As much as I disagree with most of C-M's posts, he is right about this. There should always be separation of religion and State IMO
Why Religion Fails
- Thread starter canada-man
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It is the backbone of the entire Common Law legal system, attempting to say oh it is religion is nonsense, no one is ever going to convert to Christianity or Judaism based solely on the Decalogue.
10 commandments vs bill of rights
Do not have any other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
vs
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
9 For six days you shall labour and do all your work.
10 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.
vs
The Lord's Day Act, which since 1906 had prohibited business transactions from taking place on Sundays, was struck down as unconstitutional in the 1985 case R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd. Calgary police officers witnessed several transactions at the Big M Drug Mart, all of which occurred on a Sunday. Big M was charged with a violation of the Lord's Day Act. A provincial court ruled that the Lord's Day Act was unconstitutional, but the Crown proceeded to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. In a unanimous 6-0 decision, the Lord's Day Act was ruled an infringement of the freedom of conscience and religion defined in section 2(a) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.
Treaty of Tripoli. In Article 11, it states:
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
He is not obsessed with that imaginary entity. He is obsessed with people's belief in a non-existant entity. He is obsessed because that belief is the cause for untold pain, suffering and cruelty in our world. I find it very disturbing that you would not open your mind to what he is actually saying.
He's too militant IMO though
Hogwash.
Some of the biggest despots in history were atheists (Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung.....etc)
Doubtless in the twelth century much attention was being paid in England to the Hammurabic Code.
why is that thiests love to claim tyrants murder millions in the name of athiesm?I'm sure thats of huge comfort to the 300 million or so peeps that died
Faith Wars: How holiness drives the Israeli-Arab conflict
Peter Brietbart on February 5th, 2011
Jerusalem is an overwhelming city. In the tradition of absurdist thought, nothing is truly meaningful, and any meaning has to be somewhat arbitrarily imposed onto the world. Jerusalem poses a significant empirical challenge to this notion: every stone of every street bursts with historical significance. It is overwhelming for the psyche to become aware of just how much history occurred in such a small place. It feels claustrophobic.
In my recent journey travelling through Israel and the Palestinian Territories, I visited this sacred city to discover more about the origins and causes of the Israeli-Arab conflict. My findings? Religion is a cause of it, sustains it, and makes everything worse.
The origin of the problem comes not from Zionism (the motivating ideology for a national Jewish home), but from the need for Zionism in the first place. One of the catchy, pseudo-left commentaries on the subject is that “Zionism is racism”. But this is only a half-truth, for Zionism is a response to racism. Writing in the early 20th century, Theodore Herzl saw a majority Jewish state as the only answer to the existential threat created by anti-Jewish bigotry – and he wrote this pre-holocaust.
So what, we might ask, fuels this existential aggression against the Jews?
Well, it was Catholic theology until the 1960s that the Jews were collectively responsible for the death of Christ. And of course, if they killed God, then they must be the enemies of goodness, and accordingly, the agents of evil. This simple line of reasoning fed into anti-Jewish sentiments from the Crusades to the Third Reich. Without this divine hatred, the Jews would have been able to live peacefully in the diaspora without needing a nation-state of their own.
But they did need one, and now they do have one. Israel’s existence is now a fact, regardless of how dubious the ethics of its foundation may appear to be. The Palestinian people have legitimate grievances, from the illegal annexation of east Jerusalem to the grotesque separation barrier, but it is doubtful that these injustices are a complete explanation of the politics of Hamas. A passage from the Hadith has made its way into the charter of Hamas that may illuminate my point: “The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The Day of Judgement will not come until Muslims fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!” 41:6985. This is not anti-Israel rhetoric, but anti-Jewish rhetoric. Their opposition to Israel is not merely political, but holy. They are not fighting merely for an Islamic Palestinian state, but against a secular Jewish one. The origins of and justifications for anti-Semitism can be found proudly displayed in both Christian and Islamic texts. These two monotheisms made it necessary for the existence of a Jewish state in the first place.
