Interesting view of sin for the Pope

[egb_hibs]

Interesting view of sin from the Pope

Pope Francis reaches out to atheists and agnostics - Telegraph

Once again he's saying that atheists can pass through the pearly gates, elaborating this time that to sin for an atheist is when s/he disobeys their conscience. Protestants are generally better on the bible so maybe one of them can corroborate or correct me on this but I wonder if the root of this is one of the letters of John (iirc) which again iirc places adherence to conscience quite highly.

An interesting thing to ponder in its implications - even just as a thought experiment for those without belief. Where's arthurduncan when you need him !

Personally I sympathise with the idea but then again I'm sure there are bad bassas whose conscience permits quite a lot!

 

[hibadelic]

Patronising rather than conciliatory I'd say and pretty much an irrelevance to any athiest. I'm not really sure what the point of him saying this is.

 

[Westside Green]

I think he's making it up.

 

[Chester Perry]

So are Muslims and Jews screwed over entry then

 

[Westside Green]

So are Muslims and Jews screwed over entry then

Do the Muslims not do all their screwing once they get there?

 

[aggie]

Patronising rather than conciliatory I'd say and pretty much an irrelevance to any athiest. I'm not really sure what the point of him saying this is.

Agree. It's an irrelevance to me what the guy thinks - is this meant to comfort me, or what? I don't worry about judgment, because I don't believe there will be any other than from my peers here on Earth during my life. I don't need reassured, mate.

In many ways, he's also helping his church along the way to irrelevance - if my own conscience can tell me right from wrong, whether I believe in god or not, why would I need a bunch of guys in funny hats to "guide" me along my way?

 

[gun ainm]

to me the purpose of this would appear to be a reduction in the antagonism between atheists/agnostics and the church. That's a good thing in my view and I think a significant change in rhetoric from previous pontiffs? it is also a direct response to a question asked so in that context i don't find it condescending at all? the headline does make it sound that way?

 

[egb_hibs]

Agree. It's an irrelevance to me what the guy thinks - is this meant to comfort me, or what? I don't worry about judgment, because I don't believe there will be any other than from my peers here on Earth during my life. I don't need reassured, mate.

In many ways, he's also helping his church along the way to irrelevance - if my own conscience can tell me right from wrong, whether I believe in god or not, why would I need a bunch of guys in funny hats to "guide" me along my way?

By irrelevance to you mean being at its largest ever size - both absolutely and relatively? There is a slightly delusional view in this country and other European ones re irrelevance. That perhaps applies in the narrow context of those countries, but in the bigger picture the societies in question are themselves sliding into irrelevance.

Anyway the thread was meant to be about the nature of wrongdoing, not the usual prickliness of atheist religion bashing.

 

[Chester Perry]

I suspect this thread is just a chance for the op to talk bollocks about atheists as per.

 

[egb_hibs]

I suspect this thread is just a chance for the op to talk bollocks about atheists as per.

If that happens, its because the original intention of the thread as so often gets derailed by religion bashing. This echoes what happens in the wider debates in the press etc - the likes of Dawkins has created a climate where people don't want to talk about the implications of serious things, they just want to shout things down with insults.

Ah well.

 

[Chester Perry]

If it happens turn the other cheek, as a wise man once said.

Glad you got the Dawkins dig in early.

 

[egb_hibs]

If it happens turn the other cheek, as a wise man once said.

I'm not that wise, as you may have gathered

Glad you got the Dawkins dig in early.

It's true though

 

[aggie]

If that happens, its because the original intention of the thread as so often gets derailed by religion bashing. This echoes what happens in the wider debates in the press etc - the likes of Dawkins has created a climate where people don't want to talk about the implications of serious things, they just want to shout things down with insults.

Ah well.

