Catholic bashing

The BBQ Pit
21

I’m sorry, but maybe I just can’t bring myself to have a whole lot of respect for an organization that was responsible for the Crusades and the Inquisition, that held back science and technology for centuries because it didn’t like the implications, that couldn’t even admit that the planet actually orbits the sun until this century, that was established under the fascist regimes of Mussolini and Franco, that caused untold suffering in the New World with its religious zeal and hatred for the “heathens”, that attempted to impose its own monolithic version of the truth upon an entire continent, and succeeded for almost a millennium. And as a woman, a feminist, and a non-heterosexual, I say that the treatment of those three groups by this organization throughout history, and today, leave much to be desired. That a woman can be a saint, and not a priest, as the offending sig line points out, is just icing on the cake.

There, Konrad, you now have something worthwhile to respond to. Enjoy.

22

Konrad:

Given your hypersensitive whining, perhaps we all would be better off if you settled your own conflicts before vomiting them all over other people.

Your snivelling posts on bigotry betray you. Connect the dots, putz. By your own words, you aren’t a martyr, you’re a passive aggressive dolt. In the lines from a great chldren’s book:
Nobody loves me.
Everybody hates me.
I’m going to sit in the garden and eat worms.

So gorge on worms, already. Have a maggot while you’re at it; they’re GREAT with dip. But quit with the pissy little games where your hate is justified but you’re the poor, poor maligned innocent.

If you didn’t want a fight, discussion and/or in-your-face challenge, why did you choose The Pit for you puling meanderings?

You ain’t the victim, pal, you’re the predator.
But you seem eager to take disagreement as further “proof” as your victimhood.

Of course you’d probably read persecution into a menu from the Omlette Shoppe, while sancimoniously finding justification for your own hate.

Konrad, you’re a troll.

Veb
(still your enemy, and even prouder of it)

23

Konrad,

Nothing.

Just wanted you to see my new sig.

The Catholic Church allows only the Rhythm Method as a form of birth control.
Evidently, a woman may not use chemistry and physics. She is permitted, however, to resort to mathematics.

24

Love it, Wally!!!

The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. - Henry Van Dyke

25

neuro-trash grrrrl: Hold back science? The RCC practically invented science with its establishment of the modern university. The rest of your tirade is as equally ignorant and, without the historical context of what sort of abuses Pagans, Muslims, ‘men of science’, and atheistic regimes have committed, it is completely myopic.

Now, while n-t grrrl clearly took the opportunity to bash, IMHO, the original .sig in question was not a bash, but an honest criticism put in a witty framework. Not all criticisms are bashes.

Now, having said that, I must say the brand new .sig concerning the ‘Rhythm Method’ is a bash. It’s been over three decades since the RCC promoted the Rhythm Method. It now promotes Natural Family Planning, which does not use the technique of counting days to determine ovulation, but rather uses the technique of monitoring bodily symptoms to determine ovulation. NFP, btw, is almost universally recommended by doctors when a couple wants to get pregnant. It’s a mystery why docs hardly mention it to couples who don’t want to get pregnant and who don’t want to mess around with hormonal medication or interfering devices.

Peace.

26

Wally - It’s not nice to paraphrase H.L. Menken. Get the quote right and cite the Master.

27

This is patently not true.

This is so untrue it boggles the mind.

Take it from an atheist, NTG, if you’re gonna argue, at least be in possession of some facts before you do so. Those two things above are such egregious misstatements that to state them immediately discounts one from being taken at all seriously.

28

What, have we all forgotten Copernicus and Galileo, to say nothing of Darwin? Galileo, if you will recall, was harshly punished for his assertion that the earth moved around the sun. Of course, the Church did admit to its mistake. When did they do this? 1992, when a commission appointed by Pope John Paul II determined that the previous stance was based on an excessively narrow interpretation of the Bible. That means that heliocentrism has been a part of official Church doctrine for only seven years. So, yes, the Catholic Church has cleaned up its act in recent years, but… 1992? Come on…

The Catholic Church invented science? As I recall, the scientific method as we know it was the brainchild of a monk named Roger Bacon, who insisted that one’s perceptions of the natural world should be influenced by observation, and thus contradicted the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas and the rest of the Catholic mainstream who believed that faith, and faith alone was the key. This (the former) was not a viewpoint that was popular at the time, and very little in the way of real science was done in Europe during the time that the Church held sway, what little there was being more along the lines of innovation in agricultural techniques. Charlemagne may have encouraged literacy among his subjects, but such things were the exception, not the rule.

And as for the Muslims, pagans, and men of science, yes, there have been abuses. Such abuses usually occur when someone decides that their worldview is the only correct one, as the Church has for centuries. During the Dark Ages of Europe, many advances in the fields of medicine, astronomy, optics, and mathematics were being made in the Islamic world. It wasn’t until some overzealous clerics started seeing a threat to their faith in scientific inquiry, that science became a naughty word. Abuses by “men of science” are usually by men so caught up in their science that it becomes a religion to them, and other things, like ethics and the sanctity of human life, fall by the wayside. Zealotry in any form is a terrible thing, and should be avoided. Myopic? It doesn’t get much more myopic than that.

In short, perhaps I should not be picking on the Catholic Church alone (which may or may not have been the point of the OP). And, as I admitted earlier, the Church is at least making an attempt to rehabilitate itself. The fact remains, that the Church has done much to cause human suffering in the past centuries. My original post still stands.

29

Whoops! My mistake.

That reference to St. Thomas Aquinas above should have been St. Augustine. Aquinas was a contemporary of Bacon (probably where I got mixed up), and of a similar philosophical bent. In fact, Aquinas had to hold back more extreme colleagues who wanted to declare Aristotle a heretic. So I will give you this: The Chrch probably did make possible the scientific advances that it would later be trying to suppress. A belief in the usefulness of reason only goes so far, it seems.

And, again, my original posting still stands.

30

Nickrz,

I was not sure who said it or the exact wording.

I couldn’t find it in my book of quotes.

It was meant to be a one time sig, never to be used again.

Especially, after Moriah’s correction.

31

well I don’t like long, whiny responses so I just skimmed your posts.

E1Skeptic: ancesters? And you’re telling me to proofread.

bla bla bla catholic church committed crimes

bla bla bla I’m a lesbian

bla bla bla you’re only defending them cause you’re Polish

heh, lesbians are cool.

32

Oh, leave it alone, Konrad.

You’ve made your point. You don’t have one.

Try something else.

How about screen names? You might have some fun with that.

The big toe is a device for finding furniture in the dark.

33

Oh, what’s the point, you weren’t even paying attention. And here I was thinking that you might actually be able to manage an intelligent debate. You’re a troll, Konrad. Fuck off and die.

34

neuro-trash grrl: I didn’t respond to your posts because:

  1. It’s completely irrelevant to my point, I was never trying to say the church is good/bad/whatever.

  2. What you said wasn’t news to me. Far from it. I’m young, but that doesn’t mean I stupid or uneducated.

  3. I agree with you.

But mostly point 1.

35

No, Konrad, you don’t have a point, at least not one that’s clearly articulated and intelligently defended.

What you DO have is a really bad case of passive-aggressive posing. You post vague, sniping little swipes and then wrap yourself in a precious little mantle of self righteousness. “Oh, but that wasn’t what I meant AT ALL! Everyone else wrong, wrong, evil and wrong”. :(Drums your little heels in a tantrum…)

In the body of human discourse, you’re a spastic colon. You don’t need, or add, fiber, you just produce stench, loud noises and disgust in others. You leave others only with a sense of wonder that your limit your contributions to rude blasts of methane.

So knock off the coy, precious, twee little “gotcha!” tactics. If you want to argue, this is probably the best place for it. But, mangling the metapohor, either shit or get out of the pit.

Risking moderator wrath,
Veb

36

neuro-trash grrrl:

:::sigh::: Phil’s point, n-t g, is that it is a good idea to have facts on your side. Copernicus was never persecuted by the RCC. (Kepler, whom you did not mention, was defended by the RCC against attacks by Protestants. Bruno, whom you did not mention, was burned by the RCC–after fleeing a similar fate for him planned by Calvin.) Galileo was not “harshly punished” for declaring heliocentrism. He was sent to live under house arrest (in a villa with servants provided by the RCC) after a trial that was prompted by his vituperative attacks on a number on church leaders because they did not embrace all of his ideas, (some of which were wrong). The pope whom he mocked had been a supporter of Galileo’s scientific explorations. The part of the judgment set aside in 1992 was the declaration that Galileo had proclaimed heresy. It was set aside because the RCC has never opposed the heliocentric theory and the pissed-off judges at his trial had overstepped their bounds in that declaration. Several RCC scholars who had corresponded with Galileo published works discussing heliocentrism and were never punished.

I’m not sure why you threw Darwin into your statement since the RCC has been fairly open to the idea of evolution and many evolutionary scholars are Catholic.

The RCC has done many horrible things. You mentioned several of them in your first post. However, this is the Straight Dope and we prefer to adhere to facts whenever possible.

For a view a bit outside the popular notion, you might want to check out these sites:
http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Issues/GalileoAffair.html
http://www.catholic.com/answers/tracts/galileo.htm

Tom~

37

You had a point? What was it?

{quote]I was never trying to say the church is good/bad/whatever.
[/quote]

So what were you trying to say? First you imply that you think the sig is Catholic bashing, then you say you just thought it was dumb. Why call the thread “Catholic bashing” then? Again, did you even have a point? You claim to have one, but no one has been able to find any sign of one in your postings on this thread. Out with it, man!

“The secret of life is, there ain’t no secret, and you don’t get your money back.”

38

tomndebb wrote:

From some of what I’ve read, Bruno was always getting into trouble – deeply in debt, at odds with his impresarios, etc… He seems to have had less in common with Newton or Einstein than he did with Joseph Newman.

The truth, as always, is more complicated than that.

39

Darn it, that last link should’ve been to www.josephnewman.com , not www.josephnewman.org.

40

My point is pretty damn simple. I thought the sig was stupid because it was pointless catholic bashing. (Turns out that the person was catholic bla bla bla, whatever, how am I supposed to know that?) I never said I was insulted by it, what’s so hard to understand about that?

I’m not a catholic but I don’t think you have to agree with someone to defend them from stupid arguments (see the “I hate bigots” thread).

Even if someone said “Hitler had a beard”, it doesn’t damn well matter how bad Hitler was, it still doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t have a beard.