[stone monkey]

Gem Windcaster, on 12 April 2010 - 10:59 AM, said:

...if you go back and see what SM really was saying you should get it. Hopefully. His comment about 'supporter of religion' is very generalizing and unnecessary. I still don't understand what other purpose that comment has than to insult and wound people that 'support religion'

If that's not looking for an argument, what is? And it's exactly the argument I assumed you were looking for...

But we should at least try to remain minimally on topic...

So anyway, the Pope's status and hence immunity to prosecution as a Head of State (plausible or otherwise) would seem to principally rely on the Lateran Pacts of 1929 which would appear, to some, to rest on some fairly dodgy legal ground. Presumably before that you're going back to the Peace of Westphalia; which would certainly make it ironic were it to be wheeled out as some sort of defence, given the Papacy's opinion of it at the time...

This latter is, to some extent, interesting because iirc this was part of the defence Charles I used at his trial. And we all know how well that went for him.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 12 April 2010 - 10:02 PM

[Gem Windcaster]

stone monkey, on 12 April 2010 - 08:55 PM, said:

Gem Windcaster, on 12 April 2010 - 10:59 AM, said:

...if you go back and see what SM really was saying you should get it. Hopefully. His comment about 'supporter of religion' is very generalizing and unnecessary. I still don't understand what other purpose that comment has than to insult and wound people that 'support religion'

If that's not looking for an argument, what is? And it's exactly the argument I assumed you were looking for...

I didn't have to 'go look' for anything, it's right there, and it's not an argument, it's an observation. Here's another one: you have but admitted to making that comment just to start a controversy = "I assumed you were looking for".

stone monkey, on 12 April 2010 - 08:55 PM, said:

But we should at least try to remain minimally on topic...

So anyway, the Pope's status and hence immunity to prosecution as a Head of State (plausible or otherwise) would seem to principally rely on the Lateran Pacts of 1929 which would appear, to some, to rest on some fairly dodgy legal ground. Presumably before that you're going back to the Peace of Westphalia; which would certainly make it ironic were it to be wheeled out as some sort of defence, given the Papacy's opinion of it at the time...

This latter is, to some extent, interesting because iirc this was part of the defence Charles I used at his trial. And we all know how well that went for him.

Is it just me, or is this the possible beginning of the end of the Catholic church? They have to clean up their act, for crying out lout. But I don't know enough of this kind of politics to really have an opinion on what would make it possible to even prosecute the pope. Not sure it would even help with the issue - if the pope stopped being the pope, wouldn't he just be replaced by a similar figure in the same closed organization? Sure, justice would be served, but it wouldn't prevent this from happening all over again, if the church remains the same.

[stone monkey]

Actually no. Your demand for a blatantly obvious definition led me to the conclusion that the sentence which the word you desired defined was in contained something you wanted an argument about. Simple deduction really; based on observation your past behaviour and a passing familiarity with human nature. But of course you're entirely welcome to read it the way you choose should you wish to feel validated. But anyway, thanks for playing...

Moving swiftly on, the Catholic Church has weathered crises vastly more damaging to than this one will turn out to be, The Reformation for instance. So it is highly unlikely that this particular controversy will cause the collapse of an organisation with over a billion adherents and a continuous history stretching back two thousand years. What one would hope is accomplished by all of this is the final nail in the coffin of the idea that organisations which portray themselves as being divinely inspired are somehow above the law, and can ride roughshod over it should this serve their own purposes.

My example of the trial of Charles I was the beginning of the end for the Divine Right of Kings. Perhaps (and hopefully) this will be the beginning of the end for the special status of churches. They should and must obey the same laws as the rest of us. They're entirely human institutions and should be treated as such. Their assertions of metaphysical authority not withstanding.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 13 April 2010 - 12:57 AM

[Sir Thursday]

Morgoth, on 12 April 2010 - 06:17 PM, said:

I don't know if people have seen this. It's been floating along the web for some months. If not it's definitely worth the time to watch it through.


Stephen Fry on the topic: Is the Catholic Church a force for good.
http://www.intellige...4040&sgmt=23171

I've got to say, this is really not a very good speech. I was surprised by just how poor Stephen Fry was - maybe because he was too angry, maybe because he set his argument up wrong, but it was full of sweeping generalizations and rambling criticisms that really didn't fit together very well. It was empassioned, but that reduced the force of his litany, especially when he kept repeating that History was unimportant. The Catholic Church, or people acting under its mandate, have committed many evils over the past millenium or so, and those will speak for themselves if they are presented calmly and without exaggeration. But they weren't.

On the topic at hand, there is certainly a case to be made here. And as others have said, were Dawkins not being foisted as one of the proponents of the idea, it would probably have more weight. I'm not sure the Pope should be on trial simply for being the head of the Catholic Church - the fundamental question there is whether a leader is to be held accountable for the actions of everyone he leads, and I haven't quite made up my mind on that issue - but from what I've read of his actions as Cardinal Ratzinger, there does seems to be a case of helping to cover up the some atrocities that have been committed. Now I have no problem with refusing to defrock a priest who has been charged with rape - there's no law that says you have to turn your back on a criminal, as far as I'm aware. If the Catholic Church wants to associate with paedophiles, that's their prerogative. But refusing to divulge knowledge of the crimes, and putting the offending priests in positions that allow them to offend again, those are serious offences that deserve some form of examination.


Sir Thursday

[Morgoth]

The whole point of history being unimportant was a reference to the woman before him who'd based her defence of the catholic church around the basis that what happened in the past is unimportant.

I thought it was quite a powerful speak in all honesty.

[stone monkey]

Just for the last millenium? It goes a fair bit further back than that, I think. The Renaissance and hence the Enlightenment would probably have happened at least 500 years earlier had they not been particularly dickish about various things for a few centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire; most notably the burning of the Library of Alexandria. The only reason we have any access to that vast majority of what the Classical Greeks accomplished is because Muslims were quite serious about all of their Five Pillars of Wisdom. The philosophical underpinnings of our civilisation exist despite Catholicism (because it was the only game in town until the schism with the Greek Orthodox Church, who were no better) and because of Islam.

Which I find is always quite a nice argument from history to throw at the Islamophobes in the crowd.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 13 April 2010 - 01:15 AM

[Gothos]

Islam was quite fine until Timur grinded them into the ground. The Dark Ages of Europe began when Rome fell; the Dark Ages of the Middle East started during the Mongol invasions, and, largely, goes on until this day (note that our Dark Age laste for what, a millenium, give or take?).

[Terez]

Gothos, on 12 April 2010 - 12:46 PM, said:

Looks like Gem just went for the "Most Negrepped Post In The Boards" award. Winner?

I got about that many neg reps for my grammar nazi post in the home skool thread, but I got so many pos reps for it that I think it ended up coming in at -2.

OT...Dawkins is a sensationalist, but it's people like him that are necessary for real change to occur. He'll be painted as the bad guy (which doesn't seem to bother him), but his extremism will pave the way for some less extreme but necessary measures, I think.

[caladanbrood]

I'd be worried if any sort of extremism starts being seriouly listened to...

[Terez]

Why? Not all forms of extremism are equal. Martin Luther was an extremist. William Lloyd Garrison was an extremist. I could go on...

[caladanbrood]

What has the Lutheran Church got to do with it? They're not especially brilliant either.

[Terez]

LOL. I don't know whether I should respond to that or not.

[Jaghut Engine]

Like many (similar) cases , however small or unheard of this seems to be a situation; this is going to be as some of you have already noted; or indeed will turn into a David and Goliath situation (no pun intended). Not only does the church need an overhaul but we need to look carefully at these crimes throughout society, people of high status be it whether sport, politics or whatever and most of them get of with a mere 'slap on the wrist' mentality because of their "chequebook personas" ; my point is everyone ,regardless of creed,religion, race, socio-economic background etc should all face the same procesure regardless. Should the Pope be arrested?! It would help with at least starting to eradicate the scoundrels that hide within the church, this has gone on for way too long...but also they should be also weary of anyone who are making false claims and making strings pull for thier own personal,gain which is not uncommon, that's about it for me on this ,religion and me don't get on well...........

[Gem Windcaster]

SM, see how easy it is to assume things about someone? Maybe you should learn something from this? (just a suggestion)

I'm not sure I agree that there have been previous even worse situations for the catholic church - they didn't have today's media in the reformation days.

I think the thing about Dawkins is as someone said: the people who should listen won't because it's him that says it.

Either he isn't smart enough to see that, and honestly cares about the situation, or he do know that the people that should listen to him won't listen because it's him saying it, and in fact he was counting on it, just to 'prove' how evil religion is. 3rd option is that he stupidly doesn't recognize either.

[stone monkey]

Gem - Yes, I have learned something, which by past performance is more than I expect you to have done. And what I learned is that it's extremely easy to make entirely correct assumptions about you.

btw - Read some history (I mean really) The Reformation effectively removed large chunks of Northern Europe from Catholic control. The equivalent today would be if hundreds of millions people suddenly decided they didn't want to be Catholic anymore. That ain't going to happen. The schism with Greek Orthodoxy chopped the church in half, that would be equivalent to half a billion people breaking off from the church. That isn't going to happen either. This is a blip by comparison. More importantantly, both these events were doctrinal, this isn't.

Arguably you've missed a trick. Maybe he thinks that it's simply the right thing to do and is concerned with doing that. But that's the kind of assumption very few believers like to make about atheists because it poses an interestingly knotty philosophical conundrum. Of course the point to make is that, as has been pointed out repeatedly and is being completely ignored, that this wasn't Dawkins' idea in the first place and he was merely voicing support for it. Which gets us back to the point of newspapers not letting facts get in the way of a story they want to twist to their own ends.

[Garak]

Arguably the media is sorta like the church when it comes to the truth - only instead of covering it up, the media twists it until it makes for a really juicy story that will get them ratings (and possibly ruin someone's life but what do they care, that's just an extra sad story they can run with).

This post has been edited by Garak: 13 April 2010 - 01:53 PM

[Gothos]

They've got multiple tools available for shaping the story in such a way that nobody will notice that it's even contradicting ITSELF. Unless, of course, a person reads the whole article, searches for sources, etc. Was a cracked.com article about it not so long ago iirc.

[caladanbrood]

 

stone monkey, on 13 April 2010 - 01:31 PM, said:

Arguably you've missed a trick. Maybe he thinks that it's simply the right thing to do and is concerned with doing that.

Haha. Does anyone actually believe that if it was a non-religious organisation with the same accusations against them, Dawkins (or Hitchens, for that matter) would give a damn?

[Garak]

Off topic but about journalists. A few months ago a kid at the school were my mom teaches (she's an English teacher and she takes the bus to the village were the school is) committed suicide via hanging. The press felt this was worthy news (the 5 o'clock news is filled to the brim with murder/rape/suicide/kidnapping/retards) so they swarmed the place. When my mom said that the school has nothing to declare (the kid killed himself at home and it appeared that he actually just tried to scare his parents but the attempt backfired really badly) the journalist commented that in that case, they'll just make it all up and lay the blame on the school. In the end another teacher did talk to them about the kid but it was loony and the school and computer(?) still got most of the blame. This is not what reporters should be doing but they are - needless to say I'm less than impressed with the press and I have a certain dislike for it because of dickish behavior like this. Sorry for the off topic.

Quote

Arguably you've missed a trick. Maybe he thinks that it's simply the right thing to do and is concerned with doing that.

Yeah, but what are the odds?

Quote

Does anyone actually believe that if it was a non-religious organisation with the same accusations against them, Dawkins (or Hitchens, for that matter) would give a damn?

No, they wouldn't. It's because this is a big, juicy target. Or maybe I'm a cynic and have little faith in humanity.

This post has been edited by Garak: 13 April 2010 - 02:23 PM

[HoosierDaddy]

caladanbrood, on 13 April 2010 - 02:19 PM, said:

stone monkey, on 13 April 2010 - 01:31 PM, said:

Arguably you've missed a trick. Maybe he thinks that it's simply the right thing to do and is concerned with doing that.

Haha. Does anyone actually believe that if it was a non-religious organisation with the same accusations against them, Dawkins (or Hitchens, for that matter) would give a damn?

Does, and should, it matter whether or not there is a philosophical bone to pick when a group of people have deliberately hidden a crime of such massive proportions? If it was a group of Buddhist monks would it make any difference, and should it?

NO.