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LINK 'Imagine,' blared at the Olympics, is a totalitarian's anthem

Written by one 'Robert Barron is the auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles'

A masterpiece in misconstruction and misinterpretation.

Consider:
"opening verse: “Imagine there’s no heaven / It’s easy if you try / No hell below us, above us only sky / Imagine all the people livin’ for today.
I frankly can’t imagine anything worse. To say that there is no heaven or hell is to say that there is no absolute criterion of good and evil. ...."

So, belief in heaven and hell means belief in an "absolute criterion of good and evil."
What absolute criterion would that be, auxiliary Bishop? And of course all religions are consistent in their definition of good and evil, aren't they? No, they aren't.

Even better one :

"... If you doubt the convictions of a Roman Catholic bishop, take a good hard look at the tens of millions of corpses piled up in the last century by people who took very seriously the proposition that there is “no hell below us; above us only sky. ...."

Does he mean people like Adolf Hitler, the Catholic, who went to a lot of trouble to steal the Spear of Longinus, which supposedly pierced the side of Jesus, apparently because it has magical power properties to those who have it?

How anyone could see Lennon's song as an anthem for authoritarianism is just astonishing. But he reveals himself, this so called auxiliary Bishop. Lennon catches in that song a secular future ideal, free of warring countries, no longer fooled by the stupidity of religion, and many of us identify with it. This sort of Bishop knows this and is frightened by it. Good.

David1955 8 July 26
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9 comments

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1

Hmm. Any relation to "John Barron", I wonder?

Bishops are middle management. Nobody listens to them whether they are punching up or down.

zeuser Level 9 July 26, 2021

Auxiliary means helping or supporting of course, so I suppose he's a helping Bishop. Doesn't seem very helpful to me.

@David1955 Like an AVP, let's say. A flunky.

2

Sounds like a load of crap to me.

2

🙄🤦♀️

3

He has no evidence that heaven or hell exist. I don't believe in either of them.

4

Roman Catholicism itself is a totalitarian structured organization which dictates from its top down and doesn't allow for much deviation or variety within its membership. For centuries, the Catholic church supported totalitarian monarchies and only ever found fault with them when they rebelled against the church's totalitarian authority over them. Such criticism of a song which is contrary to the present day Catholic church is at least consistent with the church's past position, but also hypocritical in its accusation of being totalitarian which is completely inaccurate in description of the song. I don't recall anywhere in the song that anyone is forced to conform in this imagination as the church forces people to confirm to their definitions of "good"and "evil".

Indeed.This Church was dragged through the Reformation and the Enlightenment and has fought modernism in every form, and he has the nerve to criticise Lennon's song, which might seem idealistic but visionary in a way, as authoritarian in intent. Pure Catholic ignorance and hypocrisy.

3

No problems. I can imagine it easily as I do not believe in heaven or hell.

4

Well geewiz, imagine that! An auxiliary Bishop claims a song is an anthem for authoritarianism, this is how vicious rumors get started. 🙂

10

He sounds like a man who is afraid that his authority is being challenged, because his whole life has been built on a lie if there is no heaven or hell. He then becomes totally irrelevant, because his power over people and his ability to control them has been removed.

Exactly

4

Robert Barron has probably sucked many a choir boy's dick.

barjoe Level 9 July 26, 2021

He probably got it up the fudge tunnel too.

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