The Pope's welcome to Anglicans: generosity or annexation?

Wha kin tell the difference?

(The Pope is the one wearing a yarmulke).

I spent several happy holidays cycling through Bavaria in my early twenties. I met some wonderful, hospitable people but I learned there is one thing you should never expect from a German peasant: anything approaching an English concept of manners.

Would the last decent person leaving the Catholic Church please switch off the light....

He'll be offering Rewards Points next.

Oh, I forgot, they already do...

It is a wonderful development in the life of the Church. Let's be clear on the context. A group of Anglicans approached the Holy See about two years ago with a view to joining as a group. This decision of the Holy Father shows once again the generous, flexible, loving nature of the man which secular media types do their best to disregard. It's an issue of religious freedom. Should the Pope say to people, "no, you must stay in an ecclesial communion which is collapsing around you because I can't offend the chattering classes". There are, I think, 23 recognised Churches that make up the Catholic Church. Many of these allow for married priests without affecting the long tradition of celibacy in the Latin church, stretching back more than fifteen centuries.

"The decision of the Holy Father shows once again the generous, flexible, loving nature of the man...."

He has systematically dismantled Vat II, fought tooth and nail any steps to bring the Church into the modern world, insulted Islam, offended the Jewish faith, personally attacked and had sacked many respected Catholic Theologians during his tenure as head of the CDF, refused to acknowledge the legitimate standing of Protestant faiths, refused point blank to engage in any discussion of mandatory celibacy, the role of women in the church, has disasterously opposed any and all contraceptive programmes in Africa, colluded in the cover up of clergy sexual abuse and still gives a safe haven to Cardinal Law, supports the obnoxious and anti-Kingdom Opus Dei, was indirectly culpable in the murder of Oscar Romero after he publicly disowned him the week before he was shot, has opened the door to every right wing zealot with an axe to grind while showing complete indifference to ordinary Catholics who continue to leave the church in their droves, has opposed any notion of collegiality amongst the Cardinals and has completely ignored any concept of Justice in the Gospel opting to rigorously promote dogmatism, orthodoxy and church law.

I think that covers "flexible." Would you like me to start on "generous" and "loving" now?

Nice summary RJB, although you missed allowing a holocaust denier back into the fold.

PK

I was trying to be charitable!

>> systematically dismantled Vat II - give one example. Vatican II called for retention of Latin in the liturgy - this Pope has done more than either of his predecessors to impliment Vatican II.

>> fought tooth and nail any steps to bring the Church into the modern world - what does that really mean? The Church lives in the world but doesn't pander to secular fads - why is this bad? By modern world I presume you mean the various things you believe in and the Church doesn't - handy little coincidence there.

>> insulted Islam - challenged Islam to embrace reason and abhor violence, had a very successful visit to Jordan - read the speeches of support from Jordanian leaders

>> offended the Jewish faith - by having a successful tour of the Holy Land where he refused to take some personal responsibility for things neither he nor the Church were responsible for while secular journalist with their predictive text articles "hitler youth etc" had the stories pre-written

>> personally attacked and had sacked many respected Catholic Theologians during his tenure as head of the CDF - can't think of a single "Catholic Theologian" this applies to since they are only Catholic if they believe and teach what the Catholic Church teaches; he even had the rather unpleasant heretic Kung for dinner

>> refused to acknowledge the legitimate standing of Protestant faiths - completely accepts the legitimate standing of Protestant faiths in their own terms - simply makes the point that they're not Catholic Churches - when did they want to be?

>> refused point blank to engage in any discussion of mandatory celibacy - he's the Pope, he doesn't have to engage with you people on these matters and there is no "mandatory celibacy" - mandatory means yuo have no choice. We have no priestly caste you are born into - you chose to follow a priestly vocation - you know it involves celibacy and you freely make a promise to remain celibate. If you don't like it don't do - but don't break your promise and then come crying that the rules are wrong - you end up sounding like Arsene Wenger or Alex Ferguson

>> the role of women in the church - very supportive of women, while accepting the infallible teaching that women may not be ordained

>> has disasterously opposed any and all contraceptive programmes in Africa - disastrously? Even though all the scientific evidence says that condoms have been unsuccessful at the population level. People reject the Church's teaching, catch Aids and then blame the Church for the teaching - beyond farce

>> colluded in the cover up of clergy sexual abuse and still gives a safe haven to Cardinal Law - has never done this, has been vociferous in condemning abuse and pursuing those involved within the extent of his authority; Safe haven from what -is there some warrent we aren't aware of - perhaps you're confusing the Pope with the French and Law with Polanski

>> supports the obnoxious and anti-Kingdom Opus Dei - just your prejudice, don't have to say anything on this one I think - this Pope has not particular connection or feel for Opus Dei, though no reason why he shouldn't - they do tremendous work

>> was indirectly culpable in the murder of Oscar Romero after he publicly disowned him the week before he was shot - think we call this libel; presume all you Ronald Reagon haters were culpable when he was shot

>> has opened the door to every right wing zealot with an axe to grind while showing complete indifference to ordinary Catholics who continue to leave the church in their droves - evidence? who are these people? Tony Blair, Barack Obama?

>> has opposed any notion of collegiality amongst the Cardinals - that's why the African synod was held last week; doesn't want national collegiality to provide cover for individual bishops being inactive as in Ireland

>> has completely ignored any concept of Justice in the Gospel opting to rigorously promote dogmatism, orthodoxy and church law - contradiction here - you can't promote dogma, orthodoxy and Church law without justice - justice is an integral part of it.

God bless the Pope - he's a great Pope. I think we may see reunification with the Orthodox and the Catholic elements of Anglicanism during his reign - and of course the liberals and secularists are all petrified of this. They prefer to talk about ecumenism without ever doing it.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

RJB - sorry to shatter your delusions, but I wasn't meaning you singular when I wrote. I couldn't care less why you left the priesthood. But do remind us again who forced you to be ordained and forced you to promise celibacy.

I don't quote scripture on these blogs very often because I don't appreciate texts parachuted in to justify someone's personal opinion.

There's obviously some underlying reason why you are such an angry person and why you presume that people who disagree with you are unloving and know nothing of Jesus.

I haven't time to do a point by point thing again - you write too much - but it is nonsense to say Ratzinger's letter was an instruction to cover up - there was nothing in it to prevent someone going to civil authorities where this was the appropriate response (i.e. a crime and not some issue between adults).

How can we debate Latin America - the Church was concerned and rightly so about Marxism which was destroying Eastern Europe, Asia and trying to do same in South America. As for Spain, thanks but I'd sooner have Franco than a communist state. The thousands of nuns in inclosed orders who could not possibly have been a political threat to anyone and were martyred nonetheless are a testimony to why.

If people don't like orthodox Catholic faith - why don't they go somewhere else - like celibacy, it's not mandatory. Christ acknowledged his sayings were hard - the reality of the Eucharist, the demands of the sermon on the mount on adultery, on divorce, on forgiveness - all hard but all necessary to be a follower of Christ.

"I haven't time to do a point by point thing again"

Far easier to hit the complain button, right?

RJB, I read your post before it was removed. Outspoken, somewhat personally directed, but nothing that warranted removing imo. Given the experiences on this bog lately, did you by any chance save it separately?

Bit presumptious aren't you Peter, that I complained about it. Why would I complain about it after responding to it? I've always been a supporter of free speech on the blogs.

But one is allowed to comment briefly. I didn't and don't have time to go through it point by point, though to do so would suggest it was more rational than it was.

To get back on post - has the Pope's actions made Christian unity more likely or less. I think more. That's what frightens liberals and secularists - they don't like it up 'em.

Hi Peter

I didnt save it unfortunately. And I knew I was running the risk of the button presser with what I said about Escriva's murky past. I will take your advice and save them from now on.

MCC

I'm glad the anger came across in my post. And its about time ordinary Catholics became angry at what is going on in OUR church. (It is not your posession because you happen to be uncritically orthodox.)

No problem if you 'dont have time' to refute the points I made. If your argument regarding mandatory celibacy is typical of the responses you would have made to the rest of the points, they wouldnt be worth reading anyway.

Your 'if you dont like the rules, dont join the club' argument is trotted out with regular monotony. Celibacy IS madatory if you want to be a Catholic priest. If you've found out that it is optional somewhere, please tell us.


Your failure to challenge corruption and immoral practice in our Church and to totally ignore unpallatable truths about who we are and who we've been, is a dereliction of duty. Does the church still believe the earth is flat? No, but it didnt stop them persecuting the first people who proved it wasnt flat.

Do you think a woman who watches her children being slaughtered cares whether the murderers are labelled communist or fascist? The church has a moral imperative to speak and act against such evil, from where ever it emanates, regardless of political persuasion. It let down its sons and daughters in Latin America badly.

And sure, lets talk about the hardships of the Apostolic calling. Christ was murdered, Peter was murdered... can you see anyone killing Ratzinger? If he was truly promoting the Gospel, he would be one of the most subversive and threatening people on the planet. As it is, no ones going to bat an eyelid at someone who extols Gregorian chant, likes his guys wearing black and who blames atheists for global warming.

Dont you think its about time you took your Catholicism seriously? "God bless Pope Benedict" is hardly engaging in the Gospel, is it?

A Church is a group of believers. Believers in what? Does the Church exist irrespective of the belief? Do people simply decide, well we're the Church today and what we believe is this and don't matter what the Church always believed, like members of the Man Utd supporters club deciding they'll start supporting Liverpool and change the club.

I'm glad the second part of the sentence on mandatory celibacy is finally appearing - "if you want to be a priest". yes, it's mandatory then - but of course being a priest isn't mandatory for anyone. It's been part of the Roman tradition for fifteen centuries. That doesn't mean it can't change - it just means it needs more than a current panic to change it.

When did the Church persecute people for knowing the earth was round?

Time will tell with Latin America and doubtless as politicians will say "mistakes were made" - to be honest I don't know enough about the region to get into it. But you're right - no better to support right wing killers as left wing.

Of course the Pope is subversive - you yourself go on about his approach to Islam, feminism, Aids - that's why you guys dislike him so.

Blaming atheists for global warming - don't be ridiculous - there is no global warming.

God bless our Pope, the great, the good!

MCC

Mmmmm! I wish you had posted your second last sentence before I took the time to respond in detail to you last night. I wouldnt have wasted my time on you. Clearly, not only do you care not a jot for the Church, you're not bothered about the future of humanity either.

Yeh yeh, God bless your Pope......

RJB, maybe mccamleys comments are a good reason to remind you that science-minded, rationalist non-belief is not at all an exclusive club. No oaths to swear, no forms to sign, no money to pay, etc in order to join up. If the comments by some of your wonderful fellow christians ever make you feel disillusioned with what christianity leads to, you're more than welcome to try an alternative. I think you'll find e.g. that among non-believers there tends to be rather greater care about the future not just of humanity, but for the planet as a whole. No crackpot ideas like 'the rapture will happen soon, so preserving the world is irrelevant', far, FAR greater acceptance of scientific findings, overlapping with a rejection of creationism is often and interest in and care for the biological diversity on our planet, etc.
I think it was Graham, commenting on the period where the WWers had driven him off the blog for a while, who said that a good argument against christianity is christians. A rare occasion on which I agreed with him. If by any chance mccamley makes you think among those lines too.............

Peter
Thanks for that. Just to let you know where I'm coming from, I've the utmost respect for atheists, Christian atheists, other faiths, the science community and people in general who care for their neighbour.

I'm just having a wee smile though about me 'crossing over' as it were. Can you see the headlines, "Pope welcomes Anglicans as Atheists welcome RC priest!" Lol.

I have dealt with the McCamleys of this world for over twenty years now. In my last parish they set themselves against me in every single thing I tried to do, always armed with a copy of Canon Law to justify what was really attrociously anti-Christian behaviour. They destroyed the 'community of believers' that MCC mentions above.

What was a vibrant Christian community was brought to its knees by these people and I eventually gave up, after ten years of constant hounding, gossip (they're great at that) and every dirty trick in the book being used to discredit me. They used to jokingly refer to themselves as 'the gang' and would invite a select few to join their ranks on weekends away. God, how the rest of us loved those weekends when there were no 'tut-tuts', loud clearing of throats and nudges in the pews at Mass.

They were poison. I pass the church often on Sundays visiting friends. The car park is empty and the church is now a furniture exhibition with only them there. So much life, hope and community utterly smothered by these people. And they sit there still trying to justify what they have done because they could always claim, "we are proper Catholics, we are obedient to the rules."

Probably the most important point I made in the post which was removed (the longest post I've ever made on here) was to refute MCC's picture of Ratzinger being some sort of Holy Mary Poppins inviting everyone to the party for lashings of ginger beer and crisps. Its untrue. Only certain people are invited to the banquet. And we all know who they are.

However, I suppose none of that is of any interest to you.

I'll continue to read your posts and Helios and Grahams and Brians and JW's and even good ol' Marcus etc.. because in your debates there is tremendous challenge to the believers on here to define their beliefs and to open their minds to new possibilities. Only the insecure feel threatened by them.

Incidentally I once stood up on a Sunday and said that I no longer believed in God. I opened up as to why I felt that and said that I wasnt afraid to allow myself those feelings. After Mass, loads of people said that they had experienced the same. They actually ministered to me that weekend. The other crowd in the parish complained to the Bishop and phoned the Press.

Peter and RJB- where's the science and rationality in rejecting the obvious truth that condoms don't prevent Aids at population level in panemic situations - that's simply scientific, statistical fact. As for global warming - I put that in for the laugh, but there is no rational discussion on it - it's become pure dogma for some people
RJB - you always have to make it personal, don't you? "The McCamleys of this world"? A priest who didn't believe in God - yes you must have been a real inspiration. and I guess you've spent the last 20yrs trying to get the church to transform in your image. It will never happen, never, ever because Christ has promised us that the gates of hell will not prevail.

LOL MCC

A priest who didnt believe in God.

How did I guess you'd pick on that. Most people there that day asked, "What does he mean?" They THOUGHT about it, questioned themselves, looked at so called 'certainties.' They engaged in the process of faith seeking understanding. Maybe for some, real faith started that day because they risked taking that step into the darkness.

Your lot, yes YOUR lot, MCC, were blind, too full of self righteousness to perceive. So they reported me.

Ever heard of 'Lord, I believe, help my unbelief'?

Ever heard of St Thomas?

Ever heard of Elijah?

Ever heard of the dark night of the soul?

Some of the most 'convinced' Christian people in history faced the dread of nothingness and refused to fill that void with little statues, years off purgatory and religious formulae.

"You've spent the last twenty years trying to get the church to transform in your image." - Thats why I can safely count you as among 'them,' Its exactly the nonsense they flung at me. So predictable.

Here are some others you can employ in future posts,
"Huh, he's building his own Kingdom." And the ever so original, "He has a Messiah complex."

Actually, none of them were true. The truth was, I was actually asking too much of them, I was asking them to let go of their fear.

mccamley, post 19,

Why is your first paragraph addressed to me too? Did I ever mention the effectiveness of condoms in Aids prevention in Africa?

Oh, and the rational discussion of global warming is, as usual for science, in peer-reviewed scientific journals. That you undoubtedly haven't read.

RJB - if you'd said you had doubts, if you said you had questions that would be one thing - declaring from a pulpit that you don't believe in God is an entirely different matter. The dark night of the soul is about losing the comfort of our belief, advancing into the dark with only our faith - that's what happened to St John, St Therese, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. If that's what was happening to you that's great - but turning that into a simple "I don't believe in God" is far from the dark night.

I don't want to go into your personal issues. Church people can be cruel and stupid and misunderstand what others try to do and I sympathise if that happened to you. BUT - there are lines and boundaries. You can't simply abandon the faith and morals of 2000 years and then blame everyone else for not going along with your programme.

Peter - it was just shorthand - you mentioned science and RJB mentioned Aids and I put the two together.

I don't think the consensus on global warming is a consensual as it used to be. I'm not anti-scientific on the topic, just think lots of people are treating it as a dogma and should show a little more caution based on the science. It seems to be fair enough to say that there are scientists who don't believe the planet is now warming - you only have to read the news to know that. and there are plenty of scientists who don't think the link between warming and human activity is clearly established.

Maccamley,

"I don't think the consensus on global warming is a consensual as it used to be. I'm not anti-scientific on the topic, just think lots of people are treating it as a dogma and should show a little more caution based on the science. It seems to be fair enough to say that there are scientists who don't believe the planet is now warming - you only have to read the news to know that. and there are plenty of scientists who don't think the link between warming and human activity is clearly established."

For someone lecturing on how people should be more scientific about things, you're giving a bad example. You point to the news in support of your statement that there are scientists who don't think the planet is warming. Well guess what, the voice of the scientific community isn't what you hear on the news, nor do you read it on websites. The voice of the scientific community is heard primarily through scientific journals. And there, last time I did any reading on it, there was near-universal consensus.

Could you list a good number of scientific papers voicing skepticism about global warming? My suspicion is that you can't.

MCC

Setting aside your views on global warming, for a second, I feel your last post is the first time I've heard the real you surfacing. I'd genuinely like to debate with you on the issues raised and on our different views. I'll lose the vitriol, if you'll lose the triumphalism.

I take part and post comments on here on issues such as politics, scripture, sexuality, ethics, morality, but by far and away the subject I am most passionate about (with the possible exception of clergy sexual abuse) is the Catholic Church and what has been happening to it in recent decades. You might have noticed.

MCC I've seen your church. I've been there and it is dying. You can tinker with the numbers, welcome a Tridentinest here, a right wing Anglican there. Ultimately, its doomed. Why do you think Vatican II came about in the first place. The Pius epoch needed to be replaced. To return to it as we are now doing is a disaster.

In my own diocese there are very few priests left. Good men, great men, had enough and walked. Guys who came out of the Vatican II seminaries and did so much good work to bring the church to an increasingly secularist society, to make the gospel relevant, have walked away as their Church returns to the dark ages.

They are being replaced - in nowhere near the numbers - by Opus Dei priests and right wing clergy. In my diocese, and I know its not the only one, the people are simply walking away. They are no longer ignorant serfs, they are educated, professional people who are simply not going to suffer arrogant bullies dressed in cassocks and birettas lecturing them on what they can and cant do in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

They have taken their scriptures, their deep spirituality and their concern for the poor, and walked away.

They then have to contend with those who remain, saying things like "the secularists are petrified" or "the liberals are terrified", as you did above, and watch them gleefully dance as if they think they have won some sort of famous victory over evil. They're dancing on the Titanic.

No one on the left of the Church is petrified or terrified, MCC. What they are is profoundly saddened and utterly disillusioned. They grew up in a church which was branching out and discovering the treasures of the scriptures, possibly for the first time, coupled with the Church's Sacramentality, what incredible depth. A Church which began to speak to them in THEIR language. A Church which had learned to engage young people. Their was incredible hope and huge possibilities for the future.

That vision lies in tatters, MCC. The Church has quite callously made orphans of its own children. I dont see any reason for your rejoicing or your optimism at all.

Peter Klaver

I wondered what you meant when you asked if I had saved post # 10, before it was so cruelly and heartlessly dispatched into the ether lol!
I've searched the web page from head to foot and could not find any 'save' button.

But a penny has just dropped!! You write your posts on Word, then copy to the thread. DOH! I get it after over a year on here.

If you're doing a long post always best to do it in word or notepad, not just because of complainers - sometimes the system just loses it.

I really don't care that much about global warming. But I disagree with the notion that science is what's in peer reviewed journals. Surely science has a more objective rational base than that - "so we're all agreed, the earth is flat". I'm not arguing against the value of the journals in general and their role - but you'd have to agree there is a bit of dogmatism on this issue that goes beyond normal scientific consensus.

RJB - I would love our posts to have more charity within them. I'm tempted to say well you started it with your first comment, but I won't.

Here's the problem - what you see as the cure I see as the cause. The terms conservative and liberal of course aren't the best but we have to use them for ease of discussion. The Church has always had many deeply unpleasant people in it, often in positions of authority, lacking in charity and basic kindness. But it really irks me when people think all conservatives are like that and all liberals aren't. My experience of the Church in the 1980s and 90s was of liberal priests with exactly the same human characteristics as their conservative predecessors only with much less certainty as to how to avoid annoying them. A liberal priest who judges you for genuflecting is as hateful as a conservative one who judges for not genuflecting. the difference it is much harder to know the issues the liberal will want to take issue with.

But look - I was at Mass at lunchtime and the weather is absolutely beautiful, God's in heaven and if we ask Him he'll look after us all.

Hello mccamley,

"But I disagree with the notion that science is what's in peer reviewed journals. Surely science has a more objective rational base than that - "so we're all agreed, the earth is flat"."

On an issue on which everyone is agreed, it doesn't matter who you ask. On a matter of controversy like global warming, the voice of the scientific community is primarily scientific journals.

"I'm not arguing against the value of the journals in general and their role - but you'd have to agree there is a bit of dogmatism on this issue that goes beyond normal scientific consensus."

There may be those arguing for global warming who are not very well informed about it, they may be dogmatists on the issue. But those holding up signs and shouting through megaphones or speaking on the news on behalf of some special interest group aren't the ones whose opinions on the issue I consider the most relevant. Again, for that read scientific literature. Do you have any indications that there is dogmatism among climate scientists who publish that?

It is all a bit prophetic and religious - "the voice of the scientific community". Look I'm not a total sceptic on this but when you read news articles like this https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm you'd have to say the consensus isn't what it was. Are we allowed links - can't remember. Obviously scientists, not ordinary punters, read the science journals - but then politicians and some scientists start pontificating. they don't want to have any doubts on the issue at all cos that's not good for the message.

MCC

"I'm tempted to say you started it" but I wont.
Lol! You just did.

There are of course umpleasant people on both sides (I certainly didnt cover myself in glory in some of my remarks to you.) And I realise that the terminology used here is inadequate. Right or left, liberal or traditional will have to do.

Mass is central here, important to us and it would serve as a good discussion point since it encompasses much of what we were arguing about above.

Mass attendance has been on the decline in my country for decades. The stats are there. Numbers of priests/seminarians/nuns all plummeting. The right wing have declared universally that it was all down to Vat II. This is not true. Society had changed, people had changed, people were in general far more educated, far more critically aware. Once the fear factor (the burning fire) had been seen through, people were no longer frightened to miss Mass. I would argue that if it wasnt for Vatican II, the slump would have been much more than it actually was, and here's why:

Firstly, the introduction of Childrens Liturgy. Up to that point, the noise of children in our churches - as you know - was frowned upon. Very little provision was made for them.

My era changed all that. I watched these kids growing up in the Church, starting with their liturgy, moving onto being given an investment in the Church, helping out with various parts of the Mass etc, doing some simple work to support a local charity, then becoming adults, helping out with the RCIA, doing young adult weekends, involving themselves in parish renewal etc...

Can you imagine all of that happening again....... but this time with the full and active support of the right wing (for want of a better term)

They moaned and complained from day one. They showed by their actions that they were AGAINST the community of believers. They wrote to priests about the noise, went above their heads and wrote to Bishops. They accused leaders in parishes of turning their churches into circuses. (Cafes if the church held coffee mornings.) They undermined this whole thrust in the Church, completely blind to the tremendous good it was doing for others.

We put on 'quiet' Masses for them, they still complained.

These people should have been the rock behind us, we wanted their wisdom, we desperately wanted their support. They not only deserted us, they set themselves against us.

It was the same story in all the parishes around me.

The parishes where the priest actively promoted Vat II, flourished. The more traditional parishes, especially outwith the city, emptied.

Purely from an interest point of view, I predict that numbers will continue to plummet these next few years and this time, the right wing wont have Vat II to use in their 'guilt transference.'

Mccamley,

It seems we agree in part, on the bit about how the debate outside the realm of science (and a BBC news article certainly doesn't count as scientific literature, btw) can have little to do with evidence. But as I said, people with banners and megaphones or company pr people in white lab coats (preferably one with a grey beard, to make him look like a real lab rat nerd!) aren't the ones to listen to, as far as I'm concerned.

So let me narrow the question. Do you think that within the scientific community there is a significant portion of people who doubt global warming? Do you think there is dogmatism there? Do you think that the near-universal agreement in climate science literature is due to repressing of counter-voices?

If the answer to any of the questions above is yes, could you please elaborate.

I cannot give a definitive answer to those questions. Partly because if I say anything on the topic your response tends to be was that in a peer reviewed journal?

I think the problem is probably that climate science is hardly a science at all yet - it's a lot of guess work - more like economics than physics.

RJB - how do you explain the fact that the more traditional religious orders are growing and prospering while the trendier liberal ones are dying. Shouldn't it be the other way round?

By the way , I never blame Vatican II. It was an ecumenical council of the Church and thus inspired by the Holy Spirit. the same cannnot be said for a lot of the rubbish that happened afterwards. The worst mistake was placing the altar between the priest and the people and having them face in opposite directions instead of coming to God together.

Hello mccamley,

"I cannot give a definitive answer to those questions. Partly because if I say anything on the topic your response tends to be was that in a peer reviewed journal?

I think the problem is probably that climate science is hardly a science at all yet - it's a lot of guess work - more like economics than physics."

Hmmm, so not basing conclusions on scientific literature then, and subsequently deciding it's not a science. Never mind.

Reverting to the original topic of this thread I thought I would note my undiluted pleasure at the thought of the hegira of at least one section of the unholy alliance which has blocked progress in the Anglican communion.

Is there any chance Paisley would take in the Evangelicals?

Hello maccamley,

By coincidence, when I was doing a bit of general science news reading, I stumbled across a page that comments on the BBC article you linked to:

https://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/10/talk-of-global-cooling-based-on-bogus-statistics.ars

Their assessment of goes in a rather different direction than your 'you'd have to say the consensus isn't what it was.'

Hi PK

long time no speak - hope life treating you well in bonnie Scotland.

ref the global warming stories you are discussing with MCC, you appear to be talking apples and oranges.

The BBC piece highlights the fact that global temperatures have been static for past decade - which had not been predicted by any models - and the reactions from various positions in the debate.

The piece you linked to appears to be saying that there is no evidence for global cooling, but that would appear to be a straw man argument in comparison, because nowhere did the BBC piece suggest that anyone was arguing this. ie the BBC piece was saying there had been static -not cooling temps- for the past decade.

As for the authority of peer reviewed journals in this matter, they have to be respected, it is the way science as we know works, and science is very important to us all. (that does not mean they are infallible of course).

However, were I would take issue is where someone - not you - might suggest that nobody can hold a valid opinion or ask a valid question unless they have a grasp of all the peer reviewed journal entries on the matter.

If the public are paying taxes for this issue then it is up to the scientists to engage with them properly via the media and Government etc etc; if the public ask simple questions and some people feel the answers are not very convincing I would suggest that is to the credit of the free-thinking public and not a demerit.

Incidentally, both articles appear to miss a very big constituency in this debate - those who acknowledge that climate change is happening but are not yet convinced that man is the *primary* driver behing such change.

Are there any peer reviewed journals which take a scholarly look at the potential hi-jacking of such public interest issues for interests as diverse as political influence, lobbying power/prestige, research funding, etc etc?

I am not front loading this discussion to conclude they are behind the whole thing, but I am saying that I dont think all the peer reviewed journals on climate change per se can tell the whole story of "climate change" in recent history. How much money and influence stand to be won by those who come out on top in this issue?

My reason being that this issue has taken on several forms in the past few decades with no rational ouvert explanation or apology.

In the 1970s the warning was global cooling and the new ice age we were causing; in the 1990s we were warned we were causing global warming; but now that temps have evened out and it is seasonal variations we are seeing the new moniker is the temp neutral "climate change".

Without drawing any conclusions, I think the taxpayers are at least due a proper explanation for the moving goalposts.

sincerely

OT

MMC

"How do you explain the fact that more traditional religious orders are growing and prospering while the trendier ones are dying?"

Dont know if you know this, MCC, but in the last century the time when the Seminaries were at their most full, packed to the gunnels, was the period during the World Wars. By sheer coincidence, you were exempt from being signed up for the front line if you were in a seminary. Huge numbers poured into 'traditional religious orders.'

Kinda makes you wonder what the seminaries were filled with though.

And what do you mean by traditional/trendy orders? The Jesuits? The Little Sisters of the Poor?

If by traditional you mean the Society of Pius Xth etc.. Yip, those seminaries are packed. Both of them.

You dont blame Vat II because it was the Council, inspired by the Holy Spirit BUT its big mistake was putting the altar between the priest and the people..... instead of coming to God together.

Comments like that really tickle me, MCC. I dont know why the Church spent millions putting hundreds of guys like me through six or seven years study, when they could have saved themselves a fortune by just sending us round to you for half an hour.

One of the points of making the change was to give a more communal aspect to our worship, to emphasise the community of believers (to actually DO it not just theologize about it.) In any case, cant you remember those pulpit bullies, those priests who named people publicly for failing to give a set amount to the collection, those men who ruled by fear? Not exactly 'together' with their parishioners were they? It had to change. MCC.

Christology moved from the triangular model with Christ at the top and everyone else in hierarchical order underneath, to the circular model (community) with Christ at the centre.

Our understanding of the Incarnation developed and screeds were written on Transcendence and Immanence. No longer did we view a distant God who intermittently stooped down from the lofty heights above in reward for our piety. We now took the Incarnation seriously, God among us, dwelling in us. Such an understanding of God necessarily calls for a response though, a response which is more than pious liturgy.

We had Christ safely locked away in his tabernacle to be revered and prayed AT. The Church asked us to courageously step out of that model and see the connection between the way we celebrate our liturgy and the way we treat our neighbour. (This had incredible consequences. Look at how Catholics treated pregnant teenagers, single mothers etc up to that point - with its industrial schools etc.. The traditional church saw no problem there, no evil, in fact, it was traditional orders who were running the damned places. It was the so called 'trendier' orders who began to show us that this is not the way we treat our children.)

There was a new understanding of the scriptures underpinning the change in understanding who we were, sacramentaly, amongst other things. Jesus exemplifying David who ate the sacred bread because his men were hungry, the tearing of the Temple veil (which seperated the Divine and the human) at the exact moment of Jesus' death. i.e. The divide between God and his people has been broken.

Better to lock him away in a tabernacle behind some veils again where he wont interfere too much.

In Africa in the village I stayed in, the village was circular, the houses were circular, we sat in a circle when we ate, we sat in a circle round the fire when we chatted. We went to church in an oblong!
Africa had something to tell us about the community of baptized, MCC.

Theology, sociology, spirituality, the scriptures, etc.. etc.. went in to the steps which were taken. You make it sound like someone just woke up one morning and said, "Fancy a change, anyone?!!"

I dont know whether people on here will understand anything of our discussion given that its about the RC Church in particular, so for their benefit can I just say that your last post was very poor.

RJB

"I dont know whether people on here will understand anything of our discussion given that its about the RC Church in particular"

I have to say that I've been following this conversation between you an MCC and have found it to be most interesting. Not only has it been informative to me having little understanding of the nuances of Roman Catholic theology, but it is also somewhat familiar (if you don't mind me saying, I'm sure you won't!)

RJB, in some ways I'm not as theologically liberal as I suppose you to be (I can only base that assumption on what you have written of course), but much of what you say rings true. As for your post 36, I found myself agreeing again and again!

"Community, with Christ at the centre.
Transcendence and Immanence.
God among us, dwelling in us. Such an understanding of God necessarily calls for a response though, a response which is more than pious liturgy.
(to) see the connection between the way we celebrate our liturgy and the way we treat our neighbour.
The divide between God and his people has been broken.
We went to church in an oblong!" (I still do!)

These, if I might use the following words, and run the risk of confusing others on here, describe, as well as I could, the 'longing of my heart' with regard to church.

I'm not sure if I've helped or hindered you here, me being a Protestant an' all, but I understand those words fully.

And, if I might say this too, I've had cause in recent days (and I'm a pretty conservative Presbyterian) to defend our current moderator against those who accused him of heresy, and called the RC Church worse, for suggesting that he would be happy to attend a Roman Catholic service even when he didn't agree with the theological understanding of Mass. We've got some on our 'side' who seem to emphasise doctrine more than the behaviour that doctrine should lead us to, and unfortunately that also seems to be the case in Catholicism too. But I'm learning ever so slowly that ticking doctrinal boxes, however accurate, doesn't change my heart.

Peter

Your comments dont hinder me at all. Our vision of Church is very similar (as I've noticed from many of your comments in the past.)

What I loved about the parishes I was fortunate enough to serve was that the liturgy and the lives of the people were intertwined. The liturgy reflected what was going on.

We brought 'out there' in here and carried 'in here' with us when we went back out there again. Not in a false way. A bereaved family could count on men and women to do the food etc.. after the funeral AND read or serve at Mass. Baptisms were during the main Mass on a Sunday, the community welcoming the new child, not tucked away quietly on a Sunday afternoon. We came together as a community to recognise our sinfulness and brokenness, the singularly most powerful liturgies of the year. There was also the idea that as a community we do wrong. (Really important in a society where bigotry and sectarianism is still prevalent.) Tragedies brought everyone together in grief, but Christ at our centre. I could go on.

In short, it was RELEVANT.

Having tasted that, to watch parishes being led back the way to a world of individual piety, truncated and distant liturgy, rampant clericalism etc.. is disheartening, to say the least.

Tragically, that is the path down which our Church is heading at the moment.

I think you hit the nail on the head about ticking off dogmatic principles (and I'd add to that church laws as well.)

If Jesus did exist, if the gospels are his teachings, if he was killed and rose from the dead, if he inaugurated his Kingdom and if Heaven is the fullness of that Kingdom, mere adherence to set dogmas and laws is a very poor (if not cowardly) response to such an amazing invitation (to be children of that Kingdom.)

PeterK - as I said before, I'm not a convinced sceptic on climate change and I'm not in a position to argue the issues - but I am in a position to read the news and I can spot a lack of consensus when I see it - what about the scientists mentioned in this link - are they all junk? https://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6

On a slightly different note - how come everyone here feels perfectly intitled to have an opinion on theological issues - no one saying you only count if your views have been published in peer reviewed journals.

RJB - Nice the way you patronize me and everyone else. They're too uninformed to understand the depth of your wise words about the Catholic Church but the summary is "your last post was very poor".

By traditional I was thinking of some of the contemplative orders for women and, say for example, the Dominicans for men - the only main religious order in Ireland with any real growth. Female orders that abandoned their habits and convents are in terminal decline - Loreto, Mercy, Presentation. I wasn't thinking of schismatic groups at all - they are doing well, relatively speaking. As for the orders who get mentioned in the Ryan Report - they are of course the modern one's I'm talking about - Mercy and Christian Brothers. The classic orders - Carmelites, Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians - will probably survive as they've stuck, to greater or lesser extents, to their classic rules (and habits).

As for your point about the Wars - there has never been conscription in Ireland - so hardly a major factor here - and in most European countries you were only exempt if you were already in orders. Many a seminarian had to join up.

>>>>"I dont know why the Church spent millions putting hundreds of guys like me through six or seven years study, when they could have saved themselves a fortune by just sending us round to you for half an hour."

That's most kind of you to say; I knew my seven years as a seminarian wouldn't go to waste.

Still can't see how having the priest separated from the people by the altar increases community, nor what the change has to do with pulpit bullies, which, in any event, is a much over stated and over remembered phenomenon. When you mentioned changes in Christology, did you mean eccelesiology? This business with Christ at top of pyramid as opposed to centre of a circle. I can remember my RE teacher giving the same line and I pointed out to him then that it's all to do with your view. When you look at a hierarchy from above, Christ is at the centre of a circle. But centre or top - not much difference really. Christ is always top for me, and of course his vicar is the Pope. I don't feel any less of a person for that, I don't feel not part of the community of believers.

Why do you always try to position dogma in opposition to community or reality, or the people? If Christ is truly present in the Eucharist (round by the way) then that must be of central importance to us. You seem to think that by accepting that one automatically starts persecuting unwed mothers. There's no connection. When we worship God we love each other - we see each other as the brother or sister for whom Christ died. When we focus on God, we get community too. When we focus on community, we often get neither.

 
RJB - based on what I read you are not as liberal as me but again I agree wholeheartedly with everything you say! 

We Anglo-Catholics (the liberal ones, that is, who have no intention of taking up Ratzinger's offer) have utterly failed to learn the liturgical lessons of Vatican II. One might say that, at that council, the Roman Church applied the insights of Brecht to the drama of the Eucharist while Catholic Anglican laity still remain as less than involved spectators at our own celebrations. 

For me a sacrament is a form of iconokinesis: a sanctified holding up of a likeness of an aspect of the Divine in words, in music, and in dance. It is powerful because it brings God into the midst of us. It is, as you rightly argue, when we distance God that we impede his influence. 

My church has yet to accommodate this understanding in its devotions and its failure to do so has undoubtedly impacted on the extent to which the concerns of Christ are clearly proclaimed as the concerns of Anglo-Catholics. We have been too busy playing with our new toys to realise that they are not toys at all.

The most memorable communion in which I have ever participated took place at a retreat in Glendalough. We sat in a circle, the celebrant blessed a small loaf of bread, broke off a piece and gave it to the person beside him, he then passed on the loaf for that person to minister in turn to his neighbour, eventually receiving the bread which he ate himself when the circle was complete. The same procedure was followed with the cup, each person bringing it to the lips of his neighbour. As we gave Christ to one another so we received Christ from one another - I have never before or since felt Him so powerfully present.
        

MCC

Your claim to have undergone 7 years seminary training makes your post about placing the altar between the priest and the people even worse than poor!

The position you take would actually be methodically dismantled by… the Dominicans. What marks them out is not traditional liturgy, but their preaching on the gospel, their lives of poverty and their decision to live amongst the poor. Their openness to dialogue with other religions (especially Islam at this time), their openness to learn from others and their dedication to Vat II.

Go to any Dominican or Jesuit (I noticed they were missing from your list) church and you will find informed, powerful preaching usually coupled with very modern liturgy. They are not busy because they are traditional, they are busy because they are rooted in the Christ of the Gospels and they minister to the poor.

As for your comments about enclosed orders, you must be the only person on the planet who argues that they are doing well numerically. In my country the three main Abbeys, Pluscarden, Fort Augustus and Nunraw, have either closed or are about to. Average age of the remaining monks – late sixties.

In the female orders, the average age is even higher with institutions amalgamating and closing all the time.

The reason I mentioned Catholicism and other posters on this blog was not to be arrogant or patronising but was to make it clear that I’m aware that most people on here are not in fact RC and, as Peter stated, might be unaware of “the nuances of Roman Catholic Theology. When you post things like “God Bless Pope Benedict!” and “God Bless the Pope, the Great, the Good!” YOU appear to be arrogant.

The Christian Brothers opened their first school in Waterford in 1802 and their Mother house is in Rome. In what way are they ‘trendy’? Sorry, but you are not getting away with giving them a free transfer from your traditional orders.

Earlier this year a friend of mine was asked to go for a bar lunch with a newly ordained priest who had completed his studies in Rome. The 26 year old priest appeared wearing biretta and black cassock. When they got to the pub and the priest made for the entrance, my friend pleaded, you are not going to go in there dressed like that are you? He was told, “Someone has to stand up for the faith!”

Very few people take him seriously and even fewer attend his Masses. This man is into dogma, Church history, Canon Law and clericalism. He is not exactly gospel greedy and devoid of any awareness of social justice.

So much for his six years training as well!

MCC, I don’t accept your argument about unmarried mothers or pregnant teenagers and the way they have been treated either. The traditional church was no friend of theirs. Just look back at the history of your own country and how they were treated. A perfect example of how monstrous Christianity can become when we have Church minus Gospel.

Ultimately, the popularity of any order, any nuns, priests or Christian Community will be determined by how much love they show – not on what they wear or how traditional/orthodox they are.

When I see a man dressed in Franciscan robes, it tells me something. It tells me that this man probably lives a life of poverty, that he’s dedicated to the gospel, that he has a deep spirituality – if he is being true to St Francis.

When I see a young diocesan priest dressed in cassock and biretta…. A very different statement is being made altogether.

Finally, one last point regarding the ‘externals’ to which you seem to accord such importance, look at what many of the Orders wear. If you look back, you’ll find that what they wear is coincidentally very similar to what the poor wore at the period when that Order was formed.

Many Orders chose to wear the clothes of the poor as a way of identifying with the poor, thus subjecting themselves to the treatment meted out to the poor. It was not a badge of honour!! In fact, St Francis dispensed with clothing altogether at one point. (I wonder what the traditionalists at that time thought about that?)

Our Church (any Christian Church) will flourish and grow to overflowing when we emulate Jesus Christ’s love for the poor. What colour of pants we have on has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Mccamley,

I followed the link you posted about climate change skeptical scientists. It's so hopeless that you could almost call it the Answers in Genesis equivalent of climate change.

They have a list of hundreds of scientists who dissent. Just like AiG have hundreds of PhDs who will tell you the world in just over 6000 years old. That doesn't mean the scientific community is divided over the age of the earth. Similarly a list of names of scientists dissenting over global warming doesn't show division within the scientific community about climate change.

And as with creationists, we get argument by quote. A good example of that is the Nobel laureate they quote as saying

"I am a skeptic ... Global warming has become a new religion"

It's worth noting that he didn't say that in any paper, but as part of a panel discussion. In which he displayed his lack of knowledge of atmospheric science rather clearly. He said

"I am a skeptic ... Global warming has become a new religion ... I am Norwegian, should I really worry about a little bit of warming? I am unfortunately becoming an old man. We have heard many similar warnings about the acid rain 30 years ago and the ozone hole 10 years ago or deforestation but the humanity is still around. The ozone hole width has peaked in 1993 ."

Oh dear. The hole in the ozone layer started shrinking again after CFCs were banned. It was precisely the curbing of emissions (which he opposes in case of combating global warming), that worked so well.

And that website also doesn't gain much credibility from trying a bit of character assassination on Al Gore. Not exactly how science is narmally conducted.

So no, no credible opposition there.

Peter;

I'm fairly ambivalent about climate change. I know very little about the science. From what I know, almost all scientists agree that the climate is changing because of human effects.

But;

"Similarly a list of names of scientists dissenting over global warming doesn't show division within the scientific community about climate change."

seems to be to be totally contradictory. It's almost as if you're saying "just because some scientists don't agree doesn't mean there is disagreement" - which is quite obviously contradictory.

What do you mean. Are you suggesting that the scientists who don't agree are not part of the scientific community? If not, why not? Because they don't agree?

Does "the scientific community" mean nothing more than "those scientists who agree with each other", and those scientists who don't are no longer part of the community?

I'd just like to know what you're getting at. Again, I know little about it, but it seems demonstrable fact that SOME scientists disagree. If you think they're wrong to disagree then no doubt you cans ay why they're wrong.

But you can't say they're wrong JUST BECAUSE they disagree. That's the wrong way round.

Hello Bernard,

Sorry, poor English on my part, it's not my first language. What I meant was 'the community of climate scientists'. Sure, there are scientists who disagree. Like the physics Nobel laureate. He's part of the very top of the scientific community of his field. Which isn't climate science, but solid state physics. So just because he and some other scientists are willing to place their name on a list doesn't mean there is division in the scientific community that works on climate change.

I realize that the way I phrased it in post 43 leaves room for reading it in a way that would make very little sense.

Ah, ok, so your point is that no scientist that works on climate science disagrees?

Again, I'm not being pedantic, but I find it hard to believe that NO scientist working in that field disagrees. I haven't followed the debate, and haven't read the list of scientists, but surely SOME scientist working on climate science disagrees.

In which case we again come back to which scientists you hold to be credible, and why.

Just to make sure, I've done a quick google -

"Hendrik Tennekes, retired Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute" - surely he has worked in the field of climate science?

"Ian Clark, hydrogeologist, professor, Department of Earth Sciences"

Surely hydrogeology and earth sciences involve climate science?

"William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus and head of The Tropical Meteorology Project, Department of Atmospheric Science" - surely that involves some climate science?

"George Kukla, retired Professor of Climatology at Columbia University and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory" - You can't tell me climatology is not "climate science"!

Let me just make clear, it's not that I agree with these scientists. It's just that when I hear the constant assertions that "there's no debate in science" it smecks of an attempt to stifle debate rather than a statement of facts. Then it becomes "no debate in the field of climate science", but surely all those people - and google threw up loads more - work in climate science.

The fact that there is debate doesn't mean that global warming is a myth. From what little I know I'd say it's fairly clear. But you can't say there is no debate when there quite clearly is. And not just among the laymen, but in the field of climate science.

Hello Bernard,

"Ah, ok, so your point is that no scientist that works on climate science disagrees?"

That is not the case, but it is true to say that there are no peer-reviewed dissenting scientific papers. At least, that was the status by the end of 2004, when a review of the peer-reviewed scientific literature on climate change was published. That review was discussed in an editorial in journal Science:

https://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

I quote from that piece:

"The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."

Have the people you list published papers counter-findings since the end of 2004? Or, thinking more in terms of conspiracy, were their earlier papers excluded from the literature review of those 928 papers? What is their rejection based on? If they have published scientific work refuting man-made climate change then the info underlying my position is out of date and incomplete. I might have to change my position then. But if they just said 'Oh, it's all a hoax' to some reporter of some newspaper, without backing up their statements with data, then that list you give is just argument from authority.


Ok, now I am really going to try to get some work done.:)

Ah, ok. So you are saying that there is no published dissent. That's not the same as saying that there is no dissent.

And is it true?

