Why the posts about the Pope?

"A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and this alone, I am a deeply religious man." -Albert Einstein

Classic Man said:

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though
nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a
miracle." --A. Einstein

Two very opposing world-views. Not surprising that he who prefers
one way, can't comprehend people preferring (& living) the other.

Maybe that's why there are such different opinions on this thread.

Maybe some us need to respect "the other side" a bit more,
whichever that is.

Name-calling, bashing, & worse: vilifying somebody who does not
share our views/beliefs/(insert yours here), simply make the person
who does it himself even more vile. Worse, it is simply uncivil.

There is some reallt "tasteful" food for thought in certain posts,
only marred by the sprinkling of insults & lack of respect every
paragraph or two.

Click to expand...

I do agree with you. However the fighting and hatred seems to flow between those with incompatible doctrines. Religion seems to always bring out the worst traits of humans, fear and mistrust.

If you live your life with the simple philosophy that I put forward in this post http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1018&message=13002268 under the paragraph of 'gifts' then you have nothing to fear. You don't fear death as you understand that it is not only part of life but in fact essential to life.

There is a serenity in that. I encourage people to consider that. It gives you a better and less selfish attitude towards other beings.

When I die my body shall make way for and provide nutrients for more life (worms ;-).

Food for thought? (excuse the pun)

--

"Larks' tongues. Wrens' livers. Chaffinch brains. Jaguars' earlobes. Wolf nipple chips. Get 'em while they're hot. They're lovely."

People are entitled to live their lives unhampered in any way they wish subject to not damaging others too much (my, there's a can of worms!).

I will agree with you that respect should be paid to such wishes. But that does not mean that intellectual respect is automatically due to those whose world views are so out if skew with the physical world that they are nothing but a fantasy.

Little respect is shown by the common man to the mentally deranged and those living in psychotic fantasies. Why should we automatically be expected to 'respect' the lesser delusions of those who, whilst perfectly sane, embrace a set of beliefs with no discernable rational basis, that flies in the face of all objective evidence and whose main foundation is wishful thinking?

Fantasy is fantasy and magic is magic whether it be alien abduction or 2000 years of theology...

Classic Man said:

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though
nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a
miracle." --A. Einstein

Two very opposing world-views. Not surprising that he who prefers
one way, can't comprehend people preferring (& living) the other.

Maybe that's why there are such different opinions on this thread.

Maybe some us need to respect "the other side" a bit more,
whichever that is.

Name-calling, bashing, & worse: vilifying somebody who does not
share our views/beliefs/(insert yours here), simply make the person
who does it himself even more vile. Worse, it is simply uncivil.

There is some reallt "tasteful" food for thought in certain posts,
only marred by the sprinkling of insults & lack of respect every
paragraph or two.

Click to expand...

Larry H. Smith said:

There are those whose actions merit opposition. Period.

Click to expand...

That statement is true...but misses the unfortunate fact that not all of those whose actions merit opposition actually receive it. While the actions of some within the U.S. government merit opposition, and receive it loudly and clearly, the actions of other governments like France and Russia who routinely commit similar infractions and as often go against world opinion seem to slip by without opposition or comment. And the moral and social atrocities (at least according to mass world opinion) committed by virtually all middle eastern and many African nations also seems to escape vocal or physical opposition unless somehow a larger entity such as the United States can be tied to it and blamed for it.

Larry H. Smith said:

A person abuses my child.
I denounce(dislike/hate) the offender .

Click to expand...

There is a vast difference between direct and indirect offense...rarely is a religious or governmental offense on a direct, personal level deserving of the same, direct denouncement.

Larry H. Smith said:

Some attitudes are justified.

Not every opinion is a result of psychological inadequacy.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't dismiss the attitudes as being unjustified...but I would dismiss the actions taken as unnecessary and harmful to mankind. Rather than have an opinion, and expressing it as an outlet amongst your own immediate friends or family, too often it is instead voiced to a mass audience and said offense is attributed to a mass of people who share a particular commonality with the offender. For example, hating and stereotyping those from the United States because of governmental policies or decisions...or hating Muslims because of the actions of a few extremists.

--
Justin

krusadr said:

Brian wrote:
Bob has aspects of the gullible to his personality yes. Definitely.
In fact for him to believe that with his education is basically as
neurotic and foolish as it is for anyone in this day and age to
smoke when the danger of smoking is so widely understood. You might
consider him more foolish than those underprivileged and
undereducated followers in the third world. In fact I do.

Click to expand...

I guess we'll just have to disagree. Smoking clearly shortens life. There have been ample studies that those with religious convictions tend to have longer lives. A bit of a catch 22. I would think that those who believe in a glorious beyond would be the ones who desire a shorter existence on Earth whereas those who don't believe in the beyond would desire to have the longer life possible as this is their only chance.

krusadr said:

That my friend is the gift of life. Understand that and be
grateful. When you die you return your body as nutrients to the
world and you make room for the new. Don't waste your thanks on an
imagined bogie-man in the sky that doesn't exist.

Click to expand...

In a sense you have a point.

krusadr said:

Do you accept evolution or do you believe in the 'Creation' ?

Click to expand...

Can I believe in both? or some kind of mixture of the two?

krusadr said:

LOL perhaps you are right, but I'll give you a clue, spacecraft do
not get built as the result of churches ;-)

Click to expand...

Don't you remember the "Heaven Gate" group? They left this Earthly existence so they could hop a ride on the passing by spaceship/comet?

--
Brian

Jan Moren said:

Another 30 posts and this thread about a silly dead pedophilic
priest will finally disappear.

Click to expand...

Gosh, you really & truly are a jerk to write something untrue like that.

It is one thing arguing that the CC & the Pope did not come down harshly enough on priest paedophiles, & another thing to insinuate such slander.

Now creep back under the rock you came from, you troll.

DavidMillier said:

i also suspect that your comment about attacking the strongest
group is wrong - we prefer to attack the weakest,those who can't
fight back...

Click to expand...

A country in the position of highest influence and power is the strongest, and yet its reactions must be weighed against the repercussions and opinions of all others below them. Like a goliath, responses and reactions often must be slow and ponderous, and attacks are usually tolerated to a remarkable degree. Few countries are afraid to vocally attack the United States and its government and policies, not to mention most of its citizens around the world, because they know the galvanizing effect of any counter-attack the United States may mount, vocally or physically, to the rest of the world. And this will happen to any country that sits in the position of most influence.

If the United States falls from the top position, China may likely take over...or maybe the E.U. (If they can stop bickering amongst themselves)...and will find themselves in the very same position as the United States: hated for every decision, criticized whether they yin or yang, targeted by dozens of smaller and less influential nations hoping to win economic or political power themselves, villified for helping some nations, and derided for not helping others.

Watch a large crow fly amongst a number of blue jays. The crow is bigger and stronger, but finds himself surrounded by a circling and taunting troop of jays who will continue to taunt and attack him long after his tresspassing offense is over...merely because they are caught up in the mob mentality and sure of safety from attack because of their superiority in numbers.

--
Justin

a view shared by some Eskimo tribes, when they are forced to abandon the old (that will be eaten by a Polar Bear, etc..)

Classic Man said:

Get your facts stright. JP2 not only publicly condemned such abuse,
he also came down harshly. Do a Google.

Click to expand...

Classic Man

I agree - you should get your facts straight before you condemn someone else for telling the truth about the Popes behavior. Do your own google and see what went on here in Boston. Please tell me how Cardinal Law was punished for his acts here, or more correctly, how he was rewarded with a vatican job instead of going to prison where he belongs. perhaps you forgot that part of the pope's stewardship or your ignorant of the facts. The truth is he did nothing. He is resposible and you can't change that with wishful thinking about what a great man he was.

Brian said:

krusadr said:

Brian wrote:
Bob has aspects of the gullible to his personality yes. Definitely.
In fact for him to believe that with his education is basically as
neurotic and foolish as it is for anyone in this day and age to
smoke when the danger of smoking is so widely understood. You might
consider him more foolish than those underprivileged and
undereducated followers in the third world. In fact I do.

Click to expand...

I guess we'll just have to disagree. Smoking clearly shortens
life. There have been ample studies that those with religious
convictions tend to have longer lives. A bit of a catch 22. I
would think that those who believe in a glorious beyond would be
the ones who desire a shorter existence on Earth whereas those who
don't believe in the beyond would desire to have the longer life
possible as this is their only chance.

Brian said:

That my friend is the gift of life. Understand that and be
grateful. When you die you return your body as nutrients to the
world and you make room for the new. Don't waste your thanks on an
imagined bogie-man in the sky that doesn't exist.

Click to expand...

In a sense you have a point.

Brian said:

Do you accept evolution or do you believe in the 'Creation' ?

