NEWS: Models Aren't Paid to Have Opinions, Are They?

I have never met a single person who did not believe in something she or he could not prove.

But in and of itself that's a contradiction. The Commandments I mean. God gives us free will. It is our divine right. But he also gives us a bunch of rules that we're commanded to obey. Now I suppose it might not be seen as a contradiction since we can exercise that free will and break those rules, and that's all well and good as long as the only punishment for breaking those rules is this idea of hell or whatever else.

But it seems to me that since we're given by God the right of free will, that the church should have no power to hold anything over us except this idea of Hell. They should only be able to say, "well, you can choose not to follow God's path, but you'll go to hell." They have no business setting laws, which govern earthly matters and therefore should be out of their purview.

You're Catholic and you're posting this? Yay for hypocrisy, I guess.

Criticizing the doctrine of a faith you happen to belong to just makes you look like an idiot. You either don't understand your own religion, or are selectively choosing to ignore various aspects of it out of convenience, in which case you really aren't a Catholic, and possibly not even a Christian.

But that's not important. The important thing is to continue to bitch about men and paint women as victims, perpetually under the thumb of a vast misogynist conspiracy. That's far better for everyone than promoting gender blindness and *gasp* the importance of individuality.

After all, like the t-shirt says: "The smallest minority is the individual."

I'm sure disagreeing with you makes me a rapist or something, but whatever.

Yeah... That, uh... That's some pretty poor logic.

Criticizing your own religion is one of the best parts about religion. I criticize my very own religion day-in-day-out because I want to make more sense, by the Gods.

She's bitching about a man, not really men in particular. Just Pope Palpatine, here. He's an assdick, and should be pointed out as such as often as possible.

Gender Blindness? Did I miss some sort of lapsed duBois sarcasm that was missed a la "whoooosh?" Blindness about Gender is what promotes little or no education about how important Gender is to us all.

Then you my friend are not a Catholic. What you are doing is picking and choosing parts of a fairytale that you want to believe; the parts that suit you. So many people do this these days because either their life contradicts their religion (log cabin republicans) or they are just too smart to know that certain things about their religion are too idiotic and prehistoric to believe in or defend. Epitome of the phrase 'making up the rules as you go along'. I mean come on, do you witness to people? Or is that requirement also deemed too irrational?

By dictionary.com's definition of cult I believe that both Scientology and Christianity qualify. The only distinction that I see is that Christianity is far larger and therefore has many more 'charismatic leaders'.

Again this makes you something other than a Catholic. All Christian religions demand that you witness. Why don't you follow your religion completely and fully?

Again, with the not following your religion when it doesn't suit you. I'm beginning to wonder if there are any parts of Christianity that you believe left after all the disclaimers that you've made.

You don't need it buddy, by the way you write you're too smart for it.

Yeah, that is pretty dumb.

Suck it, Martin Luther! Your theses make you look like an idiot.

This is the part where I need to be clear in that I'm not preaching but merely trying to explain things from what little understanding I have of catholicism and stuff.

That being said:

Good For her! It's a nice way to show the supermodels don't necssarily fit there sterotypes

yeah, if a woman wants to kill a baby that's her choice. I've heard it's a hard one, and one i am glad i won't have to make for myself.

I agree, if you are going to have sex before marriage, especially if you are still a fucking kid like 13 or some shit, then yeah, you should use a condom. you aren't ready for a kid. I don't even think they should be having sex, but i guess that is an unpopular view these days. everyone has this stereotype, or stigma built into their head where if you are a virgin, or waiting till mariage, then you are some kind of fucking wierdo, or you must hang out in a basemwnt with your friends playing D&D till the wee hours of the morning, you must wear sweater vest and orgasm instantly whenever a woman accidentely rubs up against you. you must not be social because you haven't had sex. what a crock of shit.

