
Web Site Invites Sinners to Confess Online 136
slackeress writes "The Internet Report on Yahoo has a story about The Confessor Web site that invites sinners to confess online. Finally a chance for me to be redeemed. Ha! I'm glad to see that the Big Guy is Internet savvy." Wow! I wonder what those local loops charges are! :)
i can see why the catholic church doesn't approve (Score:1)
- penance: do 2 hail linus
- reparation: give back double what you took... bg would need to file for bankrupcy
- grace: divine providence grants you grace 1) if it feels like it and 2) if and only if you are truly sorry for your sins and have done all the other parts
Re:This is all fine and dandy until... (Score:1)
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Re:Post something that has to do with religion... (Score:1)
As a Catholic, the Sacrement of Reconciliation is central to my beliefs. To fully receive the Sacrement, the confessor must seek the help of a priest and make the confession to that other person. I believe this is a uniquely Catholic view, but someone correct me if I'm wrong. The idea is that you're confessing to the priest, who acts as a mediator for Christ. The confessor is not confessing to flesh and blood. He or she is confessing to the human-divine Christ.
The idea of an on-line confessional brings up some interesting questions. How can the confessor be sure the other end is being viewed by an ordained priest? If the confession really does stay on the user's computer and no one sees it, then it is not a valid confession according to Catholic doctrine. How can the privacy of the confessional be maintained over a public medium (think of all those courtroom dramas you've watched over the years)?
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Re:Post something that has to do with religion... (Score:1)
Duh... SSL!
Occam's Razor, and I'm off topic (Score:1)
1) Posts quoting what's-his-faces law that mentioning Nazis is death to a thread.
It usualy works as censorship, and I'm sorry but my loathing the Nazis makes me loath censorship even more.
2) Occam' Razor
I search for these to test a theory that it is used almost always wrong on slashdot. This supports my theory.
In this case, if you are to take the Biblical account for your facts, he was on the cross a short time. It is possible for someone to survive that. However, He was run in the side with a sword, and blood and water came out. Symbolic references aside, it shows that He was dead long enough (heart stopped beating) for his blood to start seperating. Its hard enough to start a heart beating after just minutes after death. Its a miracle after that long (an hour at least if my sources are correct).
So Occam's Razor does not justify your story as you think it does. Nor does Occam's razor find or even verify truth in any way shape or form. It is a statistical guess, playing the odds. I am so tired of people using it as a divining rod pointing to their half baked ideas. It is useful in interpolating data, not to support arguments.
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Occam's Razor, and I'm off topic (Score:1)
1) Posts quoting what's-his-faces law that mentioning Nazis is death to a thread.
It usualy works as censorship, and I'm sorry but my loathing the Nazis makes me loath censorship even more.
2) Occam' Razor
I search for these to test a theory that it is used almost always wrong on slashdot. This supports my theory.
In this case, if you are to take the Biblical account for your facts, he was on the cross a short time. It is possible for someone to survive that. However, He was run in the side with a sword, and blood and water came out. Symbolic references aside, it shows that He was dead long enough (heart stopped beating) for his blood to start seperating. Its hard enough to start a heart beating after just minutes after death. Its a miracle after that long (an hour at least if my sources are correct).
So Occam's Razor does not justify your story as you think it does. Nor does Occam's razor find or even verify truth in any way shape or form. It is a statistical guess, playing the odds. I am so tired of people using it as a divining rod pointing to their half baked ideas. It is useful in interpolating data, not to support arguments.
However I agree that we are inherently good until something compels us to be bad. Christians actualy believe this through the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden. They (like us) as creations of God were pretty good, mostly just innocent. Then they started talking to snakes...
Their "sin" (better said as transgression, even though many would argue there isn't a difference but look it up) was eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
This fruit, or ability to know good and evil is inherited with us. It means we get to know evil, sometimes by participation. This is what is confused some times and given the name origional sin, or being born in sin.
Note however the phrase "born in sin" does not say "born by sin". Many celebates base their obstinance on such a extrapolation of the doctrine as to say that birth happens from sin. This is not true.
Born in sin means more like born into a sinful environment. The sinful environment we find outselves in is the influence that you are speaking of. The good people resist and continue to do good, or repent of the evil they do and become good again.
This repenting, a neccisary step when someone does sin actualy requires an intersesion of someone outside themselves. One can not just change their mind after raping someone and say "Its all better I won't do it again I repent (meaning "change my mind about it") and will never do it again. Justice still demands a price. And the repentant person is not able to pay it.
Hence a believe that we're not nice unless something outside of us compels us to be nice. Surrounded by sin, even the best people need an influence from this intersessory power to be nicer. But most importantly they need someone to "right the wrongs."
That is why the need for someone to die, and live again on their own power. That is why it is so important that Christ either rose from the dead or He didn't. How could someone show us how to overcome our death if he couldn't even overcome his own? Yet there is even more to this that I would explain but I've run out of attention span of the readers a long time ago.
Thanks to the readers that wadded this far...
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Re:Occam's Razor, and I'm off topic (Score:1)
I agree with the need for faith, but too many times people confuse faith with hope or even imagination. Faith is an assurance that something is true. Hope is conjering up will power to follow something you believe is true. Imagination is pulling things out of thin air becuase they don't care what is true.
And that is what happens all too frequently. People I guess don't care enough about truth, or maybe they just lose faith entirely that they can know something is true. But the truth is out there... Christ and Buddha and Mohomed and Abraham all point out, you have to open your eyes to see it. Open your eyes to it means roughly that one has to look for it. Then you'll know it when you see it. At least if you are to believe them.
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Re:Occam's Razor, and I'm off topic (Score:1)
You can trust, and believe, but you can't KNOW.
This position you realize is something you can only hope is true. Its funny, you can always second guess yourself. You can always doubt. I had someone recently ask me on slashdot how I can base so much of my life on thing that there is no empirical evidence for.
While he was honest, and not trolling, it is a loaded question. I have experienced empirical evidence. I have excersized the scientific method on these points and I have seen the results.
And even if you have no more than a desire to know *if* you can _know_ the truth. Even to where if they did find...an ancient Bible with the previously missing foreward: "Written for all my friends and my lovely wife, this epic play will be performed next Tuesday at Herod's" it seriously wouldn't phase [YOU] at all....
However your other point that many people are mistaken, or even lying only emphazises the importance of finding things out for yourself. I promise it is possible, even if you only want to find out the truth of what I'm saying.
I promise everyone will know the truth sooner or later. And the sooner you learn the truth the sooner you are free from hashing philosophies like one of a thousand people groping in the dark and bumping into each other. Like what happens on Slashdot.
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Re:Occam's Razor, and I'm off topic (Score:1)
While it is true that you have to search truth yourself (a primary theme of Christ, Budha, Mohomed, and Greek Philosophy) I'm not dodging the point.
I never once said its true because the Bible said so. I said I know its true. I say you can know also. I figure you want too.
I am attacking fervently the essense of saying "you can't know." It is something you are hoping is true, yet you seem to believe it very strongly as if you *knew* it. Do you know it? What is your authority on that?
I'm exactly addressing the point. You *can* know everything that happened in someone's life 2000 years ago. But I think its more important since the point you are origionaly attaking is that Christs life was sinless. You can know that even easier without knowing everything he did.
Do you need to know every molecule of a solution to know its Ph? Or is there another test you can run to find the answer from some other results of tests?
I'm attaking that point becuase you use it to narrowly defined the test, and even as if you were stating fact declared you can not know the results of the test. And like misusing Occam's Razor, the idea of Faith, and supposing facts that aren't there you are mis-stating that I am not addressing the point.
I think what you mean is that I'm not working in your idea of the problem. Indeed I am not and cannot, for you state immediately that someone cannot know the truth.
That successfuly sets up a situation where someone cannot solve a problem, your problem. Setting up unsolvable problens is not hard. Give me a number that equals 5 when three is added to it, and 100 when 9 is subtracted from it. And only integers are allowed. See I created such a problem too, but it doesn't invalidate mathematics. And it doesn't mean I'm sitting in a ivory tower sneering down at mear mortals pretending I'm right.
I call it as I see it, and my sig says it all. I'm happy calling it quits. But its not becuase I'm not addressing the point.
