Very cool, if true

Agreed. The more people actually question things and think about them themselves, the better.

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josephgrossberg.livejournal.com

Then again, the more people question the simplified story that this Pope was a Nazi (i.e. membership in Hitler youth was mandatory, he was conscripted into the Germany army and was a deserter, and both happened when he was just a teenager), the more likely they are to view him favorably.

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Depending on their feelings on gay rights, of course.

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there was a point on the ITN news when they said one of his aims was to stamp out liberalism in the Catholic Church. I thought they'd burned and tortured all those crazy liberals centuries ago..

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I hadn't even read about Pope Benedict until a few minutes ago. I really wish I hadn't. Depressing stuff. I don't actually care what some man in a hat thinks, but it's saddening when he has so much negative influence over what many many other people think.

(The head of the former Holy Office of the Inquisition too... interesting).

Faith can be a positive influence in the world, and I have absolutely nothing against religions that preach harmony, tolerance and being nice to other people. But statements like "[homosexuality] is an intrinsic moral evil" belong in the dark ages.

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"religions that preach ..... being nice to other people"

apparently christianity is supposed to be one of those. funny how war is often brought about by people claiming it's for peace, and how intolerance is perpetrated by people who claim they're not intolerant (michael howard).

"But statements like "[homosexuality] is an intrinsic moral evil" belong in the dark ages."

i agree absolutely. i was overwhelmed with rage earlier when on channel 4 news a man being interviewed said that priests being allowed to marry might happen but that condoms being used to prevent the spread of aids was never going to be allowed by the catholic church. nice to see they have their priorities straight.

the church is also becoming worried that news sexism laws in various countries will mean that the catholic church will be sued for sexual discrimination since women can't become catholic priests (i thought they could. see how much attention i pay, to think the catholic church would unbend slightly).

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CofE allows priests - but only allowed women bishops recently (and it's still divisive). The first female priests in the UK were in 1992 - and 470 male clergy left in protest.

And the Pope preached against the Iraq war repeatedly. Did fuck all good though.

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Like I said earlier, I do think religion can have benefits and use the power it has to genuinely help (Mother Teresa is a lovely example), but it's dragged down by telling people whom they should hate and obvious politics.

(Preaching against the war is arguably outweighed by the staggering situation in Africa regarding contraception).

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Mother Teresa refused to help people unless they converted to the Catholic church, didn't she?

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That I don't know. To most people though, Mother Terasa was essentially a mute. Mother Teresa the symbol was/is arguably more important than whatever she actually said or did in reality. (That's not to run down what she did of course. It's just she remains a tremendously powerful symbol and inspiration for a lot of people who are helping others).

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Nope. She _did_ baptise the dying without them giving informed consent (arguably). There are some criticisms on the page here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Theresa

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Weird, I heard something saying they couldn't be prisets and thought I'd got it wrong. How strange. Fair enough then. But, erm, yeah, they're still horrible sexist.

And the Pope preached against the Iraq war repeatedly.
I didn't say he'd done nothing of value, however what he said/encouraged/did that was detrimental more than outweighs his good points in my opinion.

I'd also like to point out that while Hitler invented the VW Beetle and was apparently quite nice to his secretaries his bad points outweigh that.

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As long as people are actually looking at things themselves it's all good. I have no problem with that.

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diotina.livejournal.com

Thank you for putting a positive spin on things. :)

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heron61.livejournal.com

Likely true in the civlized world. In the US, far too many people will hail him as an excellent choice :(

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We live in an age of fundamentalism. The "civilised" world is, to my mind, small, scattered and powerless to stop the fundamentalists as they destroy all hope of world peace.

(I'm in a pessimistic mood today.)

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100 years ago, less than 1% of the population of Europe was non-religious. Nowadays it's nearer 40%. And most of those who _are_ religious are very uncertain about it. About 5% of the population actually attend church on a regular basis.

America lags behind - 10% of their population is atheistic. But this is split in the same way that the Democrat/Republicans are - along a rural/urban divide. And as more people become urbanised (a long-standing trend) the percentage should increase.

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adders.livejournal.com

America lags behind

People tend to assume we're on some straight line from a place of mass belief in religion, to a post-religious society. In fact, these things tend to go in cycles, with a massive growth in rationality and atheism in the early 19th Century, followed by a religious revival in the late 19th and early 20th century, for example.

So'd I'd say that America is just at a different point in the cycle to us.

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Fair enough point. Although I would argue that the 19th century atheism was largely amongst the middle classes - which were then much smaller - and not nearly so widespread as they are nowadays.

People seem to have an inbuilt need to believe _something_ and I doubt that we'll every get away from a majority of people believing in the mystical nature of the universe - most people find it just too depressing to believe anything else.

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We're social animals basically. We need to be part of something and to defer to something bigger than us. Whether that comes from religion or something else depends on the individual.

I stand by an earlier statement that humans cannot possibly ever deal with the universe because we're not mentally designed to cope with it.

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oldbaldchris.livejournal.com

Cant`t agree on worst pope ever - hes German so at least hes organised , lol. On a more serious note many of my German (catholic) colleagues and friends are annoyed at this Nazi rubbish from his past being dragged up. Every boy at that time was "encouraged" to join the Hitler Youth. It means nothing. As it happens one of the partners at my firm was also a member and has a few interesting stories to tell.
Also since he is already 78 , I don`t think he's going to be here that long anyway and then we will have to go through the same shit all over again.

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Yeah - the hitler youth thing has been completely blown out of proportion - he actually deserted from the army for goodness sake!

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The cynic in me says "but only when they were about to lose the war" ;)

I agree - the hitler youth thing is being used in a silly way. But still, he's ultra-conservative so I think I'll be disagreeing with most of what he says.

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