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1. The debate about the existence of God is doomed to be nothing more than a source of entertainment if it continues to be only conducted by those that the media groom and regard as simplistic and obvious enough so to attact populaist attention.
   Is anything really more cultivated than ratings, egos and doctrinal adherence?
   So long as both sides of this confected debate are merely the orthodox (on both sides) then more (needfully) nuanced and subtle debates will never occur.
   The self-interest of both sides will not allow it.

   Posted By: Mark Johnson

2. I must have listened to a different debate on ABC radio last night from the one reported in the Sydney Morning Herald!
   While there were certainly differences of opinion as expected, the discussion seldom became heated and I got no sense of any barely concealed mutual disdain.
   Perhaps that was conveyed through facial expressions that I missed!

   Posted By: Elizabeth Harrington, Brisbane

3. I found it interesting, but lacking depth, because the arguments barely scratched the surface of what could have been said if there had been double the time allowed and fewer of the sideshow questions, such as gay marriage and climate change.
   For example, regarding the resurrection of physical bodies, surely the reconstitution of a human body from dust and ash is no more far-fetched than the atheists' contention that mud morphed into living organisms in a pond.
   Atheists lose any credibility with me when they, a priori, deny that miracles can happen.
   I simply have to read of some of the extraordinary healings of Lourdes, or the overwhelming testimony of eyewitnesses of the Sun Miracle of Fatima to know that they are purposely ignorant.

   Posted By: G K

4. Certainly we didn't see or hear the best of either Richard Dawkins or Cardinal Pell in the Q & A of last evening.
   I wonder if they had started with the premise that both men held a piece of the truth and that talking together, listening and responding, we may have received a degree of understanding on human meaning and purpose, the mystery of evil and suffering and the nature of the existence of God.
   Why can't we recognise and honour the quest for truth in those who seek answers to life's big questions? Why can't we befriend the stranger and listen to the position of the other?
   It seems to me that in the realm of religion and the life of the spirit, we as a human community are all trying to deepen our appreciation of mystery. Whether we take a scientific, religious, or spiritual, pathway there is something bigger than our known reality drawing us on.

   Posted By: Patty Andrew

5. I would much rather believe Cardinal Pell rather then Prof Dawkins' comments.

   Posted By: Martin Prest

6. No doubt your life would be much easier if you didn't have to go into bat for our Christian principles - but we would be the poorer for it if you didn't.
   Thank God for your courage, wisdom and leadership. You are a true champion of the catholic faith and an example to us all. Thank God for you!

   Posted By: Jo Lucas

7. I quite enjoyed the debate, and was pleasantly surprised hearing Cardinal Pell's calm responses to the rather irritated statements by Richard Dawkins, who rather surprisingly I felt, seemed a little out of his depth!
   I expected Cardinal Pell to be pompous but he managed to be rather humourous in some of his responses.
   It was inevitable that the gay marriage question would be difficult for him, but, after all, that is his firm belief.
   Perhaps Q & A will be encouraged to venture further into the religious minefield.
   

   Posted By: Mary Maraz

8. I thought Cardinal Pell got the better of the discussion with an old footballer’s technique of giving Mr. Dawkins a personal 'hip and shoulder' rather than talking impersonal abstract principles.
   Dawkins took himself too seriously, and was quite twitchy when the audience laughed at some comments. Pell was obviously well-prepared, and showed himself the better ‘debater’, as I saw it.
   His ‘Page 92' rebuttal was a knockout. Pell was cautious on some traditional Catholic doctrine - e.g. his comments on the soul and on hell and salvation for all.
   Purists watching might have had their note books and pencils poised ready to report a Cardinal to Rome for dubious orthodoxy had it been anyone else.
   Overall, I found the discussion a bit flat and limited. There were many other relevant topics that could have come up, but the existence or non existence of God dominated the hour. Christopher Hitchens, now dead, or Stephen Fry would have made a more entertaining and competent atheist to argue with Pell who I thought was not able to show his own considerable intellectual and political skills to best advantage against a weaker Dawkins.
   At the same time Pell showed he was not all that comfortable when talking 'off the cuff’. He presents better when he is in control with prepared statements that permit no contradiction.
   Nevertheless last night’s Q & A format was an experiment worth repeating.

   Posted By: Brian

9. I do really appreciate Cardinal Pell for standing with God so bravely because there is a God.
   Again, in pointing the religious stories as exmples than science but still affirming the truth they teach.

   Posted By: Dominic Manakil

10. I found Cardinal Pell's performance disappointing, particularly the reference to Darwin's autobiography. Darwin was recounting arguments for and against the existence of God before concluding 'I must be content to remain an agnostic.'
    The Cardinal quoted what Darwin felt was the most convincing pro-God argument, but not Darwin's conclusion. Hardly a knockout blow for truth.
    In the past, Catholics with well-developed public speaking skills, like Chesterton or Frank Ward, or the Jesuit Fr Coplestone (who famously debated Bertrand Russell in 1948) handled appearances of this kind. Last night's debate showed why.

