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Originally Posted by Crocodile  Yep, 64% of the populationn identify themselves as Christian - apparently that makes Christianity amazingly unpopular and generally frowned upon?
Amazingly lame. |
I wouldn't dismiss anything as lame strait up without open dialogue. You need to measure what percent have views hostile against Christians (cannot be measured by a census). What percentage of those who ticked "Christian" did so because of cultural reasons (their parents are, or they were baptized as a baby but themselves do not hold to a Christian world view), as we found previously here many months back, there are many professing Jedi Knights in Australia but this doesn't necessarily mean anything.
People say in Australia that they are very tolerate people and they will argue how tolerant they and their nation is. So on paper of course you see that reflected. In practice it is quite different. If you ask someone, 'what do you think of such-and-such a thing' they give a neutral tolerant answer generally, but asked something more specific and the tolerance is only seen as skin deep. (This might be getting to close to home for some Australians, I am sorry if I offend anyone - this is just an analysis and I expect disagreement and open dialigue).
At least the way I experienced it, not just as a Christian but as an art student with people against my creativity. Against wearing a pink shirt (instantly labeled homosexual) or many many other areas not related to faith or religion we see similar treatment. If you come back from Hong Kong with an accent other then Aussie English you will be hasted quite a bit also (especially if you sound American). So hostility in Australia towards Christianity (or any other group) cannot be measured by census results.
Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" is a fascinating read, but in any field of topic it is open for dialogue, the response to this movie here I think reflects the comments of Ben Stein in the trailer quite well - just that, there is not an open-ness to the topic.
