On Friday 25 November, 9:15 am, the ethics of the participants in Banjo Paterson’s song, Waltzing Matilda, was discussed at the regular meeting of the philosophy club, Plato and Biscuits, at The Wattle Club centre, Underwood Street, Ferntree Gully. Little would Paterson have realised the issues that he had raised: squatting on someone else’s land, stealing and eating animals, invoking the law and suicide. And what would people from distant cultures think? It all took two and a half hours of intense discussion initiated by the puppet show and lesson from the Humanist Society of Victoria ethics manual.

All this in a song that many Australian’s wanted to be the national anthem. – HG

 ”There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip.” Greek and English proverb It was great to read in The Age of two months ago that the National Chaplaincy program was being extended to permit schools to hire secular counsellors who would not proselytise their children, but, since it seemed too good to be true, we wrote to …[Read More]…

  At noon today about one hundred people, including five Humanists, assembled in Queen’s Hall, Parliament House, Victoria, to participate in a moving ceremony convened by Road Trauma Support Services. Photographs of deceased were displayed on a table in front of the lectern. The service was led by Rev. Andrew Calder, but mercifully not too …[Read More]…

Untouchable castes occur in several countries, but notably in India and Nigeria. As described by the immediate past president, Roy Brown (left), the International Humanist and Ethical Union has relief work established in India and donations are welcome. – HG    More …