Saw it all, good debate. I like that Stephen Fry is the one that comes out strongest against the Catholic Church. Good for him.

lol the intros lookled like a Monty Python sketch, and wow, for the first time in a while Hitchens didn't look like he just woke up from a 3 day drunk.

The catholic church is irrelevant as a force for anything in the world. It's a banal social club that meets for 30-45 minutes once a week, whose members disregard whatever wisdom they may have heard as soon as they walk out the door.

Lightweights against Hitchens, I guess the big boys couldn't be bought.

Very good debate. I have to say that the panelists on both sides conducted themselves with great decorum and civility, and that the moderator did a very good job as well.

British people, and to a great degree the inheritors of the British Parliamentary system, know how to conduct a proper debate, and how to conduct themselves during such. Compare what you just watched to what masquerades as a debate in the American political process- the shouting participants who spout nothing but talking points and who refuse to accept- let alone to answer- anything but softball pre-approved questions, the ineffectual moderators, the unruly audiences. It makes me sad for the United States and glad to be Canadian.

What is also notable is this: thousands of people in the audience, and hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people watching on TV and the internet in the UK andworldwide- including those of us here at Videosift, are watching this civil, interesting and intellectually challenging debate as entertainment.

>> ^Memorare:
lol the intros lookled like a Monty Python sketch, and wow, for the first time in a while Hitchens didn't look like he just woke up from a 3 day drunk.
The catholic church is irrelevant as a force for anything in the world. It's a banal social club that meets for 30-45 minutes once a week, whose members disregard whatever wisdom they may have heard as soon as they walk out the door.


I wish that this were true. While it may be true that many "enlightened and educated" members of the Church of Rome take what they hear from their Church and filter out much of what they hear as apocryphal or inapplicable to their lives, it most definitely is NOT so for the majority of the billion-plus members of the Church in the developing world. The Church teaches that their message is to be taken literally and doctrine is to be followed without question, and far more people do just that rather than not.

Interesting.

Although the "against" side argued many good points, I'm amazed that they actually managed to convert 800 odd people to their side. I would have been of the opinion that most going to an event like this would already be certain in their beliefs and it would take more than just an hour of debate to sway them.

I personally think that the church does do some good in the form of charity and hope, but that does not excuse the evils they do, as Stephen Fry's analogy of the thief's complaint of "what about the birthday gift to my dad?" shows.

I also found it infuriating that the religious side didn't address a number of points brought against them, especially Fry's point that the reason child abuse and condoms and homosexuality are constantly brought up is that they are important issues that do need to be dealt with.

Overall, I may be biased, but I thought the "against" side (and a few of the audience members) made very good points. Well done and kudos to Mr. Fry. And I'm afraid the "for" side was a tad weak and hollow, as usual.

therealblankman, have you seen question period lately? It may not be as bad as some American debates, but I wouldn't be so quick to be proud of some of the bickering that goes on in our government.
Upvoting you though for the point about the many of us watching intelligent debate for entertainment. Maybe there is hope for the world yet.

I'm a bit disappointed - this is a *long series. I was looking forward to it being a Hitchens vs. Fry debate based on the headline - this is actually a classic 4-way debate, which is fine - but we missed out on some serious potential comedy and went for.... wow.

OMG Hitchens is such an ass right off the bat. DUDE - the Crusades? Why should we apologize for that? They were AWESOME. Have you played Assassin's Creed?

But seriously, Poland was historically the most tolerant country in Europe. That's why the Jews fled ENGLAND and other Western countries to POLAND, which gave the Jewish people a home. Not to say that Eastern Europe is a haven of tolerance these days, but if you're going to cite how things were a thousand years ago, I'm going to call you on your b.s. as well. where they were then slaughtered by Nazis.

Oh, who denied asylum to boatloads of Jewish refugees? The oh-so-enlightened Western countries. Yeah, bravo hypocrite.

Oh, and Hitchens, FOAD - at least that's what you're encouraging other people to do by encouraging them to have sex with everybody instead of being monogamous? And hey, if you don't use condoms properly you can in fact get infected - so big huge caveat guys.

Condemning Fry? We don't do that.

This isn't a debate on his part, Hitchens is being a liar and a slanderer. Shame on him.

Good on the MP for her rebuttal. After all, the God of Catholics is Jewish. Accusing Catholics anti-Semitic is beyond ridiculous.

Now Fry's intro, on the other hand, reeks of class even if I don't agree with the overall POV. And what's this about "torturing" Galileo? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei Source please.

Also, Fry, you doth protest too much. You are not morally evil. You can choose to be good or bad, just being a homosexual does not mean anything about your personal morality - God loves you and Catholics love you and welcome you to the Church. If you choose to exclude yourself through ridiculous and misleading claims. Obsessed with sex? No, I don't know which church you're hearing about, but that seems to be what you're obsessed with, because it's the only thing you talk about.

