Quebec's new All religions course

When Quebec eliminated Catholic and protestant schools in favor of secular language segregated schools it was left with the problem of "religious instruction." In my year, gearing up to the change, I was given the choice of a religion course (most Catholicism) and a morals course. The morals class filled up and the rest had to continue to take the religion course. Since then Quebec has been working hard to secularize.

To that end it has come up with a world religions course, which is mandatory (the religion one was too). The objections are (basically) that the parents have no choice and that children will see all religions as mythology because they are all presented in a similar way. I don't think I need to say much about that, but think of the converse problem: what is to stop parents from unfairly imprinting their child with a single religion? Some may say this is the parents right. I agree, but it is not an absolute right in my view. Why?

Forget religion specifically. Views can be hurtful and outdated. Racism is a good example. Does a parent have the right to pass on racist beliefs to their child? I'd say no because what is forgotten in this type of argument are the rights of the child. The child has the right to be informed and later on with that information he will make up his mind (and there is nothing we can do to stop that). Thus what is important is presenting the facts correctly.

Educating a child about other religions is no different. The child has the right to information. If you decide to send your child to public school (this is the decision people are forgetting when they say it should be the parents who decide: This group mainly) you are accepting they will be taught PUBLIC values. In a multicultural society, religion is pluralistic and thus must be taught this way. If parents don't like it they need to make the decision to take the child out of public school which is entirely in their power.

Incidentally, the list of 10 reasons (in French) the CLE group gives for why they dislike the course are 10 reasons to like it if your of a different mind and remember children have rights too. (It is quite astonishing to see the lack of respect these people have for the decision making powers of the children and adolescents despite plenty of evidence children can out think adults if given training such as in chess.)

The Canadian budget vs the US

In my view, one of the primary goals of the federal government is scientific research funding. It should be clear that progress in science is directly related to economic progress (for instance Saudi has plenty of oil and still a crappy economy because it can't have science). This is why it is astonishing to find out that while the US has put $15 billion MORE into science funding agencies, the Canadian government has CUT millions. That's right in the wake of an economic disaster they are decreasing funding for science.

This is quite disappointing especially for someone in my position who will be looking for permanent positions. Already Canada has been well behind the US in science funding (odd, I know, considering the animosity in the US towards science). Now NSERC, the primary science funding agency, will have to cut grants, scholarships and fellowships. At least I'm lucky enough to be a US citizen so I can skip out to a country that is at least willing to pay me (at least hypotheticaly :)

Atheist bus campaign and biased news

I just watched a report on Global news show 16:9 called divine debate and wow. Firstly they are really biased or I'm insane. The reporting was terrible and they seem to reporting on a debate which isn't happening. The atheist bus campaign was designed to offend people, but even if it was, free speech doesn't mean silencing voices you don't like. All in all it is a terrible segment with little content and much hype. Asking a rabi if he is ok with the add simply so you can say Muslim's, Christians and Jews are against it is pathetic and not the point. It would be like asking vegans and vegitarians if they find hamburger adds offensive so you could say at least they agree...

I guess I can take consolation in the fact that they aren't likely to survive the year. I stopped reading and watching anything they made after lead story one Sunday night was (I id you ont I couldn't make this up): "A priest in Thrios-Rivier claims to do exorcism and says they are like the movie." That's not even gossip! At least the stuff about celeberties is real (presumably). I for one wn't miss their ... "news."

Understanding Catholics and antisemitism

I used to jokingly say the current pope is a secret atheist and is deliberately trying to sabotage the Catholic church. What other reason could someone give to explain all of his baffling screwup vying for market share in the world of religions?

I think the recent episode with the Gas-chamber denying bishop's un-excommunication is telling. I now think he is not a sabotaging atheist, but he simply actually believes in what he is doing (kinda like how Dion thought he won the Liberal nomination because everyone thought he was the best candidate). He thinks he's infallible so he doesn't seem to understand that some people will disagree. Either way, he's great for anyone who want a more secular world.

On another note, Catholics now (and for at least 10 years) have Deacons! An interesting development huh!

