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St. Mary's Convent High school, Mapusa is staging a play titled "Lion King"
December 1, 2007 - Hanuman Hall, Mapusa
to fundraise for a false ceiling for the school hall
& upgrading the school playground
Headmistress Sr. Namika A.C. / Teacher Mrs. Sonia Noronha
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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It is a pity some did not get the 'RESOLUTION' of the debate. The first
debater was Christopher Hitchens. And he immediately proceeded to make the
points to defend the resolution which was the title of his book - "How Religion
Poisons Everything." One would think that having actually WRITTEN THE BOOK,
Hitchens would be in a better position to defend his 'thesis' and the
resolution.
Why do we just not accept that Hitchens had no convincing facts or data, except
for anecdotal examples, to support the resolution of the debate and the catchy
title of his book? Of course, it did not help when, Dinesh with recent and
well-documented world history from Lenin to Stalin to other communist leaders
in Eastern Europe to Mao to Khmer Rouge in Asia, to Cuba in the Americas etc.
compared the performance of theists to atheists societies and leaders. Unable
to defend the resolution or his book-title (also propounded by many atheists on
this forum), some have sought to lay personal blame on Hitchens, or the debate
format, or the lack of a defined resolution, or even the 'whiskey' glass. Good
try - but here is another chance.:=))
I agree with Santosh about the digression of the debaters. To me, if one is to
have a scientific / sensible debate / argument about religion, one should first
define the term. The following is the definition of religion as per Wikipedia.
"A religion is a social institution that includes a set of common beliefs and
practices generally held by a group of people, often codified as prayer,
ritual, and religious law." To me the operative term is a "a group of people"
living by a "codified" norm.
Can anyone refer to atheists and others of similar persuasions who live in
"non-codified" social enclaves? Even today none have flocked to Cuba. Yet many
Cubans desire to leave Cuba. If atheists despise / repelled by / poisoned by
the codification (laws), why have they not created / sought refuge in places
where the community norms are NOT explicitly or implicitly codified as social
practice patterns? And I do not mean Anjuna beach. Why did societies
(including early, pre- and early-civilization) develop an indigenous or
exogenous codified system of norms of behavior? If humans are inherently born
good / moral (as per atheists) why do ALL of today's societies have zillions of
self-created (civil and criminal) laws, rules, regulations? Or does not the
universal existence of these written codes reflect and is aimed to balance the
weakness and free-will of humans?
Hitchens and Goanet atheists recite the (supposed) ills of religion - slave
trade, apartheid, racial segregation and caste practices. Yet, the
practitioners of these practices relied on their human instincts of greed and
power (yes, often using the name of religion); and actually contradict
Hitchens' premise - humans are born moral and religion poisons them. Yet Hitch
/ Selma's knowledge conveniently fail to point out that it was individuals and
their followers with an even greater understanding of their own true religion,
that fought to end the above practices - Quakers, Bishop Tutu, Martin Luther
King, Mohandas Gandhi respectively.
Atheists make 'religion' a THEORETICAL debate as Santosh so well exemplified.
The 'organized atheist' societies from which to draw practical experience of
atheism are communist societies. Scientist Santosh should know, larger the
data-base more definitive / certain are the conclusions. Yet the MORAL
performance of the communist societies are rarely referred to by atheists,
specially Hitchens, Selma and Santosh. I wonder WHY? My Chinese colleague
informs me that in Communist China, the laws on moral behavior were more
strictly enforced and violations severely punished than in societies that have
a religion. Of course these laws and moral compunctions did not apply to the
communist leaders.
Theists on the other hand emphasize the PRACTICAL applications of their
religion- "do unto others ...." as a first tenet of "prayer, ritual, and
religious law" as all well-functioning societies (pre- and post-civilization)
have repeatedly demonstrated. To me the whole essence of society and social
values is to care for other members of that community. And if can Santosh
please sit, what Christianity did was preach, practice and die to expand the
definition of community to include ALL as EQUAL "Children of God". That was a
very new and different massage in the fist 100 years AD and continues to be
powerful even today.
What we REPEATEDLY see ALL through history, across ALL continents, and ALL
beliefs are community-decay and decline (even in 'advanced' societies) when the
prevailing / existing religious-moral grounding is disregarded and ignored.
This is because civil laws cannot police and replace morality.
Kind Regards, GL
----------- Santosh Helekar wrote:
As I have said before, the problem with this debate was that there was no clear
resolution to be for or against.
----------------- Frederick Noronha wrote:
the organisers of the debate trying to skew things by overstating the case
Hitchins has to defend. FN
