Athée Canadien
Religion
The Clergy Project
May 1st
Losing one’s faith can often be very traumatic for people, and no small part of that is dealing with loved ones who might not understand or approve. But even harder, what if religion is your job? Then its not just you, and your personal life, but also your career, maybe your life’s work, that you’re giving up.
Then she took a deep breath and said, “My name is Teresa. And I am an atheist.” As the room exploded with cheers, Teresa MacBain wiped away tears.MacBain, 44, is the latest “graduate” of The Clergy Project, an online support network for pastors who, like her, have lost their faith and found atheism.
Edmonton minister ignores laws
Apr 25th
Catherine Flamond, 52, had argued in a written Charter notice that the provincial civil laws do not apply to her because she is a Christian minister bound only by God, the Queen of England and the Constitution Act of 1982.
However, Provincial Court Judge John Henderson dismissed the constitutional challenge on Friday after ruling that the Alberta Traffic Safety Act applies to “every single person” who operates a motor vehicle in the province.
Not sure why she’s allowed to obey the constitution but not provincial law given that the constitution outlines provincial powers but religious logic isn’t know for it’s coherence.
The judge dismissed the claim so we can breathe easy for now. While it’s easy to mock this minister for her silly sense of entitlement, the same arguments against her can be used against the funding of Catholic schools and tax exemptions for the religions, for example.
Should religions follow the same laws as everyone else? Yes, and they generally don’t claim they shouldn’t even though their actions and claims of entitlement suggest otherwise. Don’t let them get away with it.
via Edmonton Sun
Poor downtrodden ungrateful atheists
Apr 25th
I posted about this earlier. Just going to leave this here…
More important, that way you could have spared yourself the high probability that your name will become a Canadian byword for grinchdom, incivility and disrespect for the real suffering of the millions of people in this world who can only dream of the joy of sitting at such a table as you were at, and listening to any blessing whatsoever.
Mr. Solo, meet Jabba-the-Hut.
Catholic Schools: Not a real choice
Apr 25th
I’ve been on a bit of a Cath-aholic binge lately, but they do so invite criticism.
Even though the Christian God gave men(women too, well unless she wants to be a priest) the gift of Freewill, largely as a way of trapping us all in sin, the Catholic church wants to deny Catholic school kids the right the choose to name their anti-bullying clubs, Gay-straight Alliances. Nice to see how God’s Church reinforces the importance of that Freewill thing.
Strangely, while it bans word choice, the Catholic teachers see no problem offering up abortion as a valid subject for the kiddies to make a, heavily encouraged, choice with regards to signing a petition.
Not sure I’d say this is coercion, but there is an obvious power imbalance involved in a student-teacher relationship, using that to further a political agenda, and on the taxpayers dime, seems inappropriate. But when you have a sense of entitlement, I guess that is what it’s there for.
Update: And more Catholic un-choice out in Saskatchewan, (H/T: Friendly Atheist)
Mormon feminism, wait, what?
Apr 23rd
Ok, first, I’m not really the guy to say what feminism is, or who is feminist or not. But I’m thinking, with Mitt Romney in the running for being next President of our Big Brother to the south, getting a bit more familiar with the people who like to bug us when we are eating dinner, is probably not a bad idea.
Amusingly, with the exception of a few chats with some door-knockers, my greatest exposure to Mormonism is Battlestar Galactica. And yes, it was based on the Mormon religion. I’m pretty sure this is why so many of my atheist friends hated the ending of that particular show. I liked it, but theology fascinates me.
Back to Mormon feminism.
Like many feminists in faith communities, Mormon feminists are sensitive to any suggestion from their secular counterparts that they’re brainwashed or that they should just leave the Church. They see plenty of room for women within their religious doctrines, if not in current institutional practice. “Some of the quirky aspects, like our ‘weird underwear’ and ‘becoming gods,’ are thrown out in the press,” says Emily Clyde Curtis, co-editor with Hickman of Exponent II. “But there are very feminist aspects of our theology that other Christian denominations don’t have … the very powerful history of Mormon women that showed that this is a group that has not been submissive is lost. Utah was one of the first states to grant women suffrage. That’s from the Mormons.”
Ok, that’s weird, but interesting. After the recent mess over Mitt’s wife, ‘not working a day in her life’ as a stay at home mom, its good to see a more diverse role for Mormon women, one that doesn’t reduce to stereotype.
God Hates Canada
Apr 22nd
The Westboro Baptist Church is disappointed in Alberta MLA candidate Allan Hunsperger (pdf) who retracted his anti-gay statement after realizing his comments won’t help him get elected.
Fags have a chokehold on Canada such that no candidate for public office dares to boldly & unambiguously speak any truth about God & His standards. Allan Hunsperger published a little Bible (fags go to Hell!) on his personal blog – but when it threatened his political aspirations, he reneged, deciding that he “loved the praise of men more than the praise of God” (John 12:43). Woe to that evil place!
Irish Catholics Reject Church Teachings on Sexuality
Apr 20th
By Sigmund
April 13th saw the release of a new poll: Contemporary Catholic Perspectives. Commissioned by the Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland, the survey examined the churchgoing habits of Irish Catholics but also included questions about the attitudes towards modern Church teachings such as those involving sexuality as well as historical Church doctrines, including the rules against the ordination of married or women priests.
In the light of the recent MORI poll commissioned by the Richard Dawkins foundation, revealing UK based Christians often had little in common with the image of a churchgoing individuals who believed the tenets of their religion, the Irish survey likewise reveals a population at some distance from the official doctrines of their professed church.
According to the survey results the traditionally high rates of Church attendance are now a thing of the past for most Irish Catholics. “Just over one in three Catholics (35%) attend Mass weekly or more often. One in five only go for either celebratory and/or religious occasions.”
When provided with four alternatives to increase the number of priests in the Irish church Catholics overwhelmingly answered in favor of allowing a priest to get married or allowing the ordination of women, (87% and 77% respectively saying yes to these options), even more than the choices of allowing the ordination of mature men (72%) or the clustering parishes so that priests could be shared amongst different towns (60%)
Probably the most interesting results, however, are in the area of relationships and sex.
When asked “Do you believe that the Catholic Church’s teachings on sexuality are relevant to you or your family?” the result reveals that the vast majority of Irish Catholics reject the Church teaching on these subject, with 75% of individuals answering “no”.
Those attending mass at least once a week (43%) and who were in the over 55 age category (39%) were most likely to find the Church teaching relevant.
In the light of the recent hysterical reaction by Christian leaders to the idea of legalizing homosexual marriage, it is interesting to note that when asked the question “To what extent do you agree with the Catholic Church’s teaching that any sexual expression of love between gay couples is immoral?” less than 1 in 5 Irish Catholics agree, again the highest levels of agreement being seen amongst the older age group and those who attend church weekly.
Over 61% of Irish Catholics, on the other hand, reject the Church stance on homosexuality. This number rises to over 68% and 70% amongst those between 25-34 and women, respectively. In addition the Catholic ban on divorced individuals receiving communion is rejected by 87% of Irish Catholics questioned and is only supported by 5%.
These results, from what was until recent decades one of the most highly religious European populations, are clearly getting under the skins of Catholic apologists. David Quinn, head of the arch conservative Iona Institute wrote a hysterical article bemoaning the fact that the questions were too broad in scope:
Do they mean it is totally irrelevant in every respect, or that just bits of it are irrelevant (meaning, one presumes, of no help whatever to them in their day-to-day lives?)
So people who think that the Church is wrong about birth control and homosexuality might, on the other hand, happen to agree with the Church on other aspects of sexuality – therefore they should have answered “yes” rather than “no”?
But which teachings does he mean?
Presumably most parents wouldn’t be too happy to discover that their 16 year old son was about to become a father? Again, the Church would agree with them there.
And if someone found that their spouse was being unfaithful on them, they would be unhappy about that? Yet again, the Church would agree with them.
Well, if we are going down the road of pointing out the blindingly obvious, presumably the Church also agrees that it’s inadvisable to acquire carnal knowledge of hedgehogs (unless, of course, you are one.)
No amount of spin, however, should counteract the point that orthodox Catholic teachings on sexuality are now overwhelmingly rejected by Irish Catholics, as they have been by Catholics in other European states and North America.
This issue is particularly relevant to international atheism as Ireland is currently undergoing a particularly frenzied culture war involving the Catholic Church and its attitude to democracy – specifically in regards the rights of the non-religious.
Offend me all night long
Apr 18th
I’ve been accused of being an accommodationalist, and I accept the label, even though I often have problems spelling it. See, I believe when you’re dealing with people one on one, you should try and be civil. I’m often sarcastic, and I make jokes, but I try and avoid insulting people directly, because once you go there, the rational discourse is over, you’re just a monkey flinging poo.
I also think that as a society, we should make ‘reasonable’ exceptions to societal norms for minorities, including based on religion(atheists too), because freedom of choice is something I value, and the societal norms that exist where I live are based on all sorts of arbitrary ideas, some of them christian, some of them generally superstitious and some of them ideological(rather than rational).
We do have to maintain some societal standards, but this is always a negotiation, based on the values and interests of, often, very different people. Even atheists disagree on all kinds of things.
Recently, a male friend of mine shared this ‘rant on religion’, by a comedian call Jim Jefferies. Now, it is not civil. It’s vulgar, insulting and not really safe for work, unless you have headphones.
Jefferies is over the top, and I laughed. Would I be surprised if religious people were offended? Not at all. Can what he does be described as poo flinging? Sure, some of it. But we all get frustrated with other people, with the things they value, with the unwanted influence they have on us. And venting about it, can be healthy.
Now, if you are an atheist, you probably enjoyed that. But some atheists are getting offended by Jefferies when he talks on other subjects. In the following case, sexual foreplay.
More >
Roman Catholicism on the Decline in Ireland
Apr 18th
By Sigmund
The physicist Max Planck, in his autobiography, suggested that
new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
In other words orthodox ideas, once ingrained within a mature mind, are so hard to displace that better ideas will only gain consensus through achieving popularity in the young, and the subsequent demographic displacement of the older generation. This idea, now termed “Planck’s Principle,” is widely quoted in terms of scientific paradigms but can, perhaps, be more accurately applied to another area of modern societal belief, namely religion.
Does the religious consensus change because all sections of the population alter their beliefs or, alternatively, in keeping with Planck’s principle, do we see the greatest change in the younger age groups?
One way of testing this hypothesis is through the examination of statistical data that shows change in religious attitudes amongst different age groups.
The most recent survey that allows this question to be examined was recently published in Ireland. The 2011 National Census contained data from 4,239,800 individuals who, amongst other questions, were asked which religion they professed. The survey contained no option for “atheism” as a choice but instead allowed “no religion” as one of the categories alongside various religions (Roman Catholicism, Anglican, Judaism, Islam, Pentecostal Christian, etc)
As expected Roman Catholicism remains the largest religious grouping in the country with over 3,861,300 members. In national percentage terms, however, Catholicism has dropped 2.63% to 84.2% since the previous census of 2006. In contrast the ‘no religion’ group is increasing by 1.5% in terms of the total population, to a current level of 5.9%.
A deeper examination of the data shows even more worrying signs for the Church in Ireland. The drop in the percentage of Roman Catholics in Ireland occurs alongside a large influx of Catholic immigrants, due to inter EU economic migration, mainly from the predominantly Catholic Poland.
The census data illustrates the effect of this by showing the percentage change in religion according to the nationality of the questionees, demonstrating that almost all the numerical increase (rather than percentage increase) in Catholics since 2006 has been due to non-Irish immigrants.
In contrast, the vast majority of those of the no religion category have been Irish nationals, indicating that the drop in the percentage of Irish Catholics is even starker than the initial figures suggest.
So, back to our original question; In which sector of the population are the changes occurring to the greatest extent? The census data allows us to examine this point by showing the levels of ‘no religion’ for the differing age ranges.
More >
More on Cardinal Pell
Apr 17th
I’ve been sifting through the debate between Cardinal Pell and Richard Dawkins. I think Dawkins did a decent job throughout, even if he didn’t get a lot of the jokes the audience was laughing at. (However, when Pell mentioned ‘preparing’ young British boys, and the audience laughed, Dawkins did give a sly smile.)
I’m not going to do a rehash the entire debate, but rather, try and ‘accommodate’ both points of view. I tried to find the best bits, not in terms of atheist-win, or catholic-blunders, (Pell is still apologizing for his comments about Jews and Germans) but rather in terms of what I think are important points of contention.
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