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curious23 -> RE: Yes, even Atheists... (5/26/2013 2:45:46 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: njlauren
quote:
ORIGINAL: curious23
Out of curiosity, doesn't the pope's statement undermine the whole idea of faith?
I don't see how this is a step in the right direction since it appears to only add to the hypocrisy of a religious denomination. Throughout history, concessions have been made to adjust with the times and this I feel is just one more.
Nothing hypocritical about it, it reflects that some things can and do change. The idea of belief laid in stone is kind of mind boggling, given that the religion was founded thousands of years ago by people very different than ourselves. The book of Genesis tells people to be fruitful and multiply, which to Jews almost 3000 years ago was a necessity, they often faced being wiped out, needed the population..but in a world that will soon have 8 billion people? Not so smart, the Catholics who are upset about all the illegal immigration from Mexico and South America should look to their own Popes, who went to South America preaching the message of no using birth control, have children, God wants you to have a lot of kids..and guess what, they ended up migrating cause there just isn't the basis to feed all those kids there.
The thing about religion is there are core values, things that are pretty evident, and there are things that are man made. The proscriptions against homosexuality, for example, may very well have not been what people think, given how few references either book of the Bible makes of it, the fact that the main one, Leviticus, may be referring to someone other than a blanket condemnation of gays, makes it pretty shaky. In the Bible, women are men's property, Jewish law is not exactly female friendly, and to Christians women were property, there to 'serve' their man, and the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations fought against women being given the vote, against having rights outside marriage, and many Christian churches fought against a husband being able to be charged with rape, because to them a wife's duty is to give her husband sex when he wants it, and if she doesn't, well, tough luck, he has the right to take it (don't believe me? Do some research of when the laws were changed). Marriage in biblical times would have been arranged, and many marriages were arranged until the 19th century, once we started marrying for love it changed the whole game...
The reformation likewise turned belief on its head. The Catholic Church once it consolidated power basically told people only they knew what God wanted, you only got to God through them (pretty convenient, if you ask me, nice little way to grab power and wealth for yourself...). They said that ordinary people couldn't understand scripture, and until the reformation it was illegal to have scripture in native tongues, those doing it were subject to the wonderful death of being drawn and quartered (so much for a loving church).....the reformation said that people had their own way to God, that scripture, alone or with church teachings (depending on the faith), could help them find it, and that was huge. The RC has spent the last almost 600 years trying to regain back their power, yet even most Catholics, at least in the west, have retained a personal right to believe or not believe....
I once had a discussion with this with a pretty wise priest (think I don't like the Vatican? Well, he said to him they were like the assistant principal you hate in high school, who instead of seeing himself as someone helping kids, saw them as the enemy), and he said that God doesn't change, God is God, but our understanding of him changes. Jews fundamentally understand this, the duty of every observant Jew, each day, is to ask what is God trying to tell me, and the long line of Rabbinic Jews have spent centuries puzzling this out, arguing debating, you name it. The largest group of people of faith is getting to be people who are none of the above, while protestant and Catholic Churches decline (the Southern Baptists are dwindling off, once the largest evangelical church, their baptism rate is plummeting, and that is a big deal, given that to be a member, you have to be baptized by them, they don't recognize any other baptism as real), it isn't that people are losing faith per se, it is that they don't find the answer in any one faith (which I think is a good thing; I think any church that claims to have all the answers is full of it, personally, no one church or scripture can describe God, since God is unknowable).
Actually, change kills a religion because it's followers start asking "Well if you're wrong about this than who's to say you're not wrong about any number of other things the bible says? We're talking about my life here. I've got to know that you won't change your mind about what is right and wrong tomorrow."
What happens is religion diversifies when people can't agree amongst one another.Christianity turns to Catholicism turns to baptist turns to so on and so forth. You talk about all these changes that happen but one must ask why you're changing doctrine to suite reality? Why not just abide by the rules of reality? I'm not saying that these changes weren't important. I'm saying why try so hard to sustain an institution that basically adjusts to reality (being fruitful vs using protection depending on the time) instead of just skipping straight to what reality dictates. You don't need a book to tell you to be fruitful if only take a lot around and assess that there aren't a lot of people. And you don't need to be told to stop by a pope if you, again, just stop and look. Everyone seems to be dependent on this middle man religion when it's downright unnecessary.
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