Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Christian Topic => Topic started by: Sriram on April 25, 2019, 12:30:38 PM
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https://edition.cnn.com/videos/style/2019/04/15/vatican-displays-holy-stairs-for-the-first-time-in-300-years.cnn
Stairs that Jesus is said to have climbed before his crucifixion.
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Sriram,
Stairway to Heaven?
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Or maybe - (more than) three steps to heaven.
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I've walked up these when they were covered with occasional glass bits so you see where the blood of Jesus had stained the steps. The faithful go up on their knees. The steps, and building in which they are based feature in the rather excellent The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch.
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https://edition.cnn.com/videos/style/2019/04/15/vatican-displays-holy-stairs-for-the-first-time-in-300-years.cnn
Stairs that Jesus is said to have climbed before his crucifixion.
can you see me slowly shaking my head ? ::)
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I've walked up these when they were covered with occasional glass bits so you see where the blood of Jesus had stained the steps.
Yeeesssss.
I just looked them up on Wikipedia and the legend is that they were shipped to Rome in 326 i.e. almost 300 years after the event. The possibility that they hadn't been given a good scrubbing between the trial of Jesus and 326 seems likely to be low.
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https://edition.cnn.com/videos/style/2019/04/15/vatican-displays-holy-stairs-for-the-first-time-in-300-years.cnn
Stairs that Jesus is said to have climbed before his crucifixion.
when I was there I bought a used lollypop stick for $100 said to have been eaten by Jesus as he walked up those stairs for refreshment. Do you think I was conned ?
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Yeeesssss.
I just looked them up on Wikipedia and the legend is that they were shipped to Rome in 326 i.e. almost 300 years after the event. The possibility that they hadn't been given a good scrubbing between the trial of Jesus and 326 seems likely to be low.
I think the idea is that Jesus's blood was so miraculously soaked into the marble that not even repeated Cilit Bang treatment would work. The belief is that these were brought back by St Helena who went round the 'Holy Land' buying anything anyone could stick Holy in front of.
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The RCC doesn't half prey on the gullibility of the faithful! :o
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The RCC doesn't half prey on the gullibility of the faithful! :o
I think this gets a central part wrong. The motivation is about being faithful. The vast majority of anyone in the Catholic Church have belief in these sort of things, up to the highest levels. Even those who doubt the authenticity of such things as the Sancta Scala see some truth in them in a symbolic fashion.
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I think the idea is that Jesus's blood was so miraculously soaked into the marble that not even repeated Cilit Bang treatment would work.
Why would they need to protect the Holy Bloodstains with glass then?
The belief is that these were brought back by St Helena who went round the 'Holy Land' buying anything anyone could stick Holy in front of.
Is it possible she might have been scammed?
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The vast majority of anyone in the Catholic Church have belief in these sort of things ...
Really? And your evidence for this being?
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Really? And your evidence for this being?
In the sense of the symbolism - the point is that there isn't an idea that the institution is a cabal of people pretending to believe to fool the gullible.
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Why would they need to protect the Holy Bloodstains with glass then?
Is it possible she might have been scammed?
Because you could 'besmirch' them by doing things to them. And yes, I'm pretty sure that wherever St Helena went there were desperately manufacturing relics.
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In the sense of the symbolism ...
And your evidence for this being?
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And your evidence for this being?
That people remain Catholic and don't see relics like this as a big scam by the institution
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And your evidence for this being?
well I read it in the Sun newspaper so it must be true .
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That people remain Catholic and don't see relics like this as a big scam by the institution
That isn't how I interpreted your comment:
'The vast majority of anyone in the Catholic Church have belief in these sort of things ...'
That reads that the majority of catholics believe in reliquary, rather than the majority don't believe that the catholic church are pulling the wool over their eyes.
Would be helpful if you clarify - do you think that most catholics actually believe in reliquary?
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That isn't how I interpreted your comment:
'The vast majority of anyone in the Catholic Church have belief in these sort of things ...'
That reads that the majority of catholics believe in reliquary, rather than the majority don't believe that the catholic church are pulling the wool over their eyes.
