Interview with Dr. Gus Lyn-Piluso

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist (Unpublished)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): Unknown

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, today, we’re here with Dr. Gus Lyn-Piluso from the Centre for Inquiry in Canada. So, we’ll focus on general conceptual matters around the Centre for Inquiry Canada, its emphasis on human rights and science within Canada, and more general critical thinking. So when will the Centre for Inquiry be founded? Centre for Inquiry Canada will be founded as an extension of the Centre for Inquiry, the transnational organization. Also, how has this generally evolved? My understanding was that it was probably 2007 when it was founded.

Gus Lyn-Piluso: Yeah. It started during that, or would we call it the rise of the new atheists or whatever we’d like to call it? After 9-11, that period was when there was a real interest, a renewed interest, if you like, on secularism in particular. So some of the humanists in Toronto, in particular, got together, and we’re talking with CFIUS or transnationals, as we now call it. And we started as a branch of theirs. And then, over the years, it slowly became an organization in and of itself rather than a branch of the transnational. We became CFIC, which separated us from them other than the name and we helped each other out. We’re kindred spirits, but we have no formal ties anymore. So, the people involved were some of the movers and shakers in the humanist movement in Canada. People like Henry Morgentaler and Robert Buckman just headed up the starting CFIC.

And then, it slowly became its entity. And since then, it has grown and grown and then retracted somewhat. It’s shrunk down. We lost some funding and are now in the regrowth process again. So we were probably at our biggest, roughly speaking, at around twenty-fourteen or something like that. Maybe even earlier. And then we shrunk, and now we’re slowly. What we’re trying to do is build, but we’re trying to build in a way that ensures we can continue that growth. We may have artificially grown in the past, but we got a chunk of money, and that was great, but we couldn’t hold on to that level of activity. We needed the volunteer base and the commitment that we needed. What we’re trying to do right now is grow slowly but grow with individual members first.

So, the more individual members we have, the more we want them to be active. Active because partly that’s what our mission is. It’s about engaging and getting Canadians active in the democratic process. And what we mean by the democratic process is something much more than representative democracy or elections. CFIC sees this, and this goes back to Kurtz in Rochester, Buffalo, who was one of the founders of CFI Transnational. The idea is that what we need to be doing as citizens is engaging in the discovery of ethics and knowledge as simply as citizens. So, it’s the idea of active citizenship. So, we engage in a democratic process. In other words, we engage in activity that allows us to develop insights based on our activity. In other words, we evaluate how that went. Did it work? Did it not work? It’s an empirical process.

Then, from there, we engage in self-reflection and dialogue discourses, and awe re-emerges with a new emphasis on action. So it’s a cyclical process of action, reflection, and then more action or knowing what we learned, bringing us to new action. So it’s a cyclical process. That’s what we’re trying to get our members to do or to be involved in. So we don’t just want members who pay their yearly fee and then sit back. We want active people who engage in the decision-making process of CFIC and discussions, then difficult discussions. What I mean by difficult discussions is the diversity of ideas, and sometimes we prefer to avoid hearing that, but that’s what we’re aiming for. And from that, those people will fuel CFIC. In other words, it won’t be based on one person or two people or one person with somewhat celebrity status.

We’re looking for a diverse, widespread base of active members. And as a result, we’ve been doing much better. We have a lot of activity, particularly in the education department. And as you saw, the cost of religion and other projects, we have human rights projects. But strictly from an organizational point of view, we have more capacity. If one or two of us or six of us are eight of us leave, we have people take over, and that’s what I believe we were missing before. So I’m very happy with the way we’re situated right now. We need to continue to grow, and we also need to continue to develop that leadership within and the engagement of our members.

Jacobsen: Regarding the cost of religion report as an example, what was the planning stage? How did you execute, and what was the response?

Lyn-Piluso: Well, the cost of religion came from research done by Sandra Dunham; I believe her. Yeah, she’s our director of development. So she, our secular chair, and several others conducted the research. And she also worked with several other members who were particularly attuned to how CR works. The tax laws and such. And they broke it down and got it to a point where we can communicate it to the public. That’s where it gets tricky. We could understand it, and we can put it down on paper. But how do you communicate it to the public? And that’s really what we’re trying to get better at. Although we’ve done a fairly good job with this, we must capitalize on it even more. And that’s one of the things we’re working on now, and how do we get that message out?

Jacobsen: On a conceptual level, what do you consider the costs of religion in Canadian society?

Lyn-Piluso: Well, strictly from an economic point of view, it’s the taxes. I mean, that’s, for example, in Ontario, we have a school board. We are paying for two school boards. So, doubling funding is unnecessary, and that money could be going to all sorts of things. I don’t need to itemize them, but mental health is one of them, and certainly now, with the improvement of air quality in schools and all sorts of things like that, we’re spending all this extra money on a separate school system for reasons that are now obsolete. So financially, there’s a huge cost to all of us. When a religious organization engages in religious activity and gets a tax break for it, it is being funded and supported by everyone, every Canadian, if they were to engage in charitable work, feed the homeless and not religious, but feed the homeless or whatever the religious activity might be, then that’s perfectly valid.

