Gays And Transsexuals Can’t Enter Heaven: Cardinal

I'm doomed to hell anyway so might as well add one more sin to the list

 

I dislike in general how religion tries to make you feel like your body is a vile thing, and you are a bad person for having a body and using it as biologically designed.

This isnt even a issue of homosexuality. It seems religion likes to tell you your created in the image of god, but that your body is a sin. So, does that mean god is a sin, as we are created in his image?

I believe in god, but take much of what the more fundie literalist christians say... mainly because half of what they say about the bible actual doesnt appear/happen in the bible.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology

Inevitable, not natural.

You seem to be purposefully misinterpreting what I'm saying now. "Leave them alone and that'll happen" doesn't mean that I think that a person in solitary will create complex belief systems. It means that as societies grow and become more complex, so do their religious beliefs and hierarchies.

The whole thing is that people created this institution. It only spread because there were people that thought that Christianity was a pretty awesome deal; these people didn't just have Catholicism willed on them. If there was no need for religion in the first place, it would have never have taken hold.

Ergh.

I am not saying there is any inherent value in Catholicism, but that it is being libeled against and misrepresented.

Except that the example of Indian sati that I gave was being performed well before the French Revolution.

Except that Germany was the birthplace of the Reformation. There were countries like France, Ireland, Poland and Spain that had traditionally been far more Catholic and they were not the home of the Holocaust.

Anti-semitism was not just a catholic game.

The thoughts of Martin Luther himself - Charmingly Entitled "On the Jews and Their Lies"
The Russians weren't very nice to the Jews either
Neither were the Muslims.

Mussolini, yes. Hitler, not so much. I fail to see how corporatism leads to killing Jews.

Except for the fact that the pope housed Jews in his own house.

Clicky

Well, if you haven't picked up on it by now, most of my research is done by typing a few words into Google, and my only education on the subject was my grade 8 religion textbook. So yes, I'll admit that I was wrong.

Imperialism knows no allegiance to religion.

Native Americans
Belgian Congo
Tasmania
Residential Schools

I picked only secular cases.

Don't be childish. I've provided plenty of historical evidence for my position.

The Catholic church's position as an amalgamation of church and state is gone. Even if it wanted

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

Pray tell, good sir, what in the world do I have to gain by defending Catholicism? I got to a catholic school and I loathe every second of the ridiculous theology that's rammed down my throat in mandatory religion class. I have absolutely zero interest in protecting the Catholic church.

What I do have a problem with is when people are overtly biased in discussing it. I hate it from my religion teacher, and I hate it here.

The first universities were Catholic. Catholic monasteries in Ireland preserved countless classics. There was Galileo and Copernicus, but there were also Mendel, Pasteur and Descartes. If we want an accurate record of the past, we've got to acknowledge everything.

I'm going to condense my points so that we can have a real discussion instead of you tilting at windmills the whole time.

1)Catholicism is amoral. Sometimes it fucked up bad, sometimes it brought real good.
2)We cannot have a mature and accurate discussion on the point without realizing this first point.

 

does a right absolve a five wrongs?

 

Political human systems =/= psychological traits. So yes, your comparison with chimpanzees is still laughable.

Although I would agree that it’s not possible to reach a system with no hierarchies whatsoever (because even though the productive system might be changed so as that to abolish material inequalities, there would always be symbolic and behavioral norms), that doesn’t mean that we should relieve the Catholic Church of charges such as imposing dogms as truth and persecuting and murdering dissidents, cooperating with oppresive regimes, and other stuff I’d already mentioned. I refuse to just passively accept injusticies.

I don't think I've misinterpreted anything. Your last statement seems to be quite different from the previous one:

***

This is so funny I might put it on my signature: It only spread because ‘there were people that thought Christianity was a pretty awesome deal’? Really? No social coercion or political processes? Besides being ridiculously simplistic, your claim is historically false. Christianism became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire because Emperor Constantine I established it as such. Not long before that, Christians were actually a persecuted minority since they did not worship the Roman deities.

Well, this is like the chicken or the egg dilemma. Are collective phenomena a result of individual tendencies or viceversa? Right, there was a ‘need’ for religion, but as soon as people started living in communities we cannot overlook the fact that social coercion plays a fundamental role in imposing norms and generalising needs.

Let's see your previous statements:

So, Catholicism contributes a hell of a lot to the development of humankid (you bet :bang and Western culture in particular. And hey, they even help the poor as well! Er... I think I changed my mind. The fact that they’re more liberal and do not support incinerating homosexuals, atheists, etc. actually stems from the evolution of Western liberal societies. Oh no, now that I get to think about it, I actually hate Christianism! Holy contradictions, Batman!

I don’t get what you’re trying to prove with this. The Catholic Church was the dominant religion of the world before the French Revolution. My point is that they had to adjust themselves to the new political system that emerged after the bourgeosie defeated the feudal lords. Sati belongs to hinduism which definitely was (and still is) a minor religion in terms worldwide political significance.

I never said antisemitism was limited to Germany. I was pointing a connection between antisemitism and the Church. Sure, nazism didn’t arise only because of previous antisemitic teachings. Germany had lost the First War and was enduring a brutal economic depression. Liberalism was in crisis.

I see that you insist on using arguments such as ‘the Muslins were bad to Jews as well’ or ‘in India they also burned women’, as if that actually justified anything. We are talking about the Catholic Church here, and just because I’m criticising it doesn’t mean I’m defending other religious institutions.

Maybe not corporatism as an theoretical abstraction, but in its practice it was sustained by the idea of the nation-state. And nationalism is just a couple of inches away from xenophobia.

