Yelkcub

So are you saying that the Pope is a liar and mentally ill?

Alan2005

Your criteria is a contradiction in terms. Religion just cannot do it.

Your views w.r.t. HIV are abhorrent. Doing nothing to save lives when one sentence from him could save millions is nothing short of evil.

Alan2005

He's one or the other. Either he believes the stuff he says (mentally ill) or he doesn't (liar).

spankysparkle

what do you think? have you ever listened to what the man preaches?

Yelkcub

Firstly they are not my views; they are the Popes. I have already said more than once that I don't necessary agree with them.

With regard to issuing an edict, he has already issued one saying that people should abstain from sex outside marriage which is a fundemental point of the Catholic Religion. Catholics believe that sex is for procreation; if he says that it is okay to use condums, then it means that he has to go against the whole teachings of the Church.

Once again these are the views of the Pope not mine. I understand why he has expressed them. Perhaps rather than criticise me you should try to understand why he has expressed them and then argue your point from a more reasonable position rather than simply attack for the sake of attacking.

Alan2005

There is no point debating with crazy people.

Souvy

I understand that "sex" and "fundament" are quite popular with priests.

Yelkcub

I think that he is a very well educated person who believes in what he is saying. If you believe in what you are saying, you are not a liar. Perhaps misinformed or wrong, but definitely not a liar.

If he was mental he would hardly have risen to the position he has achieved. His views might not reflect mine or yours, but they reflect most of his flock. Otherwise why don't his followers breakaway and start a new religion as has happened in the past?

I think that you should also consider what you say in print as your comments are somewhat deflamatory about him.

Yelkcub

Easy to say when you points are repudiated and you have no reasonable response.

Yelkcub

Alan2005

If he believes then he believes in things that don't exist and events that never actually happened. You can't debate with people like this - they don't think rationally. I'll accept that religious people can be functioning members of society, but that doesn't make them sane.

el_richo

Then why does he not preach against women teaching, women speaking in church, or pressurising rapists to buy the victim from his/her father and marrying him/her?

I wouldn't say the old duffer is mentally ill as such, nor a liar. Brainwashed, yes.

I do feel the entire church is very hypocritical and do exactly as governments and others entering into popularity contests for personal and corporate gains do. They're selective in what they offer/preach and refrain from offering/preaching anything that will "turn people off".

I'm not that knowledgeable on the ins and outs of the "Good Book" but it does get my goat with the seemingly personal selectivity the "believers" allow themselves. The bible says "Man & Wife" and they take that as literal. Yet in other areas and wording they do not (talking snake for example).

Maybe i'm just talking a load of Poop Benedict and should just flock off and get some work done?

Oakvillian

I don't normally go in for bashing Papists or Popes (a little too close to Bishop-bashing, which as we all know is a sin and will make you go blind, or grow hairs on the palm of your hand, or something) but with this I completely agree.

The Catholic doctrine on contraception is fundamentally inconsistent - at least with regard to the Pill. The Biblical passage (the "Sin of Onan" bit about spilling seed) is related much more to the ancient Jewish custom of marrying your brother's widow and getting her pregnant (Onan's apparently decided to shag her anyway but withdraw before orgasm) which somehow has been warped and twisted in the eyes of the Vatican to mean that contraception is wrong.

The "rhythm method," though, is OK, so there's no fundamental difficulty with sex for fun rather than procreation. THere's an article in Malcolm Gladwell's collection of New Yorker articles (I read it a while ago, so my recollection may be slightly hazy) about the guy who invented the Pill, who was a staunch Catholic and developed the pill initially as an aid to maintaining a consistent menstrual rhythm; was by all accounts deeply shocked and disappointed when in "Humanae Vitae" in 1968 pope Paul VI declared reaffirmed earlier doctrine and ruled out the use of the Pill for Catholics.

This is dogma for the sake of dogma. It is morally indefensible, and the continuing interdiction of the use of condoms, even within marriage, has done more for the spread of AIDS (and all the human suffering that entails) in Africa and Latin America than any other single act of omission or comission by any individual or body anywhere ever. It's completely disgraceful and insupportable.

Oakvillian

No, they don't. This is the first and most egregious fallacy in the whole Catholics vs contraception thing. It's acceptable to use the Rhythm Method if you want a shag without producing children. Once you've established the principle that sex is not all about procreation, prohibition of artificial birth control is hypocritical.

el_richo

I remember as a kid, helping my mate search for his Christmas pressies in his parents room. We opened a draw and i saw my first ever pack of condoms in their bedside table. They were, and still are, devout Catholics.

Dirty buggers