God Exists By Two Falls To A Submission

Durham Regional Council has voted, as expected, to maintain the practice of reciting the Lord's Prayer at the start of Council meetings.

Not that it will necessarily do them any good in the long run.

The CityOnLine phone-in show had a discussion of the issue today with Mark Robinson of the Humanist Association of Canada and Bruce Smith (no, not that one, but an ex-footballer too) of the King-Bay Chaplaincy. Not a red-letter day for enlightened debate. Robinson was there more to flog his organization, reiterate that god doesn't exist and that religion is in general backward than to get into any of the legal/Charter issues arising from the case, and Smith...well, at one point he said more-or-less outright that anyone who didn't accept Canada and the U.S. as historically Xian countries was welcome to bugger off. He also made a couple of comments that indicated a dismissive attitude toward other world religions. A few of the callers were very defensive and had mistakenly gotten the notion that this issue was being pressed by Little Brown People (tm) who wanted to force their ways upon "us." One even said--I paraphrase obviously--that it was incumbent upon every newcomer to Canada to find god through JC.

Deep breaths, everyone. I'm sure that a few months ago, most people in Ontario, believers, not or on the fence, wouldn't have even had a clue that the LP was being used in local Council meetings.