nah... It doesnt matter how people look... thats not my point at all. My point is that he is being dragged out and displayed for the benefit of the institution he heads... there is no dignity in it, and you cant tell me he's feeling well enough to be hoisted up in front of a window just so millions of religious... erm... people, can feel relief that they get their Sunday Blessing. After all, that's what's really important isn't it? The Sunday Blessing.
Ffs.
I think it actually happens on a Wednesday...but apparently the pope has always been keen to carry on with his duties...he isn't dragged to the window (well he is in bod)y...but it is his wish! He is happy...the masses are happy so what's the prob?
Jude,
I have no problem whatsoever concerning the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The thing is, you see, that it should cut both ways: there's not just freedom of religion, but also freedom of thought and conscience.
To me, it all starts with the religious indoctrination of children from a very early age. How could they possibly have freedom of thought and conscience if their heads are filled with catechism and dogma from the time they can string together a sentence? They should be educated about ALL religions without bias - the good facts and the bad facts - in order to allow them to make up their own minds and join whatever denomination they like, if they so wish, once they've reached the age of 18.
This only happens as the exception, and I'm sure most of us adults have been through the fear and guilt of being part of the flock (and possibly leaving it) during our upbringing (at least I know that I have), which has the effect of making people, even if they are not overly religious in later life, at least to some degree insecure and reverent towards organised religion, mostly without knowing why.
As a consequence of this there is no healthy debate, just this contrived and stagnant reverence that isn't comfortable in terms of thinking along and even criticising organised religion. You can think your part and have a bitter rant behind closed doors, which is what most people do, particular in cases like the abuse scandal etc., but that's as far as it goes. I find this rather deplorable.
I think organised religion is at a crossroad at this moment in time. It could go forward and embrace the criticism in order to learn and grow and move on towards modernity, or it could go backward towards the power of dogma, suppression and the general ignorance of the dark ages. There have been even some attempts to read mass in latin again within the catholic church, for example, although pope John Paul II has - so far - not gone along with it.
Reading the signs right now, I think there is a clear trend for all organised religions to move backwards, i.e. towards fundamentalism, and frankly I find this a very worrying and potentially troublesome direction. Should it creep and slide further that way, there will be only the freedom of religion and the rest of us can kiss the freedom of thought and conscience good bye!
llegspider,
I used the term "fundamental" quite consciously and deliberately, not to lay blame at anybody's door or blatantly generalise, but to indicate that this is where faith - all faith - generally starts out from, a lowest common denominator, if you will.
I never presupposed that anything to do with religion per se is inescapably fundamentalist. It can be transcended - after all there are lots of people who develop and move on and adjust their faith to the here and now with intelligence, reason and a conscience along the way.
I don't think you will be able to divorce fundamentalism from organised religion though - they always went together and I'm afraid they always will to some degree. The question is: to which degree?
Apart from that I totally agree with you that a fundamentalist mindset can come in many shapes and forms, the religious one being just one of them. Oh, and I'd be happy to listen to your meaning of the term 'fundamental mindset' any time!
[%sig%]
I can't prove that he is unwell, but a recent tracheotomy would suggest that he ought to be recuperating... You also can't prove that he is thrilled to bits to be sat in front of a window waving and blessing.
That he is struggling for breath, is I assume, a medical fact (the tracheotomy thing tells me so)
I am a non believer. You are a believer.. and so be it.
The problem is that it is all very silly... Sorry Jude. But it is... masses of people hanging around to glimpse him, hanging on to his every croak. Don't they have lives to lead, people around them to care for, things to do and build. Truly they are sheep. The old man will die, soon enough, he will not resurrect and nothing will have changed for them. They will not be any nearer to filling the void in their lives. It is sad.
so if I had been bought up by Buddhist parents who had decided to let me "decide for myself" and I had gone to a completely secular school and I converted to Catholicism aged 18 it would be a fre choice?
However, because both my folk are Catholics (albeit adult converts) and I am a "cradle catholic" and I went to a convent school it isn't really a free choice because I was indoctrinated?
I think this is a good point BUT I do feel like I am making a free choice...I can't unravel my sub conscious and prove it! Part of my belief in my freedom is due to the fact that I was an agnostic from a very early age and very clearly remember rejecting many of the concepts that my peers took as (literally) Gospel. But you could be right in that I am not even aware (consciously) of the effects this indoctrination is having on me now!
I can only report on myself and how I feel and what I believe so I am limited here!
true probably something we won't agree on but in Catholic tradition...battling on in spite of pain has always been viewed as a high virtue ...saint Bernadette went hobbling around in agony with cancerous tumours on her legs for years...other examples include St Theresa of Liseux and St Catherine.
So at least you can understand where it comes from even if you think it is uneccessary or silly which you are perfectly entitled to believe!
Popestable? Is that anywhere near Whitstable?
Apparently there's a Scottish guy called Keith O'Brien who's a 20-1 outsider to be next Pope. Pope Keith the first - got a certain ring about it!
