Why Is There Religious Intolerance In Australia

According to source 2 Christianity remained the dominant religion in Australia, although non-Christian religions continued to grow at a much faster rate. Since 1996, Christianity grew from around 12.6 million to 12.7 million, but compared to the other religions and the total population this number fell from 71% to 64%. Within Christianity, Anglicans dropped from 22% of the population to 18.7%, and therefore resulted in a decrease growth of -4.7 within the time period of 10 years. “Over the same period of time non-Christian religions increased from around 0.6 million to 1.1 million people, and collectively accounted for 5.6% of the total population in 2006” (king, 2010, p.221).

The present religious landscape in Australia is one that has changed significantly from 1945 up until now. Christianity is still currently the most popular religious tradition in Australia, however has seen a steady decrease in numbers due peoples interests in other religions and a non religious focused society. Due to immigration Australia has seen significant increases in followers of Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. Because of Australia’s consumeristic society, denominational switching has become more common, especially in the Protestant denomination. New Age religions have become increasingly popular recently due to peoples search for individual fulfilment, in the form of happiness, health and meaning in life. Secularism in Australia is now a belief that forefronts society due to scientific discovery and individualism.

There is an ‘us and them’ mentality in terms of Australian relations with Muslims living in Australia. There seems to be several reasons for this. The Australian society doesn’t seem to cater nor care for the traditions and religion of Muslim people living in Australia, there is a high volume of discrimination and racism targeting Muslims. Western Sydney and Charles Sturt university recently conducting a survey regarding the issue of the marginalisation of Muslim

Post WW2, under the growing mindset that Australia must ‘populate or perish’ in order to maintain and grow the nations security, workforce and economy, 3million migrants from Italy, Greece, and other European countries immigrated to Australia, in accordance with the ‘White Australia Policy”. Majority of these immigrants were adherents of either the Catholic or Orthodox Church, therefore whilst new religions were introduced, they did not have as much of a significant impact of the religious landscape as the immigrants post 1972 did.

Australia has been a culturally diverse society since long before white settlement. The indigenous people had many different cultures, languages and customs, even members of the First Fleet came from a number of culturally significant backgrounds. Diversity in Australia took large strides 67 years ago with the beginning of the Snowy River Scheme which promoted skilled immigrants to come here and work, because as a nation just after World War II we lacked the manpower and knowledge to complete such a large and complicated project.

To further this argument, research conducted by Dr Kevin Dunn (Christopher & Deresky 2008) exemplified how ‘marginalised’ the minority of Australian Muslims and people of Middle Eastern origin are in the Australian society. Australians are thought to be of the opinion that people with these cultural and religious backgrounds are the least likely to be able to fit into the culture of Australians (Christopher & Deresky, 2008).

Christianity is the major religious tradition today and has been since around 1945. Many of the British who first came to Australia, either as convicts or free settlers were Christians. They formed the huge base for Christianity to rise to the top religion in Australia before they began to let more immigrants enter. In the 1947 census, 88% of the population (not including Aboriginals because they were not considered in the census) stated they were Christian. The remaining 12% was mostly people who didn’t respond to the question. Today not much has changed the percentage of Christians has slightly decreased because of a rise in new religions. In the census of 2011 it is seen that out of 21.5 million people just under half, 42% classed themselves as Christian and around 8% said they were of a different religion. The number of people who said they had no religion was hugely increased at around 25%per cent. Today, even with the growing amount of Islam Buddhism and Hinduism, Christianity still remains the major religious tradition.

Nowadays, almost refugees come to Australia are Muslim. According to the terrorism in France, Sonia Kruger, who is a media commentator argues that Muslim migration should be banned in Australia. Andrew Bolt also said Muslim migration was opening the door to terror. However, banning somebody out of the country because of their religion is not the good idea. In that case, Australia will become the second France. To argued against Kruger and Bolt, Jamila Rizvi said Australia is different from France because we have a clearly migration policy. Same as what I tell you in the beginning, Australia is a multicultural country so we should not discrimination against one

Both have an open society, willing to absorb the newcomers believes and grant them citizenship. Another interesting similarity between the two is the ability to humiliate, often publicly,

There was many religious bias in pre 1945 Australia, the church of England’s values, rules and morals were integrated into Australia’s law, and those who did not follow the church of England faced endless sectarianism at the time.

Australia, a land that was long bound in superstition and the lower type religions, hosted a Billy Graham crusade and it was able to draw the largest crowd ever for a world Crusade (Smart, 7). Now, none of these actions are bad, in fact there could be a good argument that these are all good things. However, the attitude that all these actions created when they were performed in such a close sequence was one of competition. It made many religious zealots want to prove that their form of religion was the only true one. This has caused much resentment and resulted in a differing approach to the missionary work. When these missionaries could not convince people with words, they resorted to actions. One example of this religious retaliation that America is still suffering from is the mindless destruction of the twin towers on September 11

Thesis: The ability to practice Islam and feel at peace in Australia is significantly impacted upon by the action of more radical elements within the culture and the way this is treated in the media. Intro: The Islamic faith is the second fastest growing religion in the world. Knowing this fact it is clear that Islam is a major religion which would mean that it has spread through all of the world including Australia. Australians haven't taken Muslims too well because of the events that have occurred such as the Sydney siege which resulted in the death of two Australians. This caused major anti-terrorist raids in Australia most Muslims were affected by this in some way shape or form.

The article I read is titled “ Australia's Increasing Ethnic and Religious Diversity” written by Christine Inglis. Australia has been experiencing more diverse population. Around 15 percent of the world's population now speaks languages other than English. The number of Buddhists is also has increased. Australia's largest city Sydney, has been growing more diverse over the years.

Australia is a settler nation which is now made up of many ethnic groups who share similar cultural traditions, common language, shared history and a shared identity (ABS, 2016). These groups contribute to what is referred to multiculturalism. Australia has a higher proportion of people born overseas than the US, Canada and the UK, with 49% of Australia’s population (or a parent) being born overseas (Census of Population and Housing, 2016). Compared to other Western nations, Australia has one of the most diverse immigration populations (Collins, 2013, p. 145). The meaning of multiculturalism in Australia has changed significantly over time. Today, Australia is a culturally and ethnically diverse country and therefore is a multicultural society. In terms of public policy, multiculturalism can be defined as policies and practices implemented by the Australian government that aim to manage cultural diversity to benefit the whole of society (Department of Social Services, 2014). Although Australia is a multicultural society, there are criticisms of public policy surrounding multiculturalism.

While there is little doubt that overall multiculturalism is convenient for Australia, there are a few disadvantages resulting from this policy such as the perpetual increase of racist tendencies amongst the population. This is due to a lack of anti-racism plans of