About Plain Reason

The primary objective of Plain Reason is to promote rational discussion and critical thinking in all matters of public interest, and particularly in those issues which relate to beliefs in the supernatural and pseudo-scientific practices not based on material evidence.  Plain Reason argues for the appreciation of science, and to embrace the Scientific Method as the most reliable means to advance knowledge of our world, the universe and our own human origins.

Our aim is to lay open to scrutiny the myths of all religion, but primarily to focus on the undue influences in Australia of evangelical Christianity in politics, education, health, aged care and the welfare sectors.  Christian evangelism is based on known fabrications of both the Old and New Testaments, with contemporary historians and biblical scholars rejecting the entire myth of a divine Jesus of Nazareth — Son of God.  Plain Reason advances the need for Australia to become fully secular; to teach ‘philosophical ethics’ in schools; and to remove religion from education and the whole political process of government — particularly as it relates to a raft of contemporary social policy.

All religion is an anachronism.  Historically, it is a divisive and malevolent set of man-made doctrines, based on the supernatural, which divide people and nations.  Faith is not a virtue.  The book profiled on our Home Page — ‘Sacred to Secular‘ — details why this is so and looks to the progressive secular nations of Scandinavia that have moved religion from a position of public and politicised privilege to become a matter of personal and private contemplation, for those who still feel the need.

In Australia today there are literally thousands of different religions, sects and cults.  While all people have the right to worship any god they choose, society must also have the right to be free FROM  religion — and the mass marketing of their moral and social doctrines. There is a naive belief that society will degenerate without religious morality. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could be further from the truth . . .  see Secular Ethics for the 21st century.

The three Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — have their origins in one family dynasty.  But over a 3000-year period, since Abraham, these three doctrines have fractured, divided and splintering into countless manifestations — all claiming to be “chosen by God” and proclaiming a supernatural authority that must dominate the political and social agenda.

Religion has — from its very beginnings — been a vehicle for raw political power; a history that is outlined in ‘Sacred to Secular‘.  Today, religions seek to dictate on many policy issues both overtly and through covert means.  Church influence in Australia greatly exceeds their numerical and congregational strength.  But what they lack in numbers they substitute with lobbyists, political think-tanks, and slick public relations.

Since colonisation, Christianity has cultivated and established its preeminence at all levels of government, the military, judiciary, media, and the corporate sector.  Their enormous accumulated wealth in property, investments and private institutions — covering education, health and welfare — allows Christianity to manipulate critical elements of contemporary socio-political policy.

IT IS TIME TO REDRESS THE BALANCE . . .

More people are finally realising that all religious belief is learned from childhood — their ‘brand’ of religion depends entirely on where they are born, and to whom! 

Science has opened up the universe, but not the minds of those who remain constricted and cloistered by illusions of the supernatural.  Chapter 7 of ‘Sacred to Secular‘ deals with this issue in great detail.

Plain Reason — together with other secular, rationalist and atheist organisations — seeks to question the very foundations of religion, the harm it continues to inflict on children, and the covert methods by which religion undermines progress towards an inclusive, egalitarian and secular Australia.

We will bring these issues before the public in a more open and inclusive manner.  We seek to engage with the media and gain a broader groundswell of public support, and to tell parliamentarians — both state and federal — that their local constituents demand change!  Australia will benefit substantially from finally becoming religion-neutral and maturing as a fully secular democracy.

Plain Reason promotes science, reason, logic and critical thought