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Religion In Canada

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An Absence of Religion Leads to an Abundance of Peace: Canada’s Divorce from Religion

Until the 1960’s, Canada’s image was one of complete devotion to the church. It had been an integral part of Canada’s culture, and the Catholic church had a massive hold on the citizens in Quebec especially. However, the baby boomers which followed WWII broke this trend. Since Canada is personified as a mosaic due to its multiculturalism, which is in itself a part of Canada’s culture today, it would be easy to make the assumption that religion does not play as vital a role as it did before the end of the war. Present day Canadians are very loosely interested in religion and spirituality and are not as influenced by the strict rules and traditions that their …show more content…

When looking at religion through supply and demand, many marginal affiliates--those uninterested in religion--argue that prayer does not offer them something they need. This is seen as the main issue--citizens have lost interest in religion because it no longer offers citizens what it is they think is “worthwhile” (Bibby). Their primary agent of socialization being their families, citizens in modern-day Canada are more invested in religion growing up than when they leave the house, because they follow the traditions set out by their families. This contrasts with prior views, as during the war Canadians felt a strong tie to religion and prayer, and the church was supplying exactly what Canadians needed at the time--hope. The period of “de-christianization” after the war was in part due to immigration, while also because of the emergence of feminism and various social justice movements (Noll). There was, suddenly, a lot of conflict amongst people of different belief systems. Finally, religion is often cast into the role of the villain, as wars, hatred and envy can often be linked back to religion. The change was impossible to ignore; from 1970 to 2000 alone only 20% of Canadians claimed a connection to the Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, and United churches--the four largest Protestant denominations that represented the majority in English-speaking Canada (Noll). All across Canada, the number of …show more content…

On the surface, this does not seem like a terrible idea-good values are being taught to kids at a young age, values that children carry into adulthood. However, the religion was being enforced by mandatory prayers (Lee). The students who were of a different religion and therefore could not participate in the Christian prayers were asked to leave the room. There were conflicts amongst religious groups because of the distress it caused the students’ parents, mainly of Jewish or Muslim faith. They felt that their children were being separated from the rest of their classmates and feared that their children would feel singled out because of religion (Lee). The Ontario appeals court agreed with the parents, saying that “there are less intrusive ways than public exercises to impart moral values” (Lee). Another incident in another school, located in British Columbia, showed another conflict amongst religious groups. Parents of this school board wanted to ban a book entitled One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads, Blue Dads because it talks about same sex marriage (Church & State). This request was turned down, by a 7-2 majority, because there are members of the community which would be silenced had they accepted the ban. The court’s chief of justice wrote that though they value the religious views of the community, this was seen as an attempt to, “use the religious views of one

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