http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F821DBF3CE3374A3

Several fairly long videos make up the Intelligence Squared debate on 'is the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world?'. In it the people representing the Catholic Church, Archbishop Onaiyekan and Ann Widdecombe, got completely trounced by Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens.

Starting opinions of the crowd;

For: 678

Against:1102

Undecided: 346

Ending opinions of the crowd;

For: 268

Against: 1876.

Undecided: 34

I'll have to watch the videos later.

So was the debate specifically just the catholic church? or Christianity in general? Because, lets face it, the Catholic church has a lot of pretty cruddy history to answer for.

It was specifically the Catholic church.

yeah i saw that....cathoclicism was never going to win popularity when they stand aginst several things that we as a modern society view as perfectly acceptable.And especially things like homosexuality and even more the use of condoms to stop aids.However to be fair id like to have seen any major religion win that debate.Perhap buddhism?

Buddhism probably would have (I mean there isn't much to attack with Buddhism), and as this was done in Britain the Church of England most likely would have as well (especially because the Anglicans are far more socially liberal than the Catholics).

Dang, that's a huge swing. I'll have to watch the video.

Interesting.

Knowing how super religious people debate they probably hit all the wrong points.

They probably didn't even try to clear up a lot of myths that people hold about the older catholic church and ignored a lot of the good said church did in preserving knowledge and in general being the only big bankers of science for a pretty long time through history.

Or is this just currently?

Not that I think they'd even win historically... but they have a much better argument historically even with that being when the church was more corrupt.

I'd be surprised if they even hit the charity work they currently do... whatever it is.

doesnt particularly suprise me... as a christian i disagree with the catholic church in general. it shouldnt be seen as the representative of all christianity, in my view at least.

Ah it was today.

Good luck winning that argument.

The only people who can really unbiasedly value the "good" the catholic church provides via spitirual development are those who are Catholics.

And the only people who can really unbiasedly value the "Bad" are non Catholics.

How much charity work do you attribute to the Catholic Church? Anything done by a Catholic or just ones specifically funded by the Church etc.

Pretty Nebulous debate.

There are few points through history where i'd say the catholic church was a force of good... but then again i'm not catholic.

Marking for later view