Friday, March 8, 2013

Atheist Penn Jillette Defends the Church to Catholic Journalist ... and Gets It Right

Now here's something you don't see every day. The Catholic journalist gets it all wrong.

Oh, wait, we do see that far too often.

However, atheist Penn Jillette defends the Pope and Catholicism accurately. And respectfully. Thank you, Mr. Jillette!


This is only 3 minutes long so do watch it.





Via Scott Danielson, my partner in crime at A Good Story is Hard to Find, who blogs at The Pool Room. He found it at First Things Blog.

7 comments:

  1. It was all over FB yesterday. :)

    I was amazed Penn was able to get in as much as he did. Peirs was on a soapbox. Not to be missed is the tale end where Penn essentially tells Peirs that the approach Peirs is taking is sola-scriptura and that's Protestant not Catholic. Wowzers.

    The only other Penn clip I have seen is where he talks about accepting a Bible (he doesn't intend to read) from a born-again Christian (whose God he doesn't believe in) who was polite yet forward in asking about the eternal state of Penn's soul (which he doesn't worry about). Penn said how much he respected the man who was true to his beliefs, unlike many Christians who say one thing but do another, most notably we do not share the gospel though we say we believe souls without God are damned.

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    1. Which just goes to prove that I spend almost no time on Facebook. :-)

      What you say about the other clip is great too. My respect for Penn is just growing all the time. Not that I ever knew much about him, but the contrast between his attitude and that of other very visible atheists is like night and day. :-)

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  2. Good job by Penn. The real surprise for me was that Piers morgan is actually a practicing Catholic.

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  3. Well, ok but the Catholic Church does not think that the pope is "divine".

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    1. Yes, but we won't strain at gnats at this point. :-)

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  4. Be aware that Jillette's concept of papal authority is conveniently one dimensional so he can personally write it off. Don't believe he is objective.

    Catholics should not be rallying behind such a distilled explanation of the magisterium. Unfortunately Catholics are so divided amongst themselves that *anyone* who approximates the Roman Catholic perspective, even partially, becomes a hero.

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    1. I hear you on this. However, compared to Richard Dawkins, I'll take Penn's one dimensional live-and-let-live policy ... heck, compared to "Catholic" Piers Morgan, I'll take Penn.

      So my approval is also qualified. At this moment, based on this situation. :-)

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