Comments on: Statue of Ganesh Offends Visitors at Calgary Zoo

By: Jim Blake

Jim Blake — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:09:16 +0000

Thank you for posting this article. All in all it was a good article.

I felt it important to add some clarification to your article. In the CBC interview, you linked to, the CBC failed to properly document all of the comments I made which would have brought a more balanced view of my message. But they did at least include one important quote which you left out, “The displaying of different gods in a public place like this is an offense to our beliefs and does not represent the diversity of views that should be reflected.”

In the interview I made the point very clear that the zoo is funded by millions of tax payer dollars. It is therefor a public facility not exclusively a private one, nor a Hindu one. If tax payer dollars of non-Hindus are going into the zoo, then the zoo needs to honor the fact that the zoo should be a neutral place free from any religious icons and more importantly open to people from all religious and non-religious backgrounds.

There is no need to include, either a Noah’s Ark, or a statue of Ganesh at the zoo, even though both have animal themes. When people go there, they want to see animals.

If people want to have a Hundu zoo, where they connect their Hundi beliefs with animals, let them create one and pay for it with private funds. If Hindus want to stand at the public zoo and pass out literature on their god Ganesh, on their own time let them. Christians could do the same and so could other religious groups, that is a matter of freedom of religion and expression. But when the zoo erects a statue of Ganesh they are endorsing that religion with public funds.

I run a Christian organization called Concerned Christians Canada and we do not ask for nor receive government funds to run our organization. In fact, we lobby government for the removal of tax payer funding of special interest groups. Special interest groups should operate free of government funds. Let the people who believe in the organization’s views and agendas fund them.

If you have any questions or need further clarification on my interview or my views on the Ganesh statue or any other topic, please feel free to e-mail nationalchairman@concernedchristians.ca

By: Esbee

Esbee — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 13:38:46 +0000

I would like to ask an atheist if the reason they are so against believing in God because in the Bible it states how God told his people to go wipe out certain peoples, then lists the Crusades as evidence of a bloody God, then are atheists equally against communism, which has totaled 110,000,000, dead since the early 20th century? One of the tenants of Communism is that there is no God. I would think under the same reasoning for being vehemently against God because a good God should not kill especially innocents, then by the same reasoning, an atheist who spends much time deriding and writing against religion and outwardly stating the ludicrousy of religion, should also spend equal if not more time, decrying communism. Would you actually face a communist leader who murders their own people and tell them how you feel about what they believe that they are hypocrites and murderers? After all, communism started as a system for the common people to have equal rights, yet became what it is today, the few in power have all the perks and total control over the lives of the citizens who face death or prison for having independent thoughts and labor for the good of the few in power.
Below are stats taken from http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM
With this understood, the Soviet Union appears the greatest megamurderer of all, apparently killing near 61,000,000 people. Stalin himself is responsible for almost 43,000,000 of these. Most of the deaths, perhaps around 39,000,000 are due to lethal forced labor in gulag and transit thereto. Communist China up to 1987, but mainly from 1949 through the cultural revolution, which alone may have seen over 1,000,000 murdered, is the second worst megamurderer. Then there are the lesser megamurderers, such as North Korea and Tito’s Yugoslavia.
Obviously the population that is available to kill will make a big difference in the total democide, and thus the annual percentage rate of democide is revealing. By far, the most deadly of all communist countries and, indeed, in this century by far, has been Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot and his crew likely killed some 2,000,000 Cambodians from April 1975 through December 1978 out of a population of around 7,000,000. This is an annual rate of over 8 percent of the population murdered, or odds of an average Cambodian surviving Pol Pot’s rule of slightly over just over 2 to 1.
In sum the communist probably have murdered something like 110,000,000, or near two-thirds of all those killed by all governments, quasi-governments, and guerrillas from 1900 to 1987. Of course, the world total itself it shocking. It is several times the 38,000,000 battle-dead that have been killed in all this century’s international and domestic wars. Yet the probable number of murders by the Soviet Union alone–one communist country– well surpasses this cost of war. And those murders of communist China almost equal it.

By: Jessica Sideways

Jessica Sideways — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:39:48 +0000

“You can’t erect a statue to your elephant god because my sky fairy will be offended.”

I love that! ^_^ But yeah, I lived in Calgary and I feel sad that I never got to visit the Calgary Zoo. I passed by it all the time when I lived in Northeast Calgary.

By: Doubting Thomas

Doubting Thomas — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:13:52 +0000

That’s a typical Christian response: “How dare they put up statues to these false pagan gods? They need to put a display up to honor the one true God. You know, the one I worship.”

By: Seth Strong

Seth Strong — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:11:32 +0000

Zoos don’t have people in cages and that’s a big reason why Jesus wouldn’t fit in there. Ganesh is cooler by far. Not cool enough for me to put any belief into him, but it looks like he avoided the fate of being hung like a picture which has been the death of other popular one-third deities.

By: ildi

ildi — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:06:30 +0000

We only want to worship beavers

Rian has the right idea!

By: Tony Partridge

Tony Partridge — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:21:53 +0000

I agree with the zoo’s rationalization regarding the dancing elephant: that its a cultural expression linked to the place this species occupies in Asian societys. Also, to suggest that “religion is something more than a cultural artifact or expression is to give religion much more credit than it deserves. Religion is if nothing else, a cultural/mythological narrative that gives meat to the bone of collective and individual identity. Whether you take it as a literal belief system or as a poetic/literary albeit mythical symbolic expression I suppose is the divide between believers and non-believers. Although I am a non-believer, I enjoy exploring the rich world of myth, magic and metaphor to be found in biblical and other religious text.

However, having stated the above it is also critical to point out that true believers thrive on confrontation, it feeds their sense of righteousness and makes them feel alive in relation to their core religious beliefs. They even strap bombs to their bodies or willingly throw themselves into the flames to prove their faith in the deluded belief that they have been granted one form or another of eternal life due to their unwavering faith and degree of submission or obedience. How dangerous is that? It certainly warrants from those of us rooted in rationality, a very close examination in order to avoid and protect ourselves from such madness.

By: Artur

Artur — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:38:37 +0000

This statue is an abomination!

By: Shane

Shane — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:22:30 +0000

Sorry, but neither Jim Blake nor the blogger are making much sense here. The statue is clearly being used in a cultural not religious format. Is there any calls for the the orca statue at the Vancouver aquarium brought down, seeing as how its an aboriginal religious symbol as well? Of course not! and neither should there be any such calls for this statue.

By: infideljoe

infideljoe — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:11:29 +0000

I did release God was Canadian.