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Re:Piety Online (Score:1)
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Re:Post something that has to do with religion... (Score:1)
Re:Occam's Razor, and I'm off topic (Score:1)
Yup, and if you look at the post again I did say "odds are". I'm aware it's a statistical measure. Again, you can say anything you want, but since there's no uncut, unaltered video of the event we're going by the accounts of biased eyewitnesses, written down a long long time ago, which is inherently an unreliable source of information. Thus the need for faith.
divining rod pointing to their half baked ideas
You say my story is half-baked compared to yours? I'll grant you I only took 10 seconds to make it up, but "a prophet gets the full Roman crucifixion treatment, survives and disappears" is half-baked compared to "a man born to a virgin by an invisible all-powerful being died and came back"? Come on, logically speaking, which is more likely?
The odds between someone dying and coming back to life vs. being wounded and making a smart retreat from public life are astoundingly on the latter, I would say. Considering JC was supposedly the only one who ever did it, we're talking about 1 out of the entire number of humans who ever lived on the planet. That's some slim odds partner. Doesn't make it impossible, but it is quite improbable.
None of this is a comment on Christ himself by the way. Personally I think the stories of his behavior on the planet are enough to help people live a good life. You don't need to hinge it all on the actual "back from the dead" thing, because unless he drops into Central Park in full glory you can never prove that.
Re:Occam's Razor, and I'm off topic (Score:1)
Just trying to stay focused - any of the above are obvious possibilities as well, you could go on for awhile listing them. Look, it's fine with me if you believe this stuff, but you CAN NOT KNOW that it's true. The fact that it was written in the Bible means nothing. It was written by humans, not God, and humans make mistakes, are biased, misinterpret, are fooled by magicians, and outright lie for their own good or political purposes. That's just the way it is.
I argue these points because I *do* care about truth, and you can't KNOW the truth of the words you base your entire faith on. You can trust, and believe, but you can't KNOW. The truth is you don't need to look any farther than your nose to see an incredible universe, and know for sure WE didn't create it. I don't need any more proof of "God" than that. You need to have "faith" because you're trying to believe things which you logically know are impossible, or at least highly improbable. All I need to do is smell the flowers and knock on wood.
And if they found an ancient Bible with the previously missing foreward: "Written for all my friends and my lovely wife, this epic play will be performed next Tuesday at Herod's" it wouldn't phase ME at all.
Re:This is all fine and dandy until... (Score:1)
I think the key here is "born in". I don't accept that I did anything wrong in the womb (Mom never complained to me, anyway
Can you name one person (other than Christ) who never did anything wrong?
I wouldn't name Christ either. Are you absolutely sure he didn't pull a cat's tail at 3 yrs old? Or would that have been in the Bible if it happened?! We certainly have reasonable historic proof that certain individuals existed, but to make statements about what they did and didn't do ever... that's not gonna fly. You believe he died and rose from the grave - as Devil's Advocate (sorry folks, how often do you get to use that in proper context?) I'm thinking maybe the wounds were not as bad as they looked, a few people snuck into the tomb and bandaged him (insert UFO's here if you're into that) and they pushed the rock out of the way so he could beat feet to a quiet life of monk-ness in the hills. After all, if you're dead the authorities will leave you alone, right? Ever hear of a faked death? Ascended in a ballon, walked uphill, whatever. There are plenty of eyewitnesses who see and remember different things - check court records from anywhere. Maybe they were suffering ergot poisoning from bad bread!
Can you prove my version is wrong? Occam's Razor - given two possibilities, one far-fetched in the extreme, the other simple, odds are on the simpler one every time.
It's that whole inherent badness of humanity thing again. We're not nice unless something outside of us compels us to be nice.
As a (modified) Buddhist I would say that we're inherently good until something outside (or not) compels us to be bad, but maybe I'm just not into good/bad as much in general.
Re:SINNING FOR NATALIE (Score:1)
Have your people call my people.
Re:Occam's Razor, and I'm off topic (Score:1)
You're not adressing the main point - you just can't know everything that happened in someone's life 2000 years ago. You believe the Bible. I doubt it's literal accuracy. When all's said and done, you guys can do nothing more than claim the truth as your own, because the Bible said so. Sorry, but that's not good enough.
The only empirical evidence you can have is a live Christ. Let me know when he shows up.
/dev/null and RK-reaction (Score:1)
a) to ensure privacy, the confession is immediately deleted afterwards, so if somebody should write a script to talk to
b) a spokesperson of the roman katholic church said in the daily telegraph that they disapproved of the stuff.
greetings,
Reinout
Humor topic (Score:1)
Not leaning one way or anothr.
god has an ip address... (Score:1)
ping: Cannot resolve "god" (Unknown host)
Nothing New (Score:1)
Absolve me oh Pope!
"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."
If they are cracked... (Score:1)
Imagine the kind of thing you could look at if somebody cracked this site.
Unfortunately some morons will probably take me seriously
Too late... (Score:1)
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Re:FORGIVE ME SLASHDOT, FOR I HAVE TROLLED (Score:1)
...and then? (Score:1)
and here i was living in IRC (Score:1)
:)
Re:Caution: Condemned Area! (Score:1)
Rich
Whoa. (Score:1)
What do you guys think about religion and the internet? Can the two mix? (I mean in a worship/practice way, not merely as a means of transmitting basic information.)
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
Re:Go straight to the pope! (Score:1)
No no no... Why go through the pope when you can speak directly to Jesus Christ Himself? I think that would be more effective.
prayer://jesus.christ/
Money making opportunity. (Score:1)
Step 2: Collect data.
Step 3: Send out blackmail letters.
Step 4: Collect cash.
Re:"Your confessions remains private" (Score:1)
Re:Go straight to the pope! (Score:1)
Re:god has an ip address... (Score:1)
No, he watched Goonies. (Score:1)
Its the speech Chunk says when he is captured by the Fratellis...
Re:Piety Online (Score:1)
That's a heck of a EULA. Microsoft must be jealous.
Re:Caution: Condemned Area! (Score:1)
Additionally, you don't seem to understand that penance does not equal punishment. Penance is an atonement for the wrong you have done. A sin corrupts you and corrupts the community, even if it is only in a tiny way. A penance is a constructive way to try to change you and the community a little bit for the better. Punishment happens to the unrepentant after they die.
Re:Go straight to the pope! (Score:1)
Re:Go straight to the pope! (Score:1)
Re:I offer my services (Score:1)
The Good Reverend
This isn't any big deal... (Score:1)
Re:god has an ip address... (Score:1)
That was EXACTLY what I had in mind (Score:1)
I can imagine the messages...
"I did it again, and will be called Millenium. Please forgive me. s: B.G."
"It was a prank, but everyone believed it, now I can't go back. please help me Lord. s: L.T."
Blackmail potential (Score:1)
A website like this makes it all too easy to collect confessed secrets and blackmail the confessors, which would be rather negative feedback for the confessors! I do wonder, however, how is the security at real-world confessions? Would it be difficult to slip a bug or tape recorder (or XCam [x10.com] :-) into the confession chamber? "Accidentally" leave one behind after your confession?
There seem to be so many potentials for abuse with a religion that rests your morality on the confession of sins. I know that the Catholic faith was (a few hundred years ago) greatly abused (see Chaucer's Canterbury Tales); is it prevalent or uncommon or impossible now?
Daniel J. Peng [mailto]
Re:*sob* (Score:1)
Last paragraph, the church quote (Score:1)
I'm curious as to exactly how they interpret their own words. I'm not a christian, but the last time i read the bible, it said only god could forgive sins, and jesus said to tell your sins directly to god.
What do they think "teling them to god" means? Telling them to a priest to recive pennance? But a priest is just a proxy for god (proxy meaning "a person authorized to speak for or represent another")... so by their own words they've condemened their own practices.
God has a web site (Score:1)
I agree... (Score:1)
Rev. Dr. Emacs (Score:1)
I confess all of my sins in emacs:
I lust for Natalie Portman.What makes you feel I lust for Natalie Portman?
Re:This is all fine and dandy until... (Score:1)
OK, I'll bite. Can you name one person (other than Christ) who never did anything wrong? That's all he's saying. It's that whole inherent badness of humanity thing again. We're not nice unless something outside of us compels us to be nice.
I'm also amused by the demands for scientific evidence for any claims that seem to fly in the face of the popular philosophy of the time. Can you scientifically prove that Hannibal crossed the Alps? No! Why not? Can you do an experiment to show that your hyphothesis, "Hannibal crossed the Alps," is true? Can this experiment be repeated? All we have is historical evidence, which is accepted as valid. Likewise for the statement "we were all born in sin." We have historical evidence and testimony that this is the case. Historical evidence can be every bit as valid as scientific evidence.
