The Rationalist Society of Australia champions reason & evidence as the basis of public policy.

Rationalists believe all decisions should be based on reason and evidence. Our mission is to campaign for rational public policy and promote reason in Australia, something we’ve been doing since 1906. Find out more about the RSA.

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Meetups

The RSA holds monthly meetings for Members and others interested in discussing contemporary issues from a rationalist perspective.

Freedom of religion & belief

Stung by its defeat in the same-sex marriage debate, the religious right is fighting back. The RSA is not opposed to laws that protect against discrimination on the ground of religion or belief; but the government’s Religious Discrimination bill is a sword for the powerful, not a shield for the vulnerable.

Voluntary Assisted Dying

After decades of patient activism, the Victorian and Western Australian parliaments have finally ceded to the vast majority of Australian citizens who want the choice of voluntary assisted dying when facing end-of-life. The RSA supports guaranteed control over one’s body, free from religious interference.

Just how religious is Australia?

The 2016 census showed a massive rise in the non-religious, now the single largest belief group in Australia. The RSA holds that everyone should be free to choose and hold their own religious OR non-religious worldview, provided they do not impose such views on others and provided practices associated with such worldviews do no harm.

Secular Education

For over 100 years, the RSA has fought for a secular education system, one that does not promote any particular religion. National and state curricula should include the study of a range of religious and non-religious worldviews, taught by professionally trained teachers.

Chaplaincy Challenge

The RSA is opposed to discrimination on the ground of religion or belief. We are working to ensure all qualified people – regardless of their religious affiliation or lack of religious affiliation – are eligible to work as ‘chaplains’, in schools and universities, in hospitals and in the armed forces.

All the more reason.

Latest articles

Discrimination

11 ways to fix the much-maligned Religious Discrimination Bill

Meredith Doig / 24 October 2019

HUMAN RIGHTS

Blatant untruths for political ends

Meredith Doig / 20 October 2019

SCIENCE IN SOCIETY

Fire in Frame: to solve climate change, first remove the politics

Brendan Liveris / 19 October 2019