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Chapter
5
FREEDOM AND ITS ASSAULT
RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION and Vilification
in answer to
selected questions and positions
as put in
"Proposal for a new law against religious discrimination and vilification"
FROM SA ATTORNEY GENERAL AUGUST 2002
This is adapted from a presentation
made, and extended.
Hence some of the references may be slightly different in form.
A. One reads in the document given (1.1.1) that
"freedom of faith and religious expression is fundamental to any just,
decent and socially inclusive society. Overt and covert religious
discrimination has been an insidious blight..."
B. Article 2 of the UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance Based on Religion or Belief, we are told, has this:
"1. No one shall be subject to discrimination by any State, institution, group of persons, or person on the grounds of religion or other belief.
2. For the purposes of the present Declaration, the expression 'intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief' means any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on religion or belief and having as its purpose or its effect, nullification or impairment of the recognition, enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis."
Let us take "A" above first.
Consider 4.3.2 parts 2 and 3.
One important part here is reproduced as follows:
"... Rather, the question which arises here is whether a religious school or hospital should be able to discriminate in the employment of its staff, on the ground of their religion. That is, should the school be able to refuse to hire staff who are not of the relevant religion ?"
It is not, of course, freedom of faith and religious expression to be unable to have Christian workers in a Christian company for Christian purposes. Since the Bible attributes spiritual blindness in terms of the living God to non-Christians, and this IS the religion in view at this point (cf. Ephesians 2, 4, Isaiah 6:9-10, 42:7,18-19, Psalm 58:3, Matthew 13:10-17), and the purpose of Bible believing Christians is to follow this wisdom, then to force Christians doing Christian work to employ those who, in terms of the freedom of their own religious expression, CANNOT understand the spiritual dimensions of the work in view, is to insist on the decapitated to think, the maimed in leg to be 100 metres champion runners and the legless to be pole-vaulters in open competition: worse, for athletic societies to field them for open games. Such would not only be discriminatory on the objectives of the 'employers' but ludicrous and an embarrassment to all.
In fact, not all people are good at all things; and worse than this for the point at issue, some are quite incompetent in a way which depends on their insight or lack of it, for some purposes, whether mathematical or religious. To insist to the contrary is to impair the enjoyment and exercise (Point 2 in Article 2 above) of the Biblically defined Christian faith in particular. It may not be the intention; the law however does not limit itself to this. The forbidden is EITHER to have such a purpose or such an EFFECT.
Without doubt, this would
have such an effect.
In 2.3.3 of the Government proposal it cites, without apparent disapproval, the NZ case when it appears that a Christian body did not wish to employ someone in a Christian work because this body, in the free exercise of its religion, did not deem that one suitable in terms of the most crucial element of discernment, understanding or its exercise. This seems a clear violation of the Declaration of the UN, since it precluded a particular group with a particular religion, formulated in its own particular way, with its religious book, the Bible (e.g. Hebrews 10:25, I Corinthians 11:1) from exercising its religion (whether someone thought it a good one or not), so impairing its expected efficacy by intrusion of law.
The concept of religion apparently involved is that the object/nature/definition/application of the faith in view cannot impede performance of duties, even in an organisation operating on the principle that it is crucially definitive of the character of the work. Re the Labour Party point, A above, it is also in breach for dictating to faith.
This appears an excellent example of what the Labour Party statement itself, cited above, calls COVERT DISCRIMINATION. On the surface, both the body and the potential employe are Christian. It may have come to the knowledge of some, that many call themselves Christians who have slain those who call themselves Christian; and this which is now before us, is a subtler approach to the same thing. If the intemperance and restrictive practice is to be so solid that a given religion is to be defined as homogeneous by the State, when history would laugh such a proposition to scorn, then of course the State is ruling religion on a basis of ignorance and prejudice.
Worse for the point issue: it would be ruling religion on the basis of its own religious presuppositions, an implicit State creed, partial or total, the matter is indifferent, dictatorially imposed on tax-paying citizens by aggressive laws which, in view of historical facts, would be binding to blindness. This is not good for any State.
There is no freedom in that, except for an implicit State religion that all religions are of the same significance, or this, that any one religion is homogeneous, which itself would then form part of a covert creed, of which the governmental parties, though apparently guilty, might not even be aware. Is however the purpose of this Declaration against Religious Discrimination and for "freedom of faith" to be this, that the State alone is exempted, and may oppress, impair or even nullify the free exercise of religion, to the very point of defining the doctrine for a religion ?
Obviously not.
3.1 Thus although in p. 6 of the Government proposal, it envisages the concept that there may be "need for an exception for the case where the person really needs to hold the religious belief to do the job, such as where the employer in a church or religious school", this appears clearly sacrificed IN PRACTICE, though covertly, by the case cited as noted above. If of course that case is dismissed as erroneous, then this may not apply...
