Religion in Canada

[giallo]

Grew up in a non-religious family (extended family was protestant). I identify as non-religious.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

They have no choice if they're going to survive. Traditional Protestant churches have been in serious decline in Canada in recent years, far more than the Catholic church from what I've read.



I can't speak for Islam, but the problem I see with the Catholic church is that it has turned very hard to the right in recent years in Canada and has alienated way too many people who agree with the message of Jesus Christ. I was out of Canada for awhile and moved to Eastern Ontario, and I saw what the future (young people) of the church were. They were obsessed with the technicalities of rules such as avoiding meat on Fridays, promoting elitism and exclusion of those who weren't quite the same as them, promoting the return of Latin to the Mass, and even praying for the abolition of Ottawa's Gay Pride Parade, while avoiding real issues that I think Pope Francis would rather they focus on. Some are also active in opposing Ontario's new sex-ed curriculum. Some liked to draw attention to themselves by making a gaudy spectacle out of receiving Communion during Mass, instead of just receiving it gracefully. It was almost unbearable for a liberal Catholic like myself.

I finally lost it on the homophobe who tried to get me involved in opposing the Ottawa's gay pride parade, and sadly this is what the future of a limited Catholic Church in Canada very well may be - divide and conquer, and alienate the masses. More liberal Catholics like myself don't want to be associated with that part of the church, though fortunately there is a contingent of young Catholics in Toronto who give out food to the homeless. That's something I can get behind.

I see it too. The attitude among Catholics seems to be ''the party's over'' these days. And it's not so much the older Catholics (like my parents and my in-laws) who were much more relaxed, but it's the younger ones who tend to be more devout and conservative.

I went to Catholic school a number of years, and many of my nephews, nieces and kids' friends go to them today. From what I hear it's much more doctrinaire than when I was a kid, when it was more (for lack of a better term) "cafeteria Catholic".

I suspect there are a few reasons for this.

One of them is that when I was a kid, there was a larger ''soft'' Catholic population. People were Catholic by tradition. Because everyone in their family or community was. The presence of these ''softies'' helped keep stuff that was too dogmatic at bay. Now, most of the softies are gone, so the percentage of true believers is higher. And more dogmatic stuff is more palatable to them.

Also, Canada's demographics are changing. The percentage of highly religious people among immigrants is significantly higher than among the Canadian-born population. Some of these immigrants are joining the ranks of the religious communities already present in Canada (think Lebanese, Philippinos, Latin Americans in the Catholic church) and making things more devout. And even if they don't, they still increase the overall religiosity of society via their own religious fervour.

Which is why, in spite of the trends that seem to point otherwise, I see Canada become more religious (not less) in the coming years and decades. Or at the very least, that chunk of the population that is religious will be more devout than it is today. And perhaps more often at odds with the population chunk of non-believers.

[Pinion]

My dad is a typical anti-organized religion socialist aging bay area hippie who was experimenting with Sufism last I heard, my mom would probably call herself Baptist but outside of declaring her love of gospel music, and sometimes meekly defending Christianity in group.discussions, it never comes up.

Both sides are of German descent. My mom's Canadian side of the family is VERY religious (moved to interior BC and Alberta), my dad's American side isn't.

I've been confidently atheist since I was old enough to think about it and married a woman with similar non-beliefs. Our wedding didn't have any mention of religion of any form. We don't feel like a minority or uncomfortable in Vancouver. With the exception of new Muslim immigrants, who are dwarfed by post-revolution secular Iranians, even the religious are very private about it. As long as Chinese continue to outpace all other immigrants I think it will stay this way on the west coast.

My local mall has a haunted house display in the food court with the address "666" on it. I wonder if that would be tolerated elsewhere.

[lio45]

Looking at the poll options, I'm on the fence between "None" and "Other". I'm not yet a Pastafarian in the census...

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Don't they have that type of class in your public schools? You have that in all Quebec schools. It is called Éthique et culture religieuse. It starts in Grade 1 if I recall. It teaches about religions, civics and values. I remember a few years ago my seven year old coming home and talking about Rama and Sita and the Diwali festival of light...

I'm out of the loop on school-related matters, but there used to be a secondary optional course on World Religions

[Acajack]

To follow up on my post, I do see a bit of a collision course in Canada between the believers and the non-believers.

Sadly, the recent events of overt hostility towards religious people will likely continue to occur and may even escalate.

One thing I wanted to mention in the thread about this is that there is some responsibility on the part of authorities for letting such issues fester.

