An Argentinian Pope

March 13, 2013 • 12:29 pm

The new Pope has just been announced as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina—the first non-European Pope in history. Bergoglio is 76 years old and will take the name Francis I, after St. Francis of Assisi.

Reader Sajanas guessed correctly, and wins the Cat-lick autographed book; if you are he/she, please contact me.

Beyond this, I could give a cat’s patootie who’s Pope unless he does some serious reform.

164 thoughts on “An Argentinian Pope”

  2. Maybe the Church will evolve. Ya think this Francis can speak with the beasties like his namesake?

    1. Yep, CNN reports that as a bishop he fought against liberalization and reform.

      I will admit to being completely wrong in my predictions. I figured the historically extroadinary event of a retirement indicated a desire by leadership for a change in policy. Evidently not, it was just a retirement.

    3. As cardinals gather to elect Pope, Catholic officials break into a sweat over news that priests share €23m building with huge gay sauna

      A day ahead of the papal conclave, faces at the scandal-struck Vatican were even redder than usual after it emerged that the Holy See had purchased a €23 million (£21 million) share of a Rome apartment block that houses Europe’s biggest gay sauna.

      …
      There was further embarrassment for the Holy See when the press observed that thanks to generous tax breaks it received from the last Berlusconi government, the church will have avoided hefty payments to the Italian state. The properties are recognised as part of the Holy City.

  5. lol.

    Was the selection by single elimination nude oil wrestling matches in the sistine chapel? Winner take all!

    That’s likely why they eliminated wrestling from the olympics. lol.

    It’s been confiscated by the Vatican as its official means of Pope selection.

    3. *Wikipedia

      “As cardinal, Bergoglio became known for personal humility, doctrinal conservatism and a commitment to social justice.”

      No chance of any conflicts there then.

      /@

      1. I’m hoping for another half decade of poor decision making, homophobic rants, and stupid crisis management. Making the world better by making the institution weaker.

        The book is also nice. 🙂

        2. Srsly, maybe the last thing we want is a reform pope. Let them continue to self-destruct!

          3. Sadly, whatever they do millions of people will continue to believe and to take their instruction from the Pope. In my opinion a shift away from their current positions on contraception, HIV, homosexuality and sexuality in general could alleviate a great deal of unnecessary suffering and probably would make little difference to the long term persistence of religious belief. I’m not holding my breath though.

  9. Pope Francis on Homosexual Marriage

    “Let’s not be naive, we’re not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God. We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.”

    I.E. It is the work of Satan

    1. Stonyground Says:

      Why would the title ‘Father of Lies’ apply to Satan? According to the Bible Satan always tells the truth, it is YHWH who is the incorrigable liar.

  10. I’ve been refreshing Google News more or else constantly. And continuously.

    I had no ideas, as I knew that surprises were continuous. And yet. Here is this Sajanas person who has guessed correctly. It’s amazing.

    Meanwhile. Pope Francis whatever?

    1. I picked him because he was a Latin American with an Italian father. I’ve heard people say “The Italians want an Italian Pope” and “The Latin Americans want a Latin American Pope”.

      And thus this guy, or someone like him seemed a logical choice.

      1. Maybe it seemed like a logical choice.

        But from out here, reading all the blogs about who was a contender and who wasn’t? You totally nailed it.

      2. According to the BBC, career diplomat Dennis Rodman was “betting on a black guy” for the next pope. Who thought to ask this question of this person? Is the BBC just as incompetent as American media?

        1. Apparently. The last thing the Vatican needs is a spotlight on Africa. Catholic crimes on the continent will be found to outweigh all others, starting with the usual child rape and moving on to systematic rape of nuns and god knows what besides. It would be lunacy to elect an African pope. An American black guy (assuming there are any black American Cardinals) would alienate all the racist American Catholics, which is no doubt where much of their money comes from, not going to happen.

        2. R[ussian ]T[elevision} had the headline “YES HE VATICAN” which would have been apter if the Pope had been black.

    1. Threatened with an invasion by the Swiss guard, the UK armed forces on the islands turned back to their cards and put another penguin on the barbecue.

      1. Hey, I am Swiss and resent that: penguins are cute and one shouldn’t joke about eating them!

        Oh, and those Swiss guards may have a secret weapon, fighting cows. Not sure how they’ll manage an amphibious landing, however.

