I know now why you believe. But it's something I can never do.

On February 20th 2014, my mom passed away. 

It was a horrible event in my families life, it was unexpected and sudden, and it has changed my life forever.

After her passing, I encountered many religious people in my extended family who tried to give me comfort by telling me my mom was in a better place, that she is still with us as a spirit, and that she is with god now.

I don't hold anything against anyone who told me this, I know they were only trying to help in the only way they knew how. I know my mom is gone and I just have to accept that.

Then, on May 17th I had a very vivid dream, and in the dream I saw my mom. 

I gave her a hug and I could feel the warmth of her skin and the silk of her dress, I could hear her voice when she said hello, and the emotions I felt after I woke up from the dream were very real.

But it was only a dream, I know this.

However, to someone with a less skeptical mind, I can see just how easy it would be to tell myself that my mom's spirit came to me and that, in some way, she is still around.

What a tempting belief. If it was true, my mom isn't really gone, she won't miss everything that has and will happen after her passing, and most important, I would get to see her again. For a son missing his mom, this is like a dream come true

But it is only a dream, only a fantasy, and nothing more.

If only I could turn the skeptical part of my brain off, then maybe I could really believe that my mom is still here. Maybe she hears me when I cry and tell her I'm sorry shes gone. Maybe she can forgive me for all the wrongs I ever have done to her, and come and give my guidance when I need it. She can comfort me when I need it, and always be there no matter what.

It's just a shame that none of it is true, and I can't force myself to believe something which I know is not true.

So I face reality. My mom is gone. I will never see her again expect for pictures and movies. I Will Never Hug Her Again. That is reality, and that is what I must face.

To all my religious friends, I have this to say. 

I know now why you believe. But it's something I can never do.

Abortion

On the panel were AronRa, Lilandra Ra, HogTieChamp, thunderf00t, thetruepooka, Sarah Moglia and Courtney Caldwell.

I still can't believe 2 women were advocating for the right to an abortion up until the point labour starts...

Am I a monster to think that is horrible?

And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place

I have given the AtheismGREEN more thought over the past few weeks, and it has given me a different perspective on Atheism+

I understand more and more now that Atheism+ is a secular social justice group that just happens to have the word atheism in the name, but by and large, it has very little to do with atheism or skepticism and has more to do with woman's and gay's rights.

I support the rights of all humans beings, so in that respect I do not oppose them. What I do have some issues with are with the methods they employ to achieve the goal of equality.

So to that end, I believe I will leave Atheism+ alone for now.

Unless something changes in the future, I expect this post to be my final post about Atheism+

Atheism Green Continued

I have been giving Atheism Green more thought, and I believe I have thought of why environmental causes could be tied to atheism.

Many religious people believe a judgement day is coming, and on that day God will judge the world and destroy it in the process, save for the believers.

If you really do believe we are in end times, then why would you care the planet is getting warmer?

In fact, some may believe that climate change is part of Gods plan to end the world, so why fight Gods plan?

If people can blame religious attitudes for sexism against women, can people also blame religious attitudes for the continued rejection of climate change?

Atheism Green

I have had a recent idea, and I would like to use this blog post to flush it out.

Many people criticize Atheism+ for adding causes to atheism that are unrelated to atheism, and this gave me an idea.

How would people react to Atheism Green?

Atheism Green could go something like this:

It's Atheism, but Green:

• Atheism plus we fight climate change.
• Atheism plus we support renewable energy.
• Atheism plus we protest pollution.
• Atheism plus we fight deforestation and poaching.
• Atheism plus we use critical thinking and skepticism.

Atheism Green can speak out against Carbon Culture

Carbon culture - a concept used to describe a culture in which fossil fuel burning and hydrocarbon use are common and in which prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media normalize, excuse, tolerate, or even condone the use of gas, coal, or oil as fuel.

Atheism Green can speak out against Carbon Privilege

Carbon Privilege - the ability to burn or otherwise use fossil fuels in daily life without the need to suffer the negative side effects of the burning of said fossil fuels. 

