So, Kevin Donnelly, newly installed as Pyne’s curriculum advisor wants more religion in Australian public schools. Donnelly bases his arguments on the claim that “Australia is a predominantly Christian country“. More generally, his argument is that we need to inculcate a commitment to the”institutions, values and way of life” of the Australian majority.
Before making arguments like this, Donnelly might want to take a look at the 2011 census data which shows that barely 50 per cent of those aged under 25 stated a Christian religious affiliation. In a dicussion of this last year, we found a combination of demographic effects and switching, which implied that Christians will probably be a minority of the population by the 2020s, as they already are in the UK.
Since around 30 per cent of young people attend private schools most of which state a Christian affilation, it’s a safe bet that the majority of public school students are non-Christian. Certainly, “no religion” is the biggest single denomination for the under 25 age group. So, if you accept Donnelly’s “majority rule” argument, there’s a strong case for saying there should be more explicit atheism in public schools.
More generally, Christians should think carefully before lining up for this kind of culture war. Australia has been mercifully free of the kind of “new atheism” represented by people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Atheists, agnostics and the religiously indifferent have been happy to live and let live, without feeling the need to engage in denunciation of religion. But if Christian activists like Abbott and Donnelly want to use their current bare majority to impose their religous views on the rest of us, they ought to expect the same when they become a minority, as is virtually inevitable.
Religion is currently favored in all sorts of ways in Australia, from tax deductions and exemptions to publicly funded chaplaincy programs. There hasn’t been much fuss about this, but if the right chooses to engage in a religious culture war, all that will change.
John Quiggin 
Beep.
You’re comparing apples and oranges. Stipulating for the sake of argument, just for the moment, that the values in question may be discerned from census figures at all, those aren’t the right ones to use. Not only are few of the under 25s parents of children of school age (by comparison with older groups), and not only does that select out the even older groups who have traditionally been heavily involved in cultural transmission, that group itself contains many of those who do not determine the values but represent the target group to whom the values would be transmitted, i.e. children; they would inherently fail to show values that have not been transmitted.
Whether there should be any effort to transmit values in a conscious and directed way is quite another question; here, I am only addressing this use of figures within the question raised.
Over and above that, it is also entirely arguable that the values to be transmitted are to be found elsewhere, in founding ideas used to define what being Australian is, just as the idea of being Thai involves monarchism and Buddhism even though minorities are not like that, and the idea would not change even if the minorities became majorities but would rather mean that a new thing had displaced it, since it could not simply change the old without a “failure of substratum”. If so, census figures can only show how well the values have actually been transmitted and not what they are.
I also consider it a considerable stretch to reckon failing to handicap religious instruction as conferring a positive benefit.
I can’t follow this at all. Maybe you should rewrite.
It’s starting to happen already, see the kerfuffle in NSW with non-religious ethics classes. The religious wrong were and are very upset about the mere existence of those classes. And there is occasional push-back against using state funds to enforce religion when “charities” are funded to deliver state services (homelessness especially, but also punishing the unemployed).
I suspect we will see multiple trigger points for people who are not militant conservative Christians from the Abbott government. I’m hoping that the political media use the mentions of religion to hammer Abbott on his lack of enthusiasm for the current pope, and for any moves he makes that conflict with that. Not because I support that institution, but because the PM claims to.
I suppose you’d have to count me as an over-40 who would love to see “spreading religion” removed as a charitable purpose as far as all government interaction is concerned. Definitely to the point of taking action when things like abortion is threatened.
Maybe of more interest in schools would be the history of Australian values. Of course the whole of Australia doesn’t share the same values. So you’d need to look at the dominant values, and how they change over time.
I’m sure modern school children would be horrified by some of the attitudes commonly held by earlier Australians.
Despite being an atheist (and hence a member of the soon to be majority), I quite like some of Jesus’ teaching. I’m particularly keen getting the bit about the rich having a hard time entering the kingdom of heaven into some of the more well healed private schools. And the tale of the good Samaritan would be a good one. And could it turn out that the displaced peoples of the worlds trouble spots are actually our neighbours?
