No one has still been able to tell me anything about the Julia Gillard book and her religious/cult following - and trust me, she has a lot of believers...followers.....

I'm still waiting..... some sort of response may give some credibility to this discussion topic - and I'm being serious about that.

Commercial authors, with huge followings (and many who are also atheist) get away with too much (in terms of very little or no assessment) - and yet they get the benefit of that, plus the taking in of money.

"...which is why Australia's founding fathers wrote God & Christianity into our constitution... Q 3, Do we even have freedom of religion? A, no, our constitution was written by Christians for Christians. It guarantees freedom of church choice."

I find God mentioned twice: once in the preamble

"WHEREAS the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established:"

and once in the schedule,
"OATH - I, A.B., do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Her heirs and successors according to law. SO HELP ME GOD!
AFFIRMATION - I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Her heirs and successors according to law."

Christianity is not mentioned at all and section 116 makes no mention of 'church choice':

"Commonwealth not to legislate in respect of religion.
116. The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth."

"Q 5, Does this also mean the state should stay out of church business? A, yes, GLBT marriage for example is UN-constitutional."

No, it is not.

"51. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:-
(xxi) Marriage:
(xxii) Divorce and matrimonial causes; and in relation thereto, parental rights, and the custody and guardianship of infants:"

Next you'll be claiming that recusancy in Elizabethan England was to do with Islamic Iberia, or maybe that slavery is not mentioned in the Constitution because 'by Christians for Christians' means that the Biblical endorsements for it are self evident.

Toni Lavis, sorry darling but you have it the wrong way around. Marriage is for heterosexuals to provide the best environment for raising happier, healthier, wealthier children in every racial, religious or ethnic group since we were monkeys. If you are GLBT then love whoever you like & stay out of our business. There is mountains of hard scientific data showing that children raised in non traditional families are damaged by them. The meek conservative Christians have been tolerating GLBT lifestyle for 2,000 years now & it is time for you to leave us alone.

Loudmouth, rights & freedom don't extend to allowing people to commit treason, sedition & sabotage of our civilized society. Or neglect & abuse of children with antisocial behaviour. EG in a christian nation you are allowed to be an agnostic, cultural christian who believes in christian morals, ethics & principles but not engage in antisocial, destructive behaviour, because that comes with consequences.

NathanJ, Gillard's "true believers" are 10% of the population at best, she is already known as the worst PM or leader in our short history. Even Governor Bligh was better than her. Her day may come, when conservative lawyers do class actions based on economic damage done by dead beat policies.

WmTrevor, you are missing the point because you are working from an incomplete document. Try using an annotated constitution & an Oxford dictionary circa 1870.
1, it is impossible to believe in God unless you are Christian or Jewish.
2, when the constitution was written by 100% christians, the word religion = different churches.
3, again a judeo/christian nation shall have marriage laws that are based on christian cannon law.
4, christians ended slavery because christianity never endorsed it. Your atheist communist revision of history is impressing nobody.

HI IAACM,

As you say, '.... rights & freedom don't extend to allowing people to commit treason, sedition & sabotage of our civilized society. Or neglect & abuse of children with antisocial behaviour. EG in a christian nation you are allowed to be an agnostic, cultural christian who believes in christian morals, ethics & principles but not engage in antisocial, destructive behaviour, because that comes with consequences.'

Yes, indeed, I couldn't put it better myself, not on a Saturday morning :) But thanks for all the straw men ::))

But WmTrevor is also spot-on: there is nothing in the constitution - separation of State and Church, after all - which compels anybody to be religious.

Now we're getting somewhere !

Cheers,

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Dear Loudmouth,

I wish we had separation of church and state in Australia, but the fact is that we do not have such separation. If one compares S. 116 in the Australian Constitution to the relevant portions in the US Constitution you will see they are almost identical. The US Constitution does not mention God whereas the Australian Constitution does. Thus, the Australian Constitution gives recognition to religious belief, and the US Constitution doesn't.

However, the interpretation of the two documents are very different in the two countries. In the US chaplains in public schools and government aid to religious schools are illegal. in Australian they are allowed. In my opinion they should not be allowed here.

Complete separation would not allow chaplains in the armed forces or in prison. I am against that degree of separation, but I am for a much greater degree than exists in Australia. Atheist chaplains should be added for the comfort of those who do not share the other's superstitions.

The current threat in the US to the separation by the radical religious right will I hope be successfully countered. In Australia the Australian Christian Lobby which Gillard and other pols have kowtowed to has an unhealthy influence. The word, God, should be eliminated from the Australian Constitution so it will be a document which includes all Australians.

David,

The Constitution probably, for all I know, mentions The Crown as well, but that doesn't mean we all have to be royalists.

For God's sake, I wish we could all get above these childish, pissy arguments over yesterday's petty squabbles, and those of the day before that, and before that, and get onto genuine discussion.

For instance, looking at Huntington's suggestion that the West has generated ideologies - yes indeed, from religious roots long, long ago, and from which we have liberated ourselves - while the non-West is, comparatively, still enmeshed in unquestioned religion. Was it just an accident that much of that difference has to do with the weaknesses of Christianity from its outset, riven with heresies, and with its imperfect hold European countries, aggravated by their geographical and political differences, the very multiplicity of European states and fiefdoms and empires and stares, not to mention languages?

In other words, how and why have we been so lucky (comparatively) to escape the morasses and quagmires of unquestioned and putrifying religious dogma - has it something to do with the deadening effects of monolithic Eastern empires, and the crushing of any development of social philosophies under those single, all-powerful rulers ?

Joe