My Idea: Excommunication Challenge

[Aerik]

Feel free to move this to wherever you think most appropriate, mods; I felt this is the closest I could get to the right forum division because I think it will spark much debate, even if this thread in itself is not a debate.

I'm sure most of you have learned of this already. The pope has declared that if you support women's abortion rights (if you dare commit the sin of treating women as humans who have autonomous rights to their own bodies), then you shall be excommunicated.

I think we should send a new message with a big FUCK YOU to Pope Ratzinger.

I suggest we start a new kind of blasphemy challenge called the Excommunication Challenge.

The rules will the the same as the last video challenge, only you must declare that you support women's rights to their bodies, including abortion (this last part is a must), and that we are not afraid of being excommunicated for doing so.

Combinations of the two challenges would be a double whammy.

I think this is a good way to more directly show our lack of fear of going to Hell or losing our 'souls,' because while Christians can pretend they can twist the words of scripture around to get around the last challenge, there's no getting around direct statements by the pope.

Whatdya think? Go to the BrianSapient.com feedback page and give your support for this idea. Here. (http://briansapient.com/modules.php?name=Feedback)


Addendum: I think we could make it even better by including every possible bullshit reason any pope has ever come up with for excommunication and stand in defiance of every one.

[ninewands]

I sort of think this might be more appropriiate in PA&SA or the Lounge

[Revolutionary]

I am already excommunicated for heresy and apostasy. Not formally, but according to canon law, it's automatic. Plus I have no interest in doing this anyway.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

I sort of think this might be more appropriiate in PA&SA or the Lounge

Agreed. Off to PA&SA we go.

KWSN, FD Moderator

[pariah]

I'd do it if you got a certificate of excommunication from the Vatican. I would hang it on my (future) offices wall next to my degrees.

[Magnus Armstrong]

I think that you would have to be a practicing Catholic to do this.

[Revolutionary]

I think that you would have to be a practicing Catholic to do this.You have to be Catholic, but you don't have to be practicing. You don't get excommunicated for missing Mass. You just commit a "mortal sin" which means that you go to hell if you don't repent and confess before you die.

[Tears In The Rain]

I was raised Catholic. I'm interested in being excommunicated if I can get documentation of some kind.

[Revolutionary]

Print out cannon 1364. Write out something about not believing in God. Sign it.

VoilÃ*!

Getting something from the Church is not easy. Or worth it.

[Hazy Daisy]

I am already excommunicated for heresy and apostasy. Not formally, but according to canon law, it's automatic. Plus I have no interest in doing this anyway.

If you were confirmed, and have never been formally excommunicated, then the Church is currently claiming you (and thousands like you) as a member. If you have no interest in changing that, then no one can make you care, I suppose. Personally, it would bother me that I was being counted as a member of a group to which I emphatically do not belong, and in fact vehemently oppose. Getting oneself excommunicated might seem like a "symbolic" gesture, since you're only one person - but it has the real, concrete (not symbolic) effect of reducing official Church membership by one.

I only wish I had been Catholic so I could be excommunicated. Like some others here, I would have the certificate framed.

[joedad]

If you were confirmed, and have never been formally excommunicated, then the Church is currently claiming you (and thousands like you) as a member.Sometime ago I called my last parish of registry and had them remove me from the roles. Pope Benny doesn’t get to count me anymore.

A certificate of excommunication would be pretty cool. I'd hang it where we used to hang the dead Jesus.

[Revolutionary]

If you were confirmed, and have never been formally excommunicated, then the Church is currently claiming you (and thousands like you) as a member.So? How does that affect anyone? The Church makes all sorts of false claims every day.

Getting oneself excommunicated might seem like a "symbolic" gesture, since you're only one person - but it has the real, concrete (not symbolic) effect of reducing official Church membership by one.What concrete happens? I can't think of anything.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

According to Catholic doctrine, the moment you committed an excommunicable act, you've excommunicated yourself. So whip something up on photoshop and call it a day.

[Brian63]

I agree with others that this idea would not work with atheists, but I do have an interest in this anyway.

