Catholics must request permission from Archbishop to eat meat on St. Patrick's Day
Offline I remember the absurdity of the prohibition of eating meat on Lenten Fridays.
My parents strictly oberved the prohibition; yet if it happened to be past midnight, they would relent -- as if what was a mortal sin at 11:59 p.m. suddenly became benign at 12:00 a.m. More than once we went to a pricey seafood restaurant for dinner in observance of the restriction.
There's always the problem, of course when St. Pat's falls on a Friday, with the obligatory corned beef and green beer. In the past, my archdiocese would issue a "dispensation" allowing revelers to parttake. It could be that god cares more about Irish pride than Lenten penitence -- or maybe it's that the church knows people will celebrate anyway, so it's better to get out in front of it, to maintain the illusion of authority.
However, this year, the archdiocese has decreed "...such dispensation will be granted only to those who specifically petition his office...The dispensation will be granted if the archbishop finds that the event merits the special action".
I'm not sure about the actual origins of this practice, which used to be every Friday throughout the year, but scaled back to just Lenten Fridays after Vatican II. One of my theology professors stated it began in the early christian communities where fish was a commodit and meat a delicacy: They would abstain from meat on Fridays, and the money they saved they would give to the poor.
There are no theists on operating tables.
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No eating meat during lent, eating fish on fridays, making sign of the cross, crossing fingers, no premarital sex, no masterbation, wearing scpula, using candles to heal, holy water, eating wafers/flesh, drinking wine/blood, being married in a church, confessing to a priest, the list goes on and on.
The Catholics are the worst of the bunch. When I was a kid there were all these superstitions my mom had about various shit. I look back on it and think about how fucking ignorant the catholics can be on any given day. It is even worse in Central/South America. They have all kinds of shit which is <facepalm> stupid.
I can recall that same exact thing with my mother at 12:00am it is OK to eat meat. I also recall being confused when the church would release these edicts about "it is ok for you to do this or that" but last year you couldn't do it. I would ask my mom why and she would tell me that god changed his mind.
Great hotfoots, what if a person's clock is wrong ? How is one to know ?
Yeah, really. I asked that once before to my mother. She told me to be quiet.
I also asked at bible study what would happen if a person on the East Coast traveled to the West Coast. If a person on the East Cost left at midnight and went back to 9pm, would they not be allowed to eat meat? Would they have to wait another X hours? What would happen if they left the one time zone before midnight, but landed three hours later. Would they have to wait X hours for midnight to catch up to them? Or if a person live at the International Date line and traveled west, would they be allowed to eat meat since they no longer were on one day but advanced to the next day?
The other kids in the group laughed and the person running the session was speechless.
The amusements of a religion created in an age where almost nobody travelled more than a few kilometres in their lifetime, and timezones were almost 2 millennia from being implemented.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
True. It's just funny to put those people on the spot when they implement their silly beliefs. I picture Catholicism as being that fat person trying to fit in to a bathing suit they wore when they were youthful.
The only possible thing the world needs saving from are those running it.
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Knowledge trumps faith and I'm not a Theist
Lies are nothing more then falsehoods searching for the truth
The beauty of the system is that most of the rules were combined in a forced fashion. The mass majority agreed to the same rules without even trying to.
Most every language calls every day something different, but then so most all words are; and thus you just translate. Monday becomes Lundi, or Montag, or понедельник, or 星期一. Every culture ascribes its own meaning and history to the terms, and you just match them up for translation purposes.
It gets a little more complicated when dealing with weeks that aren't 7 days, but those are few, far between, and mostly no longer in use.
The more complicated things like actual timezones were much more recent. I don't think the idea was even proposed until the 1600's. It wasn't actually acted on until railroads made it necessary. The current UTC was implemented in the latter half of the 1900's.
But overall, the real responsible party for the vast majority of all measures of time is the sun, with the earth & moon themselves being of sufficient impact to warrant mention.
Noon wasn't created, it was observed. No matter where or when you are (until the creation and adoption of timezones anyway), noon was always the time when the sun is as close to being directly overhead as it will get that day. Even though timezones changed that some, the sun will still be as close as it will be to being directly overhead that day within a short time window from noon.
The months are generally defined by the moon, and the year has been the earth's orbit around the sun since before recorded history.
Noone had to make up seconds or hours or days or months or years, they just had to name them. It's pretty awesome when you can see that cultures all over the world independently had the same observations and made the same choices. Some are off kilter with others, but the foundational framework is always the same.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
I always found that laughable about how religious leaders work for donations. God doesn't give? Oh, yeah, god gives in different ways, but why does it take a Cadillac dealer to donate a car for a raffle at the October-fest at a local church to be "how god works"? Wait? God can do any thing? but he can't actually make a chest of money appear?
Yeah, the railroads made timezones for travelling great distances very quickly.
Time zones aren't inaccurate enough. Given technology today one would be more accurate to land in LA after a flight from NYC, then your watch would adjust based on the location of the sun as compared to your position on Earth. GPS would make it more accurate.
It's politics and economics more than anything. Timezones could have been more accurate from the getgo, but the precision wasn't/isn't as important to business and government as it would need to be.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.