Point - Check the core - it has holes - where do you think the seeds reside.
SJP
Now are you stating that this should be a recognized religion????
Judge Cites Charter Preamble - Supremacy of God Recognized- Atheists - 0 - Religion
- Thread starter Goober
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Point - Check the core - it has holes - where do you think the seeds reside.
SJP
Now are you stating that this should be a recognized religion????
I thought Eve started the whole thing. That is why women are regarded as inferior to men in Christianity.
Georges Lemaitre (a Roman Catholic priest, for those who don't know). So what? That doesn't mean the church he served isn't a reactionary and retrograde institution.
You mean should Applism be recognized as a religion? Absolutely. It is no more absurd that Christianity or Islam. The only difference is that Applism has one follower, while Christianity has one billion.
But in the eyes of the Charter and the law, I don't see why there should be any difference between Applism and Christianity.
God - Thank you for this gift you have presented to me on a platter with an apple in his mouth
SJP - Not referring in any way that you are a pig.
Please refer to the court case presently ongoing, in Toronto i believe where a couple of people are stating their smoking pot qualifies as a religion - Numerous experts called as you would know - and funny enough there are criteria to be met. I did not save the article but i am sure it is available some place on the net.
PS - Yours does not qualify - Guess you will have to work on some things to go with that apple.
Also - Would any apple qualify???
Again, the preamble to the Charter never even mentions any particular religion. In fact, quite frankly, it's difficult to even interpret.
"Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law"...
Grammatically speaking, this is not a command in the imperative tense. In fact, it's not even a statement of any kind of obligation on anyone's part. It's merely a statement suggesting by the 'whereas' that what follows is as a direct result of it. Whether God exists or not is a separate issue, but clearly the law assumes he does by this statement, and that all that follows in the Charter is due at least in part owing to at least a belief as per the Charter in the supremacy of God. So to take an example from the Charter:
"Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law...
"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 media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association..."
So we must conclude that by that wording that it is owing to the supremacy of God that we have freedom of belief.
And if we really want to be funny:
"Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law...
There shall be a sitting of Parliament and of each legislature at least once every twelve months."
So we must conclude from this that it's thanks to the Supremacy of God that it's every 12 and not 11 or 13 months, but specifically 12 months. If we interpret it that way, then we must conclude that the Charter is declaring itself to be Holy Writ. So should we start memorizing it, reciting it and chanting it?
And of course this could lead to the Question of whether Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, etc. are in fact messengers of God. If they are, then we must conclude that the law of their Books must apply in Canadian law too since the Charter makes it clear that God is Supreme. And yes, if Applism has its own sacred texts, and if it too believes in a monotheistic supreme being (i.e. God), then we must determine whether that Book is the word of god too because if it is, then it also stands supreme. The question then of course is how do we prove what words belong to God?
Though I believe in God myself, I'd way it's not wise to mention God in any law unless you have an official state religion as that leads to all kinds of legal confusion and leaves the law open to a wide array of definitions.
In the UK for instance, since the Church of England is the established Church, it therefore can officially define such questions if it ever were necessary to do so.
But as long as there is no official state religion, it's best to keep any reference to God out of any law unless you intend to define it.
Now of course since the Queen of Canada is also the head of the Church of England, I suppose it could be left to her to interpret it? Yo see, without it being clearly defined, unless of course there's some obscure law I'm unaware of, it can be interpreted 1001 different ways, thus perhaps making it preferable to just not mention the word at all.
Again, in the absence of an official state religion, if those pot-smokers claim to believe in God, and with God being supreme, and with them claiming god wants them to smoke pot, how do we challenge the supremacy of god then?
We use the same English as in 1960 except for some really goofy words when the internet came out.
I agree. I'm just saying though that in principle, we don't need to try to understand what the authors of the Charter meant. If they were too illiterate to say what they meant clearly on paper, then it's not up to us to hire psychologists to try to read their minds.
let's see...what countries would not or do not mention God in any of their official governmental pronouncements......former U.S.S.R, Russia, China......... yup... ya's are right.... it would be far better to drop this "God" crap and emulate those that haven't been taken in by it.
Legal documents are to be clearly defined. Therefore, in the absence of a legal definition of God, an official state religion that the state can turn to which can provide an official definition, or some other means of defining God, then it would be preferable to not mention him, not because I don't personally believe in God, but rather because a legal document should always be clearly defined. So if God is not clearly defined in one way or another in the law, thus leaving the meaning ambiguous within its legal context, then it would be preferable to remove that reference.
A very interesting point, and one that hadn't occurred to me. It led me into an effort to try to parse that sentence, to figure out what it actually means, and it's certainly far from clear. The word "whereas" in this context means, "it being the case that," or in one word, it means "because." That's clear enough, but the prepositional phrase at the end is not. Specifically, it's not clear what the object of the preposition is. Is it just "God," or is it the noun clause "God and the rule of law?" If the latter, then the supremacy applies equally both to God and to the rule of law and the sentence could be rewritten as "Because Canada is founded on principles that recognize the supremacy of both God and the rule of law..." But can you really have two separate things equally supreme? If the former, then the rule of law is subordinate to the supremacy of God, whatever that might mean. That's a can of worms better left unopened, and I'm pretty sure it's inconsistent with the kind of society most of us want. If what God wants trumps the rule of law, who gets to interpret what God wants? The sentence isn't true in any case, it's not true that Canada is founded on principles that recognize the supremacy of God. This is in fact the only mention of it in our constitutional documents and it's a fairly recent addition, the only other thing I can find in them as a general statement of principles is the one about "peace, order, and good government." U.S. constitutional documents don't mention God either, there is only a single reference to a Creator who endows men with certain inalienable rights, even more vague than calling it God.
I don't know what the sentence means, and for those who don't think it's important, I should point out that this is exactly the kind of nit picking that lawyers argue over, and judicial decisions on exactly what such things mean can have profound implications.
So perhaps we need grammarians, not lawyers, writing our laws. Or at the very least, have all laws proofread by grammarians to remove such nonsense.
The issue here is not even wither whether God exists, or whether we believe Him to exist, or how we define him. The question is, grammatically speaking, what does it mean and how does that impact the law?
If it has no clear meaning, then it ought to be removed. If we intend to keep it there, then we ought to give it meaning, which may mean either changing it or adding an explanatory amendment.
Ah well, this will ramble through the courts for the next few years, and then if it does not work out Quebec will opt out of that provision of the constitution.
That's nonsense. It's embarrassing to have laws that are so vague and ambiguous. In a democracy, we need for all laws to be clear and transparent to the average-educated Canadian. If it isn't, it's a travesty. That passage ought to be eliminated, replaced, or at least officially explained via some amendment, and pronto.
If the government and the courts cannot even figure out what that passage means, then why did the government include it?
Maybe 5P could enlighten us on that? Was it intended to be poetic, to give the document some je ne sais quoi?