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Magic Carpets and Fairy Dust
10/04/2012 09:30 pmIn the beginning was the Word. But the Word had to be interpreted
Last night on ABC TV there was a wicked twist to the usual Question and Answers program. Ever since gawking at the Lying Rodent’s Rotweiller Eric Abetz on the previous week’s episode where they mentioned who would be guests this week, had been waiting with anticipation to see the blood on the floor. Was expecting some sort of gladiatorial Godless Games
Instead of sending two representatives each from 12 assorted faiths, there were just two. The one representing the Godless Infidels was Richard Dawkins and the God Botherers had to make do with Cardinal George Pell - the highest ranking Catholic in Australia
Was a bit miffed that there were only the two of them. There were no Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists or Jews and certainly no Scientologists.
The questions were so predictable - “Is it possible to live a good life without faith?”,”What happens after you die?”, evolution vs creation and so on.
The first thing that peeved the serpent were the ridiculous number of assumptions. No one at any stage was asked to describe what sort of God they believe or do not believe in. The Christian God - specifically the old man with a white beard in the clouds seemed to be the one under discussion
Cardinal Pell did make the valid point that while science concerns itself with the ‘how’ questions, religion is more concerned with why? But then he started a whole pile of silly stuff about being descended from Neanderthals and talking about life and souls. Since the Catholic church believes that only humans have souls (and female possession of such an attribute is only a recent concession) this equation of life and soul was most intriguing indeed.
He did not seem to believe in a literal Adam and Eve which meant he could not answer Dawkins question about the source of original sin.
Then there was the Big Bang and the origin of the universe and getting something for nothing. Each tried to outdo the other in name dropping assorted Nobel prize winning physicists. Pell went for the Platonic concept of God as a pure form outside of time and space to which Dawkins retorted that this was a God of the Gaps and a big cop out.
It did not take long before Godwin’s law got invoked. Cardinal Pell was trying to say that his God was a God of the outcast, the downtrodden and the outsider and ended up talking about backward Jews and shepherds. He really dug himself into a big hole and it was painful watching him trying to get out by then going on about the amazing achievements of God’s chosen people in the last century and of course he had to bring in Hitler at least three times in the argument. For an argument was what it was and most certainly not a reasonable discussion
When asked about the existence of Hell he talked about a conversation with some ten year old kid who did not believe in hell. But what about Hitler? Is it right that he should have caused so much suffering and get away with it? The kid of course did not think this was fair and was persuaded by such impeccable logic to which Dawkins retorted that he is more concerned with what is real rather than wishful thinking. Also just had to love his answer to the question of what happens after you die. He replied “Well that depends on whether you get buried or cremated or leave your body to science”
Cardinal Pell believed in some sort of bodily resurrection but got a bit bogged down in the details about what age and condition the heavenly bodies would be in. He just could never see the next train wreck around the corner and jump off before it was too late. Dawkins left him for dead on that front.
The Cardinal also played the atheist card claiming that both Hitler and Stalin were atheists to which Dawkins replied that Stalin was, Hitler wasn’t but atheism was irrelevant to the motives for their behaviour
At one stage the Cardinal came up with a line about ‘preparing some young boys’ and after a long pause finally added ‘for first communion’
The snickers in the audience were most audible indeed and was half expecting the twitter feed to explode
By the time he got to talking about gay marriage and the flaws in the ‘oriental carpet of God’s creation’ and digging himself in deeper at each attempt to untangle this twisted thread of thought, it became obvious that this guy should not be ever allowed out of the house without a speech writer or at least an autocue
The business of marriage being a sacrament between a man and a woman for the purposes of procreation and the raising of children might be plausible if it were not possible for women obviously past their childbearing years to get married in the Catholic Church. So whatever the real reason - most likely tradition - logic and consistency does not come into it
The pair of them were both seriously smug and self righteousness although Richard Dawkins won hands down on the logic side of things - especially playing the Ace of Transubstantiation (the official Catholic teaching that the bread and wine at Mass when consecrated literally becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ)
Cardinal Pell probably knew that he had been outsmarted on this one. He had to claim it as the literal truth or else be in breach of one of the central tenets of his faith.
