3/26/03

Let's emigrate to Canada for religious freedom. That is, freedom from religious fanatics. The NY Times reports that secularism predominates in Canada where anti-intellectual fundamentalist evangelicals are less oppressively evident. The reason for the difference goes back a long way:
The Puritans who came to the New World in the 17th century as religious refugees never considered colonizing Canada's eastern coast, because it was French and Roman Catholic. They went instead to Massachusetts, where their ideas of having a predestined and godly obligation to transmit their ideals to the world deeply influenced the founders of the United States.

"Religious rhetoric has played an important role in sanctifying major American political actions beginning with the War of Independence," said Stephen A. Kent, a University of Alberta sociologist. Canada has never had a revolution or civil war or expansionist foreign policy, he noted, "so there was no need to sanctify major political events."

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