It’s a debate we have every year. A school changes the words of a Christmas carol, or a council puts up a banner saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, sparking debate on all sides. Are we too Christian? Not Christian enough? Festive feasts never fail to bring out questions about Australia’s religious identity.
In one sense, the label doesn’t really matter. It’s the reality that counts. But the debate does matter because people are not just making claims about what Australia is, but about what Australia should be. In other words, the debate influences how Australians define themselves, and so behave. We are social creatures and what others do and say matters to us.
How Christian are we, anyway?
Those who wish to deny Australia is a Christian country rightly point out that there has been a significant change in religious affiliation amongst Australians in the last 50 years, as well as a large influx of non-Christian migrants. There are often assertions from some that don’t pay enough heed to this reality.
Because of this change, many have difficulty with Australia’s Christian heritage, and its continuing influence. At the heart of this debate is Australian self-identity. What are we, if we are not Christian? We sometimes feel a lack of identity, especially in relation to other nations, without some sense of religious affiliation.
What many do to answer this question is to say Australia is a “secular” country. But what does this mean? Secular is not an easy term to define. What many mean by secular is non-religious. Some also use it in the sense of religious pluralism or religious freedom. Beyond that, the “secular” category becomes problematic.
To make the category “secular” work, one has to go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to separate religion from culture, and deny religion’s central place in it. In other words, secular has been used primarily as a negative doctrine to exclude “religion” from public life.
An example of a common way secular is used is: “But as we have become a secular country we have secularised our laws, to their betterment. Religion has its place in private lives but not in our public processes, and no religion should be part of our judicial systems.”
Reclaiming religion
The problem with most arguments against religion, and religion’s role in the public sphere, is that they based on an illusory notion of religion. Religion is constructed as some particular kind of entity that, by its nature, is foreign and inappropriate within the public sphere. But if one was forced to provide a consistent, trans-cultural definition of religion, one would run into serious difficulties. Famous atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens have this exact problem.
Religion is often identified with groups of people who hold common beliefs, undertake common activities and rituals, and have common scriptures, shrines, relics and values. But, this definition cannot be confined to what we ordinarily label religion as opposed to, for example, culture or nationalism.
For example, American nationalism can be defined as a “civic religion”. According to William Cavanaugh, “Carlton Hayes had identified the American religion’s saints (the founding fathers), its shrines (Independence Hall), its relics (the Liberty Bell), its holy scriptures (the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution), its martyrs (Lincoln), its inquisition (school boards that enforce patriotism), its Christmas (the Fourth of July), and its feast of Corpus Christi (Flag Day).”
In the Australian context, we could identify our saints (the diggers, sportsmen), shrines (war memorials, sporting stadiums), relics (war and sporting medals), martyrs (Gallipoli soldiers), Christmas (ANZAC Day), inquisition (media enforcing patriotism around national days and achievements), and scriptures (Constitution) and so on. Thus, religion is not an absolute category, but can be used relatively to point out ways in which humans beings build certain types of community in certain ways.
History repeating
As a category, “religion” has been shown to be a modern construct of the 16th and 17th centuries. It came to denote a separate sphere from the state and the nationalistic ideologies that developed under the state. So labelling religion, and its expulsion from the public realm, served a certain “secular”, nationalistic purpose.
“Secular” and “religious” came to be used as relative categories, deployed for certain purposes. While state-mandated religions eventually declined, the “secular” category was increasingly used to exclude Christianity (and other like “religions”) almost entirely from the public realm.
But it is important to note that the first move towards a certain kind of (what may be called) “secularism” occurred under Christianity, which sought to separate the Roman emperors’ “religious” and divine claims from their political role, and subject the political realm to an objective morality and belief system beyond the emperor’s control.
The religion of the nation
Despite the “secular” rhetoric, we shouldn’t fool ourselves that religion has been excluded from public life. Faith and religion have not actually been expelled from the public realm, but have been replaced with covert forms of “religion” that function in the same manner as religions like Christianity or Islam.
