Category Archives: CFI

Do religious symbols matter?

Atheism, CFI, Religion, Secularism

Coming up this Saturday I’ve offered to moderate a CFI Cafe Inquiry at Harbour Centre on the topic of whether or not religious symbols in public matter.

I’m going to use this post to get my thoughts in order for Saturday, so if you don’t want a spoiler, don’t read the following until after.

This topic is especially topical for myself as this morning I got a call from one of the Wardens from the Corporation of the Seven Wardens – the group that oversees the Iron Ring Ceremony.

First some history. The Iron Ring is a ceremony dating to 1922 for engineering graduates in Canada that symbolizes their commitment to upholding the high standards required of their profession (as in we want bridges that don’t fall down). The process to obtain a ring (upon successful graduation) begins with signing an obligation which features the following lines:

…I will henceforth, not suffer or pass, or be privy to the passing of, Bad Workmanship or Faulty Material in aught that concerns my works before mankind as an Engineer, or in my dealings with my own Soul before my Maker.

…Upon Honour and Cold Iron, God helping me, by these things I propose to abide. [emphasis mine]

In the spring of 2009, I requested the option to strike the words “God helping me” from the obligation. When my request was turned down, I walked away from the Iron Ring. I soon typed a letter about the ceremony and forwarded it to the Corporation and various engineering bodies (including the UofA Engineering Faculty of Engineering who promotes the Iron Ring and provides space for sizings and APEGGA – Alberta’s engineering professional association). The letter made the rounds and the Corporation discussed it at a meeting last October but then I didn’t hear any more from them.

Then this morning, I got an update. The delay was no one’s fault (a medical issue), but I did get some good information. The Warden admitted that adjustments have been made to the obligation in the past (about a decade ago), mostly to respect women in engineering by moving to gender-neutral terminology. And while it didn’t sound like change was planned, the issue will be discussed at their upcoming plenary meeting.

He also stated that the only other time it has really been brought up was when a pair of Muslims objected. Their complaint was withdrawn when they agreed to interpret the God of the obligation (likely Kipling’s Freemason deistic God) as Allah.

I guess the only reason I was privy to a return call after these months was how impressed the Wardens were with my letter and approach to the situation. I guess there is still something to be said for a rational, well-worded letter in some instances.

So, getting back to the topic at hand, why does this symbol, and ones like it, matter? And, perhaps more importantly, is this something that atheists should get up in arms (note: “fundamentalist” atheists are prone to write books when they’re angry, as opposed to some other worldviews) about?

Obviously, given my history, my answer is yes.

My general response is that the invocation of religious language actively alienates a portion of the population. This portion is as high as 1-in-3 among young-adult Canadians (those who would be convocating or earning Iron Rings).

Events like convocation from a university degree, singing the national anthem, or earning an Iron Ring are cultural rituals. The point of these rituals is to unite people and develop a sense of community. While using religious language can strengthen that connection between theists, it prompts reactions from rolling eyes to righteous indignation in non-theists.

Another issue I noticed while attending my fiancées recent convocation, as the Chancellor used her opening invocation to give a little prayer to “our Creator” (perhaps to spite His reduced role later in the ceremony), was that religious language devalues the effort and hard-work of the people who have earned their degrees, rings, or founded this nation. By focussing on the supernatural, we neglect the natural.

I understand that we are supposed to feel humbled by the good graces that are bestowed upon us from up high (whether it be God, the universe, or even just our elders), but in ceremonies that are meant to honour achievements, shouldn’t the focus be on those who have made the achievements?

Some will want to share their moment, and recognizing friends, family, and other support networks, and that’s fine – but it’s worth recognizing that not everyone has the same networks. Some are religious, other are not. By presuming the religiosity of the audience and attendees, those in charge of the ceremony belittling the accomplishments of those who aren’t religious.

Now, what about atheists who just aren’t bothered by God in ceremonies and speeches? The live-and-let-live apatheist type.

For them, at very least, parts of the ceremony or anthem are of little to no value to them – and are therefore a waste of time to repeat.

But more importantly, it’s worth recognizing that members of the Religious Right utilize religious language in public ceremonies as an argument for more public pronouncements of faith, or for scripturally-inspired laws.

Should Canada ban abortions? It says God in the anthem and charter, so Canada must be a Christian Nation, which ought to follow Christian laws.

Finally, on a purely strategic note, going after these symbols nearly always gets press attention, and if utilized properly, can be very positive for a group. The media still loves the God debate and atheists fighting to kill God gets attention. The UofA’s convocation charge received national media coverage both when it was initially brought up, and when the changes were finally approved (convocating last, I chose not to release a statement as I crossed the stage).

With all of that said, I think there are a lot of challenges out there for secularists and atheists. We each have interests and cares, and many campaigns only take a few people (but showing your support for such movements helps) to at least bring attention to the offending language. I can understand the desire not to take on some long established symbols, but in other cases, like the Iron Ring, I could not sign the obligation without violating the very intent of the document.

Symbols are important, but only so long as they are still applicable to the communities they represent. Values progress and change, and our ceremonies and rituals ought to reflect that progression.

CFI Ontario – now with free parking!

Atheism, CFI, Links, Religion, Secularism

Apparently the easiest way to get out of a parking ticket in Toronto now is to claim you were with a religious group at a worship service.

I guess the best way to see if this law is truly discriminatory or not is for humanists meeting at the Centre For Inquiry Ontario (just blocks from the University of Toronto campus) is to try to get parking exemptions.

Parking fines either apply universally (people can walk/ride/transit to church) or they don’t apply to anyone.

What’s the point of a law if you just give exemptions left, right and centre?

(h/t Friendly Atheist)

Time for non-religious enterprises?

Atheism, CFI, Charity, Companies, Humanism, Secularism, Vancouver

I had an idea today. Like most ideas, it’s not original, and builds a lot on work that others have done, but it’s one that hasn’t been applied within the freethought movement yet, to my knowledge (at least in Canada).

The idea is, as I’ve now learned, based off the growing social enterprise movement which seeks to have companies run for financial, social and environmental gain – the triple bottom line. In many cases the corporation is actually a non-profit or charitable organization which runs a business to fund its work and expansion. A highly successful model of this sort of idea is the Salvation Army’s Thrift Stores which finance much of their missionary and religious work.

So the idea that I had today was sparked by a desire within the Vancouver skeptical/freethought community to have a place of our own, that is a venue where we can routinely host out discussions, meetings and set up an office or two.

Currently CFI Vancouver meets sporadically in cheap or free spaces that are provided by campus groups or rented at reduced rates (through its charitable status) and the BC Humanist Association meets weekly at the Oakridge Senior’s Centre through a deal they have there.

CFI is committed to seeing something more permanent in the next few years be established and while the Senior’s Centre is a great venue for the BCHA, there is the justified concern both inside and outside the organization that the word “senior” in the venue’s name is a deterrent.

So the idea I had was that these organizations ought to found a coffee shop/cafe, which during regular hours can be open to the public for coffee, cookies, and what-have you, with an extra influence of humanism and skepticism present (such as a resource library for the curious and some science-inspired artwork or something). Then, during evenings, weekends, or whenever it is needed, the shop can close up, move the tables aside (or not) and serve as a meeting venue for the invested groups.

There’s a few bonuses in this format. First, the coffee shop serves as an advertisement and fundraiser for the associated charities. Second, the venue would accommodate the majority of the events being held (the larger lectures and debates will always require large campus lecture halls), and would have coffee and snacks available, and could even be potentially licensed.

The drawbacks are the large initial investment required (likely a few $100,000 which none of these organizations have), and the requirement that someone will actually have to manage the business end of things.

However, with a strong business plan and the right people, it should be possible to raise the requisite funds via government grants, personal donations, and loans if necessary.

