This has a new significance with the Pope scandal

[Ghost_Tracker]

One other thought that occurs to me - this is just a "little theory," of course -

Most people have a certain ability to "think for themselves." Some just simply don't. Or don't want to. Or feel they want to be on "solid ground." I really do feel that higher-ups in the Church are intelligent enough to understand that. (MOST of them, I mean - again, I think it's a mistake to stereotype a very large group of individuals or feel that they're all the same.) If they say "YES DAMMIT IT HAPPENED THE WAY THE BIBLE SAYS!!! TO THE LETTER! IGNORE THE FOOTNOTES WE ADDED IN THE BIBLE, THAT HAVE BEEN THERE IN EVERY SINGLE PRINTING SINCE 1970!!! CREATION HAPPENED AS-IS, ADAM AND EVE HAPPENED, EVERYTHING HAPPENED STRICTLY THAT WAY DAMBIT!!!" - -- Then those who need that "concrete surface" to stand on, will have it, and those who are able to think for themselves will have the understanding to realize that it's a "wink-wink" kind of a thing. That's my perspective on it, anyway.


Of course, I could be wrong and maybe there WAS in fact an Adam and Eve and the Earth is 10,000 years old and evolution never happened. In which case, paint my face red...


By the way, did you know there's Jesuit M.D.'s? I bet M.D.'s, almost for sure, would pretty much have to believe in evolution. There's many differerent groups within the church; it's a VERY large organization with millions of individuals.

[LikeAWillow]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker

One other thought that occurs to me - this is just a "little theory," of course -

Most people have a certain ability to "think for themselves." Some just simply don't. Or don't want to. Or feel they want to be on "solid ground." I really do feel that higher-ups in the Church are intelligent enough to understand that. (MOST of them, I mean - again, I think it's a mistake to stereotype a very large group of individuals or feel that they're all the same.)

We're having two separate arguments, so I'm going to stop . I'm not concerned with most people. You said the church had dismissed the Adam and Eve idea. I said I doubt the Vatican had or would ever dismiss the story and gave my reasons why. I cited an outline of doctrine to back this up, and I'm waiting on you to cite doctrine that says they have officially abandoned it. Whether or not each individual Catholic believes the story in their heart of hearts is irrelevant.

The Catholic religion depends on the notion of original sin of the first humans and its need to be erased. It'll be a cold day in hell when they call that a wink-wink-nudge-nudge.

[Ghost_Tracker]

Originally Posted by LikeAWillow

I appreciate your thoughts, but I can only offer a question in response: if original sin is allegorical, why did Jesus die to erase it?

That's the question that the Catholic.com response, my own belief that it's an impossible line, and the entire Nicene Creed hinge on.

Because it's not original sin that's allegorical, it's the stories told in order to help early man understand it which are. Original sin is a concept (i.m.o.) which essentially means, "Man thinks he knows better than God but he doesn't, he doesn't have all the facts. ALL people have this fault, which inevitably - sooner or later - will lead to their destruction. This was true from the first man all the way to people of today." (I'm sure even hard-core evolutionists would agree that SOMEWHERE in there, there was a "first man" and "first woman.")
I really do feel that ALL of the leadership, up to and including the Pope, would agree that understanding that is MUCH more important than the details, because as you said, it's a VERY important concept in the whole theology.
Man is, by definition, imperfect. According to Christianity, that's why Jesus was sent. And so i.m.o. nothing falls apart logically whether or not Adam and Eve really existed. It's the take-home message which is important and that *is* Catholic Dogma.

Just to "qualify" what's hopefully obvious, all of this is of course my own personal opinion and perspective on it. I'm sure there's plenty who would claim something totally different. But "that's my story and I'm stickin' TO it!" lol!


