his wife that no, her bum does not look big in that.

Many have observed that of this laundry list of barbecue meat it is only the “homosexuals” who have kicked up a fuss about their eternal fate but I think this is unfair. It is no secret that gay people have throughout history been subjected to particularly cruel forms of suppression, exclusion and even execution — and not just by Christians I might add.

I also think that Rugby Australia was perfectly within its rights to terminate Folau’s contract, assuming that he was indeed on a warning after previous posts and that this violated the sport’s code of conduct. Yes, he has a right to express his religious beliefs, but Rugby Australia also has a right to decide who it hires — otherwise I’d be a five-eighth.

Even leaving the moral question aside you have a national football team whose primary sponsor is an out and proud Australian company in the form of Qantas. It’s a bit rich for Folau to effectively say to its CEO: “Hey, you’re going to Hell — but can you please keep giving me money?” Let alone saying it twice.

Indeed, one might easily accuse Folau of gross hypocrisy by happily taking a gay man’s patronage while at the same time condemning all of his kind and then crying poor when the money runs dry.

But if this story has taught us anything it’s that fundamentalism and hypocrisy aren’t just limited to conservative Christians, and the attacks on Folau’s wife for merely supporting her husband’s fundraising efforts were surely the worst kind of both.

How much of a hypocrite can you be for demanding a woman be sacked for the actions of her husband while at the same time declaring yourself progressive or a feminist? How much of a hardliner must you be for even wanting to see that happen? What punishment will ever be enough and at whom will it stop?

This brings us to the dark heart of this debate, and it is one that has less to do with bigotry than it does with bloodlust. 

This debate has little to do with me personally but it touched me personally nonetheless. Not because I was particularly offended or outraged but because at exactly the same time as I was struggling to raise money for the homeless via a nominally Christian charity — the eternally selfless Society of St Vincent de Paul — Israel Folau was using his Christianity to raise money for contract lawyers.

By the time you read this I will probably still have failed to get to my target of $10,000 while Folau will probably have topped $2 million. This is more than the entire amount raised in Sydney for the Vinnies CEO Sleepout — its number one fundraising drive for literally the poorest and most deprived people in the country.

That fact is beyond galling, it is sickening. And it tells us everything about what gets money and attention these days.

But the self-righteous crusaders who are seeking to crucify Folau are no less culpable in this absurdity.

Firstly, let us consider the magnitude of his oppression. A lot of people like watching Folau play football but who actually follows or even cares about his religious beliefs? Here’s a clue: His minuscule congregation of the so-called Truth of Jesus Christ Church is a religious movement so populous and powerful that it is currently headquartered at Izzy’s dad’s house.

Secondly, do those who are supposedly so apoplectic about Folau’s beliefs and the harm they cause even want to change them?

There has been a maelstrom of calls for Folau to be sacked, stripped and strung up in the town square for posting what he did. There have been excruciatingly few who actually took up the argument.

If people genuinely believed that Folau’s views were dangerous, perhaps even deadly, to LGBTI people you’d think there might have been a concerted effort to change them. Instead all the efforts seemed to be directed solely towards condemning him.

As recent history has shown, this ended up delivering seemingly limitless money and momentum to his cause. And as all fundamentalists know, there is no better weapon than a martyr.

Meanwhile, the outrage machine has, as always, spectacularly missed the point of what it claims to be outraged by. Surely if you were worried about the wellbeing of gay people — let alone drunks, fornicators and liars — you’d want to know if they were actually going to Hell or not. Or rather, if that was even a true Christian belief.

As was revealed in the lead-up to the magnificent same-sex marriage plebiscite result, even Catholics don’t believe it. Two-thirds of that supposedly notoriously homophobic religion — the original one true church — supported marriage equality. Even the Pope himself explicitly said this year that homosexuality was “not a sin”, a massive and welcome shift.

In other words, Folau’s position is a tiny outlier on the fringe not just of the broader community but of the very religion he seeks to espouse. No wonder they can fit their entire parish in a lounge room.

And so let us get to the actual core of the matter. Let us get to the truth, something studiously ignored in this debate. Was Folau right? What does the Bible actually say?

This is the text of Folau’s post:

“WARNING: Drunks, Homosexuals, Adulterers, Liars, Fornicators, Thieves, Atheists, Idolaters. HELL AWAITS YOU. REPENT!”

As anyone who’s actually read the Bible knows this is a gross misrepresentation of a couple of verses from the letters of St Paul to the Corinthians. Like Folau, Paul was a great evangelist who had never met Jesus — at least while He was alive — but felt driven to spread His word. Unlike Folau, however, Paul’s message was overwhelmingly one of love and inclusion.

Indeed, Paul’s entire mission — the one which made Christianity the dominant religion in the world today and the cornerstone for Western civilisation — was to tell people that whatever sins they may have committed in the past — however silly or old fashioned those sins may seem now — it didn’t matter. They would be welcome in the world of God.

