On adoption

A family... and not one drop of shared DNA.

As I was growing up in El Salvador the concept of “adoption” wasn’t something I’d encountered. You’d hear of certain families taking in children with no parents or parents who were not able to care for them. Occasionally you’d hear of women “selling” their children into the care of other families because they couldn’t afford to raise them or they needed the money for their own survival. And of course there was always the boogieman everyone “knew” about but no one had ever personally witnessed: the children who were snatched away to be sold to families the USA either because they were infertile couples or because their own biological children needed organ transplantations. They were the stories I grew up hearing in that third world country. My own personal experience was nothing I could call adoption, but it was what I saw.

There was a young girl in the town I grew up with that was thought of something like homeless or a ‘street kid’. Later I was told she did actually have a mother but for whatever reason, this girl was essentially fending for herself when I first came to know of her.  I was lucky enough to live with my mum and her partner, my four siblings, and at times also my grandmother, two uncles, two aunts, and a cousin. I had a family. I had a house to live in, food, and the essential things we needed to study. This girl, the ‘street kid’, had very little of what I had. At one point in my childhood I remember my mum took this poor soul into our house. I remember the first day she came my mum washed her hair to get all the head lice out because she didn’t want me and my siblings catching them. She took some cooking oil and put it through her hair and then combed it with a fine-tooth comb. The most bugs I have ever seen in my life came out of her hair, there were clumps of them with each stroke. It seems another world to think back to it now, but I guess it was a different world to the comfy life I live now. When the cleaning up was done, this girl became one of us, one of the family. She ate at our house, mum enrolled her in school and got her a uniform, she had books to read and learn. My siblings and I were old enough to know she was not one of “us” but to anyone else, it may have seemed my mum really had six children and not just five. That is the memory I have always had of what is now commonly called “adoption”, and for that reason I admired mum even further (though she would never had personally dared to call it anything akin to adoption).

Since about the age of 12 or so, I thought it’d be great to have children. It seems strange to say it because I would have been a child myself at the time. My family thought it was funny too and they’d ask me how many children I wanted to have. I’d always say 3 or 5 or 8 or 10. Yes, I thought I wanted to have ten of them and I’d buy a minibus to carry them all around in – and I’d have them all by the time I was thirty. I couldn’t wait to be eighteen, but not for the reason most adolescents do, but rather because I thought at eighteen you can marry and then start to have children. I had a maximum of 12 years in which to gather as many kids as I could, I thought. And I knew, or decided, by the time I was very young that at least some if not all my children would be adopted. I guess two things played into this: the fact it never crossed my mind to want or expect to have a husband or male partner, and the fact I admired so much the people who don’t get caught up in “genetics” and ownership and recognize that the ability to raise a child is a gift in itself – to a child and to a parent.

As I got older and older, I started to tell people (my mum and friends) that I wanted to adopt a child (or children). Ironically, my mum was not very supportive of the idea. I understand now that her reluctance is based on her not even realising the example she set for me when I was a kid in El Salvador, and the fact she thinks having a child, especially an adopted one, will interfere with what she thinks I should have: a husband and children “of our own”. I grew up without a father, I never expected to have one around for my children either. It’s not that I did or didn’t want one, I just never expected I’d have one – and this does not bother me, really! I had a family without having a male father figure, surely I can build one of my own similarly and I would never think of it as second-best, as less-than-ideal. Never.

The other (often uninvited) group of people that tried to discourage me from my idea to adopt a child were friends of my mother, an older generation of perhaps misinformed individuals.  Why is adoption bad (according to these people)? I can summarize their basic arguments as 1) ownership, and 2) tradition. Traditionally a family consists of a mother, a father, and their biological children. By extension, the tradition is that the parents remain married for life, that there is no infidelity within that married life, that the two parents are of different sexes to each other, that the children will be healthy and fully able-bodied, that the father will be in full-time employment while the mother tends to the household and the child-rearing, etc. etc. That is not the world we live in today, everything that was once tradition has changed, some things you could say changed for better and some for worse, but nevertheless human beings have proven a million times over that we are a very adaptable species.

