Secularism works amazingly for atheists and secular people. But, it seems that practising Christians should, wherever possible, live under a Christian government as it appears that laws exist to manage behaviour and guide morality, so they may as well be Christian, lol.

As a lapsed or former christian, I and many other folk who still retain their intellectual freedom or remain untroubled by a strange burning smell created, it would seem, by hitherto unknown activity in previously unused cerebral circuits! Understand all the change and reassessment needs to come from those folk who claim to know the mind of God!

It has to be extremely disconcerting to hear voices coming out of thin air or even far more disconcerting, if you actually understand what they're saying!?

Levity aside, I cannot look a a night sky literally sparkling with more stars than there are grains of sand on all the beaches the world over, or hear a baby cry, or touch a leaf, without at least considering the possibility of a creator or divine intelligence? And given energy can be neither created or destroyed and given all that we know of the discernible universe including us, is transformed energy!

Then surely rational intelligence demands that we acknowledge it had to have always existed in one form or another? Perhaps as yet not understood but discernable dark matter or dark energy?

As for fear, there's nothing to fear but evil and or evil intent and some folk who claim to intimately know the mind and intended purpose of God, who they claim gives them carte blanche to perpetrate unspeakable evil on all those who won't conform to their impositions or insanity?

If there is a God, then surely God is Love, and indeed the very source or wellspring from whence we get our humanising hopes and dreams, which by the way, are rarely if ever about money or "inspirational" personal greed!
Alan B.

What does or does not constitute religion is totally irrelevant when it comes to the census. The only thing that matters is what information is collected and how it is used.

The only religious act that some people ever do is to put a tick on the census form every eight years or so. This is hardly radical behaviour. It tells us nothing about the involvement or otherwise that they may have with religion. No inferrence should be drawn from this information at all.

Every Muslim will tick Muslim but many never go to a mosque, never pray, never fast - never indulge in any religious activity at all. Should we be making policy decisions in favour of these people? Should we say this is a Christian country based on ticks on a form?

If the government needs to know what religion you are then they need a good reason to ask. It is totally irresponsible to make decisions based on ticks of the census form. They would need a lot more information about your level of involvement than that.

The question is not about what constitutes religion but about what information the government requires in order to make informed policy. This question tells them nothing. It is not like asking about the numbers of people in a household or their ages or incomes. These provide information which can be acted upon.

Ticking that you are Anglican tells them absolutely nothing about you.

What a far too long, ignorant waste of time. Anyone who has to hark back to the Old Testament for anti-Christian arguments is a loser. And, the High Court in 1983, and any other time, was not, is not, equipped to define what it means to be religious. I have not been to church for 60 years as a worshiper, but I still am, and always be, a Christian; and that is what I'll be putting on the census form. Only self-haters and renegades deny their heritage and what they really are.

I believe that one of the reasons that the government wants a true picture of people's religious affiliation is that certain groups in the community are agitating for more power/financial support/attention to their views etc on the basis that they represent a large percentage of the population of Australia. If the census proved that claim to be quite false, then perhaps different outcomes might ensue.

Louisa:
How do you prove genuine affiliation? The person who ticks Catholic might be a cardinal or he might be someone who hasn't been involved in any way with the church since his baptism.

The government should require more information before it starts giving favours. Such benefits should be dealt out on the basis of genuine affiliation and a census is not going to provide that level of information.