Well, I admit to being unaware of the fact that he actually housed Jews, though I still think this doesn’t disprove my point that the Church as an institution remained silent. And again, it is vital to understand the connection between nazism and previous Catholic doctrines to see the bond between both.

Then we can add ‘supporting military dictatorships’ to the scales, can't we?

This is getting a bit confusing. Of course, the killing of Aborigins did not respond to a religious need but was part of the Imperalistic conquest. But the Catholic Church certainly supported the imperialistic cause and contributed to the religious domination of such communities.

So you refuse to address the Inquisition and the Crusades but then ask me to 'not forget' Mendel and so on? Oh, that's so unbiased from you! And for the record, I was little puzzled as to what the people you mentioned had to do with the Church. After a little googling I found out that both Descartes and Pasteur were Catholics though that seems to be just personal information about them and I'll be more than willing to learn how the Church contributed to their legacy. In the case of Mendel it seems he was a priest, so that might support your point better.

And yes, they preserved classics as well as burnt others. Honestly, though, it is a rather weak defense of Christianism after all the bad things I mentioned after your claim that 'we (the dogmatic and biased commies) don't realize all the good the Church has done to the world'.

And quite frankly, your declarations of hatred towards Christianism are utterly irrelevant to the discussion.

So far you have failed to successfully sustain your initial statement that the Church has done a lot of good to the world. I'm not tilting at windmills, it's just that most of your points are wrong

1) and 2): I'm still waiting for solid arguments that show good stuff stemming from the basis of Christianism (and not just results of momentary circumstances) that could possibly outweigh all the horrible things they've done throughout history.

 

This is getting very heady, indeed. Largely, I find this discussion, as is so often the case is confusing Christianity and the Church (and even confusing the Church and the Roman Catholic Church). Christianity involves following and imitating Jesus Christ - including when he reached out to the prostitutes and other sinners, when he reached out and supported those in need, and when he criticized the religious leaders for being more focused on condemnation and personal gain rather than outreach, love and support.

 

Discussions about religion usually come to these ends - I always prefer taking the middle path of moderation, that usually annoys those with the strongest views. I like the following quote from Mohandas Gandhi (most likely made about the Church):

"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. The materialism of affluent Christian countries appears to contradict the claims of Jesus Christ that says it's not possible to worship both Mammon and God at the same time."​

Which according to wikiquote is referencing a quote from Jesus himself:

“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." (Luke 16:13)​

So the main problem I have is with Jesus' message being twisted and warped over the ages by people in power who wished to stay in power. He certainly was powerful and had many good ideas, it's just when the church took over things exploded and they needed their hierarchy and such just to keep order...

If you can tell, I'm a Gandhi fan.

 

I agree.

Ghandi was a thinker. He is one of the few religious leaders capable of reasoned morality; Morality not because a book or some invisible sky being says so, but because it is the most reasonable thing to do.

When you look at the catholic church, it clings to its dogma, while turning a blinds eye to the teachings of a man they profess to follow.

Did jesus tell them to kill all those millions of woman for the crime of having a vagina and a enemy to claim that they are witches? Did jesus tell the catholic church to kill men, woman, and children, all in a move to take control of the financial gain of controlling the muslim trading ports? Did jesus tell them to spread anti-semetic filth to scapegoat the jews as being the cause of the black plague because the jews, according to religious leaders, were poisoning all the town wells?

Religion in itself is not evil... christian beliefs are not evil. Religious organizations like the catholic church however commit great evils in contradiction of christian teachings.

like it or not, you cant simply say because the church has done things that benifit people, that it absolves them from criticisems for all the horrible, immoral things they did.

that is like praising the nazi's for all the work on infestructure they did that still help germans today, and saying that compensates for all the people they murdered.

 

LOL!!!! I would rather go to hell than spend an eternity with those motherf****** anyway lol:icon_bigg:icon_bigg

 

also... st. paul is not god. This man clearly doesnt read the bible properly.

god is the one true judge. the st. paul nonsense is a catholic invention. like the sales of indulgences...

 

But if all the other queers are in hell I'd rather be with them...

 

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68VpeHCjA-s&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]

^BRILLENT!

 

THIS MADE ME LOL

“Everything that goes against nature and against the dignity of the body offends God,”

Haha that's why some animals, especially animals like bats and monkeys, tend to have alot of homosexuals in their groups right? That's some good logic right there on nature.

We're animals, whether they want to believe it or not, and homosexuality and trans-sexuality is rampant in nature.

 

Oh come one guys, live your life, do not let a bunch of fairy tales ruin it.

 

(!) I agree!

 

This is all just very funny. This whole thread. Thanks for the laugh guys

 

exactly my thoughts :\

 

((I should clarify that I think the whole GLBT not being allowed into heaven thing is just wrong, but I don't know, to me some of the arguments are just interesting to watch like that between Mysterons and haelmarie.))

 

But I like fairies...

 

Religion is the same as science--

Nothing can be proved, only proved wrong.

So far I haven't been convinced that homosexuality is wrong, nor has it been proved whether someone is born gay or not.


This retired cardinal only has his opinions based on what he has been taught via the Bible. Despite what many church-goers believe, because they are taught, I gain my faith in God because of my interpretation of the Bible.

After all, the eternal life in heaven is earned based on how I live my life. If I think I am living my life to my fullest and learning from what I perceive the bible tells me, and not creating a God suitable to myself, I deserve to go to Heaven as much as the next guy.

I pity those who insist that the Bible is meant to be one way, and one way only--because I can disprove that--

The Bible has been re-written several times throughout history, and even had additions made. If every person in the world read a bible right now, there would probably be at least 5 billion different interpretations. No one can say God will NOT give mercy to one league of people based on an undying urge and yearning for affection.