The Next Pope

[ManuelsMum]

Kin...have you read "how religion has poisoned everything"...interested in your opinion.....the author does not hold back...

You mean "God is Not Great" by Chris Hitchens? Yes, it has pride of place on my bookshelf.  Hitchens is a brilliant writer, thinker, speaker and polemicist.  If you like that book, some of his other stuff is well worth a read.  Also worth checking out videos on youtube and other places, including the debate he had with Tony Blair about whether religion is a force for good or evil in the world.

Hitchens is terminally-ill with cancer (probably not completely unrelated to his love of cigarettes and alcohol), which I'm sure will please many in the religious right.

Yeah kin...that's the very one...I'm only a few chapters in....had to put it down for a while and am having an inner debate at whether to continue...

Reason being I realise I can't argue with his thoughts....I'm a lapsed catholic and am of the opinion one day I would return to the church.n if I continue,well I think the door would firmly close,its very powerful stuff...my missus,a Christian read a lil too n had to put it down,I could sense she was feeling subverted....

You both need to lay out for yourselves exactly what it is you believe (imo many christians do not actually know what it is they believe*), then on another piece of paper write down what Hitchens/Dawkins are saying about these specific points, and ask yourself why you are accepting one side over the other.
Christianity is based on sound reasoning, proven, developed argument around a commonly-held understanding of the world. If you live 2000 years ago. It was written in man's darkest days, we knew next to nothing about how design occurred in the world, where bad deeds came from, we couldn't even attribute the mind to the brain. Adam+Eve, Souls, original sin, were all pretty decent explanations back then, because we knew fuck all. Science blew it all out of the water. Some people accepted this and threw the old bullshit out. Some didn't and remain with that old rubbish.

[redarmi]

There may be some features of the catholic church which predispose it to having a higher proportion of abusers among its clergy. Many clergy that are getting done now for abuse in their later adulthood, where shoe-horned into seminary before they were teenagers; thus they forewent many of the social processes that allow a development-beyond a childish sexuality that could predispose them to becoming child abusers. Sure, many child abusers didn't have this lacuna, but it's a feature worth examining. Is there a greater proportion of abusers among the clergy than in the normal population? Or is it the same and people expected better of them? The anger probably multiplied by the way it was handled/covered up.
Maybe it's an extreme manifestation of the dynamic that goes on in much of catholicism, the whole manipulation/control thing. Not all sex abuse is about sex, plenty has to do with control. Once you start willingly taking your kids to have their consciences cleansed and brains washed by some fuckwit in a dress, maybe you're asking for trouble...

This is potentially a really great post.  I have never really thought that there may be a factor intrinsic to catholicism that may make those that become priests more predisposed to paedophillia but you post makes some sense.  Possibly a chicken and egg situation though caused by the the celibacy rule ie. those predisposed to liking kids are more likely to push themselves into church both for opportunities and/or because they think that the discipline and neccesity of celibacy may 'cure' them

[Rod]

Kin...have you read "how religion has poisoned everything"...interested in your opinion.....the author does not hold back...

You mean "God is Not Great" by Chris Hitchens? Yes, it has pride of place on my bookshelf.  Hitchens is a brilliant writer, thinker, speaker and polemicist.  If you like that book, some of his other stuff is well worth a read.  Also worth checking out videos on youtube and other places, including the debate he had with Tony Blair about whether religion is a force for good or evil in the world.

I'll check that one out (never knew about it), this one is good too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBx4vvlbZ8, as far as the pro side, it's a really hard thing to argue for, but William Lane Craig is probably the best at it. He does come up with better arguments than anybody else as far as trying to back it up with facts goes but he still struggles to convince people who did not believe it anyway.

I find religious debate very interesting as well and reading and understanding different world views.

Not too sure about all this child molestation within the Catholic Church, I suspect there is a lot more too it than the public know about. Mind you if they live by Biblical Law (they don't) then it's not surprising, and probably far from the worst thing going on. Maybe it would help if they didn't hold the view priests were not allowed to have sex. Why is that anyway? Does anybody actually know?

As an agnostic (which I think is the only position you can really hold) I would be interested to know:-

1) Do people of any religion have any evidence to believe in God

2) Do strong Atheists have any evidence which they believe disproves God's existence (I know they don't need to but does anybody believe they can).

Would be mildly amusing if Hitchens discovered God now though!!

Kinda like Anthony Flew then :-)

[Claw75]

2) Do strong Atheists have any evidence which they believe disproves God's existence (I know they don't need to but does anybody believe they can).

Does anyone have any evidence that disproves Xenu's existence?

[Jon MW]

...

1) Do people of any religion have any evidence to believe in God

...

Anything you can't explain by science

...

2) Do strong Atheists have any evidence which they believe disproves God's existence (I know they don't need to but does anybody believe they can).

...

Faith in the belief that anything you can't currently explain by science - will be explained by it at some point

[Rod]

...

1) Do people of any religion have any evidence to believe in God

...

Anything you can't explain by science

...

2) Do strong Atheists have any evidence which they believe disproves God's existence (I know they don't need to but does anybody believe they can).

...

Faith in the belief that anything you can't currently explain by science - will be explained by it at some point

Neither of these provide any evidence of the position though. I'm not saying it's possible to do, I don't know how to do it but wondered if anybody had any points that could be considered evidence of either position?

[AdamM]

I've only been back five minutes and am DEFINITELY not getting involved in anything controversial.
However, I'm a big Hitchins, Dawkins and most of all Minchin fan.
were I to be getting involved, I would be posting more stuff in that vein.

But I'm not

[Jon MW]

...

1) Do people of any religion have any evidence to believe in God

...

Anything you can't explain by science

...

2) Do strong Atheists have any evidence which they believe disproves God's existence (I know they don't need to but does anybody believe they can).

...

Faith in the belief that anything you can't currently explain by science - will be explained by it at some point

Neither of these provide any evidence of the position though. I'm not saying it's possible to do, I don't know how to do it but wondered if anybody had any points that could be considered evidence of either position?

The point being that both positions have a greater or lesser degree of 'proof'

But ultimately they both rely on faith

[redarmi]

2) Do strong Atheists have any evidence which they believe disproves God's existence (I know they don't need to but does anybody believe they can).

Does anyone have any evidence that disproves Xenu's existence?

As much as I consider myself an atheist I do like Dawkins comment on this "I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden"

[Claw75]

proving the non-existence of something dreamt up by someone else's imagination is an impossible task.  If it weren't there would be no need for 'belief' or 'faith' and these discussions wouldn't be taking place.  Those that believe have their faith, those that don't can give scientific explanations for a number of things previously believed to be the work of god, but what it really boils down to, imo, is common sense.  I can't disprove the existence of fairies, santa claus, the easter bunny, the toothfairy, angels, god, or prince xenu, but I don't believe any of them actually exist.  Neither do I need to believe any of them exist to be a good person and hold, ahem, 'christian' values.

[TRIP5]

Faith is identifyable via a brain scan..

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/859/what-brain-science-tells-us-about-religious-belief

Some atheists believe that having faith in an all seeing all controlling God is a mental illness for this reason..

xx

[Rod]

2) Do strong Atheists have any evidence which they believe disproves God's existence (I know they don't need to but does anybody believe they can).

Does anyone have any evidence that disproves Xenu's existence?

As much as I consider myself an atheist I do like Dawkins comment on this "I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden"

I don't believe this is true of many people.

Even Dawkins is an agnostic atheist though, in the God Delusion he says that if you put a scale in place where a 1 is being sure that God exists and a 7 is being sure that God does not exist then he would be a 6, maybe even a 6.5 (I don't have the book to hand but it's something like that). I am pretty sure most people (Richard Dawkin's included) would be a 7 with regard to Fairies, Santa Claws, Easter Bunnies etc. Maybe I am being too closed minded here but I don't think so.

[kinboshi]

There's as much evidence to the existence of god (or gods) as there is to the Orcs in Mordor.

You can believe in the existence of either, but don't ask me to give evidence that they don't really exist - it's for you to offer evidence that they do. See Bertrand Russell's teapot.

[redarmi]

Faith is identifyable via a brain scan..

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/859/what-brain-science-tells-us-about-religious-belief

Some atheists believe that having faith in an all seeing all controlling God is a mental illness for this reason..

xx

I knew the wife was mental.  Now I have proof.  Thank you so much....now what do you look for in the Yellow Pages....'w' for white coats?

[SirPerceval]

There's as much evidence to the existence of god (or gods) as there is to the Orcs in Mordor.

You can believe in the existence of either, but don't ask me to give evidence that they don't really exist - it's for you to offer evidence that they do. See Bertrand Russell's teapot.

Orcs in Mordor aren't real?