if using a contraceptive goes against your religious principles get a different religion, or don't use a condom, or shit, i dunno, maybe abide by the guidelines, principles, mandates, and dogma or your religion. i mean you are a part of a religion for a reason. if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, get the fuck out. Christianity isn't easy. It's hard to go against your nature, it isn't easy to stand up for something you believe in. you are part of it for a reason. whatever that reason it. stick to your principles, who gives a fuck if everyone says you're a stupid for believing in god. they only show their ignorance ;p

i for one admire the pope. he is a figurehead for a religion, and you can view it as a bad thing full of hypocrites, assholes, pedophiles, etc, but i view religion as something that gives people hope. you can look back in the churches past and pull out all kinds of shady shit, but what about the good they do? no one mentions that. no one mentions all the christians working in soup kitchens, building hospitals and missions in africa, and china. we all know you don't have to be religious to do this. some people on this sight are community and humanity oriented, and also spouts their beliefs in their political views. and essentially the pope is a polotician. he has an agenda, he was elected by his peers, and he dictates policy (or suggest policy, not sure how that works.) so kudo's to him for telling it how he sees it.

i think it is reasonable to expect people to wait till they are married to have sex. I know tons of people who have, not me persay, but i was in my 20's before i had sex. so it's possible, you can do it, it just takes willpower and has to be something you believe is right... that's it.

Models are supposed to wear the dress, not give you their opinion on it! Oh, wait...

Anyone else reminded from that sketch early on in Monty Pyhton's Meaning of Life? That always seemed to sum up the two major sects of Christianity for me in regard to childbirth. These days it's realistic to use contraceptives. It's better for the health of yourself and everyone who shags you, and it reduces the population growth. Smeg knows this planet's overburdened with an abundance of humanity as it is.

Oh, and Christianity is too mainstream to be a cult. Scientology is a cult. Christianity is not.

I think that if teaching people that condom use is sinful has led to any preventable deaths from the spread of disease then the docterine should be called out as being criminal. In developed countries we have a lot of information available, but how many people in the third world only get their information on condoms from religious organizations?

i never liked her before, but now i do. she won my respect.

I don't know how the Pope can think the anti-abortion stance is ethical. Look at the countries who ban abortion, then look at the countries who'll need food-aid this year, then look at the countries with over population problems.

Killing unborn children = so wrong that you'll burn in hell for ever
Letting born children live a short, miserable, life before they die in pain of poverty related disease = virtuous.

What's really frightening is the fact that someone saying something that should be obvious to everyone ("contraception is good", "let women decide if they are ready to have children", "make abortion available to all") is seen as controversial.

If only we could have religion without people taking it so seriously.

Wait, did I read the same article as you?

::sigh:: I know everyone is gonna bash me for this one but...

If there were no religions in the world, many problems of the world would not exist today. Like this one.

But religion helps people with the fear of death. How can they not take it as seriously as they take death? It's an antideath ritual.

I think of my fear of death as a product of thinking I have a life worth keeping, and then I focus on the appreciation of my life part. No need for religion.

Wrong.

I suppose you would also tell moderate Muslims that they are not real Muslims because they don't share the doctrines of the Taliban. Like the fundamental Christians, the fundamental Muslims follow each of the more extreme doctrines to the letter, despite the many contradictions within all scriptures sacred to both faiths. To live completely and rigidly according to the Christian scriptures is actually impossible because of their incompatible, self-contradictory nature; a result of them having come from a plethora of sources, from a plethora of nationalities, spanning thousands of years.

Society changed considerably from each of the Bible's books to the next and each book that was written reflects the views of the author's society and culture at the time. To follow any part of Christianity, one has to decide what parts are most likely correct and what parts were just the opinion of which ever man wrote that particular scripture, along with the views of his society. That, my 'friend' is exactly where faith plays its part.

I believe you're confusing us with Jehova's Witnesses. Not once have any of my priests told any of our parish to 'go, spread the word'. That is, after all their job.

Just because you consider Christianity to be false, unorthodox and extremist, doesn't mean all people outside the many variations of the belief-system do. For many people, deciding not to subscribe to this particular faith does not automatically equate to dismissing it, in its entirely, all variations included as 'extremist'. You are certainly entitled to your opinion and if you think it's a cult, by all means, regard it as one; however, the definition you posted has revealed one great flaw in your argument, which is the phrase 'living outside conventional society'. You see, in this country at least, moderate Christians don't live outside conventional society, we are conventional society, along with moderate members of other faiths, as well as atheists, agnostics, etc.

