Dawkins to arrest the Pope

[Lillefix]

As we say in Norway, you shouldn't execute the baker in stead of the blacksmith. This was Christopher Hitchen's idea wasn't it.

 

[holy king]

why the hell do you say that in norway?

 

[Yared]

This wasn't Dawkin's idea. It's apparently a big misunderstanding (there's a link to it somewhere in this thread).

 

[Traitorfish]

The comment was sarcastic.

Ironic, really, and perhaps facetious, but not sarcastic.

 

[Richard Cribb]

why the hell do you say that in norway?

First of all Wessel is known for his many humorous and satiric verse tales (ed. 1784-1785), referring to man’s foolishness and injustice. Most famous is Smeden og Bageren (“The Smith and the Baker”) about the only smith of a village who is pardoned for manslaughter since the village people need one, while a more superfluous baker is executed instead (there are two bakers, the village only needs one) in order to observe the rules that “life pays life”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Herman_Wessel

 

[holy king]

i see.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Ironic, really, and perhaps facetious, but not sarcastic.

Was it not harsh enough to be counted as sarcastic?

 

[warpus]

In Poland we executed all bakers in the early 19th century. Now all we eat is bacon.

 

[holy king]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/oxford/...eligion_and_ethics/newsid_8615000/8615507.stm

Dawkins claims Pope arrest headline is 'barefaced lie'

The Oxford author Richard Dawkins has reacted angrily to what he says were exaggerated claims in the weekend's papers.

The Sunday Times ran with the headline "Richard Dawkins: I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI".

But on his website the writer of the best selling book The God Delusion asserts not to have said "anything so personally grandiloquent".

The paper has since changed the headline on their website.

The writer of the article, Marc Horne, said it was a shame the title distracted from its content.

Dawkins does admit he is "whole-heartedly behind the initiative by Geoffrey Robertson and Mark Stephens to mount a legal challenge to the Pope's proposed visit to Britain."

Spoiler :

'Leering old villain'

The two British lawyers are investigating whether the Vatican's claim to be a sovereign state gives the Pope immunity from liability.

Dawkins is no stranger to controversy and in an article in The Washington Post in March he described the Pope as "a leering old villain in a frock."

Dr Oddie, former editor of The Catholic Herald, said the campaign demonstrated how "wonderfully lunatic" Professor Dawkins was.

The Vatican has ruled out any possibility of a papal resignation over the scandal.

The Pope will be making a four-day visit to Britain in September.

It is the first papal visit since Pope John Paul II's pastoral visit in 1982 and whilst in the country Pope Benedict is expected to beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, the 19th-century Oxford theologian who was a leading light in The Oxford Movement.

 

[Traitorfish]

Was it not harsh enough to be counted as sarcastic?

No, it just wasn't sarcastic. It's a question of nature, not strength.

Not that it really matters much. I am merely a pedant.

 

[Kozmos]

Sounds like a South Park episode.

 

[Traitorfish]

Knowing Stone and Parker, it's quite possible that it will be, before too long.

 

[Lord Gay]

It's not so much "gnosticism" and "a-gnosticism" as "gnostic-ism" and "agnostic-ism"; the two are essentially unrelated.

Link for further reading?

 

[Traitorfish]

Link for further reading?

Wikipedia has a decent overview. Certainly tells you more than I can, at any rate.