Friday, May 18, 2007

ValuesChoices

Is this a trick question? The new citizenship test apparently asks, among other things,

"...what Australian values are based on - with the options being: the Koran, the judeo Christian tradition, Catholicism, or secularism."

My instinctive answer was secularism, but I have a feeling that's not the one they're looking for, eh? I guess I'd be on the boat back to Hamburg.
It's a curly one because even if "Australian" values were originally based in the judeo-Christian paradigm, because of the origin of British settlers, much has changed in the intervening couple of hundred years. Modern Australia should be regarded as being based on secular values so there can be room for the whole spectrum of belief systems, including Christians, Muslims, Catholics and, last and always least, atheists.