The begining of the end for the Catholic Church?

[Jice Virago]

Christianity is the single largest divisive and destructive force in the history of the world. Personally, I think all religeons are mental constructs for weak willed people to lean on, when confronted with the reality of how insignificant their existance is when compared against the cosmic scale of things. Stong willed, educated people do not need some cosmic boogeyman threatening them with eternal suffering to encourage them to do the right thing or tell right from wrong. We have this amazing thing called deductive reasoning and ethical behavior that prevents us from having to pull random passages out of a self contradictory 1700 year old book of parables to justify whatever intollerant assinine behavior we are championing at the moment. There are some faiths that do not promote hatred and outright superstitious fear of science, but any faith runs the risk of all number of travesties of common sense, as critical thought is replaced with dogma.

Lets check our score card for the last 100 years:

Amendment to Ban same sex marriage (Sorry, peter puffers have been around longer than christianity as has the institution of marriage)

Pressuring schools to allow sactioned prayer time (Ok by me if you allow the same thing to the Muslims, Satanists, Wiccans, and Hindus, ect, but we all know you hypocrytical fuckers won't do that)

Pressuring the Educational System to teach Creationalism instead of Evolution (Do I even need to go into this one?)

Ending domestic stem cell research (Gratz Fundies handing the next 50 years of cutting edge medical research to foreign laboratories to satisfy your paranoia of the fetus)

Anti-Abortian Violence (Perhaps before resorting to violance, which your faith prohibits supposedly, you could adopt all the orphans yourselves or help make birth control more available... oh wait your afraid of latex on someone elses money maker too)

Quietly Letting the Nazis have their way with the Jews (Yeah the Nazis were evil but they socked it to them Jews for you, so lets just lay down and play along)

The Klu Klux Klan (Christianity at its finest)

Vast Public incitement of hate against homosexuals and Islamics (No need to go into this one)


Thats just shit from the last century I could come up with off the top of my head. It gets better if you set the wayback machine further....

Outright Public Execution of members of rival religeons (Burn dem witches! They understand how the seasons work, it must be satan!)

Ordering Galeleio's execution for suggesting a non geocentric universe (bahahaha)

The Crusades

The Inquisition


In short, fuck religion. Its never done anything to enlighten, except when it borrows from philosophy. Philosophy works quite well on its own. The sooner people can just accept that death is the end and it is human nature to do the correct thing (its good for the species in general, per natural selection) the sooner the world will be a better place.

[kyoukan]

i want to marry jice irl

do you have a big pe

[Adex_Xeda]

You know Jice, the christains that have been a part of my life have overwhelmingly been honest and caring folk.

When I hear you share your opinion, I have to wonder who you've been exposed to that would sway your opinions of christains so negatively.

The world that you describe through your words seems so different from my experiences.

I wish you lived nearby man. We could hang out and finally you'd have at least one example of a normal guy who happens to be a christian.

[Winnow]

You know Jice, the christains that have been a part of my life have overwhelmingly been honest and caring folk.

When I hear you share your opinion, I have to wonder who you've been exposed to that would sway your opinions of christains so negatively.

The world that you describe through your words seems so different from my experiences.

I wish you lived nearby man. We could hang out and finally you'd have at least one example of a normal guy who happens to be a christian.

Many christians aren't bad people adex. They're just blind like you. Because you're a good person doesn't mean it's the result of believing in a fantasy. There are plenty of good atheists out there as well.

If you stopped believing, would you go out and shoot someone? Give me a break. You require an imaginary security blanket if so. It takes balls the size of church bells to lead a good life without the need to fall back on a cult for psychological comfort that dulls the wits. Grow some.

[Arborealus]

It takes balls the size of church bells to lead a good life without the need to fall back on a cult for psychological comfort that dulls the wits. Grow some.

Ahhh that explains the pain when jogging! thanks...

[Marbus]

And now we see Winnow's self encouragement to tell him "he's" doing the right thing by not believing in God... personally I call bullshit.

It take just as much education or ignorance to believe in nothing as it does something. Sure, in general I have met a lot of uneducated Christian... about their faith I mean. They really haven't thought about it much. They are still fairly smart in other realms just took whatever they were told in regards to religion.

However I have also met just as many ignorant athiest. They don't believe in God because... uh... well because! It's stupid! Well why is it stupid? cause it's stupid... rrriiiigggghhhtttt... and you scored what on the SAT?

I'm NOT saying that Winnow hasn't examined his life though. He has good arguements, seems to have thought things through, has a good head on his shoulders... However I think the statement to Adex is just a little too general. There are followers, leaders and thinkers in every religion, political affiliation etc... just as their are good and bad people in each. I personally don't think any are necessarily "stronger" than any others, they just have different views.

Marb

[Aaeamdar]

When I hear you share your opinion, I have to wonder who you've been exposed to that would sway your opinions of christains so negatively.

