Comments by ricklend

1. Richard Dawkins: An Exclusive Profile

Comment #283839 by ricklend on November 13, 2008 at 10:24 pm

I thank God every day for Dawkins, Shermer, Dennet, Hitchens and Harris.

Comment #260632 by ricklend on October 5, 2008 at 7:18 pm

I forgot to mention (see comment 260529) the theater was three quarters full and the audience applauded (clapped) at the end. I thought this was good but rather strange since it was a movie as opposed to a live stage production.

3. Bill Maher's Religulous Opens Today

Comment #260529 by ricklend on October 5, 2008 at 4:30 pm

I saw the movie with my Catholic girlfriend and enjoyed every minute of it. She enjoyed it as well.

4. Pastor Rick's Test

Comment #234370 by ricklend on August 21, 2008 at 9:10 am

Although I think Republicanism is a moral and neurological disorder, I sometimes read right wing columns to find out what the lamebrains (my opponents) are thinking. And for once, Kathleen Parker made sense in Thursday's Palm Beach Post. She claims Rick Warren's Question and Answer forum flied in the face of separation of church and state. It surely did. Almost all questions had no or little relevance to governing the country. They were just about personal beliefs. This type of questioning encourages people to mix church with politics.

5. Host Desecration is Old Anti-Semitic Nonsense

Comment #210090 by ricklend on July 13, 2008 at 11:12 pm

If you eat the cracker (body) without drinking the wine (blood), apparently you are still eating the whole Jesus? Right?

6. Scientists Know Better Than You--Even When They're Wrong

Comment #178193 by ricklend on May 10, 2008 at 7:59 pm

I'll be sure to memorize this in the (unlikely) event I should ever find myself having dinner at one of these fine institutions. ;)

Thanks, again, Layla. I used to read Latin but no longer. At any rate, I like your second answer more and love your sense of humor.

7. Scientists Know Better Than You--Even When They're Wrong

Comment #178187 by ricklend on May 10, 2008 at 7:07 pm

Well, I seem to recall that all those places were originally founded to train clergymen (as with Yale and Princeton) or were founded by ministers (Harvard) or were founded in the Middle Ages when students were technically counted as part of the clergy! In addition, many colleges at Oxford and Cambridge were founded in order to pray for the souls of the benefactors.

In any case, getting rid of "schools of divinity" would require abolishing colleges that have been in existence since the beginning of the school, and you know how difficult that can be in such tradition-conscious institutions!
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Thank you, Layla -- of course you are quite right and I suspected such. I should have more appropriately asked, how come these schools still exist in the "21st century"? I suppose your answer still applies even if I was hoping for a different one.

8. Scientists Know Better Than You--Even When They're Wrong

Comment #178176 by ricklend on May 10, 2008 at 5:27 pm

Would someone please help me out? Don't prestigious
universities like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, and so on have divinity schools or theology departments? What gives there? I can see, as Richard Dawkins proposes, that comparative religion be taught, but don't these schools graduate doctors of divinity? What a joke. How come this happens?