Atheism Green can work together to reduce our Carbon Footprint

Carbon Footprint - the total sets of greenhouse gas emissions caused by an organization, event, product or person. 

Atheism Green can then work to get atheism organizations and atheist conferences to use more renewable energy and to reduce the carbon footprint involved.

Atheism Green can work to have conference polices drafted that make is easier for attendees and staff to reduce their carbon footprint.

Atheism Green can start a campaign to have big name atheist speakers stop using jets and other transportation that wastes carbon

So Now What?

How would the wider atheist community take to Atheism Green?

How would an atheist feel to be labeled a Carbonist?

Carbonist - adjective for a person who isn't working towards or currently isn't Carbon Neutral

Carbon Neutral - having a net zero carbon footprint

I think this thought experiment needs more work to fully flush out, but I do not feel it is without merit.

Actions Speak Louder Then Words

I was reading the NeuroLogica Blog today when I noticed something different

Here is what NeuroLogica Blog looked like today NeuroLogica Blog (Sept 6th 2013)

Here is what NeuroLogica Blog looked like on August 2nd NeuroLogica Blog (Aug 2nd 2013)

The relevant part is on the right hand side, under the heading General Science Blogs

Here is how it looked on August 2nd

Here is how it looks today

It appears that between August 2nd and today, Pharyngula was removed as a General Science Blog

I think this small act by Dr. Novella speaks louder then anything else said about Pharyngula or PZ Myers to date.

Echo Chambers

I recently listened to The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe Podcast #424 and Steven Novella had a nice interview with Cara Santa Maria. During the interview, at about the 1 hour mark, the topic of echo chambers came up, and what Dr. Novella had to say really struck a cord with me.

He talked of how anti-vaxxers will make websites and forums where the only info you receive is from other anti-vaxxers, which only re-enforces their beliefs about the dangers of vaccines, and if you disagree, you are a troll.

Dr. Novella said that he does not think atheism will turn into an echo chamber as long as we keep these 2 guidelines .

1) Focus on the process, not the conclusion 

2) Seek out the other side and listen to what they have to say

I have to agree with both these guidelines, they work as a safe guard against the echo chamber.

This did get me thinking about another topic, namely Atheism+

I do not believe Atheism+ follows these 2 guidelines, they seem to know what the conclusion is (feminism and social justice) and they do not seek out the other side to listen to what they have to say. In fact, they go to great lengths to ignore the other side.

They build forums that are "safe spaces" and what do they mean by safe space? Let me quote the forum for you

Atheism Plus is a collection of like-minded people using safe spaces to hash out ideas. There is no dogma, just a general consensus among participants that the particular social justice issues it focuses on are important to them. 

There are no membership requirements beyond a commitment to taking seriously the need to have and maintain spaces where social justice issues can be discussed by atheists without interference from those opposed to the whole endeavor.

From this simple paragraph, you can see that they focus on the general consensus among themselves, they do not focus on the process at all, the process has finished and the general consensus will not be questioned.

You can also see that they do not seek out the other side, they wish to talk among themselves without interference from anyone with an opposing view.

If that isn't an echo chamber, I don't know what is.

What is Truth and what is God?

I do know that some people do look down on Science Fiction as a genre, but I find this speech compelling.

Agnosticism, a way appease everyone and not have to argue, or a valid point of view?

I am conflicted when it comes to Agnosticism. Wikipedia defines Agnosticism as the philosophical position stating that the world is unknowable and certainty is impossible.

This position is entirely true, and also entirely useless to me.

If one wishes to get pedantic enough, one can state with all honesty that nothing is knowable in the truest sense of the word, but take this to it's logical conclusion and see how it breaks down.

Imagine meeting someone on the street and asking someone what time is it, and they response that they are agnostic about time and are not sure time is real or not so they therefore cannot give you an answer with absolute certainty. I press them farther and say I don't need an answer with absolute certainty, just tell me what time you believe it is, and they reply they cannot tell me with certainty so therefore they have no opinion one way of the other.

