In a special Christmas eve address Pope Ratzinger takes time to remind the faithful and hellbound heretics alike that both Yahweh and his only child Republican Jesus hate teh gay. The aging ex Nazi Pontiff also added that nothing threatens world peace quite like reproductive freedom:
Daily News — Pope Benedict used his annual Christmas message to denounce gay marriage, saying that it destroyed the “essence of the human creature.” In one of his most important speeches of the year, the Pope stressed that a person’s gender identity is God-given and unchangeable. As a result, he sees gay marriage as a “manipulation of nature.”
“People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being,” he said at the Vatican on Friday. “They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves.” The Pope has said that gay marriage, like abortion and euthanasia, is a threat to world peace.
Yes! It’s not insatiable greed or arms merchants or fundamentalist lunatics or hunger causing good-hearted noble men of honor to fight to the death — it’s a world full of slutty bitches! What else would you expect? They’re just following in Eve’s footsteps …
I guess those times where Yahweh fucked up and created a male and female parts in the same person should just be …what? Ignored? I have no idea and neither does Pope Ratfucker, but that’s no reason to ruin a good Christmas hate.
Without changing a single word, Benedict’s comments would make a great argument against priestly celibacy.
In all fairness, there is plenty to attack Joe the rat about without making the false accusation that he is an ex-Nazi. He was 17 years old when Germany surrendered and there is no evidence that either he or anyone in his immediate family ever belonged to the Nazi Party.
Yeah, the Nazi thing is a really stupid trope. Membership in the Hitler Youth was mandatory from the late 30s on. People were conscripted into it. And despite how Americans use the term, “Nazi” means being a member of the National Socialist Party.
Well really, the Nazi Pope honorific really belongs to Pius XII, affectionately known as “Hitler’s Pope”.
Ratfucker deserves runner up status as, unlike many Germans, the future leader of the Catholic Church, god’s representative earth and stunt double for jesus christ did nothing to resist the Nazi’s.
Let’s not forget that the German Catholic Church, acting under direct Vatican orders, was instrumental in bringing Hilter to power by allowing Catholics to join the Nazi party, rescinding a previous prohibition, giving Hilter the votes of the Catholic dominated Center party, keeping silent when the Nazis began to boycott Jewish businesses and persecute Jews, and negotiating a concordat between the Holy See and Germany thus increasing Hilter’s prestige around the world.
This is the Nazi Pope Ratfuckers legacy and he doesn’t get a “get out of jail free” card just because he was “just following orders”.
Given how much Christian God hates gays, one would think the Omnipotent One would just destroy the current crop and stop making more of them. Seeing the lack of any action from AWOL Yahweh, I can’t tellthe difference between his not caring and his not existing.
Re steve oberski @ #4
Oh come on, the guy was 17 years old at the time of the German surrender. Blaming him for the evil of Pius XII is a little over the top.
@slc1
Ratfucker claims to be the moral leader of over 1 billion catholics, thinks he has a direct line to god, dispenses a barbaric brand of bronze age absolute morality and is the successor in a line of 266 evil fuck popes so I do hold him to a higher standard.
Not only does he not repudiate the vile acts of evil fuck Pius XII, he has been busy reenstating evil fuck holocaust denying bishops like Richard Williamson so don’t be telling me that I am over the top.
If Ratfucker were some anonymous civil servant in Bavaria, Germany I wouldn’t give a shit what he did or did not do as a 17 year old but as the demented leader of a death cult that espouses misogyny and homophobia and is actively persuing a program of genocide in sub-sahran african every detail of his life is up for inspection and judgement.
I am with Steve on this. There are still some Holocaust survivors live today and there are known Holocaust deniers within the Church. Every single Poop needs to actively repudiate the past and apologize for a millennia of antisemitism in Europe. Since Ratfucker actually had some connection with Nazi Party he needs to lament (from his high office with gold robes) that he didn’t do more to resist evil.
A quite a few people young and old risked their lives to actively oppose the Nazis. A friend of the family that I knew while growing up lied about his age and joined the Dutch resistance at age 14.
While I wouldn’t necessarily condemn those that played along with the Nazis to save their own skin I would expect that someone that is held up as the perfect moral person that tells everyone what is right and wrong might have a better history of courageously fighting that which is so obviously evil.
Just for once, you know, I’d like to see an atheist blogger actually engage with what the pope is saying rather than just present a spittle-flecked rant about it. Andrew’s link to the Daily News’ summary of Benedict’s address rather than to the actual text suggests he hasn’t actually read the speech (I’d love to be wrong on that – am I?): just for once I’d love to see evidence that an atheist’s objection to what the pope says is more than mere hatred of the pope (“Ratf*cker” – ! – What is this – a school playground?) but instead is a well-reasoned argument against the pope’s particular intellectual proposition – here, one regarding human nature etc.
