I was just searching for something to add to this debate, and came across a sermon preached by the current Archbishop of Canterbury in honour of Rudyard Kipling, an agnostic and a man who, in Williams' words, "showed (to put it mildly) a degree of impatience towards orthodox religion, not to mention the practitioners of orthodox religion." It's quite an interesting discourse on how there's more to religious faith than church orthodoxy. Few would dispute that Rowan Williams is one of the more intellectual of recent Archbishops, but senior Churchmen - even during the touchy-feely reign of George Carey as Archbish, understood that there's no conflict between being of the Church and being of the World.

Williams' text: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/303

Yes....a great movie poster for a great movie.

It makes for an interesting read, and I’d love to see Kipling’s thoughts on it I think it would make a much more interesting read

And I don’t disagree with the line “there's no conflict between being of the Church and being of the World” especially if you took the Anglican Church as your example, it may not fit so well with more fundamental churches or religions

But I do see a issue if it was phrased this way "no conflict between being a student of religion and being student of the natural world."

Religion is very personal to some people, so a dig or a joke at it's expense will rile some people. Stereotypes, while often valid and understood by people to be so for good reason, are not always true. We've read stereotyped comments about First Nations on here that I know the OP has taken up with people.

This site has produced much hilarity, sarcasm, jokes, digs and offensive material and comments aimed at many groups of people, be they religious, ethnic, lawyers, corporate, police, parents, or as in dbd's case, donkey lovers. Are we all fair game? Can we all just say what we like because we feel justified in some way, or because we are actually part of that group that we ridicule anyway?

I dunno !

I am often flippant with throw away comments. Do I mean to really insult anyway? No (well, hardly ever anyway ). There is no right or wrong really - too many grey areas. A couple of people do set out to purposefully provoke, upset or annoy and I think one has to be very careful going down that route. If we were all ultra-sensitive about making or receiving comments, this would be a very dull forum indeed. But a little forethought by all parties wouldn't go amiss.

And this isn't a dig at anyone in particular, before anyone says I've been mean to them

i read the original posts with interest, glad to see this is being discussed further here.

an offhand comment/joke in bad or good taste, funny or unfunny, depends on your viewpoint.

whether though catholic priests are actively engaged in any criminality in this or other areas surely is not the point, they have been historically and to try and defend them categorically, as it appears the whole of catholicism attempted to be, i think is unrealistic, just as it would be to suggest they are all involved.

What this whole debate highlights simply is the sensitivity some have on a particular subject, and on this forum as a whole should we avoid such topics or refrain from commenting. its a public forum i am afraid, you come on, you take your chances. off button, top right.

If you choose to post and chat in the public domain, then you are fair game


I think I just agreed with rae

I'm not sure I quite agree, Mike (seem to be doing a lot of that today - nothing against you personally, I promise!)

There's a point beyond which a robust argument becomes a slanging match. I think most of the original discussion on religion which spawned this thread had probably not reached that point, and there was a lot of (to my mind, at least) oversensitivity to the point of whinging on the part of one or two contributors.

There have been threads on here in the past which have definitely overstepped the mark. I think the dividing line is between attacking an argument or a point of view, and attacking the person or institution that holds that point of view. To the case in point: it's OK to say that some of the actions of the Catholic church have been indefensible or immoral; it's not OK to say that the Catholic Church as a whole, or any individual adherent to the Catholic faith, is in some way immoral simply because he's a Catholic. It's sometimes a fine line, but as with all debate it descends into he-said, she-said juvenilia once ad-hominem attacks replace genuine arguments.

Its a balancing act here, and with my mod hat on you cant please all the people all the time.

If its obviously offensive in my opinion or that of the other mods, or if it draws a lot of complaints then we will spike it, if its in a grey area, usually its best to give it the benefit of the doubt. If it degenerates into personal abuse then it will be spiked and the parties involved spoken too about expected standards of behaviour.

I am glad that people took the hint though and brought the off topic discussion here rather than carrying on in Steves thread (which I must confess I was tempted to lock at one point as it was no longer Canada related), and I am equally pleased debate has been conducted in a civilised thoughtful manner here in the maple leaf.

Hopefully between us all we can maintain a decent balance without the mods having to do too much, so far so good I think...

