The pope talked to the Bundestag a couple of weeks ago, and according to the Iona Institute, his remarks went down a treat. The II says they gave him a two-minute standing ovation, as if he’d sung an aria or acted Hamlet.
(Why, one wonders? German boy made good? Big famous holy guy in gleaming white outfit? Name recognition? Why?)
His talk was the usual bullshit – the Catholic church had a great deal to do with the wonderful flawless perfect morality we have today, even though the morality we have today is quite different from the morality we had when the Catholic church had real power and didn’t hesitate to use it, and even though the pope spends a lot of his time and talk saying how bad and rotten the morality we have today is and what a crying shame the world doesn’t pay more attention to the Catholic church when it thinks about morality.
…he reminded MPs that our concept of human rights is ultimately derived from Christianity.
He said: “The conviction that there is a Creator God is what gave rise to the idea of human rights, the idea of the equality of all people before the law, the recognition of the inviolability of human dignity in every single person and the awareness of people’s responsibility for their actions.”
Really. Is that a fact. Then why was there no such thing as equality before the law during the many many centuries the church was in the ascendant? Why did the conviction that there is a Creator God fail to give rise to the recognition of the inviolability of human dignity in every single person the Spanish conquistadors bumped up against in the Americas? For that matter why did the conviction that there is a Creator God fail to give rise to the recognition of the inviolability of human dignity in every single child a Catholic priest ever encountered?
Ratzinger needs to stop telling other people to remember and ponder and think about things, and do some real thinking himself.
“The conviction that there is a Creator God is what gave rise to the idea of human rights, the idea of the equality of all people before the law, the recognition of the inviolability of human dignity in every single person
Actually he’s right there: it did this in the exact same way that incredibly horrific bosses gave rise to the idea of unions and justice for workers.
These religious type tout god morality as there are no problems in the world. God is so great yet he can’t feed the world, he can’t stop human trafficking and he can’t stop war. And for that alone fuck god.
Why, one wonders? German boy made good? Big famous holy guy in gleaming white outfit? Name recognition?
German boy made good was definitely a big part of it. Two more things: many MPs who opposed this visit preferred to stay away and the largest party calls itself Christian. They would have applauded even if Ratzi had read the Berlin yellow pages.
The man is moronic, ignorant and wicked, with neither the intellect, knowledge or decency to realise it.
Why on earth does anyone still listen to this wretch?
I wasn’t aware that the Spanish conquistadors bumped up against any fetuses.
Germany, my home Country, is rather teribble at seperating church and state. The preamble of the “Grundgesetz” (the german constitution) mentions the german peoples responsibility before god, religious education classes are the only classes guranted by law and the state even collects taxes for the church (both catholic and protestant). One of our two mayor parties is the CDU (christian democratic union), they are not as conservative or religius as they used to be (they are somewhat to the left of the american democrats), but they still hold the catholic institutions in high regard. Considering all this, the behaviour of our MPs is no surprise, even if some, mostly from left leaning parties, boycotted the visit.
Well, everybody who was not prepared to kiss hiss butt had stayed away and the ranks were filled with fanboys.
MdB (Member of the Bundestag) Elke Ferner explained her absence like this (paraphrasing): The Pope stands against all the things I’ve fought for all my life, like the right to choose for women and equal rights for homosexuals. I would come if there were a chance for a dialogue, but this is a one way street.
But most of thise cheering the Pope on are hypocrites anyway. In their daily lives, they disagree with Ratzi about everything: they use contraception, have sex before marriage, get divorces and marry again. Still they spend time and money to cheer him on. That’s like me spending time and money on the concert of a group that makes me turn the radio off.
The Pope is preaching to the converted. He doesn’t care if the rest of the world is appalled by, or laughs at everything he says, as long as he can convince the mugs in the pews to stay with him and pay their tithes, well then he has done his job perfectly.
The meme that Christianity invented all or our morals and rights seems to be making a world tour these days, including among a lot of ‘atheist but’s.
And if you’re not too careful about examining the historical record, you can make the case for this… provided you avoid a lot of the more carefully buried evidence, like all of those sermons delivered from pulpits about how blacks were inferior and better off as slaves (from what you hear about nowadays, the only religious believers who had an opinion on the matter were William Wilberforce and Martin Luther King.) Yet because religion was believed, for centuries, to be the proper realm for discussion of ethics, and because so many of the worst opinions to the contrary arose from religious sources, the only way to make headway was to couch your arguments in religious terms. When the faithful finally had to bow to better judgement, they pointed to these arguments and said, “See, it was our idea all along!”
And so, we will soon be treated to the claim that the battle against pedophilia in the church was led by… Joe the Rat! Wait for it. It shouldn’t be too long now.