this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
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[–] cabbage@piefed.social 137 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (8 children)

Turning people into passive consumers of unthought thoughts

Interesting contrast to the church itself, which has the capacity of turning people into passive consumers of thoughts that have been painstakingly processed for centuries.

[–] Lodespawn@aussie.zone 34 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Passive consumers of overthought thoughts?

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 month ago

Passive consumers of poorly thought thoughts.

[–] MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca 28 points 1 month ago

They don’t appreciate their fanbase being taken away

[–] nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't know about the West, but a lot of Catholic community in SEAsia (excluding PH) are not blindly following the Pope. I know a lot of people in the community instantly criticizing any form corruption or negativity.

Even our mass regularly ask community to be more rationale in thinking.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I'm American ex catholic and yeah that was my childhood church. That said we also have a lot of people who convert to catholicism for the aesthetics and to crusade larp, and one of them insisted on arguing with the previous pope about basic doctrine as the old man was dying…

So yeah, you're supposed to listen to the pope but nobody does.

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 month ago

Well, raising above passive consumer is called heresy there.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Those damned Catholics.

Signed, a citizen of the culturally Protestant US, where most of us don't even consider Catholics to be Christian

[–] Kage520@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Isn't that strange though? Catholics trace themselves back to the disciples (though I think Roman and Orthodox both claim this), yet the new ones that split somewhat recently claim they are the real ones.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

It's definitely very arbitrary! There's plenty of other divisions within Christianity, but I've found it's the more radical evangelical sect of Christianity (read: the ones in the White House) that claim Catholics aren't Christians the hardest. I

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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 77 points 1 month ago (1 children)

'Turning people into passive consumers of unthought thoughts'

That's brilliant! I'm not Catholic, I'm not even religious at all, and I've NEVER paid attention to any Pope, but this guy is different.

[–] db2@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

He's American with black heritage, so being different than the ones before is basically built in.

Never fear though, there's a shoe waiting to drop somewhere, there always is.

[–] Siegfried@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

He is Peruvian in my book

[–] nodiratime@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

He's also a mathematician.

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 48 points 1 month ago (4 children)

3, 2, 1... Peter Thiel is giving some spiel in Europe about the Pope being the Antichrist

[–] shithawk@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago

"I'm definitely not the antichrist, so much so I go around holding events to discuss the antichrist and how I am not him." The lack of self reflection or perhaps just plain evil is astounding

[–] Tryenjer@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

Hear me out, Trump is the Antichrist!

[–] Darkenfolk@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Well yeah, the pope is Antichrist.

The whole assassination of Jesus was an inside job orchestrated be Peter to become the first pope and lead the flock astray right in the hands of the devil!

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[–] Bahnd@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Look... Im sure this is not the first time the pope has been called the antichrist. It likely happened in 884, 964, 997, 1012, 1378, 1409, or 1418 to just name a few.

(This is not be taken seriously, I grabbed a bunch of years from the Wikipedia list of antipopes to make a point when the role was contested. In the case of the ones between 1378-1418, where a bloody mess is an understatement (I would rather read history on the war of the roses), there have been significantly fewer violent disagreements regarding the title/position since then)

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[–] pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 37 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ok he was cooking with that line.

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 13 points 1 month ago

"unthought thought" might replace "artificial hallucination" in my vocabulary.

[–] dukemirage@lemmy.world 32 points 1 month ago

a broken clock

[–] RedFrank24@piefed.social 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

"passive consumers of unthought thoughts" is an apt way of putting it. With AI, it's so easy not to think and have it think for you, even in things that you should really want to think about because it's entertaining.

For example, I've been re-watching Game of Thrones, and I wondered how things would have changed if Joffrey had a father figure in his life that wasn't Robert, say a teacher in swordsmanship. I could spend a lot of time thinking about how Cersei would see this teacher as a rival and want him dead, whether Robert would protect that teacher because he's making Joffrey into more of a 'man', whether Joffrey being trained as a swordsman would make him braver, and even if everything happened as written up to the Blackwater, would Joffrey find his courage and go out into battle, and ultimately get killed by one of Stannis' soldiers? What would happen to Sansa?

Or... I could just ask ChatGPT, get a quick answer, and forget all about it.

[–] Baggie@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Dude I think at this point you're medically required to write that fanfiction. 

I was going to ask if they'd heard of AO3, because yeah. I think it'd do at LEAST one number

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm... What? WTF, is that headline trying to tell me that I'm experiencing an aneurysm?

[–] JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The pope doesn’t like AI, brandished a sword and called people idiots. More at 11

[–] LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's kinda based ngl. Too bad the Catholic church is an awful organization.

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Okay but what if we put their awfulness into a directed form aaaaand they burnt down Constantinople... again.

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[–] vane@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago
[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Orange Catholic bible when?