So there’s no issue there. The issue is simply when they’re taken into tax relief for religious activities. They’ll often talk about the advancement of education, and it’s unclear what kind of education they promote. Are they engaging in religious education? And these are the kinds of things that relieve poverty. Well, OK. How are you doing it? These are the things that need to be explored. The way you asked that question led me to believe that maybe you wanted even more than that. I am not personal; this is just me speaking, not CFIC. But I don’t have a problem with religion and religious organizations. I believe that an organization such as CFIC should go out of its way to support the religious freedoms of different groups, specifically because we live in a secular society.

We need to make sure that everyone has the right to their beliefs. What we object to is that any one group is using political or public power to infringe on the rights of others, and that’s the key. I think that often, people misunderstand an organization like CFIC and see us as anti-religion. I don’t think so. Not only do I not think so, but it simply is not true because, if anything, we are working to promote the freedom of all people and their freedom of belief. Often, you end up with some religious organizations that claim to be pro-religious but are doing more harm to other groups; they’re simply pro-religious points of view. And ours is no. Everyone has the right to religious belief or not believe in any religion. So, in that sense, the cost of religion can be quite high.

More than just financially because it infringes on the rights of other Canadians. And that is sides against the charter, in my humble opinion, not being a lawyer, but I think it’s pretty clear. But it also destroys the one thing Canadians seem to be proud of. Canadians seem to be proud of our diversity in this country, or what you might call multiculturalism. To have real diversity, we have to protect the rights of all people across the board and not favour any group. So anyway, I thought that was important for me to say because often people misunderstand what CFIC is about.

Jacobsen: You have internal educational matters, too. I mean, what is the secular library?

Lyn-Piluso: Sorry, what did you say?

Jacobsen: You have internal educational matters, too. What is the secular library?

Lyn-Piluso: You mean our secular library? Yes. Well, it’s simply a library. It’s a library created by CFIC members in the past 15 years. It’s housed in Ottawa, and members have a right to an opportunity to use it. I was going to say in it you’ll find some of the books you’d expect to find in the library. Bertrand Russell and people like that. But you’ll also find some very interesting books on the development of religion, the rise of religion, Canadian history, and those sorts of things.

Jacobsen: The 10:23 campaign was one of the first types of projects that I was aware of coming out of Centre for Inquiry Canada. I don’t mean the 10:23 campaign in particular, but the campaign against homeopathy as a severe pseudoscience problem in Canada because people, in essence, get water. So, what is the 10:23 campaign? What’s the origin of that title?

Lyn-Piluso: Hold on. This is one of those things I need to check because it was before me. And the one thing I’m not sure of, I believe it started in England. I’m hesitating; I don’t want to claim it as ours. This is one of the bits you can edit out, OK.

Jacobsen: We’re early sometimes; my colleague or whatever, they’ll start. Oh, by the way, we’ll have a little side conversation. I’ll see you at dinner at six, and then we start the session.

Lyn-Piluso: Yeah. So, if my memory is correct, OK, the 10:23 campaign started in England by, I think, a skeptics organization in Liverpool or Manchester. OK. OK, there you go. This is my memory of it, OK. And then we started doing it here in Canada. The famous thing we did here was that we, again, well, I believe it was at Queen’s Park now. OK, so sorry, Leslie would have been involved in that; Leslie is our treasurer. But I believe it was at Queen’s Park. I could be wrong. It may have been in Parliament Hill in Ottawa, but it might have been here in Toronto, where people got together and took a whole bunch of supposed medication.

Jacobsen: Lethal amounts.

Lyn-Piluso: Lethal amounts, right?

Jacobsen: Yeah. But this was taken from James Randi when he did that, from a TED talk, where he says, Oh, lethal amounts, I’m going to take it, and he takes the whole.

Lyn-Piluso: That’s right. So that happened. Well, over ten years ago, because I’ve been involved for about seven or eight years. So well more, I would say, about ten years ago. And again, here’s one of the problems we have with distinguishing our movement. You’ll know this because of your association with the humanist. Often, one group will start something, a skeptic group, humanists, or CFIC, and all the other groups will join. And then it’s hard. When you’re speaking about it historically, you don’t want to be in a position of saying, yes, we did this when it turned out that you weren’t the organizer, even though you remember being there. So that’s why I’m a little hesitant.

Jacobsen: Yeah. It should be clarified. Humanism, Secular humanism, and religious humanism are very different because they agree on many of the same things; they emphasize and rank those values differently, too. So it can confuse the public seeing some of these things. The Venn diagram overlaps on a couple of things. Everyone gets together to form a coalition on that particular topic, and then it causes a lot of confusion. I understand completely.

