[split] Big Announcement and Invitation

[robvalue]

Exactly. It's a rotten false dichotomy.

God makes robots OR you have to be able to molest children.

I think religion often encourages this kind of binary thinking.

[Cyberman]

"You can always rely on the Catholic church's moral compass - whatever direction it points you should go the other way" -- P Z Myers

[Randy Carson]

Yes, it is. But not one the media wants to talk about. Homosexuals are preying upon these kids...homosexual priests to be sure, but they are part of the homosexual community. And this doesn't fit well with the current love-affair that the media has with the LGBT agenda.

They are part of the theist community.  You know, the community that says "without god, we wouldn't be moral".  Now, by behaving in such an immoral fashion, are they actually saying that there is no god -- or are they saying that that line about morality requiring god is bullshit?

Or, and you will shudder to think it,  are they saying both?

You follow the moral teachings of the rudderless.

It happens in schools, it happens in Protestant Churches, it happens in Catholic Churches, it happened at Penn State, etc, etc. But the Catholic Church draws the heavy fire. Why do you suppose that is?

I've criticized it wherever I've seen it. Paterno and Penn State caught hell for their oversights. I will be happy to list the protestant perverts who have done this misdeed, and excoriate them as well.

But while you're busy pointing the finger at others, you still haven't answered the question, which is why do you follow the moral authority of a church which generates and protects perverts?

I almost feel bad for having to point out to you that simply because someone else did the same thing, it doesn't excuse your Sunday padre his little lustful moment with the choirboy.  That whole "two wrongs don't make a right" thing.  You might have heard of it -- but then again, to judge from your posts in this thread, you might not be familiar with the idea.

Please cite the post # wherein I defended priests who have committed this or any crime. Are you actually following the thread at all?

Numbers 29, 40, 44, and 53 -- you repeatedly attempt to deflect attention away from the fact that your own "holy" men bugger children, by bringing up other examples.  Additionally, you brush off the words of your own Christ regarding the genesis of corruption in an organization in order to preserve your viewpoint that the Catholic hierarchy has behaved appropriately in regards to the molestations it has protected and enabled.

You're not fooling anyone with your slimy rhetoric. If a Catholic priest does it, you will either justify it, or deflect from it, and both are forms of defense. In these cases, you've chosen the latter method. You're not fooling anyone here.

You are defending child molesters by trying to deflect attention from them onto others.  You are refusing to address the point that a moral authority such as a priest should not be doing things like, you know, fucking children in the ass.

I did, and you have not understood. See my previous posts.

Oh, I understand quite well what you're up to; I simply have no time for bullshit. You will quit deflecting and present your position on the Church's defense of child molesters, or you will continue to be regarded as a defender of child molestation.

If you don't like that, tough shit.  If you lay down with dogs, you're bound to get fleas.

Quit the dissimulation, and speak the truth.

You are speaking here of physical death? Yes, death is a result of the fall. But your experience of life does not end when you stop breathing, Parker. Your spirit continues on living. FOREVER. 

Evidence, please.

But you're pissed because people die? Even of old age? And that's God's fault because we don't live forever?

No, Einstein.  I'm saying that you criticizing an atheist regime for killing a hundred million while your god has killed literally billions according to your own holy book is a clear case of double standard brought about by bias.

This isn't rocket surgery.  Pay attention to what is being said and quit trying to be clever, because  let's face it, you're not qualified for that. Your own holy book says that god introduced mortality into mankind as a result of the Fall. Do you really want to argue otherwise? Are you so unlearnt that you need chapter and verse?

Or are you simply being dishonest?

How many people has the Catholic Church declared to be in hell, Parker? Ballpark number?

I don't give two shits rubbed together what your church has to say about something of which it has no knowledge.

You're suggesting that Christianity teaches the rape of children as one of its formal doctrines?

Do you have any support for this position?

Is English your native tongue?

Reread what I wrote, and don't insult my intelligence with this sort of tripe again.

Parker-

I have not defended the priests who were guilty in any way. Instead, I said they should be prosecuted and those bishops who protected them should be retired. This is a fact that is easily verifiable from my posts.

I have pointed out that the percentage of homosexual priests who preyed on young people is far lower than the percentage of school teachers who do the same thing. That is not a defense; it is a fact. But you don't want to stop to consider that the number of homosexuals who prey on children is LOWER in the priesthood than in the general population, do you?

Why is that, Parker? If the facts reveal that Catholic priests are LESS likely to abuse children than the guy living down the street from you, that just screws your whole "why I hate the Catholic Church thing", doesn't it? And instead of being able to claim that Christianity "generates" perverts, you may have to consider that Christianity heals them. And that spoils all your fun.

But here's a fun alternative for you: the Catechism of the Catholic Church is available online with a great search tool here: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

See if you can find anything in the Catechism which encourages pedophilia or homosexuality. Either show where the teaching of the Catholic Church "generates" perverts or admit that it does not.

Oh, and one other answer you won't find: the Church does not teach that anyone is in hell.

Your argument that God is guilty of murder is ludicrous.

---

Right. Any place where gays will be discriminated against just for being gay is not somewhere in interested in going to.

Even priests who are supposedly very close to God and talk to him and all that, still can't be persuaded not to abuse children. And God watches them do it, not stepping in, not even throwing them out of his church. Fuck free will. If someone is harming someone else, the harmed party has had their free will compromised. So why is the free will of the abuser to be preserved as precious while the poor child loses their free will, they can't get away, while this sick fuck abuses his authority and trust? God is not punishing them, neither is the church.

Bollocks piss weasels fuck balls to it all. Until the Catholic Church hands over their abusive priests to the police, along with all the evidence they hold, and does so in the future as soon as a crime is committed, it is a criminal organisation. Fucking arse shards. God cannot even keep his own house clean, so he can get lost.

Rob-

How many priests have been disciplined or defrocked? Do you have any clue?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/vatican-reve...ince-2004/

---

Exactly. It's a rotten false dichotomy.

God makes robots OR you have to be able to molest children.

I think religion often encourages this kind of binary thinking.

Rob-

How would God create a people who were NOT "robots" if they were denied free will?

And if an all-powerful God cannot create such people, how will widespread or universal acceptance of atheism create better people and prevent the rape of children?

[robvalue]

No, I don't know numbers. But have these people been turned over the police, along with the evidence, to see them jailed? Just kicking them out of the church is not enough.

As for free will, we could be made so that we only think about and do things that are positive, and cannot conceive of or do anything harmful. I imagine such a world very easily when I close my eyes. Now, if God is in fact hampered by arbitrary rules, then the question becomes is it responsible for him to be doing anything since he is accountable to no one? He has also made my imagination more powerful than him. Don't you find that odd?

As Esq said, free will does not mean we can do anything. It means we can try. I hold God responsible for the existence of pain, suffering, death, negative emotions etc. If these are all things he cannot work around, then I think it's mighty presumptious of him to just proceed regardless.

Atheism? Atheism makes no claims that it will prevent anything. Theists make the claims that God is in control of everything, so they are the ones saying there is someone who could actually stop things from happening such as child rape, but doesn't. I'm pointing out the flaws in such a belief.

Give me the keys to the universe and I'll stop it immediately. If God can't stop it, he's not very powerful at all.

[Randy Carson]

No, I don't know numbers. But have these people been turned over the police, along with the evidence, to see them jailed? Just kicking them out of the church is not enough.

But at that point, it's up to the civil authorities to prosecute them if the evidence is sufficient.

As for free will, we could be made so that we only think about and do things that are positive, and cannot conceive of or do anything harmful. I imagine such a world very easily when I close my eyes. Now, if God is in fact hampered by arbitrary rules, then the question becomes is it responsible for him to be doing anything since he is accountable to no one? He has also made my imagination more powerful than him. Don't you find that odd?

That would be kinda like a train which cannot leave the rails on which it rides. It can still only go where the tracks have been laid. How much freedom does the engineer have to go WHEREVER he wants.

As Esq said, free will does not mean we can do anything. It means we can try. I hold God responsible for the existence of pain, suffering, death, negative emotions etc. If these are all things he cannot work around, then I think it's mighty presumptious of him to just proceed regardless.

Well, you seem to be arguing that God should not have created anything, then.

Atheism? Atheism makes no claims that it will prevent anything. Theists make the claims that God is in control of everything, so they are the ones saying there is someone who could actually stop things from happening such as child rape, but doesn't. I'm pointing out the flaws in such a belief.

If your website is successful, and everyone in the world becomes an atheist, will child rape stop?

Give me the keys to the universe and I'll stop it immediately. If God can't stop it, he's not very powerful at all.

Another tyrant is born.

[Minimalist]

How many priests have been disciplined or defrocked? Do you have any clue?

Completely misses the point....as usual.  People are never as discreet as they think they are.  How do you suppose they got away with it for years without anyone else knowing what was going on?  Short answer, they all knew.  But no one dared say anything to rock the boat.  How many were protected by their bishops?  How many were simply transferred to new parishes? Even you can't ( or at least shouldn't) be so blind as to think that all of these law suits are one-shot deals.  

You have a corrupt institution which was far more concerned with protecting its assets than the asses of altar boys.  That they are being forced to grudgingly clean up their act under threat does them no credit at all.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Parker-

I have not defended the priests who were guilty in any way. Instead, I said they should be prosecuted and those bishops who protected them should be retired. This is a fact that is easily verifiable from my posts.

No. What you've done is pointed at others in an attempt to avoid addressing the fact that the church you support protects molesters. By the attempted deflection, you seek to defend it.

I have pointed out that the percentage of homosexual priests who preyed on young people is far lower than the percentage of school teachers who do the same thing. That is not a defense; it is a fact. But you don't want to stop to consider that the number of homosexuals who prey on children is LOWER in the priesthood than in the general population, do you?

Why are you bringing up teachers? We're talking about the perverts you are financially and spiritually supporting.

Oh, that's right: you're bringing up teachers because you don't want to accept responsibility for your rotten tree, which bears rotten fruit, which you yourself assist in nurturing.

Why is that, Parker? If the facts reveal that Catholic priests are LESS likely to abuse children than the guy living down the street from you

No, it doesn't, because you'd have to know the criminal demongraphics of my neighborhood in order to compare your criminals to the ones here.

But -- I'm not defending the criminals here.

that just screws your whole "why I hate the Catholic Church thing", doesn't it? And instead of being able to claim that Christianity "generates" perverts, you may have to consider that Christianity heals them. And that spoils all your fun.

Are you kidding? The fact is, the most of the teachers who despoil children also claim Christianity as their faith, here in America. The most of the prisoners, for all crimes, here in America, claim Christianity as their faith.

If Christianity heals child molesters, why are there pervert priests?

But here's a fun alternative for you: the Catechism of the Catholic Church is available online with a great search tool here: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

See if you can find anything in the Catechism which encourages pedophilia or homosexuality. Either show where the teaching of the Catholic Church "generates" perverts or admit that it does not.

See, anyone conversant in the English language would have already understood that I didn't claim that. I did not say that the teaching generated the immorality. My point here, which you are dodging with exceptional alacrity, is that if morality is sourced in your god, why do not his preachers exemplify the moral life? Why do they molest children, embezzle donations, and encourage Africans to die from AIDS by promulgating lies about safe sex?

Now, you can dodge the question again, or you can answer it, but believe me, your integrity is on display. It is yours to keep or lose. Answer my question.

Oh, and one other answer you won't find: the Church does not teach that anyone is in hell.

I did not say it did, dumbass. Would you kindly quit positing strawmen?

Your argument that God is guilty of murder is ludicrous.

You should perhaps read both what I wrote, and also your own alleged holy book:

22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

Clearly your mythology describes your god as denying eternal life to men, and that, you know, means that folks gotta die. Now, I had thought you were smart enough to figure that out, but it looks like I was wrong about you.

So the next time you're having a problem understanding what I'm saying, just ask me, and I'll be happy to help you. Because if you continue being a dillrod, you will receive this sort of treatment.

[Randy Carson]

But here's a fun alternative for you: the Catechism of the Catholic Church is available online with a great search tool here: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

See if you can find anything in the Catechism which encourages pedophilia or homosexuality. Either show where the teaching of the Catholic Church "generates" perverts or admit that it does not.

See, anyone conversant in the English language would have already understood that I didn't claim that.  I did not say that the teaching generated the immorality.  

Yeah, ya did, Parker. You wrote:

"But while you're busy pointing the finger at others, you still haven't answered the question, which is why do you follow the moral authority of a church which generates and protects perverts?"

Having overplayed your hand, you're now trying to say, "I never said the teaching caused the problem...it's the church." Well, Parker, can you clarify for us all exactly how you distinguish between the teaching of Christianity and the members of the Church who fail to live up to those teachings?

Because once you do that, Parker, you will have the answer to all the questions you are asking of me.