I'm now flying the 1957 Canadian Red Ensign.

[-1=e^ipi]

Funding all religious schools is a violation of secularism.

 

Who determines the allocation of funding? Who's to say that islam doesn't get enough funding and hinduism gets too much?

What about atheist schools? Should we have schools that teach children that god is a lie?

 

The state should not fund religion. It should not take a position on the existence of a god or gods. There should be separation of religion and state.

 

Monarchists don't want that. They want the head of the Anglican Church as Head of State.

[Machjo]

4 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

Funding all religious schools is a violation of secularism.

 

Who determines the allocation of funding? Who's to say that islam doesn't get enough funding and hinduism gets too much?

What about atheist schools? Should we have schools that teach children that god is a lie?

 

The state should not fund religion. It should not take a position on the existence of a god or gods. There should be separation of religion and state.

 

Monarchists don't want that. They want the head of the Anglican Church as Head of State.

I don;'t profess the Anglican Faith. I don't profess even the Christian Faith.

 

Nice try though.

[-1=e^ipi]

2 minutes ago, Machjo said:

I don;'t profess the Anglican Faith. I don't profess even the Christian Faith.

 

Nice try though.

I never said you did.

More I was countering your suggestion that funding all religions with tax payer money is an acceptable solution.

[Machjo]

There's a flag for Canadian republicans too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Canada

[Machjo]

1 minute ago, -1=e^ipi said:

I never said you did.

More I was countering your suggestion that funding all religions with tax payer money is an acceptable solution.

Still better than funding only selected religions, no?

[-1=e^ipi]

Just now, Machjo said:

Still better than funding only selected religions, no?

I'm not so sure about that. Sounds like even more tax money being wasted.

[Machjo]

Just now, -1=e^ipi said:

I'm not so sure about that. Sounds like even more tax money being wasted.

I was thinking more about the principle of equality, that the state shouldn't be discriminating on the basis of religion.

 

Also, I'm more in favour of the principle of monarchy than a particular monarchy. For example, would it be possible to establish some kind of elective monarchy? How would the monarch be elected to ensure he doesn't just reflect the majority? I'm not particularly fond of rules forcing the monarch to join the Anglican Church and banning the monarch from marrying a Catholic and all that silliness. But I still see the benefits of a monarch in principle while acknowledging that we might be able to improve on it.

[-1=e^ipi]

Just now, Machjo said:

I was thinking more about the principle of equality, that the state shouldn't be discriminating on the basis of religion.

It's still discriminating since it discriminates when it decides how to allocate funding. Also, atheist schools don't get funding.

[Machjo]

On the subject of monarchy, I know that combinations exist. For example, a monarchical province under a federal republic or vice versa. I'd be open to such an idea myself.

 

Also, just as a monarchy can have advantages over a republic, a republic can have certain advantages over a monarchy too. The ideal system would be to try to combine the strength of both systems. Generally speaking though, it's easier to introduce republican ideas into a monarchical system than vice versa it would seem though. Germany can be shown as a republican system that has somewhat succeeded in incorporating some of the strengths of a republican system to a degree just as the British system has also incorporated republican principles such as more limited power.

I still favour monarchism overall, but I do see a benefit to trying to blend the systems.

[-1=e^ipi]

17 minutes ago, Machjo said:

Also, just as a monarchy can have advantages over a republic, a republic can have certain advantages over a monarchy too. The ideal system would be to try to combine the strength of both systems.

Also, just as nazism can have advantages over communism, communism can have certain advantages over nazism too. The ideal system would be to try to combine the strength of both systems.

 

See what I did there? Your argument is invalid.

 

The ideal system should at the very least have:

Freedom of Speech.

Separation of Religion and State.

Equality under the law.

 

Monarchy violates equality under the law. Also, in the case of our monarchy, it violates separation of religion and state as well.

[cannuck]

It is one thing to make a fuss over funding Catholic schools, but it really makes me think of the whole business of funding unionized monopolies on education.  THAT is really far more offensive to me, and far more dangerous at giving children an extremely biased view of the world.  Most kids can figure out that the religion stuff is total BS, but the left-leaning version and agenda of education-by-trade-union is a bit more subtle.

