Australian Politics Forum - Catholicism a blight on our society

Acid Monkey Gold Member Offline Goth Father Posts: 1064 EU Gender:	Re: Catholicism a blight on our society Reply #15 - Jul 15^th, 2008 at 12:52pm All guitars and grins?
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muso

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Re: Catholicism a blight on our society
Reply #16 - Jul 15^th, 2008 at 4:00pm

mozzaok wrote on Jul 14^th, 2008 at 10:19pm:

As a born and raised catholic, I can tell muso that the catholics are no better than the other religions, at the end of the day they are all deluding, self serving, deceitful bastards.
I mean the churches, or religions, not all the individuals unfortunate enough to have been brainwashed with their religious codswallop, and without the intellectual capacity, or integrity to realise or admit their mistake.

bugger religion, it sucks.

Have you seen those poor silly buggers on the telly, all guitars, and grins, and halleluhahs, I think they could all use a good sexual encounter. I think they may be slap happy. I am sure they are nice enough, but they wouldn't have an original thought amongst the lot of them.

Religion is just another way of thinking - and one that you and I don't really understand, but I've spent enough time with religious people to understand that they are mostly fair dinkum. They are not deluding anyone - for the most part. They just have a different method of parsing reality than you or me.

The way I think of it is this: The thinking process is necessarily 'idiomatic'. Most of us tend to speak in ways that use idioms. We cut up reality into 'easy to digest' chunks that we can deal with or understand. (That was an example of and idiomatic thought - we don't actually eat thoughts. ). We are so used to thinking idiomatically that we sometimes forget that reality is a continuum, and not composed of little discrete idioms. We start to believe in the idioms. For example, we believe that the nail 'doesn't want' to go into the wood.

We even formalise idioms, for example as Meridian lines. Meridian lines don't exist. Longitude varies continuously as we travel from East to West, but we find it convenient to draw imaginary lines all over the world to make it easier to understand. How many other imaginary things do we work with every day in order to better understand reality? Are you deluding yourself, or are you just being human?

In the same way I think of 'God' as an idiom. Many people think of God as being real in a way that I don't understand. Maybe I don't have the brain architecture to appreciate God, or maybe other people have the brain architecture that perceives God.

Who knows?

(edited to fix a niggling grammatical error)

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« Last Edit: Jul 16^th, 2008 at 11:33am by muso »

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mozzaok

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Re: Catholicism a blight on our society
Reply #17 - Jul 15^th, 2008 at 8:31pm

I give you points for trying muso, and I do not go around telling people they are deluded in their beliefs, but in a forum situation I just speak my mind without trying to purposely offend, but also not sugar coating so as not to.

It seems to me like you are being sensitive to others' feelings, which I would also do in a normal social encounter, but I am confident you have no argument that would challenge my assertion that religion is one very buggered up philosophy for life.
The delusion I speak of is self delusion.

I know people who are turds, but try and display a pious facade, as if they were trying to "buy" a good seat in heaven, they I consider to be warped individuals.

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OOPS!!! My Karma, ran over your Dogma!

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Pommy Bastard

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Re: Catholicism a blight on our society
Reply #18 - Jul 21^st, 2008 at 5:42pm

muso wrote on Jul 14^th, 2008 at 12:01pm:

It's actually a myth that the suggestion that Catholic priests remain unmarried contributes to child abuse. I heard a report on this recently that sounded reasonable.

But isn't the FACT that the Catholic church has harboured, given succour too, and even enabled paedophiles* far more than any other church, to the point of them being renowned for it, a BIG cause for concern?

4% of all sexual abuse in the United States was caused by Catholic priests.

*By hiding their abuse, and moving them onto other parishes where they will have acces to kids, not reporting them to the police.

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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 52822 At my desk.	Re: Catholicism a blight on our society Reply #19 - Jul 22^nd, 2008 at 12:01pm But isn't the FACT that the Catholic church has harboured, given succour too, and even enabled paedophiles far more than any other church* Did you just make that up?
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Pommy Bastard Full Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 105	Re: Catholicism a blight on our society Reply #20 - Jul 22^nd, 2008 at 1:59pm Not really. Can you name me one other world wide organisation, let alone church, which has been proven to have harboured, given succour too, and even enabled paedophiles, on the scale of the catholic church?
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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 52822 At my desk.	Re: Catholicism a blight on our society Reply #21 - Jul 22^nd, 2008 at 2:06pm No. I'm not the one making outlandish claims. You made the comparison, you back it up.
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Pommy Bastard Full Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 105	Re: Catholicism a blight on our society Reply #22 - Jul 22^nd, 2008 at 4:28pm a) There is nothing outlandish about my claim. b) I can find no information against any other organisation which has harboured, given succour too, and enabled paedophiles, on the scale of the catholic church. c)However there is a surplus of evidence of the catholic church's complicity in this. d) Back to you.
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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 52822 At my desk.	Re: Catholicism a blight on our society Reply #23 - Jul 22^nd, 2008 at 4:32pm I can find no information against any other organisation Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. However there is a surplus of evidence of the catholic church's complicity in this. Sigh. What evidence?
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Pommy Bastard

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Re: Catholicism a blight on our society
Reply #24 - Jul 22^nd, 2008 at 4:50pm

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The John Jay Report, commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, found accusations against 4,392 priests in the USA, equalling about 4% of all U.S. priests between 1950 and 2002.

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During a recent visit to the United States Pope Benedict admitted that he is "deeply ashamed" of the clergy sex abuse scandal that has devastated the American church. The American Catholic Church has paid out $2 billion in abuse costs since 1950

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An example of the policy of shifting offenders from place to place is demonstrated in the case of Fr Ramos. Typical of these examples he was reassigned to another parish after treatment. An unknown Church official in 1985 took telephone notes that indicate an awareness of his continuing child molestation by Church officials well after his initial psychological treatment in the late 1970s. In spite of this knowledge that he re-offended, he continued to molest for a further two years and accumulated 25 allegations of abuse in total.

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O'Grady details how he preyed on children, how the Diocese of Stockton, California, knew about the abuse, and how O'Grady claims church officials allowed him to abuse children for two decades by moving him from parish to parish instead of removing him from ministry.

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Chilling too are the reasons that O'Grady agreed to be interviewed on camera: He wants to force L.A. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and other church officials to acknowledge they knew of his abuse and transferred him to a new parish every time a family complained

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Geoghan, 66, who goes on trial Monday, had been moved from parish to parish for years, even though the archdiocese had evidence he sexually abused children. Geoghan also faces 84 civil lawsuits. More than 130 people have claimed he fondled or raped them during the three decades he served in Boston-area parishes.

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In at least eight cases, the archdiocese allowed priests to remain in ministry after receiving information about their alleged sexual interest in minors.

Hennigan said all priests who were transferred after complaints received psychological evaluation and treatment before they were returned to parishes. Mahony has since removed them all from ministry.

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From a legal perspective, the most serious offense, aside from the incidents of child sexual abuse themselves, was the active institutional cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church's most senior Church leaders for failing to report these felonies to the police.

In response to the failure to report abuse to the police, lawmakers have changed the law to make reporting of abuse to police compulsory. An example of this can be found in Massachusetts, USA

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Pommy Bastard

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Re: Catholicism a blight on our society
Reply #25 - Jul 22^nd, 2008 at 5:04pm

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The Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up cases of sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the Church.

The Observer has obtained a 40-year-old confidential document from the secret Vatican archive which lawyers are calling a 'blueprint for deception and concealment'. One British lawyer acting for Church child abuse victims has described it as 'explosive'.

The 69-page Latin document bearing the seal of Pope John XXIII was sent to every bishop in the world. The instructions outline a policy of 'strictest' secrecy in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse and threatens those who speak out with excommunication.

They also call for the victim to take an oath of secrecy at the time of making a complaint to Church officials. It states that the instructions are to 'be diligently stored in the secret archives of the Curia [Vatican] as strictly confidential. Nor is it to be published nor added to with any commentaries.'

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freediver

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Re: Catholicism a blight on our society
Reply #26 - Jul 22^nd, 2008 at 5:08pm

The John Jay Report, commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, found accusations against 4,392 priests in the USA

Just taking your first piece of 'evidence', you claim that a report commissioned by Catholics on the issue is evidence that the Catholics are covering the issue up. Can you explain?

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People who can't distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways I cannot put into words.

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Pommy Bastard Full Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 105	Re: Catholicism a blight on our society Reply #27 - Jul 22^nd, 2008 at 5:15pm Where did I state that?
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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 52822 At my desk.	Re: Catholicism a blight on our society Reply #28 - Jul 22^nd, 2008 at 5:26pm Well, you didn't actually say anything, so I could only assume your post was in response to the request for evidence. Perhaps now would be a good time to explain yourself. Hence my request for an explanation.
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Pommy Bastard Full Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 105	Re: Catholicism a blight on our society Reply #29 - Jul 22^nd, 2008 at 5:28pm I rather thought I'd explained myself well, what is it about my stance which you do not understand? Quoting me may help.
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