John Perkins and Rhys

Regarding your call to totally dispense with any hint of 'Christian' or other religious trappings in our government.

On the surface I'm inclined to agree with you believe it or not.
It sounds so egalitarian, fair, unbiased etc....

But there are a few problems with this. The other side of the 33% claim no religion or non Christian religion is that 67% DO claim such an adherence. I fail to see why 33% should dictate the shape and form of our government in regard to the Christian aspect of some of its ceremonies.

More problems. Probably not realized by those calling for such a thing, is the direction this would lead us in. Once we disconnect ourselves at the 'Throne' level, from divine law, it soon becomes disconnected in the market place.

What is a society based on 'tolerance and secularism' likely to look like ?
Well, Netherlands is often mentioned in this regard. Lets look at it.
They now have a political party which is campaigning for child sex to be legal, and for the age of consent ultimately to be done away with, and that any child can also be consentually involved in child porn.
I note Netherlands also has 'marijuana cafes'.. and prostitution of a rather in your face nature.

Is that the kind of society you want ? Can you be sure that adopting 'make_it_up_as_u_go' approach will NOT lead to such things ?
If you are sure, why ?

I know I sound like a bigoted bible basher most of the time, but there is a reason :) and not that I'm recently released from Larundel.
With all my heart I believe we would soon drift into moral oblivion without our connection to our Christian heritage.

Tony Kevin laments the state of decay in integrity in the public service and government, his terminology PERFECTLY fits the philosophy of Jean Paul Sartre and atheistic existentialism. This view regards the achievement of personal goals at any cost quite ok. (including trampling on and using others)

Why would any government or individual want to ask for the guidance of a blood thirsty and murderous backwards dog which is the one subscribed to by christians and catholics... for some bizarre reason they consider themsleves different... to me a scumbag is a scumbag.
I do not want my elected representatives seeking guidance from a mythical character from a fictitious old novel, especially not one which, according to the bible is directly responsible for the deaths of 2,233,451 people.
It is very sad that in 2006, people still need to believe in this barbaric form of superstition.
Show some conscience, start believing in yourselves and the power and genius of humanity

Of course the figure of 2,233,451 is only what the bible says.
The figure of how many people have died as a result of religion is so much higher.
Funny how christians seem to forget that Hitler was guided by their belief system.
He once said "I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work."
If this is an example of christian values influencing government, then we all need to rise up against it.

Boaz_David said,

‘I fail to see why 33% should dictate the shape and form of our government in regard to the Christian aspect of some of its ceremonies.’

The fact is that the third of Australians who claim no religion or are at least ambivalent constitute the largest ‘denomination’ of all. All Christians together constitute about half and are split into Catholics, Protestants, and Methodists, Baptists ad infinitum. This gives ‘non-believer’s the biggest say.

To our dismay, despite our obvious superiority in numbers, the government still allocates massive amounts of our taxes, our money, to the indoctrination of children in religious private and independent schools and dictates mandatory scripture periods in public schools. Our money is used to fund a smorgasbord of whacky religious institutions and programs.

The media also give spokesmen (almost always men) columns to spout their opinions and constant invitations to speak on radio and television.

So, why don’t atheists have their own spokesmen you ask?
Simply because they don’t have anything to sell.

Religious institutions are businesses, preying on the desperate, the indoctrinated or simple to support them through donations, tithes and our taxes. They sell pie in the sky, the perfect product as you can’t claim a refund for false advertising until after you die!

The disaster of it all is that while a massive chunk of mankind prays and hopes for this pie in the sky, they are neglecting, indeed trashing the very planet that gives us life.

The superstitious are destroying our chance of creating heaven on earth by breeding like rabbits and hoping to god their superstition is real.

Meanwhile the rest of us scratch our heads and wonder how anyone can be that dumb.

BOAZ_David wrote: The other side of the 33% claim no religion or non Christian religion is that 67% DO claim such an adherence.
Not quite right David. Let us not forget that said remainder constitute about a dozen of more Christians of various and contradictory opinions, Buddhists, Jews, Hebrews, Sikhs, Moslems – ah - the list is endless. Trying to get any two of those to agree in impossible. Why, even the Protestants and Catholics have different version of the Ten Commandments and both of them differ from the Jews. All told there are five different versions of the Commandments. Don’t believe me? Take a look at: http://www.positiveatheism.org/crt/whichcom.htm

It is unfortunate that Christians have hijacked morality, in the same way as they’ve hijacked marriage. Christianity has no more claim to knowledge [or practice] of good and bad, right and wrong than any cult, creed, or power-hungry gang throughout human history.
Modern Christianity has reluctantly borrowed ethical standards from Humanists. Or rather, some humanists have used the structures of religion to exercise humanist values This ‘humanist approach’ by religion is a relatively modern idea. The popes who, coveting the riches of wealthy men, accused them of heresy and burned them alive in the streets of Rome before appropriating their estates, did not believe in fairness, justice, equality, decency…… and neither did their cardinals and bishops - or they’d never have received promotion. Humanistic ideas were forced upon the Christian church by diminishing congregations.
Human well-being depends on Reason, kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity, humour, gentleness, equality, listening, egalitarianism, respect for the elderly, love of children, and diligent respect for the land, plants and animals. These virtues derive from natural necessity, not from some power-hungry monster in the sky! It's all part of a successful relationship between life and the planet – a relationship that, because of Christianity’s overweening arrogance in denying the value of all life that isn’t human, is on the point of collapse