RicOlie_2

OK, thanks, I’ll check it out.

flametitan said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

CatBus said:

Trans Topics for Cis Dummies

This needs to be a thread. I’d like to learn more of the trans perspective.

I’ve been meaning to start one for a while, actually, but life has a way of keeping me from doing so.

I’ll get it done when I get back from my prescription pick up.

That would be great.

OK, thanks for the clarifications.

flametitan said:

RicOlie_2 said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Another example of Christian opposition to freedom:

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/09/anti-lgbtq-protesters-swarmed-library-protest-drag-queen-story-hour/

If you call the normalization of mental illnesses freedom, then sure. Gender dysphoria is contagious among certain segments of the population, so I have a hard time believing that it’s normal and healthy to believe you’re in the wrong body. What happened to telling people to be happy with their body and the way they are?

Oh, buddy… Are you sure you want to have this conversation with me? We’re going to have this conversation. ROGD is a sham based upon a faulty study that was quickly rescinded. In particular, it only ever surveyed the parents of the teens, who have met on a “support forum.” In this context, of course it seemed sudden; teens are notorious for hiding things from their parents, especially if they believe the parents would be unnaccepting of it.

If you asked the teens themselves, they’re going to give you a far different answer. Probably something along the lines of, “It felt like something was off about me for the longest time, but it wasn’t until I met other people like me that I began to piece it all together and accept it.” It’s not that these teens are “catching the Trans,” it’s that they’re starting to meet others and not feel so alone about it.

OK, interesting. There was something in the article I linked to about some of the girls who identified as guys reverting back to identifying as girls after a year or so. I didn’t see an explanation for that in the article you’re linking to (not saying there isn’t one, just that I’m still kind of curious about it).

JEDIT: Oh, and I missed that you typed that out in response to people protesting drag queens. Drag. Queens. Believe it or not, Drag performers are not trans people. Well, not inherently. There are definitely trans people who either enjoy drag, or use it to explore their own feelings of themselves. However, just as many, if not more drag performers are cisgender, and just use drag as a performative art.

Well duh, they’re not necessarily trans people. I may misunderstand their intention, however. I thought the purpose was generally to support people who identify as transgender.

moviefreakedmind said:

I want to bring something up from a long time ago, when Catbus (who I usually agree with) said that religion was ultimately a net positive. Well, I hope you can look at this discussion and realize that if you’re one of the people that the religion deems an abomination, then religion is far from a net positive. Unless you say religion is good in spite of its negative effect on them. This lie that LGBT people are mentally ill is just one of the many reasons why everybody should condemn this kind of religiosity.

Two things:

When did I ever say that anyone was an abomination? I’ve never believed that anyone was anything less than a person made in the image of God and deserving of love.

Also, I didn’t say “LGBT people are mentally ill.” I said that gender dysphoria is a mental illness. I said nothing about homosexuality or bisexuality.

moviefreakedmind said:

Another example of Christian opposition to freedom:

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/09/anti-lgbtq-protesters-swarmed-library-protest-drag-queen-story-hour/

If you call the normalization of mental illnesses freedom, then sure. Gender dysphoria is contagious among certain segments of the population, so I have a hard time believing that it’s normal and healthy to believe you’re in the wrong body. What happened to telling people to be happy with their body and the way they are?

screams in the void said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtPBNvhnim4

LOL, that reminds me, I need to get around to watching that movie sometime…

I agree that Warb takes it too seriously, but this place is also a lot less fun than it used to be. I can understand why he’s frustrated by the way things are now.

He said basically the same thing about homosexuality as his predecessors did…just in different, more ambiguous, words.

I think Pope Francis is doing less, not more than Pope Benedict. I’m not overly impressed with his handling of the situation.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/source-pope-blocked-investigation-of-abuse-allegations-against-cardinal-who

Warbler said:

RicOlie_2 said:

“Married only once” doesn’t necessarily mean they have to have married at all. There is nothing to intrinsically prevent a married man being ordained, but the Church has grown considerably since that letter was written. The role of a priest or bishop involves a lot more. Not to mention that at the time, most people would have been converts, and most converts would have been married, so to prohibit married men from being ordained simply wouldn’t have worked.

But that passage doesn’t it make clear that it is ok for “Bishops” to marry?

It makes it clear that there’s no moral reason why they can’t, yes. But that doesn’t mean that the Church can’t impose laws for the good of the Church. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with eating meat on Friday, but the Church thought it fitting to set aside Friday as a mandatory day for the commemeration of Jesus’ crucifixion and death. And with celibacy, the Church has realized that celibacy “for the sake of the kingdom,” as Jesus and Paul recommend, is of great value for the Church.

Theoretically, in the future, married men could become priests and bishops outside of the Eastern Churches or extraordinary circumstances. There are good reasons for maintaining the Church’s current discipline (i.e. policy), however, and I don’t think it will change anytime soon, unless there is a big push for it from the clergy.

Nothing that I’m aware of that says it like that. Although that’s pretty much the case anyway. No congregation answers to another congregation, they answer to an individual leader. St. Paul obviously had authority over many different churches, so there doesn’t seem to be anything in the Bible that is opposed to that.

No, my mom told me not to eat that. The chocolate snow makes for a more substantial meal though.

“Married only once” doesn’t necessarily mean they have to have married at all. There is nothing to intrinsically prevent a married man being ordained, but the Church has grown considerably since that letter was written. The role of a priest or bishop involves a lot more. Not to mention that at the time, most people would have been converts, and most converts would have been married, so to prohibit married men from being ordained simply wouldn’t have worked.

Christ’s bride is the Church (and in a sense, our souls), and it would have been a bit weird if Jesus had fathered children. Would they be some sort of demigod? I don’t think you’re wrong that there were practical reasons for it, but I think it goes much deeper than that.

Warbler said:

But, if I am not mistaken, marriage wasn’t always denied to Catholic Priests. I think hundreds of years ago Catholic Priests were allowed to marry, were they not?

Yes, they were. It was more rigorously enforced in the 11th century when priests were creating dynastic parishes (passing the parish on from father to son), which was causing problems. Celibacy has always been encouraged, though, and was quite common before that as well. Eastern Catholic priests still don’t have to be celibate. From what I know from speaking with them and hearing about their situations, however, many of them do run into conflicts between their family and parish, and it’s clear that there’s a lot of practical wisdom in celibacy.

All the seminarians I’ve talked to about this agree, by the way. They all think that making celibacy optional would be a bad idea, and would create more problems than it would solve. We want to be as free as possible to serve the Church and God. Being a married priest is a bit like a having two wives. Sure, people have made it work, but it’s really hard to balance the two.

I’m usually good after 1 lunch of snow.

3 inches of snow again today.

Warbler said:

RicOlie_2 said:

Warbler said:

RicOlie_2 said:

I am quite prepared to commit to celibacy, and would very much not want to marry and be a priest (waaay too much work, and the stress of having to devote oneself to both a family and a parish would be unbelievable).

The Pastor of my church seems to manage ok with both a family and the church to take care of.

Being a Protestant pastor is a job.

I assure you being a Protestant Pastor is more than just a job.

A (decent) priest doesn’t have set working hours.

Neither does my Pastor.

He should be free to go to the hospital in an emergency in the middle of the night.

My Pastor does this.

He should be free to run ministries in the evenings with his parishioners and do house visits.

My Pastor does this too.

He says Mass at least once a day and is always available to hear confessions.

That my Pastor of course does not do.

He devotes himself entirely to his parishioners.

My Pastor is very devoted to the church and its congregation.

There is simply no comparison between the job description of a Protestant pastor and a Catholic priest.

I am not certain you really understand the job description of a Protestant Pastor.

You may be right. I admit, I made a pretty broad generalization and it might apply to Evangelical Christians and less to other denominations (or it might not apply to either. I found an interesting article that compares the typical workload of Catholic priests and Protestant ministers. As far as I can tell, though, this is an average, and there are a lot of priests that don’t really work as hard as they should. Many of the better priests work 70-80 hours a week, or as many as 90 hours (and I suppose the same may be true of the better Protestant pastors).

Now, I should also note that the primary reason for celibacy isn’t the workload, although it’s certainly one of the main reasons why I personally would not want to be married. Priests are representatives of Christ, and thus the primary goal of celibacy is to configure oneself more closely to Christ. Not to mention that priests are in a certain sense “married” to the Church already.

moviefreakedmind said:

RicOlie_2 said:

moviefreakedmind said:

It involves a minority of Catholics, but a majority of the Church’s most powerful officials are complicit at least.

Citation? I highly doubt that’s the case. I’m not sure how much you know about the way the Church works, but bishops are pretty autonomous, so the way they deal with issues is pretty localized.

They all know about it and most are choosing to do nothing. The current pope and his immediate predecessors know or knew about it and there’s direct evidence that Benedict XVI was directly involved in coverups before he became pope. The sex-abuse and their coverups are common knowledge. Ask anyone on the street and they’re familiar with it. Are you going to tell me, with a straight face, that the majority of officials in the Catholic Church are blissfully unaware of the mass child abuse that happens in its institution?

Again, this is just ignorance about the way the Church works. A bishop has no authority over another bishop’s affairs. It’s not like the bishops can just get together and vote the bad bishops out of office (although they can get together and agree on policies). It’s true that the popes and the higher up bishops who do have some authority haven’t done enough, but that by no means indicates that most bishops are complacent/apathetic. I know my bishop sure isn’t.

Also, Benedict XVI laicized at least 400 guilty priests in the course of two years. That’s not doing nothing.

It’s official policy to handle them internally rather than approaching the police, and by “handle” I mean relocate the offender to a new, unsuspecting parish. In the United States, and most civilized countries, abetting a felon is also a crime. I’m arguing for the religious institutions to be dismantled because of their crimes. If it turned out that JCPenney’s was doing this, then there’d be no debate over shutting down the corporation and arresting those responsible.

Where is this official policy? The reports that are coming out address incidents that have happened over the last 70-or-so years. Things have changed quite a bit in the last two or three decades. In most of Canada, I believe it has been official policy since the '80s to report things to the police.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pennsylvania-report-catholic-clergy-sex-abuse-scandal_us_5b2d4062e4b00295f15c56db

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/world/europe/german-church-sex-abuse-children.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fworld

https://nypost.com/2018/08/14/australia-archbishop-gets-house-detention-for-abuse-cover-up/

Also, happening over the last 70-or-so years is meaningless. “The last 70-or-so years” includes yesterday and today. I find it weird that you think “the church has done this throughout history” is a valid excuse. It actually plays more into my argument that the Church be viewed as a crime ring.

Those are certain local churches. Their failures don’t represent the Church as a whole. Furthermore, it’s simply wrong to say the Church has done nothing. In addition to laicizing guilty priests and removing guilty bishops from office: “by 2008 the U.S. church had trained 5.8 million children to recognize and report abuse. It had run criminal checks on 1.53 million volunteers and employees, 162,700 educators, 51,000 clerics and 4,955 candidates for ordination. It had trained 1.8 million clergy, employees and volunteers in creating a safe environment for children.” And “In June 2002, the [US Conference of Catholic Bishops] unanimously promulgated a Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People [adopting] a “zero tolerance” policy for sexual abuse. The USCCB instituted reforms to prevent future abuse by requiring background checks for Church employees. They now require dioceses faced with an allegation to alert the authorities, conduct an investigation and remove the accused from duty.” (Quotes from Wikipedia.)

The same applies for Canada, which has similar policies in place.

As for repression vs. integration or whatever, that just sounds like Newspeak to me.

Well it’s not. We get professional psychologists to come in and talk to us about this stuff. It’s science. And I can personally attest, and can attest for many other seminarians and priests, that we are not even remotely repressed. I am quite prepared to commit to celibacy, and would very much not want to marry and be a priest (waaay too much work, and the stress of having to devote oneself to both a family and a parish would be unbelievable). There is an incredible freedom that comes from proper sexual integration and self-mastery, and it is possible to do.

Use all the Newspeak that you want, but being taught that your urges and lust are sinful crimes against the Almighty (who has the power to consign you to hell, mind you) is repression. You may be content with it, but you are repressing your desires. And also, the repression in Christianity and Islam, and many other religions too, goes beyond the clergy.

Lust and sexual attraction are not the same. I don’t know if you’ve heard of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, but one of the primary teachings is an affirmation of the inherent goodness of sexual desire, lust being a distortion of this.

I feel immense freedom, not repression, in gaining control over my sexual drive and in not feeling the need to masturbate or have sex. That isn’t to say that I don’t feel sexually attracted to women, but I am able to control those sexual desires. I know from speaking with priests and seminarians that this is their experience as well. If you consider an intense sense of freedom to be repression, then that’s kind of sad for you, but it doesn’t change the reality of my experience.

Warbler said:

RicOlie_2 said:

I am quite prepared to commit to celibacy, and would very much not want to marry and be a priest (waaay too much work, and the stress of having to devote oneself to both a family and a parish would be unbelievable).

The Pastor of my church seems to manage ok with both a family and the church to take care of.

Being a Protestant pastor is a job. Being a priest is a vocation. A (decent) priest doesn’t have set working hours. He should be free to go to the hospital in an emergency in the middle of the night. He should be free to run ministries in the evenings with his parishioners and do house visits. He says Mass at least once a day and is always available to hear confessions. He devotes himself entirely to his parishioners. There is simply no comparison between the job description of a Protestant pastor and a Catholic priest.

I was blown away by how ridiculously expensive those gas prices were until I realized you guys pay by the gallon down there, not the litre, LOL. Up here it’s often been going up to $3.82 USD per gallon ($1.30 CAD/litre)…

I should also ask for some (scientific) evidence that there is a relation to celibacy and child abuse. There are many sex abusers that are married or have some other access to sexual pleasure besides their criminal behaviour, and there are many, many people who have been happily celibate throughout history. I’d be willing to accept that forced celibacy might be an issue, but it’s frankly ridiculous to say that celibacy is “forced” on Catholic priests. No one’s making them become priests…

Possessed said:

I still don’t even understand it, the Bible doesn’t call for it being necessary so why torture yourself when God doesn’t require or expect you to. Clearly it does more harm than good. In fact I don’t even see what the benefit would be.

I must admit, the word “torture” made me snicker a little. I certainly don’t feel tortured! Nor do I get the impression that any of the priests I know feel that way.

But see my response to MFM. And if you have any further questions, feel free to ask. As someone who is (willingly and gladly) preparing for lifelong celibacy, I couldn’t disagree more with you, and have plenty to say on the benefits of celibacy (and trust me, I haven’t been brainwashed, LOL).

moviefreakedmind said:

It involves a minority of Catholics, but a majority of the Church’s most powerful officials are complicit at least.

Citation? I highly doubt that’s the case. I’m not sure how much you know about the way the Church works, but bishops are pretty autonomous, so the way they deal with issues is pretty localized.

It’s official policy to handle them internally rather than approaching the police, and by “handle” I mean relocate the offender to a new, unsuspecting parish. In the United States, and most civilized countries, abetting a felon is also a crime. I’m arguing for the religious institutions to be dismantled because of their crimes. If it turned out that JCPenney’s was doing this, then there’d be no debate over shutting down the corporation and arresting those responsible.

Where is this official policy? The reports that are coming out address incidents that have happened over the last 70-or-so years. Things have changed quite a bit in the last two or three decades. In most of Canada, I believe it has been official policy since the '80s to report things to the police.

As for repression vs. integration or whatever, that just sounds like Newspeak to me.

Well it’s not. We get professional psychologists to come in and talk to us about this stuff. It’s science. And I can personally attest, and can attest for many other seminarians and priests, that we are not even remotely repressed. I am quite prepared to commit to celibacy, and would very much not want to marry and be a priest (waaay too much work, and the stress of having to devote oneself to both a family and a parish would be unbelievable). There is an incredible freedom that comes from proper sexual integration and self-mastery, and it is possible to do.

moviefreakedmind said:

All four of those causes seem like reason enough to me to shut down the Catholic Church. They also don’t account for the systematic cover ups.

Your #5 point confuses me. Them unhealthily repressing their urges is in accordance with the Catholic religion. How is that not, at least in part, the fault of the Church?

That’s ridiculous, because (a) most of these problems aren’t nearly as present or relevant anymore, and (b) they don’t represent flaws in the religion, they represent flaws in policy. Reform is needed, not the dismantling of a religion. Furthermore, although a significant minority was involved, it was only a minority.

Unhealthily repressing urges is not part of the Catholic religion. We are told over and over again in the seminary that repressing our sexuality is extremely unhealthy, and living a celibate life requires integrating our sexuality* into our lives in a psychologically healthy manner. It might sound like repression, but it is far from it.

• Sexuality is much broader than sexual drive, so we also aren’t being told in the least to give in to sexual urges.