Izzie was so wishing that they had brought along Peter Singer and Ajan Brahm (a local Buddhist monk and physicist) Peter Singer for his impeccable rationality and logic and Ajan Brahm to represent a Godless ‘religion’ that nevertheless has many features in common with some of the Christian sects
Singer says a whole pile of things that people find shocking but he cuts through the woolliness of so much of what passes as thinking and follows ideas to their logical conclusion. Needless to say too much reason and no emotion is a trademark of the psychopath. But all heart and no head is also a path to craziness and chaos. (The slogan “My body - my choice” concerning abortion comes to mind. Followed to its logical conclusion this would justify abortion in the seventh and eighth month of pregnancy as well as the first two. Even the most passionate supporters for abortion would be very unlikely to support this position.)
Dawkins was trying to make the point that natural selection is not necessarily the best way to run human society and that we can choose not to favour the strong and let the weak go to the wall but one still has to recognize that is the default setting unless we make rules to do otherwise - rules that do not need an external God for enforcement
Some one did have to ask the big one “If God is good and all powerful then why does He allow suffering?” The fact that the Biblical God appeared to intervene in the past but not now was a bit of problem. Dawkins sort of said that suffering is just part of life and it is everywhere in nature. Cardinal Pell talked about Jesus dying for our sins. That is where having some one like Rabbi Harold Kushner on the show would have been interesting. (Of “When bad things happen to good people” fame)
While the whole show was sort of entertaining and amusing, there was far more heat than light and just a bunch of people with irreconcilable views scoring points from each other. It was like a pair of medieval scholars arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin
There seemed to be no middle ground for those who believe there is more to life than the material and physical world but who will not commit to either fundamentalist Dawkinetics or the camp of those who faithfully following their God’s orders to make life a misery for the infidels.
Why do so many people have to feel threatened by the fact that not everyone is like them and to see this difference as a threat to their very identity and existence?
Last night on ABC TV there was a wicked twist to the usual Question and Answers program. Ever since gawking at the Lying Rodent’s Rotweiller Eric Abetz on the previous week’s episode where they mentioned who would be guests this week, had been waiting with anticipation to see the blood on the floor. Was expecting some sort of gladiatorial Godless Games
Instead of sending two representatives each from 12 assorted faiths, there were just two. The one representing the Godless Infidels was Richard Dawkins and the God Botherers had to make do with Cardinal George Pell - the highest ranking Catholic in Australia
Was a bit miffed that there were only the two of them. There were no Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists or Jews and certainly no Scientologists.
The questions were so predictable - “Is it possible to live a good life without faith?”,”What happens after you die?”, evolution vs creation and so on.
The first thing that peeved the serpent were the ridiculous number of assumptions. No one at any stage was asked to describe what sort of God they believe or do not believe in. The Christian God - specifically the old man with a white beard in the clouds seemed to be the one under discussion
Cardinal Pell did make the valid point that while science concerns itself with the ‘how’ questions, religion is more concerned with why? But then he started a whole pile of silly stuff about being descended from Neanderthals and talking about life and souls. Since the Catholic church believes that only humans have souls (and female possession of such an attribute is only a recent concession) this equation of life and soul was most intriguing indeed.
He did not seem to believe in a literal Adam and Eve which meant he could not answer Dawkins question about the source of original sin.
Then there was the Big Bang and the origin of the universe and getting something for nothing. Each tried to outdo the other in name dropping assorted Nobel prize winning physicists. Pell went for the Platonic concept of God as a pure form outside of time and space to which Dawkins retorted that this was a God of the Gaps and a big cop out.
