Want an easy $30,000? Be an atheist!

In another example of judicial absurdity, a Quebec non-religious person demanded the city council of Saguenay  remove all religious symbols and stop a 20-second prayer in the morning. Alain Simoneau complained to the Human Rights Tribunal, a kangaroo court that routinely persecutes Christians. But it gets weirder.

 

The court not only sided with the atheist, and ordered the city council to remove all religious symbols and to stop prayers, but then the court, for some bizarre reason, told the council to pay this man $30,000! So he didn’t like religious symbols, demanded they be removed, complained, got his way, but they somehow felt he deserved $30,000 on top of that!! What a crazy world we’re living in. How is this even possible!?

 

What “damage” did he suffer from the 20 second prayer? How can anyone in their right mind think this whiner deserves $30,000! I cannot understand this, and any rational atheist shouldn’t be able to either.

 

This kind of judicial absurdity has gone too far. Recently on my other non-religious blog on the subject of freedom, I wrote an article about a woman who was awarded $6000 for simply being asked to wear a bikini top. She didn’t do it, she refused. But yet the court felt she was owed $6000. This makes no sense. If she doesn’t want to work there, she can quit.

 

But to make the Quebec case even worse, the “Human Rights” Tribunal isn’t even a court, it’s a tribunal. Fortunately, the mayor against whom the claim was made, Jean Tremblay, appealed the decision to the Quebec provincial court who ruled in his favour. But now the whole thing is going to the Supreme Court.

 

I actually tend to agree that a city council should be neutral in the area of religion. But I also think the public sector should be much smaller to make such matters mostly irrelevant. What happens on private property in terms of religion is of no concern to the government. But that’s a topic for another day. The problem with having religion at a political level is the government uses force, whereas the private sector uses voluntary interactions. Plus I believe in the separation of church and state.

 

Having said that, not everything that happens in government has to do with force. If an individual politician wants to recite a prayer at an event, people can choose whether or not they participate. There can be rules around it and others can be free to say their own prayers.

 

The big problem I have in this case is that they believe an atheist deserves $30,000 just for making a complaint. The legal system should be used to restore people to their status before something criminal happened. He could claim, for instance, he was forced to participate in prayer for several years. This would probably be an absurd claim unless there was some statute written saying if a politician doesn’t participate they are fired or something, which I highly doubt. But just for argument sake, say he felt coerced. Well, they could compensate him for 20 seconds per day for probably 150 days per year. That’s 50 minutes per year. So over three years, 150 minutes. Assume he makes $40 per hour, that’s $100. That would make sense, but $30,000?

 

They’re saying that he is owed around $12,000 for every HOUR that he had to sit through the “torture” of hearing a few people say a quick prayer. Does anyone think this sounds right? This is assuming he was forced, but how would we define “force”? Did people forcibly lift him up and take his arm and make him make the sign of the cross? Of course not. He could have just sat there, he probably could have listened to headphones, etc.

 

Human Rights Tribunals have made a mockery of justice. No one deserves to be massively rewarded for a minor inconvenience. Hopefully the Supreme Court agrees and throws out the absurd case.

 

Plus what about everyone else’s rights? I was in a workplace one time where everyone took turns mocking Christianity, declaring their opposition to it, etc. As a Catholic, I did not enjoy being in that environment, but did I sue anyone? Could I sue anyone? Probably not. In the history of most human rights tribunals in Canada, there hasn’t been a single case brought forth because of persecution of a Christian, at least none that have been allowed. However, Christians have often been the victims of these illegitimate farces.

 

====UPDATE====

 

I was writing this article throughout the day today, and I just received word that the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously rejected prayer in the city council chambers. But they also said the plaintiff must be paid $33,200, which is even more than before. I also learned that the mayor had given the option to not attend the first minute or two of meetings where prayers took place if someone didn’t want to. So the plaintiff could have just stayed out of the room and there wouldn’t be a problem.

 

But no, that wasn’t good enough, the mayor had to be punished to the tune of $33,200. This is completely outrageous! I don’t think this is even the mayor’s own money, this is taxpayers’ money and it’s going to some whiney brat looking for a payday? And it’s not as though Quebec and Catholicism are completely unrelated. Catholicism basically founded Quebec. I’m amazed at the street and city names found in Quebec. Almost every one is of a saint, often very obscure ones. Their Catholic heritage cannot be denied!

 

But of course, in our new modern world, Christians are to be treated the most harshly and given the fewest rights. Hopefully Canada will change this path that it’s on!

 

 

Rest in Peace Cardinal Turcotte

The archbishop of Montreal died today after suffering from health issues related to diabetes. He was 78 years old. Turcotte served as archbishop of the city for 22 years from 1990 until 2012 when he reached the maximum age for a cardinal of 75 years. He became a cardinal in 1994 at the age of 57.