Speaking to Haaretz editor-at-large Aluf Benn, he described the Israeli center-left as being made up of those who now place blame for the continuation of the conflict squarely with Israel and its policies. Those on the Israeli right, he says, are now those standing in the way of peace. Permanent residents of the political right – we naturally discover Orthodox and Messianic Jews – who consider both Israeli and Palestinian territories to be the divinely gifted property of the Jewish people, courtesy of Yahweh. As such, what need is there for a Palestinian state? Why pursue peace? The creator of the universe is on their side – why listen to the UN? The destruction of Palestinian homes to make way for Israeli settlements would be utterly unjustifiable, were it not for the pious self-righteousness induced by religious orthodoxy. Those who truly believe that the messiah will return when and only when the Jews have “reclaimed”their sacred homeland provide a solid powerbase to Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition. Any Israeli-Arab resolution will come in spite of, and not because of, the strong religious convictions involved.
But in assessing the situation, we must not view things too provincially – there is more being played for than Palestinian lands. Author and Israeli foreign policy expert Jonathan Spyer perceives the conflict to be driven externally by Iranian Islamism, which has much political credibility to gain from opposing Israel. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are funded, armed and trained by Iranian Islamic revolutionaries whose agenda is to see Israel destroyed and an Islamic empire re-established. Needless to say, if Iran’s nuclear capabilities are realised, Hezbollah will have few qualms in utilising them. As Hitchens neatly puts it, “What, when messianic groups acquire apocalyptic weaponry? What, when those who think the end of the world is coming get weaponry that could bring it about?”
The parties of God have made the Israeli-Arab conflict impossible to solve with their input. On the Jewish side are those who believe the land and its capital, Jerusalem, is their Holy Land, granted to them by an omnipotent being who occasionally grants territorial rights. Their callous indifference to the suffering of Palestinian families is all too typical of the faithful. On the Arab side are jihadi thugs hell-bent on murder, even if it kills them. So long as the land is Dar al-Harab and not Dar al-Islam, the poisonous forces of the Iranian Revolution will continue to threaten human rights, liberty and peace.
What the region needs more than anything else is secularism, rooted deeply in respect for human, and not divine rights. The conflict cannot be solved between those who are arguing over whose side their shared imaginary friend is on. All those pious men of God are now the greatest enemies of peace: Yahweh vs. Allah is an absurd match-up, and one in which the Palestinian people can only lose.
http://freethinker.co.uk/2011/02/05/faith-wars-how-holiness-drives-the-israeli-arab-conflict/
Peter Brietbart on February 5th, 2011
Jerusalem is an overwhelming city. In the tradition of absurdist thought, nothing is truly meaningful, and any meaning has to be somewhat arbitrarily imposed onto the world. Jerusalem poses a significant empirical challenge to this notion: every stone of every street bursts with historical significance. It is overwhelming for the psyche to become aware of just how much history occurred in such a small place. It feels claustrophobic.
In my recent journey travelling through Israel and the Palestinian Territories, I visited this sacred city to discover more about the origins and causes of the Israeli-Arab conflict. My findings? Religion is a cause of it, sustains it, and makes everything worse.
The origin of the problem comes not from Zionism (the motivating ideology for a national Jewish home), but from the need for Zionism in the first place. One of the catchy, pseudo-left commentaries on the subject is that “Zionism is racism”. But this is only a half-truth, for Zionism is a response to racism. Writing in the early 20th century, Theodore Herzl saw a majority Jewish state as the only answer to the existential threat created by anti-Jewish bigotry – and he wrote this pre-holocaust.
So what, we might ask, fuels this existential aggression against the Jews?
