Not entirely sure why this is specifically addressed to me, nor why it couldn't have been discussed in the thread. The point I made on the thread was that whoever 'wins' such a debate doesn't show that they are right. As I mentioned in the thread William Lane Craig often 'wins' debates but it shows he is usually the better debater not the strength of his argument.
As to the question, as I have often covered before I don't see religions as external to what humanity is, so the R C church in itself is not a force for good or bad. It's a manifestation of some of the best and the worst in us. That said anything that ends up tending towards certainty, or institutional protection is more a manifestation of the worst of us. The church as an institution because of that is I think problematic, though I would extend that judgement to almost all political parties, and almost all businesses. The members of all of these institutions do good and bad things, and I will not lazily condemn them for their belonging, because I know too many good Tories, too many good people who work for banks, and my dear sainted old RC mother, to do so.
So in the debate I was on the side of Hitchens and Fry, even while I thought them rather simplistic, but the ease they swept aside Widdecombe and the a bishop of Somewhere or Other shows nothing other than being better speakers. Debate is a great skill to learn, and when you have a crowd following your words, one of the best feelings, and while it is a method to get to truth, it isn't the speaking skill that ensures you or the audience have found it. Better to look at logic than facile verbal trickery, better to look at the argument than demagoguery, better to think than supinely listen to the 'great' speaker.
