A question of Religion

[Risteard]

I once heard a speaker from a a pulpit say
"f*ck, sh*t, c*nt, w*nk. There are Xmillion children currently starving because of unpayable debt, and yet every single person here is more outraged that a curate just said 4 rude words in a church. You all need to sort out your priorities".

Really?
thats brilliant, where was that?
Priests should be outspoken like that. Maybe that could restore respect for the clergy.
What a great way to wake up the church attendance.

[liam88]

Evil?
Ahh Bless....(oops)

Stop, throw aside your bias and think rationally for a minute. The current pope preaches that contraception is a sin. So you reckon that he said it was ok to use condoms they people wouldnt be dying from aids because they'd use them straigh away seeing as it was ok?

Lets accept your line of arguement so for a minute anyway. Now Éanna what do you use condoms for? Now hold that idea just a second.....now...what is the Churches position on sex?

Now JP also preaches that sex outside of marriage is a sin. So they dont obey him for the sex part but follow him to the letter for contrception?

Condoms 99% effective
Abstanence 100% effective

So JP is evil eh?

Evil is invading a country for no (honest) reason
Evil is blowing up a bomb on a train full of innocent people
Evil is flying planes into a building full of innocent people

You have serious RC issues. Any you call yourself a Celtic fan

Fair play SOC I agree with this 100%
If they married, had a test and setled down then there would be no AID's (unless they chose to obviously)-it'd take a long time die out but if everyone followed our Pope's teaching then AIDs would die out!
Long live the Pope!

[eoinh]

You dont just get AIDS from having sex!!!

You can get it from Blood transfusions as well. You can be born with HIV also.


For people married say who are on the bread line do you advocate that they should abstain from sex? Having a child in these circumstances would lead to a level of poverty for the whole family that us westerners just cant imagine.


Getting back to Aids - its so endemic in some parts of Africa that many people dont realise wether they have HIV. Do you think that people married then who arent fully sure of their medical condition should not be allowed wear condoms and should just abstain from sex?

[green goblin]

Really?
thats brilliant, where was that?
Priests should be outspoken like that. Maybe that could restore respect for the clergy.
What a great way to wake up the church attendance.

It was at a service at a thing called the Greenbelt Festival. It's been going for years; used to be drippy happy clappy, now quite edgy. Recent speakers have included Ciaron O'Reilly, imprisoned for taking the bible verse "Turn your swords into ploughshares" literally and turning US F-16's to farm equipment, to the Archbishop of Canterbury on why The Simpsons is probably a gift from God.

But you're right, the clergy should be more outspoken. There's two ways of looking at Jesus. There's the doe-eyed, simpering vapid saint you get in a lot of (bad!) church art... and then there's the radical, long haired beardie revoltionary, outraging the religious leaders, embarassing the government, hanging out with whores, beggars, traitors, gunmen and Aids victims with a message about fierce, unbreakable love.

I think a lot of the church establishment (Of all varieties, RC, CoI, Prods)prefer the Jesus-lite version, because they think they can control him, and in all honesty they would be happier if he'd stayed dead!

[Lionel Ritchie]

Fair play SOC I agree with this 100%
If they married, had a test and setled down then there would be no AID's (unless they chose to obviously)-it'd take a long time die out but if everyone followed our Pope's teaching then AIDs would die out!
Long live the Pope!

That may be true Liam -but on the real planet earth skies are blue and grass is green. not whatever colour the pope sees.
Now tell me what the feck on "gods" green earth has the pope done to grasp that reality -rather than pontificating about abstinence.

BTW my earlier point still stands that he shuts right up about abstinence when he's urging malnourished, uneducated, impressionable teenagers in south america and africa to "breed priests" to fill Europes evaporating "vocations".

I don't go so far as to call him evil - but his acts are those of an ignorant man blinded to the need for action by his own dogma. he asks banks (for whom i've no love or sympathy) and better off nations the world over to take a hit for the sake of jumpstarting the worlds poorer countries -but refuses to take any form of a hit to his own organisation.

[lopez]

I don't go so far as to call him evil - but his acts are those of an ignorant man blinded to the need for action by his own dogma. he asks banks (for whom i've no love or sympathy) and better off nations the world over to take a hit for the sake of jumpstarting the worlds poorer countries -but refuses to take any form of a hit to his own organisation.

I'd go along with a lot of that. But that's the man-made side of religion. The corrupting influence that humans have had on Christianity by placing it within an organisation. I wouldn't say dump all the Michael Angelos and Raphaels on the market at once but one or two could feed a couple of battalions of starving people.

[SÓC]

Of course its not a solution to the AIDS problem, but then again Éanna's whole assumption of JP being evil based based on condoms.

Sell a few paintings to contribute? Sure that would contribute a bit but look how much the Catholic church gives already;

How much does the Irish/British/Americian Governments save thanks to the Churches. Can you imagne in the morning if the Catholic Church/COI decided they didnt want to play ball anymore.

If that was to happen;
Oppps there goes the whole education system. Ahhh crap our health service is gone too. Oh look no care places available anymore, oh dearie me half of the sports grounds in the country are also gone.

In short we would last very long or else the Government would have to spend countless times our GDP to aquire this services, sites, organisations etc

[JohnB]

Any scientific proof that we are related to monkeys (Wayne Rooney obvious exception)?

All life on the planet is related and, this can be demonstrated by comparing DNA profiles as well as using other taxonomic techniques. That some animals and plants can interbreed and others can't depends on many things, not least upon how far apart the genomes of each species have drifted. In general, very closely related species may sometimes be able to breed whereas in more distantly related species, it becomes less likely. But even when species are very closely related, they may vary in a way that prevents reproduction. e.g. sperm is exposed to strong evolutionary pressure and this can have a profound influence on whether or not reproduction can take place.

Because they can reproduce so quickly, evolution in small organisms can take place very rapidly. That some evolve when others don't depends upon what pressures they're exposed to. The HIV virus has evolved very rapidly over the past few decades, probably because it has been subjected to evolutionary pressure via the use of drugs. Different individual viruses will mutate in such a way as to make them resistant to a particular drug and therefore predominate over non-resistant viruses that will be wiped out. There is much more genetic diversity between different species of bacteria than there is in the whole of the animal kingdom.

Lopez, I'd never have thought you had so much in common with those from the bible belt

BTW, no offence meant but the pope's a ****.

[Dublin12]

Where's Fr.Ted when you need him.Agree about the pope johnb,they're all saps

[drinkfeckarse]

Where's Fr.Ted when you need him.Agree about the pope johnb,they're all saps

Hey Hey Hey...leave Ted outta this

And regarding the Pope.....that would be an Ecumenical matter

[Dublin12]

Speaking of the pope,is he gigging here this year?,there were talks of it to mark his 1979 tour or something,can't see a million turn out this time

[green goblin]

Speaking of the pope,is he gigging here this year?,there were talks of it to mark his 1979 tour or something,can't see a million turn out this time

Depends if his health holds out, I suppose.

[lopez]

Lopez, I'd never have thought you had so much in common with those from the bible belt

Happy new year, John and a compliment too. Thanks for the scientific pep talk but call me ignorant or a reactionary or a Bob Jones wannabe, but I'll stick to believing in God if that's fine by you.

[Éanna]

If they married, had a test and setled down then there would be no AID's (unless they chose to obviously)-it'd take a long time die out but if everyone followed our Pope's teaching then AIDs would die out!
Long live the Pope!

yeah, because everyone should do what they're told to do. Who needs democracy anyway. Let the Church run the country- they'd be bound to do a good job

I'll listen to any sensible idea on how to improve the world and make it a better place for everyone to live, but to take orders from a shower of self-interested wannabe politicians who are more interested in protecting child-molesters than dealing with some of the massive social issues facing the third world- no chance. when they sort themselves out, they can think about telling others what to do

[finlma]

.....if everyone followed our Pope's teaching then AIDs would die out!
Long live the Pope!

Why don't you got out and stone a few gays then

The man and his organisation are a bunch of morons.

[JohnB]

Happy new year, John and a compliment too. Thanks for the scientific pep talk but call me ignorant or a reactionary or a Bob Jones wannabe, but I'll stick to believing in God if that's fine by you.

HNY to you an' all senor . Personally, I don't see much of a conflict between believing in god and believing that evolution takes place. I understand St Augustine taught a form on evolutionary theory when he first came to these islands. Still think that religion is past its sell by date though. But if it makes you happy, hallelujah!

[Lionel Ritchie]

Of course its not a solution to the AIDS problem, but then again Éanna's whole assumption of JP being evil based based on condoms.

Sell a few paintings to contribute? Sure that would contribute a bit but look how much the Catholic church gives already;

How much does the Irish/British/Americian Governments save thanks to the Churches. Can you imagne in the morning if the Catholic Church/COI decided they didnt want to play ball anymore.

If that was to happen;
Oppps there goes the whole education system. Ahhh crap our health service is gone too. Oh look no care places available anymore, oh dearie me half of the sports grounds in the country are also gone.

In short we would last very long or else the Government would have to spend countless times our GDP to aquire this services, sites, organisations etc

whoa whoa ...hold the horses. Apparently I wasn't specific enough when asserting that the RC church should "take some of the hit" for easing hardship in the third world. I didn't actually mean a financial hit.
Though the RC church has amassed a vulgar amount of wealth it probably wouldn't go all that far if they sold off the family jewels to alleviate the poverty of their flock. As someone with an interest in and gainfully employed in the arts I'm happy enough to see the church hold onto the vast quantities of artworks and antiquities it's amassed as they're held in trust for the cultural benefit of all -past, present and future.
I'd be quite happy for JP to hold onto his bling-bling but draw in his horns on some of his teachings and basically get practical when it comes to issues like HIV/AIDS prevention ...that also means telling his priests...

NOT to use their pulpits to tell people which way they ought to vote on issues or elections (which they're not supposed to do anyway)

NOT to allign themselves in any official capacity with pressure groups or political parties (which they're not supposed to do anyway)

I hold out no hope that he'll ever do that -but that's just the beginning of what it'll take before his office stops being part of the problem and gets on board being part of the solution.

[lopez]

HNY to you an' all senor . Personally, I don't see much of a conflict between believing in god and believing that evolution takes place. I understand St Augustine taught a form on evolutionary theory when he first came to these islands. Still think that religion is past its sell by date though. But if it makes you happy, hallelujah!

Of course there's no conflict in both unless you stick to the Garden of Eden story. But then it would have been a nightmare for Moses to tell the Israelites what you just said. As for religion past its sell by date, your entitled to your opinion. But is British society better now than in the 1940s when the majority of people believed in God? Regards to class and any related 'struggle' but not with regards to crime. On the other hand some more secular - perhaps atheist - societies have lower crime and more respect for their neighbours: Eg: The Sweden that my pals in Kansas think God hates. Now John: Let's pray!

[JohnB]

But is British society better now than in the 1940s when the majority of people believed in God?

I'd say so and, the same goes for RoI. There are more issues than I'd care to go into, but I'd say that religion often punishes the ignorant and many people were pretty ignorant in the early part of the last century.

Women staying with abusive husbands because 'God had joined them'; people afraid to report paedophile priests etc. It's good that we've left a lot of that behind. Given the choice, there's no there's no other time period I'd prefer to live in and, one of the reasons for that is because religion has slackened its grasp on people's lives. I'd certainly be happy to pray that that remains the case.

[Fair_play_boy]

If I came across this topic in a newspaper or a library book, I would not even look at it.
However, seeing as it is written by familiar foot.ie folk, I have read every word.
Really fascinating stuff, thank you one and all.
My word! Aren't soccer supporters a very well-informed bunch all the same!