A quick google has brought up a big giant list of articles disputing the causes of climate change;

Solar variability and the earth’s climate: introduction and
overview” George Reid Space Science Reviews 94 (2000) p.1-
11
b. “Low cloud properties influenced by cosmic rays” N D Marsh & H Svensmark Physical Review Letters 85 (2000) p. 5004-
5007
c. “Global temperature forced by solar irradiation and greenhouse
gases?” Wibjorn Karlen Ambio, Vol. 30 (2001)p. 349-350
d. “The sun’s role in climate variations” D Rind Science Vol. 296
(2002) p. 673-677
e. “Solar influence on the spatial structure of the NAO during the
winter 1900-1999” Kunihiko Kodera Geophysical Research
Letters, Vol. 30 (2003) 1175 doi:10.1029/2002GL016584
f. “Can slow variations in solar luminosity provide missing link
between the sun and the climate?” Peter Fokul EOS, Vol. 84,
No. 22 (2003)p.205&208
g. “Celestial driver of phanerozoic climate?” N Shaviv & J Veizer
Geological Society of America 13 (2003) p.4-10
h. “Variable solar irradiance as a plausible agent for multidecadal
variations in the Arctic-wide surface air temperature record for
Madhav Khandekar Page 9 2/6/2007
the past 130 years” Willie W-H Soon Geophysical Research
Letters Vol. 32 (2005) L16712
i. “solar forcing of the polar atmosphere” P A Mayewski et al
Annals of Glaciology Vol. 41 (2005) p. 147-154
j. “The influence of the 11-yr solar cycle on the interannualcentennial
climate variability” Hengyi Weng J of Atmosphere
and solar-terrestrial physics Vol. 67 (2005) p. 793-805
k. “Living with a variable sun” Judith Lean Physics Today (2005)
Vol 58, No. 6 p. 32-37 American Inst. Of Physics USA
l. “Phenomenological solar contribution to the 1900-2000 global
surface warming” N Scafetta & B J West Geophysical Research
Letters Vol. 33 (2006) L05708
m. “Phenomenological solar signature in 400 years of
reconstructed northern hemisphere temperature record” N
Scafetta & B J West Geophysical Research Letters Vol. 33
(2006) L17718
n. “Empirical evidence for a nonlinear effect of galactic cosmic
rays on clouds” R G Harrison & D B Stephenson Proceedings
of the Royal Society A (UK): 10.1098/rspa.2005.1628 (2006)

Surely that's all published scientific work refuting man-made climate change. And that's only a wee tiny bit of it.

I have absolutely no idea if any of that work is credible or absolute bunkum, but it at least shows that there's a debate, yes? And that was just from a quick google.

The reason I harp on about it is not because I'm a secret global warming sceptic, but I just think it's sinister when an argument against a particular point of view is "There is no debate; therefore you are wrong".

There clearly is a debate. I'm entirely unqualified to say which is right or wrong, but there is clearly a debate, and I find it strange that so many people should be so concerned to deny the debate. If a certain conclusion is so firm there should be no problem with acknowledging the debate and refuting it.

Hello Bernard,

You are determined to ruin my career by making me post all day, aren't you?:)

Hold off on your triumphalism just a bit. I can google too. You have posted a list of papers from a climate change skeptics site, www.friendsofscience.org. I downloaded the same pdf as you, you copy-pasted section 2 on the influence of solar variability. In the time since your last post you could not have read them. I will take time to look at a couple of them (not today though). And based on my experience with the young earth creationist anti-science crowd, my prediction is that those papers will turn out not to support climate change skepticism at all. When debating YECs on another forum they sometimes pointed me to work with lots of references to high-quality peer-reviewed journals, supposedly supporting their position. But when I then looked up a few of the references, I found out that those papers didn't support the YECs statements at all. More often than not, part of those references went straight against the YEC position.

Shall we place a bet? Let's wager £100 for every paper in your list. If it turns out not to support climate change skepticism, you owe me £100, if it does I owe you £100. It's all recent stuff, the authors would still be alive, so if we can't agree on a paper, we can contact the authors if they meant their paper to support climate change skepticism or not.

This would show that either you know little about science (there is an informal rule in science not to cite papers if you haven't read them yourself, that's not a bad rule outside science too btw) and are easily duped like most people, or that I have far too much trust in claims of scientific consensus, meaning that I am rather dumb in that respect. As expressed in the previous paragraph, my money is on the former.

Place your bets please.

Hahaha, you get ahead of yourself. I know next to nothing about climate science. I never claimed that I did. I was merely querying your "certainty" that there is no debate.

You obviously aren't certain. Neither am I. It seems that people are debating whether there is a debate or not - that debate certainly exists.

You could be right that those papers don't support what it is claimed that they support - but some people are claiming that they do.

That constitutes debate, as far as I am aware.

I don't need to know about the science to recognise when people disagree. I have a little background in biology, but pretty much no knowledge of climatology - but I can see when different people claim that data show different things

Another quick google turns up author's synopses of some of the works;

Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 5004 - 5007 (2000)
Low Cloud Properties Influenced by Cosmic Rays

Nigel D. Marsh and Henrik Svensmark
Danish Space Research Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark

Received 18 May 2000; revised 15 August 2000

The influence of solar variability on climate is currently uncertain. Recent observations have indicated a possible mechanism via the influence of solar modulated cosmic rays on global cloud cover. Surprisingly the influence of solar variability is strongest in low clouds (≤3 km), which points to a microphysical mechanism involving aerosol formation that is enhanced by ionization due to cosmic rays. If confirmed it suggests that the average state of the heliosphere is important for climate on Earth.

Obviously this doesn't prove nothing, but it at least shows that there's a debate about the full variables affecting climate.


Global Temperature Forced by Solar Irradiation and Greenhouse Gases?
Wibjörn Karlén, Professor1


Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University


Figure 1. Global temperature as well as both solar irradiation and the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases have increased since the mid-1800s. While irradiation and global temperature show distinct changes in gradient in the beginning of the 1900s, around 1950 and the 1970, CO2, the main greenhouse gas, only shows a gradient increasing with time

Those are just the first two, but I think they're sufficient to show that there's a debate.

Oh dear Bernard, those were two really bad posts. And I think you're smart enough to know that. Let me deal with 50 first.

"I was merely querying your "certainty" that there is no debate. You obviously aren't certain."

I presented my data why I think there is no debate in the climate science community. Among 928 peer-reviewed papers there were no dissenters. You tried to refute it, very badly sofar, see further below.

"It seems that people are debating whether there is a debate or not - that debate certainly exists."

That is an irrelevant diversion of whether there is still debate in the climate science community about climate change being real. Don't change the subject from whether there is debate within the climate science community to whether there is debate about debate outside the climate science community.

"You could be right that those papers don't support what it is claimed that they support - but some people are claiming that they do."

And those people you come up with are people running a climate change denialist website. The issue we were discussing was whether there is division in the climate science community. So your remark is not very relevant for that. Do you keep changing subject for other reasons than just not having anything good on the subject itself?

"That constitutes debate, as far as I am aware."

Let me repeat: it does not constitute debate within the climate science community. That was what we were discussing (third time I need to remind you in one post now). You keep repeating these irrelevant diversions to shore up a position you can't provide some substance for (provisional on my hunch about that list of references proving correct, working on it).

"I don't need to know about the science to recognise when people disagree. I have a little background in biology, but pretty much no knowledge of climatology - but I can see when different people claim that data show different things"

Yawn. Another irrelevant repeat that you see debate, when for the fourth time in a row you're not providing any indication that there is debate within the climate science community.


And post 51 appears to bunk too. Lifting a 4 sentence abstract and a single figure caption to support your case, for FSMs sake. That sort of sentence lifting makes me wonder if you've joined the YECs or something. I relish the prospect of refuting that post. But before I post my reply, I will first read the actual Phys Rev Letter paper, to know what it is about. So that I don't run the risk of looking foolish like you, for throwing about a reference of a paper when I have no clue what is in that paper.

Tell me Bernard, such crap posts aren't characteristic of you. Having a bad day? Anything you want to share with the readers here to relieve your mind?

Can I just ask what it is that no-one disagrees over?

That there hasn't been an average increase in the Earth's temperature? That CO2 is the main cause? That man-made CO2 is the main cause? That the increase will have catastrophic effects? Or that we're generally better off without it? That the cost of reducing CO2 emissions would outweigh the benefits?

In other words - what are you two arguing about here?

GV

"Tell me Bernard, such crap posts aren't characteristic of you. Having a bad day? "

hahaha, I'd imagine you think they're crap posts because you have higher expectations for them! :)


As I've said before, I no nothing about the subject. My only issue is with the repeated assertion that there is no debate. you then clarified that to say that there was no debate in peer-reviewed research, but I think I found some fairly quickly. Of course I didn't read the entire papers, I've other things to do, and it's far from my main interest.

So what I did was take extracts. I was probably naive to take a list of reviews from some website, as, as you say, those reviews may not have said those things at all. So I found the author's synopses from the journal.

If the issue is whether there is certainty about the cause of global warming, an author's abstract that says "The influence of solar variability on climate is currently uncertain" is fairly clear.

I would be very surprised if, having written that synopsis of his work, the author came to the conclusion in the work that, actually, it is certain. Why would an author contradict his own synopsis?

Either way I'm really not that fussed. I'm uneasy with the silencing of debate by claiming "there is no debate". you clarified that to say "no debate in peer-reviewed articles". Maybe that is true. From a brief look, it seems that it's not as clearly true as you make out, but still, maybe you're right. Maybe the author of that first article did go on, in the body of the article, to contradict his own synopsis. This is not my field of research, and I'm not going to spend any substantial amount of time on it.

But, even if there is no debate in scientific journals, even if that is the case, is it right to silence a wider debate by saying "scientists aren't debating it".

If, as we have agreed, there is obviously a wider debate, isn't it an argument from authority to answer that with "no scientist agrees with you"?

If there is a wider debate, shouldn't we have it, instead of just saying that scientists are not having the debate, therefore it is silly for anyone to have it?

Hello Graham,

The topic of discussion is very broad, whether global warming is real. Not if it is man-made, whether CO2 is the main cause, or how extensive it is or what the likely costs will be. Just if there is any. If it were on a narrower subject than there might be areas where there is still debate among the climate science community. But to my knowledge (I've presented some foundation for my position) the question of whether there is global warming is no longer in doubt in the climate science community.

