Richard Dawkins' answer to the Pope

[Oskuro]

The Pope resorted to Godwin's Law, and so Richard Dawkings strikes back:


P.S.: Not sure if this belongs here or in News. I ran a search and found no other instances of this video, sorry if it has already been posted

[PeZook]

You know...I can now see why fundies are trying to attack Dawkins as an "agressive, fighting atheist". Because he is. He's agressive and not afraid to point out the massive hypocrisy of the church and religion as a whole, so he triggers a tribal response and attempts to silence him.

I find the fact of Ratzinger acting holier-than-thou doubly amusing, since yesterday, the Polish Central Anti-corruption Bureau arrested a man who was bribing people on the Church Posession Comittee to lowball the value of the lands the Church bought from the state.

He managed to swindle the country for 24 billion zlotys (about 8 billion dollars) in the name of the Church.

Such amazing beacons of morality they are!

[Kanastrous]

Might it not be more accurate to suggest that the Church swindled the country out of all those zlotys, with that fellow acting as their agent?

[Crossroads Inc.]

Listening that speech I just realized something damningly obvious that puts a mile wide hole in Catholic Dogma.

As many know, the cornerstone of the Catholic church is you are born wicked and sinful, and must cleanse yourself to goto heaven. This is based on Original Sin. That being, when Adam sinned against god in genesis, he damned all future humans for ALL time. ALL people born carry Original Sin, THAT is why you must be baptized, by Catholic law, if you are not Baptized and "Purified" of original sin, you cannot goto Heaven.

Now then... In an ironic attempt to make themselves seem more modern, the Catholic church has freely admitted that much of the Bible is allegorical. That it isn't the Literal word of god but open to interruption. In point,, by current catholic doctrine, the story of Adam and eve is just that, a Story . That Adam and Eve as popularized di not exist.

So if adam and Eve didn't exist, why do we have original sin?

[Kanastrous]

Any given section of scripture is as allegorical as they need it to be, to weasel their way out of any inconvenient nonsense that they can't possibly justify in any other way, and it's not-allegorical when it suits their purposes for it not to be allegorical, and from Tuesday to Thursday (and likely one parish to the next) the degree to which any given tale is allegory is liable to shift based upon the requirements of the person doing the talking, and anyway they're God's designated representatives upon the Earth, so *they* get to say what is allegorical, and to what degree, and when, because, well, they're the guys in the colorful man-dresses and fancy hats (not that there's anything wrong, with that).

Really, Winston, have you forgotten doublethink?

[PeZook]

Might it not be more accurate to suggest that the Church swindled the country out of all those zlotys, with that fellow acting as their agent?

Probably, yes, but I don't think they'd be able to prove the Church knew about his underhanded activities. Or they will, in which case we're in for a massive shitstorm

[Serafina]

Brilliant quote from the video:
Referring to Ratzinger: "He is an enemy of women, barring them from the priesthood as tough a penis was an essential tool for priesthood".
Absolutely fitting and hillarious at the same time! Spoiler

considering that they need it for proper treatment of their young altar boys

[Kanastrous]

Ratzinger himself impresses me as something of an essential tool.

[Simon_Jester]

You know, Benedict XVI really should have seen this coming.

"As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

A less obnoxious church, one with more respect for law and more willingness to admit its own errors, vices, and complicity in crimes, would not have given Dawkins such a mountain of ammunition to shoot at it.

[Kanastrous]

I read suggestions that the RCC sees its membership and influence expanding in places like Latin America, Africa and Asia (read: places with a lot of poor, uneducated people) where none of this kind of thing sticks; people in the main will simply brush off anything negative they hear about the Church or its agents.

If their fast-growth regions aren't interested in holding the Church to respect for civil law and don't expect any admissions of error (will actually dismiss any suggestions of same) then I don't see that there's that much pressure upon the institution to change its ways.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I read suggestions that the RCC sees its membership and influence expanding in places like Latin America, Africa and Asia (read: places with a lot of poor, uneducated people) where none of this kind of thing sticks; people in the main will simply brush off anything negative they hear about the Church or its agents.

If their fast-growth regions aren't interested in holding the Church to respect for civil law and don't expect any admissions of error (will actually dismiss any suggestions of same) then I don't see that there's that much pressure upon the institution to change its ways.

Which sums up both the past "role" of western churches as well as how they historically have operated.

From the start they prayed upon peoples fears and insecurities, they made them fear an eternity of torment, and then gave hope in the form of blind obedience to the institution.
As Civilization marches on, people begin to question and educate themselves. The institution is question and looses favor as more are educated, and thusly moves on to the next place to which to "harvest" from.

You can see this to some degree in the history of the church. Each time a place was found less advanced then their own (see native Americans and Natives world wide) they would come in, preach fear and hellfire, and get people who didn't know any better to covert.

What we see now is the tail end of this. In places like Europe, Canada and UK, the catholic( and to a lesser degree all churches) loose more and more people as those areas become more educated and open minded. Thusly, they push for more and more recruiting in worse and worse areas of the world, pushing into Mexico, South america, and Africa.

Seeing this sort of "trend" gives me a small glimmer of hope that, if Humanity can last long enough, Religion will eventually be all but extinct in the developed parts of the world.

[Bernkastel]

Ah yes, I've already seen this. Personally, I find Dawkins to be a pleasure to listen to. Yet, it is already possible to take a quick look through google and find religious groups ranting about it in quite some detail. I have even bumped into some such individuals today.

Does anyone else find the way that the church's followers tend to react to things like this a bit amusing?

[Thanas]

Does anyone else find the way that the church's followers tend to react to things like this a bit amusing?

