New Pope Thread

"Yeah, an I'm-a da pope!"Hey, Pope. Don't really know anything about the new ex-Nazi Pope, but they say he's a hardass conservative. Oh, that's hard-line. Sorry.Thought I'd be the one to open the discussion about the new pope. Did you know that, traditionally, when the pope dies, they verify it by rapping his head with a silver hammer and calling his real name three times? Funny stuff.

I didn't say he was. But a person who served in the German army during that time period was a Nazi. That was the Nazi army. That's the term. I'm sure he did it against his will. That doesn't make him any less of an ex-Nazi. I mean, better an ex-Nazi than a neo-Nazi, right?

I think what they got, or expected to get anyway, was a sort of placeholder pope. This guy is what, 78? How long can he go?On the other hand, I think that the Catholic church is going to get a little more than they bargained for with this guy. He seems like the type to push through a bunch of "reforms" while he has the chance.Is it possible we have the first creationist pope? I don't know much but I have a feeling that the likelyhood is strong.

You act like he came out of nowhere. He's been an active theologian for many, many years now, and as a result there's a sigificant body of his work to view.For instance we know that he thinks that if you're not Catholic, you're going straight to hell.

Yeah, but you might very well also consider it unreasonable to judge anyone for doing things that they were born to like to do, and that hurt nobody when they do them.It's been said but I think people would be a little more forgiving of his failure of moral fortitude if he wasn't simultaneously lambasting gays and lesbians for their own moral "failures." In other words, the only way you get to ignore the beam in your own eye is if you're not picking on the motes in everybody elses'.

Do you believe that people are responsible for their own sexual orientations? "Judge not lest ye be judged." The Bible stipulates that one is judged by the measure he judges others. No, either you believe its reasonable to judge someone for something they had no control over, or you don't. He does, so its not unreasonable - in fact it's perfectly Biblical - to judge him by the same standard.

It wasn't my intent to give a choice between genetics and self-determinism. Are gay people responsible for their orientation, or are they not? That's the only question, and those are all the possibilites. Well, I never said they did, and I certainly didn't say that homosexuality did.

Jesus, fucking relax. We're just clearing up a misunderstanding. The Pope's views on homosexuality are quite relevant to the topic, as is the legitimacy of judging him for those views.

But that's not what I asked. Are people responsible for their own sexual orientation, or are they not? Not actions. Orientation. No, he recognizes the non-voluntary nature of sexual orientation. He thinks it's a sin anyway. Not just having gay sex, but being gay is both an abomination and something people have no control over/ One could argue that, but one would be wrong. This Pope has, indeed, passed judgement on all homosexuals, by referring to their very nature - not just their actions - as sinful. While at the same time recognizing that they have no choice in the matter of their nature.Well, that's fine. We'll judge him by the same standard.

Ask the Catholics. According to them you can be held responsible, and bear the consequences, of your nature, not just your actions. For instance, the doctrine of Original Sin.Here's a column on that very topic: Page not found | Commonweal Magazine

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But suppose I have no inner consciousness of betraying the truth and have tried hard to possess a clear conscience? Too bad. You are in worse trouble, more spiritually ill, when you don’t feel your guilt any more, another culpable victim of "the subjectivist philosophy of the modern age."

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I don't think it's irrelevant. Time doesn't erase transgressions. An old moral evil is still evil. Great. He was too young to know better. According to him, not knowing any better is no excuse. I don't think it's just, and that's what allows me to judge him. For being unjust. That's exactly what I'm doing to him. What he has done unto others.

I know. I know that's what it says, and that's what I'm doing to him - What He Would Like Me to Do. I mean, he's certainly never done anything to me, right? As Pope? No, I suppose not. Certainly he's spoken on the subject before now, though.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 04-21-2005 10:39 AM

Well, I was somewhat puzzled as to why a German cardinal would be concerned about who Americans would vote for in the US Presidential election. But sure enough, Cardinal Ratzinger felt the need to inform American catholics that a vote for Kerry would send you right to hell. Oh, not yet, anyway. Never mind that there's an enormous, and currently quite influential, movement in the US to make sure that you, no matter what you believe, live according to the Bible and recognize the Christian God as sovereign every single morning in school.There's currently no coercion to be Christian (unless you want to seek public office), but there's an enormous movement to make sure you live Christian. I don't really see the difference. As such, the views of this new Pope, regarded by even Protestants as a spiritual leader, are very relevant to people, like me, whose views on religion are very much a hated minority. Maybe you could write the new Pope and tell him so. How's your German?

Then why the suggestion to deny confession to Kerry voters? What do you suppose happens when you die with unconfessed sins? As an ex-Catholic, let me tell you where you go, according to the nuns that taught me from kindergarten to 4th grade: H-E-double-hockey-sticks. You don't read the papers? The Pledge of Allegiance, specifically the phrase "under God", was a significant source of controversy last year. What do you think "under God" means? That's not talking about the physical location of the United States.What do you think all this flap about gay marriage is about? Hell, there were even people who stood up to oppose Lawrence v. Texas. James Dobson, the radical cleric who runs Focus on the Family, actually advocated for anti-sodomy laws. (Not "against basing court opinions on international law", like most of his peers. He was actually pissed off that a court said that people could have gay sex if they wanted.)Tom Delay, House GOP majority leader, says that the separation of church and state, one of the most famous and tested constitutional doctrines of all time, is a "myth", and that there's no reason that Christian morals can't be made into laws for no better reason than that they appear in the Bible.I don't see how you could have missed these things. If you can't be bothered to open a newspaper I'm not sure how I'll be able to substantiate the presence of this theocratic movement. Well, I never said you did. Flip on Fox News once in a while and you might get an idea of what they think about atheists who dare to suggest that maybe, just maybe, our public officials and government shouldn't go around talking about God like everybody in the country believes in him. That's certainly true, but currently, they run the GOP, and therefore all three branches of government. Better than mine.

Why don't you ask Michael Newdow and the ACLU? Apparently there was sufficient evidence that the pledge constituted a coercive establishment of religion to convince the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, although that decision was overturned by Bush's conservative Supreme Court. (Justice Thomas, contrary to judicial precident, argued that it wasn't coercion if it was just your peers making you do it, not the government.) Al Sharpton wasn't chosen to be his party's face in the House of Representatives. Tom Delay was. He is, in fact, the very definition of a poster child for his party. That's what "GOP House majority leader" means. He's the public face of the GOP in the House of Representatives. He's perhaps the third most influential Republican in the nation. (He's considerably more influential than the Senate majority leader; Frist is simply too inexperienced to have a comparable amount of weight to throw around.) That's fine. I have no problem with that. They can even talk about God anywhere they like, provided I'm not their captive audience. I'll politely decline to listen. But I do have an absolute right not to be goverened, or expected to live by, the precepts of their holy text. I've never proposed such a right. But I certainly do have a right not to be subject to laws justified by nothing more than religious tradition. I have a right not to be expected to pledge fealty to another person's God, either by my peers or by the government.

Not quite right - he found that the social coercion for his daughter to say the Pledge was an unconstitutional violation of his right to raise his daughter in whatever spiritual way he felt best; it was an unconstitutional message from the government that the views of those who don't believe in God were not legitimate. And the Ninth Circuit Court agreed. However, the Supreme Court, at the suggestion of the President, determined that Newdow at the time of his suit did not have the legal standing to bring cases on behalf of his daughter, and overturned that decision.At any rate, prior to Justice Thomas's concurring opinion, the Supreme Court's standard for coercion was not limited to legal or government means, a precident that Thomas himself recognized even as he repudiated it in his opinion. Furthermore he holds the bizarre opinion that the Establishment Clause doesn't apply to individuals.In other words, while the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals felt Newdow's legal reasoning was valid, our theocratic Supreme Court scrambled for any means they could to overturn that decision, no matter what long-standing precident they had to ignore. It's more akin to a vegan's daughter being forced to eat meat against the wishes of her parent, while her school tells her that vegans are idiots. And, yes, coercion doesn't have to be by legal means. Social coercion has always been recognized by the courts. If your child was coerced into pledging fealty to the God of somebody else's religion, and the government was busy telling her that your religious views and instruction were illegitimate, is it really "hypersensitive" to object?