Athée Canadien
Nearly half of Canadians don’t believe in God
By Ian
In addition to the swath of new reality, cop, and comedy shows, there’s a new “news” show coming to Global this fall called Context.
Context promises to discuss “life beyond the headlines” (the quotes are on their Who We Are page), meaning news from a Christian world view. The show is hosted by Evangelical Christian journalist Lorna Dueck, who previously hosted Listen Up.
I was going to go through the Answers provided by Context, or how she responds to her “atheist friends” that science has disproved god but it’s fairly standard Christian mumbo-jumbo. I don’t have the will power to go through it right now, maybe I’ll pick on it later, or you can demolish it in the comments (or if anyone wants to actually read through it all, send it to me and I’ll post it here).
What’s more interesting than picking on another evangelical TV show (which shows at roughly 11:00 AM local across the country), besides the opportunity to crash her set if you’re in Toronto, is the results of the poll that they commissioned to launch their show.
They hired reputable firm Ipsos Reid, who polled 1129 Canadians earlier this month. Among their findings:
- Only 53% of Canadians believe in God. This puts a combined atheist/agnostic/unsure response rate at 47%, the highest ever reported. Worth noting is the 1 in 3 Catholics and nearly 1 in 4 who attend Church service weekly do not believe in God.
- The same number of believers also think religion is a net positive, while the remaining 47% agree that religion does more harm than good.
- Only 29% of Canadians believe in heaven, and only 19% believe in hell. So sticks and carrots aren’t dictating our morality.
- 71% don’t think that religious people are necessarily better citizens – which means sadly that 29% still think atheists are lesser than the rest.
- 64% think religion raises more questions than answers.
- Finally, a slim majority – 51% – do not think “religious practice is an important factor in the moral lives of Canadians.”
I think the TV show is trying to play these results off as demonstrating the need to evangelize more, given their tweets:
Regardless of their thoughts, these numbers show the success of the secular and atheist movements.
Keep it up!
| Print article | This entry was posted by Ian on September 19, 2011 at 1:18 pm, and is filed under Atheism. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |
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http://www.answersingenesis.org/outreach/event/7042/
about 8 months ago
“Regardless of their thoughts, these numbers show the success of the secular and atheist movements.”
However, shows like Context indicate that the religious are becoming more vocal.
Dueck has a blog: http://www.lornadueck.com/blog. In the “About” section we learn that Lorna is a “graduate of Tyndale University College (Bachelor of Religious Studies) and Winkler Bible Institute (Christian Education).” I noted this especially because Alan Wilson, the Ontario PC candidate for Peterborough “is a graduate of Tyndale Seminary in Toronto with a Master’s Degree in Theology.” http://alanmwilson.ca/about/ I noticed that this info is included in Wilson’s bio on his website and I question how this fact contributes to his qualifications in his bid to become an MPP.
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So I’ll post it here:
1) Would you expect the screwdriver in your toolbox to drive you to work in the morning? No? Then why are you trying to make science, a tool for describing the world, into a prescriptive tool? That’s what the liberal arts – especially philosophy – are for.
2) Theology, especially Christian theology, has a wholly dissatisfying answer to the question “why should I be moral?” It contends that you should do it in order to avoid punishment. I’m sorry, but I’d rather be moral for reasons that are not “I’m greedy.”
3) You say that looking at humans as mammals implies we’ll treat humans like animals. Your statement carries the implication that we do not treat animals well. I can do the same thing – it implies we should treat animals like people. A lot of folks will have the knee-jerk reaction of dismissing that statement out of hand due to the extremist animal activists out there, but here’s a point for you to consider: how many theists do you know are vegetarians for moral reasons (ie not religious reasons), compared to how many atheists that you know who are vegetarians for moral reasons? And the religious people call the atheists amoral…
4) Citing scientists who are religious is an appeal to authority, which is a logical fallacy. Are you aware of the atheist bible scholars out there? They really do exist.
5) Lastly, theology gets to cheat in its “wholistic view of reality.” It is a combination of prescriptive and descriptive points, where as the rest of academia (like, say, science) long ago learned the value of SEPARATING THESE TOOLS.