The Pope was intimately involved in covering up abuse - Page 2

Hey, why worry about systematic and apparently endemic sexual abuse of children when you can just blame it on irrational religious hatred?

Yeah those atheists and non-organised religious types are just so smug about their not tacitly supporting pedophelia aren't they?

How rude.

This is why I'd like all of you free-thinking, enlightened Chewers to attend next week's Atheist Crusaders meeting, to be held at the YMCA Annex in Gainesville, GA., where we will bring the FULL FORCE of our awesome religion-hating powers down upon the local neo-theocracies! I'm bringing the casserole (mac-n-cheese, but made with SCIENCE!), but we still need volunteers to bring bio-degradable cups and child-safe sporks. Sign up sheet is available at the Gainesville YMCA website, rec room availability withstanding.

Yeah this thread (started by none other than PK of all people) is a serious and well research discussion on the issue.

As for the atheist vs religious people mini saga, that almost deserves its own thread. What I find strange is that in some of the thread arguments (probably not this one) some of the none believers talk in a religious fundamentalist vocabulary when discussion religion, and what they complain about in the "real world" (like family members shoving their religion on their faces), they seem to do quite a bit here.

But anyways, keep having fun.

Yeah, we've never had one of those before.

Dont remind me...its amazing how we all bite it very single time.

Maybe my logic is mushy, but I still don't see how this contradicts what I said about replacing the worship of a god with the worship of the state. Religious fundamentalists seek to evangelize their religion and assorted beliefs by saying that other religions are wrong, or a lie, or that the *other* gods don't exist. For me, atheism is a call to rationality and self reliance, not a movement. Communist regimes took the idea of there not being a god as an opportunity to replace that god with the state...where it ceases to be a strictly philosophical concept and becomes dogma and jingoism.

I'm not saying that they didn't take atheism and make a religion out of it, which puts it into a different category in my opinion than the "real atheism" talk often bandied about on these boards. But Stalin certainly set himself as more of a charismatic religious leader than the current leaders of the "atheist movement" today. It's hard to imagine Pol Pot or Stalin sitting down and arguing with bishops, or going on talk shows to berate religion. And for me, it's equally hard to imagine Sam Harris participating in armed revolution or Richard Dawkins calling for a Great Purge and sending opponents to Siberia.

[QUOTE=Jeff M;2868259

I'm not saying that they didn't take atheism and make a religion out of it, which puts it into a different category in my opinion than the "real atheism" talk often bandied about on these boards. .[/QUOTE]

Right, and there are plenty of religious people, even OMG Catholics, who feel that there is the Structure of The Church, which differs from the Real Church, which embodies the philosophy of the Sermon on the Mount.

Yet The Bill Maher Brigade wants to portray ALL people of faith as latent fanatics.

In Protestant/Pauline Christianity parlance, this is the distinction between the apparent church--the religious organization you can see with your eyes--and the Body of Christ/community of believers/Beloved Community/Kingdom of God/Kingdom of Heaven. One is a human organization with all the faults--and virtues--that entails, the other is the community of all the truly faithful in eternity--i.e. every true Christian there ever was, is, and will be in an "ever-present" eternal state outside of time.

Speaking for Lutherans, the reason we prize Holy Communion so much is we believe that we commune not only with Christ but also that community at the rail. Given how many of the people I have loved and who informed my faith during my lifetime have died horrible deaths, the idea that there is a time at which I am in their literal presence each week gives me a great deal of comfort.

The major problem I have with the Roman Catholics in general--and Joseph Ratzinger in particular--is they believe that the Roman Catholic Church and the Body of Christ are ontologically indistinct entities. That is, the visisble organization of the Roman Catholic Church is to the physical body what the Body of Christ is to the soul. That's why Ratzinger does things like call all churches that exist outside of the Roman Catholic Church "imperfect." You know what, get rid of your palaces, tailors, cobblers, Prada shoes, and recidivist pederast clergy and their enablers and maybe you can tell the rest of the world's churches what perfect and imperfect discipleship consists in.

Cuch's a Lutheran. I am not surprised.

Then I think you're painting with the same brush that you're accusing the "Bill Maher Brigade" of using. There is a lot of parroting Bill's assholery here, but there are a lot of atheists out there who understand that there is a large body of any religious group is made up of normal people who know better than to buy into the freakshow and drink the kool-aid.

