For now I think I’m done with you and your further comments won’t be allowed here. When and if you will calm down and become able to discuss rationally, calmly and without name calling you’ll be welcome again.

A couple of final comments and I’ll leave you to your new wife, your scrum and to your other (?) readers. Your anti-Christian and anti-Catholic diatribes are deeply offensive. You have no idea of the complexity of Christian theology and your simplistic view of the fundamental theological issues of our times belittles everyone who truly believes and who truly longs for a better world. In the end, we will each be held accountable for our lives here on earth, whether in Poland or elsewhere, and I fear that your hateful and self-righteous conduct will condemn your soul to everlasting damnation. I hope that God might have mercy on you; I doubt that the victims of your hate and bigotry will.

Raul

As my favorite conservative columnist, Dinesh D’Souza, says: looking at your comment I feel like a mosquito in a nudist camp, so full it is of nonsense waiting to be debunked. Sorry you had to wait for the blow – it so happens that at present I don’t have much time for this kind of debates.

But lets get through with it.

Ad first #1 – so you think you’re a Roman Catholic! Wow, how about learning something more about your faith then? Because I think you either need to find yourself another church – or re-asses your views and repent for spreading falsehoods about Church’s position (I think it should be called “Pelosism” ) and thus potentially leading others astray. Please, consider that. Your soul is at stake, I don’t even have to know you did it.

Ad second #1 – very nice that you point this out, the thing is it doesn’t make any difference to the debate. This is just another aspect of the very same thing: the question whether homsexuality is a sin and something people suffering from should fight with not yield to – or whether it is just another choice for having fun with genitals. And we are not speaking here of consecrating bishops priests who have homosexual attractions, but those who openly practice it by – for example – living with their same-sex partners, which is an open violation of the teaching of the Bible.

But the way you make your point about the conflict in the Anglican Church is very revealing – you say that those who are opposed to homsexual bishops are coming from poor parts of Africa. That suggests you think their position is less valid because they are poor and African as opposed to you, rich and American? Logically this is nonsense and how much money people have in those bishops’ dioceses has nothing to do with whether they are right or wrong, but somehow you felt this is worth bringing up. Not fair.

Plus you seem to be deeply confused as to what church is and what its task on Earth is. Church is – or at least should be – primarily concerned with salvation of souls, not social welfare. Social welfare is secondary, it is merely a tool for souls to practice charity. It is very typical of the modern world, btw, where secularist do all they can to reduce the Church to being just another NGO taking care of the poor and sick with no pretense whatsoever to having an influence on society, its life and morals. But this view being popular doesn’t make it right – Church is not that.

Oh, and I would forget – what you say is also not true. Read links below and learn what is the real situation re. homosexual “marriages” in the Anglican Church.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030527.wgays0527/BNStory/International/
http://christianteens.about.com/od/homosexuality/f/EpisAngHomosexu.htm

Ad #2 – I’m sorry to say, but you are not up to speed with how the Catholic Church views Bible interpretation. Key difference here is that in the Roman Catholic Church it is the Church and – finally – the Pope who has authority to interpret the Bible in an infallible way that is binding for all Catholics – and yes, that includes you. That the Church discipline has become lax since the early 70-ies is very unfortunate and causes much confusion you write about, of which you also seem to be a victim. However, Church’s position on the issue of homosexuality is very clear and there is nothing to discuss here. Bishop Soto recently repeated that to a group of confused catholics who, I think, want to bend the Church teaching and rules on that one:

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2008/09/sacramento-bp-soto-speaks-truth-in-charity-to-homosexual-group/

BTW – you calling me names (“fool”, “liar”) won’t change the fact that the position of the Catholic Church on this issue is very clear. Nor the fact that in the Catholic Church it is the the Church’s teaching that says what is the correct reading of the Bible, not “Andy”. You might think different, you might think Bible is just distorted, not a word of God, homosexuality is cool and those suffering from it living together should be called “married” – but you can’t say Catholic position here is not clear, because that is simply untrue.

I won’t call you a liar or fool – you just don’t know what the position of your own Church is on the matter. And I don’t blame you – as I said, the Catholic Church is in a deep crisis today, preachers in error are not removed or only after repeating their error for years and leading many astray. But luckily there are signs of recovery so with time it will get better.