It would also be interesting to look at how christianity has been integrated into our society – which bits we like and which bits we’ve rejected.
What would not be at all interesting would be an uncritical teaching of the watered down christianity that co-exists with governments everywhere. The sort of christianity no doubt practised by Governor Christie’s office when they created 4 days of traffic jams for their own amusement. Jesus would not have been amused.
If it happens that you are in the majority, please remember that not all Christians support this kind of thing. The attempt to associate Christianity with the values and institutions of our society (whatever they happen to be) is surely offensive not only to humans and also to God.
(Although, I don’t know who Governor Christie is or what his office did, but four days of traffic jams would be nice. Maybe people would realise how free-flowing the traffic was if they got out of their cars and were part of traffic on foot. You can build yourself out of traffic congestion because it’s entirely an artifact of poor town layouts.)
I am sure people who people like Donnelly consider to be “Christian” (Bernardi, Morrison, Pell, etc) would be considered by many others to be little better than satanists as to underlying outlook by many other people in our society.
Lipstick on the pig does not turn it into Angelina Jolie.
Not that I should defend the indefensible, but a “more religion” argument is open to the view that it is more of whatever religion the household has. Thus more Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism or Judaism or Tao (or for that matter Scientology) would comply.
Not really clear whether this would conform with the policy being put forth (I suspect it is not what is intended), but one should always allow for a “best” interpretation.
One of the unexpected weirdnesses about this government is how oblivious they are to the contemporary world. Have these people, several of whom claim to be Roman Catholics, heard nothing said by Pope Francis?
The values he nominates are hardly objectionable. Whether they define us or are merely aspirational they are good values:-
Of course I do share grave reservations about his fascination with the role of Christianity in all this. The key qualities we get from western civilisation are the rule of law (Roman), Democracy (Greek) and humanist ideals about rights and liberty (enlightenment). Pagan, pagan and atheist.
The religion thing is why I didn’t like John Howard’s encouragement for the formation of small private schools. These often cater for a particular religious group. Thus children from these schools grow up with less exposure to children from families with different beliefs.
I was at uni before I realised that I’d never really met a catholic.
This cannot be good for our society. As anyone with kids knows, parents are brought together by the friendships their kids form. So if different ethnicities and faiths share the same school, their kids will form friendships and the parents will end up meeting and talking, and that has to be a good thing.
On a tangent – Their ABC’s ‘Drum’ has been giving Donnelly a steady platform to sprout this stuff (about 30 opinion pieces) since about 2011.
He was attributed as representing some kind of ‘Ponds Institute’ of which he appears to be the only member, and which bears the ABN of his family trust.
Great work ABC. Mark Scott (fundamentalist Christian) must be very pleased.
And remember that Gillard shored up the ‘school chaplains’ program and extended it after the partially successful High Court challenge.
Our system of law doesn’t come from the Romans or Christian teachings.
Our legal system is based on British Common Law.
PrQ, I’m not sure why you include the snark about Richard Dawkins. The major religions are all vile and discriminatory in various ways, for example the homophobia of the Abrahamic religions and the caste system in Hinduism. I had a Jehovah’s Witness knock on my door today, these being the creeps who would prefer to let their kids die than receive a blood transfusion. I’d save the snark for these guys.
If Dawkins’ harmless and mild fire and brimstone brand of atheism wins over a few young and impressionable minds, I will not be shedding any tears.
John Brookes- the nice Jesus bits are cancelled out by the naughty Jesus bits, like Luke 22:36
And he said unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a wallet; and he that hath none, let him sell his cloak, and buy a sword.
Whenever some idiot says:
what he really means is:
Whoever demands religion in schools, find out his beliefs. Then allow every religion EXCEPT his. Odds are, he’ll shut up.
@Bobalot
Lying is par for the course with the rabidly religious. The ends (read: the cleansing of differing views) justifies the means.
