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would you say most priests actually believe in god?

pgj2015

A bit of a mad thought but something that crossed my mind today. you would assume they all do but id say we would be surprised, I reckon some just see it as a handy number or have another reason for becoming a priest.

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John Hutton

Blaaz_ wrote: »

They used get big payoffs codding old people out of money and getting them to leave money/valuables in their will to the priest

So people became priests so they could con people out of their money?

You do know a large amount of religious priests take vows of poverty.

I'm not convinced people become priests for the cash.

John Hutton

beveragelady wrote: »

Love can exist without any god.

If you're going to give a god credit for rainbows and the wonders of nature and the perfection of a snowdrop then you have to give him credit for famine. Locusts, drought and desertification have the same origins as snowdrops.
Over the centuries politics and religion have been inextricable. War, another cause of famine, is so often fought over religion that it's not considered at all strange. Political regimes sought support and legitimacy from religious organisations and vice versa. This is the history of religion. Even now a coronation is a religious service, not a secular ceremony, implying that the monarch has been endorsed, if not chosen, by a god.

Remember it suits organised religion nicely to if the masses are hungry and desperate. It's no coincidence that when Ireland emerged from the grim eighties into the relative comfort of the nineties and the fluctuating wealth of the 21st C that we have simultaneously forced the church to loosen its hold on society. The church's stance on contraception in Africa despite the Aids epidemic tells you everything you need to know about its respect for the congregation. Keep 'em procreating, keep 'em hungry.

Interesting as this all is, it has zero bearing or relevance to the argument over whether or not there is a creator/god. Or is you point merely "if there is a God he must be a prick by my standards, therefore there's no God"?

John Hutton

tim3000 wrote: »

Why do you think rates of ordination are falling?

Because less people believe in God in Ireland (well thats debatable, it may be more accurate to say "actively engage with religious practice".)

Which is my point precisely, that people who become priests, certainly the vast majority, believe in God.

Of course people drip out of seminary for all reasons, the majority to get married, it doesn't mean they no longer believe.

beveragelady

tim3000 wrote: »

It's a shame they couldn't talk freely about it isn't it? There was too much control over day to day life by the church it has stunted the growth of our country.

Like that lady in your post my little one is baptised even though I don't practice, it was just done for peace sake. It is still a pervasive influence in society despite the several catastrophic knocks the C.C. has taken in recent decades.

I think the cycle is being broken though. It's slow but it's happening. I've been to a number of secular 'naming ceremonies' or 'baby welcoming ceremonies' in recent years, so it's becoming more common to ditch the baptism.

My father was the second of eight children. His older sister was sent off to a convent and is a retired nun now. She's good fun and was a beloved teacher in her day. When my father was coming to the end of secondary school his father took him in for a chat. The options were to inherit the farm or become a priest. If he studied to become a priest his parents would help him as much as they could, financially. If he didn't choose either of those options he was going to have to finance his own education. My dad had no notion of living the rest of his life on that farm, but he had no money and very few options for earning. He got his act together and collected the price of the fare to London where he worked on building sites, saving every penny, so he'd be able to get a degree.

Every single chance he got during his years in college, he was on the boat to London to scrape together the finances to continue. His parents contributed nothing, none of the help they would have been prepared to offer if he had joined a seminary.

One after the other my Dad's brothers did the same thing after the same chat with their father. There are no priests in the family because my Dad helped to blaze a trail to third level on his own terms. I don't know if it's true but I'm told he was the first boy from his primary school ever to enter third level.

This is why Ireland was producing priests, and the increased availability of education is why we've all but stopped.

John Hutton

Blaaz_ wrote: »

I know of several instances in my local area where sums of several hunderd thousands were codded out of old people by priests over a number of years?

I know antedocally of similar cases occuring across the state, this seems to been widespread

Large amounts of priests also take vow of celibacy and well we all know how much a joke,they made of that

Wouldn't there be easier ways to con people.out of cash if that's all your interested in?

I have to say, I think any priest would find the idea that the are priests for the money greatly amusing

John Hutton

beveragelady wrote: »

I think the cycle is being broken though. It's slow but it's happening. I've been to a number of secular 'naming ceremonies' or 'baby welcoming ceremonies' in recent years, so it's becoming more common to ditch the baptism.

My father was the second of eight children. His older sister was sent off to a convent and is a retired nun now. She's good fun and was a beloved teacher in her day. When my father was coming to the end of secondary school his father took him in for a chat. The options were to inherit the farm or become a priest. If he studied to become a priest his parents would help him as much as they could, financially. If he didn't choose either of those options he was going to have to finance his own education. My dad had no notion of living the rest of his life on that farm, but he had no money and very few options for earning. He got his act together and collected the price of the fare to London where he worked on building sites, saving every penny, so he'd be able to get a degree.

Every single chance he got during his years in college, he was on the boat to London to scrape together the finances to continue. His parents contributed nothing, none of the help they would have been prepared to offer if he had joined a seminary.

One after the other my Dad's brothers did the same thing after the same chat with their father. There are no priests in the family because my Dad helped to blaze a trail to third level on his own terms. I don't know if it's true but I'm told he was the first boy from his primary school ever to enter third level.

This is why Ireland was producing priests, and the increased availability of education is why we've all but stopped.

None of this anecdote, even if it were replicated widely, necessarily means that those who became priests didn't also believe in God.

John Hutton

Blaaz_ wrote: »

Given the respect and stature old people tradionally hold priests in,id say no.....there should be greater penalties for those abusing position of power/trust

Be that as it may,its the truth

So your evidence for this statement is that some priests conned people out of their money?

That's not very convincing

timthumbni

I’ve always been amazed at how big a hold the RC church had and still has over some people in Ireland.

For a people who are supposedly so feisty and rebellious it’s just seems bonkers that they were able to get away with the nonsense they did. A friend of mine had to go to marriage classes with the priest before he would do their wedding. I couldn’t stop laughing. What would a celibate catholic priest know about marriage exactly? It would be like stevie wonder playing darts.

Anyway my pal is an intelligent guy in general and would be an atheist. But still went through this bollocks. He said his family would disapprove if the priest wasn’t involved. It’s like a form of mass hysteria still exists that stops otherwise rational and intelligent adults from just saying balls to the whole thing.

John Hutton

Blaaz_ wrote: »

Its the truth though

Have you anything to suggest otherwise,pointing at vows of xy and z is pointless,when its fairly obvious they just paid no heed to em

My evidence is their average pay of 24k (before covid it's less now) and that they could easily have studied something else and got a better paying job, especially today.

Your rebuttal of this was an anecdote that some priests stole money.

That's not very convincing is it...

John Hutton

timthumbni wrote: »

I’ve always been amazed at how big a hold the RC church had and still has over some people in Ireland.

For a people who are supposedly so feisty and rebellious it’s just seems bonkers that they were able to get away with the nonsense they did. A friend of mine had to go to marriage classes with the priest before he would do their wedding. I couldn’t stop laughing. What would a celibate catholic priest know about marriage exactly? It would be like stevie wonder playing darts.

Anyway my pal is an intelligent guy in general and would be an atheist. But still went through this bollocks. He said his family would disapprove if the priest wasn’t involved. It’s like a form of mass hysteria still exists that stops otherwise rational and intelligent adults from just saying balls to the whole thing.

In the Catholic Church marriage is a sacrement. Who is better placed than a priest to explain the religious nature of marriage. I dont think it's unreasonable for the church to ask people to attend a course about a religious ceremony and what it means before they go through with it.

I mean he didn't have to, he could have had some backbone instead of lying his way through the whole thing.

splashuum

It seems approx 1/50 dont believe in god.

up to 16% are agnostic.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/survey-finds-2-of-anglican-priests-are-not-believers-9821899.html

YellowBucket

They made us do ***marriage guidance classes*** when we were in transition year!!

Talk about boring and pointless, yet memorably hilarious! It was also an entirely male group of 16 year olds and the teacher was a priest dryly and abstractly discussing marriage.

So other than for the few of us who ultimately married guys, it didn’t even have a gender balance, so basically we were discussing hypothetical women.

Several of us were thrown out when he started on about bringing the holy sprit into your marriage and we couldn’t resist throwing in a few wisecracks.

One guy asked about gay marriage and got thrown out and I think it was a very genuine question. It was just a decade too early for the culture and probably a century too soon for the priest.

