Now this is my kinda guy! “Spiritual arrogance” is exactly the problem we’re dealing with here. I would also call it spiritual elitism. “I have the answers and I believe this way, so I’mgoing to Heaven…and youare not.” To which I can only respond:
Are ya 100% sure about that?
Whatever happened to “Judge ye not”?
Enjoy your fairy tales, asshole.
Sharing his views on gays and lesbians in the church, the role of religion in public policy and whether non-Christians can go to heaven, Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Churchs first openly gay bishop, conducted an adult faith forum Sunday at Episcopal Church of the Advent in Louisville.
“I know Jesus to be the son of God,” he told a group of about 50 people, “but what a small, limited God we would have if that was the only manifestation. I think Christians should stay away from spiritual arrogance and show more love, mercy and zeal for justice.”
He called on audience members to present an alternative to the activism of the religious right, saying, “I believe that theres a positive role for religion in the world, and weve already seen what not to do.”
If you can’t keep your personal beliefs and your medical treatments separate, maybe you should stay the fuck out of medicine to begin with, hmmm? This case is especially offensive because it not only tries to “treat” gayness, but it does so with woo-woo homoeopathic (homo-pathic?) remedies which are rightly shunned by practitioners of real medicine. Are these people insane?
A Catholic doctors association in Germany believes it can cure the sexual orientation of gays and lesbians with sugar pills — though only at their request, the group says. But the homo-homeopathy has been harshly criticized by members of its target community.
…The religious association, which calls itself the “voice of the Catholic medical community,” writes on its website that while “homosexuality is not an illness,” a host of treatments are available to keep such “inclinations” at bay. Possibilities include “constitutional treatments with homeopathic tools … such as homeopathic dilutions like Platinum,” “psychotherapy,” and “religious counseling.” Among homeopathys controversial treatments are the prescription of “Globuli,” tiny pills that consisting mostly of sugar.
“We know about a number of people with homosexual feelings who find themselves in a spiritual and psychological emergency and suffer greatly,” UCP head Gero Winkelmann told SPIEGEL in a written statement. “If someone is unhappy, ill or feels they are in an emergency, they should be able to find options for help with us.”
The Catholics are especially notorious for interfering with people via hospitals and clinics by buying them up and then mandating that their doctors can’t perform certain services that they disagree with. Been raped and gotten pregnant? Too damn bad. They’ll make you have it, though they won’t do much to help raise it. After it’s born, it’s not their concern…
I can’t add much to this, except to say that it’s positively delicious. Having this fucknut out there saying so many insane things on behalf of the Pope is exactly what the world needs to see coming from the Catholic Church. He’s saying what the Church wishes it could say, though they’re pretending to be shocked and outraged. Let him speak his psychobabble, it can only damage the Church’s image further. And that’s a good thing. (Gee, I guess I did have something else to add…)
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) – He calls AIDS a form of “justice” for homosexuals and wants retired pedophile priests to go unpunished. He says women who have an abortion will be greeted in the afterlife by their unborn child crying “Momma!”
Archbishop Andre Leonard, 70, was plucked from a sleepy Belgian citadel-town by Pope Benedict XVI in January to energize the country’s Roman Catholic faithful and reverse 30 years of liberalism. The appointment was in line with Benedict’s policy of putting tradition-minded and conservative bishops in important dioceses.
But since taking office, Leonard’s hardline views have added turmoil to a church already mired in an abuse scandal. And, privately, some Vatican officials are expressing concern about an ever-worsening public relations disaster.
The controversy turned into a very public revolt last week when his spokesman resigned, saying he could no longer morally defend Leonard.
“I was his GPS for three months. But it is the driver who has his hands on the wheel. Too often, I had to recalculate the route,” said Juergen Mettepenningen. He called Leonard a “loose cannon who thinks everybody else is wrong.”
Leonard’s views – and the way he delivers them so stridently – are riling the Catholic base, but they dovetail with church teachings that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and that women who abort babies are sinners.
Also, the Vatican admits it has no tolerance for pedophiles, but rarely subjects elderly pedophile priests to full canonical trials, instead telling them to live out their years in prayer and penance.
Bert Claerhout, editor of Church and Life, a Catholic weekly, says he has been receiving “fierce” letters of complaint from readers – and doesn’t believe Leonard’s views have suddenly come to the attention of the Vatican.
“The pope knew very well what he did when he appointed Leonard. He wanted someone to bring a conservative view to the church here,” Claerhout said in an interview.
I’m a little late in discovering Tim Minchin’s wonderfully offensive song about the Pope, but I’m glad I finally did. It’s catchy and brilliant–it dares you to be offended by the lyrics while not being offended by the Pope and his minions covering up for child-molesting priests, most of whom are still active in the church. You also can download the song as a .mp3, so go get it!
Fuck the motherfucker, fuck the motherfucker,
Fuck the motherfucker he’s a fucking motherfucker
Fuck the motherfucker, fuck the fucking fucker,
Fuck the motherfucker he’s a total fucking fucker
Fuck the motherfucker, fuck the motherfucker,
Fuck the mother fucker, fuck him, fuck the motherfucker
Fuck the motherfucker, fuck the motherfucking pope
Fuck the motherfucker, and fuck you motherfucker
If you think that motherfucker’s sacred
If you cover for another motherfucker whos a kiddy-fucker,
Fuck you, you’re no better than the motherfucking rapist
And if you don’t like the swearing that this motherfucker forced from me
And reckon it shows moral or intellectual paucity
Then fuck you motherfucker, this is language one employs
When one is fucking cross about fuckers fucking boys
I don’t give a fuck if calling the pope a motherfucker
Means you unthinkingly brand me an unthinking apostate
This has naught to do with other fucking godly motherfuckers
I’m not interested right now in fucking scriptural debate
There are other fucking songs and there are other fucking ways,
I’ll be a religious apologist on other fucking days,
But the fact remains if you protect a SINGLE kiddy fucker
Then Pope or Prince or Plumber, you’re a fucking mother fucker
See I don’t give a fuck what any other motherfucker
Believes about Jesus and his motherfucking mother
I’ve no problem with the spiritual beliefs of all these fuckers
While those beliefs don’t impact on the happiness of others,
But if you build your church on claims of fucking moral authority
And with threats of hell impose it on others in society,
Then you, you motherfuckers, can expect some fucking wrath
When it turns out you’ve been fucking us in our motherfucking asses
So fuck the motherfucker, and fuck you motherfucker
If you’re still a motherfucking papist
If he covered for a single motherfucker who’s a kiddy-fucker,
Fuck the motherfucker, he’s as evil as the rapist
And if you look into your motherfucking heart and tell me true
If this motherfucking stupid fucking song offended you,
With its filthy fucking language and its fucking direspect,
If it made you feel angry, go ahead and write a letter,
But if you find me more offensive than the fucking possibility
The pope protected priests when they were getting fucking fiddly
Then listen to me motherfucker – this here is a fact,
You are just as morally misguided as that motherfucking,
Power-hungry, self-aggrandized bigot in the stupid fucking hat!
I guess it’s asking just a tad too much to ask the Church to accept proven science. No, they’re busy retreating back to the Dark Ages, and with supposedly sciency info to back it up: they’re now saying the universe revolves around the Earth. What the what?? Here, read the conference pamphlet (.pdf) for yourself. They’re deadly serious!
Oh well. I suppose if you’re going to oppress women, condemn gays, give sanctuary to pedophile priests, and keep your believers living in a state of fear and perpetual self-loathing, you may as well be consistent and deny all that science has taught us. It just fits the pattern, you know?
Coming up next: the Earth is flat, the sky is purple, and gravity is only a theory! (Oh yeah, and the Lascaux Paintings were only done last week.)
Galileo Was Wrong is a detailed and comprehensive treatment of the scientific evidence supporting Geocentrism, the academic belief that the Earth is immobile in the center of the universe. Garnering scientific information from physics, astrophysics, astronomy and other sciences, Galileo Was Wrong shows that the debate between Galileo and the Catholic Church was much more than a difference of opinion about the interpretation of Scripture.
Scientific evidence available to us within the last 100 years that was not available during Galileo’s confrontation shows that the Church’s position on the immobility of the Earth is not only scientifically supportable, but it is the most stable model of the universe and the one which best answers all the evidence we see in the cosmos.
This is despicable: a child-abusing priest wasn’t defrocked for his crimes…simply because he didn’t want the punishment. This non-action was even blessed by the man who is now Pope. What the what??
So a nun in Phoenix can be excommunicated because she approved an abortion which saved the life of the mother, but this pedophile creep is able to roam free just because he wants to. The abuse of power (and hatred of women) here is staggering. The Church is out of control!
The future Pope Benedict XVI refused to defrock an American priest who confessed to molesting numerous children and even served prison time for it, simply because the cleric wouldn’t agree to the discipline. The case provides the latest evidence of how changes in church law under Pope John Paul II frustrated and hamstrung U.S. bishops struggling with an abuse crisis that would eventually explode.
Documents obtained by The Associated Press from court filings in the case of the late Rev. Alvin Campbell of Illinois show Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, following church law at the time, turned down a bishop’s plea to remove the priest for no other reason than the abuser’s refusal to go along with it.
Ho-ho, what’s this? A “Gentleman of His Holiness” caught red-handed arranging for penis-equipped individuals to swing by his place and bully his pulpit? Who knew!
