religion

If we are to survive, we must give up two core beliefs. One is the belief that we are qualified to be wise planetary stewards, and the other is that there will always be technological solutions to the problems that were created by previous technological solutions.

A new website - http://CensusNoReligion.org - has been designed as a resource for interested Australians in the lead up to the next Australian Census being held on 9 August 2011. It gives people information about how the results of this question can be misused to allocate funds, overstate the number of actively religious people in Australia, and exaggerate the importance of religion in modern Australia.

Hallowe'en is an ancient pagan/Celtic festival originated in Ireland and held in respect for the dead - our recent and previous ancestors. Traditionally, it involves an evening feast to honour one's ancestors. It is held on the evening of the last day of October - a time in the northern hemisphere season at the end of summer and before the onset of winter.

Jack-o' Lantern is a carved pumpkin associated with the pagan Hallowe'en feast. The tradition across traditional Britain, Ireland and Celtic Europe was to represent the ghostly flickering light over peat bogs ('ignis fatuus') collected at night for traditional turf (peat) fuel heating.

Sydney's newspaper, the Sun-Herald has just reported that its annual catholic youth recruitment drive otherwise known as World Youth Day World, which was hosted by the NSW Government Sydney in 2008 cost taxpayers $86 million. Yet the original estimate was just $20 million, so it blew out by $66 million.

Would NSW taxpayers have accepted $86M and the disruption, especially non-catholics had they known this? Clearly the people were misled.

And how dare the catholic church request the NSW and Commonwealth Governments fund its WYD08 recruitment drive to the tune of $86M+, when the catholic church has been found to generate $15 billion in revenue in 2004 alone?
How unethical!

Religion is socially irrelevant. Name one religion without a dogma, rules, prejudice and a history of persecution!
Check your facts before replying. I have checked mine and there ain't none! It was the church that started witch hunts.

Ethics and 'deity-free' spiritual beliefs are morally superior to religion. By 'superior' I mean morally right, objective, absence of ulterior motives, free thinking, democratic, rational, open-mined, more useful to society in guiding virtuous values, attitudes and behaviours. I challenge a debate.

What underlies the Australian establishment's antipathy to and ignorance of nature? The conflict between religion and science, and the roles played by 'colonial rationalists', the Catholic Church, and the State in the suppression of flourishing scientific debate and celebration of Australia's unique ecology. How controversy preceding the passage of the Victorian Education Act 1872 (which was intended to secularise education) derived from a rearguard defence against the growing influence of Darwin, to the lasting demotion of natural science and respect for environment and other creatures in mass media and government. This article was published in response to "Anglican Church Australia Overpopulated discussion paper - entire," and comments by Vivienne Ortega and John Marlowe

Churches are part of politics and usually back the establishment, as much through investment in property assets as through political policy. It is therefore inspiring to see this honorable departure from the mainstream church and mass-media-led arguments for population growth in this Anglican Church discussion paper, which we are republishing here with only minor changes to format.

Religion is unethical. It doesn't teach life's grey uncertainties between right and wrong. It teaches a belief system that only serves to perpetuate the power and influence of that belief system with its made up rules and myths, politics, chronyism, prejudice and control.

It is about time ethics, humanism and free-thought were taught in schools. Scripture is brainwashing.
Faith? Spirituality? Give me pantheism any day.
But I'd sooner worship a fly crawling up the wall before turning desperately to religion.

Religion comes in many guises. Orthodox or established belief systems have no monopoly in delusional thinking. In fact, it is my contention that such thinking is central to our makeup, and that efforts to eradicate it, however well merited, are futile. That is why we are doomed. We need comfort as well as truth, and are programmed to ignore or deny long-term threats. Delusional thinking gets us through the night, but it will not get us through this century. (Also published on countercurrents.org.)

I would like to know what, if any, evidence Cardinal Pell actually has for his fears that ruthless commercial forces are out to slow down the birthrate, when all my research tells me the exact opposite.