THE controversial trial of secular ethics classes in Austalia has “decimated” Protestant scripture classes in the ten NSW schools where it has been introduced as an alternative for non-religious children, with the religious classes losing about 47 per cent of enrolled students.
The figure, according to this report, was calculated by the Sydney Anglican diocese, which is so concerned about the trial that it has created a website to “protect SRE” (special religious education). The website says the values underpinning “Australia’s moral framework” are under threat from competition created by the trial classes.
Created by Youthworks, a department of the diocese, the website says the objective of the ethics trial is:
To not only remove Jesus Christ from the state school system, but from the consciousness and hearts of the next generation.
It asserts that:
At its core, the [ethics] curriculum is founded on the works of secular humanist philosophers. While not overtly expressed as ‘secular humanism’, it is the basis of what is taught: a teaching built on the specific philosophy that is anti-God and therefore anti-Jesus Christ.
If we lose religious education, we risk losing true, fundamental ‘ethics’ that have underpinned Australia’s moral framework for hundreds of years.
Dr Simon Longstaff
Dr Simon Longstaff, the executive director of the St James Ethics Centre, which is co-ordinating the trial, said any suggestion that the centre is ”working towards the removal of SRE classes from NSW state primary schools is false”.
In an article entitled Govt trial decimates SRE on the Sydney Anglicans’ website, journalist Jeremy Halcrow wrote that if ethics classes competed directly with SRE next year, scripture class enrolments would drop by up to 60 per cent.
The Anglican diocese has been vocal in its objections to the trial, and in February the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, lobbied the Premier, Kristina Keneally, over it.
A particularly contentious issue is whether the ethics class is being offered in competition to scripture. It was originally intended that it would be offered only to children who had already dropped out of scripture.
But the Bishop of South Sydney, Rob Forsyth, is quoted in Halcrow’s article as saying ”the course is genuine competition” for SRE and that the Department of Education had used its authority to encourage parents to shift from scripture to the ethics classes.
The article says the department:
Has proactively sought positive media coverage for the course … with local school principals speaking publicly in favour of the course.
It also says the ethics curriculum:
Appears to have bias towards left-wing or progressive subjects.
This reminds of the line from The Austin Lounge Lizards’ song, Jesus Loves Me But He Can’t Stand You:
I am raising my kids in a righteous way/So don’t you be bringing your kids over to our house to play/Yours will grow up stoned, left-leaning and gay/I know, because Jesus told me on the phone today.)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbvrRct-TXc[/youtube]
Furthermore the report says the classes do not mention values such as respect for parents and notions of service towards fellow citizens.
A spokesman for the Education Minister, Verity Firth, said parents would not be told where to send their children.
The trial ethics classes are an alternative for those parents who have chosen for their children not to attend special religious education. This is a matter of choice for parents.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
May 9th, 2010 at 8:27 am
To not only remove Jesus Christ from the state school system, but from the consciousness and hearts of the next generation.
Brilliant!
May 9th, 2010 at 8:40 am
Works for me. Let’s get cracking.
May 9th, 2010 at 8:41 am
What a bunch of whiny douchebags. If they want to infect the minds of kids with their god twaddle they are free to do so five evenings a week and all weekend long. It’s not “anti-religious” to have a class that doesn’t mention their sky fairy.
May 9th, 2010 at 8:50 am
They’re not trying to wipe out xianity from the next generation, just teaching the kids how to behave without the involvement of sky faeries and leprechauns. If the bearded sandalman gets edged out then that’s an unintended but pleasant consequence. I love to hear the wizards squealing as if they’ve a right to indoctrinate young minds.
I was lucky to have the benefit of excellent RE lessons in comprehensive school. All the “RE teachers” were the same guys who taught games and coached us at rugby. I think the lessons were some sort of statutory requirement because they were always done with a disbelieving smirk by a bloke in a tracksuit. These same guys were the ones who’d turn a blind eye if you met them in a pub or even buy you a pint at end of term!
May 9th, 2010 at 9:02 am
Isn’t it strange that they somehow see teaching children moral behaviour as being “anti-God and anti-Jesus Christ”? Perhaps that explains the behaviour of certain Roman Catholic prelates! But note also, once again, the inference that there can be no ethics outside of the Bible!!
May 9th, 2010 at 9:12 am
I’m surprised that they think the SRE classes will drop by only 60 per cent. But the usual whining begins from the religious cowards. They know they are only able to survive as a consequence of censorship; blocking any competing debate. As with the dire Thought for the Day and the bishops in the House of Lords, squatting there in on their lazy arses, puffed up in the pantomime robes, spouting their pernicious crap without even the inconvenience of an election.
One the Australian pupils get a sniff of Seneca, Cicero, Epictetus, Epicurus (much maligned and represented inacurately), Marcus Aurelius and so many others they will find the SRE pap poor stuff: thin gruel compared to a satisfying meal. We should try this in the UK – choose R.E. against secular ethics and examine the result.
May 9th, 2010 at 10:00 am
You’re right Broga. On the one hand we have serious scholars debating the pros and cons of different schools of philosophical thought, and the implications for human behaviour and fulfilment; and on the other we have this argument – “God appeared in a fiery cloud on top of a mountain and wrote our laws on two lumps of stone”! No contest!!
May 9th, 2010 at 10:02 am
The christians are losing a lot of vulnerable young minds with which they wanted to indoctrinate – that is the christains’ real whinge. Take away religious privilege and the fundies whine like a baby denied its bottle!
May 9th, 2010 at 10:28 am
A naked teenage girl (by definition utterly ignorant of anything), warned by a talking snake not to eat a piece of fruit from a magic tree, went ahead and did so anyway.
The chap who’d set up this scenario in the first place (and who knew she would eat the fruit), got annoyed and declared her, her mate and all their offspring morally bankrupt. Well, unless they slavishly followed some 600 rules, many of them insane or illogical, written thousands of years (or possibly more) after the girl had eaten the fruit.
This is the competition for careful philosophical consideration of morals and ethics. It is being championed by the Abrahamic lot. I’m amazed that only 60% may be rejecting it.
May 9th, 2010 at 11:45 am
The indoctrinated religious must be kept ignorant; separated from other views; punished if they question and in the past that included thumbscrews, the rack, red hot slabs against their bodies. I still find it extraordinary that in the “good old days” of the Inquisition torturer priests turned up ready to face a day amongst their victims howling in agony and torturing these poor bastards for hours. Sadism doesn’t begin to describe this.
Keep the bible in Latin; only the priests say what it contains; do not question and do not doubt; god knows your every thought so there is no escape. The terror of the fires of hell was, and is to many to this day, real. Entire lives wrecked by this agony of anticipated terror. Not, mark you, for a limited time but for eternity.
The sooner this vile blackmail; these preposterous claims are placed beside the ancient classics the better.
May 9th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
I’m Australian, 18 years old and really really annoyed that I didn’t get the chance to be in a secular ethics class in primary school! Of this list that Broga wrote earlier; Seneca, Cicero, Epictetus, Epicurus and Marcus Aurelius, I’ve only heard of Epicurus and only for his quote against an omnipotent God. I’ve grown up atheist and still I feel like my mind is a mushroom! Kept in the dark and fed on ‘religious is the best, most moral way to be’ bullshit! I’m jealous of the lucky little kids!
May 9th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Oh… I wish I didn’t have religious class when I was a kid, about 7 to 9 years old (25 now). Actually, it was called like that, but we only had christianity in it…
I remember the days, when I asked my teacher back in school, “why do you keep saying that god created the world in 6 days when in fact took billions of years?”.
Well, like always the nut-job gave the same excuses, and the principal ended up calling my mum and my dad… I asked them the same question, and they said to just let it go, and it was just a myth, and just to learn it so I could pass this stupid subject.
Oh, I remember those days… “save your friends with a seven lock box andJesus is the key to that box” or something like that. I HATED that class…
May 9th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Nice one Jack
Looks like Austraila is finally telling the men in dresses where to go.
Don’t let the muzzies in or you’ll have to start all over again.
May 9th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
They’re already here but very quiet almost living up to their self proclaimed title of religoin of peace except one or two clerics who say stupid stuff sometimes and try to build schools, I don’t think they will have ‘Infidel’ classes though! I think we will tougher on them if they try to force Sharia law on us especially after watching Europe struggle against it. I think K-Rudd (our too-Anglican-too-be-healthy Prime Minister) may have gone to far in blocking asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka (there weren’t even that many).
May 9th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
@Jack. For many, including the ancient Greeks and Romans – and certainly the Japanese – they really only applied themselves to philosophy after they retired. If they had enough money they retreated to their Country Estates and tried to discover what life was about. For Epictetus – a former Roman slave who hugely influenced Marcus Aurelious and a Roman Emperor of vast power – his philosophy (Stoicism) was intensely practical. What is the best way to live life. When he refers to “god” he is referring to “nature” in its widest sense. He does not mean a personal god.
Socrates, the daddy of them all, said that the unexamined life is not worth living. And the unexamined life is precisely what the priests want. They tell; you believe; don’t think for yourself.
I just wanted to echo Broadsword and say how great it is that Australia is giving pupils a chance to discover systems of morals and ethics that really work. The idea that you “behave well” at the dictat of some god or burn in hell is not the result of being moral. It is the result of a sick, brutish blackmail.
Regards,
Broga
May 9th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
@Broga Thanks, fortunately I do at least know about Socrates and Plato because I choose to do ‘Theory of Knowledge’ in year 12. I learnt Christianity has roots in Plato which I can see with the worlds of being and becoming but then again he holds reason in high regard and his low view of faith and emotion. If only Christians knew their roots!
Yeah, I think that echo could go on for a long time, I find it disturbing that the leader of my country someone who has immense power over my life thinks I that if I were to die now I would suffer eternal pain and yet still claims to have respect for me!
May 9th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
“Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one has ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor–but they have few followers now.”
Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End
Obviously the pushers of “religious education” (oxymoron) agree with Clarke, as they are desperate to prevent children from avoiding indoctrination classes.
May 9th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
I agree with the provision of non-religious ethics classes and would like to see the end of religiosity in our education system. However, the effect of religious indoctrination on young minds is probably greatly overstated,I spent 6 years at a Presbyterian school- most of my fellow students were more or less immune to the religious messsage.My objection is that religious education is simply a waste of time.
@William Harwood,
Clarke is probably wrong here, certainly the Norse gods have disappeared,however belief simple shifts its ground. A large section of the population is probably ‘wired’ for some sort of ‘spirituality’. The atheist idea that religion will always yield to science is probably incorrect.
May 10th, 2010 at 12:47 am
“To not only remove Jesus Christ from the state school system, but from the consciousness and hearts of the next generation.”
Jesus Christ shouldn’t even be in the state school system in the first place. Hell, if there was any justice he wouldn’t be in any school system.
May 10th, 2010 at 2:53 am
I find myself humbled. Let me express my appreciation for being part of this forum. I never imagined that in Australia, an advanced western civilization, not only has religion being taught at taxpayer expense, but religion of a specific denomination. I guess when I’m dead I will no longer be amazed.
Anyway, when I get into a debate about ethics with christian fundies, I often bring up:
“Proverbs 9:10
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
The words of Solomon (harwood will fuck with me about that) who, according to judeo-christian tradition was the wisest man who ever lived. I like to point to the word “beginning” and agree, in part. The judeo-christian ethic that treating other humans the way you want to be treated, is something that every child should learn. But, what rubs me wrong is that it is COMMON SENSE, and not some revelation from some godhead.
The humorous part of this story is that Solomon, the ultimate wiseman, in his later years, rejects the Israelite god and begins worshipping the gods of his foreign wives. LOL So much for supernatural wisdom.
NeoWolfe
May 10th, 2010 at 10:46 am
another wakko who uses the words “secular humanist” as a swear word!
Tut tut, we are teaching our children not to be theocratic, inhumane barbarians.
How frightfully shocking!
May 11th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Neo Wolfe, when I read the Bible I was actually looking forward to reading all about Solomon’s wisdom. What it actually amounted to was that Solomon was very wise, he was granted a wish by God and said that he wanted to be wise, so God made him ever so wise. People came from miles around to have their problems solved because he was so incredibly wise, oooh he was so wise, he was the wisest of the very wise. Did we mention that Solomon was wise? The only actual example however was when he demonstrated his awesome wisdom by threatening to slice a baby in two with a sword.