For example, these other forms of “religion” in the West include nationalisms to which we must all pay allegiance, even believing in notions of the “nation-state” and giving our lives to it, and market capitalism that subjects all things to the dictates of commodification and commercialisation.
The worst form of this modern religiousity was seen in Nazi Germany with the worship of the Fuhrer and the belief in the Aryan race. Secularism itself, as it is combined with other belief systems like nationalism, relativism, atheism and rationalism, has increasingly turned itself into a religion which has certain beliefs and which structures our public behaviour.
Who are you calling “secular”?
The assertion that Australia is a secular country, not a Christian one, is a claim about the kind of religious and cultural identity that Australia has and should have. We can’t avoid these claims, nor can we avoid examining our culture for its “religious” foundation.
Whether we recognise it as religion or not, the kind of thing that we call “religion” – the beliefs, values and practices that guide our lives and unite us together – is at the heart of our cultural and personal lives. We may not have an explicit or consistent belief system like Christianity, but all peoples and cultures need to have some kind of system of belief to guide their shared understandings, values and practices. Though we are supposed to be in an age of “secularisation”, Australians continue to seek religious and cultural identity – from the tribalism of sport, the pride of the ANZAC, or the values of Christian education and heritage.
Coming back to our original question of whether Australia is a Christian country, I hope that we can give a more complex answer than one that naively affirms “secularism” and excludes religion. We shouldn’t believe that religion is confined solely to the private sphere.
We all want and need beliefs, rituals and values in which we can share, so that we can live together and know what it means to be human. This kind of religion is always central to culture. If we can see this, it will be easier to recognise and analyse how different belief systems – Christianity prominent among them – influence and form Australian culture and our personal lives.
Join the conversation
Comments (56)
Peter Miller
(logged in via email @perpetualocean.com)
As sure as summer heralds the sharp shimmering of noisy cicadas, the end of the year in journalism inevitably brings out articles bemoaning the 'loss of religion' in our culture. And, year after year, they are almost always as irrelevant as this one. Joel Hodge's rambling and meandering polemic begins by asserting that a definition of secularism is hard to come by, and then spends the rest of the article making his definition of 'religion' so broad that it covers everything from the Eucharist…
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Greg Taylor
Thinker (logged in via email @gmail.com)
This is a confusing article, in that it attempts to answer a question about the present by reference our past "Christian heritage", and to confuse the meaning of the word religion. To most people, religion means belief in an afterlife, not about who will win the AFL Premiership next year. The major religions all have their origin in ancient superstitions about life and death, and religion appeals to those who would otherwise be utterly depressed about the fact that life is finite, short and without…
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Peter Kay
Webmaster (logged in via email @bendigolive.com)
"Joel Hodge
Lecturer in Theology at Australian Catholic University"
"Joel Hodge does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations."
Whilst it is fantastic that we get a disclosure with articles, does anyone else see this particular "disclosure" as misleading?
"Joel Hodge does work for, consult to, own shares in and receives funding from an organisation that would benefit from this article, and has very relevant affiliations."
Take out the 'not', there, that's more like the honesty we're looking for.
Peter Miller
(logged in via email @perpetualocean.com)
Religious people don't consider their agenda to be an agenda.
Roger Powell
Engineer (Retired) (logged in via email @exemail.com.au)
Experience shows that honesty is a virtue which is not displayed by religious people as often as they would have us believe it is.
What has never been adequately explained is why anyone should take theologians seriously and why do many people believe it is a serious subject? Do we take other superstitions such as astrology, tea leaf reading or ghost hunting seriously?
David Arthur
n/a (logged in via email @fastel.com.au)
Joel Hodge is a lecturer in theology. THEOLOGY?
His very field of expertise is contingent upon the existence of Deities ... the more the merrier?
Perhaps the term "theologian's tenure" could replace the term "cat" in descriptions of Schrodinger's thought experiment.
Dustin Welbourne
(PhD Candidate Evolutionary Ecology, Biogeography + Science Communicator at University of New South Wales)
Thank you Joel for the predictable,
For the rest, in case you did not catch it, the ball is under the middle cup. What you have done here Joel is to play nothing more than a definitional game; in fact, people familiar with fishing will know this as the ‘bait and switch’. Redefine religion to include cultural and social constructs, therefore Australia becomes religious because we have idiosyncratic cultural and social constructs, and then sneak “Christianity prominent among them” back in, in…
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Roger Powell
Engineer (Retired) (logged in via email @exemail.com.au)
Australia has developed into a multi-cultural society over recent decades and by definition, multi-culturalism = multi-belief. They go hand-in-hand - but whilst we have whole-heartedly embraced imported cultures, we are hard-heartedly biased against non-conforming beliefs. No, we can't avoid our christian history but we also need to face up to our unprincipled public administration when it continues to favour one belief over all the rest.
What are you frightened of, Joel? Secularism simply means…
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Andrew Hack
Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)
What is this 'free ride for Christianity' you are talking about? Do you have any examples for your outrageous claims in your demented rant?
If you really believe in freedom and religious 'fairness' then you would agree the government should stay out of religion entirely and more widely out of trying to regulate personal morality.
Roger Powell
Engineer (Retired) (logged in via email @exemail.com.au)
Is that a serious question?
Christanity gets a free ride from the taxation department. It gets a free ride from the Australian Government's School Christian Chaplain Programme. It gets a free ride from State Government's who allow Christian scripture lessons. Churches are not required to register with the government like other community organisations are required to do and they are allowed to be responsible to no-one.
I'm surprised there is someone out there who does not know this!
I'm sure there are others. Oh yes, I nearly forgot, they get a free ride from governments world wide (with only a few exceptions) who will not act to eliminate the horrific epidemic of paedophile priests from many denominations but particularly from the catholic church.
In a nutshell, religion can do what it likes, when it likes and is accountable to no-one. The government does not interfere. Now that's a free ride!
Andrew Hack
Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)
I would hardly call NOT paying money a free ride. Being given money, sure.
I think your first paragraph there says a lot about the way you think government should operate; that is by controlling every facet of the individual's and the community's lives.
On the topic of pedophiles, as with war and conflict this is about certain individuals and perhaps institutions. The Bible is pretty clear about where Christianity stands on this issue.
Dustin Welbourne
(PhD Candidate Evolutionary Ecology, Biogeography + Science Communicator at University of New South Wales)
Andrew, your claim of being a business analyst stands in stark contrast to your comment:
"I would hardly call NOT paying money a free ride. Being given money, sure"
This is economics 101; not paying tax is the equivalent of paying tax and receiving a payment for the equivalent amount.
I run a not for profit association, and we still have to pay tax. If we call ourselves a religion, we basically will have a tax free concession. This would mean an instant increase in working cash flow to do whatever we like with it. We are not talking about an individual’s $500 tax return either, churches receive $30 million dollars in tax subsidisation, or to look at it the other way, they don’t have to pay $30 million in tax. Either way it is a free ride on the backs of every other tax payer, not to mention the various grants they get to bring in dignitaries, like the pope there was a few million.
Roger Powell
Engineer (Retired) (logged in via email @exemail.com.au)
How naive! Not paying tax, when other similar sized organisatios are obliged to? What is that if not a free ride?
I too am a member of a not for profit community group. We have to register with the Fair Trading Department and ASIC. We have to follow government regulations, which are constantly changing. We have to make our annual accounts available. We have to have them audited. Churches can do what they like, they don't come under government regulation. Don't tell that's not a free ride!
