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Comment by Swizec | Hacker News Reader

Europe is full of atheist Catholics. It’s a pretty cool system.

You get the holidays and culture, nice set of shared stories and a shared common sense. Thinking any of it is factually accurate or that god is a thing or being that actually exists is almost considered weird.

In Slovenia (where I’m from), for example, about 70% of the population identifies as Catholic, but only 25% say there might be a god. Another 30% say there’s probably some sort of greater spirit, but not necessarily god.

The American version always seemed odd to me. Believing that stuff in the Bible is factually true, not just fables with lessons ... that’s weird.

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It's worth remembering that large groups of fundamentalist Christians left Europe to go to the "new world" to escape actual persecution or the perception that they were not free to express their form of Christianity. Culture IMHO runs very deep and lasts long after the death of the originators.

The fun part was when their form of Christianity involved persecuting others but the government said no.

To be fair Christians have alwsys fought great wars amongst each other on the basis of one basis of christianity thinking all others are wrong.

At least that’s what they told the peasants. In reality it’s all about power politics and money. Same as now.

You gotta remember that for 2000 years the church was politics. Sure there were kings but who crowns the king? The church does.

LOL talk to your local priest about the whole thing being a bunch of nice fables; or actually go to church. The sermons at Easter can be especially unpleasant.

I like to chalk it up to just a bit of lost in translation, but I know it is probably more complex than that. Think about going from early Aramaic/Hebrew, to Latin, Greek and Turkish, to medieval Italian, German and Slavic, to Old English and French, to Modern English. You are bound to lose the real meaning of the original texts after several millennia in the game of lingual telephone.

Translations are usually done directly from the original language into the target language. The study of early Hebrew and Aramaic and Koine Greek remains an active field and there are lots of people who can read those languages fluently.

Why is it weird? It requires an open and trustful way of thinking. The same that lets me believe in global warming. I just think the outcome of subcribing to that ideology has good outcomes for me and my family, and I accept there are events beyond my reach and understanding, and that I cannot do much about it.

Because Occam's razor is clear. I successfully grow flowers on my balcony and my verification and peer review of temperature is not alarming. It's hard to make a living as a scientist, and journals need sensationalism, so of course people in their 30s+ would show me numbers that fit the agenda. From logical thinking the deduction is there is no global warming, but I do believe there is in some parts of the world, and we'd best do something about it.

Same thing goes for what ancient civilisations believed within the concept of their lifestyles.

It’s weird in the same way that believing Die Hard has good lessons on morality and courage is great, but believing the events of Nakatomi Plaza are real facts is weird.

Much of the bible is a mix of history inspired folk tales, political propaganda, morality tales, and self-help advice from various eras. It’s a great resource in that respect, but I wouldn’t use it to explain any particular “how”

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