The Catholic Church Should Burn

[Jopsy Pendragon]

The problem is, if Catholicism vanished abruptly, that'd be more followers for Evangelical churchs to snarf up, making them even more of an unstoppable juggernaut of irrationality.

At least the vatican accepts evolution and the big bang... not that it helps enlighten their attitude towards homosexuality, women's rights, and contraception. :-/

So unless we can throw all religion out with the bathwater, there's no real point to just sloshing some of it out and keeping the rest.

 

[Roxanne Blue]

Throwing away the Catholic Church is not throwing away 7,000 years of misogynistic "wisdom". If only.

At most, one could argue that the Catholic Church was a repository of European knowledge for the past 1500 years or so, but only from a deeply racist perspective. The church is directly responsible for the destruction of countless native Indian artifacts and writings from the Americas to Polynesia. So yeah, a very narrow view of the knowledge under its care.

I was more in mind of throwing away 7,000 years of patriarchal "culture", of which all three major Abrahamic religions are but latter age expressions. The idea that "History is written by the winners." encompasses that viewpoint.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

nobody should take him seriously.

Probably the first true thing Trump has ever said.

 

[Sovereignty]

The deliberate destruction of cultures is more than just conquest. But let's say, for the sake of argument, that the conquest I referenced is just brute force exerted against any loser. That action wasn't what I was calling out as racist. The racism to which I was referring is specifically the common attitude that the Roman Catholic Church saved so much of European-based knowledge during the Middle Ages. As if that was the only knowledge base that really mattered and we should give them props for that good deed, while giving them a pass on destroying everything else.

I would argue that the destruction of cultures is an intrinsic part of conquest. It is comparable to Rome salting the fields of Carthage. Destroy the opponent's sense of identity as well.

Sometimes events are over-determined. There could be more than one sufficient cause to produce an outcome. I'd interpret the missionary system of Spain as serving the interests of both the Spanish government [conquistadors!] and the Pope.

I'll agree that the Catholic church with few exceptions (orgies in the Vatican) has been a control freak of an institution. FWIW, I read a book about the Dead Sea scrolls and Gnosticism. Published 1960 ish. (I have it somewhere. Hmm.) One of the main points is that the early Catholics basically exterminated competing interpretations of the gospel. Somehow the scrolls survived. The early church also instituted a system of control that minimized middle-men between Rome and the Empire. Pope, bishop, priest. That made the central church's control more effective. (I inherited that book from my mother. She was religious. I am not.)

The idea that the Catholic church preserved knowledge is news to me. I never saw it that way. For instance, I always thought of the Renaissance as Innula described it. Perhaps it is a Catholic doctrine?
ETA: I have seen Muslim apologists make a similar claim for their religion. Everyone wants to seem like sweetness and light.

 

[Nostrildamus]

I was more in mind of throwing away 7,000 years of patriarchal "culture", of which all three major Abrahamic religions are but latter age expressions. The idea that "History is written by the winners." encompasses that viewpoint.

You guys are still twisting yourselves into a pretzel over my comment 3 days ago? The bible goes way back to before ancient Sumer with the flood and certain other stories, which is around 7000 years ago, consists of a collection of basic moral standards. lessons and acceptable ways of interacting that were settled on long ago by trial and error, over the ages. Atheists intend to discard all of this wisdom and the foundations of western civilazation and replace it with a reliance on the genocidal nature and whims of people you see in modern culture, with a relativistic outlook on morality. Before you know it good is evil.

 

[Roxanne Blue]

You guys were right. Feeding the troll only encourages it.

 

[Nostrildamus]

You guys were right. Feeding the troll only encourages it.

I have all the millions who came before me on my side pulling for whats right.

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

Before you know it good is evil.

Evil is designing people broken and then blaming them for being broken.

"Behold, I have created man, a creature easily corrupted by power. And lo! I have bestowed upon them the Absolute Power to represent me while I feck off to somewhere never to be heard from again. And they praise my all-loving and forgiving self who's so quick to condemn with Eternal Damnation if they don't play 'hide the pecker' -exactly- the way that I approve of."

