Comments on The Pensive Quill: Damnation with Faint Praise

Fionnchú, a thoughtful post. I am not persuaded th...

2008-09-28T08:58:00.000+01:00

Fionnchú, a thoughtful post. I am not persuaded that the demise of the church is causally linked to the 'void left by its absence'. Given the nature of society today, the prevalance of greedy bastardism, the neo liberal agenda - all of which extends much wider than Ireland - this would have existed with or without a church. Taylor it would seem also overlooks the very positive role played by secular charitable organisations doing what the church previously did or - to be fair to it - still does.

Weinberg is useful less for the acute accuracy of his comments and more for the manner in which they allow a contrast to be set up. As a logical sequence of words I never quite followed the thread but as a polemic they are brilliant. Polemics will rarely avoid hyperbole for the purpose of making a point.

Having finished "Cross," the latest in a series of...

2008-09-26T18:35:00.000+01:00

Having finished "Cross," the latest in a series of harsh Jack Taylor mysteries from Ken Bruen set in his own secularizing, gentrifying native Galway city, there's intriguing parallels to your typically thoughtful post, AM. Taylor views the Church as crippling human endeavor, but also examines unsparingly the void left by its absence in today's harsher, greedier Irish society. The retreat of Catholicism does not appear to have advanced charity and lovingkindness upon its inhabitants, who scrabble, brawl, and perpetrate cruelty without the help or hindrance of any restraining of either kindly cleric or conniving nun.

I'd surely disagree, as both fictional character and criminally savvy author I imagine would, however, with Weinberg's concluding phrase that good people only'll do evil if warped by religion. As one who's learned much from Hitchens, Harris, and Dawkins, I'll also admit they all even in their considered critiques step into hyperbole, but Weinberg does appear to have fallen into an conceptual abyss here. Good people can do evil if twisted by any of those reliable seven deadly sins, I reckon, even if they're labelled disorders by shrinks and social workers in today's EU rather than culpable actions supposedly punished by a Nobodaddy.

My own children are free to make their own discove...

2008-09-24T20:17:00.000+01:00

My own children are free to make their own discoveries. They are not subject to any religion at home and my daughter has opted not to have it taught to her in school. I wish I had experienced a similar freedom

Amen ANthony. I was raised in the Catholic Church...

2008-09-23T02:00:00.000+01:00

Amen ANthony. I was raised in the Catholic Church. Ove my life I have grown away from the Church or any other organized religion for several reasons..The money thing, the hypocracy, the failure to really care about nurturing the human spirit. I didn't raise my children in the Church, but they are polite, law abiding, hardworking and very caring about their fellow man. I guess you could say I just used common sense. I am proud of them all and they are proud of me. We have not missed the organized churches. Three of the held their marriages outside..under the natural sky.

I can't vote on the Europeon Unian, but if I could, I would take in the whole picture and the consequences of joining..or the consequences of staying out.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts..

Regards,