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The BBC is treating this like the return of Jesus......

It's something that I don't understand, Britain is becoming more secular by the day, more and more people are turning their backs on religion in favour of just doing what they want, yet this visit is being treated with immense scrutiny? I don't believe for one second that everyone is paying attention to this just in case the Pope has a moment of epiphinal clarity and decides to 'fess up to all the child molesting that has been ongoing within the Catholic church for the last hundred or more years. So why is this so special? Why has he been granted the supposed "honour" of a State visit (when he clearly doesn't meet the criteria for one) and yet practically barred from conducting anything serious any where near someone important or in London? The Queen has greeted him, but in Scotland, he's been met by a 'representative' of the government, but won't get any closer, so why confer it a State visit for what is really, a glorified Castle+square-come-principality?!?

What do others think about this?

I think that people are treating this as important as one of John Paul II's visits (those were actually somewhat significant given his status)...basically they dont care about religion, its more of a "prestige" and "honor" thingy.

Because he's an important guy, seriously, you don't have one of the mightiest men on the planet come to your place and then treat him like dirt.

SquigPie, on 17 Sep 2010, 7:25, said:

I believe you might be overstating his importance somewhat. He hasn't achieved anything of note in his relatively short time as Pope and his history is, patchy, at best. I don't doubt that to some the Pope is an important role model and figure head, and I acknowledge that he leads a [still] quite powerful church. But he isn't mighty....

Wizard, on 17 Sep 2010, 8:11, said:

@squig

Whoa whoa whoa , Dude mighty? Might you be streching it a bit , hes nothing more then another guy to me tbh

I don't want the man here in the way he has been brought over. For the past two days I've heard this and that of the Pope comparing Britain to a 3rd world country, labelling the nation "aggressively atheist".

I hear Stephen Fry took a knocking from the Daily Mail as usual for having an opinion on the matter.
Whether any of this is true or not, he seems to have caused nothing but controversy between media institutions and the masses by appearing as some kind of prestiegous entity to all the world. I'm sure that is true to him, and anyone deeply involved in Catholicism, but to an outsider looking in it simply is not the case, and the sooner he recognizes this the better.

I dont mind him being here to visit his Catholic followers, and anyone else who considers him their leader, but the manner of his arrival to me has simply been completely inappropriate. And I certainly don't wan't to hear of him telling the "world" what to think of Britain, or telling us what to think of ourselves.

Didn't he call the UK a third world country?

scope, on 17 Sep 2010, 12:35, said:

Yup. Niddy has echoed my thoughts nicely - the man can do what he likes but I see noteason as to why he gets all the pomp and circumstance - I'd imagine if Jesus were here he'd deem it totally unnecessary.

There's a protest against his visit in London this weekend which I might attend. I've got no problem with him visiting, but I object to the taxpayer funding the trip.

Comparing UK to a third-world country??? Well, can't say i don't agree with him :trollface:

Aaron, on 17 Sep 2010, 12:54, said:

Who said I consider him more than a "dude"?

I'm a protestant, Lutheran protestant. In case any of you are as ignorant as the people at my school (which I neither hope nor think), We don't consider him "The Voice of God". Some consider him a man worthy of respect, some dislike him, some don't care about him and some call him...Tim?

I for one don't know, I'd like to respect him, but he keeps pulling the asshole card.
Edited by SquigPie, 17 September 2010 - 14:02.

Let's get this straight, the Pope, did NOT call the UK a 3rd world country, one of his Cardinals did, and that was in relation to arriving at Heathrow, and quite frankly, I can see what he means in some respects. Heathrow is the single busiest airport in the world. It receives flights from almost every single national airport in the world. It can look like that sometimes.

Cardinal Walter Kasper said it

Edit @ Squig, that is not how we talk to people on this forum.
Edited by Wizard, 17 September 2010 - 14:00.

Updates - the Pope is now telling us that we're plagued by "a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society". It's nice to see he's being nice about his host country.
Edited by Rich19, 17 September 2010 - 14:29.

Wizard, on 17 Sep 2010, 15:59, said:

SquigPie, on 17 Sep 2010, 15:58, said:

Am I the only one around here who READ my comments?
Edited by SquigPie, 17 September 2010 - 15:19.

SquigPie, on 17 Sep 2010, 16:16, said:

At the time of my post, this is what I saw.....

SquigPie, on 17 Sep 2010, 14:58, said:

Calling people ignorant because they don't share your views is not how things are done on FS.
Edited by Wizard, 17 September 2010 - 15:20.

huh?

Must've posted it by accident, I edited it quickly afterwards, I didn't call them ignorant because they disagree with me, I call them ignorant because they haven't checked up what we believe in, nor do they want to, nor do they care to, they put me and other christians in the same fucking box as the fanatical bible-humpers.

I like the people at my school, they are nice, intelligent, and friendly. But their understanding of religion is about the same as an average intelligence monkey.

I edited it because I realised it could be interpreted that way.
Edited by SquigPie, 17 September 2010 - 15:33.

Rich19, on 17 Sep 2010, 14:27, said:

He was very clearly talking in the past tense about that nazi thingy... which, you know, happened in the past. If you want to be upset about something, take this one:
"(...)let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny"

I find it funny that someone who prays that you should believe in God, and should hope God protects you, drives in a bullet-proof car.

SquigPie, on 17 Sep 2010, 16:31, said:

Fair point and duly noted.

Golan, on 17 Sep 2010, 16:48, said:

This is exactly what bothers me about the dogma of Catholicism, well, indeed any religion. (Irony incoming) Heaven forbid that we should leave God from the picture when considering our own interpretation of man and our place in the world.

Dutchygamer, on 17 Sep 2010, 17:22, said:

Which ultimately proves that any dogmatic adherence to a faith is pointless. I have no issue with God, or those who believe. I just don't think that if there is a God, that he'd expect you to follow a prescribed methodology in order to achieve his affection. Believing in God is one thing. Having faith in a greater being or an afterlife is fine with me. Following a book, written by men and proporting to be the word of said God, now that is different matter entirely.

I consider the Bible to be a work of men, a "translation" of a sort, with all the faults of a translation, They add, they exstract, they manipulate the text to fit their own opinions.

The Bible was written by about 50 different people ??-2000 years ago, all with their own opinion, style and motivation. I think it was all divinely inspired, and that's it, inspired, they were inspired by something greater than themselves, to shape their own view of the universe. Thus it seems odd to me that we should attempt to follow the opinions of a group of very different individuals who lived in a very different time in a very different culture.

I look in the Bible for inspiration, to enjoy the sometimes strange and colofull prose, stuff like that.

I could go on all night, but I think that would be unhealthy and TL;DR
Edited by SquigPie, 17 September 2010 - 17:06.

Wizard, on 17 Sep 2010, 10:11, said:

Well, mighty or not, without the Pope, HIV would be a lot less rampant. I'd call that important in some way at the least.

Dutchygamer, on 18 Sep 2010, 2:22, said:

I'm surprised Palpatine hasn't used his force lightning yet.

Political Area mate, keep it absolutely serious in here.

Dutchygamer, on 17 Sep 2010, 16:22, said:

Well, his predecessor was heavily wounded by three bullets to the stomach and barely survived. So you could say god does protect him by having shown him what a good idea it is to drive a bullet-proof car.
Edited by Golan, 19 September 2010 - 09:51.

Frankly, I find it offensive that everyone's making such a big deal about in the newspapers and such.
The only thing he's going to do while over here is probably insult the entire nation again, while also being arrogant to those without a religion. Also, the Pope was quoted as saying

Quote

Hitler was a religious guy. He may have been against formalized religion, but he still had some sort of belief in a God.
So he insults Atheists even though the catalyst for the event he was referencing was religious?

Am I missing something here, or can someone clear up why I shouldn't be offended? (Not that I'm an atheist. I'm Agnostic [sort of], but it's still offending).

It's all well and good if you've got yourself a religion you're comfortable with, but I still don't like it being shoved in my face, (note: I'm not generalising religious followers here, just that it's been my experience thus far).
Edited by Brad, 19 September 2010 - 13:20.

I think the whole thing is kinda disturbing. I may be an atheist and thus my view might be just as flawed as anyone who is (heavily!) religious, but the quote Brad bought up is hideously absurd - the Nazis were about as religious as any other country's people, some even more so. Actual atheists were a minority, and I can guess that the pope rather confuses atheism with non-christian occults like what Himmler tried, as in "Non-[insert my religion here]? Infidel!" That is actually not far away from other religious extremists all over the world.

Hence, it's a poor sight to see the media getting so fired up about the pope visiting a mainly non-religious country.

Little afterthought - the vatican was the main supporter in getting high nazi officers to South America, which creeps me out heavily.