The Vatican was today rocked by a sex scandal reaching into Pope Benedict’s household after a chorister was sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting.
Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, was caught by police on a wiretap allegedly negotiating with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 29-year-old Vatican chorister, over the specific physical details of men he wanted brought to him. Transcripts in the possession of the Guardian suggest that numerous men may have been procured for Balducci, at least one of whom was studying for the priesthood.
Now that D.C. recognizes same-sex marriages, Catholic Charities (which is paid $20 million/year by the city to perform “charity” work) is throwing a tantrum about having to treat homosexuals as human beings with rights. They’re ending their contract with the city for their adoption program.
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington closed its 80-year-old foster care and public adoption program in the District of Columbia so the agency would not have to violate church teaching by licensing same-sex couples as foster or adoptive parents.
…Under a new law allowing same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia, Catholic Charities would have been required to place children with same-sex parents for foster care and adoption, which would violate church teaching that marriage is a permanent union between one man and one woman.
Naturally they’re playing this up as D.C.’s decision on their website:
The D.C. Government informed Catholic Charities that the agency would be ineligible to serve as a foster care provider due to the impending D.C. same sex marriage law.
Yesterday we saw “The Golden Compass”, the film adaptation of the first of three excellent novels by Philip Pullman. The churchies have been all up in arms about this one, calling it blasphemous and evil and anti-Christian–basically just like they do with everything else they feel threatened by. They’re convinced that Hollywood is out to get them, to lure the young ‘uns into the roasty arms of Satan. (That job should belong to all of us, not just Hollywood…but I digress!) In this story, the characters are pitted against a vast religious organization which tries to control everyone’s lives in the guise of “knowing what’s best.” Sound familiar? Yeah, of course the churchies are freaked out. It’s quite toned down in the movie (compared to the book), but it’s obviously the Church they’re up against. Free will is what’s at stake, and as usual some have a problem with that.
Of course, if you’ve read the books you know that the story gets even more controversial–I won’t give it away but let’s just say that it’s more blasphemous than the concept of Jesus being a family man, as in “The Da Vinci Code.” Pretty interesting stuff for books aimed at the teen set, I’d say. And yet, once you realize what the characters are really doing, it’s not what you initially thought. There are lots of twists and turns in this one, but as expected we still hear how these books (and the movie) will destroy our childrens’ faith in God, blah-blah-blah. I love the fact that the real-life churchies are reacting exactly the way their movie counterparts would.
Anyway, we enjoyed the movie quite a bit. It did feel a bit disjointed or rushed at times, where new characters would drop in out of nowhere and then be on their way before they had time to develop much, but overall the pacing was brisk and got all the important story elements in there, communicating the story’s central ideas and never seeming to lose steam. (A different choice in directors would likely have smoothed out those rushed bits.) The effects were top notch as well, bending human and GCI characters together flawlessly. And the way the armored bear fight ended (you know what I mean if you’ve seen it) was so unexpected that many in the the audience gasped, something I don’t hear at the movies often. That was kinda cool.
What I don’t understand is why so many people are calling the movie a “box office failure” only after one weekend! Rottentomatoes.com currently indicates that 44% of critics and 62% of the rest of us liked it. Much to my surprise, Roger Ebert gave it four stars, calling it “a darker, deeper fantasy epic” than the recent Rings, Harry Potter, or Narnia movies. However, a lot of review headlines are declaring it a failure simply because it didn’t gross as much as they were expecting in its first weekend…and yet it’s been the #1 movie since Friday. So they’re not even going to wait until overseas earnings are worked into the mix? This happens a lot nowadays in all forms of media…if some pop star or author puts out some new work and it sold 2 million copies in its first week, the “experts” automatically call it a failure because they expected 3 million, even if it sold twice as much as their previous work. WTF?
I hope the studio doesn’t listen to this “failure” bullshit…they need to get the ball rolling on the next two films and tell the rest of the story. And hopefully they’ll do it right! So if you saw the movie, what did you think? If you haven’t read the books, did it make sense at all? And if you did read the books, how do you think they did with the movie?
OK, this one is really special. The Vatican thinks this is the former Pope waving to us from beyond the grave. Apparently if your photo contains anything even vaguely religious-figure-shaped, you’ve got a genuine miracle on your hands. A message from the heavens. Just why he’s appearing in the fire is beyond me…is he in HELL, perhaps?
This is almost as retarded as the people who thought they saw the Virgin Mary when they looked at a fence-post at a certain angle and blurred their eyes out of focus. Blurry Visions, anyone? People really do believe anything. Now, what would have been truly amazing is if this flaming figure had actually stood up and walked out of the fire to bless people. I mean, as holy apparitions go, that would rock.
