Michael Coren(-less) show features a neurotic Harper, Pope vs. Potter, my Turkish conversion story

July 27, 2009

Michael Coren(-less) show features a neurotic Harper, Pope vs. Potter, Atheist misery + my Turkish conversion story

This is a personal editorial from Justin Trottier's blog.  It does not reflect CFI opinion or policy in any way:

This was one of the best showing I’ve had on the Michael Coren Show in my humble opinion.  I think it had something to do with the fact that the host was away and replaced by the very professional and well spoken Tim Denis, who has a sort of Steven Paiken charm (that’s not to be confused with an actual compliment of the content of Paiken’s arguments when he makes some).  He’s the host of a Morning Show on 610 CKTB Newstalk out of St. Catharines.

The following guests were on the show with me:

• Joe Boot, Senior Pastor, Westminster Chapel, Apologist and Author
• Fr. Tom Lynch, Professor of Moral Theology, St. Augustine’s Seminary
• Hussein Hamdani, Vice-Chair and Legal Counsel, North American Spiritual

One of the good points of today’s show was that rather than dwelling on just a few issues, or even a single issue as Coren did last time, Denis covered a lot of ground and we ended up leaving out just two items from the list I was sent in advance to prepare from.  The first was Gay altar server contests firing which we couldn’t cover because one of the guests was part of the catholic team defending the church.  The other - more disappointingly - was Toronto film festival picks Darwin drama Creation as opener .

To the first, I was going to take issue with the Catholic Civil Rights League which sent an open letter questioning whether the Human Rights tribunal has jurisdiction in this matter.

No one serves on the altar as a right; it is at the discretion of the pastor, who in turn is at the service of his bishop. Mr. Corcoran’s role was not unlike that of other liturgical servers, who are part of the overall presentation of the Mass.

But that could of course be said of any job and in non-religious settings, you are not allowed to fire someone from a paying job (or from a voluntary one) under grounds that are protected in the Charter.  Religions should be allowed to discriminate only if other non religious bodies can do so.  How can religious organizations be immune from the sorts of laws that effect every private entity, while they are not even private but rather a public entity in the sense that they are charitable.  They should be subject to even harsher regulations.

As to the article on the new film adaption of the life of Charles Darwin, I was kind of disappointed we couldn’t give a plug to what looks like an intriguing production.  According to the article,

the tension between faith and reason seen in Jon Amiel’s film Creation — which follows Darwin as he struggles with the views of his deeply religious wife and his world-changing theories — is also emerging in other films programmers have selected.  [...]  This theme of that eternal conflict between faith and reason does seem to be emerging from different parts of the world

I was all set to answer charges - as were brought up last time we discussed Darwin - of the relationship between evolution and eugenics.  I had the original quote from The Descent of Man where Darwin repudiates the notion of breeding better people and calls for increased education.

The more efficient causes of progress seem to consist of a good education during youth whilst the brain is impressible, and of a high standard of excellence, inculcated by the ablest and best men, embodied in the laws, customs and traditions of the nation, and enforced by public opinion.

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment.  Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.

Not to mention that Hitler, far from lionizing Darwin, in fact had his books burned.  As one blog I came across explained “Hitler believed heritage passed in the blood — as the Bible argues, but not as Darwin argues — and so prohibited the use of blood banks.”

I was also set to concede that evolution - as is always pointed out in these debates - does not provide for origin of life accounts, but that there are research programs in just that area.  I won’t go into the several pages of data I had accumulated on such things as the RNA world, autocatalytic sets and the clay substrate as a springboard for the replication of organic molecules.  Suffice it to say I was prepared.  But I don’t doubt these issues will be raised again at some point.

So that’s what we didn’t talk about.  What did we talk about?

Well, we started with Harper calls Communion flap ‘low point’ in Canadian journalism

Basically, it came down to an argument about whether the media was making this into a major spectacle to embarrass religion, as Joe Boot and Tom Lynch asserted and which is essentially the Prime Minister’s rhetorical attempt to get himself out of an embarrassing situation, or whether in fact this was an internal matter between religious leaders, as I believe.  After all, as the article quotes from the guy who passed out the sacred host - Msgr. Brian Henneberry:

“It’s worse than a faux pas, it’s a scandal from the Catholic point of view,” Monsignor Brian Henneberry, vicar general and chancellor in the Diocese of Saint John, told the Telegraph-Journal earlier this week. And he went on to demand an explanation from Mr. Harper.

