Catholics vs. Hitler

[vhawk01]

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For example, some people say the U.S. made the decision to go to war with Iraq. Does that mean everyone within the U.S. made such a decision or just certain people?

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Just the people within the organisation who decide how it will act?

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No, just people who act. Those people might tell other people what to do and then those other people act as well, but the abstraction doesn't "act".

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This means that things like 'the Church' are completely meaningless. Every single person in the church acts at his own behalf and his own whim and has nothing to do with the others in the group?

Of course not. The reason we say the Church acts is because it implicitly states a bunch of things we all agree on:

People who chose to associate with the group acted.

The actions of these people can be attributed to some shared property of all members of the group.

Any people who join the group are likely to embrace and encourage said actions.

These are all implied in the phrase "The Church helps millions of people worldwide."