Scott Mayers

Whatever. We still need then a NEUTRAL non-religious system or it is illegitimate in my 'vote'. It's either that or everyone start seeking 'cultural' justification to be heard. And,. ....we get what has evolved to the conditions of the Middle East. Everyone there is required to utilize religious means precislely because of this very arrogance. I also think that every generation has to have power to vote on whether a Constition is just. Otherwise, they just inherit the system regardless of democratic will.

Precisely. We are forced to pay for channels now where the channels get money from both sides. What's worse is that the 'medium' of this has zero accountability, has power to use our viewing information AND are then able to control which commercials we should see AT OUR EXPENSE! Again, the CRTC is permitting this because they are a 'culture' department first and foremost and a communications one secondarily. The power of media today, including CBC, is managed by some common powers in shared interest. I don't doubt it likely too that the shareholders of private media are consolidated and in favor of the management of CBC.

This editing is occurring more often now than ever. The television/cable companies here now have successful monopoly. They are ''hardcutting" now to make room for more commercials including pop-ups. This is the tradeoff of our CRTC to permit more controls on cultural imposition. And one of these is for CBC to be empowered by private oversight of their management to censor material. It is just a 'convenient' justification to assert that they cut out Trump's role trivially. To stop them requires adressing the Constitution, beginning with that preamble I keep complaining about. We are a deceptive theocracy where culture laws are permitted. We no longer have a right to know when edits are done as we used to be. Note that this kind of thinking is pervasive to other issues of a 'religious' nature. The Health Canada's anti-smoking compaign, for instance, has removed any labeling of Nicotine content (a religious censorship). Given I increased my intake in this period, they likely had the nicotine reduced so as to increase the demanded intake needed. We need to get religion and culture laws out of the Constitution. It is designed to do precisely these kind of things. They don't have to be accountable to tell the truth either. So any actual explanation the CBC gives is not trustworthy.

I was too in high school then. Also, most meets of these are set up to bias participation. ....like how everything gets done mostly in only Ontario or Quebec. Some of us can't afford a car let alone to afford such luxury of participation. Note that the Meech Lake Accord was: This was NOT about changing the Constitution is this definition about it is correct. We need to devise the Constitution by people ONLY, not politicians outside of preparing the conventions. The way this was created was itself deceptive. You speak of 'betrayal'?? Is it not a betrayal to have ceated such a document outside of the people's direct participation. While we can have a good reason for representative government, when we are considering its constitution, this is inappropriate to leave to the present paradigms of those representatives to create something that may go against their present interests. This has to be either devoloped BY the people's consent without the politicians nor parties, OR it would have to be absolutely neutrally designed without favoring any supposed 'heritage'.

That clause MAKES our system more dangerous of individual freedoms since it PERMITS those in power to utilize any ARBITRARY justification for some legislation based upon some PARTICULAR religious insight. You sound like a right-wing anarchist. If so, let me point out that 'governent' is a management system. If it is NOT owned by the people, then it STILL exists but is granted to those with power in a way that assures those who aren't privileged to be slaves. You cannot have an anarchist state, whether it be right-wing (National Socialism at one extreme) nor left-wing (Communism at the other.) I would say that considering China has been adapting Western ideals, they too are more mixed of an economy now. They are not as 'extreme' as you may be led to believe. So it is also a poor example of comparison.

Amending the Canadian Constitution would be far more difficult and strewn with landmines than re-writing the bible. As we saw with Meech, as soon as you open it a little bit, every crackpot (like me) will want to get their pet amendment inserted. We should have left it as the BNA act and forget trying to amend it. Besides the general question I already posed of this, although it would be nice to look at the whole Constitution, I was only talking about taking tiny steps with one issue, the preamble here. That is one issue and if we lack the power to challenge it simply because of forces too powerful, this kind of thinking would justify accepting ANY government's power to make altering Constitutions too difficult to overcome.

The concept is simple. But the process to change anything here is next to impossible when we lack power as citizens to actual participation in creating a people's constitution let alone the original creation of the Constitution. You complained about fears of past attempts but the WAY our system is set up is itself limiting and is NOT inviting of the general public's access. It is Eastern-centric to top it off because it assumes predominant significance to a time when the country was merely Ontario (British Loyalists) and Quebec. Me speaking here though is a start. It is ALL I have power to do. As it stands now I am disenfrancized in this system, don't approve of ANY of our selections and lack the money to do anything about it myself. I personally think that the Constitution itself was unfairly developed by and for the specific people in the absence of concern of the people. Thus it is a non-democratic (and theocratic) constitution. Besides, why would past failures of challenging something so significant suffice to justify NOT challenging this? NO. While it is relatively arbitrary which languages are used, world-wide, English is the standard for most. It is also the more adaptable as it lacks borrows from all other languages. The original problems in Quebec was the FEAR that their kids were losing a desire to learn French as much as English given our association to the U.S., Britain and the Commonwealth countries, and the rest of Canada outside Quebec. If the generations of kids were to vote, they'd prefer English even within Quebec. The major reason of imposing forced laws of French signs in Quebec, for instance, is due to the actual natural tendency of kids to CHOOSE English.

You can't speak for all Canadians as you do here. You no doubt reap particular benefits in your own world and are presuming it to be shared to all the rest of us in ignorance.

'Watering down'? ...'scrap the underpinnings of rights and freedoms'? You have a strange sense of logic. Having the present clause is ANTI-free speech because it permits the right of legislation to censor by some arbitrary ruler of a religious nature rather than to compete to appeal through logic and reason amongst living people here on Earth. I proposed a clear INCLUSIVE example of a preable that I find odd that you'd dismiss.?

I like to think of 'culture' as belonging to us all in general rather than to some particular people's 'own'. I love museums and like how art in things like music is more varied today as a mixture of different 'cultures'. So don't think I don't appreciate 'culture' nor even respect 'relgion' for certain intentions. Santa Clause and Christmas trees are becoming SHARED 'culture' as people take it up regardless of whom initated it. [Santa's more modern developement actually came from Coca Cola, something I see as an example of how it stands as a kind of origin of 'religion' shared among us all.] What did you think of my more neutral proposed preamble above? Would you think it would be more 'fair' without bias against any culture?

This is all false. The 'polythiesm' stages in societies are the first means of settling among different groups as they begin to assert the concept of 'claims' for what places and properties belong to whom. The presumption of stupidity of people of the ancient past is not appropriate as evolution takes much longer than recorded history to change significant brain changes. If you want an idea of how the ancients required to live, begin by looking at the "quick memory" schemes people use that are now mostly stage shows. In the past, most did not read. Also, given people in the initial cities were in places of TRANSIENT points, like the Middle East as a land bridge and meeting place for various different geographical places, the need to devise clever ways to exchange things in thought required the use of ENTERTAINING stories to help remember facts and rules. The stories often lose obvious connection to rationality simply due to the loss of methods needed to communicate. Common shared terms used SOUND commonalities to relate to words. "Ra", for instance, was NOT one of many gods of the Sun. It was the common mimicking of the roar of a lion, its mane and the nature of its POWER. Thus words using 'ra' in some part of it by most languages, even up to today, have 'ra' to reference Nature's forces of power, whether that be the 'rays' of the sun, or the power of the commandments enforced in stone, something people thought was miraculous if you never saw people commucating in literal symbols. The sound consonants, t, ch, k, are sounds referencing striking noises, such as what you hear when an axe hits a tree. The "torah" liteally meant the "stricken word", for instance. So sounds that have the consonant combination, "_t_n" (and its related objective form, "_t_m", wher the 't' and 'd' sound were interchangeable became our "tin", "t(h)ing", "ding", "item" and what originates the terms that have come down to us as 'gods' in "Aten", "Oden", places of the position of the sun's rise and fall as, "Eden" and "Oden" (see the 'even and odd' there?) Adam and Eve were mnemotic [is that spelling correct?] devices that referenced multiple ideas. The "_t_n" words, were SOLIDS and with the 'n' sound at the end referenced SOURCE perfect solids, like the perfect SHAPE of the sun, ...(Aten), and the receiving image of less perfection, as "Adam" (see the 'atom' and'item' in this)? Adam was thus a reference to the solid things of earth, such as things that can be SHAPED, like clay. The origin of the sun's rise is "Eden" and where that ideal magical place of origin we all came from but cannot reach (just as rainbows can not be reached). "Atum" is the point of the FALL of the sun at the end of the day and where we also get the end season as "Autumn" and its correferecing as "the fall". "Eve" literally meant by most, "anything that follows after intiial beginings." Thus "even", "ever", "after", "of", etc. In other languages, there are similar links. Thus, the Adam and Eve characters were just ways of turning the collective common beliefs about certain common ideas of source history of us all. "Oden" hints to us some link of the north to Egyptian history. This here is just to point out samples of how the apparent characters, which include gods, were not literal in its origin but to the vast majority on non-intellectuals, the spread of it doesn't assure the original meanings are held. This also means that what appeared as a stupid collage of multiple gods in such an incoherent rationalism, were devised with actual secular roots and combinations of different 'cultures' into new settlements. The 'gods' were not all shared as one religion. In fact, as religion evolved in those initial cities, that would be a "multicultural" stage, one of many to come. The reason Akenaten (==a kin to the sun's disc) opted to toss out all the other variants was an attempt to reunify the multiple cultures to one, a kind of Nationalistic stage. That was resisted and got him eventually banned to the desert for a generation (40 years). That's the "moses", for example. The presumption of some intellectual superior wisdom of 'monotheism' was not Judaism but of all tribes. It was just as odd to presume multiple disperate beings as some set of real 'gods'. Those stages were actually relatiely secular and the average would have often asked when running into others, "so what is your lord's name?" and meant to determine who the literal settler's of that area placed faith in, and defined which people and tribes they belong to.

