Speaking during the Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI said that "religious sentiments" were increasingly ranked among the "unwelcome leftovers of antiquity" and held up to scorn and ridicule.
How perceptive of your eminence, it's because it's true.
He used this year's Good Friday meditations at the Stations of the Cross to compare attempts to purge religion from public life to the mockery Jesus Christ faced from the mob as he was led out to be crucified.
Yes Jesus being mocked is the same as people realizing that religion is bullshit and because there is more than one perhaps the public arena isn't the place for it's nasty little nuggets of retardation.
Speaking at the seventh Station of the Cross, where Jesus is made an "object of fun", he said: "We are shocked to see to what levels of brutality human beings can sink. Jesus is humiliated in new ways even today. When things that are most holy and profound in the faith are being trivialised, the sense of the sacred is allowed to erode.
That's because nothing is sacred, and people are finally realizing it.
"Everything in public life risks being desacralised: persons, places, pledges, prayers, practices, words, sacred writings, religious formulae, symbols, ceremonies.
Yes kind of like the catholic church rolled over the pagans, kind of like they stole their symbols and holidays and ceremonies, along the way desecrating the people that stood in the way, tearing down places trivializing prayers to older gods, replacing them with their particular form of guilt and lies.
"Our life together is being increasingly secularised. Religious life grows diffident. Thus we see the most momentous matters placed among trifles, and trivialities glorified.
Ok here I agree, I mean have you seen mTV, or watched CNN for more than a few hours at a time?
"Values and norms that held societies together and drew people to higher ideals are laughed at and thrown overboard. Jesus continues to be ridiculed!"
That's a non-sequitur your eminence, Jesus being ridiculed has nothing to do with any of the things that held societies together or higher ideals, Jesus is an amalgamation of your ego and your desire for guilt oh and money.
The Pope, who turns 82 later this month, prayed that Christians would respond to the problem by growing in faith.
Another word for ignorance.
"May we never question or mock serious things in life like a cynic," he prayed.
Wouldn't want anyone thinking or questioning the status quo, oh no let's treat it with respect, when it hasn't earned any. STOP MAKING JESUS SAD!!!
"Allow us not to drift into the desert of godlessness. Enable us to perceive you in the gentle breeze, see you in street corners, love you in the unborn child."
That's a wonderfull sentiment, yes when I see a fetus I think Jesus allright, and that gentle breeze might be a fart but the crack head sleeping in the street corners sure does remind me of that lovable martyr.
The annual Good Friday procession at the Colosseum, where thousands of early Christians died as martyrs, tends to focus on the troubles facing the world.
Wow another Non-Sequitor, since they were martyrs uhm what where their names again? Oh well whatever I'm sure they still did a good job, oh ok so them dying reflects the economic situation, or pirates, or you know dem terrorists, yes when I see martyrs I know I'm thinking. Shit where did I leave my keys?
On Easter Sunday, the Pope's Urbi et Orbi (to the City and to the World) message is of a completely different tone, reflecting his hope and joy on the day of the Resurrection.
I suppose this isn't the time to tell him that this isn't the day of anybodys ressurection, because nobody has ever been resurected, well not from the dead anyways. Unless wait a minute, when did superman come back from the dead, what day was that?
The Pope's Good Friday message this year came after several high-profile British cases in which Christians have been reprimanded by their public-sector employees for talking about their faith at work.
I don't think they should of been reprimanded, I think being an annoying twat comes with it's own reward. I still prefer freedom of speech to everyone being happy.
Caroline Petrie, 45, a nurse from Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, was suspended by an NHS trust last December after being reported by a carer for offering to pray for an elderly patient. North Somerset Primary Care Trust finally relented in February and reinstated her, but maintained Ms Petrie should not have offered to pray.
Again I think that's fine, I've had countless people tell me they were going to pray for me, and you know I doubt they did because all the studies point to prayer acctualy making someone situation worse.
Jennie Cain, a receptionist at a Christian school was left facing dismissal for sending a private email asking for spiritual support after her five-year-old daughter was reprimanded for talking about hell.
Once again that's just stupid, I mean and this in a xian school, who needs lions when you have xians, just throw them to their own.
New NHS guidelines state that doctors and nurses face harassment charges if they are accused of "preaching" to staff or patients, while a draft code of practice for teachers could be used by schools to discipline those who discuss their beliefs with pupils.
Preaching is harrasment, but that dosen't matter, they have to be allowed to do it, so that I can tell them to fuck off and equally respected. Teachers should also be allowed to discuss their beliefs but should not be allowed to prostelitize because children don't understand and don't have all the bullshit filters in place. However if I asked a teacher what religion they were, I want them to answer so that I know weather or not I can trust them on anything else they say.
Such developments led Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, to proclaim in February that many Christians now "have the daily challenge of living by a set of values that the world thinks are mad".
You chose it you live with it.
Last Sunday Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor also referred to the problem secularisation posed to Christians in his final letter to Catholic congregations as the Archbishop of Westminster.
He wrote: "We live in a very secular society that finds it difficult for people to hear and to experience the presence of God in their lives."
No no, it's god who makes it hard, if god wanted to not be difficult he could easilly be approachable, reveal him self and tons more people would embrace him and give him money and buy him large golden hats.
here is how other countries who don't give a shit about jesus and never have cellebrate holidays older than the xian religion.
In Norway, in addition to staying at mountain cabins and cross-country skiing in the mountains and painting eggs, a contemporary tradition is to read or watch murder mysteries at Easter.
In Finland, Sweden and Denmark, traditions include egg painting and small children dressed as witches collecting candy door-to-door, in exchange for decorated pussy willows. This is a result of the mixing of an old Orthodox tradition (blessing houses with willow branches) and the Scandinavian Easter witch tradition. In the northern and eastern parts of the Netherlands (Twente and Achterhoek), Easter Fires (in Dutch: "Paasvuur") are lit on Easter Day at sunset. Easter Fires also take place on the same day in large portions of Northern Germany ("Osterfeuer").
In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, a tradition of spanking or whipping is carried out on Easter Monday. In the morning, men spank women with a special handmade whip called a pomlázka (in Czech) or korbáč (in Slovak), or, in eastern Moravia and Slovakia, throw cold water on them. The pomlázka/korbáč consists of eight, twelve or even twenty-four withies (willow rods), is usually from half a meter to two meters long and decorated with coloured ribbons at the end. The spanking normally is not painful or intended to cause suffering. A legend says that women should be spanked in order to keep their health and beauty during whole next year.
An additional purpose can be for men to exhibit their attraction to women; unvisited women can even feel offended. Traditionally, the spanked woman gives a coloured egg and sometimes a small amount of money to the man as a sign of her thanks. In some regions the women can get revenge in the afternoon or the following day when they can pour a bucket of cold water on any man. The habit slightly varies across Slovakia and the Czech Republic. A similar tradition existed in Poland (where it is called Dyngus Day), but it is now little more than an all-day water fight.
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