In that dolt’s fetid mind, it doesn’t matter that he is lying in violation of his own religion’s rules. He’s lying for his religion, so that “justifies it”.
It’s called the:
“Education Standards Institute”
And, thanks SBS, apparently he recently held some position at the Australian Catholic University.
From his website:
I’m cool with “equity, diversity and choice”, and of course democracy & liberty are good things along with “an open and free society” – but WTF with:
“and a commitment to Christian beliefs”??
This has no place whatsoever outside a Christian school’s RE class, or a church, or around the dinner table of a family so inclined.
However, I’m calling this a massive ‘Bait’n’Switch’ exercise. This has nothing to do with ‘values’ and everything to do with furthering the “charter school” agenda put in place under Howard and pushed further by Gillard.
And:
Unfortunately, this is fairly boringly unremarkable stuff these days amongst our political class.
Hmmm, maybe the Left should get behind the idea of a Bill of Rights with the separation of church and state being one of the items.
When standing before classes, I avoid, as one would expect, given it’s not germane to any teaching area I’m delivering, all discussions of Christianity. I do however cover mythology and encourage an open discussion of the provenance of non-scientific accounts of the world.
Occasionally, students ask whether I believe in “God” and on those occasions I respond with an unadorned “no” and move on. A child once asked “what do you hope will happen after you die?” I responded: Happiness for the living. Another persisted: But what do you hope will happen to you? I responded: That will be none of my business. I just hope there’s no mess.
we need protection *from* politicians not protection *by* politicians. we’re well past the time when being protected by our wise old lords & masters was sufficient. its the 21st century now! the arrangement we have now is not worthy of a great nation – it is worthy of a flock of sheep! and pace bob carr, we need the *courts* to do it. its called separation of powers. there must be a line in the sand beyond which government may *never* go. and as for puffed-up pretentious poppinjays like bob carr, just what part don’t people like bob carr like of we the people having rights specifically framed to protect us against depredations from the likes of him & enforced *for us* by the courts? eh? or does he just want to keep the power he has now to suspend our rights any time it suits him? it makes me sick to hear him drone on defending the woefully inadequate status quo. -a.v.
In one or two small sentences, Kevin Donnelly has smashed through my complacency. School education has become too secular—pull the other one!
Last time the Liberals were in power, they made quite an effort to see the “Intelligent Design” CDs get distributed to schools (circa 2005), arguing that students should get to see two sides to the evolution debate; well, the only “debate” they are referring to is a religiously motivated one by a particular section of Christianity, aka creationists. Rather than go down that rabbit hole again, could we just once stick to teaching the science in science class, and not some religiously-motivated idea? There are plenty of interesting scientific debates and discussions deep within the details of biology for instance, on evolutionary processes, natural selection, genetics and gene transfer mechanisms, for example; these are the debates that matter in a science class, but not a debate which is really proxy-war about the propaganda of God and His Dominion.
Sadly, the door has been blasted wide open once again. Can’t we please just keep religion out of the education of what are meant to be subjects based on rational, scientific principles? If people are so concerned about teaching their kids what is a personal matter (religion), surely that is a choice for what extra-curricular activities they involve their children in (like going to church on Sunday)? Our society is one in which they are perfectly free to do this.
Finally, who ever heard of a review where the principal investigator presents their conclusions before the review even kicks off? That is what Kevin Donnelly has done by stating what he believes needs putting into the national curriculum, immediately prior to starting the review. Goodness.
Damn. Messed up a closing tag. Try again:
In one or two small sentences, Kevin Donnelly has smashed through my complacency. School education has become too secular—pull the other one!
Last time the Liberals were in power, they made quite an effort to see the “Intelligent Design” CDs get distributed to schools (circa 2005), arguing that students should get to see two sides to the evolution debate; well, the only “debate” they are referring to is a religiously motivated one by a particular section of Christianity, aka creationists. Rather than go down that rabbit hole again, could we just once stick to teaching the science in science class, and not some religiously-motivated idea? There are plenty of interesting scientific debates and discussions deep within the details of evolutionary processes, natural selection, genetics and gene transfer mechanisms, for example; these are the debates that matter in a science class, but not a debate which is really proxy-war about the propaganda of God and His Dominion.
