| | Author | Message |
|---|
Wicksy 
| #1 posted October 19, 2009 at 11:17am (EST)
edited October 21, 2009 at 4:47am (EST) |
http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events.php#spea...
DEBATE: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS A CAUSE FOR GOOD IN THIS WORLD
I am going to this tonight, despite feeling like absolute crap.
What a line up:
Archbishop John Onaiyekan Roman Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria.
Rt Hon Ann Widdecombe MP Conservative MP and Catholic convert.
Christopher Hitchens Writer, broadcaster and polemicist, author of the bestselling book "God is not Great".
Stephen Fry Actor, author, comedian and television presenter.
| Iseult  
| | #2 posted October 19, 2009 at 12:49pm (EST) |
That's an amazing event.
Let us know of the outcome. | Wicksy
| #3 posted October 19, 2009 at 5:25pm (EST)
edited October 19, 2009 at 5:26pm (EST) |
Well you can guess whose side I was on.
Hitchens was his brilliant self as usual. He entered into a five minute apology request for all that the catholic church has done wrong over the centuries. Fry combined intelligence with wit and was a lot less of a fundamentalist than Hitchens was (he even said that he would like to come back in ten years and speak UP for catholics - except he feared he wouldn't).
The Archbishop was an irelevance and this intellectual debate was way above him. Ann Widdecombe gave it her best shot but ended up embaressing herself. For example, when asked why she thought it is not okay to have women priests but okay to have women as MP's, she responded that it was an ignorant question...is it?
In the end, Fry and Hitchens won by a million miles, and even someone unbiased, unlike me, would agree!! | Wicksy
| | #4 posted October 19, 2009 at 5:27pm (EST) |
Apparently, it will be beamed out to 70 million people during November. If you're one of them, listen out for the sneezing...that's me | Iseult
| | #5 posted October 19, 2009 at 5:55pm (EST) |
Thanks for the recap.
That's general outcome I find these debates have, the way you described it. Well at least in my experience. I've been to one where they debated whether or not there's a god. I live in Kitchener/Waterloo area, which I have christened the 'Bible Belt of Canada' because there are a lot of religious people living around (mostly your non-traditional Protestant churches, majority of which I haven't even heard of before); I was expecting to hear more of an opposition from the religious side but they couldn't construct a good argument. They were pwned. | southernyankee 
| | #6 posted October 19, 2009 at 7:02pm (EST) |
To be honest, I don't really know what side I am on.
On the one hand, there probably is some point to life, and there is some semblance of an afterlife. On the other hand, I think all organized (I use that term loosely, since there's plenty of disorganized religious out there, but still count) is a bunch of bs. I also see no point in having a debate between atheists and Catholic priests, since Baptist religions don't believe that Priests, Decans, Archbishops, or even the Pope has any special powers to begin with.
"Ann Widdecombe gave it her best shot but ended up embaressing herself. For example, when asked why she thought it is not okay to have women priests but okay to have women as MP's, she responded that it was an ignorant question...is it?"
I don't even see why that's relevant. Non-Catholic non-atheists don't care about the RCC's hierarchies, so its a moot point. And its a distraction, since it has nothing to do with the issue. | Iseult
| | #7 posted October 19, 2009 at 11:17pm (EST) |
Did you even read what the debate was about, sy? The topic was: Free-market capitalism is so 20th century. | Wicksy
| | #8 posted October 20, 2009 at 8:10am (EST) |
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewmcfbrown/1...
Intelligence Squared debate: Catholics humiliated by Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry
By Andrew M Brown Religion Last updated: October 19th, 2009
I have just witnessed a rout – tonight’s Intelligence Squared debate. It considered the motion “The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world”. Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry, opposing the motion, comprehensively trounced Archbishop Onaiyekan (of Abuja, Nigeria) and Ann Widdecombe, who spoke for it. The archbishop in particular was hopeless.
The voting gives a good idea of how it went. Before the debate, for the motion: 678. Against: 1102. Don’t know: 346. This is how it changed after the debate. For: 268. Against: 1876. Don’t know: 34. In other words, after hearing the speakers, the number of people in the audience who opposed the motion increased by 774. My friend Simon, who’s a season ticket holder, said it was the most decisive swing against a motion that he could remember.
The problem (from the Catholic point of view) was that the speakers arguing for the Church as a force for good were hopelessly outclassed by two hugely popular, professional performers. The archbishop had obviously decided that it would work best if he stuck to facts and figures and presented the Church as a sort of vast charitable or “social welfare” organisation. He emphasised how many Catholics there were in the world, and that even included “heads of state”, he said, as if that was a clincher. But he said virtually nothing of a religious or spiritual nature as far as I could tell, and non-Catholics would have been none the wiser about what you might call the transcendent aspects of the Church. Then later when challenged he became painfully hesitant. In the end he mumbled and spluttered and retreated into embarrassing excuses and evasions. He repeatedly got Ann Widdecombe’s name wrong. The hostility of both the audience and his opponents seemed to have discomfited him.
So it was left to Ann Widdecombe to defend the Church single-handedly. She did well, showed a light touch and took Hitchens to task for exaggerations and so on. But in the end Hitchens and Fry were able to persuade decisively by simply listing one after another the wicked things that have been done in the Church’s name over the centuries. More than anything they focused on the “institutionalisation of the rape and torture and maltreatment of children”. That’s what Hitchens called it – that’s pretty much what it was – and Fry returned to it. I don’t blame them for harping on about these unspeakable crimes, because there is no answer to them. Then they talked about the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. When Zeinab Badawi in the chair asked the archbishop whether Christ himself ever actually said anything about homosexuality, he replied by saying “that’s not the point” or words to that effect, and sounded slippery.
Even if you didn’t agree with him you’d have to concede Hitchens especially was spectacular and hyper-articulate. Fry, who is less avuncular somehow now he is so slimline, was visibly nervous and appeared to have a dry mouth. Hitchens drank bottled water mostly, and plenty of it, though from time to time when he was sitting down he raised a glass of amber fluid from out of sight, down on the floor somewhere, and took a slug from that. I don’t know why he kept a drink under the table like that, perhaps because the debate was filmed for broadcast. He sweated profusely and dabbed his shiny forehead, eyes and cheeks with a handkerchief. But his diction was clear and he was in control, like a revivalist tent preacher, building the volume to a crescendo at the end, to applause and roars from the audience.
It was a gripping evening’s entertainment but a little discouraging for those of us who are Catholics. I found myself wishing, one, that the Catholic debaters would for once not content themselves with offering pettifogging excuses but instead actually own up to some of the charges, and, two, I wished that there still existed a great Catholic apologist like Chesterton or Belloc, someone who was not only brave and prepared to square up to the Hitch, but was his intellectual equal. Surely there is someone today who could do that?
| cloudhugger
| | #9 posted October 20, 2009 at 9:05am (EST) |
Forgive me for not studying all that, all I want to know is did this meeting somehow change the world into a better place for everyone? I mean, did it really accomplish anything other than you people getting to put a feather in your cap? | Wicksy
| | #10 posted October 20, 2009 at 9:25am (EST) |
cloudhugger wrote:
> Forgive me for not studying all that, all I want to know is did this
> meeting somehow change the world into a better place for everyone?
> I mean, did it really accomplish anything other than you people
> getting to put a feather in your cap?
Well, it will be broadcast to large parts of Africa next month. That's pretty significant to me.
| cloudhugger
| | #11 posted October 20, 2009 at 10:07am (EST) |
So large parts of Africa will here it...does that mean the world will become a better place or is it going to fuel up more anger?
Really, I'm just wondering. | cloudhugger
| | #12 posted October 20, 2009 at 10:09am (EST) |
What I am asking is will the two sides- you and them come to some middle ground, or will it create a greater rift in communications between humans. Will this solve something?
Both sides right now standing their ground don't seem willing to meet somewhere in the midle, or did I miss something? | Wicksy
| | #13 posted October 20, 2009 at 10:10am (EST) |
cloudhugger wrote:
> So large parts of Africa will here it...does that mean the world will
> become a better place or is it going to fuel up more anger?
> Really, I'm just wondering.
I don't think anyone thought it would make a difference...it's just an interesting debate.
If everyone thought to themselves: 'what will this achieve' everytime they did something, people would find that they would do very little | Wicksy
| | #14 posted October 20, 2009 at 10:11am (EST) |
cloudhugger wrote:
> What I am asking is will the two sides- you and them come to some
> middle ground, or will it create a greater rift in communications
> between humans.
Probably a greater rift
Will this solve something?
No, probably not
> Both sides right now standing their ground don't seem willing to meet
> somewhere in the midle, or did I miss something?
Nope, you didn't miss anything.
However, if no-one stood up for their beliefs, the world would be a sadder place. | cloudhugger
| | #15 posted October 20, 2009 at 12:52pm (EST) |
So if it does not make the world a better place, than I don't feel bad for skimming through the whole thing.
thank you, this has made a better day for me not getting involved in arguments that have no happy endings. | southernyankee
| | #16 posted October 20, 2009 at 6:19pm (EST) |
Iseult wrote:
> Did you even read what the debate was about, sy? The topic was:
> Free-market capitalism is so 20th century.
No, I haven't. I just assumed its one of the usual atheist verses theists debates they always have. It was a pretty reasonable assumption for someone as lazy as me. Sigh. Laziness still pays off the other 99.9% of the time. | cprasky 
| | #17 posted October 20, 2009 at 10:03pm (EST) |
Laziness is often under-rated. It is lazy people who come up with ways and mechanisms to deal with tiresome and repetitive tasks. If it weren't for lazy people, we wouldn't have dishwashers or sewing machines. | llamamama 
| | #18 posted October 20, 2009 at 10:06pm (EST) |
I wouldn't call those people lazy...I'd call them innovative. | LindaH
| | #19 posted October 20, 2009 at 10:09pm (EST) |
well... this butt aint gonna sit on itself... | llamamama
| | #20 posted October 20, 2009 at 10:10pm (EST) |
That lap ain't gonna make itself, either. | Wicksy
| | #21 posted October 21, 2009 at 4:46am (EST) |
Iseult wrote:
> Did you even read what the debate was about, sy? The topic was:
> Free-market capitalism is so 20th century.
Sorry, the link page has obviously changed.
The debate was:
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS A CAUSE FOR GOOD IN THIS WORLD. | Iseult
| | #22 posted October 21, 2009 at 4:47am (EST) |
That's what I thought, too, but then I went to double check it and it changed to the Free-market thing. | FordGuy 
| | #23 posted October 22, 2009 at 9:11am (EST) |
cloudhugger wrote:
> So if it does not make the world a better place,
> than I don't feel bad for skimming through the
> whole thing.
> thank you, this has made a better day for me not
> getting involved in arguments that have no happy
> endings.
Well said. I'll buy you a beer. | cloudhugger
| | #24 posted October 22, 2009 at 11:36am (EST) |
Just a note...being stuck in the past never did anyone any good. | llamamama
| | #25 posted October 22, 2009 at 12:36pm (EST) |
Nor did being stuck in the future. | Iseult
| | #26 posted October 22, 2009 at 2:22pm (EST) |
What do I have to say to get a beer, too? | cprasky
| | #27 posted October 22, 2009 at 2:46pm (EST) |
Iseult wrote:
> What do I have to say to get a beer, too?
A little late in the year for beer by now, isn't it? I'm into my Myers' dark rum by now... | Iseult
| | #28 posted October 22, 2009 at 3:57pm (EST) |
Can't do rum, but I'll accept some whiskey. | llamamama
| | #29 posted October 22, 2009 at 4:21pm (EST) |
Mmmm Apple juice |
Topic Page Hits: 1 today (58 in the last 30 days) |
- Twitter 
- Facebook 