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The Catholic church used to teach that all non-catholics would be damned to "permanent eternal suffering". They have "backtracked" on this and there has not bee

by Gupie 9y ago

The Catholic church used to teach that all non-catholics would be damned to "permanent eternal suffering". They have "backtracked" on this and there has not been any resultant problems.

bitL 9y ago
Yes, and there was a plenty of backlash from that as well. It's simply if you say that God is absolutely rational, driven by eternal logic that cannot contradict itself, and you suddenly claim something else, you get a fork in your organization. If you look at history as one GitHub repo, you can say that Judaism began as a fork/synthesis of more ancient religions, then there was a Christianity fork, that itself forked multiple times, with first major fork when it split into Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, then Catholic forked into Protestant, then Protestant forked in thousands of different denominations. Most of them are profoundly disagreeing with each other about some small difference, and many of these small differences caused wars as their practical implications accumulated over the years. You can observe the same with all major religions or philosophical systems, and forking is especially popular in Buddhist culture. Islam on the other hand deals with inconsistencies by favoring later issued Surahs over earlier ones. Unfortunately, later Surahs are those militant ones while earlier the more peaceful ones. Frankly, this somehow plays into the argument we are in a simulation and religions are optimization procedures to figure out which ideas will prevail in the end, driven by external actors.
- gldalmaso 9y ago
  I am not a theologist, but I believe the Catholic Church does not affirm that their doctrine is the direct word of God. It is the summary of the study of ancient written word that told stories about key religious persons and events that themselves affirmed things about God. The doctrine is open to review. What they are conservative about is implying their predecessors had wrong views. But all that is just the facade, in practice they are not keen to losing power and prestige, which Pope Francis precisely calls them out for.

by Gupie 9y ago

The Catholic church used to teach that all non-catholics would be damned to "permanent eternal suffering". They have "backtracked" on this and there has not been any resultant problems.

bitL 9y ago

Yes, and there was a plenty of backlash from that as well. It's simply if you say that God is absolutely rational, driven by eternal logic that cannot contradict itself, and you suddenly claim something else, you get a fork in your organization. If you look at history as one GitHub repo, you can say that Judaism began as a fork/synthesis of more ancient religions, then there was a Christianity fork, that itself forked multiple times, with first major fork when it split into Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, then Catholic forked into Protestant, then Protestant forked in thousands of different denominations. Most of them are profoundly disagreeing with each other about some small difference, and many of these small differences caused wars as their practical implications accumulated over the years. You can observe the same with all major religions or philosophical systems, and forking is especially popular in Buddhist culture. Islam on the other hand deals with inconsistencies by favoring later issued Surahs over earlier ones. Unfortunately, later Surahs are those militant ones while earlier the more peaceful ones. Frankly, this somehow plays into the argument we are in a simulation and religions are optimization procedures to figure out which ideas will prevail in the end, driven by external actors.

gldalmaso 9y ago
I am not a theologist, but I believe the Catholic Church does not affirm that their doctrine is the direct word of God. It is the summary of the study of ancient written word that told stories about key religious persons and events that themselves affirmed things about God. The doctrine is open to review. What they are conservative about is implying their predecessors had wrong views. But all that is just the facade, in practice they are not keen to losing power and prestige, which Pope Francis precisely calls them out for.