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Ivan_Melgar_M View Drop Down
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Points: 19535 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 12 2010 at 23:30
Originally posted by stonebeard stonebeard wrote:

Originally posted by Ivan_Melgar_M Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:

Originally posted by stonebeard stonebeard wrote:

Ivan, you don't get that some things about religion deserve to be hated.

Confused

Iván


For instance:

1) The Roman Catholic church covering up the psychological torture and physical rape of young children, and enabling pedophiles to come into contact with fresh batches of meat to be fondled.

Then you should hate the education system, the mothers who accept rape of their kids not to loose the husband,  and almost every organization n that will cover a scandal.

It's more likely that a minor is raped by his father or stepfather or teacher or shrink than by a priest, but nobody says a word about this. But schools hide it, the Medical bar hides it, etc, and nobody says a word. 

Yes, it was a terrible, but the steps are given to stop this. But I assure you something, if it wasn't for the frivolous demands in USA of people searching for money (less than 2% of the accused have been convicted, 98% of the priests accused in that country are innocent), the Church would not had protected so much many real pedophiles.

2) Mother Theresa not supporting condom usage and the emancipation of women, two very effective things at relieving poverty. She clearly cared more about dogma than about really solving the problem.

Well the condom was a dogma, and...The emancipation of woman?

3) Giving white landowners a textual reason not to give up slavery

Oh God!!!!!!!

Blame all the fathers of your country, all the landowners, all the slave negotiators, all the laws before Lincoln, this one is simply absurd.

4) A large majority of Christians do not support equality in society nor in the benefits of marriage to a class of people that are attracted to the same sex.

Equality in Society is a base of Catholicism, is some don't believe...well it's their problem.

As long as they don't marry by the Church, I don't believe we have anything to say.


These are all things that can and should be condemned and driven off the face of society with no farewell.

Of course, there's a reason to leave this things behind, but not to hate.

Iván


Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - December 12 2010 at 23:34
            
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Textbook View Drop Down
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Points: 3281 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 00:06
Ivan, your response here to #1 is absolutely despicable. Hang your head in shame.
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Points: 485 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 01:46
I like the new thread title better, the answer is still "no" though
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 01:59
Originally posted by Ivan_Melgar_M Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:

Originally posted by stonebeard stonebeard wrote:

Originally posted by Ivan_Melgar_M Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:

Originally posted by stonebeard stonebeard wrote:

Ivan, you don't get that some things about religion deserve to be hated.

Confused

Iván


For instance:

1) The Roman Catholic church covering up the psychological torture and physical rape of young children, and enabling pedophiles to come into contact with fresh batches of meat to be fondled.

Then you should hate the education system, the mothers who accept rape of their kids not to loose the husband,  and almost every organization n that will cover a scandal.
You trot out these facts every time and every time they fail to convince anyone of anything. Just because other organisations do it does not mean that the church should too - in fact the church is supposed to be a beacon of moral responsibility and leaders of morality - a claim that they no longer have any right to carry.
Originally posted by Ivan_Melgar_M Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:


It's more likely that a minor is raped by his father or stepfather or teacher or shrink than by a priest, but nobody says a word about this. But schools hide it, the Medical bar hides it, etc, and nobody says a word. 
The numbers of child abuse cases committed by a family member, a teacher or a psychatrist and that those are protected by mothers, schools and the medical bar are completely irrelevant and is a hopeless defence for a priest raping a child and the church protecting him. It was the church's responsibility to hand the all the accused priests over to the secular courts for trail by judge and jury - not to do so is a criminal act.
Originally posted by Ivan_Melgar_M Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:


Yes, it was a terrible, but the steps are given to stop this. But I assure you something, if it wasn't for the frivolous demands in USA of people searching for money (less than 2% of the accused have been convicted, 98% of the priests accused in that country are innocent), the Church would not had protected so much many real pedophiles.
What are these steps? Saying sorry is not good enough however magnanimous that may appear, it was made to appease the faithful and allow them to feel good about themselves and their church - for the rest of us it was thinly veiled propaganda that failed to deflect the real issues involved here.
 
Forget the USA - look to all the other countries where these accusations have been made - people in those countries are not chasing money - they want justice.
 
