Richard Dawkins to Atheist Rally: 'Show Contempt' for Faith, the Eucharist

[sw85]

Interesting that an atheist managed to hijack a thread about the abominable and foolish behavior of atheists into a condemnation of the Catholic Church, with the complicity of Catholic posters.

Why do we consent to let godless consequentialists dictate to us the terms on which our faith is morally respectable? They simply do not get to claim the high ground and insist that they’re all about the children. These people are OK, in principle, with the murder of children; and their ideals, rigorously applied, furnish no coherent basis for objecting to the sexualization of children (whom they often demand be taught how to use condoms in, like, first grade). To Hell with them, perhaps literally if they don’t repent of their errors.

 

[ringil]

Can you present anything…at all…that indicates that there is a group of people who are apathetic or dismissive about this issue and how it has been handled?

I do believe that the VAST VAST majority of Catholics are horrified by the sex abuse crisis. At the same time I have seen some pretty “out there” posts around here that seek to distract by blaming the midia, modern psychology, over-sexuality of kids, the 60’s, homosexuality, and lack of orthodoxy.

These kinds of messages don’t send a good message to anyone “on the outside.”

But again these distrations and even justification are in the minority. The Holy Father and the Bishops seem to be taking this head on at this point.

 

[unafraid]

I do believe that the VAST VAST majority of Catholics are horrified by the sex abuse crisis. At the same time I have seen some pretty “out there” posts around here that seek to distract by blaming the midia, modern psychology, over-sexuality of kids, the 60’s, homosexuality, and lack of orthodoxy.

These kinds of messages don’t send a good message to anyone “on the outside.”

But again these distrations and even justification are in the minority. The Holy Father and the Bishops seem to be taking this head on at this point.

You can be sure that the “Holy Father and the Bishops” have also exhausted enormous sums of time and resources exploring any, and all, potential answers to the still mystifying phenomenon of the clerical sexual abuse crisis, regardless of how “distracting”, or “out there”, all of those searches for causative data may seem to you.

I do not think that seeking the roots of this problem equates to justification in any sense of the word. One of the most frustrating things about this crisis is the fact that, while a great deal of data has been gathered, no definitive answer has been gleaned that satisfies, or leaves one confident that these things cannot erupt anew.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Atheists Darken D.C

cnsnews.com/blog/l-brent-bozell-iii/atheists-darken-dc

 

[Persuader]

Intellectuals have alway been contrarians. Poll them on a variety of topics and they will more than often lean counter to the majority view. It is a way in which they can set themselves apart (above) from the common (inferior). Their sense of superior intellect demands this. It belies an underlying arrogance. Demigods lack humility. It is an extreme weakness.

I think this is a cop-out. Are you really sure they are contrarians on most topics? If they are, is that really a problem? In any case, your explanation for this is pure speculation, it seems to me. And not only that, it’s damaging speculation. If you have some kind of higher education yourself, you will often notice that through increased understanding of something, an even greater set of issues emerge. So you don’t think you suddenly know everything. The opposite is the case. However, you will also notice that non-specialists are in the same situation you were in before you acquired your higher knowledge. So, not only are they ignorant, they cannot even begin to know how ignorant they are. You can also notice that there are areas where you lack knowledge and understanding - areas where you cannot begin to know the extent of your own ignorance - and this will humble you even further.

The kind of view you espouse also has the unwelcome consequence of making you distrustful and even hostile to academics and science. I am sure you can see why this might be bad. I would say that on any subject I have studied, reading what academia and science has to say has been absolutely crucial to understanding. We know that their contribution to society has been immense in so many ways. If I simply dismissed them for being arrogant or whatever, I would be a lot more ignorant than I am. That kind of attitude insures that you will not take part in our best attempt at knowledge and understanding of the world, which is exactly what the moderns religious right is a victim of. And that is a lot more tragic than Dawkins throwing some insults.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

Atheists Darken D.C

cnsnews.com/blog/l-brent-bozell-iii/atheists-darken-dc

Atheists darken themselves. The Light of the World shines upon me.

