Bye Bye Benedict

[Terpit]

African pope would be a good step forward for the Church.

Popes are only allowed to be white, silly

African cardinal was on the shortlist last time IIRC...and they said that 'bout the president of Americaland.

Yeah I was just being ignorant believe it or not

[Forum]

African pope would be a good step forward for the Church.

Popes are only allowed to be white, silly

African cardinal was on the shortlist last time IIRC...and they said that 'bout the president of Americaland.

There's more chance of the next king being black..

[wub]

African pope would be a good step forward for the Church.

Popes are only allowed to be white, silly

African cardinal was on the shortlist last time IIRC...and they said that 'bout the president of Americaland.

Yeah I was just being ignorant believe it or not

It's hard to tell with you at times

[scspkr99]

Why so aggressive today, dude? I'm sorry if I've annoyed you here by talking to garethom about why the Pope's mind is difficult to change and why he might disagree with former Popes, but I'm not quite sure how I managed it... I seem to get this quite a lot with you though, so I'm really terribly sorry... I must have done something awful some time.

Of course I'm oversimplifying. I'm not a theologian or a Catholic and this is Dubstepforum, not Kings College. Before you started snarking at my posts, I was just replying to Garethom's point about popes being "not notoriously open to change" and the fact that outsiders can't change what they want to preach... my point was just that if no change was ever expected, you wouldn't need a leader. If all the values of Catholicism were set on stone tablets, you wouldn't need a figurehead re-evaluating things like Limbo, Homosexuality and rules on Celibacy. Whatever the myriad other responsibilities the Pope has, the most central one is to make decrees on grey areas in the faith. That's pretty simple - I don't know why you find it offensive?

But again, I'm really not quite sure why you've injected yourself into this and started trying to tear lumps off me. I'm not sure we even disagree. In fact, I think we agree unless you can point out why not?!

I'm rarely aggressive and I don't recall being so towards you. I also wasn't offended other than by a persistence to ignorance that I expect from those not as smart as you are.

Limbo wasn't a grey area, celibacy is, AIDS is a very real danger and I think failing to consider the influence of the church and considering power in strictly going to war and starting crusades misses just how influential the church is. More people will die in Africa of AIDS this year than died in all the crusades combined and they went on for nearly 300 years.

[Terpit]

Yeah I was just being ignorant believe it or not

It's hard to tell with you at times

[magma]

I'm rarely aggressive and I don't recall being so towards you. I also wasn't offended other than by a persistence to ignorance that I expect from those not as smart as you are.

Limbo wasn't a grey area, celibacy is, AIDS is a very real danger and I think failing to consider the influence of the church and considering power in strictly going to war and starting crusades misses just how influential the church is. More people will die in Africa of AIDS this year than died in all the crusades combined and they went on for nearly 300 years.

Fair enough. I've just noticed it a few times from you recently on several issues (normally followed with the "I'm not angry, I just expected more from you" sentiment) and wondered if you had a specific problem with me. What persistence to ignorance did I display? I only made two posts.. I can't have been that persistent!


Limbo was "grey" in that there were clearly people within the Church that disagreed with its implementation - i.e. Benedict and his followers. Of course there was an existing policy, so perhaps it wasn't "grey" until he decided to review it. I don't have access to their change control system unfortunately. It didn't take him very long to change it though, and it's still under debate in the wider world, so I wouldn't be surprised if we see more changes in the coming years/decades. I'd still classify it as grey, but I doubt Benedict would. I still don't really see why that was grounds to jump down my throat and call my posts "bullshit", tbh.

If you actually want me to debate the semantics of what does or doesn't constitute a grey area then I've really got better ways to be spending my time. It's not often I say that around here, either.

AIDS is a real danger, but it's not caused by the Catholic church. It's just abetted by them. People weren't dying of AIDS during the crusade because it didn't exist. There were also vastly less people on Earth back then - it was impossible to create an epidemic the size of AIDS in 1050... but the difference for me is that now they're just not doing enough to stop something... back then, they were raising armies on the promise of Heaven to grab territories from foreign powers... that's pretty next level shit. There's no way the church is as powerful now as back then. It's still not "good", in my opinion, but it's a fair bit less potent.

[scspkr99]

Fair enough. I've just noticed it a few times from you recently on several issues (normally followed with the "I'm not angry, I just expected more from you" sentiment) and wondered if you had a specific problem with me.

I've selective amnesia because I don't recall any disagreements outside of Suarez. You talk to topics that interest me though so I may have. It's not personal and I don't do angry. I'm misunderstood or something.

Limbo was "grey" in that there were clearly people within the Church that disagreed with its implementation - i.e. Benedict and his followers. Of course there was an existing policy, so perhaps it wasn't "grey" until he decided to review it. I don't have access to their change control system unfortunately. It didn't take him very long to change it though, and it's still under debate in the wider world, so I wouldn't be surprised if we see more changes in the coming years/decades. I'd still classify it as grey, but I doubt Benedict would. I still don't really see why that was grounds to jump down my throat and call my posts "bullshit", tbh.

