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Catholic Bishops Support Net Neutrality
An anonymous reader writes "This week, in their annual 'State of the Union' address, the President of the US Catholic Bishops Conference spoke on a number of issues, in particular a surprisingly strong statement in favor on Net Neutrality. 'As the Internet continues to grow in its influence and prominence in Americans' lives, we support legislation and federal regulations that ensure equal access to the Internet for all, including religious and non-profit agencies, as well as those in more sparsely populated or economically distressed areas. True net neutrality is necessary for people to flourish in a democratic society,' said Archbishop Timothy Dolan. It's always interesting to see the Catholic Church joining in a crusade that means so much to so many Slashdotters!"
It's always interesting to see the Catholic Church joining in a crusade that means so much to so many Slashdotters!
Crusade? Slashdotters were expecting the Spanish Inquisition!
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
For the most hypocritical church on earth they're surprisingly progressive with some matters. I don't think they're that keen on Intelligent design either.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
They're alluding to equality of access (for example, subsidy to get penetration into rural areas at rates at least comparable to dense urban, and hosting on non-discriminatory basis to ensure freedom of --- in their case religious --- speech), rather than what Slashdotters mean by net neutrality.
Honestly? It's not about WHO supports net neutrality, it's that its idea isn't hijacked, bastardized, and killed by politicians and lobbyists. Spread the information, defeat misinformation. I couldn't care less that a religious organization approves or agrees.
Religious groups have long been in favor of Net Neutrality; they need to get their message out to the masses just like individuals. Many of them fear not being heard if censorship is allowed. In addition, many would not like paying exorbitant fees like the access fees that network providers want to to charge to carry their traffic.
It is the mass media and the corporate executives that want to drown out any voice but their own. They want to drive up the price of access to for their own greed and to avoid having to compete on a level playing field. How can anyone afford Netflix if Comcast forces their bandwidth costs to skyrocket. The same goes for VOIP services or any future idea that may compete with their monopoly (or duopoly as is the case.)
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DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
Actually you don't, because what the "youtube atheist movement" doesn't understand is that religion is and always was mostly a social interaction thing than the interpretation of holy books, dogmas and so on. You may know more about the later, but the churchgoer knows way more about the practical and social aspects of religion, e.g.: how it feels to sing or pray with a whole church.
Also the history knowledge of the "youtube atheist movement" shows distinctive selective knowledge. E.g.: non-religious reasons for the crusades or about the killing of believers by atheists in the name of the reason during the french revolution.
Jan
With friends like that, who needs enemies?
It should read:
With friends like that, who needs enemas?
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Just because it is exposed on net, does not mean that people are goign to watch or even just look for it. And why should they if they are happy with their faith? And people unhappy with faith/who lost it/who never believed ... they never needed help of net.
On the other hand, church incredibly profits from social networking amongst young people. Net allows them to stay connected and to connect. Priests can have blogs, couples can meet on special dating sites. People can "like" bible verses and share photos from charity event on flickr, tweet "last mass was great"...
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
I'd say that official stances from an organization that has approximately 1/5th of the world's population as members certainly matters. Just because you are dismissive of the organization or disagree with their message them doesn't change that. Pretending otherwise is the exact same failed juvenile mentality that led America to ignore Communist China up until Nixon.
The difference in the Council of Bishops vs. some random person, is that Bishops are an established position of leadership and authority within the organization. You may not care of the random guy from the shopping mall has to say about an issue, but you might care more about what the general manager of the mall might say, and you certainly would care what the Board of Directors of Westfield Shopping Centers Inc. might say, because it reflects where the organization as a whole might be headed or might be directing their efforts.
Dismissively ignoring their statements simply because you don't like who they are and what you think they stand for is short-sided and naieve.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
First they came for Google, and I did not protest that Google was treated differently on the web, because I was not Google.
Then they came for the farmers, and I did not protest that farmers could not get the internet, because I was not a farmer.
Then they came for protest sites, and I did not protest because... welll I don't protest and who cares those trouble makers can no longer afford an online presence.
Then they came for me and even if there was anyone left to protest, there was no place left to do it. Like the newspapers, the radio and TV before, the internet had become corporate run, purely for profit and removed any usage of the voiceless to be heard.
