America vs. Islam

If you're not aware, there have been a lot of protests lately in the Muslim world. They have been protesting against an amateur video on the internet (that was made by an American) which is extremely offensive and extremely shitty (link). Some of the protests turned into riots, and the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya was attacked leaving fourteen dead (link).

Obviously I'm opposed to the violence, that is a given. I'm also opposed to the making of the film, it is incredibly racist and discriminatory and I'm not surprised that many Muslims were gravely offended by it. What makes me really sad however are the flow on effects of this conflict. Instead of accomplishing their goal of stopping people making films like the one in question, the escalation of violence is only going to make it worse. Anti-Islamic sentiment around the Western world is only being stoked by this, and the film that started it (this was probably the intention) only serves to fuel the same, and inflames anti-American and anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim and particularly Arabic world.

The damage has been done, I just hope like fuck that this doesn't start another war in the Middle East, because that's the bloody last thing they need right now. The U.S. Presidential Election just became that much more important, and I hope that whoever wins it (Rombama or Obomney) isn't a closeted warmonger.

For Marriage Equality Part 2

Since the last post I made on marriage equality was focussed on an argument someone made that tried to rely on evidence (it failed though), I thought I would address some more subjective elements. I may not mirror this post on my politics blog because a lot of the content of this one will be religious in nature.

Recently I had a conversation with someone about various churches positions on homosexuality. Their church they said was welcoming of LGBTQIA people and that it is sad that Christianity has a bad reputation in this respect. What I tried to communicate to them was that the reason Christianity has a bad rep is because even most of the churches that are 'welcoming' of LGBTQIA people, most of these churches are not accepting and their church fell under this category. What I mean by welcoming and accepting is quite simple. A church that welcomes LGBTQIA people will not shun them or be nasty to them, but what they won't do is accept them as they are. Instead, there is an underlying belief that being LGBTQ (not sure about church positions on intersex and asexual people..) is immoral and sinful, and in order to not be continually living in sin, you either have to turn straight or remain celibate forever.

Arguably, this position is worse than simply being hateful, though those who hold to it are generally well intentioned. It reminds me of all those "I'm not racist, but...", "I'm not sexist, but..." kind of things. This one would be "I'm not homophobic, but LGBTQ people were born the wrong way and should change who they are to suit my beliefs." I don't know about everyone, but I certainly wouldn't choose to be friends with people who thought that part of who I am (not something that I do, or believe in) is immoral.

So how does this relate to marriage equality? Because many of these kinds of Christians who welcome but don't accept LGBTQIA people are opposed to marriage equality, because they feel like supporting it would mean they tacitly endorse homosexuality, which they believe is inherently sinful. I'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way. We do not live in a conservative theocracy where people's personal lives are subjected to the moral code of a particular subset of a religion. You may also believe that pre-marital sex is sinful, and depending on how conservative you are, you may also think piercings and tattoos are sinful too. I don't see you out there trying to petition the government to make them illegal, so why in this particular instance do you think that allowing consenting adults of the same gender to marry all of a sudden becomes your business?

For Marriage Equality

I was recently linked to this blog post titled 'Against Gay Marriage'. The author is a gay man who opposes legalising same-sex marriage. What are his reasons for holding such a position? Because same-sex relationships don’t ‘tend towards’ raising children. He admits in the post that not all heterosexual couples raise children, but he doesn’t flesh out the implications of this, for obvious reasons, as it would leave his argument sorely wanting.

What implications can I see that naturally lead from suggesting the function of a marriage is to raise children? Marriages should then not be allowed to people who are past the age of conception, to people with chromosomal abnormalities, to people with reproductive disorders and the list goes on. I recognise that this is somewhat of a slippery slope but I do not see how this can be avoided when such a limited definition of what defines marriage is offered.

On top of this, what of same-sex couples who do wish to raise children? Should they be forced to call their partnership by a different name simply because they cannot conceive by ‘natural’ means? If you extend that logic like the prior situation whereby marriage is denied to infertile people, should those who cannot conceive naturally or who adopt children then be forced to annul their marriage and get a civil partnership/union instead?

The author of this post also suggests that research indicates that children do better with straight parents. Rubbish, I say. There is plenty of modern research that suggests the opposite (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19014-children-of-lesbian-parents-do-better-than-their-peers.html), that there is either no noticeable difference or in some studies, the children of same-sex parents performed better than their straight-parented counterparts. Even if all the research strongly indicated that children of same-sex parents outperformed those of straight parents solidly on every metric, would I offer an argument to ban straight people from raising children and getting married? Of course not! Rather, I would argue for more integrated and comprehensive parental support systems through local/national governmental programmes, to try to normalise outcomes so that all children regardless of their parentage receive a fair shot. That seems to be the obvious solution to me, but apparently others seem content on relying on flawed or outdated research and holding to a system that is inherently unequal in terms of the distribution of rights.

Obviously the author of the article is not some kind of gay-hating bigot, but he has bought into the bigoted belief that straight people make better parents, which is unfortunate.

More links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_parenting

Straight Up Socialist

I've started another blog called 'Straight Up Socialist' as an avenue for my political musings, as I find this blog is a somewhat inappropriate venue for the inevitable onslaught of my radical left-wing views across the internet. I'll probably post as infrequently as I currently do on here, but the content will be coherent between the two as I'll be dividing my interests allowing URL lines. Expect to see content relating to political activism, environmentalism, socialism, protests, union movements and so forth there, and any content relating to irreligion and religion here.

So if you're interested in following me over on my new blog as well I'd appreciate the support, and I will try to keep the content here relevant to blog title as much as I can.

Efficiency and Rubbish

I was driving through the suburb I live in last week on rubbish collection day. One thing that for some reason caught my attention more so than usual was the number of different branded rubbish bins on the side of the road. I counted at least 6; not including the council’s recycling bins and the various green-waste company bins; this was just the household-waste wheelie-bins. This means that every week, just in my small suburb, at least 6 rubbish-bin trucks (probably closer to 10), 1 rubbish-bag truck, 3+ garden-waste trucks and every second week the recycling trucks come through.

Here’s why I think this is a problem and it can be summed up in one word: redundancy. If all the rubbish collection was socialised, those 6-10 private rubbish trucks that come through my small suburb could probably be reduced to just one truck. If rubbish collection was all conducted by the local council (and not just the rubbish bags and recycling) the cost would be lower and the environmental impact would be reduced by not having redundant rubbish trucks trekking all over the city increasing congestion and emitting more pollutants and greenhouse gases.

However now that a large portion of rubbish collection has been privatised for profit it is hard to go back to the more logical socialised system, as you would have to either force the companies to sell to the council (which would cost ratepayers), or simply cut the private companies out of the picture, which could be disputed on legal grounds. Whatever the solution is to cut out this unnecessary waste something needs to be done. We have an oil crisis looming in the foreseeable future, and then there’s runaway climate change, which is exasperated by our excessive greenhouse gas emissions. The redundancy in Auckland’s rubbish collection may be a negligible contributor to the global problem but it is indicative of a larger problem in society. We need to find ways to cut back emissions and pollution wherever we can.

The Opiate of the Masses

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
—Karl Marx

I relate to this sentiment more and more as my interests broaden and I’ll explain why. I see religion as a distraction. There are so many more important things that are happening in this world. Our climate is changing, our environment is under threat, and there are civil wars, oppressive governments, corrupt politicians, unscrupulous capitalists, greedy corporations, human rights violations, poverty, famine, preventable diseases and many more things which require immediate attention. However, millions of people spend unfathomable amounts of time practicing and spreading religion. Without portraying myself as an elitist who claims to have found “the truth”, I think the debate on religion is over, and has been for a long time. When leading apologists like William Lane Craig when push comes to shove, rely on faith and a subjective sense of the ‘witness of the holy spirit’ and admit that their reasons alone will not convince anything, the debate is over.

I was having a discussion this week, and the prospect of what could happen if we fail to do anything about where humanity is headed, we are doomed. If we don’t put an end to the profit and consumption-driven capitalism that western culture is based on within a decade, our future may be very bleak indeed. I don’t think most common people really take seriously the consequences of runaway climate change. Sure, people have watched Al Gore’s documentary, or perhaps have watched ‘The Day After Tomorrow’, but the message still hasn’t hit home with everyday people. Overconsumption of food and fossil fuels continues unabated, farm land in New Zealand is largely used for extremely inefficient Dairy and Meat industries, which are the biggest polluters in this country, and produce the bulk of our carbon emissions.

