Shwa

There is already a school board for that, the TCDSB. If you don't like the religious curriculuum of the TDSB, send your kid to a Catholic school. Problem solved.

I am not claiming anything, except where you posted. So you are off the mark. Again.

Godwin's Law invoked a mere three posts in. Beauty eh? Is this some sort of MLW record? <- me being totally cool.

But it is a very fair test, because you will know and it will make a determination on the validity of the present state of your faith. Subjective, which is what the question is all about. Only you will know for sure... about you. But how would you find out? By testing a hypothesis or by decree? I think that is where the relationship between reason and faith have gone and decrees are no longer enough proof of the articles of faith. I guess when you don't know, anything is plausible. But is being "pretty sure" knowledge?

Great Allah, it's all there under your account name. Maybe you were hacked and someone else wrote it. Yeah, that's the ticket.... Somehow a memo to staff regarding cultural sensitivities during Ramadan gets linked to the Christmas season, mangers, trees and caroling by American Woman through some intrisic, internal process of the memo itself. Like a magical memo that predetermines such linkages and wonderment because of "religious beliefs." Riiiight.

You could always experiment. Find an islolated location and go without modern scientific amenities for a year or two and then guage your happiness and fulfillment index. Take a long a holy book for comfort. Certainly everyone has done their Waldon Pond bit, but even Thoreau came back to Concord. Theological knowledge, not so much; well in comparison with scientific knowledge. However, I was unclear - knowledge, whether it is 500 years old or brand new is knowledge. We still have the collected data and they are being continually re-examined under a new light. I suppose that religious institutions do this as well, but not as rigorously, or so it seems. It started when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the All Saints Church in Wittenburg. (or handed them in to the archbishop as was custom). The point being that faith began to move away from the instutition and into the hands of the members. Is it? Can you be certain that your view of faith has the same weight as the view of faith of a Catholic adherent even from 50 years ago? Just the institution of the church as a social agent. Other forms of social life - justice, government, health - remain fairly entrenched as institutions and I think this all has more to do with proven utility towards the advancement of reason as a social phenomenon. The Pope's comment on utility misses the mark, I think, in that he implies that utility exists for itself. It doesn't, it exists for everyone. Otherwise, why buy a hammer when there are so many free rocks?

Strawman. Yawn....

.I've worked in or around three levels of government for over 30 years and such spaces are made available for all kinds of groups, causes, special interests and workplace clubs. No big deal. At all. Of course it does happen, all the time, for all kinds of reasons. What planet are you from? Heck, even The Office had "The Finer Things Club" illustrating how pervasive these sorts of things are at the modern workplace. The Workplace as Clubhouse

Right. No link, no proof. Thought so.

Reason has changed; faith - in the religious sense - remains the same. Reason has increased our collective knowledge of the universe, religious faith has not. I think knowledge has remained the same, but what we do with it - how we use it to reason, has changed quite a bit as evidenced by the philosophical enquiries about it over the past few centuries since it was liberated from the confines of dogma. In fact, the old dogma has been found to be unreasonable. Before what? Are you equating the mechanism - let's say 'feelings' - of your faith to the same content as, say, someone in the 13th century? The articles of faith are, so it seems to me, being de-institutionalized because self-perpetuating archaic institutions based on faith are seen to be unreasonable. Here are some examples of the great experiments over the centuries. Are they fully worked out though? The concept of political power seems to have been settled over the past two centuries. But is that all there is?

Then prove the link. Which you have failed to do on several occasions already. Go ahead, prove the link between this memo and all the other "memos" in your head. You know, the ones that "will be passed around during the Christmas season" which you are "sure" of.

You mean the "radio" with the tinfoil hat antenna?

No one is forcing you to eat kabobs or shawarmas. Or pizza. Or chow mien... No the left screams racism and bigotry when they see racism and bigotry. They also get a chuckle out of xenophobia too.

Nothing compared to the "shell game" used by you to see a memo to staff converted into a universal declaration against your human rights. Don't tread on me! Ah, when it suits you of course.

My response. Your immediate response to uncover the Great Secret Double Standard.

I think Aquinas was the one of the most brilliant minds of his time, working with the defintions of his time. Would he see things in a different light today, even with his Catholic faith intact? Would Kant? Because we need to define faith for these propositions to be workable in modern times and the articles of public religion must be thoroughly stripped away, even though there is still a place for personal religion or spirituality. Thus "Faith" becomes "faith" with a more supple, inclusive defintion that addresses such human qualities as intuition and hypothesis. If an institution wants to continue a millennium old experiment, I have no quarrel with that except in instances where it is decreed Truth and Law. I am sure Copernicus and Galilieo would have agreed.

LOFL! Bug Bunny supplies the to this post."...when the lights go out..." LOFL!

Case in point - the false dilemma you postulated several pages ago on this very thread.

Cite or it didn't happen. ~ There are more "tons" of white people involved in violent crime in Ottawa and plenty more of them in the slums and projects of Ottawa and in the Holiday Innes. Anyone can make unsubstantiated assertions, but we both know I am more right than you are. Here's the problem: you want to "clean up" the crime and poverty problems and continually refer to the immigrant population as a source of the problem, when there are still many more "tons" of whites involved in crime and poverty. Maybe you should direct your efforts to cleaning up white crime and poverty since it represents the majority of the overall 47 billion dollar expense of crime? You know, take care of your own first.

See? Here's the difference between a reasonable person and you. A reasonable person sees a "memo" urging staff to be "sensitive" to another's needs as only a memo, making a fair and social suggestion, to a group of fair and social people. A person like you, on the other hand, sees this as some sort of legal interpretation mandating you - and everyone else in society - to conform to some distasteful religion - it's practices and beliefs - being pushed on you. Nuff said about that. As for separate school boards, which clearly shows your idea of separation between church and state simply doesn't apply in Canada, is being paid for by your taxes whether you like it or not. So is the French language. Don't push your language on me. Boo-hoo... When you get growed up and big enough, please try and have all the laws changed so that such memos are not having all these unlawful suggestions imposed upon our collective psyche and defiling us with their reasonableness. It's not that you will be able to change such laws, it's just that such an effort would be good for a laugh.

Speaking fees, schmeaking fees. It's the Empire-like clubs we are talking about here. Our Green barometer is down a titch, send up VP Gore will ya?

So it's a political argument now, not economic or social, which are liberal tilts, and now that there has been a politicization of the justice and prison systems - even though the crime rate is falling. Interestingly enough, the crime rate peaked during the tenure of the Mulroney Progressive Conservative majority governments in the late 80's, early 90's. Nothwithstanding that, ironically, the last time the crime rate was this low was during the Trudeau era. Oh, but here is the familiar refrain - the Progressive Conservatives of the 80's were actually liberals. Welcome to Bizarro World. "If" - argument over. Really? Man, you are behind in your cracker talk Polly: Plenty of room remains in Canada's prisons Maybe QMI and the Sun chain are actually liberals too? What is this? The guy in charge admitting that the prisons aren't crowded, but need upgrades and repairs? You know, so less people can go to better prisons because the crime rate is falling...

Ex-Presidents, politicians, writers with aspiration... they are recruited for plenty of causes of your northern cousins on a regular basis. Ron Paul would have some of them creaming their jeans at the mere thought of speaking anywhere in The Great White North. Eh?

Pfft. And I thought you had some insight into Canada and the various causes up here. So much for all those ex-Presidents showing up at the Empire club to speak at luncheons...

Not in Canada it isn't. So pony up your tax dollars for the separate school board.