Catholics vs. Hitler

[hashi92]

BCPVP you said that the church cannot kill but you agree with me that the cowboys can win a game.

[hashi92]

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I'm still puzzled by BCPVPs inability to perceive a group as a viable entity.

As others have pointed out, the actions of a group are often different then the actions of any individual.

If the KKK develops a philosophy, meets as a group to create a strategy and all the people work together to enact that strategy.... that "organization" is acting. Certainly individuals are acting withing that organization. But the organization is ALSO working.

The KKK can enact a campaign of terror. Not simply the members, but the group as a whole is greater and different then the sole actions of individuals. It is completely appropriate to talk about and be critical of the the actions of the organization.

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right, but what if there are some members who call themselves members of the KKK, yet do not agree with or follow the philosophy that was developed by the majority/those in power. Do we still group those people with those who are doing wrong?

What if many years after the ones who developed the "bad" philosophy have died, the KKK has now developed a more peaceful and loving philosophy. Do we continue to condemn the CURRENT KKK, or do we (be reasonable) and condemn the KKK of the past?

I believe that is what BCPVP is trying to say ...

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nobody will come out and say that they would forgive the KKK. i tried this approach. it only works with the church because faith is blind.

[BCPVP]

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I take it you're the only person who doesn't agree that a group or organization is capable of action.

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Your reading skills must be poor. I've already mentioned that this is not something I made up. The wiki article, again.

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You're arguing using defintions that only you seem to agree.

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ORLY? Which definitions are you troubled by? Are you certain it's not you who is redefining things like "action" through personification to suite your argument? Because that's what you and others have been doing for much of this thread.

[BCPVP]

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How about luckyme's homophobic boy scouts example?

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Sorry, must have missed it in the sea of responses here.

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If the organisation has a whole bunch of homophobic rules, yet all it's members are not homophobic - if somebody felt aggrieved at being excluded who should they blame? This seems to me a good reason to blame the organisation as it stops people doing bad things by hiding in a group.

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"People doing". That's individual action. Someone must be enforcing these rules if a potential boy scout/scout leader is feeling aggreived. The person enforcing those rules is the actor. If no one enforced these rules, nobody would be aggreived. This might lead off on a tangent because my views on the right of association might be a bit different than some here.

But like I said before, I think that by blaming an organization instead of the individuals, you are actually doing the opposite of what you claim; namely not allowing people to hide within the group. Keeping with the Catholic Church example, I think that by blaming the Church for the scandals involving child abuse reduces the blame we should be putting on the person who abused the children and those who covered it up. It at least partially absolves people of responsibility for their actions because they can hide behind the group and simply blame "it" for their problems.

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Another reason would be that we allow organisations to own assets and to enter into legally binding contracts (which are not binding on their individual members). If we are not going to grant them the ability to act, how do they buy the assets? Or how do they reach agreements with other entities?

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I see no reason why this can't be done with agreements with whoever accepts responsibility to act on the rest of the company's behalf on certain matters. Maybe it's the president or CEO or whatever. The company chooses their representative and he/she can perform those actions. And if in casual conversation we were to simply say "Pepsi is buying Dr. Pepper", that can be forgiven as simply a figure of speech meant to simply life so we don't have to know exactly who is repsonsible for exactly what decisions. If we start getting into nitty gritty details, I don't think it's that unreasonable that we actually look at the individuals who are actually capable of action. This is especially true if we're going to start doing things like judging the morality of a certain action.

[BCPVP]

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BCPVP you said that the church cannot kill but you agree with me that the cowboys can win a game.

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The football players who play for the Dallas Cowboys can win a game, with some players contributing more than others. Members or officials of the Catholic Church can and have killed. To kill is an a verb, which means action and action cannot be performed by an abstraction. Whatever references to such action being "done" by abstractions that we make in casual conversation are figures of speech and little more.

[BCPVP]

Since definitions seem to be tripping some up, let me ask this: who or what exactly is the Catholic Church. Is it a "who"? Is it a "what"? Both? Neither?

[hashi92]

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BCPVP you said that the church cannot kill but you agree with me that the cowboys can win a game.

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The football players who play for the Dallas Cowboys can win a game, with some players contributing more than others. Members or officials of the Catholic Church can and have killed. To kill is an a verb, which means action and action cannot be performed by an abstraction. Whatever references to such action being "done" by abstractions that we make in casual conversation are figures of speech and little more.

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exactly we are having casual conversation. were not splittng atoms here. im glad you finally see the light.

[BCPVP]

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BCPVP you said that the church cannot kill but you agree with me that the cowboys can win a game.

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The football players who play for the Dallas Cowboys can win a game, with some players contributing more than others. Members or officials of the Catholic Church can and have killed. To kill is an a verb, which means action and action cannot be performed by an abstraction. Whatever references to such action being "done" by abstractions that we make in casual conversation are figures of speech and little more.

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exactly we are having casual conversation. were not splittng atoms here. im glad you finally see the light.

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Casual conversation, is it now? I thought it was supposed to be serious debate that you were trying inspire. If it's the latter, then we better start breaking out our nuclear reactors. If not, then I'd like to know what the purpose of your OP was? What do you want us to do if we agree the Church, and not individual people, is responsible for things like the Crusades? It seemed pretty clear to me that you want us to stigmatize the Church the way Hitler is stimatized, which means you believe we should be "punishing" it for actions in the past. Is that what you want?

[Taraz]

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But like I said before, I think that by blaming an organization instead of the individuals, you are actually doing the opposite of what you claim; namely not allowing people to hide within the group. Keeping with the Catholic Church example, I think that by blaming the Church for the scandals involving child abuse reduces the blame we should be putting on the person who abused the children and those who covered it up. It at least partially absolves people of responsibility for their actions because they can hide behind the group and simply blame "it" for their problems.


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I don't mean to apply that what I'm about to say applies to the church specifically, but I think this kind of ignores the fact that lots of problems are systemic in nature. A lot of times the whole power structure would make otherwise "good" people do "bad" things. Look up Stanley Millgram's experiments and/or Zimbardo's prison study if you don't understand what I'm talking about.

I know that you will probably say that it is the fault of the person in charge, but often the organizational structure can induce people to do some pretty terrible things.

[hashi92]

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BCPVP you said that the church cannot kill but you agree with me that the cowboys can win a game.

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The football players who play for the Dallas Cowboys can win a game, with some players contributing more than others. Members or officials of the Catholic Church can and have killed. To kill is an a verb, which means action and action cannot be performed by an abstraction. Whatever references to such action being "done" by abstractions that we make in casual conversation are figures of speech and little more.

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exactly we are having casual conversation. were not splittng atoms here. im glad you finally see the light.

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Casual conversation, is it now? I thought it was supposed to be serious debate that you were trying inspire. If it's the latter, then we better start breaking out our nuclear reactors. If not, then I'd like to know what the purpose of your OP was? What do you want us to do if we agree the Church, and not individual people, is responsible for things like the Crusades? It seemed pretty clear to me that you want us to stigmatize the Church the way Hitler is stimatized, which means you believe we should be "punishing" it for actions in the past. Is that what you want?

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i just had a thought and wanted to see what other people had to say. the church does do good things but isnt it ironic that it is founded on so much violence and lies. Without this evil period in the churches life it would be a totally different organization. I didnt come to the conclusion that the reason the church gets off the hook because faith is blind until after half way through this post.