Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests New Pope Elected!

Originally posted by RawBurt:

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Originally posted by Davo:

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Good God! You would think the only people that molest young males are priests! Last I checked, any male in the general public can get married, yet child molestation still happens.

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There is a difference in any male in the general public and a priest. A priest is someone that should be trusted in the community not groping your children. BTW, i am catholic.

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Originally posted by Davo:

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Originally posted by Viss1:

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Originally posted by TourDeForce:

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Frankly, I'd like to see a really strong pope come out & take on secularism.

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Me too, I'd like to see the Catholic leadership become more militant in condemning Catholics who pick & choose which portions of that religion they observe. That would then lead to more people giving more thought to what they really believe and questioning organized religion in general.

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The first part I agree with. The likes of John Kerry and Ted Kennedy should be excommunicated. The last sentence made me laugh.

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Why limit it to those two? There are plenty of "good Catholics" who live worse lives (OK, maybe not worse than Kennedy ).

Glad I gave you a laugh, but not sure why. If a Pope tells Catholics that they must strictly obey each tenet of the religion, don't you think it would cause them to reevaluate whether it's something they want to be a part of? Some will change their behavior, others will leave the religion. That's all I had in mind *shrug*

Originally posted by Viss1:

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Why limit it to those two? There are plenty of "good Catholics" who live worse lives (OK, maybe not worse than Kennedy ).

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Originally posted by Davo:

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Originally posted by Beowulf:

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Really? How is this so when the early apostolic writings said that the leaders of the early Christian church were to be men with one wife?

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Priests are to live in Christ's likeness. They are to be mirror images of Christ in every way possible. Being married disturbs this likeness. (Please don't refer to The DaVinci Code in your response).

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I have never read the DaVinci Code, so referring to it would be pointless. The job of ALL Christians is to emulate Christ. A rough translation of "Christian" is "Christ like". So how do the clergy differ from the laity? Should they at all? First of all, I have severe reservations about passing off your "Christian" obligations to a protected class of any sort. When a religious person supports a person whose only job is to "be holy" they lessen the importance of God in their lives. It is as bad as the average voter handing off the job of Government to the "professional" politician. History has shown us that when we give that franchise away, we only get it back with difficulty. Making someone else responsible for your spiritual health and well being only puts you in a position of subservience. Look at the structure and the power of papal edicts and you will see this to be true. How do most people get along? By ignoring what they don't like. If ignoring it seems to work, why pay lip service to it at all?

I need to go back to priests and their function. Where in the bible does it say they need to be celibate? Where for that matter does it say that one man needs to head the "one and only true church"? I have read the bible quite a bit (not in the last 10 years, I no longer see any benefit in it) and I do not recall where in the New Testament a special class was created to rule over the Christ's flock.

Originally posted by Davo:

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How does letting priests marry prevent pedophiles from becoming priests?

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Prevent? No. Lessen? In time, it is very much a possibility. What does pedophilia come from? Previous abuse, sexual frustration, and perversion of normal sexual urges. When you tell a priest that he has to be celibate, and he has sexual desire that is sinful, there can be a cascading effect that once he begins to accept his sinful leanings towards "acceptable" sexual relations, the path towards him accepting something that is reprehensible in the eyes of God as well as society has already been started down. You and I may never deal with that downward spiral because out sexual freedoms are far less limited. The problem isn't HAVING sex, it is repressing what each and every one of are. Sexual beings. How can we repress a million years of evolutionary desire to further our DNA OR thousands of years of instruction to "become fruitful and multiply" (notice I include evolutionary and reactionary views as either way, we have a POWERFUL motivation "built in" to have sex). Repressing it only leads to perversions such as pedophilia.

Originally posted by Davo:

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Originally posted by Beowulf:

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The Catholic church has perverted scripture for no particular reason other than to control it's people and it's clergy for decades.

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Quite the allegation. I'm sure you'll back it up somehow in this thread.

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It is so hard to hide my contempt for an out of date and oppressive force on humanity.