Padraig Reidy is an atheist, but anti-Catholic rhetoric is making him nervous: "The church's critics have been mobilised by the Pope's visit but the rhetoric is tipping over into the extreme". Let's look at some extreme rhetoric that's making Mr. Reidy nervous. A Facebook invitation asks me to "Give Pope Benedict a lesson in British Values of Equality". ... [O]ne writer, discussing the Vatican's stance on euthanasia, tells us: "This is, after all, a church that expects its followers to mumble incantations in front of a large statue of a mostly naked European bloke nailed to Roman torture implement and includes an act of ritual cannibalism in its rites… so who's really obsessed with death here."This is not extremism. Extreme rhetoric is not about "tone", it's about calling openly for violence, oppression and disenfranchisement against human beings. It's in no way "extreme" to mock an evil religion led by sexually frustrated men in ridiculous hats. If Mr. Reidy likes the taste of Ratzo's withered cock, that's his business, but it ain't going in this atheist's mouth.
Examine the language here. "Incantations", "cannibalism". This is the tone of Ian Paisley's rabidly anti-papist Free Presbyterian church, not of rational secular debate. ...
[Noted secularist Claire Rayner] says [the Pope's] views are "so disgusting, so repellent, and so hugely damaging to the rest of us, that the only thing to do is to get rid of him".
(via Fr Stephen Smuts)
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