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

Hi.

This place is all a bit 'educated' for me and I'm not feeling in an educated mood today, for the following reason:

According to The Twatigan I'm 'intrinsically immoral', my 'behaviour is contrary to natural law', my 'acts are grave sins' (not that I believe in sin, only right & wrong) and I am 'objectively disordered'.

Isn't that defamation? Could a class action be brought against The Twatigan?

I wouldn't mind if it was a little extremist group, but there are millions of people out there who respect The Twatigan and believe what The Poop says (believing him to have a direct line to Bob in Devon).

I am very, very, very angry.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,,1653962,00.html

Could you sue? Probably not. The Vatican is a state and has diplomatic immunity for stuff when it suits it.

For example:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/09/20/us_says_pope_immune_from_abuse_suits/

Quote:
--The U.S. Justice Department has told a Texas court that a lawsuit accusing Pope Benedict XVI of conspiring to cover up the sexual molestation of three boys by a seminarian should be dismissed because the pontiff enjoys immunity as head of state of the Holy See.


On the other hand when it doesn't suit it to be a state, it isn't:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/20/wponte20.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/09/20/ixworld.html

Quote:
In July, Mrs del Ponte travelled to Rome to share her intelligence with the Vatican's ''foreign minister'', Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo.

He refused to help, telling her the Vatican was not a state and thus had "no international obligations" to help the UN to hunt war criminals.


I think this is called relativism.

I'm shocked that they can get away with blatant homophobia. What would happen if The Twatigan (sorry, I know it's puerile) said Asians were 'objectively disordered' or women were 'intrinsically immoral'?

I hope that the Cathartic Church will lose a lot of support from being so publicly bigoted. I hope, but don't expect.

Sorry to double post but, to misquote Spinal Tap, 'I'm just as (their) God made me'.

"women were 'intrinsically immoral'?"
Well, actually, that was the Catholic Church's position some time ago (one or two centuries ?). Recently, women have been granted a soul (but I am not sure whether this is retro-active or not : just imagine the long lines of women of the past suddenly forming in front of the Peals Gates : I hope St Peter manages an efficient administration !).

As much as I value and respect Rabbi Jesus' teachings, I do not believe that the current catholic government got it right...

C.L.

"Well, actually, that was the Catholic Church's position some time ago (one or two centuries ?). Recently, women have been granted a soul (but I am not sure whether this is retro-active or not : just imagine the long lines of women of the past suddenly forming in front of the Peals Gates : I hope St Peter manages an efficient administration !)."

I don't usually stick up for the Cathlolic church, but this just isn't true. There's a long and shameful history of misogeny in the Catholic Church, but I'm not aware of the church ever having said that women didn't have souls - open to proof though.

Believe it or not, the document released recently is actually quite liberal by the Catholic Church's standards. Like most Christian sects, it is institutionally homophobic, even if those views are not shared by many individual Catholics, particularly in the west.

<[The Catholic Church] is institutionally homophobic, even if those views are not shared by many individual Catholics, particularly in the west.>

I'd love to think you're right: that these views are not shared by most individuals but that isn't my experience.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I would have to agree- I have met some enlightened Catholics (and Christians of other denominations) but most, sadly, are very narrow-minded.

<<"women were 'intrinsically immoral'?"
Well, actually, that was the Catholic Church's position some time ago (one or two centuries ?). Recently, women have been granted a soul (but I am not sure whether this is retro-active or not : >>

I am sorry Connie, but this is to ! That's utter nonsense - as any Catholic here could tell you, were they aware of this thread. Women have never been denied souls, much less 'one or two centuries ago'...

Even the bit about 'intrinsically immoral' is rubbish. However if you're a 'witch', that may well be what you've been taught in witchery.

<<
The Posting to which you are replying is from Della April: Cat Woman. :"How many is a brazillion?"
<<"women were 'intrinsically immoral'?"
Well, actually, that was the Catholic Church's position some time ago (one or two centuries ?). Recently, women have been granted a soul (but I am not sure whether this is retro-active or not : >>

I am sorry Connie, but this is to laugh ! That's utter nonsense - as any Catholic here could tell you, were they aware of this thread. Women have never been denied souls, much less 'one or two centuries ago'...

Even the bit about 'intrinsically immoral' is rubbish. However if you're a 'witch', that may well be what you've been taught in witchery.

>>

So, R Daneel, your point is? AFAIK, you just repeated what I said!

