OK, I’ve tried really, really hard here not to dismiss your various statements posted out of hand on the SDMB as “even though this poster is a fellow Aussie they seem to be sprouting quite a few ill-researched opinions and they are probably quite young so let’s cut them some slack because the way that we arrive at our ultimate viewpoints is by holding opinions, having them challenged, and taking new information into consideration”.
No, secularism is not the mere separation of church and state at a legislative level.
“God”, generally, is less important in respect of Australian laws and conventions than in some other Western nations. Perhaps because we were established as a penal colony rather than as the result of a conflict over the right of people to express their religion freely, you won’t find too many non-Christian Australians who object to God name being mentioned in the opening of parliamentary sessions. When push comes to shove and it’s a situation in which you are required in Australia to make some kind of binding oath, it simply is not a big deal if you affirm rather than swearing on a Bible.
I suspect that what you are trying to articulate is that even though Australia is overall probably a more secular nation than the US, and even though we do not have a “Bill of Rights” which codifies our rights as citizens (sorry, but it shits me to distraction when us Aussies discuss the US Bill of Rights as if it was the entirety of the US Constitution), we seem to manage pretty well without having every potential situation approved by our Constitution or our High Court.
Yes, I think it’s totally ironic that we are a more secular nation overall than the US and we have no real problem with religion in our schools. We don’t have the same conflicts about abortion or euthanasia as the US. If, at the next NSW election the voluntary euthanasia question is put to the voting public (which it seems it will be), there is nothing which allows the Federal government to overturn the decision made by NSW voters. The only reason the Federal Government was able to overturn the NT’s euthanasia legialation is because the NT is a territory and not a state. The only reason that NSW cannot independently choose to legalise heroin in this state tomorrow is because the Federal Government is responsible for importation laws and they have signed a UN convention which prohibits the importation of certain drugs.
Thats a bit rude, Reprise , and condescending. What makes you an authority and Halo13’s viewpoint on anything less valid than yours?
secular - concerned with the affairs of the world, not sacred or monastical or ecclesiastical (The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1987) Do you have a more recent dictionary with a new meaning?
The above quote is yours, Halo did not claim that secularism was merely the separation of church and state at a legislative level…
Well, perhaps not in your circle of acquaintances, Reprise, but certainly I know many people who are not comfortable with this.
Perhaps you stop trying to ‘suspect’ what other people are trying to say, and just read what IS said.
Its not complicated at all
The Australian constitution does refer to ‘god’ in the Preamble to the Australian Constitution, http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/general/constitution/preamble.htm
which in Australia is a part of the constitution and which can only be changed by referendum, as all Australians would know. A referendum to change the Preamble (along with the Republican referendum) was defeated in 1999
This question has always interested me - I oppose the existence of an established Church, but the knee-jerk atheist in me is secretly pleased that the UK isn’t seething with extreme religious factions in the way that I perceive the US to be. However, I know that it is a misrepresentation of the US to believe that it is really “seething” with snake handlers, and I know that it is naïve to think that religious fanaticism has no place in Britain (home as it is to a number of Camp X-Ray inmates). So my gut reaction is unreasonable, but I am still pleased that religion does not seem to play as public a role in British politics as it does in the US.
But as others have pointed out, there does seem to be more of a willingness to “have faith” in a religious context amongst the US population at large than there does amongst the Brits. It seems to me that when an American loses his religion, he is quite likely to go and find another one, rather than give up on the idea of religion altogether.
That said, I have realised recently that my impression of the Church of England as a bland and innocuous establishment which contributes to the apparent religious timidity of the country is potentially pretty patronising. I have been to a couple of weddings held in church this summer, and the evangelical fervour of the C of E minister surprised me. The image of the C of E as “the Tory Party at prayer” is more than a little misleading, although I still think that the connection of the church to the state is a factor in its being seen as a force of conservatism (small ‘c’).
The “religion question” has arisen recently in the context of education, as the present government favours state funding for “faith-based schools”. However, I don’t think this has anything to do with the C of E as an established church. It’s more likely a (misguided, IMO) attempt to find out what the “secret ingredient” in a good school is, and it’s open to religions other than the C of E.
Harking vaguely back in the direction of the OP… I think the existence of the established Church of England has actually had positive benefits in the area of religious tolerance. After the various excesses of the 16th and 17th centuries, the idea that it is impossible actually to legislate people’s beliefs caught on amongst the political and intellectual leadership of the country (based on largely the same philosophical principles of individual liberty which started the American Revolution). The election of Irish Catholic Daniel O’Connell to Parliament forced the formalisation of religious tolerance in the form of the 1829 Catholic Emancipation Act - once the old enemy, Roman Catholicism, was legitimised in this country, opposition to any other religion became an untenable position.
