The Left and Religion

Leaving aside considerations of how 'human rights' are a frail (Western) political construction ^note compared to, say, the civil rights of a country, which are based on a country's unique cultural and political context, and more often than not, plays to the strengths of that country which are not always sustainable, due to them not being enforced the way it's often envisioned around the world, or even within a country with a relative degree of consistency (which would be beyond the scope of this thread), I do think the Canadian perspective on religious groups might be slightly unbalanced. Maybe it was the way they built their particular stance of religious freedom (which seems to differ from the US' idea of religious freedom at its core, even if they, like the US, had/have various different religious groups where no single group/denomination is particularly predominant), but I find it amusing that some religious groups get to be selected (through what could, imo, technically constitute legal financial persuasion).

It would be one thing to not let any religious groups whatsoever get money from the State to enact their local projects (something which would be 100% consistent with secularism, especially hardcore secularism), but to be willing to accept religious groups which conform/submit to the State on a divisive matter such as abortion in the State's "wallet" sounds more like a political tactic to get votes for the future (by doing a "legal bribe" - if I may use this admittedly loaded expression - of the groups which are allowed and by convincing hardcore and/or negative secularists). Secularist (emphasis on -ist) politics these days often likes to get the goodies from religious group when it suits the State, but not take some of the good with some of the bad (and some of the live-and-let-live neutral within it). Traditionally, this has been the case with conservative ideologies, but I find it odd that someone like Justin Trudeau (a center-left/liberal type, from what I've gathered) now seeks to persuade specific religious groups to be a part of his political approval (which means he can probably afford this particular divide-and-conquer tactic), while sowning doubt and discord amognst other specific groups' members.

edited 15th Jan '18 11:26:21 AM by Quag15

Well, you know. The Bible also says that women are subservient to men and that children need to be beaten to teach them properly and teaching either of those things will also get a Bible Camp excluded even if they're extremely pro-choice.

And any non-religious group that teaches kids that abortion is wrong doesn't get money either.

So you're right, it is hardcore secularism, in that it treats religious and non-religious groups equally.

Angry gets shit done.

There's another classic dodge. Don't like being told there's a human rights violation? Claim human rights aren't real. Of course the inherent problem with this argument is that once you apply it to human rights, you can apply it to all rights. Including, of course, "freedom of religion", which is not only a right in the general sense, but a widely agreed upon human right, and is therefore just as fictitious a construct as all the others. But what the heck, let's go down that nihilistic rabbit hole; not like that could go anywhere bad.

As a general rule stating that a right "isn't real" is a poor way to start an argument about how a different right is being violated in some way. After all, if rights aren't real, why should I respect your so-called right to freedom of religion at all? Why not ban the lot?

Religious institutions, which have a claim of doing good in the community, may appeal to the government for funding to help them continue their good work. They may not, however, do so if they are pushing a message that is in violation of Canadian law, especially with regards to rights. This is not a difficult concept. So, if your church goes around making declarations about how gays should be shot, or Muslims deported, or women deprived of rights, the state has the authority to say "no" and deny your request for funding. They don't shut you down, they don't prohibit you from speaking, they just don't give you money. Which is not a violation of your rights, because no religion has a right to state funding.

If a religious community want a goverment fund, it had to earn it. Just like all other group.

Watch me destroying my country

@Quag: Even if they are a construction, human rights like life or health are something that is essential to have as a society and be preversed, with very real consequences if not upheld.

Life is unfair...

Where did I say they aren't real? A political construction is a real thing (because it's a social thing, derived from the act of living with other persons), amongst humans.

I said that they're frail, not that it doesn't exist (it exists because there's a set of historical, philosophical and political contexts that led up to it being formed). It exists, but it's often in a frail state (this is especially true the further one goes away from 'the West'), due to not being coherently enforceable, and due to an unique set of historical and political contigencies and events that is always subject to sudden political change.

Different conceptions of rights have different philosophical structures and basis. I applied the argument to human rights, but I wouldn't apply it to other conceptions of rights, if I wanted to. I would apply a different argument.

If no religion has a right to state funding, then why even be willing to listen to appeals for the goodies? Surely they should get no state funding whatsoever, even if it's for a good cause. It's one thing to not let religious groups get away with doing harm onto others, all well and good, but if a state is not gonna give state funding, they better do it regardless of the motives (good or bad or in-between), period.

Discriminate all religions equally and entirely (something wrong, imo, but at least consistent), or build a relationship based on a relative and healthy distance from politics, including in terms of the goodies (where they get to do their community work, without being subject to sudden political change ^note a gradual, long-term political change is more acceptable in regards to these matters, especially if it's done by society at large, and not by a political party in power).

