No, he’s just parading his own anti-religious bigotry, and so are you. On a random sample of clergyfolk I’ve known in my life, I can’t find one I’d call a parasite. Hastily generalize much?
Yours is a self defeating position. You say freedom of choice is the most important freedom but you deny that when you suggest that they have no choice in doing the things that got them into difficulty in the first place… Their choice was to belong to a dumbass church and hand their critical faculties into the trust of someone else.
If I said, just before these people had bad things happen, “these people should be forcibly removed from this church before bad things happen to them” I’d have been impinging on their freedom of choice.
Yours is a self defeating position. You say freedom of choice is the most important freedom but you deny that when you suggest that they have no choice in doing the things that got them into difficulty in the first place… Their choice was to belong to a dumbass church and hand their critical faculties into the trust of someone else.
If I said, just before these people had bad things happen, “these people should be forcibly removed from this church before bad things happen to them” I’d have been impinging on their freedom of choice.
Get out of my brain!
Furthermore wouldn’t that picture be a perfect candidate for Up the Arse Corner in Viz?
Damnit, that picture. The one in the article.
You’re a victim once, after that, you’re volunteering. (Naomi Judd)
You’re response seems to justify my point more than dismiss it.
There are always going to be charismatic, power-hungry, manipulative, ethically bereft, moraly corrupt assholes. Having a “moral of the story” for their benefit would be a waste of time. The moral I chose might actually protect people from them and their ilk.
In Chefguy’s defense, he was talking more of his impression than cold, hard facts. In that regard, it’s my impression as well.
I would say that a vast majority do. But as it is with politicians, those that rise to the top of their professions are those with ambitions to rise to the top, and IMHO that means a corruptable personality. A clergyman who honestly believes in living a life of charity and poverty is not likely to be the kind who will end up with a televised megachurch.
If I had to judge the clergy as a whole based only on those I have met personally in my low-income liberal circles, I’d say they were some pretty decent fellows. If I had to judge them based solely on what I’d seen in the media, I’d have to rank them as some of the lowest life forms we have.
And the Asian doctors whom I read about in the media are those who have been struck off for diddling white female patients, but if I dared to generalise from that - even qualifying it as “my impression” and not “cold, hard facts” - that Asian doctors as a class did nothing else, I would deservedly be ripped so many new ones that you could use me as a colander. It wouldn’t make much odds if I kindly gave a tip o’ the hat to what “my impression” had as the few good apples in the barrel. I’d be lucky to get away without a banning.
Fair enough, but do you really think that doctors and clergy get the same kind of press?
If (and I realize this is a really big hypothetical) I were a Martian learning everything I could about human society using only the American media as my source, I’d come away with a far different impression of doctors vs clerics.
Then again, ChefGuy doesn’t have a Vulcan heritage as an excuse.
I’ll have to disagree here, too. Most of the clergy I have had the pleasure to have known have been good folks who genuinely went into the clergy to help their fellow people. They were also not out to make a name for themselves.
I have a fundamental distrust of charismatic preachers. You know their ilk. They run ads on the television saying, “Come to MY church.” Their sermons alternate between chastising unbelievers and soliciting money. They drive Mercedes to their Mega-churches while the parking lot is full of Buick Opals. Those are the real parasites, and they give the good ones a bad name.
Geez - this is what I get for mutitasking.
Apples and oranges. Doctors of whatever nationality perform useful services. Clergy just con people about great sky fairies.
Not so. In a con, you have the mark, who lacks true knowledge of the situation, and the con, who knows the truth, and abuses the mark’s lack of knowledge. A member of the clergy actually believes God exists - thus, no con. There are, i’m sure, clergy who do not believe in God, but use their positions for personal gain, just like any other authority can - however, these are the minority.
Well, that’s somewhat of an improvement. We got all the way up to post 19 before Bush was dragged into it.
Tell us something, Evil Captor. Given the nature of this thread, why didn’t you name Bill Clinton? Would have been much, much more appropriate.
Well, technically, his election was in the 20th century.
From the viewpoint of a nonbeliever, the profession itself is parasitic. The only real question is how much harm they do.
How do you know how many believe or don’t ? Plus, it doesn’t matter. It’s like a pyramid scheme; the victims are also perpetrators.
No it wouldn’t. Clinton didn’t coerce women, and never had a reputation for stupidity. Bush, on the other hand, is a veritable demigod of stupidity. Judging from his team’s performance, merely being associated with him makes you stupid.
Proof that the sheep live for the wolves. Why we as a society even value the sheep is beyond me. We should worship and emulate the wolves. Work WITH them instead of demonizing them. They’re the ones who get things done and cull sickness out of the flock. No sympathy for the “victims” here. Quite the opposite. They’re not just common adulteresses, they’re filth who won’t publicly accept the label. I wonder if they realize that “religious influence” is as ridiculous an excuse for spreading their legs for this clown as “God told me He wants you to play the boy to me…he told me this morning!”
That doesn’t really translate, though, because a doctor is only ever going to be in the national eye when he does something wrong. Televangelists try to place themselves in the national eye. You never needed a scandal to look at a guy like Paulk (or Falwell, or Robertson, or…) and smell a rat. And televangelists do overwhelmingly reek of rodent, as a rule. However, I agree with the over all point that folks such as them are not representative of clergy in general.