[skippy the wonder dog]

First off, I didn't say attacking the Catholic Church was absolutely wrong, I was arguing that some of the attacks by liberal secularists on the church are hypocritical when they ignore obvious problems within Islam while attacking the church for "not being with it". Professors like Ward Churchhill and Susan Sontag are not being intellectually honest when they excuse away actions by Islamic fundamentalists by essentially saying the West had it coming. Secondly, tradition in cultural institutions and practices has alot of redeeming value in explaining where Western culture and society has come from and how it evolves. Tearing down an old order of society without replacing it with something of intellectual solidity that the common person can understand and embrace leads to the stagnation of that society.

This is almost as intellectually dishonest as your first post.

The attempt to drag in the argument that "the west had it coming" fails. That argument, regardless of its merits, does not seek to excuse Islam as an organized religion; it seeks to excuse the actions of radicals who are acting for reasons that are as much political as religious. It does not excuse their religious views re, for example, the status of women; rather, it finds that terrorism is driven by political aims. To say that someone who argues that the Catholic church is "not with it" and also argues that terrorism has rational, political aims is a hypocrite is as clearly irrational as arguing that I'm a hypocrite for liking music but eating Cheerios.

This is yet another riff on that same old, tired theme:
Critic: "I don't like Froot Loops. They are sickly sweet, and the artificial colour can't be good for you."
Froot-Loop-loving Conservative: "Islam is much, much worse. Why don't you criticize Islam instead of Froot Loops? Muslims attacked us. You're a hypocrite for criticizing Froot Loops while ignoring the wrongs of Islam."

Regardless, the claim that liberal secularists are hypocritical is a form of ad hominem argument; their supposed hypocrisy has nothing to do with the validity of their statements, and you know it. Guess what? It's logical nonsense. Again, we're talking about you, young man, not your cousin.

Traditions? Catholicism's stance on birth control, for which it is often criticized, cannot be redeemed by an appeal to tradition. Surely, since birth control is already in wide use, society will not "stagnate" if the church relaxes its position. The value of tradition doesn't hold up so well when you move from the general to the concrete, does it? That's why people prefer to flee from the concrete to the comfort of ideology.

[VioletlightHeron]

Ok, several points here: I think you have misinterpreted the reasons for the Catholic Church's stance on birth control. Obviously you feel that the Church's dislike for birth control is rooted on their supposed desire to "control" women by restricting their access to birth control and turn them into barefoot, child rearing, home bound women under the control of the male head of the family. Their position is based on the sanctity of all human life. The church opposes the death penalty as well as birth control. It's not about controlling women but about increasing the reverence for all human life, regardless of its inconvenience to society and individuals in terms of loss of personal time, etc. My position is that birth control is a sad but understandable necessity which helps couples and adults plan how many children they can afford and want. Having it made freely available to anybody who wants it without a free and open public debate on the moral costs and benefits of this policy is simply wrong in my view. Is it right to have public schools have condoms and birth control freely available with little counseling about personal responsibility or encouraging the possibility of abstinence? I dont think so.

Regarding the supposed ad hominem attack against criticism of the Catholic Church, what I'm arguing against is the tendency of secular leftists of equivilizing their dislike of certain Catholic policies with radical Islamic groups and essentially saying that both are equally wrong while ignoring the plain fact that pluralism and debate exists freely in our society while it is extremely tenious in Muslim society. We do more harm to the moderate and secular Muslims fighting against the fundamentalism when the left lumps their disagreements with the right here and the fundamentalists in the Muslim world. When was the last time you were forced to agree with a conservative opinion in our society under threat of death? My point is the Catholic Church doesn't force you to agree or follow its rules or guidelines and they have evolved over the years under debate.

[go(r)d]

I think that attacking the Catholic Church for its "backwards" practices is wrong on two counts; one, it distracts from concerns that some Muslim practices, like apostasy and shar'ia, are even more backward than their Christian cousins and two, some of the attacks from the left are based on the supposition that tradition has no place in shaping and protecting society.

I think I would have to disagree strongly with the first point. I think that it isn't right for us to criticize Islam because it's not our culture. Do I thiink it's backwards and repressive? Yeah the way they run their socieities, I think that's the case.

But the Christian faith was instrimental in building what we call society and so it is the one that we should be criticizing. It's a "we take care of our own before we strike out at others" mentality. Saying we shouldn't criticize Christians and Catholics because they're less backwards than Muslims is just wrong. That's like saying Paul Martin is a better PM because he's not quite AS crooked and devious as Chretien.

And anyway, this all goes way beyond the issue of whether the Pope is too frail and feeble to do his "job". Dame said its a spiritual position, but it's not JUST spiritual - it's morel, philosophical, etc because the Pope is a moral and philsophical LEADER. And what kind of leading can he do in his state? Now that it's possible to keep someone alive decades longer than they naturally would be, this debate is going to arise every 20 years until they start retiring popes.

[skippy the wonder dog]

Oh, please.

I haven't taken any position with respect to birth control and Catholicism's stance on the subject. I have simply pointed out that this is one of the grounds on which the church is criticized, and used it as an example to demonstrate the falsity of your argument. To wit, since it is "freely available to any and all who want it," and has been for decades, it is simply foolish to suggest that societal harm will result from changing the official church line on the subject -- an official line that many practicing Catholics already ignore.

Rather than deal with what I actually say, you prefer to construct some fiction of what I actually believe, so you can accuse me of harbouring misconceptions. Nice try, but I'm not getting sucked into that game.

Re the ad hominem, it isn't a "supposed" ad hominem but an actual ad hominem. Pointing out the "hypocrisy" of a person who advances an argument by reference to other statements he has made is called ad hominem tu quoque, and that's exactly what you're doing. "Hipocrisy," need I remind you, was the word you used.

Now you're trying to rescue your argument by putting up a straw man: "the left" falsely equates Catholicism and Islam and ignores differences of degree. Voila, no more ad hominem. Well, ignoring the fact that this isn't what you actually argued before, you're still struggling because "the left" doesn't do this. Comparing things does not mean equating them. One or two fringe figures might seek to equate them, but that's a long way from your original proposition that criticizing the church is wrong, isn't it?

[VioletlightHeron]

Please see my later post about attacking Christianity; I agree that its one of the foundations of our society and it deserves to be questioned because thats one of the tenets of Western society. One of the problems I see in Islam is the lack of such internal debate among the political and religious leaders of Islam. The whole idea of having shar'ia involved in the family court arbitration process in Canada was kind of surreal to me in that some of the restrictions placed on women under some interpretations of the Qur'an by religious judges are very distasteful and go against our societal values. In my view, tolerance of different religious values does not mean it is allowed to subvert the equal application and fairness of justice to all citizens.

[Milwaukeehipster]

Hey Violetlight, I saw you were online, and I am way off topic, but it is good to see another Milwaukean on with das hips.

You know of any bars in Milw that are "Hip" on the Jukebox?