Okay I know that a lot of people are probably tired of hearing about the Pope so I'll be brief:

I've noticed on a bunch of game servers I play on (Everything from Free Internet Chess Server to Counterstrike) people bashing the Pope now that the man has died. Now I'm not overly religious and I'm certainly no Catholic (the Catholic church has IMHO done a lot over the centuries that it shouldn't be proud of...)but the kind of bashing I've been seeing going on over the last week is just unbelievable and quite frankly I need to rant.

The recently deceased Pope seemed a genuinely good man as far as I can tell, he was charismatic and honestly believed in the ideals of his faith. All this man deserves is our respect...you don't have to agree with his beliefs or religion but he certainly does not deserve anyone's scorn or derision and especially not after his death.

So even though I'm not a Catholic I am saddened by the Pope's passing, I hope he rests in peace and that whatever afterlife he believed in is all that he'd hoped it would be.

In short: please all you anti-Catholic people lay off insulting the Pope and show him some of the respect he deserves. :rant off:

Game servers... populated by mostly ignorant teens.

nuf said. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Agreed I would not think any thing of it. So many young people that need to still grow up. ;)

whiney teeny kids .. they dont know any better.. they just want attention

One of my fave examples of how ignorant most of the people who bash the pope are is a girl in my friends class, 18 years old, after her rant on how nothing "fun" was on TV (during the newshour) she said

After a bit of inquery my friend found out she thought so because she heard the popes name was John Paul THE SECOND!!!

JC, is that a true story? She was a blonde, right? :D

Don't be suprised, some people don't even know what a pope is.

He had a cool car, so he had to be cool. ;)

Don't take it to heart, i'm sure they are just ignorant kids

There's a nice saying in hungarian, for which there is prob an english equivalent, but can't remember right now. It loosely translates as:

"...about the dead, say only positive things, or say nothing"

Also, yep the game servers, probably teens. While not all teens are ignorant, they're generally not such a good judge of information and ideas as they haven't lived long enough. They're quick to jump on the bandwagon after they hear something.

You got that straight.. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Bashing the dead in general is pretty low-brow, but what I can't understand is why Mr. Bush decided to order all flags at half-mast today during his funeral. This honor is reserved for american _political_ leaders, NOT foreign religious leaders. It's just another blatent disregard for the separation of church and state. Bush makes it seem that the US is a christian country and that christianity is the only religion worthy of his endorsement (I guess they DID get him elected). What if a great muslim leader were to die, would he fly the flags at half mast? I seriously doubt it (those people are 'evil', right?).

if you are truly interested in debating this *i* think you should ask it in the current events forum.

I bet he would fly the flags at half mast if Tony Blair died. Just guessing, that is. I think he liked the Pope, and respected him as a leader, therefore he is showing his respect now. Maybe not the most popular thing to do, but I gotta give him props for it.

Actually, the pope is also the head of the Vatican state, so he is also a political leader.

While I understand where you are coming from and agree that G. Bush probably wouldn't fly the flag at half mast for a dead Muslim religious leader I don't really see the problem with showing respect for the dead Pope by doing this. Technically he was a foreign political leader. Countries honor one person and not another all the time...why should the death of a US Senator warrant a flag-lowering and not the death of a grocery store clerk? If any country in the world had a truly fair and equal society then both these deaths would be seen as having the same importance. Unfortunately, we live in the real world and things are not like that most of the time. I see your point but I don't really have a problem with the flag being flown at half-mast for the Pope. BTW I am not an American and not religious as I said before and I would have no problem with my country flying the flag at half-mast for the Pope. Just my 2 cents.

Northraven, I don't agree with the grocery clerk getting same props as a US senator. The senator in theory affects many more people's lives, that's why he deservers more props. The fairness is still there, because the grocery clerk was entitled to the same education, he could've made something of himself and got democratically elected to be a senator, but we get off topic...

Let's keep this discussion away from a religious debate.

This subject is still banned, remember?

[ 04-08-2005, 03:39 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

For a week now, television has been limited to coverage of the Pope--his history, funeral arrangements, legacy. In the end it's been a bit repetitive, but most people don't seem to notice.