Its not a matter of who, its a matter of what. Look at Jice's list. Find a name there. The Crusades is not a Christian. Nor the Klan, nor the Salem Witch Trials, nor the Family Values Coliltion, etc. Those are not people, those are events or institution promulgated by Christianity. You don't have to meet people to understand that all Humans everywhere would be much better off if Christianity was stamped out.

You can drone on and on about how Chritianity teachs love, acceptence and forgiveness all you like, but the Church, like anyone or anything else, is not judged in history by its message, but it is judged by its actions. Chrisitianty is responsible for more violence, torture and murder than any other instution in the history of man. As repugnant as Hilter and Stalin were, they could not hold a candel to the burning Sun of evil that is Christianity.

It is not love the lights a Jew on fire for refusing to accept Christ as her saviour.

It is not acceptance that strings a black man upon a tree for daring to live free.

It is not grace that sexually mollests a child taken under the trusting guidence of a Priest.

There is a word that describes all of those acts, and that word is evil.

And at the heart of your religion, regardless of all the lip service you give to peace, love and forgiveness - evil is what is found. Your beloved institutions have an unbroken record spaning over a thousand years, and that record at every turn shows nothing but dispicable acts of violence against humanity. Those acts continue into this day, yet some how you are blind to this. You sit and profess your faith in a loving God never able to see the true evil that drives the institutions that proport to serve His will.

You are identical in all respects to the Catholics who turn a blind eye to this latest travesty, in a long history of travesties.

Do you know what I would do - the soleless, atheist - if I ever discovered, or for that matter, even suspected, that I was supporting with my voice, my time and my money, an organization that systematically institutionalized the molestation of children? I would stop. Immediately. That instituion would not get from me antoher word of support, another second of my time, nor another penny of my money. Why? Because its wrong. Instiutions like that need to be stamped out.

What do you do in the same circumstances? You continue to give it your voice, you continue to give it your time, you continue to give it your money. All the while you ring your hands and decry the tragety, but you do NOTHING.

In the end, the simple and principal diffence between you and I is that I am a moral man with no faith, and you are a man of faith with no morals.

[Deward]

Well said Aaemdar and Jice.

I am agnostic and I would like to think I live a good moral life. I don't have to resort to religion to be my crutch and I am pretty happy just leading a good life. The article above stated that 4% of priests were child molesters. I think that is a conservative estimate given the study was sponsored by the Church itself. The sad part is that this has been going on for hundreds of years and people are still too stupid to believe that their church is corrupt. I don't have a problem if you want to worship something but why ever would you people worship through a Church known for covering up this evil.

[Atokal]

What do you do in the same circumstances? You continue to give it your voice, you continue to give it your time, you continue to give it your money. All the while you ring your hands and decry the tragety, but you do NOTHING.

In the end, the simple and principal diffence between you and I is that I am a moral man with no faith, and you are a man of faith with no morals.

Oh my moral and agnostic friend just what have you done to help these poor kids that have been molested?

Where are your morals, you are a lawyer for craps sakes. ALL Lawyers have no morals we all know this to be fact. For centuries lawyers have twisted the law, gotten murderers off, litigated so much that the medical profession, insurance companies etc have to put prices through the roof. The reward is the almighty dollar, the currency you and your ilk measure your morals in.

Don't talk to me about your morals my friend.

In the end you are a simple man, with no beliefs and no principles because you are a LAWYER right?

/sarcasm off

Painting ALL people of faith with the same brush shows a lack of intelligence which I know you possess.

[Wulfran]

In a way, I find this thread amusing because it mirrors discussions I have had with my parents for the past 15-20 years. They always expressed disappointment and hurt that I won't go to church and do not consider myself a Christian. I see quite a few references to acts of intolerance in Jice's list that I used to use as well. Their response of "its Man's corruptiing of God's word" didn't and doesn't do anything for me.

However the following statement does bother me a bit:

Those are not people, those are events or institution promulgated by Christianity. You don't have to meet people to understand that all Humans everywhere would be much better off if Christianity was stamped out.

Given that an absence of Christianity would have created a power vacuum in some parts of history, and likely a "spiritual" and moral one, as well, how can you be so sure that the alternative would have been any better? I mean we can look to the Romans, as a building block of our society and see a pretty wide swing in ethical values. The Emperor Justinian created (or at least fomalized) a set of laws that heavily influence us even today, but at the same time, Roman society was built on slavery, conquest and is known for the love of its citizens to wager on arena combat.

Also in refence to the Nazis and Stalin, how do you judge evil? By its total body count? Per annum? By its longevity?

Fighting zealots by becoming one in the opposite cause doesn't make you much different than they are...

[Voronwë]

Fighting zealots by becoming one in the opposite cause doesn't make you much different than they are...

