Comments on: Picketing the Pope

By: Dana

Dana — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:07:34 +0000

Of course there is reason enough to protest the Pope’s visit alone, because the President should not be recognizing a religious leader in a formal white-house visit

and why is it that no one on here had issues when Bush sponsored the Dali Lama in the white house? Oh I forgot, Eastern religions get a free pass in the secular community.

By: Friendly Atheist » What an Atheist Would Say to Pope Benedict XVI

Friendly Atheist » What an Atheist Would Say to Pope Benedict XVI — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:31:36 +0000

[...] yesterday’s Papal Protest (sponsored by American Atheists), several people gathered to hold “peaceful [...]

By: cipher

cipher — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:26:18 +0000

he scares the frickin bejeezus out of me… Really, scary lookin dude.

Louis, a lot of people have noticed the resemblance between Benedict and Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious:

http://simianfarmer.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/lackoffaith.jpg

By: Vincent

Vincent — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 12:31:45 +0000

I plan on being part of this protest.
The Beltway Atheists meetup group is very inter-twined with AA in DC, and you might be surprised at the heated debate that went on in their mailing list over this.
All of the points mentioned here have been excruciatingly beaten about for more than a month.
In the end it is going to get some press and thus is a consciousness raising event. The goal of many of us is to have some legitimate soundbites regarding policies of the vatican such as sheltering pedophile priests, denying the use of condoms in AIDs crippled countries, etc.
The papal visit is a good venue to protest the papal policies, particularly the papal efforts to affect US laws promoting christian goals.

Of course there is reason enough to protest the Pope’s visit alone, because the President should not be recognizing a religious leader in a formal white-house visit. Contrary to what David D.G. said in the second post, the Pope is not the legitimate leader of a country, because the Vatican is not a country. According to the supreme law of this nation*, a country must have a permanent population**, which the Vatican does not. The residents are continually being imported to fill space. How many people are born in the Vatican each year?

* Article VI, Clause 2 of the Constitution says treaties are the supreme law of the land along with the Constitution and laws in support thereof.
** the 1933 Montevideo Convention is a treaty which the US is party to

By: Scorpious

Scorpious — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 02:54:15 +0000

I wouldn’t, for the same reasons as above.

Benedict scares me as well. Talk about giving nightmares to the kids he “protects”. *shudders*

Also, once he goes home, back to Vatican City, back to Italy, it won’t matter at all whether people protested his visit or not. I doubt it’d get reported on over there like it does here when our President is protested when he visits certain countries.

We have better things to do, like making it much, much easier for an Atheist to be elected into the White House sometime this century.

Once that is done, then we can definitely protest the RCC by banning the current Pope from even entering this country. Wait… did I just say that out loud?

By: THz

THz — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:56:09 +0000

I would protest, but the emphasis would have to be on having it be entirely peaceful, and eloquently spoken. Specific signs and banners would help pass the message (against certain policies), rather than just a large group shouting.

If media exposure is given make sure that the emphasis is on the policies being pushed, not the religion itself.

By: Louis Doench

Louis Doench — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:05:46 +0000

To be completely serious, I don’t think I could protest the Pope because … well.. he scares the frickin bejeezus out of me.

Ya see, my second girl was born at Good Samaratin Hospital here in Cincinnati, the same joint i was squeezed out at. And so after I check my wife in I run back down to the car to grab a suitcase, run back, hop on the elevator out of breath, and when the doors open…boom… there’s a 13″x19″ glossy of his popeness staring straight at me with what I can only classify as vampiric glee. Really, scary lookin dude. Straight out of James Bond Villain school. He’s the Anti John Paul II. Run away… just run away!

By: You better not shout « Bruises Colours

You better not shout « Bruises Colours — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:31:59 +0000

[...] I’m sure mostly former Catholics like myself, are planning on protesting the pope. The Friendly Atheist outlines some convincing reasons not to protest the Pope, namely it makes us look angry at [...]

By: Christophe Thill

Christophe Thill — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:54:40 +0000

I don’t feel those people are protesting against the pope’s visit. This would have (and recently had) a sens in an Italian university, because the society there is still so much under the influence of the Catholic Church. But what I understand is that the demonstrations are intended against some of the most shocking positions of this Church. That’s not the same thing.

By: Maria

Maria — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:35:18 +0000

If there is any media about this, most people are just going to see it as atheists angry about religion (What’s new?, they’ll say) as opposed to angry with the Pope’s specific policies.

Unfortunately I agree. It’s just going to feed into the stereotype of “angry atheists” i.e. “oh look, the peacful pope is hear and those angry atheists want to destroy that too”. There are bigger, more important things to go after that won’t feed into the stereotype. And protesting the pope won’t change anything. This is kind of silly I think.