The New South Wales Labor government is proposing, for families not wanting their children to attend Religion classes, to provide classes in Ethics.

During 2010 a trial of such classes was conducted in ten schools.

They were taught by staff from the “St James Ethics Centre”, a crowd describing itself as offering a “non-judgemental forum”.

Dr Sue Knight of the University of South Australia, employed by the government to assess the trial, reported that the teaching given imparted a belief that there is literally no difference between right and wrong.

One instructor was quoted as saying, “The most difficult thing was actually encouraging the children that there was no right or wrong answer.”

* * *

NSW Labor seems likely to lose power at the forthcoming March 2011 state election.

These ethics classes are an attempt to recapture left-wing ex-Labor supporters who have in recent times tended to drift into the clutches of the Greens.

School principals at the schools where the trial classes were conducted were, however, unimpressed, complaining that the children were receiving no “moral compass”.

50,000 members of the public have signed a petition opposing the classes.

The state Oppositon Party has now eventually made up its mind to reject the classes.

* * *

Children are instinctively aware that there is a difference between right and wrong – and they are aware that God exists.

Classes 4 to 6 are an important stage when our children are impressionable and idealistic.

Trying to force moral relativism down their throats in the name of secularisation is a kind of child abuse.

* * *

But this kind of thing is not new . . . .

Australian education pioneer, Saint Mary MacKillop, was confronted by secularism in her day.

In the 1860s and 70s, the notorious Henry Parkes was busy “secularising” schools. He had, in fact, predicted in hopeful fashion that his secularisation bill would “be death to the calling of the priesthood of Rome”.

Mary MacKillop opposed secularism. She wanted all education to be based on God, i.e. to be Roman Catholic.

She was, she said, “daily more and more convinced of the evils to their faith to which Australian children are exposed on account of the wicked secular education that is now general.”

She would say the same today.

Conventional science teaches that mammals evolved into existence about 100 million years ago, remaining for the next 40 million years little chaps no bigger than possums.

The big boys in those days were the dinosaurs.

But about 65 million years ago, something happened, and the dinosaurs disappeared.

The mammals then grew a lot bigger having more food now available to them. Hence the big mammals now seen.

This rather humdrum theory hit the headlines the other day — when a new study of dinosaur fossils by Canadian professor, Jessica Theodor, appeared in the research journal Science.

* * *

These days, to be taken seriously, any new ideas must fit in with evolutionary theory of the Charles Darwin kind.

Some people mistrust Darwinism on religious grounds.

Others are critical on straight scientific grounds — but if they say so out loud, they risk being howled down and told that their scientific arguments are merely religion in disguise.

* * *

Is there no middle path?

Pope Benedict thinks so: “There is no opposition between faith’s understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences . . . .

“In order to evolve, the world must first exist, having come from nothing into being. It must be created by the first Being, who is ‘being’ by nature.”

To the Pope, “creation” relates, not only to how things began, but is, “the foundational and continuing relationship that links the creature to the Creator . . . .”

* * *

A few years ago, Dr Brendan Nelson, Australia’s then Minister for Education, wanted children taught, alongside evolution, “intelligent design” — offering children the mental discipline of examining the kinds of arguments mentioned above.

The media pooh-poohed his suggestion, calling intelligent design “a controversial new theory” and contrasting it with “established science”.

New?

Almost every human being since time began has believed in a creator.

It’s the atheist-fundamentalists who are the novelty – with their creed that “if evolution did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it . . . .”

These characters are after your child’s mind, wanting him/her to believe in no absolutes.

Let’s hope they go the way of the dinosaurs.

Boys aged 10 to 14 are the fastest growing group of violent criminals in Australia.

Queensland Police statistics released last week show that in a 12 month period, boys in this group committed 276 rapes and sexual assaults — plus roughly 1000 other crimes, including murder, armed robbery and stalking.

Police and social commentators are blaming the media, for being too sexualised and violent – also parents, for not supervising what they watch.

* * *

OK, but what about our schools?

These young criminals attend schools with ideological atmospheres dominated by the mentality of Teachers’ Unions.

The 1999, the Australian Education Union’s policy on “combating racism” denigrated Australian government education policy, saying, “its prime purpose is to serve the needs of the dominant Anglo-Australian culture”.

The Union succeeded in having curriculums changed — the new emphasis being on teaching children, in the words of the Queensland curriculum, “to deconstruct the values of the Anglo-Australian culture”.

What was this terrible “Anglo-Australian culture”?

It was a culture based on the Ten Commandments — commandments to love God, to love your neighbour, not to kill, not to commit adultery, not to steal etc.

Having succeeded in ridding our children of such ideas, we now observe them behaving in accordance with what they are being taught.

* * *

If God exists, there is a supremely urgent reason to reverse this agnostic, morals-free relativism.

If God exists, top priority is that children be taught to love God and to prepare themselves to die in a state of grace.

Parents who take the trouble of sending their children to Catholic schools should be able to feel confident that this is what is being taught.

But can they?

Modern-day Catholic schools accept government funding.  So can they, in fact, be “Catholic”?

Mother Mary MacKillop, in her original Josephite schools, opposed all government funding – making her Sisters beg in the streets rather than accept it.

 “It is impossible,” she said, “to become in any way connected with Government and be true to the spirit, as well as the letter, of our Rule.”

