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The federal NDP just wrapped up their 50th anniversary convention in Vancouver last weekend, celebrating their historic achievement of 103 seats in the last election, the most ever won by a “socialist” party (they were thinking about removing this term from their constitution, but decided it needed more committee work) in Canada, although not enough to prevent a Harper majority.

At this convention, members of the NDP’s Faith and Social Justice committee got together and decided they’d start promoting themselves more, starting with this video that tries to establish the Religious Left in Canada as an alternate voice to the typical right-wing Christian nationalists.

I still don’t think I can support the religious left.

On the positive side, their good allies against regressive policies pushed by more conservative religious. They generally support things that I agree with like drug policy, gay marriage and women’s choice.

However, they’re still wrong.

The blind-spot in their critical thinking abilities that allows them to have faith without evidence leaves room for other erroneous and irrational thinking. So I can’t trust them to always arrive at the same conclusions as I would.

Belief in God necessitates moral absolutism, since their higher power has arbitrary control over what’s good and bad. Just because the religious left tends to be more progressive in what’s good, doesn’t mean that those positions were arrived at rationally.

For example, in the current appeals case regarding Ontario’s prostitution laws, do those who identify as the religious left arrive at their conclusions in the case through reasoning based on harm reduction and evidence from other nation’s policies, or will they follow more liberally-interpreted Biblical principles? Similarly, can I rely on those who believe life is sacred to support a woman’s right to abortion services – many Catholics in the Liberal Party were members of the unofficial “Pro-Life” caucus and routinely voted anti-choice. Will the religious left support ending funding to Catholic schools in Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan and private religious schools in Alberta and BC?

And if they use reason and evidence to reach their conclusions, why refer to them as religious or faith-based? Why not call it the “Reason and Social Justice” committee?

While I can appreciate those who end up with similar conclusions and politics as myself, I do think that the process of reaching those conclusions matters.