Interesting.
I always thought creationism and the theory of evolution were generally mutually exclusive, as they have been in the past.
Now the Pope seems to think otherwise.
I applaud the Pope for his open mind in recent times, not just on this topic.
I wonder how his speech will be received the world over, considering how many believe creationism to be the absolute truth regarding how man and woman came to be?
Thoughts?
The only thing new here is the emphasis the Pope is placing on the issue. Catholic doctrine has accepted evolution for decades. The anti-evolutionists come out of the Protestant denominations.
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I always thought creationism and the theory of evolution were generally mutually exclusive, as they have been in the past.
Catholics have accepted both big bang and evolution for... a long time. Unfortunately, doing a google search now only comes up with the recent news.
Nor are they mutually exclusive. Young earth creationism is mutually exclusive to evolution. Creationism in the sense of "welp, something/someone started this" isn't mutually exclusive.
I wonder how his speech will be received the world over
Catholics scratch their heads and go, "this is news?"
The more radical christian fundamentalists go, "LOL, catholics aren't christians/pope is the antichrist."
Then catholics go "this is news?" again.
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Basic Vatican stance over the past century (and I believe more) or so is that scientific research and findings reveal to us God's true glory. The whole thing with Galileo is no longer relevant as far as modern-day Catholicism is concerned, as much as that story is repeated over and over again for some reason.
Protestants have disliked (to put it mildly) Catholics for quite a while now. This won't change that for the better. Non-Christians will be better served by realizing that there are worlds of differences between the beliefs and doctrine among the various major denominations.
Lumping all the Christians together is like lumping all the East Asians together. It simply doesn't work.
Let me know when the Vatican says Sodomites weren't gay and gay people aren't committing sin. Now THAT is big news.
The only thing new here is the emphasis the Pope is placing on the issue. Catholic doctrine has accepted evolution for decades. The anti-evolutionists come out of the Protestant denominations.
I don't think this can be emphasized enough. The current Pope has not actually changed or revised any of the Churches doctrinal teachings (on this, or any other matter). What the Pope has done is altered the emphasis and tone of those teachings.
Too many left leaning blogs/reporting outlets are hearing what they want to hear, and not what the Pope is saying. This leads to confusion and misinterpretation. It's most frequently found on the issues related to homosexuality, but it comes across here too. It is certainly refreshing to see a Pope trying to ensure that his message is received and not just broadcast, but it's a bit depressing when people take his statements and improperly extrapolate them.
Protestants have disliked (to put it mildly) Catholics for quite a while now. This won't change that for the better. Non-Christians will be better served by realizing that there are worlds of differences between the beliefs and doctrine among the various major denominations.
Lumping all the Christians together is like lumping all the East Asians together. It simply doesn't work.
It is worth noting that not all protestants are the same either. A denomination like Missouri Synod Lutheran is significantly closer to Catholicism than it is to Southern Baptists.
It is worth noting that not all protestants are the same either. A denomination like Missouri Synod Lutheran is significantly closer to Catholicism than it is to Southern Baptists.
Same with the regular Lutherans. And the Presbyterians. And the Anglicans/Episcopalians basically are Catholics with a different org chart.
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It is worth noting that not all protestants are the same either. A denomination like Missouri Synod Lutheran is significantly closer to Catholicism than it is to Southern Baptists.
Same with the regular Lutherans. And the Presbyterians.
Well "regular Lutherans" is a bit of a misnomer -- the three main denominations of Lutheranism in the US are ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Churhc of America", WELS (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran SYnod), and LCMS (Lutheran Church Misouri Synod). ELCA is the largets, by a long shot, so I suppose they could be considered "regular". They are also the more liberal of the three (women ministers, ordination of Gay minsters, etc.).
They aren't mutually exclusive because the Christian God is loosely defined and open to ever changing interpretation, so we watch as they gradually decrease his scope while conceding more and more ground to science.
That said, I am happy to hear the Pope push a message that could improve the educations of those under heavy religious influence.
