The Intelligence Squared Debate: Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry vs. The Catholics (5 of 5)

LMFAO!! hillarious outcome

Um...are you being purposely ironic, I hope? What's with the dogmatic persona, buddy? If you want to avoid the hypocrisy you're going on about, you might want to avoid preachy, rhetorical talk of brothers and battles, amigo. That's for the pulpit and this ain't your pulpit.

Christopher Hitchens is so awesome!

Brothers, all will be done if we have the means, not simply the motivation, to oppose the Christian dogma in public. This debate proved the Catholics liars and fools, but this on its own is not sufficient to achieve victory. We must band together. Then we can influence the world as never before. This cannot be done by means of brute force - such actions would make us hypocritical. Some other way must be found. But the battle is not ours until such achievements have been made.

Mr. Hickman, by all accounts, the Catholic church stopped the advance of man and kept him in the ark for a thousand fucking years. Tut tut all you want, but man's trajectory, prior to the rise of the catholic church, would've put us on the fucking moon by the year 1250 had the catholic church not pushed it's dogma of ignorance and intellectual repression -- under threat of death, mind you -- for hundreds of years.

YOU are the one who has no sense of history, amigo. None whatever.

I disagree. The bishop's speech could not convince the audience for two reasons. His English was jerky and fragmented which meant he lost momentum regularly and many would not be impressed by the dogma in his speech. The woman, Widdecome, was obviously more familiar but her speech was very aggressive, on the point of raving that would impress no-one. So they are not excellent examples if you wish to prove your point.

Wait. Are you saying that a bishop and MP are poor examples of a pro-religious debate team? I mean, those two are professionals at manipulating public opinion. On the atheist side you had a writer and an actor. So it was basically a high ranking clergy and politicians (professional public speakers/debaters) against two entertainers. And the entertainers won.

How is that "biased?"

It is not so long ago that the BBC in Britain was manipulated significantly by the religious. Hitchens and Fry are pros at debating so the Catholics has no chance anyway. Watch how Hitchens and Fry use soft voices, syntax, humour, gestures and repetition to draw in the audience. The Catholic side lacked these skills and that may have played a significant factor in their defeat.

ok. please. enlighten me. where have i talked out my butt? care to actually ANSWER my points? answering things i havent said doesnt count, neither does saying, 'you dont know cos your talking out your butt'....do you want a debate or just a fools natter?

..so exchange 'religion' with 'Catholicism' if you want...and??? hitchens references religion as a whole and puts chatholics in the same boat so why cant i? no im not catholic, but the dear priest was clearly NOT made for the debate hall. i cannot assert as im talking out my butt? isnt that like saying you dont know cos you dont know? maybe youd should be on the panel to even things up...