australian prime minister outs herself atheist

Good for her!

To challenge bigotries and say "I am not going to pretend a faith I don't feel," is just good stuff. It feels refreshingly honest.

Thanks

What a doll!

Yea... I noticed that too. I wasn't going to say anything, but... wow

Actually, I said that without having seen her.

You haven't heard her speak yet.

C'mon! Good or bad?

I still like what she said.

Oh I like what she said about being an atheist, for sure, Roger. Refreshingly honest, for starters. Though few in Oz would hold that against her, I'd say. It isn't nearly as important to be seen to "be religious" here as I've gathered it is in the US. (Please feel free to correct me if I've gotten that perception wrong.)

I'm going to let you come to your own conclusion about her speaking voice. Let's just say I think it would have been rather nice if she'd retained a little of the Welsh* lilt.

* Her family migrated to Oz from Wales when Julia was but a young thing.

I think Oz society is much more secular than the US. I don't think it is a big deal that Julie Gillard declared herself atheist. She is, in the Australian vernacular, 'fair dinkum'. And as she said, she respects the views of believers, but doesn't want to pretend she believes something she doesn't. Good on her, I say.

Meanwhile, another Julia Gillard pronouncement.
Disappointing this time. :



http://www.theage.com.au/national/gillard-against-gay-marriage-20100630-zkcj.html#poll

that's because she's a godless heathen



wait, what

Yeah.
You read that right.

<Sigh>

The first?..hmm....

I'm pretty sure that Nick Clegg, leader of UK Liberal Democrats and deputy PM, publicised his atheism about 2 months ago in the BBC debates. Okay he's not PM but he is technically propping up Cameron.

Surely Whitlam made no secret, or Hawke at the very least?

Jefferson the third President of the US and the main author of our Declaration of Independent wrote the followings.

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And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823


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History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.


In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814

Priests...dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Correa de Serra, April 11, 1820

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17879317/site/newsweek/

Ya, that position would be a problem in America...

I question such polls especially in light of our now having a first generation American black president in the White House.

Let a real flesh and blood first class candidate who is an open atheist run for office and I think that those polls will be proven worthless.

Well, THAT'S a pity.

She was also a thespian in her youth.

Quite.

And her partner was her hairdresser.