This is what the King James Version of the Bible, that beautifully constructed work of the Reformation itself, actually says:

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

“And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”

In other words, he wasn’t telling anyone that they were going to Hell. He was telling everyone in front of him that everything was okay and God loved them. It was a f***ing pep talk.

This is the point that Folau and his fundamentalist brethren completely miss. The light subtlety that is always lost on literalists. But that doesn’t mean they should be crucified like the guy they claim to emulate.

The thing that so many people fail to understand about free speech and those who champion it is that it’s not an end in itself. We don’t believe in freedom of expression just so everyone can shout at each other. The idea is that if people are able to express all manner of ideas then the good ideas will ultimately prevail. Reason will ultimately win.

Because if it doesn’t then none of us will be going to Hell. It will come to us.

 

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/joe-hildebrand-the-one-thing-missing-in-the-israel-folau-debate/news-story/6de06e481890f410d1153a25e42b7fbc

Thanks Aviator, a good read. Joe Hildebrand's view that Izzy Folau was simply using fear motivation to grow his congregation makes sense. 

The other point Joe Hildebrand makes is that Izzy's loose translation of the Corinthians verse is what worries RA, of course they deny that claim, and are more concerned with how Izzy delivered the message rather than the message itself. In my opinion someone has found the message offensive but also realises the messenger is a much smaller target. 

Who would have thought in 2019 that a footballer could not also be a pastor on his day off?

 

Great article by Joe, thanks Aviator.

Related image

Raelene in other words you are backing the killing of homosexuals because that is what they do to gays in that country - hypocrite!!!!!

The 'Woke and angry' Progressives (Regressives) have been caught by their own over-reach in interventions in the workplace that trample over fundamental rights of all citizens, let alone employees and now they are desperately trying to reframe after opening Pandora's Box.

Should employers, what about the government too, be interfering in our private lives and even denying people their rights as citizens in a democracy?

What about those CEOs and organisations, some from overseas such as the Soros 'Open Society' foundations be interfering, usually Secret Squirrel, in domestic politics?  Follow the money trail.

But above all, who wants a clique, a political elite, telling us how to run our lives and trying to punish us when we make choices that they don't happen to like?

The debate is far wider than Israel's employment contract and Joe and others know that.  It is not going to be hosed down so easily either.

 

Well posted Aviator and well said LJ.

All this hoohah - can you imagine if Izzy had said  'all feminists are going to hell' ???

There would be fire and brimstone pouring out of the heavens and Raelene would be struck dumb (which wouldn't be such a bad thing).

Joe Hildebrand is clearly better versed in things biblical than I but he does seem to ignore the proximity of the second part of Israel Folau's message which sought that those in his list repent; change their ways. Given the breadth of ways the Bible has been interpreted this is not really that far from saying something like, "you will be welcome into Heaven once repented" especially as all interpretations seem to reserve Heaven and Hell as places for people cleansed or uncleansed of most of these "afflictions." In providing that, even Mr. Folau, fundamental to his own interpretation, expresses hope for those described by others as his victims.

You would know my opinion. Religion is all poppycock and dangerous poppycock at that. Yet, opinions vary and if we do not welcome their proponents into an inclusive system we will have to fight them and that sounds at least as dangerous as these religions anyway. Finally, that they or any of the diverse views expressed by adherents to the varied churches may actually have validity...so that every opinion earns at least that much respect. 

 

quite frankly i am gobsmacked at how this has escalated...unbelievable...the money being wasted on all this rubbish could be well served by helping the down and outs , charities crying out for money and children needing urgent life saving treatment.

 

Quite easy Ardaher

Raelane Castle unlawfully dismissed Folau, so that Qantas would not stop funding RA and to stop all the “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters” from going to hell as obviously they would not repent, perhaps she too is one of the numerous perpetrators listed.

It was Paul who wrote, that amongst many others, those who practiced arsenokoitai would not inherit the kingdom of God. I'm sure he could not have envisaged a future such as ours. Or the trouble he has caused for Rugby Australia.

Rugby Australia may have inadvertently opened another legal avenue for Israel Folau to pursue following suggestions that sponsors were threatening to withdraw support if the former Wallaby player wasn’t sacked. 

Senior legal figures have said that, if true, the comments made by Rugby Australia chairman Cameron Clyne give rise to not only a common law claim of ­interference with contractual ­relations, but also to a potential breach of competition law.

After Rugby Australia and Folau failed to reach agreement through a Fair Work Commission conciliation hearing on Friday, Mr Clyne said the sport’s governing body had no option but to sack the 30-year-old.

 “(The alternative] would be that we’d have no sponsors at all because no sponsor has indicated they would be willing to be ­associated with social media posts of that sort, and that ­includes government, because we’ve also heard from them,” he said. “We would also potentially be in litigation with employees who are gay and who would say we’re not providing a workplace that is safe or respectful.”

Sydney barrister Jeffrey Phillips SC, who specialises in ­employment law, told The Australian that, having read Mr Clyne’s comments, there was a real possibility of another legal avenue for Folau’s team. He suggested that if Rugby Australia breached its contract with Folau by sacking him, then sponsors induced that breach of contract.