Imagine if all that time and effort being put into religion, was diverted into something that would really make a difference? Those millions of people could pressure governments to stop feeding the corporate gravy train, and enact measures to protect our future, and our planet. We could stop the habitat destruction and mass wildlife extinctions that are taking place. Instead we have largely apathetic populations that are caught up in trivialities like religion and celebrity pop-culture. As long as people are distracted by these kinds of things, they fall prey to consumerism and maintaining the status quo that will lead to our collective demise.

However, these are not the only things that keep the population in the dark. People get distracted by television, video games, facebook and the list goes on. That’s not to say any of these things are bad, but simply that they play too large a role in a society that is on the verge of collapse. People need to be aware and to get active. Sorry for the length and rantiness.

Christians, Conservatives and Israel

Recently I had a scuffle on facebook with a conservative and it got me thinking again about something that I wanted to write about last year. Why do Christians and conservatives in particular support Israel? I want to explore a few avenues in this post.

The first avenue I want to explore is skepticism. In my recent debacle, the conservative in question said something along the lines of “Why would you possibly think that Israel is not a legitimate state?” when I had expressed such an opinion. He seemed totally unaware of the dialogue in this subject, and cited the fact that Israel is a member of the UN and nearly every country in the world recognises them as legitimate as his reasons for supporting Israel. That blew my mind. He’s an intelligent person too, but apparently practices no skepticism on popularly held views that he also holds. Is this view typical of conservatives? Are they completely unaware that there is serious debate over this issue and unwilling to question the status quo?

Related to the previous, conservatives tend to laud Israel for being the only truly democratic state in the region, as if that automatically deems them worthy of support. They fail to realise that many of the corrupt and fascist states in the area have been propped up and supported financially and militarily by the United States. It’s difficult to have a stable democratic government when foreign superpowers are actively destroying all hope of liberty. Furthermore, Israel only acts with liberty and democratically within its own borders. Their actions toward other countries are anything but. The constant oppression of the Palestinian people, along with massive human rights violation shows that Israel is not just as bad as some of the worst dictators in the region, but is possibly worse, as they get away with it.


Finally (I had to get to it eventually), the religious reasons. These puzzle me the most, as Christians throughout history have been some of the most zealous anti-Semites around. Yet for some reason, in the last 70 years that has all changed. These reasons range from the insane apocalyptic end-of-days beliefs to simple tacit support for their god’s “chosen people”. Perhaps I’m missing an important piece of the puzzle here, but this seems to me like a good example of religious beliefs trampling common decency and human rights underfoot. Palestine was stolen from its inhabitants and given away on what appear to me to be religious-based grounds. The Jewish people had not ruled that area in any meaningful sense for over two millennia, so what right did the imperial west have to take that land off the people living there? None whatsoever.

Christianity and Revolution

There is something that I would be interested to see happen around the world and here in New Zealand. I would like to see Christians mobilise and support the 99% movement. Most Christians I know are strongly supportive of helping the poor voluntarily, but most are also political conservatives and support parties that reinforce and grow the wealth inequality around the world (I'm looking at you National party voters, Republican voters, Tory voters etc.). If you are really supportive of making our planet a fairer, better place for all of its citizens, I implore you to join the revolution, and at the next election vote for a party that is serious about change. No more voting to make your comfortable life more comfortable, vote on behalf of the poor, needy and exploited.

There will be a revolution regardless, but we would like you there alongside us as we strive for a better world.

Update on the Occupation

As threats of being arrested kept coming in our numbers slowly diminished and eventually the police outnumbered those inside the clocktower, so we marched with our friends that were supplying us with food and blocking the doors from the outside down to the permanent occupation site in Auckland central.





You can see me in the video during the protest.

University of Auckland Occupation Demands

Right now I am currently with a group of students staff and taxpayers occupying the Clocktower administration building at the university I attend (The university of Auckland).

We are in the process of finishing a meeting to formulate a list of demands from the university administration and government.

These are our current demands:

1. Unconditional Free Education
2. Sack McCutcheon and Walsh (Vice Chancellors of Auckland and Victoria Universities respectively) and restructure the university administration to be based around a public forum.
3. Remove trespass orders on Marcus and Wikitane.
4. Ask (not demand) for approval from the land owners, Ngati Whatua
5. Decisions on courses based on scholarly and social benefits, not on profitability.
6. Security guards employed for the safety of students, not for surveillance of students.
7.. That the university administration will by bound by the government to the facilitation with the TEU in November
8. That the university will work to revoke the Voluntary student membership bill.
9. That the government will fund student unions unconditionally.

