TRUTHNOW78 should really read the book.

TRUTHNOW78: "So, what are your plans for the Christians who don't want "the destruction of Religion in Australia" - gulags? lions? rice paddies?"

The oppression of opposition is more a trait of religions than atheists (the exceptions are ideologies that are themselves irrational faiths, like Nazism and Communism). There is a chapter in The Australian Book of Atheism on just that topic - how a secular society is actually to the benefit of the religious, as it protects every religion from their historical enemies - other religions and sects of the same religion.

Atheists do not want the enforced "destruction of religion". They want religions to stop enforcing their primitive moralities and creation myths on everyone else. Yes, it will be nice when religion finally goes, but the going will be by encouraging rational thought, not by oppression.

TRUTHNOW78: "Good luck with your search for meaning. The church door will always be open for when you realise what you have become."

Again, more than one chapter in the book discusses the question of meaning, not to mention my own chapter, "Good Without God", on how and why one can be more moral without God than with.

So I recommend you read the book for yourself, rather than making up imaginary contents.

What a shame.

>>I hope this book helps in the further destruction of Religion in Australia.<<

Why, oh why, do people like you insist that it must be the mission of atheists to destroy religion?

Religion acts as a mental security blanket for scores of thousands of people in Australia, every day. Why is it so important to you, to hurt them?

It is also a warm and comfortable habit for millions of people who never actively think about it. Everyday people who, if you were to corner them at a party (which people like you tend to do) and question them on the foundations of their beliefs, would just say "never really thought about it, actually. I just do"

Sure, religion has caused a lot of problems over the millennia. And it will undoubtedly do so again in the future - the pointless battle between Christians and Muslims shows no signs of abating any time soon, for example. Even Christian vs Christian is still delivering dead bodies to Ireland's mortuaries every so often.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE54R5HM20090528

But to imagine that anything will be solved by an outright war against all religious beliefs is to confuse the illness with the cure.

For a start, religion is based on faith, not fact. And atheists only have facts at their disposal with which to carry on the fight.

It would be more valuable to simply address, with legal remedies, the wrongs that religion perpetrates in society, rather than target religion itself.

@TRUTHNOW78,

So you have not read the book. Just as I thought. Well your bigotted prosletyzing to me is not appreciated. This is what we Atheists are fighting against; people like you who demand that everyone conform to a society in which they are expected to believe in some "Creator/God" described in the worst book of fiction ever written - the "Holy" Bible.

Don't try to refute that. There is no proof anywhere of the existence of a "god", and it is not the responsibility of an Atheist to prove there is no "god". There is no proof for a negative.

Watcher writes

'how a secular society is actually to the benefit of the religious, as it protects every religion from their historical enemies - other religions and sects of the same religion.'

Don't you love how the self righteous atheist transform themselves into the good guys and the mother theresa's into the bad guys. Self deception at its best.

Dear Eccles

if you were truly:

"very well read in the Bible, Ancient History, Ancient Egypt and the history of the Foundation of the Roman Catholic Church."

You would be a protestant, conservative, evangelical, reformed, fundamental Christian.

I joke not.

The only reasons for it turning out otherwise is probably a psychological barrier based on a 'bad church experience' while under the Catholic heirachy, or.. a moral issue which you simply don't want to give up.

I suggest the evidence is well and truly overwhelmingly 'there' for full and liberating acceptance of Christ as risen Lord and Saviour.

As to the Church? well that's another story. But please...don't hide behind a bad church from the claims of Christ on your life and eternal destiny.

Professor Gary Bouma of Monash University in his "Australian Soul," agrees that Australian are quietly spiritual, rather than explicitly religious, holding what historian Manning Clark, called, "a shy hope in the heart." Bouma says that Australian spirituality is understated and ultimately characterised by "a serious quiet reverence, a deliberate silence... He claims that parts of the problem is that we tend to judge ourselves by the ostentatious religiousity of American Protestantism. Throughout the 20th century, and especially after the 1960s David Millikan in his ABC documentary and book, "The Sunburnt
Soul," tells us that the predominant view among the chattering classes was that Australia was an explicitly secular society and that meaning questions would all eventually be solved by science. This is still reflected in the mainstream media. Most people that I know are not looking for simple answers. They don't need a religious authority to tell them what to do and they are especially suspicious of institutions, "with all the answers." They are more content to live with the questions and they certainly want to take charge of their own spiritual lives.