And with regard to the online confessional, I have to agree with a previous poster: Prayer works!
JimD
JimD
Re:This is all fine and dandy until... (Score:1)
Please name one reliable source that denies this historic person of Jesus of Nazareth. Check an encyclopedia if you want (Britannica springs to mind). Check the histories of Josephus. You probably don't consider the Bible a reliable source, so I won't bother... Suffice it to say, the historical evidence is there. Jesus is not just a cleverly invented myth!
So can you prove Napoleon existed? How about Alexander the Great? Archimedes? Prove to me that Plato existed. How? Historical evidence. It's a fascinating subject...try looking into it some time.
JimD
Re:Occam's Razor, and I'm off topic (Score:1)
If there is no allowance for the supernatural, then a naturalistic explanation is all you can accept. But what "natural" explanations are there?
None of this is a comment on Christ himself by the way. Personally I think the stories of his behavior on the planet are enough to help people live a good life. You don't need to hinge it all on the actual "back from the dead" thing, because unless he drops into Central Park in full glory you can never prove that.
Actually, everything DOES hinge on the resurrection. If Christ didn't rise from the dead, then He is a liar (He often predicts His own death and resurrection throughout the Gospels). Can a liar help anyone live a good life? I personally don't think so.
No, I can't prove it to you. But I am utterly convinced that Christ IS the way, the truth, and the life. All I can do is present what I know, and wait for Him to do the rest.
Cheers,
Jim
JimD
Re:Piety Online (Score:1)
Now what was that movie. (Score:1)
But anyway... I've never completely understood the Catholic modle of confession. Obviously confession is good for the mind as well as the theoretical soul, but why to a particular person? Well, if it works for them, so be it.
Wow, random memory association day. There was a short story I read back in high school about a town that had a tradition of confessing to the statue in the town square. People would wisper their confessions in the statue's ear. Then some society women got their deaf maid to read people's lips and tell them what people were confessing. Some sort of twilight zone creepy death ending, but I don't recal it. :)
TEST = IGNORE PLEASE (Score:1)
Re:TEST = IGNORE PLEASE (Score:1)
Re:TEST = IGNORE PLEASE (Score:1)
Re:TEST = IGNORE PLEASE (Score:1)
Re:TEST = IGNORE PLEASE (Score:1)
Re:TEST = IGNORE PLEASE (Score:1)
Re:TEST = IGNORE PLEASE (Score:1)
Re:TEST = IGNORE PLEASE (Score:1)
Re:TEST = IGNORE PLEASE (Score:1)
Re:FORGIVE ME SLASHDOT, FOR I HAVE TROLLED (Score:1)
Re:TEST = IGNORE PLEASE (Score:1)
Re:TEST = IGNORE PLEASE (Score:1)
Re:TEST = IGNORE PLEASE (Score:1)
Re:TEST = IGNORE PLEASE (Score:1)
Re:FORGIVE ME SLASHDOT, FOR I HAVE TROLLED (Score:1)
Funny.. (Score:1)
Re:Whoa. (Score:1)
How 'bout alt.religion.kibology? (And of course, lets not forget www.kibo.net, the Kibological Kathedral ;-)
Re:Piety Online (Score:2)
That's a heck of a EULA. Microsoft must be jealous.
I'm sure Microsoft is on the case! Their legal department will just apply some of that famous 'Microsoft innovation' (TM, pat pend.) and replace 'Jesus Christ' with 'Bill Gates'.
There may be some initial consumer resistance to the new MS EULA, but that can be solved by initiating a hostile takeover of the major churches and exercising the vendor's 'right' to alter the agreement at any time.
Unless the true second coming of Christ can then find a way to take over Microsoft, only the Amish and users of Free Software will go to heaven when the world BSODs in the end-times.
Post something that has to do with religion... (Score:2)
I think that this is a good idea. I see confession as being important to my faith. Why can't you people enjoy the idea of a relgion taking advantage of a bold new medium instead of making sarcastic remarks and stupid quips.
Live and let live.
Will This Be Rolled Into The Next Linux Kernel? (Score:2)
I like to get my confessions out of the way immediately upon booting the machine, otherwise my transgression queue gets out of hand and I start losing clock cycles.
