The Black Vault

greeney2 wrote:There were far more important things that were said, too bad the only point you want to pick up on is to misconstru the Adam and Eve explanation.

I don't think anything was misconstrued, he made it quite clear, that it's:

a) A myth
b) Simply a religious STORY told for religious PURPOSES

He could not have been more clear that he did not believe these events actually happened.

I've seen probably 50 live debates between well known believers and unbelievers, and while the other points may have been interesting, they were just normal arguments for and against the existence of God.

This was notable, and worthy of a thread discussion, because what he said was very controversial and surprising given that he is a cardinal. I would appreciate it if you save the debate on the origins of the Universe for another thread, maybe you can start it yourself I would be happy to debate you on that elsewhere.

As for Dawkins, yes, he is rude and arrogant, he is also a brilliant writer and extremely knowledgeable on evolution, but on God issues, cosmology, and live debate, he is not great. I did not watch the debate in full but it would not surprise me if he lost, there are far better and more qualified scientists to speak on the origins of the Universe, and indeed far more knowledgable atheists to debate Christianity and the Bible, just don't try to take him on in an evolution debate because he is the best.

So the big question is why does Dawkins have to be arrogant and rude? It is a reflection of his own doubts maybe. Why was he so unable to give a scientific explantion that was coherent? No excuses, if he doesn't know it, he can't believe it. The Cardinal is a priest, and knew his subjects, and told dawkins exactly a scientific rebuttal, as Dawkins floundered. and to be honest sounded totally foolish switching gears from that explanation, to whatever logical rant about God he thought he conveyed. On of the times the audiance laughed at Dawkins.

I have talked about this before, when 1000 cardinals meet in Rome if the Pope dies, that as a group, these are some of the most highly educated people living. For many people the word priest, only computes to some pedifile child molester, and there are definatly some that fit that bill. No more than the same thing that has come out of other clergy by the way, statistically. To reach the level of Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Religion, is no easy task, and the lifefime level of educational level, not only in theology but many other areas, most are extremely intellegent, and highly educated. To me it is no surprize Cardinal Pell came off so well, in the debate.

Humphreys I have herd you and event horizon use the wordss from the Bible out of context, and twist them to proove your points as all literal. This is one distinct difference in many different Christian Religions, is the belief all passages from the Bible were literal events with actual people, and others who believe many Bible storys are symbolic in nature, and only some represent actual people or events. This is true about many things from the Old Testament. It does not surprize me the Cardinal gave this explanation, and even a bigger explanation you missed was what he said about Moses, and if God actually carved the 10 Commandments on the tablets.

Also it should surprize you, that the Cardinal agreed in many of the things Dawkins suggested, such as can an Atheist be a peace loving and moral person. Not one time did the Cardinal elude to Dawkins or Atheists going to Hell, in fact even said it was possible for them to see Heaven. The Cardinal was not mean to him, nor did he do any of the things you claim all priests do telling you will go to Hell. The Cardinal actually said Hell may only be for the likes of Hitler, and others of that caliber. To hear you and EH tell it, all Christians condem you to Hell, but you herd just the opposite from the Cardinal, and why. Again, the total misconceptions you and other atheists seem to have about religions was not shown by Cardinal Pell.

If the Pope, and regional Cardinals are the voices of Catholics, Dawkins is certainly a voice for your beliefs, and he was unable IMHO to even explain in laymans terms, parts of the science proof, you think is so logical and implies to you, God does not exist. The Cardinal not only knew his science, he also knew about evolution from early man to humans, and connected the story of Adam and Eve with a very coherant explanations. The Cardinal gave a very good explanation about the soul, and raised the questions science can not answer, which deals with the How's, and does not deal with the Whys".

If all you get out of this is a headline like you title this post, you did not really listen to anything. Its a fine example of not caring what was said, but only exploiting without regard to the totality of his explanation. That is no different than selecting passages out of context,and not considering the bible story as a whole, and thinking you study theology.

greeney2 wrote:So the big question is why does Dawkins have to be arrogant and rude? It is a reflection of his own doubts maybe.

I dunno, why are you a complete ass 99% of the time?

A reflection of your own doubt?

greeney2 wrote:Why was he so unable to give a scientific explantion that was coherent? No excuses, if he doesn't know it, he can't believe it.

Ridiculous. No one knows how the Universe started.

I repeat. No one.

That does not mean we have to believe in God.

I don't know who killed JFK, does that mean I should believe God did it?

greeney2 wrote:The Cardinal is a priest, and knew his subjects, and told dawkins exactly a scientific rebuttal, as Dawkins floundered.

A scientific rebuttal to what? There is no science in saying "God did it".

That is at very best a philosophical statement.

greeney2 wrote:On of the times the audiance laughed at Dawkins.

Most likely it was filled with believers, who knows. Who cares?

Thanks for derailing my thread, once again though

greeney2 wrote:It does not surprize me the Cardinal gave this explanation, and even a bigger explanation you missed was what he said about Moses, and if God actually carved the 10 Commandments on the tablets.

If we can reject one story as mythical, why not reject the rest of them too?

It's pretty easy to throw away the Bible as a historical document of any kind once you start chucking things in the "myth" pile.

greeney2 wrote:Not one time did the Cardinal elude to Dawkins or Atheists going to Hell, in fact even said it was possible for them to see Heaven.

This is great, he sounds like a good guy, but he's not taking the Bible very seriously and is scarcely even a Christian, by the sounds of it.