Would be helpful if you clarify - do you think that most catholics actually believe in reliquary?
I think they believe in the symbolism as I have said. I was replying to LR's idea that it is effectively a conspiracy by the institution to take advantage of the gullible. Whether most believe in the claims about the Holy Stairs, or even know that the Holy Stairs exist, I doubt. But I don't think they see it as a conspiracy, and overall, I think a large number of them see stuff like this as having a truth.
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I think they believe in the symbolism as I have said. I was replying to LR's idea that it is effectively a conspiracy by the institution to take advantage of the gullible. Whether most believe in the claims about the Holy Stairs, or even know that the Holy Stairs exist, I doubt. But I don't think they see it as a conspiracy, and overall, I think a large number of them see stuff like this as having a truth.
Spot on.
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These kinds of things I see as some being real and some not. But that is not the real point. I see them much like icons. They are seen as conduits to the one depicted in it.
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Most religious relics and figures are symbols. Most stories are allegories or analogies. Its not about whether a story is literally true or false.
The effect these things have on our mind and how they trigger a positive change within us, is what matters.
Often, the hope, solace and sense of higher purpose that these things produce in people is itself enough to make life worthwhile. The humility and reduction of ego is another worthwhile effect.
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... and overall, I think a large number of them see stuff like this as having a truth.
But you didn't originally say 'a large number', you claimed 'the vast majority'
That's what I take issue with - how do you know this. I suggest neither you nor I have a clue about the proportion of catholics (practising or otherwise) that think as you suggest. As far as I'm aware there isn't any polling of opinion on this. So, in effect, all we are relying on is our experiences of the opinions of catholics we know who will, of course, be a teeny, tiny number in comparison with all the catholics in the UK, or worldwide and their opinions may not be representative at all.
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Nearly Sane getting a dose of his own medicine there...! Pedantry! ;)
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Nearly Sane getting a dose of his own medicine there...! Pedantry! ;)
It isn't really about pedantry, but about sweeping generalisations - NS made a sweeping generalisation about what 'the vast majority' of catholics think. He has no evidence to back up this claim - that's the point.
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Sriram,
Most religious relics and figures are symbols. Most stories are allegories or analogies. Its not about whether a story is literally true or false.
It is when the when the story is a claim of fact about the world – like there being a god who will cure little Timmy if you pray hard enough so don’t bother with his medicine.
The effect these things have on our mind and how they trigger a positive change within us, is what matters.
In general it seems to me that wishful and woolly thinking is more likely to have a negative than a positive effect on our minds – think Richard Feynman’s “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled” – but that’s just me I guess.
Often, the hope, solace and sense of higher purpose that these things produce in people is itself enough to make life worthwhile. The humility and reduction of ego is another worthwhile effect.
And others would say that the intolerance of other beliefs, religiously reinforced bigotry and refusal ever to change your mind and so to learn make their lives “worthwhile”. That’s the problem – we don’t need stories about gods to tell us how to behave well, but when we do then the risk is that the certainties that come with them are as likely to concretise undesirable behaviours as they are desirable ones.
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Ok....let me take that one...
You must have heard of mind over matter, power of positive thinking, placebo effect, spontaneous healing and such other things. They all are real phenomena, not imaginary.
Faith (even in a imaginary deity) has certain effects on the mind that can affect the body and its immune system very positively.
I am not saying that medicines should be discarded. I am saying that faith can have surprising healing effects....besides creating a very positive attitude towards life in general.
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Sriram,
Ok....let me take that one...
You must have heard of mind over matter, power of positive thinking, placebo effect, spontaneous healing and such other things. They all are real phenomena, not imaginary.
Faith (even in a imaginary deity) has certain effects on the mind that can affect the body and its immune system very positively.
I am not saying that medicines should be discarded. I am saying that faith can have surprising healing effects....besides creating a very positive attitude towards life in general.
But you referenced religions specifically. If you actually meant just something like having confidence in a medical treatment is likely to increase the chances of a positive outcome (ie, the placebo effect) then yes, that's a well-known (and fascinating) phenomenon. It also occurs by the way then the patients are told that the pill is a placebo - which perhaps says something about ex-theists not immediately becoming rapists and murderers.
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Sriram,
But you referenced religions specifically. If you actually meant just something like having confidence in a medical treatment is likely to increase the chances of a positive outcome (ie, the placebo effect) then yes, that's a well-known (and fascinating) phenomenon. It also occurs by the way then the patients are told that the pill is a placebo - which perhaps says something about ex-theists not immediately becoming rapists and murderers.
Instead of having confidence in a specific treatment (which the patient may not know anything about), he has confidence/faith in a deity who is watching over him! What's the difference?! The internal effect is the same.
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Instead of having confidence in a specific treatment (which the patient may not know anything about), he has confidence/faith in a deity who is watching over him! What's the difference?! The internal effect is the same.
The difference is that the effectiveness of the medical treatment is proven to work (certainly in evidence-based medicine). While there is a well known placebo effect, not all people experience it and the effect may be negative or positive. Probably the most widely respected study of the effect of prayer on medical conditions involved patients recovering from heart surgery in three groups:
Group 1: Were not prayed for
Group 2: Were prayed for and were told this was happening
Group 3: Were prayed for and were not told this was happening
There was no difference in the recovery rates between groups 1 and 3 - in other word prayer doesn't work outside of the psychological placebo effect. However group 2 had significantly worse recovery rates compared to groups 1 and 3. In other words the placebo effect made things worse not better.
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Sriram,
Instead of having confidence in a specific treatment (which the patient may not know anything about), he has confidence/faith in a deity who is watching over him! What's the difference?! The internal effect is the same.
So far as I’m aware there’s no data that suggests that sick religious people get better more often or more quickly than people who aren’t religious. The other difference by the way is that people taking placebos tend not to insist that others (especially children) agree with them, condemn some people for what they do in bed, make evidence-denying claims of fact about the world etc.
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You are going into extraneous matters. How fanatically a person believes in his deity is not what we are talking about. That can have negative effects.
But having faith in a deity certainly helps in healing and in general life situations.
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But having faith in a deity certainly helps in healing and in general life situations.
Proper scientific evidence please
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You are going into extraneous matters. How fanatically a person believes in his deity is not what we are talking about. That can have negative effects.
No I'm not - the study wasn't interested in how fanatically a person believes in a deity - all it looked at was whether prayer worked (irrespective of whether the person prayed for was aware) - it didn't. And the effect of the person knowing they were being prayed for (a placebo effect) - the effects were negative.
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Sriram,
You are going into extraneous matters. How fanatically a person believes in his deity is not what we are talking about. That can have negative effects.
No I'm not. Your regularly assert religious faith to be a force for good - it seems to me that though that there's considerable evidence for it doing more harm than good.
But having faith in a deity certainly helps in healing and in general life situations.
That's a big claim. What makes you think that it's true?
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Hi blue
did you watch The Fantastic Mr Feynman on BBC4 last night ?
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Hey Walter,
Hi blue
did you watch The Fantastic Mr Feynman on BBC4 last night ?
Yes I did - and not for the first time. What a wonderful man he was.
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Hey Walter,
Yes I did - and not for the first time. What a wonderful man he was.
here's a quote from Mr Feynman I think is rather apt on this board
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“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”
― Richard P. Feynman
tags: science
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Hi blue
did you watch The Fantastic Mr Feynman on BBC4 last night ?
What was it about - was there a theme to the programme? A scientist I know made a DVD for me ages ago, copied from audios of a series of lectures he'd had as a student. I listened to most of them - didn't understand the physics, but never mind! The DVD also included one of his books which, if I remember correctly, was 'Surely you're joking, Mr Feynmann?'
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What was it about - was there a theme to the programme? A scientist I know made a DVD for me ages ago, copied from audios of a series of lectures he'd had as a student. I listened to most of them - didn't understand the physics, but never mind! The DVD also included one of his books which, if I remember correctly, was 'Surely you're joking, Mr Feynmann?'
hi SD
This might help , its on BBC I player
The Fantastic Mr Feynman
Richard Feynman is one of the most iconic, influential and inspiring scientists of the 20th century. He helped design the atomic bomb, solved the mystery of the Challenger Shuttle catastrophe and won a Nobel Prize. Now, 25 years after his death - in his own words and those of his friends and family - this is the story of the most captivating communicator in the history of science.
Less
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Hi blue and ProfD,
I don't want to get into a dead end ..'yes it is...no it isn't' type of argument. Nor do I have statistics and figures to corroborate every sentence I write.
I am writing as a spiritual person who has seen lot of religion pretty close up. Religious faith does bring solace, hope and a sense of purpose to life. This happens regardless of the deity one worships. Hindus have understood this long ago and generally leave people to choose their own personal deity (ishtadevata).
My point being that regardless of whether Jesus actually walked on those stairs or not, if people believe that he did and have a sense of reverence and humility because of that.....that is just fine.
Cheers.
Sriram
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Ah! When I managed to stay awake at 'church history' lectures at Glasgow UNI, This was classed as "MBHR" M- More B - Bloody H - Helena R- Rubbish.
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Religious faith does bring solace, hope and a sense of purpose to life.
As do many things.
And religion also brings guilt, anxiety, uncertainty and stress to others.
And it also depends on what that 'purpose to life' leads to - with religion it may lead to intolerance, hatred, division and persecution, just as much as it might lead to love, kindness and tolerance.
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Hi blue and ProfD,
I don't want to get into a dead end ..'yes it is...no it isn't' type of argument. Nor do I have statistics and figures to corroborate every sentence I write.
I am writing as a spiritual person who has seen lot of religion pretty close up. Religious faith does bring solace, hope and a sense of purpose to life. This happens regardless of the deity one worships. Hindus have understood this long ago and generally leave people to choose their own personal deity (ishtadevata).
My point being that regardless of whether Jesus actually walked on those stairs or not, if people believe that he did and have a sense of reverence and humility because of that.....that is just fine.
Cheers.
Sriram
My religious faith caused me stress and anxiety as a young person, I was glad when I was no longer a believer.
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IMO the positives that have come out of religions far outweigh the negatives...
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/religions-have-suceeded/
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Sriram,
IMO the positives that have come out of religions far outweigh the negatives...
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/religions-have-suceeded/
What metrics have you used to measure the good and bad effects? How much further ahead would we be for example if Newton hadn't wasted the latter half of his life trying to find hidden messages in the Bible?
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Sriram,
Ah I see, more mindless assertions from one of your thought-free articles then. You've fallen victim to something called survivorship bias - "look how much we know now - that'll be down to the leg up religions gave us then". Problem is, you have no means to measure how much more we might know but for the stultifying effect of religions. A clue though might be to look at the total absence of scientific discovery once a religious tradition takes over - consider the flowering of knowledge in the pre-Islamic Middle East for example, or for another one why the Dark Ages in Europe were in fact the dark ages.
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Your thinking is too microscopic, which is why you need metrics for everything. I can see the effects of religion all around me.
Newton probably realized that even the discovery of gravity was not enough to explain life and to make it worthwhile. He was probably looking for the subtle forces behind the obvious natural laws. Sensible IMO!
Knowledge is not just about the material world around us. Diminishing returns! Many many youngsters, engineers, doctors, science students, are today taking up spiritual practices because they find them more fulfilling.
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Sriram,
Your thinking is too microscopic, which is why you need metrics for everything. I can see the effects of religion all around me.
No it isn’t. If you want to make a claim of fact – ”X was more successful than no X would have been” – then you need some way to measure the effects of X and no X. If not for measurable metrics, then what?
I can see the effects of religion all around me.
Anecdote isn’t evidence. Surely you realise that by now don’t you?
Newton probably realized that even the discovery of gravity was not enough to explain life and to make it worthwhile. He was probably looking for the subtle forces behind the obvious natural laws. Sensible IMO!
Whatever you’re guessing he was looking for and however sensible you think that to have been, it misses the point: had Newton kept at his (real world) research it’s quite possible that he would have made discoveries long before they were eventually made by others, with an accelerating effect on progress.
Knowledge is not just about the material world around us. Diminishing returns!
So you assert. Presumably then you’ll be along at some point to demonstrate a non-material about which we could also have knowledge?
Many many youngsters, engineers, doctors, science students, are today taking up spiritual practices because they find them more fulfilling.
So you claim. And how do you think discoveries in engineering, medicine and science do could thereby be produced even if it was true?
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IMO the positives that have come out of religions far outweigh the negatives...
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/religions-have-suceeded/
I can't think of anything positive about religion.
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A minor digression: every time I see this thread title I have the urge to say 'Batman'.
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Your thinking is too microscopic, which is why you need metrics for everything.
As soon as you said the positives outweigh the negatives, you introduced metrics into the conversation because your statement implies that the positives and negatives can be quantified and compared.
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I can see the effects of religion all around me.
And I trust you are prepared to acknowledge the bad as well as the good in what you see.
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As many times before religion doesn't have an effect, it is a symptom of what we are.
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And I trust you are prepared to acknowledge the bad as well as the good in what you see.
Everything has its positives and negatives, including science. Same is true of you and me.
Its a question of what we want to see. Some people see mud, some see the stars.
With about 5-6 billion religious people in this world, we can see that religion has been mainly good, healthy, unifying, peaceful, offering hope and meaning to life. A few thousand fanatical people get violent doesn't mean religion is itself bad.
That's just the negative way some of you people have been programmed to think.
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Everything has its positives and negatives, including science. Same is true of you and me.
Its a question of what we want to see. Some people see mud, some see the stars.
With about 5-6 billion religious people in this world, we can see that religion has been mainly good, healthy, unifying, peaceful, offering hope and meaning to life. A few thousand fanatical people get violent doesn't mean religion is itself bad.
That's just the negative way some of you people have been programmed to think.
Only if you are wearing rose tinted spectacles.
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Sriram,
Everything has its positives and negatives, including science. Same is true of you and me.
That’s debatable, but as it has no relevance to your latest error in thinking (survivorship bias) let’s try at least to focus on that.
Its a question of what we want to see. Some people see mud, some see the stars.
No it isn’t. What we want to see is confirmation bias, the enemy of what's actually there to see. It’s the same basic mistake you made when you substituted anecdote (“I have seen some people who…”) for data (“here is the meaningful evidence that…”).
With about 5-6 billion religious people in this world, we can see that religion has been mainly good, healthy, unifying, peaceful, offering hope and meaning to life. A few thousand fanatical people get violent doesn't mean religion is itself bad.
You really, really struggle with even basic reasoning don’t you. We can’t “see” that at all, at least not unless you find some way of turning correlation into causation, and of measuring the difference in outcomes in these indicators between religion vs no religion.
That's just the negative way some of you people have been programmed to think.
No, it’s actually the very positive way actual thinking provides rather than the non-thinking in which you specialise. Some advice for you (which you will I’m sure ignore): you’re clearly not a thinker in any meaningful sense, and nor if your continued avoidance of the mistakes you make is anything to go by are you particularly honest. These are matters for you. What you might want to consider though is to stop parading your non-thinking on a blog – publicising it really isn’t helpul to you.
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With about 5-6 billion religious people in this world, we can see that religion has been mainly good, healthy, unifying, peaceful, offering hope and meaning to life. A few thousand fanatical people get violent doesn't mean religion is itself bad.
As blue has already pointed out, we can't 'see' this at all.
That's just the negative way some of you people have been programmed to think.
It is you who is displaying an obvious bias here. I don't know how the positives and negatives of religion compare and I don't think anybody has found a way to find out. However, the negatives obviously go beyond a "few thousand fanatical people".
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It is when the when the story is a claim of fact about the world – like there being a god who will cure little Timmy if you pray hard enough so don’t bother with his medicine.
No mainstream Christian says "don't bother with the medicine" - indeed, the Church pioneered medicine for the poor, and the nursing profession.