Pope Francis: Church could support civil unions

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Greeks wrote whole philosophies, debates, prose and poetry on their gods. They provided eloquent arguments about the existence of the gods, their influence in human affairs and so on. No one believes in them anymore so 99% of the population aren't going to take seriously the idea that the Greeks might have been on to something.

Depends on what one means by religion.  I agree that there are probably few Neopagans who take the ancient mythoi as literal truth but that most who follow that path do so to use mythological archetypes to gain insight into their own spirituality.  However, unlike the purely mythical religions, the semi-historical ones such as Christianity and Buddhism do have real people whose historical existence is pretty much undeniable except by a few rabid atheists who refuse to allow that any religion might have any degree of historical reality.  I find it doubtful that Christianity will be fading away anytime soon, tho doctrines that are unrelated or marginally related to the Great Commandment may well fade away fairly quickly.  Or they might not.  People have been predicting the future for as long there have been people, yet few have truly had Cassandra's insight and those who have, have generally shared Cassandra's fate as well.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Maybe Apollo was present at the siege of Troy?

Given how both of the Cynthogenian gods (Apollo and his (usually) older sister Artemis) ended up being syncretized with so many other gods in the classical era, there might well have been multiple Apollos at Troy.

Now would having an ‘historical’ figure at the core of a faith make it, by that definition alone, more plausible? Again, I can’t agree to that. We know that L Ron Hubbard was a real person but does that mean that it adds credibility to what he said? No.

I wasn't trying to say that having a historical figure at its core make a religion more credible or more truthy.  What it does do is give a religion a firm core from which it cannot depart too far from.  I mentioned above how Apollo has been syncretized with other gods so much that we can't ascribe to him a singular origin.  Christ too has been syncretized a lot but Christianity's core historical documents have always led to a return to its roots based on the ministry of the singular Jesus.  Similarly, if Scientology does survive, it may well take different forms, but will inevitably return to Hubbard's writings.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

There has been no doctrinal change in the Church's position.

But the change in its political position is significant.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The most change I can see happening during Francis' term is the church might state that it's OK for married couples to use condoms if pregnancy would pose health risks to the woman.

I may be wrong since I don't pay much attention to Catholic doctrine, but I thought was already the case, but that the use of condoms for the primary purpose of birth control was not.  It could more spartanly be just to prevent STDs rather than health risks from pregnancy, but unless my memory is playing me false, the Catholic church has approved the use of condoms in limited circumstances so as to enhance health.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The most change I can see happening during Francis' term is the church might state that it's OK for married couples to use condoms if pregnancy would pose health risks to the woman.

I may be wrong since I don't pay much attention to Catholic doctrine, but I thought was already the case, but that the use of condoms for the primary purpose of birth control was not.  It could more spartanly be just to prevent STDs rather than health risks from pregnancy, but unless my memory is playing me false, the Catholic church has approved the use of condoms in limited circumstances so as to enhance health.

Yes, you are mistaken. You're thinking of birth control pills, which are allowed as long as they are taken for a reason other than birth control. Condoms are considered sinful in all circumstances (unless you poke holes in them ).

I could be wrong too but I think what Ernest is describing might be the case in at least parts of Eastern Orthodoxy.

I found what I was looking for, and in 2010 Benedict XVI basically stated that if you're going to fornicate anyway, it would be a first step towards good behavior to use a condom while doing so if the purpose of the condom was to prevent the transmission of HIV when you knew you had the disease.  He still considered it better to abstain in that circumstance.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

No it isn't surprising.  Part of the problem facing Christianity today is that Christians, especially Protestants, have often treated the Bible as a fourth member of the Trinity.  While that did mean that evolution became a stumbling block to those who held to a literal historical interpretation of Genesis, for those who saw the Bible as including mythical passages in addition to the historical passages evolution was not a barrier to belief if one still considered the Bible to be the revealed truth of God with all the ethical teachings therein being uncorrupted. Whether or not one believed in evolution did not affect the ethical validity of the text.  However, there are passages in the canon that are difficult to reconcile with gender equality and impossible to reconcile with homosexuality.

For all its faults, Complementarianism is an attempt to reconcile an infallible canon with modern notions of the equal worth of men and women. Obviously it doesn't appeal to those who hold to not merely equal value but to outright egalitarianism in which save for the biological functions of reproduction, men and women are both equally capable of any role in society.

When it comes to homosexuality, while many of the Biblical passages that have been used to condemn it, such as the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah and the references to that tale in the rest of the Bible, can (and I think should) be interpreted in a way that does not make them a condemnation of all homosexuality, there really is no way to reconcile homosexuality and the passages in the Holiness Code of Leviticus dealing with it while maintaining a belief in an ethically inerrant Bible.  One cannot both worship the Biblical canon as an infallible incarnation of God and be tolerant of homosexuality.  Since I respect but do not worship the Bible, this doesn't cause me a problem, but as I said, most Christians treat the Bible as the fourth member of the Trinity.