Or, indeed, what Benedict has to say about “the human capacity to make a commitment”, the “quest for the right way to live as a human being”, or a “new philosophy of sexuality”: all things that atheists and Catholics alike can be interested in, surely? But the blogger is satisfied with simply writing Benedict off as an “aging ex Nazi Pontiff” (A lover of reason would describe someone as “aging” because … why? His age has a bearing on what he has to say?) instead of engaging with any of the interesting things he has to say, or presenting any sort of thoughtful counter-argument.
Good to see, though, objections in the combox to descriptions of Benedict as a Nazi, and reference to the tiredness of that trope. I mean, come on.
Heard of Vad Yashem steve oberski? Here’s an article about Pius XII: http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/search_results.asp?cx=005038866121755566658%3Auch7z5rmfgs&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=UTF-8&q=pius&sa=Search&siteurl=www.yadvashem.org%2F&ref=&ss=731j178345j4 – click on the top link.
Hardly a hagiography of the wartime pope, of course: it lays out a fairly objective critique of Pius’ actions.
To change the subject: ah, steve, another weary-legged trope trotted out yet again: this active policy of genocide in Africa. I assume you’re referring to the pope’s dastardly anti-condom campaign. Your argument would run like this:
The Catholic Church bans condoms.
Condoms stop AIDS.
AIDS is a huge problem in Africa.
The 15% of the population of the continent that is Catholic listen to the pope’s message about condoms and obey it. The 85% of the population that’s not Catholic also obey the Catholic Church’s ban on condoms.
So they don’t use condoms – they don’t use them while they’re ignoring the pope’s message about only having sex with their wives or husbands.
They die of AIDS.
It’s the Church’s fault. If only the 85% of people in Africa who aren’t Catholic had ignored the Catholic ban on condoms while they were ignoring the requirement for chastity and abstinence, they would have been OK.
Three centuries or more of brave, bold, intelligent free-thinking and that’s the argument you come up with?
As far as Pope Benedict needing to lament that he didn’t do more to resist evil as a young man, don’t we all need to do the same?
Joseph Ratzinger never joined the Nazi Party; he was conscripted into Hitler Youth, then into the army; he deserted from the army and finished out the war in an American prison camp.
Contrary to abear’s belief, Pope Benedict is not help up as “the perfect moral person”: that’s some kind of shallow-end-of-the-internet-informed misunderstanding of how Catholics see the pope and his role, and is typical of the echo-chamber of internet atheism.
Is it too much to ask lovers of reason to present reasonable blog-posts and comments?
emmet, perhaps you’d like to complete your cute little hat-trick by explaining why the Ratfucker deserves a free ride in re protecting his pet child rapists too? Being as how he’s head of a sect that claims to have the monopoly on moral guidance on earth and was formerly personally in charge of dealing with the accusations?
I see you don’t like the rapist-shielder being called “Ratfucker”, so you clutch your pearls and call it childish. Hmm, let me see … what’s more important than calling out the homophobic misogynist child-rapist protectors? Ah yes, it’s more important to be politely spoken and refrain from calling a fucker a fucker. Let’s all pretend that the child-rapists and their protectors are civilised people who deserve courtesy.
Oh, except they aren’t and they don’t. They deserve to have their names dragged through the mud, and they deserve to be tried and jailed if found guilty, and their organisation deserves to be scorned and ridiculed – worth doing if it makes it even one iota easier for even one person to ignore the evil bile they spew.
That would be a fair objection, if Ratz had ever listened to any crticisms of his medieval policies. He elects to ignore the vast supply of evidence contradicting almost every utterence he makes, and we’re expected to keep patiently and politely hoping he’ll listen?
Fuck that. All attempts to objectively crticise his policies are not even penetrating the aura of ignorance about the entire Vatican area, he continues to spout dangerous and hateful advice, we see no reason to be polite.
Why would they obery the pope’s call for abstinence when they are not of his religion and thus do not see him as any authority? And yet the pope determines health policy for nations that he knows he has no authority over, and continues giving advice that is demonstrably wrong to a population that isn’t going to listen to him anyway.
It’s a recipe for disaster – Africa desperately needs sober, scientifically sound health policy advice but instead they get a guy whose advice is two thousand years out of date.
You don’t get to award him ‘credit’ for his chastity policy when he gives it to people that are guaranteed to not listen, but we sure as hell award him blame for his anti-prophylactic misinformation. I too consider ‘genocide’ to be a tad melodramatic, but he is directly costing african lives through his ignorance all the same.
