Your last post seemed to limit the scope of your critique to the RCC. I have no independent knowledge of what the RCC is doing in Bulgaria, so I'll stop now. Good day.

Isn't it amazing that **everyone** sees that Ivo paints with a broad brush, dismissing all religion (and the the religious) with a single stroke - except Ivo. Perhaps you need to express yourself better, Ivo. You constantly accuse everyone else of lying and misquoting you, even though the quotes come directly from you. It's out of context, you cliam...just like it is out of context to condemn religion because of a few bad apples. There are a few bad apples in atheism, too, but I don't see you claiming everyone should turn to God because atheists are all evil (based upon the actions of a few).

To make my point, Ivo will now proceed to insult me and try to diminish my argument without actually addressing anything. He will make sweeping generalizations, claim we are all liars and just don't understand him...which is exactly my point. His arguments go something like this: Sugar is white, Sugar is sweet. Flour is white, therefore flour is sweet. but he is just incapable of grasping the faulty logic he consistently uses. Sad little monkey...

OK, I oversimplified. You said organized religion was corrupt. I'm just pointing out that just because the RCC is corrupt in your mind, doesn't make all organized religion corrupt. Your using a small set of data to make assumptions about the larger data as a whole and your small set is skewed to one viewpoint and one viewpoint only.

Krellin +1

@FS - try "Kitty used the potty! It stinky, daddy! I want fruit snacks! Daddy play Wii Bowling? I DON'T LIKE MY MEDICINE!"

Strat +100 - I literally chuckled out loud. People around me are wondering what I found so funny.

I would agree with the statement that "all organized religions are corrupt" is a false generalization - although I will freely admit I can't think of an organized religion that *isn't* corrupt on some level. I would say that has less to do with the religious aspect than the organized aspect, as I assume that pretty much any organization that doesn't operate with checks and balances is going to end up corrupt to one degree or another.

There goes another false assumption, that all organized religions have no checks and balances. Strat - look into some of the protestant religions and you'll see organizations that, unlike the RCC, have voting bodies elected every few years and they oversee the actions and views of the church as a whole. Just look to the ELCA and their synods: councils made up of representatives from each of the churches and those representatives are elected and supported by the membership of the church. Unlike the RCC, if an ELCA church loses or dismisses a pastor, they form a search committee who seek out candidates and narrow the scope to a handful of candidates who are then presented to the general congregation. The candidates then do various functions, one at a time, and the congregation accepts or doesn't accept the candidate based on performance and alignment of priciples. If the committees first choice is turned down, they present #2. If all are turned down (and it does happen) a new committee is usually formed and the search starts again.

What stratagos said in his last post.

If this is too assumptuous or fundamentalist for someone then it makes no sense to argue.

krellin, you're literally the most stupid and angry person I've met here. May God help us all if you ever manage to get your hands onto any power. Not that there's a big risk :)

@stratagos -- Here is the problem with organizaed religion of *any* flavor: it is composed of human beings, who by their very nature are corrupt (according to every religion I know of). The purpose of religion is to try to achieve some higher state - to allow the Holy Spirit to guide your life to be lived as Jesus lived, sinless, for example, or to achieve such good karma that you reincarnate as a higher being. But, again, implied in all of this is that the religion is made up of corrupt people, but that doesn't mean that the *idea* behind the religion is corrupt. The *idea* of God, of a Savior who gives His faultless life so that others may have eternal life in paradise is a beautiful idea, and in exchange for the deal he wants you to live good. A perfect Christian or Muslim or whatever would be the best neighbor you ever had. The problem is....they're people, and they are full of jealousy, greed, lust, etc. and therefore they fail to achieve perfection. That doesn't mean the religion is corrupt...that only means the human beings in the religion are corrupt, and most religions admit that one up front.

The analogy would be the Constitution of the United States. Arguably, the Federal Government has exceeded it's authority in certain instances (The Patriot Act, unjust wars, pick your point of contention...). Now, ideally if the Constitution were followed to the letter, there would be no faults and we would be a "perfect" example of a Constitutional representative republic. (Please bear with the analogy...I know, if you have faults with Constitution, then you will knee-jerk disgree...) But somewhere along the way Politicians happened to be human beings, and they are greedy, and they write laws for donors instead of tho honor the Constitution, and thus through the actions of men the country is corrupt from the ideal. Does that mean that the idea of the country as founded is corrupt or wrong? No, it just means the implementation by corrupt human beings in corrupt. Same with church. Great idea, and some do it a lot better than others, but if anyone is looking for the perfect church you won't find it NOT because of the idea of church, but because of the imperfection of men.

