Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Does a Christian owe their first loyalty to the Pope, or to God? If your conscience tells you one thing, and the Pope tells you another, which path should you follow?
Galileo followed his conscience. Even when given a direct order by the highest authority in Christendom, to recant his opinion that the Earth is not the centre of the universe, he chose conscience over obedience, divinity over temporal authority – until he was threatened with unspeakable pain.
I am not saying the church is always wrong. Most of the time, the church is a force for good. The moral authority which is the Christian church helped to create the modern world. The concept of a single god, a god of love rather than hate, a universe of order, in which the forces of chaos were chained in the abyss, gave the philosopher monks the peace to pursue their research into the innermost workings of creation – and the faith to believe that creation was orderly enough to be explored.
However, a papal encyclical which demands action on climate change would be tantamount to an accusation that people who doubt the urgency of addressing climate change are evil – are cynically exploiting the doubts of others, for their own selfish ends. Yet surely true evil is condemning millions to live their lives in endless drudgery, by denying them the opportunities inexpensive energy and affordable food might bring, on the basis of the flimsiest of evidence – defective models and failed predictions.
I do not doubt the sincerity of the Pope. I don’t even doubt the sincerity of most alarmist climate scientists. But sometimes scientists get it wrong. There was once another group of people who thought they were right – that the world was on the brink of a catastrophe which only their statistical models could foresee, that mass cruelty was the only path to salvation. Their sincere blindness almost plunged the entire world into darkness. The one regime which embraced this dark vision, even after others finally rejected it, is now a byword for evil. Yet arguably, those who believed were simply accepting the scientific consensus of the day.
The lesson is, or should be, that if you demand the infliction of unspeakable cruelty on a vast number of people, as many climate scientists, green politicians and activists in my opinion demand, with their vehement opposition to affordable energy, you had better be sure of your facts. You better have more evidence that such an abomination is an inescapable necessity, than a set of models which fail, again and again, to demonstrate plausible predictive skill.
If you believe in a creator, one day you will face, not the pope, but your creator. On the day of judgement, the opinion of the pope will count for nothing. All that will matter is whether you lived a principled life, and stood up for what mattered. Even if this sometimes means disobeying the instructions of the Pope, just as Galileo once did.
The answer was provided when Paul wrote to Timothy, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:5, KJV).
I mean who came up with the idea to make procreation pleasurable ?
How does that work before it was pleasurable ?
It’s all just too perfect not to be a design 🙂
My mother made me go to church 2x sometimes on Sunday and then I had to do altar boy for services until I said ” Look, I really think this is a waste of my time “.
So I have thought about this religious stuff quite a bit and my feeling is that the church is really a place for confused people ( polite ) and socialists.
In this case the Pope is the one “disobeying” the direction of America’s political moral majority – good thing.
As a Catholic I again find comments on Catholicism and the Pope quite humorous. I suppose that there are many who have no education on the matter but still feel pressed by prejudice to put up their emotions on a web site. However, I would suggest that at least 80 percent of the comments above are off the mark. First, the Pope who censured Galileo was a political Pope whose interests were secular and not religious but unfortunately it took the slow curia to clarify this, basically because they thought that all educated people understood this. Second, the Pope does not dictate morals but only expresses what he thinks as a result of his experience and the support of the rest of the Church. Third, for all individual Catholics conscience is primary and trumps even the Pope who himself is an individual whose conscience must guide him as well. Forth, the Pope, and the curia, like everyone may error if bad information is provided (as is the case of Global Warming) and what he says on this matter should be taken as no more as an opinion that from his perspective is what his ‘science’ advisers are telling him (unfortunately he keeps bad company). Fifth, the Catholic Faith is not what Catholics have but it is a seeking in the context of the Church that is never complete for anyone. Sixth, the Pope is the head of the organization of the Church, he is not (as even many Catholics believe) a god of some sort.
I could write much more but there is nothing new in what I have put down and I know, nevertheless, that many who comment are not willing to seriously consider the issues.
Sola fide. Sola gratia. Sola scriptura. Solus Christus. Soli Deo gloria.
Doug Thanks for 5 Solas that classically summarized the Protestant Reformation which was launched by Martin Luther posting his 95 Theses ((modern translation).
