Religion in Australia

If take a look on religion in Australia then we find that 75% of the people here are Christians, although it is a highly secularized society. The establishment of state religion is prohibited by constitution, so there is no state religion. There is a general belief among the Australians that the world, man, and the various animals and plants were created by certain Supernatural beings who afterwards disappeared, either ascending to the sky or entering the earth and ritual systems, with an emphasis on life transitions such as puberty and death. Christianity was introduced with European settlement of Australia from 1788, denominations represented were predominantly Roman Catholic found amongst Irish convicts and Anglican among other convicts and their gaolers. The churches with the largest number of members are the Roman Catholic Church in Australia, the Lutheran Church of Australia, the Uniting Church in Australia, and the Anglican Church of Australia. The Pentecostal churches and charismatic movement are also present with mega churches being found in most states (for example, Hillsong Church and Paradise Community Church). The National Council of Churches in Australia is the main Christian ecumenical body.

Hindus are a religious minority in Australia, roughly 70,000 by estimate. In the 19th Century, Hindus first came to Australia to work on cotton and sugar plantations. Many remained as small businessmen, working as camel drivers, merchants and hawkers, selling goods between small rural communities. These days Hindus are well educated professionals in fields such as medicine, engineering, commerce and information technology. As a community Hindus live relatively peacefully and in harmony with the local populations. From the 17th Century, before European settlement, until early 20th Century, the Macassans (an ethnic group from eastern Indonesia) had contact with Aboriginal settlements in the north.

As these people were from a region where Islam was the dominant faith it is presumed that Muslims would have had contact with Indigenous tribes. Throughout the 19th Century Muslims were recruited to Australia for specific skills, like Cameleers, Divers, and sailors. In the early twentieth century, people of non-European descent found it very difficult to come to Australia because of a government policy which limited immigration on the basis of race. In the 1920s and 1930s, Albanian Muslims were accepted due to their lighter European complexion, which was more compatible with the White Australia Policy. From the 1970s onwards, there was a significant shift in the government’s attitude towards immigration. Towards the end of the 20th and the beginning 21st Centuries Australia has encouraged immigration from all countries. This combined with religious conversion to Islam and Australia's participation in UN refugee efforts has increased the overall Muslim population.

The history of the Jews in Australia began with the transportation of several Jewish convicts aboard the First Fleet in 1788 when the first European settlement was established on the continent in present-day Sydney. Today, an estimated 110,000 Jews reside in Australia, the majority being Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern European descent, with many being refugees and Shoah survivors who arrived during and after World War II. The Jewish population has been swelled more recently by immigrants from South Africa and the former Soviet Union. According to the 2001 Commonwealth census, only 83,459 people identified themselves as Jews. The largest Jewish community in Australia is in Melbourne with about 50,000 followed closely by Sydney with 45,000 members. Smaller communities are dispersed among the remaining capital cities.

According to the Australian census in 2001, Buddhism is the second largest religion in Australia, with 357,813 adherents, or 1.9% of the total population. It was also the fastest growing religion in terms of percentage, having increased its number of adherents by 79% since the previous census in 1996. Although the first concrete example of Buddhist settlement in Australia was in 1848, there has been speculation from some anthropologists that there may have been contact hundreds of years earlier. In the mid to late 19th century, groups of Buddhists arrived from China, Japan and Sri Lanka. The first instance of a monk in residence in Australia was in the 1970s, and Buddhism gradually grew after that, mainly due to Asian immigration.

From the religion point of view the population of Australia can be rated as: Christians-- 70.9%, Buddhists—1.9%, Muslim—1.5%, Hindus—0.5%, Jewish—0.4%, Sikh—0.1%, No religion—15.5%, others—0.4%.