I'm not exactly sure what you are getting at here or if you are trying to put me on a back foot by saying something weird like "over the past few weeks people have been telling me there are no atheist politics. ". Why on earth would there be no atheist politics ? Of course atheists can be political, being an atheist simply means we are atheist, it says little, if nothing at all regarding our politics, save that there is a reasonable chance that we support separation of church & state,

"You could sabotage accurate govt. funding planning in Australia with your doctored results and you just assumed the issues mentioned in your OP should take priority over other issues the government needs accurate results to assess and administer."

What do you mean by this ? Of course I am trying to influence the way people are answering the census questions, but I simply asking that people are accurate in the census form. It could hardly be considered a doctored result if more atheists indicated themselves as such than they have done on previous years. This is what one would generally regard as a more accurate result. Not a doctored one.

And "you assumed the issues mentioned in your OP should take priority over the other issues..." Did I ? Point me to where I said that again.. I can't seem to locate it.

To be perfectly honest, most of your post doesn't even make any sense and I am only vaguely convinced it is even aimed towards me as you did mention "OP". But generally speaking, your post is incoherent to the on-going discussion in this thread.

I think young people can certainly be more progressive in their political attitudes and values. But I do feel as though there is a generally higher level of apathy among young people, particularly the young half of Gen-Y than there are among people say around 35-60.

I think young people are also more vocal and active as you put in, within certain contexts; they're more likely to attend a political rally, or otherwise voice their opinion in some kind of public forum.

But I think the older people are more likely to actually write to their local members of parliament regarding issues, attend council meetings, etc.

Impressive. You pick things up quickly.

You said the following:
"This will go a long way in validating just how many people in our country are NOT believes of "the faith" and will hopefully pave a way for better policies (stem cells, abortion, gay marriage) etc that are currently influenced by religious rhetoric."

Is this not a prioritization of these issues without any consideration of other issues the census concerns?

How do you know other issues aren't more directly influenced by the census than your pet priorities?

Splendour... do you know how to read? Or are you again making up meanings of common day words to suit your needs?

The OP asked people in Australia to accurately reflect their beliefs.

You respond:

Only in Splendour's world is asking people to not screw around and accurately answer the census poll as "doctoring the results."

ROFL

This isn't encouraging people to lie on the census. The OP stated:

"Agnostics: Please consider jotting down Atheist also"

If you're an agnostic then putting down you are an atheist is a lie.

Lots of people like to cite stats on 2+2 to prove that atheism is gaining ground and I suppose thereby trying to gather popular support in a backdoor sort of way.

So now I know that atheists are going around encouraging people to lie about their status I can throw out all those arguments they make and all those newspaper articles they run that atheism is gaining ground because they are encouraging the manipulation of the census and polls.

You just shot your atheist political aspirations in the foot.

You are saying one thing based on something gained by dishonest means.

See where all this encouragement of telling lies gets you.

This is incorrect. Many agnostics are also atheists and so it wouldn't even be false let alone a lie for them to say so on the census. Anyway, I doubt that the census has a separate category for atheist and agnostic...

The advice is still given in a wrong spirit.

This isn't an election poll.

There's all kinds of purposes besides the ones the OP outlined that the census could be used for and he has no business upsetting the other purposes to pursue political biases that this census might not even have a bearing upon.

It also infringes on people's own personal right to self determination of exactly who they are.

There are pure agnostics and there are agnostic atheists and he didn't say "agnostic-atheists" in his op. He made an appeal to "agnostics".

Those Aussies should add a new option to the census
[ ] My mom said Jesus was real, but now there is this guy on the internet who thinks she's wrong.

"Agnostics: Please consider jotting down Atheist also"

Doesn't seem like an infringement on people's right of self-determination.

Well he did put it very politely.

But my meditative thinking is always evolving and I think the real issue that a lot of atheists don't grasp when they argue with theists and try to influence agnostics or theists is: self identity.

When you keep reasoning on issues and pointing fingers and stirring the pot and cherry picking and everything else the human mind likes to do when it argues some how the real issue gets overlooked and that issue at the heart of things is self identity. Theists themselves get so bound up in reasoning and in worldly issues that they don't take the time out to contemplate that.
A Christian's identity is in Christ and words have more power than we think they do.

So from my perspective an agnostic shouldn't want to be bound by a stranger's influence before he's made his own self identity decision.

Before you proceed anywhere to accomplish anything you have to know who you are first.

In the UK in 2001 the Jedi proportion was recorded and reported accurately, but the Office of National Statistics (who compile the census) added a note to explain about the internet campaign. They didn't make any judgement about the validity of Jedi as a religion, nor make any assumptions that such respondents were probably atheist, but anyone reading the report would be able to draw sensible conclusions from it. So I don't think it was a "wasted vote" for atheism as truly religious people would probably not consider making a mockery of their own religion by answering Jedi. In fact, it probably drew more atheists away from their habit here of ticking CoE than any other campaign.

Interestingly they did not add Jedi as a checkbox for this year's census, as people had expected (part of the aim was to exceed some kind of threshold to get it included). So the ONS is clearly more pragmatic and sensible than people thought.

Incidentally I thought about putting down Jedi again this year to be consistent. But then I realised I'd converted to No Religion in the intervening decade, after Richard Dawkins appeared to me in a vision.

Lol...quote from the Richard Dawkins Foundation homepage:

"The mission of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and human suffering."

How very Hegelian of you Richard...Kant would be rolling over in his grave.

First off, you're again demonstrating that you're completely ignorant of the meaning of words. An agnostic can be atheistic agnostic or a theistic agnostic. It will be a surprise to no one that this has been discussed dozens of times over the years yet you remain defiantly ignorant of the meaning of the words. So... surprise, you're wrong again. An agnostic can be an atheist so it wouldn't be a lie. Try getting a dictionary so every single post you make doesn't have to be corrected.

posting stats does not gather popular support. It reflects it.

Except that you don't know that because once again you're wrong because you have an inability to understand words or use dictionaries. But its a wonder seeing how you spin things in your head.

I sure did. By pointing out that you you're wrong in nearly every sentence you post I have shot my political aspirations in the foot.

No one is encouraging lies. You simply lack basic reading skills. Nothing new to see here.

true... the spirit of having the poll be accurate. How shameful of him. Is there anything you can't spin into a plot against you?

That's true. Its a census. Where they poll people. Where the OP wants people to answer truthfully. SCANDALOUS!



No purposes are upset by asking people to answer truthfully. It seems like you're just scared that the the number of atheists might be reflected in a census. The real problem is it scares you.


No it doesn't. Look up all those words in the dictionary then get back to us. You're wrong again.

Oh no! He didn't clarify all the subcategories of agnostics?!?! He's interfering with their RIGHT OF SELF DETERMINATION. Whatever will the theistic atheists do but blindfully follow his suggestion?! SONG THE SPLENDOUR ALERT!