[Machjo]

17 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

Also, just as nazism can have advantages over communism, communism can have certain advantages over nazism too. The ideal system would be to try to combine the strength of both systems.

 

See what I did there? Your argument is invalid.

 

The ideal system should at the very least have:

Freedom of Speech.

Separation of Religion and State.

Equality under the law.

 

Monarchy violates equality under the law. Also, in the case of our monarchy, it violates separation of religion and state as well.

Elective monarchies have existed in the past and not all monarchies are necessarily religious. Nothing would stop us from revising the monarchy.

[turningrite]

19 hours ago, -1=e^ipi said:

That flag is an awful symbol of the immoral monarchy.

My mainly Irish-Catholic American mother felt that way, for sure. After immigrating to Canada from the U.S., where she'd married my father, at the beginning of the 1950s, she waited for two decades before becoming a Canadian citizen and her oft-stated rationale for the delay was that she couldn't bear the thought of pledging allegiance to an institution that had oppressed her ancestors and co-religionists. Thank goodness the citizenship judge was a French-Canadian. When my mother protested the royal oath, he made it clear that he didn't put much store in it either. "Just hold you nose," he told her. She often proudly noted that she obtained her Canadian citizenship under protest.

Edited July 25, 2018 by turningrite

[Machjo]

2 hours ago, turningrite said:

My mainly Irish-Catholic American mother felt that way, for sure. After immigrating to Canada from the U.S., where she'd married my father, at the beginning of the 1950s, she waited for two decades before becoming a Canadian citizen and her oft-stated rationale for the delay was that she couldn't bear the thought of pledging allegiance to an institution that had oppressed her ancestors and co-religionists. Thank goodness the citizenship judge was a French-Canadian. When my mother protested the royal oath, he made it clear that he didn't put much store in it either. "Just hold you nose," he told her. She often proudly noted that she obtained her Canadian citizenship under protest.

I think we should perhaps modify the oath of allegiance to simply promising to obey the law. It shouldn't be imposing any king of belief system on a person otherwise it just encourages untruthfulness anyway.

[turningrite]

7 hours ago, Machjo said:

I think we should perhaps modify the oath of allegiance to simply promising to obey the law. It shouldn't be imposing any king of belief system on a person otherwise it just encourages untruthfulness anyway.

I often think about this as well when considering all the immigrants Canada has admitted who belong to religions that are intolerant of apostates. Do they not understand that when they become Canadian citizens they take an oath of allegiance to a person who is explicitly and legally the head of the Church of England?

[Machjo]

7 minutes ago, turningrite said:

I often think about this as well when considering all the immigrants Canada has admitted who belong to religions that are intolerant of apostates. Do they not understand that when they become Canadian citizens they take an oath of allegiance to a person who is explicitly and legally the head of the Church of England?

I bet they probably do. If you're referring to Islam, it actually teaches obedience to the social laws of the state and recognizes that the religion of the state and that of the individual can be different. Nothing in Islam would prevent a Muslim from swearing allegiance to the Queen on social matters as long as she does not impose spiritual laws on them pertaining to profession of faith, prayer, or fasting for example.

 

Ironically, I think atheists would struggle with this more than any believe in God regardless of this religion.

 

I do think though that we should allow a person to swear the oath of allegiance none-the-less. Again, irrespective of religion, you might find more Muslims than atheists willing to do so.

Edited July 26, 2018 by Machjo

[turningrite]

5 minutes ago, Machjo said:

Nothing in Islam would prevent a Muslim from swearing allegiance to the Queen on social matters as long as she does not impose spiritual laws on them pertaining to profession of faith, prayer, or fasting for example.

Ironically, I think atheists would struggle with this more than any believe in God regardless of this religion.

 

How would a Muslim or anybody else know what kind of laws or regulations a government might impose in the Queen's name? After all, the Harper government, with widespread public support, attempted to ban Muslim women from wearing the niqab at citizenship ceremonies. Personally, although raised a Catholic, I'm a secularist and humanist, although not explicitly an atheist, and it's not inconceivable that Canadians might at some point elect a government that supports a secular philosophy and is prepared to implement a secular regime. Maybe atheists will lead us out of the darkness. Maybe we'll be finished with the royal oath. Oh, to dream of a better world...