Ad #3 – The fact is you don’t know if I questioned any dogmas in my mind or not. You so assume because you think there is only one possible outcome of such questioning – same as yours, which is obviously untrue.

But apart from that – this religion is based on belief that God has created the Universe along with its laws, including the moral laws. He then made them known to man through prophets and finally through his Son, Jesus Christ. Which, in turn, established the Church to teach those laws and uphold them – not discuss them, not question them, not debate them. Logically, Church can not change them in any way, because Church did not invent them – Church just carries them through centuries and repeats them to each new generation. Also, if something was always morally wrong and Church said so then this can’t change – I mean, morality doesn’t evolve since Jesus – because He was God’s final “messenger”. In fact it would have been nonsense – if a deed was considered a sin two centuries ago it has to be a sin now. Otherwise nothing can be properly called as sin.

Again, you can be an atheist and reject this whole concept – then your position, albeit wrong, would be at least logically coherent. However, within the Catholic Church your only options are agree with God’s law as taught by the Church or reject it – and face consequences.

And, BTW, sin being more widespread today – in fact our culture is largely the culture of sin – doesn’t make it less of a sin.

Ad first #4 – as indicated above, Catholic teaching about homosexuality and marriage is not a matter of discussion – it is clearly defined by the Church and has been for centuries. This is an indisputable fact. You can reject that, but then don’t go around telling people you are a Roman Catholic because you clearly don’t share the faith nor morality with the Roman Catholic Church.

Ad second #4 – my comments on Reid’s comments is how I perceive bringing my location up in this discussion, as it has nothing to do with the points I make. You made, btw, same thing with African bishops. Something for you to consider calmly please – is someone’s location making his argument on morals or religion less valid?

Ad #5 – thank you for your concern regarding the state of my intellect. It is not for me to judge it, however, I think I have at least caused you to exercise yours which is always a good thing.

1. I’m a Roman Catholic also.

1. The potential schism in the Anglican Communion is not due to a difference of opinion on same-sex marriage, but on the issue of consecration of homosexual bishops. That’s not anywhere near the same thing. You knew that, didn’t you Andy? Did you also know that the leaders of the opposition to the position of the American Church are primarily bishops of impoverished diocese in the most desperate parts of Africa? As we have also seen throughout the history of the Roman Catholic Church, which certainly is not alone in this, rigid and conservative theology has often been used as crowd control for populations too embattled to put such things as the sexual orientation of their bishops very high on their list of personal priorities. Precious little good this focus on fundamentalism has done for the starving and afflicted parishioners in these blighted areas, and I say shame on these bishops for even taking the time to think about such trivia when the world around them is in such despair.

2. For a devout Roman Catholic, you seem to be somewhat confused about the Church’s position on Biblical interpretation. The Catholic Church does not adhere to a strict and literal interpretation of the Bible, unlike many Protestant denominations, especially those in the southern part of the United States. This fact is amplified by the frequency with which Bibles sanctioned by the Church are revised and rewritten. Take, for instance, the New American Bible (NAB) an English translation prepared by Roman Catholic scholars in conjunction with the American College of (Roman Catholic) Bishops. I’m sure you are familiar with the controversy accompanying the original 1970 version and the subsequent translations with their on-again, off-again relationship with the Vatican. Even the more traditional Douai-Rheims and Ignatius Catholic Study Bibles differ markedly from each other in a variety of important ways. Devout Biblical scholars devote their lives to these questions without ever reaching a real resolution. How is it that you find it so easy to instruct others on the true moral code of the world as set forth in the Bible, when you don’t even understand (or at least acknowledge) your own Church’s continuing struggle to reach consensus on the same issue? Did you really think that there’s only one Bible and it always says the same thing, no matter which language and no matter which version? Really? I’d prefer you tell the truth: “I, Andy, really have no idea what the Bible says, but I think homosexuality is wrong and must be stopped at any cost!” As much as I might disagree with you, at least I wouldn’t be able to call you a fool or a liar.

3. I find most of Roman Catholic theology to be uplifting and beautiful. I do not, however, find anything appealing at all in those who, like serfs in medieval Europe, slavishly cling to everything they’ve been told without thinking or questioning or wondering how it all makes sense. How deep is your faith when you cannot even imagine questioning the rote recitation of Church dogma? God gave you a brain, Andy. You should use it. He wants you to use it.

