You are so dismissive about the idea of loving homosexual relationships, however your beloved church seems to breed the most banal, bureaucratic kind of permissiveness and systemic corruption towards the worst kind of pederasty. How do you reconcile your hatred of fags and other supposed sexual immoralists with your own faith in the closeted, corrupted, draconian Vatican? I myself don't know any normal, balanced homosexual males who think it is ok to risk the sexual innocence of young children in the manner that the Church has apparently been doing. But I suppose we must be selective with our moral crusades?

Stimulant, whatever you did to piss off necrolyte so bad, well done.

More like a perfect storm. Hypocrisy pisses me off, pederasty pisses me off, bureaucratic incompetence pisses me off, and banal self interest with the veneer of spirituality pisses me off.

Plus, I want to know where his moral high ground stands when his Pope protects kiddie fiddlers.

Few people play the moral high ground game as well as necrolyte. If you rewrite necrolyte's post by simply substituting "Church" with "Islam," you'll get necrolyte doing his best protecting and defending the current fad among faux liberals, Islam.

This post has been edited by miltonfriedman: Mar 30 2010, 03:35 PM

Islam is different, because they're marrying 8 year old GIRLS. That shit is deep, and their religion is quasi-mysterious, so thats totally fine dude.

Islam is a creepy backward religion, but the catholic church is essentially an international network of child molesters. I love how these people try to defend themselves, by saying "everyone else was doing it". Good to know "his holiness" decided to let a monster who molested 200 deaf boys to "die in the dignity of the priesthood".

Oy vey, another overstatement.

I normally dont defend the Catholic church, but in this instance I think its important to point out that corruption is an entirely different problem than the one Islam faces. When the basic principles of a religion are not followed, there is still hope for the religion and most of its followers. However, when the religion itself preaches things contradictory towards a healthy society, then it is much harder to believe that such a religion can become a useful part of the world.

dak: what exactly are these incredible differences between Islam, Catholicism, and Judaism?

because they seem to pretty much agree on all major intolerances. In fact, as you dig deeper, it is Islam that comes out the most liberal, and thus "healthier" than the other two. Note that 'Christendom' had to secularise before we started giving women rights, and to have any kind of Free Speech and religious freedom.

Well one big difference is that while Judaism and Christianity outlaw polygamy Islam does not. In fact Islam encourages it, the example is muhammed who had multiple wives, including children.

Well, here is the thing. In the old testament of the Bible, there are some of the prejudices and intolerances. In the new testament, ie the teachings of Jesus, there is much more of a preference for tolerance, understanding, and especially forgiveness. Christianity permits alcohol, forbids polygamy, and doesnt call for the execution of adulterers, homosexuals, etc...

Why should people even take pedo's claim that Islam is more tolerant of all the mainstream religions seriously and actually need to justify it? But, if you need some scientific evidence, here is one for those of you who need it:

Christianity (Catholicism included) promotes more fairness than other religions. See Heinrich et al (2010), Science, 327, 1480- 1484.

This post has been edited by miltonfriedman: Apr 5 2010, 03:10 PM

All three Abrahamic religions are highly chauvinistic. It goes back to Abraham. Also, Dakyron mentions that Jesus was quite nice-this is true, but Paul turned much of Jesus's original message back towards that initial chauvinism. That is why all three pretend that their moral codes are above reason. The interesting thing is, this is a case where Catholicism's institutionalism prevented it from wanting to admit or even deal with a problem that discredited its chauvinistic position. The papacy and the institution of the church at large, is something which isn't to be questioned; it is "The Church". Muslims have completely different problem stemming from the fact that there is no real publicly held criterion to distinguish between good ideas and Imams and crazy, feudal-era ideas embedded in the religion and the idiots who want to pursue those ideas. The Muslim debate is more public but also more dangerous, whereas this Catholic issue mostly exploded onto the pages after the Church was no longer able to suppress it any longer. It is clear, however, that most Catholics and Muslims at large are not pederasts and terrorists respectively, but both religions at large clearly have theological issues which permit such social plagues to come from their ranks.

I do however hope that the Catholic church ends its tireless sexual morality crusades against perceived sins outside the Church, and concentrate more on internal issues. They should read a page from their own holy book about who has the right to cast the first stone, and I would consider pederasty a far worse sin than consensual sex between two same-sex adults, or sex with a condom.

You seem to have a bigger problem with anti-homosexuality than with terrorism. Why, nikki?

This post has been edited by miltonfriedman: Apr 9 2010, 07:46 PM

Please stop referring to the Catholic Church as a religion. It is an organization, it is not synonomous with Christianity, especially in the United States. There are more protestants than catholics in the US.

