If it turns out there's no God or life after death, do you think a guy like Pope Francis basically wasted his life?
Question for atheists/agnostics/skeptics?
- Thread starter BrianNole777
- Start date
hell no he gets free room and board at a palace in italy. either way the guy is playing chess and we are playing checkers
No. But, Idon't know what you cosider a "wasted life".
What about the fact that he would have lived his whole life based on an illusion (God's existence) while being celibate as well?
Kinda. Telling other people how God wants them to live their life, or what God considers moral/immoral would be a huge waste of time. With that said, as long as they are not interfering with someone else's happiness, anything that someone enjoys doing and provides meaning to their own life (even if it is based on a lie), wouldn't be waste in my opinion. As an Agnostic, I've seen people take comfort and relief with their religion (especially in stressful times) and I fully support their faith in that religion. It is when that same religion is used to justify power over people, or when it is used to take away freedoms and rights from others is where I draw the line. The pope is surely riding that line.
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If a person strives to help their fellow man, whether they're doing it out of the goodness of their heart or because they feel they have to to impress their sky fairy, it's still a good life.
He still leads a criminal enterprise who covered up child rape for decades.
He still leads a criminal enterprise who covered up child rape for decades.
what about his private jet? i might be celibate for a private jet
Everyone should do what gives them self respect and doesn’t hurt others.
I understand hurting others is subjective, as some consider raising kids in religion to be child abuse, so take what I said within reasonable parameters.
I’m nonreligious, but your last paragraph is ridiculous. What percentage of Catholic people were actually involved in molesting children and/or covering it up?
I would prefer Catholics to Muslims every day of the week.
He lives in a palace and is attended to by an army of assistants without a concern who will provide for his consumption tomorrow.
He’s enjoying life, and that ain’t wasted.
Yep.
95% of Catholic priests were not involved in abuse and the Church reformed in 2002 and since then, there have hardly been any abuse cases.
There's certainly more abuse in secular society.
Separating Facts About Clergy Abuse From Fiction
Quality research and reason need to take precedence over emotion if we truly want to keep children and families safe from sexual abuse in the the Church or anywhere.
Yeah, I don’t like it when people paint with a broad brush just to accommodate their personal prejudices.Yep.
95% of Catholic priests were not involved in abuse and the Church reformed in 2002 and since then, there have hardly been any abuse cases.
There's certainly more abuse in secular society.
Separating Facts About Clergy Abuse From Fiction
Quality research and reason need to take precedence over emotion if we truly want to keep children and families safe from sexual abuse in the the Church or anywhere.www.psychologytoday.com
No. Pope Francis is a believer. He seems largely to have lived his lives according to those beliefs. On the whole, he has preached an understanding that I was taught was the point of Catholicism/Christianity which is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. He is not without controversy and I personally have divined no way of measuring if his papacy is good or not for the world, but the answer to that question is irrelevant to whether or not he has wasted his life. He has absolutely not wasted his life just because his fate, and ours, is likely wormfood. Wasting your life would be having the agency to try your best at living out your beliefs and not trying.
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ok technically that’s true they just charter them whenever he flies
I notice you didn't object to the time traveling part.
Getting stuck in a middle seat in the back of the plane on a trans-oceanic flight is an appropriate test of one's faith.I think he flies coach.
That's a good question, but would it not apply to all clergy/evangelists as well?
I took a 20 hour return flight in a middle seat in a packed airplane from China with a toddler whaling every 5 minutes and it almost turned me atheist 😆
Richard Dawkins should probably be ignored when it comes to things outside evolutionary biology. Unless he believes asexual people don't really exist or lead wasted lives because they're not the sexual freak Dawkins likes to be. And no shade to Dawkins for being a kinkster, God bless him.
Richard Dawkins has also been married 3 times.
I bet his ex-wives have some stories.
I don't belief their faith had anything to do with whether they wasted their lives or not. Were they good people who sought to help others? If so, then how could that possibly be a life defined as wasted? IMO that more than anything defines a life well lived.
If they used their beliefs and religion primarily as a cudgel to pass judgment on others and berate those with whom they disagreed with, then yes. Absolutely.
20 years ago I would have completely agreed, but now I just think everyone's life is kinda valuable/kinda a waste. Let god sort em out, or not. Just be a good person either way.
All believers of any cloth.
His whole life could have been based on an illusion, though and he never got married or had kids.
I am kind of embarrassed for having ever been something of a fan of most of those New Atheist celebs. Especially Sam Harris. But I still really do admire The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins and am saddened when people who didn't read it or didn't understand it cite it as a source of inspiration for their Social Darwinism
Yeah.
Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens are amateurs in philosophy and theology.
None of their objections are anything new. Thomas Aquinas addressed them 800 years ago...
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