Don't automatically lump me in with the assholes on my side, and I won't automatically lump you in with the assholes on yours. I was simply pointing out that the tired old argument that of "the worst butchers in history were atheists" doesn't hold as much water as you would like. Yes, they didn't believe in god, but they were fanatic believers none the less. The problem for me is the willingness to put dogma and belief above common sense and human decency.

And for me, it seems a lot easier for people to do that when they think they're taking their orders from a higher power. I have an enormous amount of respect for people like Jim Wallis, whose group is taking Glenn Beck to task for his comments on "social justice" christians. I don't agree with his beliefs, but I can't fault him for trying to make the world a better place based on those beliefs.

It can be easy for an atheist to get up in arms about the ridiculous shit that comes up. The hypocrisy is right fucking there in plain sight. Bully for you that you don't support it and want to change the church, but until that happens don't expect us to let it slide by without comment and outrage. The *second* that the "atheist movement" gets caught up in a decades-long (if not centuries-long) pedophilia scandal that we cover up and subsequently comes to a head when a former Hitler Youth comes to power in an organization where millions of people believe him to be infallible, you won't see me defending my particular sect of atheism.

Shit. I slipped into being a douchebag there. Sorry. You've got to let us have this one. Have your third vatican conference or whatever, but the catholic church lost the moral high ground here. Religious people are not all fanatics. There I said it. But if you're a catholic, you should preface all of your defense of your religion with, "None of those priests who molested little kids should ever be in a position where it could happen again" before you expect to be taken seriously.

The thing about atheism that religious people often seem to struggle with is that it's a lack of a belief system, not a belief system. It's a concept with no inherent goals or wider ideology. If a government enforces nationwide atheism and anti-theism that says everything about the ideology of that particular government, but nothing about atheism itself.

I've been brought to almost laughter a couple of times when in similar conversations I was told that I somehow believe in atheism. As if somehow I substituted belief in God and the Bible with belief in Dawkins and The God Delusion.

If I had the "Citizen Kane clapping" gif I'd use it.

Indeed:

'Atheism is a religious position"
"No it's not!" said Constable Visit. "Atheism is a denial of a god."
'Therefore it is a religious position,' said Dorfl. 'Indeed, a true atheist thinks of the gods constantly, albeit in terms of denial. Therefore, atheism is a form of belief. If the atheist truly did not believe, he or she would not bother to deny.'

Don't you point your Pratchett at me!

Do you really think that under the surface of every atheist is a believer who's just stubbornly clinging to a position of denial? And must one believe in something to doubt its existence? Semantic and logic games from a creature that runs on magic are your argument? Come on...

I deny religious dogma utterly. It's written part and parcel by humans with agendas, and therefore no more valid as a basis for a system of belief than any other work of philosophy, or Oprah's book club. Show me evidence of your god, and I'll believe in him...but I'll have some pointed questions about how his will corresponds to the multitude of conflicting religions...and sects within those religions...and the people within those religions taking a piecemeal approach as to which of those positions within those sects are "actually" the will of god.

Let's just agree that Terry is awesome and move on.

I woould argue, but i cant debate against someone with such a classy avatar.

Right back at you, man. I get the feeling Chuck Jones would approve of Futurama.

Oh, he would had, and in such wonderful ways.
That "Toreador" episode of Bugs Bunny is so damn great...i still love how fantastic the design and animation of the bull in that one is.
(However, my favorite bullfighting LT cartoon remains "Mexican Joyride", with Daffy Duck....I cant think how many time's I've laughed at the "safety zone" gag in that one)

What you are saying is that any religious belief = fanaticism, therefore anyone who is a fanatic is religious!

Sorry chief, Marxism/Leninism is pretty clear: no God or Gods, man and the material world is all there is, therefore, Marxism/Leninism is not a Religion.

And the death toll by Communist rulers is pretty fearsome. 30 Million dead in Georgia alone in the 1930's as Stalin built his "world of tomorrow"

Or to put it another way, your are saying the real problem is dogmatic belief as a behavior pattern, irrespective of what the Dogma is.

