Athée Canadien
Ian
Ian holds a MSc in Physics and lives in Vancouver, BC. He is president of the BC Humanist Association. He grew up outside of Calgary before moving to Edmonton for his undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics at the UofA. While there he founded the UofA Atheists and Agnostics and was active in the Edmonton freethought and skeptical communities.
Homepage: http://ian.bushfield.ca
Posts by Ian
Vancouver Atheists help the homeless
Feb 3rd
This is really cool.
A group on Facebook called Atheist Republic – which has only been around for a few months but already has nearly 30,000 likes – held its first event last weekend. They went to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and handed out socks to the homeless.
You can see some photos of the event here (you may need Facebook for this).
Other engagements sadly prevented me from making it out to this event, but I wish them the best in the future.
Atheist Republic has members worldwide and is hoping to launch an international non-profit organization to help organize and rally atheists everywhere. Check them out (their website isn’t exactly ready yet), they’re already off to a great start.
Canadian Blog Awards results!
Jan 23rd
This year Canadian Atheist was a finalist in two categories for the Canadian Blog Awards and thanks to your help, we brought home some medals. Last year we won the Best Religion and Philosophy Blog, but we slipped behind an evangelical Christian mother this year.
Best Religion and Philosophy Blog
Taste and see… – momjeans80.blogspot.com – 49 Votes (26.92%)
Canadian Athiest – www.canadianathiest.com – 44 Votes (24.18%)
Whatever He Says – WhateverHeSays.blogspot.com – 43 Votes (23.63%)
Bene Diction Blogs on – www.BenedictionBlogsOn.com – 37 Votes (20.33%)
Feminist Christian Socialist – feministchristian.blogspot.com – 9 Votes (4.95%)
But to make up for that shaming, we did win the Best Collaborative/Multi-Author Blog
Best Collaborative/Multi-Author Blog
Canadian Atheist – CanadianAtheist.com 31 60.78%
DAMMIT JANET! – scathinglywrongrightwingnutz.blogspot.com 16 31.37%
Sister Sage’s Musings – sistersagesmusings.ca 3 5.88%
Now, anyone looking at these results is probably going to recognize fairly quickly that this wasn’t that great of turnout for any of the winners. The category with the most votes (Best Overall Blog) collected 883 ballots, while our winning category collected a mere 50 ballots. A well-pharyngulated poll will pull in a few thousand votes.
These straw-poll contests are a little bit of fun but need better exposure in the blogosphere to have any real meaning.
Don’t want a Bible in PEI? Too bad.
Jan 19th
When I was in elementary school in rural Alberta, I remember getting a form to either opt-out or opt-in (I don’t remember which) for a Gideon Bible.
As a sign of the anti-theist I was to become, I also remember joking to my friends on the school bus that if they gave me a Bible that I’d burn it.
So this story out of Prince Edward Island has an air of familiarity to it for me.
A Prince Edward Island school board says it doesn’t plan to stop handing Bibles out to students despite receiving a complaint from a parent.
Ricky Hood, superintendent for the Eastern School District, said the Gideon Society has been handing out Bibles to students for 46 years, and it doesn’t take up any instructional time, reports Charlottetown’s Guardian newspaper.
They go on to argue that there is an opt-out permission form and that they don’t actually spend any instructional time on religious topics.
The Sun Media article also mentions a similar controversy in Ontario last year and notes that premier Dalton McGuinty was unwilling to actually take a stand on the issue.
What’s interesting here isn’t that this was a bit of a loss for secularists but that the default position of those forcing religion down impressionable children’s throats is now one of defense. They have to come up with pathetic arguments like tradition and flimsy opt-out forms to justify their privilege.
It’s very clear we’re winning and it’s only a matter of time until the Gideons are out of our schools for good.
Your last chance to help us win the internets
Jan 19th
Just a quick reminder that you only have one more day to vote for Canadian Atheist as the 2011 Best Religion and Philosophy Blog and Best Collaborative/Multi-Author Blog in the Canadian Blog Awards.
We won the Religion and Philosophy contest last year, let’s hold our title!
BC Interior freethought groups launch The Secular Circular e-newsletter
Jan 18th
It’s always good to see more grassroots freethought groups, especially in smaller centres and places often infamous for their conservative religiosity.
Case in point, a number of atheist and skeptic groups in the interior of BC have launched a e-newsletter to provide updates on the local groups in the area, including the Kamloops Centre for Rational Thought, CFI Okanagan, a student group at UBC-O and two new groups in Nelson and Salmon Arm.
Check out the first edition and subscribe online.
The Current State of the Freethought movement in the BC Interior – Since the Four Horsemen (Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, and Harris) published their books 5 years ago, the freethought movement has been growing by leaps and bounds. Groups have been sprouting up across the world and here is no exception. Early in 2010 groups formed both in Kamloops and Kelowna, the 2 largest cities in the interior. Late in 2011, we had additional groups form both in Salmon Arm and Nelson and a student group at UBCO. This is all very exciting since there really isn’t a comparable movement in smaller centres anywhere else in the country, hopefully what is happening here will be emulated in other provinces in the near future and we will be able to offer guidance and inspiration.
An update from Secular Connexion Seculaire
Jan 9th
Last August I introduced Secular Connexion Seculair, another Canadian Humanist organization. Well, after recent troubles in CFI Canada, it may be time to revisit what I then dismissed as another group in an already crowded field.
