Abolish the Lord’s Prayer in the Provincial Legislature
From the second clause of the charter:
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
a) freedom of conscience and religion;
b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
d) freedom of association.
This clause is an important element to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom. It guarantees each Canadian the right to make their own choices about what archaic, draconian religion they wish to blindly devote themselves to, while they are mocked by those of us who enjoy the freedom that comes with not being bound to meaningless rules spelled out by some invisible cloud faerie.
If people want to acquiesce themselves before some egotistical, childish megalomaniac self-centred deity who hasn’t an iota of confidence then that’s their problem. Don’t waste my tax dollars to pay the politicians who want to pray at the start of the parliamentary session. The legislature does not need to be blessed nor do these people need to pray to some invisible sky faerie on my dollar.
In the Ontario provincial legislature, it’s common practice to recite the Lord’s Prayer despite that there are many different beliefs. The Lord’s Prayer based on Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4 is strictly Christian, though the most common prayer and shared by all the different sects of Christianity.
The topic was breached by Ontario Premier, Dalton McGuinty, the leader of the Ontario Liberals, who felt that it was time to “update” the Lord’s Prayer for the 21st century, as the last update in Ontario for this had occurred in 1969.
“The members of the Ontario Legislature reflect the diversity of Ontario – be it Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or agnostic. It is time for our practices to do the same. That is the Ontario way,” McGuinty wrote.
So, we still need prayer despite the existence of this diversity? Last I checked, Agnostics didn’t pray, and what of Atheists, Deist et al who don’t buy into this horse manure?
Wikipedia defines prayer as:
Prayer is the act of attempting to communicate, commonly with a sequence of words, with a deity or spirit for the purpose of worshipping, requesting guidance, requesting assistance, confessing sins or to express one’s thoughts and emotions. The words of the prayer may take the form of a hymn, incantation or a spontaneous utterance in the person’s praying words.
So, if our politicians need to seek assistance from a higher power, maybe they shouldn’t be holding office then. Maybe we should have people in office who don’t need to turn to some invisible cloud faerie for ‘assistance’ and ‘guidance’.
After all, the provinces of Quebec and Newfoundland Labrador (the only existing ones) don’t engage in such frivolities, and they appear to be able to govern their respected jurisdictions sans the whole God shtick. Why should others do it?
Stumble It!
