Polish Jesuits created a Facebook site for non-believers. Atheists not a total waste?

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Mar 19, 11, 15:35 #1

Polish Jesuits apparently do not believe atheists are a total loss to mankind, as they have created a Facebook retreat site especially for non-believers. FYI a Lenten retreat is a series of meetings at which vital ethical, religious and social issues are discussed. These usually take place at church or away-from-home retreat centers. This is the first time a retreat for atheists has been organised online. According to Gazeta Wyborcza, the 10-day retreat each day will raise such issues as morality (what is good and what is bad), the sense of life, sexaulity, etc.

http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,9283269,Rekolekcje_dla_ateistow_na_Facebook u.html

delphiandomineThreads: 42 Posts: 9,954 Joined: Nov 25, 08 ♂ [Suspended]	Edited by: delphiandomine Mar 19, 11, 15:41 #2
Polonius3: According to Gazeta Wyborcza Read it often, do we? For someone who talks about "moral decay", "rampant homosexuality" and so on, it seems rather strange that you'd even open such a webpage. Glad to see that you're yet another convert to the Gazeta Wyborcza cause, though.

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Edited by: JonnyM Mar 19, 11, 15:50 #3

Polonius3:

are a total loss to mankind

As opposed to people who believe in primitive mythology and religious fairy tales as if they had actually happened, then force their fantasies down people's throats condemning (as you often have here) people who don't share their irrational tastes. It would be pathetic if it weren't for the terrible human costs, like families in the developing world who can't either feed or clothe their children or get contraception to stop having more, or teenage rape victims denied access to an abortion.

Polonius3:

Facebook retreat site

What is this? You mean a facebook page? Wonder if anyone will bother with it.

Polonius3:

sexaulity,

There you go again. Really an obsession.

Polonius3:

what is good and what is bad

How would you know?

Polonius3Threads: 1,005 Posts: 4,835 Joined: Apr 11, 08 ♂	Mar 19, 11, 16:30 #4
I read GW daily, although Rzepa is mroe to my liking. To be well informed one must read different newspapers. I used to read Trybuna until it folded. Occasionally even Nie, although there was never anything new or creative therein -- same old anticlerical mumbo jumbo.

JonnyMThreads: 16 Posts: 4,487 Joined: Mar 9, 11 ♂	Edited by: JonnyM Mar 19, 11, 16:56 #5
Polonius3: anticlerical mumbo jumbo. Anticlerical is 'mumbo jumbo' and bachelors dressed like Christmas trees intoning incantations over sacred wafers and weeping statues isn't?

Polonius3Threads: 1,005 Posts: 4,835 Joined: Apr 11, 08 ♂	Mar 19, 11, 17:09 #6
You are in excellent company, Johnny M. My dog is also a non-believer and never darkens a church doorway. So is my goldfish and pet hamster.

JonnyMThreads: 16 Posts: 4,487 Joined: Mar 9, 11 ♂	Edited by: JonnyM Mar 19, 11, 17:11 #7
Polonius3: My dog is also a non-believer and never darkens a church doorway. So is my goldfish and pet hamster. How would you know what they believe in? The animal mind is primitive enough to believe in any sort of supernatural twaddle like gods etc. Though animals have a far better record than humans in not expecting others to follow the tenets of their supernatural foibles.

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Edited by: AdamKadmon Mar 19, 11, 19:38 #8

JonnyM:

The animal mind is primitive enough to believe in any sort of supernatural twaddle like gods etc.

Animal mind or animal spiritual needs may be primitive; however, man's spiritual needs, being as they are, are sometimes better satisfied by the naive, religious imagination rather than by scientific facts. This can be gauged by a fad for spiritualism or vogue for the occult. People ceased to see angels only to start to see UFO instead.

"Earth is flat, circumscribed by the horizon and the celestial dome," said William Blake. Do we really need to imagine more than that; save for scientists, of course?

joepilsudskiThreads: 44 Posts: 2,529 Joined: Apr 27, 07 ♂	Mar 19, 11, 19:54 #9
Many atheists are very intelligent, and asking questions and being sceptical is a very good thing. But how can you conclude there is no God if you look into the eyes of a child or gaze at the beauty of nature?

