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Stories about evolution:

Join the real Darwin debate
There are fully 12 major theories of evolution in circulation but Canadians know little about any of them
Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun, February 28

Canadians take Darwin debate to streets, lecture halls and rap circuits
A rising hip-hop artist is among the Canadians shifting the debate about Charles Darwin and evolution to the streets, cafes, lecture halls and nightclubs. This month a wonderful variety of events surrounding Darwin, natural selection, evolutionary psychology, religion and related topics are taking place in Metro Vancouver.
Douglas Todd, The Search, Vancouver Sun, March 2

"Scientism" often dominates Darwin debate
I appreciate the intelligence of many -- critics and sympathizers -- who have responded to the ongoing discussion I've been hosting about science and religion and, most recently, the 12 streams of evolutionary thought. But I've often been struck by how some staunch defenders of science act as if it is the only valid way of knowing reality.
Douglas Todd, The Search Vancouver Sun, March 3

Earlier: Stories about evolution and the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin

Stories about the Anglican schism over same-sex blessings:

Clergy ousted in Anglican church split
Four clergy members at an Anglican church in Victoria say they have been forced to quit because they want to break away from the Anglican Church of Canada. Priests and parishioners at St. Matthias Anglican Church in Fairfield want to leave the national Anglican body for the Anglican Network in Canada, which opposes same-sex blessings and other modernized church doctrines and upholds the supremacy of scripture.
Victoria Times-Colonist, March 2

Parish to vote on its future
The archdeacon of the Vancouver Island diocese of the Anglican Church of Canada spoke out yesterday on an impending split within St. Matthias parish in Fairfield. A vote will be held Sunday among St. Matthias parishioners to see how many want to stay with the Anglican Church of Canada or join the breakaway Anglican Network in Canada, which opposes same-sex unions.
Victoria Times-Colonist, March 3
Also: Vancouver Sun

Anglican diocese will defy and bless
The Diocese of Ottawa has said it will perform same-sex blessings, becoming the first Canadian Anglican diocese to make such a move since a ban was imposed on the practice by the international church. The diocese said it is developing a liturgy and protocol for the rite and once they are created it will start performing the ceremonies for gay couples on a limited basis. But critics of same-sex blessings say those steps will widen the schism in the Canadian church.
National Post, March 4

Earlier: New Anglican church proposed

Stories about Bountiful and the polygamy trial:

Christian, Muslim groups join to oppose polygamy
The very judicial thinking that opened the door to same-sex marriage in Canada could result in legalized polygamy, two evangelical Christian organizations are warning. In what they said is a pre-emptive strike against activist courts, Charles McVety of the Institute for Canadian Values and Brian Rushfeldt of the Canada Family Action Coalition argued that polygamy is already getting a legal foothold in some Canadian jurisdictions. They were joined at a news conference Wednesday on Parliament Hill by Farzana Hassan of the Muslim Canadian Congress, a progressive Islamic group that also opposes polygamy.
Canadian Press, March 4

Polygamy breeds strange alliances
Christians side with Muslims on decriminalization
John Ivison, National Post, March 5

Earlier: Stories about Bountiful and the polygamy trial

Stories about Islam and the West:

Muslims overwhelmingly oppose attacks on U.S. civilians
While many people agree that attacking U.S. civilians is a moral evil, there's still a disturbing trend for them to also believe that al-Qaeda style attacks on U.S. military forces is the best way of encouraging the United States to remove its military forces from all Muslim countries.
Raphael Alexander, Full Comment, National Post, February 26

Radical conversions
In the last decade there have been numerous high-profile cases of westerners identifying with radical Islam, a phenomenon that almost always has a bad outcome. The psychological model is that of joining a cult. The western recruit typically has a troubled personal history. Giesbrecht has described herself as a chronic alcoholic and former teenage mom who found redemption in religion. The most alarming cases are those in which the convert becomes an agent of violence, such as John Walker Lindh, the disenfranchised young American who fought for the Taliban in Afghanistan and is now in a U.S. prison.
Leonard Stern, Ottawa Citizen, February 28

Say what you want - just don't expect taxpayers to pay
It's never smart to call a federal cabinet minister a "whore" - not when you depend on him for money. But Khaled Mouammar, president of the Canadian Arab Federation, is a fearless man. At a recent anti-Israel rally, he referred to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney as a "professional whore" for supporting Israel.
Margaret Wente, Globe and Mail, February 28

Raising the alarm
Wilders is a member of the Dutch parliament and leader of the small Party for Freedom. Small until now anyway: The hate-charge against Wilders has elevated the Party for Freedom to third place in Dutch polls. Wilders' movie, Fitna (from the Arabic word for violent strife) presents graphic images of the violence done by Islamic terrorists, intercut with quotations from the more bloodthirsty passages of the Koran.
David Frum, National Post, February 28

Woman's right to testify in veil a religious freedom?
The Ontario Human Rights Commission is arguing that a provincial court judge failed to recognize the religious freedoms of a Muslim woman when he ordered her to testify at a sexual assault trial without a veil known as a niqab. The government agency is asking for special permission to be allowed to intervene at a Superior Court proceeding hearing an appeal of the lower court decision because of its 45 years of "expertise" in the area of human rights.
National Post, March 2

Let witness wear veil, rights body to tell court
Judge turned down request by Muslim woman earlier in case
Toronto Star, March 2

Appeal of right to testify in veil bogs down in legal wrangling
An Ontario Superior Court judge has unexpectedly been thrust into a high-profile debate over the rights of Muslim women to wear a veil while testifying in court. Superior Court Justice Frank Marrocco must decide whether to issue what could be a broad, precedent-setting ruling or resolve it on much narrower technical legal grounds.
National Post, March 3

Continue article >>

Veil issue 'hijacked' sex assault trial
Defence threatens to have case tossed, citing delay as woman fights to wear niqab while testifying
Toronto Star, March 3

Sympathizer of terror groups was immigration board member
It's well known that Khaled Mouammar wants Ottawa to remove Hamas and Hezbollah from a list of banned organizations and replace them with the Israel Defence Forces. It's well known that the president of the Canadian Arab Federation recently called Jason Kenney, the Minister of Immigration, a "professional whore" for supporting Israel and criticizing the presence of Hamas and Hezbollah flags at a recent protest, prompting Mr. Kenney to say he would review the CAF's federal funding. But it is less well known that Mr. Mouammar spent the 11 years prior to February, 2005, sitting as a member of the Immigration and Refugee Board, deciding whether refugee claimants from such North African countries as Morocco, Egypt, Algeria and Somalia should be allowed to stay in Canada.
John Ivison, National Post, March 4

Barbara Hall's crusade to keep women veiled
Apparently the original presiding judge said yes, please, take it off. He didn't add, as I might have: "Remove it, dear lady, because you're now in Canada, and here it isn't our custom to try people on the evidence of masked witnesses." No, Justice Norris Weisman didn't say what I'd have said, which is probably why he's a judge, and I'm a scribbler. All the judge allowed himself to note was that the lady's religious modesty might not be overwhelming, considering she did consent to be photographed for her driver's licence without a veil. (Would the judge have let a Muslim believer he found more genuinely devout testify in a veil? We don't know.)
George Jonas, Full Comment, National Post, March 4

Earlier: Stories about Islam and the West

Other stories from the past week:

No apology, no mercy for Vatican's unrepentent Bishop Williamson
Richard Williamson still doesn't get it. The Vatican has rejected his latest limp attempt at an apology, issued the day after the Holocaust denier returned to his native Britain after being expelled from Argentina.
Araminta Wordsworth, Full Comment, National Post, February 27
Earlier: Stories about the Pope and the Holocaust-denying bishop

