Source: Christian Today Australia
Victorian primary school students will soon have religious education lessons taught by people who do not believe in God and say there is "no evidence of any supernatural power". The Humanist Society has developed a curriculum, which the State Government accreditation body says it intends to approve, for accredited volunteers to deliver 30-minute lessons each week of "humanist applied ethics" to pupils in the class time designated for religious instruction. As with lessons delivered by faith groups, parents will be able to request that their children do not participate.
The body that accredits Victoria's 3500 Christian religious instruction volunteers, Access Ministries, says humanism is not a religion and should not be taught in religious education time. Access Ministries now teaches in about two-thirds of state primary schools. Other accredited instructors teach Judaism, Buddhism and Baha'i. The Humanist Society believes ethics have "no necessary connection with religion". Humanists believe people are responsible for their own destiny and reject the notion of a supernatural force or God.
Christian group "Salt Shakers" panned the idea of humanists being given religious education class time. Research director Jenny Stokes said: "If you go there, where do you stop? What about witchcraft or Satanism? "If you accredit humanism, then those things would have an equal claim to be taught in schools." But Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) professor Desmond Cahill, who heads the accreditation body said he could foresee no problem with approving it.