Pope Benedict declares pedophilia was 'normal' back in the '70s
You can watch the entire movie here.
There must be something very wrong at the Vatican. The Pope's new scapegoat for the Church's sex abuse scandal is the 1970s.
Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict's claim yesterday that paedophilia wasn't considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s. In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society. “In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said.
“It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than' and a ‘worse than'. Nothing is good or bad in itself.”
The Pope said abuse revelations in 2010 reached “an unimaginable dimension” which brought “humiliation” on the Church...read on
I watched this gut wrenching documentary last night called Deliver Us From Evil, about a serial pedo-rapist that the Catholic Church enabled for three decades. I cried along with Mr. Jyono, who thought Father O'Grady was a friend to his family only to find out after O'Grady was arrested in another county that he had raped his daughter for seven years. Clearly the Church covered it up, as video testimony shows, and instead of dealing with the problem, sent him out of town so he could hunt for new victims. It would be as if the Attorney General of California, after arresting Ted Bundy for being a serial killer, decided to give him a bus ticket to Iowa and told him to just stay away from girls -- while the AG then offered support with prayers to Bundy and maybe even a pension plan if kept quiet. What would Ted do?
I've been covering the child abuse cases that have been revealed in recent times along with finding out the Vatican and their hierarchy, instead of acting like the moral authority they claim to be, covered up the hundreds of abusers and actually allowed them to destroy future families for decades. And so much ofthis happened under Cardinal Raztinger's (Pope Benedict XVI) watch.
The office led by Cardinal Ratzinger, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had actually been given authority over sexual abuse cases nearly 80 years earlier, in 1922, documents show and canon lawyers confirm. But for the two decades he was in charge of that office, the future pope never asserted that authority, failing to act even as the cases undermined the church’s credibility in the United States, Australia, Ireland and elsewhere.
Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, an outspoken auxiliary bishop emeritus from Sydney, Australia, who attended the secret meeting in 2000, said that despite numerous warnings, top Vatican officials, including Benedict, took far longer to wake up to the abuse problems than many local bishops did.
I'm fairly sure that pedophilia was considered an absolute evil in the 1970s. It was just covered up --- mostly because of institutions like the Church which made even the thought of sex so shameful that even innocent victims of abuse were afraid to admit it. But whatever "context" he's thinking of, in normal society sexual exploitation of children wasn't part of it except on society's fringe (just as it is today among certain fundamentalist sects.)
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There are many examples of our leadership and elite institutions and leadership failing, but I think this one is the best example. When even the Church that has made human sexuality a purely procreative necessity within sanctioned marriage is making excuses for pedophilia among its priests because of "the times" then it's fairly clear that any institution can be thoroughly corrupted to its very core. It tends to create just a little mistrust among the people.
You can see why blowhard Catholic sex-abuse apologists like Bill Donohue are around. To him, these child molesters weren't even pedophiles. They make plenty of cash off of doing their best to beat back any criticism directed at the Church.
Normal for who, "Men of God?"
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
When John Paul was pope!
This is despicable!
Of course Mary was thirteen and unmarried when she was knocked up by God.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
The godhead himself is a child rapist, so how can it be wrong?
Of course, with the endless miscarriages and other failed pregnancies, the godhead is the most profligate abortionist too. Oh well, consistency is just the hobgoblin of little minds.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://ww...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
There is a miss-translation of "virgin" that should read "young woman".
Also, Jesus was a stone mason not a carpenter.
The virgin birth was a repeat of an older religion, just as Christmas is to cover the winter solstice festivals. Jesus was a spring baby, June or July I think.
Can we get a re-translation of our good book anytime soon, or will truth just upset to many people?
Everyone rants about Muslims getting "virgins" in heaven, so why the silence on Catholics getting children on Earth? Doesn't seem right to me. (None of it. That's religion fer ya.)
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
There have been nothing but mistranslations over the millenia. And, compromises like stealing from pagan rituals, symbols etc. And cherry pickings about which volumes counted as canonical and which ones did not.
The Bible is a mish mash of nonsense, horror fiction and poetry.
All that said, I'm not sure the "original version" to the extent it is discernible, would be a "good book."
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
Roninkai !
The documentary, Zeitgeist,
http://www dot zeitgeist dot com
names names, in chronological order, of the several older religions, going back a few thousand years before 1 AD.
Each and every one of the protagonists mentioned were born to a virgin on December 25, performed miracles, was killed and rose from the dead.
Back then you married young and died younger, think Utah.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is just newest name for the Inquisition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnQ_gIfgsnA&fe...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Yeah, I guess "absolute evil" is a term reserved for such horrors as homosexuality, abortion, distributing condoms in AIDS-ravaged African countries, and disbelief in Catholic doctrine, all of which send you straight to the fire and brimstone of hell.
Child rape? No biggie.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
....when popes were routinely poisoned or otherwise assassinated, instead of hanging on to continue with their corruption and amorallity?
