Letter to Members of Federal Parliament – re Prayers in Parliament
20th May 2004
It is a matter of grave concern that prayers still remain a part of the routine of the Federal Parliament in Australia.
We live in a natural universe and no one has ever produced a skerrick of factual evidence of anything supernatural, be it fairies, angels, spirits, gods, devils, heaven or hell.
The practice of beseeching favours from gods is a relic of the ignorance of the distant past and certainly no longer appropriate where citizens of today debate using present knowledge and the faculty of reason.
Moreover, with Australian society now multi-cultural, it is an affront to appeal to one particular deity out of at least 10,000 gods. This is blatant discrimination.
Religion persists only through infant indoctrination generation after generation because the parents fail to question the folklore of the culture into which they are born.
Unfortunately, religion is now the most important element in the confrontations and bloody clash of cultures throughout the world today, as evident in Iraq, India/Pakistan, Palestine/Israel etc.
Religion is a matter of personal belief but ‘belief’ is an admission of ignorance. When something is known it is no longer a ‘belief’.
To appeal, as the Parliamentary prayers do, to the bloodthirsty tyrannical god of the Bible, who demanded the awful death of his son as appeasement, is certainly not appropriate for a body that should endorse the ethical standards required for today.
We urge the immediate end to the prayer routine.
Keith S Cornish
President
Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc.
