Preamble to Charter of Rights....

[Zeitgeist]

On 12/27/2019 at 1:52 AM, Scott Mayers said:

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.

I hear your concerns from an atheist perspective, or even from a humanist or agnostic perspective.  I would argue that the “supremacy of God” is a protection against the supremacy of one person or group over anyone else, and that includes the Pope, President, monarch, or anyone else.  As an atheist or an existentialist you could call it the supremacy of that which lies beyond our current grasp or understanding.  The point is that any person who claims to have all the answers and supreme authority over people, failing some clearly honorable and supernatural basis, should not be ascribed such authority.  This is to protect the people against the Stalins and Hitlers of the world, but really from any overpowering public figure.  I think if it was called nothingness instead of God it would garner less respect, so even if you think religion is the opiate of the masses, there are good reasons for placing God, or if you like, the organizing force behind the universe, at the top of the hierarchy.  Otherwise it’s the church of Henry the 8th or Caesar.  People can’t help but deify people, so we need protection from that.  
 

The alternative is supremacy of the state.  I don’t wish to submit my being to President Xi or Justin Trudeau for that matter.  If you lived through Stalin and watched the community (Orthodox) churches get closed or even blown up, you might see more reason for placing the ultimate authority beyond one person.  If the state takes the decision to seize private property, “resettle” people in labour camps, or impose family planning punishable by imprisonment, people need to be able to appeal to a higher authority.  If more people followed their consciences we’d have less genocide and state sanctioned abuse. 

Edited December 28, 2019 by Zeitgeist

[Scott Mayers]

3 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

I hear your concerns from an atheist perspective, or even from a humanist or agnostic perspective.  I would argue that the “supremacy of God” is a protection against the supremacy of one person or group over anyone else, and that includes the Pope, President, monarch, or anyone else.  As an atheist or an existentialist you could call it the supremacy of that which lies beyond our current grasp or understanding.  The point is that any person who claims to have all the answers and supreme authority over people, failing some clearly honorable and supernatural basis, should not be ascribed such authority.  This is to protect the people against the Stalins and Hitlers of the world, but really from any overpowering public figure.  I think if it was called nothingness instead of God it would garner less respect, so even if you think religion is the opiate of the masses, there are good reasons for placing God, or if you like, the organizing force behind the universe, at the top of the hierarchy.  Otherwise it’s the church of Henry the 8th or Caesar.  People can’t help but deify people, so we need protection from that.  
 

The alternative is supremacy of the state.  I don’t wish to submit my being to President Xi or Justin Trudeau for that matter.  If you lived through Stalin and watched the community (Orthodox) churches get closed or even blown up, you might see more reason for placing the ultimate authority beyond one person.  If the state takes the decision to seize private property, “resettle” people in labour camps, or impose family planning punishable by imprisonment, people need to be able to appeal to a higher authority.  If more people followed their consciences we’d have less genocide and state sanctioned abuse. 

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])

[Scott Mayers]

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).

Edited December 28, 2019 by Scott Mayers

[Zeitgeist]

1 hour ago, Scott Mayers said:

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).

The problem with your position is that it assumes there is such a thing as a non-cultural response, which simply doesn’t exist.  We are all products of culture(s) and the laws and institutions we create reinforce them.  You are correct that Quebec is given a privileged place in our constitution, but when the question is asked of what justifies Canada’s existence as a political jurisdiction, the basis is always Quebec, the founding peoples of Canada (French and English, including their respective languages and religions), the Indigenous, the Loyalists, immigrants from the world over (and their advocacy under the banner of Multiculturalism), and other historic cultural roots.  Our Common Law and legislation have been constructed by these people for these people, reflecting their values.  Early on Eastern Canada dominated, the French of New France then French and English Acadian cultures.  Then it was the Loyalists and mostly British immigrants.  Now most of our immigrants are from non-English and non-French speaking countries.  They are informing modern Canadian society and laws/legislation.  

I don’t have any illusions that we are in a competition of cultural ideas and values.  When any of us vote, it is with our cultural attitudes in mind.  The God of our constitution is Judeo-Christian Jahovah.  The roots are Judaic.  Though I see the sense of a science-based atheist humanism, I will always choose the Hebrew God over the supremacy of the state, be it the Vanguard of the Proletariat or some other recent ideological construct.  We need a sense of the sacred, a Holy of Holies, which in Solomon’s Temple was an empty space.  In purely humanist terms it represents that which lies beyond us.  If people want to attack that as an essential part of the constitution, they can, but they will be in for a fight.  I’d argue that without holding onto those cultural roots, Canada really is nothing more than an economic jurisdiction at the mercy of the most persuasive huckster of the week.  The Declaration of Independence has its Creator.  Many Islamic countries are theocracies.  

