Religion in Australia: the popular whipping boy

Even after having lived there 30 years, I’m still occasionally struck by just how strong anti-religious sentiment is in Australia, and how commonly expressed it is. Yesterday, on an Australian Internet forum with just over 100,000 members representing a very broad cross-section of society, I offered a free copy of Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, which I had recently discovered. This is a collection of scans (in 166 volumes), of a 19th century work in the public domain. No copyright applies, this is not a commercial work, and there’s no breach of intellectual property rights involved here. It can be found freely available on a couple of public sites.

This collection of early Christian texts (in Greek), is of immense academic value. It is still cited regularly in the relevant scholarly literature, and is used as a source for the many early Christian texts which have never been translated into English. It is an extremely significant historical and linguistic source, and forms part of the standard professional Greek corpus, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. It is also cited in the standard Greek lexicons covering the Greek of this era (BDAG, LSJ9, Spicq, TDNT, and Zodhiates).

Knowing there are a few historians and classicists on the forum, I posted this:

[quote]Anyone for a free copy of Migne? Yeah, you heard me, the Mignester, wide boy Migne. You know what I’m talking about.

I’ve been looking for this for years, and I finally found a free electronic copy. I’m in such a good mood I’ll post it on DVD to the first 10 people who ask for it. [/quote]

The response was immediate, and should have been predictable:

Leaving aside the ignorance these posts showed (despite the fact that I had provided a link explaining exactly what Migne’s PG is and its significance), what struck me was the fact that it just seems to be considered necessary to respond with complete hostility to any communication even remotely connected with religion.

Later I did receive two intelligent posts expressing interest from Greek students, which mitigated my disgust somewhat, but it was an unfortunate reminder of a particularly ugly part of Australian culture. There are many things I love about Australian culture, but the rampant hostility to religion is not one of them.

[quote=“Fortigurn”]Even after having lived there 30 years, I’m still occasionally struck by just how strong anti-religious sentiment is in Australia, and how commonly expressed it is.

Leaving aside the ignorance these posts showed (despite the fact that I had provided a link explaining exactly what Migne’s PG is and its significance), what struck me was the fact that it just seems to be considered necessary to respond with complete hostility to any communication even remotely connected with religion.
…[/quote]

And you’re, uh, what, expecting a more reasoned level of response here?
You been playing without a helmet again, son?

Remember this is the internet though. I doubt many would have said it to your face.

Just keep on doing what you are doing, it will reach the people its intended for, and the others? Well f*ck 'em. Its just as much your internet as theirs.

Just you keep your ranting by your greasy kebab-selling Spiros’ to yourself! You’ve seen the way those jokers drive? And you’re prepared to believe anything they have to say about Baby Jeebuz? :loco:

Three such responses in themselves wouldn’t be so surprising in that context. Were they ignored by the others? Or did they grow into threads of such attacks? Or were they criticized?

Try to focus on the two that are grateful for your generous offer.

Remember that it is a very rare person that will read anything that requires much effort.

So,

Turn it into a comic book.

Then hope someone makes it into a movie.

Then make a 30-second trailer of the best parts. People will watch a trailer.

Attention spans aren’t what they used to be.

[quote=“zender”]Try to focus on the two that are grateful for your generous offer.

Remember that it is a very rare person that will read anything that requires much effort.

So,

Turn it into a comic book.

Then hope someone makes it into a movie.

Then make a 30-second trailer of the best parts. People will watch a trailer.

Attention spans aren’t what they used to be.[/quote]

Sorry…what came after “movie”???

After the movie, you can come over to my place, and I’ll show you my etchings.

And if you’re lucky, I’ll let you read my copy of the Popul Vuh . . . in Latin.

In Latin!!! Ha ha ha, you card, you.

So, Fortigurn, did anyone else actually take you up on the offer, or were your only replies the three negative ones and the two Greek fellers?

I can see how you might get three such snappy retorts in Australia if there were dozens of others. There are plenty of religious people in Australia, but the irreligious are not so cowed as they might be here (well, not Forumosa obviously) or in the USA or even much of Europe.

[quote=“Fortigurn”]The response was immediate, and should have been predictable:

There are a few eeejiots in any bunch, mate. You have to learn to ignore them, and don’t generalize – don’t assume that three jerks on the internet mean that such sentiments are widespread, in Australia, or anywhere else. Put on some soothing music, dim the lights, get in a lotus position, close your eyes, relax, and try to imagine world harmony, and those three blokes getting their faces clawed off by angry koalas. :sunglasses:

I just got back from Aus and I can tell you religion is flourishing. Aussies beat New Zealand in Rugby League and cricket has a new league as well. Fourex beer has gone organic. Jesus is weeping tears of joy. I wanted to stay in Oz but I remembered what happened to Jonah and thought oh well, feck it, I’ll go back to Taiwan. Fishing was good too. Being religious is hard but worth it. Keep the faith.

Welcome to a pluralistic society. I have to say, Fortigurn, that the vast majority of people I know in Australia have a very unsophisticated understanding of religion. The difference between ‘a conversation on religion’ and ‘preaching’ would need to be explained to them . . .

I have a dilettante’s interest but am not religious myself; I had very few decent discussions on religion in Australia. (And the stupid, stupid management at the ABC even axed Stephen Crittenden and the Religion Report).

Your swimming against a very strong tide.

Unless you were posting to a forum where you were horrendously off-topic, those guys were being total jerkoffs.

But I must say, of the small sample of Australians I’ve known, the majority of them have been atheists. Australia just doesn’t seem to be a very religious place in my unscientific observation. (But then I’m from the US, where most of the Western world seems quite irreligious in comparison.)

The contrast between the US and Australia on the subject of religion couldn’t be greater. The American colonies were established by religious dissenters fleeing persecution while Australia was founded as a penal colony for convicted felons. Religion was used as a form of moral police much to the resentment of the godless convicts.

The title of this post struck me as ironic when I remembered an undergraduate essay I wrote on Samuel Marsden, the ‘flogging parson’ as he was known in the early colony at Sydney-town. Here’s a report on one of the floggings he ordered:

I think this goes some way to explaining why there’s an certain aversion to religion in Australia but the reaction Fortigurn got may have also been caused by the strong strain of anti-intellectualism that also runs deep in that antipodean colony.

From my experience, most Australians identify as one denomination or another based more on ethnicity and social class. For a long time and until relatively recently, Australia suffered from a strong element of sectarianism between protestants and Catholics that had a lot of social and political repercussions. I think this is another reason Australians tend to be oversensitive about religion - it’s considered a personal matter not to be discussed at the dinner table or printed on a t-shirt. And to get intellectual about it…that’s double trouble. Australian intellectuals have traditionally gone to London, New York, Paris or Forumosa to have serious discussions about theology and stuff.

Given that the forum has over 100,000 members, of course you’ll find some lunatics. But these were the very first three responses and they were not out of character for the forum.

When I pointed out that it was hardly preaching to offer a collection of Greek and Latin manuscripts which most people on the forum couldn’t read anyway, and are only of use to classicists and students of early Christian history or Greek, one of the members who had responded initially tried to argue the toss with me, claiming that because I was religious I couldn’t even see how I was preaching, even while I was doing it. Left to itself the thread would have spiraled out of control in no time, and a few hours and 10 pages later would probably have been locked. But an intelligent admin deleted the three negative responses early (along with my replies), and as a result other morons were warned off.

[quote=“zender”]Try to focus on the two that are grateful for your generous offer.

Remember that it is a very rare person that will read anything that requires much effort.[/quote]

Yes, true.

The two Greek students (students of Greek that is, not Greeks who are students), were the only replies aside from the three negative ones.

The irreligious in Australia are not cowed at all, and never have been. There has never been any serious antipathy towards the irreligious, in Australia.

All true. But in this was not out of character, either for Australia generally or for this forum in particular. You have to really go out of your way to construe such a collection of manuscripts as an attempt to preach. They were simply gratuitous attacks because the content of the manuscripts was religious, and the majority of forum members are not only atheists but aggressively opposed to religion.

Quite. Liberal pluralist societies are such fun. All the same prejudice, just in a different flavour.

I concur.

[quote]I have a dilettante’s interest but am not religious myself; I had very few decent discussions on religion in Australia. (And the stupid, stupid management at the ABC even axed Stephen Crittenden and the Religion Report).

