half staff flags for the pope

[Dis]

There appears to be some controversy over having the flags at half staff in the U.S. (and in France too) for the pope.

We are supposed to have separation of church and state. And you would never see this happen for Jewish or Arabic leaders. What gives? A political ploy?

And France has issues with this as well. They ban headscarves from schools, yet allow this?

your thoughts?

[Brent]

Isn't the Pope a head of state?

And there is such a thing as the state discriminating against religion, too.

[SlowwHand]

It's not government mandated.
Any home owner or business can fly the flag at half staff at the time of any death, be it fido or the janitor.

That said, the poll is worthless.

[Dis]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
It's not government mandated.
Any home owner or business can fly the flag at half staff at the time of any death, be it fido or the janitor.

That said, the poll is worthless.

It's not? That's what I get for believing the newspaper.

but I did read an article about French leftists complaining about the half staff flags over there.

edit: Imran found the link. He's the man.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Actually Bush mandated that flags on public buildings be half staff:

http://www.catholic.org/cathcom/national_story.php?id=13595

[Admiral]

Regardless of the religion, it is a gesture of respect for an extremely moral (even if the morals didn't agree with some on the left)/important man. I would hope that the same would be done for the Dalai Lama (though, to be fair, the Dalai Lama has much less global influence than the Pope).

[Gamecube64]

Dalai Lama The pope only beats him on cool hats. The pope just has so many...

[DRoseDARs]

Well, seeing as Pope John Paul II was the head of state for the Holy See and not just the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Bush was well within standard decorum to recognize the passing of such leaders. Frankly, I don't see any problem with half-masting for major figures on the world stage, be they heads of state or not.

[Heresson]

Re: half staff flags for the pope

Originally posted by Dissident
There appears to be some controversy over having the flags at half staff in the U.S. (and in France too) for the pope.

The creme of civilisation

We are supposed to have separation of church and state. And you would never see this happen for Jewish or Arabic leaders. What gives? A political ploy?

Arabic leaders are mostly a bunch of tyrants, with all due respect and all my admiration for queen of Jordan. Israel violates human rights, and its current prime minister is responsible for several massacres of Arabs. Not to mention any Arab or Israeli leader didn't have a similar influence on history and respect in the world as deceased pope.
Also, Arab leaders are not heads of religion, as well as Israeli president. There are 4-6x less Arabs then catholics in the world, 90-100x more than Jews, 200x more than Israelis.

And France has issues with this as well. They ban headscarves from schools, yet allow this?

No, let women wear scarves.

Separation of state and religion is not and should not be a full one, it's not possible without discrimination. According to French socialist logic, France should break diplomatic reationships with Vatican, and politicians should never attend a mass or whatever.
Separation of state and religion is modern mask for primitive anti-religionism.

[Gamecube64]

Separation of state and religion is modern mask for primitive anti-religionism.

Since religion is primitive mind control, and since separation of church and sate is a mask for anti-religionism, countries with separation of church and state are the most free since they combat mind control.

[Heresson]

Religion is not mind control, nor primitive. Who controls the mind of the people in religion, according to You?
What mind control did the missionaries have on mind when they were going somewhere to die there for their faith? What interest did Jesus have in that a week ago JPII influenced many people but our well-being?

[Agathon]

I object to flying flags at half mast. It reminds one of impotence.

[Gamecube64]

Religion is not mind control, nor primitive. Who controls the mind of the people in religion, according to You?
What mind control did the missionaries have on mind when they were going somewhere to die there for their faith? What interest did Jesus have in that a week ago JPII influenced many people but our well-being?

Religion is primitive (atleast comparatively) and mind control. The Earth contained the dreaded material, tin foil, so alien mind control devices could not work. The aliens decided that our species was gullible enough to fall for holoprojections and other technotricks, so they started religion. Eventually the stupid ancient humans had deviated so much from the first alien demonstrations to the point that they were fighting amongst eachother, so the alien sent other "prophets" to Earth to keep us in control. This is how Jesus was born, despite Mary being a virgin. This still did not work and the religions continued to fight. The aliens were trying to make us cooperate so we would develop faster, making us more useful slaves. However now that Humans have become more intelligent and have made discoveries in science, we can now see what has really been happening, thus the increase in atheism. The aliens will come down upon us soon claiming to be a deity, will you be one of the brave humans to fight them? Or will you decide to go to "heaven" AKA the salt mines.

The evidence is all around us, from UFOs being in most religous pictures to unusual pregnancy.

I figured your troll about separation of church and state deserved a good counter-troll.

[Agathon]

@ GC64

[Brent]

I certainly would understand flags not going halfmast for the president of my church, but Catholicism is different because it's so big. I don't think flags would even be halfmast in Utah for the LDS president, and that makes sense to me. Now halfmast for Steven Hawking I'm not sure about, and for Chris Plummer or something I think not. But the Pope, yes. I wonder if there would be halfmast for Gorbachev.

I think banning religious headscarves is much worse than anything else I've seen in this thread.

Do scientists control peoples minds too? Or does Madonna or Britney Spears?

One shoild only join or follow a religion if they study it out in their minds first. And people do leave religions they no longer believe in.

Why is everything thought up by mere humans so much better than everything we've had since the beginning, or at least the beginning of history? How are today's thinkers automatically better than all thinkers of ancient times?

What is mankind doing to serve aliens?