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thegreekdog wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:thegreekdog wrote:crispybits wrote:Not "any other religious organisation" but I'll skip that point as it's largely a tangent.
Saying "you didn't oppose this lot doing those bad things so why do you oppose that lot doing these bad things" is invalid. It's like saying "you didn't say anything here about the Norway mass shootings, so you're not allowed to comment on Sandy Hook". I'm allowed to comment on whatever I want to comment on, and the hypocrisy you imply would only exist if, when asked a direct question about something similar I took a completely different stance without good justification for that or failed to condemn it at all.
It's perfectly valid. It's not valid to use it as a counterpoint to your argument that the church has done bad things. I acknowledge that the church has done bad things. What it is perfectly valid to use is as a way to show hypocrisy. I'm showing that you're a hypocrit. You will criticize the Catholic Church's history and demand that it do something, but you will not criticize a country and demand that it do something.
It's like if you said "Bill should go to jail for rape." And then I said, "I agree."
Then I said, "Should Jim also go to jail for rape?" And you respond, "No, I don't hold Jim to the same standards as Bill." That's hypocritical.
At least the Catholic Church doesn't send an army of goons after you when you don't pay your annual "voluntary contributions".
Hmm... they kind of do.
BigBallinStalin wrote:"kind of" != backtaxes + sheriff knocking on your door with a gun
BigBallinStalin wrote:Oh right, I forgot that people still believed in that.
When comparing the perceived threat of coercion (purgatory/hell) and the actual threat of coercion (police enforcement for failing to pay taxes), then we should be able to see the difference here.
crispybits wrote:- Why do you hold religion (a fascist organization) to a higher stnadard than representative governments?
Because religion claims to be the answer to all the moral questions, or at least a lot of the religions tend to hold themselves up as the answer to a lot of the questions if you object to the broader generalisation. If I claim to be an expert on, say, the Miami Dolphins, then my knowledge of the Miami Dolphins should be judged by a higher standard than someone that say they only occasionally watch football on TV.
crispybits wrote:As above, also I engage with religious threads more than I do with political ones, because I tend to do my political arguing in other places, more often than not in the really real world. Here I am a minority part of a forum that is primarily American, and then after that spread throughout the world. If I want to chat UK politics I will either do that in person, or if I do do it online I will do it in UK based forums where everyone is more informed about the individual issues within the appropriate cultural context (not to say Americans don't know politics, but generally Americans don't know British politics beyond the surface issues, just like the Brits don't know American (or German, or Chinese, or whatever) politics below the surface issues, with the obvious exception of international politics geeks)
crispybits wrote:The difference comes from the fact that if there is something that is easily corruptible and harmful, but we need that thing, then that's worth spending serious time and energy on improving and trying to make the best version of itself possible. If there's something that's easily corruptible and harmful, but we don't need that thing, then unless that thing can be shown to bring great amounts of good that couldn't be brought by other means (see the answer to the last question too here), then it is more beneficial to society to just scrap it and use those other avenues to achieve the same result, whilst closing off the opportunities for corruption and harm that don't need to be there.
crispybits wrote:That point was to illustrate why religion is an optional extra, rather than a necessity. If society can get something from 2 sources, then a proper evaluation should be done to calculate which of those sources is most efficient, that is to say has the lowest cost to society per unit of benefit (whatever that is). I think religion has a low efficiency value, because of the amount of time, money and energy that must be devoted to it over and above good works, whereas doing good works for the sake of doing good works does not carry this fixed cost in time, energy and money, and much, much more of the resources expended actually go towards real benefits.
PLAYER57832 wrote:2dimes wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:2dimes wrote:
Religion is either a group of people sharing beliefs or teaching them. Just like any club or organization.
This is really a matter of debating a definition, not substance.
Religion can be used to mean a specific organized group. It can also be used more generally to mean a core belief system. Often we use the term religion to mean more than one person having similar ideas and faith to mean specific ideas or specific individual beliefs, but that is not always true.
Sure, but if you're a monk that sits In silence never even writing your thoughts, your religion is internal and no longer relevant to this or any other conversation.
More than one person having similar beliefs was the "sharing" example.
A monk alone still has religion.. as do some peoples who have no specific set religion.
thegreekdog wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:Oh right, I forgot that people still believed in that.
When comparing the perceived threat of coercion (purgatory/hell) and the actual threat of coercion (police enforcement for failing to pay taxes), then we should be able to see the difference here.
Really it's about paying money for services. For example, if there are two parishes to choose from: the first parish has a brand-spanking new church, excellent priests, a great elementary school, and a cool name; the second parish is run down, has a 90 year old priest, a crappy school, and a crappy name... you're going to try to get in the first parish. And it helps, I think (my wife disagrees) if you are an upper middle class family of two attorneys.
tgd wrote:The question becomes, and is something I can't measure for myself, so I probably can't measure it for the world, if organized religion did not exist would there be a downtick in charity or a measurable difference in peoples lives?
BigBallinStalin wrote:thegreekdog wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:Oh right, I forgot that people still believed in that.
When comparing the perceived threat of coercion (purgatory/hell) and the actual threat of coercion (police enforcement for failing to pay taxes), then we should be able to see the difference here.
Really it's about paying money for services. For example, if there are two parishes to choose from: the first parish has a brand-spanking new church, excellent priests, a great elementary school, and a cool name; the second parish is run down, has a 90 year old priest, a crappy school, and a crappy name... you're going to try to get in the first parish. And it helps, I think (my wife disagrees) if you are an upper middle class family of two attorneys.
That's interesting to know, but how is this related to voluntary v. involuntary exchange?
PLAYER57832 wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:"kind of" != backtaxes + sheriff knocking on your door with a gun
For a person with faith, threats like time in purgatory might matter more.
I know a few who would say so.
On a somewhat related track...Did you know that the mafia had its own priests, specifically so they could put their souls at ease without worrying about word "getting out"... kind of twisted, but hey.
BigBallinStalin wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:"kind of" != backtaxes + sheriff knocking on your door with a gun
For a person with faith, threats like time in purgatory might matter more.
I know a few who would say so.
On a somewhat related track...Did you know that the mafia had its own priests, specifically so they could put their souls at ease without worrying about word "getting out"... kind of twisted, but hey.
The market provides!
thegreekdog wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:"kind of" != backtaxes + sheriff knocking on your door with a gun
For a person with faith, threats like time in purgatory might matter more.
I know a few who would say so.
On a somewhat related track...Did you know that the mafia had its own priests, specifically so they could put their souls at ease without worrying about word "getting out"... kind of twisted, but hey.
The market provides!
I missed this pearl of wisdom from Player... "The Mafia had its own priests." Oh lawdy.
thegreekdog wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:"kind of" != backtaxes + sheriff knocking on your door with a gun
For a person with faith, threats like time in purgatory might matter more.
I know a few who would say so.
On a somewhat related track...Did you know that the mafia had its own priests, specifically so they could put their souls at ease without worrying about word "getting out"... kind of twisted, but hey.
The market provides!
I missed this pearl of wisdom from Player... "The Mafia had its own priests." Oh lawdy.
PLAYER57832 wrote:thegreekdog wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:"kind of" != backtaxes + sheriff knocking on your door with a gun
For a person with faith, threats like time in purgatory might matter more.
I know a few who would say so.
On a somewhat related track...Did you know that the mafia had its own priests, specifically so they could put their souls at ease without worrying about word "getting out"... kind of twisted, but hey.
The market provides!
I missed this pearl of wisdom from Player... "The Mafia had its own priests." Oh lawdy.
Are you saying this is not true?
My point was that they could care less about the law, were pretty much willing to risk personal injury, but did care about God.. not enough to obey his tenets, but ...