If Canada wants to do what is doing, I'd rather they state arguments based on national civil rights (where they get to choose what they want in order to suit the nation's strengths), rather than human rights (human rights are an universal ideal, but not every country is equipped to go through with it).

edited 15th Jan '18 12:10:35 PM by Quag15

Not to mention that pointing out they're a construction is frankly a facile argument. I know they're a construction. You know they're a construction. Everyone knows they're a construction. It's not telling anyone anything they didn't know, and it's an argument that nothing can be premised on. Everything in human society, from rights to laws to expected societal roles, is a construction. Pointing it out doesn't advance the conversation; it just bogs it down in nihilism.

To say "human rights are a construction", and then turn around and accuse someone of violating religious freedom is to undercut your own point. Because "religious freedom" is also a human right and therefore a construction, and therefore of no more consequence than the other rights you've dismissed in the first part of the statement.

First off, religious freedom is listed as a human right, so it's a part of that "construction". Secondly, no, you don't get to claim a different basis for different rights; that's just special pleading.

According to this argument, we must fund the Taliban should it open up an affiliate in Canada. I don't think we'll be doing that.

The rest of this of course is just an attempt at word play. Not having a right to something doesn't mean you can't have it, it means you are not entitled to it. That's the difference between a privilege and a right. State funding for your religion is a privilege, not a right.

Another meaningless digression about semantics in the stead of a real argument. Coupled with a (pointless) aside grounded in soft low expectation bigotry: all countries are equipped to attempt to enforce human rights; that most, developed and developing alike, choose not to is on them.

Abortion is a right in Canada. We do not give money to groups that advocate for violating our citizens' rights. Call it civil rights, call it human rights, it literally doesn't matter because this is a discussion about internal Canadian law and internal Canadian policy.

edited 15th Jan '18 12:10:54 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Yeah no shit we pick and choose who gets money based on morality, I like it when my government funds homeless shelters, I wouldn’t like it if they funded the Taliban, some groups are good and doing good and some are bad and doing bad.

When you’re violating basic human rights you go into the bad group and don’t get government money, why should we act as if all religious groups are equal, some do good and deserve funding, some do bad and don’t deserve funding, yes that’s a moral judgment, society is built on moral judgments.

Also can a Canadian clarify for me, what’s the state of separation fo church and state for you guys, the UK has a state religion while the US has full legal separation, legally where are you guys?

Not being entitled to something doesn’t mean someone can’t earn that thing, I’m sure you have friends that you’d give money to or buy presents for, not because they are entitled to such things but because you make a value judgment that they deserve such a thing.

They get to make an appeal because they have a right to make their case, that case however is judged on if they’re doing good for society or not (and probably how much good they’re doing compared to other groups).

edited 15th Jan '18 12:27:05 PM by Silasw

As a Canadian, I don’t see a problem with withholding funding in this case. If the government funds something, that counts as an endorsement by the government, at least to a degree. If an organization that the government funds advocates for something that is against government policy or law, than it looks like the government is advocating for two opposing positions at the same time.

It’s a bad idea for the government to actively fund people who are actively opposing official government policy.

In Canada, it’s de-facto separation. I’m pretty sure that came about because if there was an official state church, there would have been a war early on over whether it should be Anglican (Ontario) or Catholic (Quebec). Quebec’s government is closer to the church, Alberta’s government claims closeness to the church, and most of the rest of the country really doesn’t care. Ontario does have an official Catholic school board though. No official position overall though.

edited 15th Jan '18 12:30:34 PM by Zendervai

Not Three Laws compliant.

There is no state religion, but no imposed separation of Church and state either. However, the government can't discriminate or act in ways that violate other rights. This imposes a lot of restrictions in practice.

Also, I will note that the previous Conservative government refused to fund organisations they s disagreed with (if you were linked to climate change, you were probably cooked), while supporting others (a few of them being downright reactionary) that they did. There is discretion, this isn't new, and it shifts depending on who is in power.

edited 15th Jan '18 12:29:36 PM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

It just bothers me that there are people here who aren't prepared to acknowledge the difference between a privilege and a right. One is earned, one is innate, one can be legally denied to you, one cannot. State funding for the Church is a privilege, not a right. Accordingly, the state may withhold that funding for any number of reasons—including because the religious sect in question has views that are incompatible with Canadian laws or values.

We don't ban religions we don't like in Canada, but we certainly aren't required to fund them.

