BadBeaten rivers a monster against fallangist fuckwits...

[Bad Beaten]

Freedom from religion essential to religious freedom

In his July 27, 2005 letter, “Same-sex marriage: Freedom from Religion”, Lukasz Petrokowski of the ironically-named Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL), presents freedom from religion and the secular state as being in direct contrast with freedom of religion, even going as far (in citing Solzhenitsyn) as presenting freedom from religion as a foul parchment from Josef’s Stalin totalitarian grimoire. Nevertheless, Stalin (contrary to Petrokowski’s claims), in having no respect for freedom of religion, had no respect for its corollary – freedom from religion – either. Most brazenly, Stalin persecuted religious organisations with one hand while at the same time bringing about a rapprochement between the Russian Orthodox Church (which prior to that had also suffered from extensive persecution at the hands of the Bolsheviks) and the Soviet state for the purpose of providing moral courage to the Soviet people during the Second World War. Subsequently, the Church would become one of many weapons in Stalin’s arsenal of ethnic minority russification, his main means of stamping out nationalistic dissent. During the Khrushchev years, however, the Church suffered another period of persecution which would then be followed by its becoming a complete puppet of the Soviet regime once dissident clergy were dealt with.

With Petrokowski’s blatantly inaccurate cries of “Stalinism!” debunked, we can now examine why – rather than being at odds with each other – freedom of and freedom from religion are so interdependent that one cannot exist without the other. Freedom of religion, essential to any society that is free and pluralistic, requires that all people be free to form their own conclusions about the existence and the nature of the divine and be able to live according to these conclusions to the extent that they are not interfering with the ability of others to do the same. This ideal cannot be achieved when one organisation’s interpretation of God’s will is permitted to trump the ability of others to live freely within or outside the constraints of a different religious creed, especially when no one belief system is anywhere close to holding a monopoly on the Canadian conscience (Even Christianity, whose adherents differ not only on politics and in their level of observance, but also on such fundamental questions as the divinity of Christ, the nature of God, and the role of the Bible, unequivocally fails to meet this criterion.). In other words, by defining God’s will in their own absolutes and attempting to bind dissenters to this dogma, Petrokowski, the CCRL, and other conservative religious political organisations in North America are – save for their smoother words, their nicer suits, and Washington’s ear – little different from the likes of Stalin, the Taliban, or Al Qaeda.

While the aforementioned should be alarming to Canadians who value religious freedom and civil liberties, Petrokowski’s word choice should be even more frightening. His use of “freedom from religion” and “secularism” as code for “government propagation of atheism” or “a society in which religious belief is not allowed to exist” (an infamous ploy of the American religious right) – the least alarming of his Orwellian code words -- is an utter distortion of reality that self-servingly turns the concept of religious freedom on its head. Petrokowski’s scariest image, however, is that of same-sex marriage “storming the Bastille of moral norms” as though the image of liberal, secularist, and proto-socialist French revolutionaries – inspired by the American Revolution -- attacking a fortress and freeing political and religious prisoners were a bad thing. The reality, however, is that the French monarchy was a totalitarian institution supported by the Roman Catholic Church, and that the ideals of the philosophers and the activists who inspired these revolutions form the backbone of modern Western liberal democracy. To imply that these developments were negative is tantamount to insisting that we turn back the clock on the very cornerstone of our Western political tradition. With the stakes this high, it is vital that we seize the political initiative from these reactionary theocrats and continue building a Canada that is free, just, and democratic before we are dragged backwards by our own knuckles.

[Miffed22001]

If we just nuked the vatican and mecca we wouldnt have any problems.

Religion initiates the indoctranation of people who believe uppermost that their lives are worth more than simple existance that is all we can truly portray in the world that we live without an exploration of the mind as in literature and art.
Religion offers an insight to what might be (as poker pros do to fish) yet it provides strength to those who are unable to conceive of the wider picture of what the world is or indeed what the world does by providing clarity and rules.
Indeed your views of the american view of religion are their most telling when we consider the amount of money that passes through its extravagent number of organisations and groups despite its promise to show yuou the way to God.
While i cannot speak of Canada in particular i have read and studied the bible for educational purposes and found the inherant hypocrasy and down right ambigousness of many of its stories that portray the right way to live in the world of god are a stinging reminder to those of us who truly understand the books nature what really happens in our world under the noses of 'believers'.
Indeed its only telling narrative is that it portrays many of the everyday occurences we have today, Moses ethnic clensing of the egyptians as they chased down his people. Can we live by the motto that gods people kill to protect themselves.
Therefore is this why the AMerican war machine trundles along world wide under the satanic guidance of the bible belt and Mr George W Bush.
The first hypocracy of religion is to not understand that it is a form of indoctranation that suggests a way of living life, that may indeed be wrong. Just becasue we cannot disprove does not mean to say that what is preched is true. But then human nature has always been to rule others through some sort of structure so why would the church not wish to do so also, and thus America over Canada.
God does not challenge us everyday to fight our sin, he simply cannot hear us as our true inner selfs are indoctrinated with religious hypocracy.

(did anyone understand that?)

[eeeee]

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BadBeaten rivers a monster against fallangist fuckwits...

I don't understand your topic title, especially in relation to quoted editorial.

Religion initiates the indoctranation of people who believe uppermost that their lives are worth more than simple existance that is all we can truly portray in the world that we live without an exploration of the mind as in literature and art.

I didn't get past this. Paraphrased -- ? -- Religion begins the teaching of only those folks whose highest belief is that their lives are more valuable than a simple life honestly portrayed by us humans because we haven't explored the [human] mind through the arts.