This merely illustrates the extreme and gratuitous peril from having the State govern religion, overtly or covertly, by interfering in its free exercise. What is the gain ? Some firms likewise may be Christian in tenor, objective, purpose and hence personnel, on the above basis. It might be said that a butchery business, for example, Christian or not, does not need Christian employes. How is this to be known, or by what evaluative 'principles' in terms of the free exercise of the religious convictions of those concerned with their religion ?
Would it not occur that a certain set of moral principles and (believed) power to perform them, could be a criterion of a particular excellence in customer relations and integrity of purpose and morals, in reliability and discernment of the precise sort of public face and spirit that is to be shown, as an integral part of the total presentation and service ? or is it to be 'ruled' that this would not be religious expression of the persons concerned, integral to their employment, as employers! one religion sitting in judgment on another, without having the need to formulate itself precisely, or indeed overtly.
Here then is religion evaluating religion, with one advantage only, that it has the force of law. Religious propositions contrary to those of the people wishing to provide certain qualitative goods and services, indeed wishing to have liberty to implement their RELIGIOUS faith, are to bow to tax-supported governors using law, who have in this, by implicit creedal items, the power to implement their own faith, be it joint, cultural, agnostic, relativistic, anti-supernatural, inclusivistic or whatever, so that what is ostensibly to protect religion, and its freedom, tends rather to terminate it.
Whether or not it is their own personal faith, in the case of any agent, officer or functionary of the legal government, it is their own selection FOR FAITH, in determining its nature, bounds and proprieties. When the case arises of God Himself declaring something, and some judge declaring it not right, then this is government of God, UNLESS it is a priori excluded that God speaks in propositional terms to man. That, however, in itself, would form part of an implicit religious creed.
Is it like the fabled monkey with the blade, who constantly adjusting the division of cheese between two striving parties, as in the case of Aesop's litigious cats, and cutting never accurately, ends by having all the minor hackings each time, for himself! The others, with nil feline felicity, have none.
The irony of course would be that while it offers freedom in word, it negates it in practice: and this not in some mere extraordinary instance or example, but in fundamental deficiencies of approach, presuppositions and presumptions which are simply religious in character, determining what is true and false, valid and invalid in the field, or simply what is acceptable or unacceptable in matters of faith, using cultural proclivities, statistics, norms, as axes, not logic*1. In fact, in the citation above, from p. 6 at 3.1, line 6 of the PROPOSAL, the term "really" is the key-word, and does not the judgment of its applicability (it 'really' is this or ... that), to be made by some one or small group, appear a a religious establishment being tyrannically impressed ? Law is in this, merely an implement at some levels; and an additive at others!
Again, in come the presuppositions, which are tantamount to creedal items of a religious kind. Biblical assessments, for example, could be DISMISSED on the ground of religious freedom ? This is not exactly what religion needs, an outside bullying of its conceptions, an empty deployment of unacknowledged creeds, a dictatorship called 'liberty'. Many have tried it before, and not only in religion; it is always noxious, obnoxious and potentially perilous as millions have found in grief and sorrow.
The State might argue this way or that, on the basis of lack of discernment, or discernment, of the religious principles involved; but nothing would alter the fact. The school or hospital's desire for standards of a given character, could be discountenanced or countenanced; that is all.
That would be the judgment. But what would be the criterion of such a judgment if it is to be more than a mere Big Brother abuse of privilege in the worst kind of way, interfering where angels fear to tread, it may be, in affairs in which some have much sophistication, but where any judge might lack this to an eminent degree.
How could this be ? Such an occurrence could possibly come through a hostility which blinds, an inward guilt which restricts and so on. In this affair of religion, NONE IS EXEMPT from self-exclusion. Only on the basis that there IS NO TRUTH, can it be said that such a proposition must be ignored, though it is assuredly in the Bible: as if its abuse by State restriction or compulsion, is indifferent to freedom of the exercise of that religion. If it be held that OF COURSE this is discrimination, which wants the school caretaker to be a Christian, then it is known infallibly by unknown grounds of judgment, that it CANNOT be the case that a consistent expression of the PURPOSE of the school should be tolerated.
Tolerated ? Here then is immediate dictation in religion, based on cultural assumption, and requiring an implicit orientation to a religiously significant creedal item.
If however such a proposition be used, under the guise of its 'neutrality'*2, it merely needs to be noted that in fact this is hostile to a religion to the contrary. HOW is this neutrality, how is this to be deemed freedom of religion which merely judges without knowledge, and assumes agnosticism, or moral relativity, or religious homogeneity when a particular religious label is cited, or religious indifference, or else some validity in cultural statistics*1!
Thus, anything which STARTS by the covert and irrational 'true' proposition that all religion is relative, none absolute*2A, that it does not stand in terms of truth, but in terms of merely subjective values, as appears the case quite explicitly in the current State Circular to Principals (1988) on the teaching of creation and evolution (see That Magnificent Rock Ch. 8 at webwitness. org. au), is already impairing the free practice of religion. It appears quite simply an instance of covert discrimination.
Let us pursue this example further. Since scientists hotly contest, not one, but many basic creationist and evolutionary propositions, including some working at the highest level, and have long done so, indeed for hundreds of years, the categorical assumption that the Bible's statements are erroneous or irrelevant, in designating KINDS as static and not dynamic to any level, is intrusive impairment of religious freedom. In the Circular this appears provocatively, authoritatively but arbitrarily. Its depiction of the religious case also contradicts its own premises, for where subjectivity alone rules, how can ANY party declare even this, that it is the case!
Insistence on ONLY such an approach, given such an explicit religious ground, in scientific presentation in schools appears in terms of discrimination, illicit. Prescription here in terms of the current cultural climate (in fact, in evolutionary terms, this varies substantially but not all realise it till much later, so that law in such an area readily becomes especially and excessively unscholarly) appears merely as denial of liberty or freedom of religion or belief, on an equal basis, and hence illegal*3.
It
is also and worse, a failure to allow open contest in crucial scientific
concerns and becomes education by dictation. This, it is certainly bad science,
and a politics of a most interesting character.
Now let us concentrate rather more on
B above.
We shall relate more closely as we proceed to 5.3 (below), then to other areas. The whole question of freedom to proclaim is raised, whether in science or religion, to present the testable, to call for consideration, to distinguish, use positive and negative definition, assert error with reason and give to truth its proper regard. Elements of each category often inhere in the other, and do so in this instance.
How often in science the majority have been wrong! Some of the most eminent scientists, at the original level, for all time, have been creationists, including Pasteur, Newton, Lord Kelvin, Faraday and many more*4. Hence the discriminatory approach to teaching science, which merely limits the case to what should justly be called 'evolutionism' whatever it may be, despite wholesale departures from Darwinism on the part of many evolutionists, and confusion in the extreme at the theoretical level, on the part of warring evolutionists, is already at variance from the Labour Party Proposal.
It appears also at variance with the Article 2 of the UN Declaration, which forbids "restriction or preference based on religion or belief and having as its purpose or its effect nullification or impairment of the recognition, enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis."
It does not at all, however, appear at variance with the Circular to Principals, and the practice based on it, in this State.
The concept in biology, as a subject in education, that what is not found - the upward biological mobility through 'kinds' - and what is not seen, indeed that for which no known method of procedure is effective, is nevertheless to be given putative primacy, is one that is simply religious, as some at times admit. It is based on no observation, no principle of science, but flatly conflicts with the generality and applicability of some of its major laws, in ascribing action never seen, the absence of which indeed is one of the foundations of science, in approaching observable reality.
As the most famous British Professor of Cambridge, C.S. Lewis points out*4A, this evolutionary motif is an area of religious protocol, indeed a myth: things must act in certain ways, whether or not they do so declare by any sustainable evidence. Hence, Lewis presents, they are often declared to do so. It seems that not least for this reason, namely the invalidity of merely preferred myth and the rationality of concrete evidence and verification to the contrary, that 100s of Ph.D. scientists eschew the fabled cry of evolutionism, being constrained to be creationists: codified scientific law points to the verification of creationism; and as to evolutionism, in terms of scientific method, at the outset observation and an impressive tally of non-verification, non-interface with reality and non-coalescence with empirically based law, jointly exclude it. (Cf. SMR pp. 140ff., TMR Chs. 1 and 8.)
The impairment is simple in this case. In schools paid for in parent taxes, children have their religion impaired by a covert discrimination which prevents the objective presentation of the biblical concepts, or creationist concepts alike, whether one be more general or more particular: and a statistical preponderance of evolutionism becomes an intolerance of biblical and indeed creationist perspective which one has never seen even dinted, far less exposed as wrong. This sort of thing is quite simply not education, as the much decorated creationist, and holder of triple bio-science doctorates, Dr Kouznetsov*5 with the Lenin Science Prize from Russia, made clear in his world travels as lecturer, one leg of which led him to speak at Adelaide University, where one of us audited the presentation, and indeed, has on the Web an account of it. Not this, but scientific freedom for thought to work and liberty for minds to grapple was his concept, one in full accord with scientific method.
This S.A. alternative, in the noted Circular, alas, appears indistinguishable from indoctrination, a severe misuse by an institution or group, of money and equipment, teaching and liberty, for the interests of some, at the expense of others, for a preferred and increasingly incoherent philosophy, that of evolutionism, held in warring internal camps, none satisfying the other, applied contrary to the due operation of scientific method, which proceeds from the relevant evidence to the theory, not vice versa. In all this it is showing the failure of data-based evidence*6 concerning evolutionism, to provide any match for creationism in its simple satisfaction of all evidential requirements, in its consonance with parallel law in science, and in its predictive power, enshrined in 3 major physical laws*7.
In this crucial field, the fact that this Party, this Government indeed, is proposing such an anti-discrimination approach, while in 1988 an earlier such Government authorised the Circular to Principals, a breeding ground for the current discrimination in education, without responding effectively or in any academic argumentation whatever, despite the long presentation of grounds to the contrary, gives both a warning and an illustration. It shows how perilous it readily becomes for the State to involve itself in religion, arbitrating, inculcating, opining, enforcing! In this Circular, let us recall, RELIGION is expressly considered in an irrational philosophic mode, and this becomes a take-off point for a flight to disaster. Where imagination, inadequately disciplined by reason is the source, what is the expected result ? Alas, indoctrination.
The further fact that a different government in the interim was just as resistant to reform in this field, does nothing to improve the case!
It is not that the State is clever or foolish per se; it is that it has many affairs on its mind, many expertises in its grasp, but once it makes a mistake at this level - and let us be fair, it often makes mistakes at many levels, for which modern government has not done so ? - it can be quite fatal. Any philosophy which comes into preference and has prejudice for it or against it, is most dangerous when it is protected by law, since then its inherent defects may only be freely shown by those liable to suffer discrimination at the hand of law, in profession, in education, in advancement and so on.
If a State wishes to be
discriminatory, well; but if it wishes to have a law against this sort of
thing, let it be clear that it understands what it is saying. Let us probe the
issues further.
5.3 Here a short citation will suffice for the exhibition of the sheer daring in the light of centuries of liberty in the English speaking world generally, which is so much as being pondered!
There may
be some who would find it hard to credit that such an issue could even be
raised, when one recollects how far
When once indeed, its tenets become arbitrarily dismissed, or refused free application, because they appear contrary to the statistical cultural norm which changes from time to time, and which 'judges' may (or else by law must) reflect: then you are guilty of religious discrimination.
Indeed, more generally, when subjectivity becomes the ground, and data, reason and reality the butt, any society so indulging itself is prone to the rebuff of reality, and history is littered with many such, or rather their reliquaries, engaging to students, but not to life. Truth without recourse, while law assumes command over operational realities, is dangerous stuff. Some of the worst political and religious evils of the past have trodden precisely this path.
One of us comes from a country
bordering
4.2.2
A short citation from the Proposal will here suffice for the consideration of the issue.
Now let us turn to the concept that religion be not defined, yet discrimination on this basis be legally excluded. If this were so, then some one person, or small group, would show a religious consciousness in the field, reflected in his or in their decision. It might refer copiously to this and that, to these and those views; but in the end the JUDGMENT would be their private interpretation of the nature of religion, and this of necessity, would limit and be liable to distort the law, turning it to perhaps unforeseen offices, whether as culture changes, or judges aver. A private view, culturally, statistically supported perhaps, of what is reality would then be able to be instituted by an individual judge, whatever the intention.
Playing with fire is not
reserved for a forestry officer in the
So far from freedom being a liberty we cannot afford; it is is absence which is costly, perilous and could in this land, be quite fatal. If it can stand, let it stand. Don't try to make a cripple out of truth; it can stand alone.
What however of this
intrusive 'protection' being considered for
In this case, an indirect
cultural sovereignty would be instituted, in the place of freedom. In view of
the fate of many cultures, and the now most obvious grounds for this, not often
seen at the time, this would constitute not merely a negation of human freedom,
but a religious cult in itself, not unlike that in ancient
This, it would be open contest with God, and for the Christian case, an anti-Christian invasion, comparable in much to the force-fed pollutions of the past in this field, from the Empire of Rome on. Indeed, it could lead to the specifically anti-Christian case of FORBIDDING preaching after the model of St Paul, or Christ, for example (Matthew 23, II Corinthians 11, Galatians 1, 3, 5), whereas Paul exhorts us to FOLLOW HIS EXAMPLE (I Corinthians 11:1), and designates both in the positive proclamatory mode, and in the negative, discarding and critical mode, relative to religion.
What freedom is this which proscribes what is prescribed! What man is this who dares to declare against God, to dismiss, ignore or imply Him irrelevant ? Many have done so. Is this land to become another such one, to dismiss, ignore or imply Him irrelevant ?