4. You need spend only five minutes on the internet (using the search engine of your choice; both Google and Yahoo are based in my community, and we welcome your business with either one) to notice that very serious theological thought is being given to the issue of Biblical comments (or the lack thereof) on homosexuality. That’s a fact. To you it may be simple and obvious and you may truly believe that your views have long been established as the moral fiber of the world. To more thoughtful people, though, people who don’t believe they know the answers in advance, people who have examined the original texts in their original language, it is often not so clear. And even for those who do believe they have found the answers in the Bible, the answers are not the same, but vary from one interpreter to the next. If you think you know the answers, Andy, don’t commit the blasphemy of claiming they came from the Bible, because it just isn’t true.

4. In all fairness to your friend Reid, he actually did not say that Poland is a remote backwater. To the contrary, he said he’d been there and found it a beautiful place with a haunting history that made it difficult for him to understand how you could embrace the core values of the fascists and others who brutalized your poor homeland during World War II. Your characterization of his comments, like many of your statements, is simplistic and wrong.

5. Your statements on this blog about your professional attributes begins with the observation that you have a first-rate intellect. I don’t doubt that’s true, Andy, but I think you ought to exercise it every now and then because it seems to me it’s getting lazy and out of shape.

Raul

But my point not exactly religious. My point in the original post is that by cutting our civilization from its spiritual core – which is Christianity – and trying to build a society that is at odds with its values people like Reid help damage our ailing civilization further. And that this is foolish, because what we should concern ourselves with is how to save it – not how to accommodate ridiculous claims of mentally disturbed individuals.

To sum it all up: so far Reid has dismissed what I wrote as “ramblings of Andy from remote obscure Poland” and you dismiss it as ramblings of “a silly boy”. So much for a discussion. Can you come up with anything more solid and not based on personal attacks and name calling? You can do better than this, can’t you?

I’ve been following this exchange with some interest. I think Reid raised a lot of serious questions, and I was hoping you’d have some serious answers, rather than silly (and sorry, but pretty juvenile) dismissive retorts. If you’re trying to run a serious blog with some sort of interaction among yourself and those who take the time to comment on your posts, you ought to think about actually listening to the points that people make and trying to respond more seriously. Your last post makes you sound like a belligerent little boy sticking his tongue out at someone because he can’t think of anything more relevant to do. Reid’s logic is anything but twisted, and while he did make an effort to understand your views through the filter of your environment, I didn’t get the idea that he made any lame attempts to dismiss your arguments due to your nationality. You sound silly when you say that stuff, not to mention your goofy parting shot. You can do better than this, can’t you?

Raul

Our fundamental disagreement is that you accept your general pronouncements (“Plus what they practice is an abomination in the eyes of God and a great sin – Bible is very clear on this point, as you should know very well.” or “Marriage is a relation between man and woman, not members of the same sex by its very definition.”) as fact rather than merely as your opinion. These statements, in reality, have no basis in fact and no consensus basis even in the Bible. They are Andy’s View of the World from Poland, bearing just about no relevance to me or even to Catholicism elsewhere in the world. Andy’s Views of the World from Poland come nowhere near the state of the art in Biblical scholarship and aren’t even a very nuanced view of the more conservative views of the Catholic and Mormon Churches, allies in the fight against this great evil. Finally, your assumption that true members of the Catholic Church blindly accept the teaching of the church lest they not be Christians any longer, ignores the state of Catholicism worldwide, where dissent is rife, although in fairness, it appears true that Poles cling to church doctrine with a tenacity seen almost nowhere else, including in Rome itself, so from your very narrow point of view perhaps your nihilistic views seem more reasonable than they do elsewhere.

