Asymmetric Religion and Philosophy

Link: http://www.geocities.com/smegmarecords/

Ahh, and they call religious people ignorant. Where to start?

Well, I'll just respond to two points from his unserious rant only because I hear these "arguments" often. The first has to do with the Church's possessions: The Church's primary mission on Earth is not to help the poor and it would be demeaning to the Church to think so. It helps fascilitate charity because that's one of the Lord's commandments, but its primary mission is to guide its flock to Heaven by representing God's law on Earth.I'm always astonished that only people who hate the Church advise it to sell its Churches or to not build any more. Doesn't he imagine that poor people may like going to beautiful Churches? And if it did sell its things and give them to the poor, what would it do the next week? I also wonder why he doesn't advise big donors to the Democrat party to give away its possessions and help Africa? Or, and he might be kind of wierded out by this idea, for him to sell his stuff and help the poor.

The second issue has to do with the Church's role in history and its efforts to alleviate suffering and violence, elevate the status of women and children, or diminish terror. Well, he should compare the level of violence in the world before the Church was born and after its period of greatest influence in the world, the status of women and children before the Church, and the level of terror outside of its sway. Even the Church at its worst does not compare to radical Islam today. To compare the modern Catholic Church and Radical Islam is delusional.

Whitee trying to find a way to confront an issue this much over his head is like a dog who can't even find his balls.

I was at the gym last night...no, this isn't another rant about homoerotic spotting or eating garbage plates in the gym. I saw the cover of the latest edition of Time Magazine. My only reaction was - huh? This was the cover:

The Pope Confronts Islam? The Pope? Confronts Islam?

OK, that's like a dog confronting a guy who can lick his own balls...

No, wait. That's like Ted Haggard confronting gay meth-heads.

Or, Jerry Faldwell confronting, pompus, hypocritical fatasses.

Or Dubya confronting terrorists.

You get the point.

Look, I'm not defending Islam, but I am saying that it's freakin hypocritical for anyone from the Catholic Church to be talking to anyone about violence...or terror...or treatment of women...or children. As long as there is one gigantic, ornamented church in the world and one hungry person, the Pope needs to sit his ass down and shut up. He should be having the world's biggest yard sale in front of the Vatican and using the money for sustainable agricultural projects in Africa & Central America.

Oh, and that lovely piece of semi-historical fiction...hmmmm...what's that thing called again? Oh yeah, the Bible. What a lovely piece of non-violence that is.

Now, I got issues with Islam as well (and not what most would think are the obvious ones, either), and I'll focus on that when Time's cover story is Islam Confronts Catholics.