And now about ownership. Think of yourself and ask ‘who owns you’? Most of us will probably have thought that no one owns us, or we own ourselves. Maybe if you’re an adolescent or a child, you may have said your parents own you. But who as an adult says they are owned by their parents? You have the same parents from when you were a child into adulthood, so why should ownership change? Because it actually doesn’t. The truth is any thinking parent will acknowledge that their children are not their property, you don’t own one as you own a shirt or a shoe. Parenthood is a task, a role, a responsibility; it’s not a similar thing to land- or property-ownership. You don’t ever own another human being. You can influence, shape, teach, or affect them, but you won’t forever own anyone. When children are babies until adulthood, parents are charged with the task to protect and provide for a child. As a parent of a young child that is your job, your expectation, but you couldn’t similarly say that a security guard in a jewellery store owns the expensive jewels he looks after just because it is his job to safeguard them. Do you have more right to ownership of a person because you share biological matter with them? Is it a prerequisite for something or someone to share DNA with you for you to see merit in them? Should we marry only our brothers and sisters because strangers are otherwise less-than? A person who is loving, who is a true parent, need not share anything other than love, experience, and sustenance with a child to call themselves a parent.

Throughout my life as I shared my aspirations to one day be a parent, and my dream to adopt children, I received further “advice” as to why I shouldn’t. You’d think I was proposing to become a suicide bomber or a career criminal to be so strongly opposed. People would tell me that adopted children are bad because the majority come from drug-addicted, mentally unwell, criminally insane parents with all sorts of genetic and congenitally infectious diseases. Adopted children are defective, and not only that, but they also grow up to be bad, mad, or sad people. They become drug addicts, criminals, mentally ill, and/or perpetually resentful of being adopted children. Unfortunately the one example often quoted to me as proof was an acquaintance that did not disclose to their child he was adopted until he was well into his mid-twenties. Of course he was resentful but of the deceit and non-disclosure, not of the love and opportunities he was given in his adoptive family! There was some selective filtering of the content of this adoptee’s complaint. Nevertheless, this person was someone I knew and so the example is blown up in its probability value. Maybe he was one of a minority, maybe he is quite typical, but knowing no other adopted people, he was painted as more than representative of the sampled population, but as the 100% of the population.

And then one day I met a woman who told me she was adopted. I have never once heard her refer to her parents as “adopted parents” as opposed to “REAL” parents. It was strange to hear what I suspected all this time: that not all adopted children are resentful, defective, or feel eternally unloved. It blew my mind to hear her say once that she wasn’t born to her parents, but that she was born for them. She couldn’t imagine a different life, she didn’t need to, she had a loving and supportive family as it is.

And there it is, there’s what I heard and what I think and what I’ve seen about adoption – and you know what? I am occasionally reminded by people that I have three half-brothers and a half-sister, but you know what? I only know I have three brothers and a sister, the people I grew up with, the people I share more than “half” my DNA with, the people who share in the full extent of my life. And sharing life, being a family, is more than about ownership and about biological material. Personally, after having heard it all, all the evils of non-traditional families, I’d still love the opportunity to build a family around a child that needs only my love and caring and not just my DNA to survive.

On religion and on being open-minded

A tourist attraction - or a place of worship.

One of the criticisms you’ll often here about “religious people” or of “religion” is that these are people that are not very open minded. It’s funny, in a way, to see how religion has become the new Satan, this thing to be despised, to be frowned upon, to be avoided. The other reasons you’ll here as to why religion is the devil is it brainwashes people, its leaders often abuse their power for financial and/or sexual gains, that members are forced into a particular lifestyle, and that religion is the cause of war. The same could be said of almost any social group in this world: a race, a linguistic group, a nation of people, a socioeconomic group, etc. What is the difference? That religious groups are often seen as the perpetrator of all sorts of evils; a social group with almost no positive value to the greater humanity.

