# Pope Ratzi **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 19, 2005, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086 "2005-04-19T17:22:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/381 "2005-04-21T03:15:58Z")
This may have been covered. I am running way late to this thread, but I thought bearing false witness was a sin as well. Or does that only apply to trials? ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/382 "2005-04-21T04:43:05Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I keep talking about our notion of self-governance. That’s what we have, here in America: self-governance. That’s why unaccountable rulers are anathema, here in the USA. What we truly have is a “Constitutional Democratic Republic.” The will of the majority doesn’t always rule. If you propose that we should have a pure “majority rules under all circumstances” democracy, perhaps that’s something to discuss. But we don’t. The established legal precedents clearly say so. You wish to dismantle all those established legal precedents and institute something else. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/383 "2005-04-21T04:59:23Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > You wish to dismantle all those established legal precedents and institute something else. Since it’s **Bricker** you’re talking about … $10 says he wishes no such thing and has not said so. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/384 "2005-04-21T07:05:49Z")
This (the general question of voting based on religious convictions) is one of those issues that does not have a clear-cut answer. If you proposed the following two questions: (1) Quakers are pacifists. Is it ethically correct for them to vote for a pacifist candidate, or vote against (say) war appropriations? (2) Hindus don’t eat beef. Is it ethicaly correct for them to vote to make beef-eating illegal? A large majority of Americans would answer yes to (1) and no to (2). So what’s the difference? As others have suggested, I think it comes down to a question of whether you’re trying to force other people to abide by your moral code, whether you define that as “rights” or not. But still, there are sticky areas that are unclean. If you vote against the death penalty, whose rights are you infringing, if any? What about abortion? Does the fetus have rights? etc… (And I reject any claim that it comes down to rights enumerated in the constitution. If it was ethically correct for a member of a racist church to vote to ban miscegenation in 1840, it was still ethically correct in 1870, and vice versa. My point is, it’s not a cut and dried issue. (Although I really think it takes some seriously tortured logic to view gay marriage as being primarily an issue of anything other than civil rights…) **Bricker** , a question: if the Catholic church is such a moral authority, how to you reconcile its strong opposition to the Iraq war with your support of that war? (Or has this been covered elsewhere?) ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/385 "2005-04-21T09:23:50Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Actually, that’s pretty much the way the system is\* designed\* to work; see [Federalist #10.](http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm) Well y’all will be happy to know that I done got me one of them internets and I been readin’ up on my Federalist Papers so’s I can get more educated and may can make enough money to pay my poll tax. Now I don’t cotton much to that book-learnin’, seein’ as how my natural predilection is to repeatedly indulge in sinful acts without fear of responsibility or consequence, that is when I’m not thinkin’ up new ways to hypocritically impose my will onto others. But I reckon that James Madison feller had some pretty good ideas. > [@Federalist #10](#): > > AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. That got me wonderin’, what’s a faction? > [@Federalist #10](#): > > By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. Ah! A majority of the whole, like the Catholic Church! Or a minority of the whole, like them homo-sexuals. > [@Federalist #10](#): > > Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. Now I admit this bit got me a might confused. Where is all this talk about “personal liberty” and “private faith” and “justice and rights of the minor party” comin’ from? It’s those _factions_ that are the problem. Factions just like all those homo-sexuals makin’ up rights for themselves, actin’ out of their own self-interest, changin’ the laws just to suit them. Right-thinking Christians who know that doin’ it up the butt is a sin (don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are gay, I don’t hate them, just their behavior) can’t be a “faction” or an “overbearing majority.” They’re just the will of the people. > [@Federalist #10](#): > > It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. I don’t know what that’s all about. We’ve got an enlightened statesman at the helm right now. > [@Federalist #10](#): > > If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. What that ought to do it. That should shut up the homos. They’ll bitch and moan and convulse the society, but they can’t really do nothing about it, because they’ll always lose the popular vote. Thanks for showing me those papers, fellas. I understand the republic now and… what? What do you mean, there’s more to it than that? > [@Federalist #10](#): > > When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed. […] Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented, or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression. Hang on now, Jimmy. So you’re saying that the _principle_ of the republic is to _keep_ a majority faction, like say Catholicism or Christianity in general, from oppressing the rights of other citizens? That ain’t democracy or public good. If the majority of people are voting strictly according to their own moral or religious motives, isn’t that enough to guarantee that everybody’s taken care of? > [@Federalist #10](#): > > If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. […] A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Oh. Well ain’t that a bitch. Sucks to be a weaker party or an obnoxious individual, but then I guess they can always toughen up and be less obnoxious. I hope you’ve got a better solution. > [@Federalist #10](#): > > A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. […] The effect […] is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose. That sounds pretty good. Seems to make a whole lot more sense to make sure that people keeping track of all the issues and all factions, both large and small, are the ones making the decisions to benefit everyone. Instead of doing something downright stupid like leaving decisions on the rights of marriage for a minority of citizens up to a popular vote. > [@Federalist #10](#): > > It must be confessed that in this, as in most other cases, there is a mean, on both sides of which inconveniences will be found to lie. By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the representatives too little acquainted with all their local circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you render him unduly attached to these, and too little fit to comprehend and pursue great and national objects. Ah. So then you’d get weird cases like San Fag-cisco, where the community is in support of one thing, but the state as a whole overwhelms them and their fruity “lesser interests.” > [@Federalist #10](#): > > The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. Yikes. It’s a damn good thing that Madison is 100% sure that the republic will completely address all the potential problems, with absolutely no chance of that happening across the whole country – we’d end up with only two political parties, and big masses of congruent red states and blue states. That sounds scary. So thank God we can just assume that a representative democracy itself takes care of all the potential pitfalls of government and warring factions. We can completely ignore all the principles that the republic was designed to foster, like religious groups overwhelming the rights of minorities, or situations where might makes right and numbers win out over personal liberites, and just vote completely according to our own religious or moral beliefs with absolutely no thought to a rational basis for that vote. The republic fixes everything. And it’s a good thing, too, because I’m plumb tuckered out from all that reading and quoting. I’d hate to have to think about personal responsibility as a voter, or whether they considered a judiciary and checks and balances or something. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/386 "2005-04-21T09:25:05Z")
Polycarp > [@](#): > > True religion is what they say it is. (Ratzy is on record that my church is a sham, because in his opinion our clergy don’t have the right to do what they do.) Just think if Polycarp was gay he would be both **gravely deficient** and **objectively disordered**. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/387 "2005-04-21T11:05:22Z")
**Sol** , you’re better off, when constructing a logical argument, to not put your logical error near the very beginning where it derails all the rest of your work: > [@](#): > > Ah! A majority of the whole, like the Catholic Church! Or a minority of the whole, like them homo-sexuals. There is simply no way that you can pretend that in the U.S. the Catholic Church is anything resembling a “majority of the whole.” You may be able to get to the same point following a different path, but this path has a large bridge missing over that chasm of error. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/388 "2005-04-21T12:25:41Z")
> [@SolGrundy](#): > > I’m really nothing more than a transsexual lesbian dating a hot model! Oh no, not again :smack: And I had you pegged as one of the good guys, **Sol**. ☹ 😉 ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/389 "2005-04-21T12:30:37Z")
I think you have no idea what I think about Gay Marriage, for one thing. Sorry, that’s about all it’s worth. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/390 "2005-04-21T13:31:31Z")
Make it “Christian Church” then, **tom~** , and I think his point stands. ---
**Author:** ![Estilicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/391 "2005-04-21T14:27:27Z")
As usual most of you are overeacting, (except those happy few like scottplaid that just hate the RCC and would never consider that th Church can do anything that is not evil), Benedict XVI was JP II right hand since 1981. He isn’t more conservative taht our last Pope but the fact is that his job was to punish the heretics, (in that way he was the bad cop and JPII the good one).- Most of you have also a pretty curious notion of Catholics teaching. The church forbids premarital sex, oral sex, etc, it doesn’t mean that a catholic doens’t have sex before marrige or that he doesn’t go down.- The fact is that the principal teaching of the RCC is that we are all sinners. The problem with you is that if a catholic girls is great in oral sex you all conclude that she is a hypocrite, (Diogenes said something like that to bricker: I hope your wife doesn’t perform oral sex on you), for the church she is simply a sinner.- Catholicism doesn’t require it’s adherents to be super human or demigods. Christianity is an ideal that can’t always be applied in this imperfect planet. A catholic is simply required to try to be a better christian and to repent his or her sins. Besides sex, when it’s forbidden, it’s even more fun so join our Church 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/392 "2005-04-21T14:44:42Z")
::Scott starts to make a point about the psychological harm of a sin-bound world, as opposed to many atheist’s, “There are no bad people, just bad actions” or judaism’s “Sin is what happens when you miss the mark”, but he just decides to get the hell away from the cult member urging him to join, instead:: ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/393 "2005-04-21T15:02:03Z")
> [@](#): > > The church forbids . . . oral sex, No, it does not. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/394 "2005-04-21T15:09:16Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > No, it does not. Okay, rephrase for **Estilicon** : The Church forbids oral sex _as an end in itself_. Although that does, indeed, make the supposed sting at **Bricker** somewhat irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/395 "2005-04-21T15:31:29Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > What we truly have is a “Constitutional Democratic Republic.” The will of the majority doesn’t always rule. > > If you propose that we should have a pure “majority rules under all circumstances” democracy, perhaps that’s something to discuss. But we don’t. The established legal precedents clearly say so. You wish to dismantle all those established legal precedents and institute something else. NO, I’m happy with what we have: two-thirds of each house of Congress, and three-fourths of the state legislatures, may amend the Constitution. That’s a supermajority, I grant you, but it does rule, completely. If we can muster a two-thirds of of Congress and three-fourths of the state legislatures to pass an amendment that restricts the vote to those between 21 and 65 years of age, then that will be the law. Period. The will of the (super)majority DOES always rule, because the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and it may be amended by super-majority. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/396 "2005-04-21T15:46:39Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > **Bricker** , a question: if the Catholic church is such a moral authority, how to you reconcile its strong opposition to the Iraq war with your support of that war? (Or has this been covered elsewhere?) Before the war, I believed what the President believed - that we had information about an imminent threat. This information was not available to the Vatican, and so their judgement of whether the conflict met the criteria for a just war was not based on full information. Of course, as it happened, the information we had was not correct. Knowing what we know now, I would not have supported the start of the war. But based on our best knowledge at the time, I believed it was the correct thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/397 "2005-04-21T15:56:20Z")
> [@Estilicon](#): > > Most of you have also a pretty curious notion of Catholics teaching. The church forbids premarital sex, oral sex, etc, it doesn’t mean that a catholic doens’t have sex before marrige or that he doesn’t go down.- > The fact is that the principal teaching of the RCC is that we are all sinners. The problem with you is that if a catholic girls is great in oral sex you all conclude that she is a hypocrite, (Diogenes said something like that to bricker: I hope your wife doesn’t perform oral sex on you), for the church she is simply a sinner.- Can you provide any cite that indicates the Church forbids oral sex? No. It does not. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/398 "2005-04-21T15:57:37Z")
The president didn’t believe Iraq was a threat any more than I did. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/399 "2005-04-21T16:01:26Z")
Is oral sex open to conception? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/400 "2005-04-21T16:02:23Z")
The RCC does not forbid oral sex as foreplay but you’re supposed to follow it up with intercourse…or to put it more crudely, you’re not supposed to come in her mouth…at least not on purpose. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086.md?page=21)