It’s time for another weekend reflections, which makes space for longer than usual comments on any topic. Side discussions to sandpits, please.
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John Quiggin 
Those God damned atheists will be at this weekend, spreading rationality and truth.
Oh well. The ABC talk Dawkins a lesson by rolling out the village idiot to greet him on Q&A. You could see Dawkins, after his long flight was perplexed, thinking “What the f**k?”
Nice one, ABC.
@Freelander
Ok, I’m going out on a limb here and entertaining the idea that Pell’s performance on Q&A might have touched a nerve there Tony 😛
Pell plays the role of village idiot so naturally…
Which one was the village idiot – Pell or Tony Jones? Mind you, Dawkins is the official village spokes-idiot for the sociobiology cult, so the protocol was more-or-less correct.
Was shocked to see Dawkins fail to understand the Archbishop’s elegantly expressed point about human evolution and Neanderthals. Clearly, when your cousins die, they become your your parents. That’s just logic.
Pell could have least gotten half of his facts right. Even little old layperson me could see the slight faults in his Neanderthal premise, as put forward by Sam.
@Sam
No. When your cousins die you’re allowed to marry them ((as long as they are not of the same sex) .
Neanderthals were destroyed in the flood. Because they were created by the demiurge. That’s all there is to it.
Neanderthals were unintelligent Sheppard types, you know …
@Tim Macknay
No Tim, Pell believes in Darwinian evolution, not the flood. Probably. Except that it can’t explain how life could evolve randomly. Certainly Dawkins has never talked about this. In any of his books. Certainly not multiple times in every chapter of The Selfish gene, Climbing Mt Improbable, The God Delusion, or The Ancestor’s Tale.
I was disappointed that Dawkins gave credence to Pell’s assertion that the Nazis applied Darwinian principles, when what they applied was old-fashioned artificial selection – the exact same process the shepherds Jesus preached to used in breeding sheep.
@Sam
Pell believes in evolution because a council of men got together at the Vatican and decided it’s real after all, then got the pope to announce it.
Apparently we should pay great heed to people who change their fundamental beliefs about the universe when a focus group thinks it’s politically useful.
@Sam
No it was the flood I tell you. And their selfish genes. And the ice age. And plus, we ate ’em. And Richard Dawkins was also created by the demiurge. That’s why his genes are so selfish. And he married a Time Lord.
What does the NSW ALP have to do with this?
My uni friend gives almost all of his income to high impact global charities. His thoughts on giving are here http://pappubahry.livejournal.com/575656.html
TLDR? Consider giving away 10% of your earnings. Right now, the top-rated charity is the Against Malaria Foundation.
Nah, the Catholic Church wrote that instruction manual and if there’s one fundamental principle or belief they won’t ever betray, it’s that one!
@Sancho
The nazis were into social darwinism which was nothing to do with darwin or darwinism but was popular before the war and not only among the nazis. Of course, their concept of fit was being ‘aryan’ (whatever that is).
why don’t organisers ever pair interesting debaters? and then just stand back & let them go at it? i mean pell -v- dawkins, especially in the anodyne q&a format, is a waste of time for me. time magazine, a few years ago, boasted a great debate with dawkins across from francis collins, that turned out to be a missed opportunity in the form of a pair of unrelated extended essays. boring. no debate there, either.
so, how about terry eagleton as moderator, and, say, pell -v- jensen ? really, guys, what “is” the difference that keeps you apart? do tell.
or how about pell -v- kenneth miller ? who’s god is stronger? or makes greater sense, theological or biological ?
jensen -v- john shelby sponge, maybe ?
dawkins -v- terry eagleton ?
a. venison
http://news.yahoo.com/rise-atheism-america-110700315.html
Rise of non believers in the US?
@Troy Prideaux
Oh! No!
A new reason for paranoia in the land of the flea and home of the slave!
Is there an unbeliever under the bed?
Glad to have deliberately missed Q&A, again.
It’s pointless to “debate” atheism.
A: “I believe in god”.
B: “I don’t”.
A: “Dogmatic fundamentalist!”
@Megan
I’ve only ever watched Q&A twice – but I did make a point of watching Dawkins vs Pell.
You’re right, these debates are pointless when all is said and done – especially on a disjointed shallow forum like Q&A.
thanks Troy Prideaux, that was interesting; i’ll swap you this:-
“does secularism make people more ethical?”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,777281,00.html
“the most surprising insight revealed by the new wave of secular research so far is that atheists know more about the god they don’t believe in than the believers themselves.”
i’ll second that, last year i did the pew research forum’s religion test & scored higher (9/10) than my believer workmates, falling over only on the jonathan edwards, great awakening question (i’ve read hofstadter since, “anti-intellectualism in american life”, so i’ll be ready next time).
anyway, here’s pew’s take on this week’s republican primaries from a religious affiliation angle:-
http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Religion-and-the-2012-Republican-Primaries–Maryland-and-Wisconsin.aspx?src=prc-headline
alfred venison
dawkins’ role is as apolitical oxbridge don from central casting in tweed jacket with patches on the elbows, bow-tie optional. i remember the advent of sociobiology, as if it were yesterday, and for my money i’ll take the late s. j. gould, or richard lewontin or hillary rose over dawkins any day. and in a more contemporary arena i align more with people llike eugenia scott in the defence of science education than dawkins.
as Sancho notes, the vatican has made its peace with evolution, officially, back in the time of john paul 2, aided by repeated representations of american catholic scientists lawrence krauss (astrophysicist) ken miller & franscisco ayola (biologists) who at the time were working hard to head off a push from american evangelicals to enlist the vatican in their war against science. of course there are backsliders, like schonborn of vienna (ratzinger’s successor as vatican enforcer of the faith) and pell, in sydney, who blithely deviates from the official church line when it suits him & shows his true bigoted form, lately on q&a, where, his rhetorical imagination lapsing under pressure, he resorts to the darwin nazi bogus smear.
i’m surprised & disappointed that dawkins didn’t more vigorously rebut the darwin nazi association, eugenia scott sure as hell would have, had she been on the show. even a fuzzy boundary post modernist like terry eagleton wouldn’t have let that one past without more demur. and i’m intrigued, that pell resorted to it at all, as its originally an american evangelical (protestant) smear & part of a vain, conservative push to discredit a science the vatican has officially made peace with. and this from a man some tout as pope material himself, for chrissake ! i think his ready resort to this groundless smear shows what a bottom of the barrel intellectual pell really is.
there are christian evangelical scientists who teach “evolutionary creation” at university level: that is, straight up modern biology informed by the, scientifically strictly unnecessary, premise that god created the world & evolution is her modus operandi, now let’s buckle down & do some biology. google “denis lameroux & evolutionary biology”. lameroux (who has doctorates in biology, theology & dentistry) would love to teach at an evangelical college, but none will have him, for obvious reasons, so he teaches at a small catholic college in canada. the head of the anglican (episcopalian) church in america, katharine jefferts schori, has degrees in biology & theology, taught oceanography at seattle, and campaigned for her position (they’re elected in america) on a platform that included evolution as established science & god’s way of creating creation. openly sporting a background like that, and starting from behind as a woman, she still got the gig. thanks god for making not all religious people attention seeking square dancing hillbillies swilling clear liquid from jars. alleluhia, amen.
alfred venison
Catholics are also behind the geocentrism revival. It’s small and cranky for now, but history indicates that religions cling to more extreme beliefs the more they feel under pressure.
@alfred venison
I’d like to see the sort of ‘debate’ once so popular in Rome. Pell versus a lion would be a pay-for-view event!
Christians won few of those match ups.
@Freelander
I had no idea prior to the debate that “Cardinal” Pell was such an intellectual pauper.
I think that in any debate between a lion and Pell, one would expect the lion to triumph (unless it was a particularly stupid lion : )
@Wooster
Yes. It would make a ‘meal ‘ of him; have him for breakfast!
Christian. The other food group!
@Sancho
Do you include CAGW in that?
Catholic acceptance of evolution long predates John-Paul II. Pius XII endorsed theistic evolution in Humani Generis. Unlike the fundamentalists, opposition to evolution has just never been central to Catholic thought because Catholics are not hung up on biblical literalism.
