Pope Francis condemned the “very strong, organised, reactionary attitude” in the US church and said Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.
Pope Francis has blasted the “backwardness” 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.
Francis’ 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 “don’t be a dick.” Unfortunately, all of the dicks didn’t get the message.
It’s not "don’t be a dick’.
It’s “do as we want you to do”
Plenty of the rules are “be a dick, like this:”
Plenty of the rules are “don’t do this objectively harmless thing”
Plenty of the rulez are “do this ridiculously pointless thing”
Yes, modern religion has many rules made by the dicks once they took over. Before the dicks rules were things like don’t steal shit, don’t fuck your neighbor’s wife, don’t murder people, don’t lie about shit, etc. The dicks were so bad that some other guy had to come along and say “seriously guys, stop being dicks”. But the dicks didn’t like that so they killed him.
Phallus 6:9 - And lo’ the Lord said unto Clitoris, “Be thou not a dick by thine actions, nor by thy words, nor by thy thoughts.”
Amen!
Most declarations of what religions do and don’t don’t do miss Discordianism pretty hard, but you got us on those.
Exhibits: A) Don’t eat hotdog buns. B) Go off alone on a Friday and eat a hotdog with a bun.
Good looking out for us religious minorities.
All of culture is “do as we want you to do.” We’re hierarchical animals.
Ish.
Many religions are more “don’t be a dick to your fellow brothers in faith, but feel free to be a dick to others”. In-group out-group dynamics were historically quite important.
You know - “don’t murder”, but at the same time Deuteronomy says
Also
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. It’s recorded history, not instruction. You can’t just point to a verse in the Bible (like Acts 8:8 "Saul, for his part, approved of his murder") and say “see? The Bible says to do bad things!”
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.
Not everyone who considers Deuteronomy to be scripture is Christian. For example, basically any rabbi would disagree with you.
The Deuteronomic code is literally presented as instruction from Moses to Israel as a normative set of rules for israel to follow. Many of the rules in it are included in the traditional lists of the Torah’s 613 commandments.
I don’t know of similar commandments in the new testament, but it’s had its fair share of religious leaders inciting sectarian wars, pogroms, persecution, etc. For example, Pope Paul IV wrote a decree that forced the Jews of Rome into a ghetto in 1555, prevented them from owning property or working most skilled jobs. The Spanish Inquisition primarily targeted Jews and Muslims who converted to Christianity under threat of exile.
Have even met a single rabbi, no two rabbi’s agree on anything.
While rabbis don’t agree on much, the official line of all the denominations is that messianic Jews are Christians, not Jews.
Every “rabbi” that accepts that the Torah was superceded by Jesus is a messianic Jew, basically by definition. That makes them not a rabbi, but a Christian minister in cosplay.
I don’t disagree with you entirely I was pointing out that using absolutes with Jews is fraught with contradictions. I wasn’t necessarily trying to support the person you responded to. Even within the framework that they were rules to follow there is an extremely wide variety of interpretation. And while I agree with your messianic assessment, as an atheist Jew that remember a tiny amount, I also think gatekeeping a religion is sketchy territory. Most fundamentalists don’t believe any other sect is truly part of their religion, hard to draw lines using the perspectives of people that have a clear in group mentality. To me, if you say you’re a Jew, you’re a Jew, I have no reason to challenge the claim.
Sure, but this thread is mostly about Christianity (the post is about the Pope and the Catholic Church).
Yes. I said basically this. I wrote: But the thing you quoted from Deuteronomy were instructions to the Israelites.
Because there aren’t any like that.
And? Your next door neighbour can be a “Christian”, go to church every week, etc, but then find out he’s a regular thief and had murdered someone. Would you then conclude there must be a commandment somewhere in the Bible that condones stealing and murder? Or would you conclude that he didn’t follow the principles of the Bible he proclaimed to believe in?
Examples of people doing bad things in the name of the Bible is not evidence of anything against the Bible. It’s just an example of terrible people being manipulative, exploitative, and ultimately evil. Many people throughout history (and many alive today) have realized that many people are more willing to listen to and accept what you say when you claim it’s from the Bible. These people don’t care about the Bible, they just care that it’s a tool they can use for manipulation.
Christianity, and catholicism more specifically, are more than just the Bible itself.
Religious teachings evolve over time based off of new reinterpretations of old passages, teachings from influential leaders, folk traditions that spring up, etc. Those are all part of the religion, too.
For example, most Christians would say that the serpent in the garden of eden is Satan. Yet Genesis doesn’t say anything about that, and the New Testament doesn’t explicitly say it either. Mostly, it’s a folk tradition some people found a couple verses you could squint at to support it.
And particularly in the case of Catholicism, there’s a world of difference between a pope issuing an official bull, and your neighbor being a catholic who happens to be a shitty person. There’s a huge difference between a random person teaching to be nice to your neighbor but shitty to outsiders, and for St Jerome to do that.
Catholicism yes. Christianity, no. Christianity is literally based on the Bible and a “Christian” is a follower of Christ (it’s actually what the word means).
Well, that’s not exactly correct. It’s true that in Genesis it doesn’t say “the snake in the garden that spoke to Eve was Satan”. However, Satan is referred to as “the father of the lie” and “the original serpent”. Satan is the only one to directly challenge God’s right to rule and the lie to Eve was the first challenge. It has nothing to do with folk tradition. There are other supporting scriptions also.
Yes, there is a difference in the sense that the Pope has a huge and wide reaching audience and the neighbour is mostly a nobody. But that doesn’t matter when we’re talking about their conduct as it relates to “doing the right thing according to God”. Each person is accountable to God for their own behaviour and actions.
On the other hand, there’s an argument to be had about whether or not Catholicism should even be considered Christian anymore. There are so many doctrines and teachings that aren’t in the Bible, or flat out taken from other “pagan” religions (religious syncretism). Sometimes even going against teachings in the Bible.
Reference:
John 8:44 “You are from your father the Devil, and you wish to do the desires of your father. That one was a murderer when he began, and he did not stand fast in the truth, because truth is not in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks according to his own disposition, because he is a liar and the father of the lie.”
Revelation 12:9 “So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan”
And yet the golden rule usually doesn’t get written down until multiple generations after the religion is formed. Took almost a century for Christianity to bother.
The problem is “don’t be a dick” meant different things in different points in time. Now, enough time has elapsed that there are a huge amount of different iterations of “don’t be a dick” rules and people just pick and choose which rules suits them.
If you’re talking about all religions, I can’t speak to that. But if we’re talking about “Christians”, then that’s not the case. “Love your neighbour” and “Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you” are pretty hard to interpret “differently”. There’s no excuse.
It’s not about interpreting things differently and more about picking and choosing what to believe.
This is true also
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 don’t 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 don’t be a dick crowd.
Some dicks created religion.
I would settle for taxing them.
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 we’re persecuting them. Hell, they all have that complex already anyway.
Taxing them all would just open the floodgates.
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You gave one example for one religion. I don’t necessarily think taxing churches is a bad idea, but I don’t think that’s a great argument for it.
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I assumed you meant churches as all places of worship. If you meant you want to only tax Christians, then I completely disagree with you.
You say that as if it’s a bad thing.
These assholes should deal with a real flood for once.
I dont think the churches that just sit and read a book are really deserving of a “flood”. I also wouldn’t call taxes a flood though, so I’m not opposed to that.
Not good enough. They need to strip that status even from the ones that don’t.
Would definitely be a step in the right direction. I’d 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 aren’t worth taxing.
At the risk of interrupting the circlejerk here, most churches have tiny budgets that aren’t worth taxing, and run by clergy with very little pay. The other side of that is the established ones sit on land in the center of towns that has been in their hands for decades or centuries: they may not be able to afford the property taxes.
On the other hand, if you were thinking of modern televangelist millionaires, by all means tax their income. I don’t know where to draw the line and it’s probably good to be conservative about it, but some of these people really seem to have crossed it already
If you allow taxing churches you open the door for Republicans to just tax every church they disagree with, and I’m pretty sure you can figure out how that will go.
I don’t understand the problem.
The problem is there will still be untaxed churches and all of those churches will be evangelical churches that promote the Republican party.
All the others will be taxed out of existence.
I believe the intent of the first comment was all churches would be taxed.
That’s just not how government works in practice, however.
While true, how the us government works in practice currently cannot be a barrier for ideas. I mean that it isn’t working at all
I’d argue being a policy realist is an absolute necessity, rather than a “barrier for ideas.”
I am a volunteer climate lobbyist in a deeply red constituency, so I very much live a life bound by practicality.
My rep I lobby most often has solar panels and drives an EV and votes against climate change proposals unless we can sell them as “job creation” so he can sell them to his constituents.
The messy details absolutely take precedence over what we’d like.
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You are aware that the entire reason taxing churches was a big deal in the 18th century is that we’ve already seen what happens when taxing churches is made political, right?
Do you know this is a topic with historical precedence, in a situation in which it is laughably easy to predict what a certain party would do with this power?
Oh the horror
“Cult” is just something the big congregation calls the small congregation.
There’s a whole list of 8 points over what constitute a cult.
I don’t remember the whole thing, but it was something like : Cults don’t 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.
There’s 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).
Tell me more about how you’ve never been in a church in the south.
I’ve been to multiple churches in the south, like everywhere some are better some are worse.
“Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest”
We’re doing pretty good on the king front, lets work on the priests a bit
We’ve just changed the form of monarchal feudalism, it’s 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 we’re comparing scourges against humanity I’d say “the rich” 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 it’s truly gone. True evil.
Another reason why, if God exists at all, they’re not worth a penny of my income or a moment of my time.
Yuh if we’re gonna go that deep, the rock are responsible for the deep corruption running thru society, across all society’s ills around the world. I agree that american religion’s descent into facism-promotion is a symptom of that rather than a driving force.
Hitler bent the knee to the Roman Catholics. Nuff said.
I’d 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: “The 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.”
Good rule of thumb is to never underestimate Hitler’s ability to hate a group of people lol
Don’t have a hard time believing it. Christianity has indoctrinated most into believing Jesus was white. Just look at all these southern baptist molesters that want Trump as their new god.
I’m sorry, I’m genuinely not sure I understand your comment. Are you saying that because you believe Christian propaganda to be that powerful, you’re ready to believe that Hitler also fell for the same propaganda? I get why you’re ready to make that assumption, but I don’t think choosing to believe an assumption made out of heavy bias is appropriate in the face of evidence directly to the contrary. Hitler outright condemned the belief more than once
I didn’t say that at all. I’m saying Christianity isn’t about God. It’s about power, slavery, money, pedophilia. Same as with the elite now. Hitler was just a part of it. It’s all a big club.
Hitler also loved dogs. So not sure there’s anything to that.
Pedo apologist.
Nice strawman
100%
And the Catholics were cool with him.
Look at how much hate we’re getting. All of my posts about corporatism and GOP spouting nonsense getting blasted. This place is another spot for GOP, facism and the church to have a voice in the form of bots.
Agreed.
I’ll 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.
You think the Pope donates money to the church?
I like the similar sentiment from a while back:
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.
No. Religion is a scam. Lies to all it’s members. Steals from anyone that tithes or donates anything, including their time.
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------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?
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I dunno if it’s actually possible (for me) to be honest and communicate evenly with the faithful. I cannot see their beliefs as anything other than wishful thinking and fantasy.
Not to say the religious are stupid, i don’t believe in binary smart/stupid in most cases. I know some very intelligent religious folks who have what i consider at best a blind spot for their belief.
I frankly believe it to be impossible. Any discussion where one side has “faith” to fall back on and calls poking holes in religion as an attack on that faith is fated to fail before you start
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Well that is a good point. I’m not well versed in the Bible however, and i would hesitate to quote it even if i were. how would it sound to someone faithful to have someone without, quoting their faith at them? It would further require my reading the Bible with the express purpose of busting their chops, which wouldn’t feel good to me.
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But
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.
Edgy enough to qualify as AtheistPosting but unfortunately too silly to be fun.
Calling religion the biggest scourge on humanity is a huge exageratrion. I’d probably say slavery is significantly worse, and human trafficking shows no signs of stopping. Capitalism is also clearly worse, and it’s 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.
I’d 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, I’m 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 we’re dealing with people here so they take it to mean that you can do all sorts of crap as long as you say you’re sorry. It got so bad at some point that the pope was selling indulgences. ‘Give me money and I’ll let you sin’.
They also instill a sort of moral superiority on the adherents to said religions versus the pagans.
So yeah, slavery is worse (and I’m counting human trafficking here as well - it’s the modern version), but is it not facilitated by the mindset instilled by religion? First - you see them as savages needing to be civilized - that’s the moral superiority talking - you enslave them, BUT you bring them to god as well, so there’s a load off your moral issues. Add to that the fact that even if you were wrong and did bad stuff, you didn’t ‘know’ any better, and it’s ok cause hellfire won’t get you because you repent, there’s 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 won’t get murdered / maimed while you’re 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.
Same hydra, different heads.
What is the hydra in this situation? Is it just the concept of evil?
No. I’m correct.
Modern day religion. In the past your faith was quite important and dictated morals. It’s unfortunate it’s been so twisted over the years. And by past I’m 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 “god”.
Everything has two sides to it. I think it was predominantly used more for good back in earlier civilizations, but I don’t think there’s a need for it today.
It’s much easier now in 2023 to be able to look back at how religion was used for thousands of years and criticize it. I’m an atheist myself and I think the necessity of religion was to learn from it and advanced society. Today I think we’re so advanced we no longer need it.
Religion has never been good.
What? Look, I’m an atheist myself by choice but I’ve seen religion fix up a homeless man and through “God” he was able to get himself back on his feet and reenter society. I think reddit/Lemmy has too big of a hate on religion, but in the outside world it’s still the majority dominated beliefs.
Plus you can’t overgeneralize “religion” as there’s about 4000 of them. Buddhism is pretty dope if you read into it. Regardless, I think we will see a shift into more atheists/agnostic people in the future though.
Religion is abhorrent no matter how you keep trying to paint it.
Yea I don’t think I’m changing your opinion here. I think everything has two sides to it. I’m of the opinion of just let people live their lives. Shoving atheism down everyone’s throat is equally as annoying as shoving religion. Remember that religion ≠ Christianity. The Greeks gods are also pretty cool in my opinion.
It’s just human nature to “worship” something. Whether it be materialism or idealism. As I see it, there couldn’t have been an early world without religion because humans are just that way.
If your Mom is being scammed by a Nigerian prince via email, you would shout to the rooftops to tell her and try to protect her.
Brain washed religious people should be warned just as vigorously.
Religion has always been a cancer on humanity. We don’t need an imaginary sky daddy for morals. We would have got there (and likely much quicker and much better) without religion.
I’m not religious myself, but “God” played a role in at least trying to comprehend the world before science. Whatever we didn’t know was “God” until we did know. I don’t think modern society needs it, but our concept and understanding of the world and universe is so broad now that we don’t.
It’s dangerous now to label whatever we don’t know as “God” but earlier in humanity I think it’s part of the reason why some (not all) laws and morals were established in the first place.