Slashdot Mirror
Church Turns To Facebook To Find Priests
crimeandpunishment writes "The Catholic church of France isn't looking for friends on Facebook, it's looking for priests. The church has turned to Facebook as part of a campaign to attract young people to the priesthood, in an effort to combat its drastically dwindling number of priests. It may be working. The Facebook page attracted more than 1,200 fans in one week."
Attracting young people to the priesthood, isn't that what they've been doing for years?
Priests looking to Facebook as part of a campain to attract young people.
I thought AOL was supposed to be more popular with the pedobear crowd.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
That sounds like a good idea. We know there aren't any perverts on Facebook.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Looks like you explained it perfectly just now...
So, what are they going to do once every state has a law banning sex offenders from social networks?
No, the jokes will continue. But hey, the church brought this on themselves. While many can learn to forgive (per teachings of Jesus), no one must forget.
Life is not for the lazy.
Come on, guys, at least try to come up with something a little harder to shoot arrows at.
you really should add a Pedo Panic button as soon as possible!
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Perhaps they should actively seek to inspire people rather than trying to protect and defend themselves. There may have been a time when their church was above and beyond criticism, but those days are long gone. They need to accept this fact and focus on the positive rather than the negative. Furthermore, they need to look within themselves and to blame themselves for the current public opinion of their church. (In other words, instead of blaming the victims for speaking out, blame the people who did the victimizing!)
Then, after all that, do good works... LOTS of good works. That used to work in the past. These days, one rarely hears much about the good works of the church...
It will largely take care of the pedophile problem and the dwindling number willing to be priests in one shot.
Priests marrying wasn't disallowed all throughout church history anyway, it was political nonsense to do away with questions of inheritance.
Priests and/or pastors are not even the biggest threat to children it's teachers, at least once a week another teacher is in the news for molesting one of their students.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Boyscouts,Nambla,MichaelJackson,GarryGlitter,Archdiocese of Dublin Accept Invitation Y/N?
But are all the schools trying to cover it up every time something like that happens, and protect the teacher in question?
Also wrong. The biggest threat to children are parents (or generally close family and "friends"). As with most of serious crime BTW...
One that hath name thou can not otter
I'm an atheist. We have lower levels of sexual abuse because our morals are reinforced by logic and a sense of regret rather than forgiven and cleansed by God making everything ok.
1,200 fans in a week is amazingly low for facebook.
Some very stupid useless pages can get millions of fans in a week.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Bonjour, je m'appelle Chris Hanson.
Pourquoi n'avez-vous pas un siège de plus ici?
We're talking about a matter of doctrine here, not a matter of pragmatism. You're right that, from a pragmatic standpoint, it would largely just make more sense to allow priests to marry.
You're also right that the Roman Catholic church didn't always require priests to take the vow of celibacy. But, it became part of doctrine in the past, and now will be forever going forward.
The Church will stand by the position that you don't change doctrine because people don't like it. . . if someone wants to be a priest, then they need to conform to doctrine, not the other way around.
Alright, I'm an atheist! That means I can joke about it as much as I wish!
But I wont, because frankly it's just painful. But I'll give you some free advice (the worst kind, I know): if the best you can say to defend your own religion is that all other religions are just as bad or worse but have somehow managed to keep a lid on it... then maybe it's time to look for a new religion, or, and I say this from experience, to let go of them altogether.
Why should the catholic church try to fix it self, when blaming others has worked so well.
Granted it may just cause disbelief in most if you blame it on the jews or homosexuality in some, but far more will believe it, especially in developing countries, the only place the church is still growing. And no I am not going to say that this proofs only non-educated people believe in god. That would not be nice. It would be the truth, but not nice.
Oh and remember, the mafia isn't real, it is a plot by communism to disrupt the west. Oh and the shroud, it is real. Never mind that nobody in the bible mentioned it. You think people would have noticed or not have bothered with the bloody shroud left on a decaying body. Mind you, there is a perfectly sensible reason why nobody at the time noticed it, IT DIDN'T FUCKING HAPPEN!
Denial, it is must be a wonderful place to live.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Wait, I thought Facebook was nothing but a hangout for pedophil...Ohhhhhhh, I get it. Nevermind.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
In other words, the writing's on the wall, but the situation is celibate.
They're easy to find. They're at the churches.
Oh. They want to find new priests
and a fan is not a (potential) priest.
Something witty.
Sounds scaring!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Mod +5 funny. Or +5 naive. I'd love to think that there is some religion or non-religion that consistently makes people better people
But centuries of data shows otherwise.
Utimately, it comes down to individuals and their individual choices. I've known very good Chrisitans and very evil ones. I've known very good Atheists and ones who I certainly wouldn't trust my kids with.
The bottom line is that you need to judge people individually and not collectively
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I say fuck religion, especially Christianity. ESPECIALLY when it's French Christians.
Welp, just the response I expected...
I live in my mom's basement, but I'm 16.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
Won't somebody think of the children?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Facebook fans are easier to collect than signatures for an online petition. Taking a week to get only 1200 people to click a button in support of the largest religion in the country is evidence that the campaign is NOT working, IMO
In a word: Bullshit.
The biggest threat to kids is family, and family friends. Those statistics make all others look small.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
And in the spirit of continuing jokes, allow me to resent the fucking pope song!
Needless to say, it is NSFW, but I find it to be pretty funny and sadly insightful. I also used the Madville link instead of Youtube so you don't have to log in to view. And OT, but WTF is up with these itty bitty boxes? You would think that a fricking geeks site would be able to do better with page design.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I would refrain from pedophile jokes because frankly it is not funny.
Speaking as a Christian, the Catholic church should be very embarassed right now. Individual priests doing evil is not shocking. It is the systematic coverup and empowerment from THE TOP LEVELS that is shocking.
If the Catholic church were a corporation, it would be sued out of business. As a sovereign nation, it should be excluded from the internation scene until it holds itself accountable and make reparations.
Will that happen? Of course not. But the level of evil is large and should be addressed.
The biggest threat to Christianity is not atheists. It is Christians.
(boy do I hate idle's comment box)
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
And even then, to be fair, back in the 1970's and before, there weren't mandatory reporting laws for sexual abuse. Society in general has become more aware of the problems; the Church really wasn't out of step with the prevailing attitudes.
(Of course, what does that say about their claims to be moral leaders?)
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Dear Journalists,
There are lies, damn lies, statistics and now facebook group sizes. All are meaningless but facebook groups are exceedingly meaningless. Although facebook might be the latest internet craze please get off your ass and do some real journalism. Please never quote how many people are in a facebook group again. I really don't care how many idiots clicked a viral marketing button because they have nothing better to do then drool over facebook updates all day at their computer/phone. Then again, you are probably quoting facebook because you are one of these people. Please at least stop writing for mediums outside of facebook and make the world a better place.
Thanks,
Keith
It isn't the pedophilia per se(which, while tragic, is expected at a certain level in any situation where an adult population has the opportunity to interact with children), it's the institution-wide, endemic coverup and enabling of that pedophilia that (rightly) makes the catholic church a target of derision.
Some percentage of priests are going to be pedophiles, inevitably, because some percentage of adult males are. However, that doesn't mean that you deliberately conceal them from law enforcement as part of some bullshit assertion that canon law takes precedence over secular law. Nor does it mean that you deliberately circulate the problem priests around, to provide them with fresh victims and, cynically, give them assignments where they are likely to have access to the weakest and most vulnerable, and least likely to be able to cause a scandal, targets...
Now, incidentally, I strongly suspect that priests are more likely than the population at large to exhibit sexual preferences that would displease orthodox catholic teaching on the subject(though, not all of which are, by any means, of legal or ethical concern. Homosexuals who prefer consenting adult partners make the church sad; but are neither legally nor ethically a problem). The logic of my suspicion can be understood by the following analogy:
It is highly likely that, on average, priests as a population have either less interest in money, or less of a belief that they would be able to obtain it, than otherwise demographically equivalent people. The reasons are fairly simple: Priesthood doesn't pay all that well, given the amount of training and effort it requires. Thus, anyone who becomes a priest is either super-gung-ho about priesthood, doesn't care much about money and what it can buy, or doesn't think that they could earn much money elsewhere(making the opportunity cost low), or some combination of the above.
Priesthood imposes a "sexual opportunity cost" similar to its monetary one. Thus, one would follow similar logic and expect that priests are either more gung-ho about priesthood than non priests, less interested in sex generally(just lower libido) than non priests, or have sexual preferences that they (as catholics conservative enough to consider priesthood) could not have satisfied even without a vow of celibacy(thus making the opportunity cost of a vow of celibacy low). If you would just love to marry a nice catholic girl and have a bunch of kids, a vow of celibacy is a serious cost. If you are gay, or polyamorous, or a pedophile, or otherwise of unapproved taste, you cannot licitly(within catholic teachings) have the sex that you want in any case, so a vow of celibacy is a minimal cost.
Since humans are way better at deciding to resist temptation in the future than they are at resisting temptation in the present, this more or less ensures that a fair few sexually atypical individuals will end up in the priesthood, under the optimistic impression that they will remain celibate. Now, again, many of them are both legally and ethically unproblematic to society at large. A priest is having an affair, homo or heterosexual? Not our problem. Some of them are legally clear; but ethically dodgy(your classic "father confessor 'counseling' wives looking for advice about their marriages" situation. All legal, consenting adults and so forth; but pretty clear abuse of position). And then you have the pedos and the rapists, for whom the church has been disturbingly willing to cover.
That's simply because kids spend more time in school than in church, so odds of being abused increase accordingly. I, for one, would rather have my kid in school than in church, against all odds.
I like this quote from Sam Harris... "I've read the books. God is not a moderate. There's no place in the books where God says, 'You know, when you get to the New World and you develop your three branches of government and you have a civil society, you can just jettison all the barbarism I recommended in the first books.'"
Why do people still believe in Christianity? It is 2010. Must we propagate this insanity any further?
Social networks are already banning sex offenders right? Why aren't they banning organizations that harbor sex offenders? Surely that is a far worse offense, and probably would be shameful enough on the organizations that they might do something about it.
fuck religion [...] I'm 16.
Careful with what you wish. You're a bit too old, but a priest could get confused.
Not the schools, but the teacher unions do.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
My cousin is a 28 year old Catholic priest and has a podcast. From the sounds of it, his diocese is really enjoying the youthful exuberance he's bringing to the area. All of us were a little boggled about the path he chose, but it seems to be working out nicely for him.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
After so many scandals of the church.
I'm realy not proud of the religion, i'd rather would protect the innocent against any books of so called wisdom.
A religion works only on the personal level, and beyond that a few steps higher it becomes politics, scandals and greed for power.
On the small scale i do understand people need religion (for life and death situations) for social and emotional peace.
On a the big scale explain me why doesnt the top of all the main religions come together and settle their differences.
There would be much more peace, around in the world.
And no i dont feel empty because i lost big faith in it, i think its the 21 century; mankind has become smarter.
We know what stars are, we cannt proof to explain it all; but then why should we?
I have totaly no need to understand darkmatter gods, or alians;
I mean beeing normal these days is complex enough to me.
But somehow i'm able to pickout those people who are normal too, almost on sight.
I therefor rather believe in real people, people who sometimes are bright examples of living a good life.
But sometimes are people who make small mistakes, as long as they dont become dangerous > is that atheism to believe in people?
The Church is built on the concept of forgiveness. So, if someone says "Sure, I buggered a few dozen altar boys, but I have confessed my sins, repented, done penance, and I promise I'll never do it again,", you forgive them... and allow them to continue working unsupervised with small children, preferably in a far away Parish where nobody knows their reputation for being "just a little too interested" in young children.
Forgiveness is one thing, and not every accusation is factual. But once accused, I would never let any of those bastards within 100 miles of anyone under the age of consent for the rest of their lives. The mistake they made is believing that someone that feels guilty and show contrition won't go out and do the exact same thing again.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Why facebook? Why not somewhere more suited to finding a better selection of possible catholic priest candidates? Like 4chan for example?
This really falls in the So What List. The catholic church is looking for more priests whats new. So they are using Facebook as a tool. So what... A good for them.
Now this is just in bad taste for slashdot as it will only really be just a forum to make fun of problems that a religion is having.
This Ain't News for nerds, this isn't news for geeks, if you are not interested in joining the priesthood it doesn't even matter. You just wanted an other forum to make fun of catholics.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Not the schools, but the teacher unions do.
Last I checked teacher's unions don't have a lot of pull in the district attorney's office.
While false accusations are a real problem, I'm pretty sure I've never heard of a case of a teacher's union covering for a real sexual abuse case. Care to link to some actual proof for your assertion?
Remember: If you get an abortion, you've only committed a single sin, and you only have to do confession and penance once. However, if you use birth control, you are committing a sin EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU USE IT!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
or is that a mis-spelling of Chat Roulette?
Church LF Priest. Need heals and good to go.
I would refrain from pedophile jokes because frankly it is not funny.
Anything can be funny under the right circumstances. If you think otherwise you are taking life far too seriously.
The biggest threat to Christianity is not atheists. It is Christians.
I would have said it's logic but no one ever accused Christians of that...
(if you are tempted to mod this troll or flamebait see above)
Unless you are prepared to explain why your religion probably has a higher (but less publicized) level of sexual abuse.
Most other religions probably have a lower level of sexual abuse because they allow ordained clergy to have sex with other adults. After all, it's the very first commandment in the Torah: Be fruitful and multiply.
Religious/non-religious does not make a lot of difference... but a religious authority does! God trumps your mom, dad and government... and the priest who just told you to shut up about the abuse is a direct representative of god. This little detail and the fact that those priest eagerly forgive themselves or even make it 'right' by claiming that that little bit of evil is OK because of all the good they can do because of it is just sickening (not only with sexual abuse, but also like mother Theresa who let unfortunate people suffer so she herself could be closer to god).
In my experience any man who claims to have a more direct line to god (or the supernatural) than you should be avoided at any cost. I'm certain that if there would be no religious leaders there would be almost no problems with religion...
1 Timothy 4:1-5:
1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, 3 men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; 5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.
Note how it says forbidding to marry is a teaching inspired my demons. I mean, wow, don't they read their own book?
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
So how have they set in up? Once some guy has tried to "Friend" more than 100 tween boys he's never met before, does the Catholic Church automatically send him a pre-approved application form for entry into the priesthood?
Credit card companies have something like that set up for people with bad credit, so it seems like a good way for the church to save time it might waste rejecting all the women and married men who might want to be priests.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
It seems anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice.
This alone shows that you're living in a box. If you think that this is true, why don't you take a look outside your insular world? There are plenty of people all over the world "poking fun at Jews" and quite a number of other groups as well. I don't see any reason why Catholicism should get a pass for moral failing, and in fact I think they deserve more ridicule for having moral failings because they claim the moral high ground so often.
The way ye are going on, you'd think the great Utopia that is secular society (you know, the one that you slashdotters subscribe to and pay taxes towards) had never produced a paedophile or a cover-upping bureaucrat.
This is the price paid when a group who claims a monopoly on morality shows a serious moral failing. The Catholic Church itself rails endlessly on others for their moral failings, so they take it on the chin when it's discovered that they're being wildly hypocritical.
Anyway, despite the bigotted commentary, I get the distinct feeling that there's also a lot of begrudgery towards the Catholic Church (an institution that is incredibly wealthy). A Church that brings too much attention to the failings of the modern society that you live in.
This is precisely why they got a smackdown. If they were less anxious to point out the failings of "society" then they'd take less abuse when they're shown to have these same failings. If they're going to hold my feet to the fire, then I'm damn well going to do the same to them. If they don't like it, they can fix it easily enough by cleaning their own houses or keeping their mouths shut.
Virg
That makes no sense... if someone truly believed there was no cosmic balance (via either God or Karma or some unknown force), and there was something they wanted to do and knew they would suffer no consequences for doing it, logic would dictate that there is no reason not to do it.
The ancient Greeks and Romans would often do what we would consider rape their slaves, sisters, children. There was no "sense of regret" because... it wasn't considered as big of a wrong. They weren't "hurting" anyone, it was about 10-20 minutes of discomfort for the 'victim', and everyone would go on with their lives. You could also say they had lower rates of sexual abuse simply because there was no such concept in the minds of the "victims".
The point I'm making is, in the absence of religion there would be no such thing as sexual abuse, because the entire concept was created by religion in the first place. Religion is what made the chain go touch->feel good->feel guilty that you felt good->feel angry at the person who triggered that response without your permission. They could just as easily have demonized tickling in the same way...
You've obviously made up your little mind. Best of luck. The work of the Church continues, despite what the bigots think. Insist on excluding the divine at your peril.
Thanks for saving me the trouble of having to school that illiterate prat. You were a lot more polite about it that I'd have been.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
The reality is that a child is far more likely to be molested by a family member or someone else they know then by priests, teachers, Boy Scout troop leaders, etc.
I'm not defending the Church's actions. They need to be punished and made to pay so severely that they never again put their own interests above the people they claim to be guiding and protecting. But the fact is that like everything else to do with the "for the children" kneejerkism of the modern age, it's as much hype and fear mongering as anything else.
Scaring parents is a major industry now. Journalism, or at least the semi-journalism of news magazine shows makes a killing off of it. Politicians get elected by it. Police get big budgets to sit on their fat asses playing around on Internet forums with it.
The odds are that your child is probably safer in church or in school than they are in their own bedroom.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
One wonders what your opinion of the Jews is.
Though churches (of all kind) definitelly deserve to be really unfamous because of such actions. They are the ones claiming absolute moral authority ffs...
BTW, it seems that scaring people is an old trick, just with methods changing. Legends, then generally dark powers of Satan (or something), "dangerous" neighbouring communities, lands, societies, countries...
One that hath name thou can not otter
Yes... Buddhism has a lower incidence of sexual abuse because if monks suddenly feel the urge to be sexually active, they are allowed to leave the monastery, marry, have kids, and come back later when their child-rearing responsibilities are finished.
Now, bring on the pedophile priest jokes!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It's NOT doctrine.
If someone wants to be a priest, bishop or other "top leader of a church" I suggest they look at this first:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy+3&version=NIV
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy%203&version=NKJV
http://bible.cc/1_timothy/3-2.htm
The requirements there for Bishops and Deacons don't mention celibacy anywhere. In fact they do even mention "husband of but one wife".
So there's above reproach, husband of but one wife, temperate, self controlled, good reputation with outsiders, etc.
So practicing polygamists/adulterers/fornicators/pedophiles/homosexuals do not meet that standard. Nor do drunkards.
You might ask why not practicing homosexuals? Because honestly if you're a practicing homosexual you would not meet the "above reproach", "blameless" and "good reputation with outsiders" requirement.
Like it or not, but It is a fact that a practicing homosexual is still not "above reproach" in the real world.
There are all sorts of outsiders you would deal with as an official representative of the church. Not meeting these requirements would reduce your effectiveness. You would be a blunt knife.
How about non-practicing homosexuals? IMO, there isn't such a vast difference to being faithful to one wife and being faithfully celibate. If you feel it's such a huge difference and you can't stay celibate, then too bad you don't meet the "self controlled" requirement.
BUT don't forget you can always serve in other ways.
There are plenty of good works still to be done, why do you need to be a priest, bishop, deacon or whatever to do it? What's your motive really?
I'm not a homosexual, but I certainly don't meet those high standards either.
Atheism is not logical. The statement "there is no God" has no clear meaning, but you go out of your way defending it, being driven by little more than emotion. You may be well-justified in hating organized religion, but you shouldn't expect this hatred to provide a foundation for your morals. If you seek consistency in your beliefs, try agnosticism.
Yeah, cry me a river. It might surprise you to know that most people don't consider the actual abuse to be the main problem. It was the widespread and systematic cover ups that raised our ire. Being an ex-Catholic atheist, I am no fan of the Catholic Church. I was quite willing to leave them alone to wallow in their doltish and retrograde beliefs, but the revelation of these high level, systematic coverups lead me to conclude that they deserve every heaping helping of scorn that they receive. And, yes, I am no respecter of beliefs. I have no problem with criticizing stupid beliefs no matter where they originate. Judaism holds no sacred position in my view, either.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
More seriously - dear Catholic church: maybe if you're having trouble with recruiting, it might be a good idea to look at your medieval personnel policies? You know, like maybe letting priests get married, letting women in, etc, etc. Might cut down on the pervert problem too. I'm just sayin'.
I'm not debating the Church's culpability, what I'm debating is the premise that the Church has more pedophiles, on average, than say, public schools or any other profession or organization.
There's an obvious hypocrisy for any organization that claims a moral high ground being caught hiding criminal and immoral acts, and that will ultimately extract a far higher price from the Church than the ongoing lawsuits.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
While they're changing doctrine, how about female priests? That could potentially increase their numbers by 50%. Sometimes change is forced on the powers that be. Galileo springs to mind. They didn't like the idea of a Helio-Centric universe, but once science got it figured out, they had little choice but to change. Adapt or die also comes to mind.
As a French atheist I am really having trouble modding you...
... is that not all Catholic priests have to be celibate. If, say, you're a married Episcopal priest, and you convert to become a Catholic priest, well, obviously you get to keep your wife. Also, the Catholic church is made up of a couple of different "rites" - the Roman rite is most familiar, but there are various others. And in some of the others, yeah, priests can be married too. There is literally nothing to this insistence on celibacy for (some) priests beyond "we've always done it this way". And that's not even true.
Pretty much the same as other religions: It's a pack of nonsense delusional people use to justify and forgive themselves for the most appalling moral and ethical lapses. I've been less than kind to the current Israeli government because of its refusal to obey the Geneva Conventions, and been called an anti-Semite as a result.
It's still a matter of record, by the way, that the Catholic Church has been a happy hunting ground for pedophiles for a long, long time. Underground journals in the Victorian Era mocked priests as a bunch of baby-rapers. They were right.
Next question?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Allowing women to become priests and allowing priests to marry is not a solution to reinvigorate the Church or gain greater numbers of priests. Sure, there is considerable amount of social pressure to conform to these demands, but please note that many mainstream Protestant churches have taken exactly these measures... and not only are their numbers of ministers not increasing, but they're decreasing again, also!
The problem with ministerial life is that it's a life of giving, and not a life of receiving. In a society where everyone wants to be "Paris Hilton", there's little incentive to aspire to be Mother Teresa...
Check the statistics, and then please give up this old, tired argument for female or married priests...!
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
If you seek consistency in your beliefs, try agnosticism.
Were I to care about other people's faith I would rather recommend apatheistic ignosticism. Since I don't, I recommend spending your time on improving your area's data on OpenStreetmap rather than meditating about the finer aspects of particular faiths. Religion has yet to do anything useful for the world at large, but OSM has aided me innumerable times in the few years since its inception.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
We've been recruiting priests, bishops, popes, hell popes, anti-popes, pope-esses, Doktors, cardinals, ordinals, and rabis via the Internet for nearly 20 years. No mandatory molestation, just $30 for ordainment (Eternal Salvation or Triple Your Money Back!) and the Divine Excuse! It is nice to see organized religion copying US!
Toil is Stupid. Don't be Stupid.
"And even then, to be fair, back in the 1970's and before, there weren't mandatory reporting laws for sexual abuse. Society in general has become more aware of the problems; the Church really wasn't out of step with the prevailing attitudes."
What what what?
Do we have to have a law for every little different situation? First I damn well know there were laws against assault and battery then. Second, I'm almost certain there were laws against rape. If a child or parent notified the police or DA back then that someone sexually assaulted his/her kid, I have a hard time believing that person wouldn't have been charged with some felony. A minor can not legally give consent. Charging a 18 year old for sleeping with his 16 year old girlfriend is ignorant, especially when considering the age of majority has been transient over cultures and time. Charging a 40 year old for diddling an 11 year old under his care is a moral imperative.
The bigger problem back then was probably many parents failed to report family or unrelated cases of child sexual assault out of fear it would hurt their kid more to have it publicized, or hurt the family in general. Which is no different than what was happening in the Church. But the Church's doctrine and claim of moral superiority make their actions especially abhorrent.
Allowing women to become priests and allowing priests to marry is not a solution to reinvigorate the Church or gain greater numbers of priests. Sure, there is considerable amount of social pressure to conform to these demands, but please note that many mainstream Protestant churches have taken exactly these measures... and not only are their numbers of ministers not increasing, but they're decreasing again, also!
Depends on the sect. There are some incredibly successful protestant churches right now.
The problem with ministerial life is that it's a life of giving, and not a life of receiving. In a society where everyone wants to be "Paris Hilton", there's little incentive to aspire to be Mother Teresa
I don't buy it, and I never have. There is not something morally bankrupt about modern culture that did not exist previously. The vast, vast majority of people have no desire to be Paris Hilton.
And I would even say on a religious level, Christian groups are a lot more "giving" nowadays than they tended to be in previous decades, where Christianity was frequently simply a label for an intolerant right-wing ideology; the modern evangelical movement is a lot more focused on actual good works than the fundamentalists of the 20th century.
If you don't forget, you haven't forgiven.
Have gnu, will travel.
I told ya so! pop music is to music, like Facebook is to 4chan. Not better. Just more popular and a lot more full of being molded into a predefined set of the crowd’s social conditioned views of how they think things are.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Atheism is not logical.
It's perfectly logical. There is no evidence of God, ergo there is no God.
At least you're being honest and I know what I'm dealing with here. While you continue to spout arrogant opinions of those with religious belief, you conveniently fail to put forward your own philosophical/theological reasoning about the highest questions known to humanity. Go found your own Church, publish some papers and get a few billion followers and we'll see how well your bigotted opinions hold up. Also, can you point to an example of baby rape within the Catholic Church? Do you deny that these things don't happen in the country that you pay your taxes towards and sing the national anthem of?
First off - I am an atheist. Secondly, the biggest part of the scandal in the Catholic church is not the abuse in and of itself - it is the systematic protection of child rapists in the name of protecting the church's image. Any institution is going to have a few bad apples, but they are not culpable in my mind until they fail to act upon discovering the crime.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
You've been watching too much mainstream TV for your own good. If you actually did a bit of cursory research, you'd find that the Vatican publicly acknowledged the presence of paedophilia within the church nearly 50 YEARS AGO. http://www.vatican.va/resources/resources_crimen-sollicitationis-1962_en.html Can you please point to an organisation the size of the Church that is paedophile free? What you also fail to realise is that priests are on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week: unlike 9 to 5 secularists who can engage in their little perversions outside of office hours and where the organisation they work bears no consequences when their employee commits a crime. The way you present your opinion, you'd think 2010 was first time that Rome has been aware of this issue. It's not. You'll find that many abuse victims that populate these protest marches have already made settlements with the Church and they and their families are coming around for seconds in the compensation stakes. They see a wealthy organisation on the ropes and they're going in for another greedy swipe. This time, they won't be so lucky. There will be no double-compensation pay-outs. The Vatican's legal team will not budge on this matter. But don't let the facts get in the way of your prejudices and your bigotry.
I never imagined that NAMBLAs membership was that large.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Reading the comments, one must be dreaming.... Moral statements, Advices and sarcasms on sexuality or spirituality?... Since when the world of nerds is a reference for this subjects? True, Geek are well known for their clean and healthy sexual behaviour. Guys, focus on the last CPU technology and the new events on the life of you own GPL God, Stallman, rather than commenting stupidly on the catholic church that clearly you do not know but through the myopy of the current media amalgamating 1.2 billion people to a few deviants.
Sure...As exposed so obviously by the Marquis de Sade ;-). Oh but he might be the exception confirming the rule you state...
Exceptions, exceptions....
but more power to the Church.
But please don't let them advert on Slashdot.
Moving from mom's basement to the rectory may not be good idea for either party.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
There is no what? Can you give a logical account of "God"? You cannot: not of the Christian God, it is self-contradictory by design. If you want to hold a consistent view towards the Christian God, you have to say: "This is gibberish", you cannot say "It does not exist", on pain of producing more gibberish.
I realize that this is slightly off-topic, but here's some food for thought concerning evolution in the Catholic and Jewish religions:
Consider what would happen (centuries or millennia ago) if you were a poor but very intelligent male child in Europe:
Depending on the religion of your family, you would probably come to attention of the local priest or rabbi.
If your family was Catholic you might be allowed to enter the priesthood, learn to read and write, and given initiative and some luck, you could rise through the ranks of the church hierarchy. Given you stay in the church it is unlikely that you would produce children.
If your family was Jewish, you might be tutored by the local rabbi, learn to read and write, and given initiative and some luck, you would likely marry someone from an educated and perhaps well to do family. It is likely that your children would get a head start in life, as compared to yourself.
Now consider what this difference means over thousands of years of evolution. The Catholics are removing intelligent people from the gene pool and the Jews are giving them a breeding advantage.
The Catholic religion has existed for over 2000 years, and the Jewish religion for much longer. This is may be enough time to produce measurable results. Think about the studies of the of the Ashkenazi Jewish community, which show a greater than 100 average IQ.
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
Yes, doing science or social work is also much more productive than doing religion. (Organized religions occasionally claim that they are doing either, but we know how much they suck in both areas.)
It is not useless, however, to be able to understand what religious people are talking about. We all live on the same planet, and we can all benefit from reconciling our differences in a non-violent manner. Agnosticism, unlike atheism, provides a solid foundation for understanding every religion, no matter how irrational, convoluted or just plain evil. Atheism towards irrational Gods (and these include all of the takes on LORD) is nothing more than posturing.
The Facebook page attracted more than 1,200 fans in one week.
So they're several orders of magnitude behind the fanbase for "My Sister Said She'd Name Her Baby Megatron If I Got One Million Fans." If 1,200 is the best the Catholic Church can do in a week, they might want to consider going ahead and putting up the cathedrals for sale on eBay.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
While not as universal as with the Catholic Church, there have been in charedi (ultra-orthodox Jewish) schools and institutions similar problems with attempted cover ups. This has extended not just to pedophilia but other forms of abuse as well. See for example the scandal with Rabbi Leib Tropper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leib_Tropper where he used his position to have sex with women who were studying to convert to Judaism. The establishment repeatedly tried to cover up his behavior and when it got to be too much quietly eased him out. They still won't discuss the issue in any detail or to even discuss what went wrong in a way to prevent it from happening again.
Hierarchies do this sort of thing almost naturally, and hyper-authoritarian religious hierarchies often try to cover things up as the go-to solution.
Are you really suggesting that striving to "inspire people" rather than direct, sometimes brutal "defensive" (or really offensive...) actions are in some way old fashioned for religions, traditional?
Really?! O_o
One that hath name thou can not otter
Before the 1970's mandatory reporting laws did not exist. That doesn't mean that molestation did not exist, or that it went unreported all the time.
The bigger problem back then was probably many parents failed to report family or unrelated cases of child sexual assault out of fear it would hurt their kid more to have it publicized, or hurt the family in general.
Exactly. This is precisely what the mandatory reporting laws that GP referred to were meant to counteract. Before the 1970s, many parents, teachers, etc might have bee reluctant to get involved. After the 1970's, the risk of not getting involved (and therefore being charged with a crime in not reporting the abuse) started to outweigh the risk of getting involved.
Society has become more aware of the problems, because more people are reporting them, because mandatory reporting laws exist. That doesn't mean there is more molestation, only that you see more of it in the news because covering it up is not only harder, it's now a crime.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Hmm. Here in the U.S., its often a big debate. You and I know the founding fathers were not theists and we know specifically what the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment says...and what Article VI, Section 3 says about religious tests for public office. However, the bible-thumpers still insist the U.S. is a Christian nation founded on Christian principals. They succeeded in having "E Pluribus Unum " changed to "In God We Trust" on all our money and they managed to slip "Under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance. We had a recent VP candidate in 2008 who believed it was "God's will" that she was nominated Republican VP candidate...That reminds me of the Middle Ages "Divine Right of Kings" philosophy imposed by monarchs on their subjects. Also, I believe GW Bush made a similar statement about his ascendancy to the throne...er, I mean presidency. Of course, there's also the Pat Robertsons and others of the world who try to extend the power of religion to politics. I wish I could say the U.S. is truly secular.
> sex... "sure beats the hell out of a ham sandwich, doesn't it?"
The Pope visits a convent and, after meeting the nuns, is about to leave.
He raises his hand in the normal way to give the sign of blessing, at the same time saying, "I vissh yor all a'penis."
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.
..."Abstinence makes the church grow fondlers!""
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
I mean look:
- faith in the belief that a certain prescribed ritual will result in a specific, predictable outcome? If that doesn't describe coding, I don't know what does.
- ability to spend their entire lives without sex, or really female companionship of any kind, except for a worshipful adulation of an image (think geeks and a picture of Megan Fox)
- ability to endlessly pontificate (see what I did there?)
Hell, all they have to do is say "priests get to live in their mom's basement" and the slashvertisment practically writes itself.
-Styopa
and not only are their numbers of ministers not increasing, but they're decreasing again, also!
Depends on the sect. There are some incredibly successful protestant churches right now.
Yes, there are successful churches, but that's a different topic -- we're talking about increases in numbers of ordained ministers. Not part-time workers: full-time, degreed professionals for whom their primary career is church ministry, at the parish level. Those numbers are declining.
I don't buy it, and I never have. There is not something morally bankrupt about modern culture that did not exist previously.
The problem isn't "moral bankruptcy", it's affluence. In the U.S., and the West, generally, more people live in middle-to-upperclass life situations, and have the expectation of continued affluence in their careers. It's this set of expectations that hinders the willingness to answer a call to ministry.
The vast, vast majority of people have no desire to be Paris Hilton.
Not according to recent polls of teenaged students in the U.S.! As they age, they abandon such superficial role models; however, the goals and ideals that these role models espouse tend to continue to be held dear...
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
Can you please point to an organisation the size of the Church that is paedophile free?
Can you point to an organization claiming to be the Body of Christ and the prime moral authority on the planet which also practices the cover up of child rape(which is just one facet of the abuse that the Church is dealing with now)? The (in)actions of the Vatican speak far more clearly than their public positions.
What you also fail to realise is that priests are on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week: unlike 9 to 5 secularists who can engage in their little perversions outside of office hours and where the organisation they work bears no consequences when their employee commits a crime.
And this has what to do with the institutional practice of covering up crimes, pray tell? Are you suggesting that I cut the priests slack for diddling kids, or the bishops for hiding their crimes? How pathetic....
The way you present your opinion, you'd think 2010 was first time that Rome has been aware of this issue.
The way you miss my entire point, you'd think that your reading and critical thinking skills were in serious decline. It's almost as if you didn't read my post about cover ups.
You'll find that many abuse victims that populate these protest marches have already made settlements with the Church and they and their families are coming around for seconds in the compensation stakes. They see a wealthy organisation on the ropes and they're going in for another greedy swipe. This time, they won't be so lucky. There will be no double-compensation pay-outs. The Vatican's legal team will not budge on this matter.
Yup, blame those damned victims for getting raped. The fact that you continually ignore the point of this outrage, namely the cover ups, shows that you've followed the Church's example. Go ahead, ignore the problem. Just don't be surprised when you peek out of your blinders and find that the world has no use for your Chruch anymore.
But don't let the facts get in the way of your prejudices and your bigotry.
Given that you haven't refuted a single statement of mine, you apparently aren't worried about facts at all. But don't mind me. I'll just be here laughing at the antics of your entire irrational Church as it hobbles from one scandal to the next, bleeding out moral authority while it tries desperately to inject it's payload of bronze age ignorance into a new generation.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
This is what your post sounds like to an atheist:
Of course you, a great beacon of not playing Pokemon, know what's best for the Pokemon Fan Club. ROFL. Maybe you should enroll in your local Pokemon Training Academy, study for seven years, do a PhD in Pokemon Biology in Tokyo and then publish your opinions and see how well they are received. I'll bet you'd fall flat on your face on the first hurdle and the whole stadium will be laughing at you. Stick to the keyboard heroics my friend.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
There is a significant difference if I read your comment the way you intended
...the Church really wasn't out of step with the prevailing attitudes. "
"...and not dealing aggressively with the abusers.
Even in the 70's, and possibly especially before mandatory reporting laws, parents probably felt like it was their responsibility to mete justice to the best of their ability. I imagine dads that were physically strong enough, often beat up or threatened to beat up, relatives or others their children accused of abuse and the parent felt it was true. Families ostracized suspected abusers in them, and may have discretely shared information among nuclear families to keep their kids away from "uncle soandso."
I suspect the attitude of families 30 years ago was generally one of discretion and a community version of justice and threat isolation. This stands in stark contrast to the Catholic Church where abusive clergy were not routinely sent for treatment and assigned to positions with no reasonable expectation of child contact. They were reassigned just to get them away from local concerns and put into other congregations with children in them. Some were apparently not investigated internally because they were "loved" by their church superiors.
Hence, I believe they were out of step, even then, with prevailing attitudes regarding everything but discretion.
I never said molestation didn't exist, was never reported, or that now it is more frequent. My point was I believe that even then, the Church was out of step with prevailing attitudes. I discussed this in a later post w/ Dr. Manhattan.
I'd say even before mandatory reporting laws, parents were possibly guilty of the generous interpretation of Misprision of a Felony in some states for not reporting clergy child abuse. And the church leaders who were aware of accusations and reassigned accused clergy were almost certainly guilty of the more restrictive definition of Misprision.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/search/display.html?terms=misprision&url=/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000004----000-.html
Is it bad we have specific mandatory reporting laws for child abuse? No. But I think saying it wasn't illegal before in states where misprision is a crime, is a stretch. If it wasn't prosecuted, I think it is more a case of lazy prosecutors, or thinking discretion was better for the child.
Consider: In olden times, like in the 1960s, if you needed advice about marriage, family, health care, old age, and death, you spoke to your local representative of organized religion for advice and consent.
The theory was that it provided an accredited personal access to common cultural knowledge garnered across generations as to how to live life.
Today, that task is fulfilled by smart phones, WebMD.com, bloggers, AARP.org, and web memorials posted in cyberspace.
So, in a way, it is sign of the times that the Catholic Church in France is using Facebook to recruit persons to fill vacant positions that have been disintermediated by the Internet. In a way, it is a chance to select humans for a job no longer performed by humans because of the cost efficiencies of the Internet.
In another way, it is a form of functional redundancy that may some day be required should the Internet vanish through technological disaster or political hazard. In this latter sense, the keepers of organized religion are maintaining a social function as a back-up mechanism for maintaining social order should the Internet cease to operate.
Another example of similar human organizations rapidly being disintermediated can be found in libraries and schools.
In the face of technology, the old ways are kept polished and practiced by dedicated individuals in the event of that one rainy day when technology fails to renew itself in its rapid race towards consumer obsolescence.
When Ray Kurzweil's Singularity Point is reached - and biological humans are disintermediated - can we expect organized religion to provide android priests to avoid "temptations of the flesh"?
Q: Will Android Priests dream of Electric Angels??
Inquiring minds want to know ..
DarkStarZumaBeachSurfinApocalypseWow
To... FaceBible?
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
The Roman church would find more willing perverts^W candidates on chatroulette...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Priests and/or pastors are not even the biggest threat to children it's teachers
Yes, and you can thank secularization for that.
Can you give a logical account of "God"?
It's not my job to give a logical account of "God". I'm not the one claiming he exists.
You cannot: not of the Christian God, it is self-contradictory by design. If you want to hold a consistent view towards the Christian God, you have to say: "This is gibberish", you cannot say "It does not exist", on pain of producing more gibberish.
False. I can quite easily say it does not exist, simply by (as you have) pointing out that the fundamental concept is basically broken by design.
Consider your argument when substituting Santa Claus for God: "A psychic fat guy in a red suit rides a magical sleigh around and visits every child in the world in one night ? That's nothing but gibberish ! Clearly the only logical and consistent conclusion is that we should not discount the possibility that he might exist."
You've been watching too much mainstream TV for your own good. If you actually did a bit of cursory research, you'd find that the Vatican publicly acknowledged the presence of paedophilia within the church nearly 50 YEARS AGO.
And they kept shuffling around and protecting priests who they knew to be pedophiles long after that. Which makes it even worse.
I wonder would you be so quick to poke fun at Jews?
At Orthodox Jews, absolutely. But at least they didn't rape kids.
It seems anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice.
Prejudice was always and remains acceptable against those who themselves practice and teach prejudice. Catholicism is in a good company with Islam and the likes there.
The way ye are going on, you'd think the great Utopia that is secular society (you know, the one that you slashdotters subscribe to and pay taxes towards) had never produced a paedophile or a cover-upping bureaucrat.
Can you come up with any examples of a government cover-up for a pedophile bureaucrat?
Anyway, despite the bigotted commentary, I get the distinct feeling that there's also a lot of begrudgery towards the Catholic Church (an institution that is incredibly wealthy).
Of course there is, and it has nothing to do with it being wealthy (well, maybe a bit - it kinda doesn't mesh well with what Jesus said).
The thing about Catholic church is that it's, on one hand, still the most prominent Christian church in Western countries, and, on the other hand, one of the most conservative (read: bigoted). So it gets all the flak it rightly deserves for its own policies (such as anti-condom and generally anti-contraceptive campaigns in Africa and elsewhere, anti-abortion, gay bashing etc), but it also serves as a lightning rod for a lot of discontent associated with Christianity and organized religion in general.
A Church that brings too much attention to the failings of the modern society that you live in.
What, not enough witch burnings?
Seriously, the modern society I live in has a lot of failings, but whenever I've read what the Pope has to say about it, my immediate feeling is that it's a kind of guidance that's best followed in a "do exactly opposite of what he says" way.
No, we don't need to get all "spiritual", or teach our children to worship a deity in schools.
At least you're being honest and I know what I'm dealing with here. While you continue to spout arrogant opinions of those with religious belief, you conveniently fail to put forward your own philosophical/theological reasoning about the highest questions known to humanity. Go found your own Church, publish some papers and get a few billion followers and we'll see how well your bigotted opinions hold up.
There are philosophical reasonings that, by definition, do not need a church or any form of organized religion - such as atheism - and in that is their ultimate superiority. And how well do our bigoted atheistic opinions hold? Well, it seems that the better educated the populace is, the more atheists are in there. The number of people identifying as non-religious in Europe - the stronghold of Catholicism - grows every year, with some countries already past the 50% mark. Most of the recent Church claims come from impoverished and underdeveloped areas such as Africa - as usual, religion preys on the weak, promising untold riches in the "next life" to compensate with the hardship on this one. Where people have learned that their hard work can make tomorrow better for themselves and their children, fewer and fewer care about such enticing.
Now you're starting to get silly. There's so many cases of little boys being raped by priests and appropriately-named "lay brothers" that the only possible conclusion a sane person can draw is that there are thousands more that haven't even been reported. I was especially angered by the rapist in a dog collar who molested at least 200 deaf children in Wisconsin.
And in recent weeks, hundreds of sexual abuse cover-up cases have surfaced in the German church, so many that the Vatican says it can't handle the workload. And three Brazilian Catholic priests were recently accused of abusing boys in Brazil, with video evidence. These outrages happen all over the world. The only thing they have in common is the Catholic Church and, until very recently, its ability to influence police and prosecutors. Fortunately, those days are gone.
The reason my "philosophical/theological reasoning about the highest questions known to humanity" isn't on display is because it doesn't include screwing children, then expecting my superiors to cover it up and move me on to another hunting ground. I can state very briefly, though, that Occam's Razor is more than sufficient to dispose of most claims made by most religions. Certainly religion is just about the only place where the credulous acceptance of irrational claptrap is elevated to the status of virtue while critical thought will often get you murdered in any of a hundred ingenious and agonizing ways. Basically, if you can produce one shred of verifiable proof that god exists, bring it on. You can't.
On the other hand, evidence that the Catholic Church has been a happy refuge for thousands of pedophiles is indisputable.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Priesthood doesn't pay all that well, given the amount of training and effort it requires.
But the job security is great. Once you are in, you are taken care of for life (even, as facts show, if you commit a crime.) Not bad for people who are more interested in philosophy and abstract knowledge (and religion too.)
"Utimately, it comes down to individuals and their individual choices. I've known very good Chrisitans and very evil ones. I've known very good Atheists and ones who I certainly wouldn't trust my kids with."
I'm thinking that you aren't getting how statistics works. Atheists on average are less likely to rape than the religious. rape along with a whole slew of other things... violent crime, divorce....
"The bottom line is that you need to judge people individually and not collectively"
I was talking about a group. You are just blanket denying the importance or usefulness of statistics in general. Which is frankly quite insane.
Morals can be easily explained by social darwinism without any need for God at all.
There are 100 cavemen in two tribes of 50. Tribe 1 is filled with people that are greedy the other with those that share. A harsh winter occurs. Tribe 2 share the one big kill and whatever food they have, they survive through the winter hungry but alive. Tribe 1 kills a mammoth or w/e as well. Instead of bringing it back they eat as much as they can since they shouldn't have to share. Then they go back to the cave, the ones inside feel they have been ripped off, a fight ensues they all die.
Next generation Tribe 2 teaches their kids about the dangers of greed. TADA, morals formed without any need for God. Yay for social darwinism.
(Also, Teaching people other things would be an example of horizontal meme transfer)
I'm technically 'strong agnostic'. Which is something that approaches atheism since the chances of God existing approach 0. So while I'm technically agnostic i'm infinitely close to atheist.
But really, I agree with you.
It is not useless, however, to be able to understand what religious people are talking about. We all live on the same planet, and we can all benefit from reconciling our differences in a non-violent manner.
Yes and no. It is useless in so far as that you cannot reconcile everyone's religious beliefs, just as you cannot get everyone to agree upon the colour public buildings should be painted in. Some want black, some want white, but few people would be happy with grey. Faith is not grounded in logic or objective reasoning, it is essentially a matter of personal taste. And we all know how well consensus works for taste.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
You have strung together two separate paragraphs, expressing two separate thoughts. Society at the time tended to prosecute 'stranger attacks', not assailants known to the victim - as you note. In that sense "the Church really wasn't out of step with the prevailing attitudes."
And, as I noted, the fact that the Church was not ahead of the curve does call their 'moral leadership' claims into question.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Wouldn't "The writing's on the door" be more appropriate?
.
Well it didn't have paragraph spacing, so that wasn't obvious on first read. Though I still think the most reasonable reading strings ideas from 2 separate paragraphs together. It wasn't a topic transition.
What were the prevailing attitudes? It wasn't attitudes about the general level of awareness, or about reporting laws you discussed in that paragraph. The attitudes were about hiding abuse, and not dealing aggressively with the abusers because of the attention it would bring to the child and family, among other reasons.
"Society at the time tended to prosecute 'stranger attacks', not assailants known to the victim - as you note"
I don't believe I did. I said in essence, parents tended to keep both kinds of attacks secret and dispense whatever justice they could regardless of whether it was intra-family, or an acquaintance.
I'm assuming at this point, if it was an unknown person, they probably didn't have the resources to track him/her down to do anything further without going to the police. But I didn't say whether I felt that happened more or less often.
Ya, those pesky hospitals.
For some reason the human psyche accounts for a higher power, and that's why every civilization in history has been religious. So it's a little more complicated than the simple world view you put together. ;)
I could do the priest thing, you know, I like reading old books, giving inspirational speeches, choirs are cool... But I also like making love to my wife. The celibacy thing is a real deal breaker for me.
Bibo Ergo Sum.
And who determines they are "true" believers? Oh, they themselves?...
One that hath name thou can not otter
Please provide these statistics.
"Religion was born when the first con man met the first fool." --Mark Twain
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Yes, it did. I dunno why Slashdot's CSS makes the first "<p>" tag not display properly, but if you look at the page source, it's there.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
but if you look at the page source, it's there.
Because of course I do that with every comment I read on slashdot.
"The Facebook page attracted more than 1,200 fans in one week."
The bad news is that they were all registered sex offenders....