Here’s your Canadian Atheist Weekly Update for to .
![[An illustration of what looks like a nude male and a female with their legs tangled around each other like a pretzel.]](https://www.canadianatheist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/canadian-sex-position-the-toque-twist-200x145.jpg)
The “Toque Twist”, a Canadian sex position.
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[] Our Modern Environmental Movement Has Its Roots in Racist, Religious Dogma
This is an interesting piece that suggests that the misanthropic undercurrents that sometimes lurk beneath modern environmental conservationism might have religious roots. We might have to rethink the way we protect natural environments.
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[] Canadian Slang Is Pretty Hard For These Americans
Also amusing is the list of “Canadian sex positions”.
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[] Can we open a Catholic Faith program within the public school system?
This just tickles me pink. Michael Janz is chair of the Edmonton Public School Board, and on his personal blog, he mused publicly about an interesting question: Why can’t Alberta’s public schools offer Catholic programs? Don’t freak out, secularists; just hear me out for a moment. Alberta’s public schools already offer numerous faith-based “alternate programs” for Protestants, Jews, and Muslims. However you may feel about them, they exist. So why not offer an alternate program for Catholics, too? If it existed, it might siphon students – and tax dollars – away from the separate Catholic school system back into the public system. Why, it might even make a completely parallel separate school system completely superfluous! As you can probably imagine, Catholic school officials are flipping out at the mere suggestion … but Education Minister David Eggen has hinted that it might be doable. And Ian Bushfield at BC Humanists has even opined that this – this crazy, non-intuitive move – might just be the way to finally put the stake in the heart of Alberta’s Catholic school system. A little bit of tolerance and accommodation can sometimes be the perfect way to undercut religious privilege!
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[] Quebec’s Islamophobia problem
A deep dive into islamophobia in Québec, and how it has been both created and exploited by politicians across the spectrum. Similar ideas are echoed by other Ricochet contributors here and here.
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[] Keeping first-past-the-post is a gift to the right
Trudeau’s decision to abandon electoral reform is very bad for Canadian secularists, humanists, atheists, and freethinkers. Worse, it might be very good for the right, which right now has extreme social conservatives, and Trump-lite wannabe-populists hungrily circling the Conservative leadership.
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[] Muslims Reflect On Racism, Islamophobia And Safety In Canada
If we’re going to understand how to properly discuss Islam without descending into islamophobia, a good place to start is with listening to actual Muslims.
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[] Denying Islamophobia’s Existence Keeps Hate Alive In Canada
Islamophobia denial is very popular among SHAFT people. It needs to stop.
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[] Sanctuary cities: Montreal and Ottawa lead emerging Canadian movement
Sanctuary cities are cities where undocumented residents can access and use city services without fear of being reported or deported. The idea is that means they will be able to report crimes, access health services, enrol in schools, and so on… all things that we really want everyone to do – regardless of their immigration status – because they lead to safer, better cities. Toronto became the first sanctuary city in 2013 – a controversial decision at the time, but just recently unanimously reaffirmed. Until last week there were 3 sanctuary cities in Canada: Toronto, Hamilton, and Vancouver. Last week London, Ontario joined them, and now Ottawa, Montréal, Winnipeg, Regina, and Saskatoon could join them.
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[] Why We Need To Emphasize Diversity In Muslim Voices
SHAFT activists have a tricky problem: We want to criticize the pernicious parts of Islam, because they actually harm people. A lot of the rhetoric in support for the horrible Québec Charter of Values involved mostly non-Muslims describing hypothetical Muslims being victimized by veils – either by being forced to wear them or even just seeing them – in imaginary scenarios. But… why use hypothetical people? Why not simply let marginalized groups within Islam speak for themselves? Giving platforms to LGBTQ Muslims or Muslim women basically be letting them do our jobs for us. All we’d need to do is support them.
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[] WARNING: Trump-style politics could flourish in Canada
This is an opinion piece, of course, but pay close attention to the alarming statistics Toula Drimonis brings up.
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[] Bloggers at high risk in Pakistan
Some of the kidnapped bloggers in Pakistan have been released, but there is still no official accounting for who did the kidnapping. All evidence points to the army though. This piece gives an overview of what’s going on there.
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[] We Must Understand The Necessary Distinctions Within A Religion
We have some blatant examples of people on this blog trying to lump all Muslims together, and then judge them by the worst of the bunch. This should be a sharp reminder of how idiotic that is.
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[] Population size and growth in Canada: Key results from the 2016 Census
StatsCan has started releasing the data from the 2016 census.
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[] No, there is no such thing as ‘reverse’ terrorism
There was a discussion in the comments of the last Weekly Update about whether the Québec mosque shooting was “terrorism”. This article discusses the challenges that come with applying the label “terrorism”.
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[] Cancellation of World Humanist Congress 2017 – and new plans for August
Partly due to the travel ban situation in the US, and partly due to the Brazilian economy, the World Humanist Congress has been cancelled. That’s a bummer.
Upcoming items
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[] The Atheist Muslim: with Ali A. Rizvi and Faisal Al Mutar
At the Bloor/Gladstone Toronto Public Library.
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He’s the hero the world needs.
h/t Derek Gray
Canadian Atheist’s Weekly Update depends on the submissions of readers like you. If you see anything on the Internet that you think might be of interest to CA readers, please take a minute to make a submission.
“We have some blatant examples of people on this blog trying to lump all Muslims together”
Indeed, many of them ABOVE the comment section. The Pew polls are quite clear.
“Why not simply let marginalized groups within Islam speak for themselves?”
Indeed. They oppose the veil.
“undocumented residents”
The rise of the weasel word…
Most or all of these people have documents. And their documents say they belong somewhere else, not here.
I have no sympathy for people who come to our country and stay illegally. Millions have done it legally. So can they. Or they can get out.
The reason the attack on the mosque was so shocking is precisely because Islamophobia is not a thing. People who are opposed to Islam because of the clear and present danger it represents have no need or desire to shoot it up. You don’t DO the very thing you’re opposed to. It’s stupid.
However, Islam itself leads to such actions, all around the world, which is why even the CBC first reported that one attacker had a Muslim name and shouted “allahu akbar” during the slaughter. It fits what happens, time and time again, every day ad nauseam, in Islamic terrorism.
Political correctness must never be prioritized over data and facts.
“Trudeau’s decision to abandon electoral reform is very bad”
Indeed. I’m (mostly) a socialist, but I will be voting Conservative next time. Wake me up when the other parties abandon political correctness, so I can come home.
A lot of talk about Islamophobia.
As non-believers we are aware that there is no reason to believe in any of the monotheisms. Of course there are plenty of educated doctors and lawyers who do attest to the veracity of this harmful foolishness.
Take Judaism for example. There is nothing original in their holy fables. It was entirely made up out of borrowed material stolen from more advanced cultures and then adapted to their own selfish, nationalistic expediencies.
It is just as easy to dismiss Christianity and Islam on their own lack of merits, but keep in mind, these later two organizing events rest on the rickety foundations of Judaism.
So our message to Islam is the same as it is to Judaism or Christianity. “Your stories are just stories. A lot of your stories are harmful as well as impossible, so go and find some better stories. Don’t expect us to take you seriously.”
> So our message to Islam is the same as it is to Judaism or Christianity.
If that were true, then we wouldn’t have a problem. But it’s not true; many nonbelievers single out Islam as somehow uniquely problematic, and most blame that on the religion itself, rather on economic and political realities… completely ignoring the evidence that Muslims in prosperous and peaceful areas are not substantively different from any other religion in the same circumstances, and other religious believers in troubling conditions are frequently every bit as nasty as the worst Muslims. Right now in the world there are Buddhists conducting ethnic cleansing, and extremist Hindus edging toward a takeover of society.
Islam is not “worse” than other religions; all religions are bad, and given the same economic, social, and political triggers, any religion could produce an ISIS. The fact that it usually happens to be Islam is simply a function of the sheer size of Islam and the proportion of its adherents in bad conditions (which are usually and have historically been forced on them by *Christians*).
Singling out Islam as uniquely evil does not change those facts, and thus won’t do anything toward fixing any problems. Changing the conditions that make areas ripe for spawning extremism will not only undercut *Islamic* extremism, it will undercut *all* religious extremism. And we can do that more effectively if we’re not calling the people we’re trying to help “barbarians”.