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RFM · Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 5:57 pm Post subject:

Read my previous post David.

Dave Coull · Independentista Joined: 07 Nov 2006 Posts: 999

RFM says “Read my previous post”.

I did.

Like I said, we have now established that your answer to

“I challenge you to quote anything I have said which you consider to be bigoted, and to try to show in what way it is bigoted. By ‘quote’ I mean, of course, my exact words, not some slanted paraphrasing of them”

is that you have no answer. So I will happily leave it at that.

Amber · Nationalist Joined: 28 Feb 2008 Posts: 153

You know, you can come across as a bit of a prat, Mr Coull.

RFM · Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 7:28 pm Post subject:

Maybe you ought to consider taking some of the advice you were giving Red Justice, David, and have a nice quiet talk with your family doctor. I think I can safely say he will not throw a net over you or put you in a dark room, but you may find the experience rewarding.

Rinty · Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 7:05 am Post subject:

RFM,

You obviously have no knowledge of the RC church in Scotland or the reformation, there is no synod of parishioners or any other similar group in the scottish catholic church, only in the anglican and episcopalean churches.

On the embryo thing, I think your last post confirmed what I have been saying. This bill doesnt extend use of animals and/or hybrids, it tightens existing legislation and allows the use of animal eggs in purely labaratory experiments not for creating frankenstein half human half crocodiles.

I didnt see the newspapers that you refer to about 'hollowing out' and would not have used that sort of simplistic way of saying it. ut, that process does not include 'inserting animal DNA' and would result in human cells for lab reserach.

But, your portrayal of the bill is much as I read it and is surely contrary to the cardinal's protrayal of frankensteins,monsters and death.

The Cardinals language shows that the catholic leaders in scotland still use the centuries old 'scary monster' arguments.

But it was also about interfering in a bill at a late stage, delberately late, so that a limited debate based on spin could presurise the MPs rather than a rational debate with the catholic MPs.

Any catholic MP WILL have dilemnas over this bill, will have discussed with their priest (and perhaps their god), the church HAVE issued their views through catholic media and lectures, so every catholic MP would be aware of the churches position.

Intervening at this stage through this speeech was with the intention of saying to the MPs "you have no right to an individual interpretaion of your faith, if you vote for this it is against the church" which would or could cause loss of catholic votes for that MP.

The 'free vote' debate is just nonsense.

If you are elected as a party representative then you decide to agree to work with that group, meaning that you support a package that will include things you disagree with. At times your party will require you to support such issues. Every MP has a free vote on every issue. if they cannot vote with their party when required then they can step out of that group in parliament. Preferably they would do this BEFORE an election and not get elected as a 'labour' MP only for the constituents to dscover that had elected a 'catholic' MP instead of a labour one.

One good thing to come from O'Briens comments might be that we get to know which MPs will allow their religious views to dictate how they vote more than the views of their party. In subsequents elections those who take the cardinal's advice will, in my opinion, lose more votes than the catholic votes lost by those who oppose the cardinal's instructions.

RFM · Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 3:27 pm Post subject:

Every elected official takes an oath of office, which although stated in different forms is intended to be certain he remains loyal to his government and to the laws of his country.
It is indeed unfortunate that a doctrine has srpung up with the Catholic Church that demands public officials, right down to dispensing pharmacists, follow the doctrines of their religion before their legal obligations to their constituents and to the public. In cases of conflict between religious belief and public duty, a conscientious individual would and should resign their office, but apparently very few are willing to trade their livelihoods for their beliefs.

Unquestionably DNA insertion and the development of hybrid human-animal embryos have led, and will in the future lead to advances in the knowledge of human diseases and cures. That does not mean that the field should be left exclusively in the hands of the scientists who in all cases are driven by corporate money and the quest for profits. For instance all new drugs are required to undergo safety testing, which is begun with animals. If it could be done directly on disposable humans, much time and money would be saved thereby. Much menial labor in manufacturing for existence could become far more profitable than using robots or machines, if the industry were allowed to use human labor that was unaware of its own existence and could be disposed of when necessary or replenished as needed. Slavery still exists in the world today and could be completely legal (perhaps) with manufactured and disposable humans as rats and mice presently are. These are the very real problems that need to be addressed where the future of stem cell research is concerned.

Because the science is very esoteric, very few people are going to take any interest or understanding in it at all. Hyperbolic description made be deplorable, but it certainly catches the public attention. Perhaps that was the Cardinal's intention.