This 2% figure is complete nonsense. Since only a mere fraction of all accused priests actually go to secular court trial while the majority are "tried" behind the closed-doors of a church hearing then the numbers are meaningless. It doesn't take an Einstein to assume that the church will only hand over cases where there is too little evidence for the court to convict the accused.
 
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Points: 34550 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 02:12
Unrelated
and I know this obviously does not account for the entire Catholic Church...

But: when my mother was very ill, ours actually asked us why we didn't send in our tithe.
More so, when we eventually stopped going, (this was much later) we were told "OK, if you just send in a monthly check, we'll list you as "active members". So, you don't go anymore, but send in money and we'll just say you do.

May be one poor example, I'll grant....but not exactly a pleasant one. Ermm


Edited by JJLehto - December 13 2010 at 02:13
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Points: 512 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 02:23
The Catholic Church claims moral authority. I hold it to a higher standard when it comes to moral issues. The institutional cover up of child abuse is absolutely despicable. No "Yeah, but..." statement will ever work as a defense..  

Edited by Kestrel - December 13 2010 at 02:23
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Points: 4006 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 03:26
The abuse scandal is a straw man argument. If, for the purposes of this discussion, the atheists here want to set up the Catholic Church so that they can knock it down, fine go ahead. Just so long as nobody thinks that by doing so they are refuting anyone's belief in God. 
 
Mike's question in the first post of this thread is: Are there any theists out there who think that they have any argument in favor of their belief that hasn't already been refuted over and over?

The hierarchy of the Church is not the Church, and not all theists are Catholic. This is not an argument about theists' beliefs, it is an attack on the evil men that perpetrated and covered-up the abuse. I'm not going to waste any energy trying to defend the indefensible.   

 
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Points: 3281 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 03:56
But Ivan has shed a lot of ink establishing that the Catholic church are an authority on spiritual matters.
 
If we establish that this same group of people seem to, as Christopher Hitchens argues, have an interest in promoting man-boy love, by association it makes any moral/spiritual authority seem pretty unlikely.
 
But yeah SS is right in a way. Establishing that the Catholic church is a group of evil men who lust for power and money doesn't defeat all theism. Or does it?

We cannot provide proof that there is no god. But we CAN provide evidence that all spiritual organisations who claim authority and knowledge in religious matters are at worst corrupt and sinister and at best, simply ordinary and mortal, all their traditions and knowledge being earthly in origin with nothing divine or "from heaven" about them at all. This has to be done on an individual church by church basis and it's being done to the Catholics right now. They're a very easy target due to their endorsement of child abuse but they're a vital target because of the same thing.
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 04:26
Originally posted by seventhsojourn seventhsojourn wrote:

The abuse scandal is a straw man argument. If, for the purposes of this discussion, the atheists here want to set up the Catholic Church so that they can knock it down, fine go ahead. Just so long as nobody thinks that by doing so they are refuting anyone's belief in God. 
 
Mike's question in the first post of this thread is: Are there any theists out there who think that they have any argument in favor of their belief that hasn't already been refuted over and over?

The hierarchy of the Church is not the Church, and not all theists are Catholic. This is not an argument about theists' beliefs, it is an attack on the evil men that perpetrated and covered-up the abuse. I'm not going to waste any energy trying to defend the indefensible.  

The abuse scandal discussion is not a straw man argument at all. How can you think it is such? I never made the association between ordained priests abusing children and belief in any god in any of these discussions. I would not since discrediting the establishment that protected the abusers would never refute any belief in god, or anyother supreme being. It may, however, raise a multitude of questions regarding the moral authority of anyone associated with that establishment in regard to such a cover-up.
 
The criticisms of the Catholic Church over this matter are not an attack on religion, or christianity, or churches in general, it is an attack on the Catholic Church and nothing more - when we use the phrase "the church" in relation to this scandal we mean "The Catholic Church" and when the Pope makes statements in this regard he is speaking for The Catholic Church and not the hierarchy of the church. That is scandal may have developed within that hierachy is now moot - it has been elevated to the highest level within the church and now is reflected upon the Catholic Church as a whole.
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Points: 4006 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 05:54

^ Mike raised the abuse scandal issue yesterday when he posted the quote by Hitchens. The purpose of this thread is to discuss theists' beliefs. Therefore an association between abuse and belief in God is inferred (at least in the case of Catholicism). Otherwise the abuse scandal would be a red herring, an easy target yes, but not relevant to the discussion of theists' beliefs. 

