ࡱ> }|%` 0 !bjbj"x"x <*@@*TTTTTTTT[[[8R[ ^[T~[~[[[[\\\`bbbbbb$hhTa\\aaTT[[H|d|d|dadT[T[`|da`|d|d@TT[r[ cIn[*b\8`0kb|kp\kTܓ\V2^|d&__\\\^c\\\aaaaTTTZdTTTZTTTTTTTTT Race Discrimination Unit Education and Partnership Section Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission GPO Box 528 Sydney NSW 2001 26/12/2008 Dear Commission, According to the 2006 Australian Census, 18.8% of Australians have no religion with a relative percentage change of 3.2% over the five year period 2001-2006, making this group of Australians officially and statistically backed, fastest growing religious demographic in our nation. The next closest is "Other Religions" which accounted for 0.7% relative growth during the 2001-2006 period. As a member of this non-religious group, I feel it very important to express some of my views in relation to the "Submissions to the Freedom of Religion and Belief in the 21st century project". The right to ones own personal beliefs are paramount to the future of both Australia and the world. Religious and non-religious people should be fundamentally protected by law to hold and practice their own beliefs, in private, as long as it does not impinge upon the free will of others or the laws of our great Nation. Furthermore any group which encourages racial or gender based discrimination should face stern review and criminal inquiry, the laws of this country should be held above all religious beliefs. Individuals that breech our laws in their preaching, should first be warned, then fined, then either jailed for a minimum term or deported permanently if they immigrated to Australia. It is religion's job to adapt to the acceptable treatment of women, not ours to accept their misogynistic tendencies. Discrimination or hatred of any kind, be it against Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Buddhists, Agnostics or any other religious related belief, should be pro-actively discouraged both in our education system (public and private) and also through national education programs to target adults. Both Public and Private schools should be closely monitored with regards to syllabus and to the "conditioning" they receive. Schools which teach that other beliefs are wrong are creating an environment of diversity and mistrust among the Australian community. The instruction of "we are right, they are wrong" is the worst possible message that could be sent to an influential child. Just because people have conflicting views on religion does not give any of us the right to indoctrinate our children with divisive and discriminatory beliefs. Education of our children should be absolutely secular and not show bias to any religion with, nationally set out and enforced syllabus for all schools, both public and private, as a minimum standard. Religious information classes should be offered but as a purely optional choice for students and their parents. However, when it comes to Science, an absolute secular and intellectual standard should apply. We should avoid entering the debacle currently facing the United States of America in relation to the teaching of Creationism (Intelligent Design) in the Science classroom. These are matters of belief and have nothing to do with actual Science and the proper education our of youth. Evolution in the current age is supported by an unparalleled majority of qualified Biologists world wide. As the Vatican (International Theological Commission in a July 2004) has also aligned itself with Evolution (being compatible with their Roman Catholic beliefs) and Dr. Kenneth Miller (a Roman Catholic) being the Evolutionary Biologist who provided the damning evidence against Intelligent Design in a US Court of Law (Dover Trial) it is becoming obvious even to some of the religious that Evolution is not just an idea, but almost a certainty (Science does not deal in absolutes, that is for Mathematics alone). If any individuals on the review community are not overly familiar with Evolution, I would certainly recommend to them the Berkeley University of California Evolution website which dismisses many fallacies and is quite educational in easy to understand terms: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php It has been my sad experience that almost all fellow Australians I have discussed Evolution with do not correctly understand what it is or its principles, regardless of whether they support it or oppose it. As this is a major area of Science, it is quite damning of our education system that so much misconception exists, possibly because it is falsely perceived as anti-religious Science. If we are to remain competitive on the global scene as far as education is concerned, accurate eduction rather than sensitivity should be paramount. Concerning the Government of Australia, again a purely secular and full separation of Church and State must be adopted. According to the 2006 Census, 25.8% of Australians are Catholic, yet, to this day a Catholic prayer is read out at the start of Parliamentary Sessions. The demographic of Australia has vastly changed since 1901 when it was implemented, time for an update to fit with where is Australia is headed. In regards to the Political debate over Euthanasia, Abortion, Stem Cell research or any other contentious issue, religious pre-convictions should immediately be discarded at the Political level. Politicians represent a vast range of people with an even more wide distributions of opinions. If people are going to reject or accept a problematic idea, it should be solely based on accurate and testable scientific or mathematics data. Controlled trials and studies of other countries' implementations and intellectual debate are the only rational way to deal with these issues. If a particular religious group feels strongly against any contentious issue, then they are free to exercise their right to not partake in the fruits of that decision if they so please. All Australian's should not be made suffer for the vocal few. If Australia follows in the footsteps of its "parent" England, then over the next decade we will see a sharp decline in the religious population of Australia. The latest figures for England from the British Social Attitudes Survey found that over 45% of Great Britain were non-religious and increasing at a sharp rate. It would be unwise of Australia not to plan for a considerably larger contingent of nonreligious Australians at the next Census and thus planning accordingly in relation to the 21st Century Project. Sincerely and respectfully, Brad Schultz      PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT 2  !!!!!! !h\Efh\EfmHnHu h_h\Efjh_h\EfUhyjjhyjU hV/h*h@CJOJQJaJ;gs' ( o_` 7$8$H$gd@ !st !!! !gd@0gdqgdmLgd@ 7$8$H$gd@:&P 1h:pqBP. 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