I hadn't known about this disgraceful behaviour.

Imagine if members of political parties were given access to young children in the name of teaching them about politics, and then presented their beliefs in such a coercive fashion.

This kind of brain-washing is not only morally wrong, it is anti-educational in that it encourages slavish submission rather than open thinking. No responsible education minister should allow it.

"It's long been an open secret that educators and politicians turn a blind eye to proselytising in faith classes."

The description 'faith classes' is the key to the problem.

Why attempt to teach faith? Isn't it better sense to teach the principles of logical reasoning?

Faith implies trust and belief in the unprovable, typified in the assumption of the existence of some divine being to which one is trained to owe moral or ethical obedience.

Youngsters would be served better by being able to learn how to sort fact from fiction, not by being herded into some system of spiritual servitude.

Religion has no place in secular education.

Once upon a time, it was correctly called religious instruction. Now it sneaks in under the guise of some other name. As I recall, and it is more than half a century ago, there was a minimal amount of proselytising. There really shouldn't be any of this type of material presented to children until they have reached an age where they fully understand the distinction between faith and reason. That being said, it seems that even some adults (such as Runner) have not yet reached that position. The logical conclusion from that is that there really is no place for religious instruction in non denominational schools.

David

There seems to be an opportunity to attract kids to the Christian denomination that usually provides the scripture/SRE.

Where data is available, it shows that about 25-35% of parents of families who attend QLD public schools self-describe as Christian. Yet ~75-78% of kids in those schools attend Christian scripture/SRE.

It seems many attend out of default ie. because there is no other alternative.

About 25% of NSW primary schools have Primary Ethics/SEE but even in many of those schools more kids go to "non-scripture" than attend 'Ethics' (because of a paucity of Ethics 'teachers').

Yes,

Evangelising = Proselytising

The Oxford online dictionary defines evangelise as: "convert of seek to convert someone to Christianity", or "Preach the gospel".

To proselytise is to "convert or attempt to convert someone from one religion, belief, or opinion, to another".

That probably should be

The Oxford online dictionary defines evangelise as: "convert *or* seek to convert someone to Christianity" ...

If the NSW government spent $300,000 of other peoples' money on a report, it should be released to those people who's money was used to obtain it, the people of NSW.

However, this piece is merely another anti-Christian smear from another denier who will not accept that Christianity is the base of things in the democratic West. You do not have to be a Christian yourself to accept that fact.

As facts are facts, there is every need to have them presented as part of basic education in this country. The author would be much better employed worrying about totally alien Islam being taught in Muslim schools, also funded by with public funds. Christianity is pertinent to our democratic, free society. Islam is definitely not.

I'm confused by all the angst over this issue. Parents have to sign a consent form before their child can attend these classes. Any parent with an ounce of common sense would realise their child will be exposed to promotion of Christianity. If they arent happy with that concept then they just don't sign the form.

Nice article highlighting the issues caused by separating the church and state. Perhaps, a way to solve these issues so that our best thinking can go into more interesting things, is to combine church and state within the parliamentary process and the constitution while continuing to offer safe refuge for those of no faith or alternative faiths.

Big Nana, a key issue is when a scripture/SRE session is on, the kids are not allowed to do anything else. So many non-Christian or nominally-Christian kids end up do SRE by default. The nominally-Christian kids, or even the Christian kids, often end up doing a form of Christianity that is not their own, as many of the SRE providers are zealous fundamentalists. there are other problems with the system (eg. opt-out v opt-in).

Yes, tbbn, the report should be released.

tbbn, your reference to Christianity as "the base of things" in the West is merely a genetic fallacy (ie. appeal to origins).

Your reference to Islam is a red-herring.

Moreover, a truly free society would not manipulate its citizens into this sort of indoctrination process.

We are a Christian country and well known by all those lining up to migrate here! And compatible with almost all essentially peaceful traditions including Buddhism, Hinduism several Muslim traditions and secular atheism!

As for preaching? Pray tell, what could possibly be wrong with the Good Samaritan proverb or life lived by the golden, do unto others, rule? That said, an unexamined life is not worth living! And an unexamined belief system cannot be trotted out as if it had a basis in evidential fact!

