Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
What do you get when you take equal parts
Christopher Hitchens, Archbishop John Onaiyekan, Stephen Fry and Anne Widdencombe, and mix?
This:
It's the "Intelligence Squared" debate, which was held before a live audience in London this past weekend.
It's quite good, actually - and worth watching the whole thing. All four participants do a good job in presenting their position on whether or not the Catholic Church is a "force for good in the world."
What I found was telling was that at the start of the program, a survey was taken of the audience. About 35% said that the Church was a force for good, 55% said that it wasn't, and the rest were undecided. After the debate was over, the numbers were 13% yes, 86% no, with just a handful still undecided.
Now, try and imagine such a debate being held here in the US - it's hard to envision those kinds of numbers at anything other than a convention of atheists. Wow.
Jim Downey
Via MeFi.
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Perhaps an atheist convention wouldn't be needed
I recall that when I went to the World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles (in '96 I think; probably the most recent time it was there) one of the program items was a debate on "is there a God?" It was heavily attended, and they voted on the end over who won, and a majority voted that the atheist side had presented the better case. Admittedly, atheism was defended by J. Michael Straczynski, and this was also one of the years he won a Hugo for "Babylon 5," while his Christian opponent was a no-name fan, so that may have biased things.
Stats
Your summary of the stats outcome are worded in a rather confusing manner.
Really?
OK, how would you phrase it?
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Nothing special. You just
Nothing special.
You just label them "force for good" and "it wasn't" in the first sentence. In the second, you not only reverse the order you list them, but also switch to the generic terms "yes" and "no".
It took a re-read before I was sure that, as I'd hoped and assumed, reason had trumped the debate.