And I do think Bernard has (uncharacteristically for him) lowered himself to YEC tactics in his desperate attempts to defend a position that from the start lacked any solid basis, and thereby any credibility. See my next post in this thread that will appear here soon.

Ok then Bernard, I've read the Phys. Rev. Letter paper you were quote-lifting sentences from. There is no great debate in it, no controversy on which the authors take a position, no assertion that certain schools of thought within the climate science community or wrong on whether there is global warming. Nada. That completes the process of showing that your position in this discussion started of badly (thinking that a bunch of names of dissenting people with PhDs and professors titles shows division in the climate science community), got worse as it went along (listing peer-reviewed papers supposedly showing support for your position, when you didn't have a clue what was in them and the source for that list was so obviously biased on the subject) and that you have now lowered yourself to the climate change equivalent of YECs. I'm sure OT will welcome you alongside him with open arms.

Let me elaborate on a bit further about your post 54. After you concede not knowing the subject, not having read the papers you claim in support of your position, and having been warned that they are likely not what they are claimed to be by the denialists, you still go on to claim that they support your position. Highlighting the single sentence you did was of course an act of desperation in this discussion. It was stretching it way beyond breaking point to claim that the line

"The influence of solar variability on climate is currently uncertain"

shows there is debate in the climate science community about whether global warming is real. And reading the paper fully confirmed this. But like YECs, you had by that time already given up on anything factual, you just just didn't want to admit your position was based on gullible ignorance right from the start. Let's just repeat your reasoning:

"If the issue is whether there is certainty about the cause of global warming, an author's abstract that says "The influence of solar variability on climate is currently uncertain" is fairly clear."

Foolish, foolish Bernard. Like a true YEC, not having the slightest interest in what the paper says (reading it would be bad in that sense, you'd actually learn something, i.e. that your interpretation of that single line was rubbish). By the time you wrote that you had already been warned you were heading for embarrassment. But no, don't let that stop you from embracing an unfounded, already lost position even more firmly. I think OT will love you now (in a strictly platonic way of course).

"I would be very surprised if, having written that synopsis of his work, the author came to the conclusion in the work that, actually, it is certain. Why would an author contradict his own synopsis?"

They didn't contradict themselves in their paper. They never stated all what you read into that single line. It's not them being inconsistent, it's you being desperate to cling onto anything, read anything in a way that helps you, regardless of whether it actually says what you make it out to say. And in this case, it very clearly didn't.


And then at the end of your post we have a loud call for having a debate based on NOT accepting empirical evidence, even when that empirical evidence is available.

"If there is a wider debate, shouldn't we have it, instead of just saying that scientists are not having the debate, therefore it is silly for anyone to have it?"

Yeah, go on, why don't you go have lots of debates about things scientists agree on. Discuss (and teach, of course) the non-existent controversy! I'm sure OT will love to discuss with you how those damned elitists academic chemists (lefty, godless liberals all of them!!) expect you all to believe the periodic table of the elements. They want to forbid you from discussing earth, water, wind and fire, those intolerant science fundamentalists. Well, I say none of it. Exercise your FSM-given democratic right to discuss these issues! Who do those arrogant scientists think they are, expecting you to accept something just because they have verifyably and reproducibly shown it to be so.

As I thought, a man having an argument with himself.

Here's where you go wrong.

"It was stretching it way beyond breaking point to claim that the line

"The influence of solar variability on climate is currently uncertain"

shows there is debate in the climate science community about whether global warming is real."

Now hold on - "whether global warming is real"! Weren't we talking about what causes it? I've never heard anybody suggest that global warming isn't real, I was arguing that there is debate about its CAUSES. .

I mean, you even then go on to repeat my reasoning, which says quite clearly

"If the issue is whether there is certainty about the cause of global warming, an author's abstract that says "The influence of solar variability on climate is currently uncertain" is fairly clear."

Do you see the bit there that says "the cause of global warming. Doesn't that contradict the bit above where you think I'm claiming that it doesn't exist? Doesn't that demonstrate that my position is that there is debate about the CAUSE of global warming? Isn't that what that says above? Do you need to read it again?

""I would be very surprised if, having written that synopsis of his work, the author came to the conclusion in the work that, actually, it is certain. Why would an author contradict his own synopsis?"

They didn't contradict themselves in their paper. They never stated all what you read into that single line."

By which you mean "all that YOU thought I had read into that line", whereas in fact I had read nothing of the sort. Of course that paper doesn't suggest that global warming isn't real. It suggests that it's CAUSES are uncertain. Which, funny enough, is exactly what the paper says.

I must say Peter, this last post of yours is quite idiotic, and I really don't say that lightly.

First you mistakenly claim that I think there is a debate about whether global warming is REAL, then you actually QUOTE me saying that the debate is about its CAUSES, not whether it exists. So you have literally quoted something that completely contradicts what you are trying to claim.

The rest of your post was so full of righteous indignation that, knowing how false and sily the first premises were, I actually found it difficult to read.

Perhaps you'd like to read back over those posts. If you're claiming that I think the debate is about whether global warming is REAL, why don't you quote me saying that, instead of quoting me saying that the debate is about its CAUSES!

Really Peter. After all of your guff on the other post about the limits to your civility, which was itself a prelude to a load of self-righteous unthinking drivel in this post, I have actually lost quite a bit of respect for you. I'm not loking forward to your reply on the other thread quite so much, if this is the standard I should expect.

Sorry if that all sems harsh by the way, but really...poor, poor post, Peter.

On reflection, i've been overly harsh Peter. i think we may be talking at cross wires here. You may have been arguing with someone else about whether global warming is real, I've heard the over-used line that "there is no debate" and steamed in to argue that there does seem to be a debate about the causes...I can see how you may have thought I was claiming there was a debate about whether it exists. Still, you did quote me saying that the debate was about the causes, that should have been a clue.

And I'm afraid the overwhelming hubris in your post angered me a bit. I am not a climatologist. I have no real interest in climatology. But it is apparent to anyone that there is debate. In attepting to show that, I did, unscientifically, "quote mine" as they say. But I wasn't promoting a scientific hypothesis. i was only arguing that there does seem to be debate, among both scientists and lay people. Lifting a quote seems a fair enough way to do that, given that its DEBATE I'm trying to sow, and not the truth of some scientific theory.

Anyway, long and short of it, I take back a lot of the previous post. I think it was a misunderstanding on both our parts. Still, knck that hubris on the head though, eh?

Bernard, your posts in this thread have been the worst I can remember from you. And with your latest 2 posts you have added disingenuousness to your repetoire. That's right, I'm adding a lack of integrity to my criticisms against you. I think you're being dishonest in how you try to spin your way out of it! Not saying that lightly btw, but it seems fully justified to me. And thanks for the insult to my intelligence that I would buy posts 57 and 58 btw.

I will elaborate in more detail later as to why I'm saying this. In the meantime, why don't you read your bible a bit. If I may recommend a passage, read the 10 commandments. You should keep number 9 in mind more clearly when posting from now on.

Peter;

I really hope this isn't another instance of "you're really really wrong, but I can't tell you why until later. That seems to be becoming quite common.

There was nothing disingenous or dishonest about my last two posts. It seems fairly clear that we're arguing about different things, even though you have quoted me stating my position. That there is debate about the CAUSES of global warming. If you'd like to go back you can read that again, it's just up there.

You even seem to agree, as, in post 55 in reply to Graham you say there may be more narrow areas of debate about global warming, just not whether it exists.

Well, as my posts clearly show, I've never argued that there is a debate about whether global warming is real. It is dishonest of you to try to claim that I have, even thogh you then go on to quote me arguing that the debate is about its CAUSES.

Having read the thread from the begnning again however, I do see that you may have been arguing that with somebody else and there may have been a misunderstanding.
If you're still claiming that I think global warming isn't reall, however, you're being completely dishonest. I am claiming no such thing - merely that there is a debate about its causes. Again, sorry if you have been having a different argument with someone else and I've steamed in on the wrong foot - but I have been quite clear.

Still, I'll await your detailed elaboration of why yu think I'm dishonest. I hope it arrives. When it does, remember that I'm not claiming ANY position about global warming or what causes it - just that there is a debate about its causes.

Its causes are uncertain, put it like that.

Bernard,

As you noted, the debate you entered was about whether climate change is real, not what its causes are. You didn't state you were on about causes of climate change until your latest few posts when you tried to wriggle yourself out of a lost position. In one of your earlier posts in the exchanges, post 48, you posted a list from a denialist website, a club of people who try to deny completely there is any climate change. Their home page auto-generates quotes that start like (they disappear after a few seconds, couldn't type out the full passage in time)

"The Kyoto Protocol is a political solution to a non-existent problem."
Dr. Timoty Ball

You posted from a list of theirs not about what causes are, but a list that supposedly shows that there is no consensus on whether climate change is real (in contradiction to the survey commented on by Naomi Oreskes), citing various areas of alleged uncertainty. You entered a debate on whether climate change is real, never stated you were on about anything else until a few days ago, and posted material from a list claiming that climate change isn't real, not material about debate about what causes are. It was about whether climate change is real, and your copy-paste contribution consisted of data that wasn't about causes.

So naturally when you zoom in on one particular paper on that list and quote mine from it, you err again. Since the denialists don't want there to be any climate change, the papers they cite are not about debate of what the causes are. That would already accept there is climate change, they don't want people to think that. So they don't list papers that accept climate change as a given and debate its causes. Yet even after I had read the paper and informed you that the paper isn't about debating causes of climate change, you continue to assert it is, post 57. That is just plain dishonest.