Well, it was Catholic theology until the 1960s that the Jews were collectively responsible for the death of Christ. And of course, if they killed God, then they must be the enemies of goodness, and accordingly, the agents of evil. This simple line of reasoning fed into anti-Jewish sentiments from the Crusades to the Third Reich. Without this divine hatred, the Jews would have been able to live peacefully in the diaspora without needing a nation-state of their own.
But they did need one, and now they do have one. Israel’s existence is now a fact, regardless of how dubious the ethics of its foundation may appear to be. The Palestinian people have legitimate grievances, from the illegal annexation of east Jerusalem to the grotesque separation barrier, but it is doubtful that these injustices are a complete explanation of the politics of Hamas. A passage from the Hadith has made its way into the charter of Hamas that may illuminate my point: “The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The Day of Judgement will not come until Muslims fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!” 41:6985. This is not anti-Israel rhetoric, but anti-Jewish rhetoric. Their opposition to Israel is not merely political, but holy. They are not fighting merely for an Islamic Palestinian state, but against a secular Jewish one. The origins of and justifications for anti-Semitism can be found proudly displayed in both Christian and Islamic texts. These two monotheisms made it necessary for the existence of a Jewish state in the first place.
Speaking to Haaretz editor-at-large Aluf Benn, he described the Israeli center-left as being made up of those who now place blame for the continuation of the conflict squarely with Israel and its policies. Those on the Israeli right, he says, are now those standing in the way of peace. Permanent residents of the political right – we naturally discover Orthodox and Messianic Jews – who consider both Israeli and Palestinian territories to be the divinely gifted property of the Jewish people, courtesy of Yahweh. As such, what need is there for a Palestinian state? Why pursue peace? The creator of the universe is on their side – why listen to the UN? The destruction of Palestinian homes to make way for Israeli settlements would be utterly unjustifiable, were it not for the pious self-righteousness induced by religious orthodoxy. Those who truly believe that the messiah will return when and only when the Jews have “reclaimed”their sacred homeland provide a solid powerbase to Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition. Any Israeli-Arab resolution will come in spite of, and not because of, the strong religious convictions involved.
But in assessing the situation, we must not view things too provincially – there is more being played for than Palestinian lands. Author and Israeli foreign policy expert Jonathan Spyer perceives the conflict to be driven externally by Iranian Islamism, which has much political credibility to gain from opposing Israel. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are funded, armed and trained by Iranian Islamic revolutionaries whose agenda is to see Israel destroyed and an Islamic empire re-established. Needless to say, if Iran’s nuclear capabilities are realised, Hezbollah will have few qualms in utilising them. As Hitchens neatly puts it, “What, when messianic groups acquire apocalyptic weaponry? What, when those who think the end of the world is coming get weaponry that could bring it about?”
The parties of God have made the Israeli-Arab conflict impossible to solve with their input. On the Jewish side are those who believe the land and its capital, Jerusalem, is their Holy Land, granted to them by an omnipotent being who occasionally grants territorial rights. Their callous indifference to the suffering of Palestinian families is all too typical of the faithful. On the Arab side are jihadi thugs hell-bent on murder, even if it kills them. So long as the land is Dar al-Harab and not Dar al-Islam, the poisonous forces of the Iranian Revolution will continue to threaten human rights, liberty and peace.
What the region needs more than anything else is secularism, rooted deeply in respect for human, and not divine rights. The conflict cannot be solved between those who are arguing over whose side their shared imaginary friend is on. All those pious men of God are now the greatest enemies of peace: Yahweh vs. Allah is an absurd match-up, and one in which the Palestinian people can only lose.
http://freethinker.co.uk/2011/02/05/faith-wars-how-holiness-drives-the-israeli-arab-conflict/
WINNIPEG — A dozen Muslim families who recently arrived in Canada have told Winnipeg's Louis Riel School Division that they want their children excused from compulsory elementary school music and coed physical education programs for religious and cultural reasons.
"This is one of our realities in Manitoba now, as a result of immigration," said superintendent Terry Borys. "We were faced with some families who were really adamant about this. Music was not part of the cultural reality."