I hope to an outside observer you can see how frustrating this can be, and this is how I feel when someone claims to be an agnostic.

Saying you are an agnostic is making a factual statement about how knowable the universe is.

Saying your an atheist is making an opinion statement that the claims about the existence of god made by others are found lacking and not credible.

Unless you are some kind of uncaring robot, you will have an opinion about the existence of god no matter how loudly you proclaim agnosticism, and your actions speak louder then your words.

Do you actively go to a church or temple or mosque to worship?

Do you pray?

Do you live your life by the rules written in a holy book?

If it walks like an atheist, talks like an atheist, and doesn't worship like an atheist, why do we call it anything else besides atheist?

I can think of a few reasons why people would shun the atheist label and self identify as agnostic, but they are all practical reasons that make dealing with theists easier, and that feels intellectually hollow to me.

I'm not here to tell people that they can't call themselves agnostic, but I just wanted it know that, to me, hearing someone self label as agnostic instead of atheist is on par with a christian claiming to be non-religious because they have a relationship with god instead and that christianity is a philosophy instead of a religion.

I could be completely wrong about this topic, but at least I'm willing to state my opinion.

The Atheist Power Vacuum

We won the war, now what?

That seems to be the issue with atheism on the internet these days. Years ago, religion was either dominate or immune to criticism on much of the internet.

Those days are now long gone, and in most popular areas of the internet, religion has no pass and criticism is instant and blunt.

It was the hard work of atheists that made this happen. We had an enemy, and we united to fight this enemy on all fronts, and the good news is we won.

That just leaves the question, so what now?

We are like an empire that just defeated the largest rival in town, which you think would be good for atheism as a group, but instead, it just removed the one thing that kept atheists united.

Without a “Them” to fight, what does that mean for “Us”?

In my recent studying of Roman history, it seems clear that once Rome defeated Carthage, the internal power struggles in Rome became much more of an issue, and civil war was a constant threat. Yet, before the fall of Carthage, the Roman Empire was quite united.

It seems that in the face of a threat, people are much more willing to put aside small differences and join in common cause against the common enemy, but once the enemy is defeated, the willingness to put aside small differences is greatly reduced.

Without a common threat to keep atheists united, we are left with a power vacuum.

So we see the birth of Atheism+, as an attempt to create a new enemy. Instead of fighting religious injustice, they fight social injustice, and it seems to baffle the follows of Atheism+ why everyone doesn't jump on the band wagon.

We also see the rise of the unaligned atheists, better known as the slime pit by its detractors.

The unaligned atheists seem to have no desire to move atheism beyond the simple fight against religious injustice, and they reject all attempts to turn atheism into Atheism+.

So when people like PZ Myers and Rebecca Watson proclaim that atheism alone isn’t enough and we need Atheism+ (which they just happen to be unofficial, de facto leaders of), the unaligned atheists reject that and claim that PZ and Rebecca are trying to co-opt the atheism movement for their own pet projects.

This then gives rise to Thunderf00t and Justin Vacula who stand in opposition to Atheist+ and the unaligned flock to their banner. We see yet again, that in the face of a threat, people put aside small differences to join in common cause against the enemy.

And just like that, atheists have a new enemy, each other.

We can fall back into old habits and just cross out the word religion and replace it with the slime pit, or Atheism+ and its back to business as usual.

The players change, but the game stays the same.

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people

"Feminism is the radical notion that women are people"

I hear this a lot on different websites that debate feminism and other related topics, and something about that statement seems disingenuous.

If feminism is the radical notion that women are people, then is not communism the radical notion that workers have rights? Is Christianity the radical notion that God loves us? Is capitalism the radical notion that people are rational? Is Mormonism the radical notion that family is important?

To break down an entire political movement to a single radical notion seem to be, at the very least, dishonest.

Not only that, but then using this radical notion to smear others feels very self serving. Its a tactic I see far to often used by those who cannot argue based on the facts, and instead appeal to emotion

If you see a problem with "you are either with us, or with the terrorists" or with the phrase "why do you hate freedom?", but you have no issue with "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people", then you need to check your blind spot.