FYI, there's a difference between loving respect and your hysterical "fear". I'm sorry if you were abused as child - but there's a ginormous difference.

"Of which policy are you most ashamed" - is that the new version of "have you stopped beating your wife senator?" Madness.

The Bishop's speech was a bit dry, but his response was spot on.

Oh snap, clever response from Widdencombe, keeping in the spirit of the debate. In reality, women will probably be allowed to become priests (priestesses?) one day - but you have to keep in mind ridiculous schisms would result if they jumped head-first into a barrel of madness and change. Just see how up-in-arms Americans get over changes to health care. Things are a bit more subtle and complicated than that.

Catholics aren't there to judge you - they're not going to declare Fry to be in a state of mortal sin (i.e. do you love God?), that's something for him to deal with in his own conscience, as we all do.

Bonus observation: note which side admits humility. That means admitting you're not perfect but are working on becoming better.

Catholics win the debate by default. You can't come up with lies and falsehoods and come out ahead. Proper debates will include an opportunity for final rebuttals. Not to mention con side picked a single topic instead of perhaps 20 potential lines of conversation - cons resorted to falsehoods, and fails to counter the fact that the Church is a Force for Good.

I've witnessed properly judged debates, and know the voting was simply silly but revelatory of what you witness here - overall a weak debate, with one side offering up solid points but not really engaging the audience, the other simply resorting to hysterics and demagoguery.

I'd be much more interested in seeing the four debaters arguing the opposite POVs, this was rather stultifying.

This video has been flagged as being at least 10 minutes in length - declared long by Krupo.

>> ^Enzoblue:
Lightweights against Hitchens, I guess the big boys couldn't be bought.


Hitchens himself is only a welterweight. He's a master of the bon mot and a wonderful rhetorician, but doesn't have the ordered, logical mind necessary to formulate and attack logical arguments. Remember, he only graduated university with a third class degree--putting him well below what would be required for a post-graduate education.

Fry, on the other hand, has a formidable intellect. He certainly shows it here. While Hitchens' opening was a bit chaotic and logically disjointed, Fry's was well structured and buttressed even against the bad arguments his opponents might bring up.

>> ^therealblankman:
>> ^Memorare:
The Church teaches that their message is to be taken literally and doctrine is to be followed without question, and far more people do just that rather than not.



Sorry but no, actually that's completely incorrect.

Church teaching is that if your conscience, the voice of God in your soul after all, finds that there's a major error in what you're being taught = here's the formal wording: The Catholic Church has always held to the primacy of conscience and taught that individuals must follow their consciences even when they are wrong. (Vatican II, On Religious Liberty (1965), §2)

Now that means if you're going to disagree with a major doctrine you had better know what you're talking about instead of just jumping on some airy/convenient preference, but a mature intelligent person understands what this instruction means.

Blithely accusing Catholics of being told to be accepting blind robots is incorrect; hopefully I was able to enlighten someone about this fact today.

>> ^Samaelsmith:
I also found it infuriating that the religious side didn't address a number of points brought against them, especially Fry's point that the reason child abuse and condoms and homosexuality are constantly brought up is that they are important issues that do need to be dealt with.
Overall, I may be biased, but I thought the "against" side (and a few of the audience members) made very good points. Well done and kudos to Mr. Fry. And I'm afraid the "for" side was a tad weak and hollow, as usual.


I think the "big guns" and "lightweights" comment is more revealing than just calling this an "as usual" situation. I've heard MUCH better orators who would've turn H&F's points to shreds much more efficiently.

Sadly the Archbishop and MP expressed disappointment about the one-track-mind of their opponents without doing a better job of enumerating the benefits the Church bestows upon the world and instead said going after select topics is pretty narrow-minded for supposedly "enlightened people."

I wonder if it's a byproduct of the hostile anti-Catholic country they find themselves operating in? Were they afraid of their host country being hostile and anti-Catholic - after all, Sir Thomas More, who the cons cite, was executed for not supporting the British state's machinations -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More#Trial_and_execution

By H&F's standards, the UK and the USA are both great forces against good than most other states - check out the histories of perjury, assassinations, executions and other moral evils they've engaged in. So should they renounce their citizenship and flee to Switzerland or something?

Hypocrisy and lazy debating permeated the video.

>> ^Samaelsmith:
therealblankman, have you seen question period lately? It may not be as bad as some American debates, but I wouldn't be so quick to be proud of some of the bickering that goes on in our government.
Upvoting you though for the point about the many of us watching intelligent debate for entertainment. Maybe there is hope for the world yet.


You're absolutely right about question period, of course. My point was that we do know how to conduct a debate, not that we always do so .

