Workable Catholicism

[Gorn]

Catholic Church is probably the oldest still active organization of any sort in the world, and during its existence, it was responsible for countless deaths and suffering. Most of historical evidence shows that, when Catholicism is the dominant religion in a society, it results in state oppression of other religions, societal stagnation, as well as widespread killings and torture.

One can argue that the sins of medieval Catholicism cannot be tied to the modern Church, due to historical context and the widespread belief of that time that souls are infinitely more important than bodies.

However, modern Church has many faults of its own - systematic discrimination against women and LGBTQ population, regressive stance on contraception which directly contributes to overpopulation and spread of AIDS, opposition to reproductive freedom and divorce... Not to mention systematic child abuse.

Is the Catholic Church tainted beyond redemption, or can it be given a chance to reform itself and learn from its mistakes? I get to ask this because half of my family is Catholic

[Jace, Extat]

12 minutes ago, Gorn said:

Catholic Church is probably the oldest still active organization of any sort in the world, and during its existence, it was responsible for countless deaths and suffering. Most of historical evidence shows that, when Catholicism is the dominant religion in a society, it results in state oppression of other religions, societal stagnation, as well as widespread killings and torture.

One can argue that the sins of medieval Catholicism cannot be tied to the modern Church, due to historical context and the widespread belief of that time that souls are infinitely more important than bodies.

However, modern Church has many faults of its own - systematic discrimination against women and LGBTQ population, regressive stance on contraception which directly contributes to overpopulation and spread of AIDS, opposition to reproductive freedom and divorce... Not to mention systematic child abuse.

Is the Catholic Church tainted beyond redemption, or can it be given a chance to reform itself and learn from its mistakes? I get to ask this because half of my family is Catholic

I say we take off. And  nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[Inigima]

15 hours ago, Gorn said:

Catholic Church is probably the oldest still active organization of any sort in the world, and during its existence, it was responsible for countless deaths and suffering. Most of historical evidence shows that, when Catholicism is the dominant religion in a society, it results in state oppression of other religions, societal stagnation, as well as widespread killings and torture.

One can argue that the sins of medieval Catholicism cannot be tied to the modern Church, due to historical context and the widespread belief of that time that souls are infinitely more important than bodies. 

However, modern Church has many faults of its own - systematic discrimination against women and LGBTQ population, regressive stance on contraception which directly contributes to overpopulation and spread of AIDS, opposition to reproductive freedom and divorce... Not to mention systematic child abuse.

Is the Catholic Church tainted beyond redemption, or can it be given a chance to reform itself and learn from its mistakes? I get to ask this because half of my family is Catholic

What makes you think these problems are unique to Catholicism?

[Br16]

@Gorn

I feel that things begin and fade on their own. Ebb and flow. New values replace old values and new religions eventually emerge as times change. All systems have their lifespans. When Catholicism rose, the polytheists could not stop it. But as times changed, both the Church's spiritual supremacy and temporal power has eroded spetacularly and no matter how hard they tried, they could not reverse it.

Perhaps when Roman Catholicism began, it brought some sense of civilized order to the disunited collapsing Western Empire. It was a bad time filled with feudal warlords and the Catholic church made things crudely better for most people. And so they had their heyday.

However, times have again changed, the legacy if Rome is ancient history and outdated and increasingly discredited world views cannot stand in the face of a changing and more tolerant world. Thus, it need not be reformed, it will fade and fossilize and be succeded by something new, fresh and more inspiring. It is a natural process imo. The Modern era has really just begun, and it would be naive to think we have the future mapped out now.

 

[DanteGabriel]

Catholics have had long practice ignoring the bits they don't like. My mother was a lifelong Catholic who contemplated being a nun  when she was young, but still supported women's right to choose and Democratic politicians. They don't call them Cafeteria Catholics for nothing.

That being said, despite being Confirmed myself and having a high opinion of Jesuits and this Pope (though not as big a fan lately), I've not had my son baptised. I am sure it's a scandal among my relatives (my sister in law sent us a silver christening thing when he was born). I just don't want to get my son involved in the whole folderol of it, but I wonder if I need to at least make him familiar with basic Christian doctrines for the sake of socializing.

[Br16]

19 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

but I wonder if I need to at least make him familiar with basic Christian doctrines for the sake of socializing.

I personally disagree with lip service social christianity. It feels vestigial and hollow. Imo, you should encourage your son to find a set of ethics or philosophy he could truly believe in.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I am sure there was some Catholic priest joke hidden in there somewhere. I mean, we are living in the digital age, isn't there an app out there to introduce young kids to Catholic doctrines, something like Catholicinder. Ok, it was lame and of poor taste, and yes, I went there.