If a preamble is necessary?: "We, the people of Canada, have negotiated the following constitutional guidelines for a system of management meant to provide a peaceful means to create rules of conduct by laws that must respect EACH individual's minimally shared ideas and needs and to maximize universal prosperity for the whole. :"

Step one, REMOVE THAT preamble. EASY. If it is just trivial as some think, what is the need to demand it outside of imposing one's own religion upon all others? Step two, have ONE official language. Make it a hybrid where necessary. We recognize the value of using common number systems now everywhere. The metric system is more univesally made in kind. The table of chemical symbols is too. Sign languages are more universally shared across nations. But having TWO languages intentionally favors those who have BOTH. And the more likehood of those are the snobish Eastern wealth who enjoy life travelling around and treat people as mere zoo animals for their entertainment. A Prime Minister cannot likely succeed for having merely one language and so the law both biases those of only one but not the other by isolating people's means to understand one another. And the nature of having specifically two PROVES the bias exists given if two languages can be written i law, so what of ALL the other languages? These two SIMPLE factors would gain a lot of ground.

No it doesn't. Culture is the artistic interpretation of value that individuals all have for things in life. Religion is an arrogant cult of personalities utilizing their pretentious belief in excusing their own superiority (and thus other inferiority) by asserting Nature genetically makes them authoritative (via the term, 'God'). The fact that you even believe that morality COMES from religion is false. Ethical conduct is only 'enforced' by religious appeal that is not universally shared. We formulate the rule of agreement among many people living in a shared environment as "let's agree NOT to klll each other," due to the recognition that if we don't formulate such a treaty of conduct, than we have no means to have peace. The parts of religion that have become mystical arbitrary rituals originally had SECULAR functionality. Take the concept of SACRIFICE,for instance. The original tribes in a stage of evolution discover the means to manipulate how and where plants grow and how to manage livestock. The transition to actual settlement begins not because of love for one another but do to actual violence in competition for survival. Then a need to negotiate which tribes have a right to which plots of lands get born out of actual 'theft', not a crime outside of your own in group. Thus tribes get together at a common place in TIME, a 'temple' was actually a temporal meeting place of DIFFERING tribes who set up a represenative of EACH tribe (called a 'priest') who had official acknowlegement OF those particular families and acted as both a 'notary' and accountant for the claims on lands. To be sure one's lands were harvested by your tribe, you need something UNIQUELY identifying of your clan. This is where the 'cultural' factors play a coincidental introduction to the system. Each tribe has its identifying features, like language and ancestral history. Seals, rings, and idols (physical) become accounting markers and signatures of one's 'own' (ership) and the temples have a mapping of each tribes' symbols placed there that match to some official set of signatures for the land claims. An idol, for instance is a land marker often made of one's personal tribe craftsmen or the priests themselves, is BURIED in the claimed lands along with a copy sent and protectected by ALL the priests. Placing things in stone for each tribe (not actual pantheons of gods) act as the proof of the matching symbols to prove tribal claims. Since tribes still hunted and gathered and only seasonally met to plant and then later harvest, needed a collective system to assure no one was cheating. THIS is the origin of the temple and the actual meaning of the 'idols' within the original 'scriptures'. Sacrifice was taken place AT the temples as a means to ASSURE contracts were met. This required that EACH party publically chooses two sacrifices, one of each such that the actual thing/being sacrifices had real value to the one sacrificing and NOT of beneficial gain to the other side due to the sacrifice. Thus, initial sacrifices of one's own children or highly valued possesions were used. Sacrifice acted similar to what a gang might still use to assure trust and shared guilt. Such secular concepts realistically PROVED the faith of the treaty involved. Myths that got into official collections we call 'scripture' were only memory tools to pass on significant common meanings of VARIOUS peoples ....iniitally. In time, generations lose the original secular utility of past behaviors. When, for instance, weaponed 'police' (the elect Pharoah is only the collective tribe's negotiated 'sherrif' and the elected tribe for the duration's particular leader. They acted as the 'police' and 'military' official for some period. i could go on. The point here is that what you THINK is due to literal gods of the past, is just a perverted reinterpreting of origins that lack sufficient information to understand through time. The Ark of the Covenant, an actual egyptian amphibious boat/sled, took remnant stone laws of Akenaten's city moved to the desert [Amen-ra?'] as likely obelisks. The "moses" (leaders in Egypt, as in Tut-moses) dragged these remnants eventually to "hidden inner place" (as "holy-of-holies" understood today) to both preserve it and also to hide the secret tribal idols used for the most official means of protection from things like 'counterfeiting' of claims. "No one should steal" would be a common rule founded upon civilized settlement. These are just a mere handful of points that demonstrate the secular roots of what you think is from some 'superior' essence. In fact it was always idiots who imposed upon those secular institutes as being required to destroy others 'cultures' when they take over these temples and make them into something more 'magical' than they really were. Morality is also creative 'cultural' creations for non-human animals though they don't easily translate well accross species. Religion is thus NOT the origin of morality but its evolved 'force' of appeals to attempt compliance of rules where Nature itself is indifferent to them. If our system (canada) continues along this path of multiculturalism, we will see a repeat of attrocities in the future as cyclic stages prove to be. The National Socialists in Germany were just "Nations within Nations of 'aboriginal' German heritage and culture (as understood by them). They knew that religion (as all right wing extremists do) is useful to CONTROL others. This WILL occur here and the very uprising of nationalism everywhere is in a great part CANADA'S fault for its invention of the Multicultural scheme that hides its nafarious 'evil' (in religous terms). Back to you. ...

Forget Meech? I didn't have an invitation to the fight. I was younger but even though I was political more in tune than others, I still did not have a clue of what was even going on.

P.S. I think that my position could not occur without Quebec isolating itself completely from Canada....or the same of the West to the East. This LOCKS in the problem. Oddly, it is Quebec's secularism that acts naturally within it today that is more on par with my preferences. It also proves that had we left 'culture' out of the Constitution, children of future generations NOT being forced to these religious laws would naturally assimilate to the rest of Canada (as we too would adopt parts of their 'culture' as well).

