"Ireland’s priests will have almost disappeared in 20 years"

Bannasidhe

Sarky wrote: »

You'll know what happiness is one day, jank. I believe in you.

He's a Rebel without a Pause is our jank.

jank

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Where did I condemn an entire country exactly? I also never mentioned Saudi Arabia or any where else so I am not sure how I could have drawn any comparison between the two.

I commented on one region - not even a Canton never mind a whole country.

I stated that the region the Swiss Guards traditionally hail from is a deeply Catholic and Conservative region - which they do not dispute.
I know this because I lived there.

The historical reason for their fervid Catholic conservatism is that during the Reformation the nearest city of importance was Calvin's Geneva. They formed their identity at a time of religious war, turmoil and in opposition to what was happening down the road. They just haven't moved on much since then. In fact, they are quite proud of that fact and don't require you to defend them.


Step away from the hyperbole there jank.

Yes, people can be dicks (like I need you to tell me that) but these particular dicks to whom I referred to used their religion to justify being dicks and turning on a young woman to publicly vilify her.

Do you think that is a justifiable reason to be a dick and publicly bully and humiliate someone?

Or are you going for the 'well other people can be dicks too' defense?

Either way, you are defending the indefensible by trying to use distraction and whataboutry - wikipedia or no wikipedia, that's a fail.

I am not defending anything or any behaviour like that so you can save me the "think of the children" mantra. However, it is very clear given your other posts on the matter that you don’t like the country or its people because maybe of this ugly incident alone or maybe other incidents. I don't know but you are welcome to your opinion as I am to mine. The first post you responded to today was me talking mostly about the Swiss economy and EU integration and you jumped down my throat as if I personally insulted you because I highlighted some of the positives from Switzerland... what am to make of that?

However, the over riding theme here, in fact on this board is that religion is mostly or always at fault. The question I always ask therefore, if these people were not religious would they be better more tolerant people. It is naive to think yes as something else some other value system, political system, moral code would be their reason to act in such a way. I have given plenty of examples of this from Pol Pot to the Soviet Union.

Religion is a proxy of man. It can be used for good, bring people together during times of suffering and stress, can make bad people good or "behave". On the other hand it can also be used negatively, used to justify cruelty and inhumane treatment of others. The constant is always man not religion itself. Its the abuse of religion that people hate not the thing itself. We saw it here in Ireland with the RCC. Yet your average person who may be religious was horrified at these abuses being carried out under their noses.

The vast majority of the world is religious yet the vast majority of the world is inhabited with good people (I believe), it is only the few be they believers or non-believers that can be dicks.

jank

Sarky wrote: »

You'll know what happiness is one day, jank. I believe in you.

I certainly hope you will win your personal battle with 'black dog' Sarky, even if you probably wouldn't reciprocate the gesture if the situations were reversed.

lazygal

jank wrote: »

Religion is a proxy of man.

So the wimmins don't need to worry their pretty little head, then.

robindch

jank wrote: »

[...] even if you probably wouldn't reciprocate the gesture if the situations were reversed.

That trailing comment is gratuitously offensive and for the peace and goodwill of all, I'd like you to withdraw it.

Bannasidhe

jank wrote: »

I am not defending anything or any behaviour like that so you can save me the "think of the children" mantra. However, it is very clear given your other posts on the matter that you don’t like the country or its people because maybe of this ugly incident alone or maybe other incidents. I don't know but you are welcome to your opinion as I am to mine. The first post you responded to today was me talking mostly about the Swiss economy and EU integration and you jumped down my throat as if I personally insulted you because I highlighted some of the positives from Switzerland... what am to make of that?

However, the over riding theme here, in fact on this board is that religion is mostly or always at fault. The question I always ask therefore, if these people were not religious would they be better more tolerant people. It is naive to think yes as something else some other value system, political system, moral code would be their reason to act in such a way. I have given plenty of examples of this from Pol Pot to the Soviet Union.

Religion is a proxy of man. It can be used for good, bring people together during times of suffering and stress, can make bad people good or "behave". On the other hand it can also be used negatively, used to justify cruelty and inhumane treatment of others. The constant is always man not religion itself. Its the abuse of religion that people hate not the thing itself. We saw it here in Ireland with the RCC. Yet your average person who may be religious was horrified at these abuses being carried out under their noses.

The vast majority of the world is religious yet the vast majority of the world is inhabited with good people (I believe), it is only the few be they believers or non-believers that can be dicks.

Where did I mention children?????

I do fail to see what the basis of the Swiss economy has to do with Catholic fed homophobia. I responded to your little wikifest only to point out that I was the one who introduced the topic of Switzerland in the first place and outline why I did so.

I happen to be extremely fond of both Basel and Zurich as it happens, I also have a soft spot for Geneva and Montreaux is an absolute blast after a few schnapps. Plus I love Sion. I did say I am in no particular hurry to revisit one particular region which is riddled with conservative Catholics. I feel the same way about the Vatican - does this mean I have nothing good to say about Italians now?

I noticed you utterly failed to answer my question as to whether you think it is ok to use religion to justify being a bully - perhaps you missed it while leaping to conclusions.

Zombrex

jank wrote: »

Anyway point stands you don't have to be religious to hate gays

Which wasn't the original point. THe original point was that religion and homophobia go hand in hand. I'm at a loss what counter you think it is saying that you don't have to be religious to hate gays. It is like saying you don't have to be a Nazi to hate Jews, as if that some how counters the argument that Nazism and hating Jews go hand in hand.

Most religions, particularly the Abrahamic ones, were and still are obsessed about the correct way to have sexual relations and obsessed with placing the correct notions of sexuality (as defined by the straight male leaders of the religion) under the authority of their higher power, as if the omnipotent creator of the universe gives a hoot about who you have free consensual sexual relations with. Homophobia stems from that because it is often threatening to the straight males in power that tend to shape religions. Most religions are obsessed with this because most religions are merely the expression of the base desires of people in power, particularly men, and in the case of the Judeo-Christian religions the base desires of these men were to control women's reproduction and remove from society anything they found sexually repugnant.

Or to put it another way, religion is often the excuse/justification people give for moving their personal distaste towards homosexuality relationships into the realm of proclaiming it objectively wrong and disgusting. It justifies the bigotry because followers claim it is not just their personal distaste, but the distaste of the objective moral standard of the universe (which just happens to line up nicely with their own personal distaste)

Gumbi

Absolutely. I bet a graph could be plotted that would show clearly that the more religious a country is, the more it discriminates against homosexuals. And vice versa.

robindch

Zombrex wrote: »

[...] obsessed with placing the correct notions of sexuality (as defined by the straight male leaders of the religion) under the authority of their higher power [...]

I'd have dropped the word "straight" in that.

Gumbi

robindch wrote: »

I'd have dropped the word "straight" in that.

Thought this was mod-talk in light of the minor reprimand of Jank a few mins ago - then I got it :pac::pac:

Galvasean

I return to find the thread has spun wildly off topic... also Jank is posting again. Interesting.

joseph brand

robindch wrote: »

I'd have dropped the word "straight" in that.

Is this because the most homophobic men, those obsessed with 'de gheys', tend to secretly harbour a desire to visit The Blue Oyster?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlGclIZV5JQ

joseph brand

jank wrote: »

I am afraid you are the one ignoring established history, see above. By the way I never directly called Hitler an Atheist (please show me where?) as I do know there there is a debate whether he believed in a 'god' or not (Regards Stalin the jury is in that he was an Atheist). However to claim that we was a Christan is laughable, dishonest in trying to score cheap points, factually incorrect and plain idiotic.

What I did say however was that the Nazi's (or other regimes like the Khemer Rouge) did NOT subscribe to a religious text or theology in their destruction of Europes homosexuals and other undesirables a point lost on many and my original point in this very thread.

Well done!

Were Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot atheists?

In debunking atheism and using the tu quoque or "you too!" argument to point fingers in the opposite direction whenever religious atrocities are raised, defenders of theism often bring up the notion that some of the most destructive and genocidal ideologies in history, Communism, Nazism and "Pol Potery," were "atheistic," because their leaders were "atheists."

In my book The Gospel According to Acharya S, I delve briefly into these subjects, raising a few facts and conclusions that may not be widely known - but should be, because of these anti-atheist arguments. Here is a pertinent excerpt from The Gospel, also included in an Examiner article, "Is atheism the answer, Part 3?", which is the source for the last two paragraphs of commentary here. (All facts in the following excerpt are carefully cited in The Gospel from reliable sources.)

Were Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot atheists?

Theists hold up Communism and Nazism, along with the regime of the Cambodian tyrant Pol Pot, as evidence of murderous "atheist" tyrannies that have caused the deaths of tens of millions. While it may be true that Communism portrayed itself as "godless," it did not wage war in the name of atheism, nor were its founders and leaders raised as atheists. They were, in fact, preponderantly Jewish and Christian. Communist Manifesto writer Karl Marx was born a Jew, the grandson of two rabbis, and was converted to Christianity at age 6. Leon Trotsky, whose real name was Lev Bronstein, was born and raised a Jew but later declared himself "an internationalist."

Josef Stalin's "very religious" mother named him after St. Joseph, and wanted him to become a priest. Stalin himself supposedly claimed that his father had been a priest, and he was purportedly "damaged by violence" while being "raised in a poor priest-ridden household." As a youth, Stalin spent five years in a Greek Orthodox seminary, after which he purportedly renounced his religion. In his later years, Stalin apparently embraced Christianity once more. As Stalin biographer Edvard Radinsky remarks, "During his mysterious retreat [of June 1941] the ex-seminarist had decided to involve the aid of the God he had rejected." Radinsky likewise chronicles a number of religious comrades in Stalin's immediate circle. It is evident that, whether for good or bad, religion played a significant role in Stalin's life.

Adolf Hitler was raised a Catholic, and in a speech in 1922 he remarked, "My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter..." In his autobiography Mein Kampf (1.2), Hitler stated:

Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.
Throughout his life, Hitler invoked God and "the Lord," demonstrating his religious, not atheistic, nature. Pol Pot was raised a Buddhist and Catholic. In this regard, Dr. Ian Harris, a Reader in Religious Studies at the University College of St. Martin, relates: "In one of his early writings Pol Pot wrote approvingly that the 'democratic regime will bring back the Buddhist moralism because our great leader Buddha was the first to have taught [democracy].'" Although in comparison to the Abrahamic religions its history is far less violent, Buddhism has not been entirely devoid of atrocity in its spread and practice.

If we are to insist—as many people have done, including numerous theists and atheists alike—that religious human abuse is the cause of atheistic reaction against religion, we need look no further, it would seem, than to Josef Stalin's religiously abusive childhood to discover from where much of his rage appeared to emanate. His atheistic reaction therefore would be caused by religion. Hitler, who was also fascinated by mysticism, could not be deemed an "atheist" by any scientific standard, and Pol Pot also was not raised an atheist in a vacuum devoid of religion but was obviously affected and motivated by it.

If atheism is frequently but a reaction against human abuse by religion, then in itself such disbelief may not be the cause of malfeasance.

recedite

jank wrote: »

The finance sector makes up 11.6% of Swiss GDP, therefore 88.4% of Swiss GDP is non finance related.

As the Swiss finance industry is notoriously secretive, I'm not sure I would trust any statistics that rely on information that was volunteered by same. But suppose we did, even then we have to differentiate between a primary sector that first brings wealth into an economy, and all the other sectors that develop on the back of that.
As another example, let's imagine the mining sector was judged to contribute 11.6% to the Australian economy. But supposing it collapsed, far more than 11.6% of that economy would be affected; most likely they would enter a general recession.

BTW a lot of your wiki quotes are true and accurate, but only insofar as they report an opinion. Take this one;

According to a US Office of Strategic Services report, "The Nazi Master Plan," Hitler planned to destroy the influence of Christian churches within the Reich.[358][359] His eventual goal was the total elimination of Christianity.

That particular agency, The US Office of Strategic Services was a wartime agency involved in gathering intelligence and disseminating propaganda. You might as well be quoting Tony Blair's infamous WMD dossier when trying to show that Saddam did indeed possess WMD's at the time of the Iraq war. Or maybe some Gestapo report about how great Hitler was.
Here's another quote you used earlier, in the same vein;

In A Short History of Christianity, the historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote that Hitler and his Fascist ally Mussolini were atheists

See the problem?
IMO Hitler's own version of Christianity was unorthodox, but then most believers, even today, have an "a la carte" approach to their religion. Only Hitler himself knew what he actually believed though, and that probably changed from day to day.

SpaceTime

on the Swiss economy http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/13/business/singapore-rich-switzerland-wealth

Some interesting stats on there about the sheer scale of the Swiss financial sector. A lot of these things depend on how you measure them.

I would have more respect for somewhere like Sweden, Denmark or Finland that built strong, socially inclusive economies based on exports and trade.


Australia, Canada and Norway are propped up by being lucky enough to have loads of natural resources.

Luxembourg, Ireland, Switzerland, Singapore and to a large extent the UK (city of London) are all relying on tax and regulation advantages...