Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Do as I say, not as I do..


I must be thinking and reading a lot about hypocrisy lately; when you look it's all over the place. In my previous post I talked about a hypocritical surgeon who denies the science upon which his profession (and personal wealth) is based and also this week we've had wall to wall stories about the Pope visiting America kissing babies and upsetting climate-change deniers in the Republican party. Presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said that people shouldn't listen to the Pope on climate change because he's "not a scientist". Of course, like much of what Jeb Bush says, this is both hypocritical and wrong. It's hypocritical because Jeb Bush isn't a scientist either and wrong because Francis has a degree in Chemical Engineering, which I know for a fact is pretty science'y because that's what I studied too!

During the visit Pope Francis declared his support for anti-gay marriage clerk Kim Davis, apparently he thinks it's a "human right" to not do your job if you feel that your religious views are infringed somehow. It was less clear who gets to choose what is a "human right" and what is not, the Catholic Church perhaps? And what about the "human rights" of the people being denied the service? He also acknowledged the suffering of the thousands of people who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of the clergy of his organisation; he said he'd "pray for them". Many secular people would have preferred it if he'd said something like "I guarantee that no criminals will be protected by the Church and evade justice, in this life, or the next". He also said that Women are perfectly able to be priests and are more important than men, but in his Church they couldn't hold this position or any more senior position either.

All of this sounds a bit hypocritical to me?

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