Secularism, the foundation for multiculturalism and equality.

Canada is a country that defends a person’s right to believe whatever one wishes, as long as these beliefs do not bring harm or hinder the liberty of another.

It’s called freedom of conscience, we did not need to add “freedom of religion” to our charter as freedom of conscience already covers that. Religion, is after all just... an ideology, yes to millions it is much more than an idea but we cannot make laws based on how deeply a person believes in an idea.

But that’s one big problem we have within our Charter of Rights and Freedom, it gives religion a special status compared to other personal beliefs. Why? What makes religion more deserving of special status than one person who believes in ghosts? Santa Claus? Liberalism? Conservatism, Voodoo or Communism? We have to look back through history to see how religion gave itself this special status, it did so during the past thousands of years when it dominated peoples lives, religion was the ultimate authority and so it gave itself special privileges. Over the past 1-2 centuries this hold over society is gradually being diminished and society is embracing equality for all, irrelevant of one’s beliefs. In the 21st century there is no valid reason for one belief system (religion) to continue to receive special privileges that any other belief cannot have as well.

Now, back to Canada. The Charter of Rights and Freedom was created in the 1970s and passed in 1982, that’s over 3 decades ago, the majority of politicians of that era where children of very religious parents and the majority were likely religious themselves, it would be naive to say religion did not have a significant (if indirect) influence on politics, so putting religion on the same level as any other ideology was not going to happen. We even have the acknowledgement of god written in our Constitution which came at the insistence of religious organizations, clearly showing the churches influence in that era.

I ask you, is it not fundamentally unjust when people get higher privileges than other citizens just by claiming a specific belief? The following are examples we have in Canada where people of religious belief get a higher status than other Canadians.

A Sikh; by claiming it’s his religion, he was able to have the regulations of the RCMP uniform code changed so he can wear his turban, a muslim women is allowed to wear a hijab with her police uniform in Edmonton, they changed the uniform code to accommodate her. Yet if a first nations man wanted to wear his ceremonial feathers on the basis that it is a part of who he is without claiming it a religious belief, he would not be able to do so, even if it was a profound belief EQUAL to another's religious belief (if we had someway to actually know, which we don’t). That’s clearly saying that one person can break regulations or have them changed for a specific type of ideology (religion) while another can’t.

In a second case, a kirpan is a knife that has a blade length that is illegal to carry, as well in most schools ANY blade is illegal. Once again a person just needed to claim “religious belief” and he is now allowed to have a special law based on a personally chosen belief while anyone else could not carry such a knife for any other belief or no beliefs at all for that matter.

Another issue is the fiscal benefits of religious organizations. A charity has to clearly show they are doing charitable work while a religious organization receives fiscal benefits quite easily, as well no other belief system can get such fiscal benefits. If a group who came from a country where voodoo while not being a religion was a fundamental practice of their culture and they built a temple for the practice of voodoo, they would not be able to receive the same fiscal benefits.

One of the worst case is when a person refuses vaccination based on religious beliefs, this puts everyone else in society at risk because of how vaccines functions. Now we actually permit putting others in harms way just on a personal belief.

All of these permissions are done in the name of multiculturalism but as we saw from my examples it is in no way a multicultural position, it's about religion, not cultures.

What do we do the day a police officer goes to the courts to NOT wear any head gear because his religion demands they have their heads shaved and uncovered at ALL times to display their religious markings in the form of tattoos or someone decides to wear a pasta strainer with their uniform in the name of religion, or wear a cloak because they are practitioners of Jedism? They'll have to say yes or now they'll be discriminating between religions!

**Remember, ANYONE can invent a religion.**

NOTE:Pastafarianism is a religion and wearing a pasta strainer is part of its tenets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
NOTE 2: Jedism is a relgion and wearing a cloak is part of its tenets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jediism

One argument that often comes up is that if it does not remove any freedom from others, why should it be a problem? As we've seen from my examples it does remove a freedom, it removes the freedom for other ideas to ask for benefits that religions have.

Some will say why not let ALL beliefs claim special status? I don't think people who say this really think far enough on the implications. Because if we did that then we have to accept that a person could decide that he is a big believer in the Peter Pan fairy tale and dressing up as Peter Pan is fundamental to who he is... Now make that person a police officer or a judge, dressed in green Peter Pan tights... It seems ridiculous, but is it not for us to judge how a person profoundly believes something, not matter how bizarre it may seem to us.

I ask you, in a society where everyone is supposed to be equal, letting individuals break some rules or have them changed so only THEY can benefit from them under the guise of religious freedom, is this not clearly creating two different classes of citizens, those that can change laws for one ideology (religion) and those that can't for other ideologies, be they political, philosophical, supernatural, cultural or none at all?

