Pope Promotes Christian Netiquette

angry tapir writes "Pope Benedict XVI Monday gave his blessing to social networking, urging Catholic Internet users to adopt a respectful Christian netiquette when spreading the Gospel online. The pope said new technologies were creating unprecedented opportunities for establishing relationships and building fellowship but warned against creating false online profiles out of vanity or diluting the Christian message to achieve popularity."

Comments

HAH

[Pojut]

or diluting the Christian message to achieve popularity.

Who dilutes the Christian message more than the Vatican?

Re:HAH

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

And what is exactly the christian message? Be week, sick and mediocre? Don't try to be a better person because you are gonna die and go to a better life anyway? believe in my stupid imaginary friend in the sky, receive wine and bread?

the 'christian message' is a message of death, destruction and involution, and we would all be better if it didn't exist.

I have many issues with the

[geekoid]

Catholic Church, but this make me happy.

Religion would bother me a lot less if the people practicing it were polite.

Re:The pope should just shut the fuck up.

[GKThursday]

Well, he was elected. . .linkity, and he is the head of the Catholic Church, so he does have the authority to remind Catholics to behave online. As for the other ad-hominems, I'll just leave them alone.

Re:The pope should just shut the fuck up.

[bsDaemon]

Vatican City is an independent country. He is its Head of State by virtue of being elected Pope. So, he is an elected politician and a head of state. just because you disagree with the basic premise of his State and his authority doesn't make it go away, so deal with it. I'm not Catholic, I don't give a crap what he has to say either, but I'm not bitter that he's saying it. Its not like anyone who can affect my life actual listens to him, like Pat Robertson and his so-called "Christian Coalition" bullshit.

Re:Sigh

[vadim_t]

I think Wicca for instance is just as much bullshit as Christianity, but so far they don't seem to be trying to force anything on me, so I haven't had a reason to protest against them.

I'm perfectly fine with people having private irrational beliefs and staging elaborate ceremonies with scented candles (or whatever the Wicccans do on a regular basis). Now when people start trying to impose their religion on the rest of society, that's when I start having a very big problem with it.

Re:Sigh

[Opportunist]

And one has to wonder why there is so much anti-Christian rhetoric floating about. What could it possibly be?

I mean, when did you get any anti-Pagan, anti-Judaic, anti-Islam, anti-Buddhist, anti-Hinduist... rhetoric lately? I mean, aside of overzealous Christians?

That's my main beef with the Christians: They don't just leave you alone when you declare that you don't want to hear any of their bull. They feel the need to push their delusions into everyone's face. And everyone's law. Stop doing that and you'll see a lot of anti-Christian rhetoric stop.

I don't really think a lot of atheist and other-theists feel the need to go out of their way to deal with your delusions. If you want to believe that a person executed in a quite painful way is your saviour and you want to pray to a corpse on a cross, go ahead and have fun! Or don't, if that's more your speed, some people enjoy castigating themselves.

But leave the rest of the world out of this! Keep your religion to yourself and let us live our lives without cramming your views down our throats! And behold, you'll be left alone instantly, just like the Buddhists, Hinduists, Muslims, Jews, Pagans and whatever else people wish to believe in, or not.

Re:Sigh

[Americano]

anti-Judaic? anti-Islamic? Right here on Slashdot. Go back and read about the Israel/Palestine peace talk leaks. There's a lot of quite nasty rhetoric going both ways from people who claim to be disinterested parties.

You seem to think that the only person saying nasty things about other religions is Christians. You're quite wrong. This doesn't excuse the Christians who *are* spouting nonsense, but it applies equally well to anybody of any religious orientation.

Religion aside, we need netiquette standards

[GodfatherofSoul]

I think these will eventually evolve, but I'd like to see *more* organized pushes to set some standards. I've been a net denizen since around '91 and many of the issues I see people struggling with (or at least not appreciating the consequences of) I've already been through. Things like firing off that quick, snide comment, the persistence of any statements you make, privacy, etc. I'm by no means perfect or Lawful Good on the interwebz, but I at least understand what can happen every time I interact online.