Religion and Spirituality in Australian Society: Impact of Historical, Political and Sociocultural Events and Attitudes

This paper discusses the impact of historical, political and sociocultural events and attitudes on religion and spirituality in Australian society, with a focus on religious discrimination and its effects on the Muslim population.

Running head: RELIGION
Religion
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Introduction
Although, both religion and spirituality could be considered to be a related and linked
concepts, they are not completely the same thing. Spirituality is basically held to be one of
the broader sense of connections to nature, the universe and perhaps the higher power as well
but it is not necessarily the one that can be directly identified (Diaz et al. 2015). On the other
hand, religion is more formalised and the people who are religious, typically identify
themselves as the ones belonging to a specific faith or beliefs. However, religion could have
notable impact on the manner a person experiences and lives his life. An individual who is
religious might find many areas in his life to be influenced by the beliefs. Some individual
might experience discrimination or persecution as an outcomes of his belief system, some
might develop faith according to his childhood beliefs or as an outcome of personal
searching. While there are others well who might have different beliefs imposed on them by
their family, society, friends and any other intimate partners of theirs (Weathers, McCarthy
and Coffey 2016). They feel obligated to uphold all these beliefs even when they find huge
difference in them from their personal views. This paper is going to elaborate on a religion
phenomenon or issue that is linked with the Australian society. It would identify and
investigate how religion and spirituality in the Australian society have an influence on and
are influenced by the historical, political and sociocultural events and attitudes.
Body
One of the major religious issues prevailing in Australia is that of the religious
discrimination. Although Australia is one of the most significant religious and a multi-faith
countries, still the commonwealth laws of this country do not prohibit religious
discrimination (Black 2015). As according to the census of 2016, the mixture of beliefs in the
Australian society has changes over the years and it has remained a pretty religious region in

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the world. As according to the last census, about 70% of the Australians were self-identifies
as religious. The total number of Australian populations who have been self-identified as
being Christian in the census has fallen to 52.1% in the year 2016 from 88.2% of the year
1966. With the same, the total number of Australians who have been identifies as being of
other religion has grown to 8.2% from 0.8%, with Buddhism (2.4%), Hinduism (1.9%) and
Islam (2.6%) being the largest non-Christian faiths. The total population which has been self-
identifies as belonging from the category of “no religion” have emerged to 30.1% from 0.8%
(Dunn and Piracha 2015). This category comprises of the ones having secular beliefs and
having no religion. Hence, this makes it really hard to predict what these Australians really
belief.
The Muslim Australians who follow the religion of Islam often experience
discrimination and abuse on a daily basis in this country as the result of various political,
historical and legal consequences which have provided a way to misinformed assumptions
and accusations that the Muslim religion is based on fanaticism, terrorism, violence and
extremism. In Australia, the Muslim population make up the countries’ most culturally
diverse groups and include more than three lakh followers throughout the nation (Adams et
al. 2016). With the same, the New South Wales comprise of the Australia’s largest Muslim
population and still they are not protected from the religious vilification. The Muslims in this
country are discriminated against because of the difference in their religion and beliefs. Even
this also include heinous attacks of vandalism on the Islamic community by the other religion
holders in Australia.
The emotional and physical effect of such types of discrimination, inequalities and
prejudices that are suffered by the Muslims has influenced them in many ways. Most of the
Australian Muslims feels that their basic human rights are been violated and the
discrimination that they face has also caused emotional and physical anguish (Randall and

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Venkatesh 2015). Also, many of their felt that there is a need for defending their faith and
religion as they feel that it is the only way to decrease these incidents from taking place. This
defence of their own religion has been done by the Australian Muslims engaging in online
and radio debates, articles and letters to newspapers, lectures and talks to educate the
common people regarding their religion and to quash any misunderstanding and
misconceptions that people might have of their faith.
Faith has greatly influence on the decision making process of the country. It would be
wrong to say that the politics and religion do not get mix together as because it would then
deny the long history of the great leaders of faith in the Australian history. As Australia is a
secular nation, there is no official religion and constitutional protection against this (Gilman
2017). However, the country is broadly Christian. Hence, it can be said that religion indeed
impacts the Australian politics. Most of the mainstream politicians who are identified as
religious, go to a great extent to convince the electorate, that while they might be religious, it
would not affect their decisions in any way. However, most of the people do not believe that
someone who makes a point of telling them that they are religious, would not be influenced
by their own religious views. At the heart of the religious practice is that of prayer. The
Australians pray far more than they actually go to church (Inglehart 2018). When the
Australian policymakers grave social problems of Australia including the rising illegitimacy,
violent crime, welfare dependency and substance abuse, they also heed the findings present in
the professional literature of the social sciences on positive consequences which flow from
the practise of the religion.
Conclusion
Hence, after analysing the above, it can be concluded that the religious practices in
Australia appear to have great potential for addressing the current social problems prevailing

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there. The repeated and strong evidence indicates that the day to day practices of religion has
beneficial impacts in near about all the aspects of policy and social concern. Religion do have
influence on the Australian politics to a great extent as well as its historical events and
attitudes.

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