Sadly, the door has been blasted wide open once again. Can’t we please just keep religion out of the education of what are meant to be subjects based on rational, scientific principles? If people are so concerned about teaching their kids what is a personal matter (religion), surely that is a choice for what extra-curricular activities they involve their children in (like going to church on Sunday)? Our society is one in which they are perfectly free to do this.
Finally, who ever heard of a review where the principal investigator presents their conclusions before the review even kicks off? That is what Kevin Donnelly has done by stating what he believes needs putting into the national curriculum, immediately prior to starting the review. Goodness.
As for new atheism: yes, they can and do at times come across as strident. In defence of at least some of the new atheists though, their position is that instilling in children a belief in mythological figures as if they are part of reality, and employing the almost innate fear of death (and ensuing loss of enduring identity) kids have, as a means of coercing them to follow “God’s Laws” with the threat of not going to heaven if they disobey, is a morally wrong way to educate children.
The new atheists don’t accept religion as a means of controlling a child’s intellectual development and moral development; the new atheists assert that it is actually harmful to the child to routinely use patently false statements about the world we live in, as a means of teaching. Whatever the intention of the adult, the child is the one who suffers the consequences, and some are quite frankly traumatised by it. I have met some such unlucky souls, but not once have I come across a person who was traumatised by learning how to use reason as an instrument in their education.
New Atheists do not accept that Science, and Religion (usually Christianity in the Western World), form two magesteria, each providing a different “way of knowing”. The New Atheist, upon hearing this sort of statement, quite rightly says: “BOLLOCKS!”—and that is one reason why they can come across as strident and impolite. The New Atheist points out: “Either the Young Earth Creationists are right, or the paleontologists are right, concerning the age of dinosaur (and other) fossils, but both cannot be right.” Which, if either, of the two magesteria is right in this instance? For the New Atheist, being dismissive of the YEC is an entirely scientifically warranted position to take; for the YEC, no amount of scientific evidence is acceptable to them, or will sway their view; therefore, the New Atheist thinks, why waste further time being politely accommodating—under false pretences—of their religiously inspired rigid belief that the world was created (by God) a mere 6000 years ago?
Personally, my view is slowly becoming one of being more willing to openly state my objection to someone else’s assertions concerning a religious myth about the way the world works, as I believe that what is considered to be true should be scientifically validated facts concerning the world in which we live. That will sometimes upset other people, something I don’t particularly like doing; on the other hand, the Liberals demonstrated last time what happens if we give in to being polite rather than being bluntly assertive about our resistance to their attempts to put religion into schoool education.
I do not want to see this happen again.
the “two magesteria” are of course the product of the late great stephen jay gould, who worked assiduously, while dawkins was fiddling with memes, to keep creationism out of american schools. i guess that makes gould an old atheist. i find dawkins as pushy as the fundamentalists and as disagreeable. i agree with John Quiggen, we have a live and let live ethos in this country and it would be good to keep it that way. we don’t need a culture war on this front, we don’t need obnoxious polemicists ramming their beliefs down our throats. by the way i have been an atheists since 1970 so don’t come at me as an apologist for fundamentalists. -alfred venison
“Finally, who ever heard of a review where the principal investigator presents their conclusions before the review even kicks off? ”
Donald’s point #22 is worth emphasising. Donnelly and Wiltshire will clearly not be conducting a review at all. Their task is to embed ideologies they have been promoting for years into the curriculum and to rectify its perceived ‘leftist bias’ (i.e. aspects reflecting developments in pedagogy since the 1950s). The exercise smacks of the Libs’ infatuation with conservative think tanks in the USA and their obsessive resentment at the way “liberals” allegedly control education, media and popular culture.
@alfred venison
Indeed, it was SJ Gould who coined the expression “two great magesteria” and who worked on what is referred to as “accommodationism”. And fair enough, too.
Dawkins is brash, and can certainly be abrasive. I was stating why I think some of the so-called New Atheists, of which Dawkins is among the most famous, believe they should be pushier than perhaps earlier atheists have been. That doesn’t make me an apologist for fundamentalist (atheists): indeed, New Atheists are more than capable of shouting out for themselves without me lending my voice to their clamour.
In the past I have tended to the live and let live philosophy, but now we have a blatantly religious bias in the setting up of a review of the Australian education curriculum, a curriculum that is only just nearing the end of its initial roll-out. While there might be quite a few things that could be changed for the better, having a seriously biased approach to the review (process) itself won’t help anybody except those in agreement with the direction of the bias.
We can ignore this and run the very real risk of yet another round of attempts to embed religion within inappropriate subjects, such as insertion of creationism under the guise of Intelligent Design, into the school curricula; or, we can consider this for the threat that it is, and be a little more active about asserting our disagreement. I wouldn’t want to see a “burn the place down” attitude as the way to resist this threat, for yes, it would be counter-productive and unlikely to succeed in any case. Live and let live is too passive though, as that is how these guys like Pyne get to change everything.
There are plenty of ways in which people can practice the religion of their choice, or no religion at all, in the modern Australian society. As a rule, we don’t persecute or belittle people because of their religion, at home, school, or work. I’d guess that 30% of my work colleagues are actively religious, and it doesn’t bother me at all. If they started using religious texts as justification for conclusions reached in their work documents, on the other hand, that would be more than a little disturbing and totally unacceptable. Same goes for school education. Using the place of education as an opportunity to indoctrinate kids in religious “thought”, rather than to teach them how to think rationally and independently, that is what I don’t want to see happen (by stealth).
PS: I too have been an atheist since the very early 1970s, although I wouldn’t have known it as atheism back then. Helps to have limestone fossils in your backyard and a big copy of “Tell Me Why”.
PPS: As a front-line educator, Fran’s approach in dealing with questions from students is a good one. For dealing with the same questions from adults outside the class room, it depends a lot on context.
@Donald Oats
This is pretty much my point. I’d prefer “live and let live”, but if they want a culture war, they can have it.
Much of what Donnelly is about is politics in which “culture” is proxy to cover up the politics.
Much of the debate about “religion” on both sides of the debate is ill informed anyway. There is no such thing as “religion’ in terms of an ahistorical, acultural, generic category. This is now not a matter of controversy in the religious studies field. Neither is the use of the category of “religion” as an artefact of colonialism.
There are specific forms of belief, and practice that need to be dealt with in terms of their specificity and particularity and will obviously need to be studied in history, literature, philosophy etc if we are to understand our society and the world around us.
We need to move to a post secularist stance but neither Donelly nor the evangelical atheists would be likely to accept such a position.
The thing is, if ‘religion’ is enforced in education of children, there could very well be a turnaround in the numbers, as well as in the type of education in general kids get. Older friends have told me that in their religious schools they were given incorrect information about subjects including biology and science, so that they faced real difficulties with the Leaving Certificate and other state exams. However, all was not lost because they could get jobs within the religious school system or with one of the many workplaces which supported the religious organisation in various ways.
Today, in 2014, there are whole universities in the US run by creationists who provide information which students accept as correct but which must provide a pretty poor basis for a career in science, history etc. But as graduates of such universities continue their careers within the ‘circle’ of schools and colleges which teach the same thing (an online friend of mine has gone this route, now teaching ‘history’ in a creationist based primary level school), so that students never hear anything different except as an example of the stupidity of the rest of the world.
In Queensland, there are apparently already schools teaching ‘creationism’ as an alternative to actual science I guess, and our high schools are chock a block full of chaplains. The underfunded and poorly resourced public schools can’t cope with problems such as bullying, which is what sent some of my family members to a non-denominational christian school for their kids. The result is the kids have an active school and social life based around the school and its activities, many of which are faith based. So in a family of laid back non-religious types we have two youngsters who are very religious and become quite anxious and upset if challenged.
