Accidental Troll

Yeah some agreed with me even...but I really don't like to hurt people I like. Still, for all that talking I do not understand why those comments would hurt. I will probably have to ask off-line questions, and I might not get it even then.

From:

thefeline.livejournal.com

I wasn't hurt or even offended. I grew up in both the Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches. Close friends of the family are high up in the Catholic Church and have private audiences with the pope. YET...I was not offended. Go figure?

From:

It isn't so much offensive as it's misinformed and misguided. If someone on your friends list started ranting about a pride parade and cited a series of misconceptions about homo- or bisexuality wouldn't you want to respond? If you saw rant after rant about it in a short period of time wouldn't you want to make your own statement?

From:

Yes, but I wouldn't be emotionally upset.

From:

boadiccea.livejournal.com

Maybe that's what makes us different, then.

I don't know if we'll ever see eye-to-eye on the thing.

I guess I'm okay with that, really. We are very different in how we process and react to things.

From:

"Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil;"

--Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith

"Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions [gay marriages] would actually mean doing violence to these children."

--Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons issued by the CDF.

"Widespread and indiscriminate promotion of condoms is an immoral and misguided weapon in our battle against HIV-AIDS...Condoms may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of HIV-AIDS."

--Statement by the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference

Explain to me again how I'm misinformed. I'll start breaking out the stuff in Latin if you want.

From:

Here's another gem from Ratzi:

"When civil legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground and irrational and violent reactions increase."

Or, in other words, acceptance of homosexuality is the cause of gay-bashing.

From:

I wouldn't remotely read it as the cause, though can you deny that if people didn't have the gay to gay-bash they wouldn't gay-bash? How can you be violently intolerant of something socially invisible? People didn't make fun of goths before the goth style existed very publicly either.

Again, I must stress that I (and many Catholics besides me) strongly disagree with Cardinal Ratzinger on the clause "to which no one has any conceivable right". Overall, though, it is a minor dogma and hardly central to "what makes someone Catholic".

From:

Um, you don't GET to disagree with Ratzinger. He's the guy in charge of enforcing what Catholics should and shouldn't believe. The Inquisition, what a show...

From:

Your knowledge of the subject is awesome (really) but I'm not a big fan of looking at the history of a group to judge their current positions. The US endorsed slavery and extermination policies, but while I consider that an important part of the shameful history - I'm far more concerned with what the US is doing today.

Similarly, I'm concerned about what the church is doing today, and I hate it. I feel that hate is justified. I don't care if they believe in god, crackers, jebus, or aliens...what they are doing causes harm. I don't feel 'ignorant' for repeating what I am exposed to as news releases.

From:

Ratzinger isn't history; he's the PRESENT head of the CDF, i.e., the Inquisition. He's the guy charged with reigning in Bishops and Priests who teach things contrary to (his own, very conservative, interpretation) of Church doctrine. Ratzinger wants to do to Vatican II what I want to do to Highlander II.

Thankfully, he is generally no longer considered a likely candidate for Pope, more due to his age than his politics.

From:

Oops, then your point stands and is a strong one. Maybe everyone should form covens so whenever someone goes bonkers they can take off and join another.

From:

I feel I need to reiterate that I hate pretty much the same things you do about the church as it's currently run, and for those reasons I stand away from it and work at a distance to bring change: to rub their noses in Paul VI's credo, "If you want peace, work for justice", and point out that it is unjust to marginalize homosexuals and women because of hazy-interpretated points; it is unjust to promote sex for mutual pleasure of spouses and then deny such a method of preventing transmission of disease; it is unjust to require a pregnancy to be carried to term despite the penalty it will inflict on mother and child.

These strong oppositions, coupled with my ambivalence on the core of the faith, lead me to stand apart. Other people really believe the Nicene creed, though. People who agree completely on the above issues, but they really believe in the core doctrines. I know plenty of them, and they've decided to work from within the church to change it.

Ultimately, my point is this: not everyone walking around with a smudge on their forehead is a mindless robot and more than everyone wearing chaps in the Castro is a festering bag of disease. And yes, many of them are doing it because they don't know anything else. But there are plenty of them for whom the core doctrines of the Catholic church resonate deeply and who believe they can remain in communion while working for change. Yesterday they got together to say "everything falls apart; everyone dies and returns to dust", and rub ashes on each other as a reminder. By and large that's why they're doing it, not to show off.

Is the ritual a bit silly? Yeah, and it's not even an absolute requirement to be marked, just to show up that Wednesday. Still, there's a long history of groups doing somewhat silly things together. I believe the modern secular term is "ropes course".

From:

Here, I think, is the main problem: I very much can and do disagree with him. As I said, this puts me out of communion with the body of the church, which is why I don not partaicipate in the sacraments.