In conclusion, a failure to define the terms of the debate a the outset was the main reason I found myself incredibly disappointed here.

I think that people weigh child rape and charity and find that child rape is more destructive than charity is constructive. Those seem to be the relevant present day concerns raised.

Look at that audience response. That was incredible and completely unexpected for me.

The British people are far more open to changing their minds than Americans are.

>> ^Krupo:
one side offering up solid points but not really engaging the audience, the other simply resorting to hysterics and demagoguery.

Funny thing about bias, I watched the same video as you but perceived the exact opposite. Unfortunately it's too long to be bothered watching the whole thing over again to see what you saw that I didn't.

I would be interested in seeing some of these better orators that you mentioned though.

Funny someone should mention Monty Python... Mrs. Widdencombe's voice reminds me of Terry Jones' female characters. Without the wit, the intelligence and the boldness, of course... (although I'll bet her stockings are just as sexy).

>> ^Krupo:
I think the "big guns" and "lightweights" comment is more revealing than just calling this an "as usual" situation. I've heard MUCH better orators who would've turn H&F's points to shreds much more efficiently.


It could be the case that a better orator might better persuade the audience that the Catholic church is a force for good, but I doubt it would be strongly sustained by facts and reason.

Even at its best, the Church does great damage to freedom of thought and human dignity. In the 20th century alone, it has been responsible for tremendous damage in perpetuating colonial oppression. Where it spreads, it breaks apart or perverts traditional social structures and--by its teachings of exclusivity and damnation to Hell--splits societies apart. The Rwandan genocide, as Hitchens pointed out, was at least in part caused by the Church.

And this has been the case throughout its entire history, going back to the destruction of temples and lynching of Pagans by angry Christian mobs from the moment it attained political power. Before then, the twisted passive-aggression of voluntary martyrs--a not insubstantial proportion of Christian martyrs--and aggressive, even militant rhetoric of its leaders made it clear how they might act if given power.

ah the popular intelligentsia devouring the last remnants of popular intelligence. This is entertainment at it's worst. Bring back Paulie Shore.

The very process of debate requires rational argument and freedom of thought. Debating a religion means that the panel in favour were at a distinct disadvantage from the outset.

I don't know what to say about your first post Krupo except maybe "pick up a history book and start reading".

Firstly, your comment that, "accusing Catholics anti-Semitic is beyond ridiculous" is among the least intelligent responses I have seen on VideoSift.

Archbishop Robert Runcie asserts that: "Without centuries of Christian antisemitism, Hitlers passionate hatred would never have been so fervently echoed...because for centuries Christians have held Jews collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. On Good Friday Jews, have in times past, cowered behind locked doors with fear of a Christian mob seeking 'revenge' for deicide. Without the poisoning of Christian minds through the centuries, the holocaust is unthinkable." Christian antisemitism is well documented. In fact, the main purpose of the Inquisitions (particularly the Spanish Inquisition) was to forcefully convert or kill Jews.

Then you ask, "And what's this about "torturing" Galileo?" Galileo was put on trial and threatened with torture and death by the inquisition for asserting that the Earth went around the Sun. His partner was burned at the stake for the same assertion. He was shown the implements of torture that would be used on him if he did not recant. So he did. And he spent the rest of his life under house-arrest. The Church tortured and killed to stop the furthering of scientific knowledge.

With regards to Fry, as a homosexual he is considered sinful. His homosexual temptation is considered "disordered", thus not sinful, but his acting on those temptations are considered sinful. This makes him, in the eyes of the Catholic Church, in a state of mortal sin (in direct contradiction to what you said).

Those against Catholicism in this debate won it easily. They didn't use lies or falsehoods, just showed how reprehensible the Catholic Church really is.

Yeah, seriously. In some places in Europe, there were laws against jews passing down their estate after death, and that led to a lot of conversions by families seeking to avoid the restriction. This wasn't that long ago, either.

Hitchens and Fry? In the same VideoSift video? The universe hasn't imploded?

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by Hex.

>> ^Memorare:
The catholic church is irrelevant as a force for anything in the world. It's a banal social club that meets for 30-45 minutes once a week, whose members disregard whatever wisdom they may have heard as soon as they walk out the door.


Way to stereotype a billion+ people.

How many battalions has the POOP.

I had to.. I just had to.

Religions have too much picking and choosing by individuals, who say "this is what we all do". If you sum all of the catholic church's actions, which by the archbishop own explanation is "its members", then from my perspective it is an overall negative. Of course there are good catholics, but the fact that they are catholics is not what makes them good, they would be good people if they abandoned their faith as well.

Personally, I already felt - and was even more convinced that catholic aristocracy is a nourishing place to breeds flaws.