The last pope rumored to have been assassinated was John-Paul I so the tradition isn't as lapsed as you might think although it might fall into complete disuse if Joey Rats succeeds in burying the Church itself.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
When gas was cheap and children cheaper.
GOD I hate that cult.
n/t
1570's? 1670's? 1770's? 1870's? This pedo thing has been going on for centuries.
This Pope has been called a lot of things. Being part of the Hitler youth for starters.
But this. This guy is senile. He has to have some kind of dementia. He did admit to and asked for forgiveness for the church for all of it's lying and secrecy.
How can anyone still have faith in the Catholic Church? Or, maybe I should say the clergy.
If there is a God, I don't think she'll/he'll be very big on forgiveness for these cretins.
What is your conceptual, continuity?
can anyone still have faith in the Catholic Church? Or, maybe I should say the clergy.
If there is a God, I don't think she'll/he'll be very big on forgiveness for these cretins.
Oh come on now everyone knows God is good. /s
Nope. Just a preposterous, irrational and dangerous belief system.
Though, I suppose that could just be a to-MAY-to / to-MAH-to situation. We should all be double-checking our belief systems now and then.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
as his current thoughts and excuses are pretty much the same as he's been spouting for years.
What he is, is a lying, arrogant, evil sonofabitch....
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
when he was in charge of the this under Pope John Paul...Disgusting--Donahue is a horrid embarrassement to real catholics --not the apologists and people with their head in the sand about centuries of abuse!
Yes Yes all religions have their issues but usually from centuries ago --not continuing! and Hidden
Kudos for having thinking ability. I have read many books about creation of the church and book and I have no doubt they were the first republicans.
Lied
Attempted to change history
Make shit up
I cannot fathom anyone supporting or defending this group of people, none.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-hkjEMRZfQ&fe...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmQDunf8Rg8
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
... Wasn't the Catholic Church denouncing liberals and feminists back in the '70s for "moral relativism"?
And now they're saying “[...] there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than' and a ‘worse than'. Nothing is good or bad in itself.”???
Unbelievable.
Do they think that no one who was alive then remembers anything?
Even if it were a time of moral relativism, The Church is supposed to be a Rock supporting Christ's teachings.
It's just the biggest load of bullshit so far. They are culpable and responsible for destroying the lives of clergy and rewarding pederasts. By their own faith, not only do they have to confess, they have to atone. Claiming that everything was go-go-go in the 70s implies that the victims weren't really abused and their pain isn't real.
Ratzi is damned by his own theology.
No kidding! Heh, Sam Harris has noted that one of the ironies of his speaking against moral relativism in the non-theistic world, is that it is typically only religious dogmatists who agree that moral relativism is bad. I guess he has to write off the Catholic Church now.
An apt description for oh so many reasons. ;)
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than' and a ‘worse than'. Nothing is good or bad in itself.
Doubt they came up with this mumbo-jumbo rubbish on their own. They probably consulted with Donald Rumpsmell.
Their homeworld was a place called Earth, located in an uninteresting part of the galaxy. They had an expression: pride goeth before a fall. Their pride was their undoing. I know. I was there....They did not listen, of course. Arrogant men never do.
in fairy tales like religion, it is not a huge step to believing whatever justifies your own acts.
I would be very comfortable betting that Ratzinger has not a few child rapes under his own fancy white belt. Wish someone would come forward.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KShkhIXdf1Y
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Rank and file Catholics have turned a blind eye to child rape for centuries.
"The Church" (toy toy toy) is a cult.
What about the castration of boys so they could sing and the Church would not have to have women around during services?
There are currently 2 Inquisitions being held on American nuns. The cover-story is that some of them are just too uppity and they need to submit to the faith properly.
In reality, the Vatican is trying to find out how much property they have. They like to bankrupt the nuns to pay for the priests' indiscretions. It's got NOTHING to do with faith, but all to do with making sure the riches of the Vatican remain there keeping bastards like Bernard Law in luxury.
Nuns who have run their monasteries properly and have bought property without any Archdiocese support (usually b/c the Archdiocese couldn't be bothered to help) are under no legal obligation to inform the Vatican of the value of these properties, and when the Inquisitor is told to go scratch, he gets pretty pissed off.
But you don't get to be a Mother Superior by letting people bully you.
These assholes at the top of the Vatican really think that pederasty isn't a big deal. The money they are losing is FAR more important than the human cost. The ordained will always be greater than the "merely" baptized to them.
is nothing more than a criminal cabal, more dangerous than all of the Mexican drug cabals combined. I wonder how many little boys Ratzinger has under his belt, or cassock.
Another question. Is pedophile apologist Bill Donohue any relation to that other criminal scumbag, Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce? They sound like they could be brothers.
The Catholics gave us the Inquisitions and child rapists, the Protestant gave us Nazis, the KKK and American Christo-capitalism and modern Republican party. Both Christian cults are equally vile.
All the Protestant cult is is Catholic lite....Just a splinter sect of Cathoilicism that carried on the vile tradition of bigotry and violence.
Protestant's, this is a Protestant nation.
Catholics were often looked down on and NEVER could have come up with a document like the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
It would all have been for the Church, like Spain in the New World (example).
Tell me you're kidding. You do realize that, while of Anglican or Protestant descent, the iconic founders, the ones whose names everyone knows, were mostly agnostics or Deists, right?
And you know that the Constitution has, ahem, freedom of religion written into it, something today's rabid Protestants absolutely loathe. (Oh, and Maryland began as a Catholic colony. Charles Carroll, the representative from Maryland in the Continental Congress, who signed the Declaration of Independence, was Catholic.)
America is not the product of Protestantism. It's a product of the Enlightenment. If anything, the resurgence of religion in its realm will bring it down.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
It is interesting even on this blog that Catholic bashers are shameless apologists for the Protestants.
Protestants think the Catholics, Jews and Muslims are out to get them, which is why the protestants are the most hateful of the Christian sects. the bigotry of the Westborough Baptist church is typical of how most Protistants feel.
Catholics "...NEVER could have come up with a document like the Constitution or the Bill of Rights." Now that is a debatable point. You have noticed that the majority five Catholics on the SCOTUS will be in charge of interpreting the Constitution for the next few decades? How much does it matter who wrote it?
So, this means he was STILL a criminal back in the 70's, just less of a criminal?? This human man should be in jail for International sexual assault of a minor.. Why is he still roaming free??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_89U-N-5w0g
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Take my word, when native Irish think Bill Donahue is an asshole, that's the classic meaning of asshole.
Democratic Party progressive, Vietnam veteran and proud Union member for 41 years
the catholic church is nothing less than pedophilia
carried to the corporate level......and we all know
that corporations never commit crimes against
mankind.....fuck the catholic church.
like anyone or group that condones wholesale
rape of children should be forced out of the USA.
The true corperate rapists are the Protestants
This is just as bad as the Catholic cult, if not worse. Protestants believe in 'salvation through faith alone', which is why they try and denounce any need to help others.
Nearlly every money grubbing televangeslist or white power group are Protestant groups.
Actually that would be primarily Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide with Sola Gratia, Solus Christus and Soli Deo Gloria on it's tail.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Personally, I wouldn't go defending any faith. Perhaps the worst thing about religion is that it manages to separate "morality" from human happiness and suffering.
It's not every single "religion," of course, but once faith -- belief without, or contradictory to, evidence -- is lauded as a virtue, someone's gonna come along with some nonsense to be taken on faith, and the pathway is set for horror and atrocity. That certainly seems to be the case with the world's major monotheisms, their weird offshoots like Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, and of course, outright scams like Scientology.
As a species, we should rid ourselves of the notion that faith is a good thing, and reacquaint ourselves with our brain-based moral intuitions. We sure won't be perfect as a result, but we'll likely start trying to treat one another a lot better.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
In the US religious tolerance has been codified as "You can believe anything you want to."
And lots of people do.
Cuz it's All About Faith and Belief .. don't trouble them with facts.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
Mostly. Though, there are still public faces who argue that you must at least believe in something supernatural to be American. Holy Joe Lie-to-Dems recently said that there was no such thing as "freedom from religion" in America.
Besides, tolerance is one thing. Respect is another.
Legally, I do support the notion, "You can believe anything you want to." Put more aptly, you have the right to believe whatever you believe. To that extent, I'm tolerant and then some. I'll fight for that right, now matter how silly the belief.
But respect? No. Beliefs do not deserve respect merely for being held. While no one should be jailed or otherwise treated as legally unequal for his or her beliefs, beliefs are not merely private thoughts. Belief is the engine of action, and when a preacher asks for money or a candidate runs for office, it is his or her beliefs that should be scrutinized, and ridiculed if necessary.
We would all do well to double-check our belief systems from time to time. Regularly. And if a belief is preposterous, irrational or dangerous, it should be called out as such.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
Ok. So, if beliefs are the engine of action, then harmful beliefs cause harmful actions. If that is the case, then merely withholding respect will do no good, because ample evidence shows that believers of all stripes spend a great deal of energy disrespecting one another, and your disrespect will just get lost in the general noise.
So, if you honestly believe that false beliefs about god, etc, reliably cause bad behaviors, then you should just so ahead and regulate them.
My own view is that beliefs cause virtually nothing. People will do what they please, regardless of their beliefs, then modify and rationalize as necessary to preserve their self-image. If someone wants to believe something I think is silly, it isn't of any consequnce or even worth much argument, and no reason to disrespect the good in the person who might hold a silly belief.
all religions should be banned and criminalized.
Not being snarky, really. Thank you for the discussion.
I don't think it quite works like that. A person's belief system can contain all sorts of sensible beliefs that comport with reality, a bunch of nonsense, and a slew of contradictory, mutually incompatible claims all believed anyway.
By saying that belief is the engine of action, I did not mean to assert that for each individual action a person takes, there is a corresponding single belief that generates it. (Besides, belief is not the sole engine of action. It's just a lot less poetic to say "Belief is a strong engine of action, among many.")
True believers loaded with certainty spend a lot of time disrespecting one another. But I think there is a general problem with the way Americans have learned to understand the freedom of belief, especially religion.
We tend to give religion a free pass. It has long been taboo to criticize religion out loud. If a person claims to believe he is on a first-name basis with the creator of the universe, and that this creator is guiding his actions, even if that person is the president of the United States, people are culturally and reflexively respectful. You'll never hear a reporter say, "Oh yeah? How do you know it was the creator talking to you? What evidence do you have for the belief that the creator wants you to do this?" This is culturally considered disrespectful.
What I meant was that a person's beliefs ought to be suspect. We should treat them with skepticism, just as you are treating mine. You are challenging me. You are being civil, and respectful of me as a person, but you are essentially disrespecting my beliefs, as you should if you question them.
The "disrespect" I speak of is not disrespect for the people who hold beliefs. It is disrespect for the beliefs themselves. No one's beliefs deserve respect merely because they are sincerely held. But that's how we tend to treat religious beliefs in this culture.
That's no more true than the notion that we should illegalize drugs because they can have ill effects on users and society at large. The prohibition and/or regulation, whatever its good intentions, generally pave the way to hell.
As they say, the answer to bad speech is good speech, not the banning the bad speech. Same goes with belief. I don't want the government regulating what people can or cannot believe. That way lies madness and disaster.
But I would like it to become culturally acceptable to challenge one another's belief systems civilly, just as you and I are doing right now. And I think it should apply to any belief system. No one should be off the hook.
Really? You don't think that your beliefs guide your actions? Sure, there are some things we do instinctively (e.g. we probably don't require a belief that we should survive in order to eat; we just get hungry and do so), but think about what you must believe before you are to take most actions humans take today.
Say you want to visit someone. In order to actually go out and do so, you have to believe this person exists, that seeing him will be a good experience for you, that he is accessible, that you know where to find him, that the mode of transportation you use to get to him is safe, etc.
If you believe -- if you genuinely believe -- that an omniscient, omnipotent deity has commanded you to do something, and that disobedience will result in your eternal torture, but obeying will result in heaven, you will take the action commanded.
Sure, but that just goes to my earlier point about the human mind's capacity to believe, at once, all sorts of claims, some of them mutually incompatible. It doesn't undermine the notion that people act on their beliefs. It just makes it very complicated to figure out precisely why a particular person is behaving in the way he is.
Again, I see no reason to disrespect the good in any person who might hold a silly belief either. I'm not advocating disrespecting the person. Just disrespecting the belief itself.
There are people in this country, a frightening number, actually, who genuinely and truly believe that President Obama was born in Kenya, and is himself a one-man terrorist sleeper cell. Society rightfully marginalizes this belief. We don't stop these people from voting, we don't round them up and jail them, and we don't take away their rights. We just accord their beliefs very little respect, as we should.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
And I would like to reply more fully, but I need to fly. But, yes, I really do think that beliefs, at least larger beliefs about the origin of the universe and personal gods, cause nothing. I can't explain the incredible diversity of responses to the same belief systems otherwise. I can't explain the fact that almost everyone I know acts, much of the time, at 180% to their purported beliefs, especially if they have some other personal interest at stake. I think people behave tribally, and in what they perceive as their group's interest, or self interest.
I don't think that, for example, Stalin slaughtering millions of people had much to do with the ideal of communism, but for power and political convenience. He would have done the same thing if he were a czar. I don't think that people who are socialists, and advocate policies that help others, do it because they are socialists - they do it because they are otherwise good people. At the same time, there are people who believe all the nasty things of the modern conservative movement who are pleasant and charitable in all their dealings. I think it's the same for any religion or political or personal philosophy - I think they bind people, make them think their common purpose is larger or less selfish than it really is, but that they extremely weak or nonexistent are motivating behaviors that are consistent with the philosophy. I know this is a minority view, and I obviously can't prove it.
Happy New Year
Of course, I'm gonna reply to your comment anyway. :)
It depends on the nature of the particular belief at hand.
A devout Jain, for instance, has a lot of very peculiar beliefs about the nature of reality, but they are mostly innocuous, as Jainism is truly a religion of peace.
Moreover, if all one believes about the cosmos is that they were designed by an intelligence, who then fell asleep and interacts no more (a kind of Deism), then, sure, this belief is not likely to cause any action in particular.
But if you genuinely believe that the medicine prescribed by your doctor will relieve your pain, you'll swallow it. If you disbelieve it, you will not.
Likewise, if you genuinely believe that swallowing an entire bottle of dish washing detergent will relieve your pain, you'll swallow that too. But reality will come crashing down.
If you genuinely believe that the one and only Creator has spoken to you directly, and told you that you must annihilate the Earth with a nuclear bomb, you'll try.
And if you genuinely believe that there are no such people out there, or that their belief will not compel them to take such action, you're as wrong as the person who swallows the detergent.
True, but that doesn't mean that Stalin was not being guided by his own actual beliefs. He just lied about what those beliefs actually were. (A lot of power hungry madmen do.) Or he was wrong about what those beliefs actually were. (We have unconscious beliefs as well as conscious ones.)
What you are describing is a disconnect between what people say they believe, or what they think they believe, and what they actually believe. In this example you just have people who already believe something about the treatment of their fellow human beings, and who find the Socialist label a decent one to describe those beliefs, even if it might not be a perfect fit.
In any case, those "good" people are likely guided by one of the fundamentals of genuine morality: that conscious creatures should suffer as much as they do. That's still a belief, and it is one that propels a lot of very moral people into taking moral action.
Well, in their mundane, everyday dealings with others they consider members of their moral community. Stalin was supposedly very sweet to his grandkids, and there were, of course, Nazis who went to work to put Jews in ovens, took home their pay, and went about tending to their families just as any other people would.
It's still all about beliefs, though.
And there I'd have to disagree. Not all religions are the same, even at that fundamental level. Some bind people into moral communities exclusive to others. Some bind people to the beliefs that "we are all one." Some bind people to uncompromising pacifism. Some bind people to beliefs that the end of this world is the best thing possible.
These beliefs have consequences.
Happy New Year. :)
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
I'm agreeing with most of what you say in this thread, but I have a problem with this:
Where I agree that there's no need to make some drugs illegal, I think that there are compelling interests of societies to maintain a certain amount of order that override the "rights" of individual members of the society. I think that there is good secular reasoning to make heroin and cocaine illegal, including the costs to society to support dysfunctional and/or nonfunctional addicts and their families when those addicts become sick or die of overdoses, the costs to society for recovery treatment, the costs to society related to the crimes committed to support the addictions. Study after study will show you the cause and effect of certain drugs come with much lower costs (and, to clarify, I'm not just talking about money, but also the psychological effects of addicts on non-addicts) than others. At some point, societies have to draw the line as to what is and isn't permissible in order for those societies to survive.
Here and now we can use statistical data to show the causes and effects of certain habits of individuals that those in the past couldn't because of specialization afforded by a critical mass of population. Go back to the time of the early monotheists and you'll notice that they don't have the manpower to gather the data, math skills to crunch the numbers , or the manpower to analyze the numbers. So what we can now justify scientifically with hard, cold numbers, older civilizations had to justify somehow or another. They used religion. Two examples:
1). The dietary laws of Judaism came about because some pre-scientific Jews noticed that communities that ate shellfish or pork tended to suffer epidemics of disease. It certainly wasn't the case that each and every oyster would cause an outbreak of cholera, but the risk/benefit ratio was such that this had to be outlawed, and the only way to sell the idea to someone who'd enjoyed many oysters without incident was to claim that it was God's Law being invoked.
2). In Ken Burns' The Civil War, historian Shelby Foote (talking about the Battle of Chickamauga) made a remark that it seemed as if most Native American names for bodies of water translated to River/Creek/Lake/Pond/Swamp of Death. There's truth in there. Wise tribal leaders would notice that when members trekked through certain swamps, they'd quite often become sick, then pass the disease on to the rest of the tribe. So how do you keep a hunting party from chasing a herd of deer into the swamp? You proclaim that the swamp is the home of evil spirits.
So there's religion in action, protecting society from the actions of individuals.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
I'm open to the following: If someone can demonstrate empirically that ingestion of a particular substance will very likely make an otherwise non-violent person violent or a danger to others, I have no problem with making the substance itself illegal.
(I don't think the federal government has that power, but that's a whole 'nother debate.)
As to these effects:
I'm not about to argue that cocaine and heroin are good things (though cocaine has medicinal uses, and heroin is an offshoot of morphine). Clearly, becoming addicted to these chemicals can be a devastating phenomenon to both the addict and those around her.
But the same can be said for alcohol. In fact, alcohol really ought to top the list of drugs that concern us, but in our culture, we don't even refer to it as a "drug." We say, "drugs and alcohol," like alcohol is not even a subset of drugs.
What I don't buy is that outlawing these substances makes anything any better. It just makes things worse. If someone is addicted to alcohol, there are many places she can go for help. She can say, "I think I'm an alcoholic," without fear of adding a criminal record and hard time to her problems.
Shouldn't we do the same for any addictive substance that causes societal problems?
Drug addiction is a medical problem, not a criminal one.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
Not for the use of, anyway. Trafficking in controlled substances...Different story.
But abuse, while a medical problem, causes a lot of non-medical problems. The percentage of convicted (of crimes other than use) criminals who are abusers and addicts is staggering.
If you haven't seen me say it before, I'm a recovering alcoholic. While I agree that alcohol is a drug, I classify it with pot, in that the majority of those who use it don't become addicted (and I know quite a few people who have used crack and/or heroin, but I've never met someone who tried either a couple of times and said, meh, I can take it or leave it). The risk/benefit ratio leans to the beneficial side.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
I think alcohol is far more dangerous than pot, by a mile (or two).
I think it is hypocritical to make alcohol legal, while it destroys many lives and families, yet other drugs illegal for the same reasons. The only difference is society has used alcohol for millennia.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
like the idiotic Wiccans and other 'nature based' cults. Thise cults are justr a reaction against the big cults like Christianity. But seriously, anyone who prays to trees or to the 'seasons' needs a psychiatrist. I know a woman who calls herself a 'witch'- I can't help but laugfh when she makes such a ridiculous claim. How is such any worse than Christian nuts who think they have a relationship with Jesus? Wicca and Christianity are both idiotic and for idiots.
It's not a matter of intelligence. It's a matter of biology. There's something in the vast majority that's made us successful do to delusional beliefs. That's kinda hard to argue against in the historical context. But in a future context, I think these delusional beliefs are more dangerous than helpful. I tolerate such beliefs, but I no longer think it's wise to respect them.
Well if you're going to be irrational, choose to be BIG TIME irrational....
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Humans are born moral. What happens to their psyche afterward is directly related to their environment. Religious cults separate people, placing them into groups complete with "their" idea of moral dogma hammered into young brains that, according to their masters, elevates "them" to a "higher" level of awareness. Of course, since there are a plethora of these sundry religious cults, the act of working together for common interests, treating one another respectfully and equally, becomes futile. DOWN WITH RELIGION!
Their homeworld was a place called Earth, located in an uninteresting part of the galaxy. They had an expression: pride goeth before a fall. Their pride was their undoing. I know. I was there....They did not listen, of course. Arrogant men never do.
Sorta. I think humans are born programmed to behave in a manner that ensures their survival to the point of reproducing their genes. Of course, not all humans are born this way, and some will act ridiculously and die off before they reproduce.
Morality clearly has evolutionary precursors, but I'm not sure a human baby is born "moral." Some humans are born with the capacity for empathy, and some are genuinely not. Some people lose their capacity for empathy due to their environment, and some have it enhanced.
True. But almost all of what we think we know, we think because someone told us it was so. This siphoning of people by belief is not the sole province of religion. It's also culture, familial environment, etc.
Serious critical thinking is simply not something that comes instinctively to people. Why should it? We only evolve the ways of thinking that help us survive and reproduce. Beliefs that are "fit" are those that help the species survive, not necessarily the beliefs that comport with reality. The belief that a bear will eat you alive if you get up close to one comports with reality and helps you survive. The belief that time is linear and unrelated to space, speed and gravity, is false, but thinking that way helps us survive in the world as we understand it. Our intuitive physics is just bonkers wrong, but we use what we have to help us get along in the world.
Now, that much, I'm down with. :)
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
The Church has been at this for a thousand years.
All the children's tears could fill the Mediterranean Sea.
Stop passing the buck, we a looking at the biggest group of child abusers to ever walk the face of the earth. In the name of God.
So what's it going to be?
Punish the Vatican or your child bleeding from his ass?
The Protestants try and justify their violence, oppression in Ireland, KKK activities by simply claiming they are better than the Muslims, the jews and the Catholics.
Pat robertson, the KKK, most neo Nazis, the westborogh Baptist Church and most nutcase Teabaggers are Protestants.
Protestants have a long history of violence against the Catholic Irish in N Ireland.
There shouldn't be a distinction between Catholics and protestants- both are Christian sects, and Christianity is on the whole a violent blood cult.
But to the credit of the Catholics, unlike the Protestants, Catholics actually believe helping the poor is a good thing- wheras Protsestants cite their innane notion of 'salvation through faith alone' as an excuse not to help those in need.
The cornerstone beliefs of most Protestant cults/churches is hatred of the Jews and hatred of Catholics.
I have never once seen a Protestant church group helping the poor or the homeless- yet that is something Cathloic groups often do- man soup kitchens and homeless shelters
I have seen the Lutheran churches here in Europe and in the USA help the hungry, homeless and support of orphanages world wide.
I have found only the strictest selfish nonsense in the USA.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Based on some recent comments, I think the Pope was referring specifically to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petition_...
The problem with the Pope's statement isn't that there may or may not be other people or organizations that justify moral relativism or condone pedophilia. The Catholic Church taught the narrowest defintion of acceptable sexual conduct, and it didn't include same sex relations or sex with unmarried minors. He is engaging in the most extreme moral relativism in making this comment.
