Australia legalizes same sex marriage

[Locknuts]

Locknuts said:

I don't want government influencing our nations' culture. The culture should develop naturally and government should simply represent those views

Our Government is part of our Culture, it's been an influencer of Australian culture for centuries, why should that change? That's not very conservative of you. :P

For example... The New South Wales Government owns the Sydney Opera House, which is a massive cultural landmark in Australia, would Australia be better off culturally if that building was never built? Think about it.
And think about how often that building is referenced in movies, tv and music and other forms of media. (Independence Day for example.)

Locknuts said:

I could get into the ways in which christian values have improved western society, but that's a topic for another time. I don't believe that Jesus was the son of an actual God, but that doesn't mean his teachings weren't incredibly important in shaping the civilisation with the highest standards of living and longest life expectancy in human history.

I don't believe in any of the theistic accounts outlined in the Bible as it comes into contradiction with many scientific precedents.
But I do believe in the Australian Constitution and where it protects and supports the idea of Freedom of Religion and it's implied right of Freedom from Religion.

And you know what? There are nations which have never been strongly theistic which are advanced, developed nations... And there are dozens of nations that are extremely religious and have some of the worlds worst human-rights track records that will make your skin crawl.

Ergo. Religion is not a requirement for a country to be successful.
As for "Christian Values". - The Bible is just as bad as the Torah and Quran in my opinion... And thus I would argue they are actually immoral and in some extreme cases dangerous. - Thus I would hate for them to have any kind of complete control on ANY aspect of Australian society.

I think we basically understand each other on the other issues so I'll just tackle these two:

With regards to the Opera House, a building, being a part of our culture, I really don't follow you. I think the government recognised that the people within their electorate valued the arts and built the opera house. I don't know of anyone getting upset about it. It's more of a landmark than something that dictates culture to people.

I was thinking more along the lines of the ABC and SBS. Government funded media which have an obvious bias towards big government (their salaries depend on it) even they try very hard (and fail) to appear to represent all views. It's fine to be biased, but let people know at the outset. 

On the second point, I never said that religion is critical to a country's development, but religion is an important part of our culture in the west and gave us many of the principles on which the nation was built. I'd guess that many of the countries you are referring to have copied the western countries to some degree to become successful, but you didn't list any, so I wouldn't know. 

Christianity has done more good in the world that Islam or Judaism. Although Jews have achieved a disproportionate number of things like Nobel Prizes, I think this has more to do with their intellect than their culture. Before the reformation and subsequent separation of church and state, the Christian church was responsible for some horrific atrocities. But we learned the hard way and a separation became a fundamental part of our culture. I am currently educating myself on Judaism so I can't really say much on the subject.

Islam does not allow for a separation of Church and state. As Hitchens said 'Not all religions are equally bad at the same time'.