Mailbag: Disrespect Towards the Pope
Subject: The Pope
Who ever you are i would like to comment on your comments on the views of the pope. if you be such the person who let such disrespectful words come from your mouth then your are an animal. you are also very skillful in twisting words around, congrats.
I have written quite a lot about the papacy, past popes, and the current pope. Since I am not a Catholic, of course what I write won't be as reverential and respectful as what people might find from other authors. And why should it be? I, as an outsider, am entitled to offer critiques - including harsh critiques - when I feel that such observations are warranted and justified.
Simply accusing me of "twisting words around" isn't good enough - a real critique of my writings would have to show where I have made serious errors. Neither Anthony nor anyone else who has disagreed with any of my writings about the papacy has ever managed to do that - they attack me and they attack my writing generally, but that's about all they manage. Perhaps because I am an "animal" for not showing the proper "respect" then I am not worth anything more substantive?
may i ask you something, do you advocate murder, because you so staunchly advocate the murder of young innocent babies. tell me why can't a women bear her child, let it live and let it be raised by another, is going through the troblue of letting a child live so hard?
I wonder how and why abortion came into this? Is Anthony just picking out random issues to attack me on, without any regard for coherency? Labelling abortion as "murder" and a fetus as a "baby" simply commits the fallacy of equivocation - no one seriously arguing about abortion would say such a thing, so I must assume that Anthony isn't looking for a real discussion on the matter. He's just lashing out.
and why don't you mind your buisness when it comes to church affairs, if you are an atheist, mind your buisness. no allowing women priests is in the tradition of the chuch, are you anti-tradition also? many faiths do the same, the u.s government excluded women from the vote for more than a century.
Here we see another way of saying "if you aren't a member of group X, then you have no right to comment on what group X does internally." Usually we find people saying something like "only Christians can understand Christianity well enough to comment intelligently on it," but Anthony is making a narrower claim of "mind your own business." But so long as the Roman Catholic Church remains a powerful force in modern culture, one always seeking to acquire ever greater power and influence, then church affairs are as much my business as anyone else's. The fact that I am not a Catholic doesn't make my criticisms invalid - saying so is just a way to avoid dealing with my critiques though a subtle us of the Genetic Fallacy.
Yes, it is tradition for the Roman Catholic Church to exclude women - but that doesn't make it right. It isn't right for other religions to do it. I find it ironic that Anthony would bring up the fact that the U.S. government excluded women from voting - that was also wrong and, fortunately, it was changed. Maybe Catholicism will change as well? One can hope...
whom ever you are i would like to say you are a rude, unitelligent, disrespectful, and a degenerate. i hope you are celibate, because i would hate for your seed to spread. if not i will pray you become baron and mute, because i would hate your thoughts from unitelligent basis to spread and corrupt others.
Sticks and stones... after a post with absolutely no substantive critiques and no clear explanation of anything specific I have done wrong, all Anthony can manage is more personal insults. He hopes I am celibate? Sounds like he wishes I were more like a Catholic priest... and he thinks that is an insult? It is instructive that he wishes that my ideas don't spread to others - after all, he can't effectively argue against them, so all he can do is hope that others don't end up agreeing with me. That's always the starting point of censorship: a position cannot be refuted, therefor it must be suppressed for the public good.
More selections from the Agnosticism / Atheism Mailbag...
Comments
You’re doing a great job Austin, you’re freakin awesome dude.
You’re not the only one out there engaged in intense debate.
Check out these articles when you get a chance:
7 articles for you…
1. A mostly sympathetic look at the Ontological Argument
http://jwismer922.tripod.com/Ontological_Argument.htm
2. War on Christians
http://jwismer922.tripod.com/Christocrats_and_WAR.htm
3. Unholy Alliance of Christians against the Environment
http://jwismer922.tripod.com/unholy_alliance.htm
4. Moderate, Liberal Christians and Muslims, an endangered species w/ no backbone
http://jwismer922.tripod.com/American_Idiots.htm
5. OIL, and the unholy trinity, the reason we’re in IRAQ
http://jwismer922.tripod.com/What_does_it_take.htm
6. Taking god out of it
http://jwismer922.tripod.com/Taking_God_out_of_It.htm
7. Elitism and Religious Dogma
http://jwismer922.tripod.com/Elitism_and_Dogma.htm
The worst criticisms of the Pope actually come from other Christians.
The Pope is not Christian, he is Catholic. There is significant difference. Christians do not perform mass or confession for example. Nor do they revere the Pope.
Aaron: as if on cue, someone comes along to prove you correct. I’ve always found it mildly amusing when Christians insist that Catholics aren’t “real” Christians. It’s a sign of insecurity, I think, that they cannot tolerate such diversity within the ranks of Christians.
If you’re going to accuse someone of being unintelligent, at least, for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, spell it correctly!
The same thing happened in my local paper the other day. Someone called someone else “retarted”.
I wonder why it is that some of the most egregious dissenters against atheism and secularism seem to be lacking in basic grammar and spelling? Aside from this person’s rant and formless complaints, not to mention insults, how ignorant.
I just recently spent a mind-numbing thirty minutes or so reading actual comments from people like Anthony. If you don’t know of a site called “Fundies Say the Darnedest Things”, you should. It gives you a small idea of how some brainwashed, non-thinker religious zombies are capable of viewing the world.
In this day and age, it’s truly unbelievable that there are still people that are really “pig-ignorant”. Some can barely spell or form a cohesive sentence, but boy, they know their bible!
They know nothing about Science, History or physics, however, let alone grammar and spelling. Even elementary schooling seems to have eluded some of them. Some almost seem close to functional illiteracy.
The fact that there are individuals like that, out there, that want to run this country and probably the world, is truly a frightening prospect.
I hope this isn’t too OT. But it does seem to relate to the subject at hand, as one of the many-faceted parts of the whole.
“…i will pray you become baron…”
Shall we call you “Baron von Cline” from now on?
i have a Catholic friend (i’m not particular) and was discussing the Book of Revelation with him. He said ‘I don’t know much about the Old Testament’! When told it was New Testament, he said that we Catholics don’t pay mich attention to anything except the Catechism.
Recently Cherie Blair (wife of ex-premier Tony Blair) and a ‘good’ catholic revealed that she had forgotten her birth control pills on holiday.
So much for Papal commandments.
Whenever someone sets themselves up to be above criticism, I know that I am dealing with a phony. I feel that way about heroes, experts, moralizers, and Popes. Everyone is unique. No one is special.
Half of the population is of below-average intelligence — they can’t help themselves, and we cannot help them.