Well then APR, how about if someone came into the religious schools and lectured for half an hour each week about atheism and how God doesn't exist? Would you like that to happen? Then the kids could make up their own mind. It's all about choice right?

I think you'll find that religious parents want the choice for their kids to be taught their values and to not be exposed gratuiously to values that do not fit their ethos. Why can that not apply to atheist parents?

Save the teaching about "god as reality" for Sunday School. State schools should be about real reality.

I agree with Zelda Bailey. As a secular humanist, I'm becoming increasingly concerned with the intrusion of religious beliefs and practices into secular areas of Australian society. Hardly a week goes by without some godbothering politician, priest, mufti or whatever attempting to impose their religious dogmas on the rest of us.

As a parent of a couple of kids who attend Queensland State schools, I have direct experience of the inadequacy of alternative arrangements to RI for those pupils who do not hold religious beliefs. My 10-year old daughter is one of those who is sent to the playground while her more credulous peers receive "religious instruction". I would certainly support the availability of the kind of humanist education advocated by Ms Bailey as an alternative.

"Getting rid of RI is not about any kind of freedom, it's about militant, dogmatic, fundamentalist, ideological, totalitarian atheism."

You forgot to use the term "politically correct". How could you? And I'll ask again why not teach astrology and witchcraft (and maybe palm-reading, fortune-telling and voodoo for good measure) in schools as well? What are school authorities afraid of?

I really like the Christian way of arguing: if you can't address the point, just make stuff up.

CJ MORGAN said:

"As a secular humanist, I'm becoming increasingly concerned with the intrusion of religious beliefs and practices into secular areas of Australian society."

Well...I'm glad about that CJ because it sounds like you are almost ready to join me in a demonstration at the offices of Hizb Ut Tahrir on such issues as this: (which they announced on their youtube promotional video for a conference on re-establishing the Islamic Caliphate)

"After 80 years of the absence of the khilafate (caliphate) the Muslim world has awakened from its slumber, and the umma (the community of all the world's Muslims) is ready to resume its political destiny,"

WHAT IS....THAT POLITICAL DESTINY? (from their draft consitution which was taken down from their website soon after it appeared)

Article 7
The State implements the aHkaam shar’iyyah on all citizens who hold citizenship of the Islamic State, whether Muslims or not, in the following manner:

a. The aHkaam shar’iyyah is implemented in its entirety, without exception, on all Muslims.

b. Non-Muslims are allowed to follow their own beliefs and worships.

c. Those who are guilty of apostasy (murtadd) from Islam are to be EXECUTED according to the rule of apostasy, provided they have by themselves renounced Islam. If they are born as non-Muslims, i.e., if they are the sons of apostates, then they are treated as non-Muslims according to their status as being either polytheists (mushriks) or People of the Book.

COMMENT.
Point b is rediculous. Never has this happened and Christians world wide are being persecuted daily for simply being 'Christians' in Muslim countries

POLITICAL DESTINY OF PERICLES, CJ MORGAN, REALIST and other humanists in the Nation under HiZB.

Article 26
Every mature male and female Muslim, who is sane, has the right to participate in the election of the Khaleefah and in giving him the pledge (ba’iah). Non-Muslims have no right in this regard.

COMMENT: Just 'how much' say can you atheists have in Hizb's world?
Correct- "zero".

Excuse the pun but for Christ's sake Boaz can't you keep Muslims out of one thread?

Realist, I think we must be soul mates. Of course that's another BS fraud. But I agree with you.

As I do with DavidJS. It is interesting how our schools force RI on kids. Why don't they allow atheists to simply demonstrate the flaws in the whole God delusion. My 10 year old saw it instantly once she asked me about God. Until then I had let her think about it and talk with her friends. She asked if it was true and we talked about the Bible (fiction), Koran and other texts. What she said after we had stopped talking is this. "Did God write any of those books Dad"? No. End of interest.

As to minority views having time in schools instructing on "beliefs". I believe the Sydney City Rossters will win the nexy 10 NRL premierships. Why can't I get time to lecture on that? It's just as ridiculous as telling kids some guy in a white gown created Earth 2000 years ago and then had a day off. Must have been a member of the God Union and had a good AWA.

Runner, good grief. Flocking to private schools. 70% still go public mate. What's bigger than a flock? They don't flock to these schools at all and the only reason people send their kids is to try and gain entry to the old school tie brigade, nothing to do with fairy tales about Gods. Their God is, as usual, money. Another thing which isn't real. It's a notional object created by man to represent exchange of labour