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Richard Dawkins: I Will Arrest Pope Benedict XVI
London Times ^ | April 10th 2010 | Marc Horne

Posted on 04/10/2010 11:49:41 PM PDT by Steelfish

April 11, 2010 Richard Dawkins: I Will Arrest Pope Benedict XVI Marc Horne

Atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins RICHARD DAWKINS, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain “for crimes against humanity”.

Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.

The pair believe they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he visited Britain in 1998.

The Pope was embroiled in new controversy this weekend over a letter he signed arguing that the “good of the universal church” should be considered against the defrocking of an American priest who committed sex offences against two boys. It was dated 1985, when he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with sex abuse cases.

(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: atheisthate; atheists; attentionwhore; dawkins; hitchens; nutjob; popebenedictxvi; richarddawkins; scientism; vatican
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To: metmom

That is nonsense. Look at my homepage, and you will find a link that lets users search within FR for comments on relevant keywords.

If you use the same, you will find that many of my comments are ditto re-types of comments made by others. It makes the work that much simpler.

For using that feature, I’ve also been accused of being a Puritan racist, among others. Your accusation is not new.


541 posted on 04/12/2010 4:58:33 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
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To: grey_whiskers

Problem is, humans were “commanded” to kill infants. It was not a Sodom-Gomorrah type of smiting. It was cold-blooded, human-run mass-slaughter.

I cannot reconcile with that.

If you could do so, please elaborate.


542 posted on 04/12/2010 5:00:02 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
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To: metmom

cool how did you find that out?


543 posted on 04/12/2010 5:01:55 PM PDT by verga (I am not an apologist, I just play one on Television)
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To: metmom
How do you feel about the ritual slaughter of babies by abortion that is promoted by the left?

Blind accusations are such a bore. Please look up my posting history, and find the umpteen number of times I've posted an old table depicting the annual per-capita statistics of abortion all over the world. Again, the original comment was not by me, but I found it on FR, using the same algorithm described before, and present on my home-page.

544 posted on 04/12/2010 5:02:38 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
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To: metmom

#121 was a comment by me. Did you even bother to check the commenter’s name on it?


545 posted on 04/12/2010 5:04:43 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
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To: verga

Got pinged by the zot ping list holders.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2490783/posts?page=187#187


546 posted on 04/12/2010 5:49:53 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: wmfights
I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe Jesus saw my fallen state and died for my sins. I believe Jesus was buried and on the third day rose again and because of His sacrifice for me I am saved.

Well, then we have a fundamental basis for agreement.

My faith is in Jesus Christ.

The Church is the metaphorical structure within which my faith dwells, if that makes sense to you. Yes, my faith exists in the absence of a building, even perhaps in the absence of dogma, most rituals, etc., because that faith is in Jesus Christ.

But the Church is the structure within which my faith was nurtured and the vehicle by which many perform those works which add to the strength of and grant opportunity to witness for their faith, for man is not saved by works alone and faith without works is dead.

That some one had slogged through that structure with muddy shoes does not diminish the integrity of the structure, but it does make a mess. We don't tear down the chapel, we clean the floor.

I am not trying to diminish the horror of the offenses in question, nor the contempt for the primary perpetrator(s), no matter the context, of such acts, who should 'have a millstone tied about their necks and be cast into the sea'. It is an incredible violation of trust, trust given by the Church, the parish, and the victims.

But back to the structure, if you will, just as those who perceive an attack on any structure they are in will perceive that same attack as an attack on the inhabitants thereof, I consider attacking the Church an attack on the faith of all who are within the Church, mine included.

It is the acts of a very few individuals which should be attacked, among the millions in the Church, and not the Church itself. To attack the Pontif, for acts he did not commit, for thigs which occurred before he had any say over their disposition, is not an attack on a single man, so much as an attack on the Church itself, and in so doing, an attack on the faith of those within it.

Ultimately, what is going on is an attempt to destroy faith by destroying the structure which forms for many the framework of their faith, the opportunity to learn about Jesus Christ, and often, the tools with which to better serve Him.

Considering the acts of others elsewhere, both in secular and other settings, the villification of the Catholic Church is out of proportion.

Much has been done to eliminate the Christian religion from the pop culture mindset, from assailing prayer in schools and in public, to the elimination of nativity scenes during Christmas, to the outright contempt held by many in the media for Christianity, and especially attacking the unique intractibility of the Catholic Church over celibacy, the issues of abortion and homosexuality, especially homosexual 'marriage' and not ordaining known homosexuals as clergy.

The media will continue to distort a relativley few incidents to make it appear that the whole is bad, and to that I take great exception, for to do so attacks not only the Catholic Church, but the roots of virtually every Christian sect on the planet.

547 posted on 04/12/2010 5:58:38 PM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: big tent

I wuv you.


