The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Fried wrote:I am Roman Catholic. I found many of these comments about the Pope and Catholism not just in bad taste but very offensive.

I am too... think we're in the minority here.
I've been practicing abstinence on this thread. I've had angry thoughts several times in this thread and clicked the little [X] button at the top right instead of the "Post" one. Yeh.
Sure, the Pope says "don't use condoms" but nobody has to listen to that
-bill

Puce wrote:

Fried wrote:You, each and every one of you (Geoff WreckdoM, abecedarian, Kapitano, j$, Hoblit, sparks, 15-16 puzzle, jack shite, Caravan Ray, john m, TheHipCola, Rabid Garfunkel, fodroy, and roymond), all eat babies.

Damn, I wish I had found this thread earlier. I guess it's Mac'n'Cheese for me tonight.

Hush Puce. You and I are too supreme and faultless to be involved in this ridiculous thread.

I mourn the death of the man as I mourn the death of anyone. I am not a member of the Catholic faith, but I do hope this former Pope died successful in his quest for a happy and satisfying life.

A life is a life. Show the dead some respect. In fact, we should do our best to stretch and exadurate his accomplishments, and suppress his failings. Let criticism stay in the world of the living.

Wow - I really started something with this thread!

Apologies to any Catholics offended - but I maintain my stance that that last Pope cannot be remembered as a 'great man' - and for mine, 'senile old prick' is a far better description.

When we have a Pope who starts thinking about the spread of poverty, disease and overpopulation amongst his follower - then we can start thinking about 'great men'.

This last Pope was not necessarily a bad man - but he just stuck his finger in his ring (fishermans) and kept the status quo. His main problem seemed to be that he equated social reform with Marxism - a bad word for him considering his Polish background.

If was was just any other old man who died - I would have had no disrepect for him. But as the spritual leader of millions of Catholics in Asia, Africa and Latin America - he was a dismal failure and I disrespect him in death as I disrespected him in life.

You want a great Catholic - look towards the likes of Bishop Oscar Romero of El Salavador or Bishop Carlos Belo of Timor L'Este - I think these guys had a better idea of what Jesus really had in mind when he laid down the rules.


oh..and BTW Leaf..the Pope played hockey??!? He also played rugby as a young man! What a guy!

If you had been Pope, what things would you have done?

1.Contraception - yeah, that's cool.
2. I think women can be priests too, because after all, you aren't an inferior sub-section of the species
3. And we really don't need your money - use it to feed your family - not decorate the village church

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/ ... index.html

Excellent article.

Caravan Ray wrote:I'd like to see all the Cardinals put into a house and have everything they do filmed for 2 weeks

I believe the history channel is doing something like this. Although I imagine it will be more documentry than The Real World.

Of course, if you read 'In God's Name' by David Yallop you start to wonder, "...maybe JP II was in on the caper to bump off his predecessor JP I..."

Is there blood on his hands? Maybe ol' Popey isn't as warm and cuddly as you think. Make you wonder, doesn't it... Not sayin' he did...but where there's smoke (a puff of white smoke to be exact)....


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... ce&s=books

erikb wrote:If you had been Pope, what things would you have done?

In a word: more.

I'm seriously not trying to be offensive.

The pope, IMO, is NOT necessarily 'a great man of peace' as much as he is a political leader carrying on an agenda. It really suprises me that people buy into his facade so welcomely. Bush gets bashed for representing the christian agenda but since the pope is more open about it he can influence European politics the same way and nobody can critisize this without backlash?

I'm no Bush fan and I don't dig his christian agenda and I'm a christian. So why does the pope get away with this? His church has plenty of controversy and corruption. It has it's share of problems as well as it's mistakes. Yet, he's somehow 'allowed' this. NO RELIGION should have this type effect on the WORLD.

Hipcola summed it up well:

TheHipCola wrote:The power the church holds over catholics and non-catholics is that it is millions strong. Any political organization or figurehead had better respect that. To go on the record in a definitively anti-catholic manner, you risk losing the vote that this group holds. Votes=power. Perhaps it isn't as strong a power here in North America, but in regions where Catholocism is really prevalent in the local culture, I'm sure this has a distinct effect on day to day existence through politics, law-making and enforcing etc. And in that way even non-catholics would be affected by the power of catholicism.

I'm not catholic hatin' kind of guy...but I will not feel guilty realizing the guy for what he was.

all you people that keep apologizing for pissing people off just keep pissing people off. congratulations.

this thread is a real eye opener into some of the personalities that hide behind the avatars. just because you have an opinion, doesn't mean you need to share it, or that we haven't heard it already like a broken fucking record.

the things you guys say will stick with me long after this thread dies.

Wow, angry thread. Boys, chill. We're all happy. Hug and make up or something.

I'm taking Friday off school because I wanna see the funeral, I'm not religious, but I'm interested to see how the news deals with it. Whether it'll be a big sob story, how many facts they screw up, how many graphics they can shove into one segment, and whatever else. That and I won't have to go to school, so, heh, yay.

