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[annwfyn]

An interesting article on the Catholic church.

I found this and quite liked it. It struck me as interesting and has a lot of things in it worth saying.

In other news, I shall not tell anyone how to vote today. So far three different people on my flist have posted very articulate, persuasive and heartfelt LJ entries telling me to not vote Labour/Conservative/Lib Dem, and all of them have contained the subtext (possibly unintentionally) of 'I will think you a bad person if you do vote this way'.

This strikes me as mildly awkward.

I shall, instead, cast my vote in the silence of the polling booth later on and probably never tell anyone which way I voted.

Comments

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Eh, I'm just thankful we CAN vote - have been twittering a very(!) brief history of British suffrage, and we really haven't had universal voting rights all that long! @carpecalicem if you're interested, although being a history buff you probably already know it...

[anonymous-james.livejournal.com]

I'd think you were a bad person if you didn't vote without a very good reason.

I don't really care which party people vote for as long as it's not the British RacistNational Party.

[adze.livejournal.com]

You're a refreshing change from a lot of the people on my friends list, you know!

Being a contrary sort, every time I see someone telling me how to vote, I'm tempted to vote against what they're telling me...

[rebel-wulf.livejournal.com]

Right, but we only get one vote. I'm totally with you guys on this one. Where i vote isnt important and frankly, anyone asking which way i voted today will just get stared at.

I wish i had a badge making machine so i could make a 'I dont want political smalltalk' badge for work.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

I won't think you're a bad person, no matter which way you vote.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

And it's rather noticable that no-one's posted a heartfelt entry saying you should vote one way, just that there are good reasons to not vote for any of the major parties.

IMO, the Lib Dems are the lesser of the available weevils, but it'd be hard to argue they aren't weevil at all.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know. I think I was in a prickly mood yesterday as the three posts strongly urging me not to vote for Labour (for very good reasons), Conservative (for very good reasons) or Lib Dem (for very good reasons) were pretty much next to each other on my friends list for a while, and I was feeling irritable about being backed into a corner.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Last comment, I promise - can you link the Lib Dem one? I can see really strong reasons not to vote for Labour (last 10 years, torture, DEB, ID Cards) and Conservative (rampant homophobia, hatred of the disabled and unemployed, capture by corporate interests) the 10 years before that) but whilst there are reasons to vote against the Lib Dems (useless bastards on the DEB, lots of flip-flopping) I don't know any as strong as the other two.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Lib Dems is f-locked. Based on a friend's experience of working for them. I was actually very reluctant to vote for them based on said friend's experience for a long time.

The Green party have really been my only way of engaging with the political process of late, although I will admit to a weak and predictable middle class liberal girl crush on that lovely handsome Nick Clegg when he starts being all manly and principled on TV. It's hard not to, I think.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yes, I've heard bad things about working for the Lib Dems too.

And it may be noted that they basically totally screwed the DEB campaign, unlike quite a number of principled Labour MPs...

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

That article on the Catholic Church is very much my experience with it. When I worked for CAFOD I was amazed at the dedication of the people who worked there and their devotion to the core beliefs of Catholicism - and trying to work their way around the politics to achieve a real result.

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

There are nice people in all religions, I just wish people would speak out more against the bad side of it instead of getting upset whenever anyone criticizes it.

Reason 89798289423 why I left I suppose.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I think it really depends on the social circles you move in.

I was raised in a pretty academic, atheist environment. Then I hung out with left wing, earnest students who were very anti-organised religion. I've met way more Richard Dawkins types in my real life than I've ever met crazy religious types, and all the crazy religious types I've met have been hard core protestants, who were often very critical of the Catholic church whilst being really insane on a lot of the same subjects themselves.

I can totally see how from your perspective - you grew up in a Catholic country, didn't you? - it could seem really different and needs criticising lots more.

Not that you're wrong. You may well be right. It's just that I've never been in that environment.

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

I've seen it in all social circles unfortunately. Granted, most of them were back in Belize, where Catholicism was beaten into my skull at church, school and society in general. Even though I stopped going to church at the age of 12, It wasn't until I was 15 or 16 that I rejected it completely. Now and then I do still run across extremists like that girl who lived in Rachel's house and thought I was evil because I wore a lot of black!

Still, the extremists are now avoidable for me, and though they aggravate me, I can give them a wide berth.

Lately I've been more concerned with seeing some Catholics that seem moderate and insist they aren't like the extremists, but get very upset if anything bad is said about the pope. I have a girl on my f list who always got upset whenever the Pope or his lackeys were criticized, but would insist that she was a "liberal catholic." I was worried she was going to blow up in one of my recent posts, hence my aggressive disclaimer, but thankfully there was silence.

I guess the best analogy I can think of is it's like privilege: Being white doesn't make you a bad person, but denying that slavery ever happened, or saying that we don't live in a system that has been founded on oppression is pretty disingenius.

And that's pretty much my problem with some (but not all) Catholics today.

And yeah I've met atheist jerks too* and I can't stand them, but I will say that even though people like Dawkins are insufferable twats, at least they aren't in charge of large power systems that advocate homophobia etc.

*One of the dumbest arguments I've ever had with someone: "If there was no religion there would be no more wars." ahahhahahahahahah!

[lslaw.livejournal.com]

I promise you, I will never think you a bad person because of the way you vote.

[adze.livejournal.com]

Not while there are so many other reasons, after all...

[mannheimblack.livejournal.com]

Regarding the article you linked to, I'd still have to take issue with the writer's core conclusions.

He seems to be saying that, if the organisation contains some very good people, nobody should be criticising it as a whole for the wrongs committed by other members and sustained by the organisation's leadership, or for the harm done by aspects of its moral dogmatism. I'm sorry, but I find that stance absurd.

The writer falls into the trap of insisting that you have to judge the organisation based on the individual members of his choice, despite claiming that he's resisting exactly that sort of error.