It’s also worth noting that under Vancouver’s basic commercial zoning laws [pdf], most of these types of spaces can be used for the categories of cultural and recreational (including clubs and community centres), institutional (schools), offices, retail and services. So there should be no difficulty with this portion.

Now, who has some entrepreneurial experience and wants to get this started?

What’s wrong with wanting a community?

Atheism, CFI, Humanism, Media

Take this as a review of a review.

I liked most of Tom Flynn’s review of Greg Epstein’s Good Without God in February/March’s Free Inquiry, but some of it was hypocritical, name-calling nonsense.

First the good:

Greg M. Epstein is the humanist chaplain of Harvard University and, let’s be frank, a young man on the make. He’s an empire builder, a visionary, a charismatic ambassador.

Well that’s a great endorsement of Mr. Epstein. Let’s hear some more:

He’s on the cusp of taking religious humanism by storm, establishing himself as just the sort of driving figure this particular humanist tribe has long hungered for. (emphasis added)

Wait… religious humanism? Right from the start, Flynn starts by defining Epstein in terms of something other than Free Inquiry’s own brand of secular humanism. But let’s look at some more good stuff before we get into this discussion:

Good without God is friendly, accessible, engaging, breezy when it needs to be, and written more like a rollicking business or how-to book than a typical humanist tome. In other words, it’s the sort of thing that twenty-first-century people just growing curious about religious humanism might read.

But there he goes poisoning the well again by throwing that “religious” word in (he actually uses it once more in that paragraph and emphasizes that Epstein capitalizes the H in Humanism).

So what is Flynn talking about, he finally defines religious humanism about halfway through his review, after using the phrase ten times:

Before I go further, I should attempt to define that amorphous phrase “religious humanism.” Religious humanists are first of all humanists – they attach primary moral and aesthetic interest to human concerns as opposed to those of supposed supernatural beings. Nonetheless, in various ways that don’t always travel together, religious humanists approach their lifestance in a manner that’s distinctively religious. [sic] I have defined religion as a “life stance that includes at minimum a belief in the existence and fundamental importance of a realm transcending that of ordinary experience.”

He goes on to claim that religious humanists demand faith – “assent less than fully compelled by the evidence in hand.” And while Epstein does use phrasing and is more willing to reach out to the liberal religions, he is by no means espousing blind faith in the supernatural. In regards to God, Epstein has the following to say (on pages 12 and 13-14 respectively):

Those who want to convince us that there is a God, and that a certain religion has access to eternal truth, should be expected – just as Humanists should be – to produce serious, credible, testable evidence in support of their claims.

[In response to his question, what do you believe about God?] Here is the Humanist answer: we believe that God is the most important, influential literary character human beings have ever created.

But Flynn isn’t content to pigeon-hole just the faith-based and “spiritual” humanists into his religious humanist slur, he also says,

Another branch of this tribe has no visible attachment to extra-evidential beliefs; these religious humanists are simply enthusiasts for the sort of congregational community life that many traditional believers (not only Christians) experience in more traditional church, temple, or mosque settings.

Flynn, not seeing the hypocrisy in calling declaring himself a secular humanist while participating heavily in the Centre For Inquiry and acting as editor for Free Inquiry – a Humanist organization and a Humanist magazine. He labels Epstein religious for founding communities, yet remains blind to the congregations he has surrounded himself with. CFI is no less of a church than anything that Epstein has been working toward.

Flynn also thinks many secular humanists will disagree with Epstein’s quote “myth doesn’t always need to be a dirty word for the nonreligious.” Well, I have to strongly agree with Epstein, so long as you understand the definition of myth which generally refers to a traditional story told within a community. It can be true or false, and can be seen as such. Santa Claus has become a secular myth that many atheists have no problem telling their children, who later figure out that not all stories are true.

