Why did they apologise?
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The Foreign Office apologises for a memo of things that the Pope could do when visiting Britian, clickity[^]. "...the Pope's visit to the UK could be marked by the launch of "Benedict" condoms...the pope could be invited to open an abortion clinic and bless a gay marriage during September's visit." This stirs up the anger in me somewhat, why did they apologise for showing up the stupidity in the beliefs of these people? Why shouldn't we talk about their homophobic stance, their objections to gay marriage and the use of condoms when the 'main man' is in town? We don't hide away from people like the BNP on their racist issues, so why the change for the Pope? :mad:
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" ~ Albert Einstein "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." ~ Paul Neal "Red" Adair
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The Foreign Office apologises for a memo of things that the Pope could do when visiting Britian, clickity[^]. "...the Pope's visit to the UK could be marked by the launch of "Benedict" condoms...the pope could be invited to open an abortion clinic and bless a gay marriage during September's visit." This stirs up the anger in me somewhat, why did they apologise for showing up the stupidity in the beliefs of these people? Why shouldn't we talk about their homophobic stance, their objections to gay marriage and the use of condoms when the 'main man' is in town? We don't hide away from people like the BNP on their racist issues, so why the change for the Pope? :mad:
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" ~ Albert Einstein "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." ~ Paul Neal "Red" Adair
How does ridiculing the pope help the victims? How does it help the church change it's stance towards internal prosecution and celibacy? It's just cheap bashing on the Weakling of the Day. We are all stupid. The variations in level are miniscule - our ego blows them out of proportion and skews them: we all believe we are smarter than we really are, we assume anyone who does something stupid is stupid, we assume that people smarter than us are maybe just a little, but not much. Throughout time, even the brightest minds have held stupid beliefs. Imagine you get invited to a business friend's home for dinner, and his teenage son, after hearing your job description, calls you a "greedy, opressive imperialist asshole" before slamming the door. Would you be as irritated by an apology of the parents? Inviting the pope to visit an christian counseling center for women that doesn't completely rule out an abortion is brave. Inviting him to open an abortion clinic is a pure insult, childish and agressive. Maybe you find it acceptable to insult random people. Maybe you find it acceptable to insult anyone who doesn't share your beliefs. I don't. And no, I'm not catholic.
Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server. -
How does ridiculing the pope help the victims? How does it help the church change it's stance towards internal prosecution and celibacy? It's just cheap bashing on the Weakling of the Day. We are all stupid. The variations in level are miniscule - our ego blows them out of proportion and skews them: we all believe we are smarter than we really are, we assume anyone who does something stupid is stupid, we assume that people smarter than us are maybe just a little, but not much. Throughout time, even the brightest minds have held stupid beliefs. Imagine you get invited to a business friend's home for dinner, and his teenage son, after hearing your job description, calls you a "greedy, opressive imperialist asshole" before slamming the door. Would you be as irritated by an apology of the parents? Inviting the pope to visit an christian counseling center for women that doesn't completely rule out an abortion is brave. Inviting him to open an abortion clinic is a pure insult, childish and agressive. Maybe you find it acceptable to insult random people. Maybe you find it acceptable to insult anyone who doesn't share your beliefs. I don't. And no, I'm not catholic.
Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server.Fair points. What I was trying to say was that we don't tolerate similar points of view from openly racist parties, the BNP for example. Yet we let the CC get away with their views on condoms, homosexuals etc. OK, abortion may not be just be a CC thing, its very diversive. I'm not overly in favour of abortions myself, but would never deny women the option to have one. It just seems to me that we silently accept the CC stance on a lot of things that we don't accept from others - it smacks of hypocrisy.
peterchen wrote:
Maybe you find it acceptable to insult anyone who doesn't share your beliefs
No not really. But when you have people who preach to others not to use condoms, that homosexuality is a sin etc; then they need to be corrected. These views may have been widely held in the dark ages, but we as a society have moved on and silently accepting these outdated 'beliefs' to me is just not acceptable. Just because it is their 'belief' doesn't mean it's right. We used to believe the earth was flat right?
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" ~ Albert Einstein "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." ~ Paul Neal "Red" Adair
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Fair points. What I was trying to say was that we don't tolerate similar points of view from openly racist parties, the BNP for example. Yet we let the CC get away with their views on condoms, homosexuals etc. OK, abortion may not be just be a CC thing, its very diversive. I'm not overly in favour of abortions myself, but would never deny women the option to have one. It just seems to me that we silently accept the CC stance on a lot of things that we don't accept from others - it smacks of hypocrisy.
peterchen wrote:
Maybe you find it acceptable to insult anyone who doesn't share your beliefs
No not really. But when you have people who preach to others not to use condoms, that homosexuality is a sin etc; then they need to be corrected. These views may have been widely held in the dark ages, but we as a society have moved on and silently accepting these outdated 'beliefs' to me is just not acceptable. Just because it is their 'belief' doesn't mean it's right. We used to believe the earth was flat right?
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" ~ Albert Einstein "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." ~ Paul Neal "Red" Adair
Thanks for the civil reply :) BNP = Bangladesh Natiuonal Party? I don't know anything about them (and the wikipedia article needs some work). Starting at the back: you can't compare "flat earth" to "homosexuality is a sin". For the first you usually assume an objective truth to compare to. Sin is defined out of thin air. applying scientific rigor until you found a contradictions is not the point. I give the CC - as much as any other streaming - some leeway by judging what it does, what that preaching leads to. My biggest gripe? What "no condoms" is doing to AIDS in Africa. Yes, on my bill that's much much worse than covering child abuse. Still, I defend every mans and womans right to freely choose a belief and life style that says "no" to condoms (unless it involves raping virgins instead). Social diversity is important for survival of society. Our objective view isn't infallible: objectively, homosexuality can be considered a birth defect - not being interested in successful reproduction. So if we were in dire need of population growth, and could "fix" homosexuality pre-birth, should we?
We live in two overlapping vacuums. The last century has liberated millions from spending the majority of their lives on getting food on the table. Never in the history of man so many people could survive on so little work. We don't know what to do with that at all - between chinese factory girls that consider 10..12h/day six days a week liberating, and the 1st world jobless who just fall back into depression and stupor without existential pressure. This is accompanied by a similar disappearance of meaning. Everything beyond a primitive pragmatism appears outdated, stupid, or evil. We are suspicous of morals. Religion has provided that for thousands of years. It's an ugly solution, but one of the few that we have left.
P.S. looking for a quote I didn't find, I nonetheless found this interview: Clickety[^]. Not so much about religion, but about belief. Not sure if you'll like it, I do. [edit] it's in there.[/edit]
Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
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The Foreign Office apologises for a memo of things that the Pope could do when visiting Britian, clickity[^]. "...the Pope's visit to the UK could be marked by the launch of "Benedict" condoms...the pope could be invited to open an abortion clinic and bless a gay marriage during September's visit." This stirs up the anger in me somewhat, why did they apologise for showing up the stupidity in the beliefs of these people? Why shouldn't we talk about their homophobic stance, their objections to gay marriage and the use of condoms when the 'main man' is in town? We don't hide away from people like the BNP on their racist issues, so why the change for the Pope? :mad:
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" ~ Albert Einstein "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." ~ Paul Neal "Red" Adair
It's beside the point. The FO didn't apologise because of opinions or satire voiced in the mail, but because this satire was voiced by a public servant, using government resources (and of course because it hit the papers). The FO doesn't care if Jack Dee (or Dave Allen when he was still with us) calls the pope a paedophile nitwit criminal (my opinion), because Jack Dee or Dave Allen don't work for the FO. And even if this junior civil servant had circulated emails in his own name (and with his private email account), nothing would have happened. What would you think if you received some mail from the government, on HM's letterhead, claiming you were a raving loony and asking for 78.957 quid in back taxes? Just satire, mabe but you'd get a lawyer, and you'd sue the pants off them. You cannot accuse Gordon Brown of being a catholic (Tony, on the other hand), but Gordon's in politics. Politics is the art of getting along with your enemy (and your enemy's friends). For this to work, you have to cloak your opinions in shrouds of diplomacy (at least publicly). Whenever a civil servant does anything in his official capacity, it's the responsible minister who has to take the blame. So a small apology s better than the end of a career (not that the respnosible minister will still have a career after the election, nut not apologising would not even get him on the ballot.
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Thanks for the civil reply :) BNP = Bangladesh Natiuonal Party? I don't know anything about them (and the wikipedia article needs some work). Starting at the back: you can't compare "flat earth" to "homosexuality is a sin". For the first you usually assume an objective truth to compare to. Sin is defined out of thin air. applying scientific rigor until you found a contradictions is not the point. I give the CC - as much as any other streaming - some leeway by judging what it does, what that preaching leads to. My biggest gripe? What "no condoms" is doing to AIDS in Africa. Yes, on my bill that's much much worse than covering child abuse. Still, I defend every mans and womans right to freely choose a belief and life style that says "no" to condoms (unless it involves raping virgins instead). Social diversity is important for survival of society. Our objective view isn't infallible: objectively, homosexuality can be considered a birth defect - not being interested in successful reproduction. So if we were in dire need of population growth, and could "fix" homosexuality pre-birth, should we?
We live in two overlapping vacuums. The last century has liberated millions from spending the majority of their lives on getting food on the table. Never in the history of man so many people could survive on so little work. We don't know what to do with that at all - between chinese factory girls that consider 10..12h/day six days a week liberating, and the 1st world jobless who just fall back into depression and stupor without existential pressure. This is accompanied by a similar disappearance of meaning. Everything beyond a primitive pragmatism appears outdated, stupid, or evil. We are suspicous of morals. Religion has provided that for thousands of years. It's an ugly solution, but one of the few that we have left.
P.S. looking for a quote I didn't find, I nonetheless found this interview: Clickety[^]. Not so much about religion, but about belief. Not sure if you'll like it, I do. [edit] it's in there.[/edit]
Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
|peterchen wrote:
BNP = Bangladesh Natiuonal Party?
Hehe, nah, it's the British National Party. They believe that all non-whites should get out of the country, really racist ugly organisation.
peterchen wrote:
What "no condoms" is doing to AIDS in Africa. Yes, on my bill that's much much worse than covering child abuse.
It is very sickening. They are preaching to people not to use condoms which is causing plight and death, just because they 'believe' its right.
peterchen wrote:
Still, I defend every mans and womans right to freely choose a belief and life style
Were there any Catholic countries in Africa before Europeans showed up? But yes you are right, everyone has a right to believe in anything they want - but I struggle to stay true to that when I see others suffering because of those beliefs.
peterchen wrote:
So if we were in dire need of population growth, and could "fix" homosexuality pre-birth, should we?
Interesting point, and I have no idea of the answer! I actually don't know anyone who is gay, so wouldn't even know what they would think of it. Maybe it could be the topic of another Soapbox discussion! As for the interview I haven't read it yet, but will try to a bit later (it's my last day here and really need to do some last minute tidying up etc). But I think I get your overall point, even if we may disagree on certain aspects. :)
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" ~ Albert Einstein "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." ~ Paul Neal "Red" Adair