Parents, tell your children: Atheism is under attack! Just kidding, but the Pope would like to think it is. You see, over at the Vatican while he's not scolding nuns for not hating women like the rest of them, he wants American Catholics to see to the end of secularism in the land of the free. Someone needs to tell the guy that this isn't Italy and that nobody is going to just make the atheists go away because he is threatened by the growing lack of belief in his god.
This CatholicNews.Com garbage blog even goes as far as blaming the mistreatment of Muslims on atheists in the United States post-9/11, which you'd have to be absolutely brain-dead to believe. Violent attacks on Muslim-Americans and overall bigotry toward Middle Eastern people increased among Christian fundamentalists and otherwise bigoted people in general after 9/11. In fact, someone should challenge The Pope to provide news reports of atheists attacking Muslims during these times. Furthermore, why does this "holy leader" need to resort to flat-out lying and making things up to garner his followers' sheeply allegiance?
What the Pope is doing here is further trying to incite division between Americans. While he and his so-called "scholars" accuse atheism of causing "civil unrest" he's calling on American Christians to "render public moral witness" in the States to put a stop to secularism. Isn't what he's doing fundamentally what he is accusing secular free thinkers of doing? He's not even in America and he's pulling his puppet strings trying to further drive a wedge between Americans by using religion as a weapon. That's despicable and only goes to show just how toxic the Catholic Church is and religious radicalism in general.
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Comments: 22
And, if women would get to licking that Pope's ass like their "supposed" to they might no have to face no Baptism up side the head, putting them in their "proper places." And Ann Romney want need to be standing up for their rights, beggin' for her own baptsim from Mittey.
And in closing I'd just like to say, "God bless the Hell out of America.....(if you think you can, Daddy!)" LMAO
Oh! And btw, Obama is the New Age Messiah (Of Darkness) from the Polpit (Political pitstop, the Church). Kissinger says he's "primed and ready for the NWO.
So glad I left the Catholics 40 years back.
One can be against certain policies of the RC church and not trash its huge legacy of good works around the globe: Hospitals and medical outreach: there are more procedures in modern medicine than abortion and contraception; in areas where there is no decent medical care the Catholic Church is doing a mitzvah to provide care. Standing against oppression sometimes in opposition to official hierarchy but in response to Catholic Theology.
Cheap shot by an aggressive atheist, at a much lower level than the Pope's comments about secularism.
"The larger concern with secularism is that it damages people, and that it actually keeps people from being reasonable with one another," said Chad C. Pecknold, assistant professor of systematic theology in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington...It creates a great level of intolerance for people of faith." (emphasis mine.)
QED.
PS The Pope isn't Italian.
PPS The Pope isn't in Italy. He's in the Holy See, the independent nation of the Vatican.
PPPS Chris Wiegard - good for you for leaving the RC Church - hey, guess the Pope doesn't have enough legions to force Roman Catholicism on anybody. However much I dislike the orders to the American Catholic Nuns this past week, the Roman Catholic Church is a hierarchical church with only males allowed to be ordained into Holy Orders as Priests and Deacons (all higher ranks like Bishops fundamentally first are Priests.) That's the way it works. That's right on the label when you pick up the box of RC Crispies at the Religion Aisle in Safeway. Those Nuns didn't apparently read the Ingredients Statement.
Right down the aisle is Anglicanism. They could quite happily be Anglican (Episcopalian) Nuns if they wanted to be celibate women-only religious order members. But they could also be married female Priests if they wanted, even gay married Priests. The could even be the Presiding Bishop of our Church.
That's called Religious Freedom. Religious groups are not required to be democracies. Some are; the Roman Catholic Church is not one of them.
I'd really love to see an end to the religion bashing, often the uninformed-about-religion religion-bashing, by overly aggressive atheists. Nobody gives a crap you're an atheist. Really, it's OK, you don't have to wear a T-shirt about it. If you didn't given NOT being religious such a bad name, the Pope wouldn't have his ecclesiastical panties in a knot.
This is the U.S. we have our religious freedom. The Pope is trying to divide Americans.
I see.. I get it... I have NO respect for you anymore, Mark. You're not worthy of it with that comment right there. I am sorry, because we have been pals for quite some time. But that comment right there just proved EXACTLY why some atheists HAVE to be aggressive.
But you wouldn't care about all of these issues since you, yourself, are trying to be an expat leaving the united states because you don't like it here. It's totally fine for you to sit there and belittle the people who are trying to keep the country the way it was intended to be. All because why? Because you believe in some silly deity? You're otherwise intelligent, Mark but your attitude that WE are not allowed to express ourselves while the catholic church and other christian sects have done FAR worse?
I no longer want to associate with you. Sorry.
The Pope is a terrorist leader IMHO. He is no different from the Muslim leaders who incite violence among their people who live throughout the world. He is trying to breed intimidation between Americans of different faiths and nonfaiths. That is simply, the most simplistic fact of the matter.
I could give a damn less how many janky little charities the Catholic Church dips its talons into. When your response is to just insult atheists and call me a radical simply for disagreeing with the DIVISION of citizens of my country. To tout that we shouldn't "wear tshrts" about our faith only shows that you're siding with the people who want us gone, dead and silenced.
And that's ridiculous and anti-person as well as anti-american.
"He is trying to breed intimidation between Americans of different faiths and nonfaiths." Uh, it IS his job to lead his church. I'm no big fan of the Catholic church anymore, but, it is his job.
That Biblically mentioned "control over who can buy and sell" comes form none other than Vatican City. The Holy Roman Catholick Church, currently under revision, is banding with government to control who can buy or sell what, when, and where, and where the money goes from there. And according to that Bible that mentions it, the Devil would be the power calling that play, with the Vatican as quarterback, leading the charge.
2. My T-shirt shot was embedded in the PPS which was address to Chris Wiegard. But wear it if it fits.
3. "I'm sorry, but it is just wrong to condone some outside idiot religious leader to influence how Americans treat other Americans when he's not even part of this nation. "
So you are against freedom of religion then. You do not want Americans to be able to choose what religions to belong to, or whom to be inspired by? Especially if that religious leader is geographically located outside the USA? Please be sure to let the Dalai Lama know.
4. By your logic in 3. the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) does have the right to tell Americans what to do, because they are headquartered in the USA and their Prophet (President of the Quorum of the Twelve) is in Salt Lake City. Okay then.
5. By your logic in 3., Atheists, who are NOT a religion no matter how much some uneducated off-the-mainstream confused Christians try to claim, have no right to their opinions because they have no religious leader never mind one HQ'd in the USA.
By YOUR logic. See what happens when you don't pay attention to logic and reasonableness in your arguments?
6. "To tout that we shouldn't "wear tshrts" about our faith only shows that you're siding with the people who want us gone, dead and silenced.
Want you dead? Cites from reliable sources please. Your implication by context is that the Pope wants you dead (that's what you are writing about, and you called him a terrorist.)
7. "And that's ridiculous and anti-person as well as anti-american."
Same 1st Amendment that protects your freedom of (from) religion protects my right to say what I please. It would, in fact, be anti-american to claim I do not have that right.
8. "But you wouldn't care about all of these issues since you, yourself, are trying to be an expat leaving the united states because you don't like it here."
a. I am a United States of America Citizen
b. No intention of giving up my USA citizenship even if I take on Uruguayan citizenship.
c. Family and friends who continue to reside in the USA.
Plenty of reason for me to have a dog in this race.
FYI one of the things I adore about Uruguay is that it is far more officially secular than the USA. Which means Atheists, Buddhists, Bahá'i's, Muslims, Sikhs, Roman Catholic Christans, Protestant Christians, Orthodox Christians, Jews, don't have to spend all this silliness fighting each other. Churches are pretty full in that secular country BTW.
9. responding to Larry Linn: The late great George Carlin's comments were and are hilarious. But citing them as an argument in what is hopefully an intelligent exchange over the proper role of religion in a society, is proof of one's inability to engage in anything other than sloganeering and looking only on the surface.
Joke != logical argument.
Carlin's description of religion != any realistic description of any religion
!= = <> for those who haven't studied programming.
10. "It's totally fine for you to sit there and belittle the people who are trying to keep the country the way it was intended to be. All because why? Because you believe in some silly deity? You're otherwise intelligent, Mark but your attitude that WE are not allowed to express ourselves while the catholic church and other christian sects have done FAR worse?"
a. Semantics- "belittle" because I challenge the need for aggressive atheism, especially aggressive atheism obviously uninformed about its "enemy"? But "terrorist" is ok?
b. Last time I looked, I 100% supported in person and on the interwebs free speech and freedom of/from religion. That doesn't mean I'm going to let you or anyone else off with a free pass, when the put sloppy offensive arguments against mischaracterized opposing views. No matter how much I may like them.
And guess what. My criticism of the Bishops is not really based on my atheism. My atheism is a done deal and I have no passion left about anti-Catholicism. It's really based on my sympathy for my cousin the Nun, who is a very good person and a better Christian than the senile old men who are pushing her around. Yeah, she could leave Catholicism. But her position is, hey dudes, how about YOU leaving Catholicism. I live the values that Jesus lived- you don't.
There are Catholic-type liturgy faith communities which have the option of celibate orders for non-ecclesiastic (priest/deacon/bishop) members who wish that lifestyle. My own faith community, the Anglican communion and specifically the Episcopal Church USA, has Episcopalian nuns and Episcopalian brothers. I've stayed on retreats or on visits with both an order of nuns, the Community of the Holy Spirit in upper Manhattan, and the Franciscan Order Brothers on Long Island, NY.
If one chooses to belong to a particular religion, one chooses to abide by its rules. Challenge them from inside up to the point where the authority one chose to live under says stop, sure. Your cousin *could* choose to become a nun in a very similar order in a church that in the USA has a woman as its Presiding Bishop. And has openly gay bishops.
I deeply respect your cousin and other RC religious who choose to stay within their branch of the Church Universal to try to reform it. But as Martin Luther and many other reformers discovered, sometimes that doesn't quite work. Ultimately she has taken a vow to obey the Magisterium of the Church of Rome, as embodied ultimately in the Bishop of Rome, most commonly known as the Pope.
Personally I think the RC church is wrong in its marginalization of women within its leadership. I also think there is an excellent case that Mary of Magdala was the First Among Apostles, and even the Bible cannot hide that she was the First Witness to the Resurrection (whatever that in truth was, it was *something* that caused a rebirth of a defeated movement.)
Those are among the reasons I belong to a Catholic-in-liturgy and in hierarchical structure, non-Bible-only (instead, Scripture, Tradition & Reason) branch of Christianity, not the Church of Rome. But they are 100% entitled to run their church their way as long as they do not break the laws of the societies under which they exist (as long as those laws are fair laws).
When evildoing among the clergy is uncovered, as it was in Boston and then around the US and world, it damn well deserves the full weight of both clerical and civil/criminal condemnation and prosecution.
I deny that. It's a factual shot by a non-aggresive atheist who is speaking out of concern for a female relative. Yeah, Catholic rules say males have power and women don't. But guess what, the women are Catholics too- and it's their word against the word of the males.
The world would be a silly place if every misguided organization had to see all the imaginative and realistic people leave to make their own organization. It is such a good thing that Americans do not feel that way about America; that we stay and argue and vote and fight it out, instead of just running away and saying okay, you win.
I'm not among them. I am very much aware that the Catholic hierarchy differs with the Evangelicals on the topic of the Death Penalty, while agreeing with them completely on abortion. I am very much aware that the Pope strongly defends the scientists who discovered and analyzed the process of global warming, while Evangelical leaders have been quick to condemn them as money grubbing hoaxers.
"the very progressive socially conscious bulk of US Christianity." That's strongly debatable. Yes there are many socially progressive US Christians- including many Catholics who adore the Pope then ignore everything he says about contraception. But socially conservative Christians, primarily Evangelicals, have formed the backbone of the global warming denial crew. In recent decades, conservative Christians have in fact become the core voters of the Republican Party. It is what it is, I did not make it up.
Thanks,
~Serenity
;)