Pope officially declared a fundie

Evidence: unable to comprehend irony, black-and-white thought system.

POPE Benedict XVI has marked his triumphal entry to the World Youth Day festival with a "boat-a-cade" on Sydney Harbour and a trademark message of hope and warning against the "poison" that threatened to corrode and distort young lives.

This "poison" being equality for gays, perhaps? Or that women should have the same rights as men?

Addressing hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who turned out to see him by the harbour at Barangaroo, the 81-year-old pontiff said the world had "grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and the pain of false promises", and urged them to seek the true, the good and the beautiful.

The Pope's lack of comprehension of irony is more of a "poison" then anything I've seen lately. Greed? Exploitation? Division? Wanna cite a few examples that DON'T make you out to be a total hypocrite, Ben?

Delivering his first major speech in Australia, the Pope also lamented the advent of television and computer entertainment exalting violence and sexual degradation. "I ask myself, could anyone standing face to face with people who actually do suffer violence and sexual exploitation 'explain' that these tragedies, portrayed in virtual form, are considered merely entertainment?

I've been playing Grand Theft Auto 3 since I was 14. I'm a more moral person then you ever will be.

"Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the god, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth. Christ offers more. Indeed, he offers everything!"

If I ever become a Christian, I won't ever worship you, you hypocritical, homophobic misogynist.

Like a good politician, the Pope stayed on the main message of his three-year papacy in his address to pilgrims, as he warned against secularism and relativism.

"Relativism? Oh no! People might actually think that there are different interpretations of the truth, and that no-one has a total monopoly on morality! If our flock start to think this, they'll be leaving our churches in droves!"

But I can understand why the church is so terrified of secularism. It weakens their grip on power, and has a tend to prove religion somewhat wrong.

He said something sinister stemmed from the fact that freedom and tolerance were so often separated from truth.

"This is fuelled by the notion, widely held today, that there are no absolute truths to guide our lives. Relativism, by indiscriminately giving value to practically everything, has made experience all important," he said.

Way to build your own strawman, asshat. That isn't relativism at all. Relativism says that morality is heavily based on cultural experience, and that no-one has, as I said before, a monopoly on truth and morality.

And apparently "freedom and tolerance were so often separated from truth." That's the whole f*cking point, you idiot! We have freedom and tolerance because one person's 'truth' may be totally different from another person's 'truth!' Do you honestly not understand that we have cultural freedom in society because those cultures may not be entirely truthful?

But this led not to genuine freedom but to moral or intellectual confusion, lower standards, loss of self-respect, and even to despair. While secularism presented itself as neutral and inclusive, in reality it imposed a world view, he said.

"If God is irrelevant to public life, then society will be shaped in a godless image, and debate and policy concerning the public good will be driven more by consequences than by principles grounded in truth."

Uh...what? Can you give any examples that such an event could happen? Must you build non-existent strawmen to support your arguments?* "Principles grounded in truth?" What did the most outspokenly 'Christian' President do in 2003 that was so "grounded in truth?" As for "imposing a world view"-Christianity has never done that, I'm sure.

He also used his harbourside speech to criticise the plundering of natural resources. "Perhaps reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are scars which mark the surface of our earth — erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world's mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption," he said.

Excellent point. Sadly, one of the only two made in this drivel.

Earlier, in a speech at Government House, Pope Benedict hailed the Rudd Government's apology to indigenous Australians as "courageous", saying its reconciliation agenda offered hope to people around the world who had been denied human rights.

Hmmm...I wonder if the Pope will ever do the same. I doubt it.

In comments that harked back to Pope John Paul II's 1986 speech to Alice Springs Aborigines — and which were credited with fuelling the land rights movement — Pope Benedict reaffirmed that indigenous heritage "forms an essential part of the cultural landscape of modern Australia".

And he encouraged Australia in its bid to close the gap between indigenous and other Australians in health, education and economic opportunities.

Closing the gap would be a bit easier if you didn't follow a 19th century ideology.

"This example of reconciliation offers hope to peoples all over the world who long to see their rights affirmed and their contribution to society acknowledged and promoted," the pontiff said.

Unless any Aborigines are gay. In which case, it's off to hell with them.

So it's official-the Pope is a class C fundie,** but a fundie nonetheless. I still can't understand how many people believe that he's the genuine Pope. Only a white, heterosexual, elderly man can become the Pontiff, which excludes almost all of the world's population. What if the next representative for God was-brace yourself-a woman? Is that so impossible? For the Vatican, it certainly is.

*Actually, that's a stupid questions. Clearly, you do.
**Classes A and B fundies are more anti-environment and more bigoted in general.