au1929 wrote:rabel22
Remember science for one has brought many advances in medicine and cured many of the ills that have plagued mankind. Whereas religion has only brought divisiveness, war and etc.
Can you name one thing that religion has done to the benefit of mankind.
Irish monks preserved much of the science of the Greeks and Romans during the Dark Ages.
Religion has comforted countless millions during times of suffering.
Religion is like science. The benefit or harm that flows from them is determined by the individuals who practice and use them.
The concept of tax-exempt status for non-profits is sound, but the practice is not. Reform is needed.
Black churches have been a stabilizing influence in a stressed community (chalk one up for religion), and they have a long history of advising their congregation not only on political issues, but on political candidates. Many of the people who would love to see the Catholic Church taxed, would never suggest applying the same rule to
Black churches.
The hierarchy of the Church (with precious few exceptions) should be utterly ashamed of the way in which they dealt with pedophile priests, but the extent of the problem has been exaggerated. This is not to excuse the Church, for it deserves no excuse or pardon, but the notion that the Catholic priesthood has been teeming with pedophiles just isn't true.
Pedophilia is a particularly heinous crimes in light of the innocence of the victims, but it is that much more heinous when it occurs within what should be the safe confines of a Church. The extent of betrayal is enormous.
In many minds, it is a betrayal that can not be exceeded, but this is because so many people have bought into the very deliberate effort of the Catholic Church to cast priests as supernatural beings, superior in so many ways to mere mortals.
In reality, what is the perfidy of a pedophile priest to the betrayal of a pedophile parent?
Actually, there has been a very limited, and relatively small number of offending priests, and there have been far more alleged victims than these perverts, no matter how promiscuously predatory they may have been, could possibly have assaulted.
Again, this in no way minimizes the sins of the Church, but it does speak to two points, one interesting and one dull.
The dull one first: There is a group of people in this world who are as fanatical in their hatred of religion as they accuse the followers of religion to be. They identify themselves whenever they attempt to argue the case that the extent of pedophile priests proves the Catholic Church is an, obscene, puss filled, and utterly corrupt institution.
The interesting one: What motivates someone to come forward and allege that he or she was sexually assaulted by a priest - many years after the alleged event? In many instances it is to obtain justice, and in some instances it is to profit, but what about those instances where the allegations are born entirely of the latter day revelation of so-called
repressed memory? The number of plaintiffs who based their cases against priests solely on the basis of restored memories is quite large. If we can agree (and I'm sure we all cannot) that the concept of repressed memory is at best very rare, and more likely, entirely bogus, we still need to figure out why people are capable of convincing themselves that they underwent humiliating experiences, and announcing them to the world.
In any case, the Catholic Church does not equal religion, nor do the Crusaders who slaughtered every man women and child in Jerusalem in the 11th century, nor do the jihadists who blow themselves up to kill as many innocents as is possible, and nor does The Inquisition.
Hiroshima does not equal science, nor does Chernobyal, or the experiments of Dr. Mengele.
