Yes, all glory to the mother science, the teat of reason. Christianity does a lot of good in this world..you have no idea how much work Christians do in their communities and how much charity work is done, not even counting the missions done in other countries. Atheist dictators killed 10s of millions of people last century..more than the sum total of every religious inspired war, ever. Plenty or reason to mock that insanity. And I believe in God because of personal revelation, and as I've said..I used to be agnostic so I understand (slightly) your point of view, but not your attitude..its all atheists have to say really..an assertion of superiority based on mockery..its worse than a schoolyard. Instead of tearing someone elses beliefs down, why don't you show why yours are supposed to be right..because they haven't done much for your sense of civility >> ^offsetSammy:
I've recently started coming to the conclusion that the old mantra of being respectful of others' beliefs is, as Billy Connolly so eloquently put it, crrrap. It is those very beliefs that start wars, fuel bigotry, encourage tribalism, and foster a mistrust and rejection of science and facts. You believe in a magic man in the sky despite no evidence for it? You want me to believe the earth is only a few thousand years old because you read it in a book, despite every scientific investigation saying otherwise? Your beliefs are laughable and deserve the derision they receive.
That is not to say that you, as a person, don't deserve my respect. Of course we should all be respectful of each others' humanity / existence. We're not all so different, after all. But your beliefs are not you. I'll mock them all I want.

>> ^shinyblurry:
These are just the plain facts, that if you refuse to stop doing evil then you are earning condemnation for yourself.



You might want to look up the definition of 'fact', I'm pretty sure you're not using it correctly.

I've seen you mention this several times, as if I am gloating or think I am better than anyone else..I'm not and I don't. These are just the plain facts, that if you refuse to stop doing evil then you are earning condemnation for yourself. I used to be agnostic so I am sympathetic to those who don't know God. I didn't at one time, and neither did I deserve to be saved. I pray that every last one of you is saved.

It's really down to absolute vs relative truth. People who don't believe in God usually don't believe anything is absolutely true so they don't perceive truth to be something tangible, but rather a point of view where everyone gets to be right. So then the bad can become good and the good bad. But good and evil are absolutes, and there aren't any gray areas. CS Lewis said that if you see through everything then the whole world becomes invisible and then you aren't seeing anything at all.


>> ^Payback:
You're extremely prideful shinyblurry, only difference with our pride is yours will get you damned. Ours will end when we do. (So will yours, but that's not important right now)

>> ^shinyblurry:

If this is all the respect an atheist can come up with for his fellow man, it doesn't go very far in convincing me of his so called superior truth..it really just shows the whole ignoble farce for what it is..


Wait a minute, don't you believe every single human being on the planet is a wretched sinner deserving of eternal damnation?

>> ^kymbos:

Cue thread derailment by Shinyblurry in 3..2..1...


He's already expressed a great dislike for the Catholic church so I doubt he'd mind this video all that much.

Your video, Billy Connolly on Catholicism & Sarah Palin, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 1 Badge!

You should pick up some of the later stuff. Some of those graphic novels are awesome. I like "the gift", "all his engines", "pandemonium", and "hard time".

>> ^ponceleon:
Actually, I disagree with Budzos... I enjoyed the movie a lot more than the comic. I found the comics very hokey and disjointed in comparison, whereas the movie really encapsulated what I would LOVE religion to be. To me Catholicism is empty just because it has claims to relics, spells, and traditions which are ineffective in our world but pretend to be powerful in the way they are presented in this movie.
Religion would kick ass if it was based on a reality like this... I'm not sure how else to say it, but religion (and Catholicism specifically) is like people playing a childish game in which they are trying to imagine a world like this movie portrays.
To get more specific, I liked the explanations and backgrounds of the characters much better in the movie than in the comics. The comic has John Constantine being an ex glam-rocker who is slightly psychic/mystic and who's "damnation" doesn't come from an attempted suicide as in the movie, but rather a botched exorcism which is just kinda stupid. The whole suicide thing is really well done in the reimagining in the movie and makes a lot more sense.
Papa midnight is another character which is vastly improved in the movie. In the book, he seems more like a reject from Live and Let Die, a blaxploitation stereotype, whereas in the movie they really brought home the idea of someone that lives between two allegiances.
As for the use of "guns" and other 007ny stuff, I really thought it worked a lot better than the way they present him in the books. Frankly I'd rather have Constantine wielding a holy shotgun with blessed bullets than looking for a tape of his music video in his trashy apartment.
I'll admit that I only got through three of the graphic novels before I stopped, but I just feel that the changes made to Constantine's development improve vastly over what I saw in the books. As for making him American, I hate Keanu in most of his performances and I thought he really brought it for this one. I was pleasantly surprised and this movie remains one of my all-time favs.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I would ask by what standard are you judging God? By the standards of your personal morality? Well, I hate to tell you this but our righteousness is like filthy rags compared to the righteousness of God.

And you, of course, have this on authority from God himself, unless Satan wrote the bible, in which case you have been taken in by the deceiver, a possibility which you have no way to refute, except by your own prideful claims of revelation.


Satan is the reason there are over 30,000 denominations instead of one. Take catholicism for example. Almost nothing they practice is biblical. In fact much of what they do is condemned by the bible, such as their worship of Mary which is idolotry. Satan has definitely had his hand in the affairs of the church.

The only reason we know about Satan is because of the bible. If he did author the bible then he is an idiot because even I would know to not mention myself. You're a much better deceiver when no one even knows you exist. This is largely how he has deceived everyone to begin with. Satan is so clever that he has even convinced Satanists he doesn't exist. Sad but true.