 

[DanteGabriel]

15 minutes ago, Br16 said:

I personally disagree with lip service social christianity. It feels vestigial and hollow. Imo, you should encourage your son to find a set of ethics or philosophy he could truly believe in.

I meant just to make him familiar with the concepts so he doesn't get Othered in school by some vicious cop's kid or something ("What do you mean you don't believe in God?"). My wife and her family are New England Congregationalists so it'll probably happen along the way.

I'll ask for advice raising my son when I want it, thanks.

[Br16]

5 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I meant just to make him familiar with the concepts so he doesn't get Othered in school by some vicious cop's kid or something ("What do you mean you don't believe in God?"). My wife and her family are New England Congregationalists so it'll probably happen along the way.

I'll ask for advice raising my son when I want it, thanks.

Didn't meant to give unsolicited advice, sorry if it came across that way. But I understand this type of conformity bullying from long ago experience when I decided not to indulge certain types by pretending to bolster their collective egos. I'm just glad I was taught to be true to the fruits of my intellect. 

Plus with all the bible encyclopedia material online, he could probably fill up on the basic stuff in one day. In fact, i  learned more about history and humanities surfing wikipedia than I ever did from my expensive college textbooks.

[Gorn]

7 hours ago, Inigima said:

What makes you think these problems are unique to Catholicism?

It isn't, but its sheer size makes it one of the biggest offenders. Westboro Baptist Church is objectively worse, but its dogma affects the lives of, like, 40 people. Plus, two thousand years is a long time to collect baggage.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Honestly, what other institution could survive a cover up of wide spread pedophilia for generations? Seriously, why is the religion still a thing?

[The Mother of The Others]

 Uhhhhh,  #1:

If priests aren't going to perv police themsleves adequately they need to wear penis cameras of the same sort as the body cameras policemen wear.   And every atheist gets assigned a penis cam feed to watch religiously as part of the deal you cut to get out of jury duty.  Why hardcore atheists for this?   Because nobody has more of a vested interest in nailing priests who sneak out of their vestments to nail paupers.   Stop popping the paupers, papas!   So, to prevent the cameras from being defeated by simply taking the vestments off, there'd be a second camera sewn into the flesh of the priest, not necessarily looking out through the penis hole, but something akin to that, maybe peeking out of a nostril to get that important downward view of the crotch area. 

(One hidden reason priests don't rat out the peds at the rate they should is because the rest of the priesthood often finds itself blackmailable over other (non-children) issues they'd rather keep hidden, such as "regular" relationships (gay or straight) with adults, etc.   So the ones with "forbidden" (regular people type behaviors) are scared to turn in the ones committing crimes against kids.  It's a whole fusternutter of a crapgasm.)

#2.    The recent changes made to the Mass "script" need to be reversed back to what I grew up with.  They claim this new thing is closer to the original translation, but I don't care because all the changed lines of dialogue are worse now, less poetic, which is why they long ago felt the need to leave behind this crappy original wording and upgrade to a classier, sleeker sounding phrasing to keep pace with the more poetic King James bible of the competition.  Now they've gone back to the dumber sounding word choices?  Screw that.  Bring back the grandeur and the elegant prose.   You can't go into a new millennium with your ceremony sounding dumber.

#3.     Re: 

On 7/5/2019 at 12:36 PM, Gorn said:

it results in state oppression of other religions, societal stagnation, as well as widespread killings and torture

Yes, but the studies showing this were all conducted by perverts who have a hardon for dismantling the Church.   All of known history features religious strife, so it's difficult to actually say history would have been better off without religion because we have no religion-less timeline to point to for comparison.    It was a horrible time.  With schooling worse than the Los Angeles school district for almost everybody.  (Pauses to let that sink in.)    The people willing to kill "witches" would have probably done very similar horrible crap even if stripped of their religious excuse.   The socio-economic pressures on them would have been the same and they'd just find another justification, or none at all.  Anti- Churchers wish their human abuse stats from past centuries were still relevant, but come on.   The Church has not only mellowed, but it's the one being slaughtered now.   Islamic interests are erasing the Christian population of Turkey, and That's not even relevant to anybody.  So good luck convincing me the Church's middle ages misdeeds are a concern.   Atheists and Christians would do well to patch up their differences and start acting like a team, because Islam defines both of y'all as equally Infidel-ish, and Turkey won't be the last stop on their world tour.   They tried blizting the West and it stalled out in Spain, but the long term encirclement strategy has continued.  As Europe fails to replace its population the Muslim world is trending the other direction and has lots of emmigrants to send over as workers in a game of eventual RED Rover between cultures in conflict.   Notice how the media never has a negative word to say about the religion of peace anymore, while continuing to slash away at the religion of peds?   That's another pincer of the encirclement, smoothtalk the media with money and guilt them with PR groups and lawyers until you silence the lambs of God (Judeo Christian).   All the better to....