Go ahead, show me wrong. Where do the authors debate the causes of climate change? The word combination 'climate change' does not appear in the paper. Neither do 'debate', 'division' or 'controversy'.
The main cause of climate change is thought to be CO2. Where do they challenge that? Please quote passages, not single sentences but entire paragraphs please. Lesser but still important contributors are thought to be carbon monoxide and methane (the latter expected to become more important as melting permafrost will release more of it, and molecule for molecule, it's a far more potent green house gas than CO2). Where do they challenge or debate that? Please quote full passages for that. Or passages debating other causes of global warming. Anything where they debate the causes of global warming.

The papers isn't about debate about the causes of global warming. For you to repeat that line after you've already been informed that it isn't so (just to try to shore up your lost position, you just don't want to admit the full defeat you've suffered), is really dishonest.

But then the specific instances noted above are hardly necessary. The overall strory of this thread tell is clearly. The debate on whether climate change is real popped up in this thread dozens of posts ago. Right from the start it was about the whether climate change is real. You posted info in that context, info that had nothing to do with a debate about the causes of climate change. You were one of the principal participants in the debate, making a string of posts about it. Yet when you find yourself in a lost position, you then suddenly say you never knew what the subject of the debate was.

It doesn't take an arch skeptic not to believe you.

Peter;

"You didn't state you were on about causes of climate change until your latest few posts when you tried to wriggle yourself out of a lost position"

That's just not true. In one of my very early posts (go back and read) I said that the debate was about "the full variables of clmate change".

"In one of your earlier posts in the exchanges, post 48, you posted a list from a denialist website, a club of people who try to deny completely there is any climate change."

I had no idea about that. Al I was looking for was some examples of published work debating the causes of climate change - which I found.

"a list that supposedly shows that there is no consensus on whether climate change is real"

I had no idea that's what it was INTENDED to show. As far as I was aware, the papers showed only that there is debate about the causes. which they did. Which I said quite clearly. So the motivation of whoever compiled the list is irrelevant - I quite clearly wasn't claiming that any of those papers claimed that clmate change wasn't real - in fact you qouted me being quite clear that the issues was the debate on its causes.

"You entered a debate on whether climate change is real, never stated you were on about anything else until a few days ago,"

Actually, imade that clear on the day I joined the argument. Honestly, read back on the posts.

"At 1:58pm on 05 Nov 2009, you wrote:
Ah, ok. So you are saying that there is no published dissent. That's not the same as saying that there is no dissent.

And is it true?

A quick google has brought up a big giant list of articles disputing the CAUSES of climate change;

So, as you can see, I did make it clear that I was talking about the CAUSES of climate change from the very beginning. You just didn't read it. You can read it now, as I've kindly copied it above.


"It was about whether climate change is real, and your copy-paste contribution consisted of data that wasn't about causes."

Yes it was. the first paper I copied from was quite clearly about the extent to which solar variablity effected changes in the climate. if that's ot about causes, I don't know what is.

"Where do the authors debate the causes of climate change?"

When they examine the effect of solar variability on climate. It says that quite clearly in the paper.


"The main cause of climate change is thought to be CO2. Where do they challenge that?"

They don't. but they further ask about the extent to which solar variability also has an effect. which is a discussion or debate about the full causes, not just the main cause.

"Or passages debating other causes of global warming. Anything where they debate the causes of global warming."

The wholepaper is about the effct of solar variability on climate.

"The papers isn't about debate about the causes of global warming."


It's about the effects of solar variability on climate. Which is certainly relevant to the issue.


"The debate on whether climate change is real popped up in this thread dozens of posts ago. You posted info in that context, info that had nothing to do with a debate about the causes of climate change."


Nonsense. Quite clearly, before I posted ANY info, I said that the debate was about the CAUSES of climate change. I've helpfully copied and pasted that above, if you want to read it YET AGAIN.

"You were one of the principal participants in the debate, making a string of posts about it."

Actually, i joined the debate towards the end, just to try and get clarity on what you mean by "there is no debate". I'm still not altogether sure. I wasn't offering ANY position on the causes of climate change, just asking how you're so sure that there is NO DEBATE, and saying that giving that answer to all questions made me a bit uneasy.

THAT IS ALL. Good God, how cautious does one have to be. I don't know anything about the causes of global warming. A very brief brief glance seemed to show that scientific papers discuss the extent of different causes, meaning that there is some discussion about the full effecting factors.

Those papers could well be nonsense, but they do discuss the effect of different things on the climate - meaning there is discussion about to what extent some things effect the climate.

That is really all I was saying.

But while we're here, I'd quite like a reply to the other thread, which you all seem to have given up on.

I don't care about the causes of global warming. they're probably numerous, and some scientific papers definitely seem to discuss the extent of different causes.

As that's all i was ever claiming, that's really all I have to say.

I think I must have imagined the last twenty posts, because, you know, there's no debate about climate change

You know, I thought that I was bothered that some blogger or other might turn the conversations here into a competition. You know -- that was a poor post, this is a better post etc.

But what bothers me more is that a blogger might turn a thread into a competition and declare themselves the referee.

And what bothers me even more is that they might not have a tenth of the insight and knowledge that they think they have. What on earth qualifies them for the ref's position is beyond me.

I don't know about anyone else, but I come on here for a chat. I wasn't aware that this was a debating society. Now if I'm wrong, tell me. Otherwise can we stop grading each others posts?

GV

You're exactly right Graham, sorry I've become involved in that kind of thing.

I too would like to get back to the good discussion and easy ribbing.

To all
When I go onto the "To be straight with you" thread, I only get some of the contributions and there is no box for comments. Has anybody else encountered this problem or am I the only one? If it is a problem with my end, is there a way to rectify the situation? I would be grateful for help.

Bernie

Oddly enough, you didn't spring to mind as a culprit (-:

But I've been sucked in before.
I don't know if it was a net gain or loss. It wears thin after a while, I know that much.

GV

it's ok for me, PTS

Hello Bernard,

Let's see, your contribution in this thread has included

- posting a list of papers in support of your view when you hadn't read a single one of them and hadn't even grasped what the people who compiled the list meant their list to show
- quote mining a few lines from the abstract of one the papers
- asserting that one of the papers supports your view when at the time when you hadn't read it
- trying to divert attention to a different discussion than the one you joined by going on and on about 'How about the debate on the causes of that paper'. Repeatedly. When the paper you bang on about doesn't have any debate on causes.

The first three are by your own admission, the last one you just denied again. So we'll look at that one closer then.

You do your best to blur things when you mix up the mentioning of causes of climate variability (like solar variability) with the question of whether there is a debate among climate scientists. For instance, regarding solar variability being mentioned you say

"Which is certainly relevant to the issue."

Which is true. But it's not the same as there being a debate about the causes of global warming. I ask you to quote the passages that show debate in that paper and you can't. You just assert that the paper constitutes debate without closer specification or quote.

I think you know you went wrong when you complain

"Good God, how cautious does one have to be."

To err is human, no problem in that. But if you've made a mistake, don't keep digging yourself deeper and deeper by denying it. But since you chose to do so, please tell me more about this Great Invisible Debate in the paper that you can't pinpoint for me. Who is debating who exactly? Are the two authors debating each other or are they debating together against others? Who is putting forward the opposite view in the debate? And what does that counterview in the Great Invisible Debate in that paper consist of exactly?

Or just admit that you made a (not very important) mistake but then try everything to wriggle yourself out of that. Endlessly it seems.

That's the sound of me banging my head of the desk in exasperation.

Peter, it really really seems that you're trying to avoid replying to the other thread. ;)

All I said was that there seems to be a debate. I then said, while typing the post, "I'll have a quick google search". I was in no way trying to engage in serious research. It always surprises me when people claim there is no debate because a lot of people seem to think there is debate. A google search was all I needed.

Would it help if I say "maybe there is no debate, but a lot of people seem to think there is"?

A lot of people seem to think that there is. i was even willing to agree with you that there is no real published scientific debate - most scientific articles don't really consist of debate anyway.

People think there's a debate, I'll retract everything else. i actually don't care, I've made clear from the start that I don't know anything about it. I was wondering how there certainly seems to be debate.

But like I say, I don't care. I'm more interested in the other debate we were having. Don't use this as an excuse not to reply there.

Hello Bernard,

You'll be pleased to know that I take your lack of any answers to my questions near the end of post 70 as sufficient reason to wind this one down. It's clear enough.

I am not avoiding the other thread. Did I run away from other lengthy debates before?

In one of your last few posts there you expressed not being sure about a number of things which earlier in that thread seemed to express with great certainty and without much if any reservation. As my response would first involve combing through your posts on that thread with a fine-toothed comb, it will require a good bit of time. More than my drive-by posts that you may see appearing before the weekend, which I do when I seek a few minutes distraction from work. I will take the time for the other one when it bloody well suits me, which should probably be during the weekend.

"Did I run away from other lengthy debates before?"

Perish the thought(-:

You know there is no debate about the existence of God. I can confirm this categorically because there is no debate in the peer reviewed journals of Catholic theology. All Catholic theologians are agreed there is a God and that's that. Any rumours of a debate are just rubbish made up by people who aren't qualified to understand these matters and who think googling God is the same as genuine theological understanding.

Hahaha, a list of books about biology does not constitute philosophical debate in peer-reviewed philosophy journals.

Subjects OUTSIDE the physical sciences have peer review?!!!

Who'd have thunk it!! I'm reeling.