        1. Not sure how they’ll manage an amphibious landing, however.

          With amphibians, no doubt.

        2. I resent it too. I run Linux. Penguins are cute!

          Go eat an Apple instead… 😉

    3. Damn! I came here with a Malvinas/Falklands joke at the ready, only to find I’m too late. Hmmmmph!

  13. Faith Marketing, The Church chooses a latin-american Pope because Evangelicals and others are increasing the amount of sheep.

  15. In addition to the official papal Twitter feed, @Pontifex, which has now become active again, the new pope also has a personal account, @JMBergoglio — and is also on Facebook.

    Hs election as pope was announced on both feeds a short time ago.

    (NYT)

    1. I’m tempted to become the pope’s facebook friend just for the bizarre novelty of it. Of course I’d have to hide his feed immediately…

      1. wonder if he will follow any new people. Last time i looked i was disappointed when the 7 or so people the pope account followed were just the different language pope accounts.

  18. I was barely 10 years old when the military executed their last Golpe de Estado recorded in Argentinean history and they completed what has been started under an elected democratic government: la guerra sucia or dirty war. The toll? 15000 people disappeared… As all civil wars is difficult to not walk away clean from those events, even for a kid from 10 to 18 years old living under. But Mr Bergoglio is tainted from that time. The Church in Argentina, still important in national politics but much stronger in that time (Argentina was one of the first countries to allow marriage of the same sex) was complicit to say the least in the events of those bad years. Bergoglio was not directly involved (apparently) but you can say that turned away. The Church instead of strongly opposing illegal detentions and denouncing concentration camps was accomodationist of a perverse regime.

    Well, we can say that it is an improvement from Ratzinger. Compare to the Nazis, the Argentinean military were clowns in the evil ranks…

    1. I was checking the neo-pope Frankie I related news on the Guardian, and they’re mentioning his complicity with the military junta’s crimes, and apparently even active support in hiding political prisoners from international observers at the military’s behest. Not a nice fellow overall.

      As for Ratzi, for all his crimes (covering up pedophiles and so on), the Nazi association is, I feel, rather unfair, as at his young age back then there was not much one could do to escape mandatory enrollment in the youth ranks.

      1. I lost all sympathy for Ratzinger when he blamed secularism and atheism for the Nazis. He clearly wasn’t paying attention to what the Nazi’s had on their belt buckles, or what the Catholics and Lutherans were doing throughout history.

        1. Reminds me of A.J. Balfour’s swipe, recounted by Churchill in Great Contemporaries: Frank Harris (of “My Life and Loves” fame) quipped, in the presence of Balfour:
          “The fact is, Mr. Balfour, all the faults of the age come from Christianity and journalism.”
          To which Balfour deadpanned: “Christianity, of course, but why journalism?”

          Churchill incidentally remarked of Balfour: “His aversion from the Roman Catholic faith was dour and inveterate. Otherwise he seemed to have the personal qualifications of a great Pope.”

      2. In all fairness, very few in the Catholic hierarchy were NOT colaborationists or at least indifferent to the crimes of the dictatorship. Bergoglio is one among many. You won’t hear that over the nationalistic noise surrounding his rise to power in the Vatican, of course.

    2. *sigh* and here I was happy that this guy wasn’t on SNAP’s list of 12 people that shouldn’t become Pope because of their handling of the sex abuse conspiracy.

      Well, hopefully this will give journalists some more impetus to sift through the remains of that terrible past.

    3. Ooops, correction on my post, the killed during dirty war in Argentina added up to 30000! (not 15K, never post late in the night…)

  19. A good issue to highlight especially as religious experience is now getting taken seriously by the scientific community. The problem is they are now being seen increasingly as outer experiences, beyond the brain, and the answer will probably have to be a new paradigm.

    1. If you mean that science, technology, engineering, or math have any use whatsoever for the supernatural, you are mistaken or worse. Nobody needs gods for that.

      1. I’m saying science has to account for these experiences and, if outer (highly suggested), consider the new realities so uncovered.

        1. What “experiences”? What does “outer” mean? What “new realities”?

          I think you’re just spouting crypto-religious nonsense.

        2. Delusion, hallucination and hearing voices has been studied for a long time. The specialism is called psychology.

    2. … is now getting taken seriously by the scientific community.

      I am sorry to hear that incompetence and weak-mindedness are creeping into science. Thank you for warning us.

