Your suggestion that the Catholic Church arbitrarily decides things, then says its decision is the “word of God”, and expects all its members to obey them without thought is very far from the truth. It’s a position, commonly held by liberal snide-artists, which derives from a mixture of traditional British Protestant anti-Catholicism and modern supposition that the image portrayed by loud-mouthed evangelicals are what all Christianity is about. And, OK, some of the stuff said by people on the conservative wing of the Catholic Church doesn’t help, but contrary to your snide remark “how to have a constructive disagreement with an organisation that thinks I am disagreeing with God”, there are actually many people with a variety of views within the Catholic church and active discussion on these issues. Maybe you need to read some Aquinas on natural law or Newman on conscience to get a better feel. But I don’t have time to write long theological essays on the issue, particularly in a forum like this.

As I keep saying, it’s not one thing you can pick out and say “that’s unacceptable” but the constant drip-drip of negative remarks and assumptions about Catholicism that seem standard amongst liberals. The image portrayed just doesn’t fit in with my own experiences and my own reading. I would like to be able to practice my own little cultural rituals, and appreciate the sense of community, and yes, morality, which membership of this organisation gives, without finding that so many times I look at the prime discussion group for people whose politics I share, I find abusive, negative and often lying attacks on this aspect of my being, and almost never anything positive to balance.

You are aware I am tempted to assume the worst from your reluctance? That you know your position is indefensible and that you have been psychologically manipulated into sticking up for your church, and to applying a double standard when judging it as opposed to any other organisation.

And isn’t it a bit rich to talk about extreme hostility in a thread inspired by some claim of credit for religion in which the celebrity atheists of the local blogosphere simply let that pass in order to engage constructively with the topic.

If Joe wishes to read it, it may well provide more grist to his anti-Catholic mill. I very much doubt it will soften his attitude towards the Church. As far as this thread is concerned, I can’t see any reason why his concise assessment of the Church’s “medieval attitude to sexuality, inconsistent with human rights” would be changed in the slightest by reading “Humanae Vitae”.

If I have misunderstood the church’s position (that God agrees with it) in the last sentence of my previous post, don’t just say so, put me right. On what question does the church believe it disagrees with God? Or offer the help I was asking for - how does one go about disagreeing constructively with the church.

Yet sincere and trusting engagement with a body of work which is highly morally deficient will tend to lead to wicked conclusions. Many probably are guilty, but nobody has to be, for mistakes to be built on mistakes over centuries causing great harm to humankind. Error is not in itself morally culpable - when you interpret “you’re wrong” as an attack on someone’s character you are projecting the idea which says that people who are mistaken on matters of fact deserve punishment. I suggest you’ll find that idea more often inside Christianity (more typically protestantism I suppose) than outside it.

What would you have me do to “tolerate” the RC position on sex? What does toleration even mean here? The possibilities are to agree or to disagree. Sure, a disagreement can be constructive, or robust, or hostile. Perhaps what I need is some idea of how to have a constructive disagreement with an organisation that thinks I am disagreeing with God.

Note, I would say exactly the same to Catholics, particularly to some of the conservative sorts who mouth off about liberals in a sensationalist way. That is, they may not agree with those liberals’ conclusions, but I would like them at least to accept that liberals by and large are not evil people and arrive at their positions through rational thought which is based on sympathy for human welfare.