These were reaffirmed in Cambridge Declaration 1996
Seriously?
“If you believe in a creator…” No, I’m not five.
Then, Mr. Evans, what exactly DO you believe about how the earth and all that is in it came into existence if not via a Designer?
It is a belief, you know.
yes but with all of eternity to play in it is not inconceivable that life created far away, billions of years ago might have sorted all kinds of jazzy science type stuff and had fun infiltrating their DNA into likely planets.
“I made this! “
James. I find it amazing that people are more willing to believe that tornadoes transform junk yards to create airplanes, than that engineers create airplanes that are dumped in junk yards when they crash. ie. the parallel to appealing to chaos and randomness to explain the incredible complexity we see in humans and biology by a priori rejecting any possibility of an intelligent cause. See the mathematical analyses at Evolutionary Informatics Lab.
Ecclesiastics again mislead the Pope
The Liga vs Galileo Cardinal Maffeo Barberini (1568-1644) was a friend of Galileo’s from Florence who was elevated in 1623 to become Pope Urban VIII. Physicist Roy Peacock discovered that when the jobs of university Aristotelians were threatened by Galileo’s science and popularity, they formed a secret society, the Liga, to destroy him. See A Brief History of Eternity, (1991).
The Inquisition initially dismissed the Liga’s accusations that Galileo’s Letter to Castelli contradicted the Bible. The Liga then persuaded Pope Urban VIII that Galileo was making a fool of the Pope using the character “Simplico” (in Dialogue on the Two Great World Systems 1632). Though finding little theologically wrong, the Inquisition banned Galileo’s Dialogue. His sentence was commuted to house arrest at archbishop of Siena then to his own home. See The Book that Made Your World, Mangalwadi (2012).
Pontifical Academy of Sciences vs Cornwall Alliance: Today global warming alarmists have persuaded the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that the ethical thing to do is reduce CO2 – even though climate models predict temperature rises twice as high as reality since 1990. They applied this distortion of science to persuade the Pope.
Contrast: An Open Letter to Pope Francis on Climate Change, The Cornwall Alliance.
Speak out for truth in science and to enable the poor to leverage cheapest energy to develop economically.
That statement by Aristotle is how he begins his work called ‘Metaphysics’.
To know what?
The answer is everthing, including the nature of religion. So, in that context, this religious post allows one to understand that phenomena in some humans. Thus, my participation in this thread.
However, the course of the dialog is predictable and has been predicable for thousands of years.
John
“However, a papal encyclical which demands action on climate change would be tantamount to an accusation that people who doubt the urgency of addressing climate change are evil – are cynically exploiting the doubts of others, for their own selfish ends.” ~Eric Worrall
A brave take on a subject sure to inspire passion. (: Thank you WUWT and Eric Worrall.
Still, in good will and in fun, I must say that an encyclical is better than a Bull! Just ask protestants who lost their lives for publishing the scriptures into all the common languages.
Mendelssohn – Symphony No. 5 (Reformation)
“A mighty fortress is our God… that word above all earthly powers — No thanks to them {heh, heh} — abideth… .” Martin Luther {who knew a thing or two about Papal bulls}
Thank you for sharing that beautiful music, Zeke.
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble.”
Psalm 46:1.
How poignant that Felix Mendelssohn was a Jew… .
It is a great inspiration, however! God, did, in the end, rescue His Chosen People from the clutches of the German H0locaust. So, too, I believe God will rescue Africa and the world from the devastating AGW-caused poverty making serfs of most of the world to benefit the Enviroprofiteers (mostly, Big Wind, these days). God, not any human being, not even one called by his followers “The Holy Father,” is in control.
And thank you for listening Janice!
So we agree, readers ought to praise God it is not a Bull. Those can “seriously kill you” as the younger folks say on the web.
Also, I know that AW, creator of WUWT, identifies (however loosely) with the Roman Church and I think it is wonderful of him to have comments here. It really is broad-shouldered of him. He has taken a lot of difficulties for his surface stations work, his papers, his website, and has paid a really high price for his publications. He is to be thanked now more than ever.
