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Lahey (finally) stripped of clerical duties
May 18th
The Holy See in Rome has dismissed Raymond Lahey from the clerical state in what is one of the most serious penalties that the Roman Catholic Church can impose, the Diocese of Antigonish, N.S., said Wednesday.
The decision means Lahey, a former bishop of Antigonish, can no longer work as a cleric nor preside at any religious services or sacraments.
Caught with child porn in 2009 but the church waits until 2012 to strip him of clerical duties?
I suppose he could have been innocent (ignoring that his diocese already paid $15 million to sexual abuse victims) but the church isn’t known for evidence based decision making so if they cared, they could have expedited the process. More likely they waited until the courts were settled and then rubber stamped the eviction to avoid embarrassment. No need to be hasty and do it sooner, since he could have gotten off on a technicality and the church could have him back to work the next day.
via National Post
Know who else was an atheist??? Hitler! (and other arguments of this type)
May 4th
Irrespective of whether you accept that the earth is getting hotter, you will hopefully find this attempt to argue against it embarrassingly tragic. It’s amazing to see such a blatant and epic ad hominem fallacy in billboard format. I can only hope that, as the Guardian article says, supporters of heartland.org will pull their funding and distance themselves from such idiocy.
Necrophilia in the blogosphere
Apr 28th
Is the Egyptian government considering a law that allows people to have sex with their dead spouses?
PZ thinks so
Skepchick is covering it.
Some people are more skeptical.
Or are people primed to believe bad things about people they disagree with?
It seems ridiculous to me, and does have a whiff of propaganda, not to mention fits in with a certain paranoia about Islamists taking over Egypt. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Not so much with blogging it seems. Heheh.
Islamist Books
Apr 8th
Here’s another article on how easy it is, apparently, to get radical Islamist literature in Toronto area bookstores.
When one of the store’s managers was asked by a reporter who posed as a customer whether he stocked “Jihad in Islam” — arguably the most radical book of the bunch — he said he hadn’t carried it for years because the RCMP had been to his store to ask questions about why it would carry such a book.
Another manager said the store didn’t carry any of the six books on the reporter’s list.
But within 30 minutes, the reporter found Jihad in Islam and four others of Maududi’s stacked on a bottom shelf in the middle of the store.
Ooops, how did that get there?
Given how easy it is find much worse stuff on the internet these days, and not all of it is even Muslim, I don’t think this rates as a threat to national security, but it does make one think. Not all Muslims want to take over the world, but being vigilant, as opposed to completely paranoid, is certainly the rational thing to do.
Updates and hiatus
Mar 1st
I must admit my own failures at maintaining a consistent presence here at Canadian Atheist. I could try to offer a bunch of excuses but it would be far too cliché, let’s just point to life outside the internet and a personal loss of interest in this project for the time being.
So I won’t commit to adding much of my voice here for the next little while.
Which doesn’t mean that I’ve given up blogging. Please check out my personal blog, which features a lot more politics (specifically NDP leadership race coverage) and a new post about CFI Canada – aka the gift that keeps on giving. Hopefully you’ll follow me there but if not I’ll continue to post what I want as I have the motivation to do so.
New series on religious freedom
Feb 22nd
Maclean’s magazine has launched a new series devoted to debating the federal government’s newly created Office of Religious Freedom.
What’s the proper place of religion in Canada’s foreign policy? Is it in Canada’s national interest to promote religious freedom abroad? Will all religions receive equal protection? Will other types of rights have to take a back seat?
First up is Clifford Orwin who argues for the office because he sees religious coercion as a special case: More >
Accommodating secularism
Feb 19th
An interesting turn of events in Morinville, looks like a more acceptable public secular education option may be on the horizon after all.
In January, Hunter and Marjorie Kirsop, another Morinville parent, were rebuffed by the human rights commission. The commission refused to entertain their complaints under the controversial new parental rights clause of the human rights act. That clause gives parents the right to withdraw their children from any instruction involving religion, sexuality, or sexual orientation.
This week, however, the commission informed Hunter and three other parents, Rayann Menard, Tannis Caverly, and Carol Sparks, that their complaints are now being processed under a different part of the act: Section 4, which forbids the denial “to any person or class of persons any goods, services, accommodation or facilities that are customarily available to the public.”
Being heard, is always a good first step.
Recent Retraction from the Religiously Righteous
Feb 12th
A New York Times article covered a recent retraction from the religiously righteous (alliteration of the day, perhaps?). Ten years ago, then-archbishop of the archdiocese of New York, Archbishop Egan offered an apology during Mass with respect to child abuse. More >
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.
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.
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