Stop me if I'm wrong, but the original intention of the thread, as evidenced by your choice of link, was to antagonise the atheists among us by framing a woolly subtext of "the nature of wrongdoing" with the Catholic pontiff's strange pronouncement designed to reassure atheists that they'll be okay anyway? If that wasn't the intention, then why make that link the central focus of your OP? If you wanted to talk about the nature of wrongdoing, I'd suggest that that was a spectacularly inflammatory starting point.

I like your posting Eedge, but you're being disingenuous here. You've got some front giving it "aye, these lefties and atheists always derail things with their shouting", when you demonstrate an incredible ability to reduce any debate, on any subject, to patronising derision towards your own bete noire, i.e. the "liberal leftie atheist bbc establishment London middle class olive-oil-and-balsamic-vinegar set".

Get off yer high horse, son, you ken exactly what you're doing.

 

[Chester Perry]

Dawkins is like a teenage girl, he just want attention. If everyone ignores him he'll go away and stick to what he does best, science. Best not to worry about him, life's too short for that.

 

[Dub]

By irrelevance to you mean being at its largest ever size - both absolutely and relatively? There is a slightly delusional view in this country and other European ones re irrelevance. That perhaps applies in the narrow context of those countries, but in the bigger picture the societies in question are themselves sliding into irrelevance.

Anyway the thread was meant to be about the nature of wrongdoing, not the usual prickliness of atheist religion bashing.

I know this isn't where the debate was meant to be heading but you have put great store in the ideal that religion is what keeps us on the straight and narrow and without it we would have no moral compass.

How does that belief sit with the knowledge that some of those meant to guide us through the moral maze are buggering young boys and when caught are simply moved by their bosses to another parish instead of being reported to the police as a paedophile?

How anyone can even consider taking lessons in morality or guidance from them is beyond me.

Thank goodness I don't believe in any of it.

 

[egb_hibs]

Stop me if I'm wrong, but the original intention of the thread, as evidenced by your choice of link, was to antagonise the atheists among us by framing a woolly subtext of "the nature of wrongdoing" with the Catholic pontiff's strange pronouncement designed to reassure atheists that they'll be okay anyway? If that wasn't the intention, then why make that link the central focus of your OP? If you wanted to talk about the nature of wrongdoing, I'd suggest that that was a spectacularly inflammatory starting point.

I like your posting Eedge, but you're being disingenuous here. You've got some front giving it "aye, these lefties and atheists always derail things with their shouting", when you demonstrate an incredible ability to reduce any debate, on any subject, to patronising derision towards your own bete noire, i.e. the "liberal leftie atheist bbc establishment London middle class olive-oil-and-balsamic-vinegar set".

Get off yer high horse, son, you ken exactly what you're doing.

Sorry 'son' but you're wrong - I specifically picked out the but I was interested in in the op

 

[aggie]

Pope Francis reaches out to atheists and agnostics - Telegraph

Once again he's saying that atheists can pass through the pearly gates, elaborating this time that to sin for an atheist is when s/he disobeys their conscience. Protestants are generally better on the bible so maybe one of them can corroborate or correct me on this but I wonder if the root of this is one of the letters of John (iirc) which again iirc places adherence to conscience quite highly.

An interesting thing to ponder in its implications - even just as a thought experiment for those without belief. Where's arthurduncan when you need him !

Personally I sympathise with the idea but then again I'm sure there are bad bassas whose conscience permits quite a lot!

Sorry 'son' but you're wrong - I specifically picked out the but I was interested in in the op

Firstly, as an aside, that 'son' wasn't meant to be patronising, more conciliatory, in fact.

Secondly, you specifically, in bold type, picked out the bit you were interested in; namely "Interesting view of sin from the Pope". The whole following thrust of your post is how interesting the idea is that the Pope thinks that through adherence to conscience the atheist can attain absolution from sin, right? And following on from that, how it's an interesting thought experiment for atheists to apply that. Am I following you correctly?

What's antagonistic is that anyone with even a basic understanding of the word atheist knows fine well that we do not recognise the concept of 'absolution from sin' in its religious sense as a mechanism with which to avoid eternal damnation. The whole 'thought experiment' in terms of what the Pope thinks - which is the central premise of your OP - is utterly redundant to those without belief, because the consequence it's designed to mitigate is non-existent. You're simply stimulating the same old atheist v theist debate.

I'm not having a go, but it really boils my pish how you're hypocritical enough to suggest that we (atheists, lefties, WHOEVER) reduce the terms of any debate to shouting about one agenda - when, in fact, you actively incite exactly that - when you demonstrably do the same exact thing in virtually every debate you enter. And further to that, when challenged on it, repeatedly resort to empty obfuscating, as if enough big words or elaborately constructed sentences will be sufficient to cow anyone who dissents with your view into submission.

I stand by my opinion - you know exactly what you're doing.

Son.

- - - Updated - - -

As if I needed an example, here's you wading into a debate on cheating on your bird:

It's plenty to do with it - we are constantly told what we can and cannot do by politics - especially
The moralising left. Why sign up to that if you hold the general view that o'd expresses above.

It's just tiresome, sometimes.

 

[Two Headed Boy]

I think this raises a larger question about how people determine the difference between right and wrong.

The Pope is saying that the only tool atheists have to make the distinction between right and wrong is their conscience, and I would agree.

So what of religious people? The Popes statement implies that a religious persons attitude towards what is right or wrong may very well be a by-product of tradition brought through belief rather than having anything to do with their own personal morality.

But if a "good" atheist gets into heaven anyway, why have your definition of right and wrong defined by your religion instead of just trusting your conscience?

 

[egb_hibs]

Firstly, as an aside, that 'son' wasn't meant to be patronising, more conciliatory, in fact.

Secondly, you specifically, in bold type, picked out the bit you were interested in; namely "Interesting view of sin from the Pope". The whole following thrust of your post is how interesting the idea is that the Pope thinks that through adherence to conscience the atheist can attain absolution from sin, right? And following on from that, how it's an interesting thought experiment for atheists to apply that. Am I following you correctly?

What's antagonistic is that anyone with even a basic understanding of the word atheist knows fine well that we do not recognise the concept of 'absolution from sin' in its religious sense as a mechanism with which to avoid eternal damnation. The whole 'thought experiment' in terms of what the Pope thinks - which is the central premise of your OP - is utterly redundant to those without belief, because the consequence it's designed to mitigate is non-existent. You're simply stimulating the same old atheist v theist debate.

I'm not having a go, but it really boils my pish how you're hypocritical enough to suggest that we (atheists, lefties, WHOEVER) reduce the terms of any debate to shouting about one agenda - when, in fact, you actively incite exactly that - when you demonstrably do the same exact thing in virtually every debate you enter. And further to that, when challenged on it, repeatedly resort to empty obfuscating, as if enough big words or elaborately constructed sentences will be sufficient to cow anyone who dissents with your view into submission.

I stand by my opinion - you know exactly what you're doing.

Son.

- - - Updated - - -

As if I needed an example, here's you wading into a debate on cheating on your bird:

It's plenty to do with it - we are constantly told what we can and cannot do by politics - especially
The moralising left. Why sign up to that if you hold the general view that o'd expresses above.

It's just tiresome, sometimes.

I've read it back in case I poorly expressed myself but the op still reads to me as I intended it;

It's an interesting definition of sin - or in secular terms wrongdoing -
What do people think, which is possible for atheists to take a view on even as a thought experiment given they don't believe in the underlying religious viewpoint.

That wAs the intention and it still reads to me that way. Granted I'm guilty of maybe posting for a cowshed that used to be versus the knee jerk reactions of today, but God loves a trier and all that - if you'll pardon the phrase in this context.

As for the last bit, you may find message posts tiresome - but that's a lot easier to escape from than the nannying poltical tradition to which o'd adheres but as his post exemplifies, so often demands things from others while excusing the foibles that are in the interest of its own adherents.

