‘Holy’ Joe Humphreys, of the Irish Times
Anything unusual/unsettling in the Irish Times?
Catholic Church is one of the only institutions in Irish society that talks about fundamental values, meaning and human purpose.
On top of that, it promotes an egalitarian ethic that is highly commendable in both ambition and scope. The command to “love your neighbour as yourself” sets a moral benchmark for Christians that, despite bordering on the unattainable, is nonetheless capable of inspiring benevolence in its adherents.
What’s not to like about Jesus’s anti-capitalism? Or Pope Francis’s social conscience? Secular humanists may baulk at the theological reasoning behind the claim that “everyone is equal in the eyes of God” but they must surely observe its sentiment.
The Catholic Church also serves a particular purpose in Ireland by providing the basic unit of community. For historical reasons, the parish remains a key identifier around which sports clubs, fundraising efforts, political campaigning and educational activities typically revolve. It is also the place towards which many people gravitate to commemorate important events like birth, marriage and death.
This poses a challenge for humanist reformers. Should one try to dismantle existing community bonds in order to build a better and fairer society? Or should one work with church bodies to try to achieve the same goal?
Joe Humphreys, more at link below
Crucify HIm!
Fight!
Why Irish atheists still need the Catholic Church (Joe Humphreys, Irish Times)
The egalitarian ethic only applies if you are male and celibate or male and married.
Everyone else is second class.
Must be straight and god-fearing also in both cases.
This would be a quite brilliant fifth year essay.
Higher level JC more so
Finishing with, “and then I woke up and it was all a dream”
The end.
‘and then i woke up and found myself nailed to a cross’
Ha!
Have you reached 5th year standard yet? I doubt it.
Sorry Miss.
“Should one try to dismantle existing community bonds in order to build a better and fairer society?”
Has there been talk about dismantling the church?
He’s basically admitting that using the church as the basis of a community is not achieving equality.
“it promotes an egalitarian ethic that is highly commendable in both ambition and scope. The command to”
It “promotes” an ethic with a “command”. I just don’t think this chap is the brightest.
first you get the money
then you get the power
then you get the pussy
lol
I’m sorry. This must be so upsetting for you all.
Thanks. Knowing that people can get paid for badly thought out pieces like this by influential national media outlets really is upsetting. I used to assume grown ups were all smart when I was a kid.
Then you should grow up.
it’s actually hilarious. do you honestly think anyone here would take a piece like that seriously? it actually must be more upsetting for you to have such a moron speak for you.
If there’s one thing the Broadsheet commentariat hate more than people disagreeing with them, it’s people not hating the roman catholic church.
……Whilst parked in a cycle lane.
And posting cute pet pics from the Web Summit
I do enjoy how hardcore social conservatives frequently try and take the moral high ground when they don’t actually have anything of substance to say.
In fairness, most people on the internet hate people disagreeing with them.
Like if you agree.
You could not be more wrong.
Well I think that’s a Rotten thing to say. :(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT9JY5mgOKU
Well, yeah like.
If it was the Roman Swimming & Golf Association that had raped and then covered up the rapes of thousands of kids, imprisoned women, terrorised people generally you’d hate them too.
You let a church off with crimes and negligence you wouldn’t dream of accepting from any other organisation – that says far more about you than the people who rightfully think the institutional church is a rotten cabal and about as far from Jesus as you can get.
If your logic was used to build medical equipment, human population would have dropped to BC levels. Do you reserve reasoning for your bank account only?
You mean the organization that engaged in the systematic abuse and cover-up of the same abuse of women and children for decades? That one?
Ah yes. The Really Cuddly Church.
In fairness Hitler was great at community building. Can’t we get him over from Argentina for a conference?
Excellent. I’ll make tea
He looks like what would happen if BP Fallon and Liam Gallagher had a baby.
Yes! BP Fallon. I knew he looked like someone.
The ideology and idolatory of the Catholic church has little to do with the teachings of Jesus, read the sermon on the mount, the money lenders in the temple, etc, no commonality.
It would be reasonable for humanists to be supportive of Christain values, but these are not the same as the catholic values (a misogynist sect of christianity)
I’ve never appreciated people referring to ‘Christian values’ as if they invented the concept of being nice.
Fair enough, but when has the majority of humaity not been practising believers in religions?
TBH, I don’t really care as I don’t believe that their is any inherent goodnesss in religion or humanity.
We’re chimps not bonobos
There is definitely inherent good in humanity. Evolution depends on it. We’d have wiped each other out by now otherwise.
Please provide link to scientific peer reviewed study that demonstrates altruism in human society. Can’t find one that hasn’t been refuted by Dawkins et al.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIGTyANMFb4
Moyes, you need to learn the meaning of proof, its not a youtube clip
Yeah it is. That is a clip of humans selflessly helping another human who is in danger, with no regard for themselves. That is the definition of altruism. So, let’s see your proof that humans are “chimps, not bonobos”, whatever the fupp that means.
Charity workers & donors?
Volunteer firemen?
St Johns Ambulance people?
Grannies that knit baby hats for maternity wards?
People who ask a question on Stack Overflow, figure out the answer, and then post the answer so that other people who have the same problem can find the answer too?
Any fair analysis of the sacraments and teaching of the Catholic Church would dispel your notion that it is not based on the teaching of Christ.
If you read those teachings, rather than dogma/doctrine, you would realise that you lose as soon as you mention sacraments that are fundamentally irrelevant to those teachings
The sacraments all have a firm basis in Christ’s teachings (and actions).
He was baptised. He forgave sinners. He instituted the Eucharistic. He recruited and sent out preachers, etc
But the beatitudes have precedence over that superficial stuff. (Conveniently overlooked by your dogma)
That’s not superficial stuff. And how does my dogma ignore the beatitudes?
*sound of Garda sirens, as Newsjustin is pulled over*
Garda: “Less o’ the beatitudes, there sonny”
What was jesus’ view on contraception, abortion, gays, sex outside of marriage?
The question should be want would Jesus’s view of the Church be? Pretty sure it would not be WJWD
I don’t know. But I can take an informed guess based on what’s known of him. I can’t say weather he’d be in favour of e-voting, meat-eating or renewable energy either.
Go on then.
Maybe. No. Be nice. Try not to.
Seen as the bible says Jesus hung out with people otracised by society at the time, that christains shoudl take that as meaning that they should be inclusive.
As Jesus hung around with prostitutes (the red sea srolls, and uncanonised gospels, indicate that he was married possibly to a prosittute) it doesn’t seem to likely that he would have been to concern with sex outside of marriage
(Red Sea Scrolls are probably more accurate historical sources than the gospels, given that they have not had 2000 years of editing)
Sounds more like the Shameless Shane Maguire every day.
Dead Sea Scrolls Jack.
Christians are, indeed, called to be inclusive. Read the catechism and compendium of social teaching of the RCC to see how that’s prioritised. See prison chaplaincies, homeless services, addiction treatment, protection of exploited sex workers, etc, etc by catholics to see how it’s borne out in practice.
The Quran says Jesus turned a load of children into pigs.
Fair play to him.
the 12-step addiction model has the lowest rate of success of any existing tratment paradigm, with the highest relapse rates – 95% within the first year. and relapse is seen as negative or a problem rather than a learning tool. real success comes from supported interventions that are judgement-free, one-to-one and empirically-based.
just sayin. i appreciate the church found a lot of recruits from the marginalised but there’s always been an element of guilty manipulation in what the church calls its ‘good works’. it never provided a service without one eye on stats – they wanted sinners, not equals.
There’s something very seedy about the AA programme. You take people who are low and desperate, enough to seek help, and try and convert them to your religion. That’s just creepy.
I’m pretty sure he says in the 1st paragraph that he is an atheist.
You’re referring to the line “I, however, am not one of them” ? I wasn’t sure what way to interpret that to be honest. Either he’s not an atheist or he’s an atheist who “longs for the disappearance of religion and spirituality from the public domain ”
Either way I’m pretty sure an atheist wouldn’t say the catholic church promotes an “Egalitarianism Ethic” unless as others have speculated here, and he is actually really dim ? That said I’m not familiar with this mans writing so who knows :D
Morality isn’t exclusive.
Like yer ma.
The only logical conclusion is that Joe is a massive troll.
This.
I hope the BS posse see the massive contradiction between their views on “equalideee” and “inclusivideeee” and their absolute bigotry when it comes to people who are religious. It really devalues all other pretensions of concern.
What bigotry against religious people have you seen on this thread?
I think he’s referring to the many, many lapsed Catholics/Protestants on here who tend to have a go at the church (RCC for the most part).
And in his rush to make them all sound like evil-agenda-driven-unthinking-anti-religious-humanist-atheist-scumbags he used the word “bigotry” incorrectly. You cannot be bigoted about a faith you were brought up in. You can be ignorant of it still, but you can’t be bigoted, if you lived it.
So, in conclusion, I’d say Tony is the bigot. What say you Tony?
Ha? That’s not true at all! What definition of bigotry are you working off? You can of course be bigoted about the faith you were raised in. You talk a lot of sense but this comment is nonsensical.
True… lost the run of me self :/
It’s a flaw of mine, I often carry with ‘bigot’ a sense of an unwillingness to understand the other side.
To make no attempt to understand, in this case the RCC’s role in Ireland, in which so many of us grew up in, and so it could not be said were lacking in understanding any such influences of that church-lead life growing up.
Anyway, must stop doing that, I’ve done it before! :)
The laws and functions of the Irish state is founded in RCC bigotry, so once that is addressed you might have a point (give schools and hospitals to the state, pay a fairshare of compensation to teh abused, etc, etc)
He starts with the assumption that ‘Catholicism’ is actually not the hypocritical, lying, filthy, degenerate institution it has become. Other than that, I agree.
Don’t forget depraved!
What if you’re a Protestant atheist?
You will still come over here, Steal our land and go to Protestant hell
is protestant hell different from catholic hell? cos i’d convert to the handy option, just in case like.
you have to have more fun to get a ticket as you’ve no original sin, it’s a it more effort like and that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it
You sit in on July 12th watching boxsets.
That’s me and I object to his treating the Roman church as if it was the only flavour of Christianity.
That gave me a good laugh. It goes to show just how out of touch these people are.
stopped reading after “..one of the only..” . just another die hard catholic stream of consciousness rant where logic and grammar take a back seat. The times and indo are a mixture of Sun/Mirror and Alive articles.