I have always suspected that Christians were more bloodthirsty than me and my friends that are also atheists. Now the Pew research people have a poll to prove it. I wonder where and how this fits in with the “Angry Atheist” supposition going around now.
From CNN newswire:
The more often Americans go to church; the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new analysis.
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Today’s Christianity is a highly modified version of a violent oppressive ideology. After Constantine legalized the religion in the 4th century CE, humanity was treated to torture, oppression, burning at the stake for witches and heretics, the enslavement of women to repeated childbirth, un-divorceable husbands, and a second hand existence, the use of fear of being condemned to Hell as a means of control. The Mother Church greedily sucked up the wealth of the people and countries they operated in, and was to become the richest single institution in the world. Some of the Popes and other church leaders and priests of the time were so evil and greedy you would think they were in league with a devil, not serving a God.
Over the last hundred years or so Christianity has totally reinvented itself as it realized its bad behavior in the past has alienated the churches from its paying customers. Nowadays the Church is all about upbeat music, smiles and generally a good atmosphere and attitude. In only a few quarters is the old fire and brimstone, hell-bound damnation still preached. Today’s rising tide of knowledge and scientific achievement is eating away at the foundational myths and old stories of the Bible and thus the religion itself. Over the last 20 years or so a right-wing group of fundamentalists has tried to stop the erosion of what it considers a inerrant Bible by denying and lying and making up “science” to try to disprove the real science that disproves their Bible.
The creationists and Intelligent Design lackeys of today are recruiting Master’s and Doctoral candidates in the sciences and bribing those that they can to testify on behalf of religion…making up theories and boldly lying about science in their field. They never publish in the real science journals, they have no peer reviewed papers to support their “work”, and they only have half-assed theories that are easily dismissed by real scientists in their field. There is currently no “science” or “scientific theories” by any creationist or ID’ist that has made any real contribution to human knowledge…Its all bogus or junk science.
Hopefully this is the dying gasp of an institution that has outlasted its usefulness—that is if it ever was useful.
The Catholic Church just can’t seem to get it together
The news is slowly leaking out…the Roman Catholic Church in Italy is being accused of harboring and hiding pedophile priests.
Speaking through an interpreter, 59 year old Alessandro Vantini spoke of when he was a boy in a Catholic run institute for the deaf and priests abused him so relentlessly he came to feel he was dead. He said it happened night after night, sometimes in the priests bedroom, sometimes in the bathroom, sometimes even in the confessional.
This year something very unusual for Italy happened; Vantini and dozens of other former students went public with claims that they were abused by priests. For many, many years a culture of secrecy has surrounded priestly abuse in Italy where the church is considered the country’s most respected institution.
Of the 67 victims that came forward in the school for the deaf case, 14 of them wrote sworn statements and filmed testimony that detailed the abuse they suffered at the school’s two campuses in Verona. They named 24 priests, lay religious men, and religious brothers.
Vantini said he was silent for years about being raped.
“How could I tell my papa that a priest had sex with me?’’ Vantini, 59, said about the abuse he endured. “You couldn’t tell your parents because the priests would beat you.’’
The Associated Press has keep count of cases and they report that there are 73 cases of alleged sexual abuse by priests against minors in the past decade, with a total of more than 235 victims so far.
According to the AP information, the Italian Catholic Church has had to pay only a few hundred thousand dollars in civil damages to the Italian victims; compare that with $2.6 billion in abuse-related costs for the American dioceses or $1.5 billion due to victims in Ireland. The Italian church does not seem willing to release the numbers of cases reported or of court settlements in that country.
In the United States we have about 44,000 priests in our nation of 300 million people. Over 4,000 Catholic clergy have been accused of pedophilia since the 1950’s. I’ll bet you this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Some of the Catholic organizations that have been accused of sexual abuse, and pedophilia in Italy and other countries include:
Salesian order
Christian Brothers
Sisters of Mercy
Brothers of the Sacred Heart
Brothers of Charity
Salvatorian Order
Marist Brothers
Passionist Order
Norbertine Order
Kiltegan Fathers
Company of Mary
Rev. Joseph J. Guido, a psychology professor at Providence College, surveyed superiors of a Catholic religious order and found that 83 percent of the North American superiors reported being aware of an accusation of sexual abuse against one or more of their priests. In contrast, 43 percent of superior America and the Caribbean reported being aware of such an accusation. Only one-third of the superiors in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. In ‘America’ magazine, a Jesuit weekly, Guido wrote that research suggests … that the sexual abuse of children is a problem for the church everywhere.” However, he wrote that, outside North America, the religious order superiors were more likely to be aware of sexual misconduct by priests with adults, rather than with minors. Wikipedia Here
In Italy few dare to criticize the Roman Catholic Church, including the mainstream independent and state-run media. Also there is a certain prudishness in small-town Italy, where one just doesn’t speak about sex, much less sex between a priest and a young child.
Now I’ve been told that the Catholic Church is not alone in cases of sexual abuse and pedophilia, and certainly there is much pedophilia in the secular world, and I know that secular schools have the problem too, but it seems to me the cases you hear the most about in the secular schools are Men on Girls or Women on Boys, not almost exclusively Men on Boys. You wonder if the priests involved are members of NAMBLA or its international offspring IOMBLA.
Nor is the Protestant church immune to sexual misconduct, but again it is almost always Men on Women or Men on Girls; very little of the homosexual misconduct. We all know that homosexual people are targets of most evangelical fundamentalist churches wrath and rage, and if you study your Bible you know there is strong condemnation of homosexuality, in fact they are condemned to death by God, which is strange when you realize, if you believe in God, that God made the homosexual just as he made the heterosexual. They too are his children.
The Church, Catholic or otherwise, are the ones pushing the belief that homosexuality is Baaad. The Church should be the ones who don’t have the problem because it’s in their scripture…you lay with the wrong sex—you die. I wonder if these priests think that if they are contrite and ask for forgiveness they will get it.
Warning there is some rough language in the following video.
“The Spaniards in Mexico and Peru used to baptize Indian infants and then immediately bash their brains out; by this means they secured these infants went to heaven. No orthodox Christian can find any logical reason for condemning their actions, although all nowadays do so. In countless ways the doctrine of personal immortality in its Christian form has had disastrous effects upon morals.” Bertrand Russell
God is seen and heard / God is invisible and cannot be heard
God is everywhere present, sees and knows all things / God is not everywhere present, neither sees or knows all things
God is the author of evil / God is not the author of evil
Adultery forbidden / Adultery allowed;
The father of Joseph, Mary’s husband was Jacob / The father of Mary’s husband was Heli
The infant Christ was taken into Egypt / The infant Jesus was not taken into Egypt
John was in prison when Jesus went into Galilee / John was not in prison went Jesus went into Galilee
Jesus was crucified at the third hour / Jesus was crucified at the sixth hour
Christ is equal with God / Christ is not equal with God
It is impossible to fall from grace / It is possible to fall from grace
God is a man of War / God is a God of peace
I and my Father are one / my Father is greater than I
He said: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” …Jesus, when he cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.” Matt.
He said: “Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit:” and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.” Luke
He said: “It is finished:” and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.” John
“I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy.” / “The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.”
There are over a hundred more of these. Many of the passages represent “perfect contradictions” that is you cannot affirm the truth of one without asserting the falsity of the other.
A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer.
Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as “a racist, a bigot and a 1800’s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder.” His “half-baked theory” directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to “atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering”, the site stated.
Silly me, here I thought all this time that Darwin was the father of evolution, not Eugenics. They may be thinking about Francis Galton, who is actually considered the founder of eugenics. If you have actually read any of Darwin’s works you would know he was not a racist or bigot. So my guess here is that they have not read his works and are just passing on their made up version of reality. Also if you read REAL history you know that Hitler was a confessed Catholic and he professed his Catholic religion almost to the end, when he committed suicide. Remember at the time of Hitler the Catholic Church and the Pope were vehemently anti-Jewish and had a pact with Hitler.
As for cloning and genetic engineering Prof. Darwin hadn’t a clue. Yes those things are possible now, but it is a result of the normal advancement of science…not because Darwin had anything to do with it. Again, this is a really stupid statement by creationists. Movieguide.org also conveniently forgets about the “atrocities and crimes against humanity” that the various divisions of Christianity have been responsible for down through the ages…millions of souls have died as a direct result of religious fervor.
The religious right is lying it’s ass off trying to bring Hitler and Darwin together, I guess because they think that Hitler’s evil will rub off on Darwin in their followers minds. Well it’s stupid and untrue; the creationists just keep repeating old totally disproven crap hoping to mislead all who listen.
A study released this past Wednesday by Bayler University researchers found that I in 33 women who attend religious services have been the target of sexual advances by a religious leader. They found the problem so pervasive that is almost certainly involves a wide range of denominations and leaders.
“It certainly is prevalent, and clearly the problem is more than simply a few charismatic leaders preying on vulnerable followers,” said Diana Garland, dean of Baylor’s School of Social Work, who co-authored the study. Link to study: http://www.baylor.edu/clergysexualmisconduct/ . The study also found that more than two-thirds of the transgressors were married to someone at the time of the advance.
Ms. Garland said, “when you put it (sexual misconduct) with a spiritual leader or moral leader, you’ve really added a power that we typically don’t think about in secular society — which is that this person speaks for God and interprets God for people. And that really adds a power.”
These leaders, ministers, pastors, rabbi’s, fathers, etc. have all studied the Bible, most have gone to seminary and know the Holy Book inside out. The Bible is nothing if not a guide book on sexual morays. The Old and New Testament both give its readers guidelines about sex and marriage. The words are crystal clear and unambiguous…If married, don’t fool around…if single, don’t mess with married souls—you’ll go to Hell.
Do these misguided and horny church officials know something us peons don’t; do they know there’s no real backup to that hoary old Bible, that there’s no God in heaven looking down on them as the commit the Big Sins?
I just can’t imagine a priest having sex with a young boy, or a pastor having sex with a pretty young married woman and NOT thinking about God looking down on him with disapproval. Does he really think that, if there is a God, somehow he is immune to the punishment for his crime? Are the rules that easy to break for these religious men? Are there no consequences for his crimes relating to Gods expectations of us?
Or do they perhaps subconsciously know there is no God watching over them and they are free to break vows and screw whomever they choose.
The Catholic Church faces a real conundrum; on the one hand they do accept much of evolution and the things that it implies. They do accept that much of the Old Testament is nothing but allegory, the Noachian Flood was not real, the earth (and universe) is billions of years old…not 6000, etc.. These tales […]
The things that the Reverend Barber is railing against here are the favorite projects of the Republican Party nowadays. They do not help America anymore, they are destroying it piece by piece. “It is extreme and immoral to suppress the right to vote,” It is extreme and immoral to deny Medicaid for millions of poor […]
“. . .because all the major religions in fact blaspheme one another, and ought by their principles to engage in crusade or jihad each against the others – a profoundly disturbing thought. They blaspheme each other in numerous ways. All non-Christians blaspheme Christianity by their refusal to accept the divinity of Christ, because in […]
Today is Darwin’s 205th. birthday. He turned our world upside down, and was one of the greatest scientists of all time. I raise my glass and drink to his memory. Ramen
The latest moral crisis to ruffle the feathers of both the common man and celebrities is the recent leaks regarding the NSA’s surveillance programs. Under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the agency is given the power to collect Americans’ phone metadata in bulk, and not even the rich and powerful are immune. Read more at: […]
Security check now starts long before you fly. “The Transportation Security Administration is expanding its screening of passengers before they arrive at the airport by searching a wide array of government and private databases that can include records like car registrations and employment information,” according to the New York Times. “While the agency says […]
British cardiologist Aseem Malhotra writes in a stinging “Observations” column in the British Medical Journal): Virtually all the truths about preventing heart attacks that physicians and patients have held dear for more than a generation are wrong and need to be abandoned, Malhotra writes. He musters a passel of recent research that suggests that the “obses […]
We live in the golden era of surveillance; every phone is designed to be tapped, the Internet passes through snooping equipment of agencies that are so vast and unaccountable that we hardly know their bounds. Corporations are forced (though some are willing enough!) to hand over our data and data of those whom we love. […]
The Most Honest Three Minutes In Television History http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML3qYHWRIZk Jeff Daniels Extreme caution: there is VERY STRONG language in this video from YouTube
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