Fall of the Catholic Church

I know. You'll have to excuse me asking questions. Unfortunately I wasn't given the gift you were.

I do wonder why though. Why would God treat some to a gift and others not? Doesn't seem particularly fair.

But as you said, you did your research and so the answers must be fairly easy for you.

Or not. If all you have is faith, who needs answers.

I could answer, but what's the point? You say it's not fair that I've been given a gift, and you haven't. But in order to receive a gift, shouldn't you be open to doing so? You don't seem to be, so I don't bother answering your questions. There are plenty of scholarly articles which could more ably answer your questions in a far more eloquent manner than I could.

But that's besides the point. I do not have to defend my faith to anyone. I don't have to justify my beliefs, nor explain them.

So you read the bible, checked on the somewhat dubious timeline source of the texts included in the bible, read about much older religions that also have gods born of virgins and similar motifs and still, you made your stand with the bible.

Why ? Wouldn't the Quran be the updated word of god if He's dropping updates in a linear fashion?

Sure you do , sure is, sure.

You've already said that platitude, I have faith that you'll say it again.

Ah go on, try and explain why I'm happy in my ignorance while you have "faith".

Try it, without the reflex motto branding -" Faith, it's a gift, given by god".

Could it be a gift, given by god?

They and apparently a guy I don't even know called Jesus, claimed to love me for who I was.

Only when describing that Jesus character from the fiction section, among all the gods he was special, because he loves me so much that he killed himself(not really, it was a fake out, he rose again after a good rest, before retiring for good back to the home planet) for me so now I owe him, big time, none of the other gods had tried that approach - extortion.

I was impressed, this was obviously a god who had studied the mafia.

I don’t have a faith myself unfortunately, but I’m envious of those who do. It must be incredibly comforting knowing / believing that there is a higher being and that death is the gateway to an eternal afterlife.

It’s just infinitely more hopeful than you’re dead and that’s it. Like I mentioned before, I was really touched recently at a religious ceremony for a family member. It was a beautiful day. I wish I did believe, but it’s just not there. Fair play to you.

Surely it’s obvious why anyone believes what they believe in? Because their values are passed on to them within the family and within schools, within the various social institutions which uphold, encourage and maintain these values, beliefs and traditions.

It’s been consistently put forward throughout the thread this idea of “getting children while they’re young”, and without this early instruction, adults would not have the values they do, which they pass on to their children. That is the most basic function of the family - to educate their young and to pass on their values to their young. They enrol their children in schools which support their efforts. They enrol their children in clubs and sporting activities which support these values. That is the whole idea of people having children and raising their children in accordance with their values.

The idea of faith itself being a gift is that it is a gift from God, and that it is an invitation to everyone to accept the gift of faith, and to enter into a relationship with God. Some people accept it, some people reject it, but it’s available to everyone.

Your attempting to argue that religious ethos schools in Ireland should be deprived of public funding can be easily seen as an attempt to deprive religious communities of their religious freedom to share in their faith, which many people believe is the natural order of man. Your attempts to deprive children of this opportunity and to introduce disorder is why many people perceive it as a threat, which is why they are opposed to it.

As regards the idea of faith is for people who are lazy - I tried being non-religious once, there was nothing to it 😏

(in case the joke sails over your head - I do not conflate non-religious with atheist or anti-theist, I see each as a distinct concept)

Thank you. I'm not saying that having faith is panacaea, but for me, faith is both what motivatates me to do my best for myself and also for others - and it also brings light in moments of darkness.

I, and it appears most of this thread, would be very happy for you to have your faith. As you post shows, it gave you solace and strength and helped you through a difficult part of your life.

But what strikes me if your attitude. You, and there are many like you, seem to take the view that you were special to get the gift, but even more so by accepting it. That its other peoples fault if they don't believe.

With the church losing support, surely it should be trying to get new members, not dismissing them as unworthy.

Christianity is based on helping others to hear the message, its not supposed to be an 'I'm alright Jack' position.

If you need to dodge the content of a post by merely moaning about its length, then perhaps your original point was the opinionated waffle. This is not a blog. But it is not Twitter. It is a forum for discourse and debate. And the idea that complex ideas can be distilled down into single sound bite sentences belies the attention span of our generation, and not the content or correctness of my points or posts.

However I can dumb down, and shorten down, my two points for you if it helps.

1) Your claim some here want to "ban" religion is nonsense. Which you tried to back up by suggesting one person said our species would be better without it. MUCH different to saying ban it. The fact is there are many things people, myself included, think we would be better without. But we would not move to seek bans. So you were spewing nonsense hyperbole about stuff no one had actually said.

2) Your suggestion someone might be doing something good to another due to religion. I question for two reasons. First we can't run the counter factual. Second it is equally true many are doing bad things due to religion. As the old saying goes "Good people will do good things, bad people will do bad things, but getting good people to do bad things often takes religion". We have innumerable examples of this such as parents who let their own children die, often painfully, of medically treatable conditions solely because of their religion.

What is creepy to me is this concept of "ownership" of kids. I do not feel parents own their children. Rather they are stewards of their children and their children's upbringing on behalf of society as a whole.

And as such we as a society very much do, and should, have a say in aspects of how children are raised. For example if you decided you wanted to raise your children with zero education of any kind at all.... or that you wanted to discipline them with extreme violence.... or if you decided the best form of sexual education was for you to personally give them hands on experience..... you would very quickly see how much society would take an interest in how your raise "your" kids and how far your belief they are "yours" will get you.

Clearly there is a discussion that was had, and should continue to be had over time, as to how much and how far society should intervene and how much should be under the sole control of the steward.... but there is certainly nothing "creepy" about us as a society discussing how certain aspects of parenting and schooling should.... or should not be.... implemented.

It has been awhile since I checked the current situation there. But the last I remember is that when formally defecting in this way got popular, the catholic church literally changed canon law so people could not do it any more. So the service offered by websites like "countmeout" was no longer possible. I was one of the ones who got in before the church plugged that leaky hole in their artificially inflated membership numbers.

Are we discussing the subjectivity of what each of us considers "old" now? 23 years is not exactly the blink of an eye. But if the only thing in my entire post that you can take issue with or respond to is my use of the word "old", and not any of the actual content of the post itself... then that's good. :)

His quote is not wrong, even if it is a bit simplistic though. Someone could append to the end of it for example ".... and also to get bad people to do good things, often takes religion". This can be equally true. His original statement is incomplete in that regard. Which comically enough means I have gone further to address directly, and rebut, what he said than you did :)

The point of my reference to the quote however is not to blame religion for getting good people to do bad things..... which it does... but the part saying "you would have good people doing good things".

To point out that the autonomic response some people have to ascribe the good deeds of people to religion is nothing more than assumption. A fact belied by the numerous people of no religion who also do good things.... or by statistics showing per capita charity higher in secular countries than in religious ones and so on.

So when BA came out with the comment that someone, somewhere, is likely doing something good to someone else due to religion... the response to that has to be A) You do not know that, because they would likely do the good thing without religion too and many do and B) this is also negated by the fact that in that same moment someone somewhere is doing something awful to another, or is suffering needlessly, due to religion.

That kind of goes back to the confirmation bias: you were looking for a sign so you found one. If it hadn't been that piece of paper, you would have seen something else.

Also, you missed the first question: why do you believe what you believe in in the first place? Someone must have put the idea in your head at some point, and this is the crux of my argument:we're born into religions or into religious families, but we're never born with religious beliefs.