(PS, just to Janice, I know you think this world will survive the Green take-over. I respect this optimism, and I am glad you have such a big heart. That is your gift from Him. Nevertheless, the revived Roman World Empire spoken of by Daniel and in Revelation will not be fun to live under. If anyone does not have the mark in his hand or in his forehead, he cannot buy or sell. They will forbid anyone to marry, and command people not to eat certain foods. Not to mention the natural catastrophes soon following. But worst of all will be the coldness of hearts in those times. The great Falling Away must also come.)
Interfaith speech and video
https://youtu.be/6zXn51Fp_Co?t=11s
Yeah right.
I’m Protestant, the Pope doesn’t speak to me. If the Pope says something that lines up with what God said, then he’s right. If the Pope says something that God didn’t say, then the Pope is wrong. This pope has a tendency to be fairly liberal and to support liberal causes, so I expect him to be in the CAGW camp. He’s likely to be wrong for the same reason the rest of the CAGW camp is likely to be wrong.
In God We Trust, and the POPE we hope! I’m glad people have mentioned good old Martin Luther (and his KING, not the Martin Luther King!) And yes, it is instructive to note that the Greek Orthodox, Ukrainian Orthodox, and Russian Orthodox have no “pope” per see, and pretty much predate or are parallel with the “Holy Roman Empire” church. I myself have performed musical settings of the MASS in several Catholic Cathedrals and Basilicas over the years, I also read the standard Baltimore Catechism years ago (yet being a “trace to the Plimoth Pilgrims—Congregationalist) I’m afraid when the “Holy See” strays from pure ecclesiastical pursuits, alas it almost axiomatically invokes FALLIBILITY rather than the opposite. Yet I’m happy to report that one Pope, made an encyclical which declared the BEAVER as a FISH. So that the Catholic Voyagers could be sure to have their Friday “meat fast” by eating of the copious beaver meat they invariably had with them. (Hey, did climate change wipe out the beaver? NO, over pelting did! They’ve been coming back for 300 years…)
Eastern Orthodox and Catholic officially maintain that they are part of one Church, grievously wounded by past acts and foolishness but one Church. The question is not whether the Orthodox have a Pope, but what are the Pope’s proper powers. I know that both sides are moving slow on this but the reconciliation’s been going on for about 50 years now. You know you’re behind the times when the Orthodox are moving faster than you.
I would like the name of the encyclical you claim. Disciplines like diet are usually set by the local bishop and not usual encyclical fare. I can’t imagine the circumstances where such a change would be warranted, but there are stranger things out there to adjust to local conditions (like Sunday prayers on Friday in parts of the Arab world).
For the record, a pope is only infallible when he speaks “ex cathedra” or as part of the magisterium. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility. Therefore, encyclicals are not part of the deposit of faith, and Catholics do not have to consider them true. It’s like if you asked the pope the best way to get to a certain part of Rome, or if Argentina is the best soccer playing nation. It’s just his opinion.
Thanks for the record but I don’t think that footnote will be used when his opinion is brandished by others in the ongoing global strategy of truth by weight of claimed followers in place of model error evaluation on which the big tent covers up or ignores.
Anybody who will believe that beaver story will believe anything. Would it put an excessive burden on you to actually look up the word ‘encyclical’ and be aware of other things like indults? The whole story is nonsense. Abstinence from meat on Friday is a penance and if there is nothing else to eat you eat what is available. Any religiously over zealous european in the New World (were there any?) would have gotten permission from his chaplain or local bishop.
Logically the position of a scientist should always be scepticism. We never know enough.
Today’s dogma is tomorrow’s source of ridicule.
Today’s heresy is tomorrow’s “consensus”.
With regards the philosophical – religious questions: the logical scientific position is agnostic as nothing can be proved one way or the other.
However our upbringing and experiences lead us to believe certain postulates related to those questions.
Science does not help us much in the realm of ethical questions.
Making survival or survival of the fittest our principal moral imperative doesn’t sit well with most of us.
Trying to explain for example the existence of good and evil from an naturalistic point of view ( Harris, the younger Dawkins) sounds to me very contrived. Stephen Jay Gould makes more sense to me but can’t really be called logical in his approach.
The logical naturalistic position :
regarding good and evil is that they don’t exist.
regarding history and free will: determinism rules everything.
Personally I prefer to believe there is a free will and there are consequences in this or a supposed future life for all we do. What goes around comes around in one way or another. Fits with the very human idea of justice. It really is a matter of choice to believe such a thing but it gives me some degree of peace.
Regarding beauty and the meaning of life: Bach and Beethoven help us more than Bertrand Russell or
Niels Bohr.
Free will doesn’t exist, more accurate “”our will depends on a certain number of degrees of freedom””
Here is a little number that may make the hair lift right off your body! Time stamp 2:40 is great!
was supposed to be a reply to nullstein at 12:29 pm
Thanks Paul, that is profoundly moving.
Rachmaninoff ‘s “Vespers” and “John Chrysostom” are comparable.
Nullstein, I know. I have never liked Rachmaninoff in general. I am not fond of his penchant for violent chaos hidden in complexity. HOWEVER… today coincidentally I heard Rachmaninoff’s Liturgy of John Chrysostom for the first time. It played automatically after the Tchaikovsky’s Hymn of the Cherubims. I never heard it before and likely would never have were it not by chance. And YOU mention it tonight! Coincidence? I love Russian Orthodox chant. As a child, in public school, I had to study the 1812 overture and the music instructor played the hymn at the beginning, in the overture then played the hymn, “Lord Save us thy people” sung by a male choir. I was hooked at 9 years old.
Here is the piece and note how it is the same melody that begins the 1812 overture.
Save Us O Lord Thy People
Love Tchaikovsky too.
Please! Either “To Whom do Christians [plural] Owe Their [plural] Loyalty?” or “To Whom does a Christian [singular] Owe His (or Her) [singular] Loyalty?” Personally, I owe my loyalty to the King’s English, gender “correctness” be damned!
To experience a slice of Heaven here on Earth …
Mozart – Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.22 in E flat major, K482 – II. Andante
Here Photon, how about this:
I haven’t had my daily dose of touching some third rail somewhere, so here goes …
What stands out to me in these Catholic-related threads is an astonishing double standard.
It is perfectly okay to criticize Catholics and the Church; it is okay to misrepresent, slander, besmirch, undercut, rotten-cherry pick … anything goes! It’s fine to do it here. It’s fine to do it at parties. It’s fine to do it in the media.
But say one teeny-tiny thing that criticizes Jews, or Israel, … or dare to discuss any inconsistencies in Holocaust History … or point out that Holocaustianity has become the new state-mandated religion of the western world … and it is curtains for you, you anti-semetic, Neo-Nazi, right-wing-fascist, hate-mongerer.
If the ADL doesn’t get you, in numerous countries the hate-speech and Holocaust denial laws will.
For example, it was claimed that 6 million Jews were deliberately exterminated during WWII, 4 million at Auschwitz. And there used to be a plaque at Auschwitz that made this claim. But later the plaque was changed to read 1 million. So shouldn’t the total be reduced to 3 million? It’s just a simple arithmetic question, right? Are you aware people have been put IN PRISON for asking exactly this simple math question? That 6 million figure is sacred.
I don’t know for sure, but I would suspect that even on this thread, which supports the fundamental right to be skeptical of claims, or certain aspects of claims, that there are people who would say that those who are at all skeptical of ANY PART of the Holocaust story — even those parts that Jewish scholars and experts themselves have retracted (!) — should be hung by piano wire.
Freedom of thought and inquiry? Freedom of speech? That died with Holocaust denial laws.
We return to our regular programming of trashing Catholics.
Max,
Please report to the Re-education Center of the collective Soviet.
It won’t hurt. People don’t even remember the electrodes being attached.
Try mentioning that most of the top leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution were Jewish, and report back to me how it goes.
@max Photon – Jews seem to have a traditional love of politics and are overrepresented in political leadership up and down the ideological spectrum. Other than explicitly anti-jewish parties, I’d expect to find them everywhere. And yes, there were times when they dominated the Bolsheviks, the suckers. They also dominated the list of those purged once their initial usefulness ended. The bolshevik government pretty thoroughly russified the party by the 1930s.
As for your very simplistic (and wrong) assertion about the death toll among the jews, not all killings were fully documented at the time and a good amount of the documentation that was created at the time went up in smoke. The same is true for communist killings. The numbers in Maoist China are still being bumped up occasionally as new mass graves come to light.
We knew that before WW II there were nine million european jews in territories that would ultimately be occupied by the nazis. Afterwards there were three million european jews. That one camp killed more or less jews may very well be of academic interest but you’re going to have to figure out where those extra three million jews went to live if you’re serious about your claims.
tmlutas,
You misinterpreted my post completely. I personally am not making any claims about the number of Jews killed.
My point is that in an ever-growing number of countries, people go to prison for expressing any skepticism about any part of ‘The Official Story’.
Let me ask YOU a simple question:
Do you think Holocaust skeptics should be put in prison?
My apologies for thinking that when you said “So shouldn’t the total be reduced to 3 million?” you actually meant it. How silly of me.
Disingenuous twaddle is best fought by laughing at it, not prison. So no, I don’t think that it’s the right strategy to adopt prison as a punishment for holocaust denial because I think that the public purse is best spent in other ways.
Max, you are not up do date.
Today, it is ok to trash Catholics AND Jews.
The only forbidden thing now is to trash Muslims.
Can Muslims in the western world top this?
Wikipedia > Laws Against Holocaust Denial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial
Max, Max, Max, whatever are we going to do with such a hopeless duffer as you. You claim a double standard. Izzat so? That the Holocaust existed beyond any reasonable doubt is indisputable. The physical evidence is overwhelming, and nary a shred to the contrary. Worse for your demented case, there’s lots of living witnesses testifying to what they actually did. There can be irrelevant sideshows about who and where and how many at one place or another, but none of this is relevant to the issue of whether it existed in its full magnitude or not.
To link such with the debate on global warming is simply reprehensible. There is not a shred of actual physical evidence that supports the AGW hypothesis. Indeed there’s lots of evidence to the contrary that recent changes in temperature are within normal and natural and previously observed variation.
Kindly point out where I made any link to global warming.
** cricket ** cricket **
cgh,
I have one simple question …
Do YOU think Holocaust skeptics should be put in prison?
Of course not. They have a right to their opinions, however moronic.
Then please be sure to speak up against the world-wide spread of draconian Holocaust denial laws wherever and whenever you encounter them. They are a blight on humanity.
Jews are better than that.
I’m sure the Vatican Bank can sort this all out.
Eric;
Your take-away paragraph:
The lesson is, or should be, that if you demand the infliction of unspeakable cruelty on a vast number of people, as many climate scientists, green politicians and activists in my opinion demand, with their vehement opposition to affordable energy, you had better be sure of your facts. You better have more evidence that such an abomination is an inescapable necessity, than a set of models which fail, again and again, to demonstrate plausible predictive skill.
Is terrific. I’ve excerpted and used it elsewhere.
btw: You could avoid the weird subject/verb/pronoun conflict in the title by simply omitting the pronoun: “To whom does a Christian owe loyalty?” Or go with straight plural: “To whom do Christians owe their loyalty?”
However BrianH, the newer grammar books are allowing for possessive pronouns to be fudged. So since a certain generation which I will not mention by name did not want to say “he,” everyone had to say “he/she,” which got awkward, and now it is proper to use “they/their.” And they all lived plurally ever after.
ref: The Only Grammar Book You’ll Ever Need by Susan Thurman, pg 67.
“Example:
Everybody is seated, and they are waiting for the plane to take off.
The usage is called the ‘singular they’ because they refers to an antecedent that’s singular.”
“Even though using the ‘singular they’ is becoming more commonplace, its usage is still frowned upon in some circles. However, this may be one of the rules of grammar that eventually changes, as using the ‘singular they’ helps prevent an overuse of his or her or he or she.“
Thanks Zeke, I will benefit from your bringing up the ‘singular they’.
I frequently fret about how to handle cases like your ‘Everybody is seated …’ example. In my mind I would go through the same sequence every time: ‘Everybody’ is singular, so it should be ‘he’ … but then women might get angry at me, so ‘he or she’ … or how about kissing butt and just saying ‘she’ … then I’d get angry at myself for being a grammar doormat, so back to ‘he’ and damn the torpedoes … aaarrrgghhhh …
There might be more ladies around here than you think.
“Singular they.” [Shakes head, chuckles.]
Impersonal “they” has been in use at least since Chaucer.
