In a submission I made recently to the Australian Human Rights Commission in relation to draft guidelines for its forthcoming roundtable on religious freedom, my concerns reflected very closely those articulated clearly in Meg Wallace’s excellent article: that the broader, more substantial and foundational concept of ‘freedom of thought, conscience and religion’ should be the primary focus, subsuming freedom of religion. Rightly, in my view, Meg extends this more comprehensive understanding further to include the freedoms of expression and association.

Although there will inevitably always be cases where different freedoms may be in conflict, calling for arbitration, the most general principle in view is surely that freedom is indivisible. Sure, this is an ideal, and the relationship among freedoms must remain negotiable, but there is no obvious case in a secular liberal democracy for ‘freedom of religion’ to have some kind of de facto privileged status.

Incidentally, providing a measure of empirical support for the ideal of ‘indivisibility’, some experimental neuroscience identifies much the same neuronal and dopaminergic processes taking place whether subjects are registering assertions of belief of a religious or non-religious nature. Our basic unconscious cognitive processes may have a lesson in non-discrimination for our conscious deliberations

//The Vatican is a Christian theocracy with a religious figure as head of government and operating under canon law.//

Oh yeah. I forgot about those guys. I feel rather stupid right now. Do you know if there are any protestant christian theocracies?

Of course, pretty much everybody who claims Vatican citizenship is overtly Catholic.

//Meanwhile, more than a dozen Muslim-dominated states proclaim themselves as Islamic Republic/Kingdom/Emirate etc. of Wherever, and enact that proclamation by banning Christian churches, schools, etc., and occasionally whipping or crucifying the odd Christian to gee up the troops. And look where that's got them, in terms of the development of social rights and ideology.

Isn't that so ?//

//That is so, but it is irrelevant.//

I don't think it's irrelevant; I think it is a damn good point, and well made. In a properly run theocracy, freedom of belief, speech and association are anathema. Democracy is anathema. Justice is anathema. Reason, and scientific reason in particular, are anathema. And this is the sort of government that imabraindeadfarrightfuckwitwhohasbeendisqualifiedfrombeingthevillageidiotbecauseimoverqualified thinks would be terrific in Australia. Sorry, but why are you otherwise erudite gentlemen splitting hairs instead of presenting a unified front against such offensive and outdated ideas?

//Who the f cares ?//

Well, David, obviously. No need to be rude. I don't mind having my factual errors corrected, indeed I welcome it. I wish there were more posters around here who were as willing to correct other people's factual errors. I bollocksed up, David set me straight. No need to take him to task for it.

Dear Toni Lavis,

There have been Protestant theocracies in the past. There was one in Basle.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10725 which I wrote deals with the execution of Servetus in 1553 in Calvin’s theocracy. in Basle. The reaction to that execution was a step toward the separation of church and state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Anti-Homosexuality_Act,_2014 points one to the bill calling for life imprisonment for homosexuals (modified from the death penalty). The impetus for this bill came from American missionaries who would like to get such a law in the states but can’t. However, Uganda is currently something of a Protestant theocracy so they can get such a law there.

There are Muslim theocracies, but I am more concerned with the Christian ones as I think the tendency in our society toward that is largely ignored while we worry about Muslim theocracies in other countries. I consider Australian chaplains in the public schools provided by the fundamentalist Protestant Scripture Union in Queensland and the fundamentalist Protestant Access Ministries in Victoria expressions of theocracy. I consider that theocracy more of a menace in Australia than Muslim theocracies. However, Australian government support for religious schools can advance Christian, Muslim and Jewish theocracies. I don’t know how many children in Muslim schools have been encouraged to become jihadis in Muslim schools and how many Jewish children have been encouraged to become fanatic Israeli settlers in Jewish schools. I would not ban those schools, but I would end any taxpayer support for non-public schools.

Politicians such as the atheist Gillard kowtow to the Australian Christian Lobby, a fundie group which does not represent the mainstream churches in Australia. Catholic Tony Abbott has tried to interfere with birth control such as the morning-after pill. Protestant Rudd started the chaplaincy program in Queensland. This program was made nationwide by Protestant Howard.

I favour separation of religion and state. Religions should not use government to further their power, and governments should not use religion to further their power.

Dear Creationettes,

[Imaginary-Conceptual-Abstract-Noun] God speaking... OMM (Oh My Me)!

Just a reminder that being omnipotent and omniscient means the universe is already a theocracy.

Gotcha.

You remain, sirs, my humble and obedient servants.
Eternally yours, oops, I mean eternally mine,
G**

Hi WmTrevor,

Actually, Islamic belief holds that yes, the universe is a theocracy, and that the earth belongs to Allah.

I'm just working my way through a book on land tenure systems, and it appears that the Koran lays down that Allah owns all land, that it is held from Allah, sort of on loan; that neither are there states since Allah has sovereignty over all the earth, and that one day, sooner or later, all of the earth will once more be under the total control of true believers, forming one united theocracy.

Now THAT's theocracy. Existing Muslim theocracies are just the start. Nothing's changed in 1400 years, nor can it change, the Word was written and cannot ever be altered.

I wonder if there are many of the 1.5 billion Muslims who believe that ? 90 % ? 95 % ?

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Yuyutsu,

"The general public has no idea what religion is and is not equipped with the tools to identify religion when they see it among all sorts of other ideas and behaviours. You don't need to go far - just look at the responses in this thread and see for yourself how divergent and confused they are and how commonly social and cultural issues are being passed as religion."

Whilst this may be true, it is not the viewpoint of many, including atheists and certainly not Meg Wallace (in my view). These people (in most, if not all cases, simply don't want any reference to religion - in any document, of any nature, simply because they don't believe in religion in principle.

That being, these people will (often) use simplistic, rude, insensitive or derogatory statements, rather than show basic respect of individual values, views or attitudes in relation to religion.

What these people don't realise is by "denying" or talking down religion, being part of any formal document (of any nature), or society in general is "denying" its existence, when religion does exist in society, worldwide.

This is a very naive view to take, because religion does exist, whether these people like that or not - so in that context, any reference to religion is not futile.

Finally some people's religious beliefs, do stand out from the crowd by what they wear - and these people don't have to say anything.