What's a steroetype? That was an exagerasion I know that not to be true but some people take it to heart. Last year my father spent 32,000 dollars on the church ( run by a coperation) and we aren't millionaires. Why? I have no idea it's even in the bible that that isn't going to help you into hevean.

@Dominic
I don't see how any of your examples have anything to do with morals except perhaps your reference to the story of Noah and even then only if you accept it as literally true.

@SunZi - he also got the story wrong. God didn't flood the planet for one city (that would be Sodom and Gomorrah and there he just destroyed the cities. Of course, that is if you take the OT literally, but not all Christians do. Some of us see the fact that the OT is much like Jesus' parables: a means to teach a lesson to mankind when mankind's intellect was in its infancy.

Atheists have no morals? I have a young daughter and certainly wouldn't stone her to death if she argues with me. I'm not going to cover her from head to toe in black and drown her in a swimming pool if she kisses a boy or leave her in a ""Woman's Room" for the rest of her life if she does something to breach my "family honour!!" Good job my daughter doesn't have a religious father.

Now you are a bit confused Shafto...

Not at all, Ursa. But thanks for your concern

Nothing to do with morals? How about: It's acceptable to punish the innocent if it also punishes the guilty (Noah, and putting aside the fact that death seems to be the only "justice" in the old testament most of the time). Or that your own beliefs are always superior and that you are inheritablly right, others are just deceived idiots that you don't need to listen to (Creation, that's why light came *before* the sun, to claim that sun-worshippers of the time were not only not worshipping the source of light [since it pre-dated the sun], but that it was also created as a mere object inferior to god). Or that it's perfectly acceptable to punish people for crimes others committed and over which they had no power (Eve as source of sin, cause of pain in childbirth). Or that there is only a single way to do things, to live, to behave, and all who deviate are bad and must be persecuted (gays)?

The Bible is full of hateful stuff. I'm not saying that there are no good things in it, the saying of Jesus are, I believe, good, despite being twisted by the ages for various political reasons.

While Church can, on occasion, be entertaining (I enjoy deciphering the pagan roots of the myths and practices), it isn't something I'd do frequently. Not to mention I find priests to be rather unpleasant people, and the ratio of pedophiles among priests is significantly higher than among non-priests...

Do you know how many unborn fetuses and innocent children were condemned to death in that flood?

Dominic, you are completely right. Remember Osiris. He was the guy who was the son of god who was born of a virgin on December 25th. When he was murdered he rose from the dead after 3 days. Don't worry if can't remember there are over 800 different daieties with the same story all over the World. Oh and my post about my daughter...these two punishments are written in the Bible and the Koran.

New and Old Testaments in the Bible are twisted and fucked up. Jesus was a huge dick just as often as he was kind. He condemned a fig tree to death because it didn't have any figs on it late into the year when he wanted one and threw a temper tantrum.

I don't know a single other person who has read the Bible cover to cover like I have. I'm a Catholic and I think religion can bring a lot of good and purpose into someones life. That said, if you think the Bible is the word of God, you've never read the Bible.

Perhaps, but this is not the right topic I think, we should have a debate about what religion is. I mean, you guys clearly talk about organized religion, am I right? Or are we talking about all beliefs? I fear how a person is viewing the world cannot be loosened from assumptions and beliefs - so where's the difference between 'I believe the earth will still be there when I wake up' and 'the rain spirits have been good tonight'.

Because I think you're talking about Islam, and frankly I don't feel responsible for them... never met one christian who believes we should stone someone to death for adultery.

@ Hibiskiss: I have no idea. We do keep record of all the unborn fetuses that are aborted every day.

@ Ursa: Where? Did someone set up a Geocities Abortion Counter that I am unaware of?

http://www.catholicfamilycatalog.com/the-abortion-counter.htm

Sickening.

It never ceases to amaze me how all churches get lumped into Catholicism and priests and all that shit. Not everyone is Catholic and not all churches deal with the issues that celibacy amongst the clergy has created in the Catholic church.

@ag and Ursa
So does that mean that every time there is an abortion the woman files some paperwork and reports it to the catholicfamilycatalog for proper record keeping?

Or is it more likely that someone is drumming up fear with some possible sliver of truth amongst otherwise fabricated data as numbers on a counter?

Anglicanism is as much of a joke as catholicism, both organized and enforced by head of states who placed themselves at the top of the religious hierarchy.

