I know that Wikipaedia information is not believed by everyone, but
bear with me and read on. According to Wikipaedia “Religion
is any cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, world
views, texts, sanctified places, ethics, or organizations, that
relate humanity to the supernatural or transcendental. Religions
relate humanity to what anthropologist Clifford Geertz has referred
to as a cosmic 'order of existence'.”
The trouble is that there
are rarely, throughout the world, countries which agree! Word Atlas
said that Christianity is an Abrahamic religion, the same as Judaism,
Islam, Ba'hai and others. Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and others are
Indian religions. Taoism (or Daoism), Cao Dai, Shingyo, Shintoism and
others are Asian. Wikipaedia has a breakdown of the denominations.
In Wikipaedia, Christianity
was shown as at 2010 as the predominant religion, followed by
Muslims. The third is atheism – no religion. What surprised me the
most was that New Zealand, where I was born, had a 42% of atheism
within their country! That % includes agnostics. I had a look through
the 2013 census which was quoted on Wikipaedia as a reference, which
noted 41.9%. That has increased a lot between 2006 (34.6%) and 2013
(41.9%). As mentioned earlier, 52.1% for the 2016 census were
Christians – a large drop. The next census will be 2018 – I will
be watching.
Gabe
Bullard wrote an article for National Geographic in April last year,
talking about how non-religion is growing - and quickly. Bullard said
that the lack of religious affiliations has changed how people bring
up their kids, how they react to death and how they are now living.
And he said that “France will have a majority secular population
soon. So will the Netherlands and New Zealand. The United Kingdom and
Australia will soon lose Christian majorities. Religion is rapidly
becoming less important than it’s ever been...” Maybe that's
where it should end up.
In Australia the predominant
religion is Christianity, including all the sub-dominant
affiliations, but it's now losing out. The ABS stats report of the 2016 census said that 52.1% of the people in Australia were
Christians, but a further 30.1% said they had no religion, which
includes atheism, agnosticism and 'Secular Beliefs and Other Spiritual Beliefs and No Religious Affiliation'. What
surprised me in this country is how many people truly believe that
Islam is “taking over”, when, on the census, only 2.6% people
claim Islam as their religion.
News Limited wrote in an
article titled ‘No
religion’ tops religion question in Census
on 28 June that Australia is growing into a non-believer country. It
mentioned 1966 as 88% Christian and has now dropped. Maybe
that is why people like me moved here – a decent life, good jobs,
good money... until you end up homeless, unemployed and in poverty.
That's another story... but non-religion is the present. It
should be.
ABC's religion and ethics
writer, Barney Zwartz, a senior
fellow of the Centre for Public Christianity, media adviser to the
Anglican Primate of Australia and a freelance writer (he said),
wrote in August about the demise of religion. Zwartz converted from
agnosticism many years ago when he was 24 and considered himself up
to date with his religion, yet “the fact is
the world of religion, for most newsdesks, is an alien world, and as
budgets and space have shrunk they have focused ever more on politics
and sport, court or crime stories - which are cheap and easy -
lifestyle stories, and eventually clickbait.”
He thinks that “anti-Catholicism” is a new “anti-Semitism”.
Could he be right? I dislike the fact that he thinks
he is.
At the end of his article
Zwartz quoted. The first was from Sir Noel Coward - “It is
discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by
deceit.” Coward was agnostic. He wrote “Do I believe in
God? I can't say No and I can't say Yes, To me it's anybody's
guess.”.
The second was from Joseph
Heller's novel Something Happened - “Every change is for
the worse.”. In an interview in Australia in 1998 Heller had
said that “The only wisdom I
think I've attained is the wisdom to be skeptical of other people's
ideology and other people's arguments. I tend to be a skeptic, I
don't like dogmatic approaches by anybody. I don't like
intolerance and a dogmatic person is intolerant of other people. It's
one of the reasons I keep a distance from all religious beliefs. I
think in this country and in Australia too there's a late intolerance
in most religions, an intolerance, a part that could easily become
persecutions.” Non-religious?
The third was from a
previous USA Vice President Dan Quayle: “The future will be
better tomorrow.” I haven't read anywhere in his biographies
that Quayle was religious, but that wouldn't worry me. What worries
me was reading his quote in a religious article. Zwartz finished his
article with another comment after Quayle's quote: “Isn't that
comforting? But Christians know it is true.” Zwartz gave me a
shiver up my spine. I'm atheist. If the future is better tomorrow,
then seriously, we need a NEW government, NEW beliefs and NEW trust
of people in this country who say they are “religious”.
Unfortunately, religion drags money far too far away from Australia –
and everywhere else around the globe. Poverty? In a country like
Australia?
Atheists know it's true.
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