This is a kind or 'optimistic' interpretation. But I think the real justification is to help prevent a law such as the American First Amendment. The part of it's "Free Speech" role defines the role of government to NOT make laws regarding religion.....a law made BY the Freethinkers of the days of Rationalism intent to PREVENT the rule of partticular biases for or against some 'culture'. Since Pierre Trudeau (et al, of the Constition 1982) desired to find a mechanism to prevent Quebec from separating, instead of allowing the Quebec children from swaying to influence of English 'culture' and non-Catholicism that many children of any generation would VOLUNTEER a preference to adapt, such a conditional clause would permit the setting up of the special protection UNIQUELY of Quebec as a 'distinct' entity in Canada. This permits laws to actually create religious laws, not avoid them. We hide this concept under the broader banner of "culture" as "Multiculturalism" [originally just "Biculturalism" but this word obviously exposes the bias too clearly to other cultures of the intent]. Why Stalin always gets used as a some kind of 'proof' of some heinous representation of cruely BY the essence of "Atheism" is itself crap. "Communist" ideals in Russia did NOT abandon religion. The nature of belief of a FUTURE PARADISE on Earth with the added imposition of a single human guardian (the 'chairman' who acts as a 'speaker' of the constitution) was at fault. That is the Constitution is treated as bound to the 'leader' similar to the Queen here. Marx lived in a day that didn't believe it possible for people to suddenly divorce from religious ideology and so thought the position of this 'speaker' ("dictator" as initially a more neutral concept). Russia also had the dominance of religious culture still there and so that/those cultures also were influential in their own biases. Most people were poor and while the idea of Communism was thought to be most productive when a wealthy society creates it, most are originated from a poor one during dire times of the vast majority. Intolerance against religoun was thought a better solution but they ignored the fact that the stage of having a 'dictator' was meant to be a transitional period that EXPECTED the present societies in these stages to accept struggle and hardship, ....as state of universal sacrifice! This is the 'religious' factor of the Marxist version of Communism. I don't think Communism works BECAUSE religion cannot be taken away from people in the more personal forms needed to reach some ideal state of Anarchy thought to be possible. The American concept of adding the First Amendment was more clever as it simply attempts to SEPARATE the role of religion by independent GROUPS wanting to impose justification for rule by assuming something universal about moral laws that don't exist. I think it would have been better to be more clear about this AND choose the broader term, "culture" to include any imposition of an 'artistic' nature. You don't need a formal 'religion' to have one from your artificial mental constructs regarding beauty and art. Again, that preamble is just the pre-conditioning/pre-staging of permitting laws to be made by Authorities to invoke religious intolerant laws, like the segregating rights of distinct people (for PRIVATE laws officiated to permit isolating groups of people). The present encouragement of natives to EMBRACE culture and give them incentives to do so is to prevent them, as a large and potentially powerful plurality of people, to act as independent people willing to associate with others OUTSIDE of racial boundaries. This is a tactic intent to prevent democratic uprisings of the poor through VOLUNTARY association. By granting isolating rights of distinct people based upon racial grounds, this acts similar to what occurs in prisons when inmates are forced by their OWN animalistic tendencies to isolate among racial lines and dimishes the power of the whole to collect on actual shared issues. So trying to sugar coat this preable is intentional to deceive. We have been granted 'freedom of conscience' as though this were not already true by default. All of any laws there though are always subject to the EXCEPTIONS granted to religious laws. Note that the present quick settlements rushed to 'aid' the Natives on the basis of abuses like the Residential Schools and the 60's Scoop are examples of how it utilizes protection for the guilty religous parties and convenient mechanism to then transfer the burden hideously to the general population's similarly racial minorities visually associated with the wealt classes. [I.E. it transfers burden to poor people who are of the same genetic roots AS the guilty establishments power.] This successfully adds force the those who are 'white' AND 'poor' from being able to have power to defy the discrimnation they receive without looking as though THEY are 'white supremacists' ....contrary and regardless of any actual independent views of association. It then also FAVORS the poor who happen to have the similar genetic roots of the wealthy classes to REQUIRE power ONLY IF THEY ISOLATE in racially defined groups. That preamble is not as innocent and kindly interpretable as you say here. It is an intentional and clever means to IMPOSE religious laws but veiled under alternative justifications as 'culture'. You argue against 'culture' you have the pre-disadvantage of requiring to unveil yourself as associating for non-cultural justifications. Poverty is no longer permited to be assumed as caused by the wealthier establishments exploitation but required to be argued in deceptively 'cultural' ways. The Natives, for instance, are not then 'poor' simply due to specific biases of those who are wealthy NOR to those of their official Churches used as a sheild, but due to 'cultural genocide' instead. The reality is to distract us from the REAL underlying causes of a logical issue, like 'poverty', and turn them into 'culture'. This is easy considering there will ALWAYS be means to present statistics that point to some larger racial/religious group of some logical class. Our CRTC is an example. It should be a neutral-logical class, "communications". But it is hideously run under the banner of Culture. This then permits laws that can be used to FORCE culture laws as a priority under the logical class that should be only speaking on issue. Note how that department also caveates its utility as NOT to intefere in 'quality of service' issues!!?? This intentionally permits such a body to discriminate against those who WANT power to speak on actual communication biases. The fuzzy boundaries of what is or is not 'quality of service' issues then gets to be interpreted by the censors of the Arts. We NEED to get rid of religious imposition in government. I doubt given the clever way this constitution was created (not to mention the Notwithstanding clause that set the ubiquitous standards we now see in non-negotiable 'agreements' we are forced to 'agree' to without choice or lack the right to a WHOLE CLASS of services we see in todays 100-page EULAS for most online services today.) If it is assumed it necessary under you interpretation, you are also dicating THAT morality is NOT derivable by secular standards. It permits biased and arrogant BELIEFS about certain universal rights. Today's rise of Nationalist style advocacy, like with the strong-feminism that acts as 'female-Supremacists' rather than the traditional fight for EQUALITY is also the result of our "Multiculturalim". How is it some genetic universal truth, for instance, that women and girls shoud be treated as a whole class of people needing to be presumed innately innocent BY DEFAULT of expecting one to be 'trusted' for some accusation on sex related charges simply because the person is female? This counter-discriminates and divides men as a calss in the same way. Thus turning the LOGICAL issues of abuse of sexist issues into RELIGIOUS issues (like that men [logical class] should be denied a default right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty when women uniquely charge as though this were a 'feminist' rationale [cultural class])

