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Pope Francis has died

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Re: Pope Francis has died

#681

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isn't it funny that half the time when you see criticism of LLMs it's almost like the words have been stolen from someone else? the opinion you're parroting here completely misses the point of LLMs. their purpose is not to start artistic movements or liberally think for themselves and no one is claiming it is. their purpose is to accelerate information retrieval and translation and programming tasks, which they by an…

their purpose is not to start artistic movements or liberally think for themselves and no one is claiming it is. your "spark of ingenuity" is not lacking because of some issue or lack of creativity, it's lacking because it's not the point and no one wants it to be. There are plenty of people/communities online that want it to be exactly that and want to remove the pesky human element from the equation. Dismissing the…

point to them

Re: Pope Francis has died

#682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus famously said turn the other cheek

[flagged]

You could educate the audience, rather than commenting like this. People are here to have curious conversations.

Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Pope Francis has died

#683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you pointing to another pope with "another symbolic figure with empty gestures"? Would be clearer to name him then! Having read a bit of the previous pope Benedict XVI I liked a lot what he did/wrote

what about Benedict did you like?

If only one thing it's his series of books Jesus of Nazareth: the only theology book I've ever read, it clarified so much about the Scriptures, and was written from the point of view of a world-class scholar, much more scientific than I would have thought, taking into account the views of other scholars, Jew, Protestant or atheists alike, as long as they had interesting ideas.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing from the Bible indicates that hell is empty, so that is indeed an interesting response from the Pope.

The bible only has sparse and often contradictory references to hell - so it's very difficult to state "what the Bible says about hell" as if there's a unified picture laid out.

The concept and nature of an afterlife, divine justice and punishment, and the existence of "Hell" (which is mostly a Christian invention) has evolved over the millennia of text which make up Biblical canon.

It's always a mistake to assume the Bible has a singular, coherent, intentional narrative. Parts of it were written before the Israelites were even monotheists. It has as many Gods as it has authors.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#685
post #636
post #156

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Ironically, Catholicism as an institution has a better track record of supporting science than many Protestant sects. Much of the "alternative science" comes from the Baptists and Evangelicals.

Why is this ironic?

It's ironic because no matter how much science they embrace, they never come around to realizing their God is just as much make believe as every other.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#686
post #658

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I think what many Catholics found frustrating about Pope Francis was his tendency to make apparently off-the-cuff remarks which, while never quite explicitly straying outside the bounds of faith and morals defined by the Magisterium, often seemed to strongly imply the opposite. This was especially true for audiences that did not already know the Catechism through and through, which even most Catholics do not. In that…

> while never quite explicitly straying outside the bounds of faith and morals defined by the Magisterium, often seemed to strongly imply the opposite. This was especially true for audiences that did not already know the Catechism through and through, which even most Catholics do not. In that sense, Pope Francis's remarks sometimes seemed to possess a kind of not-committing-heresy-can't-get-mad character He sounds li…

> People need prompting and guidance on the parts that feel uncomfortable, not the parts that dovetail neatly with their intuitions.

I totally agree in general. But I wouldn't say that the issues with Francis's style amounted to knee-jerk discomfort without concrete objections. The concrete objection is that many of his comments had to be read in a kind of maximally un-Gricean way to be squared with Church teaching.

Francis's deployment of ambiguity in communication isn't something I'm making up-- it was a highly unusual and distinctive element of his papacy, most notably evidenced in his refusal to respond to (quite concrete) dubia over seemingly unorthodox comments for seven years.

But if there is a silver lining, I suppose there has been no other pope in recent years that has occasioned more clarification of the doctrine of papal infallibility, so there is that.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#687

In 2021, during a visit to the Greek island of Mytilene, Pope Francis delivered one of the finest speeches I've ever read: > This great basin of water, the cradle of so many civilizations, now looks like a mirror of death. Let us not let our sea (mare nostrum) be transformed into a desolate sea of death (mare mortuum). Let us not allow this place of encounter to become a theatre of conflict. Let us not permit this “s…

Small correction; the name of the island is Lesbos

Re: Pope Francis has died

#688

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-04/pope-francis... > According to Archbishop Diego Ravelli, Master of Apostolic Ceremonies, the late Pope Francis had requested that the funeral rites be simplified and focused on expressing the faith of the Church in the Risen Body of Christ. Always struck me as a simple man and that likely contributed to people liking him more when compared to his predecessors. RIP.

Interesting, I always considered him possibly the most unpopular pope of recent times and understandably so.

If I were to say one pope that many have been fond of, it's probably John Paul II.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#689
post #34

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-04/pope-francis... > According to Archbishop Diego Ravelli, Master of Apostolic Ceremonies, the late Pope Francis had requested that the funeral rites be simplified and focused on expressing the faith of the Church in the Risen Body of Christ. Always struck me as a simple man and that likely contributed to people liking him more when compared to his predecessors. RIP.

Pope John Paul II was also extremely popular across the world.

Exactly, and as a pope far more respectable.

Even non-catholics like me could sympathize with the dismay of so many catholics at many of the positions/blunders of Francis.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was, but John Paul II was traditionally conservative. I think Francis resonated with more people–Christian or not–because he emphasized compassion, humility, and social justice. He spoke more openly about issues like poverty, climate change, and inclusion–his encyclical LAUDATO SI’ is a great read–, and he often used language and gestures that the "common man" could relate to. Perhaps the way he dressed so simply–…

I think it's interesting that PJII was very popular with Catholics and possibly less so with non-Christian. Despite or because being more conservative? He was also a very good man and humble.

Don't know about that. I'm not a catholic and still view him in a much more favorable light than Francis.

I think maybe it's just some progressives (and related groups) who liked Francis a lot for many of his positions.

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