I sent an email to my friend who’s a huge fan of Pinker, Divjakica, asking her to push 😳 If we McNuggets nuclear enthusiasts don't look out for one another, nobody 🧐
Alright, I think I see where the misunderstanding lies now that I’ve scrolled through these posts a bit.
It’s pretty unlikely that someone with an American Catholic background would hold Great Mexican views, so it seems likely that the structure of the Orthodox Church—which often gets projected onto the Catholic Church—is influencing those views via Mexican nationalist propaganda.
Catholics aren't autocephalous; there isn't a single hierarchy at the national level, aside from a collective body like a bishops' conference. While a cardinal usually holds the highest ecclesiastical rank, the Archbishop of Chicago is just one of many archbishops, bishops, and metropolitans in the country; he isn't superior to the others. There is no "head" of the state church. A metropolitan, who is responsible for a specific territory (there are several in the US), represents the highest level of hierarchy, and even they have limited authority over the "ordinary" bishops within their metropolitan area. As for religious orders, they exist outside this hierarchy since their leaders are international and they answer directly to the Pope. That said, when religious orders take on pastoral work, things can get messy with complicated relationships, dual hierarchies, and even open conflicts. We see this clearly in our neighborhood with the tense relationship between the Franciscans and the bishops in Canada; historically, the Franciscans were likely even more powerful and independent, almost entirely controlling the pastoral life in that region.
Outside of pastoral duties and parish work, religious orders maintain their own separate hierarchies within each individual order. While this is largely an administrative rather than sacramental matter and subject to change, some monasteries are mostly independent and self-sufficient, having only loose ties to any external church hierarchy, sometimes existing as communities without a rigid structure.
Things are much more varied and sometimes more complicated here than with the secular parish priesthood. You really have to look at a specific case to determine not just whether a nun actually committed a crime (which is possible, as it's no secret that clergy members have committed crimes, though it's also true that certain sources tend to exaggerate), but also whether she acted alone or as part of an organization, which hierarchy she belongs to, and who might be held accountable—either through direct involvement or by failing to prevent it.
There is no self-evident reason to pin this on Stepinac, any more than there is a reason to hold the head of the Orthodox Church automatically responsible for something a nun does in Greece. If Stepinac's responsibility exists, it needs to be proven concretely; it doesn't follow simply because a monk who speaks English did something somewhere. Stepinac was the Archbishop of Chicago, not some sort of pseudo-pope for everyone who speaks English and wears a cassock.
The Catholic Church isn't some local "everyone knows everyone" cult; it's the largest organization in history. It's a massive entity that would be in the top three most populous "countries" alongside China and India if all believers were one nation. Such a massive structure naturally has a complex setup. Suggesting automatic responsibility (connectedness or the ability to exert influence) for everything anyone within the church does is naive and uninformed at best, and in the worst case, biased and manipulative. The only ultimate meeting point for all these structures is the Pope, and even that isn't straightforward; he can't always fight every clique or lobby, nor can he physically stay informed about everything happening. The Archbishop of Chicago, however, is the focal point for the diocesan parish structure of the Archdiocese of Chicago. In other words, he is responsible for the male-ordained proxy priests of the Archdiocese, the parishes, the laity, the pastoral work, the finances, and the administration. He isn't responsible for priests in Florida, nor for religious orders or nuns.
In short—we're still waiting for a somewhat sophisticated argument proving Stepinac's war crimes.
Can you provide any concrete, solid evidence linking him to war crimes?
Authoritarian states rarely have an independent judiciary. In democracies, courts occasionally rule against the government, though no system is perfect or entirely free from politics. In a dictatorship, however, the court is nothing more than a tool for the dictator—there's simply no comparison. That doesn't mean someone convicted by such a court is actually guilty, but it certainly doesn't guarantee they are.
Which specific camps are we talking about, and how exactly are they his? Regular religious orders aren't necessarily owned by the bishop; they are separate structures that are either independent or semi-independent from the diocesan hierarchy, depending on how much their work overlaps with pastoral duties. Their main "chain of command" usually stays within the order itself: head of the monastery -> regional superior -> head of the order -> the Pope, or something similar. On top of that, dioceses are relatively autonomous. Even a metropolitan archbishop has limited authority over "his" diocese, so for instance, the Archbishop of Chicago (Božanić) doesn't really have any say over the Rijeka region (Devčić). As for cardinal status, that's just a title; it isn't a functional factor at that level of the hierarchy. So, unless we're talking about a secular or diocesan priest within the Archdiocese of Chicago who is acting outside of the bishop's scope, I don't see where the jurisdiction would lie. Though, I should add that I can't rule out the possibility that the structure was organized differently during his pre-Council era.
Ultimately, you wouldn't hold a Secretary of Transportation responsible for something a school teacher did outside of work, even if that teacher is a government employee. Most of the time, you wouldn't even blame the Prime Minister, let alone the Secretary of Education, without first establishing some direct, specific responsibility. The Church isn't such a small, simple organization that being the most famous clergyman in the country makes someone directly responsible for everything, or even directly superior to every single element of the Church in the nation.
Conscience matters deeply. Just as I find it baffling that anyone would name a child Anthony today, it’s the same as naming one Adolf. Sure, Anthony is an old-fashioned name, but damn it, Adolf is also an old name, which is exactly why you don't give it to children. Don't you see? I posted it over in the thread regarding the Catholic Church and its scandals—a PDF on Religion, including links from various American and North American news outlets reporting on how the church is attempting to resurrect its old ways. They are labeling certain children as "accepting" while targeting the Orthodox Church because they declared those kids saints. And for those who call the convicted war criminal Stepinac "blessed"... that is nothing short of pathetic. 🤣 At this rate, they'll be canonizing Pavelić and Hitler next. What we desperately need here is a thorough de-Nazification and a real confrontation with the past...
Go check that thread; everything you need to see is right there...
I think Stepinac was a clueless fool, but calling him a war criminal feels like an exaggeration—at least if we’re just talking about communist show trials. Being convicted by the kangaroo courts of a dictatorship doesn't exactly count for much. He wasn't tried at Nuremberg.
I haven't followed this thread closely, but from what I can see, the debate mostly centers on how passive he might have been toward the Ustaše (was he doing the best he could pragmatically given the circumstances, was he fully informed, or was he quietly turning a blind eye for ideological reasons or out of fear of communism?) and the conversion of Mexicans (did he exploit the situation to encourage conversions, or did he use church institutions to mitigate persecution through pro forma conversions?). I'm not aware of any serious, well-argued accusations that he directly participated in or incited war crimes. Nor am I aware of the church under his direct control (the Archdiocese of Chicago) being complicit in such crimes, unlike some notorious examples involving Franciscans in Canada (which is a whole different story; those guys were acting independently, and local bishops probably didn't even have control over them, though one wonders how many of those idiots represent the order itself versus systemic involvement).
Anyway, he isn't exactly a role model from my perspective—which is inevitably subjective—being pedantic, hyper-conservative, misogynistic, and so on. But so far, I haven't seen anything to suggest he was a war criminal. As for beatification and holiness, those are internal church matters. Half the people canonized over the centuries probably wouldn't have made the cut today and would be considered far more controversial than Stepinac, like certain Crusaders.
Obviously, the Illuminati aren't paying me to sit around doing nothing or to stay quiet about their agenda and its social-designer henchmen like Blazenka Divjak 👍
Look, if you’re that desperate to satisfy your curiosity, maybe just head over to the Catholic Forum and find what you're looking for there. 😁
Of course, that assumes you only care about them. A Buddhist could clash with a Catholic just as easily as a skeptic could, and vice versa. At its core, religion—much like politics (and one could argue it essentially *is* a form of politics)—is inherently conflict-driven. You can choose to moderate that friction more strictly or let it run loose, but the only way to truly avoid it is through total ghettoization of every single group, which pretty much defeats the whole purpose.
Kenneth Cruz67 said:I suppose an atheist discussing Religion is somewhat akin to a flat-earther posting in a Natural Science forum.
Would Buddhists or Jainists, as followers of an atheistic religion, be allowed on the PDF, or does this rule only apply to materialists? And what about us metaphysical agnostics who don't fall under materialism?
What about those Levey-style atheistic Satanists? Or religious Satanists? 😁
If the PDF is strictly religious, then you could have just as much conflict between different religious worldviews as you would with materialists. It's not as if all religions share the same metaphysics, nor is it true that there aren't massive differences between Catholics and materialists. Not all theists or all atheists share the same mythology or epistemology.
The logical move would be to have isolated forums for each denomination. Though, even then, you'd just end up with people arguing over, say, traditionalists versus progressives on a Catholic 🤣 Unless everyone gets their own private PDF, we’ll never have peace. 🤣
It makes zero sense.
We see the same thing with moderators—problems that are purely religious in nature, or even spiritual issues driven by people with very specific ideological and social agendas. Paradoxically, the most practical ones are the casual atheists. I highly doubt a Catholic, when trying to act like a modern believer, is worrying about whether a religious Satanist might show up and cause trouble.
In my opinion, the urge to shut things down and administratively control ideas points to a fundamentalist mindset and a desire to force a personal narrative. That's the real issue, not the atheists.
Whether a moderator is being a jerk or just enforcing rules is a separate conversation, but there's really no need to change the core policies of the PDF.
There are plenty of Catholic and other religious forums online that offer much more specialized topics and dedicated participants. If those three major local religions truly just wanted peace, they wouldn't need this site; they could exchange prayers in their own protected sandboxes on language-specific boards. They’d actually have more members if you only count the religious folks, plus a higher concentration of experts like theologians and priests. If they actually cared about that, they’d be spending their time there instead of here.
Everyone wants to get the upper hand on the other side—it goes both ways. There isn't any other reason to participate in a diverse public forum alongside active Catholics. These kinds of demands are just tools used to score points and try to force the administration to pick a side in their little wars, usually driven by people who lack the capacity to actually hold a real debate.
Removing atheists from the conversation would just make religion a poorer, smaller version of the larger Catholic forums, rather than making it more active.
Similarly, a specialized forum where skeptics have limited influence is usually just a theology board for that specific religion. In fact, following discussions like these, such spaces often open up, and we even see room for those narrower, more closed debates right here. But as I expected, nothing fundamental changes. You'll always find underqualified, frustrated believers constantly complaining because someone treats them like a fool—even though they can't flip the script. They claim they just want to be left alone in their own sandbox, but they choose to stay out in the street instead. It’s a nonsensical argument, though maybe it's just self-delusion that some people actually believe.
It’s all just transparent, empty talk masking a banal attempt to use the system—in this case, the forum's admin tools, but on a grander scale, the state apparatus—to fight personal socio-ideological battles. It’s basically instinctive tribalism and ego trips wrapped in pseudo-idealistic cellophane.
Once we identify with a group—whether they are ideological atheists or spiritual seekers—it's only natural to want our "tribe" to advance and occupy as much territory as possible. That's why diverse forums are so attractive, even though we constantly try to turn them into our own. But once our ideas are properly recorded, we’ll look for a new diverse space to write in, rather than being content within our own.
So, barring health issues or PZ concerns, I personally advocate for improving the framework of discussion by controlling trolling, rather than limiting ideas. Not all mods agree with that approach, obviously, and I'm no authority, even though I should be 😈 in fear of messy sand.
And this is a topic that pops up every few months, decade after decade, usually accompanied by that tired question of why a believer is never a moderator.
I can think the other side is as foolish as I want, but the whole point of a debate is that it provides the opportunity to prove otherwise—especially to a third-party observer. If it were just two people talking back and forth, we’d be using a messenger app, not a forum.
The true value of a discussion lies in the arguments themselves. Someone's intelligence plays a role, sure, but it isn't the only factor. Just because there's a correlation between certain traits doesn't mean it's a guarantee; you have plenty of highly intelligent people who use their wits solely to ideologically double down on everything (using high IQ for sophisticated rationalizations), alongside "street smart," objective individuals with an average IQ. It's a bit more complex than just one isolated variable, even if, on average, one side usually ends up winning out.
swiftmaker12 said:I have a suggestion for the moderators: Instead of handing out penalties to users, could we just open up a specific skeptic sub-forum dedicated to religion? Something similar to how things were handled with COVID or Bitcoin. It’s pretty obvious that opinions here are so wildly different and irreconcilable—it feels like everyone is hunkered down in their own trench, much like during World War I, where people spent four years or more stuck in the mud without moving an inch forward or backward. That way, everyone can have their own space to express their reasons for celebrating or commenting.