Others are out of communion and still participate, but often enough these are people who are (as stated in another thread) just in it because their parents have been in it and so on. This unexaminedness is hardly a charge you can only level at Catholics. I'd go so far as to say the vast majority of people around the world do everything they do because they honestly have never really known anything different and never stopped to think about it. Do I think that's "right"? No. It is, however, human.

Now, obviously disagreements can arise. Fides et Ratio did not come from John Paul II suddenly waking up and saying "let's believe in evolution". The currents of Catholics the world over, laymen and philosophers, put pressure on the Holy See to reconsider the church's position on the nature of faith and reason, and the position changed. Yes, it's a rather bizarre method of setting policy -- that you ultimately have to convince whoever's in the seat right now -- but still disagreements can and do arise.

From:

Here, I think, is the main problem: I very much can and do disagree with him. As I said, this puts me out of communion with the body of the church, which is why I don not partaicipate in the sacraments.

Why on earth would one VOLUNTARILY express affiliation with an organization which forbids one from participation for holding dissenting opinions? Clearly, the Church does not consider your differences "thoeologically minor".

I'd go so far as to say the vast majority of people around the world do everything they do because they honestly have never really known anything different and never stopped to think about it.

Yes, and that's exactly the kind of non-thinking I've been criticizing, whatever its source.

Fides et Ratio did not come from John Paul II suddenly waking up and saying "let's believe in evolution".

Hey, I'll give credit where it's due; the Catholic Church is less backward and anti-intellectual than many fundamentalist Protestant denominations. The difference is, the Catholic Church is much larger and more influential, especially in the developing world, so it's more temperate reactionary teachings cut a wider swath.

The currents of Catholics the world over, laymen and philosophers, put pressure on the Holy See to reconsider the church's position on the nature of faith and reason, and the position changed.

Well, sure, the Communist Party of China is capable of reform, too, but I can't imagine joining up in the hopes that it might get better. Not if I had a choice, at least. In this country, at least, people CHOOSE their religious affiliation, and should not be surprised or offended at assumptions that they share their religion's positions.

From:

Why on earth would one VOLUNTARILY express affiliation with an organization which forbids one from participation for holding dissenting opinions? Clearly, the Church does not consider your differences "theologically minor"

Minor as compared to, say, the points in the Nicene creed.

Yes, and that's exactly the kind of non-thinking I've been criticizing, whatever its source.

And I'm all for criticizing it. What I'm not for is finding a visible subset and attacking them on a charge not specific to that subset.

My specific affiliation is.. fuzzy to say the least. All I can say with certainty is that I was born and raised within the Church, and that along that course I picked up a greater awareness of the church's teachings than most of the Catholic laity. I am, by their rules, not a part of the church body anymore, so it's more a case of not completely leaving than signing onto something. I think that (apart from certain specific points which I believe are alterable) the church can be a tremendous force for good and can greatly improve people's lives.

One disagreement which will likely never be reconciled (depending on your reading of the catechism) is the uniqueness of the path to enlightenment. More accurately, I believe (in the church's metaphor) there is "one Jerusalem with many gates". Please don't take my statement that the church could improve people's lives as an admonition that everyone would be best served by a (reformed) Catholic church.

From:

Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil;"

--Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith

This is actually a fine point. The dogma comes down to this: being homosexual is fine: the notion of inborn homosexuality is accepted and creation is by definition not flawed. If God wanted one not to have been born homosexual, one wouldn't have been. However, it is by definition accompanied by a desire to commit homosexual acts. These are considered "objectively sinful", which is a technical point basically boiling down to "in the abstract it's bad, but we're not taking quite so strong a stand on it in practice". See also: masturbation.

"Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions [gay marriages] would actually mean doing violence to these children."

--Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons issued by the CDF.

This, along with the classification of homosexual acts as objectively sinful from which it ultimately derives, and the notion that a religious body has anything to do with what is essentially a matter of contract law (the secular institution of "marriage"), is something I disagree with the church on, and which puts me out of communion with the body. It's one of the reasons I do not attend any services -- not out of protest, but because I'm not supposed to. It's also one of the things I'd like changed and towards which I work when I have an opportunity.

Remember, my issue is more with people who use certain gripes with the institution of the church to attack individual practicing members -- and mocking them and insisting they're showing off counts. It implicitly assumes that the church is a monolithic whole, which is no more true than it is of this country.

Widespread and indiscriminate promotion of condoms is an immoral and misguided weapon in our battle against HIV-AIDS...Condoms may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of HIV-AIDS."