If that's how you read it, I apologize. I'll try to be more clear. Religious belief does not equal fanaticism. That's not what I think. Anyone who thinks that, in my opinion, is incorrect. I don't know how made that leap in logic from what I wrote, but let me assure you that was not my meaning. People believe in religion to varying degrees for fuck's sake. One of you guys talked about how you only go to mass where you agree with the priest's philosophy. That is rejection of dogma right there. I acknowledge that and applaud it.

Belief is fine. Faith is fine by me. Right up until the point you take that belief and hurt people because of it...or use it as a reason to take no action to prevent others from being hurt. You don't appear to be that kind of person, so regardless of whether or not I think your views on religion are incorrect, I can't call you a fanatic. Stalin was a fanatic. Suicide bombers are fanatics. You are not. I'm not up on chapter and verse of communist philosophy, but I don't think atheism was the driving force behind Stalin's bloodlust. I'm pretty sure it was a thirst for power and a desire to set himself up as the next best thing to a god. Didn't Trotsky even call him on it? If I've implied that I sympathize with Stalin, please forgive me. Communism = Bad.

But yes. Dogmatic belief is the problem. Belief in whatever to the exclusion of all reason is a bad thing. I'm quite comfortable with that. You can't have fanaticism without dogmatic belief, but religion does not equal fanaticism when people who consider themselves religious reject dogma when it's fucked up.

Oh, and Maher is a smug douche. We can agree on that, right? He's funny sometimes, but I'm embarrassed to be on the same side as him more often than not.

This is more like it! There's a lot of love going out the Looney Tunes bunch in this thread http://www.chud.com/forum/showthread...=121726&page=2 thanks to Erix. It reminded me that it was about time for the kids to learn the finer points of great cartoons.

MY favorite Looney Tunes was "The Gremlin from the Kremlin" in which Adolf Hitler pilots a Bomber towards Moscow, only to be thwarted by the title character!

How can you support Stalinism like that!?!?!? That cartoon clearly elevates communism to new levels of both cuteness AND military might. The gremlins use a Stalin mask as the only thing Hitler fears to...shit, I can't keep it up. It's a great cartoon.

Here's to detente!

From the New York Times:

More depressing info at the link.

Oh, come on! It's not up to the average Catholic to denounce these idiots and the leadership anymore than it's up to the average Mulsim to denounce terrorism. How about we assume that most of the average believers find this shit repulsive instead of assuming they condone it?

As a Buddhist I don't go around saying that I denounce Sarin attacks on Japanese subway cars because it should be pretty obvious that the average Buddhist finds that idea repulsive and abhorrent.

Last I checked Buddhist leaders weren't covering for poison gas maniacs. This child-abuse thing seems to be ingrained in the Catholic church's heirarchy, completely inseparable. If this were an organisation I were a part of, I'd get the Hell out and find something a little less evil.

Um...I think it's up to both of those groups to denounce both of those things, when the subject of "why do you belong to that group" comes up. Depending on the circumstances, of course. The subway gassers don't really apply to the average Buddhist because they're a fringey cult, much like you wouldn't associate a Presbyterian with David Koresh. But when it's a systemic problem, yes, I think you've got some 'splaining to do.

Leo X used to love having naked little boys jump out of cakes like strippers. That sort of extravagance is why they had to have Tetzl sell special indulgences to build the modern St. Peter's Basilica. The hierarchy of the Catholic church is just very twisted. The actually good people who have been the Bishop of Rome are sort of exceptional, not normative.

I'll try to clarify. I'm not calling on normal folks to go out of their way to denounce the freaks simply because they belong to the same religion. People can't be expected to automatically share the blame for what the whack jobs do. What I'm trying to say was that when someone comes charging to the defense of the whole religion on this issue, explaining that you have a shred of human decency is a good starting point. It would be difficult for me to take someone seriously in their argument if it didn't start from there.

But on the other hand, this issue is not remotely new. And I have high expectations of those average believers who belong to the catholic church. The complicity of the church leaders in this fucked up scandal has gone on too long, and the *only* people that can do anything about it are the members of the church. So I would prefer it if they would have stepped the fuck up a little earlier.

I can't believe there's any sort of defensive conversation about these crimes at all. It's patently obvious that constant, repeated sexual abuse of children has been practiced, suppressed, ignored, and marginalized by the officials of the Catholic Church, including the current Pope.

