# A game of religion and relative righteousness: Quantifying the morality of the Catholic Church **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [July 30, 2013, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-game-of-religion-and-relative-righteousness-quantifying-the-morality-of-the-catholic-church/664880 "2013-07-30T04:06:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-game-of-religion-and-relative-righteousness-quantifying-the-morality-of-the-catholic-church/664880/1 "2013-07-30T04:06:06Z")
Let’s play a potentially offensive, but potentially interesting, game of moral scorekeeping. With each post, you can: [ul] [li]Using your own sense of contemporary morality, list one or more good deeds or misdeeds performed by the Catholic Church (or a sizable portion of its members, but _only if the deed is reasonably attributable_ to their Catholicism)[/li][li]Rate each deed/misdeed on a -10 (Pure evil) to 10 (Pure good) scale, staying closer to 0 for situations you consider morally ambiguous[/li][li]Provide a rationale for your ratings[/li][li]Sum your scores with the current total so we keep a running score[/li][li]If you disagree with a previous poster on a specific deed, average your two scores and adjust the running total accordingly (i.e. if they rated something a 5 and you think it’s a -3, your combined average score is 1. Explain why and then add a 1 to the running total)[/li][/ul] For example, I’ll start: - Child molestation - -8 - It’s pretty darned evil to violate the trust, body, and spirit of those entrusted to your care, but at least you’re not slaughtering them en masse willy-nilly **Current total: -8** - Encouraging/supporting formal charitable organizations around the world - 7 - An organization that practices charity as a central tenet of its beliefs is a force for good in the world. But in terms of percentage of their time and income, it’s not very much. **Current total: -1** Etc. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-game-of-religion-and-relative-righteousness-quantifying-the-morality-of-the-catholic-church/664880/2 "2013-07-30T04:20:38Z")
Sorry, I made a big mistake in the averaging formula. If they rated something a 5 and you think it’s a -3, your average score is 1 (so far so good). **But instead of adding 1, you should subtract 4 from the running total.** To be clear: Their score: 5 Yours: (5 + -3) / 2 = 1 (the average) 5 - 1 = 4 (what you need to subtract from the running total to reflect the new averaged score) Or if you both rated something a -10: Average: -10 -10 - -10 = 0 (and so the running total doesn’t change) ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-game-of-religion-and-relative-righteousness-quantifying-the-morality-of-the-catholic-church/664880/3 "2013-07-30T04:22:48Z")
[Here is part one of five](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kuzYwzGoXw) of a great discussion on this subject. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-game-of-religion-and-relative-righteousness-quantifying-the-morality-of-the-catholic-church/664880/4 "2013-07-30T04:33:02Z")
Yep, I knew about that, but wanted to hear Dopers’ opinions. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-game-of-religion-and-relative-righteousness-quantifying-the-morality-of-the-catholic-church/664880/5 "2013-07-30T05:00:59Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Yep, I knew about that, but wanted to hear Dopers’ opinions. Is this a game, or a gathering of opinions? How is this game won? ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-game-of-religion-and-relative-righteousness-quantifying-the-morality-of-the-catholic-church/664880/6 "2013-07-30T05:32:24Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Is this a game, or a gathering of opinions? How is this game won? Both, as in a group debate? I guess we tally up the scores after a few days/weeks, depending on participation, and see which side scored higher. And yep, you can switch sides with every round. _shrug_ If it needs to be moved to IMHO or MPSIMS, that’s fine too. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-game-of-religion-and-relative-righteousness-quantifying-the-morality-of-the-catholic-church/664880/7 "2013-07-30T14:16:16Z")
Since everyone gets to assign points using their own scale of PURE EVIL to PURE GOOD, how can you honestly add up the points to determine a “winner” in the “game”? If one person gives a “-10” for child molestation and another gives a “+10” for the same thing, does that make child molestation morally neutral? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-game-of-religion-and-relative-righteousness-quantifying-the-morality-of-the-catholic-church/664880/8 "2013-08-09T08:35:34Z")
A better way to determine the winner would be whose guess is closest to the final total. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-game-of-religion-and-relative-righteousness-quantifying-the-morality-of-the-catholic-church/664880/9 "2013-08-09T08:46:38Z")
The Catholic Church [lies](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/oct/09/aids) about condoms, saying they don’t protect from AIDS; killing an unknown but probably large number of people. -9 Priests often rape nuns in regions where younger ones are common, and coerce them into abortions if they become pregnant. -7 The [enslavement of women](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_asylum) as part of their punishment for being women. -8 Their opposition to life extension research because a longer lifespan would increase hope, and therefore decrease faith which is built on despair. Their argument, not mine. -7 (-10 for _intent;_ -7 because they probably didn’t do as much damage as they wanted) Support for Nazism, due to it opposing “godless Communism”; -9 Promoting Catholicism; as it is a _clearly_ evil organization, promoting it is morally wrong. -9. The numbers are mainly based on a guess at the number of people harmed. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-game-of-religion-and-relative-righteousness-quantifying-the-morality-of-the-catholic-church/664880/10 "2013-08-09T09:42:28Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Since everyone gets to assign points using their own scale of PURE EVIL to PURE GOOD, how can you honestly add up the points to determine a “winner” in the “game”? If one person gives a “-10” for child molestation and another gives a “+10” for the same thing, does that make child molestation morally neutral? > [@BigT](#): > > A better way to determine the winner would be whose guess is closest to the final total. If there were actually enough contributors, I would’ve made a spreadsheet that better averaged the scores. I didn’t want to make it too complex to start with. Anyway, I don’t know how this thread was resurrected a week later, but it’ll probably just fade away into obscurity again, so… > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The numbers are mainly based on a guess at the number of people harmed. Thanks for the sympathy play 🙂