Slashdot Mirror
Pope Cancels Speech After Scientists Protest
Reservoir Hill writes "Pope Benedict XVI canceled a speech at Rome's La Sapienza university in the face of protests led by scientists opposed to a high-profile visit to a secular setting by the head of the Catholic Church. Sixty-seven professors and researchers of the university's physics department joined in the call for the pope to stay away protesting the planned visit recalled a 1990 speech in which the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, seemed to justify the Inquisition's verdict against Galileo in 1633. In the speech, Ratzinger quoted an Austrian philosopher who said the ruling was 'rational and just' and concluded with the remark: 'The faith does not grow from resentment and the rejection of rationality, but from its fundamental affirmation, and from being rooted in a still greater form of reason.' The protest against the visit was spearheaded by physicist Marcello Cini who wrote the rector complaining of an 'incredible violation" of the university's autonomy. Cini said of Benedict's cancellation: 'By canceling, he is playing the victim, which is very intelligent. It will be a pretext for accusing us of refusing dialogue.'"
The only dialog I see coming from The Church these days is [plugs ears] "I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA LA LA LA LA".
He's a German theologian.
I think that says it all.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
As someone whose grandfather is Italian, I ask:
You haven't met very many Italians, have you?
You can't take the sky from me...
Putting him under house arrest and threatening him with execution if he doesn't recant would be.
Hmmm, that sounds familiar...
You're right, of course. Protests and letter writing will silence the Pope, who has no other forum for airing his views.
If only there was some place he could speak from, that others could hear. Some sort of... what's the word... pulpit or even a balcony above a crowd.
I guess that'll always be the dream for the Pope though, since we all know he can only speak at universities.
congrats on the +5 mod up and another proof of Godwin's Law.
What "spiritual methods" are well-accepted and *reliable*?
Well, you could try to appeal to other spiritual entities for enlightenment and share your experiences with others. They can then try to reproduce your experiment and see if they get similar feelings of presence, advice and insights into nature of being.
And what, he let the sailors swing from them?
That Galileo was one virile fellow, for sure, but...jeez!
blah blah blah
I'd say you've already shown yourself to be significantly inferior to him, simply by virtue of your attitude.
Are you sure his employer wasn't a Kansas schoolboard?
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
If atheism is a religion, then abstinence is a sexual position.
I'm not interested, as long as he still preaches that Jesus B.S. and refuses to accept the plain facts of His Noodly Magnificence's Saucy imprint on all of creation. I'm sure the scientists would have been much more interested in a visit from a representative of the REAL Holy Church, whose beliefs speak to a much "higher" (not to mention tastier) rationality than anything the catholics could propose. RAmen.
**** You never REALLY learn to swear until you own a computer. ****
Q: What is an agnostic dislexic insomniac?
A: Someone who lies awake at night wondering if there is a dog.
Haw haw haw ... Ok your turn.
Must. Resist. Catholic Priest Joke.
Reason why there is hope for the future generation #364:
"I wish my grass was emo so it could cut itself."