Note: This is not the exact wording of the proposals, but just a summary of them.

You heard it here first!

Fear-Mongering, Propaganda and Poor Journalism in the New Zealand Herald

An article in the New Zealand Herald today was brought to my attention via Facebook, and to say the least I was quite shocked. The title of the article was "Sex at 14 - I learned all about it in class" by Elizabeth Binning. It (kind of) tells the story of a teenager from the Hibiscus Coast (North of Auckland) who is pregnant at the age of 17. 'Big deal' so far right? My gripes with the piece started right from the title, and continued through just about every single sentence all the way to the end.

The "Journalist" Elizabeth Binning is pushing for an anti-Sex-Ed angle throughout the whole story, which already shows her colours. Comprehensive sex education is demonstrably the best way of reducing teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Abstinence-only education has proven to be a complete failure in the United States (Guardian) and has been ineffective in general (Wikipedia). People who push propaganda against teaching teenagers sexual and reproductive health are not only counter-productive but they are chewing away at the progress that has been made in many places.

Beyond the anti-sex-ed angle of the piece, it is very poorly written, and seems to indicate at one point in the article that the girl in question was raped. "I didn't wind up pregnant because I didn't attend a class. I know all about contraceptives and safe sex. It was purely the fact that I was drunk, it was New Year's, and some older male thought it would be fabulous to take advantage of me." But after emailing the editor expressing concern that the journalist didn't seem to care about the rape, an acquaintance of mine through my University feminist group received a reply that the girl was not raped, but rather that she was drunk and was deceived by the older male that 'pulling out' was an effective contraceptive method. Either way, it doesn't paint a very good picture of the man in question, and it would in my opinion have been much better to focus on that aspect of her story. I have heard it said that the general attitude towards rape in New Zealand is rather blasé, which I find extremely appalling. I believe our rape laws are in dire need of revision, but that is a discussion for another day.

Binning also quotes from this ignorant child as if she was an authority on the matter. No references to studies to back up what the girl is saying? No checking her story to see whether the health teacher at the school was actually getting kids to taste flavoured condoms? I don't know about you, but I'm simply not going to take the word of a 17 year old who got pregnant because she was lead to believed that 'pulling out' was an effective contraceptive method, when "She said teaching young teenagers about contraception won't help reduce New Zealand's high rate of teenage pregnancy rates." I'm sorry, but all the data goes the other way.

Here are some quotes from the article

"A pregnant teenager says sex education in schools does not prevent young people from having sex - if anything, it encourages it."

Really? Data please?

"Amber-Leigh has spoken out in the hope it may help other young teenagers to learn about the importance of having protected sex - or preferably waiting until they are older."

So how about educating them about contraception? I distinctly remember being told when I was 14 years old that "just pulling out doesn't work". Either she wasn't paying attention or her teacher was crap.

This article was not a one-off event either, recently Elizabeth Binning has written 4 "articles" with the same propaganda against sexual health education. Some of the others display even poorer journalistic integrity than the most recent one. Quoting from anonymous sources with no apparent fact-checking is indicative of at the very least an incompetent journalist, at worst someone pushing a dangerous agenda.
The titles of her other 3 articles are:

• Too much 'grubby stuff', so dad steps in - No sources mentioned, story is about a father whose 12 year old son was supposedly recommended to engage oral sex by his sex-ed teacher. I call absolute bull shit.
•  Sex ed shock for angry parents - "Children as young as 12 are being taught about oral sex and told it's acceptable to play with a girl's private parts as long as "she's okay with it"." I call Bull Shit!
• Readers up in arms over sex education - "children as young as 12 are being taught about anal and oral sex and ...Children as young as 11 are being taught how to put condoms on cucumbers, and in some schools 14-year-old girls are practising on black plastic penises.
In one, a female teacher went as far as to give her class of 15-year-olds a rendition of the noises she makes during orgasm." I call BULL SHIT!

No sources are attributed to any of those claims.

What If You’re Wrong?

I haven’t been asked this question for quite some time, but it is always worthwhile to think about. How would I know if I was wrong about something? It would depend on what the thing is, but generally if the evidence doesn’t fit with my idea, then it’s probably at least a little bit wrong.

