Spotlight - Damning the Catholic Church
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Mark Ruffalo has been impressive lately, Keaton i have yet to see something memorable though. This does appear the sort of necessary film to educate the public on such dark, institutional goings on. But i do not know if this is the sort of film that will advertise itself well enough, this is the first i've heard of it and i have no idea if it is showing locally or who is going to be up for viewing with me. It isn't easy to convince particular types of human to watch such material. Am going to try, nonetheless!
And yet it looks like just another sterile bland flick with boring dialogue taking more time to tell us about the stupid reviewers opinions than show us anything interesting. Like the idea, but it seems it's just relying on the controversy of the topic.
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Every line sounds like a fucking cliche with many scenes feeling it was just made for the trailer. Not surprised.
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Every line sounds like a fucking cliche with many scenes feeling it was just made for the trailer. Not surprised.
I think that's actually a problem. It isn't controversial any more. But it should be.Thyunda said:
Given how popular the new pope is, a lot of people are happy to let old problem die out. But they still exist. The Catholic Church still pushes abstinence only education in countries dying of AID's. The Catholic Church is still more concerned for pedophile priests then it is with children. The Catholic Church still claims that the Pope is the mouthpiece of God on earth, which is a problem, even if the new pope is popular at the moment.
So, sure, it's not a hot button topic at the moment, but it's a controversy that people should still be reminded of.
They have relatively sound arguments for their position from a dogmatic standpoint. Imperilling eternal souls for earthly circumstances isn't really worth it from their point of view.Fox12 said:
No, that's why Catholicism can progress without outright rejecting almost all of its dogma (although that works too). Something for instance Islam can't, their Sunnah will just keep dragging them down indefinitely until they reject it (and the death penalty on doing so works rather well at preventing that).
The Catholic Church generally changes for the better over time, maybe not always at the pace others wish. I don't think it's nearly bad enough to receive the attention it does while other religions are given a pass because of political correctness (orthodox Judaism in the US has a massive problem with child abuse) or because of the media being pussies or captured by money (Islam).
From a dogmatic view, perhaps, but that's the entire problem. Their priority isn't saving lives, it's saving souls. Unfortunately there is no heaven or hell, so all these people are dying for nothing. That was the problem with that old witch Mother Theresa. She let innocent people die who needed medical care, because they're health wasn't her concern. I don't support letting millions more people die just so the Catholic Church can feel good about its silly dogma, which seems to change from day to day anyway.Pinky said:
Which leads to the second point. If they can change their dogma so easily, then this raises some difficult questions. Either the church misunderstood gods will, in which case it's not the mouthpiece of God, or God changed his mind, which is contrary to the bible. If the first is true then it makes one wonder what they're still wrong about, and how an all powerful deity could be such a poor communicator of his divine will. If the second one is true, then he's a rather fickle God that seems to alter his opinions based upon the popular trends of the time. Neither makes the church look particularly good.
To be fair you cant prove or disprove the existence of god, heaven, or hell, so kindly leave your assumptions at the door.Fox12 said:
as for the whole AIDS thing if your talking about Africa and the Philippines, at this point I just right off the majority of those places as dead already due to their cultures refusing to change.
OT: Oscar bait movie is controversial what a shock......
seriously though other countries (and yes the Vatican is considered a country in its own right) have had foreign dignitaries do much worse things and no one really cared enough to ***** about it for years.
Pretty much. But remember that the Catholic Chruch extended far and wide trough the world, and it was an important influence in the Western culture. It's also a Holy Institution, which means its clerical members should do no wrong (specially acts considered sinful). Dictadors commit henious crimes at the other side of the globe? "So what? I don't even know the country." A clerical memeber from the institution to which the church at the corner is also memeber of, is being accused of depicable and sinful acts? "Outrage, thy name is I!"ecoho said:
I can't disprove the existence of Thor, Odin, Zeus, Anubis, Quetzalcoatl, or Shiva either. I can't prove that there's not a pink teapot orbiting around the sun. Unfortunately there's no evidence that YHWH exists, so there's no real reason to believe in him. A theory that can't be falsified is a bad theory.ecoho said:
But I don't really care about that. Live and let live. People can believe whatever they want. Even if I disagree with them, I can certainly respect their views. Unfortunately this changes when those beliefs decrease the quality of life of others. The church wants to build a clean water well for an African village? Good for them. The church wants to push abstinence only sex education in a country tortured by AID's? Not okay at all. The church finds out that one of its priests molested children, and they report this to the proper authorities? Good on them for holding their members accountable, and doing their duty. The church discovers that multiple priests are child predators, and they cover it up? And then they move them to new perishes where they can do it again? And then they blame it on homosexuality when it gets leaked to the media? Sorry, they'll have to look to God for forgiveness. Because they won't get it from me. And, sadly, no, I won't get over it, and I won't forget.
A rather heartless view to take. I can tolerate the church ignoring those issues, but I can't tolerate them making them worse, and then blaming it on the countries culture.
Implying, what, that there's a double standard? How about we hold all those people accountable? I don't approve of a foreign dignitary, or a dictator, defending pedophiles either. I'm not suggesting we invade the Vatican and depose the Pope. I'm suggesting that we rightfully criticize their monstrous behavior. The Vatican doesn't get a free pas just because there are worse groups out there.CaitSeith said:
Might have to watch that when it's out on DVD. I'm wondering though, is there a reason it wasn't made when the molestation scandal was still remotely relevant, or is this film the result of Hollywood realizing they missed an opportunity to browbeat Christians?
even if they could prove the existence of god, abstinence-only education still doesn't make sense. you can preach abstinence, and still teach comprehensive sex-ed, so that when some people inevitably fail to abstain, they will at least use some form of contraception. this demonstrably results in fewer unwanted teen pregnancies.Fox12 said:
It seems my comment went over your head. Or was it so badly written that it implied that church members shouldn't be held accountable for their acts? And really, I don't know if it's a double standard to be more outraged with the pedofile living in your town than with the one in another continent. Which one do you think should be a priority?Fox12 said:
Fair enough. I clearly misunderstood, and I apologize.CaitSeith said:
I just find it upsetting when people try to sweep things like this under the rug. The fact that the church did this automatically causes cognitive dissonance, which means that people who would normally be outraged try to pretend like it never happened. This means you have to fight all the harder to get the information out there. I think the catholic church gets more attention now because, one, it's a massive institution, and two, because it claims to be a source of objective morality.
Since you've proposed this duality of putting one in higher priority over the other, I personally don't think there should be any level of distinction between the two though. I would say you should prioritize the one that you can actually hold accountable for their actions, and bring to criminal justice for it, as well as stopping them. I, as an individual do not have the authority, or political clout to bring down the Vatican, even though I would love to do exactly that (and every other religious institution that gets special treatment because they believe in an invisible person in the sky).CaitSeith said:
I can, however, directly confront a particular parish, or particular priest, who I know on an individual level. I can bring light to his actions, and push on the smaller scale level to try and stop his activities, and make him face justice for his crimes. I can try and push on the larger scale for those in power to do this same action on the larger scale, something that many people have tried to do, to little or no effect. At best, for now, we can simply bring it to public awareness, of the institutionalized aspect of their crimes, and keep an eye on them and their members, to make sure they don't continue to do it. The net benefit to the larger scale course of action, in my opinion, is the wearing down of the respectability of the organization in question, hopefully reducing people who look to them for guidance over time, and thus starving them out until they eventually die off.
If you exclude like the last minute of The Cobbler then it's a decent movie. It should've been him reuniting with his father, end of movie. Then it throws out some out of left field bullshit about how the cobblers are some mystical order which totally changed the tone of the movie and which had not even been hinted at before that point. Basically, it's a decently executed movie with a moderately interesting magic realism premise with a garbage ending that leaves the whole thing seeming bad.
I thought the ending was damn hilarious myself. It was so stupid I couldn't do anything else but to laugh at it. But yeah, that was my thoughts on the movie as well. Perfectly serviceable but ending that more or less ruins it.2012 Wont Happen said: