didn't you just say that?

The salvation army and the chaplaincy program are two different things. No one ever called for a stop to the great work that the Salvation Army do. The Salvation Army is a separate entity that is not funded by the goverment. They do a great service to the community. The chaplaincy program however is questionable and at present funded by the Australian people.

Jordan there is a wise statement by one St. Augustine with regards to creation. I paraphrase from his book 'On the Literal Interpretation of genesis' "...even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, ...about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian,...talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, ..and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books." What Augustine of Hippo is saying is that even in A.D. 354-430 when he lived, they didn't take genesis and creation literally. Even on their limited scope of knowledge they could see it was a story at best and not a factual account of how the world/universe/earth/life came to be. So now onto the next "nonsense" statement I can "deride" you for. We are creatures, or more specifically we are apes. Evolution is a fact as supported by over 200 years of evidence and even if we didn't have a single fossil specimen. The evidence from genetics alone confirms evolution by natural selection. Here's a tip, even the evangelical Christian Francis Collins (leader of the Human Genome Project) will tell you that. Next "ignorant" statement, "who is to decide right and wrong?" So am I to believe that if it wasn't for your bible or your religion then you would deem it ok to rape and murder at will? If the answer is yes, then please shut yourself off from society we don't want sociopaths running wild. Your final "ignorant nonsense" "Hitler, a strong believer in Evolution, decided that the Jews and Blacks were inferior and needed to be exterminated. Evolution justified his thinking completely." Wrong Hitler despised atheism, he considered it a communist evil, and he ordered the burning of anything related to Darwin that would undermine the Christian unity of the Reich. He was in fact a creationist, who learnt his hatred of the Jews through the writings of such people as Martin Luther. Who considered the Jews to be killers of christ. http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/burnedbooks/documents.htm

@Truth Freedom Do you have a life apart from pushing your agenda on the internet?

@Jordan, do you have anything useful to contribute or are you just trolling around, spouting non-sense you copied from 'answers in genesis' and the like?

Jordan, Yes thankyou I have a very fulfilling life. thanks for asking

Have you ever read a Chaplains contract and job description? Have you ever read the governments guidelines on how a Chaplain conduct themselves? It is far and away more likely that a religious teacher or 'shock' an atheist teacher would speak of their beliefs than a Chaplain. Do some research other than just the usual media beat ups.

Whatever. I remember a similar program when I was in high school and the message was always loud and clear from the "Chaplains" of the time. I don't care what the job description says. The fact is that the Chaplains are all employed by a certain religion funded by the Australian people. This is not on. It does not represent the varied beliefs within our community and creates segregation.

Have you ever encountered a chaplain in a public school and seen them at work? Clearly not, or you would be well aware of the lengths many of them go to in order to actively promote their religious views. Teachers, on the other hand, regardless of whether they are religious or atheist, have much greater respect for their position and for the students in their care. You'd know this if you knew any teachers as well. Do some research yourself, Justin. While you're at it, tell me where in a public school teacher's contract and job description it says that they must be a Christian or that they can be employed only with the support of their local church? Funnily enough, the only references I can find to religion in the context of a real teacher is that religion has absolutely nothing to do with their terms of employment. Why then is it so central to the terms of employment for chaplains?

I am a Chaplain Christopher Dawkins (nice name steal). Clearly you've put as much effort into your back reading as you do into your embarrassingly militant and under researched atheist dogma that you call books. Many of my closest friends are teachers in public schools. Of course it is inherent in a Chaplains job description because it is a religious office. However the terms of employment and codes of conduct expressly forbid the pushing of ones beliefs. Get a grip Christopher, as the Grand High Priest you should know better.

And yes I do feel like an idiot for mistaking Christopher for Richard! :) My thoughts on Richard still stand however...

hahahhaha

Teachers have enough sense and are professional enough to leave personal beliefs at the door

The exposure to religion that children receive should be from an objective point of view not from a "true believer"

You, without a doubt, have never worked in a school.

For someone with the name Truth and Freedom your comment about teachers show a remarkable lack of understanding of human nature. And I repeat there is no way you have ever worked in a school.

What are you really trying to say Justin? I have a trust in our teachers to have the best intentions as you have trust in Chaplains. The fact is teachers are educated and are there to teach children not "convert" them.

Yet in your opinion the only ones capable of keeping that trust are teachers because they are educated? Presumably Chaplains are incapable because they are uneducated? Even though an organisation such as ACCESS requires degree level minimum qualification to be a Chaplain? I have personally witnessed teachers do far, far more damage in betraying the 'trust' you have in them than I have ever heard of any Chaplain doing.

I suspect your personal experience in any of this is zero.

Yes that's right, I do trust teachers more than uneducated so called counselors provided by Christian organisations

Justin Van Rossen. You are correct I have not worked in a school, I have been in the real world. And it is quite obvious you have spent your whole life within the confines of an educational institution, firstly as a student and following on as the teacher.

I like your name. It must be annoying for you?

I like your name Jan.

Take a break Justin. Jan's comment is an excellent one and I'm sure she is very proud of her name.

Why would Jan's name be annoying? Because of the word 'Easter'? You know where the word Easter comes from, right? Let me give you a hint - Oestre... Pagans, eggs, rebirth.... Christianity is simply a reinvention of earlier pagan traditions, with just as much likelihood of truth.

What about the Salvation Army and vulnerable street children? Stop that?

David, that's a nice idea in theory, but in reality it simply doesn't work that way at all. Chaplains are a part of the school in a way that SRE indoctrinators are not, and are heavily involved across the curriculum. How do you opt-out of something like that, other than by withdrawing your child from the school itself? And where would you send them then...an openly religious school instead? And what do you know about the funding for the NSCP? The $20,000 provided by the government is not the full salary they are paid, but is simply the subsidy that gets them in the door at a lower cost to schools. As for the Salvation Army, why on earth would you want an organisation that is so openly and virulently homophobic into public schools? You might want to do some research on them as well if you think they're a genuine charitable organisation, as opposed to an evangelical religious organisation that uses charity as a cynical ploy to gain access to some of the most vulnerable people in our community. Maybe you should ask someone in a Salvo program what they live on after being forced by the Salvos to sign over half of their Centrelink benefits in order to gain access to the programs that you seem to think must be provided out of the goodness of their Christian hearts? And then there is the simple fact that public schools should not privilege ANY religion over any other. Public schools should be open and accessible to any student of any religious persuasion without having to worry about having differing religious views pushed on them. The NSCP is openly in favour of privileging Christianity and has no place in our schools. Sure, it is theoretically non-evangelical, but it was only very recently that the requirement that they be Christian was dropped. Secular doesn't mean "anti-religion", but actually means that all views are treated equally. The NSCP does not do this.

+1