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Dear NathanJ,

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You wrote :

1) « The exclusion of religious perspectives through those involved in aggressive secularism has created in my view a void in moral and ethical values, … »
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I think what you have in mind is atheism, not secularism. Secularism is simply the separation of the State and religion.

President Thomas Jefferson, who was influenced by the writings of Locke, described the First Amendment to the US Constitution as “building a wall of separation between Church & State”.

Encyclopædia Britannica traces the historical origins of secularism as follows :

« The word secular is derived from the Latin term saeculum, meaning “a generation,” “a human lifetime,” “an era of time,” or “a century.” In its original Christian sense, the word indicated the finite temporal world of mundane daily or political affairs as opposed to Christian religious time and practices filled with the sense of eternity and laden with spiritual significance. The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1768–71) defined secular as “something that is temporal; in which sense, the word stands opposed to ecclesiastical.” The English thinker and writer George Holyoake in 1851 was the first to use the term secularism to refer to a particular nonreligious civic and ethical philosophy that he intended to lack the negative ethical connotation that atheism carried at the time.

The protestant reformer and French ecclesiastical statesman John Calvin, championed a separation of the religious and the secular by internalizing religion as the private realm of conscience in contrast to the external and public political world. »

Secularism is not “aggressive”, NathanJ. The term simply refers to the fact that the Sate (public) realm is separate from the religious (private) realm :

“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” [Matthew 22:21 (NIV)]
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2) « The exclusion of religious perspectives through those involved in aggressive secularism has created in my view a void in moral and ethical values, with a shifting of focus to self-interest, lack of compassion and competition. »

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Religion is not the source of morality, NathanJ. Morality exists in all living species. Our cousins in the Animal Kingdom to which we belong also practice altruism and morality to varying degrees as we humans do. Altruism and morality co-exist with selfishness in each species.

There appears to be a quasi-consensus among biologists that altruism and morality are part of the survival instinct that nature has endowed us all with.

Our disenchantment with religion is largely due to the knowledge we have acquired through the development of our scientific endeavours. Our beliefs in religion, spirituality, superstition, and magic have been progressively discarded and replaced by rational explanations based on empirical evidence.

But we still have a lot to learn, and in the meantime, religion continues to be an important cultural phenomenon around the world whose progression and regression vary in accordance with the progression and regression of the fertility rate of the female population in each country.

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You don't say what you mean by 'freedom of religion'. Western civilisation is based on Christianity. Christians are free to practise their religion. Is that freedom enough for you? All other religions are permitted in Australia; is that enough freedom for you? Or, do you mean that people's religious should be allowed to run free, and out of tune with the rule of law e.g -an eye for and eye, or the Koranic call to kill infidels.

"Freedom of religion" means absolutely nothing unless you define what it is that Christians, Muslims, Hindus and all the rest should be free to do in a rule-of-law society.

Not a religious freedom, but the anti-freedom for under 16s accessing social media Bill was passed yesterday, the last sitting day for the year. It's never been done anywhere else in the world, and it will be interesting to see how well the Albanese government - which has stuffed up everything else - will go with that.

I don't give two hoots about religious freedoms, and I don't see why any other ordinary citizen would. Religion was ‘privatised’ long ago. The Enlightenment did that and released us from the power of the Catholic Church.

Can anyone tell us how, in their ordinary lives, they have had their religious freedoms removed by a government or anyone else, in Australia.

I am a Christian, but I keep it personal, in my head; nobody can touch it.

I was raised a Catholic and during my youth I saw a great
deal of branding of those who did not fit into the
Catholic mold.

That's why to me it is important to be inclusive, and
tolerant, and respectful pf others. That we need to treat
each other as equals under the rule of law.

Religion should not divide us.

We claim to be tolerant people of free speech and acceptance
yet we often don't live up to that claim.

We often brand others who are different from ourselves.
Muslims are terrorists, Catholics are homophobes, Jews are
money controllers, and so on.

We live in a very different world today. Much has changed.
Today we see women marrying women, men marrying men,
men can become women and women can become men. For many
these changes are scary. And many brand people who don't
live up to the status quo.

That's why for others religion is or has - died out.
Religion has given societies so much in the past.
Both good and not so good. On the plus side - think of
the contribution of religion to Art, Literature, Architecture.
And how much richer this has made cultures and societies.

Therefore it is important if we don't want religion to
die out we need to be inclusive, respectful, and tolerant
of others. Treating each other equally would help to unite
not divide and it would help religion to survive.