As a kid who was raised Catholic and went through confirmation (although never really believing any of it), I am very wanting to know if I am still a member or am ex-communicated without knowing it, or other. To that end, I just registered for the Catholic Forum (http://www.catholic-forum.com/forums/index.php) (awaiting registration approval now) and will post that query.

Brian

[Revolutionary]

Please post the response you receive.

[Brian63]

http://www.catholic-forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16141

It will take me a few readings to get the sense of it.

They also deleted my link to this thread.

Brian

[JamesBannon]

Your're probably not "excommunicated" but rather a "lapsed" catholic. Same as me.

[Brian63]

I want to be excommunicated, with a formal letter recognizing that, if possible, so that I can frame it and hang it on my wall.

Brian

[JamesBannon]

Ask your local priest and he will ask his bishop who will ask the cardinal who will ask the pope. I'm sure Roland Rat will oblige! :)

[Revolutionary]

Your're probably not "excommunicated" but rather a "lapsed" catholic. Same as me.Not according to canon law. But most people just don't care about the law, including priests.

[Revolutionary]

Hitler is still a Catholic. He wasn't even excommunicated.

[joedad]

Hitler is still a Catholic. He wasn't even excommunicated.Even if he was excommunicated he'd still be a catholic. Therefore nothing is uncatholic. Now I understand.


Now where's that kool-aid ...

[Stacey Melissa]

Mod hat: This is just a friendly reminder to keep the conversation appropriate for the PA&SA forum. That means theological debate doesn't belong here. Such debate is more appropriate for the General Religious Discussions forum.

Stacey Melissa
PA&SA Moderator

[Don Alhambra]

Keeping vaguely on-topic then CatholicChristian: as I was baptised a Catholic, even excommunication for a mortal sin (of which I've committed quite a few :D) and despite my contention that there aren't any gods, is it your opinion then that I can never be un-Catholicised?

[joedad]

CatholicChristian,

Feel free to PM me or start a thread in GRD maybe.

TTFN

[Godless Sodomite]

The great thing about being an individual in America is that I get to form my own identity. I am most definitely not a Catholic no matter what anyone says. No silly rituals necessary or meaningless pieces of paper stating the fact needed. The whole god scheme is imaginary anyway, so it isn't as if there is an external referent to whom any of this could ultimately, even cosmically, matter in the first place. What a bunch of old men in silly hats, or their followers, think about anything isn't my concern. I don't play their game. Trying to get them officially to recognize me as un-Catholic is just playing their game and is a complete waste of time. Nobody in my life who knows me, including my Catholic boyfriend, would be dumb enough to consider me a Catholic when it's perfectly obvious that I'm not. If people I actually know can cope with my identity, what possible difference in the world would it make to me if people I don’t know and who don’t know me would label me differently?

That I am a human is a fact of biology and isn't at all a matter of identity. I live in a country where I am religiously free to reject any and all doctrine. I reject them all and therefore cannot be considered a Catholic by anyone who thinks about the matter for any length of time. To argue otherwise strikes me as willfully insulting.

-Jerry (an ex-Catholic atheist)

[Stacey Melissa]

If people I actually know can cope with my identity, what possible difference in the world would it make to me if people I don’t know and who don’t know me would label me differently?
Personally, I'd rather not be counted as "Catholic" in some almanac figure, or similar census. When demographers look up information about how many Catholics there are, will there be one too many, because the church counts me as one of them? If so, I'd say there are many, many too many, since there are many, many apostates from the Catholic church, and many more who, like me, never accepted their doctrines to begin with, despite having some water sprinkled on my newborn head.

[Godless Sodomite]

If people I actually know can cope with my identity, what possible difference in the world would it make to me if people I don’t know and who don’t know me would label me differently?
Personally, I'd rather not be counted as "Catholic" in some almanac figure, or similar census. When demographers look up information about how many Catholics there are, will there be one too many, because the church counts me as one of them? If so, I'd say there are many, many too many, since there are many, many apostates from the Catholic church, and many more who, like me, never accepted their doctrines to begin with, despite having some water sprinkled on my newborn head.