That is no protection which excludes the normal application of the canons of logic, nor that which would make assumptions so that moral/religious relativity is (self-contradictorarily) establishing its own absolute religion, with culturally derived canons making inordinate demands in the face of any or all religion, at the twist of statistics or other desired code, formula or factitious device (cf. *10 below). Again, ironic is the case where the protector against discrimination becomes the chief exponent. However, how often does the Mafia, consciously, do just this! and an indirect and even unintended cultural protection racket is no better for being unconscious, but merely duller in understanding.
That is one other reason why such a law is an explosive package, often utilised by oppressors in the past, in this country or that, and could be enforced in the interests of the current culture, be it what it may, as if it were god! That ? it is freedom ? Protection then, which in the pursuit of Christian ethics, doctrine, grace and truth, is quite adequate from the Lord in all liberty of interchange, is not another name for destruction. Let the State prevent the outrages of physical violence, and deter false accusations against many in forms of truth; but let it not accelerate the current litigious mood which is beggaring many businesses through soaring insurance premiums, by giving it more and more targets.
Let truth prevail in its
own case: invasions by politics are the old case of Caesar seeking to take over
the things of God.
3.1 Again, it is asked whether accommodation providers should be allowed to have limits of a religious nature on those whom they admit to their premises.
By this time, we are in danger of striking to the very heart of individuality, and simply assuming that NO religion is REALLY right so that it CANNOT really matter what we require people to do, in terms of what is grossly morally offensive and unseemly in their sight, religiously forbidden, spiritually compromising or all three of these. If the premiss that some religion may be right were in view, then the construction of various mandates and prohibitions unnecessary for the prevention of physical violence, in a merely applied cultural way, or legally defined way (based on some cultural code or concepts, however well-intentioned or delusive), would at once be seen to constitute an offence against religion as such.
This it would do just as in
the case where politicians might impose an academic decision on a university,
or their choice of a theory for a government school, as in 1988. At times you
even find some governments willing to impose their choice on PRIVATE schools in
this way, and something beginning to approach this was recently resisted in
How then would any honest person, undismissive of divinity, knowingly and with due thought impose some religious code or equivalent, on grounds of subjective preference or convenience ? To play God is easy; to replace Him is impossible. Even to act thus on the ground of His arbitrary dismissal, irrationally excluding absolute knowledge while at the same time affirming it on this (negative) point, is to assume powers not fitting for mere man, ignorantly usurping prerogatives without producing depth, perception or power appropriate. It is necessary to be exceedingly careful in cases such as this found in the accommodation area.
If the State can say to providers in the accommodation area or arena, YOU MUST TAKE ALL who come, and this includes all kinds and categories of cases, then wherever a religion shows a different approach to what one should mingle with*9, this is simply discriminated against, the religion of the person doing the work, specifically treated with inequality. A State form of religious proposition is then covertly in place, and the State could become the discriminating party, guilty by its own law. Can it however then be prosecuted ? or is it to stand aloof, as if sacrosanct, though aborting its own religious propositions in its own conduct ?
When however, there is liberty, if people want to suffer the results of being selective, as they undoubtedly would from many, that is individual, if it be religiously based. People can exercise freedom by avoiding what they conceive mistaken. To insist, however, on their violation of their own religious principles in a competitive field, in the commercial provision of services, would be to run the risk of excluding honourable people from certain professions! That then becomes EMPLOYMENT discrimination, when you actually think it out! An employe might seek another employer whose needs he can meet; but an employer arraigned in this way by law, is simply excluded altogether in one fell deed, by the State, from this entire profession.
When a person makes an error, his results can show it. When a State however enforces error, the case is perilous for its very life. Not a brain drain merely but a life drain may occur, as with Jewish departure from Nazi Germany while there was time, in the early 1930s.
This, it would be religious freedom, to force them to contradict their religion in order that they might work in such a field ? Is this not a bizarre form of freedom, a State discrimination in the form of religious persecution ? The intention, whatever it might be, would not alter the result, the "effect", to use the UN terminology from p. 1 above (Article 2). It is highly questionable, in view of the adoption of the UN Declaration there mentioned, that such a procedure would even be legal... by current law, for is it not "having as ... its effect nullification or impairment..." !
This however, though significant, is the least of the problems within it.
This sort of putative situation (and let us hope it remains merely that) begins to remind one of Nazi Germany in this, that here is a CULTURALLY IMPOSED and politically enforced acceptability, and non-acceptability, based on someone or other's pet theory. If that pet theory were to be religious relativism, then the very proposition that this is the true approach, itself is non-relativistic for the field, and hence at the outset is a stark self-contradiction. What CANNOT be true, being its own enemy, is no good way to start a reform! Is it not rather a deformity which such invalid premises portend!
To run a State on that ? What is to be expected!
What a dictatorial freedom
is that! Perhaps it is like the communist 'democracy' of old, not so very much
approved by the international psychiatric body which criticised such
'freedoms', when applied to the victims of the system, according to the ruling
culture at that time. It was CALLED 'democratic', but in fact was hostile to
what did not accord with its underlying presuppositions. Is
In practice, political statistics often appear important to some, social statistics, so that what is simply being felt to be 'right' by many, tends to become what is allowed to be done by government. While this is not always the case, and in the experience of the author has in some times in the past been far from being the case, where certain leadership could affirm religious principles that were inviolable, whatever he did: yet it can be the case, often has been the case, and it is desirable it should never again be aided to become the case.
Obviously, what is, cannot be equated with what ought to be*10, description is not prescription in logical terms; and when law makes that transition, it is mere force. That, one would have hoped, was not felt to be the best solution for a land which has twice in a century involved itself in world war with the drum beat of liberty from its shoulders.
Hence there would appear a certain violation, if such steps re accommodation and many related things were taken. It would seem to assume, if not overt hypocrisy, then at least that it was not possible that the religion which IMPOSED things to the contrary of the proposed law, could be RIGHT, so that it really wouldn't matter if it had to be sacrificed in the persons of its exponents. That is a religion, that of relativism branded over absolute truth, and yet imposed absolutely! This then becomes part of a religion established by the State, and possibly such a State should be denied Commonwealth funds, since the Constitution forbids the federal government from action tending to establish a religion; and this would appear precisely such an action.
In short, there are issues
here as important as accelerator and brake on a car. Thrusting itself in the
name of freedom into the realm of voiding the religion of some in the interests
of cultural perceptions of the time, is merely State religion, the
determination of what is most vitally important for man, and it is implicitly
negating the proposition that this could possibly be, at the principial level,
for example the Bible. That book has various PROHIBITIONS on mingling in
certain regards, situations*9 (cf. I
Corinthians 5:9-1, II Corinthians
In this way, the ostensible purpose of FREEING religion, becomes the actual RESULT of binding it.
This however, this covert religious discrimination is most wisely excluded as in the basic assertion made by the Labour Party (p. 1 above). You may act in accord with your religion, but not merely in imposing your prejudices then ? You may not ? Then is religion being dubbed, in discriminated cases, to be discriminatory ? God is a priori to be excluded, irrelevant or fought ? And the basis for such a pejorative judgment as that ? Where goodwill is involved, the method divinely chosen is to be assumed dead, derelict, defunct, unoperational, dysfunctional, and selectively prohibited, according to the current state of culture, on the one hand, and the nature of the direction, on the other ? Is there to be estimate, mystic sensing or some other mode of discerning what is the exact current 'climate' ? and this is 'right'! while anon, tomorrow, it is wrong for the same reasons.
The issue and indeed the
issuance would depend on the approach of the persons imposing law, legislators,
practitioners or both, depending on the case, to religion; and hence becomes a
religious preference for one religion, in that its own common creed is
implicit, for this one over others, those which have some other creedal basis,
implicit or explicit. Whether or not the implicit creed is merely operational,
its practical hegemony is nevertheless established.
4.1 Here the issue is basically simple. "Is a new law needed?" In fact, there is need for the most intense circumspection, and as will be shown, past action gives strong warning. Intrusion into this area is fraught with the peril of overturning natural liberties and necessary exhibitions of data and argumentation, in the interests of some illusory comfort zone, like morphia with cancer. It is important not to disguise the realities by the intrusion of law, as if force were the expert. The need here is for less of political law, or its equivalent.
Such things must not be established by the State, which is not per se expert in this thing, while the members of the government may well tend to reflect cultural statistics, with the relevant religious slants, proclivities or positions. In fact, what is needed is not at all MORE LAW on religion, which tends merely to debase it, except for physical violence and its express or intended incitation; but less. It is necessary, for example, for any approach to liberty of religion, at once to remove the grossly discriminatory approach to evolutionism, as has been shown for over one dozen years with never a reasoned reply, nothing beyond statistical notions.
Indeed, it is the substantial violation of religion, and elevation of religious preference in this field, which makes the practice of liberty, rather than new rules likely to violate it further, the important point. It is time to think. It is time to correct. It is time to consider what has been done for the last dozen years with a document presuming to prescribe in many basic regards, the position desired on religion, to assume and apply it with discriminatory results. In actual education, however, the position must always allow the student to think, to supply him/her with data, and to facilitate understanding.
