inherit, not embody. it’s an odd structure, papism.
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Yes it is. I’d say it’s verging on pure evil. A quick flick through the history of the popes will reveal plenty of atrocities.
I find this likely. I also like the new pope and wish him many years in service since even if he won’t budge on issues of homosexuality the fact he’s taking a ‘we are all god’s children let’s reach for each other with helping hands in spite of theological disagreements’ is damned refreshing.
Edit:
Wanting to say he’s taken steps on the whole child molestation issue by putting a law on the books as his capacity as king of vatican city. Might not seem like much but it shows progress and hope more will be done down the road.
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male centric not having worked out for them in the eyes of history.
lol, like most religions, male centric. I agree. Just looking at their deeds through history is yet another pointer, flag, that there cannot be a god. Although they always have a get out of jail card, ‘god moves in mysterious ways’.
To be fair, there are lots of odd structures in the world, it’s not just confined to the Catholic church.
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Yes this is true, but most of them don’t call on the devine to justify their very existence.
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Pretty much any organized religion can have the capacity to invoke divnitiy to justify bad actions, but they can also do so to justify good ones (mainline civil rights movement invoked religion in their justifications as much as they did law).
Likewise, there is a long history of using science-y ideas to justify atrocities as well, with science often being wielded not as a mode of thinking about the world, but as hard fact in order to create a particular kind of reality. Theories about race was used to underpin all sorts of nastiness around the world for a couple of centuries, as was modernization theory and marxist theories–neither of those claimed divine origins of course, but they did claim scientific validity with nearly as much gusto as religious organizations.
Maybe the problem is large scale institutional structures more so than it is an epistemological belief?
I don’t know… My general means of judging people is not whether they agree with me about how the world works, but how that informs their lives and how they treat others. For me, that’s the only way that makes sense. If someone holds a belief that causes them to act in terrible ways, then they suck, because of how they act on their beliefs. But if a person is deeply faithful, and uses that as a spring board for positive action, then I generally got no problem with them, even if they don’t agree with how I view reality.
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…
In all seriousness though, I know people who consider themselves atheists who still believe in things. My mom and dad “believe in Nature,” for example.
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There is a massive difference between faith and faith with sincerity. I have lots of time for people with sincerity, even if I don’t hold their beliefs.
My issue with invoking any sort of divinity is, well is it right, correct, truth. I see religions full of great practical advice, religion offering a sort of protection for it’s participants in their day to day lives. Now personally I know that I don’t need that, I’ve been down that road.
I have yet to see any grand truth in any of the religions of the world, I see good advice, not truth. The thing is that any religion is like a stack of cards, they have to all stand or fall, there can be no compromise. So far in my experience they have all fallen, which leads me to some obvious conclusions.
I’m more inclined to your point of view on religion, but I am not the other person who has faith (or you, for that matter), I don’t live their lives, so I’m less inclined to think I can possibly see truth from their POV. All I can really do is deal with them by their actions, not by their world view or own personal truth. I really don’t want to get into a mindset where I see other’s limitations, including falling short of their ideals (be it religious or not), which we all do, as absolute moral failings, marking them as “bad people”. We all fall short of our own ideals, but some of us recognize that, internalize it, and spend their lives trying to better themselves, you know what I mean. Besides, not all religious people are dogmatic, some focus on various aspects of doubt. Likewise, there are plenty of atheist who are incredibly dogmatic.
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Does nature unequivocally exist, or have I just been tripping all these years? I meant non-believers in re to a deity, not in all things. I, personally, am an atheist with agnostic tendencies, because I don’t know everything, so I leave open a possibility, but tend not to believe. Friends who are all out atheists do not believe and have no doubt.
Yes the world we live in is very grey, not black and white. Actions do speak louder than words most of the time.
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Haha. No, I meant to convey the idea that they believe in the power of nature. An example: the day my grandmother died, her favorite bird, a bluebird, moved into the birdhouse on my mom’s clothesline, and the day of her service, a week or so later, it had gone. My mom thought that was significant. Not like, a message from the universe or anything, but just that it meant something.
I see what you mean about atheists being non-believers regarding a deity, but I still consider what my mom has to be a spiritual kind of belief.
But if I’m being honest, I mostly just replied to you in the first place so that I could have an excuse to post that comic…
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It’s kind of adorable that you admitted as much.
What is the functional difference between “some altruistic sense” and “some emotional benefit”? Seems to me that they both mean “positive mental feedback from good deeds.”
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I don’t believe people do good out of some altruistic sense.
The work of Dan Ariely generally proves this idea wrong. For example, one of his many MANY studies showed that simply reminding people about moral codes before a test that they could make money from and could clearly cheat on resulted in less cheating then a control. Humans don’t work as Game Theory says we should. Check out his latest book, “The Honest Truth about Dishonesty” for more.
However “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkin’s shows that Game Theory still plays a role in human morality. Basically an individual human is moral and preforms altruistic acts because it’s in the best interest of their Genes to do so. For example if a gene is in both a mother and her daughter it’s in the best interest of the gene if, when presented with danger that will surely kill one, the daughter survives because she is more likely to spread her genes in the future.
So Humans really do preform altruistic acts out of a pure desire to do good. However the reason they want to do good is because being altruistic has an evolutionary benefit.
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Man, catholics are just trying to erase everything Ratzinger did aren’t they?, Massive backpedaling is all I see.
Of course, its better than ratzinger the hardliner but still, hard to take seriously whan it all comes down to whoever is the the current pope’s opinion.
I think Cory was talking about Benedict making even non-Catholic religious people feel like second-class believers.
As someone who’s been on both sides of the fence, I didn’t mainly do good before because I was coerced or scared, and I don’t just do good now because I’m a good person. I think it’s easiest to do good to people you identify with, and a religion where you honestly feel people will act in a predictably good manner to each other is a good incentive to trust them or act in the same way. Conversely, too strong a focus on that can lead you to believe in the near-universal good of all ‘true believers’, and the near-universal inferiority of anyone else.
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