The Proletariat Congress

Religion is stagnant; its individual core tenets and principles steadfast and unyielding to change and the evolution of societal norms in the 21^st century. It is inflexible and its followers are most resistant to change when that change is an front to their “moral principles” and what to them is morally acceptable. Stricter beliefs and intolerant leaders create intolerant followers and believers.

The faithful see their beliefs as the only way and the beliefs of others as heathen beliefs that will damn them for eternity. The faithful want to see their children given a proper ‘moral’ upbringing, even if it means forcing their beliefs on others as has been done for hundreds of years before some people said enough is enough.

One subject in the public school that has caused controversy other than mandatory prayer is that of the teaching of creation as an alternative theory (or intelligent design) along with the theory of evolution. At least in the US this has been an area of sensitivity for both religious and secular proponents. It hasn’t been cause for attention here in Canada, or at least in Ontario until opposition leader John Tory brought up the subject of faith-based school funding.

He has made an election promise to create a separate public system for parents who want to send their children to a religious school and it would be publicly funded. This move would violate the sacred boundary that separates church and state. A boundary that the provincial Conservatives have held no respect for, as former Ontario Premier Davis in 1985 reversed his 1971 decision regarding the full-funding of the Catholic school board.

It is already enough of an insult to the taxpaying public that we have to fund the separate Catholic school system along side the public system that is struggling under constant deficits and compounding funding problems brought on by the controversial school funding formula introduced originally by the Harris Conservatives as part of their ‘Common Sense Revolution‘ promise.

The last thing a modern secular society needs is more public funding for the religious agenda. We need a solid line drawn between the two. We cannot and should not endorse the use of public taxpayer funds for a religious education. To create a system based on this idea would be introducing a modern form of segregation.

Additionally, if the public were to fund such a system, what measures would be in place to ensure that the provincial mandated curriculum was followed by all schools and that all students got equal access to the same academic knowledge that their peers in the secular public system would get?

They teach evolution in the Ontario curriculum, but they also could teach the fact to the children that there are other theories that people have out there that are part of some Christian beliefs. It’s still called the theory of evolution. ~ John Tory

Why should the public pay for students to be taught Creation? Creation has no place in any classroom unless that classroom is one that teaches philosophy and allows for the debate. Creation has no scientific merit and as such, is untestable because it fails to meet the criteria that would allow for it to be tested as a plausible scientific theory. It should and always remain outside of the science classroom as it is a myth and myths have no place in the world of facts.

Theories in themselves do not have to be factual but they must have testable elements. Creation isn’t even a theory; to be a scientific theory, it needs to be testable based on the scientific method. Evolution is testable given the characteristics. Creation and Intelligent Design cannot be tested because there is no way to test for God.

If parents want this included in their child’s education then they should pay to send their child to a private school. If not then send them to the public school but don’t expect the taxpayer to foot the bill for your child’s religious education. Religion is a personal thing and it does not belong in the public school system.

Tory ignites creationism debate

EDIT (Sept. 6/07, 3:15pm) – A Conservative party spokeswoman, Ingrid Thompson, has issued a statement clarifying the remarks made by provincial Conservative leader John Tory. She has embellished on his earlier comment, explaining that schools that would teach creation in science class would become ineligible for public funding.

If there are schools that teach creationism in science class, they would not be eligible to be funded as part of this proposal.

She went on to add that all faith-based schools that want to qualify for funding would have to follow the Ontario curriculum.

Creationism in science class would disqualify schools for funding: Conservatives

Saying that schools that teach creationism in science class does not undo the damage that was done by John Tory and his endorsement of creationism as a teachable subject.

People are easily offended with the most harmless comments these days. Politicians often find themselves walking on egg shells in an attempt to soothe the most fragile egos. They find themselves unable to speak their minds without someone crying foul.

Consider this statement from Premier Dalton McGuinty on the subject of faith-based school funding:

If you want the kind of Ontario where we invite children of different faiths to leave the publicly funded system and become sequestered and segregated in their own private schools, then they should vote for Mr. Tory. If they think it’s important that we continue to bring our kids together, so that they grow together and learn from one another, then you should vote for me.

He is advocating that the public system doesn’t discriminate and brings students of different faiths and cultures together for a common purpose: to learn in an academic environment that prizes knowledge and achievement over petty differences. The system has students put those differences aside to work together towards a common goal of achieving academic/practical knowledge. In the process, they even learn something about another religion or culture they might not have known if they were in a school that was for a single faith.

So, what’s the problem?

According to the United Jewish Appeal and the Canadian Jewish Congress the comments were ‘hurtful’ and ‘offensive’ because the faith-based schools teach about tolerance and acceptance. But how can we have tolerance and acceptance when we are segregated along religious lines?

This doesn’t fit into the modern frame of secular Canadian society in which we need to spend more time coming together to learn that our differences should be celebrated. Religion is a divisive subject and as a nation we don’t need anything else to divide us up. We have plenty to keep up divided and feuding.

There is nothing offensive about what Premier McGuinty has says. It’s brutally honest and some people cannot take that level of honesty and prefer to live in their rose-coloured glass world; in their protective bubble.

But the religious groups expressing offence have demanded an apology and have offered flimsey excuses.

UJA Federation of Greater Toronto chair David Engel has come out saying:

The remark is deeply offensive to our community and all faith communities. We just want him to take back the comment that was offensive to our schools. Our schools teach respect for all members of Ontario society – not the opposite – and we encourage our students to strengthen the society around us through their volunteer work and their careers.

You can teach respect just as you can lead a horse to water. You cannot force someone to respect anyone else just as you cannot force a horse to drink. People learn respect when they are around others who are different.

You can give students the skills they need to do their jobs but you cannot teach respect; you cannot force anyone to learn respect; they learn it through personal experience.

Apologize, Jewish groups tell McGuinty

Like rabbits, Buddhists are reincarnating at an alarming rate. It’s become such a problem that the Chinese government has decided it’s going to take drastic measures to ensure that this menace is curbed before a complete infestation of reincarnated Buddhists occurs. This is just an extension of the existing 1-child policy that pervades all elements of Chinese life. After all, there is nothing wrong with micro-managing the people; it’s just one of the prime characteristics of totalitarian authoritarianism. If a totalitarian government let its people think…

According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.”

If a Buddhist wishes to reincarnate, he must first acquire permission from the Chinese government if he is to reincarnate in China.

This falls somewhere in the realm of absurd and asinine. This kind of policy makes Kansas look like a repository for elitist intellectualism. This is an attempt to censor thought, which is failure from the outset, as one cannot censor thought unless one knows it exists and one cannot know the existence of thought without said thought being expressed outwardly.

The Chinese government has this strange idea that it can control the spiritual realm… laughable at best. The spiritual is an abstract concept, as it is intangible to the world around us. It may or may not exist. Should it, it falls out of the jurisdiction of the living world, given existing philosophies surrounding it.

By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.

Further, reincarnation is selectively arbitrary, occurring when certain conditions are met. This won’t discourage the Chinese government though, which has for the last 50 or so odd years, since invading Tibet in the Himalayas tried to cut off the Dalai Lama from retaining his spiritual and political ties to the Tibetan population. If it cannot quash an idea then regulating it is the next best thing.

The Chinese government isn’t the only one who seems to think it can control reincarnation, the Dalai Lama himself has come out saying that he refuses to be reborn in Tibet until the nation is free from Chinese control. This is assuming that for the last 600 years he has been able to control where he is reincarnated…

Stupidity transcends all religious boundaries and doesn’t plague just Christians and Muslims.

China Regulates Buddhist Reincarnation

Televangelists are amongst the most zealous and fundamentalist of all Christians with the penchant of preaching one thing but doing another. They are the most likely to be hypocritical of all the Christians in the world. They have power, money and influence but no grasp of the problems of the common man.

Labour unions should study and read the Bible instead of asking for more money. When people get right with God, they are better workers. ^*

Men like Ted Haggard (the preacher who did Meth and slept with his homosexual prostitute) and Pat Robinson (he suggested that Chavez be overthrown/assassinated) claim to be men of God but are really the worse sinners. They espouse moral values without knowing how to follow said values themselves. The prefer to find arbitrary scapegoats for problems stemming from political irresponsibility and social progression that seems contrary to the “teachings” of the Bible.

Or that some how, being ‘secular’ and keeping all religion out of the public office has led to a downfall in public morals despite that there is no one true religion and that not all Americans are Christians and not all American Christians are the followers of the same denomination of Christianity.

The idea that religion and politics don’t mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.^*

In regards to the Bible, these types always pick and choose that which is symbolic and that which ought to be taken literally, and they omit certain passages from literal interpretation because it fails to fit their agenda despite that the Bible is supposed to be in the Christian sense the full and complete word of God right down to the last “and” and “but”.

Jesus is the centre piece of Christianity and he is considered the son of God and his teachings included and were not limited to peace, harmony, the equal treatment of one’s peers, acceptance and plethora of long haired hippie teachings which contradicts the basic fundamentals of how Christianity is supposed to be according to the most prominent preachers in America today.

These people never stop to ask, “what would Jesus say?” If they had, would they say something like…

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’ ^*

No, they wouldn’t have. They would have turned the other cheek; love the sinner not the sin. But it doesn’t fit the agenda does it? It doesn’t fit the agenda of hatemongering. It is too harmonious; it doesn’t incite passion and provoke reaction. It’s too pacifistic.

People like the late Jerry Falwell do nothing more than divide America up because they are unable to see past their self-imposed blinders of social exile. They fail to join the rest of the world in progressing towards equality simply because they have decided that because it’s in the Bible and God is condemning it that it must be wrong.

But Leviticus is in the Bible too and it permits the ownership of slavery, the selling of daughters, animal sacrifice, the type of cloth one may wear. Many of these passage types are ignored while those involving sexual conduct, (interpreted as being anti-gay) are readily followed.

And ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’… is in the Bible but how many preachers honestly follow this? They are not sin-free; no human is sin free, after all, we have said and done stuff that others may consider sinful or detrimental that we don’t think qualifies as such.

Or that having no religion makes you a bad or immoral person.

If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being.^*

These people act like the judge, jury and executioner despite that they judging someone without expecting to be judged. This is where the holier-than-thou attitude stems from. They believe that because they are preachers of God’s word that they are able to act as judges on behalf of God. But they forget that they will be judged in the end as they claim that sinners will be.

In the end, they will indeed be judged but not by God but by those who survived them. The media and the rest of the world will look at that they have done and make their own judgements and the verdict will not be favourable because people like Falwell are seen as hypocrites who had distorted the true nature of Christianity for their own gains and agenda; they are the hijackers of faith.

Those who followed such preachers will try and convince the rest of the world that those of us who are speaking out are liberal immoral anti-god scum who want to morally corrupt children. Or that somehow writing down negative responses about what the man stood for is someone celebrating his death. They don’t see the difference between condemning the actions and condemning the person. They see it as one in the same.

Those of us who seem “happy” that Falwell is dead don’t understand that our jubilation comes from the fact that we hated what the man stood for. We felt the world had enough mindless hate in it without his verbal diarrhoea defacing the walls.

The so-called ‘righteous’ will wind up the same as the immoral in the end, dead and 6 feet under because there is no heaven and they wasted their lives by bundling themselves in destructive hatred.

US evangelist Jerry Falwell dies

* a cross sampling of quotes from Falwell