    Posted By: paul mees

11. Many years ago I read a book Belief or non belief, a series of written correspondences between Carlo Martini, the then archbishop of Milano, and Umberto Eco, a former practicing catholic, a scholar in semiotics and committed agnostic.
    They choose to begin their conversations based on 'the name they bear not the robe they wear.'
    In these writings, Eco and Martini show us that it is possible for two men with very different beliefs to have intelligent conversation and respectful disagreement on issues. So how sad to watch Q & A last night and see and hear two men speak with the intent to score rhetorical knockouts.

    Posted By: jo dallimore

12. I agree with some here that it was hardly a heated debate. I found it a waste of time myself.
    For a worthwhile debate on same, and the manner in which it can be explored, see Dawkins, Kenny and Arch. Bp. of Canterbury Rowan Williams from Oxford Uni at: http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/nature-human-beings-and-question-their-ultimate-origin-video.

    Posted By: Christopher McElhinney

13. 1.It was amusing to watch Richard Dawkins fumbling and mumbling around trying to redefine 'nothing' as 'something' in respect to the BB Theory.
    2. Would Darwin still back his theory today taking into account our current knowledge of information/instruction encoded DNA?
    With the complex nature of living cells and the intricate mechanisms/processes that allow these cells to operate?
    The complete lack of the millions of transitional forms in the palaeontological record necessary to substantiate the gradualism required to produce macro-evolutionary change?

    Posted By: deric davidson

14. From their entrenched positions, they didn't engage me.
    Allowing doubt and a mutuality in discussion to me always seems to require greater faith.
    I'm just left disappointed by the dogmatic.
    And once again I see the hopefulness of Vatican II disappearing into the sunset. At least I know God is there.
    

    Posted By: john

15. This episode of Q & A contained one of the most difficult debates of course. I actually feel both men did well considering the difficulties.
    But I do think much was stated that can be taken out of its proper context.

    Posted By: Renato Bonasera

16. The debate was not anything new; however, I didn't expect it to be.
    I was not expecting to get into the depths of any particular area of discussion, after all it is a short time and it is television.
    I am glad both parties were reasonably calm and respectful of each other.
    I was most disappointed in the question put up by Q & A to vote on. I thought it was too broad and of course when you say has religion made our world a better place, most people immediately think of the negatives, just as we are programmed to do by the media.
    I doubt they thought about religious groups nursing people dying of AIDS in Africa or delivering fresh food to the starving, or nursing the dying and feeding the homeless in Sydney.
    And while non-religious groups do this too, It is the religious who have led the way.

    Posted By: Cate Wallace

17. I watched the debate with two others. None of us found the debate heated. Cardinal Pell was forceful and did not take a backwards step.
    Prof Dawkins seemed surprised to find a believer had such substance, and Cardinal Pell is certainly a man of substance.
    He did not lose his cool and was well prepared. Christians and other believers would be justified in considering they had excellent representation in the cardinal.
    I appreciate the stress imposed on the two debaters for an hour or so on national television and am grateful to them both and to the ABC.

    Posted By: R.M.

18. Pity Cardinal Pell's reference to page 92 of Darwin's autobiography was a misrepresentation of what Darwin wrote.
    In fact, Darwin wrote that he considered himself an agnostic and page 92 of his autobiography was devoted to criticism of Theist arguments for creation.

    Posted By: Greg

19. Brian and others of the same ilk: You can only say that Pell's supposed quote of 'page 92' as a knockout if it were true that it backed Pell's assertion that Darwin was a Theist.
    It doesn't.
    Unless of course you stop at the first line of page 93 and don't read any further.
    Darwin continues past that paragraph to explain that over his life he lost his Christian faith and became an Agnostic.
    To quote him directly from page 94 'I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.'
    He even went so far as to say 'nor must we overlook the probability of the constant inculcation in a belief in God on the minds of children producing so strong and perhaps an inherited effect on their brains not yet fully developed'.
    Two things are clear from his Autobiography: (1) the belief vs evolution debate hasn't advanced since the times of Darwin and (2) Darwin was an Agnostic.
    How lucky we are to be able to access Darwin's autobiography at darwin-online.org.uk so we can fact check Card Pell's assertion.
    

    Posted By: Kate Finlay

20. Cardinal Pell quote mined what Darwin said on page 92 .. Darwin was talking about his road to agnosticism, he goes on to explain in the very next line:
    This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I can remember, when I wrote the 'Origin of Species;' and it is since that time that it has very gradually, with many fluctuations, become weaker.'
    He then went on in the next paragraph to say 'The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic'.
    So Darwin was not saying he was a theist, quite the opposite. He was saying this led him to lose his theism and become agnostic.
    I am interested, however, in that which Card Pell ignored from Prof Dawkins, in regard the statements that Adam and Eve was a myth.
    If a myth, the whole concept of original sin disappears, as does the reasoning for Jesus dying for them.

