Luxor4u

I watched this contribution to a debate on religion by Stephen Fry where he argues against it, I find it hard to disagree with anything he says, its a lengthy speech but well worth watching.

Thank you for posting that, yes he is right and I just hope that ST watches it.

I have watched that Intelligence Squared debate many times...it's available in full on You Tube.

Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens trounced Ann Widecombe and some African archbishop....unsurprisingly perhaps.

The motion " The Catholic Church is a force for Good" had a pre-debate voting result as follows :

FOR: 678 AGAINST : 1102 UNDECIDED : 346

After the debate " 268 " 1876 " 34

The arguments in favour boiled down to little more than the charitable "good works" promulgated by the church....undeniable, but shared by many non-religious organisations...and countered emphatically not only by the church's dire historic record but by its monstrous perpetuation of its male-centered view of the world .

Funnily enough, the archbishop himself mentioned his "pagan" father holding moral values akin to those laid down in the Ten Commandments, demolishing at a stroke the notion that we need religion as some sort of moral or ethical compass

In common with other religions, the Roman Catholic Church seeks to perpetuate an unsubstantiated myth, drummed into the receptive minds of the young and the ignorant (in exchange for financial assistance in the case of the latter) , to the detriment of the human race.

carrie wrote:Thank you for posting that, yes he is right and I just hope that ST watches it.

Oh she will

Horus wrote:

carrie wrote:Thank you for posting that, yes he is right and I just hope that ST watches it.

Oh she will

And like many a sincere believer, she will be immune to logical arguments on the matter. It's a matter of unwavering "belief". I gave up arguing religion with believers many years ago.

The power religion can exert on the mind of the true believer is quite astounding.

I've recently been reading about the life of Sir Thomas More who, along with many others, went to the block rather than say a few words (the oath of supremacy demanded by Henry VIII). Others suffered the unimaginable pain of being burned alive...for refusing to utter words (even though said under duress and without meaning them).

We have the modern equivalent with Jihadi suicide bombers.

There's no doubting the power of religious fanaticism.

I attempted, during one rather heated debate, to get ST to condemn the sex crimes of its employees and despite several attempts was unsuccessful.


I think the best i got from memory was "its not good".

I dont know ST any better than anyone else on here but for the life of me, why would anyone listen to her many lectures on what was good and bad in the world when she herself was not prepared to put herself front and centre in calling out the disgusting sex crimes and then the subsequent covering up of those crimes by the Catholic church?

Religion is a disease of the mind, it makes otherwise decent people turn a blind eye and even support actions that they otherwise would find abhorrent.