Jane Lomax-Smith; science v religion; Catholic hospitals; Shermer no 2

Published: Mon, 08/21/23

RSA Daily

For atheists, rationalists and secular humanists in Australia

Thursday, September 7, 2023

Rationale, the magazine of the Rationalist Society of Australia

Good morning ,

Good to see someone unashamedly stand up to the religious bullies who try to force mandatory Christian worship down everyone else's throats. Watch the video in our first story!

And talking of organised religion imposing their worldview on others, The Guardian today publishes a comprehensive article on how publicly-funded hospitals across Australia get away with refusing to provide public health services. It's something professionals from other countries can't believe still happens in this day and age.

Lead stories

Adelaide mayor champions separation of church and state in inspiring speech | Rationalist Society of Australia

Adelaide's mayor has launched an inspiring defence of separation of church and state in a speech that…

Mayor of Adelaide, Jane Lomax-Smith, pulls no punches in this video! She says, "The notion that organised religion claims ... freedom of religion by ramming one religion down everyone else's throat ... Let's just say it's not freedom, it's oppressive, it's bullying!"

Non-overlapping magisteria: Why Gould got it wrong - Rationale Magazine

This article is part of our 'Celebrate Science' feature series to mark National Science Week. It was…

Jonathan Meddigngs writes, "The metaphysical claims of religion are neither falsifiable nor verifiable, so science has little to say about them, save them being claims to truths that no primate can possibly know. But the religious can only retreat so far into unfalsifiability, because at the core of every religion is theism, which is falsifiable." Ah, the continuing and continual debate over belief in supernatural beings. Will it never end? A: no.

'I was shocked': Australian Catholic hospitals refuse to provide birth control and abortion

Publicly funded hospitals are using the cover of religion to opt out of providing reproductive care -…

Religionists are railing about Calvary hospital in Canberra. Here's the other side of the story. "It was an alien concept to me to have religion involved in healthcare, which should be an evidence-based public provision. It was a cultural shock for me as an internationally trained doctor, landing in Queensland as a reproductive health specialist."

Michael Shermer's 10 moral principles - no 2

2. The Ask-First Principle: To find out whether an action is right or wrong, ask first.

The Golden Rule principle has a limitation to it: what if the moral receiver thinks differently from the moral doer? What if you would not mind having action X done unto you, but someone else would mind it? Smokers cannot ask themselves how they would feel if other people smoked in a restaurant where they were dining because they probably wouldn’t mind. It’s the nonsmokers who must be asked how they feel. That is, the moral doer should ask the moral receiver whether the behavior in question is moral or immoral. In other words, the Golden Rule is still about you. But morality is more than just about you, and the Ask-First Principle makes morality about others.