If religions have predictable life cycles, including "youthful indiscretion" and "murdurous dogmatic era" and "riding high on state sponsored monopoly status during our prime," and then they transition into "being told to 'quit it' by some memorable public uprisings" and finally the religion settles into "mellowed out old age".......  We might have another 7 centuries of Islam throwing its weight around before it starts to mellow the way Christianity has.  Uh- oh.    Meanwhile our team is infighting amongst itself pretending Hitler is around every corner as we fabricate reasons to whip ourselves up, all the while turning our backs to actual enemies we can't fit into our internal propaganda narrative.   Yeah, for some reason I don't see this "team" eeking out another 7 centuries.    We've got a bunch of spineless shortsighted people ripping out the foundations of our culture without even a thought to whether they're replacing it with anything sturdy or enduring, it's all just done like a tantrum, so of course the culture then sinks and sickens and sepsis takes over, because the only load bearing columns the antiChurch crowd brought to the party was their hardons to dismantle what's endured the centuries.   So Catholicism, etc, won't be around to serve as society's backbone the next time when we'll inevitably need it to save us from the next dark ages after China presses the button that wipes out our internet phones..... (my precious!)  (golum!)    Buildings with intact foundations weather a storm better, and though I'm loathe to borrow from James Cameron, a storm sure as fuck looks like it's gathering.

#4.  

I don't know how to answer the question of how much to take this generation's kids to church.   Some.  Enough so that they feel comfortable there, like it's an acceptable thing.  So that they feel they can go there later in life when they're maybe at the breaking point and need the soul support one can find there.  To retain it as a legit option in their minds, you know?    Better than total alcoholism or giving up hope to total jadedness, or jumping off of something tall.  [Jeesh!  Goood mornin' !]

¿And there you go?    The keys to workable Catholicism.   Implanted cameras.  Not being afraid to be fashionable and stylish as well as musty and rigid.  Slapping some sense back into the secular public to make them recognize the real worth of the Church they've been trying to get rid of like the biggest garage sale item ever, when it's actually a big piece of their societal survival kit.   And fostering an appreciation for it even if our kids ultimately decide it's not their jam.

[Rippounet]

13 minutes ago, The Mother of The Others said:

The Church has not only mellowed, but it's the one being slaughtered now.  Islamic interests are erasing the Christian population of Turkey, and That's not even relevant to anybody.  So good luck convincing me the Church's middle ages misdeeds are a concern.  Atheists and Christians would do well to patch up their differences and start acting like a team, because Islam defines both of y'all as equally Infidel-ish, and Turkey won't be the last stop on their world tour.  They tried blizting the West and it stalled out in Spain, but the long term encirclement strategy has continued.  As Europe fails to replace its population the Muslim world is trending the other direction and has lots of emmigrants to send over as workers in a game of eventual RED Rover between cultures in conflict.   Notice how the media never has a negative word to say about the religion of peace anymore, while continuing to slash away at the religion of peds?   That's another pincer of the encirclement, smoothtalk the media with money and guilt them with PR groups and lawyers until you silence the lambs of God (Judeo Christian).   All the better to....

[...] We might have another 7 centuries of Islam throwing its weight around before it starts to mellow the way Christianity has.  Uh- oh. 

There's about 1,8 billion Muslims on Earth. If Islam wasn't already quite mellow you'd know it.

Encirclement, replacement theory, religion of peace... That's a lot of far-right dog whistles for a single post.

[Larry of the Lawn]

A reality show where the Pope owns the atheists by actually shitting in his hat.

[DanteGabriel]

I see we've gone from Tami Lorsen rants to shallow Bannon-adjacent theories of alt religious history. A tour de force performance in half-bright wingnuttery.

[Jace, Extat]

5 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I see we've gone from Tami Lorsen rants to shallow Bannon-adjacent theories of alt religious history. A tour de force performance in half-bright wingnuttery.

Hey, speak for yourself but I get a kick out of it. Like reading a transcript of Fox News with the cogency stripped away.

[Larry of the Lawn]

40 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

A reality show where the Pope owns the atheists by actually shitting in his hat.

And he maintains eyecontact with the camera the whole time