Hitler : Catholicism :: Ward Churchill : Cherokee Indians

@chtierna

For the record, I didn't say people in Africa were uneducated. I said overall there is a lack of education about condoms--their use and their connection to disease prevention. I also said there is there are severe cultural obstacles to rolling out their widespread acceptance. So maybe before calling me naive, you ought to read the NY Times. I'd like to highlight the part of the article where the AIDS-infected counselors are giving speeches in church urging condom use. Nowhere in that article do you see anything about people not using condoms and getting AIDS because they are Catholic...probably because--like I originally said--that's not been a major reason for the spread.

As to what might have happened if the church had a different view, all I can say is read the article again. Those problems don't go away just because the Pope makes a proclamation.

For your other points--I guess we just disagree there. I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say "religious moderates." Religion is not the same thing as dogma, although if your only experience of religion is Catholicism then maybe I could understand why you believe that. Also, I don't think calling anyone an idiot has any positive effect on their core beliefs whatsoever. It is much more likely, in fact, to make them ignore what you say entirely. I believe this is true whether we're talking about religion, politics, baseball, the weather, or pretty much any topic on which a person might have an opinion.

Hi @BicycleRepairMan! Since we’re discussing the 10 commandments, I thought I’d do us a favor and actually post them here for us to look at so it’s easier to discuss. Note that there are two versions, the ones from Exodus and the ones from Deuteronomy, so I’ve posted both versions (as printed on Wikipedia):

Exodus

2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;
3 Do not have any other gods before me.
4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,
6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
8 Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
9 For six days you shall labour and do all your work.
10 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.
11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 You shall not murder.
14 You shall not commit adultery.
15 You shall not steal.
16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Deuteronomy

6 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;
7 you shall have no other gods before me.
8 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me,
10 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
11 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
12 Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.
13 For six days you shall labour and do all your work.
14 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.
15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.
16 Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
17 You shall not murder.
18 Neither shall you commit adultery.
19 Neither shall you steal.
20 Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor.
21 Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

I do not see anywhere in either version of the Ten Commandments any “command” about not thinking about or interpreting these commandments. The first 3 (as defined by the Catholic church—it’s actually 5-6 lines in the Biblical text) that you refer to tell the Israelites who have just fled Egypt to worship only the one god, Yahweh. You interpreted that to mean that it says that all people in the world must become Christians and followed that with the further interpretation that Christians can’t think about the commandments and must follow them to the letter even when it would be irrational to do so. My original point stands—that’s not what they actually say. There is no need to excuse or explain away the original text, because there’s nothing explicitly written there that supports your interpretation.

That being said, to some extent Hitchens’ interpretation of the Ten Commandments as including thought crimes matches that of the orthodox Catholic interpretation of the Ten Commandments. However, you yourself pointed out that most Christians—including Catholics—don’t interpret it that way personally. And that’s the weakness with Hitchens’ argument. He’s not arguing against religion here, he’s arguing against one particular interpretation of a particular religious ruleset (the Ten Commandments) of a particular religious sect (orthodox Catholicism). His interpretation, it turns out, is not even held by the majority of the worshipers of that particular religion (Christianity as a whole). Which begs the question of why he’s even going off about it (the thought crime thing) in the first place? His claim is that the Ten Commandments are a terrible place to get your morality from, yet his argument is actually not against the Commandments themselves but against the unthinking interpretation of some religious adherents. I don't find that to be a very rational or convincing argument against the Commandments themselves.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Catholics are an easy PC-approved target for these folks and the left in general. Boys were being buggered by criminally mental defectives, not "in the name of the Catholic Church."
Remember the hypocrisy: a "small" group of jihadists continue their worldwide assaults and we're told they are not a part of islam while a small group of criminal priests = blanket condemnation of the world's one billion Catholics.
Meanwhile... Revealed: UK’s first official sharia courts


I think the concern here is more the orchestrated coverup extending to the highest levels of the catholic hierarchy. I don't think anyone has a problem with practitioners of catholicism. Further, Islam has by no means escaped atheists' censure.

Hitler had a deal with the Vatican that Germany would not separate church and state, in return for which the Pope turned a blind eye to the holocaust.

To this day the government of Germany collects church taxes because of that deal, Catholicism is taught in schools.

So not only is this guy WRONG he's actually on the exact opposite side of the truth.

>> ^quantumushroom:
The Vatican is made up of fallible, irrational human beings in a 'fallen' world. The evildoers should be punished, but if you're going to condemn one billion Catholics for the crimes of some in the priesthood are you better than someone who hates an entire race because one of 'them' stepped on your toe?
Isn't it interesting that the liberal "defenders" of free speech reward this thief for thwarting a legal act, while condemning an entirely different religion (Catholicism) over the actions of a few?
>> ^mentality:
When a priest molests a child, does the semen come all the way from the Vatican too, or just the money for the cover up?



I'm not condemning Catholics in general, just this perverted abomination that you call the Catholic church, who spent decades and millions denying, moving around and covering up for child molestors, allowing them to continue defiling innocent children.

These so-called priests are the representatives/voice of god. Theoretically in telephatic communication with the so-called omnipotent all powerful creator of the universe. If 'he' can't even keep the source of his influence in line, how the heck is he going to keep the rest of the universe in line? Oh.. maybe because he doesn't exist.

I don't condemn the billion catholics. I condemn the religion and its leadership. There is a difference.


>> ^quantumushroom:

The Vatican is made up of fallible, irrational human beings in a 'fallen' world. The evildoers should be punished, but if you're going to condemn one billion Catholics for the crimes of some in the priesthood are you better than someone who hates an entire race because one of 'them' stepped on your toe?
Isn't it interesting that the liberal "defenders" of free speech reward this thief for thwarting a legal act, while condemning an entirely different religion (Catholicism) over the actions of a few?

>> ^mentality:
When a priest molests a child, does the semen come all the way from the Vatican too, or just the money for the cover up?