Role Of Atheism In Australia

Brown, Neil. "The New Atheism and The Existence of God.” Compass, 46, no. 3, 2-5. Kensington, Australia: Compass, Spring 2012.

According to source 2 Christianity remained the dominant religion in Australia, although non-Christian religions continued to grow at a much faster rate. Since 1996, Christianity grew from around 12.6 million to 12.7 million, but compared to the other religions and the total population this number fell from 71% to 64%. Within Christianity, Anglicans dropped from 22% of the population to 18.7%, and therefore resulted in a decrease growth of -4.7 within the time period of 10 years. “Over the same period of time non-Christian religions increased from around 0.6 million to 1.1 million people, and collectively accounted for 5.6% of the total population in 2006” (king, 2010, p.221).

Having completed the unit of philosophy of religion, you are now ready to respond to an article written by an actual atheist.  This article, titled “On Being an Atheist,” was written by H. J. McCloskey in 1968 for the journal Question.  McCloskey is an Australian philosopher who wrote a number of atheistic works in the 1960s and 70s including the book God and Evil (Nijhoff, 1974). In this article, McCloskey is both critical of the classical arguments for God’s existence and offers the problem of evil as a reason why one should not believe in God.

The successor of Rev. Richard Johnson, Rev. Samuel Marsden caused upheavel with the other denominations of Christianity, mainly the Catholics, as he did not recognise them as ‘human’. The evident sectarianism can be expressed through the note of one convict who stated, “He prays for our souls on Sunday, and takes it out of our bodies during the rest of the week.” The development of Christianity in Australia pre 1945 has subsequently been tainted by the tensions and caused the oppression of many people in Australia.

The 1971 Census included the option of describing yourself as having ‘no religion’ if this applied to you. Why and how has this category changed since 1947?

Studies such as the arts and theology were discriminated against in 1960, and a lack of creativity leads to a lack of innovation and thoughts of change. During the Stalin era, the cult of personality was very important for him to keep the socialist system alive and under fear. In 1960 to maintain this fear loyalty towards the system, certain ideologies were discouraged. Atheism was very prevalent, and theological schools were non-existent within the union. The arts were briefly touched but were merely a hobby one can entertain oneself with. (Soviet education under) Science and social welfare were the main focuses of the state, and of that would change for an extended amount of time. Many of these thoughts and ideas, however, were very different

In his article is repeats the concept of “discussing religion just as we discuss other beliefs”. At this time, Lindsay uses one of his colleagues at the Center for Inquiry to advocate the opposing argument. Dr. Austin Dacey’s book, The Secular Conscience, in his book “Dacey does not think it is a good thing for religious tenets to influence public policy, but he does maintain that religious beliefs can permissible advance as a justification for policies during public debates” (Lindsay). By implementing this source in his article Lindsay is pointing out that there is another justifiable side of the argument. This strategy is compelling to Lindsay’s argument, because he is able to poke holes in the base of the opposing side of the argument and why it could never worked. At one point in the article Lindsay inserts an excerpt from Dacey’s book for the purpose of employing a counter argument. Lindsay states that “the problem with Dacey’s proposal is that religious belief is not something usually held to the same standards of consistency, rationality, and evidential support as are other beliefs on which public policy might be based, and that includes moral beliefs” (Lindsay), and therefor shouldn’t be implemented in the government. Lindsay’s implementation of the counter argument establishes his credibility on the topic of discussion. For an article to be considered good writing in politics it has to be able to tell both sides of an argument, while giving valuable evidence on why their personal opinion is

In some ways, it is refreshing to read H.J. McCloskey's article, "On Being an Atheist". Most people assume atheists are simple nihilists who do not subscribe to any sort of convictions or beliefs. The author's text, however, refutes this conventional viewpoint by producing several reasons for embracing atheism, many of which are studied and labored counterarguments to typical claims of theists. The most important part of this essay is found in its opening paragraphs, in which the author makes a very prudent point in explaining the fact that most theists do not require elaborate proofs or empirical evidence to substantiate their beliefs in a divinity. Those who do have not completely subscribed to faith, but to testaments of man's deductive prowess, which should not be confused with faith. However, the author makes a number of points that he believes alludes to fallacies in theism that those well versed in theism can handily refute.

The present religious landscape in Australia is one that has changed significantly from 1945 up until now. Christianity is still currently the most popular religious tradition in Australia, however has seen a steady decrease in numbers due peoples interests in other religions and a non religious focused society. Due to immigration Australia has seen significant increases in followers of Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. Because of Australia’s consumeristic society, denominational switching has become more common, especially in the Protestant denomination. New Age religions have become increasingly popular recently due to peoples search for individual fulfilment, in the form of happiness, health and meaning in life. Secularism in Australia is now a belief that forefronts society due to scientific discovery and individualism.

Christianity is the major religious tradition today and has been since around 1945. Many of the British who first came to Australia, either as convicts or free settlers were Christians. They formed the huge base for Christianity to rise to the top religion in Australia before they began to let more immigrants enter. In the 1947 census, 88% of the population (not including Aboriginals because they were not considered in the census) stated they were Christian. The remaining 12% was mostly people who didn’t respond to the question. Today not much has changed the percentage of Christians has slightly decreased because of a rise in new religions. In the census of 2011 it is seen that out of 21.5 million people just under half, 42% classed themselves as Christian and around 8% said they were of a different religion. The number of people who said they had no religion was hugely increased at around 25%per cent. Today, even with the growing amount of Islam Buddhism and Hinduism, Christianity still remains the major religious tradition.

What is atheism? Why would someone be an atheist? Why do people fear and dislike atheism? Simply stated, atheism is the lack of belief in a god or gods. Granted, atheists are each individuals and undoubtedly each of them prescribe [to] many different philosophies on life, politics and morality as do Christians. However, though atheists may choose to gather collectively for whatever purpose, unlike Christianity, atheism is not a belief system. An individual who identifies himself as an atheist is merely stating that he does not believe in [the existence of] god or gods. Atheism, as indicated by its name, is the opposite of theism which is belief in at least one god; to include polytheism (belief in many or more than one god) and monotheism

Eighteen options were offered as choices for this question, excluding the categories of atheist and agnostic. The responses to each category have not been captured in the survey results, owing to certain privacy concerns. However, the percentage of none as a choice was calculated from the annual survey results. Moreover, the sample for this question excluded the Californians after 1997.

Whilst Australia’s religious diversity begins to grow so too does the concern of the reported incidents of religious discrimination impacting the lives of people of many different religions in Australia. It is important to understand the impact this discrimination has in order to address the issue.

One argues that today we have a crisis of belief, not a crisis of faith. To explain this crisis, I will briefly examine the relationship between faith and belief, explain why cultural shift is important to note when trying to understand religious issues, go into detail on the three hallmarks of each of the two cultures by showing how they compare to each other, show how Tillich’s notion of correlation deals with this idea of culture and a crisis of belief, and explain how Marsh’s notion of a “theology of negotiation” (33) fits with Lonergan’s definition and allows him to argue that film can help us raise theological questions.

The Golden Age of Greece was one of the most remarkable periods of time for Athens. During this period, the Athenian people had come very far in advancement , such as art, architecture, sports , philosophy and theater. First of all there were many famous philosophers who had introduced new ideas to the public. Some of these philosophers were Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. They had a big influence on the public, because of their writings. Anaxagoras was one of the first to bring philosophy to Athens, he was also a scientist who lived and taught in Athens. In a similar way, Plato was the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, he was famous for writing plays. He usually made himself the main character of a most of his plays . His most famous work is