Epstein never states that all Humanists need to attend “Humanist church” or accept “Humanist dogma.” Flynn poisons the discussion of this book, which he still highly recommends (as do I), by inventing a division between so-called religious and secular humanists.

There is a demand for a communal setting for like-minded people, it’s part of why religion has done so well over human history, even secular humanists are organizing for semi-regular meetings.

Let’s save the phrase “religious humanism” for those humanists who remain part of religious congregations, the Unitarians and some United Church members, and reject Flynn’s mischaracterization of Epstein, a man who just happened to put a friendlier, modern face on what was, until recently, a dyeing ideology.

CFI Canada National Conference day 2

Atheism, CFI

Yesterday was a pretty good day. It started rough with my mind being off for the entire first talk, which is okay, because the talk was by a pseudo-archaeologist who continually used the word “paradigm” and talked about how the “establishments” was keeping him down.

Most of the talks seemed to run a bit long, which cut some of the discussions off. There were still interesting talks on art and science and philosophy later. I hadn’t considered the morality argument that we must have a secular moral standard to choose whether God or Satan is more moral than the other.

I also discovered that Christopher DiCarlo is one of the best speakers on the Canadian roster. We’re definitely going to try to get him out to Vancouver soon.

After the conference events I got to have dinner with DiCarlo and CFI Transnational president Ron Lindsay, which was a good experience. After which we caught the tail end of the skeptics magic show.

We then drank a bunch of beers and gossiped before I headed back to my hostel.

Unfortunately I wasn’t alone last night as a gentlemen occupied the top bunk when I got back to the hostel. He also smelled and snored. But he did leave for a flight at 4am so I did get some sleep to myself.

This morning I got pancakes for free and walked along Yonge Street before dropping in for the end of the Canadian Secular Alliance meeting. I just finished lunch and now this afternoon promises to be interesting with the CFI Annual General Meeting and Board Meeting.

My flight out is tomorrow morning at 7am and lands at 9am, so I may be able to make my 10:30 am class.

CFI Canada National Conference begins

Atheism, CFI, Personal

I’m in Toronto for the first ever Centre for Inquiry national conference. I had to get up at 4 am in Vancouver yesterday to catch a flight out at 7 and had 15 minutes to change planes in Calgary and arrived around 4 in the afternoon local time.

Yesterday consisted of a few panels, one of which I was supposed to chair (but unfortunately I was up in the air (hey, that was a good movie (hey, nested brackets are fun))), followed by a banquet and small rewards ceremony. I was nominated for the first every Justin Trottier award, but lost to the worthy Derek Rodgers. The day ended with an atheist comedy line-up, hosted by sometimes Video On Trial comic Hunter Collins. After the programming we polished off the remaining beer from the banquet and then I checked into my hostel late into the night.

The Global Backpackers Hostel where I’m staying is actually pretty nice (and dirt cheap), especially since I got a twin room with no roommate and a view of the CN Tower.

Today’s focus is the freethought intersection between art and science, which hopes to be interesting.

My biggest complaint so far: awful small text powerpoints. Most of the presenters haven’t used slides, but so far we’re 2 for 2 that I’ve seen where there’s no use sitting behind the third row because you won’t be able to read the screen. Oh yeah, and Tim Horton’s in Ontario don’t take debit.

Nevertheless, great people and great weather, but it is still Toronto.

In the news

Anti-choice, Atheism, BC, CFI, Creationism, Free speech, Links, Media, NDP, Religion, Scepticism

A few quick stories of note recently:

