Since the thread didn’t make that distinction in the first place, it’s highly misleading to claim that it ‘no longer’ makes that distinction. The concept of ‘strayed from the morals of the religion they are representing’ does not come from the OP. If you think it did, then please explain why you think Mother Theresa, L Ron Hubbard, and John Smith strayed from the morals of their respective religions, as they were some of the examples the OP gave of religious leaders who weren’t decent human beings. Since Jon Smith and L Ron Hubbard both founded their own religions, it would be interesting to see how someone could support a claim that they strayed from the morals of a religion that they defined and redefined on their own authority.
And if this is really, truly your position, why won’t you answer my simple question about ISIS? Are you willing to call an ISIS leader who is faithful to that religion a ‘decent’ person, even though he would likely kill or torture you and your family in the name of his religion? You’ve consistently ducked that question, and I think it’s pretty telling that you can’t bring yourself to apply the standard you claim to hold to a religious body that is actively hostile to you personally.
Marriage is a human right and in the United States is a cvil right, but the Catholic Church opposes it for a lot of people close to me. Opposition to my friends being accorded basic human rights is what I’m calling indecent.
I’m going to repeat here, in what way did L Ron Hubbard or Joseph Smith not faithfully follow the religions (that they created and defined the morals of) to the best of their ability? If you can’t answer that, then it’s clear that the OP was not talking about your second idea.
I don’t think that’s a good summary of the thread.
More than one person has mentioned Desmond Tutu; the only objection to him so far was a vague assertion that some unspecified people other than the person posting might hold him indirectly responsible for terrorist actions done by ANC members during apartheid. The tenuous nature of the alleged causality and the fact that the vast majority of the activity of the ANC at the time was in opposing apartheid make this a pretty weak objection, in my opinion.
Novelty Bobble has assessed him as decent, and Pantastic has not responded to my direct questions about him or offered an opinion one way or the other.
You know what a DECENT religious leader does? He or she realizes that the safety, security, dignity and rights of actual PEOPLE trumps their religious belief and tempers their zeal when it would harm another human being. That’s what a decent religious leader does. Simple criterion, right there.
If you’re talking about civil marriage, then I agree with you. However, I believe gigi is talking about getting married in the Catholic church (as in, a Catholic wedding), which is NOT a right. On that, I would agree.
I’m not in agreement with the Church’s views on civil marriage, for the record, but as far as getting married in the church itself, they can set whatever rules they want.
There is a distinction to be made there certainly.
It is their club and they can set whatever rules they like (And the sort of rules they set tell you a lot about their moral outlook). Ultimately no one is forced to be a catholic. I personally wouldn’t seek to force them to carry out religious ceremonies they didn’t want to do (though I definitely do take a strong view on what I think about their restrictions)
What is intensely objectionable is when the churches seek to influence what other, non-catholics get to do. It really is fuck-all to do with them. And yes, that is what happened in the UK. They used their influence to try and stop it. Something that gives equality under law to all and has an effect on no-one except by personal choice and they try to stop it. Disgraceful behaviour and indicative of arrogance, assumed moral superiority and an intention to impose their dark-age thinking on the rest of us.
I have clearly been talking about civil marriage and that Catholic Church’s opposition to that on all of the occasions that I referred to the Catholic Church’s opposition to human rights for people close to me as a justification for calling the Pope ‘not a decent religious leader’. As Gigi pointed out, participation in a particular church’s rituals are not a human right or a civil right, and I never posted anything disagreeing with that or anything indicating that I thought that participation in any internal church function is a human right or civil right. Since I haven’t posted anything indicating that I was using a non-standard definition of the term, responding as though I must be using a non-standard meaning of the term instead of the usual one which also makes more sense in context is not really reasonable.
It’s not inherently objectionable when churches seek to influence society. That’s what the religious leaders of the Civil Rights movement (Martin Luther King being the most famous) did.
The conflict isn’t between religious belief vs. what’s good for people. It’s between conflicting views of what ultimately is best for people. And religious people’s views of what’s ultimately best for people are going to be informed by their religion, in ways that can be positive or negative.
It may be that the biggest problem with religious people is that it’s harder to get them to change or rethink or reality-check their views, because they have so much invested in them as “eternal, God-given truth.”
I thought the premise of the OP was interesting- to set a relatively low moral bar and see if the more skeptical folks in the crowd could find consensus on a religious leader who would clear it. Or so argue that no one could possibly be decent and religious, which hasn’t been done here either.
The thread has gone off the rails to become yet another discussion of the Catholic Church. We don’t need another one of those, and it’s become excruciatingly clear that no one currently in that hierarchy is going to fit the OP, so could we just drop that already and get back to the OP? No need to continue beating that dead-for-purposes-of-this-OP horse.
Fair enough, you’re right and it would too strong of me to suggest that churches and the religious should never express a view, I really wouldn’t want to stop them from doing that. I do however find it offensive in the extreme when a group seeks to curtail the rights of others, especially when the exercising of those rights makes absolutely no material difference to that religious group. Marriage equality or divorce or the right to use birth control in no way affects individual catholics, They themselves remain free to keep true to the doctrine of the faith. It sticks in my throat that they cannot be happy for themselves to remain faithful, they must ensure others get a taste of it too.
Just found out that Lungtok Tenpai Nyima, the 33rd Menri Trizin, died. He seems to have been a very decent person indeed. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, by all means present it.
I also have a soft spot for Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and agree with Thomas Friedman that the man should have been granted a Nobel Peace Prize more than a decade ago, for his heroic efforts to keep his country united and free.
As for you, The Swedish Viking, could you please be so kind as to present evidence indicating that Antje Jackelén, the primus of Svenska Kyrkan, is anything but a thoroughly decent and kind-hearted person?
And please do the same with regards to Anders Arborelius, our current Catholic bishop (and first cardinal ever!).
Your quote doesn’t explicitly say that it applies to the higher leadership of the church, and is clearly addressed to a regular member. So unless you can pair this with something showing either a specific doctrine that this applies to Hubbard, or a condemnation of Hubbard by other leaders of the church, it doesn’t appear that his religion actually thinks he violated the precepts of his religion (or that they think it’s fine). So I don’t actually see support for your claim that he violated the morals of the religion that he founded, and since scientologists keep a lot of of their holy books secret, especially the ones dealing with rules for people at the top, it seems unlikely that you would be able to do so.
If, for the sake of argument, I accept your cite, are you seriously going to assert that L Ron Hubbard occasionally using recreational drugs in private caused a “scandal”, or that it is sufficient to call him one of “pretty terrible people”? Because the discussion of Hubbard wasn’t a standalone question, it’s in response to the OP and Gigi’s claims about the OP, and your answer doesn’t seem to be related to that.
Tied to edit this at the end of the first paragraph on my last reply: I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that someone was violating the morals of their religion when you don’t know the morals of their religion and none of the people who follow the religion think that he did; if we’re going to allow that, then I can find something in the Bible that virtually every Christian leader isn’t following, and the fact that they and their congregations disagree doesn’t matter.
I like Rabbi Michael Lerner. A good friend of mine is one of his congregation. As for this shiksa, well, you know what they say: You don’t have to be Jewish to love Lerner’s.