These ridiculous tangenital arguments about who should denounce who and who should be held responsible are fucking reprehensible. This is a decades-old scandal that goes all the way up to the man who is currently the Pope. Keep defending these monsters, people. Keep pretending there isn't something fundamentally wrong in the organization. Keep giving them money. Keep giving them excuses. Keep paying their lawyers.

Well the Queen Spider certainly approves...



The Gelgameks may need convincing tho...

I love the implication of this. The man went a whole third of a year without sticking his dick in a pre-teen sphincter, surely he deserves sainthood for that!

I refuse to paint Catholics with a large brush but I think we can at least get out roller for their leaders, right?

Maureen Dowd takes the church to town in her latest editorial. Worth reading.

This is problematic because it assumes anyone, in this instance any Catholic, attempting to engage in the debate tacitly supports pedophilia - they have to 'prove' they don't. It's a fucked up way to approach an argument, and not substantively different from saying to a Muslim "prove to me you're not a terrorist."

The functional difference being that a Catholic is, by definition, part of the Catholic church (although a Muslim, by definition, participates in zakat, which can have the same end result of supporting organizational structures the follower wouldn't otherwise choose to support). A better way to preface the debate is, I think, to ask whether or not a Catholic feels comfortable supporting the Church with Ratzinger as the Pope. But it's got to be a lot more nuanced than "You support the Church, therefore you support Pedophiles."

l I'm not saying this to be inflammatory, but it's not exactly the same. It's more similar to being a follower of a local cleric who takes religious direction from another cleric who's sending money from zakat to support Al Qaeda, Al Shibab, Tea Parties, whatever you want. You're not directly spending your own money to support crazy fundamentalism, but it's kind of fair to assume something about your beliefs if there's no outcry from your mosque, and you remain a member of it after decades of this kind of news.

I don't like trying to draw parallels across religions, because it just gets messy, but Catholics whose places of worship recognize Ratzinger as Pope are a part of his organization, and if they aren't speaking out against this there's a certain kind of tacit support. It doesn't mean they're pedophiles, and no, odds are they don't support pedophelia. Still, being counted a follower of any organization means you're counted as support for the leadership, until you say otherwise.

Right, which is why phrased the question as "are you comfortable supporting the Church with Ratzinger as Pope?" I think the moral and ethical answer to that would be no, but I'm not Catholic.

Fair, I might have misunderstood. I think you're looking at this as how to approach a discussion with members of the church, and I'm saying that at this point it's perfectly acceptable to assume that they do support Ratzinger — and thus his and the church's actions in this — until that conversation happens or they indicate otherwise. With this much evidence of awfulness, the burden of proof is really on them.

I agree that you're phrasing is infinitely more diplomatic than "Do you support pedophilia," which is just a silly approach to choose. If you want to abandon tact, "Do you support the guy who's pretty obviously covering for pedophiles?" at least has the value of being specific, if no less inflammatory.

Edit: I swore off posting until I spent more time in film discussion, and I break it for this? Shit.

But if you truly believe the tenets of Catholicism, then the pope is infallible. If you disagree with him, then you believe that he's wrong. If he's wrong, then the core of Catholicism is fatally flawed. How can one still be a Catholic under those circumstances?

This is inaccurate, and an old saw that gets brought up time and again by people who don't really understand where it comes from. There was a papal decree, in the 1870s, asserting the Pope's infallibility in regards to a very narrow explication of Church doctrine.

from Wikipedia:


This doctrine was defined dogmatically in the First Vatican Council of 1870. According to Catholic theology, there are several concepts important to the understanding of infallible, divine revelation: Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Sacred Magisterium. The infallible teachings of the Pope are part of the Sacred Magisterium, which also consists of ecumenical councils and the "ordinary and universal magisterium". In Catholic theology, papal infallibility is one of the channels of the infallibility of the Church. The infallible teachings of the Pope must be based on, or at least not contradict, Sacred Tradition or Sacred Scripture. Papal infallibility does not signify that the Pope is impeccable, i.e., that he is specially exempt from liability to sin.


I'm pretty sure covering up and protecting pedophiles doesn't fall into any potentially 'infallible' teachings.

The claim to infallibility has been used only once, in 1950, defining the Assumption of the Virgin Mary as an article of faith for the Church. That's it. No one really goes about thinking of the Pope as infallible in any effective sense of the word.

