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Originally Posted by milo
If you're taking the rather narrow viewpoint of only discussing the legitimacy of religious doctorine as a narrative on creation i agree with you, but the point about debating religious observance is to get an insight into a particular group of people. In a diverse and rather interesting world its idiotic to say 'theres no point in discussing this, its all bollocks, why are you discussing this?'
Even taking your point of it being made up, we discuss and debate about other literary or philosophical ideas even if they're made up or bullshit. I might not believe in LOTR as 'truth' but i might like to discuss it without someone constantly saying 'but it isn't real' or talk about communism with dante and t&f without just saying 'its all bollocks why even bother'.
Theres a certain nihilism in saying something shouldn't be discussed particularly if that something plays a large part in the world around us, and going into a thread where people are discussing it and saying 'its all bullshit don't bother' is trolling.
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I didnt say that they shouldnt be discussed - quite the opposite. I said that they shouldnt be treated as genuine questions capable of being answered in a rational manner. Religion itself can be treated as an object and studied from various perspectives (sociological, psychological etc), and there are many interesting theories about why people believe the things they do. But this is very different from treating the individual questions as something which can be answered seriously - "How can free-will be reconciled with God's omnipotence?" isnt a question like "How can quantum field theory be reconciled with general relativity?".
It's like if you were on the bus and met someone who had escaped from an asylum, and he started telling you that the driver was really an octapus who was cunningly disguising his tentacles so noone noticed. From a psychological point of view this may be fascinating - you might be tempted to probe in order to try and understand whats going on inside his head. But if you were to ask him "how can the octapus hide 6 tentacles inside such a tight shirt without creating any noticable bulges?", you wouldnt be asking this because you think its a serious question which deserves a rational answer - the driver obviously isnt an octopus, so the question is arbitrary and has no real meaning. Similarly there are situations in which you might want to ask a Catholic "how can that liquid be both blood and wine
at the same time?", but the reasons for asking will ultimately be morbid curiosity (or pointscoring) rather than because its a genuine question.
Studying the religions of the past are another example - there are lots of fascinatng questions that can be asked about Greek religion from both socio-historical, and psychological perspectives. But you wouldnt ask a question like "but was mount Olympus really big enough for a whole tribe of gods to live on?" and expect a proper answer.
Its difficult to put the distinction into words, but theres a big difference between asking an 'internal' question where you accept the basic framework and are trying to find a proper answer ("why does God want people to wear condoms?"), and asking an 'external' question where you are treating the framework as an object and studying it from outside ("why do Christians believe that God wants people to wear condoms?"). In the specific case of the Pope above, asking "why does he believe God hates secular values?" is the wrong place to start - it would be more productive to ask "Why does this person believe he is God's chosen representative on earth?". Its not particularly surprising that someone who believes the latter can also believe the former.