Christopher Pyne's Review Pushing for More Religion in Australia's Schools

In 2009, Tony Abbott called for all school children to have mandatory classes teaching the bible and Christianity to children.

"I think everyone should have some familiarity with the great texts that are at the core of our civilisation," Mr Abbott said. "That includes, most importantly, the Bible.

"I think it would be impossible to have a good general education without at least some serious familiarity with the Bible and with the teachings of Christianity."

Christopher Pyne has recently called for reforms to the national school curriculum, appointing staunch critics of the curriculum. Dr Donnelly, a former chief of staff to Liberal frontbencher Kevin Andrews, has criticised the ''cultural-left nature'' of the education establishment, while Professor Wiltshire has called the curriculum a ''failure''. Donnelly was previously employed by tobacco firm Phillip Morris to design a school program teaching children about peer pressure and decision making that did not discuss the health dangers of smoking.

While Pyne has stated that he wants to weed out "partisan bias" from the curriculum, the ACT Education Minister Joy Burch has questioned the "independence and rigour" of the review, warning  "you could see political bias [becoming] an influence in the Australian curriculum''.

Sydney Atheists is strongly concerned at the history of groups like Access Ministries proselytising against government regulations. While general religious education can help students in a multicultural world understand the perspectives and beliefs held by Australians, it must be in line with world standards like the Quebec curriculum, and not allow the indoctrination of children in public schools.

Creationism apologist supports rape in marriage

In August 2013, a church group called Zion Praise Harvest held several lectures in Perth by young earth creationist, John Mackay. This included a few lectures in churches, as well as one at Curtin University and one at the University of Western Australia. Entitled “Exposing Evolution, Confirming Creation”, the lecture at UWA had no substance and presented no evidence.


The lecture was essentially a collection of straw man arguments against examples of evolution that one might find in a high school biology textbook: peppered moths, finches, etc. This attack on science was punctuated by absurd tangents, such as calling former Prime Minister Julia Gillard a “rank atheist feminist”.

After the lecture many of the attendees stayed for a BBQ and to talk to John Mackay. He made various homophobic comments, including using homosexuality as his go-to example of “immorality” in modern society. In a conversation about the Bible after the lecture, a student pointed out that the Bible condones rape in the following passage from Numbers 31:

17 Now therefore kill every boy, and kill every woman who has had sexual intercourse with a man.
18 But all the young women who have not had sexual intercourse with a man will be yours.

Mackay argued that this is not rape, because the girls were forced to enter a “legitimate Jewish marriage” first (after having their family murdered by their soon-to-be husbands), and obviously you can’t rape your own wife. Not only is it not rape, but Mackay believes this is apparently not even immoral for God to command this and for the Israelites to carry it out.

After the event, Mackay wrote an expanded answer on the 32,000 Midianite virgins captured as the spoils of war by the Israelite army, arguing that forcing women into marriages in which they are raped is moral, because rape inside marriage used not to be illegal, or considered wrong.

Mackay sincerely believes that even today, rape within marriage is a contradiction, and that forced marriage can be legitimate. The idea that rape is wrong is apparently a recent secular invention. Mackay claims that atheists have no moral opposition to rape, despite the claim being soundly refuted in 1997.

“The modern atheist mind wants to use modern their [sic] definition of rape as an absolute, such that a woman both before and after marriage is an autonomous being who has rights to resist any man including the man she married, and if he insists on sex, then that is rape and the male is legally guilty of a crime.”

Mackay has sidestepped one of the most egregious issues of Numbers 31, not just that the virgins were raped, but they were treated as chattel property in the same class as livestock. Consider the surrounding text in the myth:

9 The Israelites took the women of Midian captives along with their little ones, and took all their herds, all their flocks, and all their goods as plunder.
10 They burned all their towns where they lived and all their encampments.
11 They took all the plunder and all the spoils, both people and animals.
12 They brought the captives and the spoils and the plunder to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the Israelite community...

Moses then commands the slaughter of every woman that has ever had sex, presumably using the highly scientific methods that were available at the time. Yahweh then specifies how the "plunder" of captive women are to be divvied up, including 32 for his temple. The bible then gives numbers for how many thousands of sheep, cattle, donkeys, and virgin girls the Israelites plundered:

32 The spoil that remained of the plunder which the fighting men had gathered was 675,000 sheep,
33 72,000 cattle,
34 61,000 donkeys,
35 and 32,000 young women who had never had sexual intercourse with a man.

The treatment of the Midianites is just one of examples of brutal killings and barbarity in the Old Testament that hicks like William Lane Craig and Mackay defend as absolutely good, while simultaneously railing against the imaginary harm in tolerance of same-sex relationships.

Make Love, Not Rape from Slutwalk Toronto (Shot by Eric Parker)

Via the UWA Atheist and Skeptic Society

All Girls Science Day at Centennial Park

Jalyn Neysmith, an education ranger at Centennial Park has contacted us regarding an event next Friday, January 10th. They will be hosting an All Girls Science Day, a science holiday camp just for girls aged 8-13. They are running the camp to draw attention to, and combat, the low levels of enrollment Australia is seeing for women in science.

