NEWS RELEASE
MACLEAN'S
************************* Maclean's asks: is religion poison? A new movement blames God for every social problem from Darfur to child abuse
TORONTO, April 6 - His worship is poison, if his enemies are to be believed.
After 9/11 so brutally demonstrated that religious fanaticism is still a force to be reckoned with, a new atheistic movement has been gaining momentum - at least as far as book sales go.
Indeed, in ways large and small, from the Biblical accounts of slaughter in the Holy Land through Christianity and Islam's recurrent fratricidal wars, to the genocide in heavily Catholic Rwanda (for which numerous clergy have been charged with war crimes), the religious record is blood-soaked.
And a new faction of writers and scholars want to engage the public on this very fact.
Indeed, for religion, the 20th century was not much better than the dim past. "Across the country," reports Maclean's senior writer Brian Bethune, "there have been fights over practices associated with the stricter forms of various religions - wearing facial veils (Islam), carrying even symbolic weapons (Sikhism), gender segregation (Judaism) and the less-than-scientific biology taught in some religious schools (Christianity)." And the debate between the devout and the displeased seems to be intensifying.
Today, in a more secular Canada, the now-settled issue of gay marriage rights was fought over scriptural grounds; so is the residual matter of whether marriage commissioners can opt out of officiating gay weddings.
As with pursuing conscientious objector status in wartime, only a religious justification will receive even a hearing.
And yet, reports Bethune, a tiny Quebec town's adoption of secular "standards" for its (non-existent) immigrants is now internationally infamous.
This week's Maclean's asks "Is God Poison?"
Click here to read the cover story
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