Religions are just like political parties or sports affiliations in a generic sense.

they are nothing more than a manner to satisfy our natural need for social affiliation. We are a social animal, like all other primates. What differentiates religion, is that the behaviors are particularly ritualized and as such have an extremely potent emotional effect on the participants. Part of that is of course due to the subject matter that the religions address vs. political parties and the like.

But ultimately in its primitive form, religion is synonymous with ethnic affiliation. Even as late in our history as 3000 years ago, this still holds true for Jews. the race and the religion are inseperable.

as religion has become more derived, and societies become more genetically heterogeneous, our basal tribalism has still been satisfied.

Most of you probably go to a church where 99% of the people have the same skin color as you do. Why is that? People go to church to feel a part of a social group. People naturally feel more comfortable with those who are visibly genetically similar. It isnt just the appearance, but through subcultural processes, there are often behavioral and linguistic commonalities as well.

It may seem like i'm condemming churchgoers as tribalistic fools. I'm not at all.

All of us at one level or another hitch our identity to various groups that we affiliate with.

whether it is being a Phish-head or being a member of "Sovereign" in EQ. it is all ultimately to satisfy the same innate need.

Perhaps i kind of over-generalize, but we have to talk about something =). Anyway, anybody else besides me like books like "The Power of Myth"?

[Aslanna]

I can tolerate any religion. And people are free to practice and believe in what they want. What I don't like it when they start trying to convert me and get in my face telling me if I don't share their beliefs I'm a sinner and going to hell. Which usually happens when religion gets "organized."

You found god and meaning in your life? I'm happy for you. Just leave me the fuck alone. You do that and we'll get along fine, whether you're jewish, chrisatian, muslim, buddish, mormon, etc... I can respect each religion. It's usually the religious that have a problem with everyone else that doesn't share their beliefs.

[Siji]

but any faith runs the risk of all number of travesties of common sense, as critical thought is replaced with dogma.

I can't stop reading that as:

"but any faith runs the risk of all number of transvestites of common sense, as critical thought is replaced with dogma."

[Adex_Xeda]

Aaeamdar,

All you have successfully argued that there is evil in the world. Hey man I agree. There is evil in this world because we're in it.

We're all flawed, we all fail, we all harm others in some way or another. It's the dark side effect of free will.

What makes a christain different is that they recognize that they're evil, and that they seek the perfection of God to better themselves. That is noble.

Can evil people do noble things? Yea, they can.

You say that I'd blindly give money to molesters. Nope, I don't.

The majority of my limited tithes go towards funding a day care center in our community that offers free services to working people who can't afford it. I try my best to be a good steward of my money. If something was unethical or illegal with this I'd stop sending money.

I'm sure my sentiments represent 99% of people who give.

Our world is saturated with evil. You say the church has done evil things. Yea, I've done evil things, You've done evil things.

I know that through my contact with God, he's changed my heart and I do less evil today, than I'd do without him. He's real good at fixing a screwed up heart.

[Dalmoth]

Four Aethists are responsible for more deaths in history than any group throughout recorded history. These are all people that refuted God's existence.

Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pat

Claiming to being a christian is one thing, living it is something entirely different. The popes that called for the crusades felt they were doing the right thing for the church, but it was going against Jesus' teaching. They were acting decidingly un-Christian from my point of view.

Aedamar, you say Christian's should be eliminated from the face of the planet and you try to tell me in the same breath that I'm evil, you have the lions to throw me to already trained? The "don't shove it down my throat" line is getting trite when I hear statements like this from folks that don't believe in God. The same applies to you, if you don't want to talk about religion then don't talk about it. If you want to make statements like that, you had expect to get an earful.

Because it was asked........

I don't have any figures on child molestation, but here is what I saw Wed on NBC regarding sexual attacks...

5% is the national average of sexual attacks in the US.
10% is the average of sexual of ex-military personell. Most of these are reported in such a way that civilian authority never knows they exist even decades later.

Now Aedamar, by your own statements you would have to turn your back on everyone that was ever in the military, the goverment, everything derived from either of these institutions because they have and continually cover up this type of crap, assuming your American. If your not, kindly fill in what country your from and I'll see what your government is guilty of so you can kindly go live out your existence some place else.

You know what, grow up. See that evil people exist in the world and in EVERY organization, good organizations can be infilitrated by evil people and evil ones can be infiltrated by good ones. Orginazations can flip flop over the course of years as society changes as well. The catholic church is experiencing what they should be experiencing for hiding these monsters for the past 50 years and more. It does not mean that all the good those institutions is suddenly obviated because some were evil.

Those priests weren't christians in any sense of the word. They were evil and used the church to get what they desired, pure and simple. The church should have dealt with them by turning them over to the authorities in the first place.

The KKK is not a christian organization, I would further say that any member in said organization is deluding themselves if they believe they are christians. Spreading hate is the exact opposite over everything Jesus taught.