      1. The oddest point about the materialist paradigm is this: all experience is in the brain. So your hand you see is only in your brain, as is everything else – wife, shopping, car…family…stars even. Materialism posits a virtual world…and only produced by firing neurons. You have to agree this.
        I challenging you (and others) to point to where an object really is in the real world and what it really looks like, i.e. does it only look like “firing neurons”? Hardly!!
        Think carefully on this.

        But “non-ordinary” experience offers a way of breaking out from this. Easy to find veridical examples, for instance veridical NDEs – well documented esp. by medical experts and other scientists.
        But the point is your common reality experience as offered by materialism is *invalid* – but it’s virtual anyway.

        1. The way out of your solipsistic fallacy is to cite experience which is objective and empirical.

          Near-death experiences are anecdotes. No one can say whether they represent a perception of reality or not, because there is no objective way to test them. NDEs are stories, just like other claims of religious experiences. There is no empirical evidence whatsoever that they are real.

          For example, suppose that religious belief is a delusional disorder, a mental condition which causes its victims to see and to believe in things which are not real. This is the case for other, non-religious delusional disorders. Perhaps religious belief is not such a mental disorder, but it IS certain that the claims religious believers make – like those of believers who credit NDEs – are not supported by objective reality.

          1. “The way out of your solipsistic fallacy is to cite experience which is objective and empirical.”

            Experience (common) is in your brain. Period. Because it is in your brain it is subjective. Any brain scientist will tell you this.

            “Near-death experiences are anecdotes”

            But when they are veridical – accurate details beyond normal experienced perception (in the brain – see above), it means the materialist view of experience is WRONG. Do you see this? More complex.

            Now what about those religious experiences, often of other realities?
            You see, if you are admitting one non-ordinary method of perception…

          2. These “non-ordinary methods of perception” are essentially imagination. See Wittgenstein on unicorns.

            And a moment’s reflection will show that reality isn’t just in our heads. When my fist pulps your face, believe me, the experience of my hand will not be just neurons firing in my brain. Whereas I will remain untouched by your NDE.

            More generally, reality is not virtual, because it’s intersubjective, not merely subjective.

            /@

          3. Was it not Dr. Johnson who, on becoming acquainted with Bishop Berkely’s theory that objects had no existence unless observed, and being told by Boswell that it was a theory difficult to refute, heftily kicked a large rock and said “I refute it thus”.

          5. You say that experience is solely in your brain.

            That is a bald, baseless assertion. You have no way to show that there is no objective reality, which is what you seem to be claiming.

            For example, if I walk out of a room, close the door, and say, “In that room, the light is on,” you can test that claim for yourself by opening the door and exposing a piece of photographic film in the room. If the film darkens, the light was on. If not, not. Then the experience is NOT confined to just one brain, but is objective – that is, perceptible to all observers – and empirical – that is, subject to verification by independent test.

            How can you tell that one of your near-death experiences is veridical – that is, truthful?
            How can you tell that the story is not a lie, or a mistake, or a hallucination? You cannot, except with an appeal to objective reality.

            And like other religious stories, there is no empirical evidence for your NDEs. There is no photographic film which darkens when an NDE is real, but is unaffected by hallucination. There is no litmus test for the supernatural. There is no god detector.

            That’s because NDEs, like the supernatural, like gods, are not real. They are stories, but not real.

          6. “You say that experience is solely in your brain”

            Are you telling me experience is *outside* your brain? According to the materialist paradigm? That would be incredible. What is doing the experiencing – what functional objects? Neurons are only available and they are inside your brain! Ergo experience is inside.

            “You have no way to show that there is no objective reality, which is what you seem to be claiming.”

            I never claimed this. I said we have no access to it via experience (in the brain). This means that when you wave your hand “in front” of you it’s actually happening in your head (materialist view). There is a real hand but where is it? There is a world “out there” but where? This takes getting used to BTW.

            Now take your photographic plate. This has to be in your brain as well but it is an *experienced* plate only (from above) and the real plate is “out there” of course.
            But everyone else has the same problem – they only experience the plate in each brain.

            We all have similar brains, agreed? But because they are similar we objectify this inner experience to be something “out there”. We each see the same plate and make this mistake. Inner becomes the “real” outer. You cannot get out of your brain (according to materialism).

            As to NDEs there are veridical cases – sorry. A patient reporting accurately surgical procedures. This is well known. So perception without eyes, ears and often when with a cardiac arrested flatlined brain.
            But now is it the brain doing this? Looks like the mind somehow but in some new mode not requiring a brain.
            Do you see the problem?

            So lets go back to the normal perception, like above. Maybe it’s not so normal (and materialistic) after all.

            Hence religious experiences too could be seeing in a different way. Once you have one new perception mode what about these? Are they all brain-based?

          7. “As to NDEs there are veridical cases – sorry. A patient reporting accurately surgical procedures. This is well known.”

            Do you have a serious reference to offer?

            Because every time this alleged “fact” is seriously investigated, the reality is far different, the “accuracy” of the report less evident. Even Parmia’s or van Lommel’s experiments did not produce such a case.

            Desnes Diev

          8. No, Alan, I am saying that as far as anybody can tell, there REALLY IS an objective reality which everybody has access to via his senses.

            You concede this yourself: you talk about the photographic plate being “out there.”

            As far as your credulous gotcha questions – out there, but wow, where IS out there, man? – that’s ninth-grade sensemilla bafflegab. It is meaningless.

            As for your stories about NDE’s, I say put up or shut up. Prove that any one, real person regained consciousness after surgery with knowledge he neither had nor could have acquired while anesthetized.

            I say you can’t do that. All you can do is to insist that yes, it did too happen. I say your story is no more veridical than Harry Potter. And you can’t refute my claim.

          9. NDEs…the Dr. Lloyd Rudy case is one of many,
            Google for “lloyd rudy” NDE and you get him discussing it. But there are many more. This is common knowledge among emergency room personnel and is also being researched by scientists involved.

            And your claim is what? That experience is objective? How can a subjective experience – remember an experience – be objective?

            Experiences happen in the brain!! (according to the materialistic paradigm).

          10. I’m not going to do your work for you, Alan. If you have specific assertions about a magical near-death experience by a man named Lloyd Rudy, make them explicit. Say why you believe that the story about Ruby is true. Provide the sworn affidavits from independent witnesses. Provide the video, the audio. Apparently you believe that Ruby somehow miraculously acquired knowledge while under anesthesia. What is that knowledge? How do you know that the knowledge is true? How did you rule out the possibility that Ruby DID NOT acquire the knowledge as you say he said he did, but instead, fabricated his story after the fact?

            I have no idea whether the Lloyd Ruby story is true or not, but I very much doubt it. Fortunately, you can prove it, right? So get started.

          11. Looks like Alan can’t even formulate his case for a near-death experience, much less prove it.

          12. phhht, I seem to remember there was an experiment done: a laptop was placed above everything else in an operating room, where someone “floating above their body” would presumably see it. The laptop was set to display and log random images, and after surgery the patient was asked what they saw. No patient said they saw the laptop during any alleged NDE.

        2. Alan, if you think you’re just a brain in a vat then perhaps it’s time to replace the nutrient solution.

          2. reply to phhhhhht March 13, 2013 at 5:46 pm

            Well, how odd! It seems you cannot spell Rudy (Ruby?) which in fact is Dr. Lloyd Rudy, the famous US cardiologist. As I said, if you google the term

            “lloyd rudy” NDE

            which I did again just now BTW, you get his testimony on two cases, which I’m sure others here have listened to by now, 12:28 minututes of it. The first one is the veridical NDE by his patient I referred to. Also he refers to his colleagues at the end who have had similar cases.

          4. I take it that you cannot formulate a case for a near-death experience, much less prove one. Just as I predicted.

            You cannot say why you believe an internet video of a man telling stories is true. You cannot say explicitly what your claims are wrt to NDEs. You cannot provide a single shred of any objective evidence for NDEs, much less for any alleged magical effects.

            All you have are stories. And the stories are not true.

        3. Easy to find veridical examples, for instance veridical NDEs – well documented esp. by medical experts and other scientists.
          .
          > If by “well-documented,” you mean written up months or years after events, then I have to agree.
          > You consider nurses and surgeons to be “medical experts” and “scientists.” Do you consider every mechanic to be an expert in automotive engineering?
          > Well-documented does not meal well-controlled, so that the person doing the documenting is a (purported) scientist is of no import, since they are not doing science.
          > And so on.