<<"women were 'intrinsically immoral'?"
Well, actually, that was the Catholic Church's position some time ago (one or two centuries ?). Recently, women have been granted a soul (but I am not sure whether this is retro-active or not : >>

I am sorry Connie, but this is to laugh ! That's utter nonsense - as any Catholic here could tell you, were they aware of this thread. Women have never been denied souls, much less 'one or two centuries ago'...

Even the bit about 'intrinsically immoral' is rubbish. However if you're a 'witch', that may well be what you've been taught in witchery.

But of course women are intrinsically immoral. They have been right from the beginning. It was Eve that led Adam into sin.
Have you not studied the teachings of St. Paul? Augustine? The Jesuits?
Dear me, what sort of Catholic education did you have?
If you'd been brought up by proper Traditional Catholics, and attended proper, single-sex religious schools, run by priests and nuns, you would KNOW women are intrinsically immoral.
Men, on the other hand, are merely weak.

I don't think witches are taught that women are immoral Della. I think it's quite the opposite. That's one of the reasons The Church persecuted them.

Why do you think women aren't allowed to become priests? we just aren't capable of transcending our base natures.

1Timothy 2:9
"In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;

1Ti 2:10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.

1Ti 2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

1Ti 2:13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

1Ti 2:14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."

If you mean me, Tefkat, I am not a Catholic, and had no religious upbringing at all.

<>

Nonsense. I have known women who've attended sinle-sex Catholic schools, and they have been taught no such thing!
I never said witches are taught that women are immoral, but that they are (some of them) taught that Christianity says women are immoral, as you seem to believe it does. But it doesn't. The passage from Timothy you quote should be taken in the context of the society at the time. *I* am not a Biblical literalist - and I am a bit tired of being told I should be, or that I am..

>> Nonsense. I have known women who've attended sinle-sex Catholic schools, and they have been taught no such thing!<<

Your friends attended proper, traditionalist, single-sex, religious schools, run entirely by priests (for the boys) or nuns (for the girls)? Schools in which the Evolution Heresy is not taught and sex education is not necessary because all that anyone needs to know is that sex outside marriage (or even within marriage, unless it is for procreation) is wrong? In that case they obviously were not attending properly to their studies, or perhaps they may have misunderstood.

Of course you should be a Bible literalist. The Bible is the Word of God. Its writers were divinely inspired.

Women are born immoral Della. They have no innocence. Even adolescent girls have so much natural wickedness within them that they tempt good, devout, pious men to stray from the path of righteousness and commit mortal sins in their thoughts and deeds.

Roymondo dear, don't be angry. The Church has so much love for you. That is why they are trying to save your immortal soul from eternal damnation. They know what is good for you. All they want is to enlighten you, to help you attain salvation.
You are so lucky that you have been given such a hard cross to bear. by overcoming your base nature you will store up so much joy for yourself in the afterlife.
it would have been better for you if you had been given into the hands of the Jesuits as a young child. They would have beaten the wickedness out of you. They would have stopped at nothing to save you. Beatings, hunger, cold, isolation, constant praying and reading carefully selected texts - these methods have been proven to work. And in the case of the really intractable, truly wicked, there is always exorcism.

It will be so much harder for you now that you have listened to the Devil and allowed yourself to sin, for so many years, but it is still not impossible to save yourself through prayer, fasting, self-mortification.
By mortifying your flesh you will attain spiritual enlightenment. If you feel yourself beginning to slip into the ways of evil you can help yourself to avoid the unclean thought by self-flagellation, or perhaps you could wear a hair shirt, or one of the modern, more sanitary alternatives such as the cilice.

You will come to realize that your body is your enemy, and an enemy of God's glory since it is an enemy of your sanctification.

You must turn away from the path of spiritual cowardice. The body is nothing compared to the soul. Your physical comfort is as nothing compared to your spiritual completeness. The more suffering you bear here on earth the greater the reward you will receive in Heaven.

To defend his purity, St. Francis of Assisi rolled in the snow, St. Benedict threw himself into a thornbush, St. Bernard plunged into an icy pond. You must do no less.

You are not alone. There are many of the Faithful (my Sainted mother among them) you spend the greater part of each day on their knees praying for the salvation of sinners such as yourself.

Open your heart and you will be saved.

Or you could just come down the pub with me instead.

Nice one Ivan, but I was looking forward to the 'spend the greater part of each day on their knees' bit...

Maybe two birds with one stone?

My eye's tired now.

It's a hard cross, too. *snigger*