The Internet is not just a gimmick anymore, it has become as essential for democracy, freedom and equality as education, food and medicine. We have strict regulation to ensure equal access to lifes essentials. I think it might be time to put access to free information on an equal basis as a basic human right. Better that then let the American ISP who are without principle ruin yet another media.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You may know more about certain aspects of Christianity, but I'd wager that you also subscribe to some urban myths or oversimplifications. Internet atheism is in many cases a circle-jerk that is at odds with serious scholarship. For example, so very often one encouters claims in internet atheist circles that Jesus never existed, that he's entirely fictional. Even atheist historians believe overwhelmingly that a historical personage did exist, even if myth has accreted around him. The claim that Christians copied Christmas from a pagan holiday pops up a lot too, even though recent research suggests a strong possibility that it was the other way around. All those comparisons between Jesus' death on the cross and e.g. the Egyptian gods were already answered by Justin Martyr 1800 years ago.
Furthermore, Internet atheists seem to be all rah-rah for the New Atheist demagogues like Dawkins and Hitchens, who dismiss Christianity out of hand, instead of philosophers of religion who have the necessary training and who take inquiry seriously. I have a lot of respect for atheist philosophers like Hume and Mackie who examined theistic arguments carefully and responded rigorously, but that kind of careful argumentation is ignored by the New Atheists and their acolytes because it's too much work.
I'd say that official stances from an organization that has approximately 1/5th of the world's population as members certainly matters.
At least over here in Europe, most "members" of the church are members for two reasons and two reasons alone: Marriage and funeral. The number of people actually active in any sense is maybe 10% of that. The influence of the church is massive, but overblown. Most of its presence in organisations and political structures (Europe is a lot less segregated in this than the US, with the church having official presence in many government groups, like the local equivalents of the FCC and the likes) is historical.
The church certainly matters. But its opinion on anything modern does not, because everyone with half a brain, even those who are on paper members of it, realizes they know nothing about these things that is worth listening to. That is from what I gather a very, very widespread opinion. My own is in fact less neutral, I actually think they are corrosive and their opinions and actions are dangerous.
You may not care of the random guy from the shopping mall has to say about an issue, but you might care more about what the general manager of the mall might say, and you certainly would care what the Board of Directors of Westfield Shopping Centers Inc. might say,
Actually, no. Unless it is on matters of shopping malls, of course. But being director of a shopping mall does not confer any authority on unrelated matters. When it comes to, say, high-energy physics, I will take the opinion of any unknown actualy physicist active in that field over the shopping mall director, the pope or the president any day.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Fuck the elite. Fuck the lords, Fuck the Kings, Fuck the dictators
Are they all cute?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
You'll just be swapping one indoctrination for another.
;) ).
I doubt religion will die as long as humans are alive. If you believe animals (except for humans and their more recent ancestors) don't have religion, then clearly religion emerged in humans, outcompeted the default of "no religion" and has even thrived in the past thousands of years.
Yes there are a small minority of atheists, but most atheists don't appear to have much of an indoctrination, education and conversion plan (and so far such plans from atheists have been rather evil and negative in comparison to more benign religions). So how will the ratios increase?
Far more people while not being very religious, are not interested in getting rid of religion (they're more interested in music, TV, Farmville, money etc
And many seem to need to feel part of a Greater Thing. Whether it's religion or some "Greener than Thou movement", or a football team, or Star Trek. You take religion away from them, and something else will rush into the hole and look practically the same thing.
So why is it strange the catholic church is pro-technology ? Yes, they do find that technology must be moral, and even research must err on the side of morality (therefore - e.g. no killing embryos for research). The large majority of our technology was developed by catholic clergy. From the laws of physics to things like glasses (even now the catholic church is sponsoring Stephen Hawking - read his book once - and doubtless many others), and generally any and all technology we knew about before 1900. Especially in the medical field the catholic church is extremely well-represented. Without the catholic church, there would not be any universities, nor would we even have knowledge of the classical age in the first place.
The catholic church has been an institution of learning and knowledge during all of it's existence. During several time periods it has been the *only* such institution. It is not only the oldest organization that still exists, but is also the one of the very, very few organizations that have managed to avoid destroying all the knowledge they had available. (most "civilizations", from islam, to chinese, to mayas, incas have destroyed all their own knowledge, and they almost all did it to themselves)
If you read the letter, you will see that it is NOT about net Neutrality. It is about trying to get net access to all, basically, the poor.
