h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Burger King has 'medium' as the smallest size, and how can you have medium without small? Medium is defined as: "Occurring or being between two degrees, amounts, or quantities; intermediate" so how can you have a medium without a small?"

Well, McDonalds did the same thing, except they eliminated the size that used to be called small (a 3 inch by 3 inch little bag of fries)--I guess it's intermediate between large and what used to be small.

But really, they're just betting on their customers being idiots or too oblivious to know/care that the sizes are illogical.

"Just started reading "The Closing of the Western Mind:The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason" by Charles Freeman about how Christianity killed off intellectual inquiry in the west for a millenium."

I read that book a few months ago. Quite interesting. I've never quite understood how Christianity managed to declare it self the "basis" of Western civilization--so that anything that isn't Christian is considered to undermine civilization.



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Also didn't they discover most people are unwilling to order seconds because thats seen as greedy, but convince them they're getting a bargain by buying economy or "super-sizing" something they're happy to stuff themselves silly.

"No, but we still have the Pope. The Vatican released a letter this weekend warning women that 'feminist' attitudes are destroying how God intended men and women to be together and that a woman's place is to wait and listen."

Unsurprising, would be a legitimate reason to boycott Catholic churches except that I already am--my mom isn't very happy about it, though she agreed when I offered her the alternative.

"Also didn't they discover most people are unwilling to order seconds because thats seen as greedy, but convince them they're getting a bargain by buying economy or "super-sizing" something they're happy to stuff themselves silly."

You're probably right.

No, but we still have the Pope. The Vatican released a letter this weekend warning women that 'feminist' attitudes are destroying how God intended men and women to be together and that a woman's place is to wait and listen."

What are we supposed to be waiting for, unplanned pregnancy, child sex abuse scandle or just the old man to come home for his dinner !!!

What has child sex abuse got to do with it?

F

I'm guessing choirboys, Fathom.


az

I can see a link with child sex scandals, choirboys and the Vatican but not directly with the suppression of women's rights.

What is it with religion and women's rights anyway? If the World's major religions agree on anything it's that women are second class people. I can (barely) understand how that might arise from a male heirarchy but then why do so many women go along with it? They effectively become their own persecutors; many women of the church becoming standard bearers for their own persecution.

The New Testament (it appears to me) has had virtually all references to women removed except where they are evil, despicable or to be treated as an ornament. Come on Adelaide, why do you continue to support this oppression?

F

"The Pope will call on leaders of the Roman Catholic church today to attack feminist ideologies which assert that men and women are fundamentally the same."


F19585?thread=456025


az

Gosh, a whole thread on that very subject.

It's not restricted to Catholicism or even Christianity however - this seems to be a basic religion thing.

F

Wow. Must check it out.

"The New Testament (it appears to me) has had virtually all references to women removed except where they are evil, despicable or to be treated as an ornament. Come on Adelaide, why do you continue to support this oppression?"

Well, obviously, if a religion treats women as second-class, than Jehovah, or whatever supreme being a religion claims it represents, must support that view. A lot of people are more willing to be second-class citizens then to risk the vengance of the gods and hell-fire.

Fathom, the link was is simple, women are mothers. Many women have handed the care of their children over to Catholic priests, not just choir boys but under all sorts of circumstances. This is under the misguided notion that a man of the cloth could do no wrong. The church has on so many occasions known about the tendencies of certain priest and has persistently allowed these men direct access to children and suppressed the information. The mothers of these children had to wait years for their offspring to disclose the abuse.

Hi az

I've finally managed to get a copy of Ratzinger's letter. It's not as ferocious as The Guardian makes out, though it's probably not everyone's .

It sets the context by saying that 'women should be present in the world of work and in the organisation of society, and that women should have access to positions of responsibility which allow them to inspire the policies of nations and to promote innovative solutions to economic and social problems'.

It then goes on to speak about assigning a value of the work of women within the family: 'In this way, women who freely desire will be able to devote the totality of their time to the work of the household without being stigmatised by society or penalised financially, while those who wish also to engage in other work may be able to do so with an appropriate work schedule.'

In other words, more family-oriented policies. I don't think it is saying anything surprising. The full text of the letter can be found here: http://zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=57636

I'm back.

Anything good been happening?

Jez

Hey kids, interesting topic for discussion. But I mean how would you actually prove, scientifically, that is that there is a god. Or even that there's not.

Thanks, Andrew S, for posting a link to the letter--I'd read about it in the paper but not actually had a chance to read it.

Not that surprising, from the pope, I suppose, but just more reason why we shouldn't listen to religious leaders on social issues. His main complaints seemed to be that women considering themselves the same as men would legitimize homosexuality (in other words, threaten his entrenched position that it's wrong because the tyrant in the sky says so) and that the Bible saysmen and women have different roles. Somehow I recall an old US court descision, something about seperate being inherently unequal and thus segregation being wrong. But I guess the pope doesn't agree--odd for an old human rights activist (wasn't he doing that in Poland before being sent to Rome).

hi Andrew,

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No it doesn't, not for the Vatican anyhow. More family-oriented policies? That's one way of putting it, I suppose.


az

mahargovich

The 20356 earlier posts have some logic about the 'proofs' you seek, unfortunately there has not been a final conclusive resolution in this discussion.

Personaly the best answer I have been able to ascribe to is,

'It depends on your point of view.'

Feminism and the RC Church, Large, Extra Large and the even Bigger sise.

The problem with the RC position is that when you read the Texts they produce, you have the impression that you are recieving a 'public face' and if a little time is taken to dissassemble various of the texts ou find a lot of rather unhealthy underlying assumptions.

I havent read the most recent and to be honest I haven't the tme at the moment to give them more than a glance, but if they run true to form, they probably do have a whole bunch of assumptions about family life that the majority of the western world would be uncomfortable with.

I read with interest a post claiming that most of the Christians in the world live in the 'west.' I might be wrong but the last I heard the majority of Christians live in south America and Africa, and there is a fair bit of missionary work going on in the 'west' led by priests Monks and nuns from these two continents.

I find the most annoying thing about the RC Church is that it does have a remarkably persistant committment to rebranding itself at almost every opportunity.

It was for this reason among others that I found the Film DOGMA to be such a good film, The buddy Christ image sums up for me the 'Marketing' division of the RC Church. It has managed through history to take every well justified criticism against it and 'spin' it so fast that it is impossible to see what it was in the first place.

Pope Alexander Borgia for instance, The inquisition, Censorship, and currently the issue of sex abuse and priests.

Tradition has it that the Anti Christ will arrise from the 'sea of troubles', I discovered a few years ago that the 'sea' in question has most frequently been belived to be the internal politics of the RC Church.

The Cardinals do tend to walk arround in Black and red for instance.

To my mind the RC Church was built upon the suppression of a strong Feminist Theme in the Early Church, In the Gospel of Thomas for instance jesus is supposed to have said that he would transform Women into men, There are other writings which support this and there is also a school of thought that the Gospel Of John was re written excluding the role of it's original author, which this perspective argues was Mary Magdalene, (This makes the text read in a far more logical way with far stronger narrative threads than there is if it is 'John' writing.

In my opinion the RC Church is as big on marketing as any of it's major compettitors e.g. MC D's Burger King Microsoft ect and since it's power has allways been built on male supremacy they are going to keep asking women to do as they are told and offer the power into the hands of men for as long as they can until the new 'gospel' of the secular west is able to replace it in the areas of the world it still has a hold, i.e. Equality, of opportunity for all, no matter what: race, creed, colour, gender, sexuality, gender orientation, physical sise, physical ability, mental capacity ect ect ect.....

I believe the death of the RC Church is inevitable, it's present success relies soley on the poverty of the third world and the RC's determination to play on that poverty to win adherants.

The only positive aspect of consumerism as an economic policy is that it is in the interests of the truly enormous companies e.g. Microsoft to have a minimum level of wealth within the poulation, that necessity will ensure the vertual elimination of absolute poverty within a few hundred years, and relative poverty will provide the materialistic environment to drive the 'I want' culture which consumerist economics demand. Robbed of the population of poor to sell 'salvation' to then the RC Church will diminish to a odd little sect in rome that almost no-one pays any attention to. I.e. its current role in the western world will become it's role in the world as a whole.

Unless of course it rebrands it's self again, probably going back to old practices, like selling forgiveness and redemption at a market price. Of course this isn't a new idea the RC Church used to to that on a regular basis, (At one time the price of the Popes forgiveness ran into tens of thousands of gold coins{The name of which I forget})It might be more difficult in this era though, having been conned by every salesman on the planet, the poulation is getting a bit cynical. (See the contributions on large, extra Large, ect in these pages.