Here’s your Canadian Atheist Weekly Update for to .
My sign is Zerg.
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[] World Happiness Report 2017: Canada Slips To Its Lowest Ranking Yet
Granted, we’re still #7, but Finland and the Netherlands – particularly the latter – were able to jump ahead of us almost entirely due to our own sinking score.
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[] The Quran was torn to shreds at a raucous school board meeting in Peel Region
Does anyone seriously still believe these protests are about secularism?
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[] Is Canada’s Multicultural Identity Only Skin-Deep?
Osman Shah makes the case that Canadian multiculturalism, for all its runaway success, has never really required Canadians to do anything for it, and has never really been tested. Now that it is under fire, we have a responsibility to stand up and fight for it.
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[] M-103: Anti-Islamophobia Motion Easily Passes House Of Commons
It was inevitable that it would, really, so the only real effect of the protests against the motion has been to bring Canada’s latent islamophobia out into the spotlight, and identify the bigots. Unfortunately, all of the Conservative leadership candidates except Micheal Chong failed the test.
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[] “Sign” by Andrés Diplotti (Flea Snobbery)
As Diplotti points out, that answer is just as good as the “correct” answer.
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Canadian Atheist is an organization which I can trust of which there are far to few in this world. A great many of the world’s problems can be traced back to criminal gangs. The biggest and most successful of which, as far as I know, has been the Christian religion. It would now seem that the Muslim religion is just as bad. Both of these criminal organizations should be banned and all of their property confiscated by a legitimate Canadian government not infiltrated by their members.
There can be no greater difference than between the two statements ‘freedom of belief’ and ‘freedom of religion’. To say ‘freedom of religion’ is really to say ‘freedom of crime’. Now instead of just the Christian gang murdering and robbing us on our streets we have the Muslim gangs fighting them on our streets for gang territory.
Both of these organizations should be outlawed in Canada immediately so that the Canadian people can begin to live their lives in peace. Also, the Canadian government should refuse to recognize any countries where either of these organizations are allowed to operate freely.
Even if the idea of outlawing religions were not completely insane and absolutely antithetical to a free society, the very idea is idiotic. You could, I suppose, ban Christian churches (which has been done in the past, and not by societies that were known for their enlightened values), but that would have absolutely no effect on Christian *belief*. Christians would just continue being Christians, except practising the religion underground. You’d have to make the *beliefs* illegal to stop them, and good luck with that – even if it were possible, it immediately highlights the hypocrisy behind your idea of freedom of belief.
That’s not a theory, that’s what has actually happened in the past. Spoiler alert: it’s never worked well. Whenever a religion has been outlawed, it has just gone underground and thrived. These religions just *love* persecution – in fact, most of them *fake* persecution in places where there is none, they love it so much. And when they go underground, they just get stronger, and eventually, come back with a bang. Just take a look at Russia for an example of how badly making religions illegal can backfire.
You want to know how to *really* hurt religions? Leave them alone. Ignore them. Obviously don’t allow them to take control of secular services, like education or governance, and don’t allow them to interfere with the rights of others, but otherwise, let them have their space to practice their kooky rituals as they please. Create an open and free society where information can flow unhindered. Then just step back and watch religions die. Because they will die, and again that’s not a theory – that’s what has actually been happening in modern, free societies. Freedom is like bleach to the religious virus. They can’t thrive in an environment where there’s little or no suffering or misery, and little or no persecution and restrictions on freedom. Their stupidity and their backward thinking will become clearly visible, and people will turn away from them. That’s what’s been happening in modern, free societies for decades.
These recent attempts to harass and antagonize Islam have done more to set the cause of stamping out religion *back* than anything Islam itself has done for centuries. They have made Islam and Muslims a sympathetic cause – and Muslims know it! You can see it in their ridiculous arguments about how the hijab is a feminist symbol, for example. It’s obviously not, but because the idiot islamophobes have tried to oppress people who want to wear it, they have turned it into a symbol of defiance against oppression. That’s right, because of the stupidity of islamophobes, a symbol of oppression is being redefined as a symbol of *freedom* from oppression. Great job, jackasses.
No, oppressing religions – making them illegal – won’t work. It is a tactically stupid move. It will accomplish nothing except strengthening religions, and undermining our own position as the ones on the side of freedom and justice.
Thank you Indi for your very thoughtful reply to my comment on March 25.
I am 68 years old and retired so I have nothing else to do all day than to consider matters such as that under discussion here.
I really am convinced that religions, at least the ones I know, really are just criminal gangs and actually have nothing in common with community or government. I was raised as an Anglican (which is a Protestant Christian denomination originally centered in England and still officially known as ‘The Church of England’ headed by the Queen of England). This is the only religion I knew anything about when I was a child. I now have met many Jewish people and of course am well aware of Islam, but only very recently in the last 5 or 10 years. Of course other religions I have heard of are Hinduism and Buddhism but I really know nothing about them.
Therefore, the religions I am criticising are really the monotheistic ones which originated in the middle east and spread west. I’m not sure whether you know that the Jewish religion was the original monotheistic religion and Christianity and Islam are really just off shoots of Judaism. I regard them as fundamentally the same mega gang which has splintered into distinct separate groups over time and are now as always fighting over gang territory and ordinary people are as usual the innocent victims caught in the middle.
I certainly hope what you say is true and that religions will just fade away but I believe the more pressure is applied the sooner that will happen. I think the problem has always been that people have been led to believe that religions really are something. Something just as natural and real as family and friends and the communities they live in. Religion is no natural system of belief, it is something forced onto them. No rational human being could believe their so called *beliefs* for a second. Their preposterous little story about their savour and how you’ll go to hell for ever if you don’t join up is just a demonstration of gross disrespect for any normal human being. Just like any other animal that is not put in it’s place they will continue to be disrespectful until they are punished. What they say is not said as some kind of a joke, they will murder and rob you if your foolish enough to think it is.
I’m sure it is entirely unnecessary for me to explain these things to you and as I stated earlier I’m hoping your analysis is the correct one. I only discovered YouTube about a year ago and sites such as the Amazing Atheist and the Cult of Dusty very recently. I am very encouraged that they are able to share their perfectly natural extreme frustration with religion in an open public forum such as YouTube still is. It hasn’t become a site exclusively for sharing baby pictures yet.
Thanks again for your helpful reply and I hope the above will help explain and clarify my position to you.
Let me guess. You also own stocks in the mining and military defence sectors.
In reply to Bubba Kincaid I certainly wish I did own stocks in the mining and military defense sectors. I’m pretty sure if you check you will find that almost all of those stocks are owned exclusively by members in good standing in the Christian criminal gang. I for one would certainly be surprised if that wasn’t actually the case.
I appreciate that you’re specifically after the Abrahamic religions (Judaism and its children), but my target is much bigger: I’m after *all* religions (Abrahamic, Dharmic (Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.), and others), *all* irrational ideologies (everything from “natural is good” to “climate change isn’t real” to “the world is secretly controlled by reptilian aliens”), *all* pseudoscientific beliefs and practices (everything from homeopathy to chiropractic), *all* superstitious nonsense (“buildings shouldn’t have a 13th floor because 13 is unlucky” and so on), and more. Basically, my target is irrationality itself, and I’ve been fighting this battle actively for many years now.
Because of that, I tend to take the long view, the broad view of things. I am fine with giving up small victories that are ultimately meaningless in the greater fight. For example, I’m fine with letting people wear silly headgear in public if that makes them feel magical or closer to their gods. Sure, whatever, doesn’t harm anyone. But by giving them that small victory, I keep myself strategically positioned for the bigger fight. You see, if we banned hijabs or turbans or whatever, that wouldn’t make Islam or Sikhism or whatever go away. What it *would* do is draw battle lines between Islam or Sikhism and the state, and drag us into a fight… on something that ultimately didn’t harm anyone or mean anything (the wearing of hijabs/turbans). We’d be wasting our resources and our very limited political capital on a pointless battle, when we have *real* battles to fight.
