"A comment on the claim by the Pope that faith can contain reason. By definition, faith requires denial of reason" donaldharris would not say this had he educated himself in two thousand years' worth of theological writing, wherein reason is placed at the service of faith. "the call to ?have faith? is a call to ?only believe? or to believe in spite of evidence requiring disbelief" Evidence requiring disbelief?!! Where is that evidence of donaldharris'? Disbelief in what? "The pre-history of the arts and religion is lost in the mists of time, but one is justified in making some assumptions." Perhaps; but if there is no evidence for these assumptions, then they are a matter of... belief, not reason, as defined by donaldharris. "It seems reasonable to assume that religion and the arts have their origin in the natural feelings of awe and wonder inspired by nature, which in turn would give rise to wonderings about how things came to be as they are." That may well be the origin of religion, but why would it be the origin of art? "The uninformed, primitive mind is likely to have settled on the conjecture that an agency, at first to be found in nature itself, had caused, or created the world." An agency? Like the CIA? Why would those so-called primitives of donaldharris have assume their creative agent was in nature itself? Can they too not do like so many well-informed, educated, sophisticated people who like Voltaire believed the creator of nature was outside of nature? "The caves at Altamira and elsewhere seem to offer evidence of ritual "wish fulfilment" pictures of the hunt, in which the prey is studded with arrows. Such must be the origin of the Church Service." So the hunt is the origin of the church service? Not awe, nor fear of death? "The arts and religion remain, to this day, instruments of rule and deception." The arts, instruments of rule and deception? so Rembrandt was a liar and Courbet, a power hungry despot?!!!! "The idea that the world was round was a terrible threat to the power of the Pope, since it relegated the "layer cake" theory of "heaven, earth and hell"," Why? the Pope can just as well claim hell is the molten iron at the center of the earth and heaven on the other side of the clear blue skies. "as is the idea that there was no "beginning" ? hence the reward given to Hawking for propounding the "Big Bang"." Big Bang theory was propounded by father Lemaitre, a jesuit priest from the University of Louvain; and Steven Hawkins does not like it, because he believed the appearance of the universe from nothing requires a special act of creation. "Hence also the determined suppression of the discovery that, when viewed through the latest telescopes, there were fully formed universes found in areas of remote space, so remote that objects found there must have been there before "the" Big Bang. And similarly the evidence, which slipped out in like manner, that there was tremendous activity in the remotest areas of space ? in other words, "big bangs" going off all the time." The church has not tried to suppress evidence uncovered by modern astrophysicists; nor does it have the power to do so. "When first proposed, "the" black hole was supposed to be unique, but since then hundreds have been found, indeed it is now thought that there is one at the centre of every galaxy" Black holes were first predicted by Pierre-Simon de Laplace. He called them "corps obscurs." He never thought there would be only one of them. "There is no such thing as "Spiritual" power" Oh yes there is. It is wielded by anyone who has influence, without physical power or control; so many writers, poets, philosophers, and theologians, as well as politicians such as, say, Pierre Mendes-France, who has had tremendous influence to change things during the IVth and Vth Republics of France but whose political career was a failure, for impotence to take power, when power was his for the taking. "all power is "Temporal". Was it really spiritual power exercised by the Pope when he divided the world between Spain and Portugal? Or when he made or unmade Kings in Europe, or called for the Crusades?" It is because of their spiritual power that the popes were able to gain temporal power, and their temporal control was never as extensive as their spiritual influence. "The only There is no reason in religion; religion is reason's contrary." Benedict's lecture at Ravensburg is only one of thousand proofs this is not the case. "It is the hanging on to irrational, originally conjectural explanations for existence which have been proved by modern science, using EVIDENCE." This is too vague and confused a sentence to warrant commentary. One assumes donaldharris meant to write "disproven." And if by explanations for existence harris means God, no, modern science has not disproven that, nor is science habilitated to settle metaphysical questions. "The scientific and technical developments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in particular the discoveries of Darwin, should have led to the complete relegation of religion" Why is that? Science is merely the study of nature and there is nothing about the study of nature to disprove the proposition that a spiritual entity has created nature. "unfortunately, the dispersion of knowledge, though enormous, was insufficient to overcome the obscurantism of established religion. Even in art, where the Impressionnists and painters such as Degas, Courbet and Lautrec led the way to the ultimate secularisation of art, there has been a regression, starting with the espousal of "primitivism" by such as Picasso and ending with the rejection of sense itself, being the new religion, in th e works of such as the "Turner Prize" winners." Picasso and abstraction presented as regressive: this is a truly novel and even astonishing theory! Artistic conservatives and lingering upholders of academism will love it: as it allows them to present themselves as the true progressives!!!! "If such muck can be accepted as works of art, reason really has been abandoned and the public that accepts it will also accept the arguments of Blair and Campbell for the Iraq war." Picasso held responsible for the Iraq war!!!! Next thing you know, donaldharris will make him responsible for sept 11: Bin Laden got the idea from the Gernica painting!!!!! "THAT is the purpose of magical incantations and frequent repetitions, a la Goebbels, of lies." The nazis were anti-religious (more specifically, anti-judeo-christian), not unlike donaldharris; so what place does Goebbels have in a diatribe against religion? " Bush baptists in the bible-belt now in power" The neo-cons, bible-belt baptists? That's news to me -- and to them as well. The simple-mindedness of these coffee-house anti-clerical sorts is truly astounding, as is their ignorance! They take their propaganda from guttersnipe authors, such as Marat, and see nothing beyond.. And to think they would claim superiority over religion, and therefore over Dante and Milton, Pascal, Bossuet and Chateaubriand!