I'm waiting for my apology from the pope

As a woman I think I deserve one :slightly_smiling_face:, but hell a good chunk of people also do for even worse treatment, so I suppose I should get in line, Maybe he could start small by apologizing for their backward views on IVF? I’m not going to hold my breath. I really think that if the Catholic church survives another 100 years or so they will be apologizing for all that stuff. They’ll be going “Sorrrrrrrrry, wrong again”.
To give them credit they do seem to eventually come around, but they’re always 10 steps behind. Was it a mistake for them to apologize about anything? It shows them to be fallible. If they can get things wrong, then what are they good for?

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There is wisdom in that choice. @Kellii

Eventually coming around kicking and screaming doesn’t count with me and they fight like hell to pay any restitution. In fact I doubt any of them even do any hail marys. But I admire your capacity for forgiveness. :laughing:

Oh, I agree, but I still like to hear an admission that they were wrong even when they don’t go anywhere near far enough and it’s self serving. I’ve never heard such an admission from any other Christian denomination. I can’t imagine evangelicals ever doing any such thing. They might change some official doctrine, but no one ever apologizes for the old one. At least I’ve never seen it.

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Indeed! Martin Luther was an antisemite and I’ve never heard any Lutherans say shit about it.

Think you’ll be waiting a long time … took them 400 years to apologise for their treatment of Galileo …

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I even question the sincerity of that way over due apology. The YouTube channel “Breaking in the Habit” has a young Friar Casey and one of his monk buddies acting the victims because they felt the treatment of Galileo was being used against their church. Apparently people were saying that Galileo had been tortured when all that had actually been done to him was house arrest. They implied that the church did him and the world a favor by taking away his freedom because he was able to concentrate on his work. They fail to mention he was threatened with torture and what would have happened to him if he hadn’t recanted his belief that the earth traveled around the sun. Seeing how they viewed it was eye opening.

Indeed, the usual process of fabricating fake apologetic excuses for heinous conduct, is standard operating procedure for organised variants of Abrahamic religions.

On a different forum, I saw one of the more recent breed of neo-Thomist Catholic apologists engage in the same discoursive mendacity. Blatantly rewriting both science and history to conform to presuppositions.

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Here in Canada the government in attempt to educate the heathens, who up until then had been doing just fine thank you very much, set up residential schools. Some were Catholic but others were run by Anglican and Methodist churches. Some of these later two sold off their churches to pay restitution. The Catholics never did pay their share. A few years ago the Pope visited and offered a half assed apology for the harm residential schools caused but largely blamed a few bad apples and the government.

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Worse than that, you hear them try and pretend that centuries of European Christian anti-Semitism had nothing to do with the Holocaust. They even try to pretend the Nazis were atheists, talk about re-writing history.

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Indeed, women have been treated appallingly by the Catholic Church (the religion I was brought up in), by Christianity, just about every other religion and, of course, by the patriarchy in general.

To be fair to them, they’re quite good at Astronomy but yeah, the world would probably be a better place without them (and those other things mentioned above).

I suffered for a long time trying to resolve my love of science fiction, science and my rejected faith which was still there, shaping then as it still likely shapes me now (probably one of the reasons I get so angry at religions). Despite my efforts to get myself excommunicated, my name is still on their books and they still count me as one their effin’ flock.

UK Atheist

Ummmmm I hate to tell you but from what I can see they still consider you a Catholic even if you’ve been excommunicated. I guess they don’t think you should be allowed to spit out the Kool aid. They don’t seem to be all in on shunning as are so many Christian faiths. Unless you want to count not allowing you to be buried among them. Kind of ludicrous to threaten an atheist with that. I’m not Catholic so I’d be interested in what someone raised Catholic has to say. Do they practice any form of shunning? I suppose not allowing you to take communion is a form of shunning, though they apparently do seem to actually want you to still attend mass. They can’t seem to wrap their heads around someone wanting to leave. The Mormons and the Jehovah Witnesses seem willing to kick you to the curb, but I don’t know if even they’re willing to officially take you off their rolls.

Yeah, bummer that!

Not that I’m aware of but I guess there might be some more extreme forms of Catholicism… usually seems to be within religions.

Not sure they ID people so can they stop me? I mean, although I quite liked the way the things stuck to the top of my mouth, I’ve no interest in doing so but if I was hungry enough… I’d just steal something :rofl:

My mum met an ex-JW after my dad died. He’d been ex-whatevered, his family not allowed to see him (although his daughter came to visit once). Before he died, we’d had a few “discussions” where he’d claimed dinosaurs didn’t happen, at least not as science understands it… I recall getting quite annoyed at him because I couldn’t believe someone could be that ignorant.

UK Atheist

They’re not above converting the dead, it’s been a thriving business for years…

Nor are they alone among Christians in that of course. They can do whatever they like when I’ve gone, if a deity exists and doesn’t know I’m an atheist by now, that’d be pretty fucking hilarious anyway…

As far as the mormons go you can just ask to be excommunicated and they will do it. I know my brother did. I never bothered because why ask them for anything. I’m pretty sure that as soon as he died he was re-baptized by proxy. So they got you coming and going. They’re certain that once a person dies and finds a no vacancy sign on the pearly gates they’ll be happy for the second chance.

Neither can the muslims. Apostasy carries the death penalty in many muslim nations.

They just seem a few hundred years or so behind Christianity since that’s what christians were up to then. Now all christians can do is excommunicate someone and refuse to let them take part in their magic rituals, which is hilarious to a non believer. No wonder they seem reluctant to excommunicate an atheist.

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According the UK National Secular Society “The Freedom of Thought Report 2021 found that “apostasy” is punishable with death in at least ten countries; Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.”

CITATION

You might want to cross those off your bucket list of countries to visit.

Excepting Iran, I have felt no desire to visit any of those countries. There is a lot of ancient history to be explored in Iran, as well as a food culture that I’d like to learn more about (i.e. eat my way through Iran). But unfortunately, the country is off my list due to the current regime. China would also be a tempting vacation destination (because of ancient history and good food), but with the current regime in place, I’m going to stay away.

Two types of countries are off my list of countries to visit: theocracies (Iran, Saudi Arabi, etc.) and autocracies (Russia, China, Turkey, Hungary, etc.)

Nigeria does not have a national law resulting in the death penalty for apostasy. In fact, the Nigerian Constitution protects religious freedom. There are some states in the north that have instituted Sharia (which typically enforces death for apostasy). However, the national constitution also spells out that states’ laws cannot supersede federal law. Despite this, those northern states carry out killing for apostasy. One of those state’s governor advised his state citizens to just carry it out themselves since it is illegal.

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