With 90-plus percent of today’s Catholic school-leavers not practising the Faith, perhaps we should revisit Mother Mary’s principles.

I know a lady who runs a small business.

She was approached by somebody from Countrywide Media asking her to take out a paid ad in a publication called “Street Smarthandbook: the essential guide into adulthood”, published with the blessing of the Police.

How could she refuse such a good cause?

A policeman in charge of NSW “Blue Light” activities writes in the foreword of the handbook that it is “a worthwhile resource” . . . “valuable” . . . “accurate and responsible” . . . and (wait for it) “useful”.

Some things in the handbook are, indeed, OK.

There’s good stuff about how not to be swindled when buying a car . . . .

* * *

Anyway, the lady to whom I refer is NEVER going to advertise in the thing in future.

Nobody told her that her ad would be in a handbook recommending to young people totally amoral standards of behaviour.

Discussing the question, “Am I ready to have sex?” it says “a good rule is, if you don’t feel comfortable with the activity or behaviour, you’re probably not ready”.

The implication being, that if it feels good, you should do it.

Its list of “forms of sex that protect you” includes “anal sex” and “oral sex”.

On the “Contact Info” page, under “Sexual Health”, young people are given contact details for the “Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service of NSW” and for “Twenty-10 Gay and Lesbian Youth and Family Support” — the latter having a special contact number for enquirers aged under 18.

* * *

Under “Sexual Health” the handbook also gives contact details of the world’s biggest provider of abortions. Who? Yes, the notorious and disgusting Marie Stopes International.

And young readers are informed that they have the right to proceed, without the consent of parents, to get aborted.

Find out if the school attended by your child is distributing this propaganda to the kiddies.

If so, best take your child out of the school.

Kevin Rudd, ex-Prime Minister of Australia, since receiving a nasty knife wound to the back last June, has again captured the national and international limelight.

Eclipsing those who thought they had finished him off.

As Minister for Foreign Affairs, he has been at the three-day Summit on the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

He announced (with a flourish of eloquent Rudd-isms) that Australia will contribute almost a quarter of a billion dollars to improving the health of the world’s women and children.

“Let’s be honest,” he said, “Donor countries have made commitments that they haven’t honoured . . . less than half the funding pledged to Africa five years ago . . . has not been delivered . . . the answer is to do that which we say that we will do . . . .”

He also outclassed Mr Obama, whose speech beat around the bush, as you might say.

* * *

Giving money to save women’s and children’s lives — actually doing it – sounds great. Let’s hope it really happens.

With the Greens Party now controlling ALP policy-making, some doubts must exist:

* to the Greens, doesn’t helping women mainly mean ensuring that there are plenty of abortions in the Third World?

The Greens’ Population Policy says governments should “increase contributions to programs that empower women and increase their access to a wide range of safe family planning options”  (Policy 14)

That’s Greens-speak for “safe killing of unborn babies . . .”

* doesn’t helping children, Greens-style, mean making education secular and also positively perverse in pushing a variant of Evolution Theory that mocks God . . . ?

Plus pushing homosexuality as an option just as valid as traditional marriage and parenthood?

* * *

Many taxpayers would rather their tax dollars went to running Australia efficiently — leaving support for the overseas poor to non-government agencies which they trust more.

My favourite aid program is the Society of Saint Pius the Tenth Mission in Palayamkottai, South India. Their main projects are Veritas Academy School and Servi Domini Orphanage.

Information can be obtained (and donations accepted) at: Indian Mission, c/o 20 Robin Crescent, Woy Woy, NSW 2256.

See pictures of the mission at:  www.sspxasia.com/Countries/India/apostle22_pg2-3.pdf

Stephen Hawking, Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, retired last year after 30 years in the job.

Professor Hawking has been a larger-than-life figure in some ways – an expert in fields too tricky for most of us — like quantum theory, black holes and dark matter.

And his heroic courage, in battling on despite being crippled by muscular dystrophy, has been admirable.

Hawking has become a bit of a celebrity.

So if he decided to write a book with a catchy title, plus a hint of controversy, it couldn’t fail to sell — even if it was no good.

* * *

Professor Hawking’s new book entitled “The Grand Design” goes on sale next week.

Some controversy has been engineered by leaking a few seemingly bold quotes, like:

“Because there is a law such as Gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing . . . It is not necessary to invoke God . . . .”

* * *

Pretty simplistic stuff – but likely to appeal to TV-watchers and Dawkins-readers.

He’s asking us to choose between God and the Laws of Physics, as if they necessarily contradict each other. But do they?

Hawking’s argument rests on a dogma that there is a basic conflict between Science and Religion. But is there?

Science is handy for answering certain kinds of questions — about electricity and matter and energy and those black holes . . . .

Not very basic questions.

More fundamental questions are beyond science to answer.

Like, for example, why isn’t there nothing?

* * *

Believers in God believe that if there had ever been Nothing, there would still be Nothing.

(Real Nothing can never turn into Something)

Believers believe that there was always an original Something — Something whose existence needs no input from outside itself.

(We exist because of our parents. We didn’t make ourselves. They didn’t make themselves . . . .)

The Bible says, “Ask the beasts, they will teach you.  And the birds of the air, they will tell.  Speak to the earth and it will give answer . . . Who can be ignorant that the Lord made these things . . . ?”  (Job, chapter 12)