I think blaming catholocism in any way for the spread of AIDS is .. well, obviously, it's stupid, but I have a different point -

Well, not really, but I just wanted to mention that there was some story on washpost last year about the spread of VD in Africa due to the popularity among men of the practice of "dry sex." To accomplish this, women put some weird (really weird) compound up the hidey-ho to dry themselves out, and then their friendly male companion pounds it to em. Since condom use is rare - not because people are Catholic, but because no one likes condoms and most people, even people in Africa where a great many people have AIDS, thinks AIDS happens to other people (or don't give a fuck if they get AIDS), and because the dry sex practice leaves the woman torn and bloody, AIDS, herpes, and other STDS spread like wildfire.

I find conversations that equate avowing a religion with BEING religious pretty riotous. How many people do you know how claim to be christian? Of those, how many really lead a religious lifestyle? In America, the number has to be pretty fuckin' close to zero, since the average American lifestyle itself is rampantly opposed to the J/C value system.

So that's why people who blame the pope for AIDS are fucking retards, is what I meant to say. Even if you like, only half blame him, or read "THE POPE CAN BE BLAMED FOR THE SPREAD OF AIDS IN AFRICA" and kind of agree internally.. it just shows a complete fuckin' lack of insight into your own retarded opinions. People fucking is what spreads AIDS in Africa. I'd be real curious to see what the number of monogamous couples who contracted/spread AIDS is.

OBPope, I got a Pope John Paul II comic book when I was baptised at age 13. By that time, I was already an atheist, but it was a pretty good comic. The one about St Francis was cool, too.

Obpolitics.. Hoblit, the reason it's OK for the pope to be political is that HELL FUCK YES HE HAS AN AGENDA. He's the pope! His job is to convert people to catholicism and make his church richer and more powerful. That has fuck-all to do with why he was a good man and a valued elder statesman. In spite of having the job of making the CC bigger etc, he spent a lot of time doing things he didn't have to do to try to help people's lives suck less. And, like EriK said, we're talking about people whose lives REALLY fucking suck. He fought with everything he had against political injustice and tyrrany, and was, by all accounts, perfectly open about all of his views. This isn't Jerry Fuckin' Fallwell we're talking about here.

Hoblit wrote:

erikb wrote:If you had been Pope, what things would you have done?

In a word: more.

I'm seriously not trying to be offensive.

Then say something, anything. Making a specific statement about specific things that you think the Pope did poorly will be seen as much less offensive than making blanket statements which just condemn the man in general. Don't just say "I would have done more than the Pope".

jack wrote:all you people that keep apologizing for pissing people off just keep pissing people off. congratulations.

I haven't appologised. I've studied your beliefs, I think they're childish and I'm not backpedalling on it. Does that make you respect me or hate me?

Not that it matters. You're going to heaven and I'm going to hell, right?

just because you have an opinion, doesn't mean you need to share it, or that we haven't heard it already like a broken fucking record.

<shrug>. Back at you.

the things you guys say will stick with me long after this thread dies.

You mean you're actually going to think about what we've said?

blue wrote:So that's why people who blame the pope for AIDS are fucking retards

No one is making this claim. That the catholic church has increased the spread of AIDS is undeniable. The regan administration also shares blame.

No one is saying the church is the sole cause of AIDS spreading, and no one is saying the figurehead pope is solely to blame for pushing it's policy on condoms.

This thread is not about one man who was the pope. It's about the policies of the catholic church, which has surprisingly little to do with their most revered spokesman.

Kapitano wrote:
This thread is not about one man who was the pope. It's about the policies of the catholic church, which has surprisingly little to do with their most revered spokesman.

gee, the title of this thread is "dead pope", not "discourse on the failings of catholicism".

you're right, i should keep my opinion to myself and this is the last i have to say on the matter. you're an asshole.

gee, i feel better already.

What a lot of this is...we can't argue in real time and we're all misunderstanding each other's intentions. It's also WAY too big and there is WAY too much to say.

We should just drop this.

I'll pipe up and give the Pope a 50/50. He did have some progressive ideas and he DID keep practicing what he believed to be true, though the Communists COULD have killed him or tortured him at any time(and that is Punk as Fuck). And he spoke out against the war.

He did however work very hard to keep women's rights down, reproductive and contraception options CLOSED, rights of homosexuals repressed, was in charge (and ultimately responsible) for all the child molesters and cover ups and other things that sucked.


50/50. It could have been much worse, but it could have been better.

jack wrote:

Kapitano wrote: This thread is not about one man who was the pope. It's about the policies of the catholic church, which has surprisingly little to do with their most revered spokesman.

gee, the title of this thread is "dead pope", not "discourse on the failings of catholicism".

If you want to know what a thread is about, look at the content, not the title.

you're right, i should keep my opinion to myself and this is the last i have to say on the matter. you're an asshole.

gee, i feel better already.

I didn't say you should be silent. You did.

As for my anal resemblence...I'm glad my ass made you feel better

Hoblit wrote:We should just drop this.

Yeah, alright.

We'll see whether this thread affects the reviews.

Kapitano wrote:The pope-choosing process this time must be utter chaos. There's so many factions and hairline disputes. My guess is they'll agree on the most banal, vague, noncommittal candidate available. But maybe from somewhere that isn't in Europe, as a symbolic move away from eueocentrism. A bit like Kofi Annan at the U.N.

Uh, the last three Secretaries-General at the UN have been from Africa, Africa, and Latin America. (Annan, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Javier Perez de Cuellar)