I know people will talk about freedom but freedom is not an open bar. There is such a thing as reasonable accommodation and in that expression you have the word reasonable.

Most rational people won't really care much about any accommodation measure provided it's considered reasonable.

Be they cultural or religious. Your group wants to take over a street on an sunny afternoon every four years during World Cup? No worries. You want to put an eruv wire that no one can see and that delineates the area where your community lives? No sweat.

But when you start saying that you want only male cops to deal with your people, then we have a problem.

And rightly or wrongly, that's the type of stuff that some people are starting to believe is going on here. And aside from the extreme stuff that goes against the criminal code, there is perception that it is not really being addressed satisfactorily and with clarity by authorities.

Which unfortunately leads to incidents involving these yahoos who think they can do whatever they want to people wearing religious dress, because the entire thing has fallen into the ''unreasonable'' universe.

It's kind of like in a hockey game when the referees don't exercise their authority and don't call any penalties and lose control of a game. That's when lots of bad stuff tends to happen.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

I'm out of the loop on school-related matters, but there used to be a secondary optional course on World Religions

In Quebec it's mandatory. Even in private schools (run by religious groups) you have to teach it, and your own religious teaching is an add-on to it. Not a replacement.

[MolsonExport]

Hard core pastafarian here.

[MolsonExport]

Living in London I find the place to be a veritable Jesus-land.
But maybe my view is filtered through the lens of me having grown up in the Mos Eisley of Canada.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

To follow up on my post, I do see a bit of a collision course in Canada between the believers and the non-believers.

Sadly, the recent events of overt hostility towards religious people will likely continue to occur and may even escalate.

One thing I wanted to mention in the thread about this is that there is some responsibility on the part of authorities for letting such issues fester.

I know people will talk about freedom but freedom is not an open bar. There is such a thing as reasonable accommodation and in that expression you have the word reasonable.

Most rational people won't really care much about any accommodation measure provided it's considered reasonable.

Be they cultural or religious. Your group wants to take over a street on an sunny afternoon every four years during World Cup? No worries. You want to put an eruv wire that no one can see and that delineates the area where your community lives? No sweat.

But when you start saying that you want only male cops to deal with your people, then we have a problem.

And rightly or wrongly, that's the type of stuff that some people are starting to believe is going on here. And aside from the extreme stuff that goes against the criminal code, there is perception that it is not really being addressed satisfactorily and with clarity by authorities.

Which unfortunately leads to incidents involving these yahoos who think they can do whatever they want to people wearing religious dress, because the entire thing has fallen into the ''unreasonable'' universe.

It's kind of like in a hockey game when the referees don't exercise their authority and don't call any penalties and lose control of a game. That's when lots of bad stuff tends to happen.

It illustrates the problem of being guided by (ill-informed) public opinion and disregarding the fact that, at least since the Charter and probably since Diefenbaker's Bill of Rights, the legal system is designed to protect the rights of minorities, including against the preferences/dislikes of the majority. The tests of reasonable accommodation are well established in Canadian law and should not bend to popular opinion. In our current situation, I have little doubt that women could be harassed or worse in coming weeks, but to fail to place the blame fully and directly on the perpetrators would be profoundly wrong. As you say, this is something control over which can be lost and I'm very sad to say that one of our politicians (in quite a flip flop from a few years ago) has taken us too close to that tipping point than any of us should be comfortable with.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

It illustrates the problem of being guided by (ill-informed) public opinion and disregarding the fact that, at least since the Charter and probably since Diefenbaker's Bill of Rights, the legal system is designed to protect the rights of minorities, including against the preferences/dislikes of the majority. The tests of reasonable accommodation are well established in Canadian law and should not bend to popular opinion..

I assume (hopefully) that you would consider me to be well-informed and not generally of bad faith. I am not at all an alarmist on this issue and have stated many times before that I don't think Canada has an ''immigrant'' problem. That said there are a number of things that seem worrisome that I think are worth keeping an eye on. I can provide examples as well - I am actually working on a list of them in my mind...

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Living in London I find the place to be a veritable Jesus-land.
But maybe my view is filtered through the lens of me having grown up in the Mos Eisley of Canada.

Hehehehe

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I see it too. The attitude among Catholics seems to be ''the party's over'' these days. And it's not so much the older Catholics (like my parents and my in-laws) who were much more relaxed, but it's the younger ones who tend to be more devout and conservative.