If Mike changed the thread title again, eg ''priests abuse scandal'', then fair enough. But I'm really not going to waste any more time on this, there's already been a thread on the subject
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Points: 5195 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 10:04
^ I think that you're right in that the abuse scandal doesn't necessarily directly tie into the Atheism vs. Theism debate. The only connection that I see is that since faith in and of itself is the underlying problem of the Theist position, it keeps Theists from accepting the truth. In this case it's that those who run their church are committing crimes, but they're getting away with them because their followers protect them and apply different standards to people that have - or seem to have - a lot of faith. 

I also don't think that it's the Catholic faith that makes these people commit those crimes - IMO it's the combination of celibacy and the fact that the church, as an institution, is actively shielding those priests (and nuns) from prosecution, and thus makes priesthood a "profession" that may attract pedophiles for that very reason.
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Points: 19535 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 11:00
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:



You trot out these facts every time and every time they fail to convince anyone of anything. Just because other organisations do it does not mean that the church should too - in fact the church is supposed to be a beacon of moral responsibility and leaders of morality - a claim that they no longer have any right to carry.

Of course I bring this issues every time, because they are real....The Pope has accepted it's wrong and has started a zero tolerance policy...Burt that's not the point, we accept it was wrong and doing something to stop it.

But I wonder why that special hatred against Catholic Church....Why not against teachers, family members and even other religions, it is clear that the number of sexual predators in other Christian Churches (being 1/3 of the Catholics) is superior, but nobody says a word.

As a fact a survey talks about 12% of pastors in USA involved in sexual scandals...But they are the ones who accuse with more hatred

The numbers of child abuse cases committed by a family member, a teacher or a psychatrist and that those are protected by mothers, schools and the medical bar are completely irrelevant and is a hopeless defence for a priest raping a child and the church protecting him. It was the church's responsibility to hand the all the accused priests over to the secular courts for trail by judge and jury - not to do so is a criminal act.

I don't defend the priests, never did and never will, but if from nearly 10, 667 cases denounced in USA only 100 have been convicted (less than 1%)

What are these steps? Saying sorry is not good enough however magnanimous that may appear, it was made to appease the faithful and allow them to feel good about themselves and their church - for the rest of us it was thinly veiled propaganda that failed to deflect the real issues involved here.

The Pope has been clear,. an order has been issued not to hide any case, to allow a civil trial in every case, of course the Church will pay a lawyer,. because every person is entitled to a defense.
 
Forget the USA - look to all the other countries where these accusations have been made - people in those countries are not chasing money - they want justice.

The numbers outside USA are not remotely comparable, if I'm not wrong around the world the number of accused priests is 2,200 and only 98 have been convicted, this is 1.8%
 
This 2% figure is complete nonsense. Since only a mere fraction of all accused priests actually go to secular court trial while the majority are "tried" behind the closed-doors of a church hearing then the numbers are meaningless. It doesn't take an Einstein to assume that the church will only hand over cases where there is too little evidence for the court to convict the accused.

You ask for evidence in every case, I do also in this case, the only cases proven are the ones denounced and convicted, the other ones are simply rumors

One case of pedophile is wrong, I hope this papal decision works, but I also ak that yo open your eyes and acuse every pedophile with the same emphasis you place on the priests

Iván
 
            
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Points: 16715 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 12:19
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

This 2% figure is complete nonsense. Since only a mere fraction of all accused priests actually go to secular court trial while the majority are "tried" behind the closed-doors of a church hearing then the numbers are meaningless. It doesn't take an Einstein to assume that the church will only hand over cases where there is too little evidence for the court to convict the accused.
The Church has no legal authority except over the Vatican itself, and I'm not aware of any cases that have occurred in the Vatican's jurisdiction, since it's quite small. So I'm not sure what you're getting at but I'm not claiming to be an expert. And I don't see how one could view cover-ups as a "religious" problem, it's a problem in any large organization that doesn't want to lose face. That doesn't mean that it's not a "big deal", but I think you can't cite as a direct problem of religion as stonebeard said. I would see a direct reason to hate religion as something like suicide bombers.