I talk about the roman catholic church because that's what's close to home. I don't assume that all priests are like catholic priests, I assume that you'll understand that the "catholic" is implied, considering the context and rest of my message.

If you want good morals, study philosophy and ethics. Why the hell would you waste your time with an old tome filled with contradictions and messages of hate?

@ Hibiskiss, I think it's the reported annual rate of the abortion clinics that the site breaks down into seconds. You can get a counter for anything that has a reported statistic and break it down into seconds. It's not the woman that reports, but the clinic. I bet there is also a percentage applied to the rate for the unreported quantity to cover backally abortions and such.

I don't know how the number is established by this website but I imagine they take the year average per country with legalized abortion and create a counter based on the sum of these numbers. We Dutch are quite good in recording everything, and if the average number here is 35,000 on 17 million inhabitants the number for countries like the UK or the US must be much higher.

@ Dominic

"Not to mention I find priests to be rather unpleasant people, and the ratio of pedophiles among priests is significantly higher than among non-priests..."

This isn't true. The percentage of people who are pedophiles in the USA is about 2%. The percentage for priests comes out to a little lower than that. It's just considered a bigger issue when a priest (or school teacher, etc.) commits such a crime because they have access to kids.

@Dominic - still referencing a specific denomination(s). I'm of a church with no affiliations with the Church of England. Never had 'em and never will. But the fact that you feel free to call any religion a joke means your own view points are worth less than the virtual paper you typed them on. You should really show more respect for others faiths if you want your atheistic views respected. If you can't do that, then we have nothing more to discuss.

Four people were there including me. Going to hold another next week. Hopefully word will spread by then.

Quite frankly, I don't care. Is there a god or not? Is there something after life or not? I don't believe so, without being entirely convinced of it, but it really doesn't matter 'cause I'll just have to be patient to wait and find out anyways. I don't try to act "good" to save myself from eternal damnation, but quite simply to not be a jackass.

@Crazy Anglican
• When dioceses are grouped by the fourteen geographical regions of the Church, the average percent of all incardinated priests in a region’s dioceses to have been [page 27 begins] accused of sexual abuse is consistent: all regions averaged between 3% and 6% ofpriests accused.
• If the total number of priests in religious communities who have had allegations made against them is presented as a percentage of all religious priests in ministry, as estimated f[ro]m the study data, the percentage accused of child sexual abuse is 2.7%.

That's from a US report. Besides, the US ranks pretty poorly for sex crimes. The difference is even greater in Canada, I'd presume.

Ursa, that's an interesting point you are making. You've never met a Christian that believes in stoning somebody to death for adultry. But it's in the Bible in black and white. Also, it is written, that you shouldn't touch the skin of the pig..wow, every High School, College and NFL player is going to hell!!!!

Think again mate. You forget 1) The Bible has been written in 1500 years by different people. Tho many of them share the same cultural background, there are differences in style and focus. 2) since the 'completion' of the Bible (formally agreed in 325) and since Jesus' presence we have a history of 2000 years of christian thinking and interpreting, 3) the approach you use, let's call it 'black-and-white litteraly interpretation' is one of the possible ways of reading the Bible. It shouldn't surprise you there are more... as for stoning with adultery, this is one of the laws generally seen as part of the legal system of the old Israeli state. Thereby christianity is christocentric (duh): to quote Jesus: 'he without sin throw the first rock'. By this Jesus showed the power of revenge lies by God only and that a sinner can appeal on the sacrifice of Jesus for another chance.


I hope this does says something to you. If you still have this sort of question the I fear you know little about or haven't understood the ideas of christianity.

@ Dominic
The report you cite mentions that 3 to 6 percent of priests were accused. Surely you do not think that the mere accusation is proof of misconduct. Presumptions aside the report that you mention doesn't refute contrary reports that show that priests are not any more likely to be pedophiles than anyone else. It only says that accusations of priests are in a certain range. There can be any number of motives for these accusations; some are undoubtedly true and others are probably false. Regardless the number of people accused is a poor indicator of how many people actually commit a crime.

This becomes especially tenuous when you add in your second citation that states the total number of priests accused is only about 2.7%. That's running dangerously close to the 2% that I stated earlier and it doesn't take many acquitals to have your statistics backing up my point rather than refuting it.

Crazy is right. If just one third of the accused were innocent, then the average percent drops to 1.8%, below the 2% populace average. Don't you just love desperate strawman arguments, Crazy? :-)