Iain Wicking
Director (logged in via email @gmail.com)
A pathetic attempt at trying to hijack societies cultural norms, its community, cohesion, etc, and pass them of as being underpinned by religion....you don't need religion to believe in community, or establish a moral and ethical base/compass to your life. In fact it does the opposite as it drives people apart.
Mumbling to imaginary entities does nothing along with the insidious nation of the 'corporate' structure of ALL religious bodies that peddle their politicised/theocratic rubbish.
Andrew Hack
Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Hit a nerve did it?
Do you believe if all religions were abolished the world would live in perfect peace and harmony?
Peter Miller
(logged in via email @perpetualocean.com)
Religion isn't (and has never) been much chop at achieving peace and harmony, that's for sure.
Andrew Hack
Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Instituted religion - no it hasn't. But cause vs correlation? Religion is just used as the excuse.
Let's use Christianity as an example. Anyone who has read the gospel and new testament should understand that conflict is not advocated as Jesus taught to turn the other cheek Matthew 5:38-42.
But the early Catholic Church waged hundreds of wars (crusades as an example) and instigated many conflicts. So where did things go wrong?
If I went out and killed someone and said I did it in your name despite you advocating no such thing, does that make you liable?
Peter Miller
(logged in via email @perpetualocean.com)
I don't use religion as an excuse. Religion is not the sole problem - I didn't say it was and have never argued that. Humans, with all their foibles, contradictions and desires create the problems. But adopting religious thought has never been shown to be particularly helpful in dealing with human problems, and, in my considered opinion, creates further problems that we don't particularly need.
Andrew Hack
Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)
"But adopting religious thought has never been shown to be particularly helpful in dealing with human problems, and, in my considered opinion, creates further problems that we don't particularly need."
Care to elaborate?
Peter Miller
(logged in via email @perpetualocean.com)
Oh, where do I start? Flying planes into buildings in the name of your god? Taking up the cross and slaughtering Muslims with the imprimatur of the Pope? Burning 'witches'? Tearing out the hearts of virgins to ensure plentiful harvest? Killing Druids simply because they were 'heathens'?
Claiming that Jesus (or Mohammed or Quetzalcoatl) didn't personally endorse these things is irrelevant - structured religious thought gave these actions their voice. Because religion is based on premises that are irrational, it follows that any kind of irrational idea can be religiously endorsed.
Andrew Hack
Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Rubbish. There are plenty of rational, philosophical arguments for the existence of some kind of religious belief. It is something that certainly the Catholic Church is very good at.
Perhaps it is nice to think that people are naturally good but for the corruption for religion but the fact remains that:
a) people do awful things outside of any kind of religious context
b) despite religious teachings advocating the complete opposite, people will do awful things in the name of a religious context.
This leads me to the conclusion that perhaps eradicating religion completely is not the answer to all the world's problems.
Derek Bolton
Retired s/w engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Yes, there are rational arguments for the existence of religious belief (human social psychology, instinctive loyalty to a father figure..), but I'm not aware of any reasonable ones for having them. Which did you mean?
I like the way you've tried to reverse the burden of proof in the last para. Peter M merely said religion has never been shown to be particularly helpful. You've paraphrased that as his suggesting that it's responsible for most of the world's problems. Neat.
Peter Miller
(logged in via email @perpetualocean.com)
Good rational arguments that advocate compelling reasons to hold irrational beliefs are scarce, and mostly centre around the idea that for some reason or other humans 'need' to hold irrational beliefs. Most of them resort to bootstrap logic: we need to believe in gods because we are humans and that's part of the human condition. I've read many attempts to rationalize religion but not a single persuasive one. If you're saying, however, that there are plenty of rational arguments for the existence…
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Nick Kermode
(logged in via email @hotmail.com)
Logical, rational arguments don't work on religious people, otherwise there would be no religious people.
Roger Powell
Engineer (Retired) (logged in via email @exemail.com.au)
I don't "believe" it - but it is certainly possible and would be a definite improvement!
Andrew Hack
Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)
It might amaze you but not every conflict stems from religious disagreements.
