The Police Prayer Pops Up All Over the Place

You are really nit-picking, Hemant. That is just an innocuous prayer; focus on more important battles, such as prayer in the public schools or school-sponsored trips to the Creation Museum.

I wonder why God couldn’t use his divine powers to prevent dangerous situations from happening in the first place so you wouldn’t have to pray for God’s help in them?

@Frik:

Hemant does say that we should pick our battles right in the post, about an inch above your comment. This is obviously more of an “bring it your attention”/”follow-up from a previous post” type post than a call to arms.

But, I also am going to have to disagree with you. In my opinion, these kind of battles are exactly the ones we should be fighting. It is these type of small, “innocuous”, daily injections of religion into the function of government which desensitize people to the larger injections. Perhaps even conditioning them to expect a larger scale religious injection if they get so used to it on the smaller daily scales.

I think we should be more focused on battling the acrostic poem epidemic that our country is facing.

Most of these are in the States, so obviously, you’d have the establishment clause to draw on. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. But the first one is used by police forces in both the US and Canada.

We don’t have the establishment clause. Our equivalent is paragraph 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.

Atheism is technically protected, but the very same act begins with the following preamble:

Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:

Granted, we pride ourselves on our multiculturalism, and often go out of our way to be inclusive. But clearly the separation of church and state is a little harder to argue up here. In spite of this, our politicians tend to run a mostly secular government, more or less, and downplay the religiosity with the obvious exception of occasional pomp and ceremony, and the legal language, much of which we inherited from Britain.

But the difference in the wording of the two documents from both nations, while intended to grant the same rights and freedoms, make an interesting omission. You can easily say that America is not a Christian nation, and while Christians might not agree, you’d be able to mount a reasonable defense. But I’d imagine we’d be hard pressed to say the same about Canada.

In the United States, you might be able to say that no government agency should promote any idea of god, or absence thereof, over another. And if you were so inclined, you might be able to make a go of it in the courts. But I don’t think we’d have the same luck in Canada.

I’ve often been curious, if it came down to a legal battle, if there would be anything enshrined in Canadian law that we could leverage to maintain a clear separation of church and state akin to the Establishment clause. This is one place where I know American law better than Canadian, mostly because to the best of my knowledge, it’s really never been challenged in court.

But I kindof wonder if one of the reasons we enjoy a multicultural nation without nearly as much controversy between believers and unbelievers is because we don’t pick on little things like that. Sequestered off into an insignificant square of the police mainpage, to be ignored along with the corporate sponsor ads seems to me like a perfect place for it. They keep it there, and we don’t complain, and everyone smiles and talks about Hockey.

But, I also am going to have to disagree with you. In my opinion, these kind of battles are exactly the ones we should be fighting. It is these type of small, “innocuous”, daily injections of religion into the function of government which desensitize people to the larger injections. Perhaps even conditioning them to expect a larger scale religious injection if they get so used to it on the smaller daily scales.

I have to agree that although it might not seem like a big deal on the whole, these little injections of religions can be used to reinforce the false myth that America is a Christian nation and it’s ok to inject religion as long as the powers that be don’t think it’s a big deal. Having In God We Trust on dollar bills might not seem like a big deal in the long run, but many fundies use the In God We Trust phrase as “evidence” to support their agendas. I think it’s a double standard that atheists shouldn’t make a big deal about things like this this police prayer but you know if we actually did try to challenge this, the fundies would make a big deal about how persecuted they are. So long as fundies want to make an issue about little things like this, I don’t see why we should not also take it seriously. And you also know if Muslims tried to put up an Islam police prayer in front of police buildings, fundies everywhere would be justifiably outraged and demand for it to be removed. If we wouldn’t allow it for other religions, then I don’t see why we should let Christianity get away with it. I also think it’s hypocritical of that police station site to claim it upholds the constitution but violates it by putting up this prayer in the front lawn.

peregrine
June 14th, 2009 at 8:42 pm :

… and everyone smiles and talks about Hockey.

A bald admission that rival religious factions dominate conversation in Canada.

In the interest of equal time:

The Criminal’s Prayer

Frik,
I don’t think it’s nit-picking. This is a clear endorsement of Christianity by government. If I lived in this community I would not be happy that my tax dollars were being spent to endorse a religion I don’t believe in, anymore than if my taxes were being spent to pay for somebody’s campaign. If it were a Muslim prayer, do you think any of the good residents of this town would care? I kinda think they would go bat shit crazy. It’s OK if we cram our religion down your throat, just as long as you keep yours to yourself.

Ironically, the ad at the top of this page is for a site that will pray for us.

I am a policeman and an atheist. The policeman’s prayer in this article is just one of many versions. However they are all very much Christian and all very irritating. I am a very vocal atheist and have no problem letting my Christian co-workers know what I think of their religion. Keep it out of government. And after 25 years as a policeman, I can confirm there is no god!