I have friends and relatives who love iPhone and Blackberry apps. Here's just the gift for someone who has everything and it's only $1.99.This app is sanctioned by the Pope and it will guide you through confession by helping to list all your sins [Catholic church gives blessing to iPhone app].
There's something a little troubling about the screen shot. Do you see that box beside "Have I been involved with superstitious practices ..."? Isn't there something strange about leaving it unchecked while filling out a form like this?
I wonder how many sins there are and whether they have a box for "check all."
[Hat Tip: RichardDawkins.net]
21 comments :
How long till the pope beatifies the iPhone app?
@lone primate
I think you have that the wrong way round. It should be 'how long till the iPhone app beatifies the pope?' (after he's dead of course)
Mike
Yes, but how does the App bugger you?
Ole Phat Stu:
Yes, but how does the App bugger you?
Apple make$ it. :)
Confession is a sacrament to Catholics. Each week millions of people confess their sins and try to better themselves.
Your response is to mock confession and to mock faithful Catholics for privately and with humility trying to do the right thing.
I'll bet you think that Jews look funny with those little caps, and that they all have hook noses.
You're a bigot Larry.
Your response is to mock confession and to mock faithful Catholics for privately and with humility trying to do the right thing.
Hardly very private and the evidence suggests that Catholics do a far better job of mocking than any other group, the confession iphone app being a case in point.
If millions are confessing their sins each week it doesn't sound like they are actually bettering themselves.
"I'll bet you think that Jews look funny with those little caps, and that they all have hook noses."
A Catholic apologist drawing attention away from their loony practices by bringing up Judaism in a non-sequitur and insulting tactic?
No way. I just can't accept that.
@steve
You mock things you don't understand. Confession is a very private matter and it matters enormously to millions of people (me included). I never cease to be astonished at the venality of atheists like you.
Catholic confession is none of your business, any more than Jewish customs or the private customs of any religion.
Why such hatred?
Why such hatred?
First of all, don't conflate mild ridicule with "hatred". They are hardly the same thing.
Why do you care? You have your faith, you have your god, you have your priest whose ear you can chew and chants that take away the sins of the world. Why does it matter to you if we don't agree?
The bottom line for us is the hilarity of using a piece of technology to remind one to engage in religious rituals that haven't changed in character or intent since the days when having anything like an iPhone would have be branded witchcraft.
"A Catholic apologist drawing attention away from their loony practices by bringing up Judaism in a non-sequitur and insulting tactic?"
The obvious comparison between anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism isn't a non-sequitur. It's the same damn thing. It's just hatred of people and customs that you don't understand and that are intensely private matters that are frankly none of your business.
Atheism has an ugly history of violent suppression of religious belief-- in virtually all Marxist (i.e. atheist) countries, religious belief was and is viscously suppressed. Your ideology has a history of unparalleled violence and brutality, and much of it has been aimed at religious believers, mostly Christians.
Your personal decision to not believe in God is your business. Reasoned criticism of religious doctrine is fair.
But your plain anti-Catholic bigotry and mockery is another matter entirely, and needs to be called out for the bigotry that it is.
"The bottom line for us is the hilarity of using a piece of technology to remind one to engage in religious rituals that haven't changed in character or intent since the days..."
What a silly comment. I love how atheists consider themselves so avant-guard, so cutting edge. But your ritual-- sneering at other people's religious beliefs and directing your hatred to religious faith, has a much longer history than the Catholic Church.
I find it hilarious that bigots are using modern technology to vent their ancient form of hated.
Would you mock Jews who used modern technology in their worship? Are you merely an anti-Catholic bigot?
Catholic confession is none of your business,
I suspect my very catlick parents would disagree with you.
Check out the last name, given that the catholic Poles whole heartedly approved of and assisted in the extermination of the local jewish population by the nazis, there is a very good chance that if one is of polish background then one is of catlick background. And don't get me started on the Irish side of the family, basically we have the 2 most virulent and repulsive instantiations of catholicism fusing into an even more vile form, if that can be believed.
Cue incoming shift from venal atheist attack mode to just another bitter ex catholic.
You really have a very limited repertoire and I think you have pretty much blown your wad here.
anonymous says,
The obvious comparison between anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism isn't a non-sequitur. It's the same damn thing. It's just hatred of people and customs that you don't understand and that are intensely private matters that are frankly none of your business.