Edit to Add:

The creationism vs. evolutionist argument is largely centered around schools teaching evolutionism as fact and the only fact. When in reality it is still only Theory. If you actually go to the trouble to get a copy of the original manuscript of Darwin's even he says that he has flaws. Evolutionism is built on top of naturilism and frankly it has every characteristic of religion in and of itself. Christian's mostly want equal time or no time at all for the opposing view, I personally could care less either way on this point.

Lets not forget that Darwin himself promoted that white men were superior to all other races, I've never found where he had proof that it was the case, just that he thought so. These particular passages of Darwin's works are no longer in print and haven't been for years, why? Because those supporting his views know that it undermines their agenda, so they conviently omit them.

[Winnow]

Four Aethists are responsible for more deaths in history than any group throughout recorded history. These are all people that refuted God's existence.

Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pat

Because it was asked........

Those priests weren't christians in any sense of the word. They were evil and used the church to get what they desired, pure and simple. The church should have dealt with them by turning them over to the authorities in the first place.

The KKK is not a christian organization, I would further say that any member in said organization is deluding themselves if they believe they are christians. Spreading hate is the exact opposite over everything Jesus taught.

There is only one true christian and that is Dalmoth! Everyone else is deluding themselves. It sounds like a bunch of excuses for "christians" that really aren't christians. Oh those popes werent really christians, KKKers that went right from the church to the cross burnings weren christians...ah yes...excuses for a totally whacked and revised cult. Weed out all of the fake christians and you have a few sheep left that are good people with a need for a faith security blanket which is fine.

Try this one on for size. Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pat were atheists that really weren't atheists. They were deluding themselves!

Worst argument evah! Thanks for playing.

[Adex_Xeda]

I swear we never get anywhere when talking about stuff like this.

[Aaeamdar]

The church should have dealt with them by turning them over to the authorities in the first place.

Ummm, yes, it should have. But it didn't. Not only that, it actively participated in covering up the priests behavior and moved the preists around so that the new "flock" would not be suspicious, thus giving access to even more unwitting victims. In other words, rather than harshly rebuke these men and see to it that justice was had, the Church created and fostered an environment that benefited these molesters and provided them with victims. At that point, its not just "the acts of a few bad men."

Furthermore, even in the light of all this, the Church maintains its "internal policeing" policy and still, as policy, refuses to give to authorities the names of the preists accused. It still settles complaints in secrecy with the families of the victims.

What do you want to do about such an institution. Apparently your answer is - defend it, fund it, participate in it. Why?

[Atokal]

Four Aethists are responsible for more deaths in history than any group throughout recorded history. These are all people that refuted God's existence.

Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pat

Because it was asked........

Those priests weren't christians in any sense of the word. They were evil and used the church to get what they desired, pure and simple. The church should have dealt with them by turning them over to the authorities in the first place.

The KKK is not a christian organization, I would further say that any member in said organization is deluding themselves if they believe they are christians. Spreading hate is the exact opposite over everything Jesus taught.

There is only one true christian and that is Dalmoth! Everyone else is deluding themselves. It sounds like a bunch of excuses for "christians" that really aren't christians. Oh those popes werent really christians, KKKers that went right from the church to the cross burnings weren christians...ah yes...excuses for a totally whacked and revised cult. Weed out all of the fake christians and you have a few sheep left that are good people with a need for a faith security blanket which is fine.

Try this one on for size. Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pat were atheists that really weren't atheists. They were deluding themselves!

Worst argument evah! Thanks for playing.

How is this the worst argument ever?
There is a gage by which Christians are measured and that gage is the teachings of Christ. Not one verse in the new testament says to kill anyone. Rather Christs teach and the greatest commandment of all is to love thy neighbour as thyself.

The popes in charge of the Crusades were not following those teachings.
The KKK doesn't subscribe to those teachings either.

Now what gage do you measure an aethiest by?

Your argument that Christianity is a security blanket is also false historically and today. People have been executed for believing in Christ and although that still happens today it more than likely takes the form of ridicule for ones beliefs. How this is a security blanket or a crutch escapes me.



Thanks for playing

[Winnow]

Your argument that Christianity is a security blanket is also false historically and today. People have been executed for believing in Christ and although that still happens today it more than likely takes the form of ridicule for ones beliefs. How this is a security blanket or a crutch escapes me.

It's a psychological security blanket from the fear of death and the unknown...not from someone killing you for your beliefs.

You still were making up more excuses for bad christians. The problem is there's a ton of them. Excuses aren't really needed when you can go to confession and wipe the slate. Atheists don't need that out either. They live and die with what they choose to do. I wouldn't mind popping into a church, confessing all my sins and be on my way to go screw up again! Sounds like a good deal to me. It also sounds like a license to do whatever you want then get off with some hail marys and a few copped feels from a priest.