I do understand this, but I still say it's irrelevant. Even if certification of excommunication meant that you were no longer considered Catholic by the church hierarchy, who is going to remove you from the official figures they give when they quote the number of faithful? Does anybody think they have a cleric with an eraser sitting with a tome full of names of all baptized babies who just rubs off the names as people leave the church and then re-tallies the figures so the accounting is accurate? The church is all about money; that’s the only accounting they actually care about. If you aren't giving money to them and nobody is giving money to them in your name, they don't know about you and they really don't care. The church already makes up stories about godmen born of virgins. Lying about how many cultists there are in the flock is small potatoes compared to the nonsense of the resurrection.

-Jerry

[CatholicChristian]

Keeping vaguely on-topic then CatholicChristian: as I was baptised a Catholic, even excommunication for a mortal sin (of which I've committed quite a few :D) and despite my contention that there aren't any gods, is it your opinion then that I can never be un-Catholicised?

The short answer is, no, you can never be "un-Catholicised." The long answer depends on what you mean by that term, if you mean something different from what I initially responded to on this thread.

Mortal sins can be forgiven; sanctifying grace in the soul can be restored; peace with God and with oneself can be regained. The only sin that cannot be forgiven is the sin of refusing to seek or to accept forgiveness. God is merciful, and patient.

[CatholicChristian]

If people I actually know can cope with my identity, what possible difference in the world would it make to me if people I don’t know and who don’t know me would label me differently?
Personally, I'd rather not be counted as "Catholic" in some almanac figure, or similar census. When demographers look up information about how many Catholics there are, will there be one too many, because the church counts me as one of them? If so, I'd say there are many, many too many, since there are many, many apostates from the Catholic church, and many more who, like me, never accepted their doctrines to begin with, despite having some water sprinkled on my newborn head.

Yes, there are many more Catholics than there are faithful Catholics - that is, Catholics who hold and follow the Catholic Faith.

[CatholicChristian]

Mod hat: This is just a friendly reminder to keep the conversation appropriate for the PA&SA forum. That means theological debate doesn't belong here. Such debate is more appropriate for the General Religious Discussions forum.

Stacey Melissa
PA&SA Moderator

Maybe I should stop answering these questions here, then? And look around the GRD forum?

[Don Alhambra]

Mod hat: This is just a friendly reminder to keep the conversation appropriate for the PA&SA forum. That means theological debate doesn't belong here. Such debate is more appropriate for the General Religious Discussions forum.

Stacey Melissa
PA&SA Moderator

Maybe I should stop answering these questions here, then? And look around the GRD forum?

Probably a good idea. Perhaps there you'll see the light. ;)

[Stacey Melissa]

Personally, I'd rather not be counted as "Catholic" in some almanac figure, or similar census. When demographers look up information about how many Catholics there are, will there be one too many, because the church counts me as one of them? If so, I'd say there are many, many too many, since there are many, many apostates from the Catholic church, and many more who, like me, never accepted their doctrines to begin with, despite having some water sprinkled on my newborn head.

I do understand this, but I still say it's irrelevant. Even if certification of excommunication meant that you were no longer considered Catholic by the church hierarchy, who is going to remove you from the official figures they give when they quote the number of faithful? Does anybody think they have a cleric with an eraser sitting with a tome full of names of all baptized babies who just rubs off the names as people leave the church and then re-tallies the figures so the accounting is accurate? The church is all about money; that’s the only accounting they actually care about. If you aren't giving money to them and nobody is giving money to them in your name, they don't know about you and they really don't care. The church already makes up stories about godmen born of virgins. Lying about how many cultists there are in the flock is small potatoes compared to the nonsense of the resurrection.

-Jerry
With greater numbers comes greater political influence and media influence (and thus political influence). A not-so-hypothetical situation: A TV network is planning programming for the next year, and wants to maximize viewership. Finding that Catholics outnumber secular people X% to Y%, they target much more programming toward a Catholic audience. Seeing their religion promoted, Catholics develop a mob mentality against secular people - "If you don't like it, you can sit down and shut up, or leave the country. Why should a little minority get their way over our huge majority?"