I don’t deny that there are highly moral atheists, but in governing and law, when the question arises as to what is the basis of our social contract, it will come back to the Ten Commandments and Golden Rule, as well as Aristotelian and Platonic ideas of the good and just, basically our Western Tradition.  I think we’re wiser to respect our inherited wisdom and make small adjustments that we can test over time than to banish it all as retrograde because a loud revolutionary voice calls it patriarchal or non-inclusive or some other recent Post-Modern or Cultural Marxist interpretation.  

I’m not convinced that all of current popular morality on a range of issues, from weed to to same sex marriage to abortion, are progressive in the way we think they are, because we haven’t seen the long-term consequences.  We used to think tobacco was good for health.  A lot of our attitudes are shaped now in real time by social and other mass media. A constitution should be a safeguard against the foolhardy choices of the impetuous, impressionable majority. 

Edited December 28, 2019 by Zeitgeist

[Queenmandy85]

Scott, you are suggesting changing the Constitution. Have you forgotten Meech so soon. Nobody in their right mind wants to go through that again. 

[Scott Mayers]

1 hour ago, Queenmandy85 said:

Scott, you are suggesting changing the Constitution. Have you forgotten Meech so soon. Nobody in their right mind wants to go through that again. 

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. 

[Nefarious Banana]

1 hour ago, Queenmandy85 said:

Scott, you are suggesting changing the Constitution. Have you forgotten Meech so soon. Nobody in their right mind wants to go through that again. 

The Constitution as it stands now, does not work for western Canada. Times change and Constitution wholly based on what benefits Upper Canada and Quebec is not worth having.  Tear it up, amend it, or separate . . . . surprised that a Saskatchewan resident is satisfied with status quo ?

[Zeitgeist]

What would you change in the constitution?  I’d support more protection for speech and property.   There’s nothing in it that benefits Ontario that doesn’t benefit the west.  There are protections for French.  I suppose if you remove those, Quebec separates from Canada.  At that point probably most if not all of English Canada joins the US.  Without having to deal with Quebec, I’m sure the US would be happy to expand its territory and resource base.  The French of New Brunswick, Manitoba, and the Maritimes would be shit out of luck, as would the Indigenous people of the territories and the provinces without the protection of a Crown that no longer exists once Canada ceases to exist.  More guns would enter the provinces, but there would be some economic benefits.  Probably not much would change in the major cities except the level of violence.  

[eyeball]

2 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

When any of us vote, it is with our cultural attitudes in mind.

I cannot recall a single time I ever voted with this in my mind. Not once.  If you're going to try to say I did whether I like it or not I'll take that as evidence that the preamble to the Charter of Rights has clearly accomplished the purpose I described in the 2nd post of the thread.

Edited December 29, 2019 by eyeball

[Scott Mayers]

1 hour ago, Zeitgeist said:

The problem with your position is that it assumes there is such a thing as a non-cultural response, which simply doesn’t exist.  We are all products of culture(s) and the laws and institutions we create reinforce them.

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. ...

[Zeitgeist]

2 minutes ago, eyeball said:

I cannot recall a single time I ever voted with this in my mind. Not once.  If you're going to try to say I did whether I like it or not I'll take that as evidence that the preamble to the Charter of Rights has clearly accomplished the purpose I described in the 2nd post of the thread.

Your culture is your language and all of the influences around you.  It directly impacts everything you believe.  Of course your culture filters your vote.  There is no tabula rasa.  The flaw in the glasses through which you see the world cannot be removed, no matter how hard you try to be objective, which is itself an idea.  

[eyeball]

2 minutes ago, Scott Mayers said:

Religion is an arrogant cult of personalities utilizing their pretentious belief in excusing their own superiority ...

You could replace the word religion in the above with the word nation, and especially when a nation gets too full of itself, and it would be every bit as true.

[Scott Mayers]

6 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

What would you change in the constitution?  I’d support more protection for speech and property.   There’s nothing in it that benefits Ontario that doesn’t benefit the west.  There are protections for French.  I suppose if you remove those, Quebec separates from Canada.  At that point probably most if not all of English Canada joins the US.  Without having to deal with Quebec, I’m sure the US would be happy to expand its territory and resource base.  The French of New Brunswick, Manitoba, and the Maritimes would be shit out of luck, as would the Indigenous people of the territories and the provinces without the protection of a Crown that no longer exists once Canada ceases to exist.  More guns would enter the provinces, but there would be some economic benefits.  Probably not much would change in the major cities except the level of violence.  

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. 