I don't think this can be emphasized enough. The current Pope has not actually changed or revised any of the Churches doctrinal teachings (on this, or any other matter). What the Pope has done is altered the emphasis and tone of those teachings.
Too many left leaning blogs/reporting outlets are hearing what they want to hear, and not what the Pope is saying. This leads to confusion and misinterpretation. It's most frequently found on the issues related to homosexuality, but it comes across here too. It is certainly refreshing to see a Pope trying to ensure that his message is received and not just broadcast, but it's a bit depressing when people take his statements and improperly extrapolate them.
Agreement on the fact that what we're seeing isn't a change in policy, merely a change in tone.
I don't think this can be emphasized enough. The current Pope has not actually changed or revised any of the Churches doctrinal teachings (on this, or any other matter). What the Pope has done is altered the emphasis and tone of those teachings.
Too many left leaning blogs/reporting outlets are hearing what they want to hear, and not what the Pope is saying. This leads to confusion and misinterpretation. It's most frequently found on the issues related to homosexuality, but it comes across here too. It is certainly refreshing to see a Pope trying to ensure that his message is received and not just broadcast, but it's a bit depressing when people take his statements and improperly extrapolate them.
Agreement on the fact that what we're seeing isn't a change in policy, merely a change in tone.
He's rebranding the church a bit organizationally to deal more with poverty and moving away from the anti-gay and anti-abortion shtick that's been far too beaten up in the churches these days. Seriously whenever I drive by a Christian school and see anti-abortion messaging without the same ferocity over poverty reduction drives me insane and has left me disenchanted with organized religion.
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I don't think this can be emphasized enough. The current Pope has not actually changed or revised any of the Churches doctrinal teachings (on this, or any other matter). What the Pope has done is altered the emphasis and tone of those teachings.
Too many left leaning blogs/reporting outlets are hearing what they want to hear, and not what the Pope is saying. This leads to confusion and misinterpretation. It's most frequently found on the issues related to homosexuality, but it comes across here too. It is certainly refreshing to see a Pope trying to ensure that his message is received and not just broadcast, but it's a bit depressing when people take his statements and improperly extrapolate them.
Agreement on the fact that what we're seeing isn't a change in policy, merely a change in tone.
He's rebranding the church a bit organizationally to deal more with poverty and moving away from the anti-gay and anti-abortion shtick that's been far too beaten up in the churches these days. Seriously whenever I drive by a Christian school and see anti-abortion messaging without the same ferocity over poverty reduction drives me insane and has left me disenchanted with organized religion.
I'm neither Christian nor anti-abortion, but I think you're being a little too harsh here. Almost everyone in the world agrees that poverty is a bad thing and that we should try to reduce or eliminate it. So what's the point of making a sign about it? On the other hand, many people strongly disagree with the Catholic and evangelical views on abortion, so there's a good reason for them to want to get the message out.
Everyone agrees that poverty is a bad thing, but there's still an awful lot of poverty going around. I don't think it's crazy for Catholics to decide, "Hey, we've got finite resources, and we should devote more of them to tackling this."
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Everyone agrees that poverty is a bad thing, but there's still an awful lot of poverty going around. I don't think it's crazy for Catholics to decide, "Hey, we've got finite resources, and we should devote more of them to tackling this."
Agreed, but we're just talking about signage outside of a school here. It doesn't accomplish much to put up a sign saying "Poverty is Terrible." Everyone agrees poverty is terrible. My criticism of FrostDragon's position is that messaging is not necessarily the same as resource allocation. A church or school could devote 100% of its messaging to anti-abortion campaigns while devoting way more money and man-hours to fighting poverty.
For all we know, a sign saying "abortion is bad" constitutes the entirety of the school's anti-abortion resource allocation. For all we know, the school holds monthly fundraising campaigns for poverty and disaster relief abroad, and requires each of its students to volunteer for 2 hours per week in a local soup kitchen. One sign doesn't tell you anything about the school's priorities vis-a-vis poverty and abortion.
If the criticism were "this church/school devotes more resources to fighting abortion than fighting poverty" I would agree it's a valid criticism.
Everyone agrees that poverty is a bad thing, but there's still an awful lot of poverty going around. I don't think it's crazy for Catholics to decide, "Hey, we've got finite resources, and we should devote more of them to tackling this."
Poverty isn't a sin, homosexuality is a sin.
It makes sense for large Christian organizations to target sin, doesn't it?
Everyone agrees that poverty is a bad thing, but there's still an awful lot of poverty going around. I don't think it's crazy for Catholics to decide, "Hey, we've got finite resources, and we should devote more of them to tackling this."
Poverty isn't a sin, homosexuality is a sin.
It makes sense for large Christian organizations to target sin, doesn't it?
It doesn't make sense for organizations claiming to foster love to tell people that the way they are born is somehow wrong. It would be far better to try and raise awareness on issues such as poverty rather than put out what is essentially a hate message.
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They aren't mutually exclusive because the Christian God is loosely defined and open to ever changing interpretation, so we watch as they gradually decrease his scope while conceding more and more ground to science.
That said, I am happy to hear the Pope push a message that could improve the educations of those under heavy religious influence.
I apologize for bringing you back to this thread after nearly two weeks but I felt the need to say that, among the communities of biblical Christendom, God is very well defined. Whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Evangelical (Protestant), Christians understand God to be the personal, all powerful, triune (existing as three distinct persons who share the same essence and nature) creator of the Universe. Man fell from relationship with God as a result of sin and, in response, God sent Christ to pay the price of that sin. The Apostle's Creed (https://www.ccel.org/creeds/apostles.creed.html) sums up the core beliefs of the Christian faith. Any person who would disagree with that basic statement of faith would, by definition, not be a Christian.
Also, neither the theory of evolution nor the big bang theory invalidate anything about the Christian faith. In regards to how things came to be, the Bible is only concerned with communicating that God created all things. It says very little about his process. Nothing about God's nature, role, or character is conceded if evolution happens to be the way in which things became what they are. I personally adhere to the Theistic Evolution perspective.
The idea that science and faith are somehow diametrically opposed has only been a thing for the last 100 years or so. Prior to that the Church was both very comfortable with and played a large role in scientific discovery. It's a misunderstanding that has been perpetuated by both Christians (Protestants mostly I'll admit. I am protestant.) and non-Christians alike.
I too hope that the Pope's statement sparks intelligent conversation in Christian circles. However, I hope you do not believe that being under what you call "heavy religious influence" means that one is uneducated. There are both educated and uneducated people in the Church. The same goes for every other group in the world.
There are many other things that could be said but I want to avoid a tl;dr situation. I hope you do not feel that my goal is to argue with you, I just want to make sure that Christianity is represented well.
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Everyone agrees that poverty is a bad thing, but there's still an awful lot of poverty going around. I don't think it's crazy for Catholics to decide, "Hey, we've got finite resources, and we should devote more of them to tackling this."
Poverty isn't a sin, homosexuality is a sin.
It makes sense for large Christian organizations to target sin, doesn't it?
It doesn't make sense for organizations claiming to foster love to tell people that the way they are born is somehow wrong. It would be far better to try and raise awareness on issues such as poverty rather than put out what is essentially a hate message.
[Again, I'm playing devil's advocate because I'm not Catholic and don't have a problem with gay people, but:]
There's a good body of evidence that alcoholics are "born that way" or that alcoholism arises from physiological conditions that are beyond a person's conscious control. That doesn't mean we say "you were born that way so it's ok." A typical Catholic sees gayness as akin to alcoholism - a really tough problem that people need to try to change. And a catholic would say it's precisely because they love gay people that they want to tell them that being gay is a sin and help them change. If you hate or are indifferent to an alcoholic, you won't care whether they're an alcoholic. If you love them or care about them, you would try to help them address their condition.
While I disagree with the Catholic stance on homosexuality, I don't think your argument is a very good rebuttal to it.
True, part of being obedient to Christ is serving and loving the poor and marginalized. To not do so is to be in direct opposition to the work of Christ.
There are definitely a lot of bad churches that have become much more about conservative culture than Jesus. However, if you go to any decent church they are talking far more about how they can be serving the community than they are about homosexuality.
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Everyone agrees that poverty is a bad thing, but there's still an awful lot of poverty going around. I don't think it's crazy for Catholics to decide, "Hey, we've got finite resources, and we should devote more of them to tackling this."
Poverty isn't a sin, homosexuality is a sin.
It makes sense for large Christian organizations to target sin, doesn't it?
It doesn't make sense for organizations claiming to foster love to tell people that the way they are born is somehow wrong. It would be far better to try and raise awareness on issues such as poverty rather than put out what is essentially a hate message.
[Again, I'm playing devil's advocate because I'm not Catholic and don't have a problem with gay people, but:]
There's a good body of evidence that alcoholics are "born that way" or that alcoholism arises from physiological conditions that are beyond a person's conscious control. That doesn't mean we say "you were born that way so it's ok." A typical Catholic sees gayness as akin to alcoholism - a really tough problem that people need to try to change. And a catholic would say it's precisely because they love gay people that they want to tell them that being gay is a sin and help them change. If you hate or are indifferent to an alcoholic, you won't care whether they're an alcoholic. If you love them or care about them, you would try to help them address their condition.
While I disagree with the Catholic stance on homosexuality, I don't think your argument is a very good rebuttal to it.
Minor correction: The Catholic Church doesn't teach that *being a homosexual* is a sin, rather the Church teaches that *engaging in homosexual acts* is a sin. It's a minor wording change, with a very large implication.
Everyone agrees that poverty is a bad thing, but there's still an awful lot of poverty going around. I don't think it's crazy for Catholics to decide, "Hey, we've got finite resources, and we should devote more of them to tackling this."
Poverty isn't a sin, homosexuality is a sin.
It makes sense for large Christian organizations to target sin, doesn't it?
It doesn't make sense for organizations claiming to foster love to tell people that the way they are born is somehow wrong. It would be far better to try and raise awareness on issues such as poverty rather than put out what is essentially a hate message.
[Again, I'm playing devil's advocate because I'm not Catholic and don't have a problem with gay people, but:]
There's a good body of evidence that alcoholics are "born that way" or that alcoholism arises from physiological conditions that are beyond a person's conscious control. That doesn't mean we say "you were born that way so it's ok." A typical Catholic sees gayness as akin to alcoholism - a really tough problem that people need to try to change. And a catholic would say it's precisely because they love gay people that they want to tell them that being gay is a sin and help them change. If you hate or are indifferent to an alcoholic, you won't care whether they're an alcoholic. If you love them or care about them, you would try to help them address their condition.
While I disagree with the Catholic stance on homosexuality, I don't think your argument is a very good rebuttal to it.
Minor correction: The Catholic Church doesn't teach that *being a homosexual* is a sin, rather the Church teaches that *engaging in homosexual acts* is a sin. It's a minor wording change, with a very large implication.
True, and another thing people often miss in these debates is that the Catholic church doesn't single out homosexuality as some kind of special, super-bad sin. A Catholic would consider my lifestyle (in an out-of-wedlock straight sexual relationship) equally sinful.
So I think it's really inaccurate to characterize Catholics as "hateful" or "bigoted" toward gay people*, unless you also think they're hateful and bigoted toward straight agnostics like me. The word "hate" to me implies some kind of special animus, not just disagreement.
I think a better analogy is that friend we all have who's super into fitness and going to the gym. That guy looks down on the sedentary lifestyle of others and posts Facebook statuses like "if you just started eating a paleo diet and going to the gym every day you'd be so much happier and feel better in the long run." Whether he's right or wrong about this isn't the point. The point is, he says this stuff because he thinks he's found the right way to live, and he wants to tell all his friends about how to get rid of all the "wrong" things in their lives so they can be happy like him. Maybe it's obnoxious when he "evangelizes," but no one in their right mind could beleive he's coming from a place of hate. He's genuinely trying to help people. Maybe his help is misguided, but it's not bigotry or hate.
(* I'm sure, as with any large group, there are plenty of bigoted Catholics. I'm talking about Catholic teachings here. I'm not saying that every single Catholic thinks this way.)
True, and another thing people often miss in these debates is that the Catholic church doesn't single out homosexuality as some kind of special, super-bad sin. A Catholic would consider my lifestyle (in an out-of-wedlock straight sexual relationship) equally sinful.
So I think it's really inaccurate to characterize Catholics as "hateful" or "bigoted" toward gay people*, unless you also think they're hateful and bigoted toward straight agnostics like me. The word "hate" to me implies some kind of special animus, not just disagreement.
That's the official doctrine. But it seems absurd to imply that Catholic culture regards homosexuality and sex before marriage as equally wrong. There is definitely a special disgust for homosexuality.
And that may be what the Pope is trying to change.
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That's the official doctrine. But it seems absurd to imply that Catholic culture regards homosexuality and sex before marriage as equally wrong. There is definitely a special disgust for homosexuality.
And that may be what the Pope is trying to change.
Perhaps on some level, yes. But, on another level, I think it's important to identify two very distinct sets of "Catholic Culture" -- The "devout" culture, and the "non-devout" culture. Among devout Cathlics, who have paid attention to Church teachings, and not just what they feel like Church teachings might be, there actually *is* just as much animus toward same sex relationships and extra/pre marital relationships. Among non-devout Catholics (C & E Catholics, Because my parents were Catholics, etc.) Church teachings are completely ignored or misinterpreted.
I tend to think that the Pope's recent re branding efforts are aimed primarily at the non-devout Catholics as a means of gentle correction, rather than at any external perception of the church.
True, and another thing people often miss in these debates is that the Catholic church doesn't single out homosexuality as some kind of special, super-bad sin. A Catholic would consider my lifestyle (in an out-of-wedlock straight sexual relationship) equally sinful.
So I think it's really inaccurate to characterize Catholics as "hateful" or "bigoted" toward gay people*, unless you also think they're hateful and bigoted toward straight agnostics like me. The word "hate" to me implies some kind of special animus, not just disagreement.
That's the official doctrine. But it seems absurd to imply that Catholic culture regards homosexuality and sex before marriage as equally wrong. There is definitely a special disgust for homosexuality.
And that may be what the Pope is trying to change.
I'm friends/acquaintances with a few extremely hardcore Catholics, and I can tell you that they see no difference. But I think the distinction, to the extent there is one, has more to do with how easy it is to "fix" the sin than anything else. Straight people can get married, confess their premarital cavorting to a priest, say a few Hail Marys, and it's all good. Gay people have to stop having gay sex forever. That's a lot harder.
Interesting.
I always thought creationism and the theory of evolution were generally mutually exclusive, as they have been in the past.
Now the Pope seems to think otherwise.
I applaud the Pope for his open mind in recent times, not just on this topic.
I wonder how his speech will be received the world over, considering how many believe creationism to be the absolute truth regarding how man and woman came to be?
Thoughts?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Catholics have accepted both big bang and evolution for... a long time. Unfortunately, doing a google search now only comes up with the recent news.
Nor are they mutually exclusive. Young earth creationism is mutually exclusive to evolution. Creationism in the sense of "welp, something/someone started this" isn't mutually exclusive.
Catholics scratch their heads and go, "this is news?"
The more radical christian fundamentalists go, "LOL, catholics aren't christians/pope is the antichrist."
Then catholics go "this is news?" again.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Protestants have disliked (to put it mildly) Catholics for quite a while now. This won't change that for the better. Non-Christians will be better served by realizing that there are worlds of differences between the beliefs and doctrine among the various major denominations.
Lumping all the Christians together is like lumping all the East Asians together. It simply doesn't work.
Let me know when the Vatican says Sodomites weren't gay and gay people aren't committing sin. Now THAT is big news.
I don't think this can be emphasized enough. The current Pope has not actually changed or revised any of the Churches doctrinal teachings (on this, or any other matter). What the Pope has done is altered the emphasis and tone of those teachings.
