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Manchu wrote:
I can see you'd like to force the issue but I'd rather chose my own position, you see?

I'm honestly not trying to do that. I think maybe this just isn't working, and we can just call it off, yeah?

 cincydooley wrote:

 Haight wrote:



I'm pretty critical of the Catholic church as a general rule. As a recovering catholic, now atheist, I sorta delight in torturing my bible thumping relatives with the CC's near omnipresent nonsense.
".

Why? What purpose does that serve? I never understand this attitude.

Critical of the Catholic Church ? How much time ya got ? No seriously, the history of the Catholic Church has been highly questionable for centuries. The church does some good works. It has also done some incredibly heinous things, or stood by and watched as other incredibly heinous things were done.



Torturing my bible thumping relatives ?

I won't get into a lengthy treatise about it as if i described what i've seen perpetrated in the name of catholicism, most people would figure i was lying (and given the Church's track record, i think that's saying something). Non family can believe whatever they want (though i will admit, i can't help but roll my eyes inside when i hear anyone proselytize about any religion ... i think it's all nonsense, frankly) and i won't say a word -- it's their choice, and though I think it's both foolish and a form of brainwashing, hey, to each their own. If the only way you can sleep at night is to believe in some invisible, unprovable anthropomorphic grand being that chose to reveal himself to his creations only during the time of illiterate bronze age technology and never once again, since. Hey... sure.

The remaining members of my family that i still have contact with deserve every ounce of Theological torture i send their way. And i delight in giving it to them. It's a testament to the nature of organized religion that most debates i have with my relatives on the topic end with "Well, i can't prove that you're wrong, but i don't have to. I have Faith.".



So given all that, I still have to say, i like the cut of Francis' jib. I like his laid back style, and i'm starting to love his politics.

 Haight wrote:


I won't get into a lengthy treatise about it as if i described what i've seen perpetrated in the name of catholicism, most people would figure i was lying (and given the Church's track record, i think that's saying something). Non family can believe whatever they want (though i will admit, i can't help but roll my eyes inside when i hear anyone proselytize about any religion ... i think it's all nonsense, frankly) and i won't say a word -- it's their choice, and though I think it's both foolish and a form of brainwashing, hey, to each their own. If the only way you can sleep at night is to believe in some invisible, unprovable anthropomorphic grand being that chose to reveal himself to his creations only during the time of illiterate bronze age technology and never once again, since. Hey... sure.
.

Just wanted to be clear that you understand how condescending and douchy you sound with this viewpoint, yeah?

It's attitudes like yours that make atheists look like donkey-caves. But it must feel oh so good from your high horse.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Haight wrote:


I won't get into a lengthy treatise about it as if i described what i've seen perpetrated in the name of catholicism, most people would figure i was lying (and given the Church's track record, i think that's saying something). Non family can believe whatever they want (though i will admit, i can't help but roll my eyes inside when i hear anyone proselytize about any religion ... i think it's all nonsense, frankly) and i won't say a word -- it's their choice, and though I think it's both foolish and a form of brainwashing, hey, to each their own. If the only way you can sleep at night is to believe in some invisible, unprovable anthropomorphic grand being that chose to reveal himself to his creations only during the time of illiterate bronze age technology and never once again, since. Hey... sure.
.

Just wanted to be clear that you understand how condescending and douchy you sound with this viewpoint, yeah?

It's attitudes like yours that make atheists look like donkey-caves. But it must feel oh so good from your high horse.

You realize how little i care ? You realize how stupid it is to believe in something and sing songs about it for thousands of years that you can't see or prove the existence of, to wage wars in it's name, to burn women and children at the stake upon it ? To pardon men for committing pedophilia for decades - centuries even - by playing a shell came with their assignments because, hey, they are men of the cloth.

I'll take douche over fanatic any day.

You asked. I answered. If i said anything that you can prove is incorrect, by all means - show me.

 Haight wrote:
You realize how little i care ?

You care at least enough to keep posting.

 Haight wrote:
You realize how stupid it is to believe in something and sing songs about it for thousands of years that you can't see or prove the existence of, to wage wars in it's name, to burn women and children at the stake upon it ? To pardon men for committing pedophilia for decades - centuries even - by playing a shell came with their assignments because, hey, they are men of the cloth.

You also realize that is a pretty self serving way of looking at it?

 Haight wrote:
I'll take douche over fanatic any day.

And yet you come across as an angry, mean-spirited fanatic. Congratulations, you have become what you despise.

There is a crapton of science which we can't prove yet but we believe in because we see patterns and other effects which showed it exists.

And man doesn't need religion to be evil and cause horribleness, to have outrage at religion as a cause of war and evil is a shallow view because the truth is evil is done in the name of non-religious ways all the time. Ghengis khan had no religion and was super tolerant of religious diversity, and he murdered and raped millions simply because he could.

If you have to be super mad face at religion and not at the people who commit acts, you are no better than they are and are a fanatic with a "belief system" which is just as prone to causing harm to the world in the name of "forcing your beliefs" or " your beliefs being harmful" as any religion. You are the very thing you disagree with.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Haight wrote:
You realize how little i care ?

You care at least enough to keep posting.

I find the topic interesting. Thus why i keep posting (even after being insulted now several times... s'all good though, i'm used to it on this topic. Sling your worst, not going to bother me.)

 Haight wrote:
You realize how stupid it is to believe in something and sing songs about it for thousands of years that you can't see or prove the existence of, to wage wars in it's name, to burn women and children at the stake upon it ? To pardon men for committing pedophilia for decades - centuries even - by playing a shell came with their assignments because, hey, they are men of the cloth.

You also realize that is a pretty self serving way of looking at it?

accidental double post while trying to fix some formatting.

Haight wrote:I find the topic interesting.

You either are apathetic (as you claim you) or you interested, the two don't mix; if you are interested, you aren't apathetic, if you are apathetic, you won't be interested; you seem confused as to why you are here.

Haight wrote:How so ?

You have created an overly broad, insulting, generic definition that fits into your idea of what it is.

Haight wrote:I find it ironic

You are not using that word right.

that you call me angry, mean spirited, and fanatic, but yet i haven't insulted anyone.

If you don't think you have been insulting, it would seem you have a disconnect between what you think you are saying and what you are actually saying. Either way, noting someone comes across as mean spirited and angry is not an insult, it is an observation. Calling someone stupid, or an idiot are examples of insults.

Interesting... People who believe in religion are intrinsically linked into a giant monolithic system where everyone is equally wrong for the actions of individuals, but you and your personal belief system of atheism is immune from being linked to others who share your beliefs and cause harm in the name of those beliefs.

A majority of Catholics can't start wars, have no ability to cause or stop child abuse or force their own personal beliefs on someone else any more than you do. By the same link, if there were powerful and unethical atheists who were causing harm to others in theme of his belief system, we could equally condemn you for promoting that belief system.

Double standard, and atheism is an organized belief system exploitable and just as capable of harming others as any religion. You may not be affiliated directly with a particular aspect of organized atheism, but you are then the equivalent of a Christian who doesn't attend church and is no more "good" or "evil" than the sum of their personal actions.

To claim all members of religions are guilty of all the actions of members of their church while atheists are immune because somehow their "belief system" is different is intellectually dishonest. A common flaw when one belief system tries to set itself apart or superior to others...

And FYI, the millions of Jews and Chinese murdered in WWII had nothing to do with religion and had everything to do with secular politician power and race issues. I have no idea where you get your statistic blaming religion for all the worlds wars as that is not supported by history at all. A majority of the top death tolls were not religious in the slightest. Except for the crusades and a few kings making up churches in Europe, religion had nothing to do with almost every other war in history.

nkelsch wrote:
There is a crapton of science which we can't prove yet but we believe in because we see patterns and other effects which showed it exists.

Science doesn't ask you to "believe in" anything. Scientific theories attempt to find ways to explain observed phenomena.

You don't ever "prove" a theory conclusively. It's always possible for new theories to be made that explain the phenomena better, or new information to come to light that the theory can't fit.

And if a better theory is found you get rid of the old one.

nkelsch wrote:
...and atheism is an organized belief system exploitable and just as capable of harming others as any religion.

Atheism is a lack of belief, and it would be pretty odd to call it organised!

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
There is a crapton of science which we can't prove yet but we believe in because we see patterns and other effects which showed it exists.

Science doesn't ask you to "believe in" anything. Scientific theories attempt to find ways to explain observed phenomena.

You don't ever "prove" a theory conclusively. It's always possible for new theories to be made that explain the phenomena better, or new information to come to light that the theory can't fit.

And if a better theory is found you get rid of the old one.

nkelsch wrote:
...and atheism is an organized belief system exploitable and just as capable of harming others as any religion.

Atheism is a lack of belief, and it would be pretty odd to call it organised!

Millions of dead in WW2 may disagree with you as secular beliefs and organized secularism was responsible for murdering millions. It is a belief system and can be taken and organized. There are plenty of secular belief systems which fall under atheism, many of which are harmful to people, like social Darwinism and others which are organize like secular humanism. Google international humanist and ethical union and tell me there is no organized atheism.

http://iheu.org
IHEU is the world union of more than 100 Humanist, rationalist, laïque, ethical culture, atheist and freethought organisations in over 40 countries. Our mission is to represent and support the worldwide Humanist movement. Our aim is a Humanist world in which human rights are respected and everyone can live a life of dignity.

Belief system, secular, atheist, organized.

And organizations can do good, or bad in the name of their belief systems. We have seen both good and bad form atheist and secular organized groups. They are equal to religion in every way and are just as at risk to corruption and hurting others as well as doing good for others.

nkelsch wrote:
Millions of dead in WW2 may disagree with you as secular beliefs and organized secularism was responsible for murdering millions.

Oh, Jesus. Not this third grade attempt at blaming World War II on atheism again.


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nkelsch wrote:
And organizations can do good, or bad in the name of their belief systems.

If you think Germany or Japan - or anyone involved, for that matter - fought World War II in the name of atheism, you need to return to whoever was responsible for educating you and punch them in the dong or equivalent, rapidly and repeatedly, for at least five minutes.

 Seaward wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
Millions of dead in WW2 may disagree with you as secular beliefs and organized secularism was responsible for murdering millions.

Oh, Jesus. Not this third grade attempt at blaming World War II on atheism again.

Hitler was a known atheist who hated and distrusted organized religion, and used his power to use religion as a scapegoat to gain power and murder people... If left to his own devices he would have exterminated all religion.

If you think WW2 was about anything but secular political power and that hitler was not an atheist, you are wrong. Blaming the worlds problems on religion is a common excuse made my atheists when history has shown humans kill for political power and race way more than religion.




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 Seaward wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
Millions of dead in WW2 may disagree with you as secular beliefs and organized secularism was responsible for murdering millions.

Oh, Jesus. Not this third grade attempt at blaming World War II on atheism again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nkelsch wrote:
And organizations can do good, or bad in the name of their belief systems.

If you think Germany or Japan - or anyone involved, for that matter - fought World War II in the name of atheism, you need to return to whoever was responsible for educating you and punch them in the dong or equivalent, rapidly and repeatedly, for at least five minutes.

The nazi party was based on social Darwinism. Hitler was involved in WW2 and his actions were very much a direct result of his atheist beliefs. He wrote a helluva lot of stuff about it and believed in social Darwinism which is a secular design.

I don't know how you can say hitlers views on religion and his atheism was not a major component of his political policies and the execution of his actions?

Japan murdering the Chinese was good old fashion racism.

Seriously. Punch them as hard as possible, right in the jimmy. Often. You've been poorly served.

 Haight wrote:
Non family can believe whatever they want (though i will admit, i can't help but roll my eyes inside when i hear anyone proselytize about any religion ... i think it's all nonsense, frankly) and i won't say a word...

Why aren't you doing that here?

 sebster wrote:

 Haight wrote:
Non family can believe whatever they want (though i will admit, i can't help but roll my eyes inside when i hear anyone proselytize about any religion ... i think it's all nonsense, frankly) and i won't say a word...

Why aren't you doing that here?

He's just too busy trying to explain to us why he cares so little about this topic.

nkelsch wrote:
Hitler was a known atheist who hated and distrusted organized religion, and used his power to use religion as a scapegoat to gain power and murder people... If left to his own devices he would have exterminated all religion.

If you think WW2 was about anything but secular political power and that hitler was not an atheist, you are wrong. Blaming the worlds problems on religion is a common excuse made my atheists when history has shown humans kill for political power and race way more than religion.

While I agree with you that the base motivation for Hitler's war was power, you are entirely in wrong in claiming Hitler was an atheist. There's been plenty of efforts after the war to make that claim, and despite all their imagination every single one of those claims has been completely lacking in evidence. While Hitler was contemptuous of of the charitable elements of christianity, he still included many religious allusions in his writings.

And just as banned religious groups that would not support him, he also banned every freethinking group that opposed him. The only consistency is that he allowed groups as long as they supported him, and banned them whenever they challenged him. Basically, any attempt to draw any conclusion about atheism and religion from Hitler is silly. The guy acted at all times to increase his own power, and used whatever rationalisation he could think of to justify it. Trying to conclude anything about Hitler's internal beliefs is nonsense - his complete lack of internal beliefs is what made him Hitler.

Also, the term "Hitler was involved in WWII" is my new favourite line for things that are technically true but also completely bonkers. It's like that line Red Dwarf, when Rimmer said "Germany came second in WWII".




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 d-usa wrote:
He's just too busy trying to explain to us why he cares so little about this topic.

 Haight wrote:
You realize how little i care ? You realize how stupid it is to believe in something and sing songs about it for thousands of years that you can't see or prove the existence of, to wage wars in it's name, to burn women and children at the stake upon it ? To pardon men for committing pedophilia for decades - centuries even - by playing a shell came with their assignments because, hey, they are men of the cloth.

I'll take douche over fanatic any day.

You asked. I answered. If i said anything that you can prove is incorrect, by all means - show me.

The problem here lies with the childish delight you seem to get from "showing those stupid religious people" what for by lambasting their beliefs with the same worn out attacks. The religious people of the world are not any more "stupid" than the atheists of the world and to think otherwise is just flat out wrong. It is entirely possible to be an atheist fanatic (see Richard Dawkins) and you are doing a pretty good job of it yourself. By doling out your "scathing" diatribes against religion you have become just as dogmatic as what you think you are fighting.

It often seems to me that atheists tend to proselytize more than most "religious" people.

I think the pope needs to fix his own organization's problems before he starts judging others and casting stones.

I like this pope... but, the direction of this conversation I think is being misunderstood.

If anything...his stances seems more about consumerism as opposed to the classical capitalism arguments.

The key thing here is that he’s from the crony-capitalism capital of Argentina... anyone who has paid attention to this country would tell you that... also, I think he has mistaken that what went on in Argentina... is SOP for the operation of free markets elsewhere.

However, throughout history, free-market principles has been a great driver of economic growth and can be argued that its also been a great driver of a more moral society. (I know I'm opening a can-o-worms here... but I challenge you to defy it! )

Additionally, "trickle-down" is not a theory but a pejorative used by many to describe a viewpoint they oppose. How is it any different than those on the right referring to the "soak-the-rich" theories as well. Call it for what this is....

Finally, as far as I know, the pope did not address the tax-exempt status of the church. I would be very curious what he has to say about that.




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 easysauce wrote:
I think the pope needs to fix his own organization's problems before he starts judging others and casting stones.

Well... I think he is....

Didn't he spank a German Bishop recently?

I want to like Franis. He seems like a great guy who really wants to make the Catholic Church a respectable group.

The problem is, he's a fething hypocrite just like the rest. Considering the Catholic Church backed and largely influenced Croatia's ban on same sex marriage recently, his previous speech about not judging gays rings hollow.

I want to like Francis, but until the Catholic Church actually starts following what their new Pope is actually saying, it's all just verbal vomit designed to distract people while the same crap happens being the scenes.

 streamdragon wrote:
I want to like Franis. He seems like a great guy who really wants to make the Catholic Church a respectable group.

The problem is, he's a fething hypocrite just like the rest. Considering the Catholic Church backed and largely influenced Croatia's ban on same sex marriage recently, his previous speech about not judging gays rings hollow.

I want to like Francis, but until the Catholic Church actually starts following what their new Pope is actually saying, it's all just verbal vomit designed to distract people while the same crap happens being the scenes.

Um...wut?

He never said that he'd be for Catholic marriages by gays.

o.O

Right?

For a given value of "moral" , maybe, Whembly.

 whembly wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:
I want to like Franis. He seems like a great guy who really wants to make the Catholic Church a respectable group.

The problem is, he's a fething hypocrite just like the rest. Considering the Catholic Church backed and largely influenced Croatia's ban on same sex marriage recently, his previous speech about not judging gays rings hollow.

I want to like Francis, but until the Catholic Church actually starts following what their new Pope is actually saying, it's all just verbal vomit designed to distract people while the same crap happens being the scenes.

Um...wut?

He never said that he'd be for Catholic marriages by gays.

o.O

Right?

While you are correct he has not come out in favor of gay marriage, he did comment about how the fight was consuming too much time and resources for the church, and that it should go back to the original message of loving everyone, sinner or saint, and focus on charitable causes.

Last I checked, banning gay marriage wasn't really a "charitable cause", nor "loving everyone, sinner or saint".

Keep in mind, that ban isn't for marriages in the Catholic Church. It's for the entire country of Croatia.

The real problem -- in your case and in general with other people -- is that you took his comments to mean something more than what was said and intended.

 gorgon wrote:
The real problem -- in your case and in general -- is that you took his comments to mean something more than what was said and intended.

I took his comments to be what they are: the direction that this man wants to take the Church. Pope or not, he is one man, and I understand he can not change the Catholic Church over night. Which is why I said that, despite not being a Catholic, I really want to like Pope Francis.

I suppose it makes calling him a hypocrite a little out of order, since it's not him actually going against what he himself said. The institution remains hypocritical though, as the new face it is presenting is 100% at odds with its actions.

Didn't he spank a German Bishop recently?

respectfully, I won't want to know about his personal life thank you very much...

 gorgon wrote:
The real problem -- in your case and in general with other people -- is that you took his comments to mean something more than what was said and intended.

Edited, for commends below.


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 streamdragon wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
The real problem -- in your case and in general -- is that you took his comments to mean something more than what was said and intended.

I took his comments to be what they are: the direction that this man wants to take the Church. Pope or not, he is one man, and I understand he can not change the Catholic Church over night. Which is why I said that, despite not being a Catholic, I really want to like Pope Francis.

I suppose it makes calling him a hypocrite a little out of order, since it's not him actually going against what he himself said. The institution remains hypocritical though, as the new face it is presenting is 100% at odds with its actions.

This clears things up. But yeah he's just 1 man, the leader can be good and just, but the organization can still be terrible in many regards.

Also Frazz, he suspended a German Bishop for his lavious lifestyle.