Borys said the school division has alerted Education Minister Nancy Allan about the situation since music and phys-ed are compulsory in the province's elementary schools.
There have been no issues so far with children of middle-school or high-school age, he said.
The families accept physical education, as long as the boys and girls have separate classes, but do not want their children exposed to singing or the playing musical instruments, Borys said. The division has suggested they could instead do a writing project to satisfy the music requirements of the arts curriculum.
However, a local Muslim leader says there is no reason for young kids to be held out of music or phys-ed classes based on religious and cultural grounds.
"Who is advising them? My first concern would be who are these new immigrants talking to?" said Shahina Siddiqui, executive director of the Islamic Social Services. "This is the first time I am hearing this; I'm not very happy about it."
Read more: http://www.globalwinnipeg.com/world...phys+classes/4228444/story.html#ixzz1DC6df3Js
Cree community bans FNs spirituality
By Annette Francis
APTN National News
OUJE-BOUGOUMOU, Que.–An overwhelmingly Christian Cree community in northern Quebec has banned sweat lodges and all forms of First Nations spirituality.
The ban was imposed after a local family built a sweat lodge in their backyard with the help of a friend, triggering major controversy throughout Ouje-Bougoumou, which means, “the place where people gather.”
Redfern Mianscum said he built the sweat lodge to help people, but his dream was short-lived. The evangelical Christian majority in the community, which sits about 722 kilometres north of Montreal, turned against it.
The band council then passed a resolution against the all forms of First Nations spirituality, calling it shamanism, and had it torn down in early December.
“They see it as evil or something that’s not good and I heard somebody say that it is a form of witchcraft,” said Mianscum.
The lodge was built on Lana Wapachee’s property. She was going through a hard time and wanted help. To her, the sweat lodge was a God-send.
“It felt good to see them working together for healing for a moment,” she said. “Though I felt scared, I felt, what are people gonna say?”
Soon a petition started to circulate around the community calling for the sweat lodge’s removal.
The petition drew so much attention that the band council called a meeting which Wapachee said was rigged.
“There was a plan, a strategy,” she said. “They wanted…to take down the lodge and at the end of the general assembly, the community got up and they passed the resolution.”
The resolution said the Cree community’s elders did not want any form of “Native spirituality or practices” in Ouje-Bougoumou.
“The practice of the sweat lodge and its rituals are not restricted to merely medical…healing, but in essence a way to contact and communicate with the spirit world through shamanism,” said the resolution. “The majority of the Ouje-Bougoumou members are Christian faith-oriented and have strong Christian values.”
Wapachee said it was difficult watching the tear-down of the lodge.
“They came in and it was really long and hard to witness it. It was just me and my kids,” she said.
Wapachee’s nephew, Bruce Wapachee, said it upset him to see the lodge destroyed.
“I felt that they were…taking away our rights to have our beliefs in what we want to believe in,” he said. “I wasn’t too happy. I was upset about them coming down to tear down our sweat lodge and it was our way of healing.”
One of the men who tore down the sweat lodge said the sweat lodge was scaring his children. Rainy Coon-Come said the lodge should never have been built in the community.
“Growing up, I didn’t see that. I never saw that. My dad didn’t do it…My grandfather wasn’t into it,” he said. “Go build it somewhere else, not at someone’s house. All this wouldn’t have happened if they’d built it across the lake.”
http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2011/01/17/crees-ban-sweat-lodges-fns-spirituality-from-community/
comments
vizionmaker [Moderator] 2 weeks ago
That is so heart-breaking & very disturbing to throw away such holy rituals from our ancestors. The Europeans did a good job brainwashing many First Nations. How can this man say his children can't sleep at nights for the sake of a witchcraft sweatlodge, his great great fore fathers practiced these ways before the others got brainwashed. I think it's time to wake up now & get out of their misery. I would strictly press charges to the Nation for Religious Discrimination!!
