I was listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury on the radio a few days ago

[Pendaric]

He was being interviewed on Radio 5.

I have to say, he came across as a nice bloke and I ended up feeling sorry for him. He's obviously not particularly enjoying his job, with the worldwide Anglican squabble about homosexuality going on and him having to try to referee.

That, plus the ordination of women and the Catholic church trying to muscle in on some of his congregation left the impression of a man with several headaches.

He made it clear that he believes in evolution, and doesn't even accept intelligent design. I'm not sure what the official Anglican position is on evolution, but he was clear enough about his personal view.

[DMB]

I think someone already posted this somewhere here, but IMO this is a pretty good shredding of his "nice guy" stance.

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=414

FWIW, hasn't he betrayed what he believes in by going along with the anti-women and anti-gay elements of the Church?

[Pendaric]

I skimmed the letter you linked to rather than reading it, but it just seemed to me like he was doing his best to put one side of the argument, not deliberately being nasty. Difficult to tell without the actual text of his letter.

I got the impression of a bloke who is trying to be a diplomat with as many of the conflicting parties in the church as he can, in the hope of trying to prevent a schism. I think 'going along with' isn't quite accurate - he is the head of the church and as such he has to judge how best to handle situations for the good of the church as an organisation, the same as the managing director of any organisation has to. That will tend to mean he has to temper his own personal views, which I got the idea were fairly liberal, to try and keep people talking. It's hard to mediate between sides if you are seen as being less than neutral.

I'm pretty sure there will be an official schism between the two extremes of the Anglican church eventually. There are too many strongly held positions at cross purposes with each other.

[Renshia]

It is great to see moral evolution and religious values collide. Hopefully these are signs of human social evolution casting off religious dogma, maybe the beginning of the end.

I would have to say the Archbishop must feel he is in a losing battle, people within society just don't die off quickly enough to easily drift to a higher enlightenment with out a lot of kicking and screaming.

[DMB]

It never seems to bother popes if they piss off large numbers of Catholics by laying down the law.

[Ray Moscow]

It never seems to bother popes if they piss off large numbers of Catholics by laying down the law.

Somehow, there always seem to be plenty of Catlicks to finance the operation. I suppose if they get them young, they have most of them for life.

What would it take for, say, American Catholics to stop financing the enterprise? It's hard to imagine anything much worse than what's already common knowledge.

[munnki]

In my view, this so called moderate religiousity is far more pernicious than the so-called radical brand precisely because it pretends to be so 'reasonable'. People think 'oh well, it's not so bad...etc...'. I mean, why do we hate this stuff anyway? I don't dislike religion because a small number of Catholic priests place their dicks in young boys or because a bomber strapping themselves with explosives might be called an 'Islamic' extremist... It is because at its core is a falsehood pretending towards truth - so called moderation merely tries to re-dress the falsehood in more attractive clothing...