Papabile: Papal predictions thread

[mongers]

But you aren't particularly observant are you. 

Neither was my mother. Both my parents (my dad in theory being Christian) thought religion was nonsense, except for socially. So did both sets of grandparents. 

In my own strange way, I'm more religious than literally generations of my family, both sides.

Odd, the way you describe it, one of Judaism son/daughter religions seems to have latched to how you describe the rituals in quite a big way.

You mean that whole Christian thing about Judaism being a bunch of empty rituals?

In one sense it's a fair cop - Judaism is simply more focused on ritual that (at least early) Christianity.

However, that has nothing to do with the ethical content of Judaism, which exists quite apart from the ritual stuff, and has always, at least to some thinkers, been linked to the ethic or reciprocity (that is, the "Golden Rule").

There is a famous anecdote told of Rabbi Hillel (who lived roughly contemporary with Jesus - well, within a century or so). A non-Jew asked him to describe the teachings of the Torah, but with this restrction: he had to do it during the time he could stand on one foot.

His answer was something like "do not do to others what you would not want to have done to yourself. That's the whole of the teachings and the law; the rest is commentaries. Go and learn".

The key to understanding Judaism is that it is, in fact, and extremely well-thought-out religious and philosophical system that has been elaborated and refined by some of the world's great intellects over centuries  - but that just happens to be based on a religion invented by a bunch of vicious, illiterate, sheep-herding early Iron Age bedouin types, featuring a deity who, in the earliest stories about him, acts just like a powerful, angry, paranoid tribal chieftan.   

Thanks for that.

But I meant Islam regarding the ritual characterisation you made, could pretty much encapsulate one or two tenets of Islam (yes I know that's the wrong term, but it's late here)

[Martinus]

if there was a religion out there that expelled everyone once they turned 65. 

That would be a very poor religion.

[Martinus]

Well, as long as he doesn't pull a full Jim Morrison and actually demonstrate said organ ... I just assume everyone in the audience was tuning out whatever he had to say and so didn't get the reference. 

I remember being bored out of my mind during his sermons.   I used to memorize the maps in the back of the Bible since I've always loved geography.   He had a good speaking voice--very booming and authoritative--but was a pretty bad singer and Lutheran pastors have to sing as well as speak during services.

Wtf. If my Bible got maps in it, I would have probably stayed religious. Maps were my favourite part in Lord of the Rings and Moommins.

[Martinus]

The worst part about being a Catholic kid was going to these special seasonal services like the Stations of the Cross on each Friday during Lent, or Rorate coeli masses at 7 am during the Advent. I hated this shit but they would give us special tokens which would then be exchanged for holy pictures of a collect-them-all variety so the bitch of a nun running our religion lessons would know if you went.

I kinda liked the Easter Triduum though, especially the candle service on Good Thursday.

[Martinus]

There is nothing quite like the Jewish ceremonies my mom made me attend as a kid - 3 solid hours long (or longer), conducted almost entirely in a language nobody understood (namely, Hebrew).

The only thing keeping me sane was reading the Bibles they had in the pews. I got a very good Biblical education out of it. To this day, I'm pretty good with OT biblical references. 

Man that is a novel way to get kids to read the Bible.  I guess in Israel they get to enjoy ceremonies in their own language.

Fun fact: I was watching Museum Secrets yesterday and they did an episode on the Israeli National Museum - one story-segement was on the Mr. Spock Vulcan handsign-Cohenim thing.

The strange part: they found one of the very earliest written Hebrew religious texts on a small, rolled-up metallic amulet. When it was (painstakingly) unrolled and translated, it read the Cohenim priestly benediction, essentally if loosely translated as: "live long and prosper". 

Weird. I always thought Star Trek Jews were Ferengi.

[Caliga]

FYI the vulcan hand thingy actually comes right out of Judaism too.  Leonard Nimoy was giving a shout-out to his peepz with that one.

[dps]

So, he doesn't have to work anymore and gets to retire early. Nice.

Did he ever have to 'work' in the first place?

While certainly clergy don't typically do a lot of physical work, anything that you have to do even when you don't want to has a "work" aspect to it.  And probably the worst thing about being a clergyman (from my POV) would be that in a sense, you're never off work.  If nothing else, you're essentially on-call 24/7 (at least in most mainstream Christian denominations in the US).

[Malthus]

FYI the vulcan hand thingy actually comes right out of Judaism too.  Leonard Nimoy was giving a shout-out to his peepz with that one.

Yup, I know - both the hand thing and the blessing are Jewish.

Allegedly, Nimoy was told not to look as the Cohenim did the blessing, but looked anyway - and saw them doing that hand sign.

[Martinus]

So, he doesn't have to work anymore and gets to retire early. Nice.

Did he ever have to 'work' in the first place?

While certainly clergy don't typically do a lot of physical work, anything that you have to do even when you don't want to has a "work" aspect to it.  And probably the worst thing about being a clergyman (from my POV) would be that in a sense, you're never off work.  If nothing else, you're essentially on-call 24/7 (at least in most mainstream Christian denominations in the US).

Besides, by Cal's standards, a lot of what is being done for pay is not work. After all, Cal as a HR manager does not really do any work either - he just reads CVs, talks to people he wants to hire and fills in forms.

By the way, I also disagree that a priest is always working, or that this aspect of being a priest is somehow unique. Most non-routine, creative jobs these days work like this, and it's not like the priest cannot have a beer at the pub or meet friends every once in a while either.

[Caliga]

 

I.  DO.  NOT.  WORK.  IN.  HR.

[CountDeMoney]

No, like a little kid, it's just a pool in the parking lot he can jump in, splashing mud all over it.

[Ed Anger]

I.  DO.  NOT.  WORK.  IN.  HR.

[Phillip V]

Cute.

[Zanza]

Francis looks bored and as if is he is thinking of something else.

[HVC]

Francis looks bored and as if is he is thinking of something else.

he's trying out his brando godfather impression.