Andy, Biblical scholars are utterly at odds over the actual statements in the Bible regarding homosexuality, many of them having been fundamentally changed over the centuries due to a variety of translations, some of them specifically designed to support various positions of the Catholic Church and others over the centuries. In my opinion, Andy, the most credible analysis goes back to the original Greek and Hebrew, ignoring the various interfering of translators with an agenda to promote. In fact, there was no concept of homosexuality as we now recognize it until the 19th Century, and many ancient civilizations had accepted the presence of homosexuals in society as a normally occurring fact. There are certainly Biblical provisions condemning homosexual rape, homosexual incest, homosexual ritualistic sex and, believe it or not, homosexual bestiality, which appears to be sex with angels of the same gender. I would certainly condemn those same acts, except that I don’t understand angel sex to be bestiality. Reasonable minds can differ, and do differ over whether there are Biblical passages condemning homosexuality as we recognize it today, or of familial homosexual relationships. Many scholars believe there are not. Same-sex marriage is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible and is not condemned, although there are Biblical stories that account, also without condemnation, close and familial same-sex relationships. At the same time, the Bible does note, with approval, that female rape victims should marry their rapists, female captives should become the concubines of their captors, that men can marry multiple wives, that men can marry a woman and her slave, who would then become his concubine, and the list goes on. Moreover, as has been fully reported in the blogosphere over the last few years, the Bible also condemns many practices common in the 21st Century, such as the blending of fibers in clothing, consumption of shrimp and others. I guess a fellow just has to pick and choose which ones he’s going to pay attention to? If you’re a Biblical literalist, as you pretty obviously try to be, how can you account for all of this? Really, Andy, I’m interested in your answer.

Your assumption regarding my Christian denomination is odd. I said I was an active member of one of the oldest Christian denominations, and I am. The Anglican Communion long ago parted ways with your view of “the word of God you say you believe in and the teaching of the [Roman Catholic [C]hurch]”, having rejected Roman dogma for a more enlightened form of Christianity. Even your pope does not claim that we Anglicans are not Christians; curious that you would take it upon yourself to do so. Speaking of which, Andy, I do not appreciate that offensive remark, but fortunately I do appreciate that it came from an uninformed source, which will save me tonight from dreams of my own descent into hell.

One last note about the irony of a Pole arguing for a particularly aggressive relationship between his religious beliefs and governmental acts. The last time I was in Poland, in addition to a number of beautiful sights such as the salt mines near Kracow, I saw a few sights that were not so beautiful in that they both represented the ungodly brutalization of the Polish people in the Second World War. One was the site of the former Warsaw Jewish Ghetto, almost utterly devoid of Jews for the last 65 years and, even worse, the death camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau. The Nazis, as all fascist movements, had as a central tenet the blending of church and state and intense intolerance for minority groups, including homosexuals. In addition to Polish Jews, Polish dissidents and Gypsys, Polish homosexuals, complete with pink stars identifying them in the Camps were routinely brutalized and murdered at Auschwitz/Birkenau and were subject to the tender ministrations of Dr. Mengele in his infamous laboratory at Auschwitz. Why? As much as anything, intolerance and the misguided religious views of people who missed the entire point of religion.

Homosexuals in your country have been through a great deal more than your shallow disapproval. I don’t think Andy’s View of the World from Poland is going to cause them, or anyone else, to miss much sleep.

Finally, mindless repetition of your charge that I would be protesting Google if they had taken a different point of view doesn’t make it any truer than it was the first time you said it. Google has a right to take whatever stand it wishes and, as you’ve said, consumer have the option of whether or not they wish to use Google’s services. That is my opinion, has always been my opinion, and does not change to conveniently suit your argumentative purpose.

This is my final appearance on your blog; your lack of interest in points of view other than your own makes me think my time is best spent elsewhere. Best of luck to you.

Reid

My position on Google would be the same no matter which way they would take their official position re Prop 8 – I understand you find it difficult to believe in, because you would be protesting then, right?

Lastly, how can you be a Catholic or Orthodox (only “oldest” Christian churches – any other “denominations” strayed mainly from Catholicism centuries later) Christian and support homosexuals claim that they can marry? They can not just like I can’t demand to be called a horse. Marriage is a relation between man and woman, not members of the same sex by its very definition. Plus what they practice is an abomination in the eyes of God and a great sin – Bible is very clear on this point, as you should know very well. So is the position of the “oldest Christian churches” – both Catholic and Orthodox. You may think of yourself as Christian, but you are clearly against both the word of God you say you believe in and the teaching of the church. Something is logically wrong here.

