Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by kOrsan on March 14, 2013 at 10:57am

As for Africa, I think you probably need to do a bit more research there as well.  The problems of AIDS and overpopulation are far more complex than what you suggest. 

Without condoms = higher chance of getting diseases and pregnant.

With condoms = much lower chance of getting diseases and pregnant.

Yeah holy shit, that was mind bogglingly complex.

The Catholic Church at least has boots on the ground caring for those people

They do it for the reward, and to further propagate their dogma. Of course they'll choose starving people riddled with diseases. They prey on the weak, who are more likely to fall for this cult shit.

Believe me when I tell you the fury within Catholicism over our pedophile supporters burns 100 times hotter than it does for outsiders, we just know the names of perpetrators.

Yeah we clearly hear so much outcry from your camp in the media. Wait sorry... actually we just hear about more crimes coming to the surface. I always confuse the two.

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Permalink Reply by Real Life James Bond on March 14, 2013 at 1:15pm

I disagree with you Robert, although the church has "boots on the ground" what are they doing with those boots? To answer that I want to talk about Mother Theresa. In her travels she would collect (by some estimation) over 50 million dollars which went into the Vatican's bank. What happened with that money after? She claimed it was used to help the poor, however if you google pictures of her homes for dying, which she is so well known for, you will not see doctors, nurses, nice beds, or toilets. The people on the homes for the dying we're not allowed visits from friends or family, had to sleep in dinky cots, and had to share a trough to defecate and unrinate in (and it was not clean). So clearly all the money she got was not helping them, it was going to religious activities. Specifically setting up hundreds of nunneries all over the world to "pump out obedient nuns" ~ Christopher Hitchens. These nuns would then spread what the Vatican wanted to teach which is that contraceptives (such as condoms) are not to be used because it will prevent the transmission of life, however the Vatican doesn't understand it is to prevent to transmission of death. The reason the Vatican is messing up so badly over there is because the people calling the shots don't have their own two boots on the ground and fail to grasp the situation.

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Permalink Reply by Professor Robert on March 14, 2013 at 6:21pm

@SamRedmond, I'm a bit confused because Theresa was in India, not in Africa, and the Vatican bank is in Italy.

Yes, I think we would all agree that the conditions for all human beings in the Calcutta slums is wretched.   I'm not sure where you got the $50M figure, but do you think 50 million dollars was going to end abject poverty on the Indian subcontinent?

Most business cost is human labor.  Those "obedient nuns" Mr. Hitchens speaks of are women who choose to work for free in some of the worst, most impoverished places on the planet.  All they ask for is basic food, clothing, and shelter.  Nothing more.  Those "nunneries" are training centers, and a remarkably effective investment.

You may choose to disagree with their theological viewpoint, but they are there, on the ground, working daily with the poorest of the poor.

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Permalink Reply by Real Life James Bond on March 14, 2013 at 6:30pm

The point of that was to show she had the coin to flip for even the worst doctors in India for these people and she put it to creating religious institution that would go around telling people (in Africa also this is where Africa ties in)that God would send them to hell for using condoms even if it would save their life.
Here is where I got the figure from
http://youtu.be/_21XD74JKHw

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Permalink Reply by Professor Robert on March 14, 2013 at 7:47pm

A Penn & Teller video is your source?

So let's say she flipped that coin, spent the $50 million, and got the people you saw in that set of photographs you found on Google into some nice, western-style palliative care.

Now what?  What to do with the next group of poor, the next group of those needing medical attention?  The people living in the same conditions in places farther from the cameras of western photojournalists?

I'm not sure that a prerequisite for being a good Christian is being an idiot when it comes to business decisions and capital budgeting.  If you only have $50 million dollars to address a problem that $50 billion dollars couldn't fix, you don't spend it on nurses for a few.  You invest it in nursing schools so that you can get more nurses.

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Permalink Reply by Real Life James Bond on March 14, 2013 at 7:58pm

I know the two personally, they do their research well. So they are a credible source. She got that money from people who thought they were giving to the poor. She wouldn't have gotten a lot of money if she said she was going to use it to set up nunneries. Where did she invest in nursing schools? Which school? How much? Why weren't those nurses helping the people in Calcutta, Africa, or Haiti?

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Permalink Reply by Professor Robert on March 14, 2013 at 11:46pm

I