PLAYER57832 wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:thegreekdog wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:"kind of" != backtaxes + sheriff knocking on your door with a gun
For a person with faith, threats like time in purgatory might matter more.
I know a few who would say so.
On a somewhat related track...Did you know that the mafia had its own priests, specifically so they could put their souls at ease without worrying about word "getting out"... kind of twisted, but hey.
The market provides!
I missed this pearl of wisdom from Player... "The Mafia had its own priests." Oh lawdy.
Are you saying this is not true?
My point was that they could care less about the law, were pretty much willing to risk personal injury, but did care about God.. not enough to obey his tenets, but ...
Seriously, greekdog... are you thinking this was just some kind of prejudicial statement? It was not.
Symmetry wrote:Let's just put this here.Critics have accused him of ignoring the plight of victims during the country’s military dictatorship from 1976-1983, despite victims and their relatives relating first-hand accounts of torture, death and kidnappings to the priests he supervised as the local provincial of the Jesuit Order.[31]
On 15 April 2005, a human rights lawyer filed a criminal complaint against Bergoglio, as superior in the Society of Jesus of Argentina, accusing him of involvement in the kidnapping by the Navy in May 1976 (during the military dictatorship) of two Jesuit priests.[32] The priests, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics, were found alive five months later, drugged and semi-nude. Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to the death squads by declining to tell the regime that he endorsed their work. Jalics refused to discuss it after moving into seclusion in a German monastery.[33] Horacio Verbitsky, an Argentine investigative journalist and author, wrote a book about this and other related events titled El Silencio: de Paulo VI a Bergoglio: las relaciones secretas de la Iglesia con la ESMA.[34]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Bergoglio#Relations_with_the_Argentine_government
The accusation is most associated with Horacio Verbitsky, a man invariably described in the international press as a journalist, though rarely with any acknowledgment of his prior life in the terror group the Montoneros. Even fewer note that Verbitsky’s paper backs the increasingly authoritarian government of Cristina Kirchner — the widow of former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner and an admirer of Hugo Chavez.
In our sister paper, The Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O’Grady listed some of them yesterday, defending then-Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio: Nobel Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquival, who endured jail and torture; Alicia Oliviera, a former regime judge forced into hiding during those dark years, and Graciela Fernandez Meijide, a human-rights activist whose son was abducted by the junta when he was just a teen and never seen again.
Some of these people have serious disagreements with the pope — Fernandez Meijide, for example, is a pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage atheist — but they recognize a libel when they see one.
Which leads us to suspect that the pope’s real “crime” is that he’s popular in the slums of Buenos Aires. So when he criticizes the government, it comes with the one thing foes cannot bear: the credibility that comes from living the Gospel he preaches.
thegreekdog wrote: They didn't have "their own priests." It has nothing to do with prejudice and everything to do with ignorance. I'm saying it's not true. I'm saying that the sacrament of reconciliation allows people, including criminals, to confess their sins to a priest who will not then tell others about those sins. Therefore, while you may make the ignorant statement that "the mafia had their own priests" and believe it, it's far from the truth.
thegreekdog wrote:Symmetry wrote:Let's just put this here.Critics have accused him of ignoring the plight of victims during the country’s military dictatorship from 1976-1983, despite victims and their relatives relating first-hand accounts of torture, death and kidnappings to the priests he supervised as the local provincial of the Jesuit Order.[31]
On 15 April 2005, a human rights lawyer filed a criminal complaint against Bergoglio, as superior in the Society of Jesus of Argentina, accusing him of involvement in the kidnapping by the Navy in May 1976 (during the military dictatorship) of two Jesuit priests.[32] The priests, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics, were found alive five months later, drugged and semi-nude. Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to the death squads by declining to tell the regime that he endorsed their work. Jalics refused to discuss it after moving into seclusion in a German monastery.[33] Horacio Verbitsky, an Argentine investigative journalist and author, wrote a book about this and other related events titled El Silencio: de Paulo VI a Bergoglio: las relaciones secretas de la Iglesia con la ESMA.[34]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Bergoglio#Relations_with_the_Argentine_governmentThe accusation is most associated with Horacio Verbitsky, a man invariably described in the international press as a journalist, though rarely with any acknowledgment of his prior life in the terror group the Montoneros. Even fewer note that Verbitsky’s paper backs the increasingly authoritarian government of Cristina Kirchner — the widow of former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner and an admirer of Hugo Chavez.In our sister paper, The Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O’Grady listed some of them yesterday, defending then-Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio: Nobel Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquival, who endured jail and torture; Alicia Oliviera, a former regime judge forced into hiding during those dark years, and Graciela Fernandez Meijide, a human-rights activist whose son was abducted by the junta when he was just a teen and never seen again.