  • A whooping cough outbreak is occurring in the BC West Kootenay region because woo-woo parents think vaccines are evil and now their children are at risk of dying. And some people ask what’s the harm in letting people believe in alternative medicine.
  • Speaking of unfounded woo, NDP MP Denise Savoie has claimed that evil “toxins” are to blame for NDP Leader Jack Layton’s recently diagnosed prostate cancer. Throw out the fact she doesn’t state what specific toxins cause cancer and implies all chemicals are evil. Perhaps cancer is more frequent now because we’re living longer and are better at detecting it.
  • Further to the Jack Layton story, it’s commendable to see everyone setting aside partisanship to wish him the best for a speedy recovery.
  • The BC Civil Liberties Association is rightly backing the right of University of Victoria’s Your Protecting Youth pro-life student group. While I disagree with the groups stance, they do have a right to exist and organize and pushing them aside is the wrong thing to do. If the group crosses the lines of civil discourse and propagates falsehoods, then there may be a case for disbanding them, but the same ought to apply to any and all campus groups.
  • The Kamloops Atheists report that the local “Daily News” paper refused to publish any atheist material in their religion page since “the rest of the paper was for atheist material.” They subsequently didn’t publish the request article anywhere in the paper. Further they note that the Kamloops Christian School is teaching Biblical Creationism with equal time to the “theory” of evolution.
  • Finally, to end on a positive note, the Centre for Inquiry Vancouver has just hired Radio Freethinker co-host Ethan Clow as their new Executive Director, making him the third paid CFI employee in Canada. I look forward to see continued success for CFI and wish Ethan the best of luck. Further to that, I’ve accepted a position as CFI Canada’s Campus Outreach Director, and hope to continue the success of the dozens of student groups across the country.

Small steps

CFI, Humanism, Secularism

About 3 months ago I posted my criticisms about the leadership of CFI Canada. A little debate ensued and then the issue essentially died as I ran into school and focussed less on it.

In mid-October Justin Trottier issued his formal response on behalf of CFI Canada, by means of his blog ironically (considering it isn’t CFI affiliated, but I’ll admit the optics are better putting it there than on the front page of http://cficanada.ca).

The best news out of this is the following (long overdue, but that’s Canada’s system of red-tape):

As proof of how far we have come, I am pleased to announce the Centre for Inquiry is now a charitable organization in Canada and ready to issue tax receipts.

He also removed his blog postings from his Facebook profile, which further separates CFI from his men’s rights views.

Unfortunately, my concerns about the democratic nature are left unaddressed, however, it’s well worth noting that each CFI branch in Canada tends to operate as a self-directed organization. This means that CFI Vancouver (or Calgary or Montreal) almost entirely run themselves, and have access to the resources of the CFI umbrella.

CFIs board remains unelected, and I see that remaining as is for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile Humanist Canada’s elected board has undergone some internal strife recently that culminated in the resignation of board president Pat O’Brien (who spoke at the BC Humanist board meeting a couple weeks ago). I’ll avoid the gossipy details since I didn’t take notes.

Humanist Canada has kept an elected board for years, however, with declining active membership, their board essentially becomes election by acclamation (which is hardly different then appointments anyway).

In the new year I’ll likely be actively involved in both Humanist Canada and CFI Canada, and advocating for greater cooperation between both groups for the good of freethought in Canada.

Gimme’ some of that old time anti-theism

Atheism, BC, CFI, Humanism, Vancouver

This morning I decided to make the commute to the weekly Sunday morning BC Humanist meeting in Vancouver, mainly helped by the fact the time change made getting up on a Sunday less of a chore.

I had met with the Secular Humanists in Calgary a long time ago, and was expecting a similar dynamic of older-aged, don’t-rock-the-boat style humanists.

Unfortunately, I was again the junior of most of the members by at least 20 years, and in most cases 30-50 years (one member had a granddaughter that’s my age). Nevertheless, this group still had lots of energy. The discussions were lively, and next week they plan to discuss the friendly vs. offensive atheism stances.

The meeting was fairly well organized, with a couple of leaders who saw that it ran smoothly from the catching-up gossip of the first half to a viewing of a clip from the Dawkins: Genius of Darwin Uncut Interviews. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and weren’t able to have a post-video discussion, which frustrated a few people.

I also sensed there was some discontent with the BCHA board, who for the most part weren’t in attendance. But I can’t really comment on this at all since I don’t know their internal dynamics.

