Here are the edited highlights of the debate
between Cardinal Pell, Richard Dawkins and Tony Jones on Monday night’s
Q&A.
Pell: For some extraordinary
reason God chose the Jews. They weren't intellectually or morally the equal of
the Egyptians or the Persians. The poor little Jewish people, they were
shepherds.
Jones: But being a shepherd isn’t
a reflection on your intellectual capacity?
Pell: It is of your intellectual
development.
Jones: Are you including Jesus,
who was Jewish? Was he not intellectually up to it?
Pell: For some reason God chose a
very difficult (hesitates)… but actually they are now an intellectual elite,
because over the centuries they have been pushed out of every other form of
work. Jesus is the greatest man that ever lived so I’ve got a great admiration
for the Jews but we don't need to exaggerate their contribution.
Question: Explain in layman's
terms how the universe came from nothing?
Dawkins: When you have matter and
antimatter and you put them together, they cancel each other out and give rise
to nothing. If you start with nothing the process can go into reverse.
Jones: Is the “nothing” you're
talking about some creative force?
Dawkins: You can dispute exactly what
is meant by nothing but whatever it is it’s very simple. (Audience laugh) Why
is that funny?
Pell: I think it’s a bit funny
trying to define nothing.
Jones: Do you accept humans
evolved from apes?
Pell: Yeah, from Neanderthals.
Dawkins (outraged): Neanderthals
were our cousins! We’re not descended from them and we’re both descended
from...
Pell: Where will I find a
Neanderthal today if they're my cousins?
Dawkins: They’re extinct.
Pell: That’s my point.
Jones: At what point was a soul
imparted to the humans from God?
Pell: A soul is not like putting
a spot of gin in a tonic. We know the first humans developed in Africa because
of the drawings in caves. No such thing from Neanderthals.
Dawkins: Successive Popes have
tried to suggest that the soul did indeed get added, rather like gin to tonic.
Pell: The soul is the principle
of life. There are animal souls.
Dawkins: Do jellyfish...?
Pell (earnestly): All living
things do. We have a voice box, which is one of the great miracles, so we can
communicate our thoughts rather than just grunting.
Jones: Is it possible for an
atheist to go to heaven?
Pell: Certainly. We will all be
there as continuing persons in a new heaven and a new earth.
Jones: Billions of individual
souls existing in some galactic space?
Pell (shrugging): How it will
work out I've got no idea. It’s also the view of some of the Jews.
Dawkins: What’s going to happen
when we die depends on whether we're buried or cremated. I don't believe you
mean that the wafer turns into the body of Christ?
Pell (indignantly): I don't say
things I don't mean. The son of God says, “This is my body. This is my blood,”
and I’d much prefer take his word than yours.
Dawkins (snidely): So you do not
mean that the wafer turns into the body in any sense in which normal English
language usage would understand?
Pell: I remember when I was in
England we were preparing some young English boys, they were from very...
(Audience laugh) Thank you. Preparing them for the first communion. We
Catholics believe there is a hell. I certainly believe in a place of
purification. It will be like getting up in the morning and throwing the
curtains back.
Jones: Why create a world with so
much suffering?
Pell: My first Easter as a priest
was in Italy. Very sad village. All the men were away in Germany or Switzerland
getting big money, home only for three weeks a year. I said: "Well, look,
Christ suffered too. Christ had a bad run.”
Jones (shifting awkwardly): Can I
take it to a higher level? The Holocaust, genocide, famine? Why does an omnipotent
God let these things happen?
Pell (frowning): Probably no
people in history have been punished the way the Germans were. It’s a terrible
mystery.
Jones (trying to hide his alarm):
There’s a very strong argument saying the Jews of Europe suffered worse than
the Germans.
Pell (nodding): That might be
right. Certainly there was suffering in both.
Question: Cardinal, how can you
be against gay marriage when equality and respect are the foundations of love?
Pell: Christians love everybody.
Jones: Do you believe
homosexuality is part of God's natural order?
Pell: Creation is messy. The
oriental carpet makers always leave a little flaw in their carpet.
Jones: Are you suggesting
homosexuals are flawed?
Dawkins (tetchily): I’m
interested in whether God is actually there.
Pell: So am I.
Some conversations defy satire.
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