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Notes -
In preparation for the currently ongoing papal conclave, I decided to read the official rules currently in force, UNIVERSI DOMINICI GREGIS, issued by John Paul II in 1996. The document contains this provision (emphasis added):
Seems simple enough right?
Whoops.
Here I was, a schmuck, reading the canonically promulgated apostolic constitution as if it mattered, as if the supposed men of God involved in this 2000-year-old institution might care about established procedures.
Sure, Francis could have changed the rules, as many popes have done throughout the centuries, but he didn’t. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care, and neither did anyone else with influence within the Vatican either. How am I supposed to take this seriously if the cardinals and popes don’t even take it seriously?
I wish Christianity were true. I really do. It would certainly make my dating life easier. I’d have a sense of purpose in life, defined rules of virtue to follow, but it just doesn’t make any actual sense. The inconsistency I cited above is relatively minor, but it is illustrative of what one finds everywhere when one digs into the claims of Christianity and treats them with the truth-preserving tools of logic. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus and Vatican II, Matthew 24:34, these are fundamental truth claims that can’t be handwaved away like the finer points of ecclesiastical law.
Well, no, you wish you thought it was true. It sounds like you can't even in theory imagine a world where it's actually true; such a world would not just give you a sense of purpose but an actual purpose!
More importantly, belief in Christianity doesn't necessarily follow from it being true. So you don't necessarily get any of the things you've listed even if it is true.
I think his wording was intentional. His desire to believe true things outweighs his desire to believe Christianity is true. And being unable to imagine a world where its true doesn't follow from what he said, just that on balance he thinks this isn't that world.
If his wording were intentional, he'd have listed benefits that came, not from belief in Christianity being true, but from Christianity actually being true. What he listed were all things that had to do with belief in Christianity. Hence talking about having a "sense of purpose" rather than just being glad to have a purpose.
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