We could post news stories about Catholic priests molesting children as well. Is the Catholic religion to blame for that?
This mall shooter is interesting, though. It seems he was acting out against foreigners (i.e. non-Germans). Specifically, the news says he spoke against “Turks.”
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/23/europe/germany-munich-shooting/index.html
Yes. Of course it is.
Catholicism is the only means by which such a web of victims, perpetrators and apologists could have sustained itself for so long.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but Catholicism isn’t the only religion where this has happened, nor are religions the only institutions with similar occurrences. Indeed, it occurs in any system which involves close, sustained contact between adults and children (e.g. schools, even in the home). Are the concepts of education and parenting to blame for those events?
There are many, many kinds of texts. What generally sets “sacred” texts apart from all the others is that people get really pissed-off if you interpret them differently than they do.
And yet all sacred texts have dozens if not thousands of different interpretations by people who all believe that their way of interpreting the text is the best one. There simply is no such thing as a sacred text that objectively has only one “right” or “best” interpretation.
Unfortunately that ain’t gonna happen. As Gibbon commented in The Decline and Fall there seems to be something in the majority of humans that needs some form of organized superstition. Uproot one religion another will soon rise in its place. Just look at recorded history. The level of gullibility and credulity in humanity doesn’t go down as one would expect with the advances in scientific knowledge. As a people we’re just as addicted to magical thinking as our ancestors were. Sure, we can coat some of the wild beliefs now with a thin veneer of pseudo science but it’s all the same claptrap underneath.
Deities in the sky, superbeings who create whole universes and watch over them, demons that can possess us, magi who conquer death and become gods, aliens who anally probe us, lizard lords who secretly rule us, mediums who claim to commune with the dead (who surprisingly never have anything interesting to say), goblins,fairies, wizards, witches, oracles, etc. Particular beliefs may change with the centuries but behind them all is the same irrationality and superstition that has afflcted us since we were huddled around the fire in gloomy caves terrified of the darkness beyond.
And BTW I agree that religions stir up homophobia. As they’re not going anywhere (religions or gays) we need to shame religions into accepting homosexuality. How? In your face Gay Pride marches through Bible Belt towns, extremist Muslim areas, etc. Get used to it, bigots, this is how things are despite your medieval beliefs!
You’re confusing the concept of “Catholicism” with the structured organization known as “The Roman Catholic Church”. I blame the latter for enabling sustained child abuse. The former I generally attribute to superstition.
Until recently that small percentage of the populace in Catholic countries who were attracted to men had only one practical option - the priesthood and “celibacy”.
Catholic institutions must have been gayer than Broadway throughout the Middle Ages.
Just speculating here.
And jolly well, too, but I had the vague impression a family would tend to push their third or fourth sons (that is, among those who survived to adulthood) toward the priesthood as a career in part to reduce hassles over inheritance, i.e. not everyone in the priesthood was there by personal choice or to try to limit “sinful” urges.
I’m not confused and we are not in disagreement. Effectively, you’re simply repeating what I said.
The sexual abuse of children (e.g. altar boys) is distinct from attraction to “men”. Considering the last few posts, it seems to me that you’re conflating the two (i.e. the “gay people are child molesters” stereotype).
I understand the point you were going for, but there’s an implied slide in your statement from the religion of Catholicism to the institution of the RCC, and they are not exactly synonymous. A religion by itself doesn’t abuse anyone, since it’s just a set of ideas and rituals. The practitioners can be very abusive, and the RCC is a set of practitioners with a hierarchy that practiced (and I suspect still practices) a look-the-other-way policy that didn’t really have anything to do with the practice of Catholicism but just with protecting the RCC itself.
That’s exactly what I’ve been saying.
No, gay people aren’t child molesters. I’ve never seen or heard any evidence for that.
That was exactly dreamregent’s point.
Of course, but Dreamregent asked if I was conflating homosexuality with child molestation. I wasn’t.