Yes I was stunned when I read about that question to. Judeo-Christian values my arse. England was already a secular nation by the time they were claiming Australia. I would love to know what uniquely Judeo-Christian traditional values are reflected in "Australian values". No this is just another attempt by the Christian right to force their beliefs onto other people.

I've always wondered about this term "Judeo-Christian" as if Jewish people and Christians have some sort of timeless alliance. Jews under centuries of Christian rule have suffered progroms, deportation and forced assimilation. It is unlikely that Christian and anti-semitic rulers such as Isabella of Spain, Catherine the Great or Nicholas II of Russia would have used the term to describe themselves.

It is true that Christianity is an off-shoot of Judaeism but that doesn't mean they should be coupled. Besides, many political traditions such as democracy come from polytheistic ancient Greece and Rome and pre-date Christianity by centuries.

Simply, Irfan - rubbish.

It's deeply disturbing that values would ever be centered around any religion.

Great. Now we can expect a 5000-post argument between dogma and reason, as OLO's resident fundamentalists insist that Christianity created society, peace, modernity, women's rights, art, public education, science, and anything good, anywhere, ever.

If anyone points out that Christian theocracy has always been marked by ongoing violence, genocide, and hostility to progress, they will be told that Hitler was an atheist. Apparently this constitutes evidence against secularism.

The circus as usual, but without a halftime clown show.

Actually a great many other belief systems are significant in our heritage - our days of the week are largely named after Norse gods. Today is named in honour of Woden!

As an interesting aside Wednesday is Miercoles in Spanish and Mercredi in French - both honouring the Roman God Mercury who had pretty much the same portfolio (in a governmental sense) in the Roman system as did Woden in the Norse. Similar comparisions are available for all days of the week.

Tomorrow we will all be giving recognition to Thor!