Lyn-Piluso: Right. Well, where was I going? I was going to do something worthy.

Jacobsen: You begin to fundamentalist evangelicals in the United States, joining up with hard-line Catholics on some anti-abortion issue. Then people will talk about Christians, but in their mind, conceptually, they’re thinking about Catholics in America. Yet they will ignore the fact that there are things like Catholics for choice in the United States, which, no matter how many boring encyclicals the pope puts out, this group of laity will ignore and will advance what is modern medical technology and a woman’s choice.

Lyn-Piluso: Right. And feminist Catholics, the whole thing. Right. So, I had something in my head. It’ll come back to me, and when it comes to me, I’ll say it’s OK. Well, just ask me whatever, and then we’ll.

Jacobsen: Yeah. I mean, the Bangladeshi writers, you were involved. You started in 2014 and 2013. OK. So there’s a when you’re starting this campaign around supporting Bangladeshi bloggers who are being murdered, which is to say people being murdered or killed for words because of words that were against public opinion or the opinion of the authorities. So how does CFIC support some of these individuals or these collectives who fall under the category of writers, particularly in countries where they’re at risk?

Lyn-Piluso: Well, more than anything else, our role is educational. So we are concerned with human rights, but there’s very little we can do to help individuals. Every once in a while, we’ll do what we can to connect people, particularly through our program. We work jointly with CFI U.S. or CFI Transnational on this. Hold on, let me just get the name of the program. I just want to not screw it up. When dealing with specific individuals, there’s little we can do. We have a program called Assistance for Apostates. In that program, we work together with secular rescue from CFI Transnational. We try to do our best to connect them with refugee organizations and maybe with some financial assistance, although we’re limited in what we can do there. Our main work has to do with educating and educating the public.

Canadians are fairly well-tuned into the fact that there are refugees out there. Although not all Canadians are necessarily supportive of refugees, generally, people tend to understand that refugees are, through no fault of their own, in a position of danger in their homelands. Canada is one of those countries that says, if you are in this position, we will especially look at your application to come to this country. What is missing in the general public is this understanding that sometimes people are being persecuted not just because of their religion but because they don’t have a religion or because they speak against a particular religion. So we educate Canadians, and we’re trying to do all we can to raise awareness around the idea that such individuals have the same rights to refugee status in Canada.

One of the things we’ve been working on recently with Humanist Canada, and hold on, I’ve got to give you the name, whether you heard of the organization. Doug Thomas’s organization, do you remember?

Jacobsen: Secular connection, SES.

Lyn-Piluso: Secular connections, right? Is the idea that atheists or non-religious refugees should have the same, what’s it called the hurried, the sped up? What’s the term they used?

Jacobsen: It sounds like a horror film, and call it the quickening. It’s expedited.

Lyn-Piluso: Expedited refugee process, and we’re just waiting today. I believe today is the day we’re supposed to hear from the minister. He’s had forty-five days to respond, and I believe today is the forty-fifth date. Unless they didn’t count a particular day that I’m not clear on, let’s give them until Monday or Tuesday. But we should be hearing from them. So our role is one of it. It’s an educational role. Then, we work to change policies and maybe help individuals. In the case of those particular Bangladeshi writers, we did all sorts of PR work around that, particularly in Canada, but we also worked specifically to help one of those young people move to Canada. I remember correctly now that he’s in Quebec.

Jacobsen: In these cases, they are prominent, I mean, in the sense that there’s a lot of them. Even with the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, the U.S. CIRF is bipartisan as an organization; it’s federal, and they have several cases. In at least one of the cases that I’ve seen, which is in Pakistan, the religious affiliation is humanist. I’m not going to balk at the religious affiliation, just the fact that it’s labelled humanist as the title under which he’s not treated well. I think earlier this year, given the death sentence after three years in jail.

Lyn-Piluso: So, has he labelled himself a humanist because there needs to be a religious status there? Is that the idea?

Jacobsen: I’m not entirely sure because some might be atheists and might be Muslim.

Lyn-Piluso: Right. But if the refugee granting body needs a religion, this is part of the problem that sometimes people have to say they’re being prosecuted because of their religion. If they don’t have a religion, then the assumption is they can’t possibly be prosecuted.

Jacobsen: And which doesn’t match the Pew Research, which is to say people take the United States data tripartisan independent Republican and Democrat hate atheists. Americans just don’t like them. I would assume there is a milder form in Canada without formal data to back it up. But given the cultural overlap, this must be the case, whether from other people telling stories of personal experience. It’s just part of living in Canada. And you see in the various religious privileges. And so, yeah, in a sense, I would expand that conversation to refugee status and things of that nature because in Canada and elsewhere, it’s just a little bit harder not to identify with a religion. And if you need to do that to get refugee status, you will do it because your life or livelihood is on the line.

