Stephen Hawking has entered the fray on this subject once again: here.

"But when asked for anything positive done by Christians or Christianity---which I have in fact done--all of a sudden very few Mudcatters have anything to say. And certainly nothing positive"

Perhaps that is because the question is asinine. Good deeds and bad deeds are done by people regardless of their faith or lack thereof; what's the point of listing them?

My local vicar, who I met years ago when we were both working in the new media industry and was a contractor I was liaising with on a project his company was involved with (although unbeknownst to me at the time he was a curate) was a person who I liked from the day I met him and I was completely unaware of his calling. He is a warm, friendly and wonderful man with a deep faith, a gentle turn of phrase and genuine compassion for his parishioners and beyond. In fact, were I to be buried (I don't want to be, preferring instead to become part of the carbonate cycle and join the dance of the tectonic plates for eons after my demise) then I would have this man commit me to the earth. He treats all he meets with equanimity and gives them his full attention, a wonderful chap.

The vicar in a village I lived in a few years ago was, on the other hand, a condescending, stuck-up old scrotum whose ability to peer down his nose at some of his less sophisticated parishioners (unless they were buying him a pint) was breathtaking to observe. He was not a person I liked in the slightest and I don't think he liked me to much, as I didn't want to pay lip service to a person who I considered then a charlatan; as time as passed I think my judgement was harsh, he was simply a miserable, ignorant old sod and they're personality traits (which I share with him).

So it's irrelevant Ron. I'm beginning to wonder if you're actually interested in the discussion or want to pick an argument for some reason. Oh well.


"It's really disingenuous to pull such a stunt."

I'm not sure it's disingenuous, just trite. It's a fine line you have to tread when debating with believers (and vice-versa for believers, I suppose) of any faith as invariably the debaters have little common ground in their world view. John P's question is one of the best posed, but let's face it no-one here is interested in debating the mystical side of the religious or non-religious human experience as I've tried and the posts were all more or less ignored.