Scope of Religion in Australia

Scope of Religion in Australia Diversity in Australia Australia is home to increased religious diversity and religious pluralism. Its current religious landscape is shaped through the dramatic effect of immigration, the movements to and from religions or denominations, the exploration of new religious movements and the acknowledgement of no religion. These many reasons have created an increase and decrease of many religious traditions, as well as ethnic and cultural diversity in Australia. Post war immigration is directly linked to the emergence of Australia’s new wave of migration. This helped greatly in reshaping Australia’s religious connections with many religions and denominations in terms of ethnic diversity. Many religions existed elsewhere in the world but only appeared in Australia as migration and refugee patterns changed. When Indigenous Australians were counted in Census forms in 1960, a vast majority were Christian whilst some still had a desire to integrate Aboriginal spirituality and customs into Christian expression. Migrants whom entered after World War 1 were simply those who chose to assimilate and not change the British-European culture. This was because the ‘White Australia Policy’ was in place and it was racially prejudice, religiously intolerant and only accepted whites. However, by World War 2 Australia had to ‘Populate or Perish’, thus they were desperate to increase population for national security reaso ns and economic growth. This ultimately led to a huge population increase, as Australia accepted over 3 million migrants who had arrived from over 60 countries. With Christianity dominating the 19th century, a large majority of the migrants were from South-East Asia, the Middle East and Pacific nations. This however, had not significantly introduced a wide range of religious traditions until the White Australia Policy was abolished. The removal was a sign of recognition and acceptability of religious diversity, this beginning was a door to expanded immigration and rapid growth of religions. From the 2006 Census data on Religions in Australia, there was a changing pattern of religious adherence happening. Buddhism is one the fastest growing religions, making 0.5% of the population in 1986 and 2.1% in 2006. They mainly come from Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Laos, Thailand, Japan and China. Islam is also one of the few religions that are growing at a fast rate, after Christianity and Buddhism, with 1.7%. Most Muslims come from Lebanon, Turkey, Indonesia, Iran and Iraq. Hinduism grew by 0.6% since 1986, making 0.7% of the population and most coming from India and Fiji. Based on today’s numbers and the past decades, Christianity and most of its denominations are still dominating Australia, despite the large percentages of decline in total. A steady rate with the Orthodox Christian tradition had significant numbers in affiliates of Orthodox churches, growing through the Greek, Cyprus and Eastern European migrations. The Roman Catholics have increased to 27% and the Pro testant Christians have gradually dropped to 35%, however the Catholics do outnumber the largest single Protestant group, the Anglicans by 8%. Most Protestants switch denominations to a high degree and a National Church Life survey showed that 29% of respondents had switched denominations in the past 5 years and the majority to Pentecostals, which grew by 16%. Today in Australia, all religions or denominations within them are ethnically and culturally diverse. Anglicans no longer represent the British and Buddhists are not only Chinese and Vietnamese; Christianity clearly exemplifies this idea of diversity. Christianity and its many denominations have followers of different ethnicity and nationalities, which may all believe in the same God but might carry out their practices or way of life differently depending on their culture. Migration, religious conversion and denominational switching are the few forces that shape the Australian religious landscape today. The huge expansion in Australian population has caused increases and decreases in some groups. But most importantly the reasons for these changing patterns are because of the rapid growth of New Age religions and many conversions within religion. New Age religions are a free-flowing spiritual movement with a network of believers and practitioners that have their own similar beliefs and practices that they extend onto a formal religion. Its teachings became popular during the 1970s in response to the failure of Christianity and secular humanism, in providing spiritual and ethical guidance. New Age religions can be referred to as para-religous, as they work alongside a religious tradition sharing their features, developing something new that is merely an extension of what is already introduced. However, they do contrast with many religions such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism in terms of ideas and practices. Rather than the idea of salvation and redemption by God, they focus and pla ce greater emphasis on â€Å"individual fulfilment, perfection of higher states of consciousness†. For example, many Australians or non-Australians voluntarily choose to become a follower of Buddhism or New Age religions that follows its beliefs and practices, because of the attraction to achieving a sense of inner peace. Buddhism isn’t a faith nor a religion but more of a psychology or philosophy of moral code, that doesn’t preach a god or any dogma. â€Å"Buddhism is in large measure an ‘atheistic’ system. We liberate ourselves only through detachment from the world. The fullness of such a detachment is not union with God, but what is called nirvana, a