Ok, I'm not sure from where you guys pulled the Taliban comparison, because I specifically said:

Funding should not be provided to pro-life religious groups that support, advocate or do terrorist acts (e.g. so, funding would not be given to the type of folks who support the bombing of planned parenthood clinics, or hospitals that provide abortion services on request). That is a given. Ditto for groups whose leaders or committees are directly infringing on the rights of religious women who took the personal (and difficult for said women) decision to abort for whatever reason they have (e.g. economical, social, mental disadvantage).

Groups who advocate in a non-violent manner for a more pro-life position in regards to matters of abortion and whose members haven't committed crimes and/or terrorist acts are best left alone, or argued with in civil society talks.

Not all countries are economically developed and socially stable enough to ensure a sustainable application of human rights, and not all countries have a common history, both within and outside of them. The conditions are not yet met. Sure, they can attempt, but their particular peoples might have differences which will require a long time to heal. And I'd rather a country focus on satisfying the more immediate desires and needs of the population (e.g. lowering unemployment, strengthen social security, their NHS, or solving internal ethnic and/or racial tensions, fighting political corruption, and other issues).

At this moment, I can only think of a handful of countries capable of sustaining such a task (Germany would be one of them, for example).

Go read Hannah Arendt, then. That argument was based on her writings on human rights and national civil rights.

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And I agree with that (though our criteria/basis for this position might be different, and so might be our suggestions of a political approach for those matters).

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@Zendervai and Rationalinsanity: thank you for the context you two have provided. Very informative.

edited 15th Jan '18 2:12:38 PM by Quag15

The irony of someone showing up to complain about how human rights are a Western imposition, while demanding that Canada change its practices to conform with those of his own choosing does not elude me.

They are being left alone. Which is why they aren't being given money. Because they are not entitled to money. Because getting money from the government to fund your religion is not a right, it is a privilege. And privileges can be denied to you.

There we have it again folks—the soft bigotry of low expectations. Poorer countries just can't help shooting people or imprisoning people without trial, or not making all people equal before the law. Oh wait, that's a crock. Because even if something can't be 100 percent enforced, they can try. Seriously, I get so tired of this contempt for the poor (and the nonwhite), disguised as appreciation for other cultures. It's one step removed from "oh, the savages just can't help themselves."

It's also of course, entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Hence my comment about it being a meaningless aside as well as a bigoted one. We're discussing Canada. And Canada, as I'm assuming you know, is a First World, developed state.

(PS: Also, fighting unemployment matters more than ensuring everyone has basic human rights? There's a position that's not even worth arguing against. If you are shot dead for belonging to the wrong ethnic group, you don't get to have a job.)

Nice Appeal to Authority. I have read Arendt. Your inability to articulate her point in a way that is actually relevant to this discussion is neither my problem, nor Arendt's.

edited 15th Jan '18 2:31:41 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

The part on Quebec's government being close to the church is completely false since the Quiet Revolution in the 60's. The actual party in power (Quebec Liberal Party) is the one who removed the status of state-religion from the Catholic Church and established separation of the church and state.

In light of the damage left which still lasts to this day of colonialism and post-colonialism, in light of the damages that unfettered capitalism is causing, in light of things I've talked about in the past that I've disliked in regards to economic matters that affected the poor and the working class (e.g. austerity and its weight on said groups of people), in light of my awareness of these factors for why certain countries are still fixing shit after being affected by it, you now accuse me of being a bigot and of having contempt for the poor. Wonderful.

That is fair. It was a bit off-topic.

Now you're just skipping what I've said:

I give up on trying to make my points (which I can see where they were flawed). Maybe the way I write in English is poor, or maybe it's because I'm not from the Anglosphere. Maybe, in a few years time, I'll realize I'm wrong on certain aspects.

But I hope I've made some of my points clear, during the course of this whole thread. Even if I know that my political perspectives will always be shot by conservatives and progressives, left-wingers, centrists or right-wingers, on some area or another.

You win, and I accept defeat.

edited 15th Jan '18 3:41:36 PM by Quag15

I'm not sure about the whole making people equal thing Ambar, but I can tell you, as someone from the Third World, that it's not low expectations, it's the sad reality of some of the countries that don't have yet the strength to keep things like crime or terrorism fully at bay.

In the highlands of Peru, it's a known thing that thieves or rapists can be burned alive by the villagers because justice can't reach them due to time and distance nor are prisons completely effective since it's also known that prisoners from gangs can still make their coordinations inside them, in fact, justice has become somewhat laughable since now it's more likely than an attacker is going to have less of a sentence than someone who defends himself (yes, they trial the people who defend themselves if they so much kill the attacker or have a stronger weapon to defend themselves).

As for human rights, they can be abused by other means, in fact there has been controversy over people trying to trial some of the commandos who made the rescue of the Japanese embassy back in the 90s and it's known that some NGO's are unscrupulous enough to side with the terrorist in trails for violation of human rights.