kwaho [Moderator] 2 weeks ago
Sad indeed..that 500 years later, some of us are still being brainwashed by religions imported from across the Great waters...While your Elders are preaching the european practices of spirituality, we keep walking forward with those ancestral teachings which have never been forgotten....only left behind. Wish I could welcome anyone from your community to pray in the Sacred Rock Lodge set up behind my humble dwelling...and then who knows...you just might remember who you truly are...
ojicree1977 [Moderator] 1 week ago
this is a just another sad case of the effects of colonization...once we were all a proud and united people...First Nations people who had our own way of life, our own identity and our own culture. This community obviously is lost.....they have truely lost their identity...to the man who said he never saw it, that his dad never saw it, and that his grandfather never saw it.(sweat lodge)...that's what you call the inter-generational effects of assimilation.....it all started with the grandfather....this man and his children are aboriginal in body only, not in spirit......i hope and pray that community someday remember who they are.........
"This is one of our realities in Manitoba now, as a result of immigration," said superintendent Terry Borys. "We were faced with some families who were really adamant about this. Music was not part of the cultural reality."
Borys said the school division has alerted Education Minister Nancy Allan about the situation since music and phys-ed are compulsory in the province's elementary schools.
There have been no issues so far with children of middle-school or high-school age, he said.
The families accept physical education, as long as the boys and girls have separate classes, but do not want their children exposed to singing or the playing musical instruments, Borys said. The division has suggested they could instead do a writing project to satisfy the music requirements of the arts curriculum.
However, a local Muslim leader says there is no reason for young kids to be held out of music or phys-ed classes based on religious and cultural grounds.
"Who is advising them? My first concern would be who are these new immigrants talking to?" said Shahina Siddiqui, executive director of the Islamic Social Services. "This is the first time I am hearing this; I'm not very happy about it."
Read more: http://www.globalwinnipeg.com/world...phys+classes/4228444/story.html#ixzz1DC6df3Js
Cree community bans FNs spirituality
By Annette Francis
APTN National News
OUJE-BOUGOUMOU, Que.–An overwhelmingly Christian Cree community in northern Quebec has banned sweat lodges and all forms of First Nations spirituality.
The ban was imposed after a local family built a sweat lodge in their backyard with the help of a friend, triggering major controversy throughout Ouje-Bougoumou, which means, “the place where people gather.”
Redfern Mianscum said he built the sweat lodge to help people, but his dream was short-lived. The evangelical Christian majority in the community, which sits about 722 kilometres north of Montreal, turned against it.
The band council then passed a resolution against the all forms of First Nations spirituality, calling it shamanism, and had it torn down in early December.
“They see it as evil or something that’s not good and I heard somebody say that it is a form of witchcraft,” said Mianscum.
The lodge was built on Lana Wapachee’s property. She was going through a hard time and wanted help. To her, the sweat lodge was a God-send.
“It felt good to see them working together for healing for a moment,” she said. “Though I felt scared, I felt, what are people gonna say?”
Soon a petition started to circulate around the community calling for the sweat lodge’s removal.
The petition drew so much attention that the band council called a meeting which Wapachee said was rigged.
“There was a plan, a strategy,” she said. “They wanted…to take down the lodge and at the end of the general assembly, the community got up and they passed the resolution.”
The resolution said the Cree community’s elders did not want any form of “Native spirituality or practices” in Ouje-Bougoumou.
“The practice of the sweat lodge and its rituals are not restricted to merely medical…healing, but in essence a way to contact and communicate with the spirit world through shamanism,” said the resolution. “The majority of the Ouje-Bougoumou members are Christian faith-oriented and have strong Christian values.”
Wapachee said it was difficult watching the tear-down of the lodge.
“They came in and it was really long and hard to witness it. It was just me and my kids,” she said.
Wapachee’s nephew, Bruce Wapachee, said it upset him to see the lodge destroyed.