Wrong again. Have you ever spoken to real, live Catholics before or have you just heard rumours and gone with the juiciest sounding ones? Every priest I have ever known (that's quite a few throughout my lifetime so far, as I was born into Catholicism) in both Ireland and England have taught my contemporaries and me to respect other people's faiths and beliefs. Again, that is the difference between moderate and fundamental Christians. Unless of course you believe that none of these priests were 'real Catholics' either.

The parts of the Bible that do mention Christians being compelled to spread the religion were stories of and references to a time when they were facing terrible persecution and genocide at the hands of the Romans (hence a synonym of genocide being 'Roman Holiday'. It was simply a survival tactic in order to make the faith more main-stream in the hope that someone in power would adopt it and cease the murders. This tactic achieved its aims when Constantine became the first Christian Roman Emperor and thus, with Christianity now being one of the oldest and largest established belief-systems in the world, that imperative is rendered redundant.

I can see the source of your confusion, I really can; especially where in the US, a perverse variation of Christianity has power in the government and is making everyone's life hell, what with trying to make them teach creationism as science in schools and whatnot. Regardless, it is not reality the world over. For example, if you were to come here and ask a Catholic Priest (especially my current parish Priest) whether the world began in the way described in the book of Genesis, he would scoff and retort, "Of course not. There was no Adam and Eve. That was just Abraham's (the author of Genesis) way of trying to explain something he could not possibly understand."

He would probably go on to explain (just as a particular Priest said to me, when we had this very discussion many years ago) that unlike the Qur'an in Islam, the Bible was never presumed to have been the direct word of God, but rather men. Men who were human and therefore suffered from mistakes, short-sightedness, bias, vested interests, lack of understanding, corruption and all the rest. Just because they wrote books that would one day be included in the Bible, does not mean that they were immune to these human frailties. They were fallible and as such, we must use the brains that God gave us (or not, depending on your beliefs ) and sort the true message of our Religion from the stuff that men have just thrown in there to suit themselves.

A different Priest (our current one) was truly gutted when Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI because, as he said in his subsequent sermon, the man was an ancient German intellectual who had not left the Vatican for the last twenty-odd years. He has no idea about the real world and the Church (being the people) of today or how the world works and would consequently alienate Catholics and non-Catholics alike with his archaeic stance and take on Catholicism. My Nana lived through nine Popes and saw the 'yardstick' of Catholicism change along with each of them, within the boundaries existing from the fact that they were all rich, white men in the Vatican, of course.

See, my main point is that interpretations of this Religion vary greatly even among its own Holy Men: There is no rigid, hard and fast version, despite what the fundies or whoever is currently in power might say: It is all about personal judgement and deciding what is real and what isn't, regardless of the views of whoever is in power at that particular time. As such, if I am not a 'true Catholic' then nobody is or has been since the Religion's very inception, although the way I see it is that all who call themselves Catholics are true Catholics, just with varying interpretations.

I don't see why virginity is considered this nearly impossible thing to keep. It's not unreasonable to expect people to stay a virgin till they are married. The disbelief that a lot of people voice after this suggestion, in comments like "Show me someone who's a virgin!" is in my opinion representative of the reason young (insecure) people feel forced to have sexual relations so/too early.
But that being said I'm all for contraception and would like to see this uses in was that would make abortions unnecessary, because will I agree with the choice I still think it's wrong.
As for religion... all religions are similar enough from where I stand, there are idiots there are good people and there are some in between, I think the pope is leaning towards the "idiots" category

well i think i agree with you, generally. but, at the same time, we live in a christianity based culture. therefore, all of us 'free thinking liberals' are subject to domineering religious shit that is shoved down our throats. i doubt it would be much different if we were chinese discussing buddhism. except for, you know, the truly enlightened ones.

let the idiots be guided like sheep. they have not the intellect and we have not the faith.

I agree with everything she's saying, though more and more it seems there is this weird pressure on people to have sex at an earlier age. I know I felt it growing up, like it was a point of pride in how soon you could lose your virginity. Then you lose it and its no big deal.

the tragic offshoot is you see kids having babies very young with someone they didn't necessarily want to share their lives with. Condoms should be fucking handed out to kids. There's nothing sadder than seeing a 16-year old with a baby they don't want.

Oh god, here comes the liberal douchmobile

yea, this thread is going to get very interesting in a few hours

good job man