However, the speakers FOR the catholic church were so weak I couldn't rightly give a conclusion. Maybe I was just looking forward to the spectacle of catholic intellectual gymnastics, worked from their ever (and organically) expanding litany to amendments. Sifter Krupo confidently wades into the quote of the Vatican to hand pick one above - I'm sure the "for" team would of been even more capable of doing this as well.

Then again maybe the "for" team was smart enough to avoid showing how the church reasons: maybe their best shot was a more general and wishy-washy line they presented.

EDIT FOR KRUPO: I also wanted more hard facts - like do Catholics donate proportionally more than their sister religions? Do they help more than they hurt? etc. It seems impossible to even approach doing public audit of an institutions value. Especially one that is obsessed with the (public) "line" that comes from the supernatural-natural boffins in rome, and is towed with great care every member of the global diocese.

What would convince me is empirical value; the good on earth. The catholic church justifies itself on a partially spiritual level, I guess I wonder which holds more sway over the Church's undertakings.

bad title

try to be more objective, please

>> ^turboj0e:
try to be more objective, please


Try to explain your assertion, please.

nevermind, the title comes from youtube

@Krupo: I think you might be insane.

regarding Poland and Jews, please to refer to History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland

Quote: "From the founding of the Kingdom of Poland in 1025 through to the early years of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth created in 1569, Poland was (...) (k)nown as paradisus Iudaeorum (Latin for Jewish paradise) it became a unique shelter for persecuted and expelled European Jewish communities and a home to one of the world's largest and most vibrant Jewish communities.(...)
Poland’s traditional tolerance[6] began to wane from the 17th century onward.(...)"

regarding Christian antisemitism, please refer to Christianity_and_antisemitism

Quote: "Although the first Christians were Jewish, anti-Judaic attitudes started to develop even before the end of the first century (...)
These attitudes persisted in Christian preaching, art and popular teaching of contempt for Jews over the centuries. In many Christian countries it led to civil and political discrimination against Jews, legal disabilities, and in some instances to physical attacks on Jews which in some cases ended in emigration, expulsion, and even death."

regarding the Chruches stance on Stephen Fry (as a homosexual) please refer to THE BIBLE
Please take special note of "Corinthians 6:9; 10", "Leviticus 18:22", "Leviticus 20:13" and how homosexuality is regarded in "Genesis 19:4-8".


For the rest of your first post in this thread, my first comment in this post stands.

I really liked Fry's analogy of the Catholic church's obsession with sex to that of food with anorexic or the morbidly obese.

As for the topic at hand... I really am not that interested in this level of minutiae. Those of you who know me from posting here know that I really don't see much of a difference between Catholics, Protestants, Scientologist, Satanists, and Zoroastrians. It is all just some stuff made up by some guy (usually a guy, except in very rare occasions) to control and tell others what to believe. No religion has any proof that they are right, anyone who claims they do is about as trustworthy as someone who says they are Napoleon.

Also, am I nuts, or is that Bishop just totally worthless? I mean really, at least Mrs. Pepperpot fought back a bit with what could be called sort-of-logical points. He was just a dogma-spouting, non-thinking, lump on a log.

>> ^ponceleon:
I really liked Fry's analogy of the Catholic church's obsession with sex to that of food with anorexic or the morbidly obese.
As for the topic at hand... I really am not that interested in this level of minutiae. Those of you who know me from posting here know that I really don't see much of a difference between Catholics, Protestants, Scientologist, Satanists, and Zoroastrians. It is all just some stuff made up by some guy (usually a guy, except in very rare occasions) to control and tell others what to believe. No religion has any proof that they are right, anyone who claims they do is about as trustworthy as someone who says they are Napoleon.


There are two major problems here.

First, it's not possible to say that all religions are something that "some guy" made up. For a great many religions--Hinduism, Judaism, and Shinto are good examples--there is not one single individual one can trace the religion to. Rather, they seem to have arisen organically, on the basis of the agreement and common practice of communities and tribes. If they arose to control people, it was not the action of a single autocrat, but the same kind norm creation that goes on in any community.

Second, not all religions make onerous demands on belief. Again, Hinduism and Shinto are good examples. While particular schools of Hinduism may demand assent to certain beliefs, one may hold nearly any set of beliefs and be a good Hindu, so long as one meets a baseline set of behavioral norms. There are even atheist schools of thought. (There is even a patron god of atheism, strangely enough. Attributed to it by other schools of thought, of course.) Much the same is true of Shinto, though it is less philosophically sophisticated--atheism may not be as acceptable, but there is room for a great diversity of opinion.

Before Christianity and Islam, in fact, this non-belief-centric approach to religion was the norm everywhere Judea and a few Zoroastrian communities. The notion that religion demands belief is not the norm in human society--only in Christian and Muslim society.

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Christopher Hitchens: Follow the money and logic
http://stephen-hand.blogspot.com/2010/04/christopher-hitchens-following-money.html

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