Some of these people have serious disagreements with the pope — Fernandez Meijide, for example, is a pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage atheist — but they recognize a libel when they see one.
Which leads us to suspect that the pope’s real “crime” is that he’s popular in the slums of Buenos Aires. So when he criticizes the government, it comes with the one thing foes cannot bear: the credibility that comes from living the Gospel he preaches.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/ed ... zksJpcnIOK
PLAYER57832 wrote:thegreekdog wrote: They didn't have "their own priests." It has nothing to do with prejudice and everything to do with ignorance. I'm saying it's not true. I'm saying that the sacrament of reconciliation allows people, including criminals, to confess their sins to a priest who will not then tell others about those sins. Therefore, while you may make the ignorant statement that "the mafia had their own priests" and believe it, it's far from the truth.
Sorry greekdog, but I am not wrong here. You can research it, but my information is actually direct. Nor did I intend it as a slight to the Roman Catholic church. Priests are sworn to secrecy, of course, but mafiosa were notoriously suspicious. Actually, the mafia is a pretty interesting topic in and of itself. Here is a bit about more modern involvement, I include it because its from Philadelphia. http://articles.philly.com/1999-08-10/n ... ime-family
Anyway, protestants tend to take a very different view on confession and forgiveness of sins. For us, it is something directly with God and no priest has the authority to truly erase any sin, even minor ones. And, forgiveness doesn't "undo" the sin... it is just forgiveness.
I honestly just meant it as a side joke. My husband's family is Italien. None of them would even question the statement.
thegreekdog wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:thegreekdog wrote: They didn't have "their own priests." It has nothing to do with prejudice and everything to do with ignorance. I'm saying it's not true. I'm saying that the sacrament of reconciliation allows people, including criminals, to confess their sins to a priest who will not then tell others about those sins. Therefore, while you may make the ignorant statement that "the mafia had their own priests" and believe it, it's far from the truth.
Sorry greekdog, but I am not wrong here. You can research it, but my information is actually direct. Nor did I intend it as a slight to the Roman Catholic church. Priests are sworn to secrecy, of course, but mafiosa were notoriously suspicious. Actually, the mafia is a pretty interesting topic in and of itself. Here is a bit about more modern involvement, I include it because its from Philadelphia. http://articles.philly.com/1999-08-10/n ... ime-family
Anyway, protestants tend to take a very different view on confession and forgiveness of sins. For us, it is something directly with God and no priest has the authority to truly erase any sin, even minor ones. And, forgiveness doesn't "undo" the sin... it is just forgiveness.
I honestly just meant it as a side joke. My husband's family is Italien. None of them would even question the statement.
I'm still not really sure what you're getting at here. On the one hand, you said it was a joke. On the other hand, you seem to be defending the position that "the Mafia had its own priests." That implies that there were priests that were either part of the Mafia or were beholden to the mafia.
thegreekdog wrote: Your statement is incorrect. Did priests serve the Mafia as part of their congregations? Sure. Is that what you mean? If it is, then we can move on. If not, then I need something more substantial than a link to a philly.com article showing that priests merely serviced the community, which included alleged Mafia members in Philadelphia.
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