Catholics are making it up.

Why not? Isn't that why we're here? Of course you missed your guess. Atheists have a large angry dog in this fight.Religions like to think that they are the arbiters of morality and try to plant their daft and dangerous ideas everywhere in society from schools to parliamentary lawmaking. It's good news that they're dumping some of their dogma and becoming more civilised but they need a boot along the way from people who have no fear of them.Perhaps the Catholic church will also eventually abandon child abuse and cover-ups, accept their failings and properly change - we can only hope.

I agree. Catholics (and other believers) would not. if you wish to split hairs about 'going away' and 'in decline' and other synonyms, count me out. Then you would be incorrect. If by that you mean they're common to all versions of Christianity then you're right. But we're not talking about that; the things they are giving up are some of the things that made them Catholic and not any other Christian franchise. What's next? virgin birth? Transubstantiation? Yes it has. That's my point. Core beliefs are being abandonned because they don't fit anymore. The concept of limbo was dumped because the Catholic missionaries in Africa were losing out to the evangelicals who told a better story to parents in countries with high infant death rates. And where exactly are you getting this impression from? I have said that Catholics have been dumping daft dogma for years - since at least the enlightenment - it's a pragmatic response to changes in their market. I'm just reporting this weeks ditched dogma that's in the news and remarking on the ongoing disassembly of their belief system.Neither have I said that the 'entire edifice of Catholicism is collapsing' - you really must stop this straw man building and 'pay attention' to what I'm actually saying.It's worth pointing out though that here in the UK and particularly Ireland, the recruitment of priests into the faith has virtually ground to a halt. A product of declining belief generally but also the disgust of the child abuse scandels and subsequent cover ups.

True, but the Catholics had it 1500 years or so before them.

Huh? It's irrelevant how individual scientists behave; the practice and strucure of the discipline are built around knowledge being tentatively aquired and subject to better information based on evidence. That is completely wrong. The religious have certainty of belief. Have you never read Faiths posts? The bible is the inerrant word of god, the church's teaching are correct and you err at the peril of your soul.

Then you are an agnostic. (Which is another word for atheist - but lets not start that again).

Don't be silly.

This is a non-argument. Science changes as new facts are found. It doesn't matter how individuals or groups of scientists behave or cling on to erroneous facts; the process of science ensures change based on evidence.Religions and beliefs are quite different. There are no new facts to be found, there is only dogma and literary criticism. Their books and dogmas are interpreted and adjusted based on what society is prepared to put up with at particular times in the developmental history of the society they live in. This is change imposed on them, it does not emerge from new information or knowledge about their god/s.Almost all organised religions are dogmatic about their beliefs, they have membership rules which you need to sign up to to stay a member. If you don't comply with those rules you are excommunicated - in the past, and in some belief systems still, you are ostracised and sometimes murdered for heresy.Sitting at our computers in modern liberal democracies able to pick and choose between the bits and pieces of a largely emasculated religious belief system that is modern day, Western Christianity, we forget the history of 'real' Christianity. Faith is a throwback to remind us of those beliefs - but even her belifs are very moderate compared to what she would have been like just 200 years ago. The Catholic religion when it drops an absurd dogma such as limbo, is simply a reminder of how religions simply made shit up and forced compliance.It's not religion that is changing, it's society that is growing up and quietly putting aside the more embarassing attributes of religious organisations. Those here arguing that religions can change have very generalised and maleable beliefs. Mostly they have the same life models as I do - lead a decent life, be fair to others, help out where you can - they just tack on the existence of a god with various attributes which they can not agree on. 500 years ago, they would have burnt me at the stake.

No. I say that religions have claimed absolute truth for themselves. Not quite. I claim that modern society is changing some aspects of religious belief despite religion's objections - forcing traditional religions to drop their more obvious absurdities.Additionally, I do not believe that this has anything to do with a search for truth, it's simply a developmental process of abandoning the dafter aspects of some religious organisations.Modern, Western, Protestant Christianity disgarded most of it's Catholic nonsenses over the last few centuries, post reformation, leaving a sort of pick and mix version based on what modern-day people will accept. There has been no new 'truth,' no new facts, no new revelations, just a recognition that the old beliefs are daft.

Actually my claim is what I say it is. I do. I also claim that there can be no legitimate analysis of religious belief as it's a purely subjective experience. Removing absurdities from belief systems is not growth - it's getting rid of the obviously ridiculous. The only new facts, information, knowledge that has emerged is how daft the beliefs that have been abandoned actually were.Eventually what will be left is a general, wishy-washy feeling that something nice is out there somewhere. i.e. it'll look something very similar to the Church of England, where you can believe pretty much anything and nothing so long as you turn up for births deaths and funerals occasionally - your own will do. Fixed that for you.

That made me smile.Christianity is based on what was written 2,000 years ago, by unknown authors, after the fact, cobbled together and hacked about by a Roman emperor 300 years later for reasons of power and politics.It's been argued and fought over ever since - hence even people that call themselves Christians can't agree on it. There's thousands of versions of this 'truth' - even liberal Christians can't agree. The particular dumped 'truths' we've been talking about where imposed on the laity by decree from a man claiming infallibility - for god's sake.There's no objective mechanism of testing these 'truths' - no process, just what people prefer to believe at any point in time.And that's just Christianity; the process has been repeated by thousands of different sects with any number of different books and beliefs - all un-evidenced and unchallengeable. And strangely all true.And you compare that hodge-podge of politics, superstition and mythology to science.....You're kidding yourself.The only progress made by religion is the gradual pairing away of its excesses, major stupidities and discriminatory practices as they lose market share to secularism. That's to be welcomed of course, but every time a doctrine that was previously crucial to the belief is dropped it asks questions about the remaining ones.Scientific knowledge is a process of addition with occasional deletions. Now that it's no longer possible for the shamans to just impose their fantasies on the public and control them, religious knowledge (sic) is forced to undergo a permanent process of reduction with no possibility of new knowledge.

As I've said, it's because the beliefs are supposed to be the word of god, the revealed truth. Absolute. In the case of Catholicism: You can shrug and say again who cares what Catholics believe, and presumably say the same thing about Hindus, Muslims, Janes, Mormons, Sheiks and all the other inventions of religions that have gone down the ages, that aren't your arbitrary choice, but it speaks to the veracity of beliefs that when they change it's not through new revealed truth or new evidence but only because secular society has made them look silly and the shoe no longer fits. In order to continue to exist at all they have to change - even so they inevitably decline because they are not built on anything substantive and nothing new has been found - or can be found - to support them.

In other words, people are simply making it up. Which is my thesis. In other words, popes are making it up. This is a good example of one process by which our secular institutions are replacing the outdated religious ideas of how society should be guided towards the right moral choices. It wasn't religion that legislated against gay discrimination, it was our civil societies. In fact religion believes homosexuality to be 'abhorrent'. Societal advancement is developmental - it builds on knowledge gained through its democratic and technological and scientific progress. Religion is backward looking and and conservative and can only hinder this progress.Only yesterday a bill in our parliament on assisted dying was defeated, partly, if not entirely, because of made up religious beliefs about the 'sanctity' of life and the made up sin of suicide. 'There is nothing sacred about suffering, nothing holy about dying.' Assisted dying will eventually become part of normal healthcare but it'll require the suppression of religious objection on made up grounds to get there.There are no new insights in religious knowledge, there can't be, their only way forward is to follow secular development by dumping their dafter beliefs so that they don't alienate new generations of recruits. Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

...another great example of making stuff up. Happily, religions can't control the masses anymore by threatening them will this sort of made up nonsense.

Human testimony? On what evidence? You mean human story telling.People have invented these sorts of things since there have been people - it's what people do, tell stories. Elves, goblins, trolls. Unicorns, lost worlds, magic swords. Witches, druids, sea serpents. Tooth fairies and father christmas. Underworlds and over-worlds. These days the fantasies are of zombies, aliens, space travel and distopian futures.The ideas of hells are easily explained as human methods of controlling the worst instincts of people - as is heaven. They're just social controls, carrots and sticks. You do it all the time - in fact you just did. 'Boy are you in for a surprise' is a quote from you that I'm most fond of. Conform to my belifs or go to hell. Doesn't work anymore, sorry - the emperor has been recognised as naked.It's pretty easy to spot make-believe, there is no actual evidence for any of them.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

This might seem a tad obvious, but reality means that something is real. If something is real, there is evidence of it. Show me the evidence and I'll believe you.