First Principles

Quote: FrGamble

.... Do you think that by ourselves, just using our own brains we can really know what is right?

Makes non Catholics wonder about the reasons priests don't marry?

So just like that the 84% of the world who aren't Catholic don't know right from wrong. That somehow seems wrong to me but I don't know right from wrong so I guess I have to go with what the Padre says.

Quote: FrGamble

Boy, you must think me and my fellow priests are amazing salesmen.

Amazing? No. Dogged and relentless, absolutely.
Your goal is to grow your church, that's what
missionaries were invented for. Mormons turned
missionary work into an art form. Religion
is not about saving souls, it's about making
money and controlling people.

Quote:

billions of happy customers. How do you explain that?

That's an easy one. People love being told
what to do. People love having the burden
pf figuring things out for themselves
off their shoulders. Look, they say, everybody
else is doing it so it must be true. I don't
have to think about this anymore, it's
all been figured out for me. All I have to do
is say a few words and show up every week in
church and I'm home free. If I was gullible
I'd probably buy that too.

Quote: FrGamble

Boy, you must think me and my fellow priests are amazing salesmen. Imagine selling a nothing burger, a lemon, and a vacuum cleaner you don't even think exists for some 2,000 years and having billions of happy customers. How do you explain that?

1. Start in early childhood brain development.
2. Limit exposure to contrary views.
3. Flatly repudiate those views, when exposure inadvertently happens.
4. ???
5. Profit

Quote: kenarman

So just like that the 84% of the world who aren't Catholic don't know right from wrong. That somehow seems wrong to me but I don't know right from wrong so I guess I have to go with what the Padre says.

As I think we've mentioned before we pretty much share the same guiding principles so I think we both know right from wrong. One of the things about being made in the image and likeness of God and in having a conscience is that no matter what you believe or don't believe God still is present to us. There are universal objective moral truths that we all pretty much know. For example you knew even before I agreed with you that it would be wrong to say 84% of the world don't know right from wrong. Some things we just know it's ingrained in us. Don't be down on yourself.

Quote: Mission146

1. Start in early childhood brain development.
2. Limit exposure to contrary views.
3. Flatly repudiate those views, when exposure inadvertently happens.
4. ???
5. Profit

You all need to pause and think about what you are saying. How do you think the Church limits exposure to contrary views? Do you think we put filters on everyone's phones? Where or how do you see this control or manipulation? It doesn't exist except in minds that can't grasp why someone would believe. You seem so desperate to avoid the fact that billions of people find the Christian faith beautiful and true that you set up some reason why they were tricked when younger as the only reason. Tell that to college students I am working with that want to enter into the Church after having grown up in a totally secular home.

I also would like you to think about this idea of profit? What profit does the Church have? Who benefits from Church collections? Where do you see the desire for money and worldly stuff? I certainly don't see it anywhere or have it. You again want to write this all off but instead of just making myths up it is better to confront reality and truth and wrestle with it.

Quote: FrGamble

You all need to pause and think about what you are saying. How do you think the Church limits exposure to contrary views? Do you think we put filters on everyone's phones? Where or how do you see this control or manipulation? It doesn't exist except in minds that can't grasp why someone would believe. You seem so desperate to avoid the fact that billions of people find the Christian faith beautiful and true that you set up some reason why they were tricked when younger as the only reason. Tell that to college students I am working with that want to enter into the Church after having grown up in a totally secular home.

I also would like you to think about this idea of profit? What profit does the Church have? Who benefits from Church collections? Where do you see the desire for money and worldly stuff? I certainly don't see it anywhere or have it. You again want to write this all off but instead of just making myths up it is better to confront reality and truth and wrestle with it.

Phones?

1.) Start in early childhood development.

In other words, the kids are presented with something (God/Church) as truth (which you also say it is) without being explained the contrary positions of Atheism, Agnosticism or those of other religions. I wouldn't say that it's control or manipulation any more or less than trying to instill grammatical correctness into my kids was control or manipulation. Anymore than teaching math is control or manipulation...it's just something that happens.

