Dear IF

"116. Commonwealth not to legislate in respect of religion
The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious
observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a
qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth."

What then is welcome to country/acknowledgement of country if not an imposed observance? Do you feel that it is pushed on you? I do.

Reading the words of the Lord's Prayer, they are not appropriate to modern Australia. The prayer is a Christian call to their god to bestow forgive upon them, and to deliver salvation. I fail to see the prayers relevance to council proceedings. If adherents want to invoke their gods forgiveness and have him deliver salvation, they should do so in their places of worship as a group, or individually in private.

Jesus would not have approved of prayer at official proceedings:

Matthew 6: Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. [6] But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Jesus did not approve of public displays of religiosity. Relations with God are between the worshiper and the deity.

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Dear Fester,

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You wrote :

« It is part of our history and heritage … Like mythology, I think it gives a richness to life if people have the inkling to seek it, but you won’t die if it is denied to you … »
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I presume you refer to the practice of reciting “the Lord's Prayer at Council meetings and Parliament”.

As I indicated in a previous post, I don’t expect that the separation of Church and State in Australia will be complete until we decide to become a republic and replace our old colonial constitution accordingly.

That won’t happen overnight and if it does happen it will probably be a long, gradual process of phasing out the theocratic practices embedded in the Westminster political system we inherited by British colonisation.

As a matter of fact, my personal life journey has followed a similar path. I was christened at 6 months, confirmed when I was 10 and served as an altar boy until I was 20. Most of my friends were young priests in the Church of England – one was my religious instruction teacher at primary school. He later became Archbishop of Melbourne and later Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia before retiring in Adelaide with the title of Bishop. We remain very close friends.

I grew up in the Queensland bush in a family that religiously said grace before every meal. As I was the youngest in the family my mother usually asked me to officiate.

My expectation was that I would eventually believe that there really is a God, and it was just a question of time. But exactly the opposite occurred. I had been studying the question off and on ever since I was a boy and finally had a flash of enlightenment much later in life.

It suddenly dawned on me why primeval man imagined the concept in the first place, and then why subsequent generations continued to perpetuate it despite the perpetual absence of any conclusive evidence.

I guess not everybody has had that chance.

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Hi Fester,

The acknowledgement of Aboriginal land is a statement of fact. Paying respects to those people past and present is the right thing to do in my opinion. You and others may not like it, but there is no ground swell of public opinion that is hostile to the practice. It took some time for the conservative side of society to embrace such things, but they seem to have gone along with it okay, the sky hasn't fallen in, as some always predict with these matters.

As for the 'Lords Prayer' at council and parliamentary decision making sessions, I think the content and outcome of the proceedings are far more important than the goings on beforehand.

Dear David and Banjo,

"Jesus did not approve of public displays of religiosity. Relations with God are between the worshiper and the deity."

Exactly! Both my parents were firm atheists and instilled in myself and my siblings a detestation of being manipulated and coerced. As I said, I don't see very much manipulation and coercion in reading a prayer at the start of parliamentary sessions, and think it more part of the pomp and ceremonial traditions of our democracy.

In contrast, the Voice seems to me very much about the manipulation and coercion of the Australian population. How many people are happy with acknowledgement of country/welcome to country? How many don't speak out against it for fear of being labeled or victimised? And what of those preschoolers writing "sorry" cards as an activity, something yet to be reported by the "impartial" ABC? To me, that smacks of something far more toxic.