Science holiday camps are a great, low-pressure way to engage girls with science, but most coed camps are dominated by boys. Being in such a minority makes it less fun for girls, and gives them the impression that science is just for boys. All Girls Science Day will provide girls with an all-female environment where they'll do fun experiments and activities in a wide variety of science subjects including zoology, psychology, physics, and botany. The day is led by female instructors, and will include a visit by a female scientist. This year their guest lady of the lab is Dr. Tanya Latty, who researches the behaviour and swarm intelligence of social insects like ants, bees, and the wonderful slime mould, and has had her research featured in National Geographic and BBC Nature among others. She's a fantastic and enthusiastic roll model for young girls.

More information on the camp can be found on the website or feel free to contact Jalyn for more details through: Mobile 0498 466 781 or Email jalyn.neysmith@cp.nsw.gov.au

‘None’ could be religion’s new normal in Britain, USA

Cathy Lynn Grossman writes for the Religion News Service, noting that "no religion is the new religion" in Britain:

Just in time for Christmas, new statistics show “no religion is the new religion” in Great Britain, according to a study released Monday.
The study, by Westminster Faith Debates, finds 38 percent adults in Great Britain, and 48 percent of those ages 18 to 29, checked no religion in online surveys conducted in January and June by YouGov.
“Whilst it’s always possible that this trend could be reversed, it gets less and less likely as the chain of memory connecting young people to religion stretches and snaps,” said Lancaster University sociologist, an organizer of the public debates on religion topics and author of the study.
These numbers fall midway between the findings of two other British studies that both show a trend away from the pews.
The British Social Attitudes Study in 2012 found 48 percent claimed to have no religion. And the 2011 Census reported about 25 percent of those surveyed in England and Wales said they were “nones,” including 32 percent of those under age 25.
“Nones” is an umbrella term that includes atheists, agnostics, humanists and a significant number who say they believe in God but don’t affiliate with any specific religious tradition. It was popularized by the American Religious Identification Survey, which tracked the rise in U.S. “nones” from 8 percent in 1990 to nearly 16 percent in 2009.
In 2012, the Pew Research Center calculated that about 20 percent of Americans overall are “nones” but Gallup put the number slightly lower at less than 18 percent...
Still, no matter how you ask or calculate it, “no religion” is growing at a faster rate than religions in Great Britain and the USA.

Merry Times for Atheism

Dave Nicose, the president of the American Humanist Association, notes that irreligion is on the rise in America in his popular piece on Psychology Today:

As Americans gather to celebrate Christmas, fewer and fewer actually believe they are celebrating the birth of a divine being who subsequently died and then rose from the dead. But if you look around during the holiday season, that doesn't seem to matter much.

Atheism continues to grow in America. That’s the clear message from a Harris poll released last week, which shows that God-belief is declining sharply. While 74 percent still say they believe in God, that figure is down from 82 percent in three previous polls in 2009, 2007, and 2005. The remaining 26 percent said they did not believe in God (12 percent) or were not sure (14 percent).

Almost all the numbers in the poll indicate that America is gravitating away from supernatural beliefs. Belief in miracles is down (76 percent in 2009, 72 percent in 2013), as is belief that Jesus was God or the son of God (73/68), or in the resurrection (70/65), survival of a soul after death (71/64), and several other supernatural religious concepts...

The polling also confirmed previous data showing that secularity is most prevalent among younger generations. God-belief is lowest in those under age 36 (at just 64 percent) and climbs with each older age category.

Friday 13th December debate.

The debate, "My former religion is more ridiculous than yours" brought out a record number of attendees for Sydney Atheists. On behalf of the committee and all the members of Sydney Atheists, I would like to say a big thank you to all those who contributed to and attended the function. I would also like to thank the handful of religious devotees who helped spice up the evening.

Overall it showed how each religion is so ridiculous in so many ways and makes one wonder why the  adherents of those religions are so blind to the absurdities that are so plain for outsiders to see.

Our next talk evening will be Friday the 14th of February and will include Teresa Russell from Primary Ethics. Primary Ethics is a body that provides Ethics classes as an alternative to Scripture fantasies in Primary schools in NSW. Our second talk will be given by Bruce Long, one of our philosophers who will discuss "The meaning of life".

Happy 2014 to all,

Steve Marton

Annual General Meeting 2013

The AGM was held on the 4th of December 2013.

Both changes to the constitution were approved.

An election for a new committee was held.

Committee members were elected as follows:

President: Steve Marton
Vice-President: Jenny Chioatto
Secretary: Nick Sewell
Treasurer: Semih Ilhan
Public Relations Officer: Thomas Kraemer
Assistant Secretary / Treasurer: Morgan Storey
Peter Cartledge remains the Public Officer

On behalf of Sydney Atheists, we congratulate the new committee and thank all those who attended the AGM.

The new committee will work towards further building Sydney Atheists beyond the stellar growth that has been achieved in 2013.