Hitchens & Fry vs The Catholics

General Academics Religion and Philosophy
1

Is the Catholic Church a force for good in the world?

The Intelligence Squared Debate - Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry vs. The Catholics (Part 1/5)
The Intelligence Squared Debate - Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry vs. The Catholics (Part 2/5)
The Intelligence Squared Debate - Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry vs. The Catholics (Part 3/5)

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The Intelligence Squared Debate - Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry vs. The Catholics (Part 4/5)
The Intelligence Squared Debate - Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry vs. The Catholics (Part 5/5)

They have a pre-debate poll from the audience and then a post-debate poll. I liked that feature.

Steven is simply awesome and Hitchens his usual bundle of fun. The Catholics could really have had better representatives. :smiley:

3

I sat and watched this last night. It was awesome, about time the Catholics actually RECEIVED a whipping. ;D

I think the polls show us the huge effect some reason can have on people.

4

Thanks for posting. I’m saving to watch later.

What a combination - Fry & Hitchens!

FYI - There seems to be two copies of part four and no part five in your post.
Part Five: The Intelligence Squared Debate - Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry vs. The Catholics (Part 5/5)

5

:-[

Thanks :smiley: Fixed th OP.

6

No prob cyghost.

I just finished watching and there are a few bits I know I’m going to watch again and again.

The stand out comment for me came from Stephen Fry, while referring to the issue of slavery: "What is the point of the catholic church if it says ‘We couldn’t know better because nobody else did’. Fry then leans towards the catholics and bellows as only Stephen Fry can: “THEN WHAT ARE YOU FOR?”

What is the point of catholic church indeed? Or any church?

My ex-catholic self loved that debate. The results of the poll were pure pwnage too. Great stuff.

7

I’ve uploaded some audio clips from the debate here:

http://aas.uct.ac.za/forum/viewtopic.php?t=476

They are really small files, so you can email them to all your Catholic friends.

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Thanks :wink:

9

LOL, they’ve started an online poll. Go vote, it’s funny:

http://www.catholictruthscotland.com/

10

Currently

True: 1.7%
False 98.3 %

:smiley:

But there is like a billion of them… ??? This can’t end well. :stuck_out_tongue:

11

That poll was pharyngulated, which is why it’s so disproportionate. Before the zerg rush it was
True [70.6%]
False [29.4%]

12

I’m stuck with Windows at the moment on account of the short-sightedness of my employer. Is there some way for me to download these vids on Windows and save them to watch at the weekend?

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Lordcow, one of the UCT atheists, uploaded them here:

http://aas.uct.ac.za/forum/viewtopic.php?t=476

There are also some links to very cool video extractors.

14

Thanks for the reply. I am not able to download from the UCT server, and these halfwits I work for insist I use the least secure OS in the galaxy and then say I can’t install any software for “security reasons”. Anyone know if these vids are available on an open server somewhere?

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You can retrieve local copies from the Windows machine. To do this, click the “play” button on the embedded YouTube viewer, and then the “pause” button. You will see a faint red download progress bar on the slider at the bottom of the viewer. Even though paused, the download will continue to completion.

Once the progress bar has reached the end, the video has been downloaded. Using Windows explorer navigate to your “temporary internet files” folder. Supposing that your Windows login name is “st0nes” the folder will be called “C:\Documents and Settings\st0nes\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files”. Note that the drive letter may be different and that you might need to set “Tools” → “Folder Options” → “View” to show hidden and system files. The video file is saved there with an odd name (something with “video” in it) and it will have about the largest size of any files in the folder. You can copy and paste a copy to a suitable location for later viewing, e.g. to a flash disk. You’ll also need a FLV player but I don’t know where to find a non-Windows one.

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Thanks for that. The only file I can find is a SOL file that is just 1kb, so can’t be the one I’m looking for. I think the easiest thing to do is watch them next weekend when I’m home and have access to a proper computer. I haven’t used Windows for years, so I’d forgotten how difficult it is to do anything vaguely useful with it. But thanks for your assistance.

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Or try http://www.savevideodownload.com/download.php

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I’ve uploaded an audio recording of the debate for those who are starved of bandwidth like myself:

ftp://aas.uct.ac.za/incoming/IQ2.mp3 (10.6MB)

Please spread it around before it gets removed.

19

Thanks for the link to the audio Grant, much easier to download than the video.

I had a good laugh at the arguments from Archbishop John Onaiyekan. Here he is debating two formidable opponents who are well educated and have been debating the topic for years, and yet he presents arguments which would only fly in a Sunday school creche. I think he was hoping that his opponents wouldn’t argue against some of these points, and it turned out in his favour because this debate had no rebuttal time.

Archbishop John Onaiyekan: …that’s what my life is all about. If I didn’t believe that the Catholic church is a force for good, I would not devote my whole life to precisely walking in that institution, hoping that I am involved in something that is good for the whole world.

A bit of an argument from final consequences, or affirming the consequent going on here. The implication is; “look at me in my fine dress, that proves the church is a force for good. If I was not standing here in a dress we could not come to that conclusion.” Also, I see a glimpse of a sunk-cost argument here (too bad he didn’t expand on it a bit, he might have reached a revelation); “what a waste my life would have been if I was wrong and I was only doing this based on hope”.

Archbishop John Onaiyekan: We must also not forget the sheer weight of the numbers. I have checked the statistics and we are told that we have about 1.2 billion Catholics all over the world out of a population of 6.6 billion; 17.3%

Ad populum.

Archbishop John Onaiyekan: Whatever [this great army] is doing we consider it as being done largely also as a result of the spirit that guides them.

So whenever Catholics do anything good or with a moral conscience it was because of their faith. But whenever they do something wrong, it is because they are only human. Cherry-picking, nothing more, even when disguised behind phrases like “the church is made up of saints and sinners; we are all struggling towards perfection”.

And I just loved it when the Archbishop argued for the truth that atheists often point-out; that morality doesn’t come from the ten commandments, but from human nature.

James

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But Archbishop Onaiyekan did not present any reasoned arguments at all! What we were treated to from that quarter was first a mess of vaguely related issues, followed by a host of the usual bald, hidebound and authoritarian statements of unassailable “fact” that churchgoers respond to from their ministers: a rock of certainty in an uncertain world. Not very compelling for an intelligent audience. Ann Widdecombe MP came across as a bit snooty and conceited: everyone’s least favourite battleaxe.

Hitchens and Fry hitched and fried the opposition on all counts. The end-of-show vote made that very clear, and it was a delight for any RC apostate to see.

'Luthon64