Pope Endorses Same-Sex Civil Unions

[Nearly Sane]

What Sriram said was:
 

Two thoughts here:

First, the claim is too broadly drawn. Many of these “ancient books and stories written thousands of years ago” contain a lot of crap too (endorsing slavery for example) so the claim needs the pre-fix “some parts of…”.

Second, even if some parts of these stories are “relevant” (ie, appropriate to the current time etc) that leaves open the question of whether they’re necessary. If an ancient text says “murder is wrong” then fine, but no-one needs to go to that text to know that. Rather the point should I’d have thought be whether these texts can teach us things we don’t know already, perhaps by making arguments that bear scrutiny contrary to the Zeitgeist. Maybe some do but the case for that needs to be made and not just asserted.     

Your first point is a strawman. Sriram does nit claim everything to be relevant or correct.

The second part seems to me both narrow in its interpretation of 'relevant', dangerous in its implication, and irrelevant to Sriram's main claim.

It's too narrow in ignoring that there may well be a benefit in recognising that we haven't really changed, particularly in avoiding a false sense of superiority.

Dangerous in its implication that we should merely maintain the necessary parts of culture, erasing those that might be repetitive. Damgerous too in the hint of objective claims to what is necessary ignoring that we as individuals will respond to different approaches to the same issue differently. It reads to me as if there was one novel about loneliness, you would see other novels  about loneliness as wastes of time.


Irrelevant to Sriram's point that we are not really different from those thousands of years ago.

[ProfessorDavey]

Yes, i did read it and also read it in the context of the thread where Sriram has been arguing that there is not really any difference between us as individuals and as a species in what is important now, and 2, 3, 4 thousand years ago and what was written by people then

I actually chose not to respond to the part where Sriram implies were are effectively very similar to how we were thousands of years in terms of what it important to us - I don't really agree with this point, and it is certainly too nebulous so would have required a lot of clarification and discussion. For another time.

Again you seem to see 'cultural' as  somehow outside of what society is and that seems wrong. Culture makes us and wr make culture. There is no separation. So when you talk about people only knowing in the main their own 'culture', that's a truism.

Nope, and apologies if that was how you have read my posts. Culture and society are interwoven explicitly - I guess I just didn't want to constantly write cultural/societal.

EtA If Sriram's statement had said 'many people' rather than 'most people', would you have agreed with it?

Firstly 'many' is harder to define than 'most' - in the context of the world, we know what most means - more than half. What does many mean? Is one million many? It is a lot of people, but a tiny proportion of the world's population.

But actually the many/most point isn't my issue. My main issue is the pluralisation of books - Sriram's statement:

'which is why ancient books and stories written thousands of years ago are relevant even today and why they still inspire and provide solace to most people on earth'

Perhaps this is merely not written tightly enough, but the implication to me is that 'most people' are being inspired and gaining solace from multiple books, not just one. And also that the inspiration/solace is directly from the books (i.e. from actually reading them) rather than via broader cultural/societal mood music. I don't think that is true. Sriram is clearly referring to religion and religious books/texts - and in that case I think people who are religious do not (on the whole) gain inspiration/solace from multiple books/texts from across religious and cultural spectrum. Rather, they gain inspiration/solace from a single book (or small number of linked books) that are specifically part of their religion. And as I have suggested the knowledge of (let alone direct experience of actually reading) texts from other religions or philosophical cultures tends to be pretty woeful.

By the way the knowledge of non religious people of ancient texts (certainly through direct reading) tends to be just as woeful.

[ProfessorDavey]

First, the claim is too broadly drawn. Many of these “ancient books and stories written thousands of years ago” contain a lot of crap too (endorsing slavery for example) so the claim needs the pre-fix “some parts of…”.

That is correct - I suspect very few people (certainly not most) gain inspiration from ancient books in their entirety. In most cases the focus is on limited parts, sometimes because the other parts are largely padding, sometimes some parts seem completely irrelevant to the modern world and in other cases because the other parts contain deeply unpalatable elements that we'd certainly not be inspired by.

Second, even if some parts of these stories are “relevant” (ie, appropriate to the current time etc) that leaves open the question of whether they’re necessary. If an ancient text says “murder is wrong” then fine, but no-one needs to go to that text to know that. Rather the point should I’d have thought be whether these texts can teach us things we don’t know already, perhaps by making arguments that bear scrutiny contrary to the Zeitgeist. Maybe some do but the case for that needs to be made and not just asserted.     

And a further point is where the inspiration for those texts came from in the first place. I doubt that many (if indeed any) of those texts we have now are genuinely original in thought. All will have built on earlier cultural/societal positions. So these texts are merely a staging post in a continuum that originate somewhere largely lost to us. So the point on necessity is well taken. So if no-one had written the bible would the notion of 'turn the other cheek' never have arisen. I'd argue that it would, not least because it could have easily arisen more recently, but more significantly there are almost certainly older and more ancient cultures that embedded the same mantra, albeit perhaps using different phrasing, so the bible may have redundancy in terms of this mantra transmitting itself to current times.

[Harrowby Hall]

Are we not straying from the topic now?

[Alan Burns]

I think there is a further issue, which is that society is moving on. If the RCC moves to modernise at a snail's pace or not at all then all the time it becomes further and further detached from mainstream norms in society.

So I'd argue that the RCC is more out of touch with mainstream society today than it even has been (or certainly in centuries) as its failure to change means it is left behind by a rapidly changing society. So back in the 1950s then the RCC would have been fairly mainstream in its attitudes to women and gay people - now it is polls apart. And the notion that somehow allowing women to serve as lay alter-servers (but not deacons let alone priests) just seems so out of touch in 2021, not just with mainstream societal positions, but I suspect the mainstream views of rank and file catholics.

But what drives the views which emanate from mainstream society?
Is it the self centred attitudes which are an inevitable result of increasing secularism?
God's love does not change, but we are in danger of being separated from God by following the ways of he world.

[Aruntraveller]

Is it the self centred attitudes which are an inevitable result of increasing secularism?

I know what you mean.

Heterosexuals are so self centred. Always making little copies of themselves that they treat like little Princes and Princesses. No regard for the effect that their profligate mating rituals have on our planet. Total absorption in their own selves, I find it morally repugnant.

I mean it's enough to turn one gay.

[Nearly Sane]

I know what you mean.

Heterosexuals are so self centred. Always making little copies of themselves that they treat like little Princes and Princesses. No regard for the effect that their profligate mating rituals have on our planet. Total absorption in their own selves, I find it morally repugnant.

I mean it's enough to turn one gay.

That's me,  convinced by your logic, I have to quote Cary Grant, to whom Happy Birthday,  in Bringing Up Baby 'went gay all of a sudden'


https://youtu.be/EQDbDIz1Y0E

[Gordon]

But what drives the views which emanate from mainstream society?

People.

Is it the self centred attitudes which are an inevitable result of increasing secularism?

I think it is just people being people.

[ProfessorDavey]

But what drives the views which emanate from mainstream society?
Is it the self centred attitudes which are an inevitable result of increasing secularism?

I am not gay, yet I fully support gay people having the same rights as me to get married - how is that me being self-centred, seeing as I am supporting other people being able to benefit from something that I can already benefit from.

The self-centred approach is to believe that if your religion doesn't agree with gay marriage then you should ban it for everyone, not just members of your religion. That is a self centred attitude AB.

[ProfessorDavey]

Is it the self centred attitudes which are an inevitable result of increasing secularism?

Secularism is about society being neutral with regard to religion - so that religions and religious people are neither privileged nor discriminated against compared to non religious people.

That is inherently the opposite of being self centred as it involves treating people who aren't like you equally. Societies that privilege religion, often an established religion, are inherently more self centred as the people typically making the decisions to privilege religion tend to be members of that religion.

[Alan Burns]

A welcome clarification from Pope Francis

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/pope-francis-says-catholic-priests-141630276.html

[ProfessorDavey]

A welcome clarification from Pope Francis

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/pope-francis-says-catholic-priests-141630276.html

Another example of the timidity and flip-flopping of Frankie.

Time and time again he seems to imply some progress and modernisation only to do a complete u-turn a couple of weeks or months later. Sometimes this involves the Vatican basically giving him a dressing down by saying the previous remarks were merely personal and that nothing changes.

[Aruntraveller]

A welcome clarification from Pope Francis

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/pope-francis-says-catholic-priests-141630276.html

Yes. Nice to see a return to bigoted normality.

[Gordon]

A welcome clarification from Pope Francis

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/pope-francis-says-catholic-priests-141630276.html

Surely you jest: someone needs to help Frankie move on from the 15th century.

[Alan Burns]

Surely you jest: someone needs to help Frankie move on from the 15th century.

I jest not, Gordon

God is the same now as He was in the 15th century - as He was at the beginning of time.
God does not move on.

The human race may well be moving on somewhere, but unfortunately the evidence is that they are moving away from God.
The current trend of gender ideology is causing irreparable damage to young people:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF4KIaTSQmA

[ProfessorDavey]

God is the same now as He was in the 15th century - as He was at the beginning of time.

Indeed he/she/it is - doesn't exist now just as he/she/it didn't exist in the 15thC or at the beginning of time.

[Roses]

The idea of of god is the same as it has ever been, a belief without any verifiable evidence to support its existence.

[SteveH]

I wonder if Jesus didn't condemn homosexuality because he was gay? It is stated that he had a specific disciple whom he loved, presumably male.  Some Christians will claim it was referring to his brother, but there is no verifiable evidence he had any siblings.

Check your facts before spouting cobblers. James is referred to as the brother of Jesus.

[ProfessorDavey]

Check your facts before spouting cobblers. James is referred to as the brother of Jesus.

That isn't a 'fact', but an assertion that cannot be verified. Jesus may have had a brother called James, but the evidence for this is paper thin.

[Roses]

Check your facts before spouting cobblers. James is referred to as the brother of Jesus.

It doesn't state James was the disciple whom he loved.

[bluehillside Retd.]

will,

Check your facts before spouting cobblers. James is referred to as the brother of Jesus.

Given that the myth is that a god impregnated a (presumably non-consenting) Mary, unless James had the same parentage I'd have though he'd be a half-brother at most, no?

[SteveH]

will,

Given that the myth is that a god impregnated a (presumably non-consenting) Mary, unless James had the same parentage I'd have though he'd be a half-brother at most, no?

You check your facts before spouting cobblers, as well.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annunciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnificat

[Aruntraveller]

The current trend of gender ideology is causing irreparable damage to young people:

Which is completely irrelevant to a conversation about same sex marriage.

[ProfessorDavey]

You check your facts before spouting cobblers, as well.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annunciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnificat

You do seems to have only a passing acquaintance with the definition of the word 'fact'.

[bluehillside Retd.]

will,

You check your facts before spouting cobblers, as well.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annunciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnificat

First, the annunciation story isn't a fact.

Second, how in any case would that get you off the hook of James being a half-brother rather than a full brother? Was Jesus the "son of god" but James the son of a different father, or not?

Third, if the annunciation is the "announcement by the Archangel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus, the Jewish messiah and Son of God" in what sense was that consensual? Did your man Gabriel also add some small print: "Customer is free to reject this offer within 14 days. God's impregnating activities are governed by the Virgin Impregnation Regulation Authority. Terms & Conditions apply" type of thing?

The clue here is that Gabriel announced it (supposedly) - he didn't ask her whether she'd like to accept the offer.