state of perfect indifference with regard to the world. The idea of mixing meditation, aromatherapy, yoga or psychology as a way to escape such limits. The New Age seeks to consume and cross-over traditions such as Buddhism as resources for personal experience and thus Buddhism is a huge influence of New Age attitudes and understandings. This also shows why Buddhism and New Age religions are high on pop ularity and rapidly increasing. People who choose to explore New Age or alternate spiritualities may feel uncomfortable within their own and they haven’t got that spiritual connection and special relationship with God and the religion. There is no doubt people are still seeking for answers to the age-old questions that have not been answered in the religion tradition they are part of, thus seeking for answers in new places. As for those who choose to take up New Age spiritualities, their reasons for conversions to or from may be to search for personal fulfillment, finding that the method of transcendental mediation might be able to heal and raise people. To seek ethical guidelines, by believing that the inner body, mind and soul has the great potential to guide them through life and obstacles. It is them, themselves that they should trust and rely on to become a stronger, better and healthier person. These are the main reasons for religious conversions and to seek for new religious expressions and spirituali ty. It was not until 1933 that the Australian census form clearly stated that the religion question was optional. In 1947, 10.9% of Australians did not state their religion and this remained pretty constant until 1971 when the instructions of ‘if no religion, write none’ was introduced. In the census, 6.7% declared themselves as having no religion and agnostics, atheists, humanists and rationalists consisted within this category. In the 2001 Australian census, 15.5% declared themselves as having no religion whilst 11.7% had not stated it, and within those 15.5%, 17565 were agnostics and 24466 were atheists. The huge increase was due to several personal reasons. People had stated themselves of ‘non-religion’ because they feel there is no need to identify one’s private religion to the government. By not answering the question, it does not mean in any way one’s rejection to religious traditions. How religious one feels is also another impact on these statistical figures. People may be spiritual or have such connections yet they don’t feel they particularly belong to a certain group and for others who are exploring other traditions may find it difficult to classify their religion as well. Other reasons for the growth of ‘no religion’ was because many people no longer accepted an inherited religious identification without a question being asked and answering ‘no religion’ had begun to be more socially acceptable. Materialism also had an effect, as it meant that many had very little interest in religion at all thus most probably ticked the obvious box of simplest words. Through these statistical figures in the Census, it is very hard to define Australia’s religious landscape, but merely what Australians see themselves as. A vast majority, who have defined themselves as belonging to a certain faith, may say they are Christians yet may have completely no religious profession or practice at all. This then expands on the idea of religiosity, where we tend to question how religious or how often should believers do their practices to be considered as a follower. For example, would those whom go to church on Easter Sunday and Christmas be considered less of a Catholic, compared to those whom go every Sunday for mass as well as the important events? Nonetheless, the religious scope in Australia continues to be dynamic and expansive. It has given Australia a richer variety of beliefs and values that may give us a broader understanding of many other cultures, religions and their way of practice. â€Å"It has given people the chance to become the measures of faith able to exercise their right of choice in being part of a religious community because they want to and not that they are†. Today, Australia stands as a multicultural multifaith society having a huge ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, promoting harmony and unity. Bibliography Living Religion textbook Macquarie studies of religion guide http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/5977/newage.html http://www.religioustolerance.org/newage.htm

Nursing and Care Essay

The concept of Synergy can be applied to the practice of nursing by means of education and service. To obtain Synergy in nursing the nurse’s knowledge and skills are able to meet the individual needs of the patient population that is presented. Currently in Western Pennsylvania, there is a rising number maternal substance abuse during pregnancy. This epidemic in turn creates a different type of population in infants than other areas of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), with specific healthcare needs. One area that is lacking synergy is the care of this rising patient population of infants suffering from Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS). This creates a gap between nursing education and clinical application. Due to the rise in NAS infants it is important for nurses to be educated in proper care for an infant presenting with this diagnosis, symptom management, communication skills, and the fundamental knowledge Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. Poor patient outcomes can be caused by a lack of understanding addiction. The Vermont Oxford Network states, â€Å"Fear of stigmatization, discrimination, child removal, poor treatment, and criminal prosecution