It may proceed for those who desire it, on particular religious premisses; but if education is to deserve the name, knowledge cannot for example, be pre-slanted by total avoidance at the rational or scientific level, as appears in the Circular to Principals, 1988, relative to a frequently employed and famous, scientific option*4: creationism. Far less should this be the one not tendered, excluded by law, rule or regulation of government from rational and scientific consideration in a whole genre of educational institutions, when it alone wholly and indeed superabundantly satisfies the stringency of scientific method critique*6. In such a case, it is one thus openly subjected to an elaborate discrimination. The intention is not here the point; it is as the UN Declaration notes, the "effect".
Does not a religious attitude, as in that Circular propounded, which unempirically presupposes factual irrelevance in creationism, to the scientific point at issue, despite its complete verification in all empirical ways in the field in question, appear not only a vile violation of liberty, but a warning of what may result from similar presumably well-intentioned interventionism in religious matters of this kind, on the part of the State ? This approach has been durable, uncommunicative to exposure, didactic, authoritarian and entrenched. If this has happened without the advantage of new levels of law, what might one expect when far larger disciplines are introduced to buttress religious interventionism! Again, it is not the intention which is the important point; it is the effect, the result, the presuppositions, the manner of their carriage which is crucial at this stage.
Whatever its intention, is not this discriminatory movement, its inadequate "effect" (Article 2, UN Declaration cited on p. 1 above) ?
Does not what is here shown, above, both in the example and in principle, constitute evidence of a prior need to avoid gratuitous intrusion, or subjectivistic presumption, in any thoughts of still further laws, which if they resembled this action of the Education Department or its modern equivalent, would appear in peril of providing yet further discrimination - religious, educational or both ? That this example which has so vitally intruded already into the education of multiplied thousands, should already come equipped with religious manifesto, as is the case, is sufficient warning of the dangers of bureaucratic religious management. Before South Australians can expect further work from government in fields of this type, therefore, clearly profound changes of approach would be necessary, not adopting for governmental agencies the role of religious arbiters, declarative sovereigns or other anomalous approaches to their fellow men.
Again, as before, further extension in this religious field is quite likely to be based on mere appeal to numbers, to cultural modes, to fashions of thought*11 - which some find attractive - and not necessarily at all, to simple logical validity, to the rigors of scientific method, or even to factuality. Further, creationism, sometimes associated with some religions, just as a more evolutionary approach may be with others, has tended in some quarters to be excluded from rational debate on 'guilt by association', even when in practice, the association in the case of the Bible is demonstrably of a high and undaunted character*6 *7.
As for the very considerable period of some 12 years, this has been the practical case in the affair above noted showing not merely what government MIGHT do in the field of religion, but what it in fact has most recently actually done, the exposure is no mere incident! The experiment, if you call it that, has been long and of one result only. Many, their freedom aborted in this area, with the payment of large fees, have had to abstract from the so heavily slanted Government system, replete with its unsupported and simplistic misstatements on religion, themselves found in the same Circular.
The assumptions apparently made in that document, on unempirical relativity for religion, may possibly constitute one of the all-time greats in unevidenced religious assertion. What is based on such gratuitous and in the last analysis, irrational premises, subjectively asserting the subjectivity of religion, makes the result of such reasonings no more valid than the assumptions back of them. What you remove for a category, is removed for the speaker as well as the reader.
In fact, in history, cultural proclivities and religious attitudes are often, but not always, imposed for convenience or panache, advantage or in mere prejudice on populaces*2. This may not always be realised by those guilty of this fallacy, just as many who commit logical errors do not always realise it. The results however are the same.
That such passions frequently inflate humanity may be unfortunate; but historically they do; and the imposition of what is for our best, by those who culturally know today and are wrong tomorrow, is one the deepest flaws in our society in S.A..
Indeed if this new kind of law is NOT installed, SA would appear at least to show a superior sensibility to that in its neighbouring State. If it further removed the grossly discriminatory, religiously authoritarian and financially slanted current Circular to Principals, however well-intentioned it may have been, it would do even better. If in fact, parents not wanting children to be indoctrinated (by theories never found to forecast, or to constitute a law as famed Professor Popper of London University pointed out*6, theories with profound religious significance moreover), already suffer acute discrimination, is not remedy the first need, not extension!
That which is not shown to be verifiable in useful test, or even to meet empirical testings*6, *7, must dictatorially be forced, selectively moreover, on the child mind as the only ADMISSIBLE rational approach to the field! and for this privilege, parents must pay tax and school fees to obtain what they may believe in education, as distinct from indoctrination. With such privileges already in vast effect already, does one need more of such things ?
This appears not merely
discrimination, injustice and misuse of State funds, but a caution, a caveat
and a stimulus to look at history, and the antics of Caesars whom Rome would
never at first have thought capable of what, in their power and privilege, they
duly enforced.
(The
following two headings and contents do not appear in the submission to
Government, being more precisely concerned with Christian Apologetics.)
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM DOES
NOT FLOURISH
IN THE
LACERATIONS OF SECULAR LAW
Any thoughtful secular society does not need the power of force to protect speech; it is enough that it can be freely presented where it is desired to be heard, or so as to ascertain whether this be the case.
The truth is its own protection, simply because God is the truth, and His word is its mandate to man (SMR Chs. 1, 3, 10).
We who are Christians in
particular, do not need the wisdom of men to licence the Lord. As Paul
presented it, (taken from I Cor.
Christ, the
wisdom and the power of God was raised physically from the dead, and cannot be
killed*12 more or outwitted. As Revelation
The reason why there is unanswerable reason for the faith is the same: CHRIST JESUS IS the wisdom and the power of God. To that, to Him there is no answer. There is, has been and can be nothing to overcome God in His actions, words and deployment of history. If people kill us, so be it; there are more; we continue in Him, to live for ever. If people believe us, it is well, it works. If people ignore us, so be it, the land is free.
The flaming recklessness comes only when force and law are used to chain the people of God and the Gospel afresh, even when its goodness has spoken for millenia; and vain and corrosive for the nation, are all attempts to do just that, in making 'national churches' subject to pagan politics, or national non-church religions which seek to kill it, or maim it, or harass it, or, to use the language of the UN, to take action with "its effect, nullification or impairment of the recognition, enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis."
Mere physical death, or lesser harassment in fines or prisons, intrusions and invasions of Christian liberty to practice the religion without confinement of its values, but not to force it on any, any more than to have any force their ways on it: what of this ?
Alas, it is a human folly too often seen, which needs no resurrection! neither in whole nor in part, in spirit nor in substance. Such impediments, harassments and persecutions for speaking God's uniquely verified truth would merely be spiritual extortion, realised or not, sanctified by law. If a thing is true, let it be shown so, or examined; not given a military backing, a legal chain or an anaesthetic aid. It needs none of this, and the endeavour to force is a short-circuit, not a short-cut.
This changes nothing but the degree of guilt before God of the perpetrators, social, political or other: of the oppressors, not willing to let freedom judge for itself!
Fortunately, one has been
told from the Office of the Attorney General, that this law is only if
churches, the religious, want it. It is FOR THEM. It is not, for our part,
needed by us, for God is our defence who saves the upright in heart (Psalm
CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS
In terms of Christian Apologetics, it is most interesting and vitally relevant, that God has revealed the tactic and technique of the enemy, whether or not this State or any other at any given time, succumbs to it. It is precisely legal action, commercial action, action to invade education, that he seeks in order to subsume all under one authority, inspired in the end directly by himself (Revelation 13:14-18); but naturally it is and has been sought for long by other and more palatable means. This sort of indirection is what politics often has pursued for its own purposes in the past, before assuming power in any country. Communism in this has been notorious as to its explicit methods of infiltration and intended consummation in very different mode.
What does Revelation here say ? listen:
Deception is the predicted means of entry, rather than force, and so it has been.
The 'image of the beast' in the language of idolatry, is the substitution of some convenient seeming entity for God and the practice under its power instead of in humility before God Himself. In this case, it is a political, international thing; but it must come from sources first, to be palatable. Hence our present case is crucial for this land. There are places where it is most unwise to be in the vanguard. This is one of them!
Naturally, the working of principalities and powers in heavenly places, "the rulers of darkness of this age", as Paul puts it, is not realised by many whose motives may be quite other. This, as in the Communist case, does but little to abort or thwart the planning and the performance of the plan on the part of the bodies, secular or spiritual, or both, who do know. It is exceedingly strange that religious matters right down to the "question" of whether one can preach as Christ and Paul did, against what is wrong in religion or religions, as well as for what is right, can now be raised in this way:
It is testimony to the danger
of prosperity, the satisfaction of comfort at the expense of truth, which like
a jack hammer used as an auctioneering device, ends in anything but comfort,
selling the very soul of truth for the pleasure of convenience.
Such may be far from the intention, as it has been over the ages, as now this land, now that, has sacrificed truth and its demands for power or other thrust or lust, philosophy or conception, and the demands made by that. It is the very subtle insidiousness of the invidious, which allows it to stalk for man as a hunter for his wild prey. We impute evil intention to none. It is a question of being deceived, misled, and the people imperilled.
There are 'leavens' to use
Christ's term, which move in man, and often he is relatively unaware of them;
so it is most necessary as here, to examine what is their real ferment, what is
the brew they produce, how they have led, do lead and may lead, before it is
too late. Often it is too late; often people as in Nazi Germany realised that
the unthinkable must now not merely be thought, but experienced; for at one
crucial moment, it had been WROUGHT. Now is the time therefore to abide by
truth and liberty without invasion or impairment.