Atheist Foundation Of Australia
The Atheist Foundation of Australia (AFA) was established in South Australia in 1970, when The Rationalist Association of South Australia decided upon a name change to better declare its basic philosophy, namely atheism. The foundation defines atheism as "the acceptance that there is no credible scientific or factually reliable evidence for the existence of a god, gods, or the supernatural." It rejects belief in a deity, the supernatural and superstition in general. The foundation considers religion unnecessary and often harmful. It favours the scientific method, and the discovery of physical laws, as the best way to understand the truth about reality. The foundation believes that humans are rational and ethical beings, capable of making responsible and creative contributions to society. Aims The objects of the Foundation are: # To encourage and to provide a means of expression for informed free-thought on philosophical and social issues. # To safeguard the rights of all ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, and second smallest state by population. It has a total of 1.8 million people. Its population is the second most highly centralised in Australia, after Western Australia, with more than 77 percent of South Australians living in the capital Adelaide, or its environs. Other population centres in the state are relatively small; Mount Gambier, the second-largest centre, has a population of 33,233. South Australia shares borders with all of the other mainland states, as well as the Northern Territory; it is bordered to the west by Western Australia, to the north by the Northern Territory, to the north-east by Queensland, to the east by New South Wales, to the south-east by Victoria, and to the south by the Great Australian Bight.M ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia and "the most widely-read masthead in the country." The newspaper is published in compact print form from Monday to Saturday as ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' and on Sunday as its sister newspaper, '' The Sun-Herald'' and digitally as an online site and app, seven days a week. It is considered a newspaper of record for Australia. The print edition of ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' is available for purchase from many retail outlets throughout the Sydney metropolitan area, most parts of regional New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and South East Queensland. Overview ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' publishes a variety of supplements, including the magazines ''Good Weekend'' (included in the Saturday edition of ''Th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Major World Religions
The world's principal religions and spiritual traditions may be classified into a small number of major groups, though this is not a uniform practice. This theory began in the 18th century with the goal of recognizing the relative levels of civility in different societies, but this practice has since fallen into disrepute in many contemporary cultures. History of religious categories Christian categorizations Initially, Christians had a simple dichotomy of world beliefs: Christian civility versus foreign heresy or barbarity. In the 18th century, "heresy" was clarified to mean Judaism and Islam; along with paganism, this created a fourfold classification which spawned such works as John Toland's ''Nazarenus, or Jewish, Gentile, and Mahometan Christianity'', which represented the three Abrahamic religions as different "nations" or sects within ''religion'' itself, the "true monotheism." Daniel Defoe described the original definition as follows: "Religion is properly the Wor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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National Secular Lobby
The National Secular Lobby is an Australian pro-secular organisation, founded in July 2017 and officially launched in January 2018. It aims to promote secular principles and the separation of church and state in Australia. The National Secular Lobby combines the building of grassroots awareness and action with the direct lobbying of parliamentarians by high profile ambassadors. It has made submissions to various parliamentary inquiries, including the Religious Freedom Review (2018), the 2021 Census Topic Review (2018), and the Parliamentary Prayers Inquiry (2018). Ambassadors Current National Secular Lobby ambassadors are: * Phillip Adams * Van Badham * Lazaras Panayiotou * Julian Burnside * Jane Caro * Fiona Patten * Chris Schacht * Dr Paul Willis * Dr David Zyngier See also * Secular Party of Australia * Secular state * Secularism * Secularity Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Secular Party Of Australia
The Secular Party of Australia is a minor Australian political party, founded in January 2006 and registered as a federal political party in 2010.History of Secular Party It aims to promote ethical principles and the separation of church and state in Australia. In early 2022 it merged with other parties to become the . History The Secular Party was f ...[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rationalist Society Of Australia
The Rationalist Society of Australia (RSA) promotes the interests of rationalists nationally in Australia. Originally formed as the Victorian Rationalist Association, the society originated in a meeting of freethinkers in the University of Melbourne in 1906. It is the operational arm of the rationalist movement in Australia. The society created a rationalist library in 1909, and grew its collection though donations. The society ran the 1910 and 1913 Australian tours of rationalist thinker, Joseph McCabe. A number of trade unionists and social campaigners sought to advance political causes, including Robert Samuel Ross and Alfred Foster. John Samuel Langley became the secretary in 1919, and William Glanville Cook became the secretary in 1938. Its aims include: * to propound and advance rationalism, that is, adherence to the principle that all significant beliefs and actions should be based on reason and evidence, that the natural world is the only world there is and that answers ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Religion In Australia
Christianity is the largest religion in Australia, though its share of total population has declined significantly over the past several decades. Section 116 of the Constitution of Australia of 1901 states, "The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth." Australia's Aboriginal peoples developed the spirituality of the Dreaming and some of the earliest evidence on earth for religious practices among humans has been found in the archaeological record of their ancestors. Torres Strait Islander religion bore similarities to broader Melanesian spirituality. Since the start of European arrival and settlement with the British in 1788, and with subsequent immigration, Christianity has been the most widely professed faith. However, the religious landscape ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Irreligion In Australia
Atheism, agnosticism, scepticism, freethought, secular humanism or general irreligion are increasing in Australia. Post-war Australia has become a highly secularised country. Religion does not play a major role in the lives of much of the population. In the country's 2021 census, 38.9% of Australians (or 9,886,957 people) selected either "no religion" or specified their form of irreligion, almost nine percent higher (and 2,846,240 more people) than the . 7.2% did not state their religion, or gave an unclear response, meaning that over 46% of Australians did not state a religious affiliation in the 2021 census, a 6.4% increase from the last census. When asked of their religious affiliation in the 2016 census, 29.6% of Australians (or 6,933,708 people) selected "no religion." This is more than seven percent higher (and 2,240,546 more people), than in the . Additionally in 2016, another 0.5% instead opted to specify their form of irreligion, writing it in under "other," hence resu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Human Rights In Australia
Human rights in Australia have largely been developed by the democratically-elected Australian Parliament through laws in specific contexts (rather than a stand-alone, abstract bill of rights) and safeguarded by such institutions as the independent judiciary and the High Court, which implement common law, the Australian Constitution, and various other laws of Australia and its states and territories. Australia also has an independent statutory human rights body, the Australian Human Rights Commission, which investigates and conciliates complaints, and more generally promotes human rights through education, discussion and reporting. Universal voting rights and rights to freedom of association, freedom of, and from, religion and freedom from discrimination are protected in Australia. The Australian colonies were among the first political entities in the world to grant universal manhood suffrage (1850s) and female suffrage (1890s). Contemporary Australia is a liberal democracy a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Council Of Australian Humanist Societies
The Council of Australian Humanist Societies (CAHS) is an umbrella organisation for Australian humanist societies. It was founded in 1965. It is affiliated with Humanists International. The official symbol of CAHS (and all member organisations) is the Happy Human. Activities CAHS holds conventions and publishes on humanism. CAHS accepts Humanist International's Minimum statement on Humanism ''Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality''. See also *Atheist Foundation of Australia *Human rights in Australia *Irreligion in Australia *Rationalist Society of Australia *Reason Party (Australia) *Religion in Australia ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jedi Census Phenomenon
In some national population censuses which include a question on religious identity, media report numerous respondents giving their religion as Jedi (or "Jedi Knight") after the quasi-religious order in the ''Star Wars'' science fiction franchise. While a few individuals claim to practice Jediism sincerely, most who responded Jedi did so as a joke, and some as a protest against the religion question. While giving false information on a census form is often illegal, any religion question is sometimes an exception, and in any case prosecutions are rare. The Jedi census phenomenon sprang from a 2001 urban legend spread by chain email prior to the separate censuses that year in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom. The email asserted that any religion passing a minimum threshold (given variously as 8,000 or 10,000) would be entitled to some form of official recognition. Other reasons proffered include "do it because you love Star Wars" or "just to annoy people". The 2001 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kylie Sturgess
Kylie Sturgess is a past President of the Atheist Foundation of Australia, an award-winning blogger, author and independent podcast host of ''The Token Skeptic Podcast''. A Philosophy and Religious Education teacher with over ten years experience in education, Sturgess has lectured on teaching critical thinking, feminism, new media and anomalistic beliefs worldwide. She is a Member of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) Education Advisory Panel and regularly writes editorial for numerous publications, and has spoken at The Amazing Meeting Las Vegas, Dragon*Con (US), QED Con (UK). She was a presenter and Master of Ceremonies for the 2010 Global Atheist Convention and returned to the role in 2012. Her most recent book ''The Scope of Skepticism'' was released in 2012. She is a presenter at Perth's community radio station RTRFM, and a winner at the 2018 CBAA Community Radio Awards in the category of Talks, with the show Talk the Talk In 2020 she was in the final eight in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |