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Pope Benedict Has Resigned - effective 28 Feb


libstaK

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the last two? I thought John Paul II was reputed to have made some effort to build bridges with other faiths. Anyway, Popes are supposed to be conservative, aren't they, they are after all supposed to represent an unbroken line going back to St Peter.

Well the position IS the leadership of Christ's church and His message isn't one of change so, yeah, conservative is the order of the day. A pope who would make the church more worldly is a step backward for most Catholics who actually follow Christ.
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John-Paul's attitudes towards other faiths may have been friendly, but totally uncompromising. I heard several times his complaints about Buddhist "atheism," and so on. His failure to give any ground on the position of women in the church, on gays, on divorce, on abortion and contraception, and other issues has put the church way out of touch with the world and the way it seems to me the spirit is taking the world.

I'm not a Catholic and therefore in no position to tell the it how it should go. I can only say that taking the road it takes -- that of saying, "We are only defending Truth even if it is unpopular," is arrogant and unproductive and sectarian and, in fact, singularly un-Christlike.

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John-Paul's attitudes towards other faiths may have been friendly, but totally uncompromising. I heard several times his complaints about Buddhist "atheism," and so on. His failure to give any ground on the position of women in the church, on gays, on divorce, on abortion and contraception, and other issues has put the church way out of touch with the world and the way it seems to me the spirit is taking the world.

I'm not a Catholic and therefore in no position to tell the it how it should go. I can only say that taking the road it takes -- that of saying, "We are only defending Truth even if it is unpopular," is arrogant and unproductive and sectarian and, in fact, singularly un-Christlike.

How is the Catholic Church out of touch with the world when it has 1.8 billion followers?

Its interesting to see how much of the worlds population is religious. Heres the biggest religions -

Christainity - 2.1 billion

Islam - 1.6 billion

Hinduism - 1.4 billion

Buddism - 400 million

That alone is 5.5 billion people and with other religions added it would be higher. It is clearly obvious that the vast majority of the worlds people dont agree with atheism. In certain countries (mentioning no names) the shear arrogance of the atheists/liberals in claiming they are right and everyone else on the planet thinks the same as them is unbelievable.

Edited by Mr Right Wing
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Mr. Right Wing doesn't respond to the issues; he only quotes statistics that show numbers of adherents.

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How is the Catholic Church out of touch with the world when it has 1.8 billion followers?

Its interesting to see how much of the worlds population is religious. Heres the biggest religions -

Christainity - 2.1 billion

Islam - 1.6 billion

Hinduism - 1.4 billion

Buddism - 400 million

That alone is 5.5 billion people and with other religions added it would be higher. It is clearly obvious that the vast majority of the worlds people dont agree with atheism. In certain countries (mentioning no names) the shear arrogance of the atheists/liberals in claiming they are right and everyone else on the planet thinks the same as them is unbelievable.

The officially recognised figure in 2011 was 1.196 billion not 1.8billion. As a faith it has predominently grown in the less developed parts of the world and predominently through population expansion in those areas with the highest birth rates. It is a religion in decline in those areas where people have exercised there own personal choice.

Interestingly enough this Pope made it impossible for anyone to renounce their faith officially in response to the tidal wave of people it saw actively renouncing their catholic faith. I learn't this from someone who actually tried. Thats not a nice or fair tactic to play on a supposedly loyal and devout flock.

Br Cornelius

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John-Paul's attitudes towards other faiths may have been friendly, but totally uncompromising. I heard several times his complaints about Buddhist "atheism," and so on. His failure to give any ground on the position of women in the church, on gays, on divorce, on abortion and contraception, and other issues has put the church way out of touch with the world and the way it seems to me the spirit is taking the world.

I'm not a Catholic and therefore in no position to tell the it how it should go. I can only say that taking the road it takes -- that of saying, "We are only defending Truth even if it is unpopular," is arrogant and unproductive and sectarian and, in fact, singularly un-Christlike.

How so? Christ was NOT a figure of compromise after all. He plainly said "I am the way, the truth and the life and NO MAN comes to the Father but by Me." That is a singularly non-inclusive dogma. And it is why Christians are hated by many all over the world. As time goes on that hatred will become more virulent - we were warned in advance and expect it. I am not catholic, nor do I believe in the concept of the papacy but what Ratzinger did was true to the faith at least. If the church compromises so that no one in the world is offended by it then it ceases to BE the church for all practical purposes. I fully expect the newest version of the pope to be more "liberal and progressive". More's the pity. To defend God's word and design is not the same as preaching hatred.
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Mr. Right Wing doesn't respond to the issues; he only quotes statistics that show numbers of adherents.

The figures are offical and 'adherents' means people who stick to it not people made to follow it.

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Don't know what the fuss is about - in a recession even God needs to lay people off....

Too funny lol

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Roman Catholics or some similar intolerant belief set may prevail. We are not promised goodness and justice and harmony.

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The officially recognised figure in 2011 was 1.196 billion not 1.8billion. As a faith it has predominently grown in the less developed parts of the world and predominently through population expansion in those areas with the highest birth rates. It is a religion in decline in those areas where people have exercised there own personal choice.

Interestingly enough this Pope made it impossible for anyone to renounce their faith officially in response to the tidal wave of people it saw actively renouncing their catholic faith. I learn't this from someone who actually tried. Thats not a nice or fair tactic to play on a supposedly loyal and devout flock.

Br Cornelius

Wiki says 1.1 billion are Catholics from a total of 2.1 billion Christains. So sticking with 1.1 billion, and bearing in mind thats a huge amount of people, how is the Catholic Church out of touch? Lets take a broader view of the world and consider other faiths. As the vast majority of the worlds population are religious how are religions out of touch?

It is shear arrogance that a minority who have no faith should claim that their opinions on abortion, contraception, homosexuality and women rights are correct or wanted by other people. The vast majority of the worlds population doesnt agree with you.

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Wiki says 1.1 billion are Catholics from a total of 2.1 billion Christains. So sticking with 1.1 billion, and bearing in mind thats a huge amount of people, how is the Catholic Church out of touch? Lets take a broader view of the world and consider other faiths. As the vast majority of the worlds population are religious how are religions out of touch?

It is shear arrogance that a minority who have no faith should claim that their opinions on abortion, contraception, homosexuality and women rights are correct or wanted by other people. The vast majority of the worlds population doesnt agree with you.

The church is a business which requires numbers and thats what it gets from the developing world. In its core constituency of Europe and North America most people pay lip service to many of the dogmas of the church because it is no longer practical to live with the consequences of no contraception (12 children). That unfortunately is the very definition of an institution which has lost touch with its flock and is in terminal decline.

Religion only thrives where ignorance thrives and that is why its numerical stronghold is in those areas with the weakest eductional systems. However if I was an African I would find little solice in been a catholic in the face of its response to AIDS and the devastating consequences of not advocating the use of condoms.

It is unfortunate that the catholic church has not adapted to the realities of modern life (birth control), but it is aborant that they still deny the biological reality that some people are born to love a person of the same sex. To deny reality is the worst crime of those who live their lives by a dogmatic creed.

Br Cornelius

Edited by Guest
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John-Paul's attitudes towards other faiths may have been friendly, but totally uncompromising. I heard several times his complaints about Buddhist "atheism," and so on. His failure to give any ground on the position of women in the church, on gays, on divorce, on abortion and contraception, and other issues has put the church way out of touch with the world and the way it seems to me the spirit is taking the world.

I'm not a Catholic and therefore in no position to tell the it how it should go. I can only say that taking the road it takes -- that of saying, "We are only defending Truth even if it is unpopular," is arrogant and unproductive and sectarian and, in fact, singularly un-Christlike.

Pope John Paul II did a great deal to create inter-faith harmony, I don't know what the sources are for what you have "heard". Additionally, it was a primary goal of Pope John Paul to elevate the status of the Mother Mary in the minds of the clergy and flock and to encourage supplication to her for intervention, healing and as a means to intervene on behalf of humanity for grace against the continuous "sins" occuring. In short, Pope John Paul understood the tradition and dogma of the Catholic Church very well, he also understood that a patriarchal church alone had no long term hope of holding the faithful in a world where egalitarian agendas were holding sway among men and women. The balance of power between the masculine and feminine forces needed to be addressed.

Pope John Paul was known to primarily pray to Mary for intervention in long vigils - this is not the act of a man who would like women to be denied their rightful place in the church more the act of a man who would like to see the way opened for imbalances to be addressed, even if it could not occur within his own lifetime.

Here are a series of statements by Pope John Paul II on Mother Mary's place within the church:

http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/JP2BVM70.HTM

A few pertinent excerpts ...

1. Mary Is Pattern of Church's Holiness

"The Blessed Virgin is the perfect realization of the Church's holiness and its model", the Holy

Father said in the first of a series of reflections on Mary's role in the Church at the General

Audience of Wednesday, 6 September 1995.

7. Mary Shows Us God's Respect for Women

"The figure of Mary shows that God has such esteem for woman that any form of discrimination lacks a theoretical basis", the Holy Father said at the General Audience of 29 November 1995.

8. Mary Sheds Light on Role of Women

At the General Audience of 6 December 1995, the Holy Father continued his catechesis on the Blessed Mother, calling attention in light of the equality of the sexes to the distinctiveness of femininity, as exemplified in the Virgin Mary.

12. Victory Over Sin Comes Through a Woman

"Mary's unique vocation is inseparable from humanity's vocation and, in particular, from that of

every woman, on which light has been shed by the mission of Mary, proclaimed God's first ally against Satan and evil", the Holy Father said at the General Audience on 24 January 1996.

10. Mary's Place Is Highest After Christ

The proper way to explain Marian doctrine was the topic of the Holy Father's weekly catechesis at the General Audience of 3 January 1995. Mariology is not a product of sentimentality, but of the same rigorous method used in all theology.

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Tony Blair will be ready to take the position,he's probably waiting for the call now. And deciding where the peasants should build his pyramid.

He may be known as 'Pope Teflon I' then.

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Wiki says 1.1 billion are Catholics from a total of 2.1 billion Christains. So sticking with 1.1 billion, and bearing in mind thats a huge amount of people, how is the Catholic Church out of touch? Lets take a broader view of the world and consider other faiths. As the vast majority of the worlds population are religious how are religions out of touch?

It is shear arrogance that a minority who have no faith should claim that their opinions on abortion, contraception, homosexuality and women rights are correct or wanted by other people. The vast majority of the worlds population doesnt agree with you.

Interesting, that is also the same figure that Wiki quotes for people who are Irreligious.!! I find it arrogant that people who claim to be RC (based on Communion Records - not including people who denounce and leave the RC Cult) try forcing their outmoded and Middle Ages beliefs on the majority of Non - RC Cultists

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looking at the world population numbers it seems to me that you should be looking at how many don't believe rather than how many do

i'm tooooo lazy to figure out the exact fraction but 2.1 is roughly just over one quarter of the world population 1.1 is just over one eighth so if this popularity contest between religions actually matters somewhere then they are both failing. somewhere between 3/5s and 3/4 don't believe that way I don't know the totals or percentages for atheist and agnostic but i know that there are more every year( and there are areas in the world that you DON'T tell anyone that you do not believe, they will kill you for it.) the same goes for islam and for budist and for hindu.

present population U.S.A. 315,318970 ; World 7,065,845,101 according to the us census http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

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All things said,I think Ozzy should be the next Pope.

OzzyPope.jpg

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How is the Catholic Church out of touch with the world when it has 1.8 billion followers?

Its interesting to see how mucnh of the worlds population is religious. Heres the biggest religions -

Christainity - 2.1 billion

Islam - 1.6 billion

Hinduism - 1.4 billion

Buddism - 400 million

That alone is 5.5 billion people and with other religions added it would be higher. It is clearly obvious that the vast majority of the worlds people dont agree with atheism. In certain countries (mentioning no names) the shear arrogance of the atheists/liberals in claiming they are right and everyone else on the planet thinks the same as them is unbelievable.

The number of Catholics is grossly over-estimated. Considering in order to not 'be' a Catholic you have to write to them to emancipate yourself, and considering that most people wouldn't bother doing so, it becomes impossible to say with any certainty how many Catholics there actually are in the World. I was brought up Catholic, but I don't consider myself to be so, yet the Church does.

The statistics are horribly skewed. I wouldn't be surprised if the number was less than half of what the Church claims.

Edited by ExpandMyMind
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The number of Catholics is grossly over-estimated. Considering in order to not 'be' a Catholic you have to write to them to emancipate yourself, and considering that most people wouldn't bother doing so, it becomes impossible to say with any certainty how many Catholics there actually are in the World. I was brought up Catholic, but I don't consider myself to be so, yet the Church does.

The statistics are horribly skewed. I wouldn't be surprised if the number was less than half of what the Church claims.

This Pope removed that option. There is no way to withdraw from the church short of death.

Br Cornelius

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Isn't all this a little less than honest, if you are going to use numbers in a horse race?

The situation with Buddhism is interesting, since it is an open (tolerant) religion, it permits people to be both Buddhist and something else, and most of the population of China, Korea and Japan are exactly that. Do we count all these people three times (in China)?

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Tracking the number of people who call themselves agnostic or atheist is a far better indication of the religious status of a nation. This is because for most people saying you are a Catholic or a Protestant is a default position which requires almost no committment to active participation in religious practice.

To declare yourself an agnostic or an atheist requires an act of will to declare that you are positively not a member of a religious denomination.

When you look at figures across the world the rise of agnostism and atheism is much stronger than the rise or decline of a declaration of faith. In Ireland those declaring catholisim has dropped by 10% over the last decade (from a 90% baseline), whilst those declaring atheism/agnostism has risen by 400%.

The secular are winning the demographic battle of faith and increasingly so among the young who will define the faith of our collective future.

Br Cornelius

Edited by Guest
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Tracking the number of people who call themselves agnostic or atheist is a far better indication of the religious status of a nation. This is because for most people saying you are a Catholic or a Protestant is a default position which requires almost no committment to active participation in religious practice.

To declare yourself an agnostic or an atheist requires an act of will to declare that you are positively not a member of a religious denomination.

When you look at figures across the world the rise of agnostism and atheism is much stronger than the rise or decline of a declaration of faith. In Ireland those declaring catholisim has dropped by 10% over the last decade (from a 90% baseline), whilst those declaring atheism/agnostism has risen by 400%.

The secular are winning the demographic battle of faith and increasingly so among the young who will define the faith of our collective future.

Br Cornelius

I agree with you in this. Though I think it might be better called the LACK of faith in anything but oneself. The youth could hardly do worse than following organized religion, but imagining that the sum of everything is contained in one's own imagining is folly of the saddest order IMO. Hopefully they will at least try to adhere to some ethical/moral code of their own choosing.
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Ha...how's this for a titty twister!

Apparently someone is either very angry or very happy at the days announcement!

Yes, this happened after the announcement of the resignation...

and heres the vid

[media=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZL0Z2nV3cU[/media]

Edited by seeder
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I agree with you in this. Though I think it might be better called the LACK of faith in anything but oneself. The youth could hardly do worse than following organized religion, but imagining that the sum of everything is contained in one's own imagining is folly of the saddest order IMO. Hopefully they will at least try to adhere to some ethical/moral code of their own choosing.

It is a mistake to assume to look within for moral guidance is any less moral than taking your moral code wholsale from a religion. I will bet that I am as moral as yourself and yet I am an atheist/agnostic at this stage. Morality for me is about making choices which make the world a fairer and better place for all people. I would say that the 10 commandments make an equally valid code for the secular person (apart from the one about false gods) simply because they are the distillation of millenia of cultural tradition about what makes society function.

Most people would declare themselves agnostic which retains the belief in an external guiding principle, what they have given up on is a of moral and social prescriptions which no longer make sense in that they ignore human needs and dispositions. Religion has held sway throughout its history by threat and people are no longer willing to be cowed by threats of retribution when they see religious leaders breaking almost all of the moral codes which they force on believers.

The world is refusing to accept hypocracy in its religious leaders and its political leaders alike. I see the future as been highly moral and bright when the real sanctity of the individual human is acknowledged and accepted as the ultimate guiding principle.

Br Cornelius

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