In my opinion, what's much more central and important to Catholic teaching is a simple willingness to take "a leap of faith." In a way it's the same story over and over - for example Jesus in the boat during the storm - even with him right there WITH them, and after all they had already seen, they were freaking out. He was like, "Sigh! - - Okay, let's try it AGAIN!!! Have faith!" and then he calmed the waters. The take-home message, every single time, is "Man doesn't have the whole picture -
so take a leap of faith and trust God."

[jaycee]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker

Because it's not original sin that's allegorical, it's the stories told in order to help early man understand it which are. Original sin is a concept (i.m.o.) which essentially means, "Man thinks he knows better than God but he doesn't, he doesn't have all the facts. ALL people have this fault, which inevitably - sooner or later - will lead to their destruction. This was true from the first man all the way to people of today." (I'm sure even hard-core evolutionists would agree that SOMEWHERE in there, there was a "first man" and "first woman.")
I really do feel that ALL of the leadership, up to and including the Pope, would agree that understanding that is MUCH more important than the details, because as you said, it's a VERY important concept in the whole theology.
Man is, by definition, imperfect. According to Christianity, that's why Jesus was sent. And so i.m.o. nothing falls apart logically whether or not Adam and Eve really existed. It's the take-home message which is important and that *is* Catholic Dogma.

Just to "qualify" what's hopefully obvious, all of this is of course my own personal opinion and perspective on it. I'm sure there's plenty who would claim something totally different. But "that's my story and I'm stickin' TO it!" lol!


In my opinion, what's much more central and important to Catholic teaching is a simple willingness to take "a leap of faith." In a way it's the same story over and over - for example Jesus in the boat during the storm - even with him right there WITH them, and after all they had already seen, they were freaking out. He was like, "Sigh! - - Okay, let's try it AGAIN!!! Have faith!" and then he calmed the waters. The take-home message, every single time, is "Man doesn't have the whole picture -
so take a leap of faith and trust God."

Here's a word from a "hard-core evolutionist" (please explain what that means - I've also heard the term Ultra-Darwinist thrown about) - it isn't very meaningful to talk of a "first" man or woman. If you were to line up a series of, say, all your female or male ancestors and look back starting from where you are today, you would observe an overall continuum of change such that there isn't a meaningful barrier/separation between ancestral species. We are able to give our fossilised ancestors species names, such as Homo habilis, because the overall common feature set of the fossils we find and study is sufficiently different from ours to deserve a different name. But if you had all the intermediates from H. h. to Homo sapiens before you, you would come across many ambiguous cases where you couldn't meaningfully class them as being in either one (in which case you'd probably invent a new class, but that will still create new intermediate ambiguities between those classes). These in fact do arise from time to time. Anyway, it's really a lot like mixing paint - how much black paint can you add to a bucket of white paint before it becomes gray?
As for faith... well, I could go on about this for a long time, but let's just say that "belief that x is true doesn't mean x is true". Sure, something can feel true to you, but that doesn't mean it has any correspondence with reality. You have to appeal to empirical evidence before you can begin to feel confident in any belief you may have, and still be prepared to have it overthrown (such overhauls are a property of good science over the past centuries). Faith isn't enough, as it's always a blind stab in the dark.
Also, to say that you're sticking to your story is to concede that no amount of evidence that may conflict with your preconceived beliefs will change your mind. Are you sure that's a stance you want to defend? Or do you not need to defend it anyway?
As for sins, well, Christians have a habit of being obsessed with sin, of which some don't even deserve to be categorised as such - homosexuality and masturbation being prime examples, of course.
Okay, I'm done for now...

[TrueFaith77]

Originally Posted by vermicious knid

Thanks. This is unbelievable:


Sinead O'Connor: When my father was 5 he was told a story by his priest... that a boy he knew had died without having been to confession, and was sent to hell... and priest claimed how he knew this was.. his bedroom burst into flames one night... and when the fire was put out there were two little handprints in the bottom of the bed, the boy had come "screaming back from hell" to have his confession heard... when they finish investigating sexual abuse, then it will be corporal punishment.. and then psychological abuse such as my father endured >>> are these things representative of Christ> No.

I may be weird, but I don't see what's wrong with this story or how it constitutes psychological abuse.

[Ghost_Tracker]

Originally Posted by jaycee

As for faith... well, I could go on about this for a long time, but let's just say that "belief that x is true doesn't mean x is true". Sure, something can feel true to you, but that doesn't mean it has any correspondence with reality. You have to appeal to empirical evidence before you can begin to feel confident in any belief you may have,

Well, it seems valid for people to believe only in concrete things that they have in front of them. Where I run into trouble, personally, is when people start talking about "concrete" because it's made of "hard matter." "Matter," of course, being . . . well - an energy wave and a mathematical construct. One which can have its momentum measured - *or* its location - but not both at the same . . . uhm . . . "time." Time, of course, being something concr- uhm, a mathematical construct that doesn't actually exist physically. But of course you can trust your eyes with - welllll, you can form theories based on photons hitting your retin- uhm, light waves - well, they're both waves and particles at the same TIME, see, and . . . well then they cause electrical IMPULES in the BRAIN which lead to "consciousness," and . . . well no, I can't explain what consciousness is, science has NO idea what that is and probably never will but . . .


You have your faith, and I have mine...

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE science - but it's a faith too.
Have you ever personally done any of the experiments which led to these beliefs?
It's a faith.

By the way, "science" practically doesn't exist any more, as such. In "Science," work is supposed to be independently reproduced before it's accepted as "true." That's almost never done these days, and yet findings are taken as valid and used to form further theories which are again rarely reproduced independently.

It's a faith-based perspective based on partial, unsubstantiated evidence. Some of which is overwhelming.
For example, the fact that you can't move more than 186,282 miles in one second's worth of . . . uhm . . time.
By "move" of course, I mean through "space," which is uhm . . . uhm . . . well, it's a mathematical CONSTRUCT, see, and . . .

"

Originally Posted by jaycee

Also, to say that you're sticking to your story is to concede that no amount of evidence that may conflict with your preconceived beliefs will change your mind. Are you sure that's a stance you want to defend? ...

Yes.


By the way, another fun little thing to think about - and of course, don't take this the wrong way, I'm not pointing my finger at you and you and saying "YOU'RE DAMNED! YOU'RE GOING TO BURN IN HELL!" I'm just shooting the you-know-what here and trying to explain my way of viewing things. - - One place where I run into difficulty is when so-called "logical" people start telling me "logic doesn't prove there's a God." For me, the logic is actually very simple - Suppose there were as high as a one in ten chance that if you don't do something as easy as saying the word, "Yes," you would burn in hell for all eternity. I don't mean for a paltry trillion years. I don't mean for a short period of time like ten to the hundredth power years. We're talkin' for eva. Versus just simply believing that there may have been a conscious impetus behind the Big Bang - the cause of which remains completely 100% unexplained - and that that being might care about us. Considering the fact that MANY physicists who have all the available data believe that there HAS to be a God, that's enough for me. Considering that if I'm right, good things could happen and I'll avoid possibly horrific consequences, and considering that if I'm wrong, I'll never know, there's everything to gain and nothing to lose.
It's the path of least resistance...
(And for me, the "simplist possible explanation, all else being equal," is that there's a God.)

Those are my thoughts on it all, anyway.

[Tango]

You might enjoy this op/ed by Maureen Dowd in the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/op...e&ref=homepage

Nope?

[LikeAWillow]

Thank you so much for the link. If the church were willing to follow any of her suggestions, from priests marrying to women being allowed to fill the role of priest, I think the church might be able to turn the term "fallen-away Catholic" to "returned again." Or prodigal son Catholic. Whatevs.

Really, though, I like to hope this latest scandal is the nail in the coffin of the church's unsustainable adherence to a failed model. I don't really believe it, but I like to hope.

[daniellaaarisen]

Fun fact: my English teacher thought it would be fun to analyze Sharon Olds' "The Pope's Penis" in class last week. He sniggered the entire time. I go to Catholic school.

[jaycee]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker

Well, it seems valid for people to believe only in concrete things that they have in front of them. Where I run into trouble, personally, is when people start talking about "concrete" because it's made of "hard matter." "Matter," of course, being . . . well - an energy wave and a mathematical construct. One which can have its momentum measured - *or* its location - but not both at the same . . . uhm . . . "time." Time, of course, being something concr- uhm, a mathematical construct that doesn't actually exist physically. But of course you can trust your eyes with - welllll, you can form theories based on photons hitting your retin- uhm, light waves - well, they're both waves and particles at the same TIME, see, and . . . well then they cause electrical IMPULES in the BRAIN which lead to "consciousness," and . . . well no, I can't explain what consciousness is, science has NO idea what that is and probably never will but . . .


You have your faith, and I have mine...

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE science - but it's a faith too.
Have you ever personally done any of the experiments which led to these beliefs?
It's a faith.

By the way, "science" practically doesn't exist any more, as such. In "Science," work is supposed to be independently reproduced before it's accepted as "true." That's almost never done these days, and yet findings are taken as valid and used to form further theories which are again rarely reproduced independently.

It's a faith-based perspective based on partial, unsubstantiated evidence. Some of which is overwhelming.
For example, the fact that you can't move more than 186,282 miles in one second's worth of . . . uhm . . time.
By "move" of course, I mean through "space," which is uhm . . . uhm . . . well, it's a mathematical CONSTRUCT, see, and . . .

"

Yes.


By the way, another fun little thing to think about - and of course, don't take this the wrong way, I'm not pointing my finger at you and you and saying "YOU'RE DAMNED! YOU'RE GOING TO BURN IN HELL!" I'm just shooting the you-know-what here and trying to explain my way of viewing things. - - One place where I run into difficulty is when so-called "logical" people start telling me "logic doesn't prove there's a God." For me, the logic is actually very simple - Suppose there were as high as a one in ten chance that if you don't do something as easy as saying the word, "Yes," you would burn in hell for all eternity. I don't mean for a paltry trillion years. I don't mean for a short period of time like ten to the hundredth power years. We're talkin' for eva. Versus just simply believing that there may have been a conscious impetus behind the Big Bang - the cause of which remains completely 100% unexplained - and that that being might care about us. Considering the fact that MANY physicists who have all the available data believe that there HAS to be a God, that's enough for me. Considering that if I'm right, good things could happen and I'll avoid possibly horrific consequences, and considering that if I'm wrong, I'll never know, there's everything to gain and nothing to lose.
It's the path of least resistance...
(And for me, the "simplist possible explanation, all else being equal," is that there's a God.)

Those are my thoughts on it all, anyway.