As I read through this post, I had a visceral reaction to the thought process required in order for you to be so sure that your own moral code is the one upon which civilization should be based. I was thinking that I could not agree with you less, when I came upon your final paragraph and found something upon which we can evidently both agree. Anyone who thinks that same-sex marriage is the biggest issue of our time is, indeed, a fool. I would extend your logic only along its natural trajectory to also note that ANYONE overly concerned about ANY marriage other than their own is a fool.

Of course, you had to ruin the moment by referring to homosexuals as “mentally disturbed individuals”, bursting the momentary delusion I had that we had actually found something over which we could see eye-to-eye. Why is it that people like you always resort to name calling?

The instant of brotherhood having dissipated, I realized that your pronouncement of the foolishness of a focus on same-sex marriage came only after a multi-paragraph diatribe over the looming threat posed to society by … same-sex marriage. I guess I’m having a difficult time putting these seemingly conflicting theses of yours together into a cohesive whole. You weren’t really trying to subtly imply that you yourself are a fool for doing the very thing you decry? Were you?

But that’s not really the difficult issue for me. I read your piece as arguing that western civilization is slowly failing because it has no sense of morality, no sense that there is essential rightness and wrongness in the world. What morality we have at all is based on whim and situational convenience and is subject to change with the tides. Based on this shaky foundation, you suggest, the world that stands for everything actually stands for nothing at all. You cite our Greek, Roman and Christian heritage as the path from which you say we have strayed.

Let me tell you what troubles me about your approach. It’s not that I think you are fundamentally wrong. I too believe that morality is not relative and that there are some things that are inherently right and some that are inherently wrong. I am also a practicing Christian, an active member of one of the oldest and most conservative Christian denominations in the world. The thing that troubles me is exactly where it is that you seem to get this moral code that you believe should govern us all. More basic than that is why you believe that your moral code is the one that should prevail.

What I can see of your moral code is very troubling to me. My moral code tells me very clearly that standing in judgment of the moral worth of others is one of the most clearly immoral things you can do. My moral code tells me that it is not the provence of man to second-guess God’s will for myself or for others, much less to determine that He has produced so many humans who are as flawed as your moral code tells you he has done. My moral code tells me that when you do those things, you are an affront to God. Fortunately, I believe that God will ultimately forgive you, and in fact forgive all of us for the sins we commit but come to repent as we grow older and wiser and realize the grievous error of our ways.

How has you moral code told you that your marriage will suffer because of what someone else does in their life? You say: “Also, there was no civilization in history that was not protecting of family by ensuring its special social status and protecting marriage that creates it.” That’s not historically accurate, but more importantly, why do you think that your marriage needs special status? Is it that fragile? Is it because you might, but on the other hand might not, choose to procreate? Does the marriage between two barren heterosexuals deserve the same special status even though no “family” will come of their union? Why? Much more importantly, who made these rules of yours, and why do you insist that they and others like them have to be the guiding morality of a successful civilization. If the problem is that we need some moral code, ANY moral code, why don’t you consider adopting someone else’s as you suggest we all adopt yours? I’d be willing to share mine with you in painstaking detail, but I have to warn you, it’s pretty rigorous and I’m not at all certain you could keep up.

Andy, you pronounced yourself a fool in your last paragraph for evidently thinking that it IS the biggest thing in the world whether two [homosexuals] marry each other. I can’t gainsay you on that, given that you know yourself better than I know you. But I will say this. I think there are a billion things more important than same-sex marriage except, solely, to same-sex couples to whom, I’d wager, it’s every bit as important as your marriage is to you. Maybe more important, really, since they have to endure so much more abuse and name calling in the process. It’s pretty easy for you; homosexuals have to fight and suffer for it. Maybe that makes it more valuable to them.

I think that heterosexuals who give their qualms over same-sex marriage more than two minutes of thought need to think whether there isn’t something more important for them to think about. Like hunger and disease in Africa; standing idly by while hunger and worse still prevail in large portions of the world is more a mark of a failing civilization than failure of the world to hew to your view of an Andy-centric world moral view.

A final comment. This post established firmly in my mind that you were not altogether honest in the Google/same-sex marriage post of a week or two ago. I thought then and am convinced now that it was never about Google and always about the nerve of those damn queers to think they can get married. You kept protesting that people didn’t understand your point, but I’d suggest we understood it all too well.

Reid