Western societies are losing their souls to scientific rationality and frightening believers in the developing world who still fear God, Pope Benedict told an open-air Mass in Germany yesterday.
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"Western societies are losing their souls to scientific rationality and frightening believers in the developing world who still fear God, Pope Benedict told an open-air Mass in Germany yesterday."Translation: "Stop telling these people the facts. You're fucking up my gig.
"Benedict -- on the second day of a visit to his native Bavaria-- said that spreading the word of Jesus Christ was more important than all the emergency and development aid that rich churches like those in Germany...."
Huh?
Translation: "Live or die, I don't care as long as they and their families keep giving to my syndicate, uh... I mean, church. Stop fucking up my gig."
"'Social issues and the Gospel are inseparable,' said the pope. 'When we bring people only knowledge, ability, technical competence and tools, we bring them too little,'"
Translation: "Don't educate them or help them become prosperous. Then they'll figure out they don't need me. Stop fucking up my gig."
"he said, hammering away at his central concern that secularisation and materialism have replaced faith in Western thinking...."
Translation: "Knowledge and reason are showing faith to be useless. Stop fucking up my gig."
"At the morning Mass, Benedict said Western societies had become "hard of hearing" about God, saying: "There are too many other frequencies in our ears. What is said about God strikes us as pre- scientific, no longer suited for our age...."
Translation: "God has been shown to be ineffective and science seems to work. Many of my church members are abandoning faith in God and it's scary for me. Stop fucking up my gig."
"People in Africa and Asia admire our scientific and technical prowess, but at the same time they are frightened by a form of rationality which totally excludes God from man's vision,"
Translation: "Many Asians and Africans can see that science works, but they have been deluded with my Christian myths. I make my living off these people so shut up and stop fucking up my gig."
"as if this were the highest form of reason."
Translation: "I'd really like to be able to show that my religion is some kind of "reason," but I can't, so just shut up and stop fucking up my gig."
"Western societies are losing their souls to scientific rationality"
...well, the dude was right about needing societal change to slow the spread of AIDS.
"When we bring people only knowledge, ability, technical competence and tools, we bring them too little,"
"There's a reason why the LDS faith does not tie relief aid to conversion....."
Here's a little tip, Benedict.
Well, what he means is that, even if helping others is good, they should do it in the name of God. And talking about Asia and Africa, I will say what I said once to a friend of mine who idealises those societies. Those societies kneel down and pray to God, probably, but they are very keen, in practice, to disobey his law. Honestly, he´s not doing a favour to anybody saying that.
Western societies are losing their souls to scientific rationality... ...and frightening believers in the developing world who still fear God...
We're scaring people who are still superstitious? That's bad. We should help them overcome their superstitions.
...Pope Benedict told an open-air Mass in Germany yesterday.
Damn, I'd have hoped Germany would be more rational than that. Hitler was a Catholic who used religion (more specifically, Catholicism) as an excuse to make a mess out of their country, yet they fall for the first person who says: "Hitler wasn't really a Catholic, Catholicism can't possibly be bad, etc."
Benedict -- on the second day of a visit to his native Bavaria-- said that spreading the word of Jesus Christ was more important than all the emergency and development aid that rich churches like those in Germany....
More important??! Suppose you were starving. Someone obviously well-fed and relatively wealthy came up to you. You weakly ask for food. He says: "Food? That's not important. What's really important is this." He then procedes to tell you that you're horrible and deserve to be tortured forever, and that there is a magic sky fairy named Param who is ready to do it, but he decided to have mercy and not torture you, even though he really should, but in order to avoid this torture, you have to perform funny rituals, avoid safety measures to protect your health, and give money to him.
How would you like that? If people are starving, the last thing they need is to be told that they're horrible and thus have to perform stupid rituals and endanger their health even further.
"Social issues and the Gospel are inseparable," said the pope.
No, they're only "inseparable" to you because you're the head of a massive international corporation that offers no useful products or services, but which makes money by convincing people that it does.
"When we bring people only knowledge, ability, technical competence and tools, we bring them too little..."
Quite true. If you were bringing aid to poverty-stricken Africa, a little food would be nice in the short term. Of course, you seem to be implying that we should also be bringing them backwards superstitions. Specifically, we should be telling them that they need to give you money.
...he said, hammering away at his central concern that secularisation and materialism have replaced faith in Western thinking....
To some extent, they have. That's a good thing. That's what got us out of the dark ages.
At the morning Mass, Benedict said Western societies had become "hard of hearing" about God...
We're not "hard of hearing." God simply isn't saying anything.
...saying: "There are too many other frequencies in our ears. What is said about God strikes us as pre- scientific, no longer suited for our age....
God is pre-scientific, you twit! God is a pseudo-explanation for what was impossible to explain before science.
People in Africa and Asia admire our scientific and technical prowess, but at the same time they are frightened by a form of rationality which totally excludes God from man's vision, as if this were the highest form of reason.
It is the "highest form of reason" in the sense that it's rational. Believing in something without evidence is not rational.
Again, rationality is not a bad thing.
...Oh, I give up! It's impossible to reason with someone who thinks it's good to be irrational!
"...they are frightened by a form of rationality which totally excludes God from man's vision, as if this were the highest form of reason."
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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