...and then you find out shit like this is going on behind our backs:
https://www.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/religious-freedom-submissions...
Not only has the bloody School Chaplaincy program been expanded, but:
"Here’s the crib: religious parents must be free to protect their issue from exposure to “incompatible values” and funding for all schools must be contingent upon a guarantee of freedom from what Malcolm Turnbull, Neil Mitchell and The Guardian all reasonably suppose is sex education. Probably even the straight sort.
Howard proposes that the exemption religious organisations currently enjoy from anti-discrimination laws doesn’t go far enough. It shouldn’t simply be lawful for a religious school to discriminate in employment practice, but unlawful for it not to do so."*
* Courtesy of Helen Razer's FOI request and report in Crikey 17/5/18.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2018/05/17/razer-i-had-john-howard-all-wrong/
( paywalled)
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It saddens me to see one of the two countries where I wanted to retire are doing things like the religious nuts do here in America. One thing I hear from religious people is how we atheist are persecuting/discriminating them. We are not! I have yet to hear any atheist persecute/discriminate them. We just ask damned good questions they cannot answer, and they crying like little spoiled brats.
When they try to play this card, I just fire back with "You Absolutists are so persecuted and discriminated against in America that the government allows you to keep hundreds of billions of dollars in offerings tax-free. I wish my ass was persecuted and discriminated like that."
Just same old, same old...
rmfr
The crazy thing in Australia is that the people aren't religious- but the politicians ARE. It's really whacky. Talk about unrepresentative representative democracy! For the most part, they hide their religiosity until after they're elected- they have to, or they wouldn't get elected in the first place. They'll campaign as conservatives, but never as the right and NEVER EVER as the Christian Right. I don't know if they really are religious, or if this is something they've imported from the US and they're too out of touch to realise it won't fly here.They open parliament with bloody prayers! And the Australian people are so secular, they don't notice creeping Jesus in Parliament House.
Australians arent so much as secular as they are indifferent. Sport is the true national religion that blocks out what the real political/religious fundamentals are quietly achieving to satisfy their own agendas. The real tragedy of this country is too few give a shit beyond sport and money. Damn annoying.
@Grinseed
I'm not convinced Australians really care about sport, either. We're TOLD we care about it, all the time, but do we really? I don't know anyone who's sports mad.
@ Sushi...you are lucky...many of my family are and most of those I have worked with were, sportingly religious.
I do agree though that we are 'told' what we 'like' and even what we 'are' by the media. That I resent.
@Grinseed
Re: "That I resent."
Me too, mate. If some talking head tries to tell me my 'Australian values' one more time I swear I'll throw up or punch the wall. Possibly both.
@Grinseed and Sushisnake,
Try living here in America and having to put up with that. One thing I learned very early on (in 20s when in Navy and did travel to other countries) is that the average American is the most arrogant and sorriest piece of shit I have ever met when it comes to being a human. Sometimes makes me ashamed to admit I am an American. However, I also enjoy showing to these Americans what it means to be a "human person" first who happens to have been born in America. Instead of the other way around. However, it is very difficult when you are among a very minuscule portion of said population. But I try...
rmfr
You know the reason for this don't you...... Jesus is currently visiting Australia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXpLVmL2esw
@Cog
Re: " Jesus currently visiting Australia"
No. I didn't know. That's what I get for not watching the news, isn't it? Or reading the newspapers. Bloody independent media- too busy telling me about the government putting religion above the law to tell me that. Bastards.
Edit: I've come across Jesus and his Mary before. Not personally- you'd have heard me laughing from up there if I'd met them for real.
"The crazy thing in Australia is that the people aren't religious"
Wow that is the broadest, sweepingest most unsubstantiated claim I have heard, coming from a member that accuses everyone she disagrees with of making unsubstantiated generalised claims. Hypocrisy much.
Anyhoo it appears australis should be more worried about the mass build up of Chinese military including strategic nuclear bombers in the South China sea. I would be more concerned about that than funding chaplains , but I digress.
@ TD
From the 2016 census" Note that at nearly 30% "NO Religion" is the biggest single grouping once the christians are split into respective competing congregations.
The results of the latest national Census today reveal we’re a religiously diverse nation, with Christianity remaining the most common religion (52 per cent of the population).
Islam (2.6 per cent) and Buddhism (2.4 per cent) were the next most common religions reported. Nearly a third of Australians (30 per cent) reported in the Census that they had no religion in 2016.
The religious makeup of Australia has changed gradually over the past 50 years. In 1966, Christianity (88 per cent) was the main religion. By 1991, this figure had fallen to 74 per cent, and further to the 2016 figure. Catholicism is the largest Christian grouping in Australia, accounting for almost a quarter (22.6 per cent) of the Australian population.