@Ivo -- THANK you for making my point once again by displaying your juvenile character. You say I'm angry because of what? Pointing out the faults in your pathetic attempts at constructing an argument? Damn...you need a Valium, dude and quick, before your angry heart bursts. You have absolutely zero perspective or self-control.

@Ivo - by the way, you did **exactly** as I stated you would do...mindlessly attack and insult without addressing anything anyone says, as if your loud bellowing will convince people.

@krellin - That analogy and analysis were so spot on... (The corruption argument in religion)

@krellin - I think the point I was trying to make - as an admitted agnostic I might note - that corruption within the framework of "organized religion" has little to do with the faith of those who practice said religion, or whether the underlying beliefs are "true" or not - it is a function of the *organization*, not the faith.

Does that mean that those members of a faith where I find the practices troubling - say, Scientology - are corrupt? By no means! However, I don't particularly have a problem with what specific individuals *believe*, I have a problem with what specific organizations *do*. Scientology is a great example, in this case - whatever some of the members may think about the Evil Lord Zenu or thetans or whatever, the undeniable fact is that there are those in the top echelons of the church who act in what I can only consider to be an unethical manner.

Do I, therefore, distrust Scientologists? No, my trust or distrust of a person has little or nothing to do with matters of faith. I *do*, however, deeply distrust the Church of Scientology. I have no trouble differentiating the individual from the organization, and while I may find certain individuals and/or organizations act in ways I find contemptuous, the failings of one do not necessarily reflect on the other.

On the flip side, if an organization makes poor choices, then the members of that organization have to accept a little of the blame. I didn't elect {politician}, but the majority of my peers did, so I, as an American, have to accept that when people dislike {activity or action}, I bear responsibility for not convincing my peers that {politician} is a self serving jackass. The fact that I didn't *support* {politician} is irrelevant - I certainly didn't care enough to do anything about it, so my apathy was in effect a de facto sign of support.

@Stratagos - i agree almost completely.

"I think I'm actually more comfortable with the RCC. The information actually got to the top and they made the wrong call. "
@CA, I see what you are trying to say - that the RCC is closer to the right call because they have infrastructure in place. And from a structural standpoint maybe so - but culturally not at all. We're not sure what the schools would do with the infrastructure in place (though in a parallel situation, also governmental, - the military - it often results in disciplinary action). The RCC, though, is more like a pre-meditated crime - the brain of the organization is fully involved in hiding and protecting abusers "for the church"... I see this as pretty damning... and maybe I've missed recent stories that suggest they've "learned" their lessons... but I haven't anything yet like that. Up to the last news story I saw on it - only a couple of months ago - the coverup was still in progress and a cardinal (or similar authority) speaking at the Vatican just prior to Easter actually had the gall to "forgive" the victims. Oh wait - I remember a more recent story - about a week ago there was a law enforcement raid on a church owned building - wherein records of abuses were seized. The church acted very indignantly ("how dare the government do this") about being investigated and actually had the nerve to say that they were keeping the files secret "to protect the privacy of the victims"... yeah - just like they have for generations. Bastards. I believe that other churches are probably learning from the RCC cautionary tale on how not to react... and that transparency early on is the best policy... the RCC, on the other hand, is still acting like Nixon circa 1972. Indeed, I hope the RCC gets decimated from this... it would serve as the best example to other churches... and the RCC has no chance of "learning" from this so long as they think they can skate out of this with their existing power structure and excuses in place. ...Please provide an example of how you think the RCC has shown that they have learned from this.

I think that you might be missing the point about the public school systems. The infrastructure is not in place 14 years after the problem has been pointed out. We do know exactly what the upper echelon has done about his. They've done nothing.

I looked at that case in Belgium, but have been up for quite a while today and will make no statement of defense other than to point out the what you paint as "how dare the government", I've read as a protest about the manner in which the raids were conducted.