If we're getting onto the semantics of what does or doesn't constitute a grey area then I've really got better ways to be spending my time. It's not often I say that around here, either.

AIDS is a real danger, but it's not caused by the Catholic church. It's just abetted by them. People weren't dying of AIDS during the crusade because it didn't exist. There were also vastly less people on Earth back then - it was impossible to create an epidemic the size of AIDS in 1050... but the difference for me is that now they're just not doing enough to stop something... back then, they were raising armies on the promise of Heaven to grab territories from foreign powers... that's pretty next level shit. There's no way the church is as powerful now as back then. It's still not "good", in my opinion, but it's a fair bit less potent.

Your post wasn't bullshit I'm not going to be bothered about the grey stuff either but the hotline to god stuff was bullshit because I think it fails to acknowledge that the Pope isn't waiting for God to change his mind he can actually respond to the challenges facing the church. 50 years ago prior to Vatican 2 the majority of people in a church wouldn't have understood the words. Congregations can force change and they have to, we've seen countless examples of what happens when we allow institutions to police themselves, churches are in a weird position regarding the state and given that the state will abrogate it's own responsibility in managing churches pressure should come from somewhere.

There's an interesting aside here, we often value loss more than not saving. In the Moral Landscape Sam Harris one of the new Atheists points to research that demonstrates we don't vregard passive decisions that allow people to die in the same way we do making active decisions that result in death. The church still has a massive influence over the way millions of people will go abotu their day and ultimately why hundreds of thousands of them will die.

[Terpit]

I'm misunderstood or something.

[scspkr99]

Context like

[Terpit]

Context like

[kidshuffle]

When you're so old that even altar boys can't get you hard anymore, it's time to pack it in

[kidshuffle]

He got a lot of criticism compared to the last pope. It could be as simple as that

He's the first Pope to resign in 600 years, if it's over something as petty as a bit of criticism from mainly non-catholics I will be VERY surprised

from the article itself

But resignation is extremely rare: the last Pope to step aside was Pope Gregory XII, who resigned in 1415 amid a schism within the Church

its not too far-fetched tbh

[magma]

the hotline to god stuff was bullshit because I think it fails to acknowledge that the Pope isn't waiting for God to change his mind he can actually respond to the challenges facing the church.r 50 years ago prior to Vatican 2 the majority of people in a church wouldn't have understood the words. Congregations can force change and they have to, we've seen countless examples of what happens when we allow institutions to police themselves, churches are in a weird position regarding the state and given that the state will abrogate it's own responsibility in managing churches pressure should come from somewhere.

This is where I feel the need to make some definitions because I'm not actually religious. I didn't use the term "hotline to God", but it's the Church's belief that he's nominated by God to be the only human with security clearance... not that his VPN is terribly reliable.

In my personal opinion, all the Pope's decisions are his own and all changes to Catholic dogma come from the congregation because I don't believe ideas can flow from a non-existent God. But, [along with many other smaller ones] the Pope's ultimate responsibility is to be the one that makes those calls on God's behalf and the people who employ him do believe that he has some sort of contact with God. He might not be sent every answer in a burning bush, but he's considered close enough to the trinity that his word can be trusted over any other human. "Hotline to God" is a silly term that I'd almost certainly never use (probably why I'm feeling a bit defensive), but I don't think there's anything terribly wrong with me replying to Gareth saying he's "not notoriously open to change" with something about his perceived connection to God - if I could bolster my opinion with the weight of God's, I'd probably get a bit more headstrong too.

There's an interesting aside here, we often value loss more than not saving. In the Moral Landscape Sam Harris one of the new Atheists points to research that demonstrates we don't vregard passive decisions that allow people to die in the same way we do making active decisions that result in death. The church still has a massive influence over the way millions of people will go abotu their day and ultimately why hundreds of thousands of them will die.

I agree with this and, as I hope you've realised, I'm most definitely not arguing that the Catholic stance on AIDS is good. In fact, I think it's very bad indeed. I was just pointing out why it didn't necessarily butt up against celibacy/pre-marital sex laws because Garethom asked:

What I don't get about the criticism of the pope/previous popes' stance on condoms is that they get it in the ear for being against contraception, but nobody mentions that they also preach celibacy and sex within marriage only. Let's face it, places would have lower AIDS/HIV rates if they stuck to THAT part of Christianity.

Gotta love popping onto SNH to "quickly" reply to an interesting post.

[chekov]

can we start discussing borderline-libellous accusations now pls thx

[alphacat]

[Mason]

time for a gay pope imo

oh wait

[garethom]

can we start discussing borderline-libellous accusations now pls thx

>Too many jaegers
> Fucked a guy
> Moses saw

[kidshuffle]

time for a gay pope imo

oh wait

sarah palin imo. she did just leave fox too...

[Mason]

hmm should be a reality show where every week someone gets voted off until there is but one and he shall be pope

[SCope13]

^^ I would watch that.