[–] SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

May 2021

https://godblesstheusabible.com/

It's based off New King James, which is the official Catholic text. This is the Orange Catholic Bible.

Don't forget the official White House image of Pope Trump. https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1918502592335724809?lang=en

Edited to correct date from 2001 to 2021. My fat fingers tell all the lies.

Hahaha, I totally forgot about this, but the reference is almost scary in a way. Life imitating art and pretty fantastical elements of science fiction becoming reality.

[–] ssfckdt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Still that's kinda rich coming from one of the world's biggest leaders of religion, which literally encourages people to believe things without evidence and simply based on who tells them, based on unseen guidance.

[–] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 month ago

Yeah, you know things are bad when one of the major manipulator entities in history says you're manipulating too much

[–] MortUS@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

The enemy of my enemy and all that. If dude can convince any of his followers to wake the fuck up then let the man speak; we could use the numbers.

[–] Siegfried@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago
[–] badbytes@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Pope can't handle the competition.

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[–] obinice@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

"Passive consumers of unthought thoughts"?

You mean... like a religion brainwashes you into becoming as you're indoctrinated?

Maybe this guy is being decent, or maybe he just sees a threat to his monopoly?

[–] lofuw@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago

AI is just the next form of control after businesses have already infiltrated online forums.

[–] qarbone@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yo, where can I get me a pope sword?

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[–] Rekall_Incorporated@piefed.social 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

What a weird world we live in.

I am an atheist (albeit I support our national churches/religious entities and believe they should be state financed) and it is fascinating that I agree with Leo XIV on an ethical, moral and even theological/spiritual level.

P.S. While I don't believe in a meta-physical, abrahamic tradition-style god, I do think there is a lot of wonder, beauty and even sacredness (divinity) to the cosmos. Something along the lines of this quote from a book by Alan Watts:

The universe is the Big Bang, the beginning of the universe. And you’re not something that is a result of it. You’re not something that is a sort of byproduct of it. You are it. It’s like when you take a bottle of ink and you throw it at a white wall. Smash! And all the ink spreads out. In the middle, it’s dense, isn’t it? And as it gets out on the edge, the little droplets get finer and finer and make more complicated patterns.

So in the same way, there was a big bang at the beginning of things and it spread. And you and I, sitting here in this room, as complicated human beings, are the little fringes on the edge of that bang. We are the way it’s going now.

[–] NABDad@lemmy.world 26 points 1 month ago

"In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people angry and has widely been considered as a bad move."

-Douglas Adams

[–] db2@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I am an atheist (albeit I support our national churches/religious entities and believe they should be state financed)

What the actual fuck?

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago

That's a very European mindset.

[–] Rekall_Incorporated@piefed.social 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (8 children)

Another poster mentioned "That’s a very European mindset." It's not exclusively a European mindset, I've lived for several years in Asia and have visited multiple regions. This "mindset" is arguably common even among those who are not particularly religious.

National religious institutions provide a sense of belonging to the populace, help maintain our national identity and culture and help our national liberation struggle. Even as an atheist, these are clearly good things.

And there is no discrimination in terms of religious identity. I support our Orthodox Church, Catholic Church (which is actually much more diverse than in many countries) and the Crimean Muslim leadership.

One can argue this is not a mindset, but common sense and that American attitudes are a mindset.

From my time living in the US (several years, with extensive travels), I got the impression that America nominally has "separation of church and state", but it in reality this separation does not exist. A significant portion of American Christianity (perhaps not the majority, but it is a huge portion, far more than most Americans would admit) is de facto an arm of the oligarch regime, focused on enabling tax fraud, spreading crime and corruption and running political bribery systems. And you can't even shut them down because of the alleged "separation of church and state". It's funny how that works. :)

There is one anecdote that perfectly demonstrates what I am talking about:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/joel-osteen-megachurch-houston-beryl-response-b2576711.html

And the cherry on top was a comment that I found when doing a web search to find the link above:

If churches opened their doors, they'd be subject to the same criminal and legal risk that any other private business would be responsible for. The world is not a perfect utopia, and churches have to protect themselves as much as anyone else. Why don't you open your doors?

This is extremely funny. 🤣

[–] xspurnx@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 month ago

Wouldn't you rather have people recognize why they turn to religion and nationalism instead of taking care of their fellow humans (for the sake of being human themselves instead of being kind in the expectation of a reward by a imagined deity)?

It's the sick and bone crushing world we ourselves need to change so we can all finally be free as humans together - not look for belonging and identity, certainly not national which will only pit us against each other.

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." (Yes, it can help you cope - but don't forget to reflect on what you're suffering from.)

"No saviour from on high delivers; No faith have we in prince or peer. Our own right hand the chains must shiver: Chains of hatred, greed and fear." Yup.

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