Same sex marriage

[NoMoreFaith]

It always strikes me as inconsistant thinking. Does an atheist paedophile give me the right to accuse all atheists or even imply a correlation?

This is irrelevant to the discussion, but the point is that a church allegedly holds a greater moral ideal as descended from an absolute moral authority. To deliberately try and hide these crimes is additionally immoral.
Its the hypocrisy the religion displays which is the cause of the mockery when the incidents of paedophilic priests goes beyond the statistical norm for a given society.
Thats the correlation there.. beyond the statistical norm.

You lose the moral authority, which is why objecting to homosexuals but not paedophilia is presented in this way.
Your church has no moral authority anymore, so how dare you try to dictate what is moral.

Anyway, back to the subject matter.....

[Creed of Heresy]

It always strikes me as inconsistant thinking. Does an atheist paedophile give me the right to accuse all atheists or even imply a correlation?

This is irrelevant to the discussion, but the point is that a church allegedly holds a greater moral ideal as descended from an absolute moral authority. To deliberately try and hide these crimes is additionally immoral.
Its the hypocrisy the religion displays which is the cause of the mockery when the incidents of paedophilic priests goes beyond the statistical norm for a given society.
Thats the correlation there.. beyond the statistical norm.

You lose the moral authority, which is why objecting to homosexuals but not paedophilia is presented in this way.
Your church has no moral authority anymore, so how dare you try to dictate what is moral.

Anyway, back to the subject matter.....

You know, one of these days, I'm going to learn how to give concise answers like you instead of my usual ramblings. XD

[StatCrux]

Actually, you see, our greatest weakness is our greatest strength. Atheists have no 'moral standing' other than their own. Considering that so very, very, very many pedophiles, rapists, and murderers in jail in the US, for example, are christians [somewhere to the tune of like 88%], and less than 1% of the prison populations are atheists [compare with the population statistics of the country at large; also factor in most of those atheists are probably in for possessing marijuana], you're already standing on weak legs on this argument. Factor in that very, very rarely are two atheists ever alike in their personal beliefs on morals and ethics [and yet somehow commit the fewest crimes per average of populations of all groups in the world, buddhists included], plus factor in that all christians hold themselves up to be paragons of virtue and morality and that their religion makes them essentially good as long as they beg to an unprovable entity of their forgivance, while no atheist dares to hold him or herself up to be a paragon of much of anything beyond what they can empirically bring to the table and the kneecaps of your meager rebuttal have just given out. Atheists are not organized except for the ones who adhere to philosophies like humanism, such as myself. And I urge you to go seeking any stories of humanists murdering, raping, or molesting people. You'll be looking for one of them about as long as you'll be looking for definitive, undetractable proof of god:

Forever.

---

I don't see how statistics make the argument? Are you saying that its perfectly acceptable to imply a group of people are paedophiles depending on how many you find? What is that figure? 5% 10%? What percentage of criminals within a group gives you justification to call or imply they are all paedophiles? I personally take the view that implying any group of people are guilty as a whole because of the actions of some of thier members (regardless of numbers) is at best juvenile and illogical. But some people prefer juvenile and illogical as opposed to discussion in my experience..

[thesummerqueen]

No, we hate the Catholics because they don't disown their members who engage in such acts, but instead protect them and seek to cover it up.

No atheist would stand by a pedo. Why on earth would they?

[LastPoet]

As we all know, marriage is a state sponsored institution in most coutries, and in face of reality and coherently being the egalitarian I am, I see no reason why gay people marriage shouldn't be accepted. As an heterossexual, it doesn't infring on my liberties, doesn't take the valor of my feeling towards my wife, doesn't take money or anything from me. Why should I have anything to do with it?

[KichigaiNeko]

We ARE talking about the Catholic Church?? THE penultimate paedophile organisation on the planet?? And by extention the Orthodox Church (of any persuasion)

The facts are Statcrux...people are quite fed up with the lies, greed and predatory nature of "The Church" and are not predisposed to 'clever arguments such as yours'

End of story.

[LastPoet]

No atheist would stand by a pedo. Why on earth would they?

Ehmmm, except perhaps an atheist pedo O queen, I'm pretty sure there are those around.

[kılıç_mehmet]

Well, I have my own opinion on the same sex marrige thing, but I think that it's not entirely fair to forbid gay couples who wish to share property and enjoy legal rights that result from a marriage. However, I must add that the "concept" of marriage has other undertones besides it's legality.
I think that some of these undertones only apply for straight couples, as they did throughout history, so I think that such unions should be given a seperate existence besides the one of marriage, while having the same legal rights.
But well, that's my opinion.

That is precisely how it already is in the UK. Why push for more? To agitate the situation and create division and confrotation.

The reason why they push for more, is in my opinion, the need to feel more "normal" about themselves.
I think that finding a middle path that will work for everyone is the best way to do it, however obviously, people from both parts try to take it to the extremes.
Some people state that the gays should not even have rights to share property and etc. like in a marriage, while some gay people profess that they should have the rights to "get married" and "have children", which is in my opinion, on the other side of the extremes.
A middle path would work for everyone, which is this.

[Creed of Heresy]

I don't see how statistics make the argument? Are you saying that its perfectly acceptable to imply a group of people are paedophiles depending on how many you find? What is that figure? 5% 10%? What percentage of criminals within a group gives you justification to call or imply they are all paedophiles? I personally take the view that implying any group of people are guilty as a whole because of the actions of some of thier members (regardless of numbers) is at best juvenile and illogical. But some people prefer juvenile and illogical as opposed to discussion in my experience..

Hahahaha, yes. Juvenile and illogical. I just gave you the numerical figures [and you can verify them pretty easily using any basic search engine, or, hell, wikipedia if you wanna find the sources for the US department of corrections] that show that christians overwhelmingly outnumber atheists in prisons for violent and sexual crimes both in sheer numbers AND in gross averages, supplementing the point as well that you simply can't accuse all atheists of being similar because of one or two murderers because the only thing that truly 'unites' us is that we don't believe in god[s]. Whereas christians are all united by a rigid belief system that demands they act a certain way, adhere to a strict code of what god demands, and follow the pentateuch and bible as prophesy and instructive moral literature.

Really, if you can't grasp the points I'm making, hey, that's your problem, I laid it out pretty bare for ya, but don't call me illogical and juvenile in some snide little offhanded way just because of your own limitations, cuz you're fitting the general stereotype of the condescending holier-than-thou christian when you do.

In other words you are proving my point that you can judge most christians by the actions of their peers quickly and easily and with a fair degree of accuracy. Might wanna stop doing that.

[StatCrux]

Its the hypocrisy the religion displays which is the cause of the mockery when the incidents of paedophilic priests goes beyond the statistical norm for a given society.
Thats the correlation there.. beyond the statistical norm.

The 4,392 priests who were accused amount to approximately 4% of the 109,694 priests in active ministry during that time. Of these 4,392, approximately:
Wikipedia


The prevalence of pedophilia in the general population is not known,[3][60] but is estimated to be lower than 5% based on several smaller studies with prevalence rates between 3% and 9%. Wikipedia

The rates of "accused" priests were in line with rates in the population, the rate of convicted priests would be even lower.