Google Trends

After watching a recent Thunderf00t video where he uses Google Trends to chart the popularity of PZ Myers, I decided that I wanted to have a look at few other people with Google Trends

Here is a comparison between Thunderf00t, PZ Myers, The Amazing Atheist, Rebecca Watson, and The Nostalgic Critic as a control.

Here is the results when comparing web search:


As you can see PZ does win out with Rebecca Watson as a close second

Then I compared YouTube search:


And here it is very clear that Thunderf00t and The Amazing Atheist are well in the lead.

And finally, I compared by image search:


As you can see, there is no contest, it is all Rebecca Watson.

I must admit, that does make me pause for a moment. Other then a tiny blip for The Amazing Atheist (which I think is related to a banana incident) Rebecca Watson is the only person to even have an average higher then zero.

It seems clear that web searchers prefer PZ Myers and Rebecca Watson, YouTube searchers prefer Thunderf00t and The Amazing Atheist, and by a very large margin, image searchers prefer Rebecca Watson.

I am not sure what conclusion to draw from this

The Pycon Incident

I have seen a lot of blog posts and reddit threads about the Pycon incident, I assume that if you are reading this, you know about the incident and I can avoid the recap.

The more I think about this, the more I am conflicted.

I don't want to think that every spoken word needs to be filtered, especially in a joke between friends. What crazy 1984 world would we be living in if we need to self censor 24 hours a day or risk unemployment or worse.

On the other hand, if I was in her position and I heard a joke that mocked Atheists, I would perhaps take mild offense.

However, I have no idea what the joke even was.

Jokes are on a spectrum, at one end we get knock knock jokes and why did the chicken cross the road. At the other end of the spectrum, we have dead baby jokes and holocaust jokes.

Where on the spectrum did this joke lay?

Was the joke something like "wow that rep is hot, she gets my dongle hard and I would love to fork her"

Or was it closer to "check out that hot ass bitch, hope she likes a dongle up the ass while we rape her and pass her around for a good forking"

I think the distinction matters.

Was this joke that no normally prudent person would think was offensive, or was it the kind of joke you apologize for right after saying?

If the joke was truly offensive, then I can sympathize with her. Jewish people don't need to stand by and hear a holocaust joke and say nothing, black people don't need to hear nigger jokes and stay silent.

If the joke was just juvenile between friends, then I have no sympathy for her. Just because some people want to bubble wrap the world, doesn't mean we need to put up with it.

So in the end, I have no idea what to think.

Either 2 men told a horrible joke that would make george carlin blush and this brave woman stood up to these men, and now she is paying the price for her courage

Or 2 innocent men were telling an innocent joke and someone who sees offense in everything decided that her twitter followers would jump on the band wagon and be offended with her.

I can't tell who is right and who is wrong with this, so I use no names to help avoid slandering someone who does not deserve it.

In the end, all I can take from this is; be careful what you joke about, be careful of the pictures you tweet

So more self censorship... Great, just what the world needs.


- Sent From My Blackberry

Equality and Valentine's day

"You can be equal and still want to be treated like a princess once in a while"

I read the quote above in a Time article named 'Valentine's Day: Why Consumers Aren't Feeling the Love'

The article had many other interesting facts about this holiday:

1) Men will average $108 on gifts for their spouses or significant others, while women will spend $53

2) Guys seem to spend handsomely mainly to avoid being in the dog house with their partner

3) When I asked eight middle-aged married businessmen at a Toronto airport lounge about Valentine's Day gifts for their wives, there were groans and eye rolls all around. Yet all were of the opinion that a gift was obligatory. "Just to make sure" was the most common reason given for buying a gift.

This article does not paint a very good picture of this holiday, especially for the men involved, but what about the women involved?

"It's nice, but it's not a big deal," said Isabel, 23. Still, she admitted the pressure is mostly on guys, and that she likes being pampered. "You can be equal and still want to be treated like a princess once in a while."

So let's break down the reasoning of this thinking. Apparently equality is fine as long as you sometimes get treated as more then equal.

Imagine if the roles were reversed

If women spent twice as much as men, and men said "you can be equal and still want to be treated like a prince once in a while", how would we react to this holiday?

I wonder...


- Sent From My Blackberry

How can a working theory be wrong?

I have been giving it some thought to what it means to have a theory.

For lack of a better description, a theory is a working set of assumptions which produces useful predictions about future events.

The best example I can come up with is how I learned to play chess.

The chess teaching set I got came with 2 sets of rules. The idea is that once you master the easier rules, it should be less difficult to move to more advanced rules.

The only major difference between the 2 sets of rules had to deal with end game.

Under the easy set of rules, you just need to capture the enemy king and you win. None of that check or checkmate, just simply take the king and you win.

We can call this the "Capture the King" theory of chess.

I can play chess using the capture the king theory, and up until the end of the game, you would have no way of telling I had a different theory of play then you.

I would still move pawns, still take your pieces and go after your king while trying to protect my king.

The capture the king theory of chess works quite well in almost every way, it just breaks down in end game.

Now realize that all theories are like this.

The theory of gravity breaks down at the subatomic and becomes unreliable. Does this mean the theory has no use?

Far from it. The theory of gravity makes many useful predictions about the natural world which prove true time and time again.

Just like with the capture the king theory, I can predict you will go after my king and protect yours. Even thought I am missing the point about why you go after my king, I can still predict that you will.

That is what makes the capture the king theory useful, I can base my play on that theory and be a competent chess player.

So just because a theory does not hold true 100% of the time, it does not mean it has no use or value.

We need to realize that a theory is only a useful set of assumptions for any given problem, and not the be all and end all of reality.

So when I hear people rally against the theory of evolution because it fails to explain the origin of life, I could only liken it to a beginner chess player throwing out the whole training course because it uses the Capture the King theory.

God is my Security Blanket

I have a 2 year old son, and he has a special blanket that he sleeps with. Whenever he is in his bed, the first thing he does is reach for his blanket.

We tried getting him a blanket that was almost the same as a backup, but he can tell the difference and will only sleep with the original, no matter how dirty or puked on the blanket is.

He has a heart felt belief that he needs this blanket to sleep, and the evidence is on his side. He does not sleep without it, he simply cries.

So what is it about this blanket that makes it so special? Is the blanket soaked in a chemical that triggers him to sleep? Does the blanket emit sleep-educing radiation?

I have a feeling I could run any number of test on this blanket and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the blanket does not cause my son to sleep, yet he won't sleep without it.

Then it dawned on me, my son has a "belief" that this blanket lets him sleep. Perhaps he feels the blanket offers security, or perhaps just comfort. In either case, it is his belief that allows him to sleep and the blanket is just the object of his beliefs in the real world.

My son has put his beliefs into this blanket in the same was a religious person puts their beliefs in god.

That daily prayer, that fish bumper sticker, that bible, it is all a security blanket to a religious person.

It is your belief in god that gives god power over your life, not the other way around.

Just like how my son believes his blanket is special, a religious believer thinks their faith in god is special.

The analogy doesn't end there either. I could rip that blanket away from my son and try to explain to him how he doesn't really need the blanket, the power to sleep was always inside him, but he would cry and not understand and want his blanket back so desperately.

I now feel the same way about a religious person's beliefs. I could rip that bible from there hand and explain to them how it's just a book of stories and all the power you feel coming from god is and always was inside you all along and you don't need god for it, but I think from past experience we would all see how that would end up.

You can's just rip the security blanket away from someone and have them take it well. They need to realize themselves that the blanket is no longer needed.

I am sure that as my son gets older, he will turn to his blanket less and less until one day he forgets about it in a closet and it will sit there for weeks or even months unnoticed.

It's not so easy for a religious person. They are reminded nearly daily to never abandon their security blanket without something horrible happening.

