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"The Pope and Natural Law"

As you may have seen, the current Pope, Benedict XVI, is taking what many see as a bit of a step backward in declaring the UK's potential law on Equality to be against the Church's best interests.

While he's not slamming the law itself, he has accused it of making the Catholic church unable to continue without accepting gay people and women into the positions it has previously maintained that they shouldn't be in.

Now it's important to understand the history of this before going straight for the throat and accusing the Pope of sexism, it's pretty important to the Church historically not to have women priests and they've only really just come around to accepting gay people.

Not that it comes from the bible anyway, but then a lot of the things in the bible have been mis-translated (having 3 kings at the crib for instance, there is no mention of number or of royalty) including gay relationships (which were around at the time and no-where in the bible explicitly says anything against them).

Does it surprise me? No. The current Pope (and most of the Vatican it seems) is very old fashioned and believes that this point of view will save the church rather than anything more forward thinking.

So, thoughts, comments? Does he have any point at all or is Pope Benedict just going with the current consensus of the Vatican?

To be honest, I find the idea of God changing his moral codes and values to suit each new society inconceivable. This creature supposedly created the universe, and therefore time itself. If he's against something, then he's probably against something for all time. People treat the Bible like it's pick and mix. If you look at the Bible logically, it really does suggest homosexuality is immoral.

Christianity is dependant on roots and tradition. Just have to wait for all the old sods to die off.

Garin wrote:
> pb wrote:
> Alfonse wrote:
> "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an
> abomination."
>
> This comes from a passage about the laws laid down by man,
> including not having sex with a woman during certain times of
> the
> month and other things that were frowned upon by the society at
> the time, as with lines like 'suffer a witch to live..' etc.
>
> Isnt it from Leviticus? The laws God gave to Moses.

Part of Leviticus is to do with the laws of God and part of it is the laying down of laws to Israel, though the phrase above was supposed to come to Moses from God. The New Testament then goes on to say this is not to be adhered to (partly through the actions of Jesus and partly, if I remember rightly, through St Paul's letters to the Corinthians). It's a long time since my Theology studies though so apologies if I'm wrong on any of this.

Alfonse wrote:
> Whatever. I'm still pretty sure it's supposed to be the word of
> God.
>
> The way I can see it, people can either take the book seriously,
> or twist it to meet their own moral values.

Well, no, it's not as simple as that.

The Bible is a book which has undergone a lot of changes. It's like, if you pardon the analogy, A Christmas Carol.

Originally, A Christmas Carol was a novella celebrating winter as death but also as new life, Scrooge represented winter itself. There are a lot of dark images in the story. Later representations on film and TV have changed it and have included, among other things, film studios, bright and cheerful pictures of London and even singing vegetables.

You can say you're a fan of A Christmas Carol and stick to its ideals of being good to others, celebrating life from the darkness etc without having to try to make vegetables sing...

pb wrote:
> Alfonse wrote:
> "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an
> abomination."
>
> This comes from a passage about the laws laid down by man,
> including not having sex with a woman during certain times of the
> month and other things that were frowned upon by the society at
> the time, as with lines like 'suffer a witch to live..' etc.

Isnt it from Leviticus? The laws God gave to Moses.

Warhunt wrote:
> I am happy to agree with that rule myself 0_o
>
> Joking aside, it's true. The church has to accept differences
> that they do not agree with religiously but other religions are
> allowed to flaunt rules because of their religion. Random
> eh?
>
> Do you think the governent would dare do the same with the other
> religions in England?

Well, yes. That's surely the point of any anti-descrimination laws. They would apply to everyone IRRESPECTIVE of religion, therefore it will apply to ALL religions.

And hands-up anyone who can name a major religion in the UK that isn't basically either homophobic or sexist?

And they do don't they?

Still pb made a valid point to the discussion. So it's not whatever :) It really is confused in general with the word of god, to the word of man.

Whatever. I'm still pretty sure it's supposed to be the word of God.

The way I can see it, people can either take the book seriously, or twist it to meet their own moral values.

Alfonse wrote:
> "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an
> abomination."

This comes from a passage about the laws laid down by man, including not having sex with a woman during certain times of the month and other things that were frowned upon by the society at the time, as with lines like 'suffer a witch to live..' etc.

I am happy to agree with that rule myself 0_o

Joking aside, it's true. The church has to accept differences that they do not agree with religiously but other religions are allowed to flaunt rules because of their religion. Random eh?

Do you think the governent would dare do the same with the other religions in England?