But let me come back to the point of how people of religious groups are perceived as not being open-minded, often by people who claim to be open-minded themselves. Firstly, allow me to define a little further what a religious group is. Religion can be thought of a system of belief as to certain ‘spirituality-related topics’ such as the afterlife, the purpose of life, etc. As an extension of this belief system is a system of governance and justice. Often a particular religious denomination has particular rules of what is deemed right and just behaviour and also criteria for things that are considered wrong. Of course, the particulars of each denomination’s spiritual belief and justice systems are different. For example one group of people may believe God has one or another name, another may belief that there are certain foods which must not be eaten, etc. Now, why do people even join religions? Because they either identify with a particular religion’s beliefs (and don’t we all like to gather with like-minded people), or they find a particular religion’s creeds appealing (and usually strive to approximate their behaviour to that which is the groups norm).

The question asked by so many “open-minded” people is not why do people join religions, however, but rather, why are people in religions when: 1) differences in religion beliefs have led to many wars, 2) when science has “disproven” creationism, 3) when religious peoples are hypocrites who don’t practice what they teach (because we all know one or another dissident from his belief), etc. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with any of these questions, except that they are large generalizations of a group of people that are extended to the individuals who belong to this group as if they are and must be true of each and every member. This is called a stereotype. This leads to prejudice and discrimination. This leads to the concept of ‘I am right, and you are wrong’, which is the first step towards the ‘I am right and you are wrong, therefore I have a right to punish you’. This is also what gets wars started. I regret to say that this is not a statement an open-minded person would say.

But a lot, many, perhaps the majority, of wars have been fought between groups of different religions. This is a historic fact, no doubt. But is it really “religion” that is the evil factor here? You could say that, but would you also dare to say that all members of any social group are responsible for the actions of some of its members? Recently you would have heard of extremists in certain religious groups being responsible for armed attacks on members of other groups. There are extremists in every social group. There are people in any group that will convince themselves that their duty is not only to be in the right but to punish others who they believe are in the wrong. Most commonly the fundamental spiritual beliefs of the group to which these extremists belong have mandates against harm to others, etc. What am I trying to get at? Yes, many wars have been fought by people over differences in religious ideologies; but no, that doesn’t make “religion” the culprit. It reminds me of an argument that was common in the early 1980s when AIDS was first documented. Yes, homosexual men were most often affected, but it didn’t mean that “homosexuality” per se was responsible for the disease. Certain beliefs and actions put us at greater risk of being involved in a negative thing (e.g. war or disease), but each individual is only “good” or “bad” based on their individual actions not those of a correlation with the group to which one belongs.

Another reason religion is often frowned upon by the non-religious is because it is perceived to be a belief system formulated by desperate, “empty” people who want to find reason to justify their existence. Or they believe it is outdated as science or some other philosophy has already answered the questions religion was previously thought to answer. There is no scientific evidence to particular religious beliefs or creationism, they’ll tell you. Now, religious people may believe that their purpose on Earth is to please some invisible god and do things so as to please him because gaining his favour will lead to further good things in this lifetime and in the afterlife. What do the rest of us believe is the purpose of human existence? Aren’t they also arbitrary things like creating a better environment for our descendants, to protect or promote one some randomly chosen cause that appeals to us, to enjoy pleasurable things and activities, etc. etc. You could just as easily say we are all empty people killing time until the day of our deaths and a return to the carbon cycle as a corpse. That is true also, and what we choose to do or believe to kill this time should not be up for judgement by anyone else as no-one is born knowing the “true” purpose of life, as if it was one definite thing. Could time be better spent saving endangered animal species than prayer? Maybe, depending on the belief system you elect. You could just as readily believe that movements to protect animal species during this lifetime are redundant, but that certain religious practices will lead you to an eternal wordly kingdom where there will be an abundance of animals that will exist in harmony with all other creatures. They are both equally valid, and albeit arbitrary, ideologies about human life.

I, despite my hatred of labels, will readily identify (and label myself) as Christian. This disclosure has led me to meet a lot of people who express to me their belief that religion is wrong and religious people are not open-minded enough…  Now isn’t this a massive generalization? Sounds not very open-minded to me, but I could be wrong.  I think a key to remaining open-minded is to admit that there is even a minuscule possibility that we are wrong, that the “others” may be right, or maybe even that there is no right or wrong answer.

