Vic parliament prayers; Dark Mountain; 2023 v 2024; climate denial evolution

Published: Wed, 01/17/24

RSA Daily

For atheists, rationalists and secular humanists in Australia

Thursday, January 18, 2024

Rationale, the magazine of the Rationalist Society of Australia

Good morning ,

Could the Victorian parliament have the courage (I was going to say "balls" but thought better of it) to be the first to follow the lead of the ACT and, by the way, return to the tradition of not reciting prayers (see our lead story below) by properly separating church from state and replacing the Christian-privileged prayer with something more reflective of our wonderful multicultural nation?

Watch this space.

Lead stories

Should Australian parliaments axe the Lord's Prayer? In Victoria it's up for debate

As Luke Beck reminds us, it has not always been the case that parliaments began with a Christian prayer. "In the mid-1800s several of Australia’s colonial governments stopped reciting prayers at the beginning of each sitting day as they embraced the concept of the separation of church and state .. there was this idea that people should be free to do their own religious stuff but it shouldn’t be forced upon them." But in the lead up to federation, church groups lobbied to include a prayer in the constitution and in the standing orders of the new federal govt. They failed the first time around but eventually got their way.

Paul Kingsnorth's new religiousness - Rationale Magazine

In his usual inimitable way, RSA Fellow Paul Monk demolishes the arguments of a guy who was modest enough to found a project he calls the "Dark Mountain", which claims "everything has been going dismally downhill since the Enlightenment and that only religion – of a very particular kind – will save us."