Abandoning God May Lead to Disastrous Consequences
by Augusto Zimmermann, Epoch Times:
While the Australian legal tradition cannot lay claim to the historical depth it has in the United States; it was nevertheless built on solid religious foundations.
The island nation has remarkable Christian influences—starting with the first British fleet departing for Australia in 1787 when Captain Arthur Phillip was instructed to enforce due observance of the Christian religion and to take such steps as were necessary for the celebration of public worship.
Of course, this does not mean that people from other religions were not welcomed or that there was any obligation for those living in the land to belong to the Christian religion or, indeed, any religion at all. However, Governor Phillip “appreciated the role of religion, and Christianity especially, as the bases for an ordered and civilised society.”
While the role of Christianity in Australia’s history is irrefutable, when these important facts are mentioned, they are often critiqued and brushed aside with contempt. After all, the religious makeup of Australia has changed remarkably over the last 50 years, and the recent 2021 census shows Australians are less religious than ever.
For the first time, fewer than half of Australians identify as Christian. In fact, only less than 44 percent of the population now profess to be Christian, down from 52 percent five years earlier and 61 percent in 2011. When the first census was conducted in 1911, 96 percent of Australians self-identified as Christian.
The move away from this religion has accelerated rapidly over the past decade, although it has been in steady decline since the 1960s. In the census of 1961, only 0.7 percent of Australians identified as having no religion. But now, almost 40 percent of Australians say they have no religious beliefs. Based on current trends, the number of irreligious people will exceed the number of Christians by the time the next census is conducted in 2026.
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