It’s funny the way cristians keep saying ‘we don’t believe that, that’s silly!’ only to do an about-face whenever the reverse interpretation is needed. Sure, currently you’re saying catholics don’t hold him up as the gold standard in morality*, but in the next conversation you have with an atheist when you’re arguing that atheists are inherently amoral? Suddenly, the pope will be reinstated as the ultimate moral guardian, because it suits you.
This switching and reversing of your own position to suit the current conversation is tiresome and dishonest. Don’t even bother trying to tell us he is not held up as the moral authority, that’s just a blatant lie.
*I love it how he is (currently) not the moral authority, but still gets to pass on his moral judgements with the expectation that he be obeyed. Best of both worlds – all authority, no accountability!
Or, indeed, what Benedict has to say about “the human capacity to make a commitment”, the “quest for the right way to live as a human being”, or a “new philosophy of sexuality”: all things that atheists and Catholics alike can be interested in, surely?
Surely, and we do.
The difference is that the pope says we should make that committment because of an imaginary man in the sky, whereas we follow Kant’s arguments about why we’re all in this together. He offers an ‘old’ “new philosophy of sexuality” and our understanding of evolution explains to us why we need to consider our partners along with ourselves, etc.
In fact, other than his rather bizzare fetishistic fashion-sense, what does the pope bring to to the discussion, again?
@Marcus Ranum #13 – “In fact, other than his rather bizzare fetishistic fashion-sense, what does the pope bring to to the discussion, again?”
He is the Vicar of Christ, with the divine authority to mandate Heaven as it is on Earth. Or something like that.
Re steve oberski @ #7
Joe the rat is a scumbag. Mr. oberski and I have no disagreement on that score. That has nothing to do with the charge that he is an ex-Nazi, a charge that is manifestly untrue, as I stated previously, neither he, his brother, or any close family member was a member of the Nazi party. As I understand it, he father was forced into retirement because of his lack of support for the Frankenberger regime. Erroneously calling him an ex-Nazi only weakens the case against him as an enabler of child abuse and an enabler of the spread of AIDS in Africa among other things.
That’s my point: why would people listen to what the pope says about condoms if they aren’t Catholic? Yet the atheist trope is that “the pope’s views on condoms cause millions of deaths in Africa”. My question is: how? When the Catholic population is just 15%, how do Catholic views cause these “millions” of deaths from AIDS? That’s absurd, yet it’s an argument trotted out again and again by people who claim to be reasonable and rational. That the Church is engaged in a “program of genocide” in Africa … that’s … words fail me.
“People guaranteed not to listen” – you speak for who? People in Africa? They’re guaranteed not to listen? Because you just know that they desperately want wasted Western morality imported into their lives? They want the millions of condoms that pour into their continent in the guise of “aid” and “reproductive rights” and that seem to be halting the spread of AIDS so successfully?
As for the rest of your comment – you’re arguing against something I’m not saying. Another commenter said that the pope is a “perfect moral person” – I said he’s the same as the rest of us as far as his own moral choices/acts go. You’re saying he’s regarded as a moral authority – of course he is.
I’ve never said atheists are “inherently” amoral. That’s not a view I hold. Often quite (unintentionally) funny, yes. Fairly often breathlessly bombastic, hell yes. Amoral, no.
“rather bizzare fetishistic fashion-sense” – you know, of course, that his clothing has nothing to do with fashion. What he wears is ceremonial, a badge of office, or, if you like, a kind of uniform. It’s “bizarre [and] fetishistic”, I guess, in the same way a judge’s or academic’s robes are bizarre and fetishistic, or an army officer’s dress uniform is, or a Beefeater’s fur hat.
So what does Pope Benedict bring to the discussion? His hefty intellect, humility and sense of humour would be just some of the things he brings. What do you or Steve Andrew or oberski bring, besides schoolboy name-calling and a fuzzy misunderstanding of who and what the pope is?
Do I object to calling Benedict “Ratf*cker”? Of course I do. Bullies make fun of people’s names: intelligent, reasonable people don’t. I don’t think that’s a statement that equates to pearl-clutching. I would hope that it’s one that people on both sides of the religious divide could agree with. I’m told again and again by atheists that religionists are the uncivilsed, uncouth, stupid, unreasonable, cruel ones and that atheists are good (without god). Posts like this blogger’s put the lie to that. I read atheist blogs because I hope to find something I can sink my teeth into – being Catholic, I read posts about Catholic issues because I hope the writer has engaged with the topic and I can contribute to the discussion. Most often I find stuff like this one: the product, it seems, of a cramped, stuffy, unimaginative and bitter worldview: little discussion, no engagement, a lot of bile, and very little evidence of the much-vaunted bold, brave, liberated, free-thinking atheist spirit I hear so much about.
One more for another “cute wee hat-trick” as per opposablethumbs.