          1. pht

            I take it that you cannot formulate a case against such a veridical near-death experience, much less prove it. Just as I predicted. You also ignored the fact that the cardiac surgeon said fellow cardiac surgeons (end of video) “had several similar experiences, not quite as dramatic as the one I had but everybody that deals with that every day had those experiences, so it’s not just me”.

            You cannot say why you do not believe an internet video of this world famous cardiologist, Dr. Lloyd Rudy (corroborated by his colleague), recounting in detail such a case is not true. You cannot say explicitly what your claims are against such an account is. You cannot provide any evidence against such a case unless you think they are magical effects (not a good idea).

            All you have are your biases, considering there are thousands of similar such cases.

            rim shot!

          2. Alan, you are the one making the claims. The burden of proof rests with you.

            Alan, make a case against the existence of leprechauns, there are any number of movies, books and personal accounts attesting to the veracity of such creatures.

          3. Alan, I say that you are either lying, mistaken, or deluded, when you say “there are thousands of similar such cases.” Cases similar to what? You won’t say. Similar how? You won’t say. Why do you believe that? Well, because a man on the internet said so in a video, and that’s good enough for you.

            I say that your “thousands” of cases do not exist.

            Go ahead, prove me wrong. Give some evidence for the existence of these “thousands” of similar cases. Hell, give some evidence for even ONE of these cases.

            But you can’t do that. All you have is empty, unsupported assertions, and even those assertions are so vague that nobody can tell what you are trying to argue.

            I still say put up or shut up, Alan. And it’s pretty clear you can’t put up.

          4. Nice try, Alan, but you’re only dodging, and clumsily, at that.

            You won’t make one single clear allegation about NDEs. Your only “evidence” is a man on the internet telling stories. Why should you, or anyone else, believe those stories are true?

            You won’t or can’t say why anyone should believe them, or even why you, yourself, believe them. You just swallow them whole, and then regurgitate them (or rather, references to them) as if that constituted a fact worthy of serious consideration.

            You’re correct that I can’t prove NDEs are fictional – but I can’t prove leprechauns are fictional, either. I can’t prove Harry Potter is fiction, or The Avengers, but just as with your vague claims about NDE’s, I doubt them, thanks to common sense.

            In my experience, religious believers often are impaired in their ability to distinguish fact from fiction. It seems you’re one more.

          5. mmmm…best academic review here:

            “Near-death experiences between science and prejudice”

            http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3399124/

            “Science exists to refute dogmas; nevertheless, dogmas may be introduced when undemonstrated scientific axioms lead us to reject facts incompatible with them.”….they begin. Think on this.

            As for many cases try Greyson, Moody, Holden refs. within this I’m trying to help you here 😉

            Modelling? Penrose/Hameroff or Stapp, Beauregard and Schwartz but it’s a physics issue (and I know my quantum physics – degrees etc.) Do your homework?

          8. The article you cite claims to contain “relevant facts incompatible with the ruling physicalist [sic] and reductionist stance [which] have been often neglected,” but it doesn’t name any. All it does is to deny that a natural explanation suffices. That’s typical supernaturalist pseudo-debate: it’s the argument from personal incredulity. No “facts,” nothing but denial.

            I don’t see one, single empirically testable assertion in that morass of denial and obfuscation. How can I TEST any of your claims to see if they are true or not? Not YOUR claims, of course; you won’t make any, and neither do the authors of the paper you cite.

            Why do you believe that a man in an internet video is telling the truth? You say there are “thousands” of “similar” cases, but you can’t answer simple questions: Similar to what? How similar? Nor does your paper cite “thousands” of “similar” cases, nor does it say how similar, or similar to what. As far as I can tell, you’re just making that shit up.

            You know, there is at least one guy on the internet who says, quite convincingly, that NDEs are total bullshit, nothing but hallucinations and lies by Christianists who want desperately to fabricate evidence for their unfounded beliefs. Why don’t you swallow HIS story, instead of that of your alleged surgeon?

            You can’t answer that, but I can. You reject contrary claims because you’re compelled by your religious delusional disorder to do so. You believe anything that fits into your delusional structure, and reject things which do not, independent of evidence and reality.

            There is no supernatural. Your pitiable, baseless faith in the reality of such things makes you ridiculous and ludicrous.

            You can’t tell the real from the imaginary.

          9. mmm…the long article “overview critique” I refd. above for NDE prejudices IS science and deals with your “problems” and present scientific prejudices. But note the physics modelling I refd. for you as well above.

