Jump to content

The Pope


Laurence

Recommended Posts

I feel I really must protest about the Pope's treatment of incidents in Turkey
which took place over a century ago
I feel modern Turkey is quite right to
object and I feel the pope should apologise.
The Turkey he is referring to is
now very westernised and is a member of NATO
Why antagonise the modern regime
with this unwanted attack .
True the Ottoman sultans had a lot to answer for.
That is why the new regime got rid of them
The pope has to think about the
perception attacks like this have on people who do not follow Islam.
We could
all go on about atrocities of the past, remember the Catholic churches support
for Hitler that got Hitler elected, and the silence from Rome during the second
world war.
The pope not to antagonise the people of Turkey. He should
praise Turkey for defending the border against IS. He should praise Turkey for
the refugee camps in Turkey and the Humanitarian way those refugees are being
treated. It's not great being a Christian in the Muslim world, but in Turkey
Christians are better treated than any ware else in the Islamic world.
Lots of people from western countries love Turkey as it is now, I feel the catholic
church should recognise  the fact and work for better relations with Turkey and
not cause divisions of this nature. I feel the pontiff is wrong on this aspect
and he should take immediate steps to rectify a situation that should never have
arisen
I was disappointed that in this news story on Channel 4 no one from Turkey was asked about this.
News media should give a balanced view Turkey must be given credit for being in Nato

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It would appear that few are bothered about this particular outrage bus Laurence, must be waiting patiently for the next one to come along.

 

And in the end, Stalin probably had it right - how many tank divisions doe the Pope command?

 

Storm + teacup.  Let us just go down to the Winchester and wait until it all blows over. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Religion is probably the root cause of more strife and injustice in the world than anything else and I don't care one whit what the pope says about anything.   I would, however have respect for the pope if he came clean and announced that there actually was no God and therefore the vast assets of the Catholic church were to be sold off and distributed among the poor.

  • Agree 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Religion is probably the root cause of more strife and injustice in the world than anything else and I don't care one whit what the pope says about anything.   I would, however have respect for the pope if he came clean and announced that there actually was no God and therefore the vast assets of the Catholic church were to be sold off and distributed among the poor.

For a mythical being or beings God or Gods are indeed responsible for a great deal of the world's ills. However, I suspect that if mankind hadn't felt the need to invent deities, such is human nature, that we would have been inclined to find some other philosophical or ideological differences to go to war over.

Edited by Kingsmills
  • Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Religion is probably the root cause of more strife and injustice in the world than anything else and I don't care one whit what the pope says about anything.   I would, however have respect for the pope if he came clean and announced that there actually was no God and therefore the vast assets of the Catholic church were to be sold off and distributed among the poor.

For a mythical being or beings God or God are indeed responsible for a great deal of the world's ills. However, I suspect that if mankind hadn't felt the need to invent deities, such is human nature, that we would have been inclined to find some other philosophical or ideological differences to go to war over.

 

Like political ideologies.........such as my version of governing people is better than your version of governing people and I'll invade you to make my point?  

 

I'm of the opinion that religion and politics are the two cheeks of the same bahookey and both were invented by people with an agenda in order to fulfill that agenda.......which was, and is, the gaining of power and control over the masses, and holding onto that in perpetuity.

Edited by Oddquine
  • Agree 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Religion is probably the root cause of more strife and injustice in the world than anything else and I don't care one whit what the pope says about anything.   I would, however have respect for the pope if he came clean and announced that there actually was no God and therefore the vast assets of the Catholic church were to be sold off and distributed among the poor.

For a mythical being or beings God or God are indeed responsible for a great deal of the world's ills. However, I suspect that if mankind hadn't felt the need to invent deities, such is human nature, that we would have been inclined to find some other philosophical or ideological differences to go to war over.

 

War is probably a small part of it.  The power of the church, which quite literally put the fear of God into the hearts and minds of the masses, has been used over the centuries to perpetuate a ruling elite.    I like to visit some of the old cathedrals and one can't help but be blown away by the skill and endeavour that went into building these magnificant structures centuries ago.  But even more, I am always struck by the comparison between the grandeur and scale of these buildings with the kind of hovels that most of the people lived in in those days.  The poor were taxed to the hilt to pay for the churches and failing to pay your due was a seen as a crime against God - and God's punishment was severe.  The churches and particularly the grand cathedrals were a potent symbol of God's power.  But of course it was the small ruling elite which worked hand in glove with the church to maintain the loyalty and subjugation of the people - the fear of God was exploited to exert political control of the people.  Echoes of this God fearing political power still exist today in the UK.  More widely you still see as a general rule that those countries where there is greatest disparity between rich and poor is where the dominant religion remains strong.

  • Agree 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Karl Marx got quite a lot wrong. Where he was absolutely right was his view of religion as the opium of the people and such is the addiction that highly intelligent and educated people in their masses believe in the reality of something for which there is not a scrap of evidence and an overwhelming body of evidence to the contrary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Religion is probably the root cause of more strife and injustice in the world than anything else and I don't care one whit what the pope says about anything.  

I might have qualified that slightly and said "organised religion" but essentially it is bang on. The Crusades, the Inquisition, the Counter Reformation, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Orange Roder, Islaamic Fundamentalism, Islaamic State etc etc etc.....

Old Firm unpleasantness for goodness sake!

All of these and a lot more are attributable to organised religion and very often the element of coercion which goes with it.

It seems incredible that even in our own country, which has prized its freedoms for generations now and has had a Bill of Rights since 1689, within the last 200 years there have been sanctions against people not attending church, calls to the penitent stool when people have been judged not to have behaved in a manner acceptable to the church and a ban from public office for those cutting peats with their left foot rather than their right.

In fact even now in the second decade of the 21st century you can't even enjoy taking your family to a sports centre in the Presbyterian areas of the Western Isles since these are closed at the behest of local religious interests.

 

And yes, Scotty - I am also fully behind OQ's remarks on this very same subject :smile:

And I don't have a problem with God by the way - only the manner in which humans act in a collective fashion to use God as a means of coercing and being intolerant of their fellows.

Church people often deplore the fact that their premises are emptying. However the fact that we live in a largely post-religious era is barely surprising given the manner in which the churches treated people at a time when education failed to advise these people that there was no reason for the church's power to be absolute.

Edited by Charles Bannerman
  • Agree 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Karl Marx got quite a lot wrong.

Interesting these days to hear that coming from an SNP supporter :smile:

 

Think you may be confusing a modern progressive, socially aware and responsible political organisation counting almost one in forty adults as members with an outdated and discredited ideology....

  • Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Karl Marx got quite a lot wrong.

Interesting these days to hear that coming from an SNP supporter :smile:

 

Think you may be confusing a modern progressive, socially aware and responsible political organisation counting almost one in forty adults as members with an outdated and discredited ideology....

 

Nope.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know, we may well live in a post-religious society but religion to a fair extent has been replaced as a negative controlling influence on our speech and actions by the equally formidable threat and oppression of Political Correctness.

Until relatively recently, much of what members of our society said and did was controlled by religion. Utterances deemed blasphemous were treated with the greatest of severity, "fornication" would see offenders (such as Robert Burns) brought to the penitent stool, swearing was suppressed, as were many forms of enjoyment and entertainment.

To a large extent this remains the case in Moslem countries, especially those influenced by fundamentalists and the Taliban.... and also in the north of the Western Isles where Presbyterianism has its own fundamentalists and Taliban.

However the UK as a whole has broken free from this oppresive religious yoke - only to have it replaced by that of extreme Political Correctness, of which the likes of Harriet Harperson are self appointed high priestesses.

Indeed one of the reasons I will have difficulty in illustrating this proposition is that certain terminology, which was quite common usage just a few decades ago, has been thrust so far beyond the pale that even its use for illustrative purposes would stir up howls of protest from the unco-self righteous PC.

I first began to smell a rat when, in education, I started to see references to "chalking boards" and since then the common word "black" has been totally demonised. It's got a whole lot worse nowadays and, for instance, it would be a brave person (there you go.... I was going to say "brave man") who would, for instance, publicly suggest that there may now be an overprovision of disabled spaces in supermarket car parks. This will be regarded by many as a view which it is not even legitimate to express - just as, in 1930s Germany, it wasn't all that safe to suggest that a lot of Jews were actually OK.

Gays, lesbians, trans-sexuals, gypsies travelling people, bisexuals, ethnic minorities - especially of a pigmentally intense variety, the disabled (I'm not even sure if it's acceptable to call them that any more), single parents... cyclists even for God's sake :lol:  - criticise any of them and you are a marked person.

Political Correctness has even clipped the wings of Stuart and Tam on Off The Ball where these days they are reduced to referring to the respective halves of the Old Firm as "the H-word" and "the T-word".

There are also restrictions on actions, backed up by Political Correctness's fellow traveller mindless Elfin Safety. This means that that kids can't even play in the playground properly and places like Inverness Leisure have rendered themselves all but unusable. Sports clubs are in danger of becoming dysfunctional as a result of over the top Child Protetction red tape.

It is claimed that we live in a country which enjoys free speech and many other freedoms as well. However that is becoming less and less the case when use of what are often essentially pretty harmless terms can instantly render the user utterly vilified.

The PC defence of that position is that, emerging from behind a smokescreen of self-righteousness, such terms and their users are denounced as terrible, dreadful, unacceptable etc etc. But that is merely a measure of the extent to which Political Correctness has enveloped our society and dictated to us how we live our lives - just as religion did for centuries before that.

So exit religion.... enter that terrible and oppressive new religion which is Political Correctness.

Edited by Charles Bannerman
  • Agree 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Religion is probably the root cause of more strife and injustice in the world than anything else and I don't care one whit what the pope says about anything.   I would, however have respect for the pope if he came clean and announced that there actually was no God and therefore the vast assets of the Catholic church were to be sold off and distributed among the poor.

We'll find out on Sunday if there's a god or not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was just saying that the plight of so many people at stake, and the modern role of Turkey having the largest European army in NATO. It is the Turkish army that is the buffer zone between I S and Europe. Having a vital situation to deal with with refugees etc, Attacked  by the so called holy father, for the discredited Ottoman Sultans . I would have thought that the pope should be thinking about the modern Turkey and taking into account the large numbers of Christians that do live in that nation alongside the follows of Mohammed. No wonder Turkey is pissed off with the Vatican.

Lenin had a point about religion being the opium of the masses

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Religion is probably the root cause of more strife and injustice in the world than anything else and I don't care one whit what the pope says about anything.   I would, however have respect for the pope if he came clean and announced that there actually was no God and therefore the vast assets of the Catholic church were to be sold off and distributed among the poor.

We'll find out on Sunday if there's a god or not.

 

 

Blimey, you might just be onto something there, with the Hand of God making a brief appearance for us!

  • Agree 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. : Terms of Use : Guidelines : Privacy Policy