The debate on religion v atheism forgets the existence of the humanist movement and belief system. There is not necessarily a vacuum therefore. It is possible to be respectful of human life and spiritual without believing or needing to believe in a god of any kind.

It is also possible to be a secular country whilst predominantly catholic, .ie France however their particular crimes ie blowing up the Rainbow Warrior and illegally packing off Romanian EU residents don't make them particularly good examples.

The argument about fast becoming an atheist country is improbable as I would hazard a guess that most non believers would probably say they were agnostic not atheist. The argument about our fast moving towards euthanasia is however plainly ridiculous.

Finally when we are talking about the humanity of religion and religious institutions let us not forget that how much the Vatican did to prevent or stem the mass slaughter of Jews, gypsies, gay people, communists and anyone else who took the Nazis fancy; Sweet FA. Most wars and strife in the past and modern world take and have taken place under the cloak of one religion or other.

Man has a sense of what is right and wrong not because of years of it being right and wrong, but because we have a conscience. You don't have to teach a child to misbehave. It's not 'religion' that makes you feel guilty if you do something wrong, it's your conscience, which we all have.

Most successful societies in the past have functioned by adhering to the fundamentals of the 10 commandments. God made the laws and gave them to man, both in the gift of a conscience and in the Bible.

That is why evolution is such a nonsense. No other living being has a conscience or sense of guilt. It's unique to humans. We were created differently.

I think this is right, but it does not stop with religion.
There seems to be no institutions left that are not found rotten to the core.

To be fair, they probably always were corrupt - it's just now we are all fully aware of it.

You have got to have a lot of faith to believe in anything today.

The Catholic church used to be even more corrupt than it is now. You only have to read accounts of popery in the 16th Century - it's horrific. Corruption was rife, as exposed by Martin Luther.

Roz
You have again mentioned an item as a fact which is certainly in dispute.
The French Government maintain they have acted legally in returning people who cannot support themselves, in otherwords people who came to France to live on benefit and according to a lot of locals indulge in a lot of crime.
HMG position seems to be that they have not denied France are correct. I heard the Minister on Any Questions last Friday.

..but the French certainly were responsible for the Rainbow Warrior bombing, and not only were they found guilty by the UN, they threatened New Zealand with economic sanctions when New Zealand held the French agents who commited the atrocity in prison.

If these are good catholic values, then this Pope can keep them, and they're certainly not welcome here.

However in answer to the OPs question, no matter what you believe - was this visit worth £10 million of our money (in these or any times)? Id suggest the answer is no.

Yes I will not deny The French Secret Service were responsible for that act. I am not normally a defender of France but think they are being un fairly taken to task on the other matter.
As much as I like The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg they have an absolute cheek in complaining on this matter. It is obscene that the richest member of the EU by GDP gets the most benefit by GDP from the EU.
I am sure they would love the 300,000 plus gypsies in France to move to Luxembourg which would nearly double there population.

I have enjoyed watching coverage of the visit of The Holy Father. Great publicity for Uk as shown internationally. May encourage many tourists.
With regard to the costs this is peanuts compared with public sector pensions and benefit fraud.

What has the Rainbow Warrior bombing got to do with religion? That was a despicable political act, nothing to do with one religion or the other.

Since 1905 France operate under the separation of Church and State. Far from being a Catholic country, it is a secular state with a multitude of faiths most of them established other centuries of immigration (i.e. not recent immigration).

Now the Roma situation has nothing to do with religion. There are legal and illegal Roma camps in France. There was a Roma camp in the town I grew up in and they mostly did not cause problems apart from documented petty thefts. The kids did not attend any of the local schools and they regularly came to the doors to ask for hand outs or to refurbish furniture. They had elected to live in a field near the town council dump and would mostly be "recylcing" whatever was being dumped there. Once again the move against the Roma people currently happening in France is a political action which started after some riotting between the police and Roma youth:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11027288

Ghis

I do appreciate that France's many problems have nothing to do with the Vatican or The Holy Father. These were raised by the anti Papal visit faction.
Surely we have always shown hospitality and friendship to invited visitors to Her Majesties Realms and most people did just this , but not shared by many on these posts.
I am not a catholic or very religious but I thought the visit was worthwhile and he seemed a very well meaning elderly gentleman.

