Pope: "GAWD GAWD GAWD" Czech: "Cool story bro."

[popehippo]

Pope Benedict XVI warned some 120,000 worshipers at a Mass here on Sunday of the dangers of a society without God, forging ahead with his fight against secularism on the second day of a three-day trip to the Czech Republic

Comments

[arisma]

[filbypott]

It's unfair to blame Christianity for Europe's loss of scientific advancement after the fall of Rome. Rome would have fallen with or without the Church, and Europe would have been just as bad off afterward. Also bear in mind that while the Church stifled science in the Middle Ages and Renaissance were Christian, the vast majority of the scientists they were stifling were also Christians.

[arisma]

So christians stifling christians is ok? Sorry, gonna have to agree to disagree.

[filbypott]

I wasn't saying it was okay. I was saying that most of the people who brought Europe out of the Dark Ages were Christian (if not Deist or agnostic).

[filbypott]

I think there's a difference between moral absolutism and having a strong moral compass. One enables fundamentalist thinking, the other allows for flexibility in complex situations.

I mean, "some moral absolutism" is an oxymoron, IMO.

(I'm just as against moral relativism, though - "It's just their culture!" doesn't excuse slavery or female circumcision.)

[thelilyqueen]

Just a note - moral relativism doesn't make anything a culture does OK. It just means you have to make an effort to understand why a certain practice arose in that culture, and why it's been maintained.

I don't approve of FGM either, but it's not going to stop if we don't understand the reasons girls are put through it.

[zestylime]

or on the viewpoints that are most vociferously promoted and most heavily funded?”

LOL OK REMIND ME WHERE YOUR POPELY ASS LIVES, A GIANT FUCKING GOD-PALACE AMIRITE

[rex_dart]

To be fair, the Vatican has been there for quite some time and there's not much to do about it now. And I'd be hella pissed if they tore it down and sold the scrap to make money for missionaries.

[zestylime]

lol yeah but my point is the Vatican is RICH and they promote themselves a SHITTON so hellooooooo hypocrisy in sweet red shoes.

[rex_dart]

This is true. I suppose I'd be harder on them if the Vatican's history (independent of their financial practices today) hadn't put them in the singular position they're in today; they have a lot of shit to worry about, like their archives and their observatory and all that good stuff. I'm sure there's a ton of expenditure there. I'd actually be interested to see a breakdown of where the Vatican's money comes from and where it goes.

[my_private_muse]

[twirls]

I love the Czechs so much and every day they are more and more magnificent.