Your swimming against a very strong tide.[/quote]

Alas true. I doubt that most of the people who watched and enjoyed Safran’s ‘Vs God’ truly appreciated what he was doing.

It was in an open area of the forum, where you can post where you like.

Even if you go back to early settlement days you’ll find Australians have always had a distinctly different attitude to religion in comparison with the historic UK and the US. Australia has one of the lowest religious populations of any 1st world Western nation. As you can see here, religious belief has been steadily in decline over the years.

Many Australians are atheists, or will conceal their personal religious beliefs out of cultural conditioning. It is considered highly impolitic to reveal your religious beliefs, either at work or in a public setting, and the antidisestablishmentarian sentiment is so strong that most politicians holding religious beliefs will keep them private or at the very least never mention them in public. Recently on that same forum a group of us were trying to figure out how many Australian Parliamentarians are Christians, and it was practically impossible to find out because the majority of prominent religious politicians keep quiet about it due to fears of their public image being damaged.

There are a few exceptions. Due to Australia’s strong tendency to support the underdog, and our general admiration for social justice, people like Tim Costello are admired despite the fact that they’re unashamedly religious. Tim has never served in a political capacity higher than a mayor, but despite the fact that he is a prominent Baptist minister and outspoken about his beliefs he is generally well respected because of his lifelong involvement in social betterment causes (drop-in centers, homelessness/drug rehab services, anti-gambling campaigns and gambling addiction services).

On the other hand, there’s a very strong reaction against anyone who is seen to be using religion as a political tool. When the Liberal Party was in power, both the Treasurer and the Prime Minister visited a popular Sydney mega-church to present a short non-political public address (the Treasurer’s was actually a homily, as he is a Christian himself). In both cases there was an immediate public backlash, and cries that church and state should be kept separate. The leader of the Labor Party had been invited to address the church, but had wisely declined the invitation.

Yes. But having said that, the religion which developed in Australia was the religion of the working class, not the elite religion which developed in the US. This, and the fact that church and state were always separate in Australia, led to Australians having a very different relationship with religion.

This is a good point, and certainly not to be overlooked. There is an unfortunately strong ant-intellectual sentiment, which isn’t anti-intellectualism per se (for the most part), but due to Australia’s very sad tall poppy syndrome.

Yes, absolutely true.

[quote=“urodacus”]In Latin!!! Ha ha ha, you card, you.

So, Fortigurn, did anyone else actually take you up on the offer, or were your only replies the three negative ones and the two Greek fellers?

I can see how you might get three such snappy retorts in Australia if there were dozens of others. There are plenty of religious people in Australia, but the irreligious are not so cowed as they might be here (well, not Forumosa obviously) or in the USA or even much of Europe.[/quote]

Strongly agree with the observation made in the last sentence.

"“Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.”


The amount of ignorance about the prevalence of Greek in religious texts is truly mind-boggling.
Turn the other cheek on it all, I says.......

[quote=“Fortigurn”]
Alas true. I doubt that most of the people who watched and enjoyed Safran’s ‘Vs God’ truly appreciated what he was doing.[/quote]

Been watching it, not exactly sure but I am enjoying it :slight_smile: Just saw the bit with the klan, pretty sick.

Never actually realized it, but now that I come to think of it, all the Aussies I’ve met bar one (Who’s dad is a minister) were a pack of heathens.
Still, I find the Aussies to be decent enough. I least they appreciate a proper bbq/braai with real meat (not the hamburger patty abomination they have in the States) with real sports like cricket and rugby. Oh, and they like proper beer, not watered down Mexican piss.

These factors go a long way in my book.

They may be Godless heathens, but they’re a good sort.

[quote=“Tempo Gain”][quote=“Fortigurn”]
Alas true. I doubt that most of the people who watched and enjoyed Safran’s ‘Vs God’ truly appreciated what he was doing.[/quote]

Been watching it, not exactly sure but I am enjoying it :slight_smile: Just saw the bit with the klan, pretty sick.[/quote]

Given Safran’s personal background, it’s partly a personal voyage of exploration, but aside from the actual humour of the situations he contrives, it provides some very worthwhile insights.

bismarck, I’ve always found that Saffies and Aussies get on very well together, on the basis of similar character, sense of humour, and interests (some of which you mentioned). That has been my uniform experience with all the Saffies I’ve met in Australia and Taiwan.