>75% of threads are people talking past each other, but I think in
>the case of religion ones it's more like 95%. For instance, when I
>say "theism" I'm usually thinking of highly sophisticated bodies of
>doctrine and the ontological argument(s) and Five Ways and so forth,
No, I think we get that.
>whereas I suspect other people think I'm talking about evangelist
>idiocy and the twaddle that is taught in Sunday School.
What "other people" have been trying to point out is that in terms of how this stuff is played out on the ground, the idiocy and twaddle has great sway.
>Or, when I say "God," I mean "the first cause" or "the ground of
>Being," not "guy in the sky with superpowers"
No shit?
A couple of items in today's paper are apropos for this thread:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-sinead-qa25-2010mar25,0,6049077,print.story
Sinead O'Connor: 'There should be a full criminal investigation of the pope'
Years after her controversial 'Saturday Night Live' appearance, the Irish singer is still at odds with the Catholic Church, saying it must come clean about sexual-abuse allegations.
[...]
latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-salvador-romero25-2010mar25,0,314039.story
El Salvador publicly marks Archbishop Romero's killing for first time
President Funes commemorates the 30th anniversary of the assassination. He asks forgiveness on behalf of the state for the slaying and for the 'thousands of innocent victims' of the civil war.
By Alex Renderos
5:29 PM PDT, March 24, 2010
Thirty years after Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated as he celebrated Mass, a divided Salvadoran society still struggles over his legacy and the failure of authorities to punish the killers.
For the first time, the Salvadoran state is publicly commemorating Romero. Through most of this month, marches, concerts and debates have honored the priest whose slaying pushed El Salvador into a bloody civil war that pitted a U.S.-backed right-wing government against Soviet-backed leftist guerrillas. Tens of thousands of people were killed.
[...]