Oh, and I reported it as abuse.

Aww, Bart, are you going to start calling me a fanatic again?

Or are you really just to stupid to notice that I was actually saying that the holiday taking on local traditions was a good thing?

If by people who insult Christmas by turning it into a political football (Like the guys who go on about there being a war on it) then amen.

If you mean insult by say, pointing out that it has a wider, and far richer history than just that presented by Christianity, I have questions as to how exactly the day is being insulted.

After all, is Christmas really just a celebration of the birth of a holy figure? Isn’t it more about us trying for at least one day, to be the sorts of people who we wish we could be without feeling embarassed about the sappiness of the whole thing?

Isn’t it about striving to be good people, and putting aside the tough guy BS for one day?

Because normally, what really gets in the way of us being good people, isn’t that we don’t want to be good, it is that we feel sort of self conscious about it.

Sure, there are religious undertones, but there is so much more to it than Jesus. Heck, nowadays with the Big Fat Coke Commercial, the fir tree, the reindeer, the presents, and the various semi-pagan traditions such as kissing under a sprig of holly, or elves for that matter, Jesus is lucky to get a look in.

This isn’t an insult, but rather a tribute to how the festival has grown beyond its origins, how it has adapted and become a part of a far larger portion of who we are, how it has become something which people of all faiths and non-faiths can champion.

Sabyen91

I don’t like Ratzinger. In my mind the guy should be held criminally liable for the Church’s policy towards pedophile priests – as an accomplice in every case where the Church learned of a priest diddling little kids and moved the priest.

That said, he had no real choice when it came to joining the Hitler Youth. At the time it was the law of the land and he was just a kid.

As to the celebration of Christmas, well

- I didn’t know they even had fir trees in Jerusalem.

- Aren’t reindeer native to areas further to the north?

- The Big Fat Man in red was dressed in green up until Coke rebranded him.

Its a hodgepodge of differing traditions that go surprisingly well together. Instead of something to scorn I see it as being something to celebrate, after all, what is more important the party or the excuse to party?

A few recent reasons really.

The Catholic Church declared itself neutral to Nazi Germany and has been trying to cover that one up for the last fifty years. They did this because the Vatican was more important to the Church than any stance on principles.

Which resulted in this current Pope getting into a fight with Israel over Israel’s decision to portray the Vatican’s stance towards Hitler in an honest and straightforward manner.

In current scandals the Church has been shown to have had a policy of moving around its pedophile priests instead of turning them into the due authorities. Indeed, the Church has used religious freedom to protect this policy. This policy came into effect because, well, not being embarrassed was more important to the Church than its principles were.

The current Pope declared a bunch of Itallian rock stars criticising the Church “terrorism.” Because you know, those rock stars much have had some really explosive hits.

And of course the current pope was indeed a member of the Hitler Youth, which is understandable seen as he didn’t have much choice in the matter when he was growing up.

And lets not get started on the long history of attrocities, genocides, and acts of sheer stupidity that is the period when the Church was at its most powerful.

That said, there is nothing wrong with Catholicism as a whole, Catholics are people and generally, like most people, not bad people. Further, the Catholic Church has become one of the more forward thinking churches and deserves a lot of respect for having changed its ways on science, royalism, and anti-Semitism.

It is just subject to the same human weaknesses all social movements which function on trust are subject to.

That the priest is seen as above reproach in society attracts the kinds of guys who feel the need to be above reproach – pedophiles, conmen, fascists and other lowlifes – along with people who actually deserve to be trusted and who are just mistaken in their belief systems.

With more of this bad element making it into a cassock, you end up with the old society, as before, striving to cover it up and save face. It is human, it is weak, and it really annoys atheists because the Church claims to be the arbiter of ultimate morality and every religious movement seems infected with the “God is the source of all morality” meme.

As to being too left at times, it seems that left or right, bloggers cannot refrain from name calling and serving up gratuitous unsupported opinions. I stay with TP because on balance, the input is more reasoned and I find real gems at times.

Still, when I hear the infallable pope wish for good will toward children, I wish he would outwardly condemn child molestation in his church as a more specific and useful pronouncement. And when I see him ask for help for the poor and down trodden as he stands bedecked in gold and jewel encrusted cult-like garb, the hypocrisy does not escape me. If as Jesus preached, the rich have as much chance reaching heaven as a camel passing through the eye of a needle, does the pope, and the members of his very rich church take pause to reflect on this day we all set aside with hopes for peace and well-being for all?

Still, peace and well-being to all. Keep up the discussions, its still a free country. Thanks TP for your work this year….

Perhaps you are right, and perhaps that is at the root of the animosity of other commenters: I was raised with a complete lack of belief in any religion, so I didn’t have to go through a painful “break up” period.

Other people’s personal bitterness over religion is something that has always baffled me a bit, since I am indifferent to it.

http://13martyrs.blogspot.com/

I don’t necessarily “listen” to the Pope, but I know millions do.

Again, in his defence, joining the Hitler Youth was compulsory in Germany during WWII. Ratzinger was a young teenager back then, over 60 years ago, and he defected. How long, how many years must go by before a man is forgiven for what he did when he was a boy?

Also, the Opus Dei is an institution within the Catholic Church; I would think it difficult for the head of the Church not to be “in bed” with the Opus.

The Opus Dei wants new crusades? (I am assuming you mean in the Middle East) First time I “hear” about it.

In the Vatican’s defence, they have resisted Pres Bush’s attempts at co-opting Catholic support for the occupation of Iraq, and the Pope has been openly critical of this administration’s dismal human rights record.

I specially liked the Pope’s reference to “those who are still denied their legitimate aspirations for a more secure existence, for health, education, stable employment”, which is the exact opposite of what our conservative visitors claim are their Christian “values”.

Someone needs to explain to me why they feel a compelling need to scorn this man and what he said.

Liberal, progressive, Catholic and proud. BTW, don’t respond to me because I never read past the 5th or 6th post.