Waters at it again!

[Beebub]

He really is just a bore...

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0217/1224311917525.html

I've written a reply. I'll be curious to see if they print...

[Bik]

Wow, just wow. That's the worst tripe I think I've ever read from the holy trinity of Waters, David Quinn and Brenda O'Brien.
He is either seeking one of those papal knighthoods or is going through some form of mental breakdown.

Even if they don't print your reply Beebub there is enough in the comments to let Waters and the IT know what the readers think of his BS.

[canasta42]

My hope is that Waters is an asset to our cause. Especially when he is unreasonable like in this article - he may help to turn the middle ground against him. The craw-thumpers of my parents' generation who would agree with him are probably a lost cause anyway.

Although, of the people who agree with him, probably few would bother to use a computer to comment, only speculating though. I think he got about 4 or 5 favourable comments - most were against him. It's heartening.
C.

[Dev]

I was literally about to start a thread on this article.

Wow, just wow. That's the worst tripe I think I've ever read from the holy trinity of Waters, David Quinn and Brenda O'Brien.

I know, right. Does anyone else think he actually getting way worse? His articles to me seem to be increasingly more scathing against secularism. I remember his older articles seemed more inclined to be dismissive. He portrayed secularists and atheists from what I remember as misguided.

After some Googling I found one of his articles where he said:
"Delusions of intellectual superiority and unfunny mockery of religion show up the limitations of atheist ideology".

compare this to:

"they must function in some kind of “neutral”, secular fashion, caving in to radical bigoted agendas because they lack the words to argue. " and "laying bare an opportunistic act of neurotic bigotry by militant atheists seeking to impose their myopic beliefs on the rest of us."

Obviously two articles aren't enough to make a real comparison but I'm not making a scientific claim. Waters language to me seems to be getting more and more angry.

My hope is that Waters is an asset to our cause.

Somehow that seems to be happening . . .

[robreynolds2]

He is good for business, he writes this kind of thrash as provocatively as possible to earn readership for his employers. I'd rather just ignore him.

[Dev]

He is good for business, he writes this kind of thrash as provocatively as possible to earn readership for his employers. I'd rather just ignore him.

Healthy public discourse requires challenging statements of significant public merit, in this case an article in a paper of national record. Keeping this discussion in the public realm only serves to aid us. Not saying everyone has to write a letter to the IT but I don't think Waters can run his mouth without expecting some posted and printed frowns and cringes.

[robreynolds2]

He is good for business, he writes this kind of thrash as provocatively as possible to earn readership for his employers. I'd rather just ignore him.

Healthy public discourse requires challenging statements of significant public merit, in this case an article in a paper of national record.

Yes but just last week he wrote that alcohol is the reason that Irish people have not violently revolted like Greece against the State. Everybody is broke but yet is too drunk to protest? What would his Jesus have to say about the destruction of property and harm to people? What about peace (blessed are the peacemakers and such).

He is clearly trying to wind people up. He is not at all interested in debate or healthy public discourse, simply in gaining readership.

[Beebub]

He is good for business, he writes this kind of thrash as provocatively as possible to earn readership for his employers. I'd rather just ignore him.

Healthy public discourse requires challenging statements of significant public merit, in this case an article in a paper of national record.

Yes but just last week he wrote that alcohol is the reason that Irish people have not violently revolted like Greece against the State. Everybody is broke but yet is too drunk to protest? What would his Jesus have to say about the destruction of property and harm to people? What about peace (blessed are the peacemakers and such).

He is clearly trying to wind people up. He is not at all interested in debate or healthy public discourse, simply in gaining readership.

Rob, the really loony bit about that article wasn't the fact that he said the above, it's that he went on to say that the authorities in Ireland know that it's a fact and are deliberately not doing anything about it so that people don't revolt.

I hear that Róisín Shortall, the Minister of State at the Department of Health, will shortly bring the new National Substance Misuse Strategy Report to the Oireachtas health committee, and hopes to draw up a plan in two or three months. I wish her well. I spoke to her recently and detected a high degree of determination, but she will already have gathered that she is on her own. Following this week’s publication of the report of the alcohol policy steering group, several Ministers were sighted running towards the Wicklow hills.

This is really why politicians don’t want to move on the national drink problem.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0210/1224311575721.html

[canasta42]

Patsy McGarry in today's Irish Times.... worth a look I thought:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opi ... 04156.html

".... – the systematic enabling and cover-up by Catholic Church authorities of the rape of Irish children over decades.

Their determination to hide the truth, through lies and mental reservation, rested on what was understood to be required in Rome. Then in May 2001 the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope) contacted every Catholic bishop in the world, including then archbishop of Dublin Desmond Connell and then bishop of Cloyne John Magee.

He directed them to send all clerical child sex abuse allegations “with a semblance of truth” to him. On foot of this and prior Vatican decisions the Murphy commission, which investigated abuse in Dublin, wrote to the congregation in September 2006 seeking co-operation. It got none."



I think it's the most outspoken he's been on the subject... telling it like it is. I'm hoping it's a response to Breda O Brien's recent piece.