Yep it was only a matter of time. For fans of Christopher Hitchens they know he was no fan of hers. Now here is the link of the story, and my following OP ed. Now before anybody blasts me for blasphemy, you need to know that I am a former Catholic, and my mother, whom I love dearly is still a Catholic. My op ed is tying this event to what religions are throughout human history in reality.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/...story.html
Now for my OP/ED...... The word "miracle" is not a concept owned and copyrighted by the Vatican or Catholic religion first off. All religions have similar motifs of gap filling to explain the seemingly impossible.
I am using Catholics here as an example, but the argument applies to all religions.
There are no humans with magic crystal balls with a special bat phone or those who are closer to the divine than their flocks. A Rabbi isn't talking to a real god anymore than the patron who goes to the Synagogue. An Imam isn't talking to Allah anymore than a patron who attends a Mosque. And the Pope also isn't talking to a god anymore than someone who attends a Catholic church.
Ok, so why does this concept of Sainthood exist? Well, because humans evolved to set up social structures, and we reward those within our clubs whom we think help us and help the club. Really no different than when a medal is given to a soldier for saving a buddy. No different than when a business rewards an employee with a pay raise or promotion.
But no, she really is not a hero to humanity. If you want someone like that you could look to King or Malala or even Ann Frank or Oscar Shindler. She used the poor as a way to promote the church, her idea of charity wasn't about improving but exploiting.
Now in Catholic history of the idea of Saints, which certainly you can find more kind and pragmatic individuals, the entire concept itself is really a rank reward system, and in that institution's history many of them were not nice and only kind to the church and used poverty and power to promote the church.
Many people don't know outside historians, that the obelisk that stands in the square with the cross on top of it, is the very obelisk Caligula stole from Egypt. Church historians would argue that would symbolize defeat over tyranny. No, even with the adaptation of Christianity and the fall of Rome, it was not until the age of enlightenment that theocracy finally waned which gave rise to secular ideas.
The Vatican like any other religion has ranks and rewards those who promote the club. The concept of Sainthood is a superstition. Teresa had no magic powers, no human does. And the rank system of the Catholic institution is no different than any social structure with other holy people of other religions. It is simply a marketing ploy.
Now here is where Catholics and even people of other religions of falsely accusing the skeptic of hating religion in a bigoted context. NO, I simply hate bad logic. There is no such thing as a "miracle".
Humans of other religions, also have their own words in their own languages as a gap word, when someone seemingly has divine help in surviving something. No, if you survive something it is because the natural conditions existed with countless variables that lead to that outcome. If you die that also is because of countless variables that lead to that outcome.
A simple google search of yearly deaths worldwide will show you on average 50 million to 60 million humans die per year on average from everything. The idea that a divine hand gave a human a "miracle" is simply a gap answer, and based on selection bias and sample rate error.
Teresa was an empathetic human, but that didn't make what she did a pragmatic useful reality for humanity. The amount of "good" people can claim she did, did not negate the negative things produced by her bad logic. She was not a friend of the poor as Hitchens rightfully pointed out, she was a friend to poverty, and enabler not an emancipator.
Now again, I use Catholics because that is the story in the news right now. But, religion as a human invented construct in general is no different in our species history, the complexities of all of them is not my argument. But the idea of a holy person or a holy book and "faith" and following, being a virtue simply is not all it is cracked up to be.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/...story.html
Now for my OP/ED...... The word "miracle" is not a concept owned and copyrighted by the Vatican or Catholic religion first off. All religions have similar motifs of gap filling to explain the seemingly impossible.
I am using Catholics here as an example, but the argument applies to all religions.
There are no humans with magic crystal balls with a special bat phone or those who are closer to the divine than their flocks. A Rabbi isn't talking to a real god anymore than the patron who goes to the Synagogue. An Imam isn't talking to Allah anymore than a patron who attends a Mosque. And the Pope also isn't talking to a god anymore than someone who attends a Catholic church.
Ok, so why does this concept of Sainthood exist? Well, because humans evolved to set up social structures, and we reward those within our clubs whom we think help us and help the club. Really no different than when a medal is given to a soldier for saving a buddy. No different than when a business rewards an employee with a pay raise or promotion.
But no, she really is not a hero to humanity. If you want someone like that you could look to King or Malala or even Ann Frank or Oscar Shindler. She used the poor as a way to promote the church, her idea of charity wasn't about improving but exploiting.
Now in Catholic history of the idea of Saints, which certainly you can find more kind and pragmatic individuals, the entire concept itself is really a rank reward system, and in that institution's history many of them were not nice and only kind to the church and used poverty and power to promote the church.
Many people don't know outside historians, that the obelisk that stands in the square with the cross on top of it, is the very obelisk Caligula stole from Egypt. Church historians would argue that would symbolize defeat over tyranny. No, even with the adaptation of Christianity and the fall of Rome, it was not until the age of enlightenment that theocracy finally waned which gave rise to secular ideas.
The Vatican like any other religion has ranks and rewards those who promote the club. The concept of Sainthood is a superstition. Teresa had no magic powers, no human does. And the rank system of the Catholic institution is no different than any social structure with other holy people of other religions. It is simply a marketing ploy.
Now here is where Catholics and even people of other religions of falsely accusing the skeptic of hating religion in a bigoted context. NO, I simply hate bad logic. There is no such thing as a "miracle".
Humans of other religions, also have their own words in their own languages as a gap word, when someone seemingly has divine help in surviving something. No, if you survive something it is because the natural conditions existed with countless variables that lead to that outcome. If you die that also is because of countless variables that lead to that outcome.
A simple google search of yearly deaths worldwide will show you on average 50 million to 60 million humans die per year on average from everything. The idea that a divine hand gave a human a "miracle" is simply a gap answer, and based on selection bias and sample rate error.
Teresa was an empathetic human, but that didn't make what she did a pragmatic useful reality for humanity. The amount of "good" people can claim she did, did not negate the negative things produced by her bad logic. She was not a friend of the poor as Hitchens rightfully pointed out, she was a friend to poverty, and enabler not an emancipator.
Now again, I use Catholics because that is the story in the news right now. But, religion as a human invented construct in general is no different in our species history, the complexities of all of them is not my argument. But the idea of a holy person or a holy book and "faith" and following, being a virtue simply is not all it is cracked up to be.