I'm all for it, I'm just not sure why you are.

greeney2 wrote:The Cardinal was not mean to him, nor did he do any of the things you claim all priests do telling you will go to Hell. The Cardinal actually said Hell may only be for the likes of Hitler, and others of that caliber. To hear you and EH tell it, all Christians condem you to Hell, but you herd just the opposite from the Cardinal, and why. Again, the total misconceptions you and other atheists seem to have about religions was not shown by Cardinal Pell.

He is watering down his own religion, he is only not offensive to me because he is not really a proper Christian.

Frrosted gets it. Halfabo probably gets it too. You, apparently, do not.

greeney2 wrote:If the Pope, and regional Cardinals are the voices of Catholics, Dawkins is certainly a voice for your beliefs,

No one is a voice for my beliefs, atheism is not a religion.

Dawkins can do whatever he likes and it has no impact on me.

He is not the pope of atheism

greeney2 wrote:and he was unable IMHO to even explain in laymans terms, parts of the science proof, you think is so logical and implies to you, God does not exist.

You cannot prove God does not exist.

You cannot prove unicorns do not exist.

Such a scientific proof is not possible in either case.

Come on greeney, you know this, you've been told so many times.

By the way, science does not deal with the "whys" but neither does "religion" really, it just makes stuff up, and they all contradict. That is not really dealing with the "why" issue, it's just offering an ad-hoc explanation to something no one knows and is essentially useless.

In court, you deal with the motive (the why), as well as (the how), the method of the murder, for instance. But the motive (the why) is not explained by making stuff up, it is not an explanation until it is proved to be true. No religion has been proved true, therefore the "why" questions still exist as they ever have.

I would like to say "you are better than this, greeney", but you aren't, so I'll leave you be.

Pretty sad Humphreys, I watched the entire thing, you asked for thoughts, and when it doesn't go your way, this is what you resort to. As usual you dictate to everyone else how they are wrong, and learn nothing.

I asked for thoughts on the cardinal's claim that Adam and Eve is a myth, not on what a dick Dawkins can be, or how science can't disprove God.

You gave your thoughts on Adam and Eve, I responded, what's the problem?

I just don't see that you can put the Adam and Eve story in the myth bin and feel comfortable with keeping the rest. As I say, it's a slippery slope.

I agree with your comments on Pell, he seems like a very reasonable guy and his approach to the Bible to me, is refreshing, but only because I'm an atheist. To a believer, it should be downright worrying, in my opinion, that's the point of the thread.

You seem to want to debate me on how impressive Pell is, but I can't, because I agree with you, I just think he is only a stone's throw away from joining Dawkins in his atheism, or at least embracing the existence of a God that is not the Christian God of the Bible.

I would like to watch the video in full myself, do you have a link to it greeney?

I found it on youtube, I'm watching it in full now and will give my comments shortly.

Clearly the crowd is full of believers and fanboys (completely biased), but the laughter at Dawkins so far has been not of derision but of a humorous comment he made about Thatcherism.

I am almost halfway through now and I want to offer some more thoughts.

It is pretty painful to watch, partly because the audience are scientifically illiterate laypersons, but mainly because they are extremely biased against Dawkins before he even got started.

An example, Dawkins talking about "nothing" in a scientific sense (not meaning absolutely literally nothing), and Dawkins says we need to define what we mean by "nothing" and the audience burst into laughter. From a scientific viewpoint what Dawkins said was perfectly reasonable, but because the crowd are ignorant they think he's said something ridiculous. Dawkins keeps asking what's funny every time the crowd laughs.

His biggest mistake is treating the idiots in the crowd as people who know what they're talking about when they don't have a clue. It's like trying to discuss reproduction with a 10 year old who laughs every time you say "penis".

Is that what you meant by the derision, greeney, because if so, the crowd is totally at fault and not Dawkins. His comments went over their heads. He was polite until then, but becomes rude as the crowd becomes rude.

Secondly, Pell made a complete fool of himself with his evolutionary comments by saying we evolved from neanderthals, who are actually our cousins. That was an extremely foolish and ignorant statement by Pell which you failed to mention. Dawkins is stunned at the guy's ignorance more than anything.

He then says they can't be our cousins because they're extinct!

A truly embarrassing moment for Pell.

I will comment further but I feel sorry for Dawkins to be honest not because he is doing badly, but because of the atmosphere and the structure of the debate.

Pell is a nice guy and is decent at debating and conveying his thoughts but his argument themselves are for the most part laughable.

Pell goes on to reject Adam and Eve as a myth, flip-flops on the commandments, and struggles to claim any of the Bible stories as literal fact.

Amazing. He has no confidence in any of it!

He doesn't answer the question on the soul at all, he simply says the "soul is the principal of life" which simply evades the question of where it comes from and when it is injected into life.

I am far less impressed by him after watching, he is neither a proper believer or an unbeliever, I don't know what he is but he doesn't seem to believe what he's preaching!

My final thoughts.

Dawkins came off badly because of his bad manner, Pell came off worse because of his ignorance, the crowd came off worst of all because they were morons.

A bit of a train wreck of a debate to be honest, no one can held their heads up high after that.

Pell said he preferred that Hitler was in hell in eternal torment rather than getting away with it and dying? Is this a common belief of believers? Because to me, as horrible as Hitler was, no one deserves eternal torture, that's sadistic and horrific and to wish it for anyone, even Hitler, is sick and twisted.

Only good part of the entire debate was when Pell said:

"I remember back in England, when we were preparing some young English boys..." and then the crowd erupted into giggles. Catholic peadophile jokes win out, that sums it all up in a nutshell