Speaking of suicide bombers, they may not really be motivated by religion at all. Personally, even though that apparently goes against academic orthodoxy, I find that more plausible than zealotry. There are so many ways to kill people without dying yourself, why would you be a suicide bomber unless you were looking for a way out? Suicide bombers are also overwhelming young, and young people also are more likely to have depression. I guess people don't want to consider that because they always look so enthusiastic on those tapes.
if you own a sodastream i hate you
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Points: 31169 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 12:30
Originally posted by Henry Plainview Henry Plainview wrote:

 I guess people don't want to consider that because they always look so enthusiastic on those tapes.

That's actually a classic hallmark (and a warning sign) of the clinically depressed - they often experience a feeling of euphoria before committing suicide - I think the standard thinking is they feel wonderful knowing that all their problems will soon be at an end.
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 12:34
Originally posted by Henry Plainview Henry Plainview wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

This 2% figure is complete nonsense. Since only a mere fraction of all accused priests actually go to secular court trial while the majority are "tried" behind the closed-doors of a church hearing then the numbers are meaningless. It doesn't take an Einstein to assume that the church will only hand over cases where there is too little evidence for the court to convict the accused.
The Church has no legal authority except over the Vatican itself, and I'm not aware of any cases that have occurred in the Vatican's jurisdiction, since it's quite small. So I'm not sure what you're getting at but I'm not claiming to be an expert.
I am referring specifically to this:
Quote VATICAN CITY, JAN. 8, 2002 - John Paul II has decided that some offenses by priests involving the Eucharist, the sacrament of reconciliation, and pederasty will be judged exclusively by the Tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
(my bold)
[ref: http://www.zenit.org/article-3342?l=english ]
 
ie pedophile priests were tried in secret vatican courts, not in public secular courts.
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Mr ProgFreak View Drop Down
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Points: 5195 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 12:54
Originally posted by Textbook Textbook wrote:

But Ivan has shed a lot of ink establishing that the Catholic church are an authority on spiritual matters.
 
If we establish that this same group of people seem to, as Christopher Hitchens argues, have an interest in promoting man-boy love, by association it makes any moral/spiritual authority seem pretty unlikely.
 
But yeah SS is right in a way. Establishing that the Catholic church is a group of evil men who lust for power and money doesn't defeat all theism. Or does it?

We cannot provide proof that there is no god. But we CAN provide evidence that all spiritual organisations who claim authority and knowledge in religious matters are at worst corrupt and sinister and at best, simply ordinary and mortal, all their traditions and knowledge being earthly in origin with nothing divine or "from heaven" about them at all. This has to be done on an individual church by church basis and it's being done to the Catholics right now. They're a very easy target due to their endorsement of child abuse but they're a vital target because of the same thing.

It's you who is setting up a straw man argument here. Theism is ultimately self defeating - it doesn't make sense, unless you have faith. That's all we need to defeat it - scams, pedophilia or the aiding and abetting of it ... that's all a bonus as far as argumentation is concerned.

Today religious people would be better off admitting right from the start that their belief is silly. It would save us a lot of trouble in threads like this.LOL
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Points: 32995 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 13:01
^ Why would the "admit" that their belief is silly if they believe it. That makes no sense but i sus[pect you are joking.
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Points: 5195 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 13:06
It is inherently contradictory, it makes no sense ... that's what I meant by "silly". I think that the question of this thread would be "settled" if the Theists admitted that their belief doesn't make sense, but they simply choose to believe it anyway, no matter what evidence or logical argument is presented.

But of course I don't really expect them to admit anything - so for me the matter is settled, and for them it doesn't matter whether I think it's settled. That's pretty much the end of it, I guess.LOL
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Points: 31169 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 13:08
Originally posted by Mr ProgFreak Mr ProgFreak wrote:

It is inherently contradictory, it makes no sense ... that's what I meant by "silly". I think that the question of this thread would be "settled" if the Theists admitted that their belief doesn't make sense, but they simply choose to believe it anyway, no matter what evidence or logical argument is presented.

But of course I don't really expect them to admit anything - so for me the matter is settled, and for them it doesn't matter whether I think it's settled. That's pretty much the end of it, I guess.LOL

Awesome.  Case closed.
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Points: 5195 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 13 2010 at 13:09

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