Slashdot Mirror
Pope Says Technology Causes Confusion Between Reality and Fiction
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.
"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?
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Pretty sure people have been unable to discern the stories told in the bible from reality for quite some time.
I can't distinguish the pope from some loony old guy who keeps talking weird stuff
... tell him he owes me a new irony meter.
Burns: We're building a casino!
McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
The reality is that I'm never letting my kid around any priest, or ever trusting the church again. That real enough?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Tell us, Papa Ratzi, how else would you describe someone who adtively protects, supports, defends and hides known repeat paedophiles, hmm?
That sounds exactly like someone who is indifferent toward real life.
So get off your high horse and join the real world.
And startby turning over those of your priests who are paedos to the lawful authorities and stop protecting, supporting, defending and hiding the paedos.
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
OK, when you're done ripping on the pope, stop and consider his point of view and what he has to say. Whether you agree or disagree, his point deserves some honest thought and debate.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
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?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
In any age, there were those who blurred reality for oppressive means. Whether rewriting history to depict Native Americans submitting to colonists in a painting, to airbrushing out Stalin's opponents in photographs. Technology is a tool, and as moral beings we have the ability to do good or evil with it with it, including distorting reality.
Scientist (well me, in any case) Says Religion Causes Confusion Between Reality and Fiction
To a greater or lesser degree, the Pope might have a point. If we take his broad argument and narrow it down to some information of the internet, he very well be on to something. One problem with information on the Internet is that it's accuracy can be dubious at best. A person could post a bald-faced lie and pass it off as truth. Technology can make it easier to use propaganda that is founded on a lie to gain popularity for a politican. On the other hand, the same can be done with printed material - technology only makes it more economic and faster.
No surprise that somebody who believes in virgin birth and a water-walking zombie riddle-speaking prophet God has difficulty distinguishing between reality and fiction. The real question is, does technology make it difficult for atheists to distinguish between reality and fiction?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
So now I can't jerk off OR play video games? Damn dude, WTH am I supposed to do with my free time?
Just so you know, the Catholic church welcomes scientific explanations for the origin of mankind besides "Creation Science", including the theory of Evolution, so long as that science is used in a non-misleading way (for example, Evolution is fine so long as you recognize that there was a God that started it in the first place, but superstitious "mind science" like New Age theories are obviously false, assuming that you believe all of the other Catholic doctrines). You're thinking of fundamentalist, Protestant churches and denominations which take a rather extreme biblical literacy approach (which the Catholic Church hasn't had for well over a thousand years).
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Does it react to bible as if it was real?
Of course it does, because it Israel.
So let me get this straight: the soul has no observable effect on the universe, yet it exists anyway? Could you clarify what leads you to believe this hypothesis? Or maybe I'm misinterpreting you somehow.
So what you're saying is, basically, "assume that I'm right"?
How about this: I don't accept your assumptions. I reject them, because they assume facts simply do not exist. You leave the quality "sacred" undefined; you'll have to give a definition if you want me to accept that life is sacred. The entity you term "God" is not in evidence, as there is exactly zero evidence for such a creature - and, lest I start sounding like a broken record, it is also undefined. The existence of meaning behind the existence of an action is not in evidence; you'll have to provide a plausible hypothesis for why such a thing would exist, which I think will be tricky given that there is no evidence for the existence of a God Who "meant" for sex to mean anything.
Basically, your argument boils down to "assuming I'm right, I'm right". Sorry, but for matters of public policy (which covers things like sexual education and the promotion of contraceptives and prophylactics) that just doesn't cut it.
The evidence that Ratzinger did in fact cover up the instances of child molestation is effectively incontrovertible. The evidence that the Catholic Church has a history of covering these things up is also incontrovertible; just look at the recent furor in Ireland, or look at the history of a potential Australian saint (hint: she was temporarily excommunicated because she went public with the fact that a priest was abusing children).
Sorry, but it looks like the rot in the Catholic Church goes back centuries - and that's not even accounting for the hypocrisy inherent in preaching tithes but living in a gilded castle.
No, that's not the way it works. When you are wrong on matters of fact, and your wrongness on matters of fact leads you to encourage bad public policy, you should be opposed. Your beliefs matter very much when they mean the people my children end up having sex with don't know wha