The Australian National Secular Association in association with the Rationalist and Humanist Societies ran a very successful conference in Melbourne last weekend. The topic was ‘Keeping God out of Government’ and among the participants was one Barney Zwartz. Zwartz, a conservative Presbyterian who doubles as religion editor of the Melbourne Age, told us a few ‘home truths’ the most coherent of which seemed to be that, like Christianity and Islam, we had our fair share of ‘fundamentalists’.

I don’t think this is right. A central feature - I think the central feature - of humanism, rationalism and freethinking (I don’t know about ’secularism’, often used as a comprehensive political swear-word by people like Zwartz) is the provisional nature of knowledge, and I mean all knowledge. The only thing I’m pretty sure of is that I’m not sure of anything - and I’m not even quite sure of that. To characterise this as a species of fundamentalism - to class it with Christian and Muslim fundamentalisms - is to deprive the term of meaning.

(more…)

Filed in: Fundamentalism, Islam, Morality, Politics, Secularism

Andrew Lansdown of Life Ministries WA is a prolific writer on topics of interest to the Religious Right. He has some strange ideas (for example, he believes that animals are morally responsible for their actions - Salt Shakers Journal, Feb. 2001, 13), but he is generally orthodox in his interpretations of the scriptures. I was surprised, therefore, when I came across this paragraph in a recent article he wrote called ‘Arguments against abortion’ (New Life, 28 Apr. 2005, 5):

Every human being has a right to life. This includes, of course, pregnant women. Consequently, on the exceptionally rare occasion when a woman is in mortal danger from the continuation of a pregnancy, her life cannot be forfeited against her will for the sake of the baby’s. Where there is a genuine conflict between the right to life of the child and the right to life of the mother it is legitimate to choose in favour of the mother.

(more…)

Filed in: Morality, Secularism