Pope Francis condemned the âvery strong, organised, reactionary attitudeâ in the US church and said Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.
Pope Francis has blasted the âbackwardnessâ of some conservatives in the US Catholic Church, saying they have replaced faith with ideology and that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.
Francisâ comments were an acknowledgment of the divisions in the US Catholic Church, which has been split between progressives and conservatives who long found support in the doctrinaire papacies of St John Paul II and Benedict XVI, particularly on issues of abortion and same-sex marriage.
Religion is the biggest scourge against humans. Controlling behavior, brainwashing the young and stolen untold trillions of $$. Fuck religion. They all need to be labeled as cults and treated as harshly.
Religion, at its core, is basically rules that state âdonât be a dick.â Unfortunately, all of the dicks didnât get the message.
Itâs not "donât be a dickâ.
Itâs âdo as we want you to doâ
Plenty of the rules are âbe a dick, like this:â
Plenty of the rules are âdonât do this objectively harmless thingâ
Plenty of the rulez are âdo this ridiculously pointless thingâ
Yes, modern religion has many rules made by the dicks once they took over. Before the dicks rules were things like donât steal shit, donât fuck your neighborâs wife, donât murder people, donât lie about shit, etc. The dicks were so bad that some other guy had to come along and say âseriously guys, stop being dicksâ. But the dicks didnât like that so they killed him.
Plenty of the rules are âdonât do this objectively harmless thingâ
Plenty of the rulez are âdo this ridiculously pointless thingâ
Most declarations of what religions do and donât donât do miss Discordianism pretty hard, but you got us on those.
Exhibits: A) Donât eat hotdog buns. B) Go off alone on a Friday and eat a hotdog with a bun.
Good looking out for us religious minorities.
Ish.
Many religions are more âdonât be a dick to your fellow brothers in faith, but feel free to be a dick to othersâ. In-group out-group dynamics were historically quite important.
You know - âdonât murderâ, but at the same time Deuteronomy says
10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves.
Also
(19) âYou are not to lend at interest to your brother, no matter whether the loan is of money, food or anything else that can earn interest. 21 (20) To an outsider you may lend at interest, but to your brother you are not to lend at interest, so that Adonai your God will prosper you in everything you set out to do in the land you are entering in order to take possession of it.
You know - âdonât murderâ, but at the same time Deuteronomy says
If you take each verse at face value, this is a problem and what you imply is true.
But the thing you quoted from Deuteronomy were instructions to the Israelites. Itâs recorded history, not instruction. You canât just point to a verse in the Bible (like Acts 8:8 "Saul, for his part, approved of his murder") and say âsee? The Bible says to do bad things!â
And going deeper shows that the Mosaic Law (the laws in the old testament, excluding the ten commandments), part of which is in your second block quote, was superceded by the Law Covenant when Jesus died. Again, it was a law directed specifically at Jews of the time.
You can kinda think of the first five Bible books (called the Torah in Judaism) as a speed run of history. So much happens in terms of time covered in those five books.
The problem is âdonât be a dickâ meant different things in different points in time. Now, enough time has elapsed that there are a huge amount of different iterations of âdonât be a dickâ rules and people just pick and choose which rules suits them.
If youâre talking about all religions, I canât speak to that. But if weâre talking about âChristiansâ, then thatâs not the case. âLove your neighbourâ and âContinue to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute youâ are pretty hard to interpret âdifferentlyâ. Thereâs no excuse.
When the rules are laws, lawyers argue in front of judges and define the grey areas. They change the grey areas from time to time. We as a society have agreed to have a single interpretation of those rules.
In religion, when people donât agree on the rules or how they should be interpreted, they can break apart and form their own religion. There is no governing body with the power to enforce the single interpretation.
Thus, people who missed the dont be a dick memo just find each other and pretend their interpretation of the thousands of years old text is more valid than the donât be a dick crowd.
I think a better option would be stripping the tax exempt status from the ones that politik from the pulpit. Actually enforce the law we have now instead of being afraid of looking like weâre persecuting them. Hell, they all have that complex already anyway.
Taxing them all would just open the floodgates.
Itâs very inline with the churchâs teaching to pay taxes.
Mark 12:17 Then Jesus said to them, âGive to Caesar the things that are Caesarâs, and give to God the things that are Godâs.â The men were amazed at what Jesus said.
There is no religious conflict at all with taxing churches.
Taxing them all would just open the floodgates.
You say that as if itâs a bad thing.
These assholes should deal with a real flood for once.
Would definitely be a step in the right direction. Iâd even be ok with exceptions for the tiny churches in small towns.
I agree but only because they tend to have budgets so small that they arenât worth taxing.
If you allow taxing churches you open the door for Republicans to just tax every church they disagree with, and Iâm pretty sure you can figure out how that will go.
âCultâ is just something the big congregation calls the small congregation.
Thereâs a whole list of 8 points over what constitute a cult.
I donât remember the whole thing, but it was something like : Cults donât let you leave. If you do leave, your family and friends who are still in the cult will not speak to you. Cults control you in details. They make sure you are tired at the end of the day, too tired to think for yourself. Cults make you dependent financially. Once you are that deep in, leaving means starting over economically.
Thereâs more, but it is different from how most people experience mainstream religions (I mean there are pockets here and there that are very cultish, but really the religion as a whole is a different beast that just works differently than an actual cult).
âMan will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priestâ
Weâre doing pretty good on the king front, lets work on the priests a bit
Weâve just changed the form of monarchal feudalism, itâs still very much alive. Just disguised as CEOs and Presidents in our present oligarchy. But they might as well be kings and queens. And an enormous amount of those people still manipulate religion as a means to holding on to power. We are a long way from strangling our last king or priest.
IDK, if weâre comparing scourges against humanity Iâd say âthe richâ in general are worse, be they kings, CEOs, religious icons, politicians, or whatever. Their pursuit of money and the power to keep that money corrupts everything. They ruin everything from companies to countries and even religions (makes them even worse).
Really though, the most evil thing is cancer. It kills indiscriminately and tortures its victims the whole way. Even if you win, you never get the peace of knowing itâs truly gone. True evil.
Iâd have a hard time believing that Hitler was super cool with the people who worship a Jew as a god.
Hitler in his table talks: âThe dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science ⌠Gradually the myths crumble. All that is left to prove that nature there is no frontier between the organic and inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light, but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.â
Good rule of thumb is to never underestimate Hitlerâs ability to hate a group of people lol
Agreed.
Iâll gain an iota of respect for Frankie and Catholics when they unilaterally decide to stop donating money to this church until they purge all of the child rapists and reform their teachings on confessions so child rapists are no longer protected.
I like the similar sentiment from a while back:
The messengers and the prophets will come to you and give you what belongs to you. You, in turn, give them what you have, and say to yourselves, âWhen will they come and take what belongs to them?â
- Jesus (but in a text buried in a jar for centuries after becoming punishable by death for just possessing it)
Religion can fuel some truly abhorrent things, but at the same time I know people who have used religion and faith to pull themselves out of a really bad spot in life.
There can be a middle ground between admonishing all religious practices and dogmatic bible thumpers, and that starts with religion being a understood as a personal choice and how people interpret the religion being a reflection on their self and not the every religious person ever.
------ian doomsday fantasy is one of the major drivers of climate change. They have always viewed the world as disposable, indeed, the sooner disposed the better.
What middle ground is there?
When this sorry undeserving species is all dead, alien archaeologists will learn how religion was the biggest, most successful device used by the powerful to sedate the poor and keep their interests driving everything (including destroying the habitability of the planet for short term luxury), from the early civilizations until the very end. Then they will find your comment on an HDD and fucking laugh at you, at all of our stupid asses.
Calling religion the biggest scourge on humanity is a huge exageratrion. Iâd probably say slavery is significantly worse, and human trafficking shows no signs of stopping. Capitalism is also clearly worse, and itâs the most impactful force today. A large reason religion, and specifically Christianity, has gotten worse in recent years is because of the influence of capitalism.
Iâd elaborate a bit on my interpretation of what the fella said.
The religion in point - catholicism, and maybe we can generalize to all abrahamic religions, Iâm not very familiar with other religions to speak of them, instill a way of thinking that doing wrong is all fine and well as long as you repent and ask for forgiveness. Sound sensible, right? Except weâre dealing with people here so they take it to mean that you can do all sorts of crap as long as you say youâre sorry. It got so bad at some point that the pope was selling indulgences. âGive me money and Iâll let you sinâ.
They also instill a sort of moral superiority on the adherents to said religions versus the pagans.
So yeah, slavery is worse (and Iâm counting human trafficking here as well - itâs the modern version), but is it not facilitated by the mindset instilled by religion? First - you see them as savages needing to be civilized - thatâs the moral superiority talking - you enslave them, BUT you bring them to god as well, so thereâs a load off your moral issues. Add to that the fact that even if you were wrong and did bad stuff, you didnât âknowâ any better, and itâs ok cause hellfire wonât get you because you repent, thereâs your free ticket.
On the other hand, if you kidnap and force good christians into sexual slavery, you can be pretty sure that you most likely wonât get murdered / maimed while youâre raping because their moral teachings say to turn the other cheek instead of fighting back. And one of the 10 comandments is thou shalt not kill. Also a belief in sky-papa dishing out punishment in the afterlife makes people less inclined to seek vengeance (compounded with the previous point - thou shalt submit to being dehumanized by a fellow human without recourse).
This is an oversimplification to make a point, but sure, religion is seemingly not worse than other crap people are capable of but it sure sets the groundwork nicely. Sort of like you need to know a language before you can swear in it. A tool, but less like a hammer and more like a scythe. One good use, but so many other bad ones.
Modern day religion. In the past your faith was quite important and dictated morals. Itâs unfortunate itâs been so twisted over the years. And by past Iâm not just saying the 50s, but even back in the 1500s.
Religion has sucked shit since it started & the first scam artist started stealing $ in the name of a fake âgodâ.
Everything has two sides to it. I think it was predominantly used more for good back in earlier civilizations, but I donât think thereâs a need for it today.
Itâs much easier now in 2023 to be able to look back at how religion was used for thousands of years and criticize it. Iâm an atheist myself and I think the necessity of religion was to learn from it and advanced society. Today I think weâre so advanced we no longer need it.
Religion has always been a cancer on humanity. We donât need an imaginary sky daddy for morals. We would have got there (and likely much quicker and much better) without religion.
Iâm not religious myself, but âGodâ played a role in at least trying to comprehend the world before science. Whatever we didnât know was âGodâ until we did know. I donât think modern society needs it, but our concept and understanding of the world and universe is so broad now that we donât.
Itâs dangerous now to label whatever we donât know as âGodâ but earlier in humanity I think itâs part of the reason why some (not all) laws and morals were established in the first place.