They did let me know that they had tried to contact CFI Vancouver, but hadn’t heard a response so hopefully that can all be sorted out.

They also currently don’t have any registered Humanist Officiants in BC, since a few years ago they decided not to go with the religious officiant label that the BC government would require (otherwise they are just plain old marriage commissioners – which have less freedom in their ceremonies).

I will say that they were all very friendly and were definitely glad to have a newcomer to their meetings. Humanist associations have a lot of history and are well established in Canada. They’ve had charitable status for a number of years (something recently attained by CFI after much hard work) and are generally positive in outlook. Unfortunately, many humanist organizations have stagnated and failed to attract new and younger members, causing some (like in Edmonton) to vanish entirely.

So for the time being I think I’ll attend the odd BCHA event and try to encourage a few more people to come – there’s a lot of experience in these groups and it can help to sometimes no have to reinvent the wheel.

Tomorrow’s Blasphemy Day!

Atheism, CFI, Free speech, Media, Religion, Secularism

I’ve only been half paying attention to CFI’s latest publicity stunt with “Blasphemy Day International 2009” that goes off tomorrow, but I do like this Christian Post article summarizing it.

They summarize it fairly objectively, and then go into the best part, “How should Christians respond?”

First, take no offense. Refuse to play into the game plan of those sponsoring International Blasphemy Day. The Lord Jesus Christ was and is despised and rejected of men. Our Lord bore the scorn heaped upon him by his enemies. Christianity is not an honor religion. Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are not commanded to defend his honor, but to be willing to share in the scorn directed to him. Is the servant greater than his master?

Of course, you’ve sponsored it by posting a big article on your website. Nevertheless, they’re right that if they ignore it, it will probably just go away.

Islam is an honor religion, and the major forces in the world today seeking to criminalize blasphemy are Islamic. The riots on the streets of many nations in protest of the Danish cartoons do represent what faithful Muslims believe their religion requires them to do. Not so for Christianity. We must be those who take to the streets with the Gospel – not with a defense of our honor or the honor of our Lord. When Christians forget this, we lose our Gospel witness. The history of the church includes far too many instances of this loss. We dare not add another.

Good advice again, keep the Bibles away lest you look like intolerant jerks (which he actually admits they have).

Second, mourn the blasphemy. The warning of Jesus is clear – blasphemy has eternal consequences. The worst form of blasphemy is the refusal to hear and believe the Gospel. For that sin there can be no forgiveness. We must mourn the blasphemy, not because honor is at stake, but because souls are at stake with eternal consequences. God will ultimately and perfectly defend his honor. On that day, there will be no escape for unrepentant blasphemers.

Stay home and pray for us. Maybe it’ll work…

Third, see this observance for what it really is – an unintended testimony to the existence of God and the foolishness of those who deny Him. The sheer foolishness of a blasphemy contest with t-shirts and mugs betrays the lunacy of it all. They can do no better than this? One testimony to the power of God is the fact that his self-declared enemies come off as so childish and manic. The heathen rage and God sees the foolish grasshoppers.

Seriously? You’re using the fact we’re saying “Fuck God, he doesn’t exist” as proof He exists? I can say “Fuck the Care Bears” but it doesn’t make them more real. The reason a day like this is necessary is because people are still being killed in the twenty-first century for having the galls to say there’s no God in the wrong place. This doesn’t prove God, it merely proves human insanity. I do agree that the t-shirt/mug contest is pretty silly, but at least it got your attention (marches aren’t as good as they used to be). And as for the childish and manic ones:

International Blasphemy Day will come and go. Take note, ponder its meaning . . . and skip the t-shirt.

I’m not too concerned about blasphemy rights in Canada, we’re doing pretty okay (despite the hate mongers who want the right to discriminate). But it did become illegal in Ireland recently, and supposedly secular Europe is having its fair share of issues recently.