Anthony Fisher, the Pellites, Peter Craven, and the real meaning of Easter ...

It being Easter, we thought we'd start with an appropriate religious theme, drawn from the Bald Archy exhibition, which can be seen in the flesh at that den of socialists, the ABC in Ultimo (then to tour), or online at that snickering conclave of chattering chardonnay swillers site here.

Recent intense discussion over the 'real' in politics (Mr Abbott and Mr Joyce by consensus both being 'real') reminded us of our good old hippie days, when real was the highest accolade. 'That's so real man', we'd mumble, or 'you're so real dude', as we toked away, without a clue as to what it might actually mean, since if you think about it, the alternative is unreal, or surreal, or hyperreal, and while Chairman Rudd might be called such things, it's hardly a meaningful term of abuse. And now let's not talk of dumb fuck hippies or use the royal plural again.

As always, it was Barners who put his finger on the precise issue of Abbott as real:

''The thing people like about Tony is [he's] the real deal,'' Joyce said. ''People on the street want reality but they don't want pretend. They will smell it like dog poo on the shoes if they think it's not the real deal.'' (here).

It's time for Barners to scrape the dog shit out of his metaphors if he thinks this is the way to sell a politician thinking about approaching an acting coach. As if any politician isn't first of all a politician, and nothing wrong with that.

Meanwhile, Easter is of course the silly season when righteous, indignant, militant Christians come out of the stable and storm the atheist garrisons.

Thank God we're not all atheists, Archbishop says, and amen to that, as we might also celebrate a header reading Thank God we're not all pedophiles or people married to an absent god or a long ago Christ, with the resulting warped sexuality arising therefrom.

These days of course the Church is under attack from all and sundry as the stench even reaches the Papal Throne, though the splendid material possessions of Rome would surely be enough to make Christ upchuck at what has become of the message he offered up by way of the bible.

And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Am I bitter about the gay priest in the family who has a nice holiday shack, a kindly partner and a pleasant lifestyle? Of course not. He's one of those rare creatures in the church these days, a tolerant liberal who gets by as best he can. And he doesn't have the flagrant treasures of Rome.

Not so liberal is Anthony Fisher, newly installed as Archbishop of Parramatta, the kind of indignant righteous Pellite young blood obviously capable of taking the Church further and deeper into irrelevance, as he does his Don Quixote routine, tilting at atheists and secularists:

''Last century we tried godlessness on a grand scale and the effects were devastating,'' he said.

''Nazism, Stalinism, Pol-Pottery, mass murder and broken relationships: all promoted by state-imposed atheism or culture-insinuated secularism.''

It's very disappointing that he failed to include Chairman Mao - has Mao fallen so far down the list that he can't even make the first eleven of evil secularist atheists, despite doing his best to kill off millions, and even though any liberal secularist household worthy of its name should have a Mao clock tucked away in a corner? (We have four of various vulgar sizes and shapes, but by we I mean my partner and I).

Abusing secularists and atheists by linking them to the worst excesses of power crazed dictators is a most moving and ecumenical way of reaching out to them. Never mind the historical accuracy either, as we constantly remind ourselves that, despite some ambivalence, the Catholic church managed to keep functioning in Nazi German and in fascist Italy during the nineteen thirties and the war years.

Indeed one of those minor epochal moments in history - which isn't celebrated as much as it should be - took place in 1933, when the Holy See and the doddering Paul von Hindenburg, acting for Hitler, signed the Riechskonkordat.

Luckily Hitler also knew the dangers of liberalism:

I have been attacked because of my handling of the Jewish question. The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc., because it recognized the Jews for what they were. In the epoch of liberalism the danger was no longer recognized. I am moving back toward the time in which a fifteen-hundred-year-long tradition was implemented. I do not set race over religion, but I recognize the representatives of this race as pestilent for the state and for the Church, and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions.

Talk about supping with the devil, as the price for the right of freedom of the Roman Catholic religion, the right to collect church taxes, and so on and so forth saw a deal done with the devil.

If militant atheists were on the march to destroy the world, limp self-seeking self-serving Catholics did their best to help.

But I digress. Cardinal Pell also joined in the caring chorus:

Cardinal Pell also attacked atheism, by giving thanks for church-based community organisations, and noting that ''we find no community services sponsored by the atheists''.

''We thank God for our Christian traditions and the works they inspire,'' he said. ''They have helped make Australia what it is.''

Ah, so it was the Christians who were responsible for the White Australia policy and the Stolen Generation. Thank the lord we've cleared that historical conundrum up.

Surprisingly, in their Easter messages, neither Pell nor Fisher found time to comment on the sex abuse scandals or Benedict's benevolence towards child fiddlers. Instead Pell delivered this kind of oblique defensive guff:

"We often hear about Christian failures to live up to Christian standards - and there have been too many scandals and too many victims,'' Cardinal Pell wrote.

''But the great majority of Christians continue to follow the commandments of love through regular service, tolerance, forgiveness and community building.''

We look forward to the day that militant Christians extend some tolerance to gays and benign average secularist atheists eking out a living as clerks rather than clerics.

Fisher phrased it a little differently:

It was an illusion to think we could live a better life without God, he said, although he acknowledged that the ''violence, abuse and un-lovingness'' of many believers through the ages had driven some people away from the church.

Fancy that.

Meanwhile, if you want even more guff, you can't do any better this Easter Friday than Peter Craven's Has the bell tolled on Easter's meaning?

It seems, thanks be to the lord, that the true meaning of Easter - steaming hot cross buns with lashings of butter, and gorgeous chocolate easter eggs - lives on in our hearts.

But remember that easter eggs started out as a symbol of the rebirth of the earth in celebration of spring, and are therefore deeply pagan, and a lot of them are made of really crappy chocolate - only the sensuously best dark chocolate please. And please also note that while the origin of the hot cross bun is shrouded in mystery, there's a decent chance that these were eaten as early as the Saxons celebrating the goddess Eostre.

So go at it meek and mild secularists and atheists, and enjoy the real meaning of Easter, and if you want a laugh as you scoff down your buns, Craven provides the humour, rambling on about the garden of Eden, wickedness, original sin, and an inclination towards evil - as if an inclination towards dark chocolate was worse than a taste for apples.

When it comes to the great religions, the affinities between Christianity and Judaism and Islam, the twinned spiritualities of Buddhism and Hinduism, there are a lot of people who would like to get beyond their ''unbelief''.

Hmm, remind me to remember the great glory of Islamic fundies blowing up themselves and others in the quest for virgins, or the glories of the Crusades and the Inquisition, since Fisher like, it seems appropriate to pick out the worst of Christianity in much the same way as he picks out the worst dictators (and by the way, never forget the splendid wars of the Papal State, listed here for your Easter delectation).

Barking mad, in a militant Christian way, the lot of them, but splendid fun to accompany the chocolates and the buns.

Go to it, humble atheists and secularists and pagans, and never mind the snake.