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The Guiding Principles and New Rules
document is now in effect.
Pope Benedict's recent mass in Paris, oh gimme a break.
Posts
So "Pagan" is Catholic for "Catholic"?
You know you get the jail for saying that in Scotland...
Probably more than those others things, honestly.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
But whatever okay I worded that wrong. Great gotcha guys.
That's my own fucking opinion, and you don't have to listen or care, and obviously you don't. You so consumed by your own distorted view of what Catholicism is and what Catholics are that you actively search for hypocrisy. A couple of throw-away lines I threw in my last post were just picked out so you can go "HAW HAW HAW JOO SUX AND R RETARDED" instead of addressing the fucking issues. And there's so many issues with my Church.
Don't get me wrong. Our handling of the priest scandals, our actions in Africa, and our views on things like contraception are fucking reprehensible. Personally, I believe we must support contraception to wipe out the AIDS epidemic and our failure to do so is costing millions of lives. I also believe we should support abstinence-based education but not only that, more of "You shouldn't have sex but if you do use a condom". But we don't because our leadership is either unaware or willfully ignorant of current public opinion on the subject.
Finally, I'm able to stay sane and love the Church aside of all the stupid shit I have to put up with by being able to differentiate what I believe with what I know.
For instance, I believe that God created the Earth in 7 days.
I know the Earth was created billions of years, probably as residue from the Big Bang.
I don't try to address or even justify the inherent contradictions that creates. People who do earn my ultimate disdain for fucking with good science and intentionally creating confusion.
But you know what? You're gonna pick some line out of context in what I just wrote that somehow "contradicts" what I wrote in all that to perpetuate the divide. And you wonder why you're marginilized by the public.
DEBATE
AND
DISCOURSE
Honestly, if you are going to be offended when people start questioning lines like "I believe that God has a hand in choosing the pope", and point out that there are some pretty fucking rotten popes in the history...you probably shouldn't be on this forum.
For example, I believe that if there is a kind and benevolent God out there (I don't believe that, but that's another discussion), he would stay the fuck away from people like Julius III or John XII. That's why I found that line you threw out there pretty wierd, and therefore, questioned it. Because the forum is called debate and discourse.
And of course the whole "I believe in (A) but I also believe in (Thing that inherently can't exist in the same space as A) and anyone who disagrees with that EARNS MY ULTIMATE DISDAIN" was a little iffy but whatever we'll run with it I guess.
In any case to address you point, I really can't explain why the Church and implicitly God would choose terrible fucking popes. I guess I could try the "God is testing the faithful" dodge but I don't really believe that. I'm also not going to make the "God works in mysterious ways" dodge.
I don't know why, and I make no claims otherwise. *shrugs*
The point about dick popes is that God doesn't change anyone's freewill, even when they become the Pope. A pope can still be quite a rotten douche bag, totally irresponsible, encourage sin and everything else, because he's still just human. He has (assumed) followed God's will long enough to get into a position to become elegible for Pope (though in the renasissaince that wasnt too difficult for some people), but even if you're striving to be super holy, and have seemingly been successful in that end for years, the temptations to do evil are still there. God didnt fly the planes in 9-11, douche bags did. People are responsible for their own evil acts. The thing about those dick popes is that they never officially declared any doctrine that changed or went-against previously-known doctrines of the faith. That's what Catholics believe is God's true hand in the matter. Is it awful that these dick popes were dicks, and does it totally give the faith a terrible name and make people hate it. Absolutely. It sucks.
as for Debate and Discourse, this thread had it going for a while, but it too easily slips into HUR HUR CATHOLICS ARE STUPID HUR... trry not to get upset about it, rent. It doesnt help anything.