Hope that's cleared some things up, because three nothing tiresome at all about the ad Homs I relentlessly attract while trying - not always succeeding - not to dish out, hen.

- - - Updated - - -

I think this raises a larger question about how people determine the difference between right and wrong.

The Pope is saying that the only tool atheists have to make the distinction between right and wrong is their conscience, and I would agree.

So what of religious people? The Popes statement implies that a religious persons attitude towards what is right or wrong may very well be a by-product of tradition brought through belief rather than having anything to do with their own personal morality.

But if a "good" atheist gets into heaven anyway, why have your definition of right and wrong defined by your religion instead of just trusting your conscience?

finally - someone engages with the point - although I missed R in all the stramash. Too puggled
To respond after the latter, will do later

 

[aggie]

I've read it back in case I poorly expressed myself but the op still reads to me as I intended it;

It's an interesting definition of sin - or in secular terms wrongdoing -
What do people think, which is possible for atheists to take a view on even as a thought experiment given they don't believe in the underlying religious viewpoint.

That wAs the intention and it still reads to me that way. Granted I'm guilty of maybe posting for a cowshed that used to be versus the knee jerk reactions of today, but God loves a trier and all that - if you'll pardon the phrase in this context.

As for the last bit, you may find message posts tiresome - but that's a lot easier to escape from than the nannying poltical tradition to which o'd adheres but as his post exemplifies, so often demands things from others while excusing the foibles that are in the interest of its own adherents.

Hope that's cleared some things up, because three nothing tiresome at all about the ad Homs I relentlessly attract while trying - not always succeeding - not to dish out, hen.

- - - Updated - - -

finally - someone engages with the point - although I missed R in all the stramash. Too puggled
To respond after the latter, will do later

*sigh* I do think you court the ad homs, somewhat, but whatever...

As far as right and wrong for atheists goes, we don't simply have the Kantian, a priori right and wrong as dictated by our conscience as an option - we do have the more utilitarian rationalisation of it.

Sometimes we feel that something is wrong, but is a 'necessary evil', if you will, which is justified by the greater good. I realise I'm very much simplifying the two schools of thought, but hopefully you get the point.

A good example is perhaps voting for war - one's conscience might balk at the inevitable death of innocent children, for example, but if the cause is just...

Which of course in turn begs the question of how so many religious figures have managed to justify sanctioning large-scale slaughter in the name of God - "Thou shalt not kill" after all.

 

[arthurduncan]

Pope Francis reaches out to atheists and agnostics - Telegraph

Once again he's saying that atheists can pass through the pearly gates, elaborating this time that to sin for an atheist is when s/he disobeys their conscience. Protestants are generally better on the bible so maybe one of them can corroborate or correct me on this but I wonder if the root of this is one of the letters of John (iirc) which again iirc places adherence to conscience quite highly.

An interesting thing to ponder in its implications - even just as a thought experiment for those without belief. Where's arthurduncan when you need him !

Personally I sympathise with the idea but then again I'm sure there are bad bassas whose conscience permits quite a lot!

Wow, back in a Bounce time warp as again a very interesting article by the Pope, this time Francisco then it was Benedict, provokes a reflection on moral truth. Even more spooky, yet again, I pretty much entirely agree with this new cool, non-Nazi Pope.

Second of all, you ask if the thought, according to which no absolute exists and therefore there is no absolute truth, but only a series of relative and subjective truths is a mistake or a sin. To start, I would not speak about, not even for those who believe, an "absolute" truth, in the sense that absolute is something detached, something lacking any relationship. Now, the truth is a relationship! This is so true that each of us sees the truth and expresses it, starting from oneself: from one's history and culture, from the situation in which one lives, etc. This does not mean that the truth is variable and subjective. It means that it is given to us only as a way and a life. Was it not Jesus himself who said: "I am the way, the truth, the life"? In other words, the truth is one with love, it requires humbleness and the willingness to be sought, listened to and expressed. Therefore we must understand the terms well and perhaps, in order to avoid the oversimplification of absolute contraposition, reformulate the question. I think that today this is absolutely necessary in order to have a serene and constructive dialogue which I hoped for from the beginning.