On the surface, I agree with you, it's a criminal investigation and whatever the police decide to do (even boring a hole into two Cardinal's tombs) is probably warranted. There is certainly more to the story than I'm able to give consideration right now though.

I would point out that in both cases the crime isn't premeditated (that would be the church or school planning ahead of time to put children in the hands of paedophiles), for both of them it's accessory after the fact.

Don't forget the conspiracy charges that can come with it.

Oh...my...can I say "God," or would that just be too much of a (bad) pun here? ;)

How did this thing explode, and get away from PEANUT BUTTER?!?! I figured this'd be a fun post about the most extreme argument ever against evolution (whether you take that as fact or belief or flush it down the toilet I don't care, there is NO WAY you can tell me that peanut butter argument kis anything short of fanatical absurdism!)

227 posts later...

Anyway...

@Friendly Sword:

I did NOT blame the atheists for causing all the 20th century's problems by killing God (I use that term because God had always been questioned here and there by a few, but not by as great a number or with the wealth of arguments and evidence Darwin and Nietzsche and later Camus and Sartre had...and also to once again pay homage to the line "God is Dead.")

I said that the vast majority once had at least God as a common ground, and that the discoveries and arguments of those men created, for the first time, conditions of doubt. That's FINE. Doubt is good so long as you FACE IT. After all, that's science, isn't it- "I don't believe/doubt the earth revolves around the sun!" says the Church; "Oh yeah, watch THIS!" say Copernicus and Galileo. And eventually people look at the issue, decide "...yeah, that DOES make sense" and they fill the void.

Imagine, if you will, what would have happened if Doctor McCoy (because obiwanobiwan, ironically enough, is a huge Trekker) went back in time to 1850 and said, "My GOD, man! Put those leeches away, you can't do that! And that scalpel- do you know how damaging that can be? And those miracle creams? It's like the godamned Dark Ages!" And, magically, all the doctors of the world stopped all the treatments practiced.

And JUST that.

McCoy doesn't tell them what DOES work, or even give them a nudge in the right direction, and what's worse, now no one is practicing medicine or even looking into...NO ONE will find the answers.

Bones goes back to the ship 350 or so years later and finds that everyone's dead on board from a simple infection that pennicilin could have treated, regular, simple pennicilin...but thanks to Bones "Medicine is Dead" and he never filled the void left in place of leech therapy, no one sought to...

So it's not the atheists "ungluing" the West (actually, I don't even like to use "atheist" there because really that was the existentialist and evolutionary biology movements that did it, and some existentialists, like Kierkegaard, WERE, in fact, theists, as with the biologists) that's the problem so much as the pieces of Western society, to a great extent, like LEGOs, and never re-assembled to make a new "LEGO society" so to speak...

Well I guess that in both cases paedophiles were allowed back into classrooms and parishes. That might show premeditation for both parties. Frankly I'm too tired to think about it right now. Kids were hurt, how does anyone on either side say "Well this was worse than that" (Yeah, guilty as charged). Both parties are guilty and neither is any better than the other. They were charged with protecting kids and didn't. One through incompetence and neglect of that duty and one through active cover up of the crime.

@CA, I think we're on the same page on this now.

@Obiwan, as far as people not filling the void... I think people are rather creative and are going about their business filling those voids... most of us. Some go off the deep end in their vision of a "war of the cultures" or "ethnic cleansing" or whatever... but really - as someone else pointed out, these sorts of violent spasms were not by any means limited to the 20th century. Though I do agree with you that there was something different about the world and it's conflicts... But, to go back to one point I left hanging... I see faith as being in crisis in the world... and I see it, for those who retain it, becoming necessarily both more personal and more universal... I need to explain... personal as in no church needed, no waiting for the afterlife, less top-down authority - more Eastern in its feeling of spirituality being fully infused into everyday life... And more universal in that people in one valley are not hating the people in the next because their particular flavor of religion is slightly different... if the religion is personal - for one thing that means less involvement of church organizations, less dogma, less tribal behavior... it would be more akin to how we each feel about love... no one goes around demanding people agree with them about how they love their family, people just do - in their own way... and simultaneously, we all realize, as Sting did :-) that "even the Russians love their children too"... and that realization brings us closer rather than farther apart. No one hates the Russians because they say I love you in Russian... or because they cook borscht for their family rather than lasagna or whatever... but currently people hate others because of how they worship (love) their god... they use the wrong name for god, or they use it at all, or they pray wrong, or give the wrong offerings or have the wrong rituals... Love of family is universal... for that matter, love of football/soccer is (nearly) universal... love of god should be (among those who want to), but isn't. People see differences and separation where they should see commonality and connection. That is what I meant by religion becoming more "universal".

...and strangely enough I say this as an atheist... Cause really, I guess I see the even larger set that I belong to as "those who love life and appreciate its amazing beauty and worth and profound mystery and do their best to help one another"... this overlaps significantly with the religious group(s)... and where people look for common ground they wouldn't really have a beef with me or me with them... in my ideal world.

@obiwan, coincidentally enough, being that I refer here to god becoming more personal, I happened to have heard the following Emily Dickinson poem today for the first time - it completely matches the topic and feel for what I'm talking about... it's called "A Service of Song":

Some keep the Sabbath going to church;
I keep it staying at home,
With a bobolink for a chorister,
And an orchard for a dome.

Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;
I just wear my wings,
And instead of tolling the bell for church,
Our little sexton sings.

God preaches, a noted clergyman,
And the sermon is never long;
So instead of getting to heaven at last,
I'm going all along!

@dexter morgan:

That's all good, but still only individuals filling individual voids.

I'm saying where's the "God-sized" answer, a "truth" that ties everyone together and is an undeniable truth and peace-bringer as God once was (or was meant to be)



Also...Georgetown University, one of the nations better schools, is offering:

"Philosophy 180- Philosophy and Star Trek.

Questions include: Can you travel back in time to kill your own grandmother? What is the nature of time? Do we have free will? What is a person? Is Data a person?"

...

WHY must I be stuck at this damned comunity college! Even with "Masterpieces of Literature" and "Philosophy of Religion" on tap for the Fall...I WANT THAT CLASS!!!

Lay in a course for whatever state Georgetown is located in, Mr. Chekov...Mr. Sulu, Wapr Factor NINE!

(Well, at least my tea is good- it's Tea...Earl Grey...Hot. Thank you to all two of you who might have gotten that reference. I digress...)

*Oh, and Mr. Spock- correct my spelling, please.*

;)

Engage...

@dexter morgan

On one level we were on the same page all along. What I find disturbing isn't the outcry against the Roman Catholic Church. Beyond expressing a basic opinion that the leadership has probably learned their lesson (admittedly an assumption on my part based upon the Anglican response), I haven't defended their actions.

What I find distubing is the comparative lack thereof against the public school system. The RCC story broke in 2002 and is an international scandal. The public school story broke in 1996 and there just isn't the same reaction. If anything the shock and outrage should have been greater when the first story broke, right?

Anyway, there is something different in the way this is being conducted. I just don't see anyone breaking into school vaults and human resources files to track down the deviants who are still jumping from one public school system to another. It's almost like, with our relative silence, we're saying "yeah there's abuse; let's get those test scores up though alright guys". Do we have such a low opinion of our public school system that this is just nothing new, not really newsworthy? It's not the abuse that I see as worse in one instance than another, it's more that apathy as compared to the outrage. Has anyone expressed the slightest outrage against the public education system in this thread? Ivo thinks that the links about the RCC in Germany would sicken me (and I'm surethey would), but Americans don't even seem to be that upset about the parallel in the public school system. What I wonder about is this, if the RCC said "yeah we know we're working on that" and did nothing for 14 years would anyone care about their scandal?

But the typical public school scandal is usually teen girls with male teacher or teen boys with female teacher. Occasionally we hear of a same sex between lady teacher and student, but rarely does it involve younger kids. It's normally a Mary Kay Letourneau type story and rarely even as young as she went (13). A 16 or 17 year-old male gets it on with a 30 something teacher and he considers himself lucky. The same in reverse and the girl is usually involved to try and better her grade or make her friends jealous or whatever. Rarely, in public schools, are the "victims" 100% innocent. But the RCC has/had a problem with younger kids being abused where they are completely innocent. That is why the outrage is different.

I can only say that that is not what I have seen.

33% male against male
33% female against male
33% male against female

0% student guilt

66% some form of recurring problem with the teacher.

I think it has more to do with it's easier to say "look at the corruption in their system" than it is to say "look at the corruption in our system".