RE: Meaningfulness v meaninglessness; theism vs atheism;
January 15, 2011 at 9:04 pm
(This post was last modified: January 15, 2011 at 9:21 pm by dqualk.)
Shell B;114443 Wrote:dqualk, it is you that is making yourself sound worse. If anything, the church seeks to quell atheists. Atheism doesn't "flourish." Its prominence has come about through the willingness of a lot of good men to stand true to their beliefs, despite the fact that the church could punish them heavily. Now your stupid ass church cannot kill us blasphemers and lovers of demons. I bet that pisses you off.
I would never ever ever ever desire your death. I would always fight that you would live and live well.
I thought atheist were too rational to believe in the supernatural. This furthers my earlier point that a study showed that athesist are something liek 5 times more likely to use horoscopes, astrology, and beleive in witchcraft, ghosts etc. then Christians.
Quote:No. You are wrong. It has nothing to do with the tolerance of Christianity. It has more to do with the scientific enlightenment of the renaissance (which the church hated since so many of the convictions it held onto and told people were true turned out to be false and stupid), and the emergence of free democratic states with strong civil liberties, which meant that the Church could no longer burn heretics at the stake.
The scientific enligtenment happened within the Christian context, civil liberties grew out of the Church's teachings that man has intrinsic value, namely life liberty and the pursuit of happiness that are outside of a governments rightful power to interfere with. Most people during the Renaissance were Christians. Nearly all who became atheists were Christnas before they left the faith and left the faith within a Christian society, that had, thankfully matured enough, to recognize taht killing them did not help soceity. Once again the Church in the medieval and earlier only condoned killing if it was necessary for the security of the secular realm. It was a grievous sin to force someone to convert through force. For example, Charles the Great was nearly excommunicated for forcing Saxons to convert. However, the Church allowed England etc. to burn heretics only because the Crowns said that if these heretics lived they woudl cause rebellion that would cause teh death and destruction of more good things. Even then it was not encouraged merely permissible. A good example of teh Church and killing is the Christian Just War theory. Do Christians always do what they beleive? No. Does anyone? No.
Ryft Wrote:dqualk Wrote:Is it enough to lay all the blame on the institution of the Catholic Church?
Yes.
dqualk Wrote:Well, concerning the molestation of children, the Church did not "allow it to happen." As an institution she does everything she can to stop the molestation of children.
Like hell she does.
dqualk Wrote:The "cover ups" are not so bad as they sound. People cover up crimes like this for all sorts of reason, not all of which are evil.
You officially disgust me. Good bye.
Ryft how can the Church stop the molestation. What measures would you put in place? Listen Ryft, I clearly do not mean what you are pretending I mean. What I am saying is that these cover ups are far more complicated then just the Church as a whole covered something up. Bad bishops made bad decisions. This does not mean we blame the whole Church. When one Christian does something evil we do not say that Christianity is herself evil. This is what you and others are doing. The fact is the cover ups should be judged individually for how evil they are. Say a 17 year old gay man is sleeping with a 60 year old gay priest, both are doing so willingly. Lets say 30 years later people are handing out millions of dollars to anyone molested by a priest. Now the gay guys wants money etc. This is not the case in every abuse, and it still does not make it right but its not so evil as it sounds. Its more complciated. Also, the Church as a whole has a code of canon law in place that deals with the issue in a very appropraite way. Bishops and priests were ignoring canon law, without the consent of other bishops and priests. They were "covering it up." So the Pope and other bishops didnt know, if they did they would have put a stop to it sooner. As soon as it came to light the Church acted with immediate action by defrocking and doing whatever necessary to protect kids. Why don't you give me a break Ryft rather than being hateful toward me? Or at least be kind enough to ask me to clear up my position. And maybe give me the benefit of the doubt? Clearly I'm not saying the molestation is not that evil or the act of covering up evil is not that evil. I mean only to say that hte Church is not evil because of the actions of a few, just like the Public School system is not evil because of the actions of some bad principles and teachers et al.
