"Compassion: the humane quality of understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it."

Boaz - sigh.... I don't pontificate, I do. The positive experience of taking action to achieve an outcome. I don't need to prove I am good and I know I have many faults but, continually insisting that others should believe as I do isn't one of them. I hope that your bible provides you with a sense of self worth. But it doesn't work for me.

Easter Monday as previously pointed out in this forum is not a traditional religious day, therefore it is not an attack on your 'culture' nor is it an attack on your religion. However, the suggestion of having a secular day of relection has brought brought out the selfish nature of the religious zealot on this website.

How dare you refer to anyone in this forum as evil. While I admit to some baiting of contributors in the interests of provocation I would never sink so low as you or Ozaware. Verbal bludgeoning does not win converts, so why do you do it? Insults like these do not constitute debate.

So you disagree with Compassion day? Fine. There is no need to denigrate those who are in favour of it. Present your argument fairly and reasonably and I will listen. I still may not agree but that is my choice.

Ringtail, don't u know that a 'smiley' is a sign of 'tongue in cheek' ?
I'm not "bludgeoning" you for goodness sake, and I think you are confusing "urging,encouraging" with 'inSISting'. Insist is a strong word, much stronger than 'urge'. It suggests "I won't have it any other way NOW", and I don't think you can find that in my posts, I may say things with passion and conviction, but puh-lease, don't find 'bludgeoning' there. I put my point of view, passionately, and I'm smiling pretty much all the time I write, it IS your choice to choose not to accept Christ, exactly. If u feel 'bludgeoned' then I profusely apologise, definitely not intended. By the way, Oz does not speak from the same perspective as myself, it may appear that way, but he is hardly a 'religious zealot' he is more likely to be defending 'culture' than Christianity.

Easter Monday, is by cultural tradition associated in Australia with the events of Easter, it is a public holiday in the spirit of Anzac day which remembers the Anzacs, would u expect old warriors to feel ok if some 'progressive' group said "Lets make Anzac day 'gay pride day' instead" ? Think about that. I reckon Bruce Ruxton would stand on the top of the Shrine and yell at Melbourne if that happened.
So, without meaning to sound 'zealous' -to replace 'Easter' monday with another meaning WOULD be an attack on existing cultural norms for a significant majority of Aussies.

As I suggested, make any other day Compassion Day, reflect all you want, do what u want, no biggy. In any case, why would you want to upset 70% of Australians and call Easter Monday 'Compassion' day ?
I'd call THAT selfishness. R u seriously trying to tell me u cannot reflect on what u like on Easter Monday ? If your not Christian it doesn't have that meaning anyway, so why not just reflect anyway ?

What I cannot understand Boaz is how on the one hand you can admit that Easter Monday has no religious connotation - "Its connection with the events of Christ is purely tradition. 'Important event, have a holiday' kind of thing.", but only a few posts later you insist "to replace 'Easter' monday with another meaning WOULD be an attack on existing cultural norms".

Is it really so important to you that you have to tread such a fine line of definition, requiring the use of such carefully penumbral phrases as "cultural tradition associated in Australia with the events of Easter".

Easter Monday is not a religious festival. Co-opting it for secular purposes should therefore trouble you not at all, especially as the suggestion is such a mild one, compassion. Your using the lurid comparison of Anzac Day turning into a gay pride day only underlines the barren exiguity of your argument.

I enjoyed your optimistic article but I opened the comments section with the usual dread, [Deleted for flaming] but i'll stick to the original essay.

It certainly riles me, as a non-Christian, that i have to take so many public holidays with a medicinal spoonful of twaddle about our established religion. In spite of what so many are saying about the ills of migration, it's a fact that with global conflicts and global responses to disasters, national boundaries are becoming more fluid everywhere, and religions are finding they have to compete with each other, or find a modus vivendi in the marketplace of ideas. The idea of a state-sponsored religion is becoming increasingly untenable in an open society such as ours, and I think the pressure will continue to build to strengthen dialogues between various religious and non-religious world views, to find common ground between them. Though I'm no fan of Catholicism in general, the late Pope certainly took some bold steps in this area. So I think your reasoning behind Compassion Day is sound, and I hope you're not put off by some of the ranters in this forum - though i suppose it does say something about the chances of your proposal getting up

Pericles,
you answered your own question in your post, you drew the wrong conclusion/implication from my comment "associated with the events of Easter in Australia" to mean "it doesn't matter". But the point of my post was that it IS a tradition, associated with easter, in our culture/country. We only have that holiday 'because' of Easter events.
So, to say "lets change it to remember something else" is indeed an attack on culture, though not on the Faith itself. We need to distinguish those two aspects. Faith/beliefs and 'culture/tradition'.

While renaming Easter Monday is not an attack on Christianity it is still an attack on the significance of the day to around 73% of Australians which is a sizable chunk. I suppose one could do the exercise and ask how many of those to whom Easter Events are spiritually meaningful how they would feel about renaming the Monday as a something else day, then you would have a more informed basis for making an assessment of the true mood.

Personally, I don't think I'd be too fussed even if it was called 'stand on ur head' day, I dont hold that our culture is irreversable 'Christian' I hold that it is 'currently' predominantly Christian in mood, and therefore such traditions are justified. This also leads to why I tend to defend the tradition, I do it only because of the above. After all, if every tradition which is culturally meaningful to Christians was challenged and surrendered, we would not have much of a 'cultural texture' left to feel 'us' in.

We do without question derive some of our sense of identity as social creatures from the traditions surrounding us. I'm much more interested in individuals coming to know Christ and involving themselves in "when u meet, do this in remembrance of me" (the communion).

Luigi,
I see u took your regular dose of 'angry' pills this morning ? :) I'd like to debate you at length, sadly, 350words dissallows. But clearly your position is there is nothing to believe in except an existential morass of swirling and competing ideas.

Thanks for your kind words, Luigi. I must admit that the ranters do shake me up, but it is a good dose of reality. In my naivety I thought one or two Christians might come forward and say "It's not a bad idea. I have Jewish / Muslim / non-religous friends who are wonderful people, why should they miss out. Christ's message was about love and compassion. Let's share it with everybody."

Instead there is a feeling of the slippery slope. If Easter Monday is no longer called Easter Monday by the government, then Good Friday and Christmas could be next. I can see that would send a shock through many Christians and I think that has prompted some of the bad feelings. I tried to put forward the 2/3 Christians, 2/3 Christian holidays idea, but it hasn't convinced the Christian commentators.

The tradition argument escapes me personally, but I think there are many who are happy with our beautiful country the way it is, and that is understandable, it is a wonderful place to live. Thanks again.