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www_earthlings_com422 karma

my wife's now husband

Do you mean your mom's now husband?

www_earthlings_com21 karma

Do you mind explaining what she did to become a registered sex offender?

I know that's obviously super personal, so please feel free to ignore this if you don't want to answer.

www_earthlings_com18 karma

Hey Matt! Thanks so much for doing this AMA!

I have a more philosophical question for you rather than a question about the product itself.

As a fellow vegan, I want nothing more than the abolishment of factory farming and the end of animal abuse and exploitation. To that end, I am so hopeful that lab-grown meat/dairy will one day replace "traditional" meat/dairy as the norm.

However, though I definitely see these technologies having a huge impact on the animal agriculture industry in the far, far future, it seems that in the short to medium term, it's actually doing a lot to hurt the movement. As you've said elsewhere in this thread, it'll be a very long time before lab-grown foods will become the norm.

I've seen a lot of people (probably hundreds) on Reddit saying that though they "disagree" with factory farming, they'll only give up meat/dairy when there is a replacement that tastes exactly the same and is cheaper. In other words, they're using the promise of lab-grown meat/dairy as an excuse for them to continue funding animal abuse now (and likely for the next few decades at the very least). I can't help but thinking that if lab-grown meat/dairy wasn't such a hot topic, more people would acknowledge that they can and should go vegan now instead of waiting until they have to give up literally nothing to do so.

Sorry if this is super inarticulate lol. I'm a bit hungover.

TL;DR Basically, what I'm trying to ask is: as somebody who is vegan for the animals, do you think that the prevalence of lab-grown meat/dairy in the news might actually be hurting the movement by convincing people that they can continue funding animal abuse/exploitation until these lab-grown foods are available and affordable?

Also I just want to emphasize/clarify that I'm not criticizing you or the company in any way! I genuinely just want to hear your thoughts on this conundrum as somebody who is directly involved with this technology. You're doing 1000x more for the animals through this than I ever will, and I (and they) appreciate it! Thanks for the AMA!

www_earthlings_com14 karma

Regarding your last sentence, what are the main reasons for that trend? Is it a response to (either real or perceived) excessive political correctness? Or is there some other theorized reason for it?

www_earthlings_com6 karma

Bishop Barron,

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this AMA. I have 11 questions, which I hope is not too many. If 11 questions is too many, the 3 questions I most want answered are: #7, #8, and #11. That being said, I would really, really appreciate it if you took the time to answer them all.

For context, I am a 23 year old Canadian male who was raised Hindu and am now an atheist, though I seriously considered both Catholicism and Islam after a psychotic break in university, and the thought of having "chosen wrong" still gives me significant levels of anxiety. For an atheist who wasn't raised in any Abrahamic tradition, I also like to think that I have a relatively thorough understanding of Catholicism and Christianity.

Basics

I'll start with the most obvious questions:

1. Why Christianity?

Do you believe that an objective analysis of facts alone will lead one to believe in the resurrection, divinity of Christ, etc... or can these only be accepted by faith? If it's the former,

2. Why Catholicism (as opposed to Eastern Orthodoxy and/or Oriental Orthodoxy)?

I'm not including Protestantism in the question as I understand it's a recent invention and no Protestant church can claim to be the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church (and, as far as I know, none do claim this).

I recently visited Mt Athos for a few days. I assume you are familiar with the Holy Mountain, but for those who are not: it's a peninsula in NW Greece that includes 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries. I've heard the analogy that the Vatican is to Catholicism as Mt Athos is to Eastern Orthodoxy. I don't think that's a valid comparison at all (for reasons that are too long to go into here, but anyways:)

I heard a lot of rhetoric from the monks there about why Eastern Orthodoxy is "correct" and why Catholics are wrong about certain things (the infallibility of the Pope being the obvious one), so I wanted to ask: why Catholicism over Eastern Orthodoxy? Both claim to be continuations of the early church, so what makes one claim true and the other false?

Also, same question except for Oriental Orthodoxy as opposed to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Theology

3. What are your thoughts on the Vatican II reforms? Specifically, do you support Mass being given in vernacular language, or do you support Mass being given in Latin only? I've seen this debate a lot on /r/catholicism and I can't understand why anybody prefers the latter, as it just means that 99% of the attendees won't understand anything.

4. How are relics not idolatry? I must be missing something, because it seems like attributing holy properties to relics, icons, and statues is idolatry (at least on a surface level). My Hindu grandma prays with statues of gods and goddesses, and Christians (rightfully) call that idolatry. However, she doesn't believe that those statues are God; she just believes that they help her focus on the concept of God. Are relics and icons that different from this?

5. Why can priests not marry? I know that this is another area where Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy differ, so I'm curious to hear this side. I also recall that this has not always been the case, even in the Catholic Church.

6. I know this question has been asked a billion times, but I still can't find any decent answer. How can God punish, against their will, billions of people to a literal eternity of suffering? The answer I usually get is that people choose Hell by choosing to reject Catholicism, but it seems like a bit of a dick move for him to expect us to believe in something without any proof and then label us as guilty for not believing in it.

7. On a related note to the previous question, if (after you die), it turns out that Islam is the one correct religion and that you're going to Hell for not reciting the Shahada, do you think that you would simply accept that, or would you believe that it's unfair that you're being punished for not believing in something that you had no reason to believe in?

8. How do you justify the Catholic Church's process of recognizing saints? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Catholic Church recognizes that somebody is a saint if he/she is "proven" to be responsible for two posthumous miracles. However, that has led to situations such as the sainthood of Donatus of Evorea and the sainthood of Mother Teresa. In regards to Donatus, his miracles included killing a dragon (this was in the 2nd century, when things like this weren't easily falsifiable). As an outsider, it seems that the Catholic Church today has to either (a) admit that he did not kill a dragon (seeing as dragons are not real) and revoke his sainthood; or (b) state that dragons did indeed exist and that he killed one. Which do you believe? As for Mother Teresa, as I'm sure you know, her first recognized miracle was the healing of a tumour in an Indian women in 2002. The patient had a locket with Mother Teresa's picture, so the Church said that it must be a miracle. However, this is despite the patient's husband and (more importantly) her medical team stating unequivocally that it was the months of medicine that cured her. Do you genuinely believe that this was a miracle, and if so, why?

Future of the Church

9. Do you think that there is any possibility of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches reuniting in the near future, or is it too far gone? How about the Oriental Orthodox Church?

10. Do you have any predictions and/or hopes in regards to who the next Pope might be? /r/catholicism loves Cardinal Sarah and I've read many posts calling for him to be the next Holy Father - what are your thoughts?

11. Why do the demographics of the College of Cardinals (and, for that matter, of all the popes in modern history) so badly match the demographics of Catholics in the world? For instance, of the 224 living Cardinals, 106 (47%) are from European countries. However, the vast majority of Catholics live in Latin America and Africa. Italy alone has 44 Cardinals, while Brazil (which has 3.5x the Catholics that Italy does) only has 10. The Philippines, which has twice the Catholics as Italy, only has 3 Cardinals. The entirety of Africa has half the number of Cardinals as Italy alone, despite having nearly a fifth of the world's Catholics. As an outsider, it seems like the Church wants the world to become Catholic, but wants to keep power and influence with Europeans and those of European descent. I'm not accusing the Church of racism or anything, but I'm really curious as to how this huge discrepancy has come about.

I know that these are a lot of questions, so if you took the time to reply to them, I really appreciate your time and effort! It's sincerely much appreciated.