Religions > Atheism > Attn Australian Atheists! Vitally Important Meeting. "Keeping God out of Government"
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Michael Gray" |
| Date: |
18 Apr 2006 10:08:17 PM |
| Object: |
Attn Australian Atheists! Vitally Important Meeting. "Keeping God out of Government" |
On 17 & 18 June 2006, a major conference is being held in Melbourne:
"Separating Church and State: Keeping God out of Government"
The Rationalist Society of Australia, the Humanist Society, the
Australian National Secular Association are sponsoring the conference.
The conference will take place over 1 and a half days, at the
University of Melbourne, on Sat 17 & Sun 18 June 2006.
It will cover the historical and legal aspects of the separation of
church and state, including revisiting the disastrous result of the
'Defence of Government Schools' High Court case.
It will also examine the substantial tax privileges enjoyed by the
churches, the continued undermining of secular education as a result
of Liberal and Labor education policies, the recent phenomenon of the
emergence of openly religious politicians in federal and state
politics, and the deleterious effects of successive government
appeasing the religious lobby, for example with the repeal of the
Northern Territory's voluntary euthanasia laws.
The program is yet to be finalised, but current plans are as follows:
On the Saturday, the program will be devoted to a series of speakers,
with time for questions after each speech.
During the morning session, we will explore the major "problems" of
not having separation of church and state, either legally or
culturally, which will culminate in the keynote lecture by Max
Wallace.
In the afternoon, there will be a panel discussion with substantial
audience participation. It is hoped that Philip Adams will moderate
this panel discussion.
Democrats leader Senator Lyn Allison will conclude the first day with
a presentation of the Australian Democrats position on the issue.
On Sunday morning a workshop** will be conducted, designed to ensure
maximum participation by conference attendees in:
· Asking questions of the experts present
· Offering to group their own opinions and ideas
· Developing a range of ideas about action to be taken subsequent to
the conference.
This should facilitate the drafting of an action plan and enable the
conference to finish on a positive note at lunchtime on Sunday.
It must be emphasised that these plans are not final. The final
conference program will be announced in May.
Although the conference will be bringing significant speakers from all
parts of Australia, every effort is being made to keep costs to a
minimum. Thanks to subsidies from RSA and the Humanists, we hope that
the registration fee for the two days will be as low as $50, ($30
concession).
I shall be posting updates to this newsgroup when they become
available.
Michael Gray,
Member, Rationalist Society of Australia.
................
** I'm with Alexei Sayle on the bastardisation of this word.
"Workshop" should only be used by those involved in some sort of light
engineering.
--
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