It did not take long before Godwin’s law got invoked. Cardinal Pell was trying to say that his God was a God of the outcast, the downtrodden and the outsider and ended up talking about backward Jews and shepherds. He really dug himself into a big hole and it was painful watching him trying to get out by then going on about the amazing achievements of God’s chosen people in the last century and of course he had to bring in Hitler at least three times in the argument. For an argument was what it was and most certainly not a reasonable discussion
When asked about the existence of Hell he talked about a conversation with some ten year old kid who did not believe in hell. But what about Hitler? Is it right that he should have caused so much suffering and get away with it? The kid of course did not think this was fair and was persuaded by such impeccable logic to which Dawkins retorted that he is more concerned with what is real rather than wishful thinking. Also just had to love his answer to the question of what happens after you die. He replied “Well that depends on whether you get buried or cremated or leave your body to science”
Cardinal Pell believed in some sort of bodily resurrection but got a bit bogged down in the details about what age and condition the heavenly bodies would be in. He just could never see the next train wreck around the corner and jump off before it was too late. Dawkins left him for dead on that front.
The Cardinal also played the atheist card claiming that both Hitler and Stalin were atheists to which Dawkins replied that Stalin was, Hitler wasn’t but atheism was irrelevant to the motives for their behaviour
At one stage the Cardinal came up with a line about ‘preparing some young boys’ and after a long pause finally added ‘for first communion’
The snickers in the audience were most audible indeed and was half expecting the twitter feed to explode
By the time he got to talking about gay marriage and the flaws in the ‘oriental carpet of God’s creation’ and digging himself in deeper at each attempt to untangle this twisted thread of thought, it became obvious that this guy should not be ever allowed out of the house without a speech writer or at least an autocue
The business of marriage being a sacrament between a man and a woman for the purposes of procreation and the raising of children might be plausible if it were not possible for women obviously past their childbearing years to get married in the Catholic Church. So whatever the real reason - most likely tradition - logic and consistency does not come into it
The pair of them were both seriously smug and self righteousness although Richard Dawkins won hands down on the logic side of things - especially playing the Ace of Transubstantiation (the official Catholic teaching that the bread and wine at Mass when consecrated literally becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ)
Cardinal Pell probably knew that he had been outsmarted on this one. He had to claim it as the literal truth or else be in breach of one of the central tenets of his faith.
Izzie was so wishing that they had brought along Peter Singer and Ajan Brahm (a local Buddhist monk and physicist) Peter Singer for his impeccable rationality and logic and Ajan Brahm to represent a Godless ‘religion’ that nevertheless has many features in common with some of the Christian sects
Singer says a whole pile of things that people find shocking but he cuts through the woolliness of so much of what passes as thinking and follows ideas to their logical conclusion. Needless to say too much reason and no emotion is a trademark of the psychopath. But all heart and no head is also a path to craziness and chaos. (The slogan “My body - my choice” concerning abortion comes to mind. Followed to its logical conclusion this would justify abortion in the seventh and eighth month of pregnancy as well as the first two. Even the most passionate supporters for abortion would be very unlikely to support this position.)
Dawkins was trying to make the point that natural selection is not necessarily the best way to run human society and that we can choose not to favour the strong and let the weak go to the wall but one still has to recognize that is the default setting unless we make rules to do otherwise - rules that do not need an external God for enforcement
Some one did have to ask the big one “If God is good and all powerful then why does He allow suffering?” The fact that the Biblical God appeared to intervene in the past but not now was a bit of problem. Dawkins sort of said that suffering is just part of life and it is everywhere in nature. Cardinal Pell talked about Jesus dying for our sins. That is where having some one like Rabbi Harold Kushner on the show would have been interesting. (Of “When bad things happen to good people” fame)
While the whole show was sort of entertaining and amusing, there was far more heat than light and just a bunch of people with irreconcilable views scoring points from each other. It was like a pair of medieval scholars arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin
There seemed to be no middle ground for those who believe there is more to life than the material and physical world but who will not commit to either fundamentalist Dawkinetics or the camp of those who faithfully following their God’s orders to make life a misery for the infidels.
Why do so many people have to feel threatened by the fact that not everyone is like them and to see this difference as a threat to their very identity and existence?
