Comments on: Argument awards

By: john b

john b — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:53:00 +0000

Or, depending on how you look at it, all Christians (after all, the Apostle's Creed is still used within the C of E).

I thought the context made clear I meant "The institutions and leaders of the Roman Catholic church"; however, I've amended the original post to clarify.

By: Jimmy Doyle

Jimmy Doyle — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:35:00 +0000

Now I think about it, it’s clear that, like Matthew Yglesias, you didn’t realise that ‘the Catholic church’ IS ‘all Catholics.’ But then ignorance about Catholicism is kind of like the weather. (Cf the Guardian editorial yesterday that said "Catholics oppose abortion under all circumstances," echoed today by Catherine Bennett: "[Murphy-O’Connor] is, after all, not only opposed to late abortions – he [is] opposed to them entirely" — only someone without the most basic grasp of the church’s position could fail to know that this is dramatically false.)

By: Jimmy Doyle

Jimmy Doyle — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:09:00 +0000

I don’t fancy explaining why that counts as personal abuse, because I never said it was. My implication was that it was a provocation, and so your attribution to me of "unprovoked personal abuse" was erroneous. Or am I being too verbose?

By: john b

john b — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:04:00 +0000

Glad to hear it; indeed, I imagine it was one of your most successful in some time.

If you fancy explaining why the statement "Obviously, hating the Catholic church…is not racist. Just necessary" counts as personal abuse, please do. If I’d substituted "all Catholics" or "Jimmy Doyle", I’d understand your point.

By: Jimmy Doyle

Jimmy Doyle — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:00:00 +0000

"Obviously, hating the Catholic church...is not racist. Just necessary."

No provocation there, then.

"No man should hold any views on abortion other than these [link]....

"I'm well aware that my original opinion on this matter makes...no sense whatsoever if you believe [the foetus] to be [a person]..."

No vapidly verbose volte-faces from our John B!

It's a bit harder to come up with a pithy illustration of condescension, but perhaps John B will consider awarding himself a special Ted Rall commemorative set of wooden surgical lobotomy implements for Most Self-Indulgently Flippant and Facetious Treatment of a Serious Moral Issue.

I learnt rather a lot from that tutorial, by the way. Cheers!

By: Ally

Ally — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 04:34:00 +0000

No, no, don't apologise. I was just glad I didn't get flamed :-).

By: dsquared

dsquared — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 18:28:00 +0000

Oh well, at least I broke even.

By: john b

john b — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 18:18:00 +0000

Ta. Sorry I missed you off the award list originally – err, you were first in a large thread, and also I’m crap.

By: Ally

Ally — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:08:00 +0000

On point 1) I liked your original post - at least it made sense.

On point 2) I am not sure that I entirely agree about the usefulness of the Catholic Church. Surely any institution that is prepared to oppose Dan Brown's current deified status must have some good points?

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:19:00 +0000

Surely the real winners (in a moral victory sense, at least) are those of us who chose to stay out of it all. Or does sitting on the sidelines make us objectively pro-whatever someone doesn’t like?