So who is fueling this particular fire?  In any case, I can only smirk considering a column that was brought to my attention in which Michael Coren said:

I’ve debated atheists numerous times now and they are, without exception, the least happy and most angry people I have ever encountered. There probably is a God, so stop being so neurotic and start enjoying your life.

We’re neurotic?  The Prime Minister is caught in a kerfuffle over the whereabouts of a cookie!

We also covered Court strikes down bus ad ban:  Supreme Court unanimously rules B.C. transit agencies violated rights to free speech when they refused to carry political ads on the outside of their vehicles I won’t dwell on this here since I’ve posted about the bus campaign and free speech so much, but this was a great opportunity to discuss it on TV.  I’ll just point out a really great quote from Madam Justice Marie Deschamps

It is difficult to see how an advertisement on the side of a bus that constitutes political speech might create a safety risk or an unwelcoming environment for transit users.  The policies amount to a blanket exclusion of a highly valued form of expression in a public location that serves as an important place for public discourse, the space allows for expression by a broad range of speakers to a large public audience.  Important ruling on agencies operating for the government

We were supposed to discuss a follow up  - Atheist ad chases wrong bus:  Science demonstrates that the ‘don’t worry, be happy’ lifestyle is in fact a blessing bestowed mostly on believers . Unfortunately Joe Boot and I bumped heads only briefly, merely enough to insist that scientific research was on each of our sides.  My favourite lead on this is Evidence Behind Claim of Religion-Health Link is Shaky, Researchers Say .

The authors found that 83 percent of the 266 articles that they found were “irrelevant to claims of a health advantage associated with religious involvement,” Sloan reports, because these studies, while about religion, had nothing to do with an effect of religion on health.

Of those that actually were relevant, many … had significant methodological flaws,” he adds. Others were cited as evidence that that religion benefits health when, in fact, their findings were inconclusive.

When it comes to happiness, which is much more elusive, it depends on the methodology used (eg. Oxford Happiness Inventory shows a correlation but the Depression-Happiness Scale doesn’t).  I won’t go into the details here, but anyone interested in the actual studies can just contact me directly.

We also touched on the Harry Potter controversy: Vatican finally gives Harry Potter its blessing .  Apparently this was only a blessing in disguise, since it was given by an arms length publication and not the Pope himself. No, the Pope is still pretty confident he was right the first time when he wrote a letter stating

“It is good, that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.

The UK Telegraph’s Damian Lanigran had this brilliant analysis last year:

Like all ideological organisations, the Catholic Church specialises in finding ideology where it doesn’t exist. It is addicted to turning works of art into politics, because it the only role it sees for art is as a means of glorifying its beliefs.  It can’t seem to make the basic distinction that just because a book is about the occult and witchcraft, it doesn’t mean that the book supports the occult and witchcraft. Does any sane person think that J.K. Rowling is trying to recruit children to occultism? Or that she’s a witch? But ideology needs ideological opponents - and preferably in the guise of a conspiracy theory. What Ratzinger meant when he used the term “subtle seductions”, is that “you can’t see these seductions, but I can”. It’s the classic strategy of the conspirator, from Torquemada to David Icke .

Of course it would be very easy to point out that the Potter myth offers a potent alternative to the Christian myth, and that this is the real source of the Catholics’ concern. However, I think it’s something a little more specific: the worst enemy of authority of all stripes is a child with an independent mind, and that phrase pretty much sums up Harry Potter. It’s also worth pointing out that, according to Rowling , Harry has the ultimate strength of character, “because he is not afraid of death”. And without fear, where would the Catholic Church be?

And finally, we touched on my own National Post story Justin Trottier: Fixing non-believers, live on TV .
Apparently, this is ridiculous, according to Joe Book.  No religious apologist actually converts people through logical arguments (Agreed!).  They only create an appropriate environment so the holy spirit can descend and do the converting.  Doesn’t that make the holy spirit subservient to the apologist?  But if the holy spirit were truly omnipotent, that would put the apologist out of business.