(I feel shattered! I did the most elaborate reply to this at lunch time today, but I must've pressed preview, not send! Well, let's see if I can write a shorter reply anyway - the last attempt was convoluted.)
The current cornerstones of physics, Quantum Field Theory and General Relativity, are both mathematically rigorous and outstandingly accurate in their predictions (one part in 10^12 for Quantum Electrodynamics, e.g. the Helium nucleus has a mass of 4.001506179127 with an error of +62 for the last two digits, and one part in 10^14 for GR seems familiar in this experiment - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_J0737-3039). Of course what QFT and GR say about reality is so far removed from our everyday experience of "middle world" (medium distances, times, speeds etc.) that we're lucky we can understand either of the theories at all! Although I'm perplexed when you speak of science currently not understanding consciousness, and it therefore probably never will - if scientists knew everything they'd be out of a job! Fortunately for us though, the universe becomes ever more incredible and elaborate as we probe further, so scientific investigation is unlikely to end any time soon!
Now, to conclude that science is a faith because, as Newton described it, we're seeing further by "standing on the shoulders of giants", is ridiculous. Although I've performed but a mere handful of the experiments past scientists would've done, the fact that I'm using a computer to type this response is evidence enough that science is progressing. If you still consider that faith, then you might as well have faith in surviving a jump off a ten-story building and landing on the pavement below!
Are you really sure independent verification/falsification isn't much performed anymore? One of the more interesting (at least to me) displays of refutation and subsequently revealed fabrication is the "discovery" of element 118 http://www.webelements.com/ununoctium/). Can you give me any good examples of unsubstantiated/lazy/bad science?
Ah, yes, Pascal's wager - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager. Feel free to read it, as nothing I can say here will add to that informative repository.
(As a side, sometimes I'm questioned as to how I can trust Wikipedia, my favourite initial source of information. Well, basically, I've often enjoyed looking up articles about which I know quite a bit, and the information contained within has been incredibly accurate, especially considering it's so easily edited. So knowing that, I can infer (to a point - I check some other references depending on how critical the information is), that Wikipedia pages from which I learn new information are accurate.)
You say many physicists believe in a god/s. I expect most of them are pantheists like Einstein, but in the cases that their not, their god is still so far removed from the gods of most religious people that, should they describe precisely what their god is like to a church (mosque, etc.) congregation, they'd be branded atheists. And perhaps rightly so!
Your god, simple? Really, any entity powerful and intelligent enough to create a universe like this one couldn't be described as anything other than complex! You've posited complexity to explain complexity! Your god's existence demands explanation! Who created God? (Oh, wait, eternal, never created... got it... although it still does nothing to remove the issue of complexity...)
I think that covers everything, although I'll leave one last comment to ponder over. (It relates to Pascal's Wager.) You say you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by believing in God (although not Allah, Yahwe, Vishnu, or Zeus). I disagree. Consider that the number of possible combinations of DNA that would lead to what we'd call a sentient human ranges in at least billions of billions, and yet only billions of people are lucky enough to be born at all! If we're so lucky, wouldn't you want to learn as much as possible about the place in which we make our brief visit through the best methods of inquiry? Basically, I see it this way - devote your life to religion, and you spend your time obsessing over sin, death, and the afterlife; devote your life to science, maths, and philosophy, and you discover unexpected wonders and beauty in the universe well beyond anything any human-made fairytale could ever offer!
(Phew! That was long... and arguably better than my first effort, fortunately! )

[louielouie2000]

Originally Posted by daniellaaarisen

Fun fact: my English teacher thought it would be fun to analyze Sharon Olds' "The Pope's Penis" in class last week. He sniggered the entire time. I go to Catholic school.

Oh, no wonder we get along and understand one another so well... I went to a private Christian middle and high school myself!

[vermicious knid]

Originally Posted by TrueFaith77

I may be weird, but I don't see what's wrong with this story or how it constitutes psychological abuse.

You don't think telling that story to a child would petrify him and change the way his mind works? And not just a story, but something presented as an actual occurance? Surely children can do without the thought that at any moment they could be transported to hell to burn for eternity. . . unless you're a good boy. That is sick.

[TrueFaith77]

Originally Posted by vermicious knid

You don't think telling that story to a child would petrify him and change the way his mind works? And not just a story, but something presented as an actual occurance? Surely children can do without the thought that at any moment they could be transported to hell to burn for eternity. . . unless you're a good boy. That is sick.

That would be sick if your description had anything to do with the story that was told. The story was about failing to confess, not sinning. We are all sinners, but the soul that does not release shame, guilt, sin, hurt to a forgiving and loving God will, indeed, remain in torment--a torment rather vividly dramatized in the priest's tale.

[vermicious knid]

Okay, I'll just leave you to your belief that there is a hell full of children burning for eternity.

[TrueFaith77]

Do not put words in my mouth. I didn't say anything about my beliefs--the nature of which are none of your business. I was referring to how the story told by the priest accurately reflects Catholic conceptions of "confession" and "Hell." In other words, I was merely summarizing since you didn't seem to get it the first time.