And remember, persecution makes these religions stronger. So we’d not only be exhausting our resources on a pointless battle, we’d be strengthening our opponent. That’s why I advocate letting religions have meaningless, cost-free concessions… like praying in school. We *could* spend our efforts preventing kids from praying on their own time… but for what? We’d gain nothing – the kids would probably pray anyway, and now it would be an act of rebellion, of defiance; we’d have created fresh enemies. It wouldn’t make them *less* religious; in fact, because religions thrive on persecution it would probably make them *more* religious. But you know what *might* make them feel less connected to their religion? Letting them have their prayer sessions in school. If the prayer groups are small, the ones who pray will become “different”, and isolated from other students every time they go to pray; the ones who have huge prayer groups probably won’t get that affect, but they *will* be confronted with non-praying kids. In either case, their religious beliefs will be discussed with non-believers, and challenged. And *that* is what creates atheists. You know yourself, and if you talk to pretty much any atheist that was once religious, it wasn’t being mocked or oppressed that made them start questioning their religion, it was having to justify their silly beliefs in the face of strong arguments against. That’s plants the seeds of doubt, that eventually bloom into disbelief.
So you see, I don’t necessarily disagree with you that these organized religions are, in many ways, criminal gangs. I mean, I wouldn’t use those words myself, but I wouldn’t disagree – I’ve heard convincing arguments that they’re massive fraud scams or pyramid schemes. And I don’t disagree that if you are foolish enough to believe they are harmless, they will steamroll right over you. But I don’t agree that the way to fight them is by *treating* them like criminals. Religions, unlike actual criminal gangs, thrive on persecution and oppression. There is a better, more effective way to beat them. And that’s by using our liberal, democratic, free, and open societies to their maximum power. Right now, there are movements afoot trying to undermine that power – trying to undermine multiculturalism, democracy, liberty, and more… and not all of these movements are religious movements. That’s why right now, the real battle to fight is against populism, against the “alt-right”, and against the neo-Nazis and islamophobes. Because they are attacking and weakening our most powerful and effective weapon. Oh, we’ll beat religion, for sure… but we have to defend this weapon – our liberal, open, free society – in order to have a good shot.
By the way, I have to urge caution. Unfortunately, there is a lot of rot in the atheist movement these days. It has been infected by hate, intolerance, bigotry, and irrationality. And unfortunately, YouTube is widely known as a cesspool of these attitudes. I’m not saying “don’t watch YouTube atheists”, because I’m sure there are some good ones. I’m just saying: be critical. Always keep your mind open and questioning, even when listening to popular atheists (even when listening to me). Watch out for the danger signs, and don’t get sucked in by the hate. Anger is the atheist’s best weapon, but hate is just a liability. Beware of anyone who tries to dehumanize religious people (or other people), and make them all out to be dribbling idiots or vicious monsters that must be defeated or saved. Never forget that within religions and religious people, there are *always* good cores, and the real job – which is much more complicated than just mindlessly dumping on them – is to carefully excise the nasty bits and pull the good stuff out. Religious people are not mindless zombies that are nothing but impediments to our goal that we need to put down like animals; they’re people, and we’re not really here to defeat them, we’re here to help free them.
Bubba Kincaid:
> Let me guess. You also own stocks in the mining and military defence sectors.
What the hell does that have to do with anything?
It explains his obliviousness to the other major contributors to world problems and over-fixation on religion writ large as his main whipping post.
Thanks again for your very concise and informative reply to my reply to you on March 26.
Only about a week ago I had run out of things to pass my time so I decided to look into how to use Facebook. I signed up for it well over a year ago since I was always hearing so much about it but then I got pre-occupied with learning how to use my laptop and never used it.