    Posted By: Dave

21. The reaction in my local Bowling Club today was that the debate (?) was a damp squib.
    Prof Dawkins was obviously jet-lagged and not used to Aussie banter.
    The Cardinal was well-briefed but inclined to 'play the man' and not the ball.
    The Q & A format doesn't lend itself to proper debate. It is very dependent on the quality of the questions.
    Last night most of them were amorphous, shallow and self-serving.
    I felt sorry for the Cardinal trying to give a two minute presentation on Aristotelian metaphysics to a man who denied the value of the question 'Why?'

    Posted By: Joe

22. Cardinal Pell's obvious lack of knowledge concerning evolution was embarrassing, especially when trying debating the subject whilst sitting next to one of the top evolutionary biologists on the planet.
    I strongly urge the religious to opt out of taking a public position on any subject matter except your own religion.

    Posted By: Alex McCarthy

23. We had two people remaining true to their cause.
    Richard Dawkins was up against very formidable competition and it was disappointing that he claimed jet lag for his apparent tiredness ... and some irrittability, when he knew what he was here for ... and who his competition was to be.
    I think Cardinal Pell's statement that God loves us all and if we conduct ourselves properly, regardless of religion, we should all be entitled to enter the kingdom of heaven.
    It wasn't simple debate/argument for your average Joe Blow.

    Posted By: peter

24. I am somewhat amazed that many of the posters here who seem to be old-style Catholics did not comment on Card Pell's assertion that atheists could go to heaven and that probably only Hitler was in hell.
    

    Posted By: Pdev

25. Dave, are you using the word myth in the conversational sense (= not true) or are you using it the way Card Pell was, such as a story encasing deep human truths?
    .

    Posted By: Mike Yates

26. The first comment by Mark Johnson was most apt. Why waste time commenting on such a superficial, mismatched debate?

    Posted By: Charles

27. I felt that Cardinal Pell could have been less evasive on some of the difficult issues he was confronted with last night.
    Adam and Eve were not mentioned when discussing creation, and salvation outside the church was managed poorly. Richard Dawkins proved to be quite cantankerous and at times confused as to what he really does believe.
    Bravo to the Cardinal for going into this battlefield.

    Posted By: Monica Mary Brown

28. Richard Dawkins says he seek truth, yet as an empiricist he limits discovery, as the Cardinal pointed out, to the sensate only.
    This is a severe diminution, indeed distortion, of human potential and dignity.

    Posted By: John

29. Imagine if your line of work was trying to get people to reject/deny God.
    What a miserable existence that must be.
    I feel sorry for poor Richard Dawkins.

    Posted By: Tony Dinsmore

30. One extremely important thing Cardinal Pell got dead wrong was his comment about who God loves.
    The church has said from the beginning that God loves everyone and nothing can change His love.
    God does not love us any more when we are wonderfully kind and generous; God does not love us any less when we are little stinkers or genuinely evil.
    Cardinal Pell said God loves everyone except those who turn away from Him. That is not Christian belief.
    I hope enough people knew that and could see that it expressed his need to see the genuinely evil punished to give justice to those whose lives were destroyed. I get that.
    But a Cardinal is seen as someone who knows what Catholic belief is and teaches it (as he did elsewhere).
    Hell as a punishment from God was taught to me as a kid but the 1992 Catechism defined hell as 'definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and others' something we do, not something God does.
    But, I have to admit, the Catechism (unhelpfully, in my opinion) also used punishment twice when talking about hell elsewhere!
    The word punishment is all through the Jewish Scriptures but it really means (a Strathfield lecturer explained) 'the natural consequences of some decision we make' brought on by me).
    A punishing God who loves everyone except the evil is not the Christian Prodigal Father.
    What if evil people believed that? It could only lead to their utter despair.
    Comments?
    

    Posted By: Mike Yates

31. May I commend his Eminence for his defence of all that is beautiful about the Catholic Church?
    It is a position the laity faces, or dodges, every day in a world obsessed by scientific scrutiny. For some, it is an exercise in walking a camel through the eye of a needle.
    The children of the world come to debates armed with the latest in scientific evidence and are well supported by the oracles of the press. Such formidable opposition makes debating a pointless intellectual joust.
    Our Lord showed us by example how He answered, apparently innocuous questions, of the unbelievers of His day.
    Despite the evidence of miracles and the wisdom of His words, people stood at the foot of His cross wagging their tongues saying, “If you are the Son of God come down from the cross and we will believe in you”.
    The choice to believe or not to believe is given as grace at birth. It can remain a spark shrouded under a bushel unless we consciously choose to stoke it to a raging fire and burnish the soul to divine perfection.

    Posted By: Roy

32. Writers of the Bible calculate Adam was born about 4,026 years ago, the first man on earth.
    Scientists calculate homo-sapiens lived on eath 200,00 years ago.
    The paleolithic cave paintings of Lascaux in France were calculated to be painted 17,300 years ago.
    Scientists use pseudo calculations, mythological dates.

    Posted By: PATRICK

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