Roger Powell
Engineer (Retired) (logged in via email @exemail.com.au)
No, it doesn't amaze me - but as you say, "the early Catholic Church waged hundreds of wars".
Andrew Hack
Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Did you miss the bit about it being in complete contradiction to the Bible?
Grendels
(logged in via Twitter)
Oh dear, the bible. Do you eat bacon Andrew? Or sin against any of the injunctions in Leviticus. If that is too old testiment for you how about the bit in Colossians that instructs women to submit to their husbands? Do you condemn all your friends who divorce and then remarry as instructed in Matthew? Should they be stoned?
Christian Scripture is illogical and arbitrary and reinterpreted to suit the whim of the interpreter - just like the Koran is. This is why there are so many branches of Christianity all busy finding their own meanings to suit their own world view.
Roger Powell
Engineer (Retired) (logged in via email @exemail.com.au)
"Did you miss the bit about it being in complete contradiction to the Bible?"
No - but you have already made the self-destructing point that chistians rarely follow their own handbook. That's why there are so many religious wars. I'll accept your 500 religious wars as a nice round number. That's a lot of religious wars and a lot of people killed in the name of a non-existant ghost.
Grendels
(logged in via Twitter)
Oh dear, the bible. Do you eat bacon Andrew? Or sin against any of the injunctions in Leviticus. If that is too old testiment for you how about the bit in Colossians that instructs women to submit to their husbands? Do you condemn all your friends who divorce and then remarry as instructed in Matthew? Should they be stoned?
Christian Scripture is illogical and arbitrary and reinterpreted to suit the whim of the interpreter - just like the Koran is. This is why there are so many branches of Christianity all busy finding their own meanings to suit their own world view.
Grendels
(logged in via Twitter)
Is the entire article based on a false premise? The headline "This Christmas, the real myth is that Australia isn’t religious" is interesting in that respect since in the article I cannot find a reference to where anyone has claimed that Australia is not religious. In short, from the outset the author has proposed a strawman arguement and then flailed ineffectually at this with a metaphorical herring. There is some fish juice on the strawman.
I also take issue with "But if one was forced to provide…
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Peter Miller
(logged in via email @perpetualocean.com)
Many religious thinkers equate atheism with a complete abrogation of moral responsibility. Or even worse: with active subversion of moral responsibility. It can only be a tactic borne of fear. If there exist non-religious people who are able to live satisfied, happy, morally dignified lives, this creates a paradox for religion which needs to have the moral high ground to survive. It's especially challenging for the Christian religion which is underpinned by the idea that humans are by their very nature 'sinful' and are by definition unable to achieve any kind of moral validity without intervention by God.
It's a fantastic piece of reverse-hyper-logic: We are morally deficient without God, therefore we need God to exist in order to explain why we are morally deficient.
Round and round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows...
Colin Kline
(logged in via Facebook)
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Peter, excellent puncturing of more presumptious argument from the "forces of fear".
Colin Kline
(logged in via Facebook)
Grendels, of course it's Godwin's Law,
but ... as if the author would know about it
Peter Fox
(logged in via email @gmail.com)
Thanks Joel,
Wow, that is the loosest definition of religion I've ever seen. If the tribalism of sport and ANZAC spirit constitute religious identity, maybe we should be worshipping a real bloke in footy shorts rather than a pretend one floating in the sky.
Andrew Hack
Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Drawing similarities does not mean equating.
Billy Brooks
Self Employed (logged in via email @hotmail.com)
Well written article. I especially liked the part where you took the word "religion" and changed the definition of it to suit your argument based on some vague familiarities. It inspired me to do the same, and I have now reclassified religion as a mental illness. I mean, religious people (as a broad generalisation that is cruel to some sects, I grant you) believe:
- They can hear voices of the unseen.
- Magic is real
- They will be taken to a magical faraway land when they die
- some mystical, supernatural being is guiding them and giving them strength
- Zombies!