Err, "religion" is a general term, and can apply to broad theological doctrines and mythologies, or alternatively ti more specific sects. In a colloquial sense, "Shia Islam" is a religion, and so is "Islam". If I am using religion in a different sense than you, that is probably the source of the confusion.

I agree Catholicism is NOT synonymous with Christianity. There was the reformation, and there have always been non-Catholic churches (however, it should be noted that Catholics DO say that Catholicism is synonymous with Christianity, but that there are a number of fake churches out there). I certainly would not want to be the member of a church whose unquestionable leader was responsible for sheltering pederasts (I'm wondering, actually, if there has been a spike in Protestant conversions from The Church since this sex scandal became big news.)

Unfortunately, its more likely people lose faith completely than switch from catholic to protestant.

Protestant churches, at least the smaller ones, are very different from catholic churches.

that necro sides with the protestants should really tell you a lot about modern christianity, daky.


EDIT

as for necro: you are some retarded philostoner. Pope's were fucking their daughters when you were just some sad joke mistake on some one's unfortunate testes. Build an interesting assault, then i'll take you seriously.

This post has been edited by Urquhart: Apr 10 2010, 04:36 AM

Nikki, are you done yet?


This post has been edited by miltonfriedman: Apr 10 2010, 03:50 PM

Here's one for you stim; the highly institutional nature of the Catholic church, combined with the fact that it claims to uphold the singular, absolute word and original message of Christ, places the above all social or political accountability. The church sees itself as above all secular institutions, which naturally leads to it abusing its authority to protect its own social and political agendas, or those of its clergymen, instead of the "word" of God. Of course the Pope would shelter sexual molesters, it threatens the sanctity of the institution in the eyes of the public to reveal it. Therefore, the church becomes a blight, not a blessing, where it protects those of its members who commit egregious crimes as long as those sitting in the pews, or setting their little boys to choir camp, never find out. That is the problem with the Church.

With the Protestants, at least a priest and the clerical body as such is accountable for their actions to man as well as God.

Dak-I imagine it depends on the person. If someone is really Christian, they would find another Church.

This post has been edited by necrolyte: Apr 13 2010, 07:27 PM

The Catholic Church is a heretical organization. Its opulence, power structure, and rituals are clearly in defiance of the wishes of Jesus, who preached practicality, humility, and equality before God(meaning anyone could speak to God, not just the "chosen ones").

The Pope claims to speak directly to God and then "translates" the message to his followers. This is unambiguously heretical and the sort of nonsense that is used to manipulate and control populations. Many of the things the Catholic Church institutes has some basis in the Bible, but then is twisted and embellished for their own beliefs. For example, the Bible states that while it is preferable for a man devoted to God not to marry, it is OK for him to do so. Basically, it says that if you are completely devoted to God, you will not be able to care for your family as would a normal man. The Catholic Church took this and created the rule that priests must be celibate, completely misunderstanding the message in the Bible. Just one example of the ridiculousness of the Catholic Church.

Of course, it's not just protestants who can marry as well; many of the "original churches" in Eastern Europe, North Africa and Western Asia allow their priestly communities to marry.

It should be noted too that there are plenty of Catholic organizations that are committed to what you, I would presume, would think of as Christian values. For instance, the Franciscans ran all over Latin America trying desperately to correct the inhuman mistakes of the politicized Spanish Church after the conquest, preserving local languages, educating the people and acting as real missionaries should.

History fail.

anyway, lot of bulldada in this thread. Lets talk about art we totaly macking on lately!

(IMG:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Vasilisa.jpg)


i love teh super flat and sort of suspended action in billbin. It gets too retarded after the war of course, all russsian shit is shit after 1920, of course
but still, what a great piece.

That's a painful oversimplification.

The institution of the Catholic church has a long well documented record of downside and abuses. But the standardization it brings provides benefit as well. There's no St. Westboro parish full of crazy bigots rallying outside of military funerals. In fact, the Catholic church ironically has kept comparatively distant from politics as opposed to the political corruption of modern US protestantism. And while I find it disheartening that JP2 sent Ratzinger to South America to put the leash on the liberation theology Jesuits, I understand why. There's probably a note on the papal fridge that says "Don't involve the church in revolutionary political movements. Lots of people will die."

The institutional model of the Catholic church in fact will likely prove to be a better tool in the modern age. Certainly reform and transparency are needed, but it helps to curb the effect of people using other's faith as a tool to their own political means. When US evangelicals are encouraging death penalty laws for homosexuals in Uganda, there is an argument for the benefits of a firm institution that has largely learned the lessons of using the word of god for ill purposes.

you gotta deal with the past. Either its those dudes were always right, sometimes right, or never right. Never right is the progressives and their faggotry (see necrolyte), never right is dragon and his faggotry... sometimes right is the interesting question. Dealing with the ancients as people, then again, is a question never faced by the comfortable bourgeois.