On abortion

The rape of the Sabine women, Giambologna

Recently someone asked me to express my views on ‘abortion’, specifically as it relates to my role at work, my personal religious views, and my experience with medical ethics. I found it an interesting little exercise because it made me think about the different roles we play in different social spheres and also the cognitive schemas which we keep constant across these spheres. For example, the religious group to which I belong and whose view I share (or at the very least accept) has a view on abortions that is easily summarised as “it is never indicated”. Now, in my role as a doctor I am at times confronted by people enquiring about termination of pregnancy services. In this scenario you could say that I am paid to educate, to assist, and to aim for the best health outcome for my patient. But I am the same human being doing both roles of Christian and doctor. The other thing to realise is that I represent only myself, not my religion or my profession – and yet to another fellow human, I am both!

I have summarised perfectly my religion’s views on abortion as “it’s never indicated”. Before I summarise my profession’s view on abortion, I must summarise my profession’s role. Doctors have sets of clinical standards and legal standards by which we must exercise our jobs. It is not just about using the best clinical method or doing things legally, it is about using the best clinical method to do legal things that are in the patient’s best interests – as dictated by the patient himself (or a substitute decision maker on his behalf). So my profession’s view of abortion you could say has to do with the performing of legal abortions in a clinically safe manner. Of course, this is given that it is requested by the patient, and is in keeping with the general direction to minimise harm to her or to improve her wellbeing. You could very generally summarise my profession’s views on abortion as “it is indicated when the patient wants it, it is the best thing for her mental and/or physical health, and it is able to be performed in a clinically safe manner”. Now, does everyone in my religion believe exactly the same thing? No! Does everyone in my profession believe the same things as each other? No, of course not. Some of us differ even in antibiotic prescribing!

Personally, I believe whether or not a thing is bad has to be decided by the person to whom the decision directly affects. For example, if my religious belief is that eating a certain food is a sin, then it IS a sin if I personally ate that food. However, if someone else doesn’t believe it is a sin and eats this particular food, then to me that person is not guilty of a sin either in his own view or mine, and I can hold no negative judgement towards that person. The question of MY view on ‘abortion: good or bad?’ for me is redundant. To me what is of relevance is what I do in one or another context. I am both a Christian and a paid medical professional, but I am above all things, a human being. Every human being approaches life with the same basic aim: to do the thing that is best for me and minimize my discomfort (physical and/or mental). No one likes to feel guilty of not doing their job adequately, and no one likes to feel that special type of guilt our religious beliefs can make us feel. Things get even more complicated when you throw in having to act in situations that will directly (and indirectly) affect at least one other human being.

I have reached a position in my life where I don’t want to change anyone’s view to that of my religion, or to change the views of my religious associates to that of my own. I have also been lucky enough to realize that my work is just that: work. So what has all this stuff on religion have to do with my discussion here on abortion? Medically, in my job, it is never my choice to decide on a patient’s medical care if he is competent to make that choice himself, regardless of their or my personal religious or personal views. My job would be to inform accurately and with scientific fact, to ensure that the person has access to adequate psychosocial support, and to aim to protect the patient from mental and psychological harm. None of these tasks have anything at all to do with my own personal religious views on anything.

You can’t discuss abortion, though, without discussing legality. I was asked whether I believed that termination of pregnancy services should be deemed “illegal”. I believe that the main reason that the concept of legality is still introduced into discussions about intentional abortions is that it is contended on some many levels that have little at all to do with either medicine or the law. The way our society deals with such “ethical” or “moral” dilemmas is to pass strict laws or rules to dictate what should be done and where and by whom. For example, a statement could be made that an unborn person has the same human and legal rights to a person who is already born. However as a society a statement like that is not very practical because there are too many things to consider, e.g. at what age or weight is a foetus a ‘person’, what anatomical or biological parts entitle a person to be called a person, etc. So we come up with laws and rules instead, saying for example that a foetus after 24 weeks of gestational age is a person and has this and that other human right but not these other ones yet, etc. This is, you’ll notice, similar in concept to Christian ideology that says “it is never indicated’.

