Catholicism is, for adults, at best a guilty pleasure -- for kids, absolutely inappropriate.
[...]
I, personally, I might giggle but I recognize Catholicism is not good for American culture.

>> But there were some examples, in Catholicism, of them discussing morality.

Yes, and that, unfortunately, is what makes it so bad, because they get it so wrong, quite honestly.

nah he's not the living embodiment of anything like Tibetan Buddhism's Dalai Lama supposedly is, he's just the current elected leader of Catholicism, most of the "holy" mumbo jumbo associated with the job has faded away over the last several decades.

>> ^Lolthien:
I clicked on this honestly because I thought it was going to be a quick explanation of how the Higgs Boson was supposed to work. Guess not.


I assumed it was either that or a history of Catholicism.

I don't know what to say about your first post Krupo except maybe "pick up a history book and start reading".

Firstly, your comment that, "accusing Catholics anti-Semitic is beyond ridiculous" is among the least intelligent responses I have seen on VideoSift.

Archbishop Robert Runcie asserts that: "Without centuries of Christian antisemitism, Hitlers passionate hatred would never have been so fervently echoed...because for centuries Christians have held Jews collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. On Good Friday Jews, have in times past, cowered behind locked doors with fear of a Christian mob seeking 'revenge' for deicide. Without the poisoning of Christian minds through the centuries, the holocaust is unthinkable." Christian antisemitism is well documented. In fact, the main purpose of the Inquisitions (particularly the Spanish Inquisition) was to forcefully convert or kill Jews.

Then you ask, "And what's this about "torturing" Galileo?" Galileo was put on trial and threatened with torture and death by the inquisition for asserting that the Earth went around the Sun. His partner was burned at the stake for the same assertion. He was shown the implements of torture that would be used on him if he did not recant. So he did. And he spent the rest of his life under house-arrest. The Church tortured and killed to stop the furthering of scientific knowledge.

With regards to Fry, as a homosexual he is considered sinful. His homosexual temptation is considered "disordered", thus not sinful, but his acting on those temptations are considered sinful. This makes him, in the eyes of the Catholic Church, in a state of mortal sin (in direct contradiction to what you said).

Those against Catholicism in this debate won it easily. They didn't use lies or falsehoods, just showed how reprehensible the Catholic Church really is.

I think I get the gist of what you're saying, and you're certainly way more schooled that me.

It is of course dangerous to generalise from anecdotes - I threw them in because clearly I now have a bias and they're part of the reason why.

Maybe there's something in the practice of modern Islam that's not working.

I tell you what's funny is that when I went to church for the funeral in June I remembered *everything*, all the amens and hosanna in the highests and exactly when to stand up or kneel. And this is after many years of not going to church.

In reply to this comment by enoch:
former catholic eh?
many people come to me from the ecclestiastical teachings of catholicism very confused.
cant blame them...the doctrine of the church is contradictory to the teachings of jesus,and the papacy has for centuries amended doctrine when it so suited them.
which is EXACTLY my point.
substitute catholic for muslim and my point my become clearer.
religious dogma and doctrine has always been the whipping tool of those who hold the reigns.preying on the weak,poor and ill-educated to submit to a doctrine that is contradictory to the teachings of <fill in holy messenger HERE>.
i could spend hours debunking the biblical (quran,torah,KJV) scriptures that have been misused to perpetuate a misnomer on:womens rights,sexuality,marriage,sin etc etc eeeeeetc.
most atheists i know are not in reality atheists,just agnostics who have peeked through the veil of the church and found it lacking.
many of them are angry,feeling betrayed by an institution that so often stated that they were right.
no...they werent.
the thing i find most funny is that every spiritual "leader"(if i may)has denounced the church of that time as being a form of evil fomenting more evil.
but i digress (i know..shocker),
my point is that islam has enriched human society tenfold.
by creating the most egalitarian society 500 a.d
womens rights 525 a.d
property rights 525 a.d
the continuation of sciences,so while europe got bogged down in the 600 yr dark ages and the church raped the countryside with its inquistitions,islam was not only preserving but helping to restore as much of the library of alexandria as it could.
fairness,justice,honesty virtues held in huge regard.
humility and reverence for all creation.
these are worthy things to admire.

maybe its the history teacher in me,i tend to look at information in giant blocks.the ebb and flow of time,forces of social upheavel and political unrest changing one national landscape to form into another.philisophical tectonic plates if you will.sometime i forget the here and now.
the teachings of mohamhed and jesus are poignant and wise.
i do not like the polarized nature of our countries,it only leads to danger.
i am sorry that the situation is where its at in your country.
by your response i can never know,but i can guess:
the newly immigrated islamic community is using its religion to strongarm the rest of the community to bend to the churches wishes.
i shall look more into this,i welcome any anecdotes you may wish to reveal.
while i still feel the billions of muslims are being misunderstood due to these few who butcher a beautiful text to garner their desires.
that is NOT from islam..nor christianity for that matter.
but they keep saying thats exactly what the text says dont they?
and they could not be more wrong.
those who are unfamiliar with islamic text base their assumptions on these selfish people.
sad sad sad....
what could have been a good and righteous thing is now an instrument of divisiveness.
bah...rambling again.
thank you for the reply my friend,i do hope this makes a modicum of sense.
namaste.

