The Most Hated Christian

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The scriptures themselves contain phases which would be considered too offensive for this board by DWs laws. The great prophets of the bible would be considered trolls here. They said athiests were fools and Jews would go to hell without Jesus.

I was going off on a tangent there. I think a lot of "fundies" think that all devout christians are literalists like them, and that liberal christians are all just nominal and only turn up for weddings. I think they are suprised by the idea of a Christian both devout and liberal on social issues and just didn't know it was possible.

In another digression I once read a conspiracy book where the author claimed he was sat behind to Carter at a conference, and the demons possesing Carter bothered him all night and followed him back to his hotel room where he had to banish them by praying.

I have heard that Bush's faith has always been too liberal for lots of "fundies", he chose to go to a Washington methodist church (i think) instead of a stricter one nearby that they would prefer the world leader to be influenced by. Anyway lots of people believe Bush' actions are anti christian. I never believed Obama is a devout christian though i forget why.

I have to agree with you on both counts, actually. I think I spoke so strongly because I thought someone was implying a claim that a certain group did hold exclusive rights (I'm not sure the poster was making that claim, but I know some Christian groups who act as if they do).

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 19 Aug 2010, 3:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

At least no one is claiming that the TOS of this board were divinely inspired (bad attempt at humor?). I'm just trying to uphold the TOS. Interesting question on what that would do should a true prophet arrive ...

Now I get it. Agree with most of what you wrote, except I do believe Obama's faith is real.

How can that work? It is also illegal to refuse to pay our taxes?

There's skeletons in all of their closets. Pope JPII has been documented as knowing about and protecting the priests who were molesting kids. Same with Pope Nazi.

These scumbags protect rapists from serving jailtime and you're concerned with me slandering them? Sorry. This has nothing to do with your faith in God and everything to do with what a scumbag organization the Vatican is.

i found this article a few weeks ago in an online newspaper and though it was good.

Why pick on the Church?
By George Galloway on Apr 26, 10 06:00 AM in

Don't you think the open season on the Catholic Church is getting rather out of hand? I declare an interest, but I can also recognise a witch-hunt when I see one.

Carruthers of the Foreign Office circulates spoof memos with obscene jibes at the Church and its beliefs.

The British establishment anti-Catholic ... who'd have thought it? Left-wing idiots call for the Pope's arrest when he comes to Britain on the grounds he's supposedly an accessory after the fact of child abuse.

Apart from the fact that he isn't, this mass hysteria over sex and the Church is reaching Witches of Salem proportions.

Sexual abuse of children is to be found everywhere. I know, I was one of the victims. In my case, it was the Army Cadet Force.

It's a vile and pernicious aspect of the sinfulness humans are capable of. Why is the Catholic Church being singled out in this sea of sin? It's true that in the Sixties, Seventies, even Eighties, attitudes towards bringing such matters to court were different. In all institutions.

It's true, too, that some in the hierarchy - though not the Pope - more than mishandled miscreants.

But the vast majority of priests, then and now, were doing God's work, and well.

It's time to cut the Catholics some slack. And time for the faithful to speak out and say so.

My main issue with the pope is that nobody should have that much fame and money from being just a religious leader. It's just not right.

Wasn't the early Christian church almost communist?

If the church were a private corporation, it would've been shut down by law enforcement.
But it wasn't, why? because it's a church, no other reason. You can't touch that inviolable thing. It's treated above all else, and we have to let it do whatever it wants to do... why? because it can't prove it's claims like everyone else is required to do... Why can't it prove it's claims? because it's claims were intentionally set up so that they can be neither proved nor disproved.

The abuse of children in that organization is not just the sexual kind, it's brainwashing, it's emotional torture, it's physical abuse, it's verbal abuse, it's more.. it's every type of abuse that you can imagine, stacked on top of one another and mixed together.

And, no, the vast majority of priests aren't doing "god's work" they're doing what THEY think is "god's work" yet they themselves claim that you cannot know the mind of this pie in the sky god, yet they claim to be doing his work.... Get some consistency in your story or retire!

There is only one single way that the Church can clear itself of being an abuser and pedophile itself... that is the organization, and by corollary all supporters. That is to turn over every document in every parish, Diocese, Archdiocese etc, that pertains to any and all allegations, regardless of the outcome of any so called internal investigations and cooperate with any and all police investigation requests.

Instead of a particular person, I'm picking a group. The "Repent America" jerks that protest at my university. Sometimes they'll even put signs of an aborted fetus in front of the daycare. Most of the time they just yell at the gay students that they'll go to hell for all eternity and other such rubbish. I have to take a completely different route to my classes just to avoid crossing their path because they piss me off so much.

You posted that they were all pedophiles, as in 100%, every one over nearly 2000 years. Now you are saying they protected pedophiles, and speaking of 2 popes in particular. Not the same thing, even if you can claim moral equivalency. You need to add the qualifiers.

The Pope has fame in the way a President has fame; from the fact that he leads millions in an important institution. The Vatican is a separate "state" for political purposes, and he is the head. Is that sort of fame less right than Paris Hilton's?

The Pope has, in way, indirect control over wealth during his reign. But it is never "his" money, and it cannot leave the church. He may not have heirs. He doesn't "have" money in the way we think of a person "having money." He can't construct estates for his personal use, or order a big screen TV; his stipend for personal expenses would be pretty low. The Pope took a vow of poverty the day he first entered the priesthood, even though one cannot say he lives poorly.

That isn't true. In order for law enforcement to shut down a corporation, which exists separately from the people in it as a function of law, law enforcement would have to prove that the illegal activities were pervasive within and inseparable from it's business functions. Unless you are talking about a pornography or prostitution business, that isn't likely to be true.

What would have happened is that the perpetrators would have faced criminal prosecution, and those who shielded them would have faced obstruction of justice charges. In order to have the later, it would have to have been known at the time that there were crimes involved. It is a valid question if the church has received preference in not having many of it's leaders face obstruction of justice charges, but that would be mostly limited to the specific leaders that have since been forced to resign, as a result of their clear intent to bury the issue. The thousands of other priests and laymen that make up the church could no more be held accountable than the average mail room clerk at Goldman Sachs.

Going after the Pope and his advisers in Rome ... well, that is like going after the Head of State of any foreign sovereign entity. Quite a bit more complicated than filing a few charges.

Law enforcement is prosecuting the priests involved. But those priests are not the Church, and should not be equated with the Church. Only a few of the pebbles in the garden.

But isn't the sacrament of penance enough for the absolution of your sins? Maybe that is all God requires for homosexual pedophilia, unlike man's laws?

The issue about the two popes as skafather84 stated, about seemingly protecting child abusers, seems to undermine their credibility regarding their supposely sanctity and morality, and how to deal with an issue that undermines some of the catholic faith? Unless there are two options that I can think of: 1- Catholics must deny the popes did that even in the face of evidence, if there is, or 2- They would have to question "man's laws". I don't know how else they can and have handled the controversy.