Saving the world from homosexuality

He was probably knocking one out when he wrote that speech. All that thinking about depravity...?

I am not Catholic, but i agree with LP. Opinions are good, but so is tact and thought when it comes to sharing them.

Oh, and i also do not agree with the pope has been reported to have said. I wonder how he worded it?

I struggle with some others views on homosexuality, especially my work colleague. It makes it very uncomfortable when we are working with someone regarding personal safety, or relationships, or sexual health as if the person is homosexual, my colleague can not help but make his beliefs and values known. Very difficult.

Well, my view is that if he is going to publicly state views which are abhorrent to so many, that piss taking is absolutely fair enough. i asked earlier why religion is such a sacred cow - so its a case of he can say something like this, but when people then make insults and take the piss, this somehow isnt acceptable? why isnt it? you said above that "everyone is entitled to an opinion" and yes, they are, but if that opinion is bigotted prejudice, then there is no reason i can see for not saying it, and having a pop at him at the same time.

people may well "hold dear" but i m not sure how any person of rational thought and acceptance of others can endorse this or even say "he s entitled to his opnion" when as a leader of a religion, fundamentalists will take this further, and it just takes the whole church back a few centuries. its stupidity in the extreme, and deserves to be treated as such.

I'm not going to flame you La P and you don't specify which post it was that made you uncomfortable, so I don't know if it was mine...but I don't think that there is anything in life, including religion, that should be placed on a pedastal so high that we can't laugh at it. It's an attitude that is too often applied to religion, I think, and I really disagree with it. And he was a Nazi...and he is depressing...and he is talking bilge, so...if it's anyone else's posts you are talking about, then I'll have to let them explain their own!

Do you hold the Pope dear or Catholicism? I don't think anyone here is mocking anyone's faith, just the sad, prejudiced, malevolent old fool that unfortunately chooses to speak for the whole religion. I think he's fair game to be honest - anyone else saying what he did would be equally vilified.

here, have a listen: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2008/12/081223_pope_gay_forest_sl.shtml

why cant we take the piss out of religion?

My view on it is that it is ok to take offence at what was said, and it is ok to 'have a pop' but there are ways of having a pop, and ways of having a pop, especially when othetr threads concerning religion have offended some of that religion previously.

They way you have worded the last paragraph in your last post Nick, is a good example of having a pop in a way which i don't think could be complained about. although, some people will hold exactly that view, and endorse it. There will always be those that have extreme views that many deem wrong. Without these extreme views the BNP ( for example) would not have any members!

I think this kind of discussion is healthy but it is equally important just to bear in mind others who may take offence at some of the content, whilst still porbably agreeing in principle.

That's an interesting one baron. How does one separate "my catholicism" from "the pope's catholicism"? How do you rationalise that? Shouldn't it all be one set of beliefs? I always really struggle to understand that one...

I agree he's fair game - particularly when he's airing views that would probably have him removed from any other public office except a religious one, where special pleading for bigotry is acceptable.

The Pope was not a Nazi - he was a member of the Hitler Youth, but that was compulsory at that time. I think it's really tiresome and offensive to brand all Germans alive at that time as Nazis. There are many negative things one can say about him, but not that.

Oh, OK, I retract that. Still think the church has a case to answer in the their strangely intertwined relationship with the third reich, tho'. Separate topic though for another day!

I'd like to think that most 'Catholics' don't actually share his views and are therefore cultural Catholics i.e. follow the main traditions and beliefs but can actually think for themselves and move their faith into line with modern attitudes towards tolerance. To generalise horribly, this is more of a UK thing than a European attitude in my experience - Spanish, French and Italian Catholics I come into contact with tend to take more of what the Pope says as perfectly valid.

Yes i take the point. but then tbh, i do feel fishwifey about it. how can a leader of people in his position make such statements? its totally unnaceptable. as baron said, i m not taking the piss about of people who believe, but out of him. and with his comments on this ubject, i think he deserves every word.

as leader of the catholic church, as i understand it, what he says "goes" in terms of "if you are a catholic, then you must accept what i say and automatically agree with it". in these days of dwindling churchgoers, does he not have even an ounce of common sense to realise that all things like this do is alienate more and more people, believers included?

Well, as Father Ted says, fascists dress up in black and tell everyone what to do, whereas priests...er...

?

?

thanks though for pointing out that I was using a lazy shorthand and need to think/explain better what I mean.

you see i call that indoctrination.

Well yes, theyre not going to say its indoctrination are they? ?

and to say they encourage thought is one thing, as long as those thoughts stay within certain parameters.

lets face it, if kids werent taught about religion from an age where they re young enough not to question it, it would not continue through the ages.

Nick, I think it's an over-simplification to say that no-one would believe in God/gods if they hadn't been brought up to believe - of course it's far more likely (and in most countries and societies in the world there simply isn't any choice about whether or not to live according to the tenets of a particular religion - obviously this isn't the same as belief), but there are many exceptions. I know lots of people who have come to a particular faith from an atheist background or from that of another faith - if your theory is true, this surely wouldn't happen.

There's a lot of interesting work being done about the psychology of religious faith, and there are theories that it's hard-wired (so you are destined from birth to either believe or not believe). Based on practical experience I think that has a lot to be said for it, especially as I wouldn't want to say that believers are in some way morally better than atheists (so it's more comfortable for me to think it's a matter of psychology - doesn't mean it's true, obviously ?)

That's really interesting if we are hard-wired for belief/non belief. I wonder what the churches' attitudes towards that will be? It would be horribly unfair to condemn people to hell if you had to acknowledge that god had made them without belief. There's some horrible ciruclar logic to get out of there, too! However, I don't hold out much hope - there's similar work been done that heavily suggests that people are hard-wired straight or gay, but the churches, as far as I know, aren't taking that on board.

I don't there's much criticism of Catholics (or other believers) questioning the doctrine but that's as far as it goes - you can question all you like and ask for explanation but if you disagree then there's nothing you can do except follow that faith or not, even if that means following the advice despite disagreeing with it.

If you don't follow it, then you're in disagreement with the Church - It always amazes me that so many catholics use contraception, sex outside marriage, disagree with the gay standpoint etc but still describe themselves as practicising catholics, although it amazes me the number who are practicing catholics without knowing the stand of their faith. ?

That's surely the point of the Pope - he's infallible, the direct descendent of Peter and has God whispering in his ear. If you don't believe that, you don't believe RC doctrine.

You see - I think lots of RCs think as you do, that the overall faith is good but there's some dubious doctrine there that you don't agree with and don't follow. And lots of priests seem to give that impression that's fine to cherry pick.

But from the official point of the RC church, it is black and white that you can question the doctrine so that you understand it, but the RC church's stance is correct and tough if you don't like it. They would aruge that the views aren't out of date because that God's law is timeless and shouldn't be changed just because society has changed (At least until it revises said doctrine at some point in the future ?.

I think one huge issue is that in times gone by, going to church was a real social event. this is in the times before telephones, now mobiles and internet, most people dont need the interarraction that going to church gives, and so the people who use dto go for that just dont go anymore. if the church wants to try to increase its following, then the pope is going about it in totally the wrong way.

bit of a tangent this but i ll say it anyway - i was at a wedding yesterday, and at the end of the (RC church) ceremony, the priest made a big deal of how the church survives on donations, and how it would be good if everyone could dig deep on the way out. he spent 5 minutes giving this "show me the money" speech, with the poor couple just standing there at the front, waiting. this really pissed me off, one because it was bloody rude and naff to do such a thing, and two, because the bride and groom had paid 450 quid for the privilege of getting married there anyway! i thought ffs, heres the catholic church, one of the (if not the) biggest landowners and wealthiest organisations in the world, having some guy stand up and beg for money from people who are guests at a wedding. it was cringeworthy. i thought yep, heres a reeeeeally great way to make friends and brimstone people.

I expect Catholics have been saying this since the foundation of the church. ?

But my understanding is that the RC's authority comes from the infallability of the Pope because of his link with St Peter - if you allow people to believe "different" things then some of them will be believing things that are different to the Pope and to allow that means there's a possiblity that the Pope is not infallible and then the church will go bang!

The thing is, church attendance in the UK is low, but I think it's pretty good elsewhere - especially in South America. I don't think the RC will change any doctrine because a relatively tiny population of catholics in the UK have the cheek to question the Church's authority, not while there are millions of good catholics in South America, mainland Europe, Africa and Asia who do not look further than their local's priest's interpretion of Papal doctrine!

Sorry, LaP but I am peeing myself laughing at the typo ?

I think that the Catholic church is different from most other Christian denominations in having this doctrine to which one must agree entirely if one is to be a "proper" believer. AFAIK the CofE has no equivalent and the non-conformists certainly don't. Although the CofE might have general policies, and although individual churches and vicars might preach an particular interpretation of the faith, ultimately the belief is that it's between you and God.

Sorry - forgot to say that I am utterly opposed to the Pope's views on homosexuality.

Sorry to lower the tone, but I've just seen this headline...

Coming to this late but really wanted to say that although I understand why members of the Catholic faith wouldn't be too impressed with the name-calling, I think that surely we must all reserve the right to be able to do so when something so aborrent is given in a public statement. Faith is important to many people but I agree with Nick, it isn't a sacred cow - the same rules of scrutiny should be applied as with politics.

I have trouble understanding how people can still align themselves to a church that has a figurehead who practices homophobia and is ani-safe sex to the extent that much of the Aids problem within Africa can be attributed both to a spread of disgustingly awful mis-information combined with the lack of market due to sustained campaigned against condoms. It's a long discussion for another day, but if I were Catholic I would find the Pope's latest statement foundation-shaking in terms of my belief.

As Zebra says, you cannot ignore the power that is inherent in his position, much less choose to 'agree or not agree' - it's not as if he is a local religious individual, he speaks for the Church and is considered to be the link to St. Peter.

For me it is institutionalised prejudice.

Well said SLD. This has enraged me actually; I will never understand why the Church is quite so concerned with what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

I can see that argument in relation to law/government but surely thats what churches do... Lay down moral guidelines?

I couldn't agree more. I respect and admire believers of all faiths, but I don't agree with organised religion... this post being one of the reasons why. I believe that those with faith go to their place of worship to become better and more compasionate individuals (that was my understanding of it anyway) but this is just another example of those in power asking its followers to hate others. I only have a primary school understanding of religion, and that taught me to be kind, think what my actions would mean in the greater realms of things, and that God loves us all. I thought that sort of thing was the main message, not bringing suffering to those who do not fit in with what the figureheads personally believe in.