Personally, I believe that health professionals should not be criminally prosecuted for performing abortions that are performed safely and using standard practices when a person has consented to the procedure after being adequately counselled about it. I believe it should also be legal for patients who are intellectually competent to make health care decisions to seek adequate help from health professionals for discussion and possible subsequent performing of an abortion. I also believe that it should remain illegal to perform abortions that are not medically supervised or on people who are not capable of consenting or refusing to the procedure (unless in conjunction with a substitute decision-maker that has the person’s best interests at the forefront). I am glad that termination of pregnancy techniques have been developed in a medical context. For example, it’s better that a doctor with appropriate tools and knowledge perform an abortion than a woman attempt to have one done by someone with no specialized training. To believe that outlawing something which has such a long history of occurring is going to stop it from being done, I think is quite naive.

I do have one problem with our society’s current high rate of abortion, though, and it has nothing (or everything?) to do with either religion or law or ethics. I find it concerning that the high use rate of termination of pregnancy services, and its widespread acceptance, has led to the trivialization of what is essentially (and I think, rightly so) a big decision to be made in a person’s life. It saddens me that some people are coming to think of an abortion as an option for contraception or that it is a common/simple thing like getting a mole removed from the skin. The true and often undiscussed fact is that a lot of women do not understand the psychological impact of their decisions, and the potential for negative psychological sequelae in the years to come. Ideally, no woman should opt for an abortion without having full explanation of the medical or surgical techniques and the potential risks associated. The discussion should include explanations of the changes to be expected in her body, an understanding of the foetus’ current stage of development, an exploration of her own spiritual views, and consideration of her mental and physical health. Now, I am not saying ‘don’t have an abortion because you’ll get depression or other mental problems in the future’. I am simply saying that a patient needs to be given adequate and complete information to help them form their own decisions.

On an environmentalist

A monkey masturbating!

There is one man I credit with helping me lose the respect I once had for environmentalists. I won’t say his name, but he was a lecturer I once had for a bioethics class at university. Now, this man’s great passion was protecting animal rights, especially as they related to scientific research. He spoke of it all so passionately and realistically. He enjoyed the work of philosopher Peter Singer and he was also a vegetarian. Why do I mention that? Because it means he was a knowledgeable and “true to his cause” environmentalist. Anyhow, it was well understood knowledge that he was a very well accomplished ethicist and so he had the attention of all of us students. And then he let me down.

He, like many scientists and philosophers, admitted he was an atheist. Is that wrong? No; a person believes what they choose to believe and as long as it’s not coerced or misinformed, then there is nothing wrong with what they choose to believe. I in fact believe that there are few true atheists, but I’ll discuss that at a later stage. To this man, a “good” man I was lead to believe at that stage (he was an ethicist and an environmentalist, to say the least), the protection of nature, earth, and living creatures on, above, or beneath it was very very important. Wow, there’s a good human being! However, as the lecture moved on, he for some reason I can no longer recall, moved on to the subject of discussing religion. Ok, so he had already made it well known that he didn’t believe in “God” or that religion wasn’t of his preference. But he started to discuss a neighbour of his, a man he didn’t like: a man who was a Jehovah’s Witness in Christian belief.

So let me frame this for you so you understand why I found what he said so offensive and despicable. Firstly, he comes in with a reputation that he knows inspires respect and influence. Secondly, his reputation is that of a “good” man: one who cares about and defends defenceless animals and the natural environment. Thirdly, he is put in a position to educate very keen and suggestible young adults. It would be a great and excellent platform to incite some passion or at least enthusiasm for a good cause. He could have chosen to inspire us to defend the environment, to protest, to petition higher authorities for change and justice, to be kind to animals, to support the defenceless, to acknowledge the inherent power of a human being who is passionate in his pursuit of a definitive goal, etc.

