Vatican Forgives John Lennon

[Cliffy]

Give it a few more centuries and John will take on martyred messiah status. Then his popularity will soar and JC will become a back water magician.
Just speculation, but I think Christians over rate themselves.

 

[Zzarchov]

What the hell is everyones problem?

An organization admits a mistake and they are hounded for it.


Jeebus, then you wonder why leaders and politicians seem unable to admit mistakes but instead lie and cover them up, making things worse for everyone in the process.

Well you reap what you so, if admitting a mistake is treated worse than lying about even making a mistake what can you expect?

 

[Spade]

I think some feel that this admission is inconsistent with past behaviour. When the Catholic Church is wrong, it is usually wrong for a thousand years. And, was this confession of error followed by a genuine Act of Contrition?

 

[givpeaceachance]

Some people think, and some mentioned in here, that John Lennon was or should be a saint. And I would like to say :

Why? For what he did to his son Julian, one could hardly even consider him to be a humanitarian. It's obvious and sad how masses of people will revere strangers.

I'm sorry if I offend any John Lennon fans here but I truly urge anyone to get informed about the people that they look up to.

I at one point thought John Lennon was super cool but that was a) when I was younger and b) when I knew nothing about him outside of the music. In fact it was the song 'Imagine' that piqued my suspicion because I realized that what I, and everybody else, thought the song was about, wasn't what it was about at all, IF you payed attention to the lyrics.

I test this theory all the time, ever since I noticed it, and not very many people clue into the fact that it is basically an atheistic one world utopia. No heaven, no hell, no countries, no religion, no possessions - the world will be as one.

It's the no heaven = no God idea that people miss in the song. It's only those that have rejected the idea of God that really actually get what the song is about. But there are tons of people who believe in God, and who wouldn't want to live in a world where there was no God, that think that John Lennon's song Imagine is a song of peace and humanitarian value, which it it not. Because in order to enforce Lennon's ideal of Peace, you would need to destroy the cultural differences that identify us. And any TRUE humanitarian knows that the key to peace is accepting with full respect and learning from the differences in the ways people live.

There is a surface and an underbelly to this song. Most people will see the one side no matter what side it is and usually they fight about it. But some people will begin to see both sides and realize that the music industry if chock full of these kinds of songs.

Let me remind you that in the agreed upon `` rock song of all rock songs`` "Stairway To Heaven", it even gives you a little hint into the nature of it`s own laws of grammar :

"There's a sign on the wall/But she wants to be sure/Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings".

In other words : some of these songs were designed to go over peoples heads. And they did. And without knowing it, thousands upon thousands of people who believe in God, for decades, hailed a man and the idea of a world without Him.

So to the Catholic that was ashamed of his church for not seeing John Lennon as a `saint`, I just want to point out that : I should think that you would be `ashamed` if it were the other way around!

 

[Zzarchov]

In regards to Lennon as a saint, ignoring religious yammering.

He was a terrible human being who treated his son like a cast away item he could discard when he was bored of being a family man, just up and left him from the age of 5 until Julian sought him out as an adult:


Julian said of his father, "I've never really wanted to know the truth about how dad was with me. There was some very negative stuff talked about me ... like when he said I'd come out of a whiskey bottle on a Saturday night. Stuff like that. You think, where's the love in that? Paul and I used to hang about quite a bit ... more than Dad and I did. We had a great friendship going and there seems to be far more pictures of me and Paul playing together at that age than there are pictures of me and my dad."

Who the hell tells their 5 year old "You were a whiskey induced mistake".


Real saint there.

 

[givpeaceachance]

You managed to Validate and De-validate me all at the same time. It`s funny how even when someone agrees with your point, they still like to be assh@les about it.

 

[Zzarchov]

Views about his athiest stance making him a bad person is deeply offensive to the many good people who are athiests.

He's a bad person because he's a douche bag, even if he believed in God he would still be just as big of a douche bag. A douche bag with good music mind you, but Michael Jackson had some great songs too.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

What the hell is everyones problem?

An organization admits a mistake and they are hounded for it.


Jeebus, then you wonder why leaders and politicians seem unable to admit mistakes but instead lie and cover them up, making things worse for everyone in the process.

Well you reap what you so, if admitting a mistake is treated worse than lying about even making a mistake what can you expect?

Zzarchov, instead of committing the misdeed and then saying you are sorry, isn’t it better not to commit the misdeed in the first place?

It is like killing a man and then saying to his wife that you are sorry. Isn’t it better to think what you are doing before you kill the man?

That is the problem with the Church. On any issue, church instinctively takes the conservative position. Thus at the time of Galileo, the conservative position was that sun goes around earth. Galileo took the contrary position. Church wielded immense power in those days and it persecuted Galileo.

But rather than persecute Galileo and apologize 500 years later (when both Galileo and the miscreants are long dead and buried), Church should have asked the question, where does it say in the Bible that sun goes around the earth?

If the Church learned something from such apologies, they may have some value. However, experience has shown that Church is incapable of learning from its mistake. In view of that the apologies ring hollow.