Honestly the tenet of infallibility is one of the few I actually know. I grew up in a rather lazy southern baptist home, so most of my knowledge of Christianity comes from there. I saw any number of smaller divisions and sects form as people protested the direction of my local churches. Some survived and thrived and others just kind of vanished. Obviously the culture is different between that and the Catholic Church, so I won't even pretend to know the answer. I have a very small number of serious Catholic friends, I might have to pry a little more than I typically do next time we're in the same place.

As an outsider, I've got all kinds of problems with any organization setting up it's leader as being infallible. And unless I'm mistaken, the Vatican hasn't necessarily always adhered to it rigidly in practice. New Popes alter policies of former Popes, things that (again, as an outsider) seem eponymous with Catholicism have been done away with entirely; the state of limbo is the first to come to mind, but I can't emphasize my ignorance of specifics enough. I'm sure somebody who's actually a scholar or practitioner of Catholicism could provide a better answer than my own, which is to either accept the schism between your core beliefs and your speaking out against a man who by all appearance has engaged in immoral behavior, leave the Church, or accept that you're part of an organization with a history, a very recent one at that, of hiding it's crimes and hypocrisies. If they can balance that with the good they see the Church as doing, then so be it, but they deserve whatever scorn they receive for that position.

Edit: And my ignorance immediately goes on display. I gave warning!

With that said, I see even less reason to not be outspoken over this. I'll also withdraw to spare anybody further inaccuracies and ignorances. Thanks for the correction.

Thanks for clearing that up, Zhukov.

But damn, sometimes Catholic doctrine reads like real estate law.

This is one of the things that most confuses me about Christianity. For something that is based on so much dogma, it's incredibly nebulous. The Pope is infallible but not really, hell exists but not really, pre-marital sex is a serious sin but we won't ex-communicate anyone over it. It just makes it so difficult to actually logically debate with someone. The "Yes we say so, but don't really mean it" is the best get out of jail card ever. In fact I don't remember ever having a discussion with someone religious that didn't end up with them saying something that disagreed at least with one of the church's dogmas.

I guess that was the goal all along. Fool-proofing their belief system against arguments.

Yeah, I don't quite understand this concept either. If the laws of the church are the word of god, then shouldn't they be unimpeachable? How can the church make decisions to alter the word of god, or even the laws of reality?

And if the pope (along with the galactic senate, or whatever is going on in there) does have that power, then that means that he has the direct line from god's mouth. Which means that if he's overlooked and concealed evidence of child molestation, then it's because god has told him to.

When it comes to organized religion, you have to either take it all or none at all. Every popular religion is based on a holy book that claims to be the actual Word of God.

A lot of the "believers" in this thread, such as ryoken or ElCapitanAmerica, have to cherry pick through these books, otherwise they couldn't live in a society. Once people start taking scripture and interpreting it to whatever they want, they are going against the Word of God and just making shit up.

A lot of churchs are big into taking scripture and looking for symbolic meanings. Of course, anybody who ever reads poetry knows that once you translate the words from its original language, it loses its symbolic meaning. So unless you guys are reading your holy books in its original languages, you can't even look for any symbolic meanings.

That's exactly it. The Catholic Church still has this belief that they can control all information in regards to its handling of matters. That's why they're doing all this dumbass shit when an apology should've been the first thing they did. The second thing would be to send all the pedophiles they're currently protecting to Patagonia to start the First Catholic Church of the Holy Emperor Penguin.

As a former Catholic, the whole infalibility thing was explained to me in school that the Pope has jurisdictional authority on Catholic interpretation of Bible teachings, and that was the extent of it.

I've been to Catholic school from grade school all the way up to high school. I do know that one former pastor of a church school I attended died of full-blown AIDS, and it was pretty hushed up at the time. You heard whispers and rumors all the time but everything was passed on from kid to kid and wasn't very reliable. I did have a great priest when I was in high school that in a weird way encouraged me towards my current non-belief. He would tell me to question everything, even Church dogma. He also wanted me to see THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST after the Church condemned it and asked me what I thought.

I think it'll take three things to change the church, and they likely won't happen in my lifetime. The removal of the celibacy vow, the complete removal of Church hierarchy, and local bishops to be directly and criminally responsible for any cover-up. That'll never happen, of course.