Click to expand...

Can I believe in both? or some kind of mixture of the two?

Click to expand...

Nope. Sorry. They are the embodiment of the term 'incompatible'. BTW you don't 'believe' in evolution, you accept it as fact or deny it. A big difference to 'believing' in a fantasy.

Brian said:

Brian said:

LOL perhaps you are right, but I'll give you a clue, spacecraft do
not get built as the result of churches ;-)

Click to expand...

Don't you remember the "Heaven Gate" group? They left this Earthly
existence so they could hop a ride on the passing by
spaceship/comet?

Click to expand...

LOL again, yes I do. Trouble is they were so stupid they forgot to actually try to et on any spacecraft and instead killed themselves. A good example of the waste of life caused by believing in fantasies and following others blindly. Faith is IMO a dirty word.

--
“Follow the Gourd! The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem!”

When you say "The Church" which one are you talking about? There are many out there and all tend to profess something different. Most don't try to explain science. Most try to explain the reason of life.

You assert that if there were a supreme being incapable of error, then there wouldn't be imperfections in his creations.

May I be so bold as to say that an imperfection is only an imperfection because man deemed it to be such. Perhaps it's not an imperfection at all. But then I guess you could say that if it weren't an imperfection and you thought it was, then you would have an imperfect mind, but then one could counter that you have a perfect mind, but it just hasn't been trained. But then you tend to get locked into a weird spiraling battle similar to these threads.

DMillier said:

The Church once stood where science stands now and claimed that
religion could explain not only the spiritual but also the physical
world. Time and time again as science was developed, layer by layer
it revealed many cherished religious explanations for what they are

• absurd.

One thing that has always struck me from the study of biology is
how far from perfection biological organisms often are.

Before modern science, this went unnoticed and many thinkers
commented on the perfection of biological design and suggested this
could only be explained by the workings of a supernatural
intelligent designer.

But now the jerry-built, ramshackle, non optimal design of many
organs and biological structures (the human eye is an example - the
retina in backwards with the light sensors pointing the wrong way!)
has been exposed by science.

The notion that such designs would have been perpetrated by a
perfect supreme being incapable of error is a difficult one to
swallow. Natural selection, of course, as a postulated prime mover,
not only explains such shoddy workmanship but positively demands it
as part of the process. Occam's Razor...

Click to expand...

You can believe in anything you want to but attempting to have the cake and eat it by marrying evolution and creation is the worst kind of desperate intellectual self delusion.

A supernatural creation is a supernatural event i.e. it is outside the rules of the regulated scientific universe.

Once you decide to accept even one supernatural occurance, then any violation of natural law is possible. The claim that there was just one special original supernatural event and then everything converted to following a regular set of non supernatural scientific laws is absurd.

It is nothing more than an admission of the embarrassing fact the natural laws exist and won't be made to go away by the church AND they seem do a fine job of explaining the world without requiring a constant supernatural hand on the tiller...

In any other field of thought other than religion you would have a hard time getting away with such self serving mind games.

It's supernatural and directed or it's natural - you can't have both (despite the RC's embarrassing doctine of embracing both).

Brian said:

Brian said:

Do you accept evolution or do you believe in the 'Creation' ?

Click to expand...

Can I believe in both? or some kind of mixture of the two?

--
Brian

Click to expand...

Larry H. Smith said:

This philosophical proposition, ..that the basic nature of
humankind is "competetive", rather than "cooperative", is instilled
early by far too many religions( "Original sin"/ intrinsic "evil
nature" which must be "controlled", etc.).

Click to expand...

But sometimes this philosophical proposition is instilled not by religion but by scientific or social observation. Having been brought up entirely free of religion, by dually non-religious parents, I did not suffer the typical indocrinations of an organized religion. I later learned of their views through self study of most major religious texts to attempt to understand how a mind brought up within these religions sees the world. Yet I still see immediate, intolerant assumptions drawn by vast majorities from many countries whenever a cultural, social, policital, or religious subject is at hand. Stereotypes, assumptions, and blind conclusions are made before the debate has aired both sides of the story, which seems to show a strong propensity in our modern cultures to breed, stew, and exercise hate and competition.

Larry H. Smith said:

Progress is being made in teaching and perpetuating the
'cooperative' view of human nature, ...despite the long
entrenchment of philosophies of fear, mistrust and personal
"unworthiness" (most religions).

Click to expand...

Exactly correct. I wish that religions were the sole offenders in the entrenchment of philosophies of fear and mistrust. However governments, media, and protesters all enforce these philosophies as well, and it must be tackled on all fronts to be successful. That would include governments and intelligence agencies concocting false reasons to justify a war, by spreading fear to the populace to garner support. But it would also include protesters exaggerating the intentions and capabilities of said government as evil and all-powerful by spreading fears over unjustified invasions and quashing moral rights. And it would include other governments who take advantage of the rift between religions and countries to strengthen their own economic position by instilling fear and anger in their populace against other nations or religions. And it would include quashing media hype which makes large issues out of small ones, and dramatizes and exxagerates a particular event or statement favoring their natural liberal or conservative slant in order to influence public opinion.

--
Justin

Brian said:

When you say "The Church" which one are you talking about? There
are many out there and all tend to profess something different.
Most don't try to explain science. Most try to explain the reason
of life.

Click to expand...

Any organised group that has been around long enough to have an establised body of well considered doctrine. The RC is an obvious example.

Brian said:

You assert that if there were a supreme being incapable of error,
then there wouldn't be imperfections in his creations.

May I be so bold as to say that an imperfection is only an
imperfection because man deemed it to be such. Perhaps it's not an
imperfection at all.

Click to expand...

Hmmm...let's use terms like sub-optimal, inefficient, broken or whatever quantifies poor design.

I'm happy to accept that if the process of continuous re-design modifies and re-deploys existing structures to serve other purposes then you can reasonably expect to see sub optimal performance from the re-worked unit. But finding structures that are barely capable of their function is hardly indicative of hands on design by the Ultimate Being...

But then I guess you could say that if it

Brian said:

weren't an imperfection and you thought it was, then you would have
an imperfect mind, but then one could counter that you have a
perfect mind, but it just hasn't been trained. But then you tend
to get locked into a weird spiraling battle similar to these
threads.

Click to expand...

Yes, madness is that way....

Brian said:

DMillier said:

The Church once stood where science stands now and claimed that
religion could explain not only the spiritual but also the physical
world. Time and time again as science was developed, layer by layer
it revealed many cherished religious explanations for what they are

• absurd.

One thing that has always struck me from the study of biology is
how far from perfection biological organisms often are.

Before modern science, this went unnoticed and many thinkers
commented on the perfection of biological design and suggested this
could only be explained by the workings of a supernatural
intelligent designer.

But now the jerry-built, ramshackle, non optimal design of many
organs and biological structures (the human eye is an example - the
retina in backwards with the light sensors pointing the wrong way!)
has been exposed by science.

The notion that such designs would have been perpetrated by a
perfect supreme being incapable of error is a difficult one to
swallow. Natural selection, of course, as a postulated prime mover,
not only explains such shoddy workmanship but positively demands it
as part of the process. Occam's Razor...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

krusadr said:

Nope. Sorry. They are the embodiment of the term 'incompatible'.
BTW you don't 'believe' in evolution, you accept it as fact or deny
it. A big difference to 'believing' in a fantasy.

Click to expand...

See the problem with evolution is that it is a complex thing. Do I believe that evolution exists? Yes. Do I believe man has evolved? Yes. Do I "accept" evolution as fact? Not in man's current understanding of it. That is why it is called a theory.

Einstein had theories. Some of those theories were proved wrong. I accept that man's current understanding of evolution explains a lot, but I also accept that man's theories are often flawed and are continually evolving.

krusadr said:

LOL again, yes I do. Trouble is they were so stupid they forgot to
actually try to et on any spacecraft and instead killed themselves.
A good example of the waste of life caused by believing in
fantasies and following others blindly. Faith is IMO a dirty word.

Click to expand...

I threw that in just for you for that particular reason.

krusadr said:

--
“Follow the Gourd! The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem!”

Click to expand...

--
Brian

DMillier said:

You can believe in anything you want to but attempting to have the
cake and eat it by marrying evolution and creation is the worst
kind of desperate intellectual self delusion.

A supernatural creation is a supernatural event i.e. it is outside
the rules of the regulated scientific universe.

Once you decide to accept even one supernatural occurance, then any
violation of natural law is possible. The claim that there was just
one special original supernatural event and then everything
converted to following a regular set of non supernatural scientific
laws is absurd.

It is nothing more than an admission of the embarrassing fact the
natural laws exist and won't be made to go away by the church AND
they seem do a fine job of explaining the world without requiring a
constant supernatural hand on the tiller...

In any other field of thought other than religion you would have a
hard time getting away with such self serving mind games.

It's supernatural and directed or it's natural - you can't have
both (despite the RC's embarrassing doctine of embracing both).

Click to expand...

Correct, the RCC RELIES on the ignorance of people for it's own survival. It depends on blind following. It discourages people from using the one human attribute that sets them apart from animals, the power of reason. That is why it is evil at its core.

Having the cake and eat-it is in fact a very appropriate phrase as I suspect there are a great many fence-sitters out there who actually intellectually doubt the bible but are to weak and afraid to admit it to themselves - 'just-in-case'. Being able to take a hard look at the world and to come out and state that religion is tosh is what separates the men from the boys.

People are weak and inadequate. Decide what you are and what your life amounts to and be a man and stand up for it. Believe in religion and live in fear of death. Live as a man - show your wife and your children that you had a comfort in knowing what life was about. Leave mysticism and superstition at the door. Accept you are just star-stuff and that you will return to be star-stuff and enjoy the magnificence of the universe and be calm about eventually being recycled. You'll enjoy life a lot more.

--

"Silence! What is all this insolence? You will find yourself in gladiator school vewy quickly with wotten behaviour like that."

DavidMillier said:

Brian said:

DavidMillier said:

Do you accept evolution or do you believe in the 'Creation' ?

Click to expand...

Can I believe in both? or some kind of mixture of the two?

--
Brian

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

zackiedawg said:

Watch a large crow fly amongst a number of blue jays. The crow is
bigger and stronger, but finds himself surrounded by a circling and
taunting troop of jays who will continue to taunt and attack him
long after his tresspassing offense is over

Click to expand...

zackiedawg said:

...merely because they
are caught up in the mob mentality and sure of safety from attack
because of their superiority in numbers.

Click to expand...

The mobbing behaviour is a built in defensive instinct and Nature doesn't encourage the profligate waste of energy so if they do this it's because historically it is a tactic that has proven more successful than not doing it.

zackiedawg said:

--
Justin

Click to expand...

Brian said:

See the problem with evolution is that it is a complex thing. Do I
believe that evolution exists? Yes. Do I believe man has evolved?
Yes. Do I "accept" evolution as fact? Not in man's current
understanding of it. That is why it is called a theory.

Click to expand...

Well, all of science is a collection of theories so that's hardly a disgrace!

Brian said:

Einstein had theories. Some of those theories were proved wrong.
I accept that man's current understanding of evolution explains a
lot, but I also accept that man's theories are often flawed and are
continually evolving.

Click to expand...

What is a theory anyway - nothing more than a self consistent idea that explains current observations and (ideally) makes predictions that (ideally) can be experimentally tested. If the theory passes that test, we can have a little more confidence in it but it will continue to be tested ever more subtly.

All scientific theories are contunually put to the test and modified or rejected if they fail the test. This is not an admission of weakness, it's the fundamemtal strength of the scientific method and the reason why it is the best thinking technique we have or are ever likely to have...

It's interesting that a lot of people fail to understand the process of science - often thinking it is about "proving facts" and as a result fail to understand what science is, when to appreciate its success or understand its failures.

That's what I've always done.

Some people only visit one forum and see it as a place for discussion. This is "open talk" not "open photography talk" so people have every right to post about the Pope. You may not be interested, but there are over a billion people who are. If you don't like the posts, ignore them, and read others. Simple as that. Paying respects is exactly that- respectful, but comments such as your are clearly not. If the leaders of many other religions can be civil about his passing then so can you. They may not agree with his ideas, however they respect them as ideas and not as right or wrong. You are the one being out of line here, not the people paying their respects.
--
matt/Matt

I've said plenty in this thread that was off topic but if you check Phil's rules you'll see that this forum is "Open" only in that it is for general photography related subjects.

mattMatt said:

Some people only visit one forum and see it as a place for
discussion. This is "open talk" not "open photography talk" so
people have every right to post about the Pope. You may not be
interested, but there are over a billion people who are. If you
don't like the posts, ignore them, and read others. Simple as that.
Paying respects is exactly that- respectful, but comments such as
your are clearly not. If the leaders of many other religions can be
civil about his passing then so can you. They may not agree with
his ideas, however they respect them as ideas and not as right or
wrong. You are the one being out of line here, not the people
paying their respects.
--
matt/Matt

Click to expand...