Richard Dawkins Loses Last Ounce of Credibility
Richard Dawkins recently wrote an article The pope should stand trial. In it, he cites, amongst other things, an article by Christopher Hitchens titled The Great Catholic Cover-Up as proof that the pope, at the very least, has a case to answer for in relation to the sex abuse crisis within the Catholic church. I have already read that article and commented on it in the article I hyperlinked to. It is convenient that he referred to such an error laden article as it readily demonstrates that whatever he claims afterwards should not be taken seriously either, as anyone who would refer to that article as evidence of anything bar Hitchens inability to engage in the most basic critical reasoning and research has demonstrated that they should not be taken seriously.
The rest of the article, even when given the superficial attention it deserves, still produces surprising claims.
Lashing out in desperation, church spokesmen are now blaming everybody but themselves for their current dire plight, which one official spokesman likens to the worst aspects of antisemitism (what are the best ones, I wonder?). Suggested culprits include the media, the Jews, and even Satan.
Is he really suggesting that officials associated with the Vatican literally blamed ‘the Jews?’ If so, where is his evidence?
Why is anyone surprised, much less shocked, when Christopher Hitchens and I call for the prosecution of the pope, if he goes ahead with his proposed visit to Britain?
I’ll tell you my reason why I’m shocked. Put simply, the evidence you cite to support your claim is incredibly weak. You cite several newspaper articles and even quote from a letter but make no attempt to critically analyse or contextualise the material within the articles. Yet you behave as though your conclusions should be blatantly obvious to everyone. And on that weak basis you seek to have a man assaulted through arrest and deprived of his liberty though incarceration. You’re learned enough to know that we’re all capable of extreme self deception yet you seem unwilling to consider the possibility that you’re decieving yourself. And for that you can be fairly condemned.
It should be for a court to decide – a civil court, not a whitewashing ecclesiastical court – whether the case against Ratzinger is as damning as it looks. If he is innocent, let him have the opportunity to demonstrate it in court. If he is guilty, let him face justice. Just like anybody else.
Okay so let’s say that Ratzinger is cleared in a court. I guess he can go home happy that he proved his critics wrong. But it’s more complex than that. Being found not guilty would mean that he was defamed and vilified on an unsound basis, arrested and brought before a court where his own innocence was later demonstrated – after being damned world-wide as a criminal. But would that a fair outcome? Should those who defamed him then be the ones brought before the courts? What of Dawkins and Hitchens? If they are wrong then their most serious claims were the product of either gross ignorance or deliberate misrepresentation. What should be the consequence for them? And what about all those who now feel permitted to indulge in their unrestrained hate-lust directed at the pope? People, like those on an ABC website who are fantasising over the idea of the pope’s public execution?
ABC’s Hungry Beast Program Misrepresents the Catholic Church
I was unsure as to whether I should post a response to a set of claims made in a program called ‘Hungry Beast’ that aired on ABC. Even though hardly anyone watches it I thought I’d respond non-the-less as a tiny fraction of my taxes paid for this crap. The offending piece is “THE BEAST FILE: THE HISTORY CATHOLIC CHURCH SEX SCANDAL.”
There are a number of claims made in it, and the most important all seem to stem from a few books written by either dissident pseudo-Catholics like Tom Doyle, or pathological critics like David Yallop. Doyle’s book in particular is utter trash, written with Patrick Wall, neither of whom have a shred of credibility on these issues and been shown to have seriously misrepresented Catholic matters in the past. And even if they hadn’t, neither has recognised skill in historiography and thus would be unwise to trust on such matters. So I guess we learn that the best way to understand something is to uncritically accept what its critics claim is true of it and not look for disconfirming evidence.
The piece misrepresents the 2001 letter from Ratzinger and of course, the 1962 and 1917 documents known as Crimen sollicitationis, enough that it brought everything else into disrepute. It feels great to know my taxes are going to perpetuate anti-Catholic conspiracy theories that I’ve done as much as I can with my meagre resources to destroy.
Representing Arguments
After completing the Teaching Company series Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning (which I recommend) I learnt to diagram arguments as follows:
However, after purchasing the program Rationale (which I also recommend) I learnt to diagram arguments in this way:
I have combined them in this manner:
As you can see, the evidence forms one premise and the warrant forms another. The evidence and warrant are claims in themselves and can be supported by supplementary arguments.
Obviously these diagrams are not comprehensive, as there are many co-premises in any argument that are unlikely to ever me disputed (such as ’cause precedes effect’, ‘the world is real and intelligible’ etc.)
If both parties to a dispute agree with the basic framework of the argument, though, unnecessary argument can be avoided.