Not sure why this is a political topic, however. Unfortunately virtually every major institution that cares for children has had and covered up these sorts of scandals. In the public schools, the practice was known as passing the trash. Priests are no more likely molesters than male teachers. It is just a tiresome way to bash religion. If you want to bash religion or the Church, bash it for the things that are uniquely wrong it it, not greater social ills. The Catholic Church is open to criticism, on a political level, for it's deadly stance on birth control, sexuality, and women.
It's a legitimate political topic because religion gets a pass on taxes while they spout their ridiculous beliefs, not limited to the de facto protection of child rapists.
What is uniquely wrong about the Catholic church, directly related to society and politics is this disgusting idea that it is proper to hold human fathers to a higher standard than a supposed interventionist deity, that refuses to intervene in the case of child rape as it is occurring. We cannot question the deity's motivations for non-intervention in the one case where everyone would agree it would be nice to have an intervening god.
Yet this all knowing, all powerful, exists everywhere father in heaven, watches child rape occur and does nothing about it. We would never accept this behavior from a human father. This is a massive distortion of ethics and logic, and a suspension of rational thought.
You have issues with religious people. The Catholic Church is no different than the Protestant Churches, or the Muslims, or the Jews, in holding their often exclusively male leadership to different standards than the laity, and in believing in an all powerful diety that you find so patently ridiculous.
Whether churches should be tax exempt is an entirely separate question from the question of child abuse. Child abuse isn't much of a political question: the laws against it, to the best of my knowledge, are adequate.
The shrill, childish screeching about religion here does progressives no good: it benefits no one and makes them sound as bigotted as fundamentalists.
Contrary to your asinine assertion that pedophilia is no more common in the Catholic church as in the general population, there is not a widespread problem with pedophilia in protestant churches, and certainly not Jewish ones. Nor do they excuse it by sending clergy to other countries to escape prosecution (the Vatican is its own country). This is unique to the Catholic church. And that most certainly is a political issue.
Go talk to the Irish about how the Vatican pressured their government on this scandal. Unique to the Catholic church. Absolutely political. And only an apologist for these behaviors would say this isn't much of a political question. It is a criminal justice question, and that is a very basic political issue.
Diplomacy has not improved the situation for the Church's victims. Clearly only an invective that convinces their followers of the moral bankruptcy of the church will have an effect because the only thing the Church leadership really appears to care about is money. Not morality. Certainly not responsibility.
before you say something is asinine:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/07/mean-men.html
Now, it could be that the Newsweek article, and other articles asserting the same conclusion, are wrong. Maybe you have other evidence. But it isn't asinine to assert that abuse is no more common in the priesthood than elsewhere: in fact, it is evidence-based, and the view of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as noted in the link. The fact that you would say that my educated statement is asinine shows your lack of an open mind or intellectual curiousity on this topic. I really don't care to argue further with ignorance, paticularly when your ignorance fuels such hatred.
Happy New Year.
...that this is not a political issue. Even if the instance of abuse is identical with the general population, the manner in which the Catholic church deals with the issue is completely unique, and very political by nature of how it pressures governments, press, and puts some of its worst enablers into diplomatic bags.
The other very big difference is that others don't use claims of "holiness" and working for God to rape children, among myriad other abominations. How clueless does one have to be to not grasp how amazingly evil this is. When you defend this behavior in the future, consider that I am here now...
Now they must deal with me, and I won't accept this crap. Telling lies about me for two millennia has truly dire circumstances.
A New "Day" Dawns...
Here is Wisdom !!!
http://www.sevenstarhand.org - The truth has escaped its cage, and gone on a rampage, seeking long overdue justice.
I know this is a serious issue, but all I could think of was the song...
..."It was acceptable in the eeeeightiiies... it was acceptable at the tiiiiime...~"
There is a special place in Hell for both Pope Benedict and Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. The Pope because for 20 years was the head of the "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith " which had actually been given authority over sexual abuse cases nearly 80 years earlier, in 1922. In that period of time he did nothing despite reports of abuse. In the case of Bill Donohue he seems to think that the only abuse done to children was the "normal" corporal punishment done by priests and nuns at Catholic schools. The Church is never wrong and the parishioners are never right. He is snide and condescending toward the Irish reporter asking his opinion about matters that he doesn't know, care about or understand.
the masses will line up to give the "church" even more money!!
Nothing much seems to change.
I'm sure Donahue is another sick, Right Wing pedaphile hiding in the closet too.
Just WOW!
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
I live in the California town where father O'Grady did most of his raping. St. Annes Church and school are only a couple of blocks from here. I know several people who were abused by him--an entire generation of local Catholics. AND STILL, the bulk of the parishioners there make excuses for the church. It's unbelievable.
Wing-nuts, please tell us you are just as horrified by these statements as the rest of us are!
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Prostitution may be the world's oldest profession, but religion is the oldest business. It is no different from a corporation shielding their dishonest employees from prosecution as long as the cash they produce keeps rolling in.
askwoodman
Possibly exploited by adults as a child[I believe he was a volunteer l'il Nazi.] justifying further exploitation of other children.
The scandal stories are gut wrenchingly awful to endure. The excuses are worse - blame the media, blame trial lawyers, blame greedy "victims," assert that "other religions are just as bad or worse," and one very disgusting "it's only 3 percent of the (priestly) population" but of course forgetting about the thousands of others who knew, witnessed or suspected but chose to say nothing or actively gave cover. Bill Donohue should not be construed as a spokesperson for the religion despite his lofty title and his handsome six figure compensation package. He's a shrill shill.
The reason for scapegoating the 1970s is to facilitate the push back against important modernization reforms of the Church undertaken during Vatican II. Old line old guard hardliners like Ratzinger desperately want the clock re-set back to the time of pray pay and obey - ostensibly because clerical pedophilia and the lives and families it has destroyed are not a problem - the harm is widespread public awareness of the phenomenon.
My sky god is better than your sky god. My sky god is right because I believe in him. My sky god spokesperson said so and my sky god spokesperson is infallible.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3Zq2HzJH6s
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Certain lies have a troubling habit of returning to haunt you, at the worst possible time...
The only way to put an end to this abominable situation is to finally prove the truth about the stories told by these liars to gain wealth and power over the previous two millennia. It is painfully obvious that this is the face of true evil and followers of these people who make excuses for raping children, and a host of other crimes, are deeply sick and in need of the help of those that can do somehing.
If you want some insights into the truth of what occurred back then, please read my recent press release on the topic. Dead Sea Scrolls' Burial Secret Completely Exposes Ancient Lies. Who better to prove the truth than someone who was actually there...
Here is Wisdom...
http://www.sevenstarhand.org - The truth has escaped its cage, and gone on a rampage, seeking long overdue justice.
Deliver us from Evil includes actual footage of O'Grady's depositions. If you have never seen a psychopath talk, you should watch this movie for that reason alone. It's both chilling and illuminating.
great, pope Ratzinger says something stupid and criminally insane. That fool sure doesn't know when to STFU. Religion, the root of all evil.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
"Bless me father for i have sinned. Those crimes that i committed, well, i did 'em again. Empty my soul to empower yours. Lead me blind down the path to salvation's doors."
Given it's history from it's early days to the present , this so called church ought to be disbanded .Nothing but a cesspool , corrupt , evil and a shelter for perverted despicable freaks .
That is my intention. Who is willing to help?
http://www.sevenstarhand.org - The truth has escaped its cage, and gone on a rampage, seeking long overdue justice.
Something else due to Disco-era Bee Gees!!!
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Send the ATF in with tear gas, machine guns, tanks and grenades to every church. Koresh was only accused of such things and never convicted. THese guys are actively talking about their crimes and tying to justify them.
Hopefully humanity will one day learn to be humane.
On the one hand, the pope isn't making a distinction between _rape_ and a level of social debauchery. On the other hand, we are dealing with children here.
Let me give you a similar situation. I've always given Roman Polanski a bit of a pass. Creepy, but does he deserve _years_ in jail? Why? Well, have people heard of the "Baby Groupies?" Sable Starr in particular. At virtually the same time Polanski was there, LA had a clique of 15-year-old rock groupies who could have done _MAJOR_ damage to the biggest groups in 60s and 70s rock-and-roll if charges of statutory rape had been filed. As far as I understand, they were _not_ pimped out. They were voluntary Lolitas in a club scene. Sable Starr had a wild couple years, went back to high school and led a relatively normal life before dying of natural causes a couple years ago. For that matter, Polanski's girl didn't want to press charges.
But, does that make it right? Is statutory rape a bad law? Or did the 70s have a _pervasively_ unhealthy moral atmosphere? To what extent is the pope using that atmosphere as an excuse to blur the distinction between consensual behavior and force? Does the distinction matter in the case of minors? Compare, contrast, and discuss among yourselves.
I think his reference to the profligate 70's was a hat tip to the time of Nero.
So I suspect there are some NAMBLA members out there who are kicking themselves for not joining the clergy.
The poop is a poot. What a buffoon. Using post hoc reasoning, he connects possession of porno with child molestation when such cases are statistically rare. Demonize porno to your dis-ease. Porno was around at the beginning of time and has kept more people sane and functional than all the Bibles, Korans, and Gitas in the world. I don't recall any Leviticus type injunctions against porno in the Booble, but if there are some, they are just as just as likely misunderstood as the so-called "Sin of Onan." (Specifically, Onan's crime was to spill his seed per coitus interruptus; that was the "sin," not spanking the monkey.) Can you imagine what a shriveled up old garter snake the poop must have? Use it or lose it, baby.
"Respect for the rights of others is peace." --Benito Juarez
I think some people try to pretend NAMBLA was bigger n'it was.
And weren't they more late 80's and early 90's anywho?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
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