Religion Free Governance - Neutral New Zealand

I do not believe that placing your hand on a bible in court gives any reassurance to the public that that person will or will not tell the truth under oath.

You don't have to swear upon the bible. You can simply affirm

Our courts haven't been based around the bible for quite some time.

if it was a lie detector and could accurately determine the truth from a lie

I don't know of any lie detector that accurate.

Neutral counts as innocent. Even pretty guilty still counts as innocent until its definitely guilty.

How can you have law and order without a moral absolute? The very concept of laws and boundaries came from religion...

A very faulty basis for any laws.

Logic, on the other hand, can actually provide a fairly solid moral basis. It can, and does, point to how things should be. It's how philosophers try to determine a 'right' path.

Are you saying faith / religion is not logical?

It does seem to be more emotionally based than logically.

But what I'm really saying is that religion isn't a viable basis for laws as there's no consistency to its rules often resulting in contradiction.

No its not logical. Its a man made product using your ego or voices in your head to justify your actions which is pathetic. If you believe in god you eliminate yourself from being worthy of anything in reality. If the internet party has a belief in a god its lost any credibility it had with me beforehand.

For anybody saying we have separation of Church and State, please watch the start of this. It is our Parliament.

@taneharre : I think some of that performance comes from being part of the rules that go with being a British Colony. If I recall correctly David Lange wanted to do away with the nonsense at the opening of parliament and he ended up being threatened with military action if he proceeded.

It is a hangover from Britain and is to do with the royalty allowing the people to run the country but they would have control over the armed forces. (An very historic stand off between royalty and the people in England).

It is intended to demonstrate that the monarchy have control over those that govern. Those that govern allow this to show they are loyal to the monarchy. So attempting to stop this happening is effectively giving the finger to the monarchy and undermine their authority.

Anyway:
All political decisions need to be based in science fact not science fiction.

It is improving:

I am old enough to recall the days when NZ literally shut down at the weekend especially Sunday. I can recall the disgust from tourist who arrived in NZ for only a few days to find the whole place closed. No tours, no open restaurants or bars - nothing. You made sure you picked up your crates of booze for the weekend and then loaded up at the bar for the 6 o'clock swill. Essential services were the only people who were allowed to work those days.

If I recall correctly they had just allowed cinemas to open on Saturdays when I arrived in NZ.

Easter trading is still the last bastion yet to fall.

Weirdly I fully support the closing down of the country on some random day (Sunday will do). Everybody gets to be off at the same time. Builds social cohesion I think.

The one that currently annoys me is the holiday system. If I am Christian it isn't too bad. If I am Muslim all my days of are on Christian days...same for everybody else. Why can't we just have an allotment of public holidays which you can decide on at the start of the year?