Papal Visit to the UK

[C0ckney]

No there aren't. Name one?

seriously? you can't think of one...

how about "what is the soul?" or "how do you define the soul?" or something like "what is love?"

how do you arrive at an answer to that using the scientific method, mike?

[Asher]

seriously? you can't think of one...

how about "what is the soul?" or "how do you define the soul?" or something like "what is love?"

how do you arrive at an answer to that using the scientific method, mike?

Pretty simple -- you consult the dictionary. These are all man-made ideological constructs.

[Dauphin]

I think I quoted that earlier. and **** is right!



No there aren't. Name one?

There are things we don't have answers to yet. There are things we know we can't measure yet, there aren't questions that can never be answered.

There are incalculables, so it stands to reason there are questions that can't be answered with anything but "does not compute".

[bc1871]

The Pope may not be a perfect human being, and he and his predecessors may have in the past said things, that will offend the liberal sensibilities of some, but in the end, compared to most Muslims, the Pope is a moderate and considerate human being.

[dannubis]

seriously? you can't think of one...

how about "what is the soul?" or "how do you define the soul?" or something like "what is love?"

how do you arrive at an answer to that using the scientific method, mike?

1. "Soul" indicates self awareness coming from our brains abaility to use language to define abstract concepts i.e. "the soul" is a concept that your brain gives to its self consciousness. If you die, your brain dies and the self consciousness ergo "your soul" disappears. The fact that you have difficulties accepting that fact is a testimony to millions of years of evolution with the single goal of survival (i can die but my soul will live on, the ultimate self delusion of a self conscious organ)

2. Love is a chemical reaction induced by millions of years of human evolution so our children would have ahigher chance of survival (after all, humans need a much longer period of parental protection than any other animal out there)

Scientific enough for you ?

[dannubis]

A priest that decides to liev with a woman is thrown out of the club in 2 weeks time. One that decides to rape children can't be removed from the church. Great person.

[Imran Siddiqui]

You just need faith that the questions will be answered by scientific progress.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

The Pope may not be a perfect human being, and he and his predecessors may have in the past said things, that will offend the liberal sensibilities of some, but in the end, compared to most Muslims, the Pope is a moderate and considerate human being.

This is based on a conclusive sample of how many, exactly?

[Jon Miller]

Most scientists I know claim that they aren't trying to answer all of the questions, nor that they can answer all of the questions.

That includes "why am I here" or "what is good" or "what is beautiful". In addition to questions like those Cockney refers to.

I realize that some of you have amazing faith in science. But don't claim it is reasonable to have faith that science has already done something that scientists (as a community) don't even believe science can do.

JM

[MOBIUS]

Not to mention the fact that he blamed atheists for the Nazis and in virtually the same breath accused the UK of being awash with 'atheist extremists'...

Pope Benedict XVI goes to war with 'atheist extremism'

Pope uses visit to argue Nazi desire to eradicate God led to the Holocaust and Britain should respect its Christian foundations...

He is an evil c*nt of a pointy-headed tw*t, of an evil c*nty paedo, misogynistic and anti gay cult...



PS I just saw the latest Resident Evil film at the cinema - please tell me he's NOT plastered with Umbrella Corporation logos in the picture in my link - the secret is out...

[Jon Miller]

1. "Soul" indicates self awareness coming from our brains abaility to use language to define abstract concepts i.e. "the soul" is a concept that your brain gives to its self consciousness. If you die, your brain dies and the self consciousness ergo "your soul" disappears. The fact that you have difficulties accepting that fact is a testimony to millions of years of evolution with the single goal of survival (i can die but my soul will live on, the ultimate self delusion of a self conscious organ)

2. Love is a chemical reaction induced by millions of years of human evolution so our children would have ahigher chance of survival (after all, humans need a much longer period of parental protection than any other animal out there)

Scientific enough for you ?

The first of these is not scientific at all, but speculation. The later basically says that love doesn't exist, which is a cop out, and doesn't answer the question (nor is it a scientific description of love).

JM

[giblets]

Is it just me or is the pope intentionally distorting history by implying that the holocaust was motivated by atheism in order to push his agenda? That's kind of sick.

[Asher]

To his credit, it's probably the least morally revolting thing he's done in years.

[Elok]

Yes, it's bull****, since the Nazis weren't atheists.

The extremist Antisemitism in Europe had its roots in religion, not atheism. Jews had been continually persecuted over the centuries and the Holocaust was the culmination of said attitudes.

As I understand things (granted, I'm no historian), that's something of an oversimplification. Medieval antisemitism was largely religious, not racial, in character. It wasn't until the 1800s or so that the idea of the Jewish race being biologically inferior somehow gained traction.

Now, the existing hatred of Jews was rooted, at least in part, on religious belief. But normal xenophobia towards resident aliens at a time of rising nationalist sentiment was also a big part, plus the ancient stereotype of insidious Jewish conspirators controlling the world. Which probably had something to do with their keeping their own identity as a community even in other nations, plus their historical role as usurers which had to do with religious beliefs and so on and so on...anyway, Nazism owed at least as much to its crackheaded readings of Nietzsche and Darwin as it did to its crackheaded readings of Christianity. If not more. Not that I agree with the Pope's assessment of history, but how high was "they killed Jesus" on Hitler's list of reasons to kill Jews?

[Barnabas]

Atheists have only been important since the French Revolution, and I don't think religious people have killed more people than atheists since the French Revolutionary Reign of Terror when the Christian God was replaced with the cult to Reason, even though Atheists are a very small % of the world population compared to religious people, they have certainly outperformed religious people at mass killing.

For much of the XIX century, Racism was progressive and thinking that humans were equal was conservative (God made humans in his image), in that time social darwinism was popular, Germans and the English would make theories about the decadence of France, Spain or Italy related to some degeneration of the "Latin Race", anthropologists would travel all around the world measuring the body parts of non whites with calipers, antisemitism was rampant for racial, not religious reasons (in the old medieval antisemitism, a jew could stop being a jew by converting to christianity, now jews could not stop being jews because they had jewishness in the blood), and governments would sponsor eugenic measures against "undesired" people.

It took Hitler and millions of dead people for that kind of racist beliefs and outlook to be abandoned, and for people to believe again that Humans were equal. It was not a scientific change, it was a pragmatic change, abandon racism and turn inquiry into issues that used to be discussed openly such as IQ differences among different races into taboo issues (the thing that bothers Heraclitus so much)

The forces that influenced Hitler were Social Darwinism, German Romanticism and some Philosophers, Hitlers religious views were not Christian, and may have been just a metaphor for his mystic beliefs on the german race.