I've just been sent a Facebook message about a person who is trying to bring about a greater level of secularity in our wide brown land.

It looks promising to me, and I would relish s.116 'as it was really intended' to be swung into action.

The only question is, why has this taken so long?

Those from a religious perspective should be just as pleased as those without the same view.

Try Bishop Tom Frame 'Church and State: Australia's imaginary wall'.

I think Tom is regarded as a credible person within the 'believer' camp.

The 'reading room' therein, of the HCC webpage, is most instructive.

All freely available media comments.

Where do yer get it?

Here:http://highcourtchallenge.com/

I'll be donating $100 to give this fellow a hand in his struggle against the forces of Rudd and Abbott, both of whom would throw unlimited tax dollars at the school chaplains, with no evidence they were needed in the first place, or achieve anything more useful than a properly qualified professional counsellor.

And if parents want to attend to their children's 'spiritual development', let them actually attend a church and stop being so lazy expecting schools to provide every last element of their children's development.

So we are divided about Dawkins leadership in the area of reasonableness. No one who believes Dawkins to be the shining light here has responded to suggest why the reasoned biologist didn't answer the question the Muslim bloke asked (on behalf of at least 2 elephants in the audience ) see previous post. Not impressed .
I am concerned we here on OLO are also talking too much around the current fears of religion and not to those specific fears - postings are not being specific enough , esp about the widespread fear of Islam .

To move on, we need to stop lumping all religions into the same basket case( too easy ) and start talking about their simularities and differences , If we don't we will be like Chamberlain and won't be able to help allay the fears of the people effectively ( my reading of the current situation in Dawkins home territory ).
Much has been made of heavenly rewards amongst the monotheists , What about the huge difference betwen the 2 over the rightness of REVENGE and its implications in teaching a response for life in our societies . A starting point
Please stick to the subject of ideas and their implications, so we can all get a break .

Come. come Hanrahan... "So we are divided about Dawkins leadership in the area of reasonableness. No one who believes Dawkins to be the shining light here has responded to suggest why the reasoned biologist didn't answer the question the Muslim bloke asked (on behalf of at least 2 elephants in the audience ) see previous post. Not impressed ."

OLO writers are always divided on everything, even here.

To be honest, I have forgotten what they said, but I do recall thinking, as they asked whatever it was, that it was not a very good question... predictable perhaps?

So, assist a bit by restating at least the outline of it please.

"To move on, we need to stop lumping all religions into the same basket case( too easy ) and start talking about their simularities and differences"... why? They are all in the same basket- religions. What else needs to be said?

As for paring away the good bits of each-why?

You keep mentioning Chamberlain, presumably 'the piece of paper' moment? As I recall, whatever he thought he had achieved or not I have no idea, apart from the line 'PIOT', but I do vaguely recall Britain was de-armed, with no modern planes, tanks, guns and little ammo.

Maybe Chamberlain was not a dunce, but played for time while the nation started to rearm? Knowing they'd be wiped out in a flash at that point, which I think nearly happened shortly after anyway, at Dunkirk.

So, maybe Chamberlain is not a good example of whatever point you make here

TBC (and Hanrahan),

>> Foxy and Examinator, but George has used them as examples of the 'tolerant' that should be listened to<<
I did not name them as “tolerant per se” (I agree, tolerance can be a golden calf that many do-gooders worship). I mentioned them as two examples of moderates (in the sense I thought AJP used the term) who can tolerate EACH OTHER, even if they do not share the same outlook. I never mentioned, even implicitly, that one should tolerate world-views that exhibit fanaticism and sweeping statements about the world-view they disagree with, I actually said one “rightfully disapproves of them”. There is an article, that I have linked to here a couple of times, by an atheist who can better put these ideas in practice than I: (http://www.signandsight.com/features/1714.html).

As to Obama, would you have preferred the McCain/Palin alternative? (There was no Dawkins/Harris or what alternative.) There are no statistics on this but I am sure that there were many more people in the world horrified and offended by the way Obama’s predecessor wore his “crusades-inspiring” religion on his sleeve than by Obama’s. If in 2012 the majority of Americans will not like what he achieved they will not re-elect him. I do not think that where he gets his inspiration from will matter that much.

The common denominator of this and similar points you raise seems to me to be the fact that you had a bad experience with religion (Christianity?), which is regrettable and hard to argue against.

AJ Philips,
I sometimes wished I could give better marks to a student (in mathematics) who gave wrong answers that made sense than to the one who - I was pretty sure - did not understand himself/herself, what he/she was writing. Of course, in these debates of ours there is no such clear-cut distinction between “right” and “wrong” as in undergraduate mathematics, but still. So since I appreciate your clear words, I shall try to deal with them also item by item. (ctd)

(ctd)
If you agree with Habermas (see the link above), then we have no bone of contention about “how religion needs to be dealt with”, irrespective of what words we use.

>>the unwillingness of the 99.9% of moderates to actively speak-out against them, and the passive support they provide<<

This is exactly what we felt in the sixties about the western leftist moderates, hence my subjective association. I am not sure whether you refer to e.g. Muslim or Christian moderates - quite a distinction. I know nothing about internal Muslim debates, but I am not sure you sufficiently follow internal Christian debates (and in-fights) to justify your 99.9% claim. For instance, everybody knows the Pope’s attitude towards war (Iraq) and pseudo-scientific ID theories, and there are Christians with a variety of more liberal approaches to sexual morality. I do not know what other radicals you had in mind. Of course, the situation is different if you expect Christian moderates to parrot Dawkins’ theses.

You are right, I like to use the term world-view because of my Continental background. I am aware that it is only recently that it became domesticated in English (before philosophers used the German Weltanschauung untranslated). In my dictionary, it is “a particular philosophy of life or conception of the world”, so there are world-views compatible with Christianity (briefly Christian world-views) but not THE Christian (or religious) world view, as there are many of those compatible with atheism but not THE atheist world-view.

>>I’m not sure how you could possibly have an atheist extremist<<
Well, I grew up with them, my marx-leninist teachers, many of whom were, believe me, as naive as our Young Earth Creationists.

>>beliefs engrained into them through a weekly congregation, or a rituals like baptism … an invisible being has a special place for them …<<
Do you use this pejorative description because you want to deny parents the right to bring up their children the way they want just because they are Christian? How would you want to implement this denial, what laws what you suggest?

Squeers,

You might be right, however I was not referring to politics, only the way people debate and argue here (and elsewhere). As you know, there are political solutions that are preferable (to some or even to everybody) and there are those that are workable, unfortunately not the same thing. As a non-expert I do not want to say more than to refer again to the above article by Habermas.