This whole discussion is rather pointless unless you agree that the government has a need to know what religion you have or do not have.

Governments should only collect information about citizens because it helps them in the business of governing. Every question on the census form must have a good reason for being asked.

The government should not be making any decisions based on what religion a person aligns with. It should make decisions based on demonstrable need and religion is not a demonstrable need. Religion is an emotional crutch and it is not the business of government to provide assistance to those who rely on religion instead of reason to deal with their emotions. The government might provide medical assistance to help people to deal reasonably with emotional issues but it should not be helping people who by their own admission resort to 'faith' in order to deal with those issues and have no desire to do otherwise.

What constitutes religion is another discussion entirely and I suspect that the author of this article is just using the census question as a way of trying to convince himself that religion is relevant in a wider context. Those who allow themselves to be drawn into it are just providing a platform to help him do that. If he was truly convinced that religion was relevant in a wider context then he would not need to start a discussion about it.

cont
Spencer

2. Secularism is not a religion, as per my previous post, so your objection fails. If you want to dispute that, then provide evidence of leading political, philosophic or religious thinkers, and indeed, secularists who make a case that secularism is a religion.

Section 116 states:

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.

This is the section of the Constitution secularists refer to in relation to the imposition of religion in the public square. If Secularism was a religion it would be incongruous for Secularists to promote secularism, as Secularists would be effectively making an objection to their own right to make that very objection.

Hi RR,

Yes, 'faith' and 'belief' don't necessarily have to involve anything supernatural. One can have quite passionate belief or faith in socialism, or the free market, or like my grandfather, Callathumpian anarchism.

Of course, such belief or faith can BECOME religious, if - somewhere behind the rhetoric and dogma - some founding principle is given the aura of the divine, to never be criticised or even analysed.

The primary antidote for all beliefs is the ability to constantly criticise, analyse, question, examine, what one believes or has faith in. After all, nothing is perfect in the real, human world. The first step would probably be to admit that one's belief DOES have elements of uncriticisable faith, and to modify or abandon such a belief for something more realistic and realisable.

Even in today's fractured and tortured world, there is plenty to believe in if one wants to stay sane and 'scientific'. We just have to keep looking.

Joe

.

One should have the option to tick the box as a man made gw alarmist (sorry believer).

Hi runner

Yes, 'end of days' apocalyticism takes many forms. Perhaps the global warming scare is one of them. There are many 'end of days' scenarios - exhaustion of resources, Asian invasion, etc.

I have one of my own at the back of my mind: demographic collapse through birth-rates dropping far below replacement rates around the world in the next generation. Even in the Middle East, with very high youth unemployment, birth-rates have tumbled over the last generation, (to barely 1.4 children per women in Iran, for example) meaning that a large generation will start to reach retirement age in a generation or so, which has never had the chance to store up for its old age, and then has to be supported by far smaller, and shrinking, following generations.

After all, even in Australia, without immigration, own population growth would stall by around 2050, and start to decline, perhaps halving by 2100. Thank God for migrants.

Problems often have solutions. Why the drop in birth-rates ? Women gaining education, for one thing, thereby postponing having kids, or marriage, or both, of having no kids either way. Why so few kids ? Perhaps because men are so reluctant to take on equal child-rearing duties. But this is a problem that we must find responses to, and hopefully will.

In other words, we must have a firm belief in human ingenuity.

Cheers,

Joe

Spencer

4. from ABS classification of religious groups:

"Generally, a religion is regarded as a set of beliefs and practices, usually involving acknowledgment of a divine or higher being or power, by which people order the conduct of their lives both practically and in a moral sense. This method of defining religion in terms of a mixture of beliefs, practices, and a Supernatural Being giving form and meaning to existence was used by the High Court of Australia in 1983. The High Court held that "the beliefs, practices and observances of the Church of the New Faith (Scientology) were a religion in Victoria". As part of the ruling, it was stated that:

"For the purposes of the law, the criteria of religion are twofold:

first, belief in a Supernatural Being, Thing or Principle; and

second, the acceptance of canons of conduct in order to give effect to that belief, though canons of conduct which offend against the ordinary laws are outside the area of any immunity, privilege or right conferred on the grounds of religion." "

I am a Queenslander also. As per: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/religious-instruction-in-queensland-schools-is-discriminatory-20160311-gngjyd.html
Religious instruction cannot be offered by groups with non religious philosophies because they are not regarded as religious by the QLD education act definition, which involves supernatural beliefs.
QLD schools Definition of religion uses 1983 precedent:
http://education.qld.gov.au/schools/school-operations/ri-definitions.html#faithgroup

So Spencer I trust that satisfies your demand for evidence.

RI in QLD involves a fundamentalist view which suggests to children the Bible is literally true. That's not pejorative, that's accurate. A fundamentalist adherence to the literal truth of scripture is a key element of Connect: "To understand that the Bible is God's word: that it is historically reliable and still relevant today."
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/connect-religious-instruction-says-vampires-fake-but-bible-is-fact-20160627-gpslcs.html

Register a protest against fundamentalist RI teachers by marking 'No religion' on the Census.