Okay, I'll give this blog jive another try. I was inspired to jump on the blogging bandwagon by a certain High-Church Protestant gentleman I've been seeing. At least, I think he's a High Church Protestant. Only this morning, the fellow was attempting to explain the history of Episcopalianism to me, but I was raised a mackerel-snapper and am now quite happily and contentedly an atheist, so I have trouble keeping track of those daffy Protestants with their sola scriptura-izin', Vacation-Bible-School-goin' ways.

Um, anyway, even though I'm an atheist (or, more precisely, a metaphysical naturalist, but I don't go around saying so for fear listeners innocent of philosophical jargon would take it to mean that I'm in some crazy-ass Gaia cult), I do retain some modest degree of respect for the Mary-worshipping, cracker-consecrating Whore of Babylon that is Roman Catholicism. After all, Mr. Karol Wotyla of the Vatican City may personally be a doddering evolutionary holdover, but the Church at large has pulled its weight in the social-justice department. Er, sometimes. And Catholic theological reasoning is sometimes intellectually respectable. So I was ticked off just a skosh to see Michelangelo Signorile (who's also sometimes reasonable) dish out this embarrassingly lazy attack on the RCC for its homophobia. I'll explain later just how lame Signorile's screed was, but I'm feeling peckish and need to nip down to the deli for some Gummi bears. In the meantime, please read this altogether superior example of how to write an anti-Pope polemic that's entertaining, logically sound, and on-target.

(Note to self: Might also want to back up that "Mary worshipping" comment; for now it should suffice to say that atheists, unlike Christians, do not automatically regard the worship of Mary as idolatrous, blasphemous, or otherwise less appropriate than the worship of Pater, Filius, et Spiritus sanctus. In other words, when someone like Pat Robertson says that Calflicks worship the BVM, it can only be pejorative, but when I say the same thing, it ain't. This is of course assuming that RCCers really do "worship" Mary; with the appropriate air quotes in place, I think a case can be made that Catholics do, but I'll leave that for another time.)

(Another note to self: Someday, I'm gonna write that essay about how utterly blasphemous the whole concept of blasphemy is.)

posted by Throbert | 2/16/2002 07:26:00 PM |

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