runner,

"... he is the master of his/her own destiny."

How is this different to the Christian notion of "free will"?

"...moral relativism that has rubbished absolutes put in place by God..."

We mere mortals have rubbished a creation of God? Not much of a supreme being.

"Secular humanism has taught that we are just another species of animal which leads to people acting like animals."

People have always acted like animals. Secular humanism simply acknowledges things that have been observed to influence our behaviour.

I find it interesting you chose not to answer my main question: "What fundamental underlying reason is there for people to believe in your religion over all the others in the world, not why your religion is 'better' but why your religion is 'true'?". Perhaps someone else could try...

"The difference is that parents are willing to pay fees and volunteer time and labour to a much larger degree than State schools."

Yep, nothing to do with faith and everything to do with general attitude to education.

BOAZ_David,

You make a good point that the majority can vote in a religious leader if they chose. However I think the point made by the article isn't that people don't have that right, but rather that religion didn't play a major role in who they voted for. Thus if the representative(s) overly focuses on religion they are not representing their electorate and this is a reason for them not to be re-elected. Hopefully in the desire to be re-elected, the representative would change to better represent their electorate.

Of course the reasons behind the way people vote is certainly open to speculation.

GP,

The fact that our thoughts are bound by the behaviours of sub-atomic particles doesn't change the nature of how we think and act. While a determinate universe may limit the blame placed on your spiritual self, your material self is still responsible for it's actions, and the motivations that cause others to react to what you do and say are still the same.

Nice article, Brian Holden. You cover much ground that we've been over here before, provoking many of the same kinds of comments from the Christian fundies and the rest of us.

One point that hasn't really been discussed is that constitutionally, people in geographically defined electorates vote for someone to represent their electorate in parliament. In reality, of course, most electors tend to vote for political parties rather than people, but the reality remains that the Australian Constitution is silent on the matter of political parties.

This raises the question of whether, for example, Kevin Andrews introduced his private member's bill at the behest of the majority of his electorate - or, as seems far more likely, on behalf of his party or indeed (as Brian suggests) on behalf of his imaginary friend. Or whether those various Christian MPs who take a Christian position in so-called 'conscience votes' are reflecting the views of their electorates or the dictates of whichever Christian sect they are adherents.

I think it's fine that Christians, Muslims, Buddhists or believers in any of the assortment of available mythical beings stand for election to Australian parliaments, but it irks me that electors are dumb enough to vote for some of these (overwhelmingly Christian) idiots without appraising themselves of the extent to which their putative representatives attach a greater priority to their religious beliefs than to the views of their constituents.

As for the reading of the Lord's Prayer at the start of each day's sitting - surely that discriminates against the very large percentage of Australians who are either non-practising Christians or who are not Christians at all?

I have no interest in religion, and the only spirit I believe in is rectified spirit. However I know that religion is so emotionally necessary to a vast number of people to enable them to carry on in life that if God didn't exist it would be necessary to invent him.

In addition, I believe that the horrendous problems associated with peal oil and global warming will be so traumatic that there will be a tremendous increase in religious observance throughout the west over the next few decades.

Please remember that in a democracy, religious people are just as entitled as anyone else to exercise their vote, and to vote in accordance with their convictions.

For thousands of years before the desert tribes in the middle east created the semetic mythologies, my ancestors in the Daintree Rainforest believed in the spirit world, reincarnation and the rule of Law as seen by my people prior to invasion.

Then came christianity which decided that because we were not of its faith it was fine to steal our land and kill our women and children and then try unsuccesfully to make us more like them all in the name of their so called god. Now the decendants of this same religion have now gotten us into a religious war over in iraq, whilst convienitly refusing to send their own children to fight these wars because of the possibly of death or injury.

So isn't it time we introduced the same laws the yanks have on tax breaks for religious groups who interfere in domestic politics, you break the law you loose your tax exempt status. Seems to have a big effect on preaching over there, which we should introduce to reduce the hillsong,brethern catch the fire and other ratbags groups influence on our politicians.

Absolutely my own sentiments. I have in previous forum railed against the hypocrisy of politicians reading the lord's prayer and then proceeding to carry on so disgracefully, violating their own creeds.
I have no doubts that Kevin bloody Andrews acted upon his own religious prejudice which suited his own party and probably quite a number of his constituents with anti-abortion and rights-to-life sentiments.I am hoping this election will see him sacked for the mess he has made of the immigration portfolio and his careless handling of the truth in the Haneef case.

This subject has been debated before with the usual run of intelligent design adherents plugging for the creationist theories and wanting I.D. to be taught in schools as a Science. However, there have been many more thoughtful and positive responses this time. I wholeheartedly endorse Brian's article and the merit in C J Morgan and Plerdsus contributions.

In my experience as a former crisis counsellor,I agree that if there was not the option of a 'god' out there, someone would invent one, particularly in circumstances where people need a crutch in times of adversity or grief. That does not mean that those with a strong religious conviction should impose their beliefs on others.

We should all learn from the American experience in having a society that is driven by leaders who claim to have divine guidance.

I find I agree with the general thesis of the article. Unfortunately it is a rambling diatribe which does the cause more harm than good in allowing the various god-botherers to get in cheap shots. I also must take exception to the comment "The chance that the principle of the evolution concept could be wrong is so vanishingly small as to be, for all practical purposes, zero." This is scientific nonesense; such nonsense that I'm amazed the god-botherers haven't really torn into it.

I'm unclear what the evolution "concept" is, to begin with. However let it be quite clear that today's understanding of evolution will almost certainly be wrong sometime in the near future. Our understanding of evolution is changing day-by-day as new evidence - both based on the fossil record and on molecular genetics in particular come to hand. While Darwin was on the right track he was wrong in so many ways. That, of course is not to denigrate his great step forward.

Even today there are great battles raging about the process of evolution, with major figures on either side. (And here I think particularly of Dawkins and the gradualists vs Gould and the punctuated equlibriants.) This is good science, and is how science moves forward - through open enquiry and robust debate. Unfortunately the god-botherers will try to use these scientific battles as a claim that evolution is disputed among scientists.

Dawrin is in many ways like Neils Bohr. Bohr proposed the first model of the atom that involved a nucleus of protons and neutrons with electrons whizzing around. Bohr's model of the atom bears little resemblance to today's received wisdom - but it was a massive advance on what went before, and it laid out a new path of scientific enquiry. Just as Darwin did for biology.