I don’t like religion. I grew up Catholic, and even for a while after I stopped believing in God, I still had a bit of a soft spot for my old community. That’s pretty much all long gone now. Fuck religion.
I mostly criticize Christianity because that’s what I’m most familiar with, and because self-professed Christians are the ones doing the most damage in our country these days. I tend not to bitch about Islam or Judaism because I don’t want people to think I’m a Trump supporter. But, really, fuck all religion.
So this is my attempt at an Omnibus thread. How bad is religion? Let us count the ways!
To keep this thread to a manageable length, and to avoid the fate of the “Stupid Liberal Idea of the Day” thread, I ask that we keep our examples limited to actions of clergy and other religious officials and leaders. Some Bible thumping politician is caught with a prostitute, put it in SRIOTD. A Catholic bishop is caught with a prostitute, now we’re talking!
To get things started on the right foot, I give you West Virginia bishop Michael Bransfield:
It’s a long article, but it’s a cracking good read. Sexual harassment, influence peddling, embezzlement, this story has it all!
Bishop Michael J. Bransfield, you win the inaugural Religious Fuckhead of the Day Award! Well done!
Are we sticking to just one Religious Fuckhead per day? After all, this is Pride Month, which seems to bring the Religious Fuckheads out in droves. Take Bishop Thomas Tobin as an example:
Wonder if the bishop would be open to discussing organizations that really do harm children?
I don’t really care for religion of any kind, but the most obnoxious are the Abrahamic religions, fighting over a holy city and a bunch of mythological bullshit.
Yes, surely the Catholic Church can bear no responsibility for continuing to endanger children from known pedophiles, because it took a psychologist and expert on pedophilia to realize this. How could they possibly have known?
Similarly, if a bear claims that it now only shits in the rest room, it takes a professional biologist to know that it’s a red flag if we see the bear squatting down in the woods with a roll of toilet paper.
They’re really fighting political wars, over territory whose borders were drawn by the British and Ottoman Empires. Religion is less of a part of it than people think.
You guys are all picking on the Catholic Church pedophile priests. What about the Catholic Church embezzling priests? They deserve equal time! I give you Fr. John Wehrle.
Stole $5 million from his parish over several years. Built a seven-bedroom mansion with a swimming pool and wine cellar. Had rolls of bills in the ceiling marked “For St. Martha’s parish, deposit only.” And had the gall (I remember, because I was a parishioner) to continually ask the congregation for more donations to fund building improvements and parking lot repairs; and to berate us if we didn’t come through to his satisfaction. While he was stealing church funds to build his mansion. Screw him, and send his arrogant thieving ass to prison.
The current bishop is livid with him, and claims he didn’t know anything about Fr. Jon’s elaborate residence. But he should have known. That’s part of his job as head of the diocese, to know what his priests are doing. Screw him too.
You’re not wrong, but I offer Modi’s Hindu-supremacy politics in India right now and the brutality of the Buddhist government in Myanmar as counterpoints. And remember that the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot came up from an almost entirely Buddhist Cambodian culture.
There is a grain of truth in that. I would change it to ‘predators masquerading as priest’ as it seems impossible to believe the tenets of that religion and still use your position to molest children.
Well, it’s equally hard to reconcile the no-condom doctrine that has cost many thousands of lives with Jesus’ teachings of compassion. So I think you may have succeeded in proving that the Pope is not a Catholic. He is just masquerading as one.
If you ever discuss the issue with this person again, ask if the absolutions that they gave and the transubstantiations they offered were retroactively invalidated and need to be done over (also weddings, baptisms, and Last Rites).
How about a Catholic school principal who takes some of the children in his school on a field trip, and while they are sleeping, decides to demonstrate exemplary Christian behavior to his wards by going out to a strip club, getting drunk, refusing to pay his bill, fighting with police, and getting arrested?
A smallish thing. Unless you’re a Catholic who wants to receive communion.
“llinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton have been banned from receiving communion in Springfield-area churches because of their support for legislation that expands abortion access.The decree barring Illinois’ two highest-ranking lawmakers — both Catholic Democrats from Chicago — from taking the sacrament was issued by Thomas Paprocki, bishop of the Springfield Diocese, less than a week after an abortion rights bill won final approval in the legislature and was sent to Gov. J.B. Pritzker.”
I got yer separation of church and state right here, you hypocrite bastard.
And another thing, a warning to Catholics: The next time you’re standing in front of your local child molester, and you’re expecting him to hand you a wafer, make sure he doesn’t know that you support a woman’s right to choose!