Please go here if you want to discuss atheism, Dawkins or similar subjects.

By-the-by, Dawkins may tar a lot of people, but never without evidence.

Something, sadly, that cannot be said for you or Eagleton.

Therefore I was a bit dismayed by your fingerwagging, which tends to suggest that you do not tolerate perceived dissent or noncoformity.

On the contrary, we welcome dissent and nonconformity, but we do like it to be relevant to the topic being discussed.

Therefore I was a bit dismayed by your fingerwagging, which tends to suggest that you do not tolerate perceived dissent or noncoformity.

Ken, without wanting to further distract from the topic, please do not imply that not being allowed to change the topic of a thread has anything to do with not tolerating dissent. It’s about trying to allow a discussion to flow.

If you have an issue with this, I’m happy to discuss it by email, which you can find in the contact page. Meanwhile, stick to the topic at hand, or go to Saturday Salon if you want to start a different discussion.

Irrespective of the sniffy tone of your response, my comment was very much on topic, which was the Vatican’s views on environment and the concomitant response of media outlets, specifically newspapers.

I have therefore taken the trouble to draw the attention of the readers to the opportunism of The Guardian, which published the Vatican’s latest views on global warming “Man must cultivate and safeguard God’s Creation,” but also by running prominently, in the middle of the piece, an advertisment from Shell – a company that is an egregious polluter and has justly been criticised and threatened with boycotts for its behaviour, especially in Nigeria. The advertisement embedded in the article linked to Shell’s site that was a crude public relations exercise to ameliorate the perception that Shell would do anything to enhance its profits, even encouraging murder of activists against its polluting practices.

One of the reasons why I give my considerable time to read and post on the site is because it gives its bit of cyberspace to progressive viewpoints. Therefore I was a bit dismayed by your fingerwagging, which tends to suggest that you do not tolerate perceived dissent or noncoformity.

Incidentally – and this dead-on topic thread – The Guardian article seems to suggest that the Vatican issued its statement after a bit of prior encouragement for the Holy See’s dragging its feet on climate issues.

I have decided on this occasion to apply a liberal reading of the comments policy and let through your comment regarding Shell which had been in the moderation queue. Having done so I should advise you and others that, in my opinion and that of other sound judges, much of the comment was off-topic and it would be appreciated if future comments were more clearly pertinent to the thread topic.

(Shell Dialogues is a new initiative to enable Shell, its stakeholders and the general public to explore the key issues facing energy suppliers and consumers today – and tomorrow. Shell works with media organisations around the world to produce events, articles and broadcasts that enable us to debate important issues with our key stakeholders.)

So, I was wondering what Shell oil was doing sponsoring The Graudian online page with the article on the Pope and his green(ish) credentials. Was this how Shell “works” with the media.. to enable us debate important issues?

I mean, does Shell Oil have more than one motive?

“On May 14, date of the annual shareholder meeting of Shell Oil in London, protests against the company for human rights and environmental abuses took place outside the meeting and around the world. A resolution sponsored by the Pensions and Investment Research Consultants and the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility won 41 million of the total 357 million shares (more than 10%). Demonstrations took place in a number of cities in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere.”

Or is it because, like the aforementioned lapsed altarboys, some people will never forget:

“On November 10, 1995, Nigerian poet and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and nine co-defendants were hanged by General Abacha, the dictator of Nigeria, despite international pleas for clemency. Ken Saro-Wiwa’s crime was fighting against the exploitation of the Ogoni people and the destruction of their land by oil companies, including Mobil, Chevron, Texaco, and especially Shell.

“Ogoniland, the center of oil production in Nigeria, has suffered deteriorating social and environmental conditions, in great part because it is a center of the country’s oil production, generating 80% of government revenues in Nigeria.

“Shell Oil controls most of the country’s resources, having extracted an estimated $30 billion worth of oil from Ogoniland since 1958. Shell has never used its considerable influence either to moderate the anti-democratic actions of General Abacha and previous authoritarian governments, or to help the Ogoni People and Ken Saro-Wiwa, from whose homeland, Ogoniland, Shell Oil has reaped enormous profits over the past 37 years.

“Since Ken Saro-Wiwa’s execution, Shell has announced plans to build a liquefied natural gas pipeline from the Niger Delta on Nigeria’s coast through Ogoniland. The Niger Delta is home to coastal rain forest, mangrove habitats, and wetlands. It has been identified by the United Nations as the most endangered river delta in the world, the result of nearly four decades of oil exploitation. From 1982 to 1992 alone, more than 6.4 million liters of oil were spilled in Nigeria, an amount more than 40% higher than that released by the Exxon Valdez.”
– thirdworldtraveler.com/Boycotts/ShellNigeria_boycott.html

Next: mixed metaphors.

sjk, like I said, I don’t want to participate in another debate about Dawkins at this time but my post is to be understood as a gloss on Terry Eagleton’s review. Here’s a direct link:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/print/eagl01_.html

Eagleton, among other things, argues that Dawkins tars a lot of people with offensive brushes without a shred of evidence.

Just clicked over to the other thread. It turns out you don’t provide evidence that Dawkins is a fundamentalist; worse, you barely engage with his arguments at all.

In point of fact, demonizing (!) atheists most certainly is ontopic for this thread. You complain that the left-of-centre media treat “Catholicism per se as inherently ridiculous and reactionary”, yet you are more than willing to tar Dawkins with the epithet “atheist fundamentalist” (as if the term even means anything) without a shred of evidence.

With respect, Matthew 7:5.

Furthermore, he might be at the same time and simultaneously a hard-nosed political player and we may not be privy to what his opinion regarding global warming may be. We just don’t know Mark. So he can have an opinion formed by strong conviction and what EC said.

EC, Pope Joe is on the case with regard to the Southern Baptist fundies and feels that the Rome-based franchise could do with (1) a return to fundamental Christian values, (2) the power of prayer (3) there’s been too much of activism among Catholic do-gooders* which leads to growing secularism of Christians engaged in charitable work at the coalface of misery. Gee, reality.

_______________________
*like that most wonderful of human beings, Father Brian Gore, currently the regional director of the Missionary Society of Saint Columban in the Philippines.

I think the characterisation of Dawkins as a fundamentalist atheist is apt. He’s as strident, blinkered and dogmatic as any ayatollah.

That must be why he’s called for Salman Rushdie to be killed – oh wait.
It would be better if the people who can’t argue honestly with Dawkins would at least not stoop to ad-hominem.

You got me in one, Mark.

Altar boys never forget.

Otherwise, I read it as the usual “relevance� palaver.

Well, I fail to see, EC, why Pope Benedict isn’t thought to be capable of having opinions formed by conviction. That strikes me as an overly cynical view.

The failure in Oz of the MSM to address Papa Ben’s new position is most curious, GW being such a hot topic. Pell might have The Mad Monk and the Uglies on a leash, but he doesn’t command the secularist majority of MSM journos. Paul, is it pride alone that renders them silent? The Mystery of Talking in Silent Tongues, perhaps.

Pell is haemorrhaging market share to the Hillsong Hootenanny Hodowners , who are less reserved in their public worship and who put on a Real Show for their money. Son et lumiere; sanctification and ka-ching(all major cards accepted). Most of these good folk believe that GW is OK because it cranks up the Rapture Index , http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html , the prophetic speedometer of end time activity. The higher the index, the closer they reckon they are to achieving their collective terrestrial exit strategy.

Maybe Big George needs the fundies on-side, or certainly not off-side, for the Big Pray Out (junior rock-chopper jamboree) in Sydney later this year. Spiritual demarcation disputes can be rather unseemly when the world’s media are on hand, so Cardinal Pell’s fundamentalist, anti-scientific stance on global warming could be viewed as a pragmatic one.

And not an Aussie Giordano Bruno to be heard above the bells of St. Marys.

Btw, in an attempt to censor The Mavis Bramston Show( 60s TV satire), a former archbishop of Sydney called Muldoon, threatened to sell his shares in “Australian Owned” Oil Company, AMPOL, because it advertised on the programme. Seems that The Sacrament of Extreme Unctuousness works in mysterious ways when administered by what Antony Beevor refers to as ,
“Their Most Catholic Majesties�,
those liturgical frocksters who have been historically so adept at greasing their way around the top ends of towns.

For the good of Holy Mother Church, naturellement.

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/12/15/delusional-gods/

Please note, I won’t be defending it tonight, as I said most of what I had to say in that post and thread, and I think it’s somewhat off topic for this thread as well.