 

[Dpoc41]

There is something really sinister about dawkins, he really gives me the creeps. Here is an extract from an excellent article from a catholic blog in the uk.

Every band needs a front man, otherwise the message is never delivered. Every song has a message, whether that song is banal, or indeed, thought-provoking. And, the more I hear from the ubiquitous Richard Dawkins, the more I suspect that the ‘new atheism’ that he shouts from the rooftops with his own brand of mysterious infallibility is not quite as empty a belief system as I had at first thought. Far from it, in fact, Dawkins is full of belief. Richard Dawkins is a believer. It is, however, what he does believe in that makes his message so dangerous, rather than that in which he does not believe, which is, as we know, God.

See, Richard Dawkins may be an atheist, but Richard Dawkins is not just any atheist -he’s an atheist with a belief system that stems from his own education and expertise in evolution, Darwinism and genetics. His background is biology and, as far as I can see, Professor Dawkins rose to a degree of fame in the United Kingdom mainly through his Royal Institution Christmas Lectures back in 1991. Since then, through his books and excessive media grandstanding, Dawkins has received the ear of the general public of the United Kingdom to a degree which would be unthinkable for any Churchman.

It is notable that the prestigious Royal Institution Christmas Lectures have been graced with some big names before Dawkins, names such as the famous eugenicist and British Eugenics Society member, Julian Huxley, the first Director of UNESCO and brother of the author of Brave New World, Aldous. Members of this society, now known as the Galton Institute, have included Margaret Sanger, Marie Stopes, John Maynard Keynes, Neville Chamberlain and William Beveridge among a host of other ‘luminaries’. Nowadays, the Institute is more coy of its membership. I know, because I emailed them and asked for a list of members, a request which was refused me. However, the Galton Institute’s President and Vice President and supporting staff are named on its website and both are eminent geneticists. Given the history of the Institute and its well documented churning out of propagandists for eugenics and those who practiced it in their chosen specialist fields, the names now mentioned on its hierarchy are interesting.

In fact, if you read the list of those who have given the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in the past, mysteriously, some of the same names appear on the list of those who we do know were or are key players in the Galton Institute. Sir Walter Bodmore is current President of the Galton Institute and he is one who has given a Christmas lecture at the Royal Institution. There are others. In fact, there are quite a few historically. Though he hasn’t graced the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, as recently as 2009, Professor Steve Jones, good friend of Richard Dawkins, was the President of the Galton Institute. Another sworn atheist and hater of the Catholic Church, Jones is essentially a geneticist and genetics is the field which continues to ‘pioneer’ new research into the fabric of the human DNA – and – therefore, delve into the fabric of society itself. In 2004, Steve Jones criticised an EU law restricting eugenics in The Telegraph. Here is what he said:
Continued

 

[RACJ]

Dawkins recently said on a radio show that many millions of generations ago, humans looked very much like paramecia. I almost drove off the road laughing. Well, I can understand that after conceding to Ben Stein in “Expelled” that he thinks that earth might have been seeded by space aliens, he’s decided to stick to purely scientific views. :hypno: Rob

 

[RACJ]

Nope, everyone should be. It’s just sad that not everyone is.

Richard Speck, David Berkowitz and Jeffrey Dahmer were all atheists when they committed their horrific murders, and Richard Ramirez and Wayne Williams were Satan worshippers. WHY pick on only those with Roman collars? Rob

 

[Persuader]

That is very interesting. Thank you for laying it out so nicely.

No problem

I can appreciate that it is possible to disprove a god that one is able to define. That is exactly what the early Christians did to the pagan gods. It is what Richard Dawkins does with the “god” he makes up and claims to be God - which is fine except for the fact that it is not God.

To your first point, God probably needs some minimal definition at least. Remember what a definition does, it put constraints on the concept you mean to convey. If there are no constrains on what the word could mean, it could mean anything and is effectively meaningless. So, there needs to be some content, and that content will define the word. For starters, you could say that God is the personal creator of the universe.

From what I know of Dawkins, he doesn’t try to disprove God in his writings. He doesn’t favor a deductive argument from evil, for instance. He is merely saying that he finds the existence of a theistic God (look up the definition) highly unlikely, and that he therefore disbelieve in God.

I would think that intelligent people would appreciate this distinction, but it seems they are so caught up in disproving their various models that they can’t appreciate a transcendent reality. Perhaps they should take a course in Quantum Mechanics. Maybe then they will learn to appreciate that we live in a world where reality is uncertainty.

I am not sure what is the precise distinction here, but you are right in thinking that some secular people - scientists in particular - seem to dismiss spirituality out of hand. I think this is a mistake, and there are many secular people who agree with that. Atheists who acknowledge the spiritual, but still disbelieve in God, tend to think that one doesn’t support the other. That is, they think that the information gleaned from of your spiritual experiences doesn’t show the existence of a personal creator of the universe.

As far as your point about quantum mechanics goes – it’s a mistake. Quantum mechanics is not about the uncertainty of knowledge in general (that’s not to say that knowledge is absolutely certain. Epistemology tell us about the extent of certainty). The uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics is specifically about the physical properties of matter on the micro-scale, and typically states that you cannot simultaneously measure position and momentum exactly. The more certain you get about position, the more uncertain you get about momentum and vica versa. I don’t think has much to do with the question of God’s existence. Do you?

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Exploring the John Jay Study you will also note that these were crimes of homosexuality as they were adult men preying on post pubescent boys.

Child rape is evil whether perpetrated against young children (pedophilia) or adolescents (ephebophilia), against people of the same sex or against people of the opposite sex.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

This went to court and it was found that the Vatican is not responsible:

clericalwhispers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/murphy-case-vatican-is-not-responsible.html

That is a gross mischaracterization of what happened. There was no finding of the court, as attorneys for the alleged victims dropped the case. In the U.S., the Vatican has sovereign immunity, therefore it is very difficult to prosecute a case against them and this was a reason why the case was dropped (ncronline.org/news/accountability/plaintiffs-drop-lawsuit-against-vatican). This does not mean that the Vatican is innocent. It is very hard to prosecute the leader of a foreign country, just as it is difficult to prosecute a foreign diplomat because they have diplomatic immunity. A diplomat may break the law, but may not be legally prosecuted because of diplomatic immunity.

The New York Times / AP article was full of errors, read this clarification:

Now the key questions:

The Church not only should have defrocked them, they should have banned him from working in the parish. It’s a travesty that he was allowed to be the youth ministry coordinator at St. Joseph’s parish even after being defrocked. None of these things you cite were “errors” in the New York Times article. I looked at each one, and other than the fact that he remained to have access to children through the church in which the correction itself was wrong, none of these are contrary to what the Times article said. In many cases, the article itself made the point that you are attempting to correct. If there is a specific thing that you think the Times article is wrong about, please provide some evidence.

The Vatican has said it did not aid abuse cover up in Ireland:

speaking to Vatican Radio, Fr. Lombardi argued that there is “no reason” to interpret the 1997 letter “as being intended to cover up cases of abuse.”

Well, as long as the Vatican claims their intentions were good…

I think that anything less than immediately reporting child rape to the police is immoral. If reporting a child rapist to the cops was problematic under canon law, they should have changed the canon law. Child rapists should be brought to justice as swiftly as possible.

 

[unafraid]

I think this is a cop-out. Are you really sure they are contrarians on most topics? If they are, is that really a problem? In any case, your explanation for this is pure speculation, it seems to me. And not only that, it’s damaging speculation. If you have some kind of higher education yourself, you will often notice that through increased understanding of something, an even greater set of issues emerge. So you don’t think you suddenly know everything. The opposite is the case. However, you will also notice that non-specialists are in the same situation you were in before you acquired your higher knowledge. So, not only are they ignorant, they cannot even begin to know how ignorant they are. You can also notice that there are areas where you lack knowledge and understanding - areas where you cannot begin to know the extent of your own ignorance - and this will humble you even further.