 

Strong Opponent of Abortion

Turcotte was a stalwart opponent of abortion, so much so that he gave back his Order of Canada when the same recognition was given to promoter of child-killing Henry Morgentaler.

 

When speaking with CBC, he said "I'm worried about how we treat life, from conception to death, " he said "I decided to take a stance that clearly reflects my convictions."

 

This is a great and clear way to speak about the horrors and evils of abortion. Giving back his award probably had a much greater impact on the public than actually receiving it. It also makes perfect sense. If Turcotte received an award for his humanitarian work, this medal is nothing but a huge hypocrisy if it is also given to someone responsible for millions of deaths of society’s most vulnerable and innocent.

 

He was the kind of voice Canada needed and continues to need. Rest in Peace Great Cardinal Turcotte!

 

We Love You But....

In another twisted tale involving sperm donors and other unnatural and immoral reproduction methods, a lesbian couple is suing an American company who claimed the sperm donor was a healthy man with a master’s degree, but was in fact a man with schizophrenia who was a college dropout. So now the couple is suing the company who provided the sperm because of this false information. It’s the company’s fault though right? Wrong. It’s the fault of people who want to play God. We were never designed as human beings to anonymously put together reproductive cells without ever meeting. This is just wrong on so many levels.

 

First you are treating an unborn child like a commodity, ordering sperm cells through a company and never meeting the actual father. There is no act of love from which this child is conceived, but rather masked lab technicians prepare egg and sperm in petri dishes. A child, rather than being conceived in the embrace of loving parents, is manufactured at the hands of a stranger in a brightly lit laboratory surrounded by chemicals and latex gloves. The parents in this case do not even know each other. The child, rather than being the result of a loving union is the result of being fused together in a laboratory by a scientist. There is no love, only a financial transaction.

 

If this child is eventually implanted into the womb of a woman and is eventually born, he will be one of the lucky ones. Many others, probably most, are either destroyed or left in an indefinite frozen limbo.

 

These stories are now a dime-a-dozen. There are stories of “parents” suing sperm banks because their child didn’t live up to their expectations. Can you imagine a child growing up knowing he was not only manufactured by a stranger using the sperm of a father he’ll never know, but that the mother was upset with her purchase and sued the laboratory that manufactured him because he wasn’t up to her expectations. Think this kid might possibly have issues?

 

For all the disturbing details, check out the article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sperm-bank-allegedly-gives-couple-wrong-donor-info-1.3022603

 

 

Good Friday Pro-life March 2015 St. John's NL

Today at 9:30am a group of committed pro-lifers in St. John’s NL gathered at the Health Sciences Centre as they’ve done for close to 40 years to protest the evil of abortion. Not only is abortion legal in Newfoundland, it’s funded by taxpayers (often against their will). We walked around the parking lot about 5 or 6 times. After the walk, we gathered to sing hymns and to pray.

 

It was a great event. The theme was that all life is valuable and that this must remain the case. Otherwise, our respect for life slips away gradually until eventually human life is trivial and no longer sacred. Christ gave his life for us, and we should respect all human life.

 

Of course at this event also was the ever-expanding group of pro-abortionists who yelled and screamed nonsensical chants. This might sound like a biased opinion, but let’s review some of the chants that were offered. Keep in mind, this group had an entire year to formulate new chants. This is the best they could come up with:

 

Keep your rosaries off our ovaries!

I don’t recall any pro-lifers attempting to somehow apply rosary beads to anyone’s ovaries. Okay, maybe they mean it figuratively. But again, the pro-life movement doesn’t concern itself with saving women’s ovaries. Generally pro-lifers are opposed to bodily mutilation, but that’s a personal choice. What we are concerned with is the unborn child. Again, let’s be generous and assume the rosary beads to which the abortion advocates are referring is morality? Yes, our moral system says it is wrong to kill a child. I don’t think this is unreasonable.

 

This is what democracy looks like – that is what hypocrisy looks like!

According to pro-abortionists, their support for abortion is an exercise in democracy, while our support of not killing babies in the womb is hypocritical. I suppose democracy and hypocrisy rhyme, but other than that this makes very little sense. What even is democracy in the first place? It’s the rule of the populace. People vote for policies they favour. Pro-abortionists favour taxpayer funded abortion, while pro-lifers favor making killing unborn children illegal. I’m not quite sure how it’s hypocritical to oppose abortion. Wouldn’t hypocrisy be seen on a case-by-case basis. It would be hypocritical maybe for someone to perform abortions then rally to end it. But that’s not what’s happening here.

 

Get your theology off our biology!

Another nonsensical rallying cry of the pro-abortion movement. I’m assuming by this they mean something similar to the aforementioned slogan about keeping our rosaries off their ovaries. You’ll notice Catholics don’t campaign to end the practice of people eating meat on Good Friday or to force everyone to go to Mass each week even though these are theological issues. The reason Catholics protest abortion is because of our belief that life begins at conception and therefore an abortion kills a child. Writing off the protest as nothing but a theological concern is disingenuous. And again, we are not concerned with their “biology”, we are concerned with the human life involved. If a Catholic group protested murder or rape, would this also be called a “theological” objection that has no place in the public square. Plus, theology is the study of God. But even atheists can and do oppose abortion. So again, this chant is absurd.

 

Clearly the pro-abortion movement does not rely on logic or reason to put their points across. They rely completely on emotion, acting as if they are victims of religious oppression. Logically they don’t have a leg to stand on which is why over and over you see groups in universities forcefully disallowing debates on life to even take place.

 

Another point I would like to address about our pro-life demonstration is the schism that has taken place. While one group of pro-lifers is walking around the health sciences parking lot, another large group attends a pro-life ecumenical service at a church. While both may have value, I believe we should present a united front. The ecumenical church gathering should take place before or after the walk so people can attend both. The more people who walk around the health sciences parking lot, the better. It is a more effective witness.

 

Some people believe the ecumenical service is specifically scheduled to coincide with the march in order to replace it. If this is true, this is a truly sad situation. Once enough people join the walk, it will reach a critical mass and more and more new people will come on board. At some point we could influence the law.

 

Let’s hope for the continued success of the Good Friday Pro-Life March!

What the Terrible Tragedy in France Reminds Us Of

147 people were killed today when their plane crashed in the French alps. They were headed from Barcelona, Spain to Dusseldorf, Germany.  It’s a very tragic and sad story. My heart goes out to the victims and their families. We always hear that air travel is safe, and generally it is the safest method of travel. But usually when a plane crashes, the consequences are very serious. None of those people thought they would die today. There are thousands of flights each day, and statistics overwhelmingly tell us we’ll survive. But then a tragedy like this happens. What it shows is the impermanence of life. It can be snuffed out in an instant without warning.

 

We need to be ready at all times. I especially need to remind myself of this. Death could be just around the corner and the stakes are so high there is no time for fooling around. I was watching a show the other day about a lady who was in bed asleep and a psychopath broke into her house and murdered her. There was no rhyme or reason for the attack. She couldn’t have anticipated it. The stakes for death are so high because of hell. If it were the case that when we die we just rot in the earth, then fine you can do whatever you like. It won’t matter in the long run. But if you could potentially spend an eternity in hell, then the risk is so unbelievably high, it would make absolutely no sense to ever take that chance, no matter how remote.

 

Think of it statistically. I remember an idea about expected value. Basically it went like this: A 10% chance of winning $1000 is the same as a 50% chance of winning $200. Both have an expected value of $100. When it comes to hell, the stakes are infinite, i.e. an eternity in hell. So even if you have only a 0.000000001% chance of dying in a particular day, when you multiply this by infinity, the results are still infinitely bad. Therefore we should always strive to be in a state of grace.

 

It reminds me of Pascale’s wager. He basically said there are four possibilities. Either you act morally good or you don’t. Then with each of these hell either exists or it doesn’t. If hell exists and you act morally you go to heaven, but if you don’t act morally you go to hell. If hell doesn’t exist and you act morally, you rot in the ground, which is the same result if you don’t act morally. So in one out of four of these possibilities, you end up in heaven, one you end up in hell, and two you rot in the ground. The point Pascale goes on to make is that you’re better off living a moral life on the possibility that hell could exist than risking that it doesn’t. Even if you are an ardent atheist, even the slightest possibility that hell exists should motivate any person to act morally.

 

Many people talk about the end of the world, but really what we should be concerned about is our end. Whether we die before the world ends or we die as a result of the world ending is really immaterial to the question of our ultimate salvation. Also, as an addition to Pascale’s Wager, you can choose to either believe everyone goes to heaven or you can believe it’s very hard to get to heaven. Statistically speaking you’re much better off believing it is difficult to enter heaven than not. You won’t lose anything in the end by following the stricter morality. This is what always boggles my mind about preachers who try to soft-peddle the last four things (death, judgment, heaven, hell). Are they really prepared to put all their money on the possibility that it’s easy to get to heaven? What if they’re wrong? In their moral code, is it possible to be “too” strict and thus be prevented from entering the Kingdom of God? As if God says “Sorry you were too humble… you were too patient.” How absurd! Maybe they believe that by saying you could never go to hell, that makes it the truth? I really see no logic in this way of thinking. Again, you’re better off being “too” holy than not enough.

 

I think in light of a tragedy like the one in France, we should be on our guard as Jesus Christ warns.