- and other various violations of the laws of the physical universe as we know them.
Alas, this is of course not an original notion of my, many others have put it forward before me. But in the great Christian tradition, I've decided to take their ideas and pass them off as my own instead.
Merry Christmas.
Colin Kline
(logged in via Facebook)
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Joel HODGES alleges that Australia is actually NOT a secular country, but instead is still dominated by Christianity. And thank god for that he might say.
No doubt he will then be alarmed to note that Christianity, in its religious myths, its morality, its values, ARE NOT CHRISTIAN, per se, but in fact have been stolen from many paganisms extant thousands of years BCE.
See:
http://truereligiondebate.wordpress.com/pagan-origins-of-christianity/
David Arthur
n/a (logged in via email @fastel.com.au)
Buddhism has its Five Precepts, a basic set of five principles by which a person may live an ethical life. Following are what I understand to be these Precepts.
1) I undertake to not kill.
2) I undertake to not steal.
3) I undertake to not lie.
4) I undertake to not engage in sexual misconduct.
5) I undertake to not over-indulge in intoxicating substances.
Precepts 1 to 4 in this list have clear parallels among the Ten Commandments, and Precept 5 seems a rather prudent way of maintaining the self-control and self-awareness to ensure continued adherence to the other four Precepts.
Note that the only Commandments that don't have parallels among the Precepts are the ones about worshipping the Lord Thy God, and swearing on His name (or not swearing on It, or whatever), and so on ...
Is it just me, or do Australian legal codes have more in common with these Precepts than with the Ten Commandments?
Peter Miller
(logged in via email @perpetualocean.com)
They're all good common-sense ideas. Why not base a moral code on them? But crucially, you don't need a supernatural being to come up with notions like them - these kinds of guidelines arise again and again throughout human history, sometimes attached to a religion, sometimes not.
Buddhism is, as religions go, perhaps the most sensible. It still has a supernatural crutch, though, in the guise of reincarnation. Once again, a very human yearning to believe that we 'go on' after death. Maybe this is the case but there is no scientific, logical or rational support for such an hypothesis.
David Arthur
n/a (logged in via email @fastel.com.au)
Thanks Peter, the Five Precepts of Buddhism are, as you say, pretty sound principles that human societies have developed again and again.
You'll also note that there is no reference to any Deity amidst the Five Precepts - from my reading, Gautama (aka the Buddha) himself didn't actually demand belief in any supernatural Being; all that came later on, after his death, when lesser intellects sought ways to incorporate Buddhism into existing belief.
There is at least one thesis on the teachings…
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Peter Miller
(logged in via email @perpetualocean.com)
It's my feeling that Siddhārtha Gautama would be kinda horrified at what Buddhism has become. As with the life of Jesus, the Buddha's life is now so embroidered with myth and fable that the person underneath is all but eclipsed. It is, perhaps, the nature of human beings to deify those who not only see clearly, but can convey that vision to people with simple ideas.
Unfortunately life (and the universe) is not simple, and that's where simple rule systems come unstuck. And no-one really wants to be told that things are a little more complicated than 'good' and 'evil' and that there is a possibility (at least!) that our little human brains may just not be able to make sense of it all.
Insert God here.
:)
Bruce Moon
Bystander! (logged in via email @imap.cc)
Joel
With the exception of one aspect, I suggest you've pretty well summed up the matter, though the argument is woven in your story rather than articulated in a sequential order.
1/.
"Whether we recognise it as religion or not, the kind of thing that we call “religion” – the beliefs, values and practices that guide our lives and unite us together – is at the heart of our cultural and personal lives."
2/.