Atheism has an ugly history of violent suppression of religious belief-- in virtually all Marxist (i.e. atheist) countries, religious belief was and is viscously suppressed. Your ideology has a history of unparalleled violence and brutality, and much of it has been aimed at religious believers, mostly Christians.
Just out of curiosity, how would you define ant-atheist bigotry?
So far in this thread you are the only one who has proven themselves to be a bigot.
Discussion of facts is not bigotry.
Which of my claims do you disagree with:
"Atheism has an ugly history of violent suppression of religious belief-- in virtually all Marxist (i.e. atheist) countries, religious belief was and is viscously suppressed. Your ideology has a history of unparalleled violence and brutality, and much of it has been aimed at religious believers, mostly Christians."
Various ideologies have gained state power at various times-- Christianity (Holy Roman Empire, etc), Judaism (Israel), Islam (Saudi Arabia, etc), Atheism (Marxist nations).
Atheism in power is by far the bloodiest and most oppressive ideology in history. That is not bigotry, but a mere statement of historical record.
An example of real bigotry would be mockery of a private religious custom intended to subject all members of that religion to ridicule. An analogy would be that criticism of Israeli foreign policy is a legitimate critique, whereas mockery of the private customs of Orthodox Jews would be bigotry.
You're an anti-Catholic bigot, Larry, and you need to take the history of your own ideology seriously.
@Anonymous
Criticism, and even mockery, does not automatically mean hatred or bigotry. This is something that you seem to understand in regards to your criticism of other people's views, yet is conveniently beyond your comprehension when it comes to criticism directed at your own. The hatred and bigotry that you perceive in Larry's post are not in evidence. They are the product of your own imagination.
anonymous says,
You're an anti-Catholic bigot, Larry, and you need to take the history of your own ideology seriously.
Actually, I don't discriminate. I make fun of everyone who holds silly superstitious beliefs. Roman Catholics are a nice juicy target but they're not nearly as ridiculous as Young Earth Creationists or people who believe in homeopathy.
What is "my own ideology"? I don't identify with the practices of everyone who rejects superstition. There's are lot's of people like me who don't believe in the tooth fairy but that doesn't mean we all agree on how to run a country. There's no such thing as a shared a-tooth fairy ideology and there's no such thing as a shared a-theist ideology.
You have me confused with people like you who are obliged to defend everything Roman Catholic just because you are (presumably) a Roman Catholic .
Atheism in power is by far the bloodiest and most oppressive ideology in history. That is not bigotry
It's not history, either; it's rubbish. There have been virtually no non-believers in any position of power throughout the long, miserable trial of human advancement until essentially the last two centuries, arguably around the time of the French Revolution. And even since then, it's hardly been normative. Everything before that, and much of what's come since, can be put on the tab of the superstitious in the name of one invisible friend or another.
I love how atheists consider themselves so avant-guard, so cutting edge.
What's "avant-guard" about living in the modern age? Since when is basing what you accept as real and the things you conduct your life around those that can be demonstrated to exist "cutting edge"?
I don't think we're exceptional. What's exceptional is doing all those things based on one of the handful Bronze Age and Iron Age ethnic fairy tales that's made it through to modern times without being moved to the fiction shelves along with Mithras, Zeus, and Odin.
I find it hilarious that bigots are using modern technology to vent their ancient form of hated.
Oh, then you'll certainly hustle to get all those "avant-guard" cardinals and bishops off the public airwaves. I guess we shouldn't hold you accountable for the Protestant televangelist crew, though.
Would you mock Jews who used modern technology in their worship?
Honestly, I haven't encountered any. Now ask me my honest opinion of Muslims who have little things in their pockets that vibrate and tell them it's time to face a stone in Saudi Arabia, press their foreheads to the floor, and "please" the supposed creator of everything by saying the same thing they just said a couple of hours ago by rote. Yes, that would make ME feel all warm inside that their love was heartfelt and not just a huge ass-kissing ceremony. What kinds of people ARE these gods, anyway?
Would you mock Jews who used modern technology in their worship?
Yes. Although, just like the catlicks, they seem to have a lot of local talent more than willing to make a mockery of themselves.
From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8196786.stm
Flying rabbis fight swine flu
A group of rabbis and Jewish mystics has taken to the skies over Israel, praying and blowing ceremonial horns in a plane to ward off swine flu.
About 50 religious leaders circled over the country on Monday, chanting prayers and blowing horns, called shofars.
Are you merely an anti-Catholic bigot?
Just a bad idea bigot. Which makes catholicism a target rich environment.
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