former catholic eh?
many people come to me from the ecclestiastical teachings of catholicism very confused.
cant blame them...the doctrine of the church is contradictory to the teachings of jesus,and the papacy has for centuries amended doctrine when it so suited them.
which is EXACTLY my point.
substitute catholic for muslim and my point my become clearer.
religious dogma and doctrine has always been the whipping tool of those who hold the reigns.preying on the weak,poor and ill-educated to submit to a doctrine that is contradictory to the teachings of <fill in holy messenger HERE>.
i could spend hours debunking the biblical (quran,torah,KJV) scriptures that have been misused to perpetuate a misnomer on:womens rights,sexuality,marriage,sin etc etc eeeeeetc.
most atheists i know are not in reality atheists,just agnostics who have peeked through the veil of the church and found it lacking.
many of them are angry,feeling betrayed by an institution that so often stated that they were right.
no...they werent.
the thing i find most funny is that every spiritual "leader"(if i may)has denounced the church of that time as being a form of evil fomenting more evil.
but i digress (i know..shocker),
my point is that islam has enriched human society tenfold.
by creating the most egalitarian society 500 a.d
womens rights 525 a.d
property rights 525 a.d
the continuation of sciences,so while europe got bogged down in the 600 yr dark ages and the church raped the countryside with its inquistitions,islam was not only preserving but helping to restore as much of the library of alexandria as it could.
fairness,justice,honesty virtues held in huge regard.
humility and reverence for all creation.
these are worthy things to admire.

maybe its the history teacher in me,i tend to look at information in giant blocks.the ebb and flow of time,forces of social upheavel and political unrest changing one national landscape to form into another.philisophical tectonic plates if you will.sometime i forget the here and now.
the teachings of mohamhed and jesus are poignant and wise.
i do not like the polarized nature of our countries,it only leads to danger.
i am sorry that the situation is where its at in your country.
by your response i can never know,but i can guess:
the newly immigrated islamic community is using its religion to strongarm the rest of the community to bend to the churches wishes.
i shall look more into this,i welcome any anecdotes you may wish to reveal.
while i still feel the billions of muslims are being misunderstood due to these few who butcher a beautiful text to garner their desires.
that is NOT from islam..nor christianity for that matter.
but they keep saying thats exactly what the text says dont they?
and they could not be more wrong.
those who are unfamiliar with islamic text base their assumptions on these selfish people.
sad sad sad....
what could have been a good and righteous thing is now an instrument of divisiveness.
bah...rambling again.
thank you for the reply my friend,i do hope this makes a modicum of sense.
namaste.

Oh please, it has EVERYTHING to do with Catholicism in Boston.

The right has done everything they can to be the "party approved by god" labeling liberals as atheists and heathens. This douche in particular is well known for his holier than thou attitude.

During the last election, local parishes told their congregations to vote Republicans because voting for Obama "was a sin" and "real Christians won't vote for him."

Don't pretend like Republicans have tried to capitalize on the idiocy of the religious right to get elected.

If we had TRUE separation of church and state, I'd back off, but when Bush says that he TALKS TO GOD, I call bullshit.

This has nothing to do with Catholicism or Boston.
It's a jack off who cheated on his wife and neglected his duty as Governor of South Carolina.
Please don't turn it into something it isn't.

I really have a soft spot for movies like this. The whole "what if Catholicism was true" really gets me. I have a lot of respect for it as a series of fables, despite my utter contempt for people who think they are true.

And this one was really well done, as far as visuals. I can't weigh in on the whole comic vs movie debate, since I haven't seen the comics, but the simple fact is they are two different mediums, which demand two different types of storytelling. Is is often useless to compare them.

Actually, I disagree with Budzos... I enjoyed the movie a lot more than the comic. I found the comics very hokey and disjointed in comparison, whereas the movie really encapsulated what I would LOVE religion to be. To me Catholicism is empty just because it has claims to relics, spells, and traditions which are ineffective in our world but pretend to be powerful in the way they are presented in this movie.

Religion would kick ass if it was based on a reality like this... I'm not sure how else to say it, but religion (and Catholicism specifically) is like people playing a childish game in which they are trying to imagine a world like this movie portrays.

To get more specific, I liked the explanations and backgrounds of the characters much better in the movie than in the comics. The comic has John Constantine being an ex glam-rocker who is slightly psychic/mystic and who's "damnation" doesn't come from an attempted suicide as in the movie, but rather a botched exorcism which is just kinda stupid. The whole suicide thing is really well done in the reimagining in the movie and makes a lot more sense.

