Polish priest sacked by Vatican for being openly gay

Hitler put "Gott mit uns" on his murderers' belt buckles. Anyone can abuse religion and many have. The crusaders did not write the Bible. The Borgio poisoner popes and the Richelieux (Richelieus? - forgot my French!) of this world were not following their faith. Remember: free will. God was not responsible for the Holocaust or the Crusades, evil people wrongly exercising their free will were.

Christianity teaches the Holy Writ was divinely inspired. I can't prove it but neither can you disprove it.

Interesting theological question. I just looked up the explanation for the Flood on a Christian web site:

"And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. (Genesis 6:11-13)"

Why not a flood for the violence, death and destruction caused by the crusaders, the Nazis, Stalin, ... ? Not evil enough?

"Christianity teaches the Holy Writ was divinely inspired"

So does Islam ?

...... of the lavender mafia.

True Polonius! However Hitler was a heathen at heart, and not a real Christian:-) Bad example.

Makes no difference. Christianity can be and has been instrumentally abused by believers, ex-believers or non-believers alike.


Divinely inspired does not mean everything msut be taken literally. The Jehovah Witnesses think so as do the American southland's Baptist bible-thumpers. But the Bible is also a great philosophical and literary work full of metaphors and parables. Although its message is universal, its original recipients were not intellectuals but farmers, fishermen and other simple people. Hence the predominance of everyday bucolic examples geared to the understanding of ordinary folk.

So depending on whom I ask, it's either humans or God that were responsible for the Holocaust? If I recall correctly, there are Jewish circles which actually interpret the Holocaust as God's punishment for sin.

Christianity though began differently. The Crusaders corrupted its meaning.

Nonsense, they were a proper response to challenges of their times.

Sorry Vox! Christianity, according to Jesus and St. Francis, is about love, forgiveness and serious acts of sacrifice as well as kindness, and NOT about slaughtering innocents merely because they happen to be pagans.

What Hitler for instance did was to corrupt the meaning of Christianity by turning it into a sort of Baptism by Fire and Sword situation, which it never was intended to be.

If man submits to the subhuman elements of killing, ostracizing etc.. then man is no more HUman than a bear, wolf or any other wild beast who kills and has no conscience:-)

Christianity should never become a tool of convenience, useless as a moral force when meeting the "challenges" of certain times, i.e. when the going gets almost unbearably tough, yet somehow useful when "convenient" etc..

I shudder when I think of the hypocrisy being peddled right here in the US among various mega-churches, on the one hand calling themselves "Christian", simultaneously preaching rampant, unrepenitent homophobia, muscular solutions to psychological difficulties, even wife abuse.....

In Poland the Jehowici can run cirlces round most Poles who barely know the Bible. I am fairly well versed (no pun intended) and can hold my own with them. I never slam the door in their face, respect their commitment and am always ready to discuss. Once I told two missioanries there were so many different denominations because each one interprets the Bible differently, and they (two women) replied that the Bible should not be interpreted but taken literally. They had no answer to my question: Are the words 'Eat my body and drink my blood' therefore an appeal to cannibalism?


The problem is in definition. If Chrsitianity teaches that sodomy and other forms of same-sex activity are a sin, that is not homophobia. Those that say it is are violating people's freedom of religion.

That's how the church kept control over the members in the old days.
They didn't want the people to read the bible and learn the difference between scripture and doctrine.
Now that the younger people have learned the difference the church is declining in members.


Even though this has gone Off Thread since post #34............ I must respond to Pol3.
I first hand know better that Baptist Bible Thumpers DO NOT think that everything in the Bible must be taken literally.
Where did you ever come up with that one ?
Totally untrue you Catholic Mackerel Snapper. lol

"Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." Matthew 10:34


Do you claim that The Crusades were about slaughtering innocents?

You seem to use Christianity for your own purposes, Vox. Why not use it for His??
:-)

Could you be so kind as to go into the parts of the bible where Christ teaches that? I'm sure that if homosexuality was really so important to him, he would have taken each and every opportunity to speak about it; I mean, he managed to find time to give instructions about which fruit to avoid, surely he would have spoken up about something which some people clearly consider to be far more important than figs. Given that you know the bible so well, perhaps you can tell us where we can find his thoughts about homosexuality.

Try 1 Corinthians 6:9
May I quote for you: Do you not know the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God ? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

I think that spells it out about as clear as one could.
This is why so many choose to be agnostics and atheists because how they want to live is in opposition to what the Bible teaches.

"Do you claim that The Crusades were about slaughtering innocents?"

The Crusades were about money and trade routes .

Indeed, but the "route" to that trade was usually hard won through slaughter:-)

Christ never mentioned it not because it was unimportant but because it had already been described in the Old Testament as an abomination.
Those things that were not to apply to Christinaity Christ repudiated. For instance he rejected the Jewish claim that only Jews are chosen and goyim are inferior and not worthy of salvation. He also disavowesd the Pharisees' excessive attention to the letter of the law, rather than its spirit. The Old Testament provided men with a loophole to divorce their wives, Jesus was negatively disposed to it saying it showed Moses had caved into the pettiness of those wanting to put their wives aside. He did not take kindly to excessive fastidiousness about the Sabbath ( not being allowed to do this on the Lord's Day). He not only chased the money changers out of the temple but if He came back today He woull flail the nitpicking Harries of this world for their Sunday head-count obsession, motivated not by their genuine concern for His Church, but by their lust for a noisy polemic.

Hmmm. I think the word "homosexual" from that bible passage can be interpreted many different ways.

According to the bible, adulterers and therefore divorcees are thought of pretty badly but the CC seems to have an ambivalent attitude towards them with many church goers being divorced previously.

I think many good priests would turn a blind eye to the sexuality of their parishioners.

My point though, is that a homosexual may certainly pray in the same houses of worship as the rest of us. Becoming a priest?? In theory, sure. In practice?.......Still equivocating on that one:-)

Sorry for the fence straddlingLOL

For the love of all that is holy, are you really so ignorant of your professed religion that you think the First Epistle to the Corinthians was the teachings of Christ?!


Fair enough, so why are you not railing about the fact that prawns are for sale in every supermarket in Poland? The Old Testament also has prawns as an abomination. And wearing underpants which have both elastic and cotton in them: when are you going turn your attention to that abomination? Or are you just abusing a text in a way that enables you to use it to try to justify your bigotry?

Like all great works of art. The problem is what one's view is on divine. Access to the the collective unconscious or to good weed etc..

One thing is for certain, the prophecies in the bible are contrived but that does not deny their genius etc..
.


I think that's the way with all fundamentalist sects these day. Looking for scientific proof to legitimize their dogmatic power that is fading in modernity. They can't just win us over with gun powder tricks or brute force. So they bore the shiiite out of us with crappy documentaries looking for Noah's Ark or the Holy Shroud etc. I think the church is doomed to fail in a democratic modern world, but then again, there's the bible belt of Europe and the hill billy states of the USA who are determined undo democracy's evolution and get back to the good old days when men were men and Pansie was the name of a flower.


The bible was written over several centuries and Jesus was only "interpreted" by later writers; he wrote nothing. Better off reading Plato, St Augustine or something, they managed to find some ink. Maybe this will answer your question..

plato.stanford.edu/entries/homosexuality/

"Indeed, but the "route" to that trade was usually hard won through slaughter:-)" It's the Human way !
Off-topic posts = closed.