(no subject)

[vicarz]

While I'm getting flack for trashing entire religions, let's all remember that it's the year of the cock!

That really helps me keep things in perspective.

Comments

[wabmart.livejournal.com]

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.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

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.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_blackjack_/]

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.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_blackjack_/]

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

Oops. I forgot Vajrayana Buddhism.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_blackjack_/]

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.