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Comment by aaron-lebo | Hacker News Reader

It has some basis in reality and affects some 1 billion lives. I'm sure you believe only 100% true, non dogmatic things. Your comment is pretentious and shallow.

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Whether it has some basis in reality is besides the point. The defining characteristic of a religious institution is that it promotes faith as an epistemology, thus explicitly encouraging people to engage in more irrationality.

Was hoping that people that see themselves as enlightened and rational would recognize the complete lack of nuance or reality in statements like "entire dogma is a fiction without any basis in reality".

You don't believe that's simplistic? Is that a way to jumpstart useful dialog about that institution?

Have you read this?

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/24/how-did-new-atheism-fai...

i have to go with siderea's response

https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1361333.html

What's always missing from these discussions is that that patronising mockery and outright dismissal is how atheists and agnostics have always been treated by the religious - it wasn't until atheists started really kicking and screaming about the injustice that people started to take note. One the one hand you have folks like this complaining of atheists merely being (gasp) rude!, and on the other hand you have things like some states in the US still not allowing atheists to hold office, by articles in their consitutions[1].

It's exactly the same with women's rights and minority civil rights: "Really, people would listen to them more if they just toned down and spoke politely". We already know that that doesn't work and just gets you ignored.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/07/08/t...

Both those articles, and the comments seem focused on liberal's tolerance of religion as a problem, to a degree that astonishes me as an outsider looking into their communities. The crushing weight of cognitive dissonance seems so vast that it lends an almost religious aura to their discussions as they carefully avoid the rather glaring truth that religion permeates US politics at all levels but that it's clearly more ingrained on the Republican side.

> Was hoping that people that see themselves as enlightened and rational would recognize the complete lack of nuance or reality in statements like "entire dogma is a fiction without any basis in reality".

Lack of nuance? Maybe. Lack of reality? Not really. I don't think nuance is helpful here. The fundamental defining characteristic of the institution is faith as an epistemology. The details of how exactly this irresponsible epistemology is constructed don't really contribute anything to the understanding of why that makes it a bad institution.

> You don't believe that's simplistic? Is that a way to jumpstart useful dialog about that institution?

No, it's simple, but not simplistic. And whether it's a way to jumpstart a useful dialog? That's generally difficult to judge before you see the result, really.

Given that Catholicism (like other religions) has wholly retreated to and now lives only in the area of "questions that have no answer", yes, it has no basis in reality. Nothing in Catholic dogma is independently verifiable. For example, the justifications around the eucharist literally being the blood and body of christ require some truly incredible mental gymnastics, and this transubstantiation is a core element of the faith. Yet strangely, the bread and doesn't literally change into the flesh and blood for the Protestants...

So where does the 'useful dialogue' start? I think it starts well before we just give moral authority to a bunch of very old men arguing about rules that only they made up. They should give us a better chain of authority than "since time immemorial".

No one has every believed that the eucharist literally turns to blood and flesh. Your taste buds would tell you otherwise.

I also would not quite agree that religion has retreated to "questions that have no answer". They have more perhaps retreated to "god of the gaps", i.e. the creation, consciousness etc. These are very large gaps in scientific understanding, but of course this does not mean we need supernatural explanations for them, and it would be reasonable to expect science to fill these gaps eventually. But then again there might be limits to what can explain.

> No one has every believed that the eucharist literally turns to blood and flesh. Your taste buds would tell you otherwise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation

Plenty of people have believed it historically. Scroll down to the Catholic section and you'll see some of the mental gymnastics I talked about to claim it in modern times.

Protestants don't believe in literal transubstantiation; I'd say they probably trust their taste-buds more, but then again, compare Protestant/Anglo-German food against Catholic/Franco-Italo-Spanish food :)

> "questions that have no answer". They have more perhaps retreated to "god of the gaps"

I don't personally see a difference between these terms - they both mean claiming to have an answer for something that is unanswerable. If you have an answer for which the only proof is basically "just trust me", then it's not much of an answer. Russell's Teapot is a pretty clear example of this.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Where in the link does it say that people thought there is a physical change as opposed to a spiritual one, "The signs of bread and wine become, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood of Christ."

There is a big difference between something that cannot have an answer and a "gap". We currently do not understand consciousness, which leaves a gap for religions to postulate about souls. But it is very likely that in the future science will be able to answer to question of how consciousnesses arises in the brain. It is not an unanswerable question.

... the very first paragraph after the table of contents?

If you check out the Middle Ages section, it shows that the theological debate that it wasn't physical alteration started... at a date that is closer to us than the birth of jesus.

Check out Stercoranism [1] as well (which contributed to the above debate), whose whole basis is that the doctrine of physical change must lead towards normal digestive processes happening, and wondering if this turns the eucharist into, literally, holy shit.

At the end of that article is a bit of modern apologia stating that christ probably leaves as soon as the cracker hits your stomach ('but nobody knows precisely when'[2]). :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stercoranism

[2] god does, after all, move in mysterious ways...

I cannot find where any of your links say that there was a believe in a literal change, i.e. a change to observable properties.

Well, here you offer a prime example of the power of religion: you are being wilfully ignorant because you don't want something to be a certain way.

You won't be satisfied unless the actual word 'literal' appears? It appears in the first paragraph of the Stercoranism link, and again in the second paragraph.

"the 9th century Carolingian theologian Paschasius Radbertus... wrote an influential tract around 832 upholding the literal interpretation of Christ in the Eucharist". He supported the literal change, but said that the holy bits dissolved before becoming poo.

> No one has every believed that the eucharist literally turns to blood and flesh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharist_in_the_Catholic_Chur...

> Your taste buds would tell you otherwise.

You are trying to understand rationally that which is not rational.

Yes they do. To understand transubstantiation you need to understand the philosophy behind it. Aristotle made a distinction between the substance of a thing, the core, essential properties that "form" it, and the accidental properties which will differ between any particular instance of the thing. Dogs can be quite different, but they share a fundamental dogness.

So using this way of thinking the body and bread are one in substance, but differ in accidental properties. The bread still looks and tastes like bread but an indiscernible change has occurred in its substance. Thomas says:

> I answer that, It is evident to sense that all the accidents of the bread and wine remain after the consecration. And this is reasonably done by Divine providence. First of all, because it is not customary, but horrible, for men to eat human flesh, and to drink blood. And therefore Christ's flesh and blood are set before us to be partaken of under the species of those things which are the more commonly used by men, namely, bread and wine. Secondly, lest this sacrament might be derided by unbelievers, if we were to eat our Lord under His own species. Thirdly, that while we receive our Lord's body and blood invisibly, this may redound to the merit of faith.

* caveat: I'm neither a philosopher nor a believer in transubstantiation

You misunderstand me. When I said "no one has every believed that the eucharist literally turns to blood and flesh" I meant that no one believed it changed physically as opposed to in some spiritual, philosophical way.

But that is what they believe, or at least what the doctrine says. It literally turns into blood and flesh. It's just that all its empirically observable properties remain those of bread and wine. If you think that that is theological gibberish, sure, obviously it is, but it's still what they believe.

We are in then agreement then because when I am said that no one ever believed that there is a literal change I meant that no one believed the "observable properties" change.

Isn't all the christianity based on what is unsatisfactory chain of evidence?

There's this thing that Jesus rose from the dead, and also this thing that he delegated his authority to his apostles (including people who never actually saw him in person).

Both are very weak arguments.

The phrase the parent used was "basis in reality". There is good evidence that Jesus existed and was crucified.

Sure, but is there overwhelming evidence that he did the impossible and rose from the dead? Last time I researched the issue, I was incredibly underwhelmed by the reasons that were used to defend a belief in an actual resurrection.

Religious institution != religion. Especially in case or large, mainstream religions, where the institution itself has little direct influence on how people live their lives.

Religions are all about community, and for communities, traditions and beliefs are usually social objects, i.e. arbitrary things around which a community forms. The question of whether it's really true or false is - to most Catholics - just about as relevant as the question whether Star Trek is true or false is relevant to Trekkies. The issues those communities are debating are not about how their beliefs match reality, but how their beliefs match the canon around which the community is built.

> Religions are all about community

No, communities are all about community. There are religious communities. But there is also religion and even religious institutions that are not about community. And there are communities that are not religious. The thing that distinguishes religion, be it a community or otherwise, from non-religion is the promotion of faith as an epistemology.

> The question of whether it's really true or false is - to most Catholics - just about as relevant as the question whether Star Trek is true or false is relevant to Trekkies.

How relevant it is to them is not the question. The question is how epistemologyically sound their position is. The average Trekkie will, if asked, correctly accept the proposition that the universe they are a fan of is fictional. The average Catholic on the other hand will, if asked, incorrectly accept the proposition that the universe they are a fan of is real. Also, the latter is consistently a part of the indoctrination, so it's kindof dishonest to claim that they don't consider it relevant.

>it promotes faith as an epistemology, thus explicitly encouraging people to engage in more irrationality.

Catholicism probably puts less emphasis on faith than pretty much any other theistic religion. Its main doctrines are supported by volumes of dense (and rather tedious) rational argumentation.

So, catholicism doesn't hold that a god exists, then?

It holds that God's existence can be established by rational argument.

Which itself is an irrational position to hold, so if that is indeed a position they hold, they hold it by faith.

No, they hold it on the basis of certain arguments for God's existence.

How do irrational arguments for the existence of a god support the position that that god's existence can be established by rational argument?

I am not taking a position on whether the arguments are good or bad. But supposing the arguments are bad, sincerely believing something on the basis of a bad argument is not the same as believing it by faith.

Well, unless that argument is built on an assumption that in turn is held to be true on faith, which makes this belief transitively also held to be true on faith.

The arguments that Catholics use typically are not based on such assumptions. See e.g. Aquinas's Five Ways, which are based, more or less, on premises from Aristotelean metaphysics.

As a former Catholic (with a decade+ of Catholic schooling), I can share that that was never proposed or demonstrated.

It's an official dogma of the Catholic church that God's existence can be proved by the unaided reason. Did your Catholic education somehow omit any mention of the Five Ways?

http://www.ewtn.com/library/councils/v1.htm

>If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema."

I am not a Christian, and I'm certainly not going to start defending Catholic arguments for God's existence here (!), but the arguments definitely exist.

The fact that it affects a billion people and is built on falsehoods should be cause for concern.

So is politics, and most of the other groups humans form or consider themselves to be members of. This might be a bug, or might be a feature, but is not in any way unique to religion. It's how human tribes work.

Doesn’t mean it’s wrong!

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