I believe that Roz's criticisms for France were aimed at a secular government not the Catholic church. For me France is an example of secularisation gone too far - there is no reason to ban children from wearing turbans or headscarves to school.

But I don't see why in the Christian state of England I should have to wait until 11am on a Sunday for Sainsburys to open, it is rather inconvenient for those of us (the majority) who choose not to go to church on a Sunday.

I'm also not sure that conscience and guilt are innate rather than being learnt from society. Looking at human babies I think they have as much sense of 'right' and 'wrong' as most animals.

In the 21st century God needs to recognise that the morality of human beings can be greater than that of God. I assume it was God to blame for the floods in Pakistan and the hurricane in Haiti.

What on earth are you talking about? Do you think the Pope is the President of France?!

Completely agree with this:

"For me France is an example of secularisation gone too far - there is no reason to ban children from wearing turbans or headscarves to school"

Not new though, I remember a Geography teacher kicking off in class because a girl was wearing a catholic cross (It was the early 80s and the school teachers of the "école laïque" were quite militant about no religion at school)

The Human Rights charters that we value so much today are a recent product of Western, Christian thinking. Once their foundational Christian thinking has been rejected they become historical relics, of no more use in protecting future generations than the Maginot Line was in protecting the French in 1939. An atheist society would be built on quite different, utilitarian principles, where human life is no longer sacred. It would have its own charters.

D'Souza's analysis of Singer is pretty standard. I can't answer for him on Obama.

WW1? WW2? Stalin's purges? The Cultural Revolution? The Holocaust? Tibet? Etc etc

I would suggest that many of the rights are not purely the result of Christian thinking. They are a result of the collected wisdom of mankind and no one religion has a claim to all of this wisdom. UN Rights of the Child were based on the work of Korczak who was a Polish Jew.

Are the following really Christian?
Article 4: No one shall be held in slavery or servitude
Many Christians fought against slavery (mainly non-Conformists from what I understand), but the Church was also complicit in these crimes for generations. Some of the most ardent anti-abolitionists were good Christian people.

Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Not exactly a principle accepted by the Spanish Inquisition or in dealing with Anabaptists in Munster (just a couple of examples).

Article 20: Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
The Catholic church was banned in England until the 19th Century.

UN Declaration of Human Rights were a product of more than just Christianity, but it is noticable that it does not recognise Sexual preference as a human right. I suspect without the power of the church this form of equality would have been included.

Well, thankfully the above quoted rights surpass by quite a distance those rights 'allowed' to us by the Catholic (and some other) faiths.

It's quite frankly insulting poppycock to suggest that atheists would reject these hard-fought rights if the religious myths aren't upheld.

And your argument is?

Atheists are already starting to reject therm. See the Youtube link above. I don't think you're aware of the implications of utilitarianism.

Very Christian, I would say, unless you think that Christ advocated slavery or torture.

The economic pressures for slavery meant that many self-proclaimed Christians supported it, but it was never compatible with their beliefs. Interestingly, slaves in Catholic colonies were much better treated than in Protestant ones.

Because in 1948 most people were pretty relaxed about homosexuality? Come on. These charters were the product of Western society at that time. That's how most people thought. This is the point I'm making. You're treating these charters as if they are set in stone, but they're era-dependent.

For example, utilitarians support reproductive cloning, animal-human hybrids and GM-humans. These things will cause tremendous misery. Your charters won't stop them. They hadn't been thought of in 1948. The charters will have to be updated, and that will be done according to current thinking. If that thinking is utilitarian, they'll be allowed. If not, they'll be banned. It just depends on the thinking, and the politics, of the day.

Never mind. One can generally trust politicians to make good ethical decisions.

I believe utilitarians eat babies, too.

These posts must have moved further from the original subject than most.

One post said Catholic stations treated slaves better than Protestant.

Not sure if true.
Belgium Congo one of the worst. Catholic
In Americas Brasil had a far bigger death rate than in North America. Portugal a Catholic Country.

Not sure where if indeed anywhere all this gets us but , as I mentioned , glad we gave The Holy Father a good reception as a host should do.

I hope everyone was equally offended when we played host to the Chinese in 2005.

I'm not Catholic but I'm proud to live in a democracy and hope the old fella had a good time, looks like lots of people were happy to see him.

I'm still trying to get over contributing to the Olympics when I'm not remotely sporty!