[Scott Mayers]

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. :"

[eyeball]

25 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

Your culture is your language and all of the influences around you.  It directly impacts everything you believe.  Of course your culture filters your vote.  There is no tabula rasa.  The flaw in the glasses through which you see the world cannot be removed, no matter how hard you try to be objective, which is itself an idea.  

There's no tabula rasa but there is convergence and we're all born with the same capacity to think however we wish.

When I was a little kid I enjoyed repeating individual words over and over again until their meaning just disappeared - it was just fun. It's harder to feel the effect as I get older but I think I learned something useful from it.

But I'll bite...Earthling culture is what influences my vote.

 

Edited December 29, 2019 by eyeball

[Zeitgeist]

The earliest religions worshiped forces of nature and the first gods were nature gods, because humanity didn’t understand the forces of nature.  This is the origin of gods of thunder, sea, etc.  Almost all religions share a central myth that Joseph Campbell describes as the Hero’s Quest.  It can be found in the Babylonian creation myths, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the story of Zoroaster, the story of Moses, the story of Jesus, the story of the Buddha, and on and on.  It’s basically a coming of age story about a man who has to go into the underworld (chaos), slay a demon/dragon/giant/scary beast, and return with a supernatural power or amulet in order to restore order in the kingdom.  Only by entering into this journey can the son be reconciled with the father.  It’s Star Wars and the story of everyone finding his or her path.  

The nature gods, like most polytheistic religions, eventually became represented in later religions as a single force.  All of it is in a sense a story made up by humans, yet it is a true story because the message of the story is powerful.  It tells of human nature and what to watch out for.  It’s the collective wisdom of thousands of years of experience.  The Bible is the most important book in our culture because it has been the most influential book to our literature, laws, and everyday moral sense.  You can call it pure fiction, but that doesn’t diminish its significance.  It informs our cultural sense of the sacred and profane in very deep ways.  I would be careful about stripping “God” out of the constitution, because the ideological promises of many political systems have proven themselves highly problematic.  

[Scott Mayers]

1 minute ago, Zeitgeist said:

The earliest religions worshiped forces of nature and the first gods were nature gods, because humanity didn’t understand the forces of nature.  This is the origin of gods of thunder, sea, etc.  Almost all religions share a central myth that Joseph Campbell describes as the Hero’s Quest.  It can be found in the Babylonian creation myths, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the story of Zoroaster, the story of Moses, the story of Jesus, the story of the Buddha, and on and on.  It’s basically a coming of age story about a man who has to go into the underworld (chaos), slay a demon/dragon/giant/scary beast, and return with a supernatural power or amulet in order to restore order in the kingdom.  Only by entering into this journey can the son be reconciled with the father.  It’s Star Wars and the story of everyone finding his or her path.  

The nature gods, like most polytheistic religions, eventually became represented in later religions as a single force.  All of it is in a sense a story made up by humans, yet it is a true story because the message of the story is powerful.  It tells of human nature and what to watch out for.  It’s the collective wisdom of thousands of years of experience.  The Bible is the most important book in our culture because it has been the most influential book to our literature, laws, and everyday moral sense.  You can call it pure fiction, but that doesn’t diminish its significance.  It informs our cultural sense of the sacred and profane in very deep ways.  I would be careful about stripping “God” out of the constitution, because the ideological promises of many political systems have proven themselves highly problematic.  

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. 

[Zeitgeist]

I don’t deny that the earliest religious beliefs were the scientific understanding of the day.  There were economic reasons for nature worship, e.g. rain and harvest.  Language is very much tied to belief and human understanding of the natural world.  What I really think is that, as anthropology illustrates, eventually we will be a mixed species around the world, probably yellow in colour.  I’m sure Science and Religion will look quite different then.  Ultimately we have to transcend our particular roots , find common ground, and work together to solve the greatest challenges.  I just find it scary that there are so many people who don’t understand their own cultures, let alone anyone else’s.  Our laws and institutions didn’t fall from the sky but were forged over thousands of years through war and survival.  

[Scott Mayers]

2 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

I don’t deny that the earliest religious beliefs were the scientific understanding of the day.  There were economic reasons for nature worship, e.g. rain and harvest.  Language is very much tied to belief and human understanding of the natural world.  What I really think is that, as anthropology illustrates, eventually we will be a mixed species around the world, probably yellow in colour.  I’m sure Science and Religion will look quite different then.  Ultimately we have to transcend our particular roots , find common ground, and work together to solve the greatest challenges.  I just find it scary that there are so many people who don’t understand their own cultures, let alone anyone else’s.  Our laws and institutions didn’t fall from the sky but were forged over thousands of years through war and survival.  

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? 

 

[Zeitgeist]

5 minutes ago, Scott Mayers said:

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? 

 

I worry about it because I see a trend of watering down at play.  I’m not sure that as an atheist-humanist who wants to keep the free speech and liberties required to express your views that you want to scrap the underpinnings of those rights and freedoms, which ultimately stem from a story of unshackling oneself from the bonds of servitude because of a higher calling than Baal and Caesar. It’s in the name of higher ideals such as justice that we build our society, not simply serving pharaoh.  If you don’t want to call the higher force God, then perhaps creator or source.  

Just an anecdote:  Stalin actually relented and allowed churches to reopen during the Great Patriotic War because even fervent communists thirsted for a spiritual outlet when millions of soldiers and civilians were killed by the German army and during the siege of St. Petersburg.  People needed to come together and feel a sense of hope, that not all was futile.  They needed to experience a sense of transcendence or a higher purpose.  

The constitution has to retain a sense of higher purpose and significance, I think.  

[bush_cheney2004]

2 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

What would you change in the constitution?  I’d support more protection for speech and property.   There’s nothing in it that benefits Ontario that doesn’t benefit the west.  There are protections for French.  I suppose if you remove those, Quebec separates from Canada.  At that point probably most if not all of English Canada joins the US.  Without having to deal with Quebec, I’m sure the US would be happy to expand its territory and resource base. 

 

No...this is a common misconception often uttered during Canadian fits of separatism, ironically to stoke what little Canadian nationalism exists within the usual anti-American DNA.  

 

[Zeitgeist]

35 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

No...this is a common misconception often uttered during Canadian fits of separatism, ironically to stoke what little Canadian nationalism exists within the usual anti-American DNA.  

 

Well the open invitation is written into your constitution. As I’ve said before, freedom of residence and employment between the citizens of both countries would maximize options for everyone in both countries, so you could choose your poison, Canadian or American.  When in Rome do as the Romans do.  Keep the border though, so you can quell US security fears and Canadians can quell fear of more guns.  

That’s another topic, but my point was that the privileging of bilingualism and biculturalism is a big part of the Canadian-ness of our constitution.  Remove that and there isn’t as much to distinguish Canada from Britain or the US.  Canadians won’t accept returning to British colony status, nor would they accept being a US protectorate.  Most Canadians are committed to trying to make Canada work, and surprise, it works quite well.  

[bush_cheney2004]

1 minute ago, Zeitgeist said:

Well the open invitation is written into your constitution. As I’ve said before, freedom of residence and employment between the citizens of both countries would maximize options for everyone in both countries, so you could choose your poison, Canadian or American.  When in Rome do as the Romans do.  Keep the border though, so you can quell US security fears and Canadians can quell fear of more guns. 

 

No....the "invitation" was in the earlier Articles of Confederation, and never adopted as part of the U.S. Constitution.

"Joining the U.S." is now just common fodder in the ongoing domestic arguments between regions, to little effect.   Canadian provinces can't just "join" the United States even if they wanted to.

 

Quote

That’s another topic, but my point was that the privileging of bilingualism and biculturalism is a big part of the Canadian-ness of our constitution.  Remove that and there isn’t as much to distinguish Canada from Britain or the US.  Canadians won’t accept returning to British colony status, nor would they accept being a US protectorate.  Most Canadians are committed to trying to make Canada work, and surprise, it works quite well.  

 

Well, Canada is already a U.S. protectorate by several practical measures.   Ironically, Canada's 1982 repatriated constitution and Charter clearly defined rights, the judiciary's role, and amending process not unlike the U.S. Constitution from the 18th century.

The preamble with a nod to God was just one of many concessions made to git 'r done.

[Zeitgeist]

41 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

No....the "invitation" was in the earlier Articles of Confederation, and never adopted as part of the U.S. Constitution.

"Joining the U.S." is now just common fodder in the ongoing domestic arguments between regions, to little effect.   Canadian provinces can't just "join" the United States even if they wanted to.

 

 

Well, Canada is already a U.S. protectorate by several practical measures.   Ironically, Canada's 1982 repatriated constitution and Charter clearly defined rights, the judiciary's role, and amending process not unlike the U.S. Constitution from the 18th century.

The preamble with a nod to God was just one of many concessions made to git 'r done.

Not much appetite for it anyway, but if you read to the end of the article, it’s open to interpretation.

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/when-canada-was-invited-to-join-the-united-states/

[bush_cheney2004]

9 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

Not much appetite for it anyway, but if you read to the end of the article, it’s open to interpretation.

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/when-canada-was-invited-to-join-the-united-states/

 

Agreed...and just a footnote in history.

Conflict between Canadians cannot be solved by the American experience, or threats to join the Union.

Many compromises were made to get the Constitution Act and Charter across the finish line...like leaving sexual orientation rights on the cutting room floor.