A characteristic of these teddy infected types is an obvious and complete lack of imagination. The simple notion that Peter puts forward ... i.e. "....... desire for a dividing wall between church and state was motivated by a raw grab for power", speaks more of his own need for coercion (i.e. religious coercion) than any thought for life, liberty, happiness, religious toleration, equal rights before the law and creating a democratic government that can rule equitably as many of the United States' founders agreed to.

Often overlooked in the conception of the United States is an understanding of the indigenous aspects and the early influence of Roger Williams. For some enlightened reading with the indigenous aspects at http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/ and Roger Williams at http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/EoL/chp5.html.

Take note of some of William's writings e.g. "Forcing of conscience is soul-rape," and pointing out that even Jesus Christ "commands tolerance of anti-Christians." In Europe one Edwin Poteat commented about Williams ......"The enthusiasm and much of the political idealism of John Milton and Oliver Cromwell were derived from their personal contacts with Williams . . . in so far as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Sir Henry Vane, and others were inspired by Milton and Cromwell, they too are intellectual heirs of Williams. "

Peter,
A request....and I think I speak for a number of us.
Please, please, pretty please could you please write us an article on how you think this country should be governed if it is not too much trouble. If you want "faith" in governent does this mean you want a theocracy based on your version of reality? How about a generic type of Christianity in the lower house with an upper house full of Protestant clerics? Do other non-Christian religions get a gurnsey in your Christian Theocracy of Australia?
Do you envisage a Christian King of Australia claiming authority from a Jewish God?
Will Atheism or secular thought or expression be banned?
Should I stop writing the stuff I write? Have I something to worry about or will you keep me in a state of high anxiety but refusing to answer this plea?

Priscillian,
I thought I had written just such an essay:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3086

I have never advocated a theocracy and give good reasons for not doing so. I think Christianity functions under a variety of political systems but is constrained to call for and work for justice in those systems. Chrisianity is not a politics but a transformation of politics.

Peter Sellick seems to yearn for the days of absolute religious truth. Of course there was never such: even prior to the great split in Christianity there were Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. It boots nothing to say that some of these were largely unknown to the west (tho how one could ever assert this about Islam, I don't know). Humans have always been fabulously inventive when it comes to matters religious, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

The rise of secular rationalism (largely, the scientific method as strictly defined) was successful because it provided two things: results, in the form of advances which made life less "nasty, brutish and short"; and a sense of certainty tempered by testing. That is, its claims were always subject to testing via observation and experiment.

Naturally some of the gloss has gone off science courtesy of mistakes made along the way - especially in the application of discoveries (Hiroshima, indistrial pollution, overuse of antibiotics, etc). Nevertheless its fundamental methodology is sound.

Sellick (or anyone else) can make any religious claim they want and it cannot be tested. His problem is that he has no way of demonstrating the truth of whatever faith he holds. If however I make a scientific claim (eg, that the world is flat) it can be tested and (in this case) disproved.

Relativism is a religious curse precisely because we have no reliable way of distinguishing between the assertions of the Pope, Peter Sellick, the Prophet Muhammed, the Buddha or a tribal shaman somewhere in Siberia. We do know, because they contradict each other, that most of them are certainly wrong. One may be right, but as for which, you takes yer pick.

Indeed, as Sellick himself wrote in an earlier column: "Given the lack of contemporary evidence for a supernatural agent, most have sensibly opted for the non-religious option and have turned their back on the church which is seen to be hopelessly backward and retarding of the human spirit."

(Link: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4359 )

Pity he doesn't show the sense he recognises.

Sells, I’ve read your other article and will make a few comments: Yes, people are concerned about the Religious Right. Their vote brought George Bush back to power after all!
That’s the price we all have to pay, for religious fanaticism and its potentially powerful effect on politics.

A tolerant secular democracy, with religion as no more then a lifestyle choice, is in today’s world the only way to achieve social
harmony and tolerance. The world has changed from what it was.
Neither people nor their beliefs are homogenous, as they were.

Active church going Christians make up maybe 10% of our society. Our nation is now a potpourri of nations, races and beliefs. Government needs to deal with them all, not just with 10%.

Your article seems to imply that religion has some kind of patent on morality. I would argue with that. Rather I suggest that morality is grounded in biology, as we can show that various
species pair-bond, display empathy and altruism, share food
with others etc. Social species evolved to get on with one another, for the benefit of the species as a whole.

I really wish that the churches would stick to proclaiming the Gospels etc, as you suggest. The reality is quite different.
Look at the enormous effort of the Catholic lobby, operating
quietly behind the scenes, to try to enforce their agenda on
Govt policies around the world. If they had their way, divorce would still be banned, so would condoms, other forms of contraception, abortion, euthanasia etc. Why should I pay any attention or notice of what that church would like to dictate to me
by law?

Yes our society is based on what is rational. Our courts, our political systems etc all depend on it. If I went to court and made a claim based on the fact that I heard voices from heaven or whatever, they would not take me seriously, which is fair enough.
If you believe things further then that, that’s your business, or at least provide some substantiated evidence for your claims.

Mhoram
What an absurd proposition you make. Have you not heard of the humanities? When universities have a department of theology they are situated in the humanities alongside history, languages, philosophy etc. They are not in the science faculty as you seem to assume. As such they are not open to proof as the sciences are. Rather they rely on the sort of rationality that is applied to the other humanities.

Your statement betrays the narrow thinking of modernity in which the only truth is scientific truth. But a poem can be true, so can a painting or a novel or a piece of music. Our problem is that we have reduced the arts to the function of entertainment so that they are removed from their essential place in our lives.

This is also the result of the pragmatic philosophies of the century before last in which everything had to have a purpose, be useful. But art can only be art if it denies all uses, denies all programs for its effectiveness. It is only when all agendas are scrapped, when the art is truly useless, that it approaches the truth. What use are the psalms of Israel, or the book of Job, or the gospels?

You would have just one faculty at the university, science. What an awful narrow group of nerds we would produce with university degrees. Would they know who they were, would they know anything about what it means to be human?

My apologies for going on so, but I live with scientists and some of the more fanatical ones are also the most boring people I come across.