Apologies for the unclosed italics. Confused this with another site, that closes all tags on a blank line.
Galileo comes up in the second half of this column from 2003, and I notice that David L. Hagen today at 10:26 am covers the same ground. Still, the popular idea that the church was a threat to Galileo is not correct. I haven’t dug into this enough to know why that apology was issued a few years back but I’d rather be defending the church today than, say, Mann or Jones.
Anyway, this link worked two minutes ago:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/205503/starry-enviro-jonah-goldberg
I remember reading that article when it was first published many years back. It began my on and off trek to understand the particulars of the Galileo Affair. I got Nesbet’s Prejudice: a Philosophical Dictionary. A fun read, for the most part. Then I found an article by Thomas Lessl that was originally published at the New Oxford Review website, but is now hosted at a Catholic educational resource center. Just Google :Thomas Lessl Galileo Legend and you’ll have no trouble finding it.
Especially good also is Rodney Stark’s How the West Won: It punctures many myths: the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, and the Scientific Revolution which was more of an evolution. To show the later he explains the historical DNA of Heliocentrism and how it was the next logical step in a series of deductions made by the Scholastics. And of course, he also talks about Galileo.
BTW, Stark would disagree with Lessl’s kind words for “Greek Science.” Aristotle / Ptolemy etc were as much a barrier as a help to the realization of Heliocentrism. Among the many problems was the belief that “nature abhors a vacuum.” Only when they realized space was a vacuum could the idea of an Impetus conferred upon planetary bodies from the beginning of time come to the fore.
Also a good article;
http://www.astronomynotes.com/history/GalileoAffair.html
I do agree with the idea that Copernicus’s Heliocentrism did represent a sea change in human thought, for the reasons Owen Barfield mentions in Saving the Appearances, not so much the actual theory. .
I had seen the Lessl article before. On day I may dig into the “why the apology” question.
Moderators: Max Photon is using this thread to deny the events of pre-war and WWII Germany. Shouldn’t he be reminded why the use of the term “den–rs” is not allowed on this site?
Max Photon April 29, 2015 at 1:29 pm.
(Reply: No one was labeled a denier. A point of view was expressed that is best answered by other commenters, and it is not totally off-topic [but it’s close]. This reply is absolutely not taking sides on the question. But the choice is between censoring a comment, and allowing commentary that is at least claimed to be based on some facts, whether true or not. Anyone disagreeing can also have their say, and they can present their own facts. -mod)
“A point of view was expressed that is best answered by other commenters, and it is not totally off-topic [but it’s close]. ~mod
Since you explained it that way, it makes sense. Sorry about that.
You are flagrantly misrepresenting me. And from a fellow language enthusiast no less! Kindly go back, reread what I wrote, and consider apologizing. Thank you.
Again, kindly go back, reread what I wrote, and reconsider your request to the moderators. The only place I used the word ‘denial’ was in the phase ‘Holocaust denial laws.’ THAT’S WHAT THEY ARE CALLED IN THE MANY COUNTRIES THAT HAVE SUCH LAWS. Sorry, but I did not invent that phrase, so don’t shoot the messenger.
* * * * *
Zeke, your response, based on strawman-esque mischaracterization, much like those of cgh and tmlutas, pretty much validates the very point I was getting at.
While I have your attention, let me ask you a simple question:
Do YOU think Holocaust skeptics should be put in prison?
Moderators, is it not rather amusing that Zeke labeled me a denier, and then asked that I be admonished for NOT using the very term that he DID use?
I do not envy your job 🙂
[Thank you for the kindness of your consideration. .mod]
Puzzle me this! You sure like them circular, self sustaining illogic traps! eg I never tell the truth. or the liar’s paradox and Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theory.
Mods, I will admit to you that for some time I did not understand why AW, creator of WUWT, took offense at the use of the word, “den–r.”
I found out that he objects to it because it is a reference to WWII Germany. Otherwise, it is a quite innocuous term, if you think about it.
Max Photon used the thinest pretense to introduce this very swamp into the thread. His pretext was, “It is a double standard to talk about this and not holo—st deni–al theory.”
But you decided. I am just bringing up what any logical person, who knows the reason behind AW’s dislike for the term “deni–r,” would. It is his blog.
Now to Max’s question. No. Why would I think that?
[? .mod]
Max,
I can answer your question; No, I do not think Holocaust denyers (sic) should be jailed or whatever.
Here’s my question for you; Do you think the conventional view of the Holocaust is so overstated as to render it false or is your pursuit of the question purely a matter of freedom of speech in general?
Q: Why does AW object so strongly to the term denyr? Why has he gone to the trouble of banning that term from the entire website at all times?
A: “Deni-r” is a reference to denying the racial pogrom carried out by the Germans. The owner of this excellent skeptic blog is offended at being identified with this theory. He does not allow the word “denyre” to be used on the entire website.
I hope that is more clear.
I simply pointed out that Max Photon is leading the thread into the deep weeds on a thin pretext. And for an encore act, he is saying that the Bolshies were Jewish.
mebbe,
The latter. Freedom of though, freedom of free inquiry, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion are all inextricably entwined.
The first amendment to the US Constitution protects these inalienable rights, and when I moved to the US from Scotland and became a citizen, THE VERY FIRST SENTENCE OF THE OATH is to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. That means protecting free speech.
We are also protected by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
The ever-growing list of countries that adopt Holocaust denial laws sets a dangerous precedent and a spreading menace. Do a little research and you’ll be SHOCKED at the comments people have been imprisoned for.
People have the right to be skeptical, to doubt, to question, or to flat-out not believe whatever the hell they want … even if YOU consider it incorrect, or imbecilic, or offensive.
Otherwise, you have a state-mandated religion where ‘heretics’ are ‘burned at the stake’, as it were.
To finish, I should think that this topic (freedom of speech) would be front and center at a site like this, where there is a movement underfoot to create climate denial laws similar to Holocaust denial laws.
If you don’t think Holocaust skeptics should be imprisoned, regardless of what you may think of them, then you should rail against such laws. They are a blight on humanity.
I can be done with this topic; I’ve made my point.
Thanks for your reasonable question.
🙂
The reason why these holocaust denial laws exist is because people try to rehabilitate nazism by minimizing the numbers and suffering of its victims. Since the nazis were a bunch of nasty thugs, thieves, and frauds on several fronts, it’s a tall order, unfortunately one made easier by making it legally dangerous to peel the covers back and look at the full parade of human folly that is national socialism and its allies. So as I said up thread, I oppose such laws.
It is perfectly possible to make the case against such laws while leaving people entirely sure that one is against national socialism but you do not seem to have learned the trick of it.
Can I ask a simple question? Does the Universe have a purpose? If not, then there cannot be God. If the Universe has purpose, its purposes must be that which we call God. The universe is evolving, a grand experiment, the ultimate experiment, striving to create perfection, using exponential growth in infinite time.
ferdberple,
My father sent me this video a couple of weeks ago. Whether you agree with it or not, I suspect you might appreciate and enjoy the presentation. I did 🙂
What Lies Behind the Moral Law by C.S. Lewis Doodle (BBC Talk 3, Chapter 4)
Max Photon
I have been an atheist all my life — yet somehow wound up fooling around with Old Testament translation. Biblical Hebrew has a small vocabulary, this being so because its nouns and verbs are actually category words (much like the category words in a thesaurus). To translate correctly you have to decide what word was actually used in the original work before it got replaced by one of category word of written Hebrew. (Hey, is that the shrieking of Rabbis that I suddenly hear?.)
“The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” is wrongly translated since after eating the apple Adam and Eve have no “knowledge” about what constitutes “good and evil” behavior whatsoever. The correct translation is “The Tree of the AWARENESS of Good and Evil”. What they gain by eating the apple is an awareness that good and evil exist. They then try to act on this new “awareness”. Realizing that they are naked they try to make garments for themselves — but they also try to hide from God.
Eating the apple ended their childhood — a time during which nothing they did was a sin. A child realizing his or her nakedness is the symbolic mental event meaning that henceforth the child will bear moral responsibility for his or her future behavior.
Eugene WR Gallun
Eugene,
I believe your theology is slightly wrong. Consider this. Prior to the “consumption of the fruit of the tree of knowledge” Adam and Eve lived in harmony with God and his creation, with no boundaries between them and God. The consumption of the “fruit” added the knowledge of evil only for they were already aware of good since they were aware of God and interacted with Him. . So, knowledge of evil only perturbs your relationship with God, your spouse, your world.
It is doctrine that Adam was originally constituted in a state of holiness. This has been doctrine since about 662 AD.
Being an Atheist you are not held by the scholarly works and principles of ~1400 year old theologians. However, this is the present position of the Roman Catholic Catechism, paragraphs, 397-401.
Paul Westhaver
Actually what I said has nothing to do with theology. I am merely correctly translating a Hebrew text and explaining its meaning. But in a sense the Catholic Church got it partially right since Adam and Eve were created as children in adult bodies — meaning they were incapable of sin having no awareness that good and evil existed. Having no concept of good and evil they could not recognize that God was good. But they obeyed much like a child obeys it parent — without understanding.
Here is probably the worst translated lines in the Old Testament. I use King James but the NIV is nearly as bad. All garbage.
Exodus, 4, 24-26…………… 24)And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. 25)Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreshil of her son and cast it at his feet and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. 26)So He let him go: then she said, a bloodly husband thou art, because of the circumcision.
Here is what the lines actually say when translated correctly………….24)It being in the journey, in an encampment YHWH contacting him(Moses) of his seeking out those of him. [Note: Moses is to seek out the sons of Israel but the unstated problem is that their has been much intermarriage — just as Moses has married a non-Hebrew woman. So who is a son of Israel?] 25)Zipporah taking a knife. She cutting the foreskin of her son. She touching it to his(the son’s) foot. [Note: Symbolically the child stamps out his non-Hebrew heritage.] She saying — Thereby the affinity of your bloodlines to mine 26)slacking from out of him. Therefore it will be said the affinity of the bloodlines [is] through circumcision. [Note: If circumcised the male children a Hebrew man has with a non-Hebrew woman would be Hebrews, their ancestry traced back through the male line. The child seems to become fully Hebrew when the bleeding stops.The situation of female children of such a marriage is not stated but best guess is that they would never be considered Hebrew.]
So you have a choice — you can accept the silly translations the WHOLE WORLD uses for lines 4, 24-26 or you can accept that i am the only one making sense. Just as I was about THE TREE OF THE AWARENESS OF GOOD AND EVIL.
And let me remind you again. I am an atheist. i got no religious ideology to push. I only want to translate this crap correctly.
Eugene WR Gallun
“You shall not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
The serpent is saying that you will be able to use good and evil to achieve your ends, whatever they may be. After all, isn’t that what gods do?
Quite a temptation. It’s really fun living with all these little gods who can use good or evil for their own designs on the rest of us. It turns out the crooked serpent made quite an offer to Eve, and it is still in the business of making offers.
Good question!
Most Humans have a tendency to either believe in God or evolution rather than both. (A personal observation only – no I haven’t done a study! There was no funding available – it all goes to AGW climate change research)
How we experience life depends on our answers to questions like:- Why are we here? What happens when we die? Where do our thoughts come from?
Does time really exist or is it just a construct for our experience?
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” William Shakespeare.
“In the absence of what you are not, what you are, is not” – Neale Donald Walsch.
Yes, I believe the Universe has a purpose, the purpose is the purpose we give it. Now why did we create it this way? 😉
Ferdberple, I don’t have THE answer, and no one else does either. I am a “mere” Christian, and if you care what I personally think it is this: Capital “T” Truth is unknowable, except to the maker of all things, (for the sake of some here, I’ll even go so far to say “if there is one.”) For the rest of us, truth, meaning, etc … is partial, and it is a lived dialectic between yourself and Reality. The only way to proceed is to be as honest as you can about what you do know, and especially about what you don’t. And by making yourself vulnerable to others, through love. It is the nature of Reality to manifest, and testify of, itself and thereby test us every day of our lives. How many people in this comments section, myself included, do think are passing this test? So while I’m not given to quoting Gnostics, I do rather like this from Philo of Alexandria: be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.
That said, I submit this for your consideration. Make of it what you will.
The problem with those who want to fight climate change aren’t doing so because they care for the environment, but they only want to do it for income redistribution. It is a watermelon exercise, It looks green on the outside by the core is red, communistic red.
“The number of fools is infinite.”
–Galileo