As the “official” state religion, though, the Church of England is constrained by the needs of the state; the more extreme religious fanatics simply don’t rise to positions of power within the Church, because those positions are in the gift of politicians, and politicians don’t want to give power to troublemakers. Also, there is a tradition of inclusivity within the C of E as a whole; being the state church, it has an obligation to be accessible to everyone who’s a member of the state. This obligation is by no means incompatible with Christianity, which (despite what some of its proponents will tell you) is a faith which seeks to include everyone in God’s unconditional love.
However, the C of E’s middle-of-the-road, inclusivist stance does make it appear bland, muddled, and generally wishy-washy… not something which is generally considered attractive. So, as the “default option” for religion in this country, it’s not particularly visible - and, in the modern world, with competing attractions and distractions on all sides, it’s not surprising that the C of E’s popularity is on the decline. The flip side of this, though, is that the people who are attracted to it and its mission are genuine about it; if I wanted to be snide, I’d say that, although churches are a lot emptier here than in the US, there’s a better chance that the people who are in them actually believe in God…
So… we have religious tolerance in this country because we needed to legislate for it. In the US, of course, you have separation of Church and State, which in theory means that anyone can believe whatever they like… and in practice means that religion is subject to the blind tyranny of social conformity. You can’t legislate for tolerance, because you have no legislation against it.
Revtim, I’m afraid I have to disagree with your definition of “broad-minded.” Just because you’re critical of a majority view doesn’t make you broad-minded, although it might, arguably, make you more courageous.
Let me give you an example. I live and work in downtown Boston, and business often brings me to Harvard Square in Cambridge. In Harvard Square, I often find a man in his 40’s whom my friends and I name “Communist Guy.” It seems Communist Guy runs the local chapter of the Revolutionary Workers Party and demonstrates outdoors quite a bit. The demonstrations deal with topics such as how America is a police state and how the workers should overthrow the government, with arms, if necessary, and how the US is no better than the Taliban. He’ll happily tell you that Israel must be overthrown by the Palestinian Communists (??) for world justice to be realized.
Now my friends have tried to debate Communist Guy, but without success. He merely laughs and calls them brainwashed, and if you argue with him long enough, he’ll start wondering out loud if you’re with the CIA.
My point is that you’re not broad-minded just because you hold the minority viewpoint. You’ve seemed to have confused “open mind” with “empty head.”
Oh, and:
I assume you’re referring to “In the year of our Lord.” Personally, I’d chalk that one up to idiom, not a reference to God.
Here’s the “Our Lord” reference, for those who don’t know (it’s at the end of Article VII, right before the signatures):
(If they’d used Latin, it would’ve read “Anno Domini one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven…”) I guess we can either assume they meant to provide a direct endorsement of the Christian Deity OR they meant to formally and accurately record the date. Gee, if only we had more clues as to their intentions…
And thus we posit, “is a position of doubt, especially self-doubt, and of weighing all available evidence inherently more broad-minded than a doctrine adhered to on faith and faith alone?”
And since very few Brit atheists’s position consists of, “My parents were atheist. Therefore, all religion is bovine excrement.”
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make the U.S. more cynical, short of another World War? Would that work? Did I just hijack my own thread? Would my have being armed have prevented this?
I “bothered” because I don’t believe that it is all right to assert that the Founders, in some sort of deliberate purge, meticulously avoided in the Constitution of any and all mention of or reference to God when in fact they didn’t.
OK. I hope you’ll agree, though, that it was deliberate and meticulous concern for separation of religion from the government which made them include the establishment clause in the 1st Amendment…
Actually, this is a bit misleading. The intention of the Establishment Clause wasn’t to keep religion out of the government. It was to keep the government out of the church - a subtle difference. The founding fathers wanted the US to be a nation founded on the moral principles inherent in Christianity, and using the Ten Commandments as a basis for its laws, but they didn’t want the state establishing and running a church. What you stated was kind of ambiguous on this point, and if that’s what you meant, then I apologize for this “correction”.
Interesting to note that the German ‘constitution’ mentions God in the first two sentences. Kohl’s major party CDU (conservative, US Republican) has the word ‘christian’ as the first word in their party name.
And still… I feel that Germans in generall are not as fanatic (I know this word is going to come back and haunt me) about religion as a lot of Americans are.
Also, being in the States for many years, I still don’t understand why conservatives and religious fundies in Europe are usually Catholics. Whereas here in the States Catholics are treated like Sect members. I understand the history behind it but it is just strange to the see that protestants are considered at the forefront of the liberal movement (gay rights, no celibacy, etc.) in Europe and here they are considered the maintainer of the status quo and everything that is holy.