“I felt that they were…taking away our rights to have our beliefs in what we want to believe in,” he said. “I wasn’t too happy. I was upset about them coming down to tear down our sweat lodge and it was our way of healing.”
One of the men who tore down the sweat lodge said the sweat lodge was scaring his children. Rainy Coon-Come said the lodge should never have been built in the community.
“Growing up, I didn’t see that. I never saw that. My dad didn’t do it…My grandfather wasn’t into it,” he said. “Go build it somewhere else, not at someone’s house. All this wouldn’t have happened if they’d built it across the lake.”
http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2011/01/17/crees-ban-sweat-lodges-fns-spirituality-from-community/
comments
vizionmaker [Moderator] 2 weeks ago
That is so heart-breaking & very disturbing to throw away such holy rituals from our ancestors. The Europeans did a good job brainwashing many First Nations. How can this man say his children can't sleep at nights for the sake of a witchcraft sweatlodge, his great great fore fathers practiced these ways before the others got brainwashed. I think it's time to wake up now & get out of their misery. I would strictly press charges to the Nation for Religious Discrimination!!
kwaho [Moderator] 2 weeks ago
Sad indeed..that 500 years later, some of us are still being brainwashed by religions imported from across the Great waters...While your Elders are preaching the european practices of spirituality, we keep walking forward with those ancestral teachings which have never been forgotten....only left behind. Wish I could welcome anyone from your community to pray in the Sacred Rock Lodge set up behind my humble dwelling...and then who knows...you just might remember who you truly are...
ojicree1977 [Moderator] 1 week ago
this is a just another sad case of the effects of colonization...once we were all a proud and united people...First Nations people who had our own way of life, our own identity and our own culture. This community obviously is lost.....they have truely lost their identity...to the man who said he never saw it, that his dad never saw it, and that his grandfather never saw it.(sweat lodge)...that's what you call the inter-generational effects of assimilation.....it all started with the grandfather....this man and his children are aboriginal in body only, not in spirit......i hope and pray that community someday remember who they are.........
Its spelled theists and atheism btw.
All I'm saying is there's been as much genocide by non-religious despots as there has been by religious zealots. Can you name one major 20th century war that was fought in the name of religion?? WW1 wasnt. WW2 wasnt either. Ditto for Vietnam war, Korean war, Russia-Afghan war...etc..etc. All these wars were fought for territory, natural resources, politics and a variety of other reasons, but not for religion
Let us be clear where this argument advanced by those of us who some modicum of respect for our religious neighbours is going.
It is a response to the claim made by religion-haters like Canada-man, that religion is the cause of a large amount of death and violence.
Those of us who have some respect for religion are simply pointing out that in the modern era, that is simply not true.
I don't suggest that athiesm or even secular humanism is inherently violent, rather that religion is no longer the cause for the majority of the world's war and violence, and probably has not been for at least a couple of centuries.
It is always a good day when Canada-man starts making my arguments for me.
The first article is about personal freedom. If a family for religious reasons doesn't want their child exposed to certain things that are not vital components of the education system, why do we want to force them to do it. I guess Canada-man is just a fascist who wants to dictate how everybody should live and be educated.
The second article is why religious freedoms are enshrined in the Charter. Thanks for proving the value of something you usually argue against CM. Saved me the trouble.
And so I am not misinterpreted by Canada-man who seems unable to resist conflating issues (ie the issue of the value of religion and the issue of the value of the separation of church and state, he seems to like to mislead us by mixing the two...but it is quite hard to tell because he never says anything he just cuts and pastes from his messiahs), I believe in the complete separation of church and state, including, but not limited to a complete bar to all forms of creation science being taught in public schools.
Love Popper.
Of course you want to assume people who respect religion are irrational. That is a huge unfounded leap.
so is your statement about default athiesm. Are you famaliar with the latest research, much of it in Canada, on the physiological and genetic basis for religious belief?
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