Random Developments

Last March, a member of the US Congress — Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) — announced to the public that he’s an atheist, becoming in this way the first openly non-theist member of the US Congress in history. It was big news at the time, it was even reported in the mainstream media in Australia.

A few days ago, an Australian Member of Parliament — MP Ian Hunter (Labor-SA) — sent a letter to a newspaper responding to a report that claimed that he was reading a book while other MPs prayed. His response said that, being an atheist, he does not pray and therefore chose to “improve [his] mind by reading” instead. That wasn’t exactly big news, and I guess most people didn’t even hear about that — even in his own seat of Adelaide (I don’t think it would have made the news at all, hadn’t he also said that prayers in Parliament are “an archaic practice which wastes the time of the MPs”).

Leaving aside the fact that MPs regularly pray in Parliament (every day, in fact, at the opening of proceedings), that shows a significant difference in attitude regarding atheism between the two countries… (and, yes, US representatives also pray in Congress).