Pope Francis condemned the “very strong, organised, reactionary attitude” in the US church and said Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.
Pope Francis has blasted the “backwardness” of some conservatives in the US Catholic Church, saying they have replaced faith with ideology and that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.
Francis’ comments were an acknowledgment of the divisions in the US Catholic Church, which has been split between progressives and conservatives who long found support in the doctrinaire papacies of St John Paul II and Benedict XVI, particularly on issues of abortion and same-sex marriage.
The books describe how those people conceptualise things, not what the rituals are for, systemically speaking. As said: The purpose of a system is what it does. Try as hard as you might you won’t get me to blaspheme cybernetics.
Are you really comfortable claiming that those conceptual frameworks aren’t post-hoc rationalisation? “Oh I found myself doing XYZ which doesn’t have discernible physical utility, but I also connect it to things working out well recently, it must be because there’s some greater power I can reach in those ways, and this is how I imagine those powers to be”. To me that sounds like an excellent null hypothesis.
I actually think we agree this far. The point of contention is whether we should throw out the baby with the bathwater.