has deterred women from seeking care. However, the research suggests that providing substance dependent women with comprehensive healthcare, drug and alcohol abuse treatment, and social support improves pregnancy, birth, and child development outcomes. † (Horbar, Soll & Buus-Frank, 2013) When the infant is admitted into the acute care setting, the care needs of these patients should focus less on the immediate outcome, and more on what will create the greatest good for each patient as an individual. There is an essential need for the development of collaborative solutions for care and education in the healthcare setting for the care of this rising population. Often this would be to provide care with a realistic goal of maintaining optimal levels of comfort with minimal side effects of withdraw. â€Å"About 40% of infants who exhibit withdrawal symptoms can be treated without medication. † (White, 2013) Nurses who take time to ensure a level of comfort will help to alleviate symptoms of NAS withdraw and also help support the family in their infant’s care. In addition to providing comfort will help decrease the need to be medicated for withdraw and ultimately will lead to a shorter hospitalization. The manager of a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit will need to address this issue and implement change in order to improve patient outcomes. The competencies that make up the Synergy model are clinical judgment, advocacy and moral agency, caring practices, facilitation of learning, collaboration, systems thinking, response to diversity, and clinical inquiry. For the NAS population advocacy, clinical judgment, caring practices and facilitation of learning are most important. Advocacy proposes the nurse to serve as a moral agent to work on the infant’s behalf in order to provide the greatest good to help resolve concerns that are both clinical and ethical. Clinical judgment is the ability for the nurse to take on the leadership role to care for their patient. Infants are unable to make healthcare decisions; the nurse must consider the parent’s wishes and what the result the nurses’ actions will yield for this infant. These actions must positively contribute to their plan of care overall. Caring practices creates a compassionate and therapeutic environment for each the patients, recognizing the unique needs of each infant. The nurse acts as a facilitator of learning when he/she incorporates the understanding of the infant’s family into the care. The Synergy mode includes patient characteristics, which are, resiliency, vulnerability, stability, complexity, resource availability, participation in care and decision-making and predictability. For the NAS population the patient characteristics would immediately associate complexity, vulnerability, and participation in care and decision-making. Complexity as referred to as to the multitude of symptoms that are to be considered for proper care of the patient. These infants are unable communicate pain, symptoms needs, and what their desire’s are. For example, these infant’s cry and are inconsolable until the nurse goes through a trial and error until he/she figures out the needs of the child. They do not understand what is happening to them. Vulnerability includes the stressors that these patients will be exposed to that may affect outcomes. The infants depend on the decisions their families and healthcare professionals. Increased length of hospital stay can lead to problems that may decline in their already compromised condition, for example, infection. Lastly, the NAS patients are vulnerable due to the fact that they are unable to make their own healthcare decisions and have to depend on parents and healthcare providers to be speak on their behalf. The parents participate in care as they receive information and help assist in the care for their child. Analyze the Case Nursing education places emphasis on clinical presentation, physical stressors and conditions that affect the patient and their associated treatments. Increased education is needed for nurses on the postpartum and NICU units about the treatment for this specific patient population. With the increase in drug dependent mothers there seems to be little nursing education provided on postpartum and NICU nursing units about the care for these infants, and this issue needs to be addressed. â€Å"Infants with NAS have higher rates of neonatal complications, prolonged lengths of stay and consume substantial NICU and hospital resources. Further, they impose a growing burden on already strained healthcare resources because state Medicaid expenditures are disproportionately impacted. † (Horbar, Soll & Buus-Frank, 2013) The administration and education team needs to identify this problem and incorporate teaching and updated research on these units. One competency that lacks synergy in the nursing care of the NAS population is collaboration. â€Å"Collaboration enhances the capacity of a group and increases the potential for success. † (Hardin & Kaplow, p. 75, 2005) It is not uncommon when different discipline areas such as the nurse, doctor, social worker etc. identify different goals for the patient. Poor communication causes the team to not work in unison to collaborate and work towards a common goal. â€Å"A key to collaboration is the communication that must exist between the patient, family, and health care team members as well as among members of the health care team. Another synergy lacking competency would be caring practices, which is the unique nursing care provided to the patient and families. Within the NAS population nurses have to recognize the differences and incorporated them into the infants care. Having compassion and creating a calming environment help provide comfort in a therapeutic environment. Often times the NAS population is considered as level II care, this allows for the nurses to take on a multiple patient assignment of three to five infants at a time. The NAS population is unique; they require much coddling and almost constant attention from the nurse. Having greater than three patients causes a great disadvantage to these children due to the nurse having to spread herself thin to meet the basic needs of feeding, changing and medicating, the nurse does not have adequate time to rock and soothe the infants causing greater withdraw symptoms. The rational decision-making model will help identify and implement the appropriate changes that are essential in optimizing care for the NAS population. Improvement in the education of the healthcare staff will create better patient outcomes. This decision making process includes three steps to achieve this objective: identify possible outcomes, determine probability of each outcome, and take action with the highest probability to achieve a positive outcome. The considered actions are increased in-person training, mandatory review of printed materials, or an on-line training course. The greatest positive outcome would come from increased in-person training. Create a Change Proposal Part of the nursing orientation for staff will be to participate in a class specified for the training related to care of the NAS infant prior to working in the NICU. Written material as well as a presentation will be provided. The attending physician will make a statement about services provided to the NAS infant, medications and important facts that the physician would like in report. For the staff nurses’ senior nursing projects are assigned yearly and are presented to maintain their status on the unit. Assigning NAS care to a few nurses each year will keep the most up to date research on the unit. These nurses will participate in Internet presentations that focus on quality, safety and care for infants and families of and NAS infant. Finally, a staff member from the social work team will join and present his/her role in the case of a NAS infant. The unit will provide CEU’s for this training. This proposal will affect the unit internally by involving the management team and multiple staff disciplines. The management team will help aid in this proposal by providing a day that is designated this additional training and appoint the appropriate nursing, physician and social work staff to participate in running the program. Finally obtaining CEU’s approved by the state board of nurses to offer education credits for after the completion of training. The designated nurses assigned to NAS as a senior project must keep up to date with the training information prior to the class of new staff, doing so will ensure they are prepared for questions that may arise. With this proposal the staff has the potential to increase the patient stability, outcome and satisfaction. Also this proposal will be aimed to help the nurses caring for NAS infants to promote patient care through evidenced based research. A change model that applies to this proposal would be the Lewin’s change model. This model is based on unfreezing, moving, and refreezing. First the unfreezing stage, the current beliefs and ideas will change with the desired outcome. The health care team will sufficiently identify the epidemic and need for changes in care for the NAS infant, inspiring the education and treatments needed to move the staff towards bettering practices. Lastly, refreezing, the nursing staff will have a new outlook or attitude towards NAS infants. Changes in the treatment process will be instituted based on the staff’s new outlook. Having the knowledge and resources for the care of the NAS infant will allow the care team to handle each unique case with evidenced based approach. Along with any type of change there will always be positive and negative outcomes on the environment. Positive outcomes will include an influx in nursing knowledge, better patient outcomes and an increased amount of resources for the staff. Negative outcomes may include not having the adequate amount of staff to run this program and the biases formed by individuals prior to participating in this class. A way to follow up with the care provided to these patients and their families would be an optional survey completed by the families allowing the unit to see their strengths and weaknesses. The survey will allow for improvement of care. â€Å"Nurses who have confidence in their ability to positively impact maternal parenting behaviors through education and skill building may impact patient care outcomes. It is imperative that the management and supervisors recognize the issues that nurse’s experience when caring for NAS infants. Educating staff will allow for a balance of practice and the nurses actions. Instituting this educational program will provide synergy to the NICU units and the epidemic of withdraw infants. The unit directors will be able to see that the changes to the unit and education instituted has worked when NAS infants have a shorter hospital stay, a decrease in the use of morphine and phenobarbital and finally patient/parental and nurse satisfaction. In conclusion, with the epidemic of substance abuse mothers on the rise it is imperative that neonatal nursing units properly educate their staff about the treatment and care of NAS infants. With the changes proposed in this case the care of this specific population will be enhanced. These infants are very fragile and require a lot of special attention. The proper care and education could make the world of a difference in a baby’s life.

