The battle against Christ
David Blackburn 5:43pm
Dark times for the Catholic Church. The child abuse scandal is an appalling indictment
on the Church. The episcopacy’s cover-up is a temporal abuse of derived spiritual authority - venality worthy of the medieval Church. However, some critics verge on the pathologically absurd,
with the crusading Richard Dawkins vowing to arrest the Pope under terms that were used to incarcerate mass-murderers like General Pinochet. Dawkins uses this extreme example of human failure to
assert the falsehood of faith. That’s an intellectually disingenuous argument, and arguably an abuse of his temporal influence over what remains a matter of conscience.
Another prominent atheist, Phillip Pullman has written a book based on Gnosticism – an early Chruch heresy, rooted in dualist Platonism, which held that the soul was incorruptible whilst the body was corrupt, salvation came through knowledge of this dual self. Pullman has made Christ his subject, based on the suspect but alluring Acts of Thomas Didymus, found the apocrypha.
Following the deserved literary success of the Northern Lights Trilogy, I imagine Churches are bracing themselves for the worst. But according to Jeanette Winterton, they need not. Pullman’s latest book is ‘a poor substitute for the King James Version’, which is important in what is descending into a propaganda war.
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Peter From Maidstone
April 12th, 2010 6:42pm Report this commentThe Acts of Thomas are NOT in the Apocrypha. They may be apocryphal, they are certainly pseudepigraphical, but they are not in the Apocrypha.
Vin
April 12th, 2010 7:43pm Report this commentIs there nothing that people won't do to get their name in print? All of the accusations made against this Pope have not been verified. I wish we could go back to an era when you could mostly trust what appeard in legimate MSM. No longer.This Pope is attacked because he is a holy man and as such presents a danger to those who have no faith. What do they want that they do not have? Doesn't this society allow them to do whatever they want if it does not hurt someone else. Killing preborn people is allowed of course as an exception. They really are seeking for those with faith to grovel at the same altar they grovel at. Small chance!
ndm
April 12th, 2010 8:36pm Report this comment[via Andrew Sullivan]
Dawkins explicitly declares on his blog that he did not say he would arrest the Pope. Dawkins writes:
-- Needless to say, I did NOT say "I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI" or anything so personally grandiloquent. You have to remember that The Sunday Times is a Murdoch newspaper, and that all newspapers follow the odd custom of entrusting headlines to a sub-editor, not the author of the article itself.
What I DID say to Marc Horne when he telephoned me out of the blue, and I repeat it here, is that I am whole-heartedly behind the initiative by Geoffrey Robertson and Mark Stephens to mount a legal challenge to the Pope's proposed visit to Britain. Beyond that, I declined to comment to Marc Horme, other than to refer him to my 'Ratzinger is the Perfect Pope' article here: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/5341
Tiberius
April 12th, 2010 9:02pm Report this commentAre we to assume that Dawkins considers himself humble enough to cast the first stone?
Hadrian
April 12th, 2010 11:27pm Report this commentIt is vital to disentangle the battle against Christ from the exposure of the Roman Church which pathologically declares itself irreformable and indefectible. The scandals deservedly engulfing it are the poisonous result of such a defiant boast.
As for the battle against Christ Himself- that is already lost. Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and ultimately His enemies will be made His footstool. Those who in the meantime spare no effort to demean the great Saviour and Sin Bearer and so deceive souls that they need no salvation to their own ruin, they will face horrendous damnation. God is never mocked.
merlinthepig
April 13th, 2010 9:24pm Report this commentNicely put, Hadrian, as always.
On the subject of The Dawk, it seems he only has to break wind for the MSM to cravenly publish his utterings. Over on Guardian CIF they are positively creaming themselves over the unlikely prospect of the Pope having his collar felt when he visits or even if he tries to visit the UK.
The reality is that until the CPS makes the decision to prosecute, all the statements about the Pope having a clear case to answer by Dawkins, Hitchens and their ilk are just pissing in the wind...or in Hitchens' case, probably pissing on his shoes.
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