Pope Francis Describes Internet as "A Gift From God"

[Zefar]

While he does some things better I have still read bad stuff. Something like it was made illegal to report child molestation due to a "mistake", yeeeaaaaaa......

Still the whole "Gift from God"? :/ um No, it's the complete opposite. Also if it's a gift from anyone it's Satan. It was he who released us from the bonds and he who told Eve to eat of the apple to gain knowledge. God didn't want us to have it to begin with.

Satan is a good guy. Honestly, he takes in everyone and one could say that the claims of his hell are made up by God to make him look bad. There was a reason he left Heaven you know.

 

[RandV80]

Eh people are really taking the 'gift from God' thing too literally. It's just a general mindset that the universe comes from God and some make a habit of thanking him for all the good in it, or something like that. It is by no means meant to take away credit from the men and women who actually built the thing to give it some sort of weird mythical creation like Zeus causing a thunder storm or something.

 

[Gorrath]

Eh people are really taking the 'gift from God' thing too literally. It's just a general mindset that the universe comes from God and some make a habit of thanking him for all the good in it, or something like that. It is by no means meant to take away credit from the men and women who actually built the thing to give it some sort of weird mythical creation like Zeus causing a thunder storm or something.

While I do understand where you are coming from, I also understand the reaction some people have to it. A lot of theology tends to give credit for any good thing a human does to god, while any bad thing a human does is due to his own wickedness. The idea that an all-powerful creator should get credit for every good thing that happens in his creation, while passing off every bad part of it onto the creation itself, and without taking any responsibility, is a pretty unjust ideology that one could argue is worthy of scorn. While the more venomous comments might be an overreaction, we can at least acknowledge that the implications of the Pope's pronouncement might leave a bad taste in people's mouths, and justifiably so. I'm not trying to play the part of defending anyone for acting over-the-top, but just as you call for understanding of the Pope's line of thinking, I do the same for the other side.

 

[Denamic]

Never mind the thousands of engineers that worked on it for over 30 years to make it what it is today, not it's amazing and therefore a gift from god.

 

[Jenvas1306]

what does the world need a pope for again? all that money could be spent so much better.
the internet brings people together? well religion so far has been great at setting them appart. people should be allowed to find their own believe and not be raised in an ideology that praises love for all but feeds into the human fear and hate of the unknown/unfamiliar.
As long as murder and opression is happening in the name of a religion I find it hard to have any respect for it.

 

[kalakashi]

Almost everything you said is so broad it could just as easily have been applied to Syria.

"The people who care about the government oppression in Syria will hear it through whatever media outlet the rebels choose, and the people who don't care will not care. It is an unimportant article, and uninteresting; it has no consequence beside informing the reader of what is happening in a far away country that has almost no trade or diplomatic relations with this one. Nobody is enlightened or enriched by the Syrian article. As I say, followers of the Syrian conflict will surely find this message and do what they will with it, but in the rest of society, it's put out there as if to say these rebels are worth listening to, and we (pro-Assad/apathetic/whatever) would sooner have them and their ilk forgotten about entirely."

The people who care hear about what the pope is doing in the news because that's the expected outlet for the affairs and statements of world leaders. Besides that is the fact that many people who are interested aren't checking the Vatican webpage every day for updates, many of them probably won't even be Catholic, especially with this pope.

I'm sure that you don't want to hear from people that hold opinions contrary to your own, but many people hold those opinions and do actually want to hear about people in power who agree with them. I greatly doubt that if the article was about something critical that Richard Dawkins said about religion that you would have any of these qualms, despite the fact that a far larger proportion of the population care about what the pope says.

If it was Dawkins saying something critical of religion in general, completely unprovoked and without consequence, I would think it odd, and it would annoy me if it was permeating general news spaces, because it wouldn't be news.

It doesn't matter how broad the things I said were, because it is the Pope situation and the Syria situation that are inherently very different. Saying 'followers of the Syrian conflict' is not analogous with 'followers of the pope'. 'It has no consequence beside informing the reader of what is happening in a far away country', is not a similar statement to 'it has no consequence beside informing the reader of the pope's feelings about the internet' just because you have structured it similarly. One story is about human suffering and is pertinent to the future of a huge amount of people, the other is a statement of one individual's opinion about something on which his opinion will have no effect. These are different things.

It's my presumption that you think I'm annoyed at this from an anti-religion bent, but I assure you, it's the fact that it is not a news-worthy story. There is of course the religious aspect to it, against which I am heavily biased, but the thrust of my point is that this simply isn't news. Nothing has happened. I get just as annoyed at the BBC when they put out stupid news stories of (making an example up) primary school children having a bake sale to raise money for the homeless. Great, good that it's happening, but I'm fairy sure there are world events going on that are surely more important than this/these.