Existentialism: Philosophy of Life and Existence Essay

Existentialism â€Å"Existentialism is an attitude that recognizes the unresolvable confusion of the human world, yet resists the all-too-human temptation to resolve the confusion by grasping toward whatever appears or can be made to appear firm or familiar†¦The existential attitude begins a disoriented individual facing a confused world that he cannot accept. † (Robert Solomon) Existentialist all share a common concern with what they have coined as the â€Å"Human Condition. † They tend to ask: †¢Why am I here? †¢What does it mean to be human? †¢How should I go about living my life? Existentialism is more of individual rather than social. They, Existentialist need to justify their existence. For them, they’re having their journey in life to know their purpose based on their own philosophy, according to EDU310 Foundations of Learning. There is no predetermined definition or purpose. We are free to make our own definitions through choices that lead toward self-definition. Students are free agents, responsible for creating their own selves and purpose. Everything learned is a tool toward the realization of one’s own subjectivity. Standardized testing restricts the interpersonal relationship between teacher and student. Value-laden students are vital, as is authentic assessment. Therefore, Existentialism is a philosophy concerned with human existence, self-discovery, and the search for life’s meaning based on free will, experiences, beliefs, laws, and traditions. How does existentialism connect to Axiology and Metaphysics? (Branches of philosophy) In Education, Existentialism is very important, because as an Educator we should know each child’s life, existence and story behind their attitudes and characters, for us to become an effective educator, according to Bethel Jadem. For example, a child has a problem and suddenly changed his/her attitude; we have to know the reason behind it for us to understand him/her. We should know also their philosophy and belief in life so that we could better adjust, know and appreciate their existence as well. To show the connective thread between Axiology and existentialism and metaphysics and existentialism the terms need to first be defined. †¢Axiology is the study of value. It is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature and types of value such as in ethics and religion. (â€Å"What and why do you value? †) †¢Metaphysics is (â€Å"What is real? †) In connection to axiology, an example of existentialism is: According to EDU 301 Foundations of Learning, studying the ethics of the Christian and Jewish religions is an example of a study in axiology. Therefore, if a child growing up in a Christian home has strong beliefs about God he/she values her beliefs and therefore concludes that here existence is solely because of God. â€Å" There is a purpose for my existence, God will show me the way. † In connection to metaphysics, an example of existentialism is: Since â€Å"this† exists, that cannot exist. â€Å"John was walking (this) on water (that). † There is only knowledge of how, beyond what is given, so inferred to make the situation valid with natural cause. As a metaphysical example, if he could walk on water, maybe he had water in his shoes. There is also questions that go beyond what we know. Such as â€Å"is there a â€Å"first† cause? † Or is time â€Å"infinite†? Since we ourselves can have no observation of such truth, only inference based on given present events, it becomes Metaphysical.

Math Definition of a Sample Space in Statistics

The collection of all possible outcomes of a probability experiment forms a set that is known as the sample space. Probability concerns itself with random phenomena or probability experiments. These experiments are all different in nature and can concern things as diverse as rolling dice or flipping coins. The common thread that runs throughout these probability experiments is that there are observable outcomes. The outcome occurs randomly and is unknown prior to conducting our experiment.   In this set theory formulation of probability, the sample space for a problem corresponds to an important set. Since the sample space contains every outcome that is possible, it forms a set of everything that we can consider. So the sample space becomes the universal set in use for a particular probability experiment. Common Sample Spaces Sample spaces abound and are infinite in number. But there are a few that are frequently used for examples in an introductory statistics or probability course. Below are the experiments and their corresponding sample spaces: For the experiment of flipping a coin, the sample space is {Heads, Tails}.  There are two elements in this sample space.For the experiment of flipping two coins, the sample space is {(Heads, Heads), (Heads, Tails), (Tails, Heads), (Tails, Tails) }.  This sample space has four elements.For the experiment of flipping three coins, the sample space is {(Heads, Heads, Heads), (Heads, Heads, Tails), (Heads, Tails, Heads), (Heads, Tails, Tails), (Tails, Heads, Heads), (Tails, Heads, Tails), (Tails, Tails, Heads), (Tails, Tails, Tails) }.  This sample space has eight elements.For the experiment of flipping n coins, where n is a positive whole number, the sample space consists of 2n elements. There are a total of C (n, k) ways to obtain k heads and n - k tails for each number k from 0 to n.For the experiment consisting of rolling a single six-sided die, the sample space is {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}For the experiment of rolling two six-sided dice, the sample space consists of the set of the 36 possible pairings of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.For the experiment of rolling three six-sided dice, the sample space consists of the set of the 216 possible triples of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.For the experiment of rolling n six-sided dice, where n is a positive whole number, the sample space consists of 6n elements.For an experiment of drawing from a standard deck of cards, the sample space is the set that lists all 52 cards in a deck. For this example, the sample space could only consider certain features of the cards, such as rank or suit. Forming Other Sample Spaces The above list includes some of the most commonly used sample spaces. Others are out there for different experiments. It is also possible to combine several of the above experiments. When this is done, we end up with a sample space that is the Cartesian product of our individual sample spaces. We can also use a tree diagram to form these sample spaces. For example, we may want to analyze a probability experiment in which we first flip a coin and then roll a die.  Since there are two outcomes for flipping a coin and six outcomes for rolling a die, there are a total of 2 x 6 12 outcomes in the sample space we are considering.