"...we shouldn’t fool ourselves that religion has been excluded from public life…
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Derek Bolton
Retired s/w engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Joel, you are quite right that there is no clear distinction between the cultural trappings around a religion and those that surround sport and other aspects of a nation's culture. Nonetheless, religion is distinguished by belief in agency beyond physical investigation, and these beliefs drive at least some of its cultural content. In any given society, different cultural influences interact, so the religions adopt ingredients from local non-religious culture, and vice versa. Differences in Christian…
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Derek Bolton
Retired s/w engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Bruce, you say that our customs embody Christian principles, but it's not simple. In many ways, those "Christian principles" have evolved to match the views of an increasingly humanist society. I don't see that the fringe Christian groups you name are any more removed from pre-enlightenment Christianity than today's mainstream Christians are.
Bruce Moon
Bystander! (logged in via email @imap.cc)
Derek
My point was not that the groups I nominated "are any more removed from pre-enlightenment Christianity than today's mainstream Christians are".
Clearly, you missed the point I was making.
What I was saying is that the religious ideology embraced by the groups I named stems from fundamentalist view of both religion and the world (of people), and a desire for a totalitarian structure.
I don't view the followers of 'mainstream' Catholic, Protestant, Islamic, Hindu (etc.) faiths as beholden to fundamentalism nor wish their religion be totalitarian.
Cheers
Pat Loria
Research Librarian (logged in via email @usq.edu.au)
Why not go all the way and call a spade a spade? Australia has (to a large extent) become a truly secular nation – worldly, materialistic, and irreligious. Why deny the fact of the large-scale loss of religious orientation anyway? Better to say, “This is now the case. Let’s study its future consequences in an empirical way and evaluate its outcomes over time”, rather than justify the religious position amongst the non-religious.
The prophet Daniel, in the Old Testament, when he was in captivity…
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Andrew Hack
Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)
I like the analogies of nationalism and political ideologies with features of religion. I think the Green movement in many ways has become a religion for its many followers. Certainly the demented ideologies of Socialism and Communism have these traits. An interesting point.
My take on the religion vs secularism is that I'd define 'religion' in a contemporary context as being something people do on Sundays. For many it is only C&E (Christmas and Easter). To me this is not really taking it seriously…
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Colin MacGillivray
Retired architect (logged in via email @gmail.com)
"Famous atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens have this exact problem"
Christopher Hitchens never had this problem and he doesn't now because he's dead.
Belief in god and religion is a brain defect. In the future the defective spot will be identified and a machine will zap the brain of the affected person, should they want to, and liberate them from their belief.
Pat Loria
Research Librarian (logged in via email @usq.edu.au)
As usual, the number of comments on the religious article confirm religion's central place in the human psyche - whether or not people admit it (the pleasing thing is that getting a negative score on this comment confirms it).
Merry Christmas!
Roger Powell
Engineer (Retired) (logged in via email @exemail.com.au)
As usual, the number of comments on the religious article confirm religion's unwarranted central place in the human psyche - whether or not people admit it.
Andrew Hack
Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Notwithstanding the self-contradictory and complete and utter lack of logic (anything being discussed is actually not worth discussing?)...
David Healy
Retired (logged in via email @optusnet.com.au)
Bruce, thanks for your incisive remarks. There's a lot there to ponder, perhaps even more than in the article.
Re your comment about "(unnecessary) focus on dogma", however, it is obvious that religious dogma is a necessary focus for some. Prothero's "God Is Not One" makes it clear why ignoring or understating that this is so is folly.
I'm guessing most Australians recognise that there are people who regard doctrinal differences as very necessary, and even as justification for murder - witness…
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Michel Syna Rahme
(logged in via email @hotmail.com)
Also relevant is: https://theconversation.edu.au/explainer-quantum-physics-570#comments
Michel Syna Rahme
(logged in via email @hotmail.com)
How will you get our spirit in your box Mam ... Is it big enough to hold all the oceans and the sky..?
How will you get our minds in your box Man... Will you drag it in pursuit across the plains and over the mountains ..?
How will you get our hearts in your box Priest... Seven billion drums to beat your doors down - set you free!