Gods:
When it comes to the question of being wrong about the existence of gods, it would depend heavily on what kind of god it is. If it is the kind of unfalsifiable, unverifiable god that most people these days tend to want to believe in, then it isn’t really possible to know if you’re wrong about its existence. If the god wanted to stay hidden, you wouldn’t ever be able to find out. However, some people assert that their god interferes with the natural world, performing miracles. In *theory* it would be possible to know if you were wrong about this kind of god by observing a verifiable miracle, but it wouldn’t be possible to know that it doesn’t exist. In this sense I am a hard agnostic. Although falsification isn’t possible, I would say that an absolute lack of evidence grants the meddling god a provisionally falsified status. In this sense, I am a hard atheist. I reject the existence of gods, but am open to the possibility of being wrong.

Science:
Completely unlike the situation regarding the existence of gods, scientific theories rise and fall on evidence. If I was wrong about something like evolution, the evidence would convince me of that. In this case though, instead of having a complete lack of evidence, we have an overwhelming mass of evidence. All of it supports evolution. This is why creationists frustrate me so much, especially when they accuse evolution of being a religion, or being based on faith. They couldn’t be further from the truth.

Politics:
Here is something that I freely admit I do not know enough about. I am an openly left-wing, socialist liberal. However if sufficient reason and practical applications can be shown to me that right-wing, capitalist (or other), conservative political systems work better than my ideals, I am more than willing to change my mind.

With my terms and conditions (so to speak) of mind-changing laid out, I would like to flip the package onto theists, creationists and capitalists: What if you’re wrong? What would it take to change your mind?

From my experience the question is either not answered at all, deflected, or absurd standards of evidence are requested. For example, monkeys giving birth to humans, which would actually falsify evolution, not prove it (Creationists often don’t bother trying to understand evolution though, so they don’t see the idiocy of their demands).

Friday Fundies

This is a perfect example of how religion can rot your brain, and be detrimental to society as a whole. Imagine if there was larger number of people who believe that the rapture was just around the corner, giving them the excuse to do nothing? I think the earth would become dilapidated and run down fairly quickly. It's related to the conservative Christian political view known as Dominionism, where based on a verse in Genesis, where God tells Adam that he has dominion over all the earth, the Dominionists take that as a command to rape and pillage the earth, because they believe that their god will create a new one soon anyway and destroy the old one. It's dangerous, and poisonous. People actively promoting these beliefs need to be lobotomized to prevent them from infecting others with this mind-rot of a religious/political doctrine.

Quote# 40793

(A rapture thread, this one has a bunch of folks talking about how they have no motivation because of the rapture being "just around the corner"):


I hear you on this. I have to constantly fight the feelings of "what is the use". Its like we have diagnosis of a fatal incurable disease and we have only so long to live.

 Source

Politicians Staging an Assault on Atheism

Well not quite.....

I just noticed two things in the blogs today.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke at a university to a conference of Christians and Muslims and said that they need to unite to fight a war against the "secularist agenda". Just what the hell is a secularist agenda? The only thing that comes to my mind is justice and freedom for all, regardless of race, religion, gender, preference or anything else. A war against secularism is a war against freedom. Tony Blair is an imbecile, and is morally vacuous.
Source

PZ Myers over at Pharyngula has a post about a recent speech of Obama's where he said "We are one nation under God. We may call that God different names, but we are one nation." Which is a shame, considering that in his inauguration speech he made a minor mention that non-believers were Americans too. It seems the U.S.A. will have to wait a while longer before they have a President that isn't simply a puppet to the faithful and decides to represent ALL of his citizens.
Source

I can't wait till the day when Politicians get their snouts out of religious excrement and when religions stop eating from the gargantuan trough that is tax-payers money.

Ideology and Violence

I have heard it claimed many times that Stalin and Mao killed people in the name of atheism, which frankly is not true. This is usually brought up as a counter-example to when someone criticising religion brings up the issue of killing in the name of god(s), which there are countless examples of. I'll try to briefly explain why Stalin and Mao did not kill in the name of atheism.
Neither of these dictators were motivated by atheism to commit their atrocities, rather they were motivated by their twisted communist ideologies. Anyone who opposed their rule was hastily silenced (read: murdered). It is as simple as that. To quote Richard Dawkins, "There is no logical pathway between atheism and killing people".
This is why attempts by theists to return the shit-slinging will always fail. There is an obvious pathway between  many different religions and violence. Take Islam for example, its founder Mohammed was a tyrant, who went around the middle east killing people who didn't convert to Islam. On top of that, there are many passages in the Qu'ran that say things along the lines of 'kill infidels'.

Makes me sick

Earlier today I saw a video of a whole pack of 'Tea Party' Republicans mocking and scorning an apparently disabled man. I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing, such a blatant act of inhumanity. I guess that's what happens when people listen to douche-bags like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh day in and day out on Fox News. In fact this isn't the first time a parkinson's disease sufferer has been openly mocked by Republicans. Rush Limbaugh himself mocked Michael J. Fox on live television, saying that he was faking his shakes and so on.

Anyway, here is the video.

Christianity, Politics and Evolution

I just found an intriguing article by Michael Shermer from the October 2006 edition of Scientific American that discusses the links between various Christian denominations in the U.S.A., different political positions and acceptance of evolution as scientific fact.
The article quotes statistics from a 2005 Pew Research Center poll which showed that:
70% of Evangelicals are creationists compared to
32% of other Protestant denominations and
31% of Catholics

and
60% of Republicans are creationists, while only 11% accept evolution, compared to
29% of Democrats are creationists, while 44% accept evolution.

Comparing Liberals to Conservatives, the poll found 63% of liberals in America accept the fact of evolution, while only 37% of conservatives accept it.

I don't doubt that those numbers are possibly quite inaccurate, but they do give an indication of where the biggest problem lies in America with regards to intelligence and education. The Evangelicals and Republicans are sorely lacking in both.

I highly recommend reading the rest of the article, as it provides some insight into compatibility of evolution with theology and so on, if anyone is interested.

Link Here

Speaking of Blasphemy Laws...

New Zealand is one of the few countries that still has specific blasphemy laws in place. Here is the exact text of the law from Section 123 of the 1961 'Crimes Act'.

123 Blasphemous libel

• (1) Every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 1 year who publishes any blasphemous libel.
  (2) Whether any particular published matter is or is not a blasphemous libel is a question of fact.
  (3) It is not an offence against this section to express in good faith and in decent language, or to attempt to establish by arguments used in good faith and conveyed in decent language, any opinion whatever on any religious subject.
  (4) No one shall be prosecuted for an offence against this section without the leave of the Attorney-General, who before giving leave may make such inquiries as he thinks fit.

I have had a discussion about this with a Christian in the past year, though I don't remember who it was, but I distinctly remember that they didn't want the law removed for some reason or another. The best argument for keeping the law, (which isn't really an argument at all) is that no one has ever actually been prosecuted and sent to prison as a result of this law. I don't really see how that changes the fact that it is a crime in New Zealand to blaspheme. So if I write "Jesus was a bastard and Mary was a whore", I just committed a crime. I am now a criminal according to New Zealand law, and that doesn't sit right with me. I sure don't feel like I've committed any sort of crime.

Referedum in Ireland to determine future of blasphemy law

This is good news. The Irish government is planning to have a referendum to determine whether or not to remove the blasphemy laws from their legislation. Perhaps if they do scrap the law then the few remaining western countries that also still have these kinds of laws will follow suit. Laws against blasphemy really do have no place is a modern society.

Source

Prayer in Parliament

As a secular nation, I am quite perplexed as to why we still have a prayer recited in our parliament. In the 2006 census only around 55% of our population identified themselves as being of the Christian faith, yet our government recites a prayer that is blatantly Christian every day it is in session.

Here is the prayer that is recited.

Almighty God, humbly acknowledging our need for Thy guidance in all things, and laying aside all private and personal interests, we beseech Thee to grant that we may conduct the affairs of this House and of our country to the glory of Thy holy name, the maintenance of true religion and justice, the honour of the Queen, and the public welfare, peace, and tranquillity of New Zealand, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

There are several things in that prayer that I have a problem with.
1) I do not believe in a god, along with over 30% of this nation, so "humbly acknowledging" the need for guidance from a deity means nothing to me.
2) No one speaks like that anymore, so it is only for the sake of religious reverence that they still recite a prayer in old english.
3) The Queen does nothing except have her face embossed on our currency, so why should she be referenced in a prayer to an imaginary sky-daddy.
4) The mention of "true religion" embarrasses me. Coming from the mouths of the government of a secular nation, calling Christianity the true religion is unacceptable.
5) The Lord of the writer of this prayer has done nothing to keep this country wealthy, safe, peaceful or tranquil, those are all the works of our forefathers. We should be thanking them, not some genie.