What did he do instead? He told a story of his neighbour who is a Jehovah’s Witness. Now, the neighbour was a “bad” neighbour because he insisted on greeting him pleasantly over the fence between their properties, was always so jolly, and always wanted to make friendly conversation about anything at all. You know, the kind of guy like Ned Flanders from ‘The Simpsons’ who irritates because of his good nature. Similarly, this Jehovah’s Witness was a ‘bad’ man, he had us believe, for doing just that. So then this guy, this great ethicist, disclosed a fantasy of his: he said he would love to collect a whole bunch of leeches and set them free onto his neighbour until the leeches had sucked away all his blood, and given that he was a Jehovah’s Witness, watch him then die as he refused a blood transfusion. He laughed after telling this story. He laughed and then after a short awkward silence, the whole auditorium laughed with him. And then he continued the lecture on how a good person must ensure to promote the wellbeing of the environment and animals.

I was not at that stage a fully convinced Christian so I wasn’t offended for that reason, but I found his behaviour to be almost an abuse of power. Sure, in the right context it could have been considered a funny joke, but what was disturbing is that he was in a position of teaching, and we all learn best by example whether we believe it or not. Knowing he was an influential man in front of an impressionable crowd, he chose to spread disdain and hatred instead of promoting a humanitarian cause, or even just doing what he was being paid to do and teach us about the ethical use/care of animals in science. And what further aggravated me was the hypocrisy of claiming to be for the very humanitarian causes of protecting the environment and non-human species, and at the same time being capable of such great non-humanitarian discrimination, if not hatred, of a group of people. I say a group of people because he never said his neighbour’s name, he referred to him as “a Jehovah’sWitness”. I lost all respect for that man that day. I still consider it a shame that he is allowed such an awarded role in the university and still exposing impressionable students to his dichotomous, and somewhat concerning, views of the world and the creatures on it.

How is it possible that a person be able to love animals, to want to preserve and protect them from harm, and yet be so careless about the dominant animal species: humanity? If I wanted to keep a mouse alive, wouldn’t I consider it an equally respectable aim to keep a human being alive? If I considered it wrong to cruelly beat an animal, then why would I support or even promote the discrimination and abuse of a group of people? A lot of people who are passionate about the environment tell me their passion is because these animals, these trees and lakes and oceans, can’t protect themselves. And not only that, they do no harm to anyone. A human being, on the other hand, can not only defend himself but also launch an offence / attack towards other humans, towards animals, and towards even the very environment that keeps us alive. Yes, human beings are capable of evil, no doubt, but to admit that a person can be imperfect and to say he warrants death is a massive leap. 

^^^ Hilarious tattoo! - why you should think twice aboout what you put out there :P ^^^

On god, nature, and spirituality

Recently I was doing a bit of reading about Australian indigenous identity, and one of the things I found very interesting is this culture's view of spirituality. In fact, the interesting thing is that a lot of indigenous cultures from vastly different places seem to have a similar belief system: sharing a deep spiritual connection to the land.

Now, I live in Australia, a westernized and largely Christian (if not by majority agnostic or atheist) country. To say that a culture has a deep connection to the land conjures up images of politics, of land ownership laws, and of a broad concept we’ll called ‘justice’. No, no, what I’m trying to discuss here is not those socio-political issues, but rather one of spirituality and culture. I admit that this new understanding is only new to me as a result of my natural curiosity and some research I had to do as part of coursework for a developmental psychology class. I would, however, like to share what I have come to comprehend from this – which may in fact be completely off track - but is probably closer to the true track to understanding these concepts.

I, like a lot of Judaeo-Christian adherents, couldn't understand before much about how a connection to the land equalled a spiritual connection. And in the Andes region, for the Incas for example, connection to the mountains meant a spiritual connection. The conclusion I’ve reached as to the reason it's hard for the traditional Jewish/Christian person to understand a connection to a land and equate it to a connection to God is because our tradition teaches us that God is in heaven, or “out there”.