John Hutton

Anyway, the reason why the Catholic church gained so much power (and abused it) is because they became incredibly close to and admired by the Irish people through centuries of oppression. They emerged from this period of history with great credit, and then messed everything up.

Probably because the wrong people became priests in the "good times", but they can still be the wrong type of people and still believe in God, which is the questioned raised in this thread

YellowBucket

John Hutton wrote: »

Anyway, the reason why the Catholic church gained so much power (and abused it) is because they became incredibly close to and admired by the Irish people through centuries of oppression. They emerged from this period of history with great credit, and then messed everything up.

Probably because the wrong people became priests in the "good times", but they can still be the wrong type of people and still believe in God, which is the questioned raised in this thread

I honestly think if Ireland hadn’t been oppressed our natural tendency is probably towards some kind of laid back not all that serious religious outlook.

The fact that what was basically English sectarianism, particularly in the Cromwelian era did so much damage here wedded a lot of people to the Roman Catholic Church as a badge of rebellion against the establishment.

Even the Anglican Churches are really only a political split from the Catholic Church. With a few very minor differences, they are very much a form of Catholicism, just with the Roman connectons severed. They’re not really very Protestant in the reformation sense, rather the English fell out with Rome for geopolitical reasons as it was de facto run by Spain and pre revolutionary France, who were the direct competitors of England at the time.

Had we been left to our own devices, it’s very likely that we would have ended up with some form of easy going religion perhaps based around the Irish Celtic church era - it could have evolved into some kind of Irish Protestantism, without the political connotations associations.

Perhaps that’s sort of where we’ve ended up - a bunch of Increasingly agnostics and atheists with a Catholic layer in the culture. You see very similar in France, Québec, Belgium, Germany etc etc

The real hardcore of dogmatic Christian stuff these days is very much puritanical and evangelical and increasingly centred in the US. Most of Europe is post religious, we just got to that stage several decades late.

The church running >90% of schools here isn’t exactly what you’d call normal though and it’s not really going to be very compatible with an increasingly secular and diverse Ireland. I could see that becoming much more of a problem as the decades roll on if we don’t do anything to evolve an education sector that fits society.
Right now we are trying to shoehorn an increasingly diverse society into a very conservative and religious education system, forgetting that it’s a service to and paid for by society and not the other way around.

The education system needs to reflect us. We shouldn’t have to be bending over backwards and baptising kids, keeping our mouths shut about divorces, atheism, being gay etc to fit into a public service that we need to use and pay for. Nor should we be creating educational divides between people on basis of religious background or gender, which we seem to think is totally fine for some reason.

beveragelady

splashuum wrote: »

It seems approx 1/50 dont believe in god. up to 16% are agnostic.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/survey-finds-2-of-anglican-priests-are-not-believers-9821899.html

2% are willing to admit to being atheist.
16% are willing to admit to being agnostic.
I wonder how many of those who were asked kept their lack of faith to themselves...

freshpopcorn

John Hutton wrote: »

Frankly bizarre that people seem to think that one of the main reasons people became priests in the past was because they were gay.

I think nearly all priests believe in God.
I also think there was a time in Ireland when gay men became priests because of how society was. They knew they wouldn't met a woman, marry, etc if they were honest with themselves and the priesthood was sort of a place for them.
I don't think they did it tough to go off with other men.

RandomViewer

Got to remember that lots probably entered the priesthood in the 50s and 60s to get an education, quite a percentage of population over 65 only have a national school level. People from poorer backgrounds would have gotten their education paid for if taking holy orders. That's why so many priests and nuns were teachers

Galwayguy35

timthumbni wrote: »

I’ve always been amazed at how big a hold the RC church had and still has over some people in Ireland.

For a people who are supposedly so feisty and rebellious it’s just seems bonkers that they were able to get away with the nonsense they did. A friend of mine had to go to marriage classes with the priest before he would do their wedding. I couldn’t stop laughing. What would a celibate catholic priest know about marriage exactly? It would be like stevie wonder playing darts.

Anyway my pal is an intelligent guy in general and would be an atheist. But still went through this bollocks. He said his family would disapprove if the priest wasn’t involved. It’s like a form of mass hysteria still exists that stops otherwise rational and intelligent adults from just saying balls to the whole thing.