I mean, in order to BELIEVE that a man called Jesus died on a Roman cross a tad over 2,000 years ago, it's necessary to hold open in your mind the possibility of the opposite being true! But particularly in the absence of verifiable eyewitness accounts? Just he said she said hearsay!

And given such accounts as are held as true, this never married? Kind gentle 30 year old Galilean, with his promulgated preference for the company of men, could have been Gay? There being no compelling evidence to the contrary? Probably true?

[And no, I'm not saying he had an active sex life, even if numerous pious proselytizing priests did and often?]

Moreover, religious instruction must never ever precede evidence based critical thinking, but rather, follow it! [Brainwashed fanatics serve nobody, least of all their maker!]

At which time those with a story, ought to be free to tell it, even if fact free work of entirely unexamined fiction, penned entirely by men and men alone, with no basis or access whatsoever in/to confirmed evidence based fact! i.e., a flat 6,000 year old world smack dab in the exact centre of the universe?

Why, even the emerging archaeological evidence seems to disprove/call into question, an exodus from Egypt and all that relies on it, including a tablet of rules carved in stone for folks, who couldn't read?

A very large library of books written or religiously copied/edited/revised time and again, chapter and verse, proves nothing more; than not all those in ancient civilizations, were hopelessly illiterate!
Alan B.

Sorry, AlanB and others, but I do not agree that Australia is or ever was a christian society.

That is, unless you consider a group of convicts, police, sailors and military types to be evidence of general acceptance of christianity.

Post-convict days, of course society changed but the truth remains - christians and Australians are two intersecting sets. Some are one or the other or both. Some, such as recent immigrants of other or no faith, or visiting workers or tourists are present in Australia by the millions, but who is to say that there is a single christian among them?

One could continue with other traits, such as drinking and gambling and being prone to skin cancer or having fair skin (or otherwise) - the list is essentially infinite, but one thing is absolutely true.

Thankfully, Australia is a democracy and thus mandatory religion is out of the question.

Australia is not, never was and never will be a christian society.

I respectfully suggest that commenters to this thread re-read all comments and replace the word (or implication) 'Christian' with 'Muslim' in all of them. What's sauce for the goose .....

As an atheist, I don't support any religious teaching, per se, in any schools. BUT I'm happy with the teaching, from the earliest grades, of basic ethics, morals, right and wrong, respect for all humanity, equality of men and women, and wonder at human possibility. And some of those stories may well be derived from some religion or other: 'love one another as brothers and sisters', for example.

As Alan B. suggests, of course stories, parables, fables, lessons, whatever, which celebrate human compassion, such as the Good Samaritan story - and similar stories in the Koran if they exist - should be taught and explored by children, as secular examples of human relations.

But specifically NOT by religious people, priests, imams, parsons, etc., (who would all have their own barrow to push, and can do that elsewhere) but by teachers - who should all have had some basic instruction in ethics, values and human respect.

Joe

McReal,

Sorry, but the 'Western way' and democracy is the firmly rooted in Christianity. That democracy is the gift of ancient Greece is more myth than fact. There was a 'sort-of' democracy, with few, if any of the freedoms of Christian, Western democracy we enjoy to day. Australia was based on Christian democratic principals. Nobody has to be a Christian to know that. Australia is mostly populated by Westerners, and will be into the foreseeable future.

I don't know where got "appeal to origins" from; I am not appealing to anyone of anything. I am speaking plain truth. I am not championing Christianity, I am giving facts.

I would need you to tell me how you think my "..reference to Islam is a red herring.", before I could respond to your claim.

And, I could not accept your assertion that "... a truly free society would not manipulate its citizens into this sort of indoctrination process" without knowing your views on the indoctrination by the Left of SSM, climate alarmism and family values, best left to the families, who are much more likely to guide their children on such things than they are to introduce them to Christianity, without which, one remains very ignorant.

I went to school in the 1940's when 'religious instruction' was mandatory and accepted. It was totally innocuous; we were not indocrinated, and we were all bored stiff. I attended church until I was 16, and allowed to make up my own mind after that. I have not since entered a church, except for weddings and funerals, and to admire the architecture of old churches in England. I believe in living a Christian way of life, but often fail to carry through. Most of all, I am glad of the knowledge, and I have no fears about religion, except Islam, which is far more than a religion. The people who fear or hate Christianity are the ones never properly exposed to it, who think Islam is like Christianity, although they never criticise Islam as they do Christianity. It's all about ignorance.

ttbn:

Thanks for the anecdote, but it is entirely beside the point.

Australia is a democracy. Our society is polyglot. Its historical composition and past social and educational practices are very much irrelevant to how education should be managed in 2016.

Sorry, mate, but as I see it, any interference with children's minds by clergy, paid or unpaid, under the banner of education, is not ethical. It is promotion of a lie and is thus the very antithesis of education.

If the proposal is for lessons in ethics, civics, current affairs or the like, then let's hear it! But please, not stories about god-bothering or receiving instructions from invisible friends and especially not during school time or on school premises.

Ttbn & JohnBennetts,

Ttbn, I agree with you that " .... the 'Western way' and democracy is the firmly rooted in Christianity. That democracy is the gift of ancient Greece is more myth than fact. There was a 'sort-of' democracy, with few, if any of the freedoms of Christian, Western democracy we enjoy today. Australia was based on Christian democratic principals. Nobody has to be a Christian to know that. Australia is mostly populated by Westerners, and will be into the foreseeable future."

John, I think you may have misunderstood Ttbn, you may not disagree as much as you think :) As with other religions, many crimes at associated with Christianity, but its saving grace - despite itself - is that geography and historical forces have always trimmed back the powers of its 'leaders', from Popes to Pastors, and allowed the development of ideas in every field, usually unintentional. Hence, eventually, the ideas of the Enlightenment as break-away movements from the religious bases which spawned them.

Yeah, I remember RI, usually late on Friday afternoons, utterly ineffectual, mainly because the poor minister was such an obvious ring-in, whose purpose was to give the teachers an early half-hour or so. And to keep us back unnecessarily for that same half-hour, for which we rewarded the minister concerned with sly and malicious criticisms of his cherished beliefs. A sort of blooding: I think one of mine in Darwin later became a Uniting Church Bishop or whatever. Great fun, all considered.

Cheers,

Joe

G'day John,

I accept what you say, although, as plyglot means many languages and English is the only official language in Australia, I'm not sure what you are getting at. We are certainly multicultural, but immigrants knew what things were like before they came here, and it is not them looking for us to change, but extremist, native-born Australians of the host culture with a sinister agenda.

I agree that NOBODY should go into schools teaching things that are not directly linked to academic qualifications and entrance to the workforce. All other things, including religion, social and sexual matters should be left to parents. Unfortunately, two generations of parents have abrogated their responsibilities, with the encouragement of governments looking for more control. Given the muck they want to teach to little kids too young to understand sexuality at all, let alone the preferences of 0.8% of the community, I am glad that things religous are also included. However, as their is noone teaching how to be a responsible parent, I guess we are both going to be disappointed.

ttbn, in my house at present, there are several languages spoken: Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, French, German, Niugini Pidgin, English and a "ples tok" from the Bulolo region off the top of my head. Malik speaks 7 languages fluently, some of which are pretty obscure (he's keen to learn Farsi next), I can manage a couple with varying fluency, Mark speaks 2 natively, Barry speaks 3. I'm not sure whether Stu speaks a language other than English, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Then there are the other languages, like C, matlab, Java, Python and various variants of mathematics that a couple of us speak reasonably well.

We use English as the lingua franca, since it's common to us all.

It's long been an open secret that educators and politicians turn a blind eye to proselytising in "science" classes. Global warming, er, oops, climate change is so secure it has announced the apocalypse several times; but the grass is green, dams are full and it is a COLD October.

Parents volunteer and PAY to go to Catholic schools, but are forced to pay for the biased Gulags of the State system.

Hi Craig,

Yes, people can speak many languages AND use one of them as a lingua franca. In South Australia, back in 1845, when the Governor (Grey) went out of his way to encourage missionaries and others to record local Aboriginal languages, the explorer E.J. Eyre published a book of the vocabulary of the Upper Murray people (not a single word was similar to the language of the Lower Murray people, by the way). The Protector wrote in his Forward to the book that he has noticed that, when Aboriginal people met, they tended to converse with each other in English as a common language - but of course, they still knew the language of their own country, but used English words for any 'new' phenomena or terms.