I'm sorry, but your religion is far too much of a joke to take seriously.

 

[Roxanne Blue]

I have all the millions who came before me on my side pulling for whats right.

"what's right"? (punctuation matters if you're going to be taken as a serious troll. We draw heavyweights here and you seem quite light. There should have been an apostrophe after what.)

Also, Hahahahahahahahahahahhahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

How long did it take the Church to admit Galileo was right?

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

The oldest clay tablets are a couple of thousand years younger than the date you pulled out of your posterior. And the code of Hammurabi is a couple of thousand years younger yet.

 

[Free]

you're discarding 7,000 years of wisdom

Posted Friday at 9:36 PM (ET)

I was more in mind of throwing away 7,000 years of patriarchal "culture", of which all three major Abrahamic religions are but latter age expressions. The idea that "History is written by the winners." encompasses that viewpoint.

Posted Saturday at 10:15 PM (ET)

[responding to Roxanne's post]
You guys are still twisting yourselves into a pretzel over my comment 3 days ago?

Math is not your strong suit.

 

[Clara D.]

I have all the millions of internet trolls who came before me on my side pulling for whats lolzy.

Word salad!

/fixed.

You guys are still twisting yourselves into a pretzel over my trolling 3 days ago?

Not really, you sad insignificant waste of carbon.

 

[danielravennest]

Atheists intend to discard all of this wisdom and the foundations of western civilazation

Stick it up your nose, dude, and "lern to spel".

You can still have a moral code without believing it was dictated by an evil sky fairy. The Old Testament gods ("Elohim" is plural, and "gods" are mentioned explicitly in Genesis) committed all sorts of evil acts, and directed their "chosen people" to commit more. That there were a few good moral precepts buried among a rampage of genocide is hardly a recommendation.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

a collection of basic moral standards. lessons and acceptable ways of interacting that were settled on long ago by trial and error, over the ages

That, though, suggests that these "basic moral standards, lessons and acceptable ways of interacting" are based on pragmatic observation of what works and what doesn't, and that rules and laws that no longer seem particularly relevant -- particularly ones about ritual cleanliness and uncleanliness -- get discarded as no longer useful.

That's my position, too -- most ethical rules are absolutely necessary to a functioning society of any kind, since you can't have any sort of complex social structure, not even a small village or band of nomads -- without an agreed set of basic rules and a consensus about enforcing them, otherwise you end up complete anarchy as marauding bands wage constant war on each other.

However, it follows from all this that, as and when people no longer find a rule particularly useful, it falls into desuetude as more and more people ignore it.

Some rules are longer lasting than others, but none of them are necessarily permanent, as far as I can see, at least not in theory.

As any one time, of course, people will disagree about which rules are necessary and which are not, and differing views will tend to be influenced, to a greater or lesser extent, by the degree to which their general adoption benefits the person who holds them.

So, for example, prohibitions on murder and theft tend not to be particularly contentious, because no one wants to feel their life and property are in constant danger from everyone else, but rules on things like what you can eat, or who may marry whom, are discarded when they no longer matter sufficiently to enough people to be worth trying to enforce.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Some commentary on the state of the heretical death cult called American Evangelicism:

Thread by @JuliusGoat on Thread Reader App

@JuliusGoat: It should be much more at the forefront of our minds, the extent to which the most politically activated and politically empowered segment of the authoritarian American cult calling itself "Christian" s...…

threadreaderapp.com

Know what you're facing, y'all.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Furthermore:

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

Furthermore:

Yeah, tell that to "Your liberty to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater."

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Furthermore:

At this point, no court in the world should convict if someone blew up their vehicle with a LAW

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Yeah, tell that to "Your liberty to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater."

What a can of worms that is in US constitutional law.

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

What a can of worms that is in US constitutional law.

No kidding.

The way I see it, is if the government can ban cigarette ads... they can pretty much censor any kind of free expression as long as they have the political support for it.

Don't get me wrong, I'd be pleased as punch if cigarettes themselves were banned, but the constitutional basis for the ban on advertising (with the surgeon general's warning) seems.... weak?