This has NOTHING to do with ensuring that there is no discrimination amongst providers. It has everything with ensuring that there is no discrimination amongst consumers in ability to get to it. THat is all.
This is a BIG difference.
The odd thing is that the church could simply pay for the access for their poor parishioners. But, they do not want to do that. They want the GOV. to do that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
... The claim that Christians copied Christmas from a pagan holiday pops up a lot too, even though recent research suggests a strong possibility that it was the other way around.
[Citation needed] There simply exists so much useless studies that I can't take that for granted without reference. People really should disclose their faith in these arguments, someone might consider you as biased since you openly advertise being Christian in your webpage.
Atheism (or agnosticism) strictly does not have a problem being biased since it does not state anything, just that there is no proof. So please, again, where is your reference?
Indeed. They're the ones who originally promoted the whole idea of copyright. They wanted to keep control of the Bible, stop people from making unauthorized copies.
[citation needed]
I always understood the Statute of Anne to be about protecting the vested interests of publishers sympathetic to the crown. And anyway, Queen Anne was a protestant, not a Catholic, so Catholic lobbying is unlikely to have been effective.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
The Bible, both sides, actually has the most copies in the original ancient languages of any book from that era. It is actually the most widely copied book from the ancient world we have. The variations of the original versions are insignificant. Furthermore, the Old Testament in particular has been very well-preserved. The Jews did an unbelievably good job there. We have copies of Genesis that go back over 3,000 years that are the same as copies from 1AD and the middle ages.
Most people who say "the Bible has been changed" are speaking out of ignorance. The Catholic church relied on the Vulgate which is a trashy translation into Latin. Protestants used to rely on the King James version which was "slightly less bad" but based on the Vuglate IIRC. Modern evangelicals actually use the New International Version in most cases, which is a direct translation from the ancient texts into modern English done by scholars of those language (who were substantially better than those that worked for King James).
The Bible sitting on my shelf is about as accurate of a translation as you can get from what Paul and Luke actually wrote in Koine Greek and Aramaic.
Because the Internet dispelled a number of myths I had about "how bad the Church was..."
1) Did you know that the Spanish Inquisition was run by the Spanish government after the King blackmailed the Pope by threatening to withdraw Spanish troops from Rome if he didn't get his way?
2) Did you know that the first Crusade was actually a response to 500 years of unrelenting Islamic aggression Christian states?
3) Have you ever read the tenants of the "church" that Hitler proposed as a replacement for the authentic Catholic and Lutheran religions?
3b) Did you know that Hitler actually practiced a modern form of German paganism and in private openly hated Christianity with a passion?
4) Did you know that Galileo was actually invited as an honored guest by the Pope and was actually imprisoned only after he behaved like a total douchebag toward the Pope (where similar behavior would have warranted execution if directed at a medieval king)?
The catholic church has been an institution of learning and knowledge during all^H^H^H most of it's existence.
Fixedeth that for you,
yrs
Messrs. Martin Luther & Galileo Galilei
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
The Philocalian Calendar provides the first mention of both Christmas and Sol Invictus. As they are first attested at the same time, it's hard to say which influenced which. The Roman Empire in the 4th century had a fascinating competition between religions, with Christianity becoming popular in urban centres, Mithraism a fad in the army, and a handful of people even trying to "return to the sources" in pagan worship. An unqualified claim that religion X took custom Y from religion Z is an oversimplification of a complex and murky period.
Atheist philosophers, after they make a case for atheism, often draw conclusions for metaethics. Atheism does not stop at simply saying there's no proof.
In absolute terms, or compared to the Anonymous Coward?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"The claim that Christians copied Christmas from a pagan holiday pops up a lot too, even though recent research suggests a strong possibility that it was the other way around."
The other way around? How could that be, seeing that Mithras worship/celebration was help on Dec. 25 long before christians moved his birthday there, as well as the Saturnalia being celebrated at the end of the year for centuries before Christ.
The large majority of our technology was developed by catholic clergy.
Wow, that's a big fat [citation needed] right there...
Of course. As we all know an instution can never be right unless it is right on every position it takes.
For example, so very often one encouters claims in internet atheist circles that Jesus never existed, that he's entirely fictional
What contemporary sources can you cite that refer to Jesus? Even the Gospels were all written after he is supposed to have died. Tacitus refers to Christus as having been executed under Pontias Pilatus, but he was writing decades after the event, in a different country, and citing claims of early Christians.
There are a few passing references that may or may not all refer to the same person. Claiming that Jesus never existed is a bit of a stretch, but there is very little evidence outside of the Gospels for anything other than the fact that the Romans executed a political agitator on the even of the passover and his followers then made trouble in Rome. None of the other claims about Jesus' life appear until about 30 years after the execution, and all of these claims are made in Rome. It's entirely possible from the evidence that we have that the stories in the Gospels were fabricated by Jews in Rome for political purposes.
The claim that Christians copied Christmas from a pagan holiday pops up a lot too, even though recent research suggests a strong possibility that it was the other way around
The claim is usually that Christmas was copied from Saturnalia, which was practiced between the 17th of December to the 23rd, from 217BC onwards. Now, it's possible that Saturn is a real god who imbued his followers with prescient vision allowing them to copy a festival that was created several hundred years later, but it seems unlikely.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
we support legislation and federal regulations that ensure equal access to the Internet for all
Man, I hope that's a quote from his speech, because the grand sum total of the article on the Internet is:
As the Internet continues to grow in its influence and prominence in Americans’ lives, we support legislation and federal regulations that ensure equal access to the Internet for all, including religious and non-profit agencies, as well as those in more sparsely populated or economically distressed areas. True net neutrality is necessary for people to flourish in a democratic society.
Notice that legislation and federal regulations are nowhere in there. And there's an important distinction between whats written and what was said. We have a (mostly) neutral network. That's how it was built and how everyone assumes it works. That's part of what makes the Internet a Good Thing. Network neutrality regulation is the enforcement thereof. Because we can all see the horizon here, and with the consolidation of the big ISPs, and especially now with telcom companies buying media companies, we can all see that they'd want to break down NN just to make a buck.
But no-one wants regulation for regulation's sake. What we want is the networks to remain neutral.
Glasses? 9th and 10th century China and Cordoba were not Catholic.
Furthermore, much of our technology pre-dates the Catholic Church and Christianity, looking down a timeline of historic inventions its hard to find anything before 1608 that could be contributed to anyone Catholic.
The Greeks formulated many of the early theories of Physics, and while much of that was lost to Western Europe, it made its way into Islamic schools and eventually made its way back to Western Europe.
It was not the Catholic Church that created Universities, it was Islam and the Greek Church, the Greek Church and Islam also saved the knowledge of the Classical Age, the diaspora from the fall of the Byzantine Empire spread that knowledge to Western and Central Europe.
Its completely wrong to say the Maya and Inca destroyed all their knowledge, because they along with the Aztecs had their civilizations destroyed by the Catholic Church through its proxy, the Spanish Conquest of America.
I am Catholic. When the Church speaks on scripture, it has authority. When it speaks of that which has nothing to do with the bible, as in net "neutrality" (really nothing more than Government control over private networks, there is nothing neutral about it) or "man made global warming" the Church has no authority whatsoever.
This is hopelessly confused as a statement of Catholic doctrine. The magisterium of the Church heirarchy is not certainly not limited to scripture (sola scriptura is common Protestant doctrine, opposed to the fundamental doctrines of the Catholic Church), instead, it extends to matters of faith and morals whether grounded in Scripture or Tradition or both.
Advocacy of "net neutrality" and "man made global warming" both lead to similar ends: the confiscation of private property directly (by taking it over) or indirectly (by telling you what you can't do with it via regulation), which I can argue violates one of the foudnations of Judeo Christian morality, the 10 Commandments, specifically "thou shalt not steal".
One can, of course, argue for anything, but to argue that any taking of private property for public use or restriction by public authority on the use of private property categorically contradicts Christian morals you must dissent from the teachings of the Catholic Church on faith and morals in the domain in which you are making the argument; particularly, you must dissent from the teachings on the moral aspects of private and public property articulated in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) which, recognizes the importance of private property rights but also states that they are constrained by the rights and obligations of public authority, and that "The right of private ownership, however, is not opposed to the right inherent in various forms of public property. [...] Furthermore, it is the right of public authority to prevent anyone from abusing his private property to the detriment of the common good."
"Without the catholic church, there would not be any universities, nor would we even have knowledge of the classical age in the first place."
That's quite a grand claim. Perhaps it is also possible to claim that without beer, or the spade, there wouldn't be any universities either.
- A lot of knowledge and texts from the classical age were held in African and Asian countries by non-Christians while the there was little regard for 'heathen learning' after the fall of the Roman Empire in Western Europe. What is your argument against the diffusion of classical knowledge outwith the European church run education system?
- A lot of institutions of higher education developed outside of Europe before the European universities started. A bit rich I would have thought to tell Indian, Chinese etc scholars that their learning and teaching methodologies don't count. Technically these places might not have been universities ("associations of students and teachers with collective legal rights usually guaranteed by charters issued by princes, prelates, or the towns in which they were located") but I'd be willing to guess some of them closely resembled this model.
- The University of Bologna began as a law school teaching the ius gentium or Roman law of peoples which was in demand across Europe for those defending the right of incipient nations against empire and church.
Compared to what I'm getting. And remember I'm on slashdot.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
The Statute of Anne didn't arise from a vacuum. Before that, governments and the Catholic Church (which were so intertwined as to be indistinct) routinely sought to control and monopolize printing.
From the Wikipedia entry on the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (founded 1403): During the Tudor and Stuart periods (1485 - 1714), the Stationers were legally empowered to seize "offending books" that violated the standards of content set by the Church and State; its officers could bring "offenders" before ecclesiastical authorities, including the Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury.
The Stationers' charter (royal charter of 1557), establishing a monopoly on book production, ensured that once a member had asserted ownership of a text (or "copy") no other member would publish it. This is the origin of the term "copyright".
So, yeah, the Church has been deep in the efforts to regulate publishing. The "Worshipful" Stationers worked closely with the Church on such matters. The Church didn't oppose such control, no. Rather, they made entirely too much use of it.
The Church has been burning books for centuries. Some churches are still doing it today. Seems they thought they had the right to just barge in and burn books that did not belong to them. And execute the printers of those books. Sometimes they did purchase the books first. Mostly they concentrated on censorship of religious works.
Bulls were a form of "patent", which could be permissions or demands for all sorts of activities. One of those was the printing of books. Note particularly the 1537 "permission" of Henry VIII to sell Bibles. Why was this permission necessary? Why should the King have any say over such an operation? Because they were Bibles? What form did this permission take, and on what grounds was it based? Henry VIII had just split England from the Catholic Church, and this "lycence" [sic] provided some protection from the Church to printers of Tyndale's translations. Henry's lycence was a sort of copyleft of the day. Perhaps also Henry felt remorseful, as he was the primary authority pushing for Tyndale's execution.
Here's a time line of various acts that show the authorities thought they had the right to regulate books.
And what has the Church done to make amends for this long history of censorship, suppression, and control? Denounced the practice of book burning? Not that I've heard. Supporting Net Neutrality and admitting Galileo wasn't so bad is a start, but they could do a lot more.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
As far as Germany is concerned, that is totally wrong. The churches are the biggest employers in the nation and they are the main health care providers.
That's one of the lies we are being fed. If you dig just a tiny bit deeper, you find out that most of the "church-run" institutions like kindergardens, hospitals and the like are actually paid for by the government. The church is the on-paper provider of the facilities, but the taxpayers are actually paying for 99% of the bills. In many places throughout Germany, the church does not even pay the clergy in these places, even they are paid by taxes.
The German churches also have a massive presence in both government and the media. [...]
True, that is what I mean by "overblown". Almost all of this influence is motivated politically, not religiously. Even the justification for the continuation of the scam is usually along the lines of "it is part of our culture". Even those pushing the religious agenda have realized that they would be the laughing stock of the nation if their justification would be religious (aka "because it is what god would want us to do").
And, yet, every German, you included, pays a lot of money to these churches and gives up a lot of power to them.
I know, and I use every opportunity I get to oppose and change that. But as I wrote: The motivation is largely power, not belief, so a lot of people have a lot to loose simply by admitting the truth.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org