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Pope Francis Urges Young People to Not Waste Time Online

posted by n1 on Monday August 11 2014, @05:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the back-to-wasting-time-on-futile-things-in-meatspace dept.

AlHunt writes:

Pope Francis thinks you are spending too much time chatting online, using your smartphone and watching TV, among other things. He did not Tweet the message, but rather delivered it in person to 50,000 German Altar Servers who dropped by for a visit.

Earlier this year, the pope said the internet was a "Gift From God", while warning against isolation caused by too little face time with real people.

Meanwhile, the British government is warning that too much time online is causing mental illness in children "Loneliness, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and heightened aggression are some of the possible issues faced by children who may overuse the Internet."

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 11 2014, @04:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 11 2014, @04:04PM (#80104)

    I've been following this thread and I appreciate your calm and sincere responses. I have known quite a few religious people who believed in things that I consider silly or pretty clearly insane, but at the same time I've observed that most of them are actually acting like pretty decent people. I knew one particular very nice couple who seemed to ground everything they believed in logic and careful thought (even though I disagreed with some of their conclusions) and eventually I took them up on their invitation to attend their church. It was a shock to me to discover exactly how much loony the service sounded to me after getting to know the couple who invited me. So, I'm prepared to accept that people can be decent to each other, in fact that they usually are, even if their religion is a little nuts.

    Then there is the lumping every religion into one group thing. If your religion says everybody should believe the same as you, then fine, I don't care, but I do care what you are supposed to do about people who disagree or change their minds. If your church (or whatever) makes you think you should harm somebody, even "just" mentally, to make sure they believe what you do, then you have a bad religion. Most Christians, Catholics in particular, seem to believe that the right way to handle somebody leaving their church is to pray for them and maybe offer to visit with them. That's a far cry from Islam or Scientology.

    I know there are lots of religions that call themselves "Christians" and there are some that are dangerous, but if I find out my sister is going to join the Lutheran church or the Pentecostals or the Mennonites or the Mormans, I don't fear for her nearly like I would if she was joining the Scientologists or Islam. I find it sad that someone can be so embittered by one group that when he escapes, he loses the ability to see distinctions.

  • (Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Monday August 11 2014, @06:49PM

    by q.kontinuum (532) on Monday August 11 2014, @06:49PM (#80160) Journal

    Thanks. I work in an environment with people from >50 different nations in our office; it would be quite chaotic if we would discuss religion on an emotional base.

    For the same reason I disagree partially with you about your opinion on Islam: I think that generally, the less educated people are and the less open-minded and the more oppressed they are, the more dangerous they become in their religion. Most Christian countries can afford to be lenient. But considering that we got our position in the world centuries ago by bloodily slaughtering Islam populations, and considering that GW Bush claimed [theguardian.com] God ordered him to liberate Iraq, I have a hard time to accept that Islam is inherently more bloody than Christianity.

    I do agree that I perceive violence performed directly in the name of god is more common in Islamic countries in the name of the sharia, but I also met lots of more educated moslems who are as much moslem as most west-european city-folks are christian: i.o.w. it's in their passport, they wouldn't say much against it (well, you never know...), but that's it mainly.

    Personally I'd rather follow the Church of the Holy Spaghetti-Monster.

    --
    Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum