Archbishop in pot calling kettle black shock

casiopea said:
Having respect for something is not the same as tip-toeing around it. You can say everything you wish/believe only edit jibes/taunts/mockery/insults. Your point in turn will have more credibility.
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What jibes? If you look up the dictionary definition of the term "mumbo jumbo" you will see that it could not possibly be construed as offensive.

From Webster's online dictionary


Why do followers of a religious doctrine feel they should be automatically afforded respect not shown to any other scientifically groundless ideologies such as the belief in fairies, elves, guardian angels, astrology, palmisty, homeopathy and so forth?
 
room305 said:
What jibes? If you look up the dictionary definition of the term "mumbo jumbo" you will see that it could not possibly be construed as offensive.
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I never said mumbo jumbo was a jibe. It was the phrase "tip-toeing" that I was responding to. Discussing something respectfully does not require tiptoeing around a topic.


Clubman asked a similiar question up above which Ive already responded to.
 
Regardless of dictionary definition, I think the term 'mumbo jumbo' is more than merely descriptive - to me, it has a pejorative function in everyday use.

I am neither a practicing catholic nor a christian and would have plenty of criticisms for both - but I think if posters are honest, terms like mumbo jumbo are intended to provoke are they not?
 
Caveat said:
Regardless of dictionary definition, I think the term 'mumbo jumbo' is more than merely descriptive - to me, it has a pejorative function in everyday use.
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casiopea said:
I never said mumbo jumbo was a jibe. It was the phrase "tip-toeing" that I was responding to. Discussing something respectfully does not require tiptoeing around a topic.
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Point noted on both, it was not my intention to provoke, nor to deliberately cause offence. In future I shall try and use less colloquial expressions.
 
Dr Brady called "future telling" the "new Irish superstition". Perhaps he would like to tell us what the old one was?
 
David Quinn has a column supporting the bishop in today's Indo.

http://tinyurl.com/3x8kup

Apparently it is atheists who are responsible for the increased interest in new age "mumbo jumbo". Quinn is no shrinking violet when it comes to using perjorative/provocative terms

I personally would have been more interested in "a defence of the supernatural claims of Christianity" but he ducks that completely.
Finally, he uses the fact that Christianity has an ethical system to lay down a challenge to Richard Dawkins.

I don't think Dawkins will be quaking in his boots!
 
shanegl said:
Dawkins is a hack anyway. His grasp of philosophy is tenuous at best.
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Personally, I wouldn't feel qualified to confidently defend or attack Dawkins comprehensively but I've heard/seen him make mincemeat of various theologians/critics.
 
polaris said:
David Quinn has a column supporting the bishop in today's Indo.
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I too would have been interested in a "defence of the supernatural claims of Christianity" and look forward to seeing them in a future column. Although if it is anything like his previous defence of creationism, I'd best not be doing so with breath that is bated.



There is not a shred of evidence (and little pro-offered even by advocates) to verify the belief that religion encourages ethical behaviour. Quinn usually goes a step further - claiming that those without religion struggle to differentiate between right and wrong. When queried about atheists who are model citizens, Quinn generally claims they have benefitted from coming from a culture "steeped in Catholicism".

To my mind, people who claim they need religion to understand right and wrong, good and bad etc., tell us more about their own tenuous grip on morality than anything else.
 
room305 said:
There is not a shred of evidence (and little pro-offered even by advocates) to verify the belief that religion encourages ethical behaviour.
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Agreed, there is mounting evidence that the sense of right and wrong is actually "hard-wired" into the human brain, probably as a side-effect of the development of consciousness during evolution.
 
room305 said:
There is not a shred of evidence (and little pro-offered even by advocates) to verify the belief that religion encourages ethical behaviour.
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I disagree with this - religion does encourage ethical behavior but I would agree that doesn't imply all religious people are ethical - if you see my point?


I strongly disagree with this. A very condescending remark, extremely disrespectful to Atheists, that I doubt he can back up and I very much doubt most Catholics would stand by it.
 
polaris said:
Agreed, there is mounting evidence that the sense of right and wrong is actually "hard-wired" into the human brain, probably as a side-effect of the development of consciousness during evolution.
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Exactly.

If people can only sense right-from-wrong because of the existence of a supernatural creator, then what would happen if God said "From tomorrow, you may kill anyone who disagrees with you" ?
Would it still be wrong to kill tomorrow just as it is today ? According to David Quinn (among others, its an old argument repeated, despite being frequently answered) we cannot distinguish right-from-wrong ourselves - we must be told. The logical extension to this is that if we are told to kill by God, then it must be right to do so. Indeed, many fundamentalists already believe this and act accordingly. This is not to say everyone would go and kill someone, but what internally would stop them ? A sense of right-from-wrong ?
 
shanegl said:
Dawkins is a hack anyway. His grasp of philosophy is tenuous at best.
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The thing I find off-putting about Dawkins is what seems an almost lunatic hatred of religion - Catholicism especially. And don't get him started female aspects such as nuns or dogma on Mary - it's spitballs of anger galore.

A lot of the contempt and hostile language you come across in these discussions on the web seems to be emulating his style - even though Dawkins himself has shown an awareness that this might be creating an image problem for him.

I think just like spitting against the wind, this can come back on you and it can come across as desperation rather than the victorious emergence of a world view.
 
Remix said:
...even though Dawkins himself has shown an awareness that this might be creating an image problem for him.
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I agree his style wouldn't exactly win over too many religious 'believers'. In a way, his message is being delivered exactly like a traditional religious Archbishop/priest/rabbi/mullah etc ... except, they do it from a pulpit every Sunday/Saturday and 'believers' are expected to attend as a 'duty'. When Dawkins does it, he's being extremist and almost lunatic. (Double-standards, i think). As a minority shouting against irrationality, i'm not surprised he is using 'in-your-face' tactics just to be heard. Unfortunately, this approach can be counter-productive, and I wish he would tone it down a bit and use more persuasion rather than sometimes hectoring.
 
"There is not a shred of evidence (and little pro-offered even by advocates) to verify the belief that religion encourages ethical behaviour."

I am astonished firstly that such a comment could be advanced as a serious proposition and secondly that another contributor would blithely agree. Ethics and organised religion have been philosophical bedfellows for a long time now. Surely it cannot be seriously disputed that the Christian ten commandments are, by and large, an encouragement to ethical behaviour.
 
MOB said:
Ethics and organised religion have been philosophical bedfellows for a long time now. Surely it cannot be seriously disputed that the Christian ten commandments are, by and large, an encouragement to ethical behaviour.
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Sadly, organised religion has not always been an encouragement to ethical behaviour. The ten commandments do not provide an ethical response to their breaking. Organised religion has jumped into that gap to tell us who to lock up, who to move on, who to stone etc.

Ethics were around long before christianity. The fact that the two have co-existed in the same philosophical space does not correlate them.

It can be argued that confessional religions in fact encourage the opposite, with their belief that your sins can be washed away by, for example, buying one of these indulgences, or climbing this mounting, or standing in this square while a bloke in a dress talks over your heads in latin.
 
casiopea said:
I disagree with this - religion does encourage ethical behavior but I would agree that doesn't imply all religious people are ethical - if you see my point?
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MOB said:
Ethics and organised religion have been philosophical bedfellows for a long time now. Surely it cannot be seriously disputed that the Christian ten commandments are, by and large, an encouragement to ethical behaviour.
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Religious organisations certainly do claim to encourage ethical behaviour. However, if they are successful it is not in any statistically significant way and that's before we consider the people who use religion as a cloak to obfuscate quite evil behaviour.

The ten commandments (the version from Exodus 20 rather than Deuteronomy or Exodus 34) include 3 admonishments to follow God and not other 'false' gods - including the rather loosely defined "any likeness of any thing[FONT=trebuchet ms,arial,helvetica]"[/FONT], a command not to work on Sundays and the rather misogynistic command to not desire your neighbour's wife, ox, ass, slaves or any other 'property' belonging to him. So you're left with honouring your mother and father (sans any caveat - what if they ask you to commit murder or steal?), not committing adultery, not to "bear false witness" and the disputed commandment not to kill (some scholars believe it should be translated as "commit murder" or even "kidnap").

So out of 10 commandments, only 3 can be said to have any real merit. I would venture that most Christians don't know the ten commandments - surveys conducted have shown that more Christians believe in space aliens than know the ten commandments! - and I would feel pity for anyone that actually does need a celestial dictator to prevent them from concoting lies, stealing or murdering.
 
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Did anyone else see the Cousins lady on TV3 this morning? I just sat down to have a coffee and was about to switch over when this lady came on complaining of poultergeists in her Dublin Corporation house. If it wasn't so sad it would have been funny. She went on to describe the haunting- things moving across the floor, the oven being on, the heating being switched on, footsteps upstairs...her husband died some years ago and she has children, I forget how many. Anyway another lady came with her- she was from ''psychics.ie'' There was talk of vortexes, chakhras ( spelling?) and light coming from Mrs. Cousin's head. I could hardly believe the depths TV3 had stooped to. Then they switched to an ad break where there was an announcement- TV3 AM proudly sponsered by Psychics Live...need I say more?
 
MOB said:
the Christian ten commandments are, by and large, an encouragement to ethical behaviour.
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Christian ten commandments ? I think followers of the Jewish faith might take issue with that !
Also, what do Buddhists need to encourage ethical behaviour in their societies ?

Are the Japanese followers of Shinto any less ethical than Christians or Jews ?
 
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