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!