This contrasts with the use of Maori in New Zealand, the one and only Indigenous language there (plus dialects) which incorporates (and has done since the beginning) new words INTO Maori, and thus keeps ahead of the game. That has almost never been done with any Aboriginal language, so they have become more and more irrelevant to modern daily discourse.

As for any religious-based schools, of course their curriculum should be monitored to ensure it does not conflict with general Australian values such as the equality of men and women (boys and girls), equal treatment before the law, and encouragement for all manner of scientific investigation. Schools which refuse to include these values in their curricula should be closed.

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Joe,
Up in PNG it's Niugini Pidgin, which evolved from a simplified trading creole that's the lingua franca and I understand that a creole (Kriol) is beginning to develop within Northern Australia among disparate language groups that allows for modern concepts to be captured within a fluid language framework.

Bahasa is a formalised language group now that would have started the same way. I'm making a very desultory effort to learn Bahasa Malayu from a friend at the moment and it's quite interesting that there are some common words with Pidgin: susu, for example, is milk in both languages. In Pidgin it's been expanded to also mean breast, which of course, is where susu is found.

Hi Craig,

Yes, number systems are similar too, from Indonesia through the Pacific. As for 'milk', or 'breast', 'milk' in Vietnamese is 'sua'. So maybe it's all down to the Austronesians trading around that region over the last few thousand years, given that it's usually traders who develop basic number systems.

I lived in New Zealand for a couple of years and had friends from the island of Niue, more or less east of Tonga, south of Samoa: one time, the sister of one of them, maybe taking pity on me, gave me a shirt, with the comment that we were about the same size, she 'was pretty big in the huhus.' Mmmmmm, she was too. I was extremely grateful.

Cheers,

Joe

Ah Joe,
I should have realised you'd be a sucker for a nice pair of huhus...

Yes, and a rose by any other name would smell as sweet ......

Re the use of the term "polyglot".

I meant what I said.

My wife's second or third language was English, the other two being northern European. English wasn't spoken in her home until she brought it home from school. My immediate family and their spouses include well above half a dozen countries of origin and at least as many languages spoken in the home, ranging from Asian, European and Anglo origins.

Australia, in my experience, is polyglot in name and substance. I believe that my experience is not at all unusual - it is representative of the Australian reality, and has been since the post-WWII immigration boom, if not since at least the Gold Rush days of the late 19th Century.

Those born pre-1870 might have a different take on these things.

I assume this emphasis upon Christianity and religion in schools is blowback from a generation before and reflects new nativism in politics and society.

Issues include difficulty of having one's children sitting out religion classes, whereby they may become stereotyped or the focus of others if not supported by the school and community (saw in bush early '70s).

Attended a denominational school in Melbourne where regular once weekly religious classes ceased in late '70s, and 'General Studies' introduced to include social and science issues e.g. pollution and ozone layer, energy efficient housing and environment, transport policies, water management etc.. In tandem with this, was not only seguing to the science curriculum, but year 12 then HSC General English Expression (?) included Part D, Critical Thinking etc. regarding advertising and media....

Although I have asked parents in Victoria often about their kids' school subjects, no one seems to know if these subects still exist and/or don't understand the concept...., however according to some, no (or the same skills are assumed to be holistic or embedded by chance or trial and error).

I'd bet the fossil fuel industry, automotive, property, government, politicians and media were not 'very keen' on such enlightened education ideas.

As one friend complains, he expected that his kids' skills for 'critical thinking and analysis' would be developed at high school not for specific topics e.g. euthanasia requiring deep and specific insight, but for any novel situation.

Now it seems about trying to redevelop a compliant 'Christian conservative culture' mirroring US politics and media while creating fear about non-Christian culture; especially when the proponents feel or perceive they are on the path to 'white demographic suicide' which then justifies ethical short cuts...... aka GOP Republicans, UKIP/Tories, LNP/One Nation etc.. making authoritive statements or decisions, don't analyse or question, just follow orders, move on etc..

Such policies, tactics and strategies are also coincidentally too similar with national or conservative socialism; short memories.