http://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2013/09/11/news/the_pope_s_letter-66336961/

Unfortunately, as part of the great Bounce crash, 20 pages of discussion on this very thing was lost. I don't really want to repeat it, as it NEVER ends well. It is just to note again that me and the last two Popes believe that there is a middle ground between Absolute truth and subjective truth, and that ignoring that possibility is an "oversimplification". It's not the kind of thing that can be proved with all contrary views refuted, so I am happy to leave it as a possibility that makes me happy.

 

[hibadelic]

I'd like to suggest that if the op really wants to discuss the nature of wrongdoing that he should find a way of doing it other than through the lens of Catholicism or other organised religion. Framing the discussion around something ridiculous the Pope/church said instantly makes it more about that than anything actually worthy of consideration.

 

[Jack]

to me the purpose of this would appear to be a reduction in the antagonism between atheists/agnostics and the church. That's a good thing in my view and I think a significant change in rhetoric from previous pontiffs? it is also a direct response to a question asked so in that context i don't find it condescending at all? the headline does make it sound that way?

Good points and in the spirit of harmony I'll say guid yin Pope.

It strikes me though that the RCs are going to get one hell of a shock as they walk through the Pearly Gates and see Heaven isn't exclusively there's.

And if Atheism and the agnosticism is about non belief in God(s) does that mean those who are believers in other, incorrect, God(s) can get in too?

If that's the case the RCs will be in for the biggest WTF moment of their existence.

Anyway when researching this thread I came across this, if the link doesn't work cause I'm on my phone just copy and paste into your browser like a good chap.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100235717/pope-francis-doesnt-think-all-atheists-go-to-heaven-the-media-just-doesnt-understand-him/

Seems as though the Pope didn't actually mean what he said and the Heaven is exclusively ours brigade are claiming exclusive rites to the place.

Reminds me of the joke about a Jew and a Muslim walking round Heaven, one being a recent arrival. As they turn a corner the old hand says shhhhhhh! and points to a huge wall. What's that says the other? That's were the Catholics are, they think they're the only ones in here.

 

[egb_hibs]

I'd like to suggest that if the op really wants to discuss the nature of wrongdoing that he should find a way of doing it other than through the lens of Catholicism or other organised religion. Framing the discussion around something ridiculous the Pope/church said instantly makes it more about that than anything actually worthy of consideration.

Any such discussion needs a proposed definition to start with, which was the point. If you're so sensitive to the origin of that definition you are welcome to supply your own. Please don't make it ridiculous.

- - - Updated - - -

Good points and in the spirit of harmony I'll say guid yin Pope.

It strikes me though that the RCs are going to get one hell of a shock as they walk through the Pearly Gates and see Heaven isn't exclusively there's.

And if Atheism and the agnosticism is about non belief in God(s) does that mean those who are believers in other, incorrect, God(s) can get in too?

If that's the case the RCs will be in for the biggest WTF moment of their existence.

Anyway when researching this thread I came across this, if the link doesn't work cause I'm on my phone just copy and paste into your browser like a good chap.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100235717/pope-francis-doesnt-think-all-atheists-go-to-heaven-the-media-just-doesnt-understand-him/

Seems as though the Pope didn't actually mean what he said and the Heaven is exclusively ours brigade are claiming exclusive rites to the place.

Reminds me of the joke about a Jew and a Muslim walking round Heaven, one being a recent arrival. As they turn a corner the old hand says shhhhhhh! and points to a huge wall. What's that says the other? That's were the Catholics are, they think they're the only ones in here.

Do you know or know of any Catholics that believe this? I'm sure there must be some but haven't met any myself that I am aware of.