Given the non-theist doesn't believe the bible nor its asserted supreme beings, to us ALL politics are actually 'secularly' creations. That most governments have utilized religion doesn't mean that we (athiests) think that the rules came from God just because the past peoples said so. How do you infer that killing and stealing were not normal agreements of conduct that needed some external agent to give us?

There are issues we can never address with this system as is. But it starts with the preable as it conditions all to accept the religious authority, the Catholic and Anglican church, the Royalty, and counters non-theists' rights by default. While it may seem trivial to some, its use will become problematic at some point given it is just this kind of pretentiousness of triviality that later creates wars. [...like,...."the bible says X ...and must be taken literal."] For a serious constitution, it cannot arbitrarily be strict on some things with literal intention but play light on other things with the verbal promise that it wouldn't really be used against us.]

Difficult or not, the constitution wasn't created BY the people's direct consent and would require it to be democratically agreed upon. To be fair it would require direct vote by each and every person AND rechecked upon every generation's agreeing to it. We are born FORCED to accept it. The U.S. is definitely NOT a theocracy. WE are! We lack the American's First Amendment which assures the system is secular. P.S. We are a "republic" in the worst part of its problems: representative governments are not exactly 'democratic' because we only vote for some party's representative for the minute it takes to vote and they do not serve require serving their constituency after they get in power. In the U.S. time limits are set, people get to actually vote on particular significant issues AND can even create bills as a right of the people to directly petition.

How do you know that the "10 commandments" were not due to a secular society's negotiated settlements about what ideas are and should be commonly upheld? ..and that religion is just the devolution of what was 'secular' to be distorted through time? Excusing some state of order as due to something religious is dangerous because it has no means to prove nor disprove what 'should be' and permits those in power of authority to justify any dictated action as justified in the name of some 'god'.

I believe this needs to be addressed precisely because of this. If it simply formalizes how a people's government is operated, then anything goes on this condition. It undoes anything that follows outside of a fraudulent means to manipulate the 'common' citizen into thinking we have democratic freedoms. We need to address this or it is futile to pretend any ideas matter on this forum outside of voicing useless opinions. Edit additional point: If our opinions are voiced when they cannot actually have any affect for us personally; they only serve to INFORM those IN POWER who others are. Then such provision to speak only acts against those who speak with opinions against the present state.

I just sent Justin Trudeau this question (by email) as I am interested to see what he might have to say about it. Given it is up front as a preamble, it CONDITIONS anything that follows to be subject to whom "we" stands for. I added the point that I do NOT acknowledge the "supremacy of God" and thus want to determine if I am considered an official Canadian. I then asked if I am considered, "aboriginal" here and if not, wheter I am "aboriginal" to any place on Earth or if I am an 'alien'. I notice that if this preamble exists, it doesn't matter what anything within it asserts about those who lack religious beliefs believe regardless of any claims about our 'freedoms'. I think we need to seriously look at this condition if any of us who lack any religious status can be realistically challenge anything beyond it.

The preamble to our 'rights' here begins with a preamble: What does this mean and why is this statement there?

"Faith" is what we have both where we know something with certainty or trust due to some practical certainty. I try to redefine it in context as "gambling in the truth of something" when speaking with the religious person's use of it against the atheist. Then "belief" can be used more generically. Daniel Denett wrote a good book that expressed how religious thinkers actually have 'faith in faith'. [Breaking the Spell] I personally hold that you CAN argue against a belief system (which implies their "God" or gods in context). But this requires an investment in time and effort that can be unending when you consider this would have to be done for each and every particular belief. So you could say that I have 'faith' that there is no god but that I know that there is no particular one any reasonable person could point to rationally. I am also anti-theist to a large degree where such beliefs are imposed upon a society Constitutionally, (like ours does here in Canada). [Preamble to the Charter and our perpetuity to favor the Catholic School system foundationally, for examples.]