He should know
> it also enables people to barricade themselves behind sources of information which only confirm their own wishes and ideas
and no religion would want that, would it?
The internet is 'a gift from God' says Pope Francis
Pope Francis has shared his thoughts about the Internet, declaring it a wonderful thing but also expressing worries that it impair human relationships and inflict a kind of commercial violence on users. Francis' thoughts are published here under the title “"Communication at the Service of an Authentic Culture of Encounter" - …
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Friday 24th January 2014 23:27 GMT Euripides Pants
Re: He should know
"The Internet gives people access to information and education - religions do not want that - they want to have control and be the source of information"
That makes religions no different than any other human organization. You could say the same thing about governments, corporations, the MPAA, the RIAA, etc.
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Friday 24th January 2014 23:51 GMT Intractable Potsherd
Re: He should know @ Euripides
"That makes religions no different than any other human organization. You could say the same thing about governments, corporations, the MPAA, the RIAA, etc."
Given that the levels of education in most Western countries at least, where the influence of religion has been reduced, have increased dramatically in the last 200 years, then I'd say you are provably wrong in your assertion that "any other human organisation" wants control and information. I'd also have to be fair and say that a lot of the impetus for universal education, at least in Britain, came from non-conformist religions. So, that's two strikes against your comment.
Really, the accurate statement would be "That makes some religions no different than some other human organisations, like some governments and corporations, and the MPAA and RIAA."
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Wednesday 29th January 2014 17:27 GMT Tex Arcana
Re: He should know @ Euripides
Religions are the prototypical and quintessential corporations: they are both pyramidal organizations that have a person in charge at the top who didn't earn the spot, who abuses the power of the position, and who screws the hell out of the people at the bottom of the pyramid who do the real work.
Religions and corporations also perpetuate the worst atrocities against humanity, and both seem to think they are above the rule of law. They are both designed to take as much money from people as they can, while delivering a substandard and/or dangerous product. They also corrupt governments in order to perpetuate their crimes, as well as their stranglehold upon the collective throats of the people.
So you can continue to kiss the collective assessment of the Poop and corporate CEOs; but all you'll get from it is a foul taste in your mouth and an empty wallet. And you're a fool if you believe otherwise.
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Monday 27th January 2014 04:05 GMT Tex Arcana
Re: He should know
"'The Internet gives people access to information and education - religions do not want that - they want to have control and be the source of information'
That makes religions no different than any other human organization. You could say the same thing about governments, corporations, the MPAA, the RIAA, etc."
It's about time someone else made that connection...
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Friday 24th January 2014 18:20 GMT Daniel von Asmuth
Holy Frank!
Revealed at last: on the seventh day of creation, the Lord cast a social network around the earth, so that His creatures might spread the Gospel. And He saw it was a good thing, ere the Master of Daemons came and subverted it, so that it might bring forth consumption and manipulation of mortal (wo)men.
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Friday 24th January 2014 11:31 GMT alain williams
Manipulating others
He must be referring to the church itself, after all it is an expert organisation at convincing people that its mythology is true -- in the fact of facts and lack of evidence.
The violent agression is what they threaten will happen to you in a supposed after life if you don't do what they say.
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Friday 24th January 2014 06:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Makes you wonder!
It'd be kind of difficult to name anything given that the church is under 2000 years old. Indeed the very term "church" is Christian in origin.
What else have anti-religious types distorted to grind their particular axe when the simple plain facts show the arguments to be what they are?
Sure, the Catholic church has it's fair share of blood on its hands, but if you want to call a spade a spade I suggest starting a little closer to home.
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Friday 24th January 2014 12:41 GMT AbelSoul
Re: Makes you wonder!
> What else has the church been giving God undue credit for
Not always directly from a church but whenever a hard working team of rescuers risks their lives to save someone from, e.g. an earthquake fuelled collapsed building, there's always some tadger eager to redirect the credit and gratitude to some "God," completely ignoring the fact that, if their absurdly ridiculous claims were true, said "God" would also have been responsible for causing the damage in the first place.
"Hallelujah! Praise the Lord for killing little Jimmy's entire family and all his neighbours but not little Jimmy himself."
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Friday 24th January 2014 06:25 GMT Christian Berger
A different worldview
I think he's referring to the motivation they had. The Internet as we know it today was not invented for the money. It's foundation was invented to provide communications even during war, most of its services were invented in universities to promote the sharing of information and knowledge.
The Internet, unlike other networks, was made in a spirit of openness and sharing. In Roman Catholics this is called the "holy spirit". They consider the feeling you get when you write some software and you suddenly realize that it's used around the world by thousands or millions of people a religious experience.
The fundamental question why people act that way is because god set it up so they would be like that, at least according to Catholics.
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Friday 24th January 2014 12:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
"So it wasn't a gift from all those hard-working, hard-thinking science-and-engineering types afterall?"
No no no , you misunderstand - those guys may have apparently thought it up but in reality it was God who gave them their insight.
Sadly the old man sitting on his cloud doesn't seem to be ready to give anyone the insight into a cure for all cancer , poverty or climate change to name a few. But I'm sure he'll get around to it when he's ready. I guess all the billions who've died in pain and suffering over the years still haven't quite met his misery quota. Or perhaps they were all just sinners. Isn't that right religious sheep?
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Friday 24th January 2014 05:53 GMT amanfromMars 1
The world according to an inglorious bastard child and naive puppet
“Whenever communication is primarily aimed at promoting consumption or manipulating others, we are dealing with a form of violent aggression like that suffered by the man in the parable, who was beaten by robbers and left abandoned on the road.”..... Pope Francis
Here be a serial offender and pretender to a right dodgy throne of thorns
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Friday 24th January 2014 05:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
Was this..
before or after god invented paedophile priests and methods to hide their activity from the flock? Was the internet needed before their introduction? god really is a tricky guy.. inventing all this technology that uses horrible sciency stuff that directly contradicts the bible. It's like he doesn't exist at all.
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Friday 24th January 2014 06:22 GMT Steve Brooks
Well what do you know, next thing you know the church will be making Alan Turing a saint, hang on didn't they already kill him with homosexual discrmination? How does it feel, Mr Pope, to be praising something as a gift from god that relies on modern computers while at the same time knowing that the man who helped create modern computers was a sinful homosexual who assuredly went directly to hell after the twin sins of homsexuality and suicide. Hypocritical bastard, I hope this modern method of communication gets my message to him, mind you his no doubt heavily censored link to the world outside the vatican won't let him see ideas and opinions his minders don't want him to hear or see.
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Friday 24th January 2014 09:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
didn't they already kill him with homosexual discrmination
Er no, you seem to be under the impression that the British Government takes its orders from the Pope. It doesn't ("The Bishop of Rome shall have no jurisdiction in the realm of England"). And Francis has already said it isn't up to him to judge gay people.
What's more, if you would kindly keep up, he is doing his best to weaken the Vatican and is getting his information from outside it. His latest is to throw a spanner in the works of the canonisation of Pius VI by opening the Vatican's wartime archives - with the approval of well know Catholic sympathisers like the Jerusalem Post.
As I note above, I'm an agnostic. But all those Catholics won't suddenly become Pastafarians overnight, or even in a 50 year timescale, and this guy needs to be given credit for trying to turn the supertanker round, even if he has to disconnect the controls from the bridge and yank on the rudder himself.
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Friday 24th January 2014 12:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: didn't they already kill him with homosexual discrmination
"What's more, if you would kindly keep up, he is doing his best to weaken the Vatican and is getting his information from outside it."
When/if he ever gets around to endorsing contraception so that the incidence of unpleasant STDs and unwanted children drops in developing countries THEN I'll believe he's a force for change. In the meantime he's just rearranging the deckchairs on the SS BusinessAsUsual.
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Friday 24th January 2014 08:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Pope in believing in God shocker
The reality is religion and god want to take credit for all the 'good' that happens but none of the blame for any of the 'bad'. Strange thing is most people seem to accept this or view it at a very personal level as in 'thank be to god I missed that flight (that crashed)' but clearly no thought (or blame on god) for the person who got their seat and was killed along with the rest - no that was just god being mysterious or not caring or ??
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Friday 24th January 2014 13:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Pope in believing in God shocker
Mystery - there is no mystery - he / she / it is almost certainly not there but I can't prove that any more than you can prove he / she / it is - unless you are going to descend to 'but the [insert preferred religious test] says'.
If you do not see people dying in a place crash as subjectively bad - guess you will try and paint children dying in a tsunami or from childhood leukaemia as 'good' as surely it was just the will of god or perhaps punishment for homosexual activity?
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