Itanian gastronomic racism (hilarious!!)

This is a hilarious story out of Italy. Basically they are banning new "foreign" food places in different cities. Is there any wonder Italy is still a developing nation if they constantly change federal governments (60ish in 60 years) and legislating against foreign food joints is what tops thei agenda?

Then again apparently the native Italian's are lazy (emphasis added):

Davide Boni, a councillor in Milan for the Northern League, which also opposes the building of mosques in Italian cities, said that kebab shop owners were prepared to work long hours, which was unfair competition.

Wow, if you think so much of your countrymen why bother saving the culture at all. But if your not going to read the full story let me at least show you the punch line:

There is confusion, however, over what is meant by ethnic. Mr Di Grazia said that French restaurants would be allowed. He was unsure, though, about Sicilian cuisine. It is influenced by Arab cooking.

LOL!!! That's a funny meatball!!

Non-religious (funny) crazy at UofO

It has been my contention that faith (belief without reason) is the primary problem of religion and other faith derived philosophies. At the university of Ottawa a non-eligious episode has been going on that is worth reading (partly because it is very funny unless you stop and consider the serious mental help this person needs).

I will give a brief introduction to the situation but feel free to skip it and read the quote below (it's long but funny, emphasis is added by myself). A professor at UofO apparently "cracked" at some point and stopped teaching physics and started teaching activism. From all accounts he is quite charismatic. In the fourth year quantum mechanics course he took attendance as the only requirment to obtain an A+ grade and spent the class time ranting about political and conspiratoral issues. The students (one of which is where I got this information) complained to the adminstration that they were not beaing tought anything about physics and that asking the proefessor for homeowrk and lectures resulting in him saying they were brainwashed and shouldn't have to be slaves to "the system." Recently the prof was barred from the University campus and having any graduate students as well as teaching (he was tenured so couldn't just be dismissed). Before that, he "mentored" a student: Mark Kelly. This student in his last year of undergraduate physics became increasingly distruptive. He demanded that the other professors not give the students tests and assignments stating they were some type of indoctrination. This came to a head when he submitted his proposal for his fourth year project. The project is available here. I wouldn't suggest readng it all but looking at the plots and highlighted section you can see the crap he was peddling. So, as can be reasonable expected, when it was submitted the committed told him to go back and do something that was more more physics oriented. After giving him three tries and him submitting the same thing he failed the project.

He was then convinced that this was due to "the man trying to keep him down" and "surpressing acedmeic freedom." He has graffitteed the UofO buildings (and been arrested), barrged in on meeting and into peoples offices to state they won't hear him out (despite the fact he never made an appointment or tried to). He recently became the first student forcably deregistered by the university. He was banned from campus. The university then agreed to let him complete the courses he was missing to graduate, but he could only be at the university campus for classes. He currently continues to frequent the University on different occasions to start trouble: example.

He is a master at playing the victim. when you watch the video or read the email he wrote below you really think they are out to get him. That said, no one at the department supports him, especially the students. He barraged them during the year with emails about how they were being mindless drones by attending and doing homework!

On Oct 21st 2008, Marc Kelly, an upper year physics student, was abruptly deregistered by the University of Ottawa administration when they discovered the true nature of his research. Marc fearfully hid his discoveries from everybody, while he worked hard to find a way to explain it all clearly, but now he has been banished by the administration, and sees no other way but to tell his story to the whole University of Ottawa community. As a young student, Marc interrupted his studies temporarily when he was recruited by the Canadian Government's Defense Research & Development as part of the Network Information Operations team, where he conducted high security research to defend against enemy infiltration of military communication networks [1][2]. When he returned to the University, he began using his new knowledge of communication network theory to understand the inner mechanisms and true function of the educational institution that so fascinated him."A communication network is characterized as consisting of interconnected individuals who are linked by patterned communication flows", he remembered reading [3].

