Big ups to pt for pointing me toward this absolutely brilliant slaying of Catholicism by Stephen Fry. Man, this is so insanely good …
Big ups to pt for pointing me toward this absolutely brilliant slaying of Catholicism by Stephen Fry. Man, this is so insanely good …
from the same debate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUc-73FgJnw
I’m a Christian. That’s notably different from Catholicism, of course, but as one trying to know God, criticisms of one usually relate to the other.
That said, I am pleasantly surprised at how I agree, 100 percent, with everything he said. I’m sure that he believes in ways different than I, but he’s right. About, like, all of that. Breaks my heart for how Christians act much like Catholics. We’re not as notorious for being anti-birth control and for taking advantage of children, but we’ve made quite the name for ourselves when it comes to disparaging those different from ourselves.
Here’s to living better.
Thanks for sharing, Jeff. You robbed me of 10 minutes of writing time, but it was worth it.
Fry opens with a lie about the torture of Protestant missionaries, drawn straight from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. He follows up with an innuendo about the role of the Church in propagating ignorance, a dishonesty so prevalent it even has a name, the Draper-White thesis. He closes by proposing that the Church ought to donate wealth to the fight against poverty — which, of course, the Church already does, on a scale that dwarfs the efforts of all the other civic institutions man has managed to create. This only sounds like a “slaying” if you’re ignorant . . . not that I’m surprised to see Mr. Pearlman reveling in ignorance of course.
But we all know that the REAL thrust of Fry’s remarks were his attack on celibacy as a twisted and hysterical commandment. I’ve never understood this accusation. I grew up in the Church; I came to know my own sexuality through Catholic education, the teachings of the Church, and my own family. I have to tell you I have NEVER heard or seen a Church teaching to the effect that sex was evil, or the body was shameful. To the contrary, I was taught that sex was natural, that it had the potential to be beautiful and life-affirming, but that it had the potential to warp our characters if we treated the faculty as an itch to be scratched instead of a constructive faculty. The decision that followed from that lesson, to engage my sexuality in a disciplined and responsible way, never struck me as a hysterical decision, or one born out of fear. It was just the sensible approach to take. It may have led to some moments of physical frustration — but nothing like the anguish and self-loathing that Fry describes.
Frankly, Fry is the one who sounds hysterical to me. And if the rest of you really live lives that are so fraught with tension over an erection — well, I feel sorry for you. But you might find it helpful to remember that there’s a significant minority of us that don’t understand what the hell you’re getting so worked up about.
I agree with Fry (oddly), and would take it even one step further: the Roman Catholic “church” is, in fact, the single most evil institution in earth’s history. Their cooperation with fascism in WW2, the inquisition, etc. Not to mention that much of the blame placed on Eurpoean Imperialism was really Catholic Missions efforts. That group has killed more people than any other.