I was really impressed with Facebook for the possibility of real *open* (by that I mean the way people really talk when they aren’t worrying what their boss will think) discussion on the important topics of the day. I was making a lot of comments and getting a lot of likes when the terrorist attacks in London occurred. I was in the middle of commenting on that as it was happening when my Facebook account was suddenly disabled. That’s fine with me, however, as I mentioned in my reply to you I now regard Facebook as really just a site for sharing baby pictures. That’s not what I need so I won’t waste any more of my time on it.
You say “there is a lot of rot in the atheist movement these days”. I would say *rot* is a subjective term. I think anyone who can jump through the hoops in this crazy world and land up as an atheist should never be equated with rot. You say that the atheist movement has been infected with “hate, intolerance, bigotry, and irrationality”. I am sure you know that Hitler was a Christian. Would you call someone in Berlin in 1939 who dared to call Hitler a ‘filthy stupid stinking criminal pig’ being hateful, intolerant, bigoted and irrational or actually telling the truth. Please note that I am actually self censoring this statement. That is not by any means what I would really say if I truly felt free to speak my mind here in Canada without repercussions. As far as I am concerned that statement about Hitler is really an insult to pigs, I personally have much higher regard for pigs moral character than I ever will for anyone who joins the Christians gang. I respect people who fight it.
Personally I couldn’t give YouTube any higher rating as an organization specifically because of the *truth* of it’s content which is unavailable anywhere else that I know of. Incidentally I have never dared to comment on YouTube because I’m pretty sure if I do things will suddenly become much more complicate like what happened on Facebook and I need YouTube to stay informed. I see recently that large corporate sponsors are withdrawing because of inappropriate placement of their adds.
Hopefully those big corporate sponsors will go out of business instead of YouTube giving in to their demands, but I very much doubt that that will ever happen.
I find the kinds of things a person has to agree to in order to be a member of the Christian religion the real give away about what it really is. “What is your religion?” is a question I have always come to on job application forms as if religion is something legitimate like night and day or the weather. How about ‘What are your beliefs in 25 words or less’ if this sort of thing is really something your potential employer really needs to know for you to be able to do the job. I know the real reason for that question is to tell the employer whether or not you are someone that can be trusted to do whatever kind of illegal and immoral things that employer orders you to do as a member of the Christian gang. It also alerts him to be wary of trusting you if the answer, or lack thereof, indicates to him that in some way you might be opposed to the Christian gang.
But what about their criminal activities. We’re allowed to call it outright murder when Hitler was trying to kill off all of the members of the Jewish gang. Of course trying to kill off the Muslim gang during the crusades was what? conquest, so that’s okay. As far as I’m concerned no it’s not okay because it was not conquest, actually it was *open* gang warfare.
What about some of their other criminal activities? Where do the gang members hide the money they steal from non-members out in society? I would say they have always hidden it within the church where they can practise tax evasion legally. Does anyone really know what church real estate is worth? If they ever feel seriously threatened they can simply move the stolen money from one pocket to the other, by selling it at rock bottom prices back to other gang members out in society.
Is it actually possible for anyone who is not a member of the Christian gang to get elected in Canada? Is it actually possible for any sane rational person who believes in *real* human created laws rather than criminal created *God* laws to practise real law in Canada?
Of course the real law of nature is ‘survival of the fittest’. Also of course, what does this really mean? If a 50 kilometer wide asteroid decides to intersect earth’s orbit tomorrow all the best, finest, most rational and true arguments in the world aren’t very likely to change it’s mind. When the Charlie Hebdo massacre occurred I couldn’t help to remember what every mother tells their little boy, ‘don’t pull the dogs tail’. Thus if a billion members of the Muslim gang tell you not to draw pictures of somebody they claim to know or they’ll kill you, it might be a good idea to pay careful attention. Maybe someday in an idealized future words will trump (sorry that used to be such a good bridge word) physical force but I’m afraid it may be a very, very long wait. I really have to wonder if there are any aliens anywhere out in the 2 trillion galaxies in this universe who have more faith in their words than their firepower when push comes to shove.
The CRA has a very good explanation of the tax law related to non profits and charities. Search: Guidelines for Registering a Charity-Policy statement-Reference number-CPS-024. 2.0 The fundamentals of Charity. Also for a complete explanation of the origin of the Canadian Law in regards to religious organizations search for ‘The Pemsel Case Foundation’ site.
What I mean by banning Christianity is by simply not recognizing it as being something real and distinct in law. In law a corporation is considered as a person, that is it is something recognized and defined as having legitimate legal status. Canadian law in regard to religion is based on the Pemsel case which I believe is the heart of the problem. Religion should not be recognized as something valid and hence it should not have legal status. If any so called “religious’ organization can meet the same legal tests that Canadian non-profits must I think that would effectively go a long way towards redressing the injustice which Christianity continues to represent in lawful Canadian society.
Monotheistic religions certainly are gang-like. The St. Bartholomew Massacre in Paris, during Shakespearian times, was the prototype for the more recent Muslim outrages. Of course the Hindus and Buddhists have managed to organize their own crimes.
Motorcycle gangs are tightly surveilled but they are not completely prohibited either. We are destined to live within gang populated neighborhoods. This is what ‘freedom of association’ is all about.
Socialism, at its best, is an effort to establish a nation-wide interactive association for all the member citizens. By sharing in education, training, healthcare and security it is imagined that the individual will enjoy a rich and secure existence.
Religions are offering more. They are, in many cases, offering an eternity of bliss that far overshadows this socialists’ brief paradise. Of course their eternity is just pure bullshit.
I’m of the opinion that pointing out the absurdities and improbabilities of religious stories is the most effective way to degrade religious control over their captives. So, I guess, my message is “never miss an opportunity to blaspheme for the salvation of the nation”.
As long as you realize that it is quite evidently easy to blame everything on religion leading to a psychological elevation of atheism and actions borne out in the name of secularism to impeccable near apotheosizing. Psychologically. And evidently.
Thanks for your support. As an atheist I know how rare that really was for an atheist to find any like minds or even sympathetic minds before the internet. The following is actually the first comment I attempted on this site and it was supposed to be a reply to one of your posts. When I tried to enter my name and email I couldn’t.It was only a couple of days ago that I realized that the cursor is flashing at the extreme right hand side of the place where I was supposed to type my name etc. and I didn’t see it until then.
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I just discovered this site, Canadian Atheist, for the first time today and I am truly astonished, it actually looks like something! The only credit civilization has ever given atheism in the past, at least that I’ve ever been able to discover, is warranting being defined in the
dictionary.
The goal of organized religion has always been the enslavement of humankind. Not to destroy us since people are really there golden calf that has never stopped generating more for the gang members to steal. What is really happening at the present time of course, is the Muslim gang is seeing the Christian gang weakened. What a golden opportunity to cut into their territory, pretend to be fighting them as usual and reap the glorious rewards from all the non-believers they can catch in the ‘cross fire’, no pun intended.
Whether there’s still any chance in the modern world for them to pull off one more really big steal, something like the crusades, remains to be seen.
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Everyone seems pretty sure that the Muslim gang is trying to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction in order to make their point about whose really right. Things like nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Of course no decent human being would ever suspect the Christian gang, or any of it’s members, of resorting to the use of such evil methods of making their point of view the universally accepted one.
> It was only a couple of days ago that I realized that the cursor is flashing at the extreme right hand side of the place where I was supposed to type my name etc. and I didn’t see it until then.
Yeah, that cursor-on-the-right thing is just one of the many minor irritations I intend to fix in the coming months.
“Now that [multiculturalism] is under fire, we have a responsibility to stand up and fight for it.”
Well, that, or we could do the right thing, and dump it in the trash bin of history.
Always a bigoteer, never a bigot, amirite?
Mirrors, Indi.