Does that mean that we should give up on human rights all together? HELL NO, we also suffered many abuses of human rights by the military during the internal conflict, so that thing is not wholy justified, human and civil rights are not a thing just to be tossed aside at the mere mention of problem; however, do consider that for countries like mine that still have to deal with crippling corruption to our institutions it's going to take time before we can be at the level of calm required to not having a debate whether we should give up on some rights to manage a situation or not.

Also, I think we are going off-topic again.

edited 15th Jan '18 6:36:37 PM by raziel365

Instead of focusing on relatives that divide us, we should find the absolutes that tie us.

As another Peruvian, I have to agree with you

Watch me destroying my country

Not having resources =/= lacking commitment to human rights. As long as the state is trying to stop that kind of thing, and is not itself locking people up wrongly, committing torture, or the like, the state is taking reasonable steps to enforce human rights. Being handicapped in your ability to execute good policy is not the same as being forced to execute bad policy, and that's where I took issue with what Quag was arguing/seemed to be arguing.

I'd respond to the rest, since I think there's a genuinely interesting discussion to be had there, but we are way, way off topic right now. Why someone felt the need to bring up "developing nations can't afford human rights" in what had been a discussion about the Canadian government I do not know.

You don't need to tell me about the damage done by colonialsim; you're preaching at the choir there. There's a world of difference, however, between talking about how much the colonial powers, and the Cold Warriors, etc, etc, screwed up various regions, and stating that those regions must be held to a different standard and should not be expected to try to honour the basic rights of their citizens.

That the government of say, North Korea, emerged in a Cold War context after decades of misrule and abuse by the Imperial Japanese, does not mean we throw up our hands and say "Well, can't expect them not to shoot their citizens en masse," because while we should not be surprised when a nation's colonial handicaps bring it low, we also should not pretend that there's no way out.

Maybe that's not what you were arguing for, but it's sure as Hell what it read like.

No I am not. You mentioned "solving internal ethnic and/or racial tensions" but you did so in a post and paragraph where you listed things that needed to take precedent over the enforcement of human rights. "Not getting shot for your race" is a basic human right, so I came to the not unreasonable conclusion that whatever you had in mind for solving that problem didn't involve actually enforcing the right in question.

edited 15th Jan '18 6:59:05 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I guess that your point is that good goverments are the ones that are actually trying, even if they still don't have the resources or cultural background to reach the level of more developed countries.

While bad ones just don't try or want to go backwards purposely, right?

If that's the case, I support you

edited 15th Jan '18 7:31:41 PM by KazuyaProta

Watch me destroying my country

Correct.

Seconded. This might be better suited for the Latin American thread though.

Instead of focusing on relatives that divide us, we should find the absolutes that tie us.

Man, only three pages back but a whole lot of responses.

the Pro-Life Movement is inherently sexist. If they truly cared about the women who choose abortion, they would be out there adopting children and promoting child care programs, not trying to literally terrorize women going in for the procedure.^note And that's not counting their identical attitude to women who literally have no choice but to get an abortion, such as those with ectopic pregnancies or stillborn fetuses who must be removed or the mother will die - yet the Pro-Life Movement treats these women as the most horrific of sinners, who deserve to die. What if we think there is no public value in having the state fund anyone's faith? Wish we had the same stance in the US, but we elected the Klandidate. Well ... yeah. We're America, bitch, deal with it. This sounds like a discussion for the Race thread. So ... you find it odd that a left-leaning politician is looking to support left-leaning policies that resonate/benefit left-leaning religions? So, what would happen if someone like Scientologists decided to ask for government funding for a summer camp? And would the answer be different if the conservatives got back in power?

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

I'm not even sure if Scientology is recognized as a religion in Canada. There are some churches of Scientology in Canada, but whether or not it's actually officially recognized is another matter.

Disgusted, but not surprised

Still, there is something that disturbs me in this funding stuff.

It's a bit like if the Government said "you can get funding from us, but only if you don't push the message that [arson/murder/jaywalking] should be legalized and that people should vote for candidates who promise to legalize it, even if you're equal to other organizations in all other aspects." Is it really the job of the state to decide which political opinions should be promoted?

Note that it's very different from the state saying "you can get funding from us, but only if you're apolitical and don't push any message".

Reminder: I'm firmly on the choice side. Part of me is always happy to see anti-choice organizations get bashed, but the other part asks: how to make sure we're not on the wrong side of the next bashing?

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

It helps that this is about something that's already on the books in Canada as part of the charter concerning human rights. It's not "just" a law.

edited 16th Jan '18 4:44:00 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised