Australian Humanists, meeting in national convention in Sydney, at Humanist House, 10 Shepherd St, Chippendale, resolved on 3rd May, 2008 as follows:

‘That CAHS requests the Australian Government to do its utmost to secure a total global ban on all cluster munitions.’

Australian Humanists, meeting in national convention in Sydney, at Humanist House, 10 Shepherd St, Chippendale, resolved on 3rd May as follows:

‘To express our dismay at recent events in the United Nations Human Rights Council, which seriously challenge the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights in this its sixtieth anniversary year.’

Australian Humanists, meeting in national convention in Sydney, presented the Australian Humanist of the Year 2008 Award to Senator Lyn Allison.

In a new book, Max Wallace of the Australian National Secular Association argues that democracies should be republics characterized by constitutional separations of church and state and that it is not the role of a state to ‘advance religion’ through tax breaks.

Ian Robinson, President of the Rationalist Society of Australia, has strongly criticised the Australian Government's plan to fund chaplains in public schools.

'This is another nail in the coffin of a viable free, compulsory and secular education system in Australia,' he said. 'The PM's justification for this use of tax-payers money to subsidise superstition is that the schools need the "values" that the chaplains can provide,' he said.

South Australian Democrat MP Sandra Kanck has published a speech made to the South Australian parliament about euthanasia on a New Zealand site after the parliament voted to censor its own proceedings on its own web site.

Helen Irving

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution is best known for its protection of free speech, but it actually begins with two statements about the place of religion in American law.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

Jane Caro

Our current education situation is, quite frankly, unsustainable. As a society, we cannot afford to maintain two parallel education systems where kids can move from private school to public school at will. At the time of writing, one third of all secondary students attend private schools. These schools may be called private or even independent, but they are funded from the public purse. Some may receive as much as 90% of their income from taxpayers.

Texts of three conference papers added

Keeping God out of Government was the theme of an important conference held in Melbourne, Australia on 17th and 18th June 2006. Sponsored jointly by the Australian National Secular Association, the Council of Australian Humanist Societies and the Rationalist Society of Australia, the conference featured papers on every aspect of church-state separation in Australia and beyond. We have the text of some of the contributions available on this web site.

Abstract

This paper will look primarily at the situation in Europe but the lessons to be drawn are equally applicable to the West in general.

Europe is experiencing an historically high rate of immigration, primarily from the Islamic states and North Africa. Coupled with the relatively high birth rate within the immigrant community, the Muslim population of many European cities is expected to exceed 50% by the year 2050. But government policies of multiculturalism have meant that the special needs of these communities have been neglected. As a result, youth unemployment in many of Europe’s inner cities has reached levels of 40% or more, and many young immigrants feel alienated from mainstream European society. Into this vacuum has come radical Islam, a well-funded, well-organised fundamentalist creed that has provided a new, strong sense of identity for many young Muslims. But it has also promoted a victim culture, an “us and them” mentality working against social inclusion, and an understanding of our common values and our common humanity. Radical Islam is being promoted in Islamic schools and mosques across Europe by organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which advocates the creation of Islamic government, and whose slogan includes the chilling phrase: “...death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes”. The Brotherhood reportedly controls around 25% of the mosques in France and is growing in influence in many other European countries. We all need fellowship, but the radical Islamists have perverted this basic human need in the name of their totalitarian creed.