Too many left leaning blogs/reporting outlets are hearing what they want to hear, and not what the Pope is saying. This leads to confusion and misinterpretation. It's most frequently found on the issues related to homosexuality, but it comes across here too. It is certainly refreshing to see a Pope trying to ensure that his message is received and not just broadcast, but it's a bit depressing when people take his statements and improperly extrapolate them.
It is worth noting that not all protestants are the same either. A denomination like Missouri Synod Lutheran is significantly closer to Catholicism than it is to Southern Baptists.
Exactly. Changing tone =/= changing message.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Well "regular Lutherans" is a bit of a misnomer -- the three main denominations of Lutheranism in the US are ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Churhc of America", WELS (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran SYnod), and LCMS (Lutheran Church Misouri Synod). ELCA is the largets, by a long shot, so I suppose they could be considered "regular". They are also the more liberal of the three (women ministers, ordination of Gay minsters, etc.).
Setting aside a few (currently) major social justice issues, yea.
That said, I am happy to hear the Pope push a message that could improve the educations of those under heavy religious influence.
Frankly, I thought this was made pretty clear at the beginning of Francis' papal career when he excommunicated a bishop who supported women clergy and same-sex marriage. But people want to hear what they want to hear, I suppose.
He's rebranding the church a bit organizationally to deal more with poverty and moving away from the anti-gay and anti-abortion shtick that's been far too beaten up in the churches these days. Seriously whenever I drive by a Christian school and see anti-abortion messaging without the same ferocity over poverty reduction drives me insane and has left me disenchanted with organized religion.
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I'm neither Christian nor anti-abortion, but I think you're being a little too harsh here. Almost everyone in the world agrees that poverty is a bad thing and that we should try to reduce or eliminate it. So what's the point of making a sign about it? On the other hand, many people strongly disagree with the Catholic and evangelical views on abortion, so there's a good reason for them to want to get the message out.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Agreed, but we're just talking about signage outside of a school here. It doesn't accomplish much to put up a sign saying "Poverty is Terrible." Everyone agrees poverty is terrible. My criticism of FrostDragon's position is that messaging is not necessarily the same as resource allocation. A church or school could devote 100% of its messaging to anti-abortion campaigns while devoting way more money and man-hours to fighting poverty.
For all we know, a sign saying "abortion is bad" constitutes the entirety of the school's anti-abortion resource allocation. For all we know, the school holds monthly fundraising campaigns for poverty and disaster relief abroad, and requires each of its students to volunteer for 2 hours per week in a local soup kitchen. One sign doesn't tell you anything about the school's priorities vis-a-vis poverty and abortion.
If the criticism were "this church/school devotes more resources to fighting abortion than fighting poverty" I would agree it's a valid criticism.
Poverty isn't a sin, homosexuality is a sin.
It makes sense for large Christian organizations to target sin, doesn't it?
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a7.htm#2446
-Chandra Nalaar
I apologize for bringing you back to this thread after nearly two weeks but I felt the need to say that, among the communities of biblical Christendom, God is very well defined. Whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Evangelical (Protestant), Christians understand God to be the personal, all powerful, triune (existing as three distinct persons who share the same essence and nature) creator of the Universe. Man fell from relationship with God as a result of sin and, in response, God sent Christ to pay the price of that sin. The Apostle's Creed (https://www.ccel.org/creeds/apostles.creed.html) sums up the core beliefs of the Christian faith. Any person who would disagree with that basic statement of faith would, by definition, not be a Christian.
Also, neither the theory of evolution nor the big bang theory invalidate anything about the Christian faith. In regards to how things came to be, the Bible is only concerned with communicating that God created all things. It says very little about his process. Nothing about God's nature, role, or character is conceded if evolution happens to be the way in which things became what they are. I personally adhere to the Theistic Evolution perspective.
The idea that science and faith are somehow diametrically opposed has only been a thing for the last 100 years or so. Prior to that the Church was both very comfortable with and played a large role in scientific discovery. It's a misunderstanding that has been perpetuated by both Christians (Protestants mostly I'll admit. I am protestant.) and non-Christians alike.
I too hope that the Pope's statement sparks intelligent conversation in Christian circles. However, I hope you do not believe that being under what you call "heavy religious influence" means that one is uneducated. There are both educated and uneducated people in the Church. The same goes for every other group in the world.
There are many other things that could be said but I want to avoid a tl;dr situation. I hope you do not feel that my goal is to argue with you, I just want to make sure that Christianity is represented well.
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[Again, I'm playing devil's advocate because I'm not Catholic and don't have a problem with gay people, but:]
There's a good body of evidence that alcoholics are "born that way" or that alcoholism arises from physiological conditions that are beyond a person's conscious control. That doesn't mean we say "you were born that way so it's ok." A typical Catholic sees gayness as akin to alcoholism - a really tough problem that people need to try to change. And a catholic would say it's precisely because they love gay people that they want to tell them that being gay is a sin and help them change. If you hate or are indifferent to an alcoholic, you won't care whether they're an alcoholic. If you love them or care about them, you would try to help them address their condition.
While I disagree with the Catholic stance on homosexuality, I don't think your argument is a very good rebuttal to it.
True, part of being obedient to Christ is serving and loving the poor and marginalized. To not do so is to be in direct opposition to the work of Christ.
There are definitely a lot of bad churches that have become much more about conservative culture than Jesus. However, if you go to any decent church they are talking far more about how they can be serving the community than they are about homosexuality.
RFeldon of the Third PathR
UBWrexial, the Risen DeepUB
BGWDoran, the Siege TowerBGW
(2/W)(2/U)(2/B)(2/R)(2/G)Reaper King(2/W)(2/U)(2/B)(2/R)(2/G)
Minor correction: The Catholic Church doesn't teach that *being a homosexual* is a sin, rather the Church teaches that *engaging in homosexual acts* is a sin. It's a minor wording change, with a very large implication.
True, and another thing people often miss in these debates is that the Catholic church doesn't single out homosexuality as some kind of special, super-bad sin. A Catholic would consider my lifestyle (in an out-of-wedlock straight sexual relationship) equally sinful.
So I think it's really inaccurate to characterize Catholics as "hateful" or "bigoted" toward gay people*, unless you also think they're hateful and bigoted toward straight agnostics like me. The word "hate" to me implies some kind of special animus, not just disagreement.
I think a better analogy is that friend we all have who's super into fitness and going to the gym. That guy looks down on the sedentary lifestyle of others and posts Facebook statuses like "if you just started eating a paleo diet and going to the gym every day you'd be so much happier and feel better in the long run." Whether he's right or wrong about this isn't the point. The point is, he says this stuff because he thinks he's found the right way to live, and he wants to tell all his friends about how to get rid of all the "wrong" things in their lives so they can be happy like him. Maybe it's obnoxious when he "evangelizes," but no one in their right mind could beleive he's coming from a place of hate. He's genuinely trying to help people. Maybe his help is misguided, but it's not bigotry or hate.
(* I'm sure, as with any large group, there are plenty of bigoted Catholics. I'm talking about Catholic teachings here. I'm not saying that every single Catholic thinks this way.)
And that may be what the Pope is trying to change.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Perhaps on some level, yes. But, on another level, I think it's important to identify two very distinct sets of "Catholic Culture" -- The "devout" culture, and the "non-devout" culture. Among devout Cathlics, who have paid attention to Church teachings, and not just what they feel like Church teachings might be, there actually *is* just as much animus toward same sex relationships and extra/pre marital relationships. Among non-devout Catholics (C & E Catholics, Because my parents were Catholics, etc.) Church teachings are completely ignored or misinterpreted.
I tend to think that the Pope's recent re branding efforts are aimed primarily at the non-devout Catholics as a means of gentle correction, rather than at any external perception of the church.
I'm friends/acquaintances with a few extremely hardcore Catholics, and I can tell you that they see no difference. But I think the distinction, to the extent there is one, has more to do with how easy it is to "fix" the sin than anything else. Straight people can get married, confess their premarital cavorting to a priest, say a few Hail Marys, and it's all good. Gay people have to stop having gay sex forever. That's a lot harder.