Well a couple weeks ago I received an update from SCS President Doug Thomas, who brings news about their accomplishments to date.
Hi Ian,
Some time has passed since you reviewed an article about Secular Connexion Séculaire in the K-W Record on canadianatheist.com. Since August 8 we have been active doing the things we set out to do.
Later in August, I spoke to the Liberal Party of Canada caucus regarding our concerns about discrimination in the charitable status regulations in the Income Tax Act and the National Anthem among other things. While this kind of meeting rarely results in immediate action, even if the politicians in question are in power, the people I talked to were surprisingly unaware of our situation and making them aware is a significant step. I note that the recent Liberal policy statement on their website includes a concern that the party needs to recognize the rights of non-believers. No credit claimed, but more voices can sway politicians.
We also emailed every Member of Parliament and every Senator to make them aware of the same issues.
In response to John Baird’s formation of the Office of Religious freedom, we have written him for clarification of his intentions regarding non-believer. This letter (attached) went out just before the winter break in Ottawa, so whether we get a response or not is unknown. The only guarantee is that if we don’t say anything, nothing will happen.
By the way, after investigating charitable status, and receiving a very detailed and reasoned response from one of their people (6 pages – well researched) we have decided not to seek charitable status. Among the limitations this would impose on us are: Lobbying for changes in specific legislation would put the status in jeopardy (e.g. the aforementioned income tax act), and our ability to join and vote in international organizations would be hindered (HC is an associate member of IHEU and has no vote – we want one). We feel that our effectiveness as advocates for atheist rights would be reduced if we were looking over our shoulder to protect our charitable status.
Our activities are now highlighted in the newest iteration of our website on the cycling slides and our new welcoming statement clarifies some issues as well.
I guess we have dragged some old school thinking into the notion that our forum is not really a public media, but a 24/7 plenary session for members:hence the membership fee. Frankly, there are plenty of social media sites out there, including canadianatheist.com that do a fine job of providing open forums. We are looking for the same kind of direction from our membership as one would get from a meeting in a physical locale. Oh yes, we need money too.
As for our comment about not attempting to be a "governing body" for Canadian Humanism, this is a carry over from experiences as a member and director of the Humanist Association of Canada (now HC). A number of people in that organization had a vision that it would act as a central body with local branches. I have no idea whether that is still the case since I left that organization almost a year ago.
In any case, we intend to complement, not duplicate, the activities of other Canadian Humanist groups.
Our contact with local organizations has been spotty, because we adopted the notion that if we actually did something before asking for ongoing support, we would be more credible. That is slowly proving to be true, in the trickling way that atheists support anything in this country.We intend to be much more proactive in our contact with local organizations in the near future.
SCS is definitely not perfect. Our stated goals are somewhat general out of necessity. But, I have no regrets about what we have managed since we started in May of 2011 and I look forward to making further process in 2011.
Thanks for your input and have a great 2012.
Doug Thomas
President
Secular Connexion Séculaire
president@secularconnexion.ca
Sounds interesting. I wish them well.
Feel free to give their website a second glance.
Will the Liberals become republicans?
Jan 8th
After the disastrous results in the past few federal elections, the Liberal Party of Canada is finally doing some soul searching in an attempt to figure out why they exist and what their vision for Canada will be.
A key part of this process will be the policy renewal conference to be held next weekend in Ottawa. There they will debate resolutions on whether to adopt a leadership primary system like the US presidential elections.
Of more interest to readers here though will be a resolution submitted by the Liberal’s youth wing calling for an abolition of the monarchy [pdf]:
Turkey’s secular military leaders arrested for treason
Jan 7th
Last summer I tried to delve a little into the current situation in Turkey.
In short, Turkey is currently ruled by an elected and popular right-wing proto-Islamist party which is highly resented by the military, which has long defended the country’s secular constitution. Several times in the past the military has overthrown governments that threatened the separation of church and state.
When I wrote about it, several military leaders had gone on strike to protest the increasing number of religious-inspired laws being passed.
Now, the government has arrested 200 people including the former head of Turkey’s armed forces General Ilker Basbug, claiming that they were engaged in a conspiracy to overthrow the government. The case is now before the courts after several years of investigations.
The BBC weighs the issue and tries to balance fears from the government and people of an over-powerful military and the secularists fears of increasing Islamism.
It’s all very messy but if anyone has some insight, perhaps you can share it with us so we can piece together the whole story.
I assure you, we’re OPEN!
Jan 6th
A number of readers have alerted me that they have randomly seen some “Account Suspended” errors appearing instead of our main page from NetFirms.
As far as I know, it’s all cleared up now, but you may need to clear your browser’s cache before it will clear up. For future reference, Zak handles our web hosting issues, so yell at him if there’s an issue.
Now back to business as usual.
Preach at Calgary City Hall and go directly to jail
Jan 6th
The past few weeks have been a bit of a blogging blackout from me. I finished my thesis, passed my defense, became an official Master of Science, and then buggered off to Alberta to visit family for Christmas (that’s right). Now I’m unemployed and can start to catch up on blogging.
To begin, here’s a story that was mostly missed before Christmas where a Christian evangelist was arrested by the City of Calgary for trespassing on their City Hall.
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