The kind of view you espouse also has the unwelcome consequence of making you distrustful and even hostile to academics and science. I am sure you can see why this might be bad. I would say that on any subject I have studied, reading what academia and science has to say has been absolutely crucial to understanding. We know that their contribution to society has been immense in so many ways. If I simply dismissed them for being arrogant or whatever, I would be a lot more ignorant than I am. That kind of attitude insures that you will not take part in our best attempt at knowledge and understanding of the world, which is exactly what the moderns religious right is a victim of. And that is a lot more tragic than Dawkins throwing some insults.

Not only am I suspicious of academia in the general sense, but I am more so of intellectuals, in particular. I do not apologize for this perspective, but rather feel better served for possessing it, since it allies me with some very sagacious characters, for example:

G.K. Chesterton once remarked, “A large section of the intelligentsia seems wholly devoid of intelligence” ; Edward Dahlberg once quipped, “Intellectual sodomy, which comes from the refusal to be simple about plain matters, is as gross and abundant today as sexual perversions and they are in no wise different from one another”

I simply believe that the true seeker of wisdom is one who is humbled by the task. I’ll leave you with a quote from Socrates, the epitome of a wise man, who once proclaimed, “I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance”. Not something we’ll ever likely hear spoken by Richard Dawkins, the consumate intellectual.

 

[Tommy72]

Interesting that an atheist managed to hijack a thread about the abominable and foolish behavior of atheists into a condemnation of the Catholic Church, with the complicity of Catholic posters.

Why do we consent to let godless consequentialists dictate to us the terms on which our faith is morally respectable? They simply do not get to claim the high ground and insist that they’re all about the children. These people are OK, in principle, with the murder of children; and their ideals, rigorously applied, furnish no coherent basis for objecting to the sexualization of children (whom they often demand be taught how to use condoms in, like, first grade). To Hell with them, perhaps literally if they don’t repent of their errors.

:clapping::clapping::clapping:

 

[anEvilAtheist]

In the song, Minchin says that he has no problem with Catholic spiritual beliefs when those beliefs do not harm others, but he thinks that it is right to express outrage against those who rape children, those who in any way protected rapists, and also those who are more offended by his song than by child rapists and those who protected them.

I have always heard that song (which is the one he performed at the Reason Rally) refered to as “Pope Song”, not “I hate Ps", and it is refered to as “Pope Song” where it’s available for sale. It appears that one person posted the video to YouTube with the title "I hate Ps”, but that person was not Minchin.

And I wouldn’t say that it means the same thing as “Catholic”. I’ve always seen it as a disrespectful term which implies an overly worshipful attitude toward the pope. Politicians are called that term when people think they will just do whatever the pope says rather than following their own judgement. I do think Minchin is right to speak out against Catholics who actually do blindly follow the pope and who are more concerned with bad language in a song than by the possibility that the pope played a role in protecting child rapists. I care a lot more about figuring out how to stop children from being raped than I do about whether Minchins words were imprudent.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Richard Speck, David Berkowitz and Jeffrey Dahmer were all atheists when they committed their horrific murders, and Richard Ramirez and Wayne Williams were Satan worshippers. WHY pick on only those with Roman collars? Rob

I don’t. I harshly criticize atheists, both on these boards and in real life, when they do bad things. But I can’t know everything, and I conceed that I know very little about Satanism. I’m more likely to talk about immoral actions by atheists or Catholics because I know more about those groups. Catholicism is the religion that I have investigated more than any other, in large part because much of my family is Catholic.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

I have always heard that song (which is the one he performed at the Reason Rally) refered to as “Pope Song”, not “I hate Ps", and it is refered to as “Pope Song” where it’s available for sale. It appears that one person posted the video to YouTube with the title "I hate Ps”, but that person was not Minchin.

And I wouldn’t say that it means the same thing as “Catholic”. I’ve always seen it as a disrespectful term which implies an overly worshipful attitude toward the pope. Politicians are called that term when people think they will just do whatever the pope says rather than following their own judgement. I do think Minchin is right to speak out against Catholics who actually do blindly follow the pope and who are more concerned with bad language in a song than by the possibility that the pope played a role in protecting child rapists. I care a lot more about figuring out how to stop children from being raped than I do about whether Minchins words were imprudent.

No. Papist is a derogatory term coined by Martin Luther as a slur against Catholics. You can try to spin it, but that is the history and etymology of the word. Same goes with “popery” (not to be confused with potpourri).

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Interesting that an atheist managed to hijack a thread about the abominable and foolish behavior of atheists into a condemnation of the Catholic Church, with the complicity of Catholic posters.

Some posters on this thread were mischaracterizing a rally I attended, and I think it was perfectlly reasonable for me to explain why I thought their characterization was wrong. How would you feel if you had been a long-time poster on an atheist forum and atheists were mischaracterizing a Catholic event you went to and using selective quotations from an all day event to say how evil Catholicism is? Wouldn’t you think it would be reasonable for you to put those quotations in context and to say that those quotations also did not represent the larger spirit of the event?

Why do we consent to let godless consequentialists dictate to us the terms on which our faith is morally respectable? They simply do not get to claim the high ground and insist that they’re all about the children. These people are OK, in principle, with the murder of children; and their ideals, rigorously applied, furnish no coherent basis for objecting to the sexualization of children (whom they often demand be taught how to use condoms in, like, first grade). To Hell with them, perhaps literally if they don’t repent of their errors.

What do you mean we’re okay in principle with the murder of children? I don’t know what “principle of atheism” states that infanticide is okay, or that abortion is moral. There was even a Secular Pro-Life booth at the American Atheists convention this week. And what do you mean we have no basis for objecting to the sexualization of children? Just because your only basis is God doesn’t mean that we haven’t thought of another one.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

No. Papist is a derogatory term coined by Martin Luther as a slur against Catholics. You can try to spin it, but that is the history and etymology of the word. Same goes with “popery” (not to be confused with potpourri).

What do you mean spin it? I said that the term was derogatory and I know it was coined as a slur against Catholics. I also said that when I hear the term in political contexts, it’s usually used by people who claim the Catholic politician will blindly follow the pope rather than use his or her own judgement. But maybe I’m the only one who thinks the term now has that implication.

By the way, do you have a source that establishes Martin Luther as the originator of the term? I didn’t know that he was the one who coined it. I’m just curious because I always like learning new things and I couldn’t find any sources establishing its origin with Luther in my cursory Google search.

 

[unafraid]

I have always heard that song (which is the one he performed at the Reason Rally) refered to as “Pope Song”, not “I hate Ps", and it is refered to as “Pope Song” where it’s available for sale. It appears that one person posted the video to YouTube with the title "I hate Ps”, but that person was not Minchin.

And I wouldn’t say that it means the same thing as “Catholic”. I’ve always seen it as a disrespectful term which implies an overly worshipful attitude toward the pope. Politicians are called that term when people think they will just do whatever the pope says rather than following their own judgement. I do think Minchin is right to speak out against Catholics who actually do blindly follow the pope and who are more concerned with bad language in a song than by the possibility that the pope played a role in protecting child rapists. I care a lot more about figuring out how to stop children from being raped than I do about whether Minchins words were imprudent.

The only thing I have taken away from all of your postings is the sound of a self-congratulatory snicker regarding your misperceived cleverness at having been able to surreptitiously slip in the epithet, “child rapist”, as many times, in as many contexts, as is humanly possible, while you watch everyone dance around all of your other ancillary hogwash.

Why not just type “child rapist, child rapist, child rapist”, ad infinitum…But, please spare us the moral outrage-empathetic victim advocate routine. It is an old ruse by now, which serves as cover for you to stick the knife in that same old wound, over and over again. Just another disingenuous, meanspirited atheist attack strategem that has, frankly, worn out its welcome.