@Alan
Humani Generis “….considered the doctrine of ‘evolutionism’ a serious hypothesis, worthy of investigation and in-depth study equal to that of the opposing hypothesis…”
John Paul II cited that “…new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis…”
http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm
Yes. Popes have always been pragmatic, if amoral; willing to make inevitable adjustments to the product to retain punters. Hell,this is a brand that predates Coca-cola by millennia.
Look what they did with the breaking bread with the customers concept. Ending up giving them a wafer that makes a potato chip look obese could you manage to cut product costs anymore??
Brilliant!
Pragmatism does not apply. Churches that don’t teach biblical literalism (the vast majority of Christian sects, especially outside the US) have just not had a problem with evolution.
a ceasefire began when pius 12 proclaimed the church was not at war with evolution, or science; peace was made when john paul 2 affirmed science generally in strongly endorsing evolution specifically.
“today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis. in fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. the convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.”
j-p 2, address to pontifical academy of sciences 1996-10-22.
the catholic church is indeed less into biblical literalism, in the 6 days of creation sense, but the dogged objection to same sex marriage seems to have an anchor in a literal reading of one stricture, among many, found in leviticus. in this facet of biblical literalism it seems the catholic church aligns with the fundamentalists.
a.v.
@Alan
Oh, come on! All of them were brought kicking and screaming …
And if they had retained their medieval influence, believers in evolution would be burnt at the stake.
How clerics long for those good old days. Back when they wouldn’t have to suffer the current exposure of their extracurricular activities!
@Freelander
Actually, no. I don’t know how many times it is necessary to say that evolution is just not an issue for most branches of CHristianity. There are lots of good reasons to damn the Catholic hierarchy, but this is not one of them.
@Alan
Yes. As I’ve noted, mainstream Christianity is brought kicking and screaming to any admission. Very pragmatic; they so whatever needs to be done, after the inevitable kicking and screaming.
Mind you they hanker for the old days. Burning opponents at the stake was so much more satisfying than grudging concessions.
How big George did hanker for pleasanter times during his q&a big day out.
there are reactionary churchies & there are liberal churchies; let their politics & their social positions be the measure of them. the vatican’s position on evolution, for example, assists american progressives in their on-going struggle against intelligent design. for its publicly stated position on this issue i applaud the catholic church. note: pell is out of step with the official line. he is, in my opinion, an authoritarian personality with a limited intellect, an air head in high office, who it appears (most recently on q&a) is more accustomed to getting his way by official fiat than by intellectual argument.
a.v.
@Freelander
To the extent your turn ’em or burn ’em claims are true (I actually think they owe more to the black legend and Hollywood than anything else) do you think they apply only to Christianity?
@Alan
Interesting argument. Fine for mainstream Christianity to be evil because they are not the only ones. Clearly you are a theologian!
No, I’m not setting up a tu quoque argument. I’m interested in why the record of Christian atrocities (often of specifically Catholic atrocities) is treated as a given but non-Christian atrocities are simply assumed out of the picture.
I do not see atrocities of any kind as good, and it is intellectually promiscuous of you to claim I do. I do argue that as soon as you count, say religious atrocities as worse than secular ones, or atrocities in the name of one religion as worse than atrocities in the name of another, all you are really doing is behaving exactly as does Torquemada in the Mel Brooks film.
Well done on one matter at least Ms Gillard
Gillard to miss London Olympics
Flash!
Animals have souls!
Presumably animal souls are as immortal as human souls. That being the case, is there a goldfish heaven, or do the souls of all beings spend the rest of eternity in the same place?
Or are animal souls not immortal? And if so, at what point in the evolutionary timetable did hominids’ mortal doula become immortal?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Doula = souls. Dumb iPhones.
Fish have souls; sole have souls.
Alan, you have collapsed into incoherence, even by theological standards!
“mortal doula” does have a certain ring to it.
I don’t wish to carp, but if carp have souls (like sole) are these souls (as opposed to sole) immortal.
And if this is the case does the Church object to using the green needle on the family moggie. After all, that moggie could be euthanised in a state of feline sin, in which case the green needle could be condemning Fluff to feline perdition.
Pell has opened a can of theological worms, especially in light of the admission that these very worms have souls.
Is it a sin to put worms in a can?
Are there heavens for sole souls? And if not, why not? And original sin? Sans the existence of Adam and eve.? (Myths you kknow.)