By contrast, Church leaders want the Easter message of victory through defeat and suffering to be applied to the world’s financial difficulties, so that even the most serious trials are turned eventually to spiritual success. Dr Williams said: “The present financial crisis has dealt a heavy blow to the idea that human fulfilment can be thought about just in terms of material growth and possessions.” Referring to a recent, growing fascination with the monastic life, he continued: “Accepting voluntary limitation to your acquisitiveness, your sexual appetite, your freedom of choice doesn’t look so absurd after all as a path to stability and mutual care." (AXE Comment: Whose interest in the monastic life? Anorexic college juniors who are saving themselves for marriage and deranged closeted homosexuals who otherwise might be off on the next Hale-Bopp express?)
Benny the Rat has some similar annoying stuff. I particularly was taken with this nonsense cited by the Murdochian Hub that doesn't feature Bill O'Reilly or naked women. (Might feature naked Bill O'Reilly, but that's just wrong!)
Pope Benedict XVI today urged mankind to fight "a peaceful battle" to "rediscover grounds for hope" despite disasters such as the Abruzzo earthquake, food shortages, financial turmoil, climate change and "the ever-present threat of terrorism."Wishing pilgrims a Happy Easter in 63 languages, he said in Italian that his thoughts were in particular with "those who suffered because of the earthquake". He said he hoped survivors would find the "wisdom and courage" to unite in the construction of a future "open to hope". Earlier, in his Easter Day message "urbi et orbi" (to the city and the world), the Pope said that the Resurrection was "not a fairytale" (AXE comment: Actually, it's a myth and not a very original or good one either) and attacked the "emptiness" of materialism and atheism. He said that thanks to the Resurrection of Christ "death no longer has power over man". ( AXE Comment: Yet we die...)
However, another Times of London columnist approaches it this way...
It doesn’t help that the church has been so consistently wrong about the stuff we can prove. Age of the Earth? Ah yes, not created on October 23, 4004BC after all. Easy mistake to make, though. Evolution? Well, yes, there does seem to be something in it. Earth at the centre of the universe? Don’t ask. And far from providing moral authority in a changing world, the church seems as morally flexible as everybody else. (AXE Comment and snark from this side of the Atlantic...Well, except for the far-out cults like Catholicism and those branches of Christianity that come from the Calvinist-Rapture-Snakehandling roots. They're so morally upright as to be oblivious to the world around them, their own problems, and those of their sympathizers. )Could it be that we cling to the idea of God because we fear the alternative? (AXE Comment: Why, yes, as a matter of fact. There is only the singularity which we Defeatists tend to call Tiffany...the goddess as hormonally messed up teenage girl.) That we prefer this vague and intangible force because, well, that’s the point: it’s vague and intangible. Otherwise the most powerful force known to mankind would either be Google, Madonna, or the president of the United States. No doubt very attractive when it’s Barack; not so good when it was Gerald Ford." (AXE Comment: Generally not good. In fact, even when least awful, not good.")
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