Well good, you might be thinking, serves him right for being an atheist. The atheist in question, Pete the Atheist, has persuaded Secular Ontario – I’m sure they didn’t need much persuading – to sue Grey County council for $5000 to soothe his excluded, rejected, anguished ego and restore his “enjoyment of life.” It’s well known that recitation of the Lord’s Prayer has been cutting a swathe of excruciating angst through its hearers for centuries: it’s time someone put a stop to it.
As he points out:
He said councillors are infringing upon his Charter right to freedom of conscience and religion, referencing a 1999 Ontario Court of Appeal decision that ordered the town council in Penetanguishene to stop reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
“I don’t like politicians who break the law, and our county council is breaking the law,” said Mr. Ferguson Tuesday from his home in Kimberley — one of nine municipalities within Grey County. He said if he wins the case, he’ll donate the $5,000 to Canadian Civil Liberties Education Trust.
“I don’t really care about religion that much, I care about the law. I care about being fair.”
So it’s a matter of the Law. But as one of Pete the Atheist’s probable heroes, Sam Harris has pointed out in his book Free Will, the councillors had no choice but to recite the Lord’s Prayer. What appears to be choice is actually rigid determinism disguised as choice: their chemicals made them do it. They were not responsible, so there is no point in punishing them.
As a corollary, Pete the Atheist has not chosen to be an atheist because if he is right, according to Sam Harris – and I agree with Harris on this – there is no such thing as choosing.
Thus, if Pete the Atheist’s views are correct, they are little more than the inane divagations of an automaton to which no-one should feel obliged to listen. And that’s where we came in.
Nobody twisted his arm to make him listen, did they?
The problem here is that “Pete the Aitheist” is not really having his rights deminished in the slightest, but that he wants to force his lack of belief onto others.
But just exactly what does our Constitution say:
Constitution Act, 1982(1)
SCHEDULE B
CONSTITUTION ACT, 1982
PART I
CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS
Whereas Canada is founded upon the principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:
Guarantee of Rights and Freedoms
1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
Fundamental Freedoms
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other means of communication.
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.
Seems to me that “Pete the aithiest” most likely would have a problem with our Constitution as the very first thing that our Constitution does is recognize the supremacy of God. It than goes on to guarantee our Rights and Freedoms, the first one being the Right to Freedom of Religion. This says to me that we have the Right to have religions beleifs, and not the opposite which would be the right to not have religious beliefs.
My heart goes out to Pete; excluded, rejected, and anguished
is he, very likely bewitched, bewondered and bewildered also.
I imagine he meets on Tuesday nights with his non-worship, non-loving, non-forgiving group, Secularians Advancing Destruction, (S.A.D.S.), drinking unpasteurized milk, and sharing their anguish by devising ways to create exclusion, rejection and anguish for others.
Misery enjoys company.
Destroyers, who in their bitter loneliness, know only how to tear down, rather than build up.
Lord, have mercy on them.