Australia is increasingly a story of religious diversity, with Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, and Buddhism all increasingly common religious beliefs. Hinduism had the most significant growth between 2006 and 2016, driven by immigration from South Asia.
The growing percentage of Australia’s population reporting no religion has been a trend for decades, and is accelerating. Those reporting no religion increased noticeably from 19 per cent in 2006 to 30 per cent in 2016. The largest change was between 2011 (22 per cent) and 2016, when an additional 2.2 million people reported having no religion.
Further the percentage of actual church attendance has dropped by an estimated 30% for Catholics and 26% for Anglican and others in the the last two years. (source Fairfax) . Assuming, as in the past, many people just put "christian" or "moslem" automatically and include family members that may have no affiliation the broad statement that ":Australians aren't religious" can be taken as roughly accurate. Certainly as the trends continue it will definitely be a provable argument in the next census.
And, yes, you digress. Start another thread.
(edited for format and last para added)
50 , 60, or 90 percent is far from a whole country aren't religious.
Aussies hate filling out forms and applications ...it keeps them from watching sport...modt fill in religion as what their family told them they were. Very few go to church or live like christians and their only form of prayer is swearing. This is a secular nation.
So there are no Australian that believes in a God/s?
Oh wait old man posted stats to prove there are.
@TD
"So there are no Australian that believes in a God/s?"
The statistics speak for themselves...they are what people CLAIM to be. You are posting false generalisations to prove some point you think you are making. All you are proving is that you did not read my post in its entirety, or, as usual did not comprehend the point. Incidentally you point out your global ignorance when talking to people who actually experience the reality of Australia.
To prove my point with facts not bias and confirmation bias that you display here: " less than one in seven of the Australians who ticked “Christianity” on their census form regularly attend a church. I am sure you can do the math . visit the site it has some fascinating sociological information and a lot of pictures for you in nice colors that will help you understand the point that Sushi made.
https://mccrindle.com.au/insights/blogarchive/church-attendance-in-austr...
I never said "no Australians" believe in a god. There's just still too many who do though.
1/7 >0
Fun watching someone defend the position nobody in australia believes in God, call me some more names that will improve your position.
@TermDog
Nobody (except you) said anything about Australians believing/not believing in god. I think you're doing this:
Attachments
Attach Image/Video?:
But I've read enough of your posts to realise it's more than possible you honestly don't know the difference between a devout churchgoer and an agnostic, cultural Christian with a vague god belief who only sees the inside of a church at wedding and funerals, and mostly not even then - secular weddings/funerals are very popular here.
@ TD
Tendentious claims again. I did not call you any names at all. You do realise how much of a pattern your posts are becoming?
@Old Man
Re: ". I did not call you any names at all"
What would you call that? A reverse ad hominem? Never mind. An ad hominem by any other name is still an ad hominem.
@Grinseed: "most fill in religion as what their family told them they were."
And a lot of people are hesitant to put atheist, agnostic, or no religion on forms because of potential repercussions. I had that experience when I went into hospital for minor surgery as a 16-year-old. The surgeon booked me into a private place called Calvary Hospital. I didn't realize what that meant until I checked in and found that all the nurses were Catholic nuns. Never tell a six-foot nun with a needle that you're an atheist. I was nominally C of E for several years after that experience.
@Algebe
The nurses aren't nuns anymore. One of Newcastle's big hospitals is the Calvary Mater and all the staff are laypeople. I guess there's just not enough clergy to staff hospitals or schools, now- not in Australia, anyway.
@Sushisnake.
It was in Christchurch, New Zealand. But they've since sold the hospital. And god demolished both the Anglican and Catholic cathedrals in the city in the last earthquake. Time to change the name of city maybe.
@Algebe
Maybe. What should we call it? Christchurchless?
Maybe if TD could get a load of his like minded (mindless) haters to live there it could be renamed Yiannopolis? or Brennerville? or even Trumpton?
Hey. Christchurch has suffered enough already.
I lived there for over 30 years off and on between the 60s and the 2009. On the whole it's a fairly laid-back place. Politically it leans more to the left than the right, and despite all the churches and its origin as a Church of England settlement, I never found the place overly religious. The Xtians were always bickering among themselves, especially after the Anglican church appointed a female pro-gay-marriage bishop from Canada. The Catholics, god bless 'em, were up to their usual tricks with little boys at a school run by the St John of God brotherhood.
@ Algebe
"And a lot of people are hesitant to put atheist, agnostic, or no religion on forms because of potential repercussions."
Quite right. Even in these days of relative tolerance when I declare my atheism in conversation, some people still react with surprise and a little shock, at the frank admission. "Are you?!" is a common response.
@Grinseed
I've had the old " But you're such a nice person!" thrown at me a couple of times, too.
Nice attempt at baiting, consider yourself ignored.
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