To Bronwyn and Keiran

Our society is the one we MAKE it by our democractic involvement in it. Given that 69% of Australians are believers in God and have some kind of Christian tradition,.. if u don't MIND... I hereby declare that Australia is a 'Christian flavored liberal democracy'.

Now.. if you believe in freedom and democracy, you could not find fault with my last statement. The existence of some creepy crawly secularists who think they run the show, does not a secular nation make.

The pre-amble to our constitution says "Humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God".....

The point Donna was making is that she was not taken to task for OTHER religious content in her other stories.. but they are EQUALLY religious to those who adhere to them, she was taken to task in a blatantly and deliberately discriminatory manner over the Judao/Christian flavor of some of her stories.

So, our education department should catch up with where the people are 'at' and wake up to itself.

Haven't you noticed the little signs that our politicians are alerted to this situation by now emphasizing the "Christmas themes are good"
kind of comment.

Secularists whine and moan about things being IMPOSED on them.. well guess what.. me and the other 69% of Aussies ALSO don't like the idea of a minority of godless secularists telling us the Education of our children is a 'no God zone'.

Give urselves a pinch and actually THINK about this for a moment....

Bronwyn,
Of course you are quite correct, if we specificly want our children taught a particular religion, we have the choice of sending our children to specific Christian schools. It disturbs me as a Catholic {a poor one at that} that my child may be being taught by a Assembly of God lunatic right preacher. I will now look into this possible situation, thank you for the warning.

Religion should be kept out of public schools completely, if we as parents want to indoctronate our children into our particular churches, we have the option of home teaching, and our church on Sunday. Sadly though many of us will fall foul of Howard's IR laws and not be able to make church because we will be forced to work.

In conclision, we are being deprived of our family time, with our children, and thusly we are unable to pass our religions on to the next generation because we are far too busy making money for our employer, a much bigger problem, it seems without a solition.

It is not new discovery that all we know exists in the form of story. Scientific theories are a kind of story as are ethnic creation myths, faith in progress and technology and the free market. Nihilism is a story, so is atheism and theism. The crucial thing is to identify the true story that describes the human condition; who we are in the world. There are many stories that are not true stories. The novelist as well as the theologian are adept at telling which story is a true story. Try making a film or writing a book that does not rub close to human reality and you will meet failure. Bad stories are literally unbelievable, they do not ring true, and they bear the marks of the creator manipulating his or her audience, trying to please, trying to fit in with the fashion.

I heard Billy Connolly in Perth and he outrageously damned all religion. He made a mockery of Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Moses, scientologists etc. No one was spared. He ended by saying that it is all over, the time in which we are to live religiously under the authority of some freaky, supposedly supernatural event is over! I think he is right. These are just examples of bad stories that cripple the human spirit.

Of course, those who know my articles will know that I will make an exception for the Judeo/Christian tradition and have argued that, strictly, that tradition is not a religion but the end of all religions. Rather than being an authoritarian belief system with a supernatural base, it is properly, the recognition of truth, that Jesus is the one free and true man. There can be no compulsion here, it is up to each one of us to recognise this truth. Neither can there be a sacrifice of rationality, for that would lob us back into religion. It is simply a meeting with what the church has come to call “the crucified and risen one”.

Donna,
Do not be discouraged you are a free living spirit unlike the atheistic rationalists who wish to kill the adventerous spirit in children, as evidenced by their death to life and religion in the above posts.

They want all children indoctrinated in their fatalistic views.

Where I live we have pre-school children 3 - 5 year olds protesting that the Federal Government has not given sufficient funds. This is typical of the death to the mind that these PC left wing atheists want children to adopt. They fail to inspire greatness but indoctrinate infants to become a victim. Thank God for religious freedom that Christianity has given us! Atheists want it removed.

As a Muslim highly commited to interfaith relations, I was delighted when Donna Sife Jacobs generously agreed to offer this lively article for publication on the site I edit, Shalom Pax Salam (www.sps.org.au), which is hosted by the Canberra Islamic Centre and National Islamic Library. I am further delighted to see Donna's piece receive a wider readership on onlineopinion, and to see that it has been so well-received on this forum. I do not think that the problem she highlights relates only to one religion (although I am also disturbed that references to her gestures and accent seem racist as well as anti-religious). The attitude displayed by the education bureaucrats also seems demeaning to the "permitted" spiritual traditions such as Buddhism, since they seem to be allowed in because they are not "really" religion or spirituality - just fun stories for kids. Of course, they are much more than that.
I consider myself strongly commited to secular principles, but that should not mean shutting out all discussion of religion and spirituality. Whether we are believers or non-believers, we enrich our lives by learning about each other's faiths and the stories that have given meaning to the lives of generations of storytellers and listeners.
I think our children deserve to experience Donna's wonderful storytelling, Yiddish accent and all, for themselves, and I will certainly be watching Donna's performance schedule so as to be able to take my own daughter at the first possible opportunity.
Shakira Hussein
Editor, Shalom Pax Salam

Yes, we could possibly do with more religion in schools, but we could very much do with Socratic reasoning as well, which encourages a liberal Christian to think just a little, not to be atheistic, not to take sides, but wonder why historical events have been deliberately left out of primary and high school global history books, yet given significant importance in university history books.

One particular area of history only taught in the Humanities, in fact, is a very significant part of the background of St Thomas Aquinas, who though regarded as one of the greatest Christian thinkers is left out of many curriculums, both religous and secular, mainly because he was also the philosopher who lifted Western society out of the Dark Ages after accepting passages of Aristotlian thought brought into the barbarian West around 1100 AD by Islamic scholars.

Further it so frustrating, that those who try to discuss the above, even among our group, are regarded as either loonie left-wingers or full of old historical pap.

But the saddest truth of all, is that the Christian Church though having honoured Thomas Aquinas by making him a Saint, the Church still fails to mention that Aquinas broke part of the code of a rather misguided faith at the time, by using the gift of reason.