So a common belief in Western culture is that God, who is creator of man and earth and everything, is in heaven, above us, in the sky somewhere. When we worship we direct our spiritual attention to this ether out there where God is. Now, the aboriginal man, for example, believes that all life comes from the earth, the soil and the ground on which we're all dependent on. And science will tell you that this is true: life on this planet requires air, water, sunlight, and nutrient and sustenance from the ground. Eukaryotic life, of which mammals and other animals like us are, depend on plants for nutrients. Plants emanate from the earth. Therefore it’s not a huge leap to assume that what keeps us alive is in the earth, or IS the earth. This is not a new observation, thousands of years ago, before pastoral times, and before mass colonization, the indigenous peoples of the land saw this basic relationship. He would see the plants and trees grow out of the soil, which fed the animals, which fed us, which kept us alive.

Keeping this in mind, consider now the human concept of god or creation. Until very recently, most traditional cultures had a basic belief that life, the universe, human beings and every other thing above, on, and below the earth, including the substance that is earth, was created by one if not many other external being/s or forces. For brevity, let’s call these beings or forces God. Extrapolate the line of thinking previously established, that if all life essentially originates from the earth, and God is creator of everything, then earth must be this being we decided to call God. It is now also easier to understand why so many native cultures speak of a 'Mother Earth' or Pachamama.

Now, the most common Judeo/Christian/Islamic traditions are monotheist and believe in a god that created the universe and everything in it, and who we in turn worship or have a spiritual connection or relationship with. To worship a creator is mostly a sign of gratitude and sustaining interconnectedness between ourselves and others (including wildlife, the earth, space, etc. as our specific faith dictates). To worship god or gods, a creator or co-creators, is a very ancient concept common to most cultures. Now consider the aboriginal man to whom God is or is in the earth. For an aboriginal man to worship God is to worship the land, to cherish and honour it, to direct his prayers and rituals to it. Christians, Jews, Islamists, etc. do the same: we pay respect to the place we think God inhabits, the heavens. We direct our prayers to this place. As an example of just this concept we have the very old traditional Christian cathedrals with high arched ceilings, ceilings decorated with images of heavenly creatures and the sun, the skies, etc. Going to the temples and cathedrals to offer our prayers and sacrifices we'd contemplate the heavens, conjure them up in mind and spirit to give our worship to God. The indigenous man does the same thing, except he believes God is in the earth. So making physical/skin contact with the soil is very important. The earth is what connects one man to God, and that which connects him to other men and all other creatures in this planet.

When Judaeo-Christians meet in their churches and synagogues and temples, etc, they also seek not only to connect and share with their god but also those whom they consider their spiritual brothers and sisters, co-worshippers in a common belief, people and creatures with whom they believe they share a common origin. It is the same also with the indigenous man, worshipping with those who are related to him via God, Mother Nature, earth. To worship together means often to worship in a specific place on earth, not just with specific people or within a specific but man-made structure such as a temple.

The indigenous man also shares a deep connection with other creatures, animals that also walk or otherwise inhabit the earth, not only with his fellow humans. That's why when the indigenous man speaks of the wolf or the kangaroo he calls him his brother, sharing a common origin and connection with the land. That's why killing animals for nutrition, especially to the aboriginal man who is not of a pastoral nature but hunts only what he will consume and absolutely needs that day, is a sacrifice and a spiritually-filled occasion, as it would be if a person of a Western culture would eat his siblings or friends. In times of crises, humans from non-traditionally cannibalistic cultures have had to do exactly this for survival, and they will tell you of their suffering in making these decisions and going through with them. You could say the indigenous man does this a little less freely, consuming his brother animals because he has acknowledged the sacrifice and has certain rituals by which these activities take place and they are often so ingrained that they are incorporated into the cultural practice itself rather than as a distinct spiritual ceremony.

Western culture’s spiritual worship rituals and our belief as to the location of God, in heaven or some other intangible place, is exactly what (I believe) makes it difficult for so many of us to understand the spiritual connection many indigenous peoples, not just native Australians, have with the land. But understanding this also helps to understand why place and movement, physical relocation, to aboriginal peoples is so important. Imagine it being like kicking someone out of a temple or cathedral, out to the cold and unknown, and asking them to continue about their lives, including their worship, without the places and things they believe to be sacred and secure.