cyborgneticzENCYCLICAL IS OUT BB
Christopher Rozruch@Cyborgneticz Consider myself agnostic, but pretty lapsed. I couldn't sleep last night and wound up turning to the encyclical after that Zeynap Tufekci piece everyone was talking about. I would likely have read _about_ it any time, but would not have read any of the text were it not from a recommendation from somebody with more secular, indeed rather radical, interests (Gramsci etc.) You mention a reluctance to talk about some of this; I am glad you did not make it a taboo.
@krozruch What did you think? The things I'm reluctant to talk about in regards to Catholicism are the things that are nuanced and old and often misrepresented, because nuanced conversations are so hard to have digitally- lack of nonverbal ques and obvious tone. So I love talking about theology, but I would uncomfortable talking about things like papal authority cause I dont want to feel like I'm defending my faith - if that makes sense?
@Cyborgneticz I was very impressed. Haven't yet finished it. It is, I would say, the product of a bureaucracy, not just one mind, but so would be any extended editorial in a newspaper or magazine, a report from the EU or similar governmental organisation etc., and for the most part it is solid with a focus on precisely what we need to think about right now. It ought also to reach a lot of people and, though I am ambivalent/conflicted about religion, this is a +ve intervention.
I struggle a great deal with the lack of nuance on social media whether here or on Twitter so I understand what you are saying. 1 thing that I was reminded of is a section of Jamie Bartlett's The Secret of Silicon Valley in which he talks about his Facebook profile & the inferences made about him from his interactions; he was thought Catholic though he considered himself long-term lapsed. His political opinions were informed by morality in a way that is not typical.
@Cyborgneticz
@Cyborgneticz
My schooling (probably more than my church attendence, I think, though don't know) involved a lot of discussion of morality which need not lead one to the more regressive / exclusional doctrines of the Catholic faith. I loved science as a kid and drifted from religion belief, certainly of the Christian / monotheistic style I was brought up with. Still, some of the teachings of Jesus stayed with me even as I studied moral philosophy, read on buddhism / Lao Tsu etc.
@Cyborgneticz
@Cyborgneticz
What I find right now in a country that is at the arse end of a Thatcher-style revolution, is that people who lack such a grounding in any form of morality, are liable often to come out of it with no grounded moral principles at all other than the contemporary defaults. Often, that is worse. I consider my parents (who grew up on the West of Ireland where the power of the Church was near total) to be more liberal than many people I meet.
@Cyborgneticz
@Cyborgneticz
I must admit that I have tended to be sceptical about the moral authority of the Pope and can see reactionary outcomes from those who identify as Catholics both in Ireland and, say, Poland which is next door now I'm in the Czech Republic. John Paul II is lauded (alongside Thatcher and Reagan, here at least) for his role in bringing down Communism over here, but God and country can be a powerfully regressive force in Poland. But what are our democratic outputs now?!
@Cyborgneticz
@Cyborgneticz
Apologies for the braindump but yes, I find there is a lot to talk about here and most all of it is filtered out by most mainstream sources and will exist only in the negative spaces of the internet whether here or on more corporate spaces...
@Cyborgneticz
@Cyborgneticz
@krozruch Still a'wakin up, but I agree with you. I think that for me personally having a religious background that is very structured but still has active room for disagreement is fundamental to my thinking - granted, I was lapsed for ages and returned. I think what you're saying points kind of Pope Francis' remarks on the ease of radicalizing ppl for the worst without a history. I appreciate that this encycical pulls from his interfaith document with the Imam that tradcaths called heretical
@krozruch cause it argues that a pluralism of faiths is consistent with Church teaching and God (there was already an encyclical supporting that BUT tradcaths are trash). I think the fact that we lack, more than ever, the ability to be in space with each other that it's really easy to lose the skills for nuance - or make it impossible cause the social media format in general isn't really helpful for nuance.
@Cyborgneticz The pluralism aspect was great, and the sources he was drawing on is one of the document's great strengths.. I came to Lao Tsu via Hrabal who talks about the Tao Te Ching, Kant, Schopenhauer, and Jesus (etc.) as all of a piece, different efforts to reach an underlying reality.
@Cyborgneticz There is not so much going on around here off-line, I tend to find, but I went to a discussion at a student hang-out kind of a place a while back which discussed Christianity and populism. Such outreach is very important (Moravian cymbal music to boot). Tougher here, so I appreciate your bringing this up and engaging on it :) Have a great day!