This just goes to prove that Catholics are right.
This is literally a ‘church signs’ debate, being played out in a Southern US town, between Our Lady of Martyrs Catholic Church, and Cumberland Presbyterian, a fundamentalist church. From top to bottom shows you the response and counter-response over time.
The Catholics are displaying a much better sense of humor! You get the impression that the Presbyterians are actually taking this seriously and are getting a bit upset…
As all loyal Stupid Heads know, I have expressed my opinion on religion a few times. As an organized entity, I think that most religions have done as much harm as good over the history of civilization. On an individual level I think spirituality / having a sense of values is a generally a good thing. That was up until now.
I had never thought that one needed to have much common sense in order to apply religion to one’s daily life. Oooops. I was not entirely correct. It generally seems OK for most people, but sometimes people push the envelope.
Case in point: A Tunisian pilot was recently sentenced to 10 years in prison. His transgression? The pilot panicked and decided that praying out loud instead of following emergency procedures was the appropriate course of action during an emergency situation. Once filling up on spiritual enlightenment he then opted to crash-land the plane instead trying to reach a nearby airport. Outcome: 16 people dead.
Do you really think that God would be calling home someone that stupid?
Timmy out
In my last rant I started talking about Barack Obama’s lifting of federal funding on stem cell research, but then got distracted talking about really stupid topics.
It is nice to see a US Government that does not have the bible thumpers leading them around by the short and curlys (of course I imagine that GWB doesn’t shave his sack – otherwise they would have had to grab onto the US Crown Jewels).
Stem cells will most probably lead to some of the greatest discoveries of our time. If I was a betting man I would put money on stem cell research as it is bound to lead to a level of understanding of human biology that until now man has only dreamed of. Once we understand how cell are created, specified, and behave we will be able to rationally design drugs and treatments that will help us nudge the nasty cells back to health.
Now assume that you have a child that is ill. And that this child can be helped by a simple treatment that involves using stem cells to regenerate the damaged tissue/organ. Why would it be wrong to grow and harvest these cells to help the healing process? For those of you screaming, “Because it is against God’s will” please climb back under your rocks. The slime from which you crawled from will definitely be more comforting for you. A) You never spoke to God, so you don’t know his will; B) Your views of God’s will have been given to you by someone with a vested interest in your belief / faith / {en:tithe}; C) Do you really think that if God (assuming you believe otherwise you wouldn’t really be following this thread) created beings with enough intelligence to discover all of these wonderful treatments that He would really want us sitting around whining, “God please help me” when he has already give us the power to help ourselves?
Throughout the years religion has tried to thwart scientific advances claiming that they were against the will of God. It is a simple equation that relates the power of a church with the number of devout followers. Since the number of followers is eroded as the need for faith to answer the unknown is diminished, anything that answers questions of the unknown are frowned upon by these groups.
So here is to one day being able to replaced damaged tissues or organs, with ones that are organic and NOT genetically modified.
Timmy out
As you Stupid Heads already know, I generally like US President Barack Obama, except for the fact that I think he is a really big hypocrite on the aircraft usage issue by companies (please see the archives for that discussion).
I am now hailing him for lifting the ban on federal funding of {en:stem cell} research. In a nut shell, stem cells are the body’s magical mystery cells. They are cells that exist prior to functional specification and are capable of becoming any type of cell. The controversy surrounding the use of stem cells arises from their source. Although there are certain types of stem cells derived from adults, most stem cell research is based on embryonic stem cells derived from aborted human embryos.
This rant isn’t about the pros or cons of abortion. I assume that each and every Stupid Head can make that decision for themselves – I am talking about what happens once it is done.
Of course his Holiless Pope Eggs Benedict is completely against this move as being un-Catholic and evil and nasty and and… It is really not Popi’s fault of course, as Pope, he is morally obliged to stand in the way of science. Look at how the church treated {en: Galileo Galilei}. How dare a mere mortal come up with a theory?! Let’s persecute him and shut him up…it is the will of God. In researching this rant I came across some references to speeches made by Popi before his popeification where his takes a typical papal stance and refers to the whole Galileo affair as, “a symptomatic case that permits us to see how deep the self-doubt of the modern age, of science and technology goes today”.
What about saying, “We screwed up being time and we are sorry. Galileo was right.” It wasn’t until 1992 when Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled, and officially conceded that the Earth was not stationary, as the result of a study conducted by the Pontifical Council for Culture. Helloooooo? I think that we had a pretty good idea that Galileo was right going back as far as 1991.
Why be so opposed to progress and scientific advancement? Because. The power of the Catholic Church is based directly on faith, and faith, in general, is based on ignorance. We don’t know why something is so we attribute it to God. Why is the sky blue? God made it that way. Why do people die? God wants to bring them home. Why do bad things happen to good people? God has a cruel side.
Unfortunately this whole anti-scientific approach is actually quite an insult to God. Think about it. If God is all great and almighty could he not create a being with an inherent intelligence capable of discovering all of the hidden mysteries out there? I would think so.
This all reminds of me Douglas Adam’s treatise on God and faith, which basically states that if God proved his existence, then faith would be destroyed as people would know it is a fact. Since faith is destroyed God ceases to exist as his “power” is derived from the faith people have. Thus, God has proven himself to not exist. QED.
What this means is that Popi and his friends want to keep the Catholic Church strong so that they can continue to collect money, hoard it in the Vatican and spend money spreading the word in Africa that condoms are bad.
Timmy out