--Statement by the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference

Frankly, I think this has far more to do with the fact that they're South African than that they're Catholic, though they're using their misunderstandings to push a line they believe in (and with which I also disagree, as above). There is no shortage of high-ranking secular South Africans being just as misinformed: "At the International AIDS conference in Durban, the South African president Thabo Mbeki said that AIDS was a disease caused by poverty, not by HIV." (http://www.avert.org/aidssouthafrica.htm)

Now, the core of my response really was worked up in a post (http://www.livejournal.com/users/wabmart/304900.html) in response to

vicar's and a number of others I read this morning. There are a small number of politically "hot" issues on which I am in disagreement with the official dogma, and likely in agreement with you. However, theologically these are very minor, and far from the sort of thing that can't be changed without irreparably rending the fabric of the church. I, personally, despite my theological agnosticism, hope for these changes to take place within my lifetime. If the very character of the liturgy can be radically altered, and if the church can take the stand (which many people within and most without the church somehow refuse to realize) that faith and reason cannot directly contradict each other, then there is no reason to believe a move cannot be made towards greater inclusion along sex and gender lines, and to recognize the lesser evil often presented by birth control (pre- and post-conception) against the damage caused to many lives by a child which cannot be well-supported.

From:

You're trying to draw a split between the wacky religious belief system and the political agenda of the group. I don't buy it at all. First off - am I wrong that catholicism is based upon the assumption that you 'recreate god's kingdom on earth' in the form of a hierarchy (made up of old white guys)? I'm sorry, but if that's the case I also disagree with the religion. Then again, I'm agnostic at my most spiritual - so I'm never going to buy into the wacky religious beliefs of anyone.

BUT I'm used to people who believe in aliens, ghosts, and god. I put up with that. What I do not and will not tolerate is the political agenda against types of people and types of activities I feel need defending, including me and my activities of course. When you are catholic, you support the group. When you put your money into catholics, you are supporting their political agenda. You fill their headcount.

Then again the same argument was made against the rep/dem parties, in which you are similarly unlikely to believe in all of their stances. However, unlike religion you really lack alternatives - you can get stale crackers without a ceremony as politics is not religion. If people were really independent of the belief system of the church, then the identity and the need for a group of people eating crackers would not exist. I don't mind people making fun of democrats or atheists, two groups I subscribe to. I make similar arguments about changing the democratic to more closely reflect my belief system like catholics have to me here and in person, but again I lack alternatives. There are other churches and the ability to not belong to one. The comparison falls short there as these political parties are the only available means to effect direct social change. AND that's exactly what these organized religions are doing - and I oppose them.

Theology wouldn't lead to rants - being defensive against active attacks by large political groups with tremendous coffers does. I'M SCARED and react based on FEAR of these groups that want to hurt me and control my life.

From:

ThiRemember, my issue is more with people who use certain gripes with the institution of the church to attack individual practicing members -- and mocking them and insisting they're showing off counts.

As I said in the other thread, if you, say, joined the John Birch society just because your family had always been members and you liked the meetings, you should expect people to assume you're a right-wing nut.

It implicitly assumes that the church is a monolithic whole, which is no more true than it is of this country.

Except that it is, since, unlike this country (and, in fact, pretty much every other major religion other than Ismaili Islam), the Church had an absolute hierarchy with a single, undisputed head.

From:

(and, in fact, pretty much every other major religion other than Ismaili Islam)

Oops. I forgot Vajrayana Buddhism.

From:

Frankly, I think this has far more to do with the fact that they're South African than that they're Catholic

Perhaps, but you also have Catholic organizations pressuring Bush to cut funding to UN AIDS-prevention measures which encourage condom use BY MARRIED PEOPLE, so it's not just Africans, and it's not just about non-marital sex.

However, theologically these are very minor

They might not seem so minor to gay people, women wanting abortions or Africans with AIDS. As far as I'm concerned, these are basic human rights issues, and I'd take the same view of an organization that, even peripherally, advocates limiting these rights that I would to an organization that peripherally advocated segregation or antisemitism.

From:

oontzgrrl.livejournal.com

As far as I am concerned every year is the year of the cock.

From:

grymnir.livejournal.com

You made a bombastic comment. No surprise. Some of your friends are Catholics...no big deal, yet. Where I disagree with some of the comments is whhere they comment on the issue of "saying something hurtful to friends" in your LJ.

Bottom line: It *is* your journal. You could have cut it (which you did later) but even then, had they read it, they'd have possibly become irritated. I appreciate not tossing antagonistic opinions into someone elses journals, but what I say in mine is the point of having the journal.

I do see where you were going with the political/religious analogy. Hell...if one were to look at the early years of the Reformation in Germany, the propaganda was entirely antithetical -- us or them oppositions -- and was reformers vs. orthodoxy (not Greek Orthodox). Religion was politics.
Now - politics are becoming religion and even more devisive.

From:

eriss.livejournal.com

I still love you even if you're going to Hell in a hand basket. (j/k about "hell in a hand basket" part)

From:

http://users.livejournal.com/---corvus/

ahh haha, damn asians. [note: i can critisize them because i'm asian ;)]

From: