http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-04-20-popelimbo_N.htm?csp=34 This is truly a disgrace. How the hell, and through what deliberation, does one come to this decision. How. Why. Of course it says in the face of so many abortions etc. Benedict approved the findings of the International Theological Commission, a Vatican advisory panel, which said it was reassessing traditional teaching on limbo in light of "pressing" pastoral needs - primarily the growing number of abortions and infants born to non-believers who die without being baptized. Pope Benedict says a few magic words and poof, it's changed. I want to hear a Christians reaction to this. Honestly,doesn't this kinda stuff make you question the papacy and all the jazz that comes with religious doctrine? Please, someone, explain this absurd "news."
I calls 'em as I sees 'em. Bullshit. Wake up people, the fat man and his bathrobe-clad cohorts are lying to you.
The Vatican has no power. They must now kowtow to the common interests of the populace. Consider the fact that the Vatican backpedaled on the topic of evolution and now acknowledge it. The more the religious right realises that their entire worldview is completely wrong, the more they will try to stealth patch their religion to avoid losing subscribers. If only they would do this with condoms and start promoting their use instead of doing what they have been (namely condemning condoms and sending missionaries to Africa to tell the indigenous people that they cause AIDS instead of preventing it). Fucking religions.
The vatican has nothing to do with being a Christian. It is just window dressing. Made up by man to squeese a few $$$ out of people for greedy men.
Cardinal: Pope! Time to get up and put your hat. Pope: It's a stupid hat. Cardinal: Pope! Pope: Okay, okay. God! (Goes into the bathroom, comes out, and drops his boxer shorts on the floor) Cardinal: Pope, the floor is not a hamper. Pope: Mannnn!
Tell that to a catholic... And as for using religion to squeeze money out of suckers, the catholic church are rank amatures compared to evangelical churches or the real pros, the Scientologists. As for stuff that is not in the bible, limbo is just one such concept. Another used by just about any money-sucking church is the tithe concept. Nowhere in the bible is there any foundation to interpret tithe as having to give 1/10 of ones income. Gross or net. Tithe is more correctly translated as a (temple building/maintenance) tax where one pays up by means, not a set ratio. Oh, and you won't find the trinity concept in the bible either. Or that Virgin Mary didn't die but was whisked up to heaven alive. And a lot more.
You wanna stir up trouble? There is no mention of Christmas or Easter either. Those are manmade holidays.
Well, religion is man made too, what is your point? But your wrong on one thing. Easter is explicitly mentioned in the bible. It's a tradition that far outdates christianity, and actually got its roots in astrology. The christ myth have merely disguised the origin of easter further, given it "new" content.
WTF? Thats some of the best news I've ever heard. Its the most promising bit of information I've heard in a long while, with regards to society's evolution. How is this in any way a disgrace? Do you honestly think saying that will bring any good to the world? Like some believer is going to happen onto a Marijuana site, read a post by some random kid that has no backing argument behind it and all of sudden realize the inherent flaws in thier religion? You wake up and try saying something worth the words used to say it. I love how the vatican basically admits a mistake and everyone seems to think this is an extra reason to blast them. Yeah they suck, but they just started sucking slightly less, how bout we encourage this kinda move instead of assuming they are completely evil and have no valid viewpoints what so ever. Its reactions like this that make you look even worse than the blind sheep. The vatican falls prey to the same evil as any powerful organization. Power corrupts, that doesn't mean their is nothing Christian about the vatican or that it was originally designed to take money. The bible is not the entirety of the Christian religion, the same way the Torah isn't the entirty of the Jewish religion.
Evolution?? Religion and faith can't evolve. (In fact the word evolve here probably doesn't work. Religions never seem to show any promise of "improvement." Probably worth a thread in it's own). If new information was discovered about how the virgin birth was a lie, people would deny deny deny. That doesn't make sense. There is no new "religious" information or research coming in that would give them a need to evolve. There is always contradictory information or information against religion to which they squirm around. The most "promising information" comes from science, like stem cell research. Now that's progress. Changing mythology is not progress. Clearly you aren't understanding the point here. How the hell did they just suddenly come to this decision? And to assume there is such thing as "limbo" is like assuming there is a state of begin in the afterlife called the land of poop flavored lollipops, where all the atheists go when they die. Then suddenly along comes Joe Shmoe and he says, well, there is hope for atheists because now, because I said so, and according to the deliberation of my council with zero evidence, they get to go to Heaven. What the hell? It's an intellectual disgrace. Smells like an agenda to me.
If it brought a smile to some random atheist's face, that's all the good I'm concerned about. I don't try to convert believers. For all the benefit it's not worth the effort. And the reason there is a problem with this is the age old story of religious apologetics. If bullshit like this isn't called for what it is the religious elite will lie to the masses for the rest of eternity, with a new twist to appease each coming generation. I personally don't care anyway, to each his own. It's my opinion that these people are manipulative criminals, but I'm not about to crucify myself trying to help the populace. For the most part they're content in their ignorance.
I do. Just when I have them alone and they can't stone me for blasphemy. Well lets take this piece by piece. To start with, Religion has evolved. In its earliest forms it was simple tribal worship of shamans who possesed "magic" which was really only knowledge of the world. Over time religion became the basis for the moral coode that makes up all of society. Spefic instances of religion evolving. Hinduism birthed Buddhism which dose away with all the useless gods, demons and magic. It deals with the individual soul and its path towards enlightenment. It keeps evolving opening new paths to peace with self. How bout Judaism adapting to hostile enviorments to keep thier identity as a people after Jerusalem was invaded? Or the catholic church recanting thier stance on both evolution and earths placement in the universe? Those are all instances of religion evolving. Next, Religions not improving. Well what do you mean by improve? Gain followers? well theres plenty of evidence of them doing that. Become more moral? Well hinduism basically allows for any belief so I don't think they can become more moral as a religion. Certian practices are quite inhumane, but those are slowly being destroyed by pressure from the Indian people, most of which are hindu's. Buddhism has been trying to improve since it was created. Thats the whole point of the religion, to offer a path of enlightenment to all. Christianity started out as an improvement on judaism till Christ's words got corrupted. Even after that the church and its offshoots have gone through cycles of decline and improvement. So really what do you mean by improve and on what universal scale can we judge them against? Now onto denial. Well people will always deny. Thats not just religious nuts. There are people who claim the holocuast didn't happen. Thats like me saying all blacks are ganstas from the ghetto, becuase a few of them happen to be and happen to get press coverage. Ahh now the fun part. Science. It occurs to me that most of the population that critize religion are just as blindly led by scientists as people of faith are by ministers. Funny that, eh? As to me understanding the point, no I clearly didn't. Mainly because you are posting about something you appear to have little knoweldge of. As to how they came to this decision, they debate it for years and years citing little known passages and slight translation errors. They look at church texts, and debate them. Eventually they make a report either to a bishop, a cardinal, a comitee of both with some regular preists and perhaps a few monks, or the pope himself. That person or group wieghs the desicion and either passes it on with thier reconmondation or if its the pope, decides if its a good idea or not. In fact it resembles the US lawmaking process almost to a T. After that you went into whether or not church teaching is in fact correct. Now thats an argument thats been going on for centuries and will continue in one form or another until man ceases to exist. Following your assertion on what believing in limbo equates to, you totally misrepresent the process of coming up with church law, and state the zero evidence argument, which isn't completely accurate. The evidence of limbo is that there are people who clearly don't qualify for hell, yet haven't met church standard for heaven. Something must happen to thier souls, and that something is called limbo. As for it being agenda, yes it is. It is the church agenda, as is every other teaching they have, so to single this one out is kinda retarted.
To call it the church agenda is unfair. That is making the assumption that all churhes are connected to this plot in some way. That is not true. An absolute statement like that needs only one small church to make your entire statement invalid.
Religion in it's earliest forms as you have described appears no different from modern day Christianity, Islam, etc. They are still an attempt to describe the truth state of the universe despite having no evidence and no progress. The Catholic mass, which I have been to many, is extremely primitive. People gathering, around a priest (the new shaman), who reads passages that are 1,000s of years old, carrying out traditions that are 1,000 of years old, and performing "magic" (bread-->body of Christ, wine--->blood of Christ, "blessing " by making the sign of the cross with his hand, etc.). Do you see anything here that is substantially worthwhile, or indicative of the 21st century. No, only the facility in which they are carried out. There is nothing here...now, as far as the moral code, you are clearly lacking the appropriate level of discourse here. Religions do not offer the moral code which is present in every society. One of the worst and most uninformed arguments is that the Bible is the source of morality in our present day society. It is not. If the Bible is the source of morality, one must adhere to every moral principle found in the Bible. As you I am sure can tell, we as a society "cherry pick" those parts of the Bible that are morally acceptable, and throw out those that are not (i.e. mass genocide by God, the way woman are treated, slavery, stoning people that work on the Sabbath, etc.) We throw there out because we have determined that they are not morally acceptable in a 21st century society. This means that the Bible is itself judged and cannot be the standard for morality. People need to grasp this. What sayeth the Bible about stem cell research? Abortion? How about the use of nuclear weapons to destroy an entire continent? Well the book is too damn old, and we could write a better book of morality/ethics that is appropriate for the year 2007. Done deal. There is no evolution here. No. Wrong. This is not religion evolving. This is religion trying to hang around, side-stepping, avoiding it's own demise. The Catholic Church recanting their statement on evolution and earth's placement in the universe is the evolution of science which makes an incrdibly strong case over the weak arguments that the Church tries to make. They are cowering in fear, aware that bronze age philosophy will not hold up anymore to 21st century science, philosophy, and rhetoric. Tough question, and interesting discussion, but to say that religion offers the "path to enlightenment" is certainly not true. Buddhism one could argue is set up for this, but Christianity, Islam, Judaism, are the antithesis of enlightenment. People actually are content with thinking that a man died, resurrected, and all that crap without evidence? Faith does not allow for enlightenment. It's a constant struggle to believe fairy tales in the face of true enlightenment, which is the truth that science and modern day philosophy can give us. Come on man. Religions offer people a herd community to make them feel comfortable, and lie about what happens after death, etc. This is the farthest thing from enlightenment. This country is one of the most unenlightened in all of the world. 22% of Americans believe that Jesus will literally come down from the clouds and save us all. Another 22% think it will probably happen. This has a terrible impact on the way we discuss out politics and policy. Not good. Yes, but you would call the Holocaust deniers crazy. We would do the same if not for the protection and apparent taboo of criticizing ones religion. If i said I believed Zeus was coming again to save us all, I would be laughed at. Not the same if I say "Jesus." (Both of which have no grounds for hoping such). How. When. Where. People always make this claim. Are you serious. When do scientists make a claim and then stand by it no matter what happens, in the face of any contradictory evidence? They don't. If new evidence is presented, they change, not evade, as with people of religious faith. Not funny, buddy. Obviously you have not been here in awhile. I consistently post on these forums and read material that actually matters, like Dawkins, Harris, and Dennet. You actually think that limbo exists? How, and why, would you think this. A scientist wouldn't lie to you about a place where "souls" go that aren't "saved" by some prophet. Please, any religious nut would have no problem telling you this. This sounds like a bunch of guys sitting in a room, with no evidence of anything except for a few passages from a book, saying, "how can we skew this information to gain tons of followers." I am skeptical of any discourse of this kind. I want evidence, I want rigorous investigation of facts before I would make a decision. Shame most people make these decision with no facts at all. Man come on, is that really your explanation? Sounds like I am not the one who needs to do some work before stepping into the ring. You realize to make this absurd claim, you are assuming that limbo, hell, heaven, and souls all exist. I challenge you here. Prove it, before you say "something must happen to their souls, and that something is called limbo." Dumb. Come back to me when you have proof of limbo. Or rather, how bout the Church does, so they can prove it exists in the first place. "Set me free, oh, heaven's a lie." - Lacuna Coil