JonnyMThreads: 16 Posts: 4,487 Joined: Mar 9, 11 ♂	Edited by: JonnyM Mar 19, 11, 19:58 #10
joepilsudski: But how can you conclude there is no God if you look into the eyes of a child or gaze at the beauty of nature? Beauty is not dependent on the existence or otherwise of 'gods' or any other mythical entities.

joepilsudskiThreads: 44 Posts: 2,529 Joined: Apr 27, 07 ♂	Mar 19, 11, 20:00 #11
JonnyM: Beauty is not dependent on the existence or otherwise of 'gods'. Correct: It is dependent and springs from the existence of God.

AdamKadmonThreads: 38 Posts: 1,120 Joined: Apr 23, 10 ♂	Mar 19, 11, 20:03 #12
joepilsudski: But how can you conclude there is no God if you look into the eyes of a child or gaze at the beauty of nature? Who is to answer?

JonnyMThreads: 16 Posts: 4,487 Joined: Mar 9, 11 ♂	Edited by: JonnyM Mar 19, 11, 20:05 #13
joepilsudski: God. Which god? There are plenty to choose from, none of them ever proved to exist.

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Edited by: Moderator Mar 19, 11, 20:37 #14

JonnyM

An interesting fragment:

A superficial study of the life-patterns, myths and rituals of "primitive" peoples played a significant part in undermining the religious faith of Christians in the second half of the nineteenth century. First, it was taken for granted that these other races were "lower on the evolutionary scale" than Europeans (What, after all, had they invented? Where were their railway trains?). Secondly it was assumed by people who had completely lost the capacity for analogical and symbolical thinking that the myths by which these races lived were meant to be taken quite literally and represented no more than the first gropings of the rational animal towards a scientific explanation of the universe. On this basis, since it was impossible to miss the parallels between "primitive religion" and the most "advanced" of religions, Christianity, the question had to be asked whether the latter should not be classified as just one more pre-scientific effort to account for observed facts.

(Gai Eaton, [i]The Only Heritage We Have in Studies in Comparative Religion, 1974)

JonnyMThreads: 16 Posts: 4,487 Joined: Mar 9, 11 ♂	Mar 19, 11, 20:51 #15
That's an interesting text. The neurological aspects of religion are proving interesting to researchers too.

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Edited by: SeanBM Mar 19, 11, 21:01 #16

joepilsudski:

But how can you conclude there is no God if you look into the eyes of a child or gaze at the beauty of nature?

AdamKadmon:

Who is to answer?

Is this the same god who invented typhoid, cancer, smallpox, polio, cholera, ebola, malaria, earthquakes and tsunamis?
I wonder what you'd think of if you looked into the eyes of a child and saw a crippling disease, I would hope you'd bring the child to a hospital.

all things dull and ugly

AdamKadmon:

First, it was taken for granted that these other races were "lower on the evolutionary scale" than Europeans (What, after all, had they invented? Where were their railway trains?)

What a complete and utter load of rubbish.

JonnyMThreads: 16 Posts: 4,487 Joined: Mar 9, 11 ♂	Mar 19, 11, 21:03 #17
This one's quite good: http://delontin1.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/religion-merely-a-brain-func tion/

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Mar 19, 11, 21:17 #18

JonnyM:

people who believe in primitive mythology and religious fairy tales as if they had actually happened, then force their fantasies down people's throats

I like atheists, because they refuse to believe in superstitions, which are an offence to humans' intelligence and which live because life is so frightening.

joepilsudski:

But how can you conclude there is no God if you look into the eyes of a child or gaze at the beauty of nature?

And I like those who are truly religious, because in their hearts they've found the mark of the inexpressible

What if you're both right? :)

JonnyMThreads: 16 Posts: 4,487 Joined: Mar 9, 11 ♂	Mar 19, 11, 21:21 #19
chichimera: What if you're both right? :) One major religion believes that their god is "everything and nothing".

Polonius3Threads: 1,005 Posts: 4,835 Joined: Apr 11, 08 ♂	Mar 19, 11, 21:26 #20
What kind of religion is today's dominant 'eat, drink & be merry for tomorrow we die' hedo-pop-consumerism? Primitive or advanced?

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Mar 19, 11, 21:30 #21

joepilsudski:

But how can you conclude there is no God if you look into the eyes of a child or gaze at the beauty of nature?

Funny how 'God' seems to kill children indiscriminately when it suits him. I assume that if you consider 'him' to be a creator then 'he' is responsible for the creation of illnesses such as tuberculosis, polio, smallpox, malaria, influenza, cancer, typhoid, as well as a host of other diseases. No doubt he also created large scale natrual disaters that often prey on the weakest / least fortunate members of society.

Also I have never had a Christian able to explain to me who oe what created God

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Edited by: AdamKadmon Mar 19, 11, 21:31 #22

SeanBM:

all things dull and ugly

The God who created the world with all its evil and suffering is the God who also agreed to participate in our pain, who took on a human form and willingly died the death of tortured prisoner. That is the distinctive concept of Christianity.

SeanBM:

What a complete and utter load of rubbish.

Just the beginning of a course of thought, this sentence being only the evoking of the actual situation in the 19th century.

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Edited by: JonnyM Mar 19, 11, 21:35 #23

Polonius3:

What kind of religion is today's dominant 'eat, drink & be merry for tomorrow we die' hedo-pop-consumerism? Primitive or advanced?

Far more advanced than tolerating misery in the hope that it'll all get better in an afterlife.

AdamKadmon:

The God who created the world with all its evil and suffering is the God who also agreed to participate in our pain, who took on a human form and willingly died the death of tortured prisoner. That is the distinctive concept of Christianity

And the 'distinctive concepts' of all the other belief systems around?

joepilsudskiThreads: 44 Posts: 2,529 Joined: Apr 27, 07 ♂	Mar 19, 11, 21:37 #24
SeanBM: Is this the same god who invented typhoid, cancer, smallpox, polio, cholera, ebola, malaria, earthquakes and tsunamis? I wonder what you'd think of if you looked into the eyes of a child and saw a crippling disease, I would hope you'd bring the child to a hospital. I have done this, and I have seen the light of God in that child's eyes.

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Mar 19, 11, 21:39 #25

AdamKadmon:

The God who created the world with all its evil and suffering is the God who also agreed to participate in our pain, who took on a human form and willingly died the death of tortured prisoner. That is the distinctive concept of Christianity.

A fairy tale is still just a fairytale.

So when you get sick, do you just pray yourself well or do you take medicine?

AdamKadmon:

this sentence being only the evoking of the actual situation in the 19th century.

An update compared to 2000 years ago.

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Edited by: AdamKadmon Mar 19, 11, 22:01 #26

JonnyM:

Far more advanced than tolerating misery in the hope that it'll all get better in an afterlife.

I understand eternity or afterlife, if you like, as something you share with other people, people of the past, present or of the future, something which does not die in you when you die. If you do not think of a religion as good for you, then think of a new science, new knowledge, which would return a man to his/her spiritual home and out of the world in which (s)he is reduced to a superfluous number in a mechanistical universe - today's world of 'eat, drink & be merry for tomorrow we die'.

This is trully a terrible world, most aptly described by Aldus Huxley in his famous book The Brave New World.

The Ultimate Revolution:

“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.”

Aldous Huxley

JonnyMThreads: 16 Posts: 4,487 Joined: Mar 9, 11 ♂	Mar 19, 11, 22:02 #27
Yes. A pharmacological alternative to the opiate of the masses. Though TV and computer games achieve a lot of that.

alexw68

Mar 19, 11, 22:12 #28

Polonius3:

What kind of religion is today's dominant 'eat, drink & be merry for tomorrow we die' hedo-pop-consumerism?

A strawman. No surprises there. I'm actually quite looking forward to pojutrze, myself. As are billions of others.

chichimera:

I like atheists, because they refuse to believe in superstitions, which are an offence to humans' intelligence and which live because life is so frightening.

chichimera:

And I like those who are truly religious, because in their hearts they've found the mark of the inexpressible

Perfect.

P3, read and learn.

BzibziohThreads: 6 Posts: 3,657 Joined: Oct 15, 08 ♀ [Suspended]	Mar 19, 11, 22:17 #29
chichimera: the mark of the inexpressible What does it mean?

alexw68

Mar 19, 11, 22:24 #30

Bzibzioh:

What does it mean?

That true religious experience takes you beyond what words are capable of expressing. You find this concept everywhere in spiritual texts, from Plato, Buddha, the Gnostics, to Jewish mysticism, Sufism - the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.

Case in point:

Maybe I'm the type of person the Jesuits haven't quite given up on. However, I won't be joining Opus Dei just yet.

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