re: #8 Political Atheist

re: #7 Eclectic Infidel

IIRC Jimmah is right with Chris Hitchens on the Catholic church. I too get it but yeah, harsh. No downding from me I know he has to show some patience with my posts at times.

I come from a Catholic family - my dad is still a believer who goes to church every sunday. I never argue about religion with him or challenge his beliefs,(he doesn’t even know I’m an atheist) because he is one of those believers who believe only for the very best of reasons and they make him happy. I think most believers are like that.

It’s the religious loudmouths in the clergy and in the media who use and manipulate ordinary believers who piss me off.

To give a small example of what I’m talking about - 20 odd years ago I watched Dawkin’s Royal Society Christmas Lectures on TV with my dad - he enjoyed it and as far as he was concerned Dawkins was simply an educator on the subject of biology.

He’s not the kind of guy who follows science on a regular basis though, and I’m sure in the intervening time he forgot all about who Dawkins was. Now, following a recent sermon in church, he thinks Dawkins is an evil man who people should be warned against. Because the priest told him to think that, and priests have some smidgin of divine authority and would never just talk rubbish.

I’ve heard similar stories about the kind of thing that is being said in church sermons recently - here, it really is looking like the church is becoming the UK’s version of Fox News - giving older people (their main congregation these days) the fear about progress, modernity, women’s rights and science in order to buttress their position and their failing world view.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that their latest move into non-european environments (not exactly a new thing anyway) represents some kind of embrace of progressive ideas - they’re just looking for more places that they hope will prove more fertile ground for their dumbshittery.

Kinda vampiric when you think about it.