            Now… 😉 you haven’t answered my point above: all experience in is your brain (the reductionist position). You live in a virtual world which before I pointed this out to you, you thought was solid (of course there is a real world but you are stuck in your virtual one). Welcome.

            Simply: materialism –> virtual world in brain –> subjectivity only, sorry.
            But veridical NDEs challenge this, also subjective. Hey, it’s a subjective party!
            But in these cases mind NOT = brain.

            So why assume mind = brain in the first place? An “assumption” error.

            (psssst! – not religion)

          10. The article I refer to is the one you cited: this.

            As far as I see, it contains not a single objectively testable assertion.

            Nor, despite its lying claim to the contrary, does it contain “relevant facts incompatible with the ruling physicalist [sic] and reductionist stance [which] have been often neglected.”

            If you say it does, quote the paper for me.

            So it’s not religion, huh? Do you deny the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father, and the Holy Ghost gods? ‘Cause I do. They’re fictional, just goatherd campfire superhero figures, no more real than Batman.

            But I’m betting you can’t deny them, huh Alan. I’m betting you’re a crypto Christian crazy from that bald spot on the crown of your head to the holey soles in your socks.

            And you know I won’t stand for your dodge ’em, duck ’em crap. Anything short of major sacrilegious, blasphemous denial of gods, and you’re tagged, loony. Because it IS religion. Isn’t it?

    3. What is the definition “outer experience” or “experience beyond the brain”? If it is something not accessible to to brain then how do you know when the experience has occurred? Can you given some examples of this “outer experience”.

    4. Sources? I study the brain and from all the papers I have read we are finding the exact opposite.

        1. Just as I thought. You’re a crypto-Christian, aren’t you, Alan. I don’t blame you for being ashamed to admit it.

          So about that article you cite.

          Do you concede that it does not contain a single, empirically testable claim?

          Do you concede that the claim it opens with, namely that it contains “relevant facts incompatible with the ruling physicalist [sic] and reductionist stance [which] have been often neglected”, is a lie?

          1. mmmm…your fantasy…not you perchance, a C Christian? 😉

            er…the authors do not lie BTW.

          2. So which “relevant facts incompatible with the ruling physicalist [sic] and reductionist stance [which] have been often neglected” does the paper contain? Please list them explicitly. As phhht pointed out, they are not clear in the paper, so just saying “read the paper” won’t help.

      1. Alan,

        Here’s a litle experiment, one that your philosophical mentor, Pyrrho, obviously never conducted. I see a brick wall; I kick it. Every time I do it, it hurts. I learn that the hardness of the wall unfailingly breaks my toe.

        I see many examples of people falling from heights, leading to injury or death; I conclude that it is not a good idea to throw myself off a cliff (unless I happen to have a death-wish).

        How Pyrrho lived as long as he did with this philosophy, I can’t imagine. Maybe he didn’t really believe it. Do you?

        1. The blood you see on your foot as you kick is “experienced” blood. Somewhere in the real world your foot is leaking liquid. Can you show me where this is?

          Look, think of a dream. A guy in the dream tells you to touch your head. You oblige. No, “I mean your real head!” Well, you can’t because your “real” head is outside of your dream of course. You can move your “dream hand” around as much as you like – you won’t connect with this head.

          Any when you wake up? Your experienced hand touches your experienced head but this time somewhere in the real world the real hand and head are connecting.
          This all follows logically from the materialist view of the brain/mind BTW.

          The issue is though, from the discussion further above, could the mind be different from the brain. So the physical dies but…

          1. Alan,

            Your sentence, ‘The blood you see on your foot as you kick is “experienced” blood’, acquires neither profundity nor a change of meaning by putting quotation marks around the word ‘experienced’.

            You continue, “Somewhere in the real world your (i.e. one’s) foot is leaking liquid. Can you show me where this is?” This is not a serious question; do you really want me to point out that your foot, assuming average physiology, is located somewhere at the end of your leg?

            Your whole post demonstrates that it is possible to write grammatically complex sentences without actually making any sense. Just because you’ve mastered the subject-verb-object structure of the English language does not mean your thought has evolved beyond the scholastic, obscurantist and intellectually dishonest word-play of St. Anselm’s ontological argument; in this day and age, it reminds me far more of the gibberish of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky’; a close cousin of a recent tract on the philosophy of religion which I came across, entitled, ‘The real and the Real’.

