Does Pope Francis have a fantasy-prone personality disorder?

[Jehanne]

Well, feel free to disagree.  With individuals, such as Pope Francis' reading of the historical documents, it is easy to understand why people, such as William Craig, can label the Gospels are being "ancient biographies".

No, we don't disagree. Unless you think that claiming the sky to be green or blue being a disagreement. You're talking out of your ass without knowing the first thing of the science involved. That's our disagreement. William Craig is talking out of his ass too, since he obviously doesn't know the first thing about ancient scripture and it reliability.

Well, as always, history is a science, same as medicine. You wouldn't do open heart surgery using wikipedia, would you? So kindly inform yourself just a little bit on the methodology involved before claiming to be right. Especially if you proclaim yourself to be a sucker for science.

I don't see any alternative to science, which comes from the Latin word scientia, which means "knowledge".

I would agree that the study of history is scientific, and that scientific methodology may certainly be employed in the study of history.  Did George Washington exist, as an historical person?  Yes, absolutely.

Why was there a 20,000 to 60,000 Muslim army in the fields of Poitiers, France in early October in the year 732 led by Abd er Rahman?  Answer:  Rahman wanted to setup a Muslim caliphate, just as he had done in his previous military victories and just as Muhammad had done during his day.   Rahman was not there in northern France to plunder gold and silver (although, that was one of his many secondary objectives); rather, he was there to setup a political state founded upon the Islamic religion.

[Jehanne]

Now, may we please return to regularly scheduled programming?

And that would be what?

Staying on topic with respect to my OP.

[Excited Penguin]

Ok, I'm not reading the whole thread(I'm sorry, Jehanne ), but I'll respond to new posts after this one as needed

[Jehanne]

Ok, I'm not reading the whole thread(I'm sorry, Jehanne ), but I'll respond to new posts after this one as needed

That's fine.  As for me, I am going to bail.  It's been fun, but I won't be reading any more posts after this one.  Like William Craig, I find myself repeating things that I have already said, but unlike Craig, I know when to quit, and unlike him, I am not making any money off of this and do have to go to work tomorrow.

At some point, folks just have to "agree to disagree"; that's one thing about atheists.  We may call each other names on occasion, but we don't go around blowing ourselves up.  Most religious people, I grant, don't do this, or even approve of it.  But, I agree with Sam Harris in that liberal and moderate religions are just enablers of more wacky ones.

It's been fun, but I am out of here.  Send me a PM if you really need clarification on something. Back to Area 69.

[Excited Penguin]

Ok, I'm not reading the whole thread(I'm sorry, Jehanne ), but I'll respond to new posts after this one as needed

That's fine.  As for me, I am going to bail.  It's been fun, but I won't be reading any more posts after this one.  Like William Craig, I find myself repeating things that I have already said, but unlike Craig, I know when to quit, and unlike him, I am not making any money off of this and do have to go to work tomorrow.

At some point, folks just have to "agree to disagree"; that's one thing about atheists.  We may call each other names on occasion, but we don't go around blowing ourselves up.  Most religious people, I grant, don't do this, or even approve of it.  But, I agree with Sam Harris in that liberal and moderate religions are just enablers of more wacky ones.

It's been fun, but I am out of here.  Send me a PM if you really need clarification on something.  Back to Area 69.

Fellow Sam Harris fan. That's always a plus. Rep coming up.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Nonsense.

My own atheism arises as a result of my rationality, but I know and know of many atheists who believe in afterlives, ghosts, and other assorted irrational beliefs.

Your post is a non sequitur.

I am an atheist, and I don't believe that I have wings, much less that I can fly, and I would hope that others around me would question my mental stability if I claimed otherwise.  Now, may we please return to regularly scheduled programming?

Thanks for the non-answer. Perhaps next time you won't assume the role as Atheist Spokesman.

[Pat Mustard]

Francis recently stated that, "authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Quran are opposed to every form of violence...":

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/08/isis-...race-islam

It seems to me that Francis is trying to do with Islam something that has been slowly done with Catholicism over the last 200 years, that is, divorce (no  pun intended) the religion from its historical roots.  Now, if the Jihadists are convinced by people like Francis, should historians be "convinced", also?  If one simply looks at the timeline of World history, it is clear that Islam has been a violent religion since its very earliest days, from its initial crusades after the death of Mohamed until being checked at the Battle of Tours, and after that, the continued and attempted conquest of the West until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Are people like Francis a threat to the Enlightenment with their revisionist histories?  Is Francis' recent statement about the Quran equivalent to Holocaust denial?

He's simply continuing the alliance Wotyjla made with the muslims in order to further the fight against the "evil godless satanic forces of secularistic modernism".

[Pat Mustard]

So many people like him because he's not anywhere as bad as the previous pope. I look at him and I see how he's still making life worse for millions of people. Fuck the pope.

It's not that he's less bad than the previous pope, it's that he's got better PR so that he gets away with speaking in two voices, an emollient yet impotent one here in the secular west, and an intolerant and authoritarian one in countries the rcc still thinks it has control of cultural mores (see for example what he said about gay marriage when he visited the Philippines or Poland, and compare that with the different sentiments he expresses when talking to western media).

He managed to pull the wool over the eyes of more progressive catholics, and less observant media for a while. But, unfortunately for the church, the meat is showing through the message and people are copping on that the "new" rcc is the same as the traditional rcc only aimed at a different audience.