Papa midnight is another character which is vastly improved in the movie. In the book, he seems more like a reject from Live and Let Die, a blaxploitation stereotype, whereas in the movie they really brought home the idea of someone that lives between two allegiances.

As for the use of "guns" and other 007ny stuff, I really thought it worked a lot better than the way they present him in the books. Frankly I'd rather have Constantine wielding a holy shotgun with blessed bullets than looking for a tape of his music video in his trashy apartment.

I'll admit that I only got through three of the graphic novels before I stopped, but I just feel that the changes made to Constantine's development improve vastly over what I saw in the books. As for making him American, I hate Keanu in most of his performances and I thought he really brought it for this one. I was pleasantly surprised and this movie remains one of my all-time favs.

oh my GOD!!
cultural religion conflated with catholicism,very much like santeria in the caribbean.
the utter exploitation of the un-educated,impoverished and dis-possesed.
all in the name of jesus.
its the dark ages all over again for these poor people.
no words can express the rage and disgust i feel towards these supposed "men of god",i say these words as a viper would spit venom.
to exploit the most innocent,and fragile for monetary gain...despicable.

S.O.B. i knew i would write something that would come back to bite me in the ass..the internets and making people look like asses one at a time.. thanks EDD for the reality check that everyone has beliefs...George Carlin said it the best; he was catholic till the age of reason... which i follow the same path being that Catholicism to me seems bat-shit crazy..being that i was manipulated for 8 years from K-7th..So i understand the evils of organized religion oh and no i was not an alter boy it cut into my power rangers in the morning one had to give....In reference to what i am getting from this thread is there is no God and this is all just one big cosmic coincidence? Now how much belief does that take? In the context that you put it sketch, FSM could be as real as Zeus, Apollo, Mars, or itchy and scratchy..That they are all manifestations of men but God is much more then that existence that being it interconnects everything within the universe. i am sure this last sentence will come back to me but oh well...What about a one celled micro-organism how does it live? or better yet how does it have life? i am guessing the logical answer would we don't have the technology to explain this phenomenon but i don't think that we will be able to ever produce the technology ....though as you can see this is not the first or the last time i will be proved wrong.... Sketch: where do i got to go to collect on that beer?

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker: The reason Prop 8 didn't turn out the way some of you want was because there wasn't a compromise that allowed religious groups to have their cake.

What a load of fucking bullshit.

Their "cake" is making sure gays don't get to have cake as well.

'Marriage' is too vauge a term. Come back with a better law that goes for the civil rights gays want but leaves marriage out of it so churches don't have to worry about getting sued. Then you'll have horse you can ride to the finish line.


If gays can get married, does that mean straight christians (as opposed to the gay christians. Yes, they exist, see "Catholicism") can't get married any more? Does allowing straights to marry somehow preclude gays from marrying?

Marriage isn't the fucking cake and you know that damn well.

The cake the gays so desperately want, and deserve, is the right to self determination. The right to the same basic accords we extend to everyone else. The arguments against are the same bigoted crap that set back abolishing slavery, it's the same argument that set back the suffrage of women. Finding a new name for "marriage between gays" to make it acceptable is unacceptable. I seem to recall a war was fought over slavery rather than just coming up with someway for the slave owners to "have their cake". You don't deal with bigotry by appeasing it.

Straight, white, middle aged, married Australian and I support gay rights to marriage.

I grew up with 12 years of Catholic education. The Catholic Church teaches that marriage is an institution created for the main purpose of having children. Now, I understand Pat isn't Catholic, but he uses the same reasoning - that marriage, under God's law, is defined as being between a man and a woman for the purpose of humans being able to procreate.

Going along with that "logic," people who are infertile should not be able to get married (which Catholicism also teaches) because they are incapable of having children - no matter how much the couple loves each other. They must accept that it's "God's plan" for them.

Now, if Pat wants to stick by God's law, he should also be supporting laws to stop infertile people from marrying each other. Gee, I wonder how well that would go over. I doubt he would do that, but if he didn't, what religious reasoning could he use for their marriage being legitimate? Only that they love each other - but admitting that as a basis for marriage would make his lame argument against gay marriage crumble.

He also says "I believe that the unity we had is gone. The United States, as a community, is dissolving." Is he saying that marriage is what unites us as Americans? First of all, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Second of all, if it were true, I guess the fact that 50% of marriages in the U.S. end in divorce means our "unity" as Americans was pretty shitty to begin with.

>> ^Morganth:
It's not a decline of religion (as the title suggests), but rather the middle ground or in-between people. Roman Catholicism and Evangelical Christianity are both on the rise, as well as Atheism.
It means people are becoming more polarized.



It's hard to tell, at least from what I've read from the actual survey. The last time they did this survey they didn't ask people some of the questions they asked in this one so it's difficult to tell how all of the numbers changed.

Does anyone know if the total percentage of people claiming to be religious relative to the total population went up or down? What I read seemed to indicate that it went down, even though certain denominations went up in certain places.