 

[givpeaceachance]

WOW!!!! I never said that he was a bad person because he may or may not have been atheist AND I never said that I thought he was a bad person. I was just relaying my experience with the song Imagine. I dont believe that I called John Lennon an atheist or that I was putting down atheists all together either.

Another song that caught my attention when I was young was the song Woman Is The Nigger Of The World. I was listening to his music pretty early and back when rap didnt even really exist and neither did the n-word controversy. And even though I liked John Lennon and the song, I just knew that, although I understood the context of the words and everything, it still felt wrong. It made me look at him differently because I thought that if he was truly an amazing writer, he would have used some words in a different way.

What I realize now is that, when it came to his song writing, John Lennon knew exactly what he was saying. He basically got everyone to accept a very discriminating and racially derogatory word at the expense of black people in general in an effort to be hip.

Woman is the nigger of the world,
Woman is a slave of the slaves

I often wondered how many black people were singin and diggin that song. Not very humanitarian if you ask me.

SO are you going to accuse me now of calling John Lennon a racist and tell me that I have insulted racists everywhere with my comment about his song

 

[Risus]

I think some feel that this admission is inconsistent with past behaviour. When the Catholic Church is wrong, it is usually wrong for a thousand years. And, was this confession of error followed by a genuine Act of Contrition?

what the hell is an act of contrition??

 

[gerryh]

You people blow me away.... The title of this OP is misleading at the least and an outright lie at the most. The "Vatican" nor the "Holy See" has apologised for what it said about Lennon. A frickin OP-ed in a newspaper apologised.

 

[Poquas]

Wow. For a person who claims to live with an unquestionable faith in some form of Supreme Being, you have one thin skin sir. People have the right to believe or not believe in anything they like without you flinging the term atheist like it’s some form of insult. If I were to follow your example, calling you a Christian would be an insult as it attests to your blind faith in something that no one can prove.:roll:

For the record about the Beatles, they were more famous than Christ. Most of the world knew about them at their height. The world at the time of Christ was a much, much smaller place so in shear numbers, there is no comparison. Lennon was right.

 

[gerryh]

Wow. For a person who claims to live with an unquestionable faith in some form of Supreme Being, you have one thin skin sir. People have the right to believe or not believe in anything they like without you flinging the term atheist like it’s some form of insult. If I were to follow your example, calling you a Christian would be an insult as it attests to your blind faith in something that no one can prove.:roll:

For the record about the Beatles, they were more famous than Christ. Most of the world knew about them at their height. The world at the time of Christ was a much, much smaller place so in shear numbers, there is no comparison. Lennon was right.

and who is this directed at?

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Wow. For a person who claims to live with an unquestionable faith in some form of Supreme Being, you have one thin skin sir.

Poquas, but isn’t that true of many Christians, indeed, of many religious people (Muslims etc.)? Devoutly religious people usually have a thin skin.

I think the reason for this is that they feel superior to non believers. They have reserved seats in Heaven, those who disagree with them are bound straight for Hell, obviously that makes the believer the better person. How dare a nonbeliever challenge the believer about religion, about faith?

The same thing is observed in USA, religious right, supposedly the most devoutly religious group, is also the angriest.

 

[VanIsle]

What a strange little world they live in.

What a strange little world we live in. Why do any of you care about this topic???:-?

 

[Stretch]

and the vatican is what........ a haven/training ground a child molesters, big phuking deal, burn it to the ground......

 

[Risus]

For the record about the Beatles, they were more famous than Christ. Most of the world knew about them at their height. The world at the time of Christ was a much, much smaller place so in shear numbers, there is no comparison. Lennon was right.

I will correct your cracked record. What Lennon said was that the Beatles were more popular than Christ [at that time], which was also true.

 

[Poquas]

I will correct your cracked record. What Lennon said was that the Beatles were more popular than Christ [at that time], which was also true.

Oops! My record is vinyl. It often cracks!:lol:

and who is this directed at?

You of course. Throughout this forum you bristle with anger or go right off the deep end whenever your precious beliefs are threatened (in your mind).

If you really had faith, nothing said here would matter.

It looks like your faith is used as a shield for something else with no basis in reality. :roll:

 

[Cliffy]

The thin skin of the religious is caused by the fact that their faith is untenable, undependable and illogical. It is built in quick sand and as such easily shaken. Nothing terrifies them more than the facts. It causes their reality to shatter temporarily and that really boils their blood.

So do we treat them with kid gloves? That would stifle free speech. So, like I always say, if someone has a problem with anything I say, it is their problem and don't give them any solace. If they become antagonistic that constitutes abuse and are fare game.

 

[gerryh]

Oops! My record is vinyl. It often cracks!:lol:



You of course. Throughout this forum you bristle with anger or go right off the deep end whenever your precious beliefs are threatened (in your mind).

If you really had faith, nothing said here would matter.

It looks like your faith is used as a shield for something else with no basis in reality. :roll:

This entire thread has no basis in reality. The Vatican has made no retraction or appology.