[Machjo]

3 minutes ago, turningrite said:

How would a Muslim or anybody else know what kind of laws or regulations a government might impose in the Queen's name? After all, the Harper government, with widespread public support, attempted to ban Muslim women from wearing the niqab at citizenship ceremonies. Personally, although raised a Catholic, I'm a secularist and humanist, although not explicitly an atheist, and it's not inconceivable that Canadians might at some point elect a government that supports a secular philosophy and is prepared to implement a secular regime. Maybe atheists will lead us out of the darkness. Maybe we'll be finished with the royal oath. Oh, to dream of a better world...

Interesting. I believe in God, yet am more than willing to accommodate atheists. You seem to be proposing heavy-handed laws to infringe on religious freedoms.

[turningrite]

26 minutes ago, Machjo said:

Interesting. I believe in God, yet am more than willing to accommodate atheists. You seem to be proposing heavy-handed laws to infringe on religious freedoms.

I believe that freedom from religion is more important to the integrity of a diverse and democratic society. Even my late father, a devout Catholic throughout his life, became an avowed secularist. He believed that religion should be a completely private matter and that secularism would do nothing to compromise a person's right to their own beliefs and their ability to privately practice their own religion. He became convinced of the value of secularism from the perspective of being a member of a religion, Catholicism, that was the target of discrimination in pre-WWII Orange Order Protestant small-town Ontario. He also came to believe, eventually, that the separate (Catholic) school system should be abolished in the cause of achieving a secular society.

[Machjo]

11 hours ago, turningrite said:

I believe that freedom from religion is more important to the integrity of a diverse and democratic society. Even my late father, a devout Catholic throughout his life, became an avowed secularist. He believed that religion should be a completely private matter and that secularism would do nothing to compromise a person's right to their own beliefs and their ability to privately practice their own religion. He became convinced of the value of secularism from the perspective of being a member of a religion, Catholicism, that was the target of discrimination in pre-WWII Orange Order Protestant small-town Ontario. He also came to believe, eventually, that the separate (Catholic) school system should be abolished in the cause of achieving a secular society.

Secularism or secularity? One is closed, the other open? For example, France is a secularist state, the US a secular one. France restricts public displays of religion whereas the US allows it.

Which do you mean?

[turningrite]

4 hours ago, Machjo said:

Secularism or secularity? One is closed, the other open? For example, France is a secularist state, the US a secular one. France restricts public displays of religion whereas the US allows it.

Which do you mean?

I'd prefer secularism. My father viewed religious chauvinism, including public displays of religion, as detrimental to social equality and as time passes I increasingly tend to agree with him. Personally, many of the accoutrements of religion, like wearing the hijab, kippah or crucifix don't bother me. But some others do. So, in order to be fair, I think a secularist ban, as in France, to be a fair an equitable solution.

Edited July 26, 2018 by turningrite

[Leon]

On 7/24/2018 at 1:17 PM, cannuck said:

Thanks for an informative post.   

I salute your choice.

Thanks for the post from the past.   You are an idiot.

[Leon]

On 7/26/2018 at 4:01 PM, turningrite said:

I'd prefer secularism. My father viewed religious chauvinism, including public displays of religion, as detrimental to social equality and as time passes I increasingly tend to agree with him. Personally, many of the accoutrements of religion, like wearing the hijab, kippah or crucifix don't bother me. But some others do. So, in order to be fair, I think a secularist ban, as in France, to be a fair an equitable solution.

France truly is a secular state.   The U.S may theoretically be a secular state but in practice is extremely religious.

[Machjo]

1 hour ago, Leon said:

France truly is a secular state.   The U.S may theoretically be a secular state but in practice is extremely religious.

I would describe the UK as secular even if it is a Christian monarchy. France is a secularist state.

[PIK]

On 7/24/2018 at 6:01 PM, -1=e^ipi said:

That flag is an awful symbol of the immoral monarchy.

Natives are thier own worst enemy now, not the rest of us.