Just to get your suggestion in defense of "anyone contributing to the church" clear ....you're suggesting the choice is to stop funding public schools on an unsubstantiated lie and lose public education or... stop funding churches involved in thousands of proven covered up institutionalized cases of child sex abuse over decades and lose organized public superstition. no brainer
All homosexuals are not pedo's and many pedo's are in fact hetrosexual. Pedophiles are the problem, not homosexuals. The catholic church covering for their pedo's has been a huge problem for a long time. Are there pedo's in the school system? You bet, and they should be run out and jailed forever, but the catholic church has a far worse record for covering up these type of crimes against humanity. Just to be clear I'm talking about criminal activity, not what should be taught in school. I'd prefer the homosexual community lighten up a bit with their need to "educate" our youth, but they are no where near the threat to our children as the pedo's are.
Well -- Catholics are a billion strong and the Church states that Evolutions is not inconsistent with the bible. Mainline Protestants are the same as Catholics. You are speaking about a group of Christians who are probably less than 20% of the Christian population. You might want to ask them --- where in the bible does it say the universe is less than 6000 years old. That number was estimated by a Catholic monk in the 17th century. Your site is a big strawman. If you problem is with fundamentalists perhaps you should say so.
No, that was not what i was saying. I was basically saying it was idiotic to stop funding education and using a hypocritical statement to explain why. The media jumps on every sex scandel that happens with the church,but let me tell you, I have heard of many incidents involved in schools of sexual child abuse that NEVER went to the media. I have personally seen a principal in Las Vegas get transferred to a different school because he had sex with one of the students. You know how he got caught? The secretary walked in on him in the office while he had the student bent over on the desk. There was no police, no media, he just got transferred to another school where he is probably still doing it to this day. Do you know any teachers? Why dont you just go ask one if they have heard of any child sex abuse in their careers. You might be shocked to find out what goes on in public schools. Its not an "unsubstantiated lie", just because it doesnt go to court. The U.N. confirms that the United states is the number 2 rape capital of the world (south africa being #1) There are many sexual deviants in this country and they infest the schools much more than the church.
Anyone would know there is no reason whatsoever to imagine the media would not be on the case of teacher child sex abusers any less than it has been on the worldwide priest child sex abusers, unless of course, there were not the teacher child sex abusers as you say there are, hypocritically hypothetically or not. But I put nothing past loathsome religious apologists like yourself who will say anything no matter how degrading or untrue, in an attempt to buck pass and cover-up all and everything that is disgusting, debase, gross and morally reprehensible about the Church and its members, who have been doing exactly the same for their pervert priests over decades at least.
You said: Your site is a big strawman. If you problem is with fundamentalists perhaps you should say so. It's stated right on every page in the side bar. Did you even look? 20 seconds of looking on any page would show you that. An additional minute or two would demonstrate that it's also bluntly stated in several posts and inherent throughout the rest. Read my rant on Young Earth Creationism and see. http://blessedatheist.com/2010/01/29/young-earth-creationism-a-rant/ Your numbers are seriously off. You talk about things you know little about. As the pew research site http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1107/polling-evolution-creationism states. Here's a couple of direct quotes: "Opinion polls over the past two decades have found the American public deeply divided in its beliefs about the origins and development of life on earth. Surveys are fairly consistent in their estimates of how many Americans believe in evolution or creationism. Approximately 40%-50% of the public accepts a biblical creationist account of the origins of life, while comparable or slightly larger numbers accept the idea that humans evolved over time. The wording of survey questions generally makes little systematic difference in this division of opinion, and there has been little change in the percentage of the public who reject the idea of evolution." "Consider for example the approaches taken by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and Gallup (see table below). The two organizations find similar numbers in favor of a creationist position -- 42% for Pew Research, 44% for Gallup " You also said "Well -- Catholics are a billion strong and the Church states that Evolutions is not inconsistent with the bible. Mainline Protestants are the same as Catholics. You are speaking about a group of Christians who are probably less than 20% of the Christian population." Only 20%??? Where do you get your information? Just make it up? The think happy thoughts research company? I actually use real research done by real people. Pew and Gallup are reputable. Not the fairies and pixie dust you seem to inhale. Why not actually inform yourself before you spout opinions? Or is that against your religion? Please make up some more stuff and post it. It's sure a lot easier that actually learning!
