Religious craziness

[claidheamhmor]

This article boggled my mind...

'Saving gays is like saving rainforest'

December 22 2008 at 05:11PM

Vatican City - Pope Benedict said on Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

"(The Church) should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed," the pontiff said in a holiday address to the Curia, the Vatican's central administration.

"The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less."

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality "a deviation, an irregularity, a wound".

The pope said humanity needed to "listen to the language of creation" to understand the intended roles of man and woman.

He compared behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations as "a destruction of God's work".

He also defended the Church's right to "speak of human nature as man and woman, and ask that this order of creation be respected". - Reuters

Source: IOL

We have the Pope actually saying that saving the world from homosexuals is just as important as saving the rainforests. I find it hard to express any reaction to that that doesn't lead to me spluttering incoherently. It's hard to imagine someone in such a position being so ignorant - not only of humanity, but of nature too.

"He compared behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations as "a destruction of God's work"." How about celibacy, Benedict? How far beyond traditional heterosexual relations is that?!


And then we have this:

Paid your church tax? Okay, have a pew seat

December 23 2008 at 07:43AM

Berlin - With churches expected to be packed this Christmas Eve, German officials are calling for pews to be reserved for church members to ensure they are not squeezed out by holiday-only parishioners.

Politicians from the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) told Tuesday's Bild newspaper it was unfair if regular attendants of church services couldn't find a seat at Christmas.

"I support making services on December 24 open only to those who pay their church tax," a member of the CDU board in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Thomas Volk, told the mass-market daily.

Germans pay church tax along with their income tax unless they opt out.

'Church tax payers should not be kept outside'

The head of the FDP's parliamentary group in Berlin, Martin Lindner, said it was intolerable that in the past, active members of church congregations - often the elderly - had been forced to stand through the Christmas service because the pews were full.

"Church tax payers should not be kept outside during such important services," he said. "Church members should be given tickets, for example, to give them priority seating."

Berlin's daily Tagesspiegel reported Sunday that last year 246 000 people attended Protestant church services on Christmas Eve in the capital, versus an average of just 17 000 on a normal Sunday.

Scuffles broke out among churchgoers two Christmases ago at the Berlin Cathedral, the city's biggest church, over available seats.

Last year the church distributed free tickets to members guaranteeing them a seat at the Christmas Eve service, and is doing the same this year.

'Jesus would not ask whether someone paid their church tax or is baptised'
But some church leaders say reserved spots in the pews send the wrong message.

"We should not be giving the impression that there is a two-class society in the church," said Stefan Foerner, spokesperson for Berlin's Roman Catholic Archbishop.

"Jesus would not ask whether someone paid their church tax or is baptised." - Sapa-AFP

Source: IOL

I find the opt-out nature of church taxes in Germany a bit of a cheek; something like that would never fly in places like the US, but then, the US is far less bound to traditional church/state ties than many European countries. Are there really so many people "opting out" of the taxes and then pitching up at Christmas Eve services that pew space is a problem?

Comments

[wickedtruth.livejournal.com]

Yet more reasons why I'm an atheist.

[windrider-09.livejournal.com]

I think the Pope has his message mixed up, but he is old so it is not surprising. One of the things for example, is he is trying to say that saving humanity is just as important as saving the environment. He also believes that starting wars and genocide rank the same as a homosexual act. I remember when the new Pope was being chosen and a lot of people hoped it would be a progressive younger cardinal that would be chosen, instead they got an ultra-conservative geriatric.

He compared behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations as "a destruction of God's work".

I'd love to know what he thinks are the traditinal het relations, since well, he has probably never had any.