The World's Largest Coalition of Nontheists and Nontheist Communities!

God, keep our land glorious and free!

I was born in Canada, obviously not by choice, and I was taught to sing the national anthem in school without a second thought. This concerns me greatly as I feel it's just another strong reinforcement of religion's presence in our country.

I know it's only a song, but it's THE song that defines who we are as a nation when heard by other countries, or even worse, heard and proudly recited by our youth, who at a young age learn subconsciously that patriotism doesn't exist without "god" coming into the picture. I'd rather be singing "All keep our land" or something as neutral as that, and let the religious keep their songs about god in their private lives.

Generally, people seem to tend to want to stick to their traditions, and even some non-religious people I've talked to seem to have a problem with changing something as traditional as the national anthem. Has this been brought up before by any Canadian atheist or equality groups? Or is it completely a lost cause?

Taken literally, and from an atheist/logical point of view, we might as well be verbally asking Jupiter or the Easter bunny to somehow intervene on the well-being of our country's values and natural beauty should things go awry. Does that not sound like something completely bat-shit insane??

Tags: Canada, anthem, atheist, canadian, change, god, keep, land, national, our

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Eleanor on March 23, 2010 at 4:02pm

Exactly--I guess it's too freaky to be known as the politician who is responsible for removing god from the nat'l anthem. ;-)

Neat info about the 2011 census--*thanks*.

Permalink Reply by Fred on April 25, 2010 at 10:18am

Well, for one thing, O Canada is a horrible tune. It's an outdated, jingoistic, shallow piece of tripe. I have a great deal of appreciation of Canada and its history but our anthem is practically insulting. Anyway, more to your point, I'd like to see the references to God be omitted but I don't care enough to make it a big deal. I'd be more interested, if we must have a national anthem, to have something more appropriate to the spirit of being Canadian and not this failed veil of patriotism. Say, like Stan Rogers' ballad Northwest Passage. THAT would be something.

Permalink Reply by J.P.M. on April 29, 2010 at 5:34am

When I started reading this thread, I found myself trying to remember any mention of god in Oh Canada and I couldn't. It was *never there* when I was in grade school. (OK, so that was in the 70's). So now it is "God keep our land, glorious and free ?!!! WTF did this happen? I thought we were becoming more secular up there, not less.

Permalink Reply by TNT666 on April 30, 2010 at 11:52pm

Canada was 'secular' for a very short time, but we were all guilty of being silent about it, and respectful of other people's beliefs. This has gotten us nowhere. "WE" are not becoming less secular, but Canada IS becoming less secular, because Canadian women's low fertility (which I applaud) is compensated for by idiot governments who import more and more religious cheap labor from 2nd and 3rd world countries.

In Whitehorse, where I live, I have not been able to have a Canadian born doctor, no Canadian born doctor wants to live in Whitehorse, which opens the door for the government to encourage immigration of doctors from religious run countries, such as Egypt, etc.

This influx of other religions makes christians defensive, and so begath the RE-religio-fication (sorry) of Canada. It has been going on for years.

But Canadians are so polite and so silent.

Permalink Reply by Ellemar on February 3, 2011 at 3:23pm

Personally the God reference has never bothered me. It was written in a time when most people were pretty religious. I don't know how I feel about meddling with something historical like that. I've always been of the opinion that you don't have to sing that part if you don't like it, or you can just change it to something a little more non-theist friendly.

Permalink Reply by Jeff H on February 9, 2011 at 8:19pm

It's not that historical. The insertion of "God keep our land" was part of the changes suggested by a parliamentary committee in 1967, and they weren't officially made part of the lyrics until 1980, when "O Canada" officially replaced "God Save the Queen" as Canada's national anthem. Here are the original English lyrics by Stanley Weir:

O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love thou dost in us command.
We see thee rising fair, dear land,
The True North, strong and free;
And stand on guard, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.

O Canada! O Canada!
O Canada! We stand on guard for thee.
O Canada! We stand on guard for thee.

Permalink Reply by Jeff H on February 9, 2011 at 8:22pm

Personally, I prefer the version we have with another "O Canada" in place of "God keep our land".

Permalink Reply by Patrick Donohue on March 4, 2011 at 2:27am

I always just switch "God Keep Our Land" with "Please Keep Our Land". Sounds more Canadian that way. lol

Permalink Reply by Sean Murphy on June 4, 2011 at 9:20pm

"Taken literally, and from an atheist/logical point of view, we might as well be verbally asking Jupiter or the Easter bunny to somehow intervene on the well-being of our country's values and natural beauty should things go awry. Does that not sound like something completely bat-shit insane?"

Jupiter or the Easter Bunny don't scan right musically. Jove would work just as well though, or the superficially similar fantasy figure Zeus. Or Thor. "Thor keep our land glorious and free!" actually works better within the mythology - Thor traditionally was a protector of humanity rather than a jealous deliverer of vengeance, and he has his own comic book, in addition to scanning the line well musically...