I don’t disagree with you, but as I said - “approaching sanity”.
I think all organized religions are stupid, but I understand a lot of the reasons why people belong and/or join.
At least this guy is talking about Christianity from a perspective of the gospels.
There are an arguable number of flavors of atheism (I seem to remember the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy actually claims pantheism is a form of atheism, which is an extreme argument). The most common type found on shouty Internet atheist forums is often called “naive atheism” or “strong atheism” by philosophers, religious historians, and theologists who find it interesting to catalog these things. That kind of atheism is incompatible with agnosticism and 100% faith-based; adherents have an unreasoned non-negotiable belief in the logically unprovable assertion that no divinity whatsoever exists.
But there are other types of atheism that are less adamant, often compatible with agnosticism, and often more personal and less about “beating one’s breast in the marketplace”. I find this an amusing commentary.
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For what it’s worth, Judaism has always said what matters most to god is what you do in the world, not what you believe about it.Which is where the Christian parable of the “good samaritan” has its roots.
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Now that’s interesting.
I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say atheists believe no god could exist.
What is a god? How do you define one? Could one evolve?
I’m an atheist, my position is something like “All entities that can accurately be described as gods are fictional entities”.
As for this Pope, I have the feeling that if I met him I would get on with him, unlike the previous guy.
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some of them might be?
Isn’t this from May? The article link is from 5/25/2013.
There was a lot of commentary back then, along with screaming headlines saying “THE POPE SAYS ATHEISTS CAN GET INTO HEAVEN!” when the reality was he did technically say they could… as long as they converted before dying.
Not exactly a new doctrine.
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i honestly didn’t know that.
Oh yeah. When I was in Baptist school “how the pope is totally the Antichrist” was a major theme of our religious education.
i don’t know that they are that far off. after all, if i understand it, the pope has never been seen as the living embodiment of any biblical figure.
My favorite pope is definitely Joan.
I bet some are Beliebers.
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I actually go to an un-church and sing songs, but most people just call it a “bar.”
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He actually had to amend it?
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IIRC, the Vatican law was basically copy and pasted from Italian law when it was formed. So while some Italian laws have since changed or new ones introduced, the ones in the Vatican were not necessarily updated as well. The point in updating child abuse laws, age of consent, etc is moot because there are no children that live in the Vatican.
I once heard a claim that the best functional definition of an atheist is “someone willing to argue at length about the definition of atheism.”
Panentheists pretty clearly are not atheists, but when you look at the beliefs of a garden variety naturalistic pantheist, they are pretty hard to distinguish from those of a gnostic atheist, i.e., one who denies the existence of any god. The difference between “there is no god” and “everything equals god, with no emergent universal spirit thingy” is mostly just choice of words. I find this interesting because it actually makes pantheists “harder” atheists than what seems to be the majority of atheists, who, if the informal surveys I’ve seen are anything like correct, are almost all “soft” atheists–agnostic atheists or ignostics.
I have now just demonstrated that I satisfy my functional definition of an atheist.
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Mostly it was the managers of his estate and lots of his fans that were the pricks.
Entirely really. They existed.
Here you go, it’s under Statutory Law in the Wikipedia entry - so yes, it was taken from Italy (which at the time had only been a consolidated state for a few of decades at that point):
So that rubs out the possible evolutionary link to altruism. I guess ‘Game Theory’ trumps everything. Please do not patronise me, I know perfectly well what Game Theory is!
Peter, he is meant to have inherited his line through Peter. Upon this rock I shall build my church, blah, blah.
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