Again the pope says all “faiths” have to team up to resist the idea that government should be independent of religion.
“The most urgent thing for ecumenicalism is, namely, that we can’t allow the push of secularism to force us, almost without noticing, to lose sight of the major similarities that make us Christians, and which remain a gift and a challenge for us,” the pope said.
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The Etzelsbach service was a reflection on the Virgin Mary. But most other speeches Friday kept the focus on the power of Christian cooperation and the need to fight secularism, topics to which Benedict often gravitates.
“The more the world moves away from God, the more clear it becomes that man, in the hubris of power, the void in his heart and in the longing for fulfillment and happiness, is losing ever more touch with his life,” he preached during the Erfurt’s service.
Hubris shmubris. Don’t you talk to me about hubris, or power either; you’re the one with the hubris and power, taking all the protections and immunities of being a state with none of the duties or responsibilities. Don’t talk to us about hubris and power when you and your henchmen want women to die rather than have abortions, and make ordination of women an excommunicable offense while child rape goes unpunished. And don’t forget the condoms and the AIDS epidemic. Hubris yourself, Joe.
I was gonna say, “Ooh, Benedict’s brought down to ecumenicalism. That’s gotta hurt.”
Then I see he’s talking to Lutherans for Christ’s sake. I was brought up LCA Lutheran. The first time I attended a Catholic mass, I thought it was Casual Sunday. Where’s the chanting? Of course, this is before I saw the really weird stuff. We had nothin’ like veneration of the host.
“The similarities that make us Christians.” Religion practically invented the notion of dividing by beliefs; got enough different beliefs? You can start your own sect and name it after yourself, and god himself is on your side. You can have special words for people who don’t believe what you do, and fight bloody and protracted wars where both sides are Christians fighting for their religion.
There must be some very powerful force at work to get Christians to focus on their similarities.
Ah, yes, secularism.
I feel better now.
All will be equal. Of course Benny’s boys will be more equal than the others.
From My articles about Christianity:
“Christianity is not a coherent and consistent philosophy or set of beliefs. Knowing that someone is a Christian enables very few predictions to be made about that person.
“Christianity is perhaps best thought of as a “brand”, with its famous (sinister) logo, and a sort of loose franchise built around these. Each franchise-outlet may then go its own way.”
Heh. Ratzinger election to supreme religious leader by a group of single old men is what finally got me to break from lefty Catholic to next-best-thing-to-atheist. So he’s doing his part for secularism.
Well, he talked a lot about fighting secularism together, but he also left the Lutherans standing in the rain when it came to any concrete stuff (like their petty argument over joined communion and stuff, or the problems of “mixed marriages”).
He also said that the church should withdraw from politics and political power and privileges, but he never said what they should actually give up (please, let it be their church tax, please, please. Oh, and will you please shut up when the government is talking about gay marriage? I’m totally ok with you not allowing them to marry in your church, after all it shows the world that you’re intolerant, narrow-minded, hateful people, but you have no say in what happens at the registry office).
What really made me vomit was when he alluded to the child-abuse scandal by saying that it is really disappointing when you find out that there’s weeds amongst the wheat.
F.. you, Hitlerjunge Ratzinger, that’s an instand Goodwin.
My favourite moment of his visit: When the bishop of Berlin greeted him and explained that he was in a city where only 30% are members of a christian church and 30% identify as atheists and the pooooooor man almost cried.
The more you pull away the veil of illusions created by the Catholic church, the more you will see that it is a political entity and not a religion. Not only political but authoritarian and medievalist. It is an enemy of liberalism.
Yes result!
It seems the xian dingbats have finally noticed that ignoring, smearing and roundly demonizing atheism has not worked quite as well as it has done for the previous 2000 odd years.
They were just all pouty about it a decade ago but regarded it as just a few nasty wasty ‘katolik haters who were going to hell, and they have had plenty of detractors in their time, they usually burnt them, but pesky secular law has crimped their throw on that solution.
They tried ignoring them, but they started asking awkward questions on open public forums.
They tried pretending they were just in league with the devil, but no one believed them.
They tried suggesting they were sub-human, got badly burnt on that little escapade.
They pretended atheism were the reason for the sex club hedonism that permeated the Vatican, again no one bought the line except the brain dead who never asked the obvious question…’what were atheists doing in the Catholic Seminaries?’….
They started becoming unpopular in countries they regarded as their home ground.
They begun to get very uneasy and then realized they were losing traditional followers who were turning to either the competition or far worse..Atheism!.
So now they have suddenly woken up, blinked in the blinding light of rationalism and are simply shitting themselves and like any coward have gone running to dive under the tatty threadbare skirts of the xian legions that they thought they could do without since 1517 CE.
Their knees are knocking under their pretty crow black dresses and the piss is streaming down their hairy little legs.
They are congregating in each others ragged company…cos they all know deep down this is shaping up to be the final stand…they are all…to a cult… very very frightened.
‘Ahh the stench of abject fear before morning light…it will be a red dawn and one where fairy stories can be relegated to the cute but practically useless pile for the first time ever…and for ever!
And Humanity can finally be free to be humane!’
Well that would be nice, but I would settle for Religion never ever having the same influence and power over politics and media it has wielded as its assumed right since it was invented.
I would settle for the delusion to remain a private and wholly self inflicted insanity…that would do me!
But reality seems to suggest that any real shedding of this ridiculous concept in the West will be dictated by a totally different religion.
Fear, suspicion and xenophobic hatred will tend to clump these xian clots together .
So the Crusades are still on going…whether they admit it or not.
They have first to deal with their own back yard untidiness, get the atheists out of their hair because with secular interference their paranoia will never be assuaged in governmental policy.
So they band together for common cause.
It is what bullies and the fear soaked do!
“The more the world moves away from God, the more clear it becomes that man, in the hubris of power, the void in his heart and in the longing for fulfillment and happiness, is losing ever more touch with his life,”
Dang! That papal asshole owes me a new irony meter. Really; you just can’t make up stuff like this.
I think my latest post to my blog is on-topic here. (It is related to Anubis Bloodsin III @ 8):
The expanding scope of science; the shrinking scope of religion
And people why I call him pope Vindictive.
Wow, I didn’t know fulfillment and happiness were bad things. Learn something new every day.
We in Egypt are now fighting a seemingly hopeless battle against Political Islamists who use the same arguments, the same language, as the Pope. All “faiths” are already teamed up against secularism, rationalism, and freedom of thought.
It is a curious thing with religion – I think guys like the Pope genuinely feel that they don’t have much power, even though the facts demonstrate otherwise.
Ratzinger is so powerful that he got caught covering up for people who raped children, and the people who called for his arrest were vilified for it by the UK media.
His organisation operated a slave ring called the Magdelene Laundries and are calls for his organisation to be charged for that taken seriously?
His organisation claims statehood when it is convenient to it, but then uses the rights assigned to citizens to avoid the laws which apply to states. He is effectively above the law.
And yet he whines about how mean secularists are bullying him.
“The more the world moves away from Santa Claus, the more clear it becomes that man, in the hubris of power, the void in his heart and in the longing for fulfillment and happiness, is losing ever more touch with his life.”
Power hungry, self-aggrandised bigot in a stupid fucking hat.
Lolz to the Pope turning to Protestants and saying, “Hey, we’re the same, you and me!”
Guess that’s why the Catholic church has of late (I believe) been courting conservative Anglicans re the issue of girls being let into the boys’ treehouse.
I guess certain differences are trivial, when it comes to the threat of atheists or wimminz.
Yeah, all evil ideologies at least initially claim victimhood. That way, their “offensive” position can be held by its constituents as self-defense.
‘…a gift and a challenge for us…’
I don’t know if this is doublespeak, or a deepity, or both.
“The more the world moves away from God, the more clear it becomes that man, in the hubris of power, the void in his heart and in the longing for fulfillment and happiness, is losing ever more touch with his life,” he preached during the Erfurt’s service.
“The more the world moves toward God, the more clear it becomes that religious so-called leaders, in the hubris of power, the void in their hearts and in the longing for fulfillment and happiness, are losing ever more touch with this life,” a less prominent commentator replied on a blog.