Pope to Sheep: Turn off your brain.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The Pope asks Catholics to be stupid

The Pope’s Christmas Eve Homily ended by importuning his minions to give up reason, be humble, and be “made simple.”

It seems to me that a deeper truth is revealed here, which should touch our hearts on this holy night: if we want to find the God who appeared as a child, then we must dismount from the high horse of our “enlightened” reason. We must set aside our false certainties, our intellectual pride, which prevents us from recognizing God’s closeness. We must follow the interior path of Saint Francis—the path leading to that ultimate outward and inward simplicity which enables the heart to see. We must bend down, spiritually we must as it were go on foot, in order to pass through the portal of faith and encounter the God who is so different from our prejudices and opinions the God who conceals himself in the humility of a newborn baby.

In this spirit let us celebrate the liturgy of the holy night, let us strip away our fixation on what is material, on what can be measured and grasped. Let us allow ourselves to be made simple by the God who reveals himself to the simple of heart.

What he means, of course, is “let us be made simple minded by what we tell you about God.” For that’s what the Vatican is doing by asking people to give up their reason, their naturalism and just let themselves—as John Haught would put it—be “grasped by the infinite.” What an unspeakably vile thing to ask! But of course it’s in the Church’s interest to ask this, for it’s by the abnegation of reason alone that Catholicism survives.

I love the part about “the God who conceals himself in the humility of a newborn baby.” Since when were newborn babies humble? They’re always screaming to have their needs met. And if the Catholic God is so humble, why is he, like that newborn baby, always demanding worship and affection, and why does he dispatch to Hell those who don’t tender them?

[Jay G]

He's asking his people to turn off their brains and open their pocketbooks so HE can live in palaces and jet around the world in 1st class style telling everybody else to give up their money to him.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If people started thinking they might think about what they're doing by sending their kids to the pedo palaces.

[Ele]

It's a common religious and spiritual principle. In Sufism and Islam it is preached that one cannot be close to God unless he loses his ego. A self-centred person consumed by their own actions and wants is just an animal, like a monkey swinging from tree to tree, so say the Taoists.

I prefer the Zen proverb:
"Sitting quietly doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself."

[Robert_S]

It's a common religious and spiritual principle. In Sufism and Islam it is preached that one cannot be close to God unless he loses his ego. A self-centred person consumed by their own actions and wants is just an animal, like a monkey swinging from tree to tree, so say the Taoists.

I prefer the Zen proverb:
"Sitting quietly doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself."

I think simplicity of lifestyle is great for peace of mind and for the environment.

However, I somehow do not see it as a great investment of time to learn about this simplicity from a guy living in a place like The Vatican.

[Ele]

It's a common religious and spiritual principle. In Sufism and Islam it is preached that one cannot be close to God unless he loses his ego. A self-centred person consumed by their own actions and wants is just an animal, like a monkey swinging from tree to tree, so say the Taoists.

I prefer the Zen proverb:
"Sitting quietly doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself."

I think simplicity of lifestyle is great for peace of mind and for the environment.

However, I somehow do not see it as a great investment of time to learn about this simplicity from a guy living in a place like The Vatican.

Yeah, exactly. Which is why I'd much rather sit and meditate with a bunch of Zen Buddhists in the forest.

"Turning off your brain" doesn't have to be for the sake of submitting to a higher powerto come on in and take control over you. It can be to let go of some of the control we perceive that we have over ourselves and the world around us. The spring will still come and the grass will still grow. I'm not very good at meditating, though. But I'd like to be.

[Robert_S]

I prefer to just go out to a patch of woods with a camera and take in life, the difference and sameness of and between technology and raw nature, the nature of how I perceive and frame things as I frame what I see, How unique each moment is and how everything is the same, yet different since the last time I walked the path and the next time it will be the same: that is: different in a new way again.

Sometimes I end up with a photo or two to share.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I used to shit in the forest and meditate.

[Robert_S]

I used to shit in the forest and meditate.

Why doncha use the excremeditation room like a civilized person?

[amused]

I don't see anything wrong with aggressively engaging with this world, in all its physicalness. It seems more like surrender to your own laziness and fear to give up and pretend that you're disengaging as some sort of silly 'spiritual path'.

[Ele]

I don't see anything wrong with aggressively engaging with this world, in all its physicalness. It seems more like surrender to your own laziness and fear to give up and pretend that you're disengaging as some sort of silly 'spiritual path'.

Don't you sleep? Sleep is like deep meditation. Meditation helps people sleep too. Some psychologists even prescribe it to people with anxiety disorders, control issues, depression and insomnia. Like sleep, meditation can invigorate and keep a person sane to deal with the world better, and aggressively at times if need be. You shouldn't be so quick to write off a method that people find to preserve their physical and mental health as "some wort of silly spiritual path" and as "surrendering to laziness".

[amused]

No, I don't sleep.

[Ele]

No, I don't sleep.

Aaah, I suppose you regenerate like a vampire instead.

[Robert_S]

I don't see anything wrong with aggressively engaging with this world, in all its physicalness. It seems more like surrender to your own laziness and fear to give up and pretend that you're disengaging as some sort of silly 'spiritual path'.

Don't you sleep? Sleep is like deep meditation. Meditation helps people sleep too. Some psychologists even prescribe it to people with anxiety disorders, control issues, depression and insomnia. Like sleep, meditation can invigorate and keep a person sane to deal with the world better, and aggressively at times if need be. You shouldn't be so quick to write off a method that people find to preserve their physical and mental health as "some wort of silly spiritual path" and as "surrendering to laziness".

I've done some sitting down and paying attention to my breathing meditation here and there. It does seem to put a calmness over me without making me slothful.

But that's not shutting down my brain, it's more like letting the inner committee talk itself tired.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I used to shit in the forest and meditate.

Why doncha use the excremeditation room like a civilized person?

If it's good enough for the Pope...