I have never written to the Empire Advance before, but Christian Party Candidate Rebecca Hein's October 4 letter cries out for a response. She implies that religiosity and morality are intimately linked, yet there is little, if any evidence to support this.
A tour through a maximum security prison will reveal that atheists are very underrepresented. A flip through the pages of history will reveal that some of the worst atrocities were committed in the name of God. Hitler was a Roman Catholic, despite any propaganda you may hear to the contrary.
Hein is good enough to admit that the residential schools were a terrible idea, but fails to admit that the religions of our First Nations were every bit as valid as Christianity, to say nothing of many other belief systems.
What makes Canada a great country is not Christianity but our individual right to practice this, or any other religion, or to choose not to practice any at all. In centuries past, when the church had more power, I would have been burned for this letter. How far we have come as a civilization.
George Baker
Virden, MB