Imagine how my son would grow up if I shared his belief in his blanket. If every time he forgot it I scared him with stories of doom and gloom, if he always saw me with my blanket every night, if he saw me fight tooth and nail against anyone who ever said "it's just a blanket"

I guess the moral of the story is don't be so quick to snatch someone else's security blanket away from them for there own good, just live your life blanket-free and be an example that living without that blanket isn't so bad after all.

Privilege, from my perspective

I like to follow the goings on of the atheist movement and, with the addition of atheism+,  some new terms began to pop up in blog posts and YouTube videos

 

One term I have heard used over and over is privilege.

 

It seems that most people who find themselves in the minority will complain about the privilege of the majority. Women complain of the glass ceiling, blacks complain about police harassment, homosexuals complain about being denied marriage rights, poor people complain about being marginalized by rich people, the list goes on and on.

 

However, privilege does have another side.  Ask any first born child how it feels when baby number 2 comes home, and you can see how privilege cuts back.

 

Privilege is being an only child and not having to worry about sharing the spoils. To be privileged is to be free to use your resources to the fullest extent you wish without regards to anyone else

 

I feel privileged to have a high functioning mind, to have the ability to contemplate everything from the vastness of the universe down to the subatomic. I use my mental resources to the fullest extent I can and I avoid dumbing myself down for the sake of others. So anyone who automatically says all privilege is bad must also live below the poverty line and use only single syllable words or they would be using their privilege of financial resources and intelligence (something not everyone has), unless they have no problem with being a hypocrite

 

However, I can understand privilege from the other side as well.

 

When a Christian gets angry with me with not keeping “the Christ in Christmas”, that is an example of Christian privilege. Christianity had the majority in North America for so long, that the Christian way and the American way have almost combined.

 

The Christian’s of North America were an only child for decades, but now with the rise of atheism,  They suddenly need to learn to share and play nice where they never had to before.

 

So now I find myself in conflict. On one hand, I agree that it is good for my country and humanity as a whole for religious privilege to be reduced, especially where religion and government are tightly linked. However, I’m not so convinced that forcing all the rich people in the world to give away money until we are all equal is a good idea. It seems like every time that has been tried in the past, it never ends well.

 

So how do we square this circle? Perhaps not all privilege is created equal, but who has the right to decide?

 

Does the privileged class get to declare their privilege good and proper, or should the majority always bend to the will of the minority?

 

Perhaps someday I will have the answer, but not today.

 

 

The UN, Israel, and Palestine

I must admit, I don’t know much about the Israel/Palestine conflict. From what I hear my leaders in Canada say, we want a peace deal and a two-state solution.

 

So why is the UN giving Palestine recognition as a state a bad thing?  Call this arm-chair foreign policy, but this is how it seems to me.

 

Israel has no intention of allowing Palestine to be a separate state, but since the majority of the world seems to be in favour of a Palestinian state, Israel must pay lip service to the rest of the world by saying that are working towards peace and a two-state solution.

 

However, during this time of negation between Israel and Palestine, the Israelis kept building settlements in land that was disputed.

 

This would be like if my neighbour and I  had an argument over who owned some shared land between our houses, and every day that we meet to talk about it, my neighbour would move his fence a little closer to my house. So after years of talking and negotiating, even if we can come to an agreement, all the land is already behind my neighbour fence and I have a feeling he won’t give it back easily.

 

Are the peace talks that Israel and Canada and the USA all want just nothing more than a stall tactic to give Israel enough time to build enough settlements that there is no land left for a two-state solution?

 

And all this talk from Canada and the USA at the UN about how bad giving Palestine statehood seems very hollow to me. Peace talks have been broke off for years now, so Palestine decided to force the issue with the UN and now Canada and the USA among a few others started to threaten the UN with loss of funding and other various threats if they voted for Palestine.

 

What is so bad about giving Palestine statehood at the UN? It seems like the only major change would be that Palestine can now access the International Criminal Court, but why would the USA and Canada and Israel want to block Palestine from the ICC?

 

If my neighbour is stealing my land, why is so bad for me to get a lawyer on my side?

 

Is the Israeli end game to back Palestine in a corner so they have no choice but to sign a peace agreement that favours Israel, and now that Palestine has the UN and ICC in there corner, Israel might have to actually capitulate and negotiate on a level playing field?

 

Maybe I am way off the mark here, but it seems like the US, Canada, and Israel would be very happy to have Palestine just go away  and under the cover of unending peace talks, Israel is taking away Palestine one settlement at a time.

 

 

The joys of writing a blog that no one reads

I don't kid myself. I know my blog has somewhere between 0 and 1 readers (including myself), and I don't have a problem with that.

Having a following on my blog would almost feel like I would be required to make regular content and something that I do for joy and mild distraction would become a chore.

I can blog as often or infrequent as I wish without any complaint of feeling of neglect.

Perhaps at some point in the future my blog will have a sudden surge of popularity and I will then need to decide how to go forward

But for right now, I don't mind just talking to a brick wall.



- Sent From My Blackberry

A Charitable Thought Experiment

What makes a good charity to contribute too?

Do you need to agree with everything a charity does to donate in good conscience, or is it ok as long as it's mostly good?

To help us with our thought experiment,  lets imagine there is a charity called The Lifeline Corps

The Lifeline Corps is passionately committed to eradicating poverty and caring for people who are struggling.  The Lifeline Corps is working to address the dehumanizing scourge of poverty and injustice and educate the public about what it means to live in poverty – and what they can do to help.

So far sounds like a good charity right? Let's keep reading

The Lifeline Corps is an international organization that began its work in 1882 and has grown to become the largest non-governmental direct provider of social services in the country. The Lifeline Corps gives hope and support to vulnerable people today and every day in 400 communities across this country and more than 120 countries around the world. The Lifeline Corps offers practical assistance for children and families, often tending to the basic necessities of life, providing shelter for homeless people and rehabilitation for people who have lost control of their lives to an addiction.

Still sounds mostly good right?

Maybe now you would like to know more about this charity before you donate, so you read some of there positions, and you come across a position about marriage.

The Lifeline Corps holds the position that marriage is the covenanting together of one white man and one white woman for life in a voluntary union characterized by faithfulness, mutual affection, respect and support. It makes this view known in its published Position Statements

The Lifeline Corps anticipates that some will assert that the arguments advanced in this submission in support of the institution of marriage apply equally to mixed-race couples.

 The Lifeline Corps maintains that for important theological, philosophical, historical, social, legal, cultural and anthropological reasons, the institution of marriage ought not to be redefined in this way 

 The Lifeline Corps’s position on marriage is based on its understanding of what the Bible and Christian tradition teach about human relationships and sexuality.

As the union of a white man and a white woman, marriage has been embedded in the culture and tradition of the western world since the beginning of its recorded history. Redefining it to include mixed-race couples may appear to be a simple solution to a perceived present-day inequality, but the notion of marriage as an whites-only relationship is so deeply rooted in our society that its redefinition may have far-reaching effects on the future development of our society that cannot be predicted, while to do so will offend the conscience-driven position of the vast majority of married persons.

Some of you reading this may be taken aback now. How could any charity that sounded so good to begin with turn out to be a racist charity?

Would you donate your money to this charity? If you saw a Lifeline Corps member ringing a bell near a mall, would you give him your pocket change, knowing that it goes to a charity that beliefs mixed-race couples are somehow less then white couples?

Let's take this though experiment 1 step farther. Instead The Lifeline Corps. lets call them the Salvation Army and instead of opposing mixed-race couples, how about opposing same sex couples.

Would that be ok for a charity? Would that make the difference, is it ok to deny gay couples, but you can't deny mixed-race couples?

And, in case you were wondering, all of the paragraphs above were taken from the Salvation Army Canadian website, all I changed was the name and changed references from gay marriage to mixed-race marriage

Do you still feel good about the Salvation Army?