The Vatican is made up of fallible, irrational human beings in a 'fallen' world. The evildoers should be punished, but if you're going to condemn one billion Catholics for the crimes of some in the priesthood are you better than someone who hates an entire race because one of 'them' stepped on your toe?

Isn't it interesting that the liberal "defenders" of free speech reward this thief for thwarting a legal act, while condemning an entirely different religion (Catholicism) over the actions of a few?


>> ^mentality:

When a priest molests a child, does the semen come all the way from the Vatican too, or just the money for the cover up?

Thanks for Sifting this. I think it is really important, especially here on the Sift where so many people seem to equate religion with fundamentalism and dogma or as the antithesis of science. It's too bad it seems like people are ignoring it. I'd promote it if I could.

I love this quote from the end of the talk, btw. I wish fundamentalists of ALL religions would realize this and ponder its implications.

"That's a fundamental point of Catholicism... The church doesn't have rules; the church has teachings. Rules--you follow the rules or you're not playing the game. Teachings, you go, 'Oh, I never thought of that.' But then you still have to go back and apply it to your own life."

I can only think that Islam, to some extent, is like Catholicism or Judaism, i.e. there are many of its adherents who kind of pay lip service to the rules but go about living their lives like "normal" human beings.

I hate the stoning shit. Hate the Saudi beheadings and the hands getting cut off and all that shit. Hate it.

I especially hate the denigration of women.

But, online, I've met a few Muslims, and they were not the fire-breathing militants that the western media portrays them to be.

>> ^Bloocut:

If you are going to nuke the Vatican, perhaps a three-fold surgical strike-
Seat(s) of Catholicism, Islam
Seat(s) of economic control (forget low-yeild nukes, use tomahawks, exocets, whatever you got)
Seat(s) of Major media (to do this will take some satellite gremlins)


Don't forget the Jews, what they're doing to the Palestinians is imo worse than the child molestation of the Catholic Church.

Oh and don't forget all the spinoff Christians. Take out the governments of Myanmar, China and North Korea too. Wipe out the "leadership" of the GOP and the Tea Party.

That would deal with many of the world's problems.

>> ^LarsaruS:

Can't someone nuke the vatican? Please! This is probably the first and only case in the history of Humankind where you can actually say "Wont somebody think of the children!" and not be fearmongering.


If you are going to nuke the Vatican, perhaps a three-fold surgical strike-
Seat(s) of Catholicism, Islam
Seat(s) of economic control (forget low-yeild nukes, use tomahawks, exocets, whatever you got)
Seat(s) of Major media (to do this will take some satellite gremlins)

He acknowledges it's not new. But I disagree that what he's saying is the same as religion. He's not telling anyone what to believe, beyond 'be nice to yourself and others'. Contrast that with Catholicism, and they are some glaring differences. Gays are evil, for example.

Glad to hear everything's okay in RL!

So, to answer your first question, yes, I have read the Bible and many Buddhist sutras (particularly the Lotus Sutra). I'm familiar with some parts of the Koran, but have not read it in its entirety. What knowledge I have of Hinduism comes from Hindu friends.

Your interpretation of these religious texts is that they promote an obedience to a God or gods. For sure the Buddhist sutras do not, as most sects of Buddhism do not believe in sentient gods per se but in an innate (non-sentient) life force that we all share. But leaving that issue aside, I don't see how you can't have both themes (love thy neighbor/obey god). You couched it as an "either/or" solution, but why does it have to be? There's no logical reason why you can't follow your individual deity and treat other humans with compassion and respect. In fact, in most cases the themes go together--by treating other people with compassion and respect you are following the commands of your deity.

But let's take it further than that. I'm just going to quote you here: Of course you dont have to [interpret the Bible that way], and most religious people dont, read or interpret it that way. Wouldn't you agree that if most people don't interpret the Bible as a form of control, then really your interpretation is not the representative of Christian belief? For certain some people do interpret those religious texts as you have-- fundamentalists, for instance. But I would hardly consider them the majority of religious people or the average representative of religion. In short, just because you’ve interpreted a particular religious text in a particular way, it doesn’t mean your interpretation is by any means “correct” or mainstream.

On a side note, I agree with you that there's a lot of f'd up stuff in many religious texts. Take the Old Testament for example and the bloodshed and wars described within it. However, we’re looking at religion as a whole--not just superficially at the religious text but how that text is interpreted and how the people who follow that religion conduct themselves in daily life. One problem with this, as I mentioned in the last post, is that the most vocal nutcases are usually the ones that you see in the media and not your "average" religious person, so it is easy to form a biased perception of virtually all religions if you’re not associating with members of that particular religion on a daily basis. If you ask the majority of Christians what the major theme of the Bible is, you’ll almost certainly get some answer regarding love and redemption—not your interpretation or violence and control.

To address your second question about empirical evidence about the benefits of religious belief--there's lots. I don't have time now to find all the links. You’ll just have to Google it. I've seen the studies--legit ones on both physical and psychological health published in JAMA and other peer-reviewed sources--and they were enough to convince me. Very few counter-examples have been published with the exception of a recent one in 2010 that showed a correlation between religious belief and obesity, but it was such a small sample size that it could have been a chance finding or attributable to other factors (it drew its participants predominately from African-American /Hispanic communities which typically have worse health-care access than other ethnic groups).

Frankly, I’m a bit surprised at your next argument about MLK. You seem to be stating that it wasn’t MLK’s religious beliefs that prompted him to take action. All I need to do to refute this is point you to any biography of the man or his numerous speeches where he clearly states that his religious beliefs have led him to believe in both the moral imperatives of equality for all people and non-violence as a means of achieving this. Was religion the thing that made him what he was? Absolutely. Same with Ghandi. And Mother Theresa. And the Dalai Lama. And a host of other people who have attempted to or succeeded in changing the world for the better.

Next, let’s talk about the Hitchen’s challenge. I find the challenge ridiculous. Why should religion have to be somehow separate from daily life? All religions are deeply concerned with secular life—with how we live and act. Furthermore basic psychology tells us we don’t act because of any one reason but due to a complex interaction of many reasons, some of which are conscious and some unconscious, and which in the end are in our own self-interest. Hitchen’s challenge is a straw-man argument—replace religion with some other construct such as democracy or music and you will be equally unable to find anyone who meets that challenge (by promoting democracy you protect your own rights; musicians may love music but even they need to sell songs in order to pay the rent and will compose for money).

I think equally ridiculous is the argument that things such as genital mutilation have no other possible explanation or cause than religion. Wouldn’t misogyny be a much better and more rational explanation than religion? Clearly religion is used to fuel the misogyny but it would certainly be a mistake to assume that the misogyny couldn’t exist without religion. Let’s take another example—the Spanish Inquisition. The cause of that tragic slaughter was clearly secular in nature—having finally wrested the southern part of the country from Muslim rule, Ferdinand and Isabella chose Catholicism to unify a country in which many different religions co-existed. In short, religion didn’t cause the Spanish Inquisition; plain old political power-struggles did. Religion was simply the vehicle through which it was carried out.

And this is really what I’ve been saying all along—that religion is not, as you keep painting it as, the cause of humanity’s problems. It is a tool—a tool that, can be used for great good or great evil. As the folks at religioustolerance.org state: “Religion has the capability to generate unselfish love in some people, and vicious, raw hatred in others. The trick is to somehow change religions so that they maximize the former and minimize the latter.”

Later on, they go on to state that they feel that religion overall has a positive effect on society. That pretty much sums up my view of religion. If you do away with religion, you throw out the baby with the bath water. You lose the Martin Luther King Jr.’s, the Ghandi’s, the Mother Teresea’s, the Dali Lama’s of the world. It’s too a high a price to pay. For me, it’s all about dialogue—talking with others, getting them to see the common ground we all share, respect each other, and, as they said on their website maximizing the good and eliminating the bad.

As long as we keep talking—as you and I have been doing through these threads--we will keep moving forward. But I believe the instant dialogue ends—the instant you demonize the” other” and refuse to engage with them--you’ve planted the seeds of the next conflict: the next Spanish Inquisition, the next Bosnian massacre, or the next 9/11.

@BicycleRepairMan

I don't understand your arguments. For example, I'm not sure what your point is about "change." Religion changes because society changes. This is no different than technology replacing jobs that used to require manual labor. Do you think the guys who used to work on the assembly line "voluntarily" learned new job skills when automation replaced them? No, of course not. So, why is there something wrong with adapting to current circumstances? Whether the change is voluntary or not doesn't affect the argument of whether religion can be a useful tool in helping us find happiness in our lives, so I fail to see the relevance.

Next, dismissing entire religions because of the actions of a few individuals is just illogical. A few radical Muslims rammed jets into the World Trade Center, so all Muslims are terrorists (and Islam is evil)? A few priests molested children, so all priests are are child molesters (and Catholicism is evil)? A few black people have committed crimes, so all blacks are criminals? You strike me as an intelligent guy (judging from our previous conversations), surely you can see the problems with those arguments.

Finally, you dismiss religious work because they were written by our ancestors. Therefore, they couldn't possibly have anything relevant to say about our current lives right? Well then, how about the U.S. Constitution? There's a document that was written by our ancestors. Should we scrap that too? Couldn't possibly be relevant, right? After all, it hasn't changed in since it was written (though it has, of course, been added to).

The reason why we still cherish the Constitution is because of the wisdom it contains. That wisdom has been reinterpreted many times since the constitution was originally written--reinterpreted based on changes in both technology and society but never changed. In a similar manner, all of the religions have collected wisdom of what it means to be a human being and how to live happily. That wisdom too has been reinterpreted many times based on changing conditions.

I think that if, instead of railing against religion, you actually took the time to study it (study...not practice--I'm not proselytizing here) you would find that all of the major religions have important messages of wisdom to offer us about how to live our lives. Certainly people have mis-used and abused religion to further their own ends. Certainly people who claim to be religious have done terrible things. But in almost all cases you find that these people are not actually following the teachings of their own religion when they do these things--that they have hijacked the messages, distorted them, and used them for their own ends. I don't blame religion for that. I'm sorry to hear that you do, because like I said I think you're missing out.

>> ^smooman:

it would be like invading Italy after WWII........
except Italy didnt enslave its own people, Italy didnt suppress womens civil rights, stoning them to death for adultery, they didnt execute homosexuals, they didnt put to death Italians who didnt agree with or left roman Catholicism (or whatever major religion it was in Italy in that period), and Italy didnt repress higher education.
Ya but besides all that, its totally like invading Italy.....or something


Mussolini(you know, the Italian dictator) INVENTED fascism, he not only wrote a book about it, he wrote THE book. He even used the ideas in seizing power BEFORE Hitler did the same in Germany.

The analogy fails, but not for the reasons you point out. The real question is if we are during or after the war ended, and to point out the allies absolutely DID invade Italy DURING WWII.

it would be like invading Italy after WWII........

except Italy didnt enslave its own people, Italy didnt suppress womens civil rights, stoning them to death for adultery, they didnt execute homosexuals, they didnt put to death Italians who didnt agree with or left roman Catholicism (or whatever major religion it was in Italy in that period), and Italy didnt repress higher education.

Ya but besides all that, its totally like invading Italy.....or something

Okay, well let's go through where it would be acceptable, shall we?

I can speak for Ireland and Britain. No. Fucking. Way.>> ^bobknight33:

Look Merkado What I and Quantumushroom is not raciest. What fjules said might be inappropriate to say in the USA since every one is sadly forced to be politically correct but in other countries this might be fine to say. Then again what about freedom of speech? Are we not allowed to express an opinion?
I personally find what blackjacksellac said above offensive. " Fuck all religions, with Islam and Catholicism at the top of the pile of assholery." But he has an opinion and should be allowed to express it. I'll pray for him but wont loose any sleep over his comments, or yours.

But people who employ tactics like him just make the world worse.

Why are you lumping all atheists into the same.. oh nevermind. You werent. And he wasnt.

I'm so sick of this "dont use the broad brush" nonsense. He is clearly talking about those specific protesters and the muslims all over the world handing out deaththreats and getting offended left and right, and not everyone else, muslim or non-muslim.

What is he supposed to say?
"these muslims people-who-happen-to-be-muslim-but-is-completely-unrelated-to-islam-but-seems-to-care-a-hell-of-a-lot-about-it really suck at burning flags"

I think we all understand the difference between individual nutters (or small isolated fringe groups) and a symptomatic problem on the other hand. And while any idiot understands that you dont need to be a child rapist to be a catholic, or even to be a priest, we can still see that the abuse scandal in that particular case goes far beyond a few rouge priests misusing the church's trust in them.

When the followers of that church then flock in the thousands to show support for the people covering up and facilitating these crimes, you know that something is wrong, not just with a few catholics, but LOTS of catholics, and even with Catholicism itself. Again, that does not implicate every catholic in pedo-scandals, but is an honest assessment of a larger problem.

The same thing can be said of Islam and muslims. Something is deeply wrong when large groups go mental over a couple of fucking cartoons. And no, we are not talking about a small, isolated band of islamists here, we are talking about state-level paranoia and hysteria. Millions of Muslims were FURIOUS at Denmark (and other countries) over this nonsense, islamic countries and companies theatened boycotts and expressed outrage left and right and people rioted en-masse. Over a fucking cartoon. It even went so far that some of our more spineless politicians basically caved to demands of apologies to the Muslim haters who were issuing deaththreats.

Whenever Saudi-Arabia, or any other largely islamic country is ready to come out and condemn, (with strong support from their muslim population) the deathtreats, violence and intolerance (of presumably a few borderline, non-representative islamists), and explain that its perfectly within our rights to draw whoever we want, whenever we want and depict them attempting fornication with a farm animal of our choosing, I'll be right here listening.

Look Merkado What I and Quantumushroom is not raciest. What fjules said might be inappropriate to say in the USA since every one is sadly forced to be politically correct but in other countries this might be fine to say. Then again what about freedom of speech? Are we not allowed to express an opinion?

I personally find what blackjacksellac said above offensive. " Fuck all religions, with Islam and Catholicism at the top of the pile of assholery." But he has an opinion and should be allowed to express it. I'll pray for him but wont loose any sleep over his comments, or yours.

Fuck all religions, with Islam and Catholicism at the top of the pile of assholery.

This might have an impact on how people look at the Vatican but not Catholicism in general, they will see it as a mortal sin, not as a detriment of their faith. They will go on to worship a god who according to their very own reference text committed unspeakable cruelty against them, and tell themselves that he loves them.