Religious bias and discrimination

Most people in Queensland value the Christian principles of life. There are many who value the principles of other religions such as Islam. They were not happy with the sort of changes that are contained in this Bill. The changes appear to have been prompted in response to some sort of humanist type agenda, but clearly would open the gate to a series of philosophies of life that are not necessarily consistent with the underlying principles that our society is traditionally built on … The community … does not want to see humanist or left wing social engineering entered by stealth into our schools.

A range of literature in current use in Australian educational settings implies that devious and dangerous ideas, sometimes concealed within a hidden agenda, motivate Humanists. A Beginner’s Guide to Ideas, a text book written for religious education purposes by Raeper and Smith (1991), and used recently in some Queensland schools, in its section entitled "Humanism: Is Man the Measure of All Things?" presents Nietzsche as an exemplar of the Humanist tradition. The textbook states:

… in 1889 Nietzsche became insane … The popular image of him is as a person who advocated a passionate pursuit of power. He is often associated with Nazism and Hitlerism and there is little doubt that his ideas were open for exploitation by such movements.

From this depiction, Nietzsche’s philosophy, and by extension any other which includes the rejection of God, can be explained away as the ravings of someone who is mentally unhinged. The message implicit in the text is that Humanists are like Nietzsche and prone to psychological disturbance, cruelty and violence.

A direct quote from Nietzsche emphasises the point further: “Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel in himself the force and will to inflict great pain?” The message to students is reinforced in this section on Humanism by a photograph of Hitler standing with a group of Nazi youth wearing swastikas on their “Fuhrer School” uniforms.

The linking of Humanism with Hitler; the Nazis; racism; death camp doctors; sadistic medical experiments; coerced sterilisation; forced abortion and/or involuntary euthanasia; is not difficult to find in religiously motivated anti-Humanist literature.

Associating Humanism with the Nazis is more than false and unethical: it is deeply ironic since Hitler was a Christian who promoted religious belief, extolled the value of faith and derided secular education. He is on record as saying:

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith … we need believing people. (Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordant of 1933)

For many years the general public has viewed publicly funded “government” schools as secular institutions. This, however, is debatable, if not obviously untrue. In Queensland, religion has an entrenched position in schools and is becoming increasingly more powerful and organisationally significant in relation to curriculum decisions and administrative practices.

What is especially important from a secular and Humanist point of view is that nowhere in the Department can the specifically secular or Humanist voice be heard. There are no positions available within Education Queensland, on its committees, nor in its working parties, for the secular and/or Humanist perspective. It is even more serious. Whenever the Humanist Society has offered to provide this perspective, it has been refused on the grounds that Humanism is not a religion!

In other words, despite there being many in the Queensland Education Department who are employed to serve and facilitate the particular interests of religionists, there is not even one person employed to be an advocate for the specific interests of the non-religious section of society. It is likely that something of the same is repeated in the other Australian states and territories.

Humanists should no longer tolerate this. With the imminent introduction of a National Curriculum Framework across the country, Humanists and other secularists must join forces to ensure our State Departments of Education hear the non-religious viewpoint.

If we hesitate to put our position clearly and publicly, fail to assert our democratic and civil right to be recognised as a significant proportion of the Australian community, and fall short in demanding that our point of view gets the same attention given to the religions, then we will have a National Curriculum that continues to ignore Humanists and what Humanism stands for and, instead, operates to further entrench religion and reinforce the position of supernaturalism and anti-Humanism in our society.