Defending the Christian faith and promoting its wisdom against the secular and religious challenges of our day.
Friday, November 25, 2011
The Monopolistic Stealth Religion
The West is so interconnected, not only by communication, politics and economics, but also by ideas – so much so that the innovations instituted in Europe and then in Canada soon come knocking at our door.
• Nearly a year after the Quebec government banned religion from the province’s subsidized daycares, they have signaled that they will extend the directive into daycares run in private homes…stipulating that government-funded daycares must not offer any activity that aims to teach a belief, dogma, or practice of a particular religion. The directive, which took effect June 1st, banned religious prayers, crafts, and songs – including many Christmas carols. Religious symbols, such as Christmas trees, crucifixes, and menorahs were allowed as cultural expressions, but staff cannot explain their religious significance.
Although this ruling doesn’t affect unsubsidized daycares, it would effectively drive them out of business. This is because they would be entirely unable to compete with the subsidized daycares:
• Unsubsidized daycares are unaffected by the directives, but they must compete with the $7-a-day program offered through government subsidies (which amount to around $40 a day per child).
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/quebec-to-ban-prayer-in-home-based-daycares?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=69ac8bf9bf-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines11_24_2011&utm_medium=email
This ruling, as are many similar ones popping up in the West like ragweed from infertile soil, is nothing short of hypocrisy. Whenever a law is passed, a judgment is made, or even when a textbook is chosen, values must be invoked, one’s religious stance must be consulted, explicitly or implicitly. Therefore, when the Quebec government ruled against religion, it was stealthfully promoting its own relativistic religion. This was illuminated by another revelation made on Thanksgiving Day:
• The Canadian Press revealed today [11/24/11] that through an access to information request it has obtained a talking points brief by Conservative Government bureaucrats to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, advising the minister about how to approach the issue of religious freedom in a meeting with a Vatican official…The memo warned Baird to avoid the topic of a controversial and mandatory Quebec school course forcing children to be taught relativistic religion from which parents are unable to exempt their children. The course mandates that all religions be taught to children as if they were of equal value without preference to any specific religion. The course is mandated to be taught not only in public schools but also in private religious schools as well.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/revealed-conservative-govt-memo-to-minister-on-meeting-with-vatican?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=69ac8bf9bf-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines11_24_2011&utm_medium=email
Hypocritically, all of these instances of the imposition of secular moral-relativism are justified by an appeal to neutrality – that their program will be acceptable to people of all faiths. Clearly it won’t and can’t be.
For one thing, the West is promoting a new religion based on misinformation. All religions aren’t of “equal value” and they aren’t the same. Any religious practitioner will tell of great differences among them, and they yield entirely different fruit. The Heaven’s Gate suicide cult bore different fruit from the Shakers and the Animists. In fact, the very reason that the secularistic West has imposed its own ideas of moral-relativism and religious-pluralism reflects that fact that the secularists value their own religion more than they do the others.
But is a religion that teaches certain ethics – do not cheat, do not bully – apart from the belief in a supreme and loving deity superior? No! Instead, it is logically incoherent, self-refuting, and hypocritical.
From a moral-relativistic stance, it isn’t logical to impose any “should” or “ought” or any law for that matter. If morality is merely a matter of what the lone individual might be feeling or deciding at the moment, it shouldn’t become a “should” for anyone. Such a “morality” just doesn’t carry even an ounce of moral weight or judgment.
Once morality is cut off from a Supreme Being, there are no higher standards to which to aspire. We are left in the confusion of always introspecting our own feelings and decisions, where everyone’s whims carry the same moral “authority,” and where there is no definitive standard to decide among them. It’s nothing short of chaos!
Consequently, there is no way to demonstrate that bullying or cheating is wrong. They merely violate the arbitrary rulings that are presently in force.
If the new secularism is indeed superior, let the secularists demonstrate this fact openly and honestly instead of hiding behind the false claim of neutrality.
No comments:
Post a Comment