People, groups and/or entities who chose to believe in either a political, philosophical, supernatural, pseudo scientific, cultural or any other ideology have to take responsibility that if they follow certain rules that are contrary to laws and regulations based on reason and science, well they might miss opportunities in society because of their choices, and yes it is very possible they might not even be able to work or even live in a society that gives their beliefs EQUAL status versus all others beliefs.

Now that is multiculturalism, a place where all cultures are welcomed understanding that they are all equal under laws created to favor no specific belief, idea or culture.

This is why Canada would be better served by adopting a Secular Law, one that would clearly state:

-- All Canadians are treated equally under the law, all Canadians have the freedom to believe and practice whatever they wish as long as they do not bring harm or hinder the liberty of others. As well, no person, group or entity can claim special status or treatment based on personal beliefs or choices.

The state shall never accommodate a person, group or entity for choices and/or beliefs by changing laws and/or regulation or to give special status to one person, group and/or entity.

The state is secular in all regards. --

Canada has been a leader for bringing equality; we did it for sexual preferences, for ethnicity, for disabilities, for gender and now it’s time we go a step further and ensure that using the word religion does not entitle one to get special treatment, because unlike the first four issues mentioned which are not a personal choice, religion IS...

Is it not time we updated our Charter of rights and freedoms for the 21st century?

Education reform that benefits students, artists, athletes and businesses.

Free education for children yes, but once a person reaches adulthood they should be responsible for their decisions. This does not mean as a society we cannot help each other... But helping does not mean FREE.


The current mayhem going on in Québec over education costs is pretty much split two ways.

1) Those that clamour for a free post secondary education and 2) Those that clamour for an acsessible but not free post secondary education, where the person studying should have some burden of the costs.

On the free side you are basically asking for all of society to pay for one persons education.

On the other side you are asking society to pay part of one's education.

Either way, everyone has to pay for an individual choice to get higher education, but what about the person who decides to study in an area that no social programs are in place? Many career paths require training or risks (starting a business) and we do not have programs to help these individuals and those that do are often not as generous as those for university studies.

And what about the artist who wants a career in whatever path he has chosen (music, acting, dancing, cirque), getting the appropriate help is not a guarantee.

Or what about the person that finishes high school and goes on the job market right away and 5 years down the road this person has a project to start his own business, once again the incentives are not as generous as universities and they require extensive and complicated paperwork.

How about an athlete that wants to compete profressionnally but requires training that he does not have funds for?

Whatever path you chose, in a society where people give money to the governement that money must be spent so all can benefit equally.

How about one program? Here is a draft idea of what I am speaking of: Every person is entitled to receive up to a 100 000$ loan from the government with a one time only markup to help pay for the administration of this agency, lets say it was 20%, which means a 100 000$ loan becomes a 120 000$ INTEREST free loan. In short the program must remain self-sufficient.

The loan can only be used for education, a business plan, trade school, athletic training, or an artist (lessons, studio time, etc...), obviously basic criterias would have to be in place so people use it for what it was intended,  primarily having a system in place where the money goes straight to the institutions (university, training facility, equipement, etc..) and not the person asking for the loan.

Going bankrupt or similar measures would never let someone off the hook for this loan.

The loan starts to be repaid 3 years after it was loaned. Re-imbursement is done via salary deducations at a rate of  5% for anyone making under 30 000$ and it goes up in increments of .5% per 10 000$ to a maximum of 10%. So someone at 30 000$ would pay 1500$ while someone making 60 000$ would pay 3900$ per year.

You could then abolish all government programs (tax deducations, incentives, grants, etc...) that give money to students, athletes, artists and businesses.

One program, with everyone having equal opportunity, no descrimination... No free ride either.

Political ideologies bring nothing positive to a society.

The current US political climate is outright destroying that country, a country that was an example of progress after the war. But since the 1970s it has been slowly eroding. Political ideologies are one of the driving forces on why this has occurred. Unfortunately this is creeping into Canada. I'll use two current movements in USA to explain myself.

On one side you have people who adhere to the Tea Party mantra that it's the fault of government.

On the other side you have the Occupy Wall Street people who claim it is the corporations fault.

Both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street are right.
We have corporations who are spending huge amounts of money to have access to politicians. If the money spent was directly given to each politician the average is in the millions per politician (Canada included). So you can easily fault the corporations for trying to influence in their favor and not the favor of the country as a whole, citizens included.

You can also fault the politicians for only listening to the corporations. They actually enact laws with the HELP of these corporations, that should never be the case. They should be made with the best interest of the citizen in mind and that's the politicians job, obviously they are not doing their job.

Then we have the political parties, in USA it has totally degenerated to the point that it's "NO!" to anything the other side says. Each side is more concerned with defeating their opponent than doing what's right for the people. Canada is starting to see some of this with the Conservative Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party of Canada.

