Posts by slimboyfat

87

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

Well it wasn't me, because I can't like or dislike comments.

I shared the information about the relative size of JWs in Italy and Ratzinger's JW cousin because I thought it was interesting and relevant to the topic.

You decided to fact check me for errors, but outsourced it to ChatGPT, which came up with a series of misleading responses, the only one you spotted being the Waldensians. I did learn from the response that the Romanian Orthodox Church is now larger than JWs in Italy because of recent immigration. It was the only actual addition to the information I provided but it's appreciated anyway.

We can't be certain the photo in the newspaper was real or that the Bavarian woman was telling the truth about being related to the pope, but it seems likely enough to be relevant in a conversation about whether the Catholic church thinks much about JWs, which was supposed to be the topic. Even if this particular woman isn't in fact the pope's cousin, and I don't see any particular reason not to believe her, JWs are numerous enough that popes past and future possibly have a number of relatives and acquaintances who are JWs, this one just made a headline.

What's a little less likely (it seems to me) are all the details about the pope calling up his cousin after decades and making compliments about JWs. Then again, I remember reading that one of the first things Ratzinger did as pope was contact his old friend turned opponent Hans Küng to invite him for lunch. So maybe even the details of the story are in character for the man. This is a side point, before you point out that it can't be proved, which of course is obvious.

87

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

The quality of the sites is not the point because they preserve the original source. Unless you think the sites actually faked the news page clipping? Or do you think anything posted on a JW site loses credibility just by its presence. How does that work? If I post the Oxford English Dictionary here does that make the dictionary unreliable too?

The lady might have made it up but if you think that's more likely than the pope simply having a JW cousin (an entirely everyday and somewhat mundane circumstance) I think you have poor judgment.

Again all of which is beside the point considering you/ChatGPT originally claimed there was no media report. These later arguments don't change that being false.

87

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

There was media coverage and it is readily available and linked above.

Maybe ChatGPT struggled to access the file because of its format, what's your excuse?

87

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

"GPT said there was no widely available media coverage"

Wow misquotation is a difficult habit to break huh? ChatGPT / you actually said

“There is no widely available documentation or media coverage to verify this story.”

Which is false. You missed the crucial "or" to change the meaning, and disputed "widely available" to obscure that fact.

As for being widely available I found it on multiple sites in seconds, as did you apparently, the second time of looking.

Earlier you quoted "significant coverage" whereas what I wrote was "some media interest".

87

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

No, your obfuscation is abysmal.

ChatGPT / your verification claimed

"There is no widely available documentation or media coverage to verify this story"

This is false the media report is linked above. End of story.

Plus you give no apology for misquoting me as claiming "extensive coverage". I won't hold my breath.

87

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

What's your point? It was in the media, it's documented and available to anyone who searches, ChatGPT was wrong and you failed to verify. End of.

ChatGPT didn't say the media report was questionable. It said there was no media report at all, there's a difference.

As I say, it's possible (though unlikely) the story was a complete fabrication, or indeed (your latest iteration) that the woman exaggerated or lied (although there is nothing intrinsically implausible about the pope having a JW cousin) but that's not the claim that was originally made.

46

the pope has died

by stan livedeath in

most people on the planet have heard of the pope.. most people on the planet have never heard of the governing body..

slimboyfat

In a previous thread you posted a response of thousands of words within ten minutes. That is humanly impossible. That’s not a matter of opinion it’s a fact, just as a human can’t run faster than a car or a train.

Dünzl doesn’t dispute the part politics played in the formulation of the Trinity, in fact he spells it out in detail. He argues that God used the church to reach the Trinity doctrine despite that history of political intrigue.

I’ll let Dünzl’s own summary of the politics and his argument that God used the church to arrive at the Trinity despite/through the politics and philosophy of the day speak for itself.

The political interference in the theological debate is also likely to provoke scepticism: wasn't Emperor Constantine already less concerned with the quest for truth than with the unity of the empire on a religious basis? Didn't the stubborn efforts of his son Constantius to achieve a theological compromise aim at the lowest common denominator on which the parties in dispute were to agree? Wasn't it mere chance that because of a military emergency, rule in the East of the empire fell to the Spanish Theodosius, who was orientated on Nicaea, so that he had the opportunity also to realize his church-political goal there? Does the Neo-Niene faith thus represent just a further and last variant in the power-play of theological ideas - a variant which was able to establish itself for political reasons?
And if we turn once again to the content of the debate: don't the self-confidence and the sharp (often also unjust) polemic of the opponents, the deliberate distortion and exaggeration of opposing positions, the almost sophistic pedantic and sophistic interpretations of difficult biblical passages, prove repulsive over wide areas? We must not note such abuses on just one side of the parties in dispute - an ideologically coloured painting in black and white will not do justice to the historical evidence.
A look at the history is sobering. But at the same time it presents a challenge. In view of the problems I have mentioned, those who imagine that God's ways with human beings are all too straightforward and simple (or despair of them because they are indeed not so straightforward) are called on to break up customary religious schemes of thought and extend their own horizons so as to be able to do theological justice to reality. The risk of monotheism does not consist in making an arbitrary selection of reality in terms of one's own ideology, bracketing off disturbing problems and allowing only what fits, but in tracing back the complexity, the perplexing diversity and interlinking of phenomena to a last (albeit 'impenetrable') principle which is not one factor among many but the incomprehensible ground of the whole.
That the history of revelation is not played our untouched by external influence as it were in a 'vacuum' in the history ideas is not a defect but a touchstone of the monotheistic view of the world. The philosophical systems of Middle and Neo-Platonism or the Stoa are not simply to be dismissed as non-Christian intellectual constructions which had to be overcome: rather, they are of decisive importance for the communication of God in the sphere of history, which is not a clean sheet, but is already shaped, and its content determined, by ideas. The legacy of ancient philosophy has entered into Christianity (likewise into Judaism, Islam and modern philosophy) - but that does not amount to 'contamination with inauthentic intellectual material'; rather, it is material for fruitful controversy which will always move between the poles of assimilation and demarcation.

46

the pope has died

by stan livedeath in

most people on the planet have heard of the pope.. most people on the planet have never heard of the governing body..

slimboyfat

The difference is I have read Dünzl’s book whereas all you have done is give ChatGPT a prompt along the lines “refute this claim from a Catholic perspective”. Or am I wrong? Have you read Dünzl’s book?

Because I clearly didn’t say that Dünzl’s book was

merely a candid exposé of political and personal factors overriding theological truth

What I said was that Dünzl argues that God worked through the politics and intrigue to arrive at the Trinitarian formulation late in the 4th century. JWs and Dünzl would agree the formulation of the Trinity was late and a result of politics. Where they differ is whether God was behind the process or not.

87

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

ChatGPT said: “ There is no widely available documentation or media coverage to verify this story.”

That’s wrong, it was in the Canberra Times (clipping linked above), described as a “compact” broadsheet not a tabloid, and can still be found, including the clipping, on many sites. I don’t trust the news on most things these days. This article has a photo of the woman wearing a JW convention badge and direct quotes. I guess they could have staged the photo and made up the entire story, but it seems more likely that the pope did happen to have a cousin in Australian who was a JW and this was the woman in the photo, which in itself is not terribly remarkable. So yes, ChatGPT is completely misleading in this reply as in many others. If you “separately verified” what it said you clearly did a lousy job.

I remember seeing her interviewed on broadcast news at the time, either BBC or Sky and I can’t find any video of that now. You can believe it or not, the ChatGPT response remains wrong either way.

The broader point is clear, yes JWs have a significant presence in Italy, the second largest Christian church in Italy (until it was overtaken by the Romanian orthodox church as a result of immigration) and the Catholic Church is cognisant of them, including a previous pope Benedict who was related to a JW. Your response is a mixture petty nitpicking or simply wrong.

Also you misquoted me. I said “some media interest” which you changed to “significant coverage”.

87

What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon in

on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.

he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.

is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?

slimboyfat

ChatGPT gets facts wrong and claims certainty while doing it.

An example of media coverage of the former pope’s Jw cousin here:

https://jwtalk.net/uploads/converted_files/145934=8022-PopesCousin2005-08-21.pdf

I was basing my comments on the size of JWs in Italy on the publication quoted below, and while it’s true that the Romanian Orthodox Church has now overtaken JWs because of immigration, they are still much bigger than other Christian groups such as Pentecostals, Waldensians, Mormons and so on.

Today, of all the Christian churches and denominations in Italy, Jehovah's Witnesses are the largest Christian community after the Catholic Church. Although the Witnesses make up less than 1% of Italy's population, this percentage represents a quarter of a million active adherents or "publishers" -making Italy the country with the largest number of Jehovah's Witnesses in the whole of Europe, and the fifth largest in the world (after the United States, Brazil, Mexico and Nigeria).

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/resources/pdfs/978-1-4438-9446-3-sample.pdf

A fuller comparison can be found here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Italy