What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Randy Carson]

What I don't understand is why people are willing to basically say "priests are bad" but not willing to say "teachers are bad". Especially since it has happened soooo much more often with teachers.

Part of the problem may be that many of the cases came to light within a short period of time. The brushing under the carpet business and shipping around of bad apples has been going on for decades and now it's game over. So people, me included, get the impression of this being rampant. Most, if not all catholic residential schools had cases of sexual or physical abuse. Agreed, some of them having happened as far as 50 years ago, but some of them pretty recently. Which again brings us to the brushing under the carpet issue.

Also, at least in my corner of the world, this isn't the first case of hypocrisy that came to light. In the early 2000s, must have been around 2003 or 2004, there was a case of gay orgies being celebrated in a seminary. The responsible bishop got suspended. Nothing against gay orgies, but if you preach that being gay is wrong, you should at least rise up to the standards. Otherwise you're just being hypocritical, taking the fun out of everybody's life whilst having at it as if there was no tommorow.

There have been numerous cases of priests having affairs with paritioners. Again, nothing against that, since I think celibacy goes against human nature. But if you're having at it, please don't preach it's wrong to have extramarital sex.

So all of this adds up to a pretty ugly picture and it's no big surprise, people don't make the fine distinctions.

I'll be a lot more blunt than CL: the Catholic Church's mistake was in believing that gays could be accepted into the priesthood in the first place without the problems that are being discussed surfacing eventually.

There is no "heterosexual priest" problem in the Catholic Church. There is a "homosexual priest" problem that is being mis-identified by the media as a "pedophile priest" problem. But these aren't straight, horny priests molesting girls. These are predatory homosexuals preying on boys. (And the affairs with parishioners you speak of are nothing in comparison to the problems experienced in Protestant churches.)

So, the irony here is that the Church was TRYING to practice what it preaches by treating these homosexuals as if they were just as qualified for the priesthood as the straight seminarians were. They weren't. But does the Catholic Church get any kudos for that? Hell. No.

And let's lay one other card on the table: homosexuals flocked into the Church in droves during the 50's and 60's because society wasn't ready for them to live as gays openly. What was a gay man to do if he didn't want to explain why he wasn't dating? He considered the priesthood. Final point (and this will drive some of you nuts): Satan, yes, that ancient serpent who is opposed to all of God's plans, has, IMHO, had a hand in all of this. I have no doubts that he has been targeting the Catholic clergy by infiltrating its ranks with men with whom he has an inordinate amount of influence and sway. It is an unseen spiritual battle, and their are plenty of casualties.

Well, I think that historically, we can all agree that Jesus was a real person. Whether or not you believe all that is said about Him is a different story, but the fact that there was a real person in history named Jesus who established Christianity, is fact as far as history is concerned.

No, we can't agree on that, since this is still very much up for debate. Truth is, there's neither physical evidence for his existence nor for his non existence. And, at least as far as we can say it now, there never will be.
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Atheist Tim O'Neill, an occasional member of this forum, has debunked the Jesus Myth convincingly.