Pope Says Technology Causes Confusion Between Reality and Fiction 779
Pope Benedict XVI has warned that people are in danger of being unable to discern reality from fiction because of new technologies, and not old books. "New technologies and the progress they bring can make it impossible to distinguish truth from illusion and can lead to confusion between reality and virtual reality. The image can also become independent from reality, it can give birth to a virtual world, with various consequences -- above all the risk of indifference towards real life," he said.
Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
"New technologies and the progress they bring can make it impossible to distinguish truth from illusion and can lead to confusion between reality and virtual reality. The image can also become independent from reality, it can give birth to a virtual world, with various consequences -- above all the risk of indifference towards real life."
That's funny. It's arguable that the same could be said about the Bible. How many thousands of pages have been written about the workings of the Divine, or of the afterlife, when no one has truly seen either?
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention how many pages have been changed.
The fact that there are different "versions" of the Bible amuse me to no end. If it was truly god's word, wouldn't there be just one version?
I'm not referring to words or phrases lost in translation...I'm talking about things like King James versions, etc.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh...actually, if anything, the bible proves free will doesn't exist either. god's supposed omnipotence makes free will an impossibility.
If someone already knows what you are going to do, how is it a choice?
The church is struggling for relevance (Score:3, Interesting)
The church is struggling for relevance in the modern world. This does not help.
Sounds to me like the Catholic Church wants to go back to the old days of an illiterate flock lead in a latin mass.
Because then people had a more "realistic" connection to things that were important like tithing or the consequences of no doing so.
And he knows were NOT virtual how? (Score:4, Interesting)
I mean, the whole monotheism thing strongly suggests we ourselves are in a layer of simulation. So how real is virtual reality under those circumstances?
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
According to some people (namely the people that follow "the book"), god works through us. Assuming this to be true, I ask you: do puppets on strings have free will?
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
1) Why do you people always post AC?
2)...
As a matter of fact, science says free will doesn't exist.
Citation?
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
A very key example of God actively interfering with the free will of a human, for those who believe the literal truth of the Bible: In Exodus 7-11, God repeatedly "hardens the heart" of Pharoah, so that Pharoah won't actually give in to Moses' demands until after God has wiped out all the firstborn sons.
So the Bible actually teaches that God grants you free will unless that will somehow interfere with a divine plan, in which case you're screwed.
As Arthur said... (Score:2, Interesting)
But where would the church be without magic?
he's right (Score:3, Interesting)
look at the rise of right wing blogs, and the people who would trust it more than they trust mass media
a media channel loses its credibility, its audience, and its advertisers when it lies. so it has to fact check. additionally, it must remain neutral and moderate, and not espouse an agenda, or it turns people off, which means less advertising revenue. moderation and neutrality is of paramount importance to mass media
when bush was in office the far left complained about the right wing mass media supporting the phony march of war on iraq, etc. well, there is no right wing mass media, and there is no left wing mass media, there is only mass media. the real problem is that the far right thinks it is liberal, and the far left think it is conservative, only because their own perspective is so far right (or left). move far right enough, and you can't tell the difference any more between moderate and lefty. move far left enough, and you can't tell the difference any more between moderate and right-wing
so now, with the internet, we see the rise of far right wing people and far left wing people walled off in their own media universe. their own little walled garden of self-reinforcing lies. obama is a "secret muslim". obama is not an american citizen. this is obviously insanity. but walled off on their own, in their own ideological echo chamber of lies, people begin to believe these obvious smears and lies rather than reality
so the pope is 100% correct: the internet has allowed reality and illusion to become inseparable for people. it takes energy to change your beliefs to align with reality. so why change your beliefs? just change your reality instead, by choosing your partisan blogs over mass media
there are a class of people now who distrust mass media, yet, exasperatingly, trust partisan blogs which lie all the time in support of an agenda, and openly do not care about the truth or fact checking or credibility, as long as they advance a cause
this is genuinely dangerous and scary. the internet is enabling the fractionating of society into walled fiefdoms of ideologues, and no real truth, or at least even common mythology. people pick and choose what they want to believe, regardless of reality. at least mass media made for a true commons of the people. now we only have open warfare amongst entrenched ideological gangs. and the internet makes that possible
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
"If the Holy Bible was printed as an Ace Double", an editor once remarked, "it would be cut down to two 20,000-word halves with the Old Testament retitled as 'Master of Chaos' and the New Testament as 'The Thing With Three Souls.'"
- Charles McGrath, New York Times, May 6, 2007
Re:That's funny, because (Score:3, Interesting)
Religions are supposed to be rigid; they're not social structures, they're ethics frameworks that fall into divine belief systems. If you want something flexible, look into a system of philosophy.
John Paul II had the balls to come out and tell priests to stop being fuck-ups. He came out and said Jews weren't evil, gays should seek God's forgiveness but it's the church's job to offer guidance not judgment, etc. He stuck to the rules but kept trying to remind people that Catholicism was supposed to be a religion of tolerance and we're not supposed to take pitchforks and torches to peoples' houses for doing shit we don't like.
Benedict doesn't seem to focus much on orthodoxy so much as he's a lunatic and babbles about random shit. He hasn't come out to chastise the churches burning Qu'ran and swearing that all Muslims are going to hell (wasn't there something in the bible about NOT doing shit like this?). He hasn't put in his opinion about any churches trying to leverage religion as a political fulcrum to push bullshit at all, really. That's what we need out of a pope: Someone to keep the church in the exact order it's meant to be in.
Re:Hmm (Score:1, Interesting)
The versions of the Bible are/were made to keep up with changes in language and comprehension. The King James Version while was an edit of the Great Bible also sought to bring the text from 'Old English' to a more modern readable version. If you read the KJV there are many areas that are ripe for interpretation.. but when read in the NIV ( New International Version ) which takes the original context of the words as they would have meant when the KJV was written the passage is often very clear and concise. Aside from these differences which ever you pick is simply a matter of preference. There are copies of the Great Bible, hard to find though, and copies of Wycleff's Translation, the first english version of the Bible. But good luck reading those with any degree of comprehension.
Unlike the Quran which was origanlly written in Arabic, Arabic has not changed as much in the past 1500 years. But the Bible like the Tanakh Hebrew has changed greatly in the past 1000's of years and reading the original ancient hebrew is a task of scholars, rabbis, and historians. If you know Aramaic, Greek, and ancient Hebrew there are copies of the bible out there that you can read to your hearts content.
Reading without comprehension is called staring at a book.
Re:Hmm (Score:1, Interesting)
You should try reading it, esp in the orginal greek. It was written for uneducated folks so it uses very simplistic language but conveys great concepts.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
God's chosen and righteous man, Lot, having drunken sex with his two daughters not hot enough for you?
Check out Ezekiel 23:20-21.
"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.
So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled.
It's not exactly a Mills & Boon romance, but I reckon it's enough to get a priest's wang wobbling.
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
god works through us.
So it's God molesting poor, defenseless children, raping women (our mothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends, etc), killing people on Crusades, (etc etc etc) not us humans: we're just doing God's work!
Well.... uhhh... thanks for clearing that up for us.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
I really don't want to read the new version:
"And God was like 'Moses, dude, you totally need to kill your son.' And Moses was all "WTF?" but then he goes "Meh, F it." So God's all "LOL, dude you were totally gonna do it. I pranked you good!'"
That actually exists. [biblegateway.com] (Okay, not really, but it's sort of the same idea.)
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, you can always look at the lolcat bible [lolcatbible.com].
(1) Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.
(2) Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.
(3) At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.