You could say the same thing about people like the DUP in NI, Arlene Foster brings her religious belief into the way she runs the place in regards to abortion etc.

beveragelady

RandomViewer wrote: »

Got to remember that lots probably entered the priesthood in the 50s and 60s to get an education, quite a percentage of population over 65 only have a national school level. People from poorer backgrounds would have gotten their education paid for if taking holy orders. That's why so many priests and nuns were teachers

This is definitely true. Because it provided education it was a path off the farm or, for women, a possible escape from a life of childbearing and skivvying for a husband. My father's story which I related here earlier is by no means unique. He was 17 and effectively instructed by his parents to become a priest. Plenty of young lads who lacked his particularly enterprising and uncooperative streak must just have done what they were told.
As somebody else pointed out, a priest's training leaves them with very few transferable skills. By the time the realise they want to get out they are fit for very little else. Much easier to carry on than to face the job market, bereft of the certainty, the housekeeper and the respect the collar demands.

timthumbni

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

You could say the same thing about people like the DUP in NI, Arlene Foster brings her religious belief into the way she runs the place in regards to abortion etc.

I wasn’t referring to the political aspect of things, rather the community aspect of things.

Btw you don’t have to be religious to have an issue with abortion though.

YellowBucket

In Ireland at least, you'll find a lot of ex-priests / ex-religious of a certain era in quite a few areas, notably education, psychology, social care, healthcare, charity organisations and also communication oddly enough, as I guess they were taught to present to an audience at mass and so on.

The skillset they picked up wouldn't be entirely lacking in transferability and it definitely would have been quite reasonable to make a move like that, particularly back in the 70s and 80s. It might be seen as a little strange in 2020 to have an ex-priest applying for a job, but back in those days I would suspect it was a lot more common, especially in those kinds of areas.

It also isn't unusual for priests and nuns to have had degrees in areas they worked or even totally unrelated areas. So, many of them would have had skills. Also, those who were involved in management of organisations have a lot of transferable skills, much like anyone else and you do actually encounter them from time to time, especially in areas like education but I've come across quite a few over the years in very random areas, but often in charitable organisations, human rights-focused organisations and so on.

One of the common threads that I've seen though is they're often people who went into the priesthood or convent motivated by a desire to perhaps do something that might make a social impact, or work to improve things and then became very disillusioned with the whole thing and just went on to do whatever it was they were doing in a secular context. Perhaps they weren't very religious in the first place and just those were the routes that they were presented with back in the 50s, 60s, 70s.

The other thing I've noticed is that you'll find a lot of ex-religious have serious hang ups about saying that they were a former priest or nun, so often you'll have no idea unless it somehow comes up in conversation or whatever. I was just surprised over the years to discover several people I'd been working with were ex-priests / ex-nuns. For example a couple of college lecturers I had in areas that were nothing to do with religion and also a media production person.

I know my mom had a few ex teaching colleagues who'd been 'away to be nuns' and subsequently decided to get married and had kids and were surprisingly not at all religious.
It's very much a generational thing and I think the last large numbers of them are probably in their 60s/70s at this stage and heading towards or already retired.

tayto lover

Priests might believe in God but I’m not so sure that I do.
How can God allow children to die from starvation, painful diseases and fires?
If there is a God up there then he’s not making a great fist of running this world.

Sam Quentin

beveragelady wrote: »

I don't think any adult could really believe in God. Not really, not if they consider it seriously for more than a few seconds.

Priests belong to an organisation that had policies and procedures for protecting members from the consequences of their depravity. There's no way any of them really think there's an omniscient being who will make them face judgement and everlasting torture.

When I see footage of the pomp and ceremony in the Vatican, the gold leaf and velvet and the hideous excess, I often wish Jesus would float down on a sunbeam and ask them what the fluich they think they're doing, faffing about in unimaginable luxury while people die of preventable disease and hunger.

There's simply no way any of them really believe it. It doesn't mean they're all bad people, some of them have bought into it to such an extent that they need to keep pretending, but they know it's all horseapples.

I really really honestly don't understand how some adults think that some form of greater being doesn't exist... That life on earth is some sort of mistake, some freak of nature, that life on earth shouldn't be(because that's what non-believers think)that we're all here being happy,sad whatever because a huge mistake happened somewhere, somehow. And because God give me the power to use my mind and think about stuff....well I find it truly shocking that some people don't believe in God. Amen.

beveragelady

tayto lover wrote: »

Priests might believe in God but I’m not so sure that I do.
How can God allow children to die from starvation, painful diseases and fires?
If there is a God up there then he’s not making a great fist of running this world.

In a minute somebody will be along to tell you that this isn't exactly an original argument. (He might tell you you're not very smart too, but you can ignore that.) The fact that it's an old argument doesn't mean it's an invalid argument. There's simply no way that a benevolent omnipotent being would allow these things to happen. If you stood by and allowed a child to suffer and die when it was within your power to intervene you would be reviled by anybody who knows you. You could be prosecuted, in fact.
He created the world from nothing, provided manna in the desert, brought a flood to punish all mankind, but couldn't be arsed to feed a dying toddler?

The mythology doesn't stand up to any sort of critical thought.

Unless they're all happy enough to prostrate themselves before a bad-minded or ineffectual god, there's no way priests believe a word of it.

Loafing Oaf

Sam Quentin wrote: »

I really really honestly don't understand how some adults think that some form of greater being doesn't exist... That life on earth is some sort of mistake, some freak of nature, that life on earth shouldn't be(because that's what non-believers think)

Is it?

Ipso

I wonder how many believe in the transubstantiation.

Gretas Gonna Get Ya!

Sam Quentin wrote: »

I really really honestly don't understand how some adults think that some form of greater being doesn't exist... That life on earth is some sort of mistake, some freak of nature, that life on earth shouldn't be(because that's what non-believers think)that we're all here being happy,sad whatever because a huge mistake happened somewhere, somehow. And because God give me the power to use my mind and think about stuff....well I find it truly shocking that some people don't believe in God. Amen.

But there is a big difference between looking up into the night sky, and pondering the meaning of everything... and someone who actually believes hook line and sinker in the big spaghetti monster in the sky!

There is a HUGE difference between those two things!

The first person is naturally inquisitive and has lots of questions that they would like answers to, but acknowledges that we don't currently have those answers... the second person has blind faith in something they read in some dusty old book.

The second person is not inquisitive, they are brainwashed and believe they already know all the answers to those big questions. (With zero legitimate evidence to back any of it up)

Sam Quentin

beveragelady wrote: »

In a minute somebody will be along to tell you that this isn't exactly an original argument. (He might tell you you're not very smart too, but you can ignore that.) The fact that it's an old argument doesn't mean it's an invalid argument. There's simply no way that a benevolent omnipotent being would allow these things to happen. If you stood by and allowed a child to suffer and die when it was within your power to intervene you would be reviled by anybody who knows you. You could be prosecuted, in fact.
He created the world from nothing, provided manna in the desert, brought a flood to punish all mankind, but couldn't be arsed to feed a dying toddler?

The mythology doesn't stand up to any sort of critical thought.

Unless they're all happy enough to prostrate themselves before a bad-minded or ineffectual god, there's no way priests believe a word of it.

Not only do all priests believe in God.. the majority of humans do also. Amen

Sam Quentin

Gretas Gonna Get Ya! wrote: »

But there is a big difference between looking up into the night sky, and pondering the meaning of everything... and someone who actually believes hook line and sinker in the big spaghetti monster in the sky!

There is a HUGE difference between those two things!

The first person is naturally inquisitive and has lots of questions that they would like answers to, but acknowledges that we don't currently have those answers... the second person has blind faith in something they read in some dusty old book.

The second person is not inquisitive, they are brainwashed and believe they already know all the answers to those big questions. (With zero legitimate evidence to back any of it up)

We just believe because it's so obvious... Amen

[Deleted User]

Sam Quentin wrote: »

I really really honestly don't understand how some adults think that some form of greater being doesn't exist... That life on earth is some sort of mistake, some freak of nature, that life on earth shouldn't be(because that's what non-believers think)that we're all here being happy,sad whatever because a huge mistake happened somewhere, somehow. And because God give me the power to use my mind and think about stuff....well I find it truly shocking that some people don't believe in God. Amen.

Not a mistake just random chance. The thing is most religious people work backwards from where they are now, if you instead do a bit of astrophysics and work forward from the very beginning there is very, very little room (only before the beginning), and no need, for a god anymore