Why do people continue to operate under the misapprehension that you can have a neutral position in religion (or morality for that matter). Oh...I know...it is when they define their religion as 'neutral'.

This is the trick that secular humanists have been pulling for a long time in order that theirs is the only religion that state schools teach. Such hypocrisy...

I agree that the separation of church and state is crucial, for both church and state. When the church can offer a monetary reward in addition to virtue, its appeals to virtue are confused. Similarly, where people can get jobs or other benefits from the state on the basis of their apparent religiosity, merit and need ceases to be the basis of the state's activities.

Mr Howard's funding for chaplaincy would look more innocent if he didn't tend to borrow so much from US President Bush, who has initiated 'faith-based charity', 'faith-based education', and 'faith-based science', to name a few. As Garry Wills points out in his book "Bush's Fringe Government", Mr Bush has ruled by seeking out extremist views, rather than by governing by consensus. Mr Howard does the same trick - divide and conquer - in relation to asylum seekers, indigenous health care (ignore Oxfam's call for $460million, and then come storming in with the military), and also religion in schools.

If Mr Howard really wanted to promote religion in schools perhaps he might instead emphasize honesty in his government, rather than being rightly known as 'Honest John', the used-government salesman.

Grey, we have had this discussion on many occasions in the past, and still you try the same old sleight of hand, pretending that secularism and religion are one and the same.

>>Why do people continue to operate under the misapprehension that you can have a neutral position in religion... This is the trick that secular humanists have been pulling for a long time in order that theirs is the only religion that state schools teach. Such hypocrisy<<

You suggest by this that secular humanism is in fact a religion, and can therefore be taught. The reality, as you well know, but would rather ignore, is that the label secular humanism implies the complete absence of religion.

And since you cannot perforce teach an absence of anything, your fallacy is immediately exposed, and your argument falls as flat as a wombat on the Hume Highway.

That "such hypocrisy" bit is a nice rhetorical touch, though.

Nice, but fundamentally dishonest.

Australia and the US have drifted so far to the right in their politics that Bob Brown can be painted as an extremist. This unfortunate state of affairs follows years of the Howard / Bush treatment whereby logical centrist arguments are fobbed off as extreme by stoking the much tilled ground of fear mongering. Carmen Lawerence’s ‘Fear and Politics’ is a concise summary of this recent history.

The drift to the right in our corrupt democracies has been supported by open declarations of religiosity in a cynical appeal to religious organisations that provide an easily manipulated and highly organised voting block. Granted Mr Bush is apparently a believer in the Rapture fairy tale (a truly terrifying background to US policy in the Middle East), but in the case of Honest John it is difficult to believe his new found faith is any more genuine than my cat’s interest in warming laps.

In this environment the NSCP is a neo-conservative strategy to creating fear of the unknown, encourage the mainstream to look to the familiar, and then to deliver a conservative solution.

‘Fear of Terror’, whatever that means, has been personified as an unfamiliar sadistic Moslem. In these supposedly terror filled times people are encouraged look to the spiritual as a comfort in the face of the inexplicable. That the NSCP is open to religious instructors of all persuasions is a thin facade. Howard knows that the vast majority of schools who take up the option with select Christian counsellors which serves firstly to bolster support with large powerful church bodies who will receive the funding, and second, in the longer term, spawns a generation of believers to engage in the politics of fear.

Even if it was this program was open to atheist counsellors it clearly crosses the line – it is an example of society’s cultural regression

Grey,

A little comprehension is in order. 'Secularlism' is not a religion. It an approach, necessary for religious freedom, that distinguishes between "secular" (temporal, earthly) affairs and "eternal" (atemporal, divine) affairs. Hence you can have secular Christians, secular pagans, secular atheists.

Further 'humanism' is not a religion either; it rejects deference to supernatural speculation but not necessarily the beliefs themselves. It is generally compatible with atheism and agnosticism but doesn't *require* either. Again, there is no contradiction in claim Christian humanism, Pagan humanism etc.

Runner,

Not for the first time I note that you offer opinions that come with no empirical backing. Your claim that abuse is more likely under the policies of secular humanists is most certainly without foundation, indeed I suggest that the reverse is the case (i.e., it is more likely under theological dictates). Whilst your claim that secular humanists "deny the inherent depravity of man" is true, that is not a bad thing. Secular humanists consider behaviour to be result of environmental conditions. As for the suggestion that one "can feed on pornography and not be affected", again I refer you the empirical and scholarly studies that I posted last week. Our best knowledge to date suggests that where pornography is in plentiful supply, rape goes down. Your choice runner; sexual censorship and rape, or sexual expression and no rape. Pick one. What does this have to do with chaplians in schools? Surely you can work that out.

Regards,

There is one damning fact that confirms the thrust of this article, and sweeps away the other arguments as meaningless.

This program supplies chaplains only - not counsellors or the chaplain equivalent in other faiths.

Were it non-religion specific, then I wouldn't have a problem with it. As it stands, it is very clearly a religious intrusion into what should remain secular.

Even the most committeed christians, I would hope, would realise not all christians wish for their beliefs to be imposed on others.

By denying equal funding to schools who do not wish for this religious element, the funding is doing precisely that.

BD: Fine - then why call them chaplains at all? Why can't there just be counsellors? If it's really about delivering non-religious services, why court the controversy instead of just delivering the means?

runner: if you're going to spout foolishness about humanism, get your facts straight. You're completely wrong about it. How can you promote man as god, if you don't have need of any god at all? Just because your perception of the world requires a god to base it on, that doesn't mean humanists do. 'No god' / 'uncertainty of god' does not = man as god.

Francis, Stop&think: secularism is a void of religion - it isn't a religion. It's the closest thing we have to neutral.
Those who wish to promote religion over other systems always try to attack secularism as another faith. This isn't the case.
Abortions are a health issue, not religion. In linking them, you betray your religious motivations for arguing on the topic of abortion, and you'll find most would rather listen to reasoned arguments than religious rhetoric.

Religious education should always be available to those who want it, but it should never be foisted upon people, and by funding religious programs, the government is doing so in an indirect manner.