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Posts Tagged ‘church’
A bit of TOK
In интернет, ethics, moral issues, philosophy, relationship, religion, traditions, writing on February 18, 2013 at 12:54
Pressured by church to sign a petition…
In Uncategorized on February 25, 2012 at 07:58My former Orthodox church suggested to me to join a petition against gay marriage… That’s what I replied (for the record).
Could you please remove me and my children from all mailing and parish lists as we are not interested in religion any more?
Because of this I am also not interested in formalising personal relationships but as a person who has been married I feel it would be utterly unkind for me to deny this opportunity for any other grown up people, whatever they sex or number would be. I feel the things which really matter in any relationship are freedom, love and happiness, not labels, certificates or an opinion of absolute strangers. I am so happy I can now say freely what I have been suppressing inside for years.
I hope you will understand
These is a gross mistake in the text of their petition: “Throughout history and in virtually all human societies marriage has always been the union of a man and a woman. Marriage reflects the complementary natures of men and women…” “If marriage is redefined once, what is to stop it being redefined to allow polygamy?” As far as I know, polygamy was quite common in many societies. Plus very early marriages forbidden now. Traditions can’t help their case. Also funny that their petition is not on official government site. Probably wouldn’t pass the standard.
The message has been forwarded from the main priest at official church mail address so the pressure on parish members to join the petition is obvious.
Anyway here is the link to an opposite petition if anybody is interested. No pressure whatsoever 🙂
Priests brawl in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity
In Uncategorized on December 29, 2011 at 09:20At one of oldest churches in the world, built over the cave that tradition marks as the place Jesus was born, Franciscan, Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests have brawled annually around Christmas Day for more than a century.
This year was no different.
Scuffles between the rival groups of priests broke out during a cleaning of the church in preparation for Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7. The BBC reports that about 100 priests fought with brooms as tourists looked on, until Palestinian police broke up the clashes. No one was seriously injured, and there were no arrests.
“No one was arrested because all those involved were men of God,” Bethlehem police Lt. Col. Khaled al-Tamimi told Reuters. Tamimi called the incident “a trivial problem that . . . occurs every year.”
In past years, the priests have brawled over who owns which altars, passageways and chandeliers, and how to do repairs, according to news accounts. In 2010, the fight broke out while priests were trying to repair the church’s rotting, collapsing roof.
In 2008, the fight took place next to the purported site of Jesus’s tomb and landed two clergymen in jail.
Watch the video of this year’s melee here.
‘Harry Potter and yoga are evil’, says Catholic Church exorcist
In Uncategorized on December 5, 2011 at 08:05For most people it is a way of toning the limbs and soothing the stresses of everyday life, but the Catholic Church’s best-known exorcist says yoga is evil.
Father Gabriele Amorth, who for years was the Vatican’s chief exorcist and claims to have cleansed hundreds of people of evil spirits, said yoga is Satanic because it leads to a worship of Hinduism and “all eastern religions are based on a false belief in reincarnation”.
Reading JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books is no less dangerous, said the 86-year-old priest, who is the honorary president for life of the International Association of Exorcists, which he founded in 1990, and whose favourite film is the 1973 horror classic, The Exorcist.
The Harry Potter books, which have sold millions of copies worldwide, “seem innocuous” but in fact encourage children to believe in black magic and wizardry, Father Amorth said.
“Practising yoga is Satanic, it leads to evil just like reading Harry Potter,” he told a film festival in Umbria this week, where he was invited to introduce The Rite, a film about exorcism starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as a Jesuit priest.
“In Harry Potter the Devil acts in a crafty and covert manner, under the guise of extraordinary powers, magic spells and curses,” said the priest, who in 1986 was appointed the chief exorcist for the Diocese of Rome.
“Satan is always hidden and what he most wants is for us not to believe in his existence. He studies every one of us and our tendencies towards good and evil, and then he offers temptations.” Science was incapable of explaining evil, said Father Amorth, who has written two books on his experiences as an exorcist. “It’s not worth a jot.
The scientist simply explores what God has already created.” His views may seem extreme, but in fact reflect previous warnings by Pope Benedict XVI, when as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s enforcer of doctrinal orthodoxy.
In 1999, six years before he succeeded John Paul II as Pope, he issued a document which warned Roman Catholics of the dangers of yoga, Zen, transcendental meditation and other ‘eastern’ practises.
They could “degenerate into a cult of the body” that debases Christian prayer, the document said.
Yoga poses could create a feeling of well-being in the body but it was erroneous to confuse that with “the authentic consolations of the Holy Spirit,” the document said.
Italian yoga schools said Father Amorth’s criticism was absurd.
“It’s an accusation that has nothing to do with reality,” Vanda Vanni, the founder of the Mediterranean Yoga Association, told Adnkronos, an Italian news agency.
“It’s a theory — if one can call it a theory — that is totally without foundation. Yoga is not a religion or a spiritual practise. It doesn’t have even the slightest connection with Satanism or Satanic sects.” Giorgio Furlan, the founder of the Yoga Academy of Rome, said yoga had nothing to do with religion, “least of all Satanism.” “Whoever says that shows that they know absolutely nothing about yoga,” he said.
Father Amorth has previously said that people who are possessed by Satan vomit shards of glass and pieces of iron and have such superhuman strength that even children have to be held down by up to four people.
He has also claimed that the sex abuse scandals which have engulfed the Catholic Church in the US, Ireland, Germany and other countries was proof that the Anti-Christ is waging a war against the Holy See.
2:31PM GMT 25 Nov 2011
