i must say, this video made me genuinely mad. i dont hate atheists. i dont. i like people for the people they are, not the things they believe. everyone believes something else, and thats why the world is as diverse as it is. but i believe what i believe. you can go ahead and pitch me your ideas, but im just about as likely to join your religion (or lack thereof) as i am of joining scientology. but, for gods sake, DO NOT INSULT MY BELIEFS. there is more to religion than just the disgusting crimes that you hear about on the news of some sicko catholic priest raping a child. there is so much more than that. that is why you can be an athiest, or even hate god. you can be gay, or straight, or anything. the principle rule of catholicism is not "praise god with every cell of your being while killing and ostracizing those that dont" not even close. catholicism is "love one another" and thats what i do. maybe you should too.

The only real problem I have with people like this is the consistent belief that only THEIR religion will get you to Heaven. Recently, (and if you're a Colbert fan, you already know this) the Pope declared Catholicism the only way to salvation and all other Christian groups are defective.

Yea, forget being a good person, kindness to others, and general unselfishness. The only way to Heaven is belief in Jesus, all the rest is just incidental. I can't imagine what kind of God would be so arrogant, even after an eternity with infinite wisdom, to send someone to eternal torture for being skeptical, regardless of what they sacrificed for others.

Bill Donahue is such a douche bag. The entire catholic league should be abolished.. (as well as catholicism itself.. but thats a different video for a different sift.)

What struck me about this video is that it doesn't seem to be the particular religion that is important. They seek community, and Islam is their way of doing that. Is Catholicism so anticommunity? Do Buddhists not have communities? Do Jews never get together? Is Little League evil?

And the main question: If I seek community and goodness without reading the Qu'ran, is that OK by her?

I hate describing "science" or "religion" as single, unitary things. Though I am guilty of doing just that.

And I am always skeptical of science being described as the pursuit for truth. It can be. It may also be a pursuit for funding and grant monies.

Are there religions that abhor doubt and require absolutism? Absolutely. See Jesus Camp or many videos on this site.

But I tend to dislike how this site paints every religion from Buddhism, to Hinduism, to Dorothy Day Catholicism, to Tom Cruise Scientology as mere stupid variations of down-home Mississippi Fundamentalism.

And science alone has such a difficult time with art, inspiration, human attraction, and social interaction. For instance, that discarded but exceedingly scientific and clinical realblankman video shows how science wholly misses the fun of sex. I am still scarred. Evil science.

......no shit, this is like someone that wants the same kinda attention his mommy gave em', when he cried, dry diaper, just to push her buttons....

You gotta give it to the wop twist on Roman Catholicism, it's an irationally, overly emotional culture, and they got the perfect, national religion to go with it....

oh, an for all you reactionaries, I'm 1/2 Italian....
fuck catholicism, and fuck drama, for the sake of drama, or diversion.......

"...to be sure of anything is to declare yourself an idiot, in any realm deserving of critical thought, anyting ess possible..."
You are sure that it is imposable to determine a truth in critical thought... Are you declaring yourself as an idiot?

Agnosticism and Catholicism are fine and all when the preachers arn't on their high horse.

"Jesus pointed out the vanity of the pharisees, and their caterwallin' in public"
Do you forget that Catholics and the religious right are the ones that promote their political views with the most fervour on the public sector via legislation or attempted legislation. Gay marriage, abortion... When there isn't a state religion under your logic the US would be a better place if all religion and beliefs would be behind closed doors which obviously isn't the SQ.. The vid provides many examples of how this is true.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, all men are created equal, is good enough for a start, and if the world ever gets so bad that I can't tell you and yours to piss off and get the fuck off my property without being sent to some compound, then hell."
There are many examples, historical and modern, where institutionalized religion destroys the concept of "all men are created equal". This is already seen as Atheists are persecuted as being mass murderers, substandard citizens, and all that garbage by those who strongly advocate religion.

I'd like to ask for a primary source on the Caffarra position because I've been googling for it and can't find it. I also found this unattributed quote: "because the preservation of spiritual goods, such as the sacrament of marriage, is to be preferred to the good of life".

That article is misleaidng at best because another site which did have reference to the initial position shows that Caffarra may have said that, but not both "he (the Pope) and Carlo".

I wonder if that statement was a distortion of this nytimes quote: 'Even the smallest moral wrong is so much greater than any physical wrong,'' he said. ''I know this is hard for some to accept when the dangers are great, but the church is here to combat moral wrongs.''
(from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE4D81730F93AA15752C0A96E948260&sec=health&pagewanted=print)
In the context, it appears he was discussing promoting fornication with condoms in general, rather than forcing couples to risk infecting each other.

I have to say, though, if my spouse was infected, I don't think I'd want to risk getting the disease, even if I were to use have a condom (or vice versa, risk infecting my spouse). <shrug>

I find the Humanist article ironic for being dismissive about the US having a history of anti-Catholicism and then jumping in and engaging in some cheap shots.

It wasn't about war, she was protesting the Church's views on birth control, abortion and its' general ill-treatment of of women and children.

_________________________________________________

Perhaps Sinead O'Connor is angry with the pope because, in 1988, he and Carlo Caffarra of the Pontifical Institute for Marriage and Family Matters suggested that, if an AIDS-stricken hemophiliac husband could not abstain from intercourse, it was better to infect his wife than to ever resort to using a condom. Perhaps it was such systemic misogyny, ensconced in the civil laws of her native land, that gave rise to the "breach of faith" committed by O'Connor on "Saturday Night Live."

Unfortunately, such facts aren't at the disposal of the average "SNL" viewer. In a nation with a long history of nativist anti-Catholicism, it wasn't surprising that blue-collar ethnics would shortly thereafter boo Sinead O'Connor off the stage at a Bob Dylan tribute. Few (if any) reporters took the time to provide a context for O'Connor's seemingly inexplicable actions, leaving them seemingly inexplicable. (And this is not to say that O'Connor herself can't say some truly stupid things. Her defense of rapist Mike Tyson in a recent interview with Rolling Stone as a "little boy" persecuted by a "bitch" is difficult to comprehend; and, like many militant ex-Catholics, she is prone to see the sinister hand of the church everywhere - even running the World Bank - without a shred of evidence to support such beliefs.)

But without this frame, the Catholic hierarchy was able to turn ignorance to its advantage, decrying Sinead O'Connor as simply an anti-Catholic bigot - or worse. One week after the "SNL" episode, Cardinal John O'Connor wrote a rather loopy column in the archdiocesan paper Catholic New York in which he likened the Irish singer's performance to "voodoo" and "sympathetic magic." In short, his eminence resorted to an old but effective tactic long used by the Catholic church to silence and condemn unruly women: he simply called Sinead O'Connor a witch.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_n1_v53/ai_13307994