yvonne, I have to admit that I paid so much attention to the anti-religious prejudices displayed by some contributors here (and also partly by Simon) that I lost sight of the facts the article states. Now I have checked the website of the Scripture Union Australia, and I can only share your outrage that such a lobbying group should not only be permitted to have access to children without their parents’ permission but that it even be financially supported by the Government.

Even at a university level self-serving lobbying groups should not be Government financed, though, of course, they cannot be denied access to adult students. The question of lobbying groups at high schools is more complicated, and is not restricted to only religious matters. Not only religious zealots (theist or atheist) want to influence children, and not all causes are as universally accepted as beneficial to them as e.g. that of an anti-smoking lobby.

I also agree with you (and Ted) that one has to agree on the definitions of terms used before arguing about them. For instance, one of seven definitions of religion in my Merriam Webster is “a cause, principle, system of tenets held with ardor, devotion, conscientiousness, and faith : a value held to be of supreme importance” which does not require the belief in a god or spirit, and which I referred to as the psychological function of religion.

I can see that you are suggesting ideology for what my continental taste would call a world view (Weltanschauung), keeping to the pejorative meaning of ideology. Roughly speaking, fundamentalism is Christianity degenerated to ideology, islamism is islam degenerated to ideology and atheism a la Dawkins would be secular humanism degenerated to ideology. I think, what you call secularism (and the French laicité) is a political principle of the separation of church and State.

Francis, in case you can read German, here is the website of the publisher of the brochure “Body, Love, Playing Doctor” you mention: http://www.bzga.de/botmed_13660200.html, and here a confirmation of what you wrote: http://onleben.t-online.de/c/11/96/00/76/11960076.html.

The booklet was distributed (650 000 pieces of it) during the last seven years to all sorts of places, including kindergartens, and until end of July was freely available for downloading from the above site. The distribution was stopped by Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, the Minister for Family Affairs (herself a mother of seven children) when her attention was called to the problematic advice (the booklet was initiated during the reign of the previous, “red-green”, Coalition).

It looks as though some folks here are intent on giving religion a bad name, by insisting that secularism be re-classified as a religion.

It is noticeable though that the most strident proponents appear to be Christians.

No-one so far, who is not professedly non-religious, seems to think that it is a good idea for secularism to be redefined as a religion.

So it gives rise to the question, why?

Why is it so important for religious people to think of secularists as being members of "just another religion"?

I suspect that there might be two possible explanations.

One is that they are themselves so steeped in the dogma and trappings of religious life, that they simply cannot imagine anyone questioning their beliefs. "It's so obvious", they must say to themselves "that everybody has to have a religion of some kind".

Or perhaps it is simply a defence mechanism.

"I find it difficult to defend my belief in a God against someone who doesn't believe in God, so I have to turn their negative belief in God into a positive belief in something else. They are then standing on the same ground as me - a belief in something that I can generalize about"

From this generalization - everyone who doesn't believe in God must believe in the same things as Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin etc. - a convenient straw man has been created.

If Christians choose to think of secularism as a religion, that is fine. But the warm feeling they get from doing so can also be attributed to incontinence. The fact remains, after all the verbiage and protestations, that the absence of religion is what defines secularism.

And the absence of religion cannot in itself be transmuted into the automatic assumption of a particular non-religious mindset à la Pol Pot etc.

As it happens I am myself not against introducing religion into the classroom - as history, part of the evolution process of man's search for meaning etc.

I am against one or the other religion claiming to have the only answer, though. That's just arrogant.

What I don't want is some lunatic cult such as the Assembly of God as a Chaplin. As I have stated religion is a "private" thing. If The federal government want to help children students, provide the school with a health professional.

Minister Abbott and his foul mouth and the swearing priest the other day has enforced my opinion on this, parents have the responsibility for their child's spiritual education, not the state.

Ted,

Secular reason makes *no* determination, non arbitration on eternal matters.

Propositions like "God exists" or "When We Die We Go To Heaven", are neither answered in the positive or negative by secular reason. The answer is "We don't know". What you believe on these matters is *entirely* your own affair.

Regards,

Lev

Pericles, thank you for expanding on my maxim that “one has to agree on the definitions of terms used before arguing about them”. This is the reason why my Merriam Webster has seven (or ten, depending how you count them) definitions of “religion” but only one of “Australia”.

If “Christians choosing to think of secularism as a religion” is fine for you, so must it be fine for Christians if you choose to think of them as “steeped in the dogma and trappings of religious life” or something similar from you previous postings. But the warm feeling you get from doing so prevents you from understanding what Christianity in the 21st century is all about. You can get a warm feeling not only from incontinence but also from thinking of a particular foreign language, that you cannot understand, as just an arbitrary collection of sounds that does not make sense, but you cannot expect a person who can speak that language to agree with you. However, he/she can accept if you say you do not understand.

“I am against one or the other religion claiming to have the only answer, though. That's just arrogant.” I completely agree except that it should be extended to any world view, including empiricism, or secularism, or what you call it.

Lev, that is the classical agnostic world view in a nutshell, philosophers can expand on it and Christians have mostly learned to live with it. However, I wonder - although I am not a pedagogue - if the natural reaction of a child or an adolescent would not be “Teacher, and what do YOU think (believe)?”