A frog who wants the objective truth about anything and everything.
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Alt lemmy account: Cafefrog@lemmy.cafe
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why is lemmy so anticatholic?
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why is lemmy so anticatholic?
Here's an Irish Mayor recounting how Catholic priests raped and beat him repeatedly as a child, and how the catholic church of Rome sent out a priest during the investigation into the rapes just in an effort to discredit him and call him a liar.
The interviews with retired/fired US generals that go over how and why Iran was a drastic miscalculation I think helps solidify that the current regime is incompetent.
Due to that incompetence, I have a somewhat hopeful view overall of how things may play out, but it could still be a while until things start getting better, including the possibility of an Irish Troubles-like civil war. Hopefully it doesn't come to that, but I could see it going in that direction if the republican party decide that they'd rather push this as far as they can instead of potentially going to prison if they give up.
Top military brass are still vulnerable to making blunders. Take the Bay of Pigs as an example, which fumbled so hard it eventually led JFK to say "The first advice I'm going to give my successor is to watch the generals and to avoid feeling that because they were military men their opinions on military matters were worth a damn."
And that's with 'normal' generals. Now imagine replacing them with compliant generals that will take orders regardless of how bad the idea is tactically or politically.
The same thing happened with Hitler, who ordered his compliant generals into some insane military blunders. The duo of dictatorships and Yes Men massively increase the chances of incompetence compared to systems where those lower on the totem pole can safely push back against dumb ideas.
The regime could've manufactured some more controllable distractions to Epstein without the dramatic downsides the Iran war has brought, such as fake assassination attempts or false flag operations within the US (like a Reichstag fire situation).
The Iran situation would be like if Hitler tried to invade Poland, but instead of swiftly conquering it, continually started and stopped peace negotiations while Germany's cost of living skyrocketed.
I'm not saying they won't use it as a distraction since it's the only beneficial action available to them, but I very much doubt that was the original plan, or that they correctly assessed how badly this would go for them.
AFAIK, the concept first appeared in the dystopian sci-fi novel The Shockwave Rider written by John Brunner back in the 70's. It was called a Delphi Pool in that. Great book, btw. Though unfortunately another example of tech-bros old dystopian novels as a model to build a business.
The description of it from the book:
It works, approximately, like this.
First you corner a large - if possible, a very large - number of people who, while they've never formally studied the subject you're going to ask them about and hence are unlikely to recall the correct answer, are nonetheless plugged into the culture to which the question relates.
Then you ask them, as it might be, to estimate how many people died in the great influenza epidemic which followed World War I...
Curiously, when you consolidate their replies they tend to cluster around the actual figure as recorded in almanacs, yearbooks and statical returns.
It's rather as though this paradox has proved true: that while nobody knows what's going on around here, everybody knows what's going on around here.
Well, if it works for the past, why can't it work for the future? Three hundred million people with access to the integrated North American data-net is a nice big number of potential consultees.
And here's how the concept was used in the real world (before polymarket), according to this source:
Perhaps the most striking attempt to make use of this kind of idea was the Policy Analysis Market (PAM), a proposed futures exchange developed by our friends at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). PAM was intended to be a kind of "futures market" for the Middle East; investors could trade futures based on political outcomes in the region.
The idea is that the monetary value of a particular "future" (a stated outcome in Middle East politics) would tend to increase as the outcome became more likely. That is, the value of a futures issue would tend to reflect the relative likelihood of that future actually occurring.
Unfortunately, it turned out that PAM would allow trading in such events as coup d'etats and assassinations; the resulting uproar caused the cancellation of PAM.
The Delphi method was used in the late 1940's at the RAND Corporation. In their implementation, a panel of experts was regularly polled by a facilitator to predict future outcomes of events related to the Cold War. Brunner probably derives his Delphi pool idea from this work.
The name "Delphi pool" is derived from the pythia, or priestesses, of Delphi in ancient Greece. The pythia would take questions and make predictions (which modern-day geologists attribute to hydrocarbon gasses like ethylene, which bubbled up from the faults in the region).
I'm not sure how attacking Iran is helping their power grab, if anything it is making them look bad and pissing off their base with high domestic prices.
I think it more likely that they were feeling invincible after Maduro was captured, and since they installed Yes Men as top military brass, no one had the heart or the brains to point out how big a fuck up it would be to attack Iran.
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You get paid a small amount per day until the trial finishes if you're chosen.
3 Days of The Condor.
It's a 70's paranoid thriller with Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway, just an awesome film.
Original Sin is true, that is fact. Take a look around the world. It will let you know.
Personally I would put forward that starting with that assumption is more gut-feeling/vibe based than science based, since our negative behaviors are able to be explained without the need for a supernatural answer.
I guess I'll conclude with an observation; I started with equating ML's to religious indoctrination since they have a sunk cost and interest only believing sources that reinforce their worldview despite solid evidence that is contrary to their views. I personally believe all dogmatic religions encourage that same phenomena, with the abrahamic religions and their offshoots being particularly stifling (though others such as Confucianism can be similarly bad), due to their direct encouragement of seeing any outside information as the devil's work.
As someone who believed those dogmas for a long time, I know that such teachings essentially give a perception of paranoia that any person who isn't in the same club is a potential source of evil or temptation into the mind, which results in automatically assuming all counter-information being dismissed or not properly investigated out of the discomfort it can create. I personally look back on those days as a very bleak and sad time due to that worldview, I hope you avoid it.
As all of the information presented was exclusively from biased pro-catholic sources, I'm sorry to say I remain unconvinced, just as I remain unconvinced by ML's for similar reasons. However, I want to say thank you for taking the time to explain how you came to these conclusions and views, I did find it enlightening.
I wish you the best.
There are some pretty solid criticisms on how it was tested.
Scientific debates surrounding Ricardo Castañón Gómez's investigations into alleged Eucharistic miracles have centered on methodological concerns raised by forensic scientists, particularly regarding the Buenos Aires case of 1996. Critics argue that the testing protocols exhibited bias, with the selection of primarily pathologists and cardiologists predisposing results toward interpretations of human cardiac tissue without input from microbiologists or mycologists to explore alternative explanations. This approach, according to a 2024 analysis in the Journal of Forensic Science Research, reflects a lack of true blind testing, as the involvement of a camera crew may have signaled the sample's significance to experts, potentially influencing their conclusions.
Questions about sample handling have been prominent, especially in the Buenos Aires investigation, where the host was stored in water for several years before analysis and handled by multiple individuals without personal protective equipment, heightening contamination risks. A forensic review highlights that no chain-of-custody documentation or spike controls were used to detect inhibitory substances, which could compromise DNA results showing only low concentrations of human genetic material. Furthermore, the absence of peer-reviewed publications for these findings has drawn scrutiny, as the studies have not undergone standard scientific validation processes, relying instead on reports from select experts without broader interdisciplinary review. Potential contamination from environmental factors, such as bacteria like Serratia marcescens or fungi producing reddish pigments, was not adequately ruled out, with control experiments demonstrating that unconsecrated wafers under similar conditions can yield comparable appearances due to microbial growth.
Speaking for myself, I would not personally take that test as adequate evidence of the supernatural.
From what I understand, and as someone who once had an interest in ancient bibles, even ordering a re-print of scans of an original tyndale bible in Olde English, I don't believe it's quite so cut and dried. Biblical texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls were originally in Hebrew, and from modern archeology it appears that even then, there were multiple versions, with some differing greatly.
https://www.bibleodyssey.org/articles/what-are-the-earliest-versions-and-translations-of-the-bible/
The Catholic Church was the first sect of Christianity to add in those 7 books later, in their own Latin translation of the Bible..
Personally I must observe it is rather convenient that the books they added just so happened to contain material which bolstered their political power, wealth, and importance in society by requiring the Church as a necessary intermediary (besides it being in a language only they could read).
Buddhism preaches works instead of faith, but we still have original sin.
I'm not quite sure how that applies. The concept of original sin only exists in the abrahamic religions. When you were assessing the other religions, were you doing so under the assumption that Christianity's original sin was already a truism and determined the merit of the other religions based on how they applied to that concept? If so, how did you determine that Original Sin is by default, a scientific universal truth?
Ah... I'm sorry, but neither of those events would stand as proof in a scientific context.
In the first case, medical oddities occur quite frequently, and it's not unlikely that patient had an unusual form of cancer that was particularly receptive to the more primitive treatment at the time. I would not classify an unusual experience as a miracle, personally. I have seen many similar stories and claims from the alternative cancer cure community, all of which I have found to be grifting, yet to those less skeptical, seem quite convincing.
The second case is extremely dubious, as it is purely hearsay that the flesh suddenly appeared, and it would be quite easy to simply place the supposed flesh photographed and claim it morphed there naturally. Church officials are not immune to lying, corruption, or deceit as history shows, so without an unrelated 3rd party having been present and verifying in real-time, to me it seems clear that it's a stunt, as the evidence is about as convincing or trustworthy as the Loch Ness monster photograph.
I see. How how did you determine that the Protestant's reasons for removing those books was illegitimate (as far as I can tell, they claim that the 6 additional books were not included in the original Hebrew canon, essentially saying that the catholic additions were not inspired works, and that they are closer to a more pure, unadulterated Bible), also how did Eastern Orthodoxy fare in the overall assessment?
Did it concern you at all that Catholicism once burned people at the stake for translating the Bible into English (which in practice would lessen the power the priesthood had in disseminating the Bible)?
Lastly, I'm quite curious how you then determined that an Abrahamic religion (Catholicism) was the only true religion, what set it apart from Taoism, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc, as the only source of spiritual truth for you?
just looking at the inner values and beliefs of them I guess.
Do you have any specific examples of values and beliefs that you liked better than any of the other religions or christian denominations?
Catholicism stood out because God is all loving, and forgiving
My protestant church said that too, and emphasized Jesus's forgiveness.
and actual scientific evidence of miracles and proof
Could you share those? I've never seen any scientific evidence of miracles despite looking for it.
What sort of research did you do? What made Catholicism stand out from every other religion?
and hell is not eternal fire and burning, but literally just the abyss, where you dont exist, youre dead
There doesn't seem to be consensus on that within Catholicism, some Popes have said that it's definitely a place of eternal punishment, others have said it's more like you describe.
I guess it's also up in the air what happens to unbaptized babies for Catholics. In that case the church seems to be going for a sorta quantum theory thing where the baby's soul is hopefully saved, but officially probably not (maybe to discourage the infanticide conundrum). They pretty much let you pick and choose what you want it to be, since they probably don't want to tell mothers who lost their baby during birth that it's going to hell.
I was protestant for a while before discovering Catholicism and its teachings, then I chose.
Interesting. Considering that every other denomination and faith is indeed engineered by Satan, how did you go about confirming that Catholicism was the only true one? Did you examine Zoroastrianism, the proto-christianity, as well as non-abarahamic religions, before deciding? What made Catholicism the clear winner?
False faiths are engineered by Satan
Unfortunately, this aspect is what makes cults and religions such a good comparison to ML, as both have that auto-correcting feature to automatically make the adherent dismiss any information that conflicts with their beliefs as false. In the case of ML, it is claimed to be CIA propaganda or false history. For religions, it is taught that the literal most evil spirit is behind virtually all contrary information.
That mechanism is extremely valuable to a priesthood/leader to retain their flock/followers, as it makes it almost impossible for someone outside of that belief system to show them information that would reveal it to be false.
In a world where there theoretically was one true religion, that same mechanism would also act to keep people in a false religion, as they would have to assume that any other religion is in fact the devil tempting them, even if that person tempting them was from the objectively true religion.
islam was created because of an “angel” appearing. That probably wasnt an angel
How did you determine that?
- The test was, in my humble opinion, bullshit, which Job correctly pointed out. His family was killed to win a bet with Satan, a bet that God didn't have to take on since he knew the outcome already from being all knowing. A bet with an entity that he created and has power over, and should have nothing to prove anything to, or at the very least he could just pull that "Don't question me bro" stuff on Satan himself and spare Job all the suffering and needless death of his family. God teaches us that material wealth is ultimately meaningless, yet uses it as a reward for justification for his torture. If any human did that same test on another, we'd call them a monster and lock them up.
- Yeah, like I said, Jesus was the only thing that seemed to make God stop directly fucking with us in so many horrific ways, since he realized how much it sucked once he actually experienced it himself from our perspective (which an all knowing being shouldn't need to do, lending more credence that he isn't all knowing).
The baby thing: That's very clumsy way for the Church to deal with the baby problem. Your screenshot literally says "we don't know how, but the babies will make it since God is loving!" That's what I'd call a Deus Ex Machina, because the alternative would make God seem so unbelievably cruel and evil that we have to assume that all the rules the Church came up with don't apply in those situations. By the same logic, we can start to assume that God may bend the rules for all sorts of things that would otherwise seem cruel to us; Gay family members who were otherwise very good people, uncontacted tribes, people/family who went to other denominations, unbelievers that are really moral otherwise, the billions of people who were born and died before Christianity was invented, etc. It's a get out of jail free card to smooth over the nasty bits.
Buuut.... that solution does unfortunately bring us back to the baby killin' problem: if God makes exceptions for unbaptized babies, then really the most logical thing would be for every single parent in the world to commit infanticide to ensure they get into heaven, as letting them grow up gives them the chance to lose faith and sin, resulting in burning in agonizing hell for literal eternity. Under those rules, killing at birth or with abortion is clearly the safest option to save your loved ones and deprive Satan of more souls. And the parents doing the killing would still be able to get into heaven by asking for forgiveness before they themselves died. Obviously actually doing that would be heinous and insane, but technically only from the perspective of a non-believer, since a believer could quite reasonably believe they're saving as many people as possible from eternal torture.
- You'd think someone losing faith would be one of those times where direct speech would be opted for. But your answer also means that yes, all those people claiming to have casual conversations with God and Jesus on how to fix their marriage were indeed lying or delusional (and if delusional, then they are very unlucky that they were also born into the wrong denomination, as that delusion will ensure that they never question if they are in the wrong religion)
- If I were to somehow desire to become religious again, I can't say the denomination that most consistently covered for and enabled pedophiles would be the most appealing, not to mention the long history of corruption and exploitation of people's fears for their dead family members within the Catholic church (I know the rest of the video is about the Church of England, I only refer to the beginning of the video that talks about the Catholic church).
And I'd like to ask you this: How did you determine that the Catholicism was the best and most correct denomination?
When you were old enough to understand critical thinking and had a good grasp of world history, did your parents sit you down and say "Alright, here's some research material on all the world religions covering their differences, practices, history, beliefs, etc. Take some time to go through each one, and see which speaks to you the most before deciding", or, as I suspect is more likely, did your parents teach you their own inherited religion at a young age, one that happened to also be popular in your region of the world already?
If it's the latter; isn't it a little convenient that the one true religion that will actually get you into heaven happened to be the one that's native to your geographic area, and your parents just so happened to be raised in that one true religion too?
But how can one truly know their particular religion is the one true one out of hundreds, when the followers of every single one report that God has talked to them, and they feel absolutely convicted in their feelings that they are in the correct religion, despite each one laying claim to being the only correct one? Is every other religious person deceiving themselves, or is that feeling of God that they have communicated with a Satanic being?
As an example, there are currently around 2 billion muslims on earth, about 25% of the population, all of which are Muslim because their parents were Muslim. 99% of those people will die as Muslims, which means God created a world in which billions upon billions of people, regardless of how good they were on earth, will burn for eternity because they were unlucky enough to be born in the wrong geographic area, to the wrong culture, all the while fully convinced that they will make it into heaven. I can not imagine such a supposedly loving God creating such a cosmically horrific scenario. If that scenario were described in a fantasy book, we would assume they are the villain.
And another issue; You mentioned that praying is only effective, or able to alter things, if it is in God's will. That brings with it some very troubling thoughts. It's safe to assume that most of the prisoners in Unit 731 were religious, some of them Catholic. Surely they must've prayed to God for protection from the horrific experiments subjected to them, yet all prisoners were experimented on and killed.
Likewise, it is probable that countless Jews prayed to God to spare them the horrific deaths they would experience during the holocaust. Yet millions were killed horrifically regardless.
One can only conclude then, that all of that torture and all of those deaths were, in fact, God's will. This is a difficult pill to swallow, which is likely why so many believers can only offer the "He works in mysterious ways, it is unknowable" handwave, quickly absolving Him so we need not suffer the pain of the cognitive dissonance which would come from actually grappling with those thoughts.
Ah, I didn't realize you yourself were religious. I thought you were just curious how doubt could lead to leaving a cult. I understand now why you think it wasn't an apt comparison with ML.
- If God is real and has a plan, at this point I would argue that God is very much not equipped to be God, and contrary to the concept of being all-knowing, is very clearly making things up as He goes. I think Job is a good example of that, since God seems to realize that he actually fucked up pretty bad when Job rightly questions why his family was killed and why he had to suffer so arbitrarily despite believing in God fully, and God basically doesn't have an answer besides "Cause I'm powerful, bro. Look at all these giant beasts I control". Job's challenge seemed to shake God up pretty good, and make him decide to see what it was actually like to be one of the Humans he fucked with so much, so he decides to make Jesus so he can experience human mortality, which gives him a whole new appreciation for how messed up he'd been before, causing him to turn over a new leaf, being way less brutal and far more caring instead of, ya know, letting his followers dash babies against rocks like in the old testament (which leads into our next point).
- That means every single baby and child not old enough to understand the concept of faith or Jesus went straight to hell, an unspeakably evil act {or, depending on your denomination, purgatory I guess).
- Many religious people have claimed to have literal conversations with Jesus or God as part of their 1 on 1 relationship, are you saying they are lying or suffer from delusions? God's Will is an explanation to cope with the fact that praying is as good as a random coin flip; if the thing you prayed for happens, hurry! God answered your prayer! If it doesn't, guess it just wasn't his will, tough luck sport.
- Generic Protestantism that promoted belief in the Trinity. Why do you ask?
it was over a decade ago that I watched those debates, most of which were with Christopher Hitchens, though which ones specifically I wouldn't be able to say besides this one, which stands out in memory since it had both Hitchens and Stephen Fry arguing against religion. I also recall watching a lot of 'Hitchslap' videos which were snippets of Hitchens giving quick-witted responses to religious arguments.
For context, the doubts I had as a teenager were:
What could God possibly be achieving by giving children cancer and dying slowly and horrificly?
If those children all go to heaven, why not kill all children at birth to ensure they don't go to hell?
What's the point of this whole game, anyway? Why create this planetary diorama to fill it with people just to see if they believe in a capricious God that doesn't answer prayers and seemingly makes itself as difficult to believe in as possible? Why has Jesus/God never spoken to me directly, like so many other people claim to be able to do? Why did God allow thousands of other religions throughout the world and various points of time, each one claiming they alone are the true path to Heaven, how does one pick the correct needle of salvation in a haystack of religions? The only reason I was my specific flavor of Christian was because it's what my parents believed, what research did they do before choosing this one specifically (virtually none, just vibes).
When I looked to the Bible for answers, I was struck by how awful God was to Job, killing his entire family and giving him unhealing sores, all to win a bet with Satan. God's response to Job asking why the fuck this was being done to him was to basically say "Don't fucking question me, Job, look at how powerful I am boy, look, I can control leviathan or some shit!", which was astonishing to read, as it made God seem like a child ranting at Job for being rightfully upset at him, and with no reasonable answer for all the suffering, just a hand wave from God. Needless to say that didn't help bolster my belief.
At the end it was simply too much that didn't make sense, too much doubt in the foundations of the whole thing, too many failures of religion to make any impact whatsoever when I prayed.
The debates with Hitchens touched on at least some of those doubts, which made me realize all those doubts weren't from the devil, they were well founded and others shared them. At that point I'd finally had enough and said fuck the whole thing.
It's a short video, and I found his speech pretty moving, I'd recommend watching it in its entirety.