Topic: Francis the 1st is first pope from the Americas

[Highwind Dragoon]

http://news.yahoo.com/francis-first-pope-americas-193844474.html


Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina is chosen as the new leader of the Catholic Church, and takes the name Francis I.

[X]

Many people out there hope that he will help bring about some form of change in the church. The church as it now stands is rather archaic and dated, especially with regards to human rights, equality amongst the sexes and how it views gays & lesbians. Personally I feel that the church needs to change far more then this like throwing away their dogmatic views and principles which have no place in the 21st century. I know it won't all happen right away as the church has always been very slooooooooooow to embrace change. But maybe Pope Francis 1st will help get things started.

[Ratty]

Many people out there hope that he will help bring about some form of change in the church. The church as it now stands is rather archaic and dated, especially with regards to human rights, equality amongst the sexes and how it views gays & lesbians. Personally I feel that the church needs to change far more then this like throwing away their dogmatic views and principles which have no place in the 21st century. I know it won't all happen right away as the church has always been very slooooooooooow to embrace change. But maybe Pope Francis 1st will help get things started.

Eh I wouldn't hold out much hope for that, this guy spoke out against the legalization of gay marriage in his own country. Take a look at the article with his past history, he was mixed up in some very nasty business in the 70s. Though he claims to have secretly done good stuff then and just not told anyone for decades. Still better than the last Pope who was the Grand Inquisitor during the decades of sex cover-ups who signed the order that no one involved with the instances of abuse were allowed to go to outside authorities on threat of ex-communication, including the victims. But this new guy definitely looks more humble than the last Pope, which when it comes to getting people to listen is what really matters.

[Lelygax]

They changed it again? Why? Its normal?

[Highwind Dragoon]

They needed to choose a new pope because Pope Benedict XVI stepped down.

[Mooning Freddy]

John Paul II in 2000 declared officially that the Jews didn't kill Christ. I guess at that point nobody really cared, I suppose the Pope is much more a symbol now than the voice of god that he was in the middle ages.

They changed it again? Why? Its normal?

LMAO is the Pope an object now? I suppose he can be seen as institution, but still, haha...

[Lelygax]

Well, since Pope is a title I thought its more appropriate to say "it" instead of "he", Im wrong? Since its Pope and not Popeye... xD

[Lone Wolf]

John Paul II in 2000 declared officially that the Jews didn't kill Christ. I guess at that point nobody really cared, I suppose the Pope is much more a symbol now than the voice of god that he was in the middle ages.

I guess so... Each one has a definition of "god". Naming himself as "the voice of God" would be nothing but a personal statement.
People's got freedom of thought, as they can also decide by themselves in which thing to believe. Be it a "god", or any other entity; it doesn't make any difference, since we're dealing with perspectives. So searching for a definition of "god" through the others opinions would be kinda complicated...
Nevertheless, each one chooses a path, something to believe in, a way of seing god as it is. An spiritual being, a colossus, a huge man, a light, or whatever that is....
Neverminding its form, we choose what we choose; we believe what we choose to believe in; we follow our paths as they are.
As your path is for you to follow..

[Mooning Freddy]

Well, since Pope is a title I thought its more appropriate to say "it" instead of "he", Im wrong? Since its Pope and not Popeye... xD

lol... No he's still a man. Unless you're referring to "The Catholic Papacy" as an institution.
It leads me to an interesting discussion about the difference between he/she and it in English. A baby, for example, is traditionally referred to as "it". "Look at that baby. It is such a big baby".
Why "it"? The only explanation that I can think of is that babies were not initially seen as humans, since they are incapable of taking care of themselves, but as beings who eventually develop into humans.

That's nice philosophy, Lone Wolf.

[Ratty]

lol... No he's still a man. Unless you're referring to "The Catholic Papacy" as an institution.
It leads me to an interesting discussion about the difference between he/she and it in English. A baby, for example, is traditionally referred to as "it". "Look at that baby. It is such a big baby".
Why "it"? The only explanation that I can think of is that babies were not initially seen as humans, since they are incapable of taking care of themselves, but as beings who eventually develop into humans.

That's nice philosophy, Lone Wolf.