And that’s just one way to push the religious barrow if you happen to own the system.
Not necessarily to elevate even the core principles common to all religion – the Dawkins’ are not wrong, just impolitic – I’d point out that we need a pincer movement on the merely culturally religious GOP-inspired culture warriors (e.g.. Howard, Pell, Abbott, Bernardi, Donnelly): on one flank, tolerant pluralistic secularists who draw the line only at State imposition and preferencing of unscientific magical thinking; one the other side, actual, not merely nominal, followers of Pope Francis and other truly religious leaders.
Two books pertinent to what’s happening here:
Chris Hedges: “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America”
and
Jeff Sharlet: “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power”
Very important reading, if one wishes to understand better where this comes from and where it’s heading.
Apropos of Fran’s experience, I was once asked by a Vietnamese Catholic student of mine if I went to church. She was shocked when I said I didn’t. She told me that people who don’t go to church will be reborn as poor people.
Maybe this is the kind of religious attitudewe need for the modern world – a blend of Buddhism, Christianity and economic rationalism.
In the usa there is a much higher percentage of people attending church yet the situation is so silly that a group of students can’t have a prayer meeting or Bible study at a school with any adult even if they initiate everything. We have a fairly similar section of the constitution to the usa when it talks about the relationship between religion and government yet historically Australia have had laws that are constitutional that would be considered highly unconstitutional in the usa because the separation between church and state has been taken to a ridiculous extreme.
Probably the reason why is because the Christians here have been so combative in mixing God with right wing politics and have been so aggressive in culture wars.
I hope that doesn’t happen here. Tony abbot is a divisive figure amongst Christians (all politicians are) and I would hate to be dragged into a culture war against my will. I hope most people see this as political tactic rather reacting to the entire christian community.
Oh and one final thing. People usually react to situations like this with a nuanced but still incorrect view that the problem is not with Christians but with fundamentalists. It is an ill informed view. If you define fundamentalism as the view that Christianity is the most important thing in your life and you believe that the Bible is infallible and you believe that “scripture interprets scripture” and you en devour to live your life Biblically, the most fundamentalist church in America (in my experience as a fundamentalist) is the african American church. They ironically tend to be left wing yet non political (in the sense its much more unusual to hear politics from the pulpit). On the other hand many of the hard core religious right aren’t necessarily fundamentalist. I guess you could say they use religion like a drunk man uses a lamp post. That’s not to say there aren’t fundamentalists on the religious right, just they are two groups of people and one might be one or the other or both (also a lot of fundamentalists aren’t creationists and a lot of not fundamentalists are). I do not recognize Tony Abbot as a fundamentalist anywhere in his writings. But fundamentalists tend to get tarred in this sort of culture war because nuance is the first causality in a culture war.
sorry to clarify I spend some time in the usa and some time in australia so that’s why “here” in the previous comment sometimes means australia and other times means the usa lol
Conservatives like to believe in Supreme Beings and their immaculately conceived offspring as it saves a lot of mental effort. No need to worry about climate change or limits to growth as the SB wouldn’t allow it. As insurance against falling out of favour it might be wise to do occasional observance. Therefore schoolkids should do more religious instruction and less science as that can’t save us in the end.
Gosh, Doug, I may stand corrected on my “core principles common to all religion”. But be that as it may, we still need the pincer movement from religion that is not the creature of the radical right – xenophobia harnessed by plutocracy.
We need to hear more from the Christian Left, whose members must be increasingly uncomfortable at the coopting of their faith by radicals of the Right. I was educated by the Marist brothers, many of whom I recall were social democrat in outlook. The Catholics now loudest in the media and close to political power seem to be almost uniformly of the Right. The hope (wishful thinking?) is that the appointment of Pope Francis marks a turning point and that Catholics and other Christians with social consciences and progressive mindsets will join secularlists against the culture/history warriors. As Prof Quiggin says, if they really insist on a war, let’s give them one.
Abbott has no rigidly consistent economic outlook ,he just generally wants to wind things back to Howards dreamtime. The extremists within his party want no minimum wage and no red or green tape -apart from that I think they already have most of what they want as far as structural economic reform goes .
Like Howard most of the action looks like being on the culture war front since they have had such success there in the past, – they can set up future election wins that way .No need to try to push reform on people who do not want it and get punished electorally ; -get them ready first , then introduce it later when they are meaner .60 % of Aussies want asylum seekers treated more harshly.
Thats what has them worried . From memory (of an ABC radio report) “no religion’ was the fastest growing group in the census. They are worried that their angry old white man base is shrinking and the self-hating Leftist elites are winning .They are up against it -in my council area of Melb (Brimbank- out west) more than 50% of residents were born overseas.
@sunshine
Slightly OT – I don’t accept that “60%” figure. Not that long ago the figure was more like 70% ‘pro’ refugee (obviously a lot depends on how the question is framed and precisely what it is the respondent says they support).
To get a bit tin-foil, the poll was by “UMR” which is an ALP outfit. We don’t know who commissioned it, but to push the idea that a majority are ‘anti’ refugees would be politically advantageous to an ALP that is in lockstep with the LNP on the issue because it would take pressure off the ALP for its nasty policies (ie: “it’s what the majority want, we can’t go against the majority”)…just saying.
dear @Donald Oats
thank you for the considered response, seeing as i was border-line rude in my last missive. only thing that riles me more than bob carr is richard dawkins and i shouldn’t post on an empty stomach & low blood sugar.
i agree with what you say about the danger pyne presents. i think we are already in a new dark ages.
with regard to what has been called gould’s “accommodation”. he took a chance and proposed a live & let live ethos by agreeing to disagree. maybe others don’t, but i applaud him for trying. he had a go. it didn’t work. they didn’t reciprocate. the dishonour is on them for not reciprocating and choosing instead to continue to subvert the constitution, not on him for trying.
we shouldn’t encourage only the atheists, we should also encourage the sensible christians. it is the catholic ken miller’s biology text book they want off the school curriculum, or supplemented on the curriculum with their fantasies. and the plaintiffs in the kitzmiller -v- dover “panda” trial were simultaneously devout christians (science teachers, some) and conscientious opponents of intelligent design infiltrating their children’s schools.
i don’t see this as atheists versus extremist fundamentalists but rather as secularists opposing extremist fundamentalists. my position in this is to barrack for secularism not for atheism.
we can strive to forge a common cause alliance with sensible christians against extremist fundamentalism in schools, or just piss them off by pushing an argument that can’t be proven one way or the other. sincerely, venison.
Me, I want to see a narrow sectarian dogmatism forced on kids in school, preferably with the use of corporal discipline to enforce correct doctrine.
That way we can be sure that every kid with any brains or even guts will thoroughly despise all authoritarians by their teens and be inoculated against all religion for their lifetime.
I see it largely as Alphonse sees it. Dawkins has been a necessary phenomena, but if we are evolving we need to understand that complexity will intrude from the point Dawkins leaves behind as to origins, value and meaning, the role of metaphysics, etc.
For example, I take Hermits point and largely agree with the trjectory comes from, but ultimate3ly , no one has been able to DISprove the existence of a god any more than the religious have demonstrated incontrovertibly, the opposite.
Dont forget, the religious will suggest that we duck the issue raised by Xtianity because the of implications of the thinking and the demand for commitment to reform that would engender.
History is littered with the mutilated corpses of activists who took on their eras imperialists, colonialists or local kleptocrats.
I applaud Kevin Donnelly. Thanks to all those godless pinkos poisoning our children’s minds, some students finish year 12 without ever having read the contents of Milton Friedman’s letter to Augusto Pinochet! No wonder they have no idea of the achievements of western civilisation.
Re-education camps for ’em all, I say.
I find that people who knock on my door to talk to me about religion frequently have no idea of the actual tenents of their professed religion and can become visibly upset when I try to explain concepts such as Sola Fide to them. As a result of these experiences, I’ve concluded that religious education is probably a very cruel thing to do to the religious and they’d probably be much happier without it.
Interesting to see Kevin Donnelly’s name and Donna Staunton’s name in the same place, an article on the infiltration of Tobacco money into Australian schools, running a campaign entitled “I’ve got the power”, the purpose of which is murky, but seems to be obstensibly about instilling in young teenagers the belief that they are entitled to do what they want, that is, to make their own choices. Now, who can argue with that? Er, why would Big Tobacco sponsor a program to help teenagers to see that they are free to make their own choices? Hmm.
Donna Staunton, who was also involved with facilitating the Australian part of the Philip Morris Ltd “I’ve got the power” campaign, was the person selected for the PR communications role in CSIRO during the previous Liberal goverrnment under PM John Howard. To be clear: CSIRO made the call on who got the position…I won’t go into detail about the saga here (which happened in the early 2000’s), but by all means, let this recent news story, the news and Big Tobacco archives, and WKSE do the job for you. It wasn’t pretty.
All professional people have professional backgrounds, and same is true for people put on review panels. The difference here is that perhaps the professional backgrounds in question could have been a bit more balanced on where the needle on the ideologimeter is pointing.
Not to be out of place, or cause offense, it seems to me that a Christian must by definition be a follower of Jesus Christ. Then allowing for historical authenticity, myth, and the various influences, not the least Judaism, Roman Imperialism and Hellenism, as reported Jesus Christ was a radical bloke – although I appreciate the heresy.
There was much to admire about the early Christians and the Christian mystics. So the pertinent question is: Which Christian values? The original ones or those of the false prophets? Alternatively, as is the democratic norm, we could disagree and discuss our disagreement. If the subject is of such importance to the school curriculum that should be the spirit in which it is undertaken in both public and private schools.
Sweet Suzie, Gee I am slow sometimes!
What on Earth is someone who organised for Big Tobacco money to flow into school education programs doing on a two person review panel for the entire national school curriculum? (Apologies for shouting.)
Now, I am not feeling the love…
PS:
@alfred venison
No problem.
Drat: in my previous post, I hit the “Quote” button instead of “Reply”. Thin fingers but thick brain…might go away for a while now.
They’re going to be some fairly interesting religion lessons if Kevin Donnelly is really interested in inculcating in school children the views, values and way of life of the Australian majority.
Christians only make up a majority of Australians if you use a fairly loose definition of Christian. This 2009 Nielsen survey (http://www.smh.com.au/pdf/Nielsen%20Poll%20Faith%20Dec19.pdf) found that while 67% of respondents identified as Christian, only 50% were Christians who believed in God, a figure that is presumably below 50% now. Only 45% identified as Christian and only believed in God; the other 5% also believed in a “universal sprit”—as the survey report notes in an understated fashion, “[s]ome people may not regard such belief as strictly Christian”.
To get to 67%, you need to further include 5% who identify as Christian and believe in a universal spirit only, 3% who identify as Christian but aren’t sure if God exists, and 8% who identify as Christian but don’t believe in God.
So I look forward to religion lessons which explain that God, as represented by Christian teachings, does not exist, which is clearly the view of the majority. I also look forward to lessons which explain that the Bible (along with other religious texts) is not the word of God, the view of 61% of the adult population.
Instructing children to rarely if ever attend religious services will also need to be an important part of the curriculum, to ensure that they fit in with the way of life of the overwhelming majority of Australians (85%+) who don’t attend services regularly. It will also be important to instruct children to ensure that religion is not an important part of their daily lives, so they fit in with the 67% of Australians who feel likewise. And it’ll be important to instruct children to keep religion out of their marriages, so their behaviour is in keeping with the strong majority of 72% who opt for civil ceremonies.
Be careful what you wish for indeed.