The Canadian Ethos

In early August, the Toronto Star featured a letter whose writer bemoaned his feeling of exclusion from "the Canadian ethos" due to the word God in our national anthem. A follow-up letter from a sympathetic reader was also printed. But no letters such as mine:

Re Canada should become religion neutral (August 6):

I can understand atheist Brian Stewart's feeling of exclusion from "the Canadian ethos" by the words of our anthem "God keep our land glorious and free." I, as an anarchist, also feel left out of that same ethos by the Charter of Rights that speaks of "the rule of law."

The phrase is there because the Charter was written by lawyers. Had it been written by plumbers, it would have read "the rule of plumbing." Frankly, it would not have made any difference to the average Canadian.

My advice to Mr. Stewart is to keep a stiff upper lip, as I do, while we endure the oppression of democracy.

Atheists and their Wannabes

Letter to The Globe and Mail. Unpublished.

Margaret Somerville, McGill University Founding Director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics, and Law, speaks of the passion, actual or staged, of people like Richard Dawkins (The search for shared ethics, Jan 27, 2009). Atheists define themselves by what they do not believe.

But, Dawkins and his wannabes are anti-theists. They define themselves by what they ardently oppose. And what they oppose is the inclusion in the public forum of the beliefs of the majority, people, those people who acknowledge some form of Higher Power in the grand scope of things. As Professor Somerville points out this attempted exclusion is undemocratic.

The legal concept of separation of church and state originated in a distorted interpretation of the First Amendment of the the U.S. Constitution.  The Amendment was designed to protect churches from state interference, from the government creating a state religion. Somewhere along the line, it got contorted into its present configuration.

The fact that this concept is not in accord with Islamic thought poses a problem for the Western world.