548 posted on 04/12/2010 6:08:41 PM PDT by TXBlair (Sorry, libs, I'm fresh out of white guilt. Check back with me next millennium.)
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To: grey_whiskers

I was hoping it would be on the Military or History channels under “Can Openers of the Middle Ages.”


549 posted on 04/12/2010 6:20:07 PM PDT by Little Ray (The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!)
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To: ALPAPilot

Superb! Indeed any of BXVI Books.


550 posted on 04/12/2010 6:22:22 PM PDT by Steelfish (ui)
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To: grey_whiskers
In the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13:24-30, I think Christ is saying much the same thing as Paul explains to us in 1 Corinthians 11...

"For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you." -- 1 Corin. 11:19

551 posted on 04/12/2010 6:35:30 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: James C. Bennett; metmom

We have discussed ad infinitum in a prior post and thread the utter irrelevance of this Samuel quotation that referred to a call for vengeance for events that occurred four centuries before the timeframe in which the quote itself is cited. Quite apart from the utter disingenuous nature of this line of reasoning it exposes a form of interpretation bereft of scholarship.

This quote was inserted to reflect that even a God may have an unfettered vengeance for a tribe that killed another innocent tribe. Indeed, one does not have to go to Samuel. The Book of Exodus speaks of every first born being killed as the Angel of Death “passed-over” the homes of Jewish slaves.

Without a serious study of Old Testament sources, a clipboard cut and paste job of disparate quotes is as relevant as a colloquy in the Hindu Gita where a re-incarnated god called Krishna who takes the form of a disguised charioteer and who, not unlike the mythical Zeus, demands a massacre of another warring faction for their evil deeds. Release the Kracken.


552 posted on 04/12/2010 6:38:41 PM PDT by Steelfish (ui)
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To: Steelfish

When you say that a quote was inserted, what do you mean? Inserted by whom?

And if so, what’s the guarantee that the rest were not “inserted”? Blind faith?

In the Gita, were children and infants selected for slaughter, specifically by human effort?

As for kraken, did you watch the movie? If so, how was it?

:^)


553 posted on 04/12/2010 6:43:35 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
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To: Albion Wilde

Telling pix.


554 posted on 04/12/2010 6:44:19 PM PDT by Sun (Pray that God sends us good leaders. Please say a prayer now.)
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To: Iscool

Oh please, the Pope can’t be everywhere.

It’s like telling the police they have to be at every stop sign in a city, and the city has a thousand stop signs.

People like you play right in the NYTimes hands. They are laughing at you.


555 posted on 04/12/2010 6:47:13 PM PDT by Sun (Pray that God sends us good leaders. Please say a prayer now.)
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To: Steelfish

“Richard Dawkins: I Will Arrest Pope Benedict XVI,”

sure, after we arrest all the secularists who support the murder of millions of unborn children.


556 posted on 04/12/2010 6:48:28 PM PDT by ari-freedom (Yammoto:I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.)
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To: danieldu

“In Dawkins TED talk it was interesting that his real complaint against Christians — the one he really got animated about — was that Christians restrict or judge sexual behavior on certain standards which he wants nothing to do with.”

of course atheism in the end, is just about a rationalization for unlimited sex. It was never about skepticism or rationality as a truly rational person would understand why homosexuality and abortion are perverse even if they weren’t mentioned in the Bible.


557 posted on 04/12/2010 7:01:39 PM PDT by ari-freedom (Yammoto:I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.)
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To: James C. Bennett

1. Most assuredly it was not by God but rather by one who purportedly heard the word of God.

2. I don’t think its serious inquiry to engage on what was and was not “inserted”. Old Testament scholarship is an ongoing study with various lines of historical inquiry. It is the stuff of study that constitutes the basis of degree and postgraduate degree programs at leading colleges and universities. To put it simply, these are not answers that one can either provide or explain in a sentence without more queries to follow.

3. Here again, the deadly destruction of innocent life including children whether done deliberately, selectively, or with high probability of its consequence, or with reckless indifference for the bloodbath that follows, are all modes of killing with little substantive differentiation. To make distinctions is to make ourselves complicit in the horror establishing post hoc rationalizations in the process.

4. Yes, I saw the movie and the one in 1984. Liked all of the 1984 version, and some of the 2010 version. Admit to a bias here. Took Greek mythology and advanced math in college.


558 posted on 04/12/2010 7:04:36 PM PDT by Steelfish (ui)
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To: Steelfish
Most assuredly it was not by God but rather by one who purportedly heard the word of God.

This was a surprising admission! This begs the next question: Was the command to slaughter, in 1 Samuel 15: 3, a command from God?

I'm looking forward to watching the movie, by the way.

559 posted on 04/12/2010 7:11:46 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
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To: Dr. Eckleburg
Did you notice the part about the angels being instructed not to uproot the tares?

Cheers!

560 posted on 04/12/2010 7:14:31 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.http://www.free)
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