I agree it is pretty much a consensus. I can only add my experiences in trying to educate my children to become good citizens capable of reasoned thought without the impediment of Religious Instruction.

during enrolment in primary school, I clearly indicated NO Religion, my children were to be involved in enrichment reading in the library during RI periods and were not to be punished by having to pick up rubbish in the playground.
I still had to confront the principal with an offending religious Zealot teacher to reinforce my wishes.
I attended to my children's spiritual development and they have turned out good human beings, without religious bias and raising their offspring similarly.
My eldest son has recently attended a church to satisfy his mother-in-law who wished to take his two year old to sunday school and confirm that neither he nor his spouse wish their daughter to have religious instruction. We balance her exposure by occasional visits to the local Islamic Community open days and take the time to talk about the experiences.

Although the article is about teaching religion in schools, it ignores the question of religion's being there at all.
Religion is a hugely diverse matter and a very personal practice.

It is a collosal social arrogance to require religion to be studied in any public school. Arrogant because it ignores the vast number of diffent religions followed in this country, each one of them as vital to believers as the next, yet only a very limited are favoured.
By whom?
There cannot help but be an amount of proselytising practiced by chaplains. This may affect the personal evaluation and decision-making abilities left uncorrupted in those students lucky enough to have escaped moral and attempted brainwashing thus far.
It is the traditional batle between hard facts and delusional belief.

I note with interest that Blue Cross reports the presence of just one Buddhist chaplain in just one state school in all of Qld.
This is possibly because Buddhists do not regard their lifestyle as a "religion", but rather a mix of philosophy, psychology and ethics.
Buddhism is scientific examination of causes and their effects.
Buddhism is atheistic, not recognising any god or supreme being as master of one's destiny or actions; rather that one is only answerable to oneself for the results of one's existence.
A study of that lifestyle is valid only by a sceptical, questioning mind not clouded by superstition.

Ponder wrote:

“Buddhism is scientific examination of causes and their effects.
Buddhism is atheistic, not recognising any god or supreme being as master of one's destiny or actions; rather that one is only answerable to oneself for the results of one's existence.”

No Buddhist school is scientific in the sense that they employ the scientific method of empirical observations, reproducible experiments, falsifiability and hypotheses which may be disproved by evidence. Buddha enjoined his followers to question all words including his own. Although that attitude is necessary for science, science is more than that. Some sects of Buddhism deify Buddha himself. Buddhist doctrines require belief in unprovable propositions the way other religions do. Buddha maintained that the way out of suffering is to renounce all attachments. He himself did it by leaving his family. Buddhist monks and nuns are enjoined to practice celibacy. One can label the foregoing as philosophical rather than religious beliefs. However, one accepts those beliefs on faith and not by any scientific process. A Buddhist sect uses mantras (mystic words) and mandalas (magical diagrams) for spiritual emancipation. That is superstition.

Some Marxists claim their ideology is science. Those who claim their beliefs embody some truth denied to others may use the word, science, to describe those beliefs. The religion called Christian Science does the same thing. However, these uses of the word, science, for philosophies, religions and ideologies which do not employ the scientific method should not be confused with what is generally known as science which concerns the investigations of the behaviour of both animate and inanimate matter using the scientific method.

Buddhists have faith in unprovable propositions, prescribed ritual not based on scientific reasoning and injunctions received by revelation along with mystical truths. Those are religious characteristics. My daughter is a Buddhist. She also has a good knowledge of science and regards Buddhism as a religion contrary to Ponder's statement that Buddhists do not regard their lifestyle as a "religion". Religions need not be theistic.

Madelaine Love,

I seriously disappointed in your repeated inability to provide any support for your positions. If you post again without independent references, I will assume your knowledge is limited to Greeny pamphlets.

Before I enter into email correspondence with you I would like to think that you have some substance. PS. I am not in politics but in a technical field.

As for my references, I doubt you actually read them. The science "blogs" are independent science journals the one chat site I referenced was a PHD discussing an independant news report:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/farmers-praise-gm-crops-in-eu-study-856907.html

The rest are Aus gov websites which are not known to be pro GM.

The CSIRO was established as an independent organisation to give unbiased research information, rather than selective information that companies might reveal, and prides itself on providing the facts free of bias. Your attempt to smear them because they have the word industrial in their name is pitiful.

Also I was not referring to the VFF.

As for food safety: "The Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA) this week released reports for public comment recommending the use of a GM canola and a GM corn as foodsfor human consumption. ANZFA maintains that food derived from these two GM crops is as safe for human consumption as that derived from conventional varieties of the crops. These recommendations are contained in Draft Assessment reports, posted onthe ANZFA website, which contain details of ANZFA's safety analysis for the two commodities:"

OR are they also biased in a huge conspiracy plot?

bushbasher, you should know by now that Sells plays by his own rules, and is not required to justify himself to you, to me or to anyone else.

>>sells: please point out how the posts in response to mander are "irrational" or "outrageous". please identify where mander's "well reasoned attitude" actually addresses any of the substance of wilson's article. put up or shut up.<<

Incidentally, Sells actually thinks our views are "outragious",

>>...you have attracted the usual cast of characters with outragious views.<<

which he preumably spelled that way for a reason.

Probably a concatenation of "outrageous and "irreligious".

Which reminds me. Aren't we overdue for another of Sells' sermons? The last one was rather weak, even for him.

How is not wishing your child to be indocrinated into a religion not of yours (or their) choosing deemed to be outrageous?

What is outrageous about the idea that spiritual belief should be a private and personal quest and not one that is defined and mandated by the state?