Wednesday 20 March 2013

Is Free Speech Dead In Canada?

In the recent case against William Whatcott of Saskatchewan, the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled hate speech laws are a constitutionally valid limit to freedom of expression.

According to the National Post, the judges decided that 
Framing speech as arising in a moral context or within a public policy debate does not cleanse it of its harmful effect.
The judges gave the following advice in applying hate speech laws 'objectively':
  • The focus is on the effects of the hate speech rather than the intent of the speaker.
  • Hate must be understood to be extreme manifestations of emotion described by the words “detestation” and “vilification” but nothing less.
  • The focus must be on the effects of the expression at issue, namely whether it is likely to expose the targeted person or group to hatred by others.
  • The repugnancy of the ideas being expressed is not sufficient to justify restricting the expression, and whether or not the author of the expression intended to incite hatred or discriminatory treatment is irrelevant. The key is to determine the likely effect of the expression on its audience, keeping in mind the legislative objectives to reduce or eliminate discrimination.
  • The difficulty of establishing causality and the seriousness of the harm to vulnerable groups justifies the imposition of preventive measures that do not require proof of actual harm.
Anyone who has any moral standard that compels them to speak should be concerned over this ruling since it essentially eliminates freedom of speech for anything but the most benign of subject matter. Firstly, there seems to be no justification, whether it be moral or political, for speaking your mind. In other words, any form of true political activism for a cause, for example the criminalisation of abortion, could be considered a hate crime if the judge should deem that it causes “extreme manifestations of emotion” and has the potential to vilify a person or group.

If the audience, in the mind of the judge, has reason to think the message is advocating sufficient harm to an individual or group, you could be charged with a hate crime. Since the law apparently does not require proof of either intent or of actual harm, one could be charged with a crime, having innocent intentions and no victims.

How many criminals will use this as a way to avoid responsibility for their crimes? After all, if a non-violent protest can move a person to “extreme manifestations of emotion” and cause mindless “vilification” of a person or group, it is but a step away from blaming your criminal actions, as an audience member, on the protester. Are we as a society really so deluded that we think someone's speech, hateful or otherwise, has got to be the cause? Do we not have the intellectual capacity and judgement to determine for ourselves the truth and an appropriate reaction? If that is no longer the case, I would say government needs to start banning television and movies because those things are full of lies and hypothetical stories that could very easily stir a person into action.

I find it ironic that the government is attempting to protect us from discrimination while perpetrating a discrimination of its own. Some groups of people, for example uncompromising Bible believing Christians such as myself, are being discriminated against by limiting our right to practice our religious beliefs. We do not believe in hiding or compromising the truth in favor of political correctness or unity, any more than Jesus would compromise His teachings to satisfy the religious and political leaders of His day.
Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. (Luke 12:51)
This is not to say our goal should be to cause divison (some translations say controversy), but this is the most likely result of standing fast in our belief as Christians. We will be controversial and divisive simply because we stand against those things our society loves. We are called to publicly preach the truth of the Gospel, including sin. To ignore certain sins is an attempt at hiding truth and reducing our need for Jesus Christ as our Savior. In essence, the government is trying to change how we practice our religious beliefs.

source
These are troubling times for those who feel a moral obligation to stand up for our beliefs. It used to be that standing up for my beliefs earned me a “judgemental” label, which is fine. After all, if I want the right to free speech, I must also respect the other person's right to speak. Not to belittle the suffering of Christians in other countries like Iran and North Korean, but it seems Canada now has a developing system of Christian persecution. We're ok if we leave Jesus in the church, but once we hit the street, we might end up with a nasty fine, or worse, if we don't either shut up, or agree that every lifestyle gets His personal thumbs up. Can I as a Christian really claim to live in a free country when my choices regarding free speech are either compromise my faith or expect my government to punish me?

Tuesday 19 March 2013

The Big Bang Myth

Introduction

Welcome to the first entry of my first blog, titled The Big Bang Myth. I have no plans to devote this blog to any particular subject matter, so you may expect to see blog posts on a wide range of topics including Christianity, science, mathematics, electronics, computer programming, history, politics and anything else I may feel the need to comment on. I am a Christian first and foremost, and I pray whatever I may write, that it bring glory to God.

As a matter of integrity, I deplore the very notion of political correctness so be forewarned, you will likely read here what many would consider distasteful or offensive. This doesn't mean I like to be offensive, nor does it mean I would be critical about matters of taste such as the color of someone's “goofy looking” glasses. What it means is I won't trade moral truth for popularity or the sake of unity. If I am aware of a trend in society that goes against what is written in the Bible, sooner or later I'm probably going to publish something about it, and its not going to be in line with the popular view.

Why The Big Bang Myth?

"The Big Bang Myth" isn't necessarily referring just to the supposed 'big bang', but is meant to address the more generalised problem of science as faith.

Although the theory of the big bang is written as theory in many school texts, it is often taught as unquestionable truth. In some science circles, calling things like evolution or the big bang 'theories' is likely to make you a target of hostility and ridicule. Scientists pride themselves as discoverers and guardians of truth, but the reality is, they foster an environment where political correctness is valued above truth and true critical thinking, any thought that opposes the religion of science, is discouraged.

From the perspective of science, evolution and the big bang become huge issues when seen as nothing but unproven theory because there has been a lot of research done that relies on the correctness of these theories to validate their findings. In some cases, the very premise of a research project is supported by the assumption that these base theories are correct. If God were to suddenly show Himself to the world in some completely undeniable way, and tell every person on the planet that the base theories of evolution and the big bang were fundamentally flawed, a huge portion of research would either be beyond repair or require extensive reworking to make it correct. In other words, the scientific community has a lot invested in theories that have not been proven correct.

This is a huge issue in terms of impartiality as well. Scientists are supposed to hold a neutral position where it should not matter whether a theory is proven right or wrong. Either way, something new is learned and knowledge is gained. When it came to theories like evolution and the big bang, instead of waiting for incontravertible evidence, they put all their eggs in this one atheistic basket, going on faith that the handle was going to hold. The handle now holds on through the use of a lot of duct tape in the form of theories meant to prop up evolution. The big bang is one of those theories which attempts to stay in line with evolution by showing that planets, solar systems and galaxies essentially follow the same process as biological evolution.

The problem with godless theories that attempt to explain the formation of our universe is they always see it from the point of human logic. With human intellect, it is very difficult to grasp concepts such as infinity, especially in relation to time, and the idea that there was a time when the universe just wasn't. Even an attempt at describing the problem is a failure because as a human, I have to apply universal concepts such as time, to a problem that is extra-universal in nature. There will always be the question of what was before and a scientific establishment that refuses to acknowledge God's existence will always foolishly attempt to provide answers. For example, scientists are currently developing the theory of a 'pre-big bang' universe in the field of string theory. I won't go into too much detail, but the idea behind it is some kind of 'something' called 'branes' inside a hidden dimension which, when they collide produce a big bang and a new universe. Someone will again ask the question “what came before?” Science in it's foolishness will again try to find an answer. All these 'answers', which have their root in evolution, will build to a point where the prevailing 'facts' resulting from the theory are much bigger than the theory itself. At this point, which I believe we have passed, we will have myth instead of truth.