A University, he soon could see, was simply a large machine to control a population's cognitive abilities, according to the patterns of information flowing between each and every one of the human beings, and permeating the whole of the community.It was a mini-society, a tiny-civilization. And at the core of its educational mission were the students, members of the Federation, brought in from all over the world, and promised to receive The Degree and live forever happily.But one day while performing some mathematical analysis, Marc discovered the truth, the terrible truth transmitted to him by a member of the administration: students are in reality slaves and in terrible torment. Just when he planned to make the announcement to the Chair and to the Dean, Marc learned that they already knew about the inhumane practice: the control over the communication flow had been seized by the administration to maintain the average intelligence of the student population at a sub-threshold level, permitting them to be used, unaware, as mere components in a grand geopolitical scheme.The University, Marc had come to believe, was an Indoctrination Machine.

Thanks to the skills he acquired while working for the Government, Marc immediately knew what needed to done: he had to convince the others to help him hijack the communication network, revolt against the corrupt administration, and regain control of the institution that had become so dear to him. But when he first infiltrated the communication network and sent out the message, Marc discovered a second, more terrible truth: the students had all been indoctrinated and transformed into servants of the administration!

In order to free the student population from the torments of graded assignments, multiple-choice examinations and mindless regurgitation, Marc began questioning and challenging the decisions made by the administration. But when it became known that he did not believe in the Syllabus, his nomination to the Senate Appeals Committee was blocked, and he was placed under constant surveillance by the University Police, who hired student spies to report on his activities and tell everyone that he suffered from mental instabilities. Then one day while video recording inside the Governance Facility, during the Senate meeting, Marc was suddenly apprehended by the State Police, who had been instructed by the administration to come find him, arrest and banish him. Marc shouted about democracy and transparency, but his words barely disrupted the members of the committee.

No longer allowed to set foot on campus, Marc then saw another way: he had to run for President of the Student Federation. The only way to stop the Indoctrination Machine, he quickly understood, was to teach the students how to take control over the information flow. He needed to shift the power away from the administration and to give it back to the student population. Only if students were free to speak out and disagree with the decisions of those controling the University could there be true democracy. But then one day while giving a public presentation, the State Police came back to get him.

They detained him in jail (where Marc pondered deeply about the University) then they released him without extra conditions -- they knew they had been used by the administration to suppress freedom of expression. Marc is now returning to McDonald Hall Auditorium, where he will continue his presentation in front of the University of Ottawa community.

He will speak out against the corrupt administration in order to defend education. Will the Rock administration call on the State Police to come and stop him? Or will he save the student population from the torments of grades and examinations?Come out and see what the fate of Marc Kelly will be. You can all be a part of this story.

---------------

[1] Marc Kelly, Maria A. Gorlatova, and Peter C. Mason. (2006) "Can a Wormhole Attacker Evade Detection?", Defence R&D Canada - Ottawa, TN 2006-203 (CLASSIFIED: Available upon request from Defence R&D Canada with proper security clearance) .

[2] Gorlatova, Maria A.; Kelly, Marc; Liscano, Ramiro; Mason, Peter C. (2007) "Enhancing frequency-based wormhole attack detection with novel jitter waveforms", SecureComm 2007: Third International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communications Networks, V 17-21, pages 304 - 309. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/4543879/4550291/04550348.pdf?temp=x

[3] Rogers, E. M. (1986). Communication Technology: The New Media in Society. New York: Free Press.

There are some interesting tells in the piece. The reference to "State police" I find the most telling. The other is how he figured this out either by: doing some mathematical analysis (of a fourth year undergrad, lol) and/or it was 'transmitted' to him by a member of the administration. So either he had someone on the inside (of the corrupt machine) or his equations told him this (lol, man that makes me giddy).

The sad part is this kid is clearly unstable and needs help. To make it worse he has a child and wife. It is too bad he couldn't pick a legitimate cause, since the crazy amount of energy (and tuition money) he has spent could have gone a long way to actual areas of need. So despite what is written in some news papers, this is not supression of acedemic freedom but the brainwashing of a student who now spends all him time trying to overthrow a University. If only someone would tell him about the Congo, Sudan, Iraq, Afganistan, Sri Lanka, Colombia etc...