Pope's visit to UK to cost taxpayer £10-12million!!

As bender in futurama found out you cant count on god for squat.

 

Word Up

 

It looks like his visit barely caused a ripple tbh apart from him comparing atheists to Nazi's. From the coverage i saw on TV there was a rather low turnout to his public events.

 

Don't give them ideas .

 

Did anyone listen to those speeches from him ??

 

I didn't. I won't waste my time on them.

I'm raised Anglican but actually a polytheistic, pagan agnostic. I acknowledge the fact that many (including members of my family) have "faith" (essentially a belief in something you can't prove) but I definitely don't agree with the idea that some (or any) of my taxes should have been used to pay for said visit.

The organised church is, to me, anathema and cause of more wars than anything else. Check your history - religion has been used as an excuse more often than anything else. I'm not saying that any branch has been better than others but the Catholic variant does appear to crop up more often than others. I honestly couldn't give a monkey's what you believe, don't ram it down my throat and don't expect me to pay for it then we'll get along fine.

Yes, technically the pope is a head of state and there are literally billions worldwide who follow what he says. I'm not one of them, the visit to the UK has done absolutely nothing for me so why on earth should any of my taxes be used to fund it? I don't recall the Archbishop of Canterbury getting the same and he is, after all, the head of the Church of England (yes, I know that the reigning monarch is the head of the church but the de facto head is as I've mentioned). Would the same treatment be exteded should he go to another country? Possibly but unlikely. I definitely don't recall a need for bulletproof vehicles (still can't figure that one out - so loved that a protection from snipers is required?)

Secular and theological power should always be separated, it's less messy that way. Treating the pope as a head of state rather than a head of religion is, at least to my mind, wrong as it is literally offensive to any that don't share the same faith. Would a Muslim leader receive the same treatment? A Jew? A Mormon? I very much doubt it. Singling out a particular faith and then taking it out of the taxpayers pocket is wrong - we either pay for all and treat them equally or pay for none. Personally I'd prefer that the answer be none.

I will never knock another's faith but will always aggressively defend the right to my own (or lack thereof) and if there's no visit from the head agnostic of the world paid for by our taxes then why should we pay for the pope to come over here?

 

I'm not religious in any shape or form in fact I'm completely against it.

But I happened to see one of his speeches on the TV and he was basically saying that goverments should butt out of the church's business and they could do WTF they wanted.

He didn't seem to mind taking their money though did he

 

Does anyone know what the final cost to the British taxpayer actually was in the end? Not seen any followups to the original stories on the costs, might have missed them though. I would be willing to bet it's much more than the £10-12m. Could be wrong though.

 

Knowing things like these double or triple i'm willing to bet.

 

Seeing as Britain is still classed Christian country it makes sense to help cover the expenses of the religious leader, yes not all tax payers might share that religion but the majority rules.

 

Did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, some people don't care enough and just say they are christian? I would be willing to bet that the numbers are different to what you believe them to be.

 

There are plenty of Christians who do not regard the Pope as their spiritual leader. Protestants for one.

 

It's not what I believe the numbers to be but those which are stated. I am Catholic, but would fall under your definition of "just saying they are Christian" because I don't go to church, don't follow it's teachings or quite frankly believe. This doesn't mean however out of the 5million reported Christians in Britain that everyone is like me. There would still be hundreds of thousands at least who benefited (spiritually or some other way) from his visit. The NHS spends millions helping far fewer people, and by that I mean cost of treatments per patient, but no one bats an eye lid at that because it helps people which is exactly what the Popes visit did for others. Faith is a hard thing to have, and those without it will never understand it's value.

 

sounds like alot of money, but atleast after visit, he will be going home, what about the people that come to uk, just to get benefits, over time, this amounts to ££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££ and is continuous.

 

The NHS treats sick people. Nobody's cancer ever got cured by the Pope visiting their country.

Perhaps we should fund pop concert tours? Some bands have thousands of fans too and a good concert makes everyone feel a bit better.

Dude, why don't you join the BNP forum. There's lots of likeminded people there and they won't ask you to come up with some solid evidence for your claims.

 

I have to agree with Nexxo here, The NHS helps thousands of people every day against the odds.

I've never heard of the Pope helping anybody and given his opinions about gays and women he seems to want to take the church back to the dark ages.

 

They are going to the UK to do the jobs that the resident population does not want to do.

 

People believe they get cured all the time when they pray or are blessed by a priest etc. What the NHS treat wasn't what I was going on about but the cost of the treatments compared to the number of people they benefit.

As I said earlier faith is a powerful thing to have, my dad for example was given hours to live, had his last rites read to him and was up and about like normal for a few weeks before he finally gave in. It certainly wasn't any of the Doctors that gave him the new short lease of life which is why I said previously that people who don't have faith or a true belief in a higher power will never understand what it is for those that do.

I personally think his views are wrong, but they come from the religion itself which imho needs to get with the times, but that's another matter entierly.

 

We know the NHS cures people and how much it cost; we have the data to prove it, and we have the spreadsheets to cost it. Whether the Pope's little party actually did benefit his followers and how relatively cost-effective it was remains to be seen. You believe that it did; scientist me likes to compare the facts and figures.

With all respect to your father, it is a common phenomenon for sick elderly people to be at death's door one evening only to be heartily eating a full cooked breakfast the next morning --and to keep on like this for months before they finally die. Old people are tough; that's how they got to be old. A similar pattern can also be observed in people with a terminal illness.

That doesn't mean that a visit by the priest was not beneficial --there is such a thing as the placebo effect, auto-suggestion etc.-- but as importantly it is just a nice and decent thing to do for a man of faith who is dying. But don't discount alternative explanations. Common things commonly happen.

Actually, it sort of isn't. If the Pope's visit can be argued to have a beneficial impact on his followers, then his views on sexual orientation, ordination of women and contraception can be argued to have a detrimental impact. The UK wouldn't let Geert Wilders visit for his intolerant and discriminatory views. Why should the Pope be allowed?

 

Well, now we know where some of the money came from to fund the Pope's visit.