Lyn-Piluso: Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah, I think generally; again, I don’t have the stats in front of me, but I think we’re better off in Canada than they are in the States. I think we are lucky not to have that belt of religious furor that is around the southern parts of the United States. We have a little bit of it, but not that much. And as a result, we tend to be, I would guess, more accepting of atheists. I’m not sure if we call it more acceptable. I would say that Canadians just don’t care as much about religion.

Jacobsen: Tolerance by indifference.

Lyn-Piluso: Exactly. Indifference. They just want to get on with their lives and not care. But these things come and go. They ebb and flow, so we never know. And with what we see happening in the United States could easily blow up here as well.

Jacobsen: I mean, some of the figureheads in the United States who fuel some of these hate movements and others they come from Canada. So, their origins are in this society. And so they become part and parcel of that American narrative, which Canadians criticize but do not necessarily consider. It started here, some of them.

Lyn-Piluso: That’s strange. I wonder; I thought of that as well. People like Cruz and and such. I wonder if they would have had as much traction here, though, or even, well, maybe not, I don’t know. I was going to say even in a northern state. But I guess it depends on where Trump is sort of throwing everything off every time I thought that I understood something in American politics, and he’s throwing everything off.

Jacobsen: Sure. Well, I think everything has a season. In a sense certain, it can be state-wise. We’ll have seasons where you just ask how this person gets elected. Other times, the federal.

Lyn-Piluso: But there’s a lack of critical thinking going on. I mean, the conspiracy theories and whatnot. That, to me, is the most dangerous thing the world is facing right now. I mean, OK, there’s climate change and such, but in terms of the political process, it’s the inability to ask oneself basic questions like who is making a claim? What do they have to do? How might they profit from such a claim? Or where’s the support for such a claim? Where’s the empirical evidence? And we don’t need to be fancy. And this is, again, where I get back to the idea of a true democratic process. We need to have a citizenship engaged in the community that values diversity. In other words, let me hear what Scott has to say. And if I think I disagree with them, let me say, Scott, I disagree with you. I’m not getting it to help me understand your position here, Scott.

And in that process of back and forth, we may learn something from each other, and that’s missing right now. And as a result, people are simple. I’m starting to fall for some really bad thinking. I would imagine we’ve always fallen for these bad things throughout history. Certainly, the protocols of the Elders of Zion and such, there’s been crap out there forever. But I think, with the internet now and such, it just spreads faster and is more dangerous. That, to me, is what an organization like CFIC is ultimately about. If we can engage before, going back to the refugees, if someone says, well, why should these people come in, well, here’s why. , let’s look at them. Look at the people who are being persecuted simply because they’re Muslim. That is wrong.

Well, it’s equally wrong for people to be persecuted simply because they’re not or they don’t have a belief. Both people deserve a right to live. And we need to do all we can in the community, in the global community, to make sure that we protect people as much as we can, or at the very least help the citizens understand the importance of this, right? I go too far once I get going on certain things; I’m so sorry.

Jacobsen: And so, at a core, CFIC situates itself as both a buffer and a corrective. A buffer against those forces.

Lyn-Piluso: I would see CFIC as a counter-hegemonic vision. What I mean by that is we have this notion of democracy in our society that is not democratic. Making an ex four times once every four years is not democracy. Real democracy requires active citizens. But to be an active citizen, you need the skills of democracy. You need to know how to negotiate and how to engage in dialogue. How to read, but also how to read statistics and such. We’rewe will not all be statisticians, but we can learn to ask the right questions. We can learn to understand the basics or the executive summaries if you like. We can learn to ask the experts in the field questions so that they can help us understand them. This is what real democracies, its active citizens, people who believe that their voices matter and that the voices of their fellow citizens matter.

Organizations like CFIC set themselves up to speed up that kind of democracy. What’s it called when whisky is fermenting? Fermentation. We’re trying to ferment this democratic process, OK? So if we end up, this is my idea of what good education is, from when a child is very young through their educational experience. It should not simply be about learning facts. It should be engaging with the facts and engaging with others, seeing for themselves and testing those facts out for themselves. If we can create schools and situations where people engage in those things, they will not accept governments that dictate or control them. So CFIC is a harbour if you like; it’s a place for Canadians to get together and play at that democratic process.

What I mean by play, though, is that in a very serious way, playing at the dialogue is a way to learn from each other, how to engage in the dialogue, and how to engage in critical thinking. If we can do it ourselves in CFIC at the member stage and create a truly democratic organization, then each member will also engage in their particular communities. And what we end up with is active citizenship, a group of citizens who understand how democracy works, who insist that their voices are heard and that the voices of their fellow Canadians are heard too, not simply to the voices of people they don’t want to hear.

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time.

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