            I note you don’t take up my point that no human could live a safe, healthy life if they really believed what you propound. One could waste one’s time parsing your tosh, but Ant Allan got it right the first time in calling it ‘drivel’.

          2. Solipsism, which is what subjective idealism collapses into, is irrefutable. But so are lots of positions which ought not to be taken seriously outside a psychiatric ward.

            That said, “New Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous” is a slightly more recent (than the original said dialogues) attempt to appeal to Berkelyian better natures, if one’s claimed solipsist really has any.

          4. “I note you don’t take up my point that no human could live a safe, healthy life if they really believed what you propound”.

            But I agree. To really live this reality, the way it really is, would be dangerous. But it is true nevertheless. Our real, solid world that we know and love is but firing neurons in the brain (according to materialism).
            Another issue is resemblance. Firing neurons only resemble firing neurons. The outer world has no resemblance to this mere…electrical activity.

            One more point, quantum observation (every time this happens and this is at the very basis of physics) creates reality. See the Anton Zeilinger photon polarisaton expts. for confirmation of this. So it’s a created unfolding reality moment to moment. But I have hope for the “observer” in all this, unexplained as yet in the quantum formalism.

          5. “You continue, “Somewhere in the real world your (i.e. one’s) foot is leaking liquid. Can you show me where this is?” This is not a serious question; do you really want me to point out that your foot, assuming average physiology, is located somewhere at the end of your leg?”

            Of course. But the foot I see is in my brain, as it’s an experience only (which only occur there, unless you believe you can have an experience of your foot outside of your brain). Where is my actual foot?
            One concludes it must be beyond the “experiential bubble” I live in. So outside of the sky’s surface that I also experience. Such is the materialistic view.

  20. Except for the fact that this will give Jerry, et. all, grist for a completely useful, er, mill(?) Boy, do I haz a sad. I was looking for a guy (because it’s not going to be a gal ever, right?) This part I guess I got right.

    So instead, there’s a guy chewing the usual rocks: especially, oh, noes, teh gays and the wimmenz and abortion.

    I can’t take it. Really.

  23. Not the first non-European Pope, just the first in nearly 1300 years. There were a few Popes born in Syria and Africa.

  24. Can we make Sajanas the official Pope of WEIT? I mean, predicting what he did, that’s as close as we’ll ever get to a miracle!

  25. He looks rather tired and weak speaking to the sheep. Is it his age or did he come straight from the sauna?

  26. Not that it matters much, but apparently the man has a diploma in chemistry. A man of science…

  27. “Light up, Francis.”

    The FARK headline was the best: “Cardinals hire new manager.”

  29. Can they, the media, NOW stop talking about the pope foufarah? One report said that the new one was OK with the Argentinian dictators some years ago when a card or bish or whatever the rank was. Similar to the one who was OK with the nazis?

  31. The good news is there is no safe or happy outcome for the Catholic church. They either elect someone known to be complicit in the covering up of clerical sex crimes, or someone who will soon be found to be complicit in such crimes. If Argentina is quiet now on such things, it cannot last.

    They either elect a reform pope, who would tear the church apart, or they elect a conservative pope (which they have) who will continue the church’s denial of reality and the 21st Century, making them a laughing stock and a force for evil in the world, and thus an encouragement to atheism. Either way the church is doomed. It will be a long, slow, and painful death, but it will happen.

    1. +1

      I read this as the cardinals digging in and clinging to the large catholic community in South America. Won’t work of course but now we look forward to another 10-20 years of blo… web-site post fodder.

      Mike

      1. Unfortunately, this may well drive more fundamentalist Protestantism in SA, since these groups are at least officially supporting some people (to be fair, some local bishops and stuff do ignore the direction about the “liberation theology” etc. but they get tampered down by their superiors.)

  32. Catholic prayer did nothing for infectious disease in the pre-antibiotic drug era. Of course, it still does nothing.

    Jorge won’t be getting his lung back.

  33. Cardinal Godfried Danneels is a pedophile protector and was allowed to vote, he’s probably not the only monster who participated in the election. Well former pope Ratzinger protected pedophiles too so the signal from the top was and remains clear.

  35. Pope Francis is described as an “intellectual” in many newspapers and by the roman-collared talking heads that TV news channels inflicted on us. Many seem to regard any Jesuit as being intellectual. This fellow did get a Ph.D. in philosophy, earlier having dropped out of chemical engineering, perhaps related to a serious illness. I’d be very interested if a copy of his thesis and/or any other purported contribution by him to human knowledge could be found. Maybe somebody here knows how to get these things.
    The stuff that his predecessor wrote which I happened to read was garbage in my view, but theology in this century is just that.

    1. The term ‘intellectual’ can be used in many ways. I personally prefer the way Aldous Huxley defines it (in his 1958 essay ‘Brave New World Revisited’). I quote: “Intellectuals are the kind of people who demand evidence and are shocked by logical inconsistencies and fallacies.”
      I do not think that theologians (whether pope or not) ever qualify as ‘intellectuals’.

      1. “I do not think that theologians …ever qualify as intellectuals.”
        Right now, and well into the past, I’d agree. I think maybe Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and the like might be called that relative to their time. Relativewise (pardon the word) that crow who solved the 3 or 4 step problem to retrieve his food is undoubtedly an intellectual in his or her context!

        1. Well, I have read some beautiful passages by Augustine on memory and time. Those passages certainly deserve the qualification of ‘intellectual’ – but then, they are not about theology.
          I have never read anything of Thomas Aquinas or Anselm – and I do not feel any urge to do so.

    2. JP II was also a philosophy PhD – I’ve read some of his stuff … amazingly blinkered. I doubt from what is said that F. is any different.

  36. I was hoping for another name to do with something tasty involving Hollandaise sauce, or maybe a nice Béarnaise. Now the only questions left are, is he Catholic? does he poop in the woods?

  37. ” the Argentinian navy with the connivance of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, … hid from a visiting delegation of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission the dictatorship’s political prisoners. Bergoglio was hiding them in nothing less than his holiday home in an island called El Silencio in the River Plate. The most shaming thing for the church is that in such circumstances Bergoglio’s name was allowed to go forward in the ballot to chose the successor of John Paul II. “http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jan/04/argenitina-videla-bergoglio-repentance

    It turns out that he was complicit in many crimes of the recent brutal dictatorship in Argentina, surprise, surprise.

      1. Doh! Sorry you two – I did not read all the above comments before I repeated that link.

        He definitely has some bodies buried in somewhere…

    1. A gay priest on Radio 4 this am said 40% of Roman Catholic priests (maybe in US/Europe – not sure) are gay!

  41. Continuing our occasional series on the differences between American and [British] English…

    “Beyond this, I could give a cat’s patootie who’s Pope unless he does some serious reform.”

    In British English this would be “I couldN’T give a cat’s patootie…”

    By the way, ‘patootie’ is also American (whatever it is).

    1. Yes, but US usage as in “I could care less” seems more logical than British usage, “I couldn’t care less” which, if less is read as denoting “not so much”, contains a double negative.

      1. Imagine the amount you care about something on a scale of 0 to 10. If the amount you care about something is anywhere from 1 to 10 it would be possible to care less. If however the amount you care is 0, then you could not care less.

        1. Absolutely. To my mind, “I couldn’t care less” is the logically correct usage – implying I care about it precisely zero. “I could care less” implies some degree of caring, thereby nullifying the meaning of the phrase. IMO.

      2. “I could care less” may technically allow for any amount of caring above nil, but it will still imply very little caring while being more accurate than hyperbolicly declaring yourself at the peak of apathy.

        1. But declaring oneself at ‘the peak of apathy’ is the whole point of the phrase. Caring to *any* degree negates its usage, and also ‘I could care less’ doesn’t necessarily still imply caring little; it doesn’t really imply anything and is a rather weak, meaningless phrase.

  42. At least they didn’t pick someone even darker from the Third World. I mean with darker ideas.

  43. I greatly doubt that Grand Papa Frank will carry out any serious reforms of the RCC. First, he’s an old guy: 76 and counting. Second, he was elected by a squad of similarly aged relics, in a consistory most of whose members were appointed by the previous two popes, both of whom were arch-conservatives. Birds of a feather, etc.

    We often speak of the right wing being in a bubble or echo chamber where they hear only their own voices, but in the case of the red birds, that metaphor took on reality: locked inside the Sistine Chapel.

    We can expect more of what we’ve seen in the recent decades, not reform.

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