Why anyone should want to lookup to this homophobic, traditionalist celibate nutter, I do not know. What can he or any of those guys know about 'real life'? Celibacy a virtue? A pervesity more like.
I'm from the camp that prescribes all religion is a disease of thinking - self-perpetuating and evil - particularly in the way it infects children.
But trying to be positive - let's hope the catholics get a moderate this time. This guy's been a total disaster for the third world.
It fills gaping holes in peoples lives I suppose... and if it makes them feel better, then hurrah for them. Mark Brown posted something brilliant once about religion and mental illness, will do a search see if i can find it.
Here it is...
Author - Mark Brown
I read something very interesting once about a study that looked at spirituality and psychiatric illness.
In this case spirituality can be understood to mean the religious urge, the sense of significance of events, of something greater than oneself, of a connectedness to the universe etc
What the study found was that something like seventy percent of people who had been through a period of psychiatric illness serious enough to require hospitalisation reported increased feelings of spirituality after their serious episode of illness.
This does not draw any conclusions about mental health and religious urges but does reveal a link between extraordinary experience and religion.
What something happens that is so out of the ordinary we can't make it fit in with the rest of our lives, such as a death, an illness, a situation of extreme risk etc we have a problem in achieving equilibrium afterwards. We want everything to fit in to a harmonious whole, but extraordinary events don't do this, they stick out like sore thumbs. Religion provides a perfect way of intergrating the odd, the extraordinary and the illogical into everyday life.
In the case of mental illness, someone ends up in a weird place where odd things happen, then arrives back in the world of everyone else with a memory of the strange places they have been. These leaves a lot of stuff that needs to be understood and intergrated, which is where religion can play a very valuable role.
The daddy of the discussion of the difference between spirituality and religion is probably William James' 'The Varieties of Religious Experience' which is brilliant. Check it out at amazon.co.uk here:
Hear, hear, kjheritage! And personally I think the French initiative to ban all religious iconography from schools should be adopted here asap....would be banned in all public places if I had my way....I'm absolutely sick to bally death with religious know-it-alls trying to impose their beliefs and drag us back into the Dark Ages. And before the God-squad send their crusaders to the Worcestershire village of Come-to-Piddle for my head, check this out:
http://in.news.yahoo.com/050116/139/2j1rp.html
*returns to comfy chair in a bit of a huff*
*whispers*
Jude -
Don't tell anyone, but the most uplifting and spiritual experience of my life was standing, with Bob jnr, in the Sistine Chapel. Left me close to blabbering it did...
I agree that faith is what we use to make sense of the extraordinary in our lives. And if you cannot see how extraordinary life truly is than you indeed have far bigger problems than the average religious nut who at least through their beliefs have aknowledged some of what should be transparently obvious after a period of living.
Whereas I veer away from canned religion, I do allow for faith. I think we ought to make a distinction between religion and faith... I do not see why I should automatically have to respect religions or come to that any set of fixed ideas just because someone believes it is precious to them.... if I do respect someone, I will invariably find myself respecting how they have come about their faith too. However no two persons faith is the same, thus a blanket respecting of religions asked by some is really asking too much.... As far as I am concerned, there should be no laws at all governing what you can and cannot say about religions... faith should really be the premise of the personal and not the state. Any religious interpretation/doctrine that that advocates different, I will fight tooth and nail against.
What I find a bit weird is why those who are anti-organised religion don't leave those of us in favour alone. By that I mean we choose to follow the Church's rule - we do not see them as sexist, insane, misguided etc so why do people not part of the Church start ranting about the Church? I don't particularly fancy mountaineering - so many climbers die...it is an insane risk...it is selfish - risking your life for the kick...but hell...I don't go on at mountaineers. If they want to go climbing up treachorous crags that's their business. I mean I can only speak for myself but we're not hurting you, I'm certainly not trying to convert you...no one is asking anyone to come and see the Pope in St Peter's square or go to Church.
Forget WHO the favourite is.
What are the odds that we get yet another blinkered, anachronistic, corrupt misogynist poltroon who will become just one more notorious mass-murderer by consigning large parts of the Third World to lives either unwanted or wracked by HIV/AIDS?
Sheesh, I'll have Opus Dei and P2 on my trail.
"ah yes, good evening Mister Pope "
"Good evening, Carlo, my usual table?""
"Indeed Mister Pope, Madame Pope... and I see you have the children with you tonight, how delightful"
"Yes, Jessica and Ferdinand, we couldn't get a baysitter"
"Lovely.. this way please" (whispers) "Psssss! Louis! The idible-crotchless-knicker napkins and the big cock ice sculpture... remove them from the Popes' table!"
Is not religion 'as read' just canned spirituality for people too lazy to try and work it out a story for themselves? (I allow that many religious people have pretty sophisticated takes on their religion of choice and will not argue the 'word of God' angle... but I am excluding them)
Yes... I think I'm fairly spiritual too Bob my chum... I dont hate and rage against whole swathes of people for example.. gays, the homeless, gypsies etc etc... and then go say a prayer and think oh well, all done... arent I great.
Jude, I completely agree re mountaineering. But mountaineers don't knock at my door regularly selling poorly printed smelly little magazines and refuse to accept that my opinion differs from theirs... and actually, no, I dont believe I will be damned because I dont wear a stupid hat and act like a hypocrite... sorry, I mean go to church.
Lol...I have to say my most Epiphanic moment of spiritual bliss was at Highbury
Gerry...even if I am too lazy to work it out for myself fine...why do you have a problem with that? How is it having a negative impact on anyone else? If it fulfills me spiritually why is it not a good thing? and what is wrong with taking a completed product (hate to use the word but it'll do here!)? You don't need to know how a plane is able to fly to take one!
...and I can assure you that I will go to Church and be hypocritical where you can't see me so it isn't in any way problematic! I don't think you are damned ...neither does anyone who like me adopts theologian John Hicks take on Iranaeun theodicy (which basically means everyone who wants to gets to heaven - because they grow spiritual growth continues after death.
i may get there first s I'l sae you a seat and order you a vodka!
Actually, I have a REALLY big problem with an organisation that "forgives" child abusers and simply moves them to a different area with a slap on the wrist.
I think lots of people have a problem with the hypocrisy of organised religion...
I find it hard to disagree with the general premise you set out, however limiting it to 'organised religion' is not only too narrow, it is folly in my opinion.
Take Jude for example, she calls herself a Catholic, she subsciribes to the tradition, she is going to become a nun for goodness's sake, yet her faith is undeniably a complex many sided thing arrived at through much thought and circumspection... and yet there are those that call themselves Catholics too, who insist that the world was created exactly according to the book of Genesis and to differ in any way is heretical.
By attacking 'organised religion' simplistically, you are lumping them all together and not only is it not fair, I think it is counterproductive.
For billions of people, faith plays an important part in how they organise their life and works and a code by which they live by... and the particular traditions that they follow is the physical manifestation of that faith... yes there is a lot of crud that goes with these traditions, but there is a lot that is practically good, that brings comfort and salvation to many a broken life... not to say education and practical benefits too.... I owe a lot to the nuns and the Catholic school for my early education in Africa... they were decent people doing great work for scant reward and they touched thousands of lives positively, mine included.
To target religion in the way that you do targets faith too and believe me that is exactlly the way to alienate millions who should be on your side... against the backward looking fundamentalists, of whatever ilk they be.
The thing is, we need to get better at identifying them, the fundamentalist mindsets, in our world of today even a few such people can create untold havoc. Lumping them in with people who have religious faith just makes it a lot harder to do so in my view.
I also think you fear the fundamentalists too much in the broad sweep of history, in the longer run their very philosophies has built-in obsolescence... be they dictators, religious fundamentalists, idealogy driven etc they will always lose out to more flexible, adaptable systems of governing. It is just the way of things that that be so.
Following the Nolan report, the Church's policy on abuse is to encourage victims to press charges and the priest will never work in a Parish again.
Mistakes were made in the past as they were in many institutions such as schools, care homes. we were a little slower than schools or homes to review our policies in light of current research on peodophilia but not by much
the crusades were a cock up too...the Church is not fundamentally flawed but the people in it are....and you can't hold up the past mistakes of a few people for ever as a condemnation of the whole...I believe!
I think the wounds are still very sore but have great hope in the Church's future. That we can be a body which it is a joy and honour to be a part of and which we can refer to with pride.
sorry Gerry...yes I did start the thread and on reflection it was bound to lead to rants a bit like waving a picture of Prince Charles in front of George!!!
I have said many places that having faith is prefferable to no faith... I believe that sincerely. I tend to believe that the worst crimes are comitted by people who have no or have 'lost' their faith.
From what little I know of you I have the utmost respect for how you have come about your faith, knowing you would not settle for an easy path. However, I do not agree that one should respect religious institutions just because that is what they are... People who ask for respect for their religions, I have no time for at all. You respect someone first, then you respect their faith, not the other way round.
Eloquent, but when it comes to quantity of blood spilt, I think you will find it is the contrary that is true...
From a cursory glance through the last century (and I am no historian)
Stalin,
The Nazis,
Pol pot,
Idi Amin,
Saddam Hussein
and I am sure there are many more examples...
On a straight body count, it would appear it is the 'godless' rather than 'god fearing' that we need to be wary of. Funny why then, pschmitts view on religion is so much in vogue...
It is all a load of bollocks. There is no God and anyone who does anything apart from urinate against the metaphorical pillars of all religious institutions is a deluded fool.
I haven't been paying attention to him. Am the only person here who isn't ever the least bit phased by W.ankers? Is this a shining example of Christian love and tolerence or am I always to drunk or hungover to recognize a tosser?
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