Not tricked, taught, there's a difference. They were just taught that a particular unprovable thing is incontrovertibly true.

The profit part was a joke, it's kind of like a meme, and a pretty old one.

Quote: FrGamble

Where or how do you see this control or manipulation?

By avoiding anything to do with
other points of view. I saw this
when I was a Xtion in my early
20's. Any talk about the other
religions was scoffed at, or
totally ignored. If you asked too
many questions you were looked
at with suspicion.

[

Quote:

You seem so desperate to avoid the fact that billions of people find the Christian faith beautiful

'Desperate?' Hardly. I've been living
with the reality of god fearing Jesus
loving people all my life, just like
you. Judgemental, hypocritical,
weird. I must have missed all the
ones you know who are in the
throes of total bliss.

Quote:

Tell that to college students I am working with that want to enter into the Church after having grown up in a totally secular home.

I should hope you see lots of
them. Didn't you go thru a
spiritual crisis at that age?
I did, I was a Xtion for over
a year. Ed the ex priest came
from a totally secular home
and was exposed to the Catholic
religion in college and became
a priest because of it. It's a very
vulnerable age where you're
trying to figure things out. Don't
get your ego inflated that it's
some god leading all these kids
to you. It's not. Some will get
hooked, most will come to their
senses eventually.

Bob with all due respect I get frustrated by your inconsistency in thought, your idea that your unique and difficult family experience is a universal example of the faith, your blind and unreasonable faith, and your unwillingness to really engage in real discussion. Please be better.

Quote: FrGamble

I must really be bamboozled and hoodwinked I tell you.

Nuance. It's tough to do by text. Hopefully I'll clarify with the following...

Quote: FrG

Finally in regards to Face's observations. I wonder if the same critque could be made against any group trying to form a loving community.

Yes. Emphatically yes. It's much of why I'm so angry all the GD time.

Good = power and power attracts those who would use it for their own gain. Name a thing, any thing, and I will show you. Oh, football is popular this time of year, and a great example. I highly doubt Walter Camp was up to diabolical plans. Near as I can tell, dude just wanted to make a game. Wasn't even his life's goal, he was a professional. Creating football was a side. And it existed for 60some yrs without much of a peep; I know I certainly have no football knowledge pre-NFL. But then the NFL happened. It "took off". It was a "good thing" yes?

Now look today. Today we find that football causes horrific brain damage, and they knew about, and they covered it up for profit. That's evil. That does not mean football is evil. It does not mean the NFL is evil. But it is in fact an evil that existed because something good was twisted to the needs of the diabolical. Wouldn't you agree?

How about my beloved video games? Simple, pure, just a tech marvel for nerds to nerd out to. A little game to test skill against another or against self. Good stuff, right? Then it got popular. FFW to today and you have developers hiring psychologists specialized in human behavior to make games as addicting as possible. Not "attractive", not "entertaining", ADDICTIVE. Proven and admitted. Candy Crush is not a child's toy, it is virtual heroin, and it was designed to be. Many developers are edging into this territory, adding addictive elements, then hiding the reward behind paywalls, all to trigger an illness within you so they can profit off it, and damn the consequences. That is evil. That does not mean video games are evil. That doesn't mean that CDProjektRed is evil. But it is in fact an evil facet that came about by a person putting profit over people. Is that not "of Diablo"?

This is what I'm talking about. When all you've got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, right? But we never want to talk about it. We militarize police and fill them with an authoritative us v them mindset, and then act surprised when those professions hold the highest domestic abuse rates. Isn't it obvious the "why" behind it all? A sport that brings in more money than God; is it any surprise it's filled with people would would and have traded life for it? So then should we be surprised when an org whose MO is grooming to hold a disproportionate amount of predators in their ranks? None of these establishments are intrinsically "evil" or "diabolical"; that does not mean evil and the Devil haven't visited and taken up shop.

This is what I mean, and why I lose my s#$%. It's so bleeding obvious, yet know one wants to do anything about it.