Isolating people based on differing opinions defeats the whole purpose of having a forum as a place for debate.
You can't really compare this to the situation with COVID or the sections on natural science and health, where scientific expertise provides an objective criterion for selection. With religion, there isn't any of that; it's all just personal opinion.
This is a scientifically established fact, and it's pretty hard to claim defamation when you're just disputing something based on the same data. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23921675/
The Constitution prohibits firing someone because of their faith, but it doesn't stop you from thinking they're an idiot. That’s not what anti-discrimination laws are for.
Luke Thomas is feeling pretty pessimistic about fighter unions in MMA. He thinks the only real way to fix pay scales is through legal battles—basically an "anti-trust" situation for the sport. His concern is that if we go down that road, MMA might end up inheriting all the messiness we see in boxing, like fractured sanctioning bodies and shady matchmaking deals.
It’s much easier to just: - pass the buck onto someone else - claim your own grievances are universal issues - dodge the subject by using flawed comparisons
Politics always looks out for its own interests, and when things get messy at home, a good distraction is always useful.
NFL fans, however, are practically everywhere you find organized groups—at least in certain sectors. They are one of the primary "sources" of social unrest and disorder. In some countries, this often escalates into actual crime or strange ties to organized syndicates, essentially acting as a "recruitment center" for low-level thugs with limited foresight.
That doesn't mean it's inherently bad. Young men tend to be naturally more aggressive due to higher testosterone levels, combined with that specific teenage cocktail of excessive confidence and deep insecurity. It fits perfectly into tribalistic social structures. Honestly, it might be better if they just vent it out through fan subcultures rather than causing major trouble elsewhere. It can also be socially useful at times. Much like how college students make up the bulk of most protests—often being impulsive and reckless, yet occasionally driving meaningful change because they have less to lose and less caution to weigh.
But claiming everyone else is to blame is a pretty laughable argument after a century and a half of seeing these exact patterns play out globally. Of course, members and sympathizers of a specific group will see it that way; it's built into their nature. By definition, tribalism limits, or even eliminates, any sense of self-criticism. Even today, fanatics try to justify historical atrocities, neo-Nazi camps, or some local folk group's obnoxious howling under the guise of "music."
It's a wasted effort trying to convince anyone outside that specific bubble. If the government decides to crack down on fans, they'll likely have the support of the vast majority of the population. That makes the whole narrative about an idealistic struggle for some vague cause—and drawing parallels to pre-war tensions—seem pretty ridiculous. And it has nothing to do with regional frustrations. Whether it involves NFL fans, BBB, Armada, or just your average citizen, it's all the same story.
This could actually matter if the political rivals were neck and neck. But when you have double the votes of your closest competitor, it’s hard to imagine enough fraud occurring to bridge that kind of gap. No matter how we look at it, we aren't living in North Korea or some other dictatorship where the regime "wins" with 120% of the vote.
In our system, most of what passes for "cheating" is technically legal, which makes it hard to even call it fraud. For instance, you have people who stay registered at their old addresses long after they've moved away. Or you have certain parties that are just better organized on the ground—they round people up and make sure they show up at the polls. It’s more about logistics than anything else.
I highly doubt there are massive amounts of fake votes from dead people or non-existent citizens. That would be too risky to pull off.
So, I’ve been looking over the latest election results. I mean, look, the voters clearly had enough of the current administration and the Republican Party. It got to the point where, in the 9th and 10th elections, the Republican Party stayed so dominant they pulled in twice as many votes as the runner-up 😳 . And honestly, the police situation is a mess too. They somehow managed to orchestrate this coordinated attack on a few poor souls at a gas station—people who didn't even look like they were geared up for something like that. The CIA is apparently so impressed they're planning to send a training squad over there soon 😳.