“The Public God”?

by | April 4, 2014

One is tempted to suspect that Michael Enright and CBC Radio One got their most recent topic for the The Sunday Edition from the Canadian Secular Alliance. On March 26, the Canadian Secular Alliance, always interested in listening to opposing views, hosted an event entitled “Religion & Prayer in Canadian Public Spaces.” The guest speaker argued

that not only can public spaces be inclusive to both religious and non-religious worldviews but that this is what Canadian society should strive for.

It seems that the CSA, a voluntary organization of Canadians who believe in church-state separation, is more egalitarian than the CBC, which is inviting the public to

Join [CBC Radio One] for a live public forum called The Public God

On Tuesday, April 8th, The Sunday Edition will host a forum titled The Public God. This promises to be a provocative conversation about the role of faith in government, in public policies and in our culture.

Host Michael Enright will guide the discussion with a panel of distinguished guests; then he will invite questions and comments from the audience. The forum will air on The Sunday Edition on CBC Radio One on April 13th.

Atheists and secularists are conspicuously absent from the list of panellists and “Special invited (front row) guests.”  It seems the CBC and Michael Enright, infamous for his September 29, 2013 broadcast: “Could Atheists please stop complaining?,” are not interested in inviting spokespeople from the many Canadian atheist, humanist, and secular organizations to present their views on “the role of faith in government, in public policies and in our culture”!

The Supreme Court of Canada is scheduled to hear Mouvement laïque québécois, et al. v. City of Saguenay, et al. on October 15, 2014:

Whether Court of Appeal erred in concluding that recitation of prayer in presence of religious objects during municipal council meetings did not infringe applicant’s freedom of conscience.

However, the CBC, “a Canadian crown corporation . . . that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster,” has stacked the deck on whether God, any God or gods, should be welcome in the public square.

3 thoughts on ““The Public God”?

  1. Tim Underwood

    The war against reason is largely fronted by religionist conservatives. These individuals are rarely actually believers. They just perceive that great honor can be derived by defending all manner of ethnic based superstitions.

    If Canada had gone into Afghanistan, for instance, with openly secular values, they potentially could have attracted the modern thinking, younger Afghanis. As it turned out we attracted nobody of significance and we will probably leave without making any valuable contribution to modernity of any kind.

    The religiously manipulative oligarchies excepted.

    Thanks to conservative religionist punditry, civilization will stagnate for decades to come.

    Sorry for being so pessimistic.

    Reply

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