My guess is the "it" thing comes from people not being able to immediately determine the physical sex of a baby unless there's some gender-associated clothing. Or if they're nude of course. Some cultures don't view children as humans until they reach a certain age, 1-5 years is the norm in such cases iirc, at which point the child is considered to get a soul or some other thing that makes it fully human. This is a method of detachment in places that have high infant/child mortality rates. One could probably argue that things like the traditional infant Baptism in Catholicism or the traditional Jewish circumcision, which take place a few days after the child is born, serve or served a similar function.

[Gunlord]

Don't cry for me Argentinaaaaaaa

The truth is, the pope is from thereeeeeee

[Lone Wolf]

lol... No he's still a man. Unless you're referring to "The Catholic Papacy" as an institution.
It leads me to an interesting discussion about the difference between he/she and it in English. A baby, for example, is traditionally referred to as "it". "Look at that baby. It is such a big baby".
Why "it"? The only explanation that I can think of is that babies were not initially seen as humans, since they are incapable of taking care of themselves, but as beings who eventually develop into humans.

That's nice philosophy, Lone Wolf.

First of all, thanks! ^_^

And second, i don't personally think the word "it" should be used exclusively for objects, nor animals, nor other inanimated subjects, only. I disagree your conclusion of "why they use 'it' for babies"..
Same thing as the definition of "god", there's no unique definition for "it". Each one chooses its function, or how they see it.
People's got maaaany different opinions, different ways of seing things, which are called "PERSPECTIVES", guys.
Just the way YOU use the word "it" is for YOU to choose. I could use "it" myself even for people, whenever i think the other pronoums don't come in handy.
Are they losing their humanity because of it? NOOO!!
It's just a matter of choice! Each one uses it whenever they think its proper!
Using "it" for babies, either... They're still humans! They didn't become inhumans just because you refered to a baby as "it". This is simple: just say it whenever you think it could come in handy and that's all.
And nooo, they're not seen as non-humans! Of course, they may not be capable of taking care of themselves, by themselves.. But they're still humans, dude!

My guess is the "it" thing comes from people not being able to immediately determine the physical sex of a baby unless there's some gender-associated clothing. Or if they're nude of course.

Yes, dude. It's a matter of gender, and also how people limit themselves by giving things definitive names and trapping themselves to it, for it seems the most proper way of talking about them.

See it, Freddy? This is for you, too. They often use "it" for situations in which something has no visible way of being determinated by gender. As in the words "student", and even "president".

Back to a silly but notable example of how people trap themselves waaay too much for "definitions":

One day suddenly, a woman was named president of Brazil. Her name is Dilma Rousseff.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ZngE4pShE-k/S7vxUg34WyI/AAAAAAAAGss/HPH-OoYBx0g/s1600/dilma+rousseff.jpg

Look, she's here.

Soo, i'm doing some observations before we get to the main point of this story, cause it could come in handy.

"President"(in Portuguese)="Presidente"(a word that is taken as reference to the male gender).

Now back to the story:
One other day, she claimed that she should be called "presidenta"(supposed to be a female version for the therm "presidente", in the Portuguese language).

...as if it wasn't enough, people started joking her everywhere.
She was wrong, according the portuguese grammar "standard".

But anyway, i hope you have enjoyed my little story. If you're still asking to yourself "why the hell she did that??"(you may be), just don't think about it, anyway. This is simple: she thought it was proper, and that's it. People judged her, tried rubbing stupid grammar rules into her face, and then many jokes were spread around.
Pffft..... Just want you to know that, if it wasn't for her, many people would be still thinking: "why am i so stupid?", "why am i so wrong, and different from the others??", "why am i still fucking doing the things wrong, and not just the right way??".

There's a tip for you, my bro: the "right way" is for you to find. It is something that you create, for yourself. Just don't go on people saying "your way" is the "right way", and you'll be fine.
Standards are like rules: they're made to be broken. People created it themselves. So they can fucking break it whenever they think it's fucking needed. There's no "right way", man. Our world is all wrong! It is not perfect! Stop with this perfectionist silliness and start thinking in learning to live with those differences. The world needs more harmony than those stupid businessmen telling us how to cut our beefs. Right, folks?

[Flame]

John Paul II in 2000 declared officially that the Jews didn't kill Christ. I guess at that point nobody really cared, I suppose the Pope is much more a symbol now than the voice of god that he was in the middle ages.

LMAO is the Pope an object now? I suppose he can be seen as institution, but still, haha...

That I remember, He didn't say they didn't, he just said pretty much, yknow, that shit was a looooong time ago, by people who died literally thousands of years ago, and therefore there's no reason to hold it against Jews today and still blame them for it in modern day.

Also, I don't expect radical changes with this guy, however- he is very humble. First pope ever to bow down to the audience and ask "as a personal favor" for their blessing. Also, he chose the name Francis, a saint who was very humble and very frugal.

Back in Argentina, he didn't live in the place where the cardinals live, or whatever, he chose to live in his apartment and take public transportation to get places. One time, the cardinal of washington I think- visited him, and the guy had to go somewhere, so he said "Oh, I'll go with you!" to which Francis responded "oh nono, I take the subway and well sometimes it's not safe..."
Guy cooks his own meals, apparently, once he was elected Pope, he was caught returning to his hotel to pay the bill himself, lol.

He's also a Jesuit, who I hear are very good organizers. So while I don't expect change, perhaps he will finish what Benedict started, in terms of straightening up the church and organizing the mess it's in through good administration.

[Mooning Freddy]

You over-philosophized stuff, Lone Wolf. I was obviously not preaching about what grammatically is right or wrong but wondering about the origins of grammar, linguistics.

You can learn A LOT about a people's culture by studying their language. For instance, in modern English verbs are unaffected by the gender attributed to them. In Hebrew, Arabic and Russian, you need to change the ending of verbs according to the gender of whoever made the action. I give you an example: In English you say: "My brother read the book / my sister read the book" in Russian it's translated as "My brother chital the book / my sister chitala the book", in Hebrew it's "My brother Kara the book / my sister kar-ah the book." I don't know if in Spanish it's that way, but I suppose it can be.

The reason I am telling you that is because we had a lecture about feminism last week, and one of the teachers explained about how he often likes to switch the gender of the instructions in a test to female in order to make his pupils consider that.
You see, in Hebrew traditionally when you are addressing an unspecified gender, you usually use the male form of verbs. So the teacher decided to write "Kirii (female form of read instead of Kra- male form) the essay and ani (answer, instead of the male ane) the following questions". It usually confuses male students because they are not used to be addressed in the female form while the female students are used to being addressed in the male form. Makes you think.

Tell you another story, if I may. Once I wondered about the origin of the Hebrew word "monitin". Monitin is the Hebrew word for reputation. I wondered because even though it's a word that is used a lot in the Hebrew language, it doesn't sound Hebrew, while it is true that the -in ending is an archaic plural form for Hebrew words. I decided to read about it and discovered that the origin of the word is, no less, the period of the Second Temple. The origin of the archaic word is the Greek word "Moneta"- coin, which is probably the origin of the English "money". But what do coins have to do with reputation? It had to do with the fact that during the Greek-Roman periods coins had gravings of kings and emperors on them. If your face is on a coin, it means you have a lot of reputation, which is probably the explanation why Hebrew borrowed the Greek word to make a new, Hebrew word. That is fascinating because it shows how we often used words without understanding their history.

[Sumac]

Tell you another story, if I may. Once I wondered about the origin of the Hebrew word "monitin". Monitin is the Hebrew word for reputation. I wondered because even though it's a word that is used a lot in the Hebrew language, it doesn't sound Hebrew, while it is true that the -in ending is an archaic plural form for Hebrew words. I decided to read about it and discovered that the origin of the word is, no less, the period of the Second Temple. The origin of the archaic word is the Greek word "Moneta"- coin, which is probably the origin of the English "money". But what do coins have to do with reputation? It had to do with the fact that during the Greek-Roman periods coins had gravings of kings and emperors on them. If your face is on a coin, it means you have a lot of reputation, which is probably the explanation why Hebrew borrowed the Greek word to make a new, Hebrew word. That is fascinating because it shows how we often used words without understanding their history.

This is very interesting!!
In Russian "moneta" is a word used for regular coins.