In Canada it started with a bang with the all in heavy negative advertising from the Conservative Party, even when it was not an election period they were doing negative advertising versus their opponents. During the campaign it was atrocious and the other side followed suite. Yes it has always existed but now that's all it is. I guess they don't have good solutions to our problems so bashing the other one is the only option.

Instead of working together what do both sides do? In USA they both mock each other with the help of propaganda channels like FOX News and MSNBC who claim to be news channels and yet they spend their time having shows that continually attack the other side, they bring nothing constructive to the table. They spin (meaning LIE) everything into negative, negative and more negative as if the other side are a bunch of losers and can never be right.

In Canada we now have a heavily slanted propaganda channel with SUN, you can debate about other channels being slanted to one side (CBC on the left) or the other but the fact remains that SUN was created with a specific propaganda political intent for one side and they hired people who just love to attack opposing ideologies as if they are mentally disturbed. Then SUN goes around claiming it is a news channel. News is about facts, not opinions and NOT ideologies.

Political ideologues are just as dangerous as religious ideologues, it's a "my way or the highway" attitude, no matter if their idea is clearly shown to be a bad one by using reason & science. You cannot even debate with them, the minute you mention an idea that is opposite to theirs they now brand you as being 100% for the other side.
 
We don't need this kind of crap in Canada, it only creates an atmosphere of anger and superiority. You end up with people who once they have power are closed minded to anything outside their ideology, which means governing by using reason & science goes out the window, then you are sure to attain disaster. -Sounds like religion or dictatorship...

It also helps if you have true proportional representation, this creates more parties and multiparty governments, they HAVE to work together, then they just have to remember to work for the people, not the corporate lobby...

Steve Jobs and me...

I've never met Steve Jobs but I've been in the presence of his vision on a daily basis ever since I bought my first computer a little over 12 years ago and it changed my life.

I had no idea he had such a defining impact on my life at the time and I was nowhere close to being an Apple product user, my first Apple product was only purchased in Nov 2007.

How can I say he's had such a defining impact on my life if my first Apple product was purchased 4 years ago? Steve Jobs had the vision to make already existing products accessible to everyone or make people around him build products that everyone could use.

Today every personal computer, mp3 player, smart phone and tablet PC on the market is MAC, iPod, iPhone or iPad inspired. And the internet was born using a NeXT computer, a computer and operating system built with Steve's vision.

So even though I've never owned an Apple product until 4 years ago... I've owned a Steve Jobs influenced product ever since I bought my first PC... And a week after I bought it I knew working in the computer industry was where I wanted to be.

Merci beaucoup Steve.

"I know what I believe", but beware of it's dangers

In talks I have with individuals regarding superstitions (ex: religions, ghosts) and pseudoscience (ex: homeopathy, reiki) they often state "I know what I believe". It is their right to have such belief(s), but they should be aware it is a very dangerous position to take, this position is one of "no matter if evidence, science and reason point to the contrary, I know what I believe!".

If that's how some individuals wish to act then they will have to accept others who profess the same lingo "I know what I believe" are just as right. Here's one; "I know what I believe is that I must be able to protect myself at all times and carrying a loaded gun that everyone can see will increase my safety". The list of irrational ideas of "I know what I believe" could go on indefinitely. Each religion has thousands of "I know what I believe" stuffed in each one (slavery, subjugation of women, beating of children, etc...).

Imagine if we accepted all of these, what would ensue? The most horrid times in history are based on this alone:

After the fall of the Roman Empire faith took over and for about 1000 years we went back in morale behavior and stories of witches, ghosts, spirits, demons, women subjugating to men, killing of others who were not the same religion, they were all based on the hierarchy stating "We know what we believed", no explanation required, certainly not evidence, reason or science, let alone reality.

WW2 was another "I know what I believe" moment. Germany's destiny was assured by the superiority of their race which was based on zero reason, science or evidence, just "Knowing what I believe" was enough to kills millions.

Other dangers are believing people who say they can treat illnesses (reiki / homeopathy) at the risk of the illness only getting worse, and flushing money down the toilet. Or being swindled out of hard earned money listening to the likes of John Edwards using parlor tricks to make someone believe he is actually talking to a dead person. ALL based on mountains of evidence that have clearly shown no one can talk to the dead and they use people reading skills, as well as a good understanding of human psychology, especially how we apply confirmation bias.

If the human species is to prosper indefinitely we have to take to task anyone who makes such a statement, demand they explain in a rational manner and be able to show evidence of what it is he/she "knows what he/she believes". And if he cannot his stance should be relegated to nothing more than daydreaming thoughts with zero respect and application in reality.

"I know what I believe" falls into the same category of pseudoscience (reiki, homeopathy, astrology) and supernatural (ghosts, religion, talking to the dead). All of which are a bane on building a better world.
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