We Can Only Hope (Score:2)
You Are Absolved, My Son... (Score:2)
Re:Post something that has to do with religion... (Score:2)
This is the True Path to becoming spiritually ripped [rippedin2000.com].
I'd be a little wary - prayer still works (Score:2)
I used to read a lot of psychology books w/ many 'case studies' and it suddenly hit me: here these shrinks are getting upwards of $120/hr to listen to people spill their guts, and then they can turn around and write these 'private' confessions in books, using pseudonyms of course, and sell them for more bucks. What a neat racket!
The Scarlet Pimpernel
oh please (Score:2)
Why does crap like this get up on slashdot. Lately there stories seem to be less and less interesting.........
send flames > /dev/null
Electronic Indulgences (Score:2)
You can get your very own free Electronic Indulgence, at http://icodex.nethosting.com/indulge/ [nethosting.com].
Ryan
I offer my services (Score:2)
I will do this for free, via E-mail, though donations will be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely.
Rev. Mind.
Re:Please Moderate this down! (Score:2)
Re:Religious routing (Score:2)
Hence, high speed prayers only. And who says that God loves the poor too....*sniff*
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Gonzo Granzeau
Boring, you can't even read the confessions! (Score:2)
George
Piety Online (Score:2)
History lesson... (Score:2)
``This is not what Catholics would understand as confession. Confession cannot be done by telephone, e-mail or proxy,'' a church spokesman told the Daily Telegraph newspaper in Thursday's editions.
500 some years ago, Martin Luther posted, on the door of the local church, a list of things he thought were really gronked up with the way the church was doing things. He had intended it to lead to a discussion with church officials; instead, it was the trigger that lead to Protestantism. The irony here is that one of the things he was protesting was the church's use "indulgences"; pay (cash) for your penance before you sin. No priest needed, thanks for praying, here's your change and thanks for shopping at Piety 'r' Us. Now the same church is protesting a variation on the same theme.
Here's a thought; how long before someone gets into the page and sets it up to respond to various "sins" in more interesting ways...
Forgive me, uh, father, for I have sinned. I've had impure thoughts about farm animals..."
WHAT?!? My GOD man, you are going straight to Hell!!!
Fake web pages! (Score:2)
not Jesus's web site. for His web site is
http://www.trog.com/jesus
Jesus rocks nads!
Ahem...the correct URL (Score:2)
http://www.theconfessor.co.uk/page0_new.html
If you go to the link in the article, and you
do not have javascript (I leave it off in my
browser) , it wont load. Just an empty page
(they use javascript to emulate a meta reload...
which is funny...since page0 as listed above starts a meta reload cycle to show you the other
stuff)
However weirdly....at page4.html it stops again
and there are no links or forwards or anything
just poorly done frames and a promise that I may
now contemplate my sins or "type them into the
space provided".
However, I see no space to type them in.
Anyway...since I don't believe in "Sin" (not
christian) I have nothing to contemplate. However
I just thought I would let people know so others
can see this site (for religous contemplation or
humor...whatever floats your boat) who don't
have javascript enabled.
Re:Now what was that movie. (Score:2)
doing bad things makes people feel bad. confession provides a way back, recognized by the community at large (no, not on Slashdot, but think back to societies where Catholicism flourished). So, a person who feels remorse can feel that they've done something to set it right.
Why to one person? No matter how much you say it to yourself, it does not feel like a confession, and as we often learn in life, doesn't work so hot to reveal sensitive issue even to friends. The answer? Game Theory: A priest has chosen a lifestyle (various inconvenient things like vow of poverty, etc.) that signals "I'm committed to this job which I will lose if I reveal your secrets, so you can trust me to hear your confession." Yes, there is a lot more to the role of a Priest, but I'm trying to explain how it works in a practical sense.
Please draw no conclusions from this about my own beliefs. It is not unusual for the Mann to have wide-ranging knowledge.
Re:Go straight to the pope! (Score:2)
Slashdot effect (Score:2)
This is all fine and dandy until... (Score:2)
Of course, if he doesn't get ransom from the site, he could always start blackmailing the individual "sinners"... this could end up being far more profitable for him than stealing any credit card database.