[Godless Sodomite]

With greater numbers comes greater political influence and media influence (and thus political influence). A not-so-hypothetical situation: A TV network is planning programming for the next year, and wants to maximize viewership. Finding that Catholics outnumber secular people X% to Y%, they target much more programming toward a Catholic audience. Seeing their religion promoted, Catholics develop a mob mentality against secular people - "If you don't like it, you can sit down and shut up, or leave the country. Why should a little minority get their way over our huge majority?"

I completely agree in principle. But as even CatholicChristian points out, the church knows only how to add (and even that they don't do very well, as exampled in their trinity arithmetic of 1+1+1=1). Given that the church offers no way out--whatever that means because I can't find any evidence that they keep a master record of everyone they claim to be Catholic--an argument by numbers can't be persuasive to anyone without a pro-church agenda (in which case real numbers don't matter anyway) since the number of Catholics quoted by the church isn't in any way representative of practicing Catholics. And even the number of practicing Catholics says nothing about how many people care about anything the Vatican says. I'm Italian, so obviously most of my family consider themselves Catholic. And as I mentioned, my boyfriend also considers himself a practicing Catholic. Even so, I don't know a single person who pays the slightest bit of attention to anything Pope Benedict has to say about anything. In fact, I'd wager that I pay much more attention to what he says (since I'm of the opinion that he's a fuckwit that has no business intruding into American politics) than any Catholic I know.

If I thought the numbers meant anything more than a publicity sound bite, I'd demand to be taken off the list of Catholics. But I don't think there is a list of Catholics. Without a master list of Catholics, I have no reason to believe I'm included in the number of Catholics they quote to the media when asked. And I have less reason to believe that I'd be subtracted from that total if I went out of my way to seek excommunication or disfellowship (which I don't believe they even offer).

If there is political power in the way they use their membership numbers, the way to combat that is making everyone aware that their numbers are as false as their doctrine, not insisting they remove me from membership since I'm fairly certain nobody has me listed as a member in the first place. But, as I said, I do agree with you. I think it's completely unethical of them to count people who do not agree to be counted. But I find them so unethical in so many ways (altar boy scandal, anyone?) that this is the least of my problems with the Roman Cult.

-Jerry

[ApostateAbe]

Check this out:

Debaptism 2.0: Fleeing the Flock Via the Net (http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2007/06/debaptism)

[Stacey Melissa]

Mod hat: This is just a friendly reminder to keep the conversation appropriate for the PA&SA forum. That means theological debate doesn't belong here. Such debate is more appropriate for the General Religious Discussions forum.

Stacey Melissa
PA&SA Moderator

Maybe I should stop answering these questions here, then? And look around the GRD forum?

Actually, I decided to just go ahead and split some posts debating the "once Catholic, always Catholic" doctrine off to the GRD forum, here (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=210776). Feel free to continue in that thread. - Stacey Melissa, PA&SA Moderator

[Stacey Melissa]

If I thought the numbers meant anything more than a publicity sound bite, I'd demand to be taken off the list of Catholics. But I don't think there is a list of Catholics. Without a master list of Catholics, I have no reason to believe I'm included in the number of Catholics they quote to the media when asked. And I have less reason to believe that I'd be subtracted from that total if I went out of my way to seek excommunication or disfellowship (which I don't believe they even offer).
I do care about publicity sound bites (which I concur is all the inflated number of "Catholics" amounts to), because we live in a sound bite culture.

According to the the Wired article that Abel linked to, there is a local roll of "Catholics", and there is a way to be removed from that roll. I suspect the local rolls are tallied up into regional, national, and international rolls.

If there is political power in the way they use their membership numbers, the way to combat that is making everyone aware that their numbers are as false as their doctrine, ...
Actually, that's the sort of tactic I was thinking of anyway. :)

[Stacey Melissa]

Check this out:

Debaptism 2.0: Fleeing the Flock Via the Net (http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2007/06/debaptism)
Thanks, Abel! That article is just what I was looking for.

I sure hope my dad can remember which parish I was baptized at, because I certainly don't want to have to talk with my estranged mom or her Catholic-to-the-nutso-degree family to find out.