Once again the humanist organisation has shown its true colours. Every so often this organisation writes a banal and uninformative piece to the newspapers to remind us of their existence. This time their voices manipulated the population statistics for their own ends and reiterated their calls for removing religion from the constitution.They claim to be the voice of nonbelievers, and thus as these numbers have increased they are a group deserving of the public's attention.
I draw their attention to a fact that is quite self-evident. I challenge the humanist organisation to name one civilization, or society from the bowels of history that has not worshiped a god or gods. The Romans and Greeks had their numerous gods; the African tribes their deities; the Jews had Yahweh; the Hindus their gods; the Persians and the Byzantine their various deities; the Vikings their Thor and so forth. The list goes on and on.
You see, man has always felt a need to look outside of himself for what he needs and to understand the world, whereas humanists are self-worshipers. Furthermore, every people that came to this country, from the indigenous to those who became Trinidadians yesterday, brought their foods, dance, languages and yes, religions with them.
What this suggests to me is that the onus is on the humanists to prove the need to remove all references to a god from the constitution or anywhere else for that matter.I reiterate, humanists are not representative of the non-believing population, and have no right to assume that position. In effect, they are just as bad as some of the groups they criticise who claim to represent a faith but in fact do not.
I humbly ask that they do not impose their personal "beliefs" on the greater society. If religion is a matter of conscience, and you are imposing your problems of conscience on the public, and don't know you are doing this, then you are in no position to guide anyone.Finally, who put you as judge of what is to be included or not in this society? Judges must be impartial and you make no attempts at that.
If people want to believe and worship, that is their right. It is not up to you to tell them what to do.
Isidore Gabriel,
via e-mail