Why? They are reacting like any group that feels it is under attack.

[Kanastrous]

When I hear a death rattle, I'll be amused. Not before.

[Ariphaos]

So if adam and Eve didn't exist, why do we have original sin?

This is why we have young Earth creationism. Removing the need for Adam and Eve removes the original sin (or so they claim - one alternate view is that the original sin actually involves the discovery of agriculture), thus removing the need for Jesus, which removes the point of Christianity.

[Bernkastel]

Why? They are reacting like any group that feels it is under attack

Quite true. The church is still more than enough of a threat that it should be taken quite seriously, as hard as that can be at times. It was admittedly more of a personal comment that anything else and I'll avoid making any more unless I can add something more useful with it.

[Liberty]

Listening that speech I just realized something damningly obvious that puts a mile wide hole in Catholic Dogma.

As many know, the cornerstone of the Catholic church is you are born wicked and sinful, and must cleanse yourself to goto heaven. This is based on Original Sin. That being, when Adam sinned against god in genesis, he damned all future humans for ALL time. ALL people born carry Original Sin, THAT is why you must be baptized, by Catholic law, if you are not Baptized and "Purified" of original sin, you cannot goto Heaven.

Now then... In an ironic attempt to make themselves seem more modern, the Catholic church has freely admitted that much of the Bible is allegorical. That it isn't the Literal word of god but open to interruption. In point,, by current catholic doctrine, the story of Adam and eve is just that, a Story . That Adam and Eve as popularized di not exist.

So if adam and Eve didn't exist, why do we have original sin?

Oh, oh, I know this one!

The idea is that at some point our ancestors became "human." It wasn't a huge transition, it's just some point on the continuum, and that makes it kind of subjective, but nevertheless, at some point, they became "human." At that point, God gave human beings souls and the knowledge of good and evil. And human beings chose to commit evil, every single one of them. So in a sense, our ancestors at that point functioned as "adam and eve" even though there were likely many thousands of them. So there still was a point, and original sin came from this.

Of course, not all Catholics agree, but this is what the progressive ones believe.

Some Catholics - and some Protestants as well - argue that while everything else evolved, etc, man did not. He was a special creation, Adam and Eve, etc. This was actually a fairly common view in America a hundred years ago. William Jennings Bryan even accepted evolution and a very old earth; he simply objected to the evolution of MAN. The law involved in the Scopes Trial actually banned teaching the evolution OF MAN in public schools, not evolution in general.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Very Well done Liberty
That isn't too far off from what some of my "Progressive" Catholic friends have actually told me.
The crux is of course that with an "All powerful" god, you can allow for gross silliness and "magic" I had one friend, who is fairly liberal, supports Obama and such, he firmly believes that Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden all "really" happened, according to him:

"God started easy, and made everything in a special place giving us Paradise. But after Adam sinned, he destroyed Paradise and cast us onto Earth to 'start from scratch' So we had to start back as cave men, and work our way up to where we could be forgiven for Original Sin"

And really, how could you argue with logic like that?

[Liberty]

Very Well done Liberty
That isn't too far off from what some of my "Progressive" Catholic friends have actually told me.
The crux is of course that with an "All powerful" god, you can allow for gross silliness and "magic" I had one friend, who is fairly liberal, supports Obama and such, he firmly believes that Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden all "really" happened, according to him:

"God started easy, and made everything in a special place giving us Paradise. But after Adam sinned, he destroyed Paradise and cast us onto Earth to 'start from scratch' So we had to start back as cave men, and work our way up to where we could be forgiven for Original Sin"

And really, how could you argue with logic like that?

It wasn't until relatively recently that I realized that the idea of man's "sinful" nature is not universally held. Sure, everyone acknowledges that man can do awful things, but there are plenty of religions that don't teach that man is "evil." This truly revolutionized how I saw the world (after all, I was raised fundamentalist, and believed that man was essentially evil). This realization was also incredibly liberating. And by the way, this realization came months AFTER I became an atheist. Weird, huh? The idea of man's depravity becomes that ingrained.

This is, I think, one of the greater problems with Christianity. How awful is it to tell a child that they are evil and can only be good if they let God work through them? This is a major problem I have with people who say that Christianity, with the exception of fundies, is harmless. So, original sin? Come on, people!

[Kanastrous]

Isn't intellectually and emotionally crippling someone a reliable way to get them to cleave to a religion? Get 'em young, when you can do the most damage!

[Molyneux]

Isn't intellectually and emotionally crippling someone a reliable way to get them to cleave to a religion? Get 'em young, when you can do the most damage!

As the saying goes, "Give me the children until they are seven and anyone may have them afterwards."

On a side note, listening to Dawkins is always a joy and a delight. I wish I had one tenth of the man's public speaking skills and poise.

[mr friendly guy]

Its amazing how Catholic apologists including in Australia must have spent writing up their bullshit pieces, only to have Richard Dawkins rips it apart in under 10 minutes. Dawkins is getting good, almost as good as Christopher Hitchens.

[Shroom Man 777]

Where can I find an excerpt of that? It's wonderful. Man, this is the first time I've ever seen Dawkins in action. Heard much, but never bothered to check it out. Man, what a mang.

[Solauren]

From the start they prayed upon peoples fears and insecurities, they made them fear an eternity of torment, and then gave hope in the form of blind obedience to the institution.

In short, they operate like swindlers, scam artists, pyramid scheme operators, fear mongers, the US Republican Party, and Cobra Commander.

[Kanastrous]

In all fairness if their adherents didn't fall all over themselves in their eagerness to oblige, the Church couldn't very well get away with it...