Its Friday I think it healthy to have debates like this, I’ll admit to enjoying debating with people that disagree with me, it helps me to refine my opinion and sometimes even change it.

I don’t approve of slanging matches and nobody deserves that especially on topic that requires some thought
But post up an opinion on a public forum I think you at least should be prepared for somebody to post up an opposing view.
And I think having posted up the viewpoint, have the decency to hang around and defend it..

A few points - having studied theology (a masters) and Law (LLB) and Education (B.ED) I would not think theology is any less vigorous intellectually than law

I do know, from my studies, that sins that are also crimes will not be forgiven in Canada unless the penitent also confesses to the authorities. So, whilst I was a prison chaplain, inmates who confessed to me of abuse against children knew that the expectation was that they also told the authorites: which they would subsequently do with or without my help. Part of the sacrament of reconciliation for child sexual abusers WILL involve treatment, and most probably incarceration. You cant just whisper your crimes through a curtain and be done with it.

Regarding the church and intellect: without Franciscan scholars translating arab translations of Aristotle in the 12th centruy and onwards a scientific revolution in thinking would not have occured - or only many centuries later.
Irish monks in the dark ages could be argued to have kept the roots of Western Civilization alive.

One could also trace the roots of western democracy and freedom of the individual back to the writings of Paul.

Free thinkers have a lot to thank the old monks and priests for!

In other words - one could not be an atheist without the church!

Regarding whinging - refusing to allow individuals I know personally to be grouped as abusers is not in my mind whinging.

thats assuming of course that all these writings are factually accurate, like the resurrection for instance.

Yes. Like it or not Atheist's have to accept that Western Society is founded on Christian principles and the law has developed on those principles of right and wrong over time. In the court of law people are made to swear on the bible when they testify etc.....

There has been corruption and abuse in religion but those two things will always have the potential to exist in any situation where there is power to be corrupted and abused. That is not the fault of the religion but the fault of the people who have had the power go to their heads.

Theres obviously a difference between faith and belief. But faith is not necessarilly irrational. We now believe many things to be true that were unbelievable and unfathomable in previous centuries. Most relationships come down to faith in another or the "other." But how can you KNOW another mind?

In the same way spritiuality is a relationship with an other - just a bigger other. How can one know that mind?

There comes a point in relationships and in spirituality where one steps out in faith, into the void.

However, one can use reason to judge one's own actions in the face of one's belief in the other.

Who can ever prove the resurrection?

However, the language of the resurrection narrative has, I believe, helped impel our society from survivng in mud huts along the banks of the Thames to something greater.

Meanwhile my relationship with my creator remains, and religion is the language I use to describe it.

It's time for a beer!

Who can disprove the resurrection?

No, Rae, that assumption is not necessary. There is no causal link between the intellectual rigour of an argument and the truth of an unrelated belief that the proponent happens to hold.
There's also no denying the influence the monastic tradition had on Western civilisation from the fall of Rome through the Dark Ages and, through the religious quasi-monopoly on education, well past the Renaissance and into the Age of Enlightenment. Where I'd disagree with Triumphguy is in his assumption that that influence was always for the good. There's a strong argument that without the single-minded and blinkered approach to maintaining orthodox ideas (for example, through the threat of excommunication to those who countered the geo-centric view of the solar system) many scientific advances would have been made earlier. Non-Christian (particularly Hindu and Islamic/Arabic) traditions of knowledge were what really kept pushing at the boundaries of accepted wisdom; several breakthroughs in mainstream Western (hence Christian) thought were hundreds of years behind similar advances in the Middle East. And that's taking no account of the Chinese influence on early modern thinking.


well, I suppose you could, but Paul's thoughts draw so heavily on Aristotelian and Platonic thinking on the individual that you'd be guilty of a pretty arbitrary distinction to trace back only as far as Paul and not to where his thoughts came from.

Steady on... while I bow to your undoubtedly greater knowledge of ecclesiastical history, I thought it was fairly evident that for well over half of its existence the Church hierarchy has gone out of its way to suppress free thinking in favour of unquestioning acceptance of the orthodox. Isn't that what the Inquisition was all about, and the dogmatic dismissal of Copernicus' work 60 years after its publication, and the infamous imprisonment, torture and enforced recanting of Galileo?