Dave Coull · Independentista Joined: 07 Nov 2006 Posts: 999

To begin with I wasn’t sure where I stood on this matter, partly because I just didn’t know enough about it. In my first post on the subject I wrote “I saw the cardinal on television. Now of course he does believe his church has moral authority, but in fact he was very careful not to claim any exclusive rights to this, he specifically included protestant Christians, Muslims, Jews, and also agnostics and atheists without religious beliefs, amongst those who are concerned about this. Claiming that even folk without religion are concerned struck me as quite a smart move by him, as well as happening to be true”.

I went on to add “it isn't just the catholic church which is concerned about the implications of some of the latest developments”.

But if for a fleeting moment I thought the leopard might be changing its spots, RFM soon put that daft idea out of my head.

Rinty says “ RFM, You obviously have no knowledge of the RC church in Scotland or the reformation”.

I agree. The incongruity of some American in Chicago trying to tell us we don’t understand what has happened, and is happening, in our own country, doesn’t seem to bother RFM, in fact he seems to take delight in being offensive. While I still claim no expertise on the subject of medical research, and while I’m still not sure where we should draw the line on this, RFM’s support for the Cardinal has had the opposite effect to what he intended.

Rinty wrote “I have 'plenty' of experience in protesting against the war and trident and I can say with surety that you are far likelier to be lifted next to a presbyterian minister than a catholic priest”

Any of us in Scotland who have taken part in protests against nuclear weapons, and against the war in Iraq, will know Rinty speaks the truth about this.

Rinty also wrote “The Catholic church in Scotland take a different attitude to politics from the national protestant church. The Kirk are quite happy to make statements on political issues from a moral standpoint. But they do so from a political stance on issues such as poverty, took a very clear view on iraq etc, not as an instruction to presbyterian MPs.”

That is an important difference. While the Kirk has its own prejudices, and while it is certainly a very long way short of perfect, the Kirk does at least take a stand over things like poverty and war, but it doesn’t try to give orders to MPs and MSPs. The Catholic church does indeed try to order catholic MPs how to vote - on things like maintaining the privileged position of Catholic schools, and on this embryo thing, but not on the issues of poverty and war.

Rinty says “The Kirk would not issue a statement on how protestant MPs should be voting………O'Brien's pressure was unnecessary and was an order from above”.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of this embryo debate, it is important that the Cardinal should be resisted, precisely because he IS trying to give orders.

Dave Coull · Independentista Joined: 07 Nov 2006 Posts: 999

Well within living memory (I cited one example), and even today (although nowadays there can be something of a shortage of candidates for the ministry) you can get congregations of the Church of Scotland deciding between different possible candidates for their minister. Although the job isn't advertised down at the local job centre, nevertheless, there is a process of job application and candidate selection. The final selection is made by the members of the congregation of that particular local church. Nobody suggests that unsuccessful candidates should be ashamed. They were just unsucessfull on this particular occasion, for this particular vacancy, at this particular place, and maybe the Holy Spirit will want them to be successful another time and place. This is such a normal, regular, matter, it may merit a few lines in the local paper about who the new minister is, but not a SHOCK! HORROR! story that somebody else wasn't selected.

RFM says "It is within my personal knowledge that an individual was proposed for bishop in the St.Louis diocese here in the midwest about 5 years ago and when his candidacy was announced to the congregations, it brought forth cries of Ne Axios' (not worthy)."

Note that, as in the former Soviet Union, only ONE candidate was proposed by the hierarchy.

Note also that the only way of rejecting them was to shout out "NOT WORTHY!" in Latin.

"Needless to say the event was not publicized at all"

The reason it is "needless to say" is because the Roman Catholic Church has a habit of hushing things up. They have hushed up literally thousands of cases of child abuse by priests, bishops, etc, for instance. In this particular case, although there was less cause for shame than in child abuse cases, they hushed up from sheer force of habit.

"These matters are not highly publicized for the obvious reason that it reflects badly on the rejected candidate."

It only reflects badly on the rejected candidate because they were the ONLY candidate, and because the ONLY way to express dissent was to shout out "NOT WORTHY!" in Latin. If one candidate in an election for the Scottish Parliament narrowly defeats another candidate, nobody suggests the unsuccessfull candidate has to hide him/herself away in shame, or that the entire political establishment of Scotland has to connive in a cover-up. More generally, if one applicant for a job is chosen and another applicant is not, nobody suggests it all has to be hushed up to protect the unsuccessful applicant.

It is right and proper that we should all be involved in considering whether there are some things that scientific medical researchers should not do, and, if so, where the boundaries should be drawn; but the question is a complex one, on which folk can quite honestly have different opinions.

However, there is nothing complex about the question as to whether Cardinal Keith O'Brien should be resisted. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church is still authoritarian. When a Cardinal tries to issue orders about which way Scottish MPs ought to vote, that should be resisted.