"Good Without God"?

While it may have seemed to Sydney Atheists a profound promotional strategy to adopt the catchphrase "Good Without God" a few years ago it brought a silent chuckle to my heart - for I know the heart of man.

No doubt there were those Sydney Atheists subsequently delighted with the rise to the highest political position in Australia of a person declaring her preferred belief system or religion being Atheism. In Julia Gillard were the hopes of Atheists for a demonstration to the nation (and to the world) that Atheism offers the moral and intellectual capacity to guide the world to better times and lifestyle. "Good without God", this was to be the new way, the new philosophy, the new ethic.

Well, we have been patient but it is time to call the exercise a complete failure.

The unravelling was there to be seen in the process of Julia Gillard's elevation to the position of Prime Minister but most of us were inclined at the time to assign it all to the toughness of politics.

However, the most obvious sign of deficient morality was the betrayal of voters in saying only days out from the 2010 election "There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead" and then announcing after the election that there will be a carbon tax introduced by her government.

Added to this was the post election cutting of a deal with Independent, Andrew Wilkie - essential for the formation of a minority government - that she would legislate for stringent poker machine reform. Earlier this year she walked away from the deal.

Then came the riot in Canberra on Australia Day which arose from a misconstruing of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's words on the Aboriginal Tent Embassy - and all of which had its roots in a telephone call from the Prime Minister's office to a Union official at the Tent Embassy. Subsequent intimation that more than one person in the Prime Minister's office was involved has met with 'stone-walling' by the Prime Minister and the four or more versions of events given by the Union official (the most palatable affirmed by the Prime Minister) but now undone by revelation of a recording of the actual words uttered by the Union official to the holder of the microphone at the Tent rally all smacks of deception and ill practice from within the Prime Minister's office.

The ABC's Four Corners television programme this week unveiled a woman repeatedly avoiding the question of her knowledge of preparations in her office in year 2010 for the axing of then Prime Minister Rudd and replacement by Julia Gillard. Add to that her "I don't recall" response yesterday to questions about her dissemination of private polling in the weeks prior to the axing - polling designed to show her suitability over Kevin Rudd to lead the Labor Party all compound the deception.

You can throw in her earlier denials, but since proven otherwise, of a key role in a Socialist group during and post university times and a lame attempt to explain away an errant message sent Tony Abbott when he was in government and Health Minister but which was intended for a colleague to declare her failure to grasp health issues.

Deception, cover-up and deception are the marks of the political life of Julia Gillard, Atheist.

"Good Without God"? The poster girl of Atheism in Australia has demonstrated something quite the contrary. She is no recommendation of Atheism.

Jesus Christ has made it quite clear: "No-one is good, but God." A person can only be seen as good in God's eyes, or should I say righteous in God's sight, if they put on the righteousness of Jesus Christ. This is done only by one recognising that one is not righteous, repent of sin and earnestly ask Jesus Christ to be Lord of one's life.

Sam Drucker