God is not in these details
In lieu of a director's commentary, it might have been nice if the DVD for Religulous had a rebuttal track, but that raises the question of who would record it. God is notoriously difficult to cajole into a sound studio. Pope Benedict XVI is developing a habit of putting his infallible foot in his mouth every time he speaks. Morgan Freeman is busy playing Nelson Mandela in a new biopic. And anyone with first-hand knowledge of the afterlife is dead.
Chris Knight, National Post, February 28
Earlier: Religulous a ridiculous look at religion

Putting the 'om' in 'shalom'
Yoga, with its Hindu and Buddhist roots, is seeing a religious rebranding
National Post, February 28

Swearing's good for you, study finds
Researcher calls the use of profanity cathartic, especially in these tough times
CanWest News Service, February 28
Also: National Post

Atheist bus ads, rejected in several Canadian cities, set to roll out in Calgary
The debate over whether they should be allowed has been settled. Now, the battle to influence the minds of the public will begin as a series of atheist bus ads is set to roll out in Calgary Monday. The ad campaign, paid for by the Freethought Association of Canada, features ads reading: "There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
Canadian Press, March 1
Earlier: Bus ads -- reflective and provocative

Pioneering Jewish group fading, victim of its success
Once, gatherings of the Toronto Workmen's Circle required a meeting hall. Today, Sara Frymer's dining-room table is big enough. Once, Toronto's Jews joined the Workmen's Circle because they needed it: intellectually, socially, financially, emotionally. Today, they seek merely to secure access to the group's prepurchased burial plots in a popular cemetery. When they join at all.
Toronto Star, March 2

Faithful unite to help the poor
Religious groups vow to hold prayer vigils at Queen's Park until budget is delivered
Toronto Star, March 3

Attacker was psychotic during Greyhound decapitation: trial
Vincent Li has a strong chance to recover from a major mental illness that caused him to kill, behead and cannibalize a sleeping passenger on board a Greyhound bus last summer, a doctor told a Winnipeg court this afternoon. Dr. Stanley Yaren described Li as a "decent person" who was clearly out of his mind when he believed he was acting on God's orders to eliminate "the force of evil" and attacked Tim McLean.
Winnipeg Free Press, March 3
Earlier: Behind the Greyhound story

Catholic League denounces Angels and Demons
America's Catholic League is campaigning against Ron Howard's upcoming film Angels and Demons, saying that the film contains factual errors, some of which concern the life of Renassiance scientist Galileo. In the statement "Angles and Demons": Myths, Lies and Smears, Catholic League president Bill Donohue said both Howard and Dan Brown, the author of Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code, "...persist in their demonization of Catholicism."
The Ampersand, National Post, March 3

Anti-Semitism, then and now
Jew hatred, once a creature of the extreme right, now has been embraced by the fashionable left
Jonathan Kay, National Post, March 3

Religion helps beat stress, study finds
Religion may or may not be the opiate of the masses but a new study says it may keep believers from losing their cool when things go wrong. "These results suggest that religious conviction provides a framework for understanding and acting within one's environment, thereby acting as a buffer against anxiety and minimizing the experience of error," said the study published in the journal Psychological Science.
National Post, March 5

Too soft on police
My colleague Lorne Gunter is a friend and a journalist who follows the evidence wherever it leads, even if it hits close to home. It's made him a one-man truth squad on climate change, health care and much else. And the evidence from the Robert Dziekanski inquiry in Vancouver led him to confess last Sunday that he was "very wrong" in defending the RCMP officers who pumped Mr. Dziekanski five times with a Taser, leaving him dead. Even though the inquiry is not complete, it is already clear that Mr. Dziekanski would be alive if the RCMP had not acted, as Mr. Gunter puts it, "rashly, hastily and excessively."
Father Raymond J. de Souza, National Post, March 5

Who is the least nice: People in Seattle or Vancouver?
I don't want to make light of the recent onslaught of gang shootings, but it is not doing much for Vancouverites' self-identity as really nice people. We Metro Vancouver residents often congratulate ourselves as tolerant. As easy-going. Laid-back. Paragons of the West Coast live-and-let-live attitude. Beautiful people.
Douglas Todd, The Search, Vancouver Sun, March 5

March 5/2009