• BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    44
    ·
    6 hours ago

    ‘Turning people into passive consumers of unthought thoughts’

    That’s brilliant! I’m not Catholic, I’m not even religious at all, and I’ve NEVER paid attention to any Pope, but this guy is different.

    • db2@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      5 hours ago

      He’s American with black heritage, so being different than the ones before is basically built in.

      Never fear though, there’s a shoe waiting to drop somewhere, there always is.

    • shithawk@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      43 minutes ago

      “I’m definitely not the antichrist, so much so I go around holding events to discuss the antichrist and how I am not him.” The lack of self reflection or perhaps just plain evil is astounding

  • cabbage@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    76
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    9 hours ago

    Turning people into passive consumers of unthought thoughts

    Interesting contrast to the church itself, which has the capacity of turning people into passive consumers of thoughts that have been painstakingly processed for centuries.

    • XLE@piefed.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      4 hours ago

      Those damned Catholics.

      Signed, a citizen of the culturally Protestant US, where most of us don’t even consider Catholics to be Christian

      • Kage520@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        4 hours ago

        Isn’t that strange though? Catholics trace themselves back to the disciples (though I think Roman and Orthodox both claim this), yet the new ones that split somewhat recently claim they are the real ones.

        • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          20 minutes ago

          Yes the Apostle Peter was the first Pope. Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism, the Evangelists etc are are offshoots that for one reason or another rejected the Pope and Canon Law.

        • XLE@piefed.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          3 hours ago

          It’s definitely very arbitrary! There’s plenty of other divisions within Christianity, but I’ve found it’s the more radical evangelical sect of Christianity (read: the ones in the White House) that claim Catholics aren’t Christians the hardest. I

    • nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      5 hours ago

      I don’t know about the West, but a lot of Catholic community in SEAsia (excluding PH) are not blindly following the Pope. I know a lot of people in the community instantly criticizing any form corruption or negativity.

      Even our mass regularly ask community to be more rationale in thinking.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        5 hours ago

        I’m American ex catholic and yeah that was my childhood church. That said we also have a lot of people who convert to catholicism for the aesthetics and to crusade larp, and one of them insisted on arguing with the previous pope about basic doctrine as the old man was dying…

        So yeah, you’re supposed to listen to the pope but nobody does.

  • RedFrank24@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    8 hours ago

    “passive consumers of unthought thoughts” is an apt way of putting it. With AI, it’s so easy not to think and have it think for you, even in things that you should really want to think about because it’s entertaining.

    For example, I’ve been re-watching Game of Thrones, and I wondered how things would have changed if Joffrey had a father figure in his life that wasn’t Robert, say a teacher in swordsmanship. I could spend a lot of time thinking about how Cersei would see this teacher as a rival and want him dead, whether Robert would protect that teacher because he’s making Joffrey into more of a ‘man’, whether Joffrey being trained as a swordsman would make him braver, and even if everything happened as written up to the Blackwater, would Joffrey find his courage and go out into battle, and ultimately get killed by one of Stannis’ soldiers? What would happen to Sansa?

    Or… I could just ask ChatGPT, get a quick answer, and forget all about it.

  • Rekall Incorporated@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    9 hours ago

    What a weird world we live in.

    I am an atheist (albeit I support our national churches/religious entities and believe they should be state financed) and it is fascinating that I agree with Leo XIV on an ethical, moral and even theological/spiritual level.

    P.S. While I don’t believe in a meta-physical, abrahamic tradition-style god, I do think there is a lot of wonder, beauty and even sacredness (divinity) to the cosmos. Something along the lines of this quote from a book by Alan Watts:

    The universe is the Big Bang, the beginning of the universe. And you’re not something that is a result of it. You’re not something that is a sort of byproduct of it. You are it. It’s like when you take a bottle of ink and you throw it at a white wall. Smash! And all the ink spreads out. In the middle, it’s dense, isn’t it? And as it gets out on the edge, the little droplets get finer and finer and make more complicated patterns.

    So in the same way, there was a big bang at the beginning of things and it spread. And you and I, sitting here in this room, as complicated human beings, are the little fringes on the edge of that bang. We are the way it’s going now.

    • db2@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      5 hours ago

      I am an atheist (albeit I support our national churches/religious entities and believe they should be state financed)

      What the actual fuck?

      • Rekall Incorporated@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        37 minutes ago

        Another poster mentioned “That’s a very European mindset.” It’s not exclusively a European mindset, I’ve lived for several years in Asia and have visited multiple regions. This “mindset” is arguably common even among those who are not particularly religious.

        National religious institutions provide a sense of belonging to the populace, help maintain our national identity and culture and help our national liberation struggle. Even as an atheist, these are clearly good things.

        And there is no discrimination in terms of religious identity. I support our Orthodox Church, Catholic Church (which is actually much more diverse than in many countries) and the Crimean Muslim leadership.

        One can argue this is not a mindset, but common sense and that American attitudes are a mindset.

        From my time living in the US (several years, with extensive travels), I got the impression that America nominally has “separation of church and state”, but it in reality this separation does not exist. A significant portion of American Christianity (perhaps not the majority, but it is a huge portion, far more than most Americans would admit) is de facto an arm of the oligarch regime, focused on enabling tax fraud, spreading crime and corruption and running political bribery systems. And you can’t even shut them down because of the alleged “separation of church and state”. It’s funny how that works. :)

        There is one anecdote that perfectly demonstrates what I am talking about:

        https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/joel-osteen-megachurch-houston-beryl-response-b2576711.html

        And the cherry on top was a comment that I found when doing a web search to find the link above:

        If churches opened their doors, they’d be subject to the same criminal and legal risk that any other private business would be responsible for. The world is not a perfect utopia, and churches have to protect themselves as much as anyone else. Why don’t you open your doors?

        This is extremely funny. 🤣

    • NABDad@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      23
      ·
      9 hours ago

      “In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people angry and has widely been considered as a bad move.”

      -Douglas Adams

  • Akasazh@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    7 hours ago

    I honestly though Pope Bob would be a bit sterner on Trump, but it’s Pius XII over again.

  • Samsy@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    7 hours ago

    Interesting, I thought an AI Jesus/Pope would be a benefit for the Catholic Church. I mean look at what they used the last centuries to bring people into believers.