“If it be the case that sponsors, or even the government, has placed any pressure on Rugby Australia to terminate his contract, then that raises prospects of interference with contractual relations and aspects of Australian competition and consumer law, in particular, section 45D dealing with secondary boycotts,” he said. “For example, if Party A places pressure on Party B to stop Party C providing services to Party D, that is a secondary boycott. This is not too dissimilar to when renegade trade unions like the CFMEU placed pressure on employers not to engage with contractors who have non-union labour.”

Mr Clyne did, however, rubbish suggestions Rugby Australia had been dictated to by main sponsor Qantas in the lead-up to Folau’s termination. “That’s simply wrong,” he said. “Sponsors have a right to associate themselves with a game they feel best represents their values, but it is absolute nonsense to suggest it was done at the behest of a sponsor. Having said that, I haven’t had any sponsor come forward and say they were happy with the post or happy to be associated with it.”

Folau had his $4 million contract terminated in May over his Instagram posts, including one proclaiming hell awaits “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters”.

A panel ruled that Folau was guilty of a “high-level breach” of the players’ code of conduct.

Folau, who has since used ­social media sparingly, yesterday took to Twitter to defend gay rights activist and actor Magda Szubanski. “I totally agree with @bairdjulia — please stop the anonymous online attacks on @MagdaSzubanski who has entered this debate very respectfully,” he wrote. “

She is entitled to express her views — let’s all have this important discussion with love in our hearts.” Folau referenced journalist Julia Baird, who was calling out the “ugly hate campaign” against Szubanski after she announced a rival GoFundMe page called For Love.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/sponsors-a-new-law-front-forisrael-folau/news-story/cffffa366f07841d2c72b5aa1cd7ae0c

 

 

Having been brought up in the Catholic faith..I have great respect for the Church. I also have great respect for all the religions of the world and all the beliefs of people on earth because no one has the answers. We are all seekers. I feel in my soul that a Creator exists, and for simplicity, I call that Creator, God. I am pretty familiar with the Bible and also other religious texts. However, although some beautiful passages were written..there are also some horrific ones. In my humble opinion I believe God had no hand in writing any texts, nor did Jesus for that matter..humans did, and as such felt free to add their own prejudices and bigotries.

Although Israel Folau will probably never see this post..I would like to advise him to re-read some of the Scriptures. In the Bible Israel, you'll see only one group that consistently angered Jesus...the religious self-righteous, had no place in Jesus' heart.

Jesus seemed comfortable around everyone else, including prostitutes and criminals and I'll bet anything a few homosexuals were in the mix. However, the religious elite irritated and saddened Jesus. He saw them as judgmental, arrogant, unloving, and hypocritical.

Why is it some people tend to quote the atrocious words in the Bible but hardly ever quote the beautiful passages. This is for you Israel..

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

I Corinthians 13.

If Israel Folau really loves God..he will accept whatever God has made.

 

Image result for biblical flowers

 

The above being said..I don't think Israel should have been sacked. He should have been fined heavily.

If he persisted even after this action..then sacking would certainly be the way to go.



Why has this New Zealander been awarded a $285 million broadcasting contract ??

 .... when players like Falau's contract only $4M

So, it is believable that Australian Rugby boss has a net worth of a multi-million dollars.

Raelene Castle Bio, Age, Net Worth, Husband, Boyfriend, Family, Ethnicity

Is it on merit or is it because she is female ??

Why are we not backing Australians ???


 

 

Britain's second-highest court handed down a decision on religious freedom yesterday that will send chills down the collective spine of Rugby Australia. In contrast, Israel Folau and his team will be thanking God for divine providence that is akin to manna from heaven.

In Ngole v the University of Sheffield, the English Court of Appeal has decided: “The mere expression of religious views about sin does not necessarily connote discrimination.”

The factual similarities to Folau’s case are remarkable. Felix Ngole was a social work student at the University of Sheffield and a devout Christian. In 2014, he posted Bible verses about homosexuality on a public Facebook page as part of a political debate. Sheffield University accused Ngole of breaching a vague and broadly worded code of conduct.

Through a hearing and two committee appeals, various bureaucratic apparatchiks repeatedly incanted that quoting Bible verses constituted “views of a discriminatory nature” and breached professional guidelines.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/folau-s-prospects-bolstered-by-landmark-religious-freedom-ruling-in-britain-20190704-p5240w.html

 

Image result for ngole v the university of sheffield

watch out Rugby Australia, LOL

Lets hope our courts learn something from this 

I read  in yesterdays paper that Jarryd Hayne, former NRL footballer has a new missionary life that will revolve around daily prayers and chores in a strict Christian regime, in "Youth with a Mission" in Perth. He is facing sexual assault allegations on 2 women, yet he has suddenly found God and starts a six month  missionary course at an Evangelical centre. What happens to these poor women who have made the charges against him, they have to sit back and wait for the court cases which could take forever. 

 

First they persecute the Jews, now they're throwing the Christians to the lions.

Disgraceful 

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