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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
 Posted - 02/20/2008 : 15:12:24
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Well, some Catholic columnist is complaining about liberal christianity. This time, I couldn't resist, so I sent him an email and I left this comment on his column. It remains to be seen what kind of response I get...
From: Reynold Hall
To: Michael Coren
A few statements stood out from your column. One of them was: "Within us all there is a God-shaped vacuum."
What do you base that statement on? There are some people who do not have this "God-shaped vacuum" in us.
A case in point can be found here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/02/doomed_from_the_start.php
' "Universal human impulse," my left butt cheek. There are a lot of us who find ourselves quite content once we've shed religious indoctrination, and feel not one iota of desire to participate in supernatural foolishness. We happen to be human; there hasn't been a wave of X-Man-style mutations sweeping the globe, transforming a subset of the human race into trans-human beings with the super-power of being able to see through lies. "Faith in God" is also a peculiarly Abrahamic view of religion #8212; I'm surprised that any anthropologists behind this scheme haven't been jumping up and down, trying to explain that there are many cultures in this world other than the Islamo-Judea-Christian axis of monotheistic intolerance, and the concept of a domineering paternalistic sky daddy is not universal.'
Later: "Maybe they ought to notice that one good reason for rising godlessness is that entirely secular explanations succeed in providing a satisfying causal narrative, and have the added virtue that they're actually true. Science works, quite unlike prayer."
I can assure you that he is not the only one who feels that way:
Atheist Alliance International
http://www.atheistalliance.org/
Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers
http://www.maaf.info/
As one commentator on Myers' site said: "...it should be noted that lack of belief is also universal; as lack of religious belief has been found in all cultures"
Is it not possible that the reason that orthodoxy is growing is because their religious teachings provide simplistic solutions to life's complicated problems? Or perhaps people want to feel that they can live on forever in some happy afterlife?
The problem with that kind of thinking is this: Just because some idea makes you feel good does not mean that it is a correct idea. One can't use the desire to believe in a deity as evidence that that particular deity exists.
Earlier on you seemed to attack "liberal" theologians by saying: "Whether it was theft, dishonesty, cruelty, infidelity, greed, perversion, promiscuity, selfishness, vulgarity or plain old general sin -- a word largely expunged from the liberal theological lexicon -- it was obvious where the good guys stood."
Unless you're going to count the Catholic leaders who signed the Concordat with Nazi Germany "liberals", those who condemned Galileo as "liberals", not to mention those who authorized the well-known historical incidents like the Crusades or the Inquisition as "liberals", I would have to say that it was not always obvious where the "good guys" stood.
This is brought home by the more recent problem of the sexual abuse cases that then Cardinal Ratzinger helped sweep under the rug (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/apr/24/children.childprotection). Whatever Ratzingerzinger may be, he most certainly was not a "liberal".
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>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2008 : 22:10:05 [Permalink]
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PZ Myers has another blog entry that Coren may be interested in (maybe not, since I've yet to get a reply from him)
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/02/america_slouching_towards_the.php |
>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
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Commentator complaining about "liberal" xianity.