Marcus Ranum said: “[Benedict] offers an ‘old’ “new philosophy of sexuality” and our understanding of evolution explains to us why we need to consider our partners along with ourselves, etc.”
I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Read John Paul II’s “Love and Responsibility” where he talks about sex in marriage and how each partner must consider the other’s physical needs: do you seriously really need an “understanding of evolution” to explain to you that the healthiest sexuality and best sex arise out of considering the other’s needs?
You’re right that Benedict’s philosophy of sexuality is an “old new” one – or ancient, time-tested one if you like. As compared to the “new old” “my needs first, what can I get get get” philosophy that seems to be the most popular that seems to be giving us not much joy at all.
… I just re-read slc1’s last comment: The pope, apparently, is “an enabler of the spread of AIDS in Africa”. Newsflash: your policy of throwing condoms at the problem … Is. Not. Working. Your evidence that the Church’s policy on condom use is the biggest driver of the spread of AIDS, is … where? Can you point me to it?
Can you understand that, or will you blame the Catholics for the problem of AIDS in Africa forever?
Humility, seriously? Do you practice believing six impossible things before breakfast? And sense of humour, well maybe – I’m sure Savita Halappanavar’s family are still laughing.
.
Oh, and you don’t get the hat-trick unless you justify shielding the child-rapists, you know. Or maybe, prior evidence notwithstanding, you actually have a shred of decency and agree that anyone who commits rape should be arrested and tried, no matter who they are, rather than shuffled aournd to another part of their employer’s organisation?
emmet
To the extent that you provide financial and moral support to the catholic church I hold you personally responsible for all the evil they do.
It is sheep like you who take your moral compass from vile misogynistic, homophobic and child raping old men that come across as the superannuated cast of the Lost Boys from Peter Pan gone feral, who enable the legacy of catholic barbarism to continue and give this international criminal organization a veneer (thankfully becoming increasingly thin) of respectability.
One hardly knows where to begin in commenting on the claims of Mr. emmet.
1. Mr. emmet’s claim that only 15% of the African population are communicants of the Raping Children Church is a perfect example of a half truth. It ignores the fact that the northern part of Africa is mostly Arab Muslim where very few Christians of any stripe dwell. The percentage of the inhabitants of black Africa south of the Sahara who are communicants of the Raping Children Church is much higher then that.
2. The Raping Children Church has considerable influence over the governments in black Africa in preventing the widespread distribution of condoms. Contrary to Mr. emmet’s claim that the use of condoms to prevent AIDS is a failure, I would point out that condoms are more then 90% effective in preventing the spread of HIV-1, the most widespread form of HIV. Unfortunately, they are only 30% effective in preventing the spread of HIV–2, which, fortunately, is relatively rare thus far in Africa.
http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2012/10/09/hiv-cure-woo-alive-and-well-in-africa/
I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Read John Paul II’s “Love and Responsibility” where he talks about sex in marriage and how each partner must consider the other’s physical needs: do you seriously really need an “understanding of evolution” to explain to you that the healthiest sexuality and best sex arise out of considering the other’s needs?
Its because he gets is backwards. We evolved before there were popes, right? And then, after popes were invented, one of them came along and stated what – by then – was obvious. Kant, Bentham, and Mill all published before John Paul II did; they have priority.
What I mean about an understanding of evolution being part of what informs our modern sexuality is that we have a much better grasp on the cooperation/competition between the sexes in a wide variety of species. Once you understand that sexual transmitted diseases exist, and how they transmit themselves, a great deal about ancient human attitudes toward sexuality begins to fall into place.
You’re right that Benedict’s philosophy of sexuality is an “old new” one – or ancient, time-tested one if you like.
I hope you’re not going to be shocked to discover that the idea of monogamy (not that we practice it very well…) has been around for longer than christianity and judaism. I’d suppose it’s “time-tested” and has somewhat passed that test, since humanity got this far. Although our modern understandings of viruses, bacteria, heredity, etc, do a lot more to explain those attitudes than “a bunch of ancient jews thought this is what their god wanted.”
Some of those understandings allow us to other understandings – namely that the prohibition against same-sex isn’t anything more than the opinion of some of those ancient jews. And, of course, the popes are just repeating those opinions (and adding thier own tasty bits over the course of centuries…)
My point regarding the fetishistic nature of papal uniforms is simply that it’s rather ironic for a bunch of (alleged, though apparently they don’t practice it very well…) celibates who dress funny and talk to an imaginary man in the sky to call anyone “weirdo.”
WTF, I don’t like this story.
Go view other homes that are on the market in your position, creating sure you see at least a few that drop into each of these categories: (a) qualities in your community or identical communities, (b) homes in your house’s general budget variety, all around town, and (c) homes that have identical numbers of rooms, washrooms and sq ft – no matter what the cost. Quick Home sale