Coercive secularism, authoritarian atheism (Bill 21, Quebec, Canada)

one of my patreon supporters said to me
something that's profound and brilliant in its simplicity she said tradition all tradition ultimately is a form of peer pressure that deceased generations are exercising over the living our ancestors from the past bully us into imitating their stupidity through tradition we can pretend all we want that the role of the government is to preserve tradition it isn't Quebec secular legislation commonly known as bill 21 is being challenged in court the bill passed over a month ago it bans public employees from wearing religious symbols and requires all citizens to uncover their faces when receiving government services premier Francois Lego has put forward a bill that bans public employees like teachers and police officers from wearing headscarves turbines and kippers with bill 21 looming on the horizon it's a weight on her mind what if my daughter who's 8 years old right now wants to be a teacher in the future and what if she wants to wear a hijab like I did in high school what's gonna happen will she be told by her high school teachers oh don't take this program and say Jeff don't take this program in university you can't be a teacher because you wear a hijab that's not fair the bill 21 will ban religious symbols on workers including teachers police officers and judges who would no longer be allowed jewelry headgear and accessories worn as a sign of faith it is actually quite rare that someone asked me to speak on religion or the politics of religion in fact just a couple of days ago was having a conversation online somebody was asking if I'd ever made a video about a particular topic in atheism I had to point out you know my youtube channel when I started my first YouTube channel the YouTube channel that pays my rent to this day I called it abolish F it was founded as a channel with an anti religious mandate and my perspective on atheism is formed by the fact that I'm not an X Christian at the time I created this YouTube channel I was very much emotionally and intellectually recovering from Buddhism I was an X Buddhist and I wasn't merely a member of the Buddhist phase in the past I was also very much a scholar I devoted many years my life's working very hard to learning the scripture the history and the politics of that religion I was planning for my long term career to really be an expert and an academic in Buddhism and at many points I considered taking on the full robes and becoming a Buddhist monk presumably for the rest of my life so I was I was deeply deeply committed to tera vaada Buddhism so when I do get asked these kinds of questions the perspective I have to offer is very different from other atheist YouTube channels Leyte becomes problematic when Quebec shifts its attention away from dismantling an institution with hegemonic control to limiting the access and opportunities of minorities who are already disadvantaged and at the margins of society unlike the Catholic clergy these minorities don't have power influence or control so there's no reason to adopt a heavy-handed approach that makes it difficult for them to see themselves as equal and autonomous participants in society the laws face wide opposition with many saying it overwhelmingly targets women who wear head scarves and veils as always raised as a Canadian I was always raised as a Quebec er my was always raises a much Yeller my identity happens to be Muslim I became a teacher how more of an integrated job does the does the no ministers I might wanna see be second the proposed law suggests that we're judging people by their outward appearances in the 21st century it implies that people who wear religious clothing are incapable of acting and partially in their jobs I think the misconception here arises from the difference between propaganda about secularism propaganda about lazy Tay propaganda about separation attrition state and the brutal reality of what it really means what it always has meant historically what its gonna mean in the future you know I I'll be asked you I'm really more interested in the gap between these two here on YouTube I'm more interested in how we cope with this as content creators and as possibly activists for atheism then I'm interested in how it's gonna play out in the newspapers or in the parliaments because you know it's an old story nothing simply gonna change it's completely false it's hollow propaganda to suggest that the meaning of Lacey Tay or the meaning of state secularism is the equal encouragement of all religions and all faiths in Canada in the 21st century do we equally encourage female genital mutilation and male genital mutilation to use the the common terms female circumcision and males or precision but those are those commonly tolerated yes no how about how about the Hindu tradition of arranged marriage with child brides is that tolerated how about how about the theory of evolution versus the theory of the origin of the world set down in Judaism Christianity Islam you guys may not know but Buddhism has its own creation of the world mythology doesn't see the compass see are these things equally tolerated occasionally no not at all the reality is that we live in an era in Canada in Western Europe not everywhere in the world but in the countries I'm addressing here we live in an era when the modern secular bureaucratic state requires people with modern secular bureaucratic attitudes and if you don't live up to that standard you're rejected you're rejected as a police officer you're rejected as a schoolteacher you're rejected as a judge you're rejected as a person of almost any significant responsibility whatsoever and you're only tolerated to the extent to which your religion happens to resemble the ideology of the state okay so most Buddhists have a kind of turning point in their development where they realize this like most Buddhists have a kind of early period where they're kind of naive or June about the religion and then they've appeared where they get more get more serious get more scholarly learn what their religion really is and this is true whether you're born into Buddhism or whether you convert to it you know you got to work your way through uh-huh what you think about the religion and then get to grips with the real history in real scripture what you start to realize when you're becoming more of a serious Buddhist is that the positive appraisal of the religion the appreciation of the religion in modern Asia modern Europe modern America is not because of their religions strengths it's because of the religions weaknesses like Buddhism in the modern world is seen as a good thing only to the extent to which it resembles atheism Buddhism is accepted and even promoted in the modern world only to the extent to which it's compatible with the theory of evolution it's compatible with gay rights and these are big advantages that Buddhism has over Islam Judaism Christianity but the thing is once you become a serious Buddhist and you start reading the scriptures you realize that Buddhism actually does have its own about the creation of the world it's just that nobody today takes it seriously nobody insists that what was written in this ancient scripture is more real more important or more true than what people now teach in geology let alone evolutionary biology nobody takes it that seriously the weakness of the religion is its strength and I could go on and on with other examples including the social political attitudes that you know modern Buddhists have that in many ways mark out not the purity of their religious tradition but it's greater decay it's greater decomposition in the modern era and by the same token the forms of Christianity that are the most tolerated or the most accepted by the modern secular democratic state are of necessity those that don't take the scripture seriously those that are the most diluted the most decayed the most corrupt anyone who really practiced Christianity the way it's written down in the Bible would be in prison or be exiled and asked to leave the country something else Buddhism has in common with Christianity and Islam slavery nobody wants to talk about that look guys you cannot serve both God and Mammon it's a quote from the Bible you cannot serve the laws of God and also the laws of man you cannot represent a modern secular democracy and at the same time an ancient legal code an ancient moral code such as the Koran or it is inevitable in the present in the future and several times it's come up with equal inevitability in the past that some modernity confronts tradition that the ultimately coercive nature of secularism that the ultimately authoritarian nature of atheism is naked ly exposed beneath this layer of propaganda we paraded where we pretend that the function of the modern professional secular state is to treat all religions equally to encourage all religions to flourish equally and that's why I say I'm really more interested in where this discourse goes on YouTube and in terms of activism then I am for how it's gonna go in the courthouse and the mainstream newspapers the same song and dance is going to be acted out in the formal sphere of the legislators again and again and again where it's explained to the public that all the absurdities and evils of religion will be tolerated to the greatest extent possible and that sagacious wise old men will sit down in the parliament or in the Senate and will gravely consider the significance of whether or not female genital mutilation is to be tolerated whether or not male circumcision is to be tolerated that on each principle with all due seriousness you know that it'll be considered on its merits whether or not it will be tolerated that there are religious schools teaching children that the theory of evolution is false or whether the government will step in and force those schools to teach that the theory of evolution is is valid and what nobody wants to admit naked lis is that we're at the midpoint of a process whereby inexorably that coercive role of the state the coercive role of the secular and atheist government is exerted more and more suffocatingly over the private religious there are no two ways about it okay the future of Canada is not going to be the government eliminating the teaching of evolution because they decide that the Muslims were right it's not gonna happen is it possible we can talk about tolerance all you want but we are at the midpoint of a trajectory that continues in that direction what if my daughter who is eight years old right now wants to be a teacher in the future and what if she wants to wear a hijab like I did there are elements of public consultation and they're elements of public participation and they're elements of democratic debate but there are ultimately elements of coercion and even authoritarianism involved in that progress towards a secular state a secular society okay um on a factual level circumcision isn't just symbolic male circumcision is removing about 60 percent of the nerve endings in a human penis okay it's not just a matter of opinion it's not merely symbolic the science of evolution the science of geology the fact that the earth earth is a sphere and not flat ultimately it's not up for debate whether or not we're gonna legalize slavery once again one of my patreon supporters said to me something that's profound and brilliant in its simplicity she said tradition all tradition ultimately is a form of peer pressure that deceased generations are exercising over the living our ancestors from the past bully us into imitating their stupidity through tradition we can pretend all we want that the role of the government is to preserve tradition it isn't it's to destroy tradition is to replace it with something better step by step