*sob* (Score:2)
kwsNI
Worse than the confessional (Score:2)
Now we have to endure the slow progression of messages at the web confessional, waiting and watching as messages slowly take you on a bread-crumb trail to your thoughts.
Welcome
In the next few pages...
Here is an opportunity...
By the grace of God...
And the whole thing is presented on a blue puffy-cloud sky background, like they're Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts [yahoo.com]. Or maybe it's supposed to scare you into repentance with the resemblance to the Windows boot screen.
Re:Piety Online (Score:3)
By opening and using this software, you agree to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and saviour...
I wonder if that would be enforcable under the proposed legislation?
Here goes (Score:3)
"Your confessions remains private" (Score:3)
"Dear Lord, I spilled hot grits down my pants"
"Dear Lord, I lusted after a petrified Natalie Portman"
"Dear Lord, FIRST CONFESSION d00dz!"
-josh
Religious routing (Score:3)
``This is not what Catholics would understand as confession. Confession cannot be done by telephone, e-mail or proxy,'' a church spokesman told the Daily Telegraph newspaper in Thursday's editions.
So it's obviously not valid if you are behind a firewall, but it should be fine without one, because it's port 80. Email might be ports 25, 109, 110, or 143. And remember that God will know the difference, because he most likely has passed the CCIE.
"In the first day, you will be given nothing, and you will be required to create the heavens and the earth. You have 4 hours to complete this test. Tomarrow, the Devil will break it and you will have to fix it once again, possibly using a virgin birth."
--
Gonzo Granzeau
Please Moderate this down! (Score:3)
FIFTH POST BABY!!!!!!!!! .
MAYBE FIFTH POST!!!!
OK. IT'S NOT THE FIFTH POST!!!!!
Xth POST BABY!!!!!
OH YEAAH!!!! ALL THAT PUDDING
NATALIE PORTMAN CLOTHED AND UNPETRIFIED!!!!
GETTING GRITS OUT FROM MY PANTS!!!!!!
DEPETRIFYING YOUNG WOMEN!!!!
LARGE SLAP DADDY BEOWULF CLUSTERS BY THE BIG MAN GOD!!!!
IS THAT CONFESSOR PORTED TO LINUX YET!!!!!!
I BET GOD DOESN'T USE VIGOR!!!!!
EMACS IS BETTER!! NO vi IS BETTER!!!
CISC! NO RISC!
KILL! MAIM! FDISK!!
A:WINDOWS RULES!!!
B:LINUX RULES!!!
C: MAC OS!!!
A+B: SHUT UP, YOU!!
Sorry, this kinda stuff just festered. I feel much better now.
Go straight to the pope! (Score:3)
http://thepope.org/
Catholic Church and confession (Score:4)
What do they think "teling them to god" means? Telling them to a priest to recive pennance? But a priest is just a proxy for god (proxy meaning "a person authorized to speak for or represent another")... so by their own words they've condemened their own practices.
Not really. A quick primer on the theory of the confessional, from a Roman Catholic perspective (disclaimer: no, I'm not Catholic, but I think I understand their theology well enough to explain it):
Yes, only God can forgive sin. Jesus, being God, had/has the authority to do this (and did so, as recorded in the Gospels). Now, he also delegated some of this authority to the apostles (see "binding and loosing"), and this is where modern-day bishops and priests claim to stand in persona christi, as proxies for Christ.
No, the Bible does not say that we must only confess our sins to God. "Confess your sins one to another." And the bit about the apostles being empowered to forgive on Christ's behalf is also biblical.
I also think you're misunderstanding what they mean by saying that "Confession can not be done ... by proxy." They are not referring to the priest, but to the penitent. In other words, if I've done something wrong and want absolution, I can't send my mom to tell the priest and ask him to pronounce forgiveness for me. I have to go myself and ask for myself.
There's a good argument that "cyber-confession" denies the Incarnational nature of God's grace, and this is why the Catholic Church officially condemns it as invalid and spiritually fraudulent. I think they are right to do so.
FORGIVE ME SLASHDOT, FOR I HAVE TROLLED (Score:5)
i have lusted in my heart for hot young actresses.
i have encouraged masturbation and marital infidelity.
i have stolen nearly an infinite number of moderation points.
i have murdered legitimate discussions.
i have uttered countless untruths.
please slashdot, redeem my eternal karma!!!
wiping tear from cheek.