I went to Catholic school a number of years, and many of my nephews, nieces and kids' friends go to them today. From what I hear it's much more doctrinaire than when I was a kid, when it was more (for lack of a better term) "cafeteria Catholic".

I think you've got it right on. One person my age I know laments that the older generation of Catholics in her hometown are strongly opposed to the conservatism of her age group.

The sad thing is that Jesus is never said to have discussed eating meat on the day before the Sabbath, or spoke Latin, or what women should and shouldn't wear, but he was said to have been a rebel against the Jewish establishment. The progressive, anti-establishment nature of Jesus is completely lost on my fellow young Catholics.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

I think you've got it right on. One person my age I know laments that the older generation of Catholics in her hometown are strongly opposed to the conservatism of her age group.

The sad thing is that Jesus is never said to have discussed eating meat on the day before the Sabbath, or spoke Latin, or what women should and shouldn't wear, but he was said to have been a rebel against the Jewish establishment. The progressive, anti-establishment nature of Jesus is completely lost on my fellow young Catholics.

My nephews and nieces come back from school with stuff like ''other religions are make believe, but Jesus is real" or that they've been asked to pray for aborted fetuses... There was a story in the media last year about two kids in an Ottawa Catholic school who had to do a project on discrimination, and they were told they couldn't choose gay rights as a topic. And these are all schools funded from the public purse.

[BlaineN]

I guess I fall into that category I once raised the question 'what if there is no god?' to a couple of Muslim classmates and the discussion quickly turned heated. My point was, if there is no proof of a god or heaven, it might not exist. The fasting at Ramadan, the no drinking of alcohol, the eating only halal, praying 5 times a day etc.. all those things could all be for nothing.

I'm an atheist 100% and don't mind telling people about it, or at least questioning people's religion. Call me evangelical or a twat or whatever. I don't care. People who are religious only follow it because someone told them to, not because god spoke to them or they actually know for sure it exists.

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Indeed, anyone who tries to foist their belief system on others who are not interested in receiving the message, or disparages the belief system of others as opposed to their "true faith", is an obnoxious twat in my book. I've seen examples in the workplace but suspected the issue was less one of religion and more one of mental stability (and invariably a conversion).

[lio45]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Hard core pastafarian here.

Sorry, but you're certainly not "hard core" unless you're wearing a pasta strainer in your Ontario driver's license pic...

[Acajack]

Since it is what started this thread, I have to say that there is a lot of naïveté in much of the analysis I am reading about the Zanera Ishaq (niqab - citizenship) case.

Seems like a lot of people see this as simply a poor girl fighting for her rights, but there is a definitely an agenda. It may not be being driven primarily by her, but certainly there is someone or some people behind this with a greater goal than just getting her her citizenship certificate.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

Sorry, but you're certainly not "hard core" unless you're wearing a pasta strainer in your Ontario driver's license pic...

Et justement...

For all the people on here who support a veiled woman being allowed to take the citizenship oath, how do you feel about all the jokers who want to vote with a ski mask, or a hockey helmet, or even a pasta strainer? Should they be allowed to? If so, why? If not, why not?

I am genuinely interested in hearing your views.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Since it is what started this thread, I have to say that there is a lot of naïveté in much of the analysis I am reading about the Zanera Ishaq (niqab - citizenship) case.

Seems like a lot of people see this as simply a poor girl fighting for her rights, but there is a definitely an agenda. It may not be being driven primarily by her, but certainly there is someone or some people behind this with a greater goal than just getting her her citizenship certificate.

Oooh, a conspiracy! It would be interesting to know who's been paying the legal bills. But I can't make too much of any "agenda", since all they pushed back against is an arbitrary Conservative government position that had no basis in law. It doesn't seem much of a struggle when victory is assured.

[topdog]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Since it is what started this thread, I have to say that there is a lot of naïveté in much of the analysis I am reading about the Zanera Ishaq (niqab - citizenship) case.

Seems like a lot of people see this as simply a poor girl fighting for her rights, but there is a definitely an agenda. It may not be being driven primarily by her, but certainly there is someone or some people behind this with a greater goal than just getting her her citizenship certificate.

It's definitely more than some girl fighting for her rights. There is an agenda on both sides. The conservatives are using the issue to get votes, and of course there are no doubt hardcore Muslims who are helping her cause. Their agenda is simple..help Islam or Muslims in any way possible.

Canadians are generally tolerant and liberal, but there is a growing anti-Muslim sentiment due to all the negative media coverage of Muslims being tied to acts of terrorism. It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out. Mulcaire might be the first casualty of how things are shaking out.