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html there are about 2 billion christians. One billion are Catholic. so that is 50% right there. If you figure out that at least half of the remaining protestants are mainline and you toss in 5% for other you get 20%. now I could go find exact stats but 20% was a reasonable estimate. Hey I read the first few paragraphs of the first page and found your cheap shot argument.. I just went back to look for your disclaimer. Is it on the front page.. where the heck is it? If you are only directing you comments to a limited group of christian have the guts to say so.
So it is a given then is it , that because Catholics are a billion strong and the Church has stated Evolution is not inconsistent with the bible , that 1 billion follow what the Church states and 50% of Christians therefore support Evolution ? So when the Church states it is acceptable to cover up and allow the continued practice of child sex abuse over many decades , it would not be inconsistent with the bible , that 1 billion follow what the Church states and 50% of Christians support child abuse? Or have the Church and their 1 billion followers only now stopped the acceptance of that deviate behavior due to better standards of secular law enforcement eventually being brought to bear, and the Church has had to renounce it's child sex abuse . Whereas it merely took some science for Catholics to relent their collective mindset over Evolution.
You are mixing arguments in your usual illogical way. The church has lost many followers because of the horrible things these criminal perverts did and the churches poor response. Many catholics who stay have stopped giving to the church or are giving far less. In my opinion the church needs to allow more married priests. Not just the anglican ones or the ones from the eastern rite. Cardinal Schonboom - you know the one who understand the anthropological argument better than you - recent discussed that issue. But don't confuse the church's teachings on the bible with the criminals. The criminal cover up was disgusting and their is no excuse. Regarding Catholics and evolution - I thought I disabused you of your misunderstandings. The church says that evolution is not inconsistent with a belief in God and it has been saying that for longer than you have been alive.
The Great Catholic Cover-Up The pope's entire career has the stench of evil about it. On March 10, the chief exorcist of the Vatican, the Rev. Gabriele Amorth (who has held this demanding post for 25 years), was quoted as saying that "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican," and that "when one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' in the holy rooms, it is all trueâincluding these latest stories of violence and pedophilia." This can perhaps be taken as confirmation that something horrible has indeed been going on in the holy precincts, though most inquiries show it to have a perfectly good material explanationConcerning the most recent revelations about the steady complicity of the Vatican in the ongoingâindeed endlessâscandal of child rape, a few days later a spokesman for the Holy See made a concession in the guise of a denial. It was clear, said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, that an attempt was being made "to find elements to involve the Holy Father personally in issues of abuse." He stupidly went on to say that "those efforts have failed." He was wrong twice. In the first place, nobody has had to strive to find such evidence: It has surfaced, as it was bound to do. In the second place, this extension of the awful scandal to the topmost level of the Roman Catholic Church is a process that has only just begun. Yet it became in a sense inevitable when the College of Cardinals elected, as the vicar of Christ on Earth, the man chiefly responsible for the original cover-up. (One of the sanctified voters in that "election" was Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, a man who had already found the jurisdiction of Massachusetts a bit too warm for his liking.) .There are two separate but related matters here: First, the individual responsibility of the pope in one instance of this moral nightmare and, second, his more general and institutional responsibility for the wider lawbreaking and for the shame and disgrace that goes with it. The first story is easily told, and it is not denied by anybody. In 1979, an 11-year-old German boy identified as Wilfried F. was taken on a vacation trip to the mountains by a priest. After that, he was administered alcohol, locked in his bedroom, stripped naked, and forced to suck the penis of his confessor. (Why do we limit ourselves to calling this sort of thing "abuse"?) The offending cleric was transferred from Essen to Munich for "therapy" by a decision of then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, and assurances were given that he would no longer have children in his care. But it took no time for Ratzinger's deputy, Vicar General Gerhard Gruber, to return him to "pastoral" work, where he soon enough resumed his career of sexual assault. http://www.slate.com/id/2247861/