Monday 25th of November 2024
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what the pell .....

what the pell I .....

 

An interesting sidelight to Monday night’s Q&A appearance by Cardinal George Pell -- the Catholic cleric has made the front page of the Australian Jewish News with comments described as "troubling".

The paper reports:

During a wide-ranging discussion on Monday night’s program, Pell -- the Archbishop of Sydney -- alluded to ancient Jewish people being intellectually inferior to ancient Egyptians and Persians, while also making the extraordinary claim that no people in history had been punished like the Germans.

When asked by host Tony Jones about God revealing himself to the Jews, Pell responded that it was extraordinary they had been chosen as they were not intellectually equal to the Egyptians, Persians or other powers of the time.

"The poor, little Jewish people, they were originally shepherds. They were stuck, they are still stuck, between these great powers," he said.

"I’ve got a great admiration for the Jews but we don’t need to exaggerate their contribution in their early days."

Later in the program, while talking about the Holocaust, Pell said "probably no people in history have been punished the way the Germans were", prompting Jones to put forward the argument that the Jews of Europe suffered more than the Germans.

"Yes, that might be right. Certainly the suffering in both, I mean the Jews, there was no reason why they should suffer," was Pell’s response

The Cardinal wrote to the Jewish News to clarify his Q&A comments.

 

what the pell II .....

 

Perhaps the last word should go to the cartoonist Kron:

what the pell III .....

faith crashing .....

The good news of the week comes from a surprising source. Cardinal George Pell announced on the ABC's Q & A on Monday that atheists can go to heaven. I nearly fell off the sofa when I heard this, so I checked the transcript:

Tony Jones: … is it possible for an atheist to go to heaven?

George Pell: Well, it's not my business … .

Jones: You're the only authority we have here.

Pell: I would say certainly.

Jones: Yeah?

Pell: Certainly!

Thus, with one small word but one grand gesture, Gorgeous George swept away the brilliant edifice of 2000 years not just of Catholic teaching, but of Christianity itself.

You don't have to believe in God to make it past St Peter and in through the pearly gates. Still less do you need the encrusted paraphernalia of organised religion, the bells and smells and so on. You just have to be good.

I'm not sure he's right, though. Reluctant as I am to quote scripture to a prince of the church, this would seem to fly in the face of John 14.6: ''Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me.''

Christened a Catholic, educated an Anglican, I was always taught this meant that only faith in Christ got you to heaven. Heathens of any sort need not apply.

As an atheist now, this doesn't worry me. But it is cheering to think that if I am wrong and there is a Christian God, she'll judge me on my merits and not whether I went to church.

Wherever I end up, I hope I don't get stuck near Richard Dawkins. Brilliant chap, but painfully devoid of a sense of humour.

Mike Carlton

a sex position...

...

In the meantime, the Q&A debate between Richard Dawkins and Cardinal George Pell on Monday night was fine as far as it went but it came up against the same problem you and I always have in such debate. When one person has made the leap of faith, and put that faith first and foremost as their key argument, it is - by definition - no more possible for the person of faith to have a debate on the intellectual side of the divide than it is for the person of intellect to discuss how many angels are on the head of a pin on the other side. What did get up my nose, however, was the assertion of the normally sensible host Tony Jones on ABC radio on the morning of the debate that: ''Atheism itself requires a leap of faith.'' Not at all, Tony. Again, to quote Bill Maher: ''There's one little difference. Religion is defined as the belief in and worship of a superhuman deity. Atheism is defined as … precisely not that. Got it? Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/has-newman-got-life-back-to-front-20120414-1x043.html#ixzz1s5yTQ7tc