Streets are lined with candles and I've seen people quietly sobbing for no apparent reason.

At 9:37 this evening, for 5 minutes, most of Poland is going to shut off all the lights, computers, tvs, radios etc., and quietly honour the passing of an icon.

To the cynical of us, the Pope was a flawed man who may not have precisely deserved this level of response to his death. Or maybe it has more to do with people coping with the end of an era, sensing the passage of time.

But you could also say that, in an era of iconoclastism and cynicism, the Pope was a spiritual beacon for millions and millions of those who needed such guidance. He represented some measure of certainty in an uncertain age.

No mere political leader could command such international respect and love.

(IMHO)

Hmm guess I didn't notice cos I don't have a TV in my halls of residence :(

Luvian - when has a topic being banned ever stopped anyone discussing it? I know personally if I got into a heated subject, I'd probably say my piece and accept getting banned rather than stay quiet...
this board's been a bit boring lately anyway, maybe we need some heated debate to liven it up ;)

[ 04-08-2005, 03:55 PM: Message edited by: Vaskez ]

so what exactly is banned here? I don't understand. Until I do, I'll elaborate my opinion (that's all it is, you know).

While I do see that the Pope being the head of the "vatican state" seems to gain him loop-hole political status, he is still a religious leader first and foremost. I don't disagree that he led lots of people that respected him, sure. My point is that the recognition of one particular religious political leader and not recognizing others is a breech of separation of church and state. The government should be totally neutral when it comes to these events, let the media and individual followers do their own thing. Keep my government out of it.

Really, it's not this one event that upsets non-religious folks like myself. It's the culmination of a great number of events that point toward religious fanaticism taking over the US. I mean, it was religious fanaticism that drove people away from England in the first place, that was why the founders made it very clear that we don't repeat those mistakes. Now it seems that politians have gone the other way, using religious iconology to gain support and getting elected by promising "moral" and "ethical" changes which reek of religious dogma.

ohh when will humans get over this god fantasy.. I hope sooner than later.

feel free to attack, I enjoy it.
S

ROFL. Dumbass. You're too much of a dumbass to deserve a proper attack.

[ 04-08-2005, 08:04 PM: Message edited by: Vaskez ]

i think alot of people including myself would find "god fantasy" an insult mate. I do strongly recommend you to rephrase that word because it is like your accusing EVERY religion out there in the world to being delusional.

Church and State has a very thin line of seperation and always they cross each others paths. Abortion, Euthanasia are good examples of those. You want the seperation of state and church which i wholeheartedly agree with you but sometimes it is those ethnical values that what laid those foundations of the state in the first place. The US was founded under Christianity and I dont think the main reason for the US breaking away with the UK back in the colonial era was because of the Church but rather of the King and its taxes.

The pope has died and I admit wanting to cry myself for a good man lost. You may not be able to understand why people cry to a man they did not meet, who we as catholics revere him as a good Leader and Father (like a priest term) because this is not logic, this is emotion.

oh yes, there is a religion bann discussion anywhere in this forum so this thread is in the borderline.

[ 04-08-2005, 08:43 PM: Message edited by: Harkoliar ]

I agree with you! I don't care about the pope one bit, to me he was just some guy in office for like president og the cathlics, he was no closer to g-d(I don't know if i'm aloud to say HIM on this site) than any of us, but he's still a person and should be respected like so

ps: I'm probably off topic now b/c your all probly arguing about something that I really don't care about. I just felt like saying something that made a point of some sort.

<font color=steelblue>Scarab, for future reference, if somebody gives you fair warning that you are going over the edge on a rule...don't push the subject the way you have done here.

What that does is ruin the effort that everybody else put into this thread since it now has to be locked, thanks to your blatant lack of respect for the webmaster's rules. More than one rule was broken with your post.

This will serve as your first official warning.

To everybody else...I am sorry. I am sure that you all realized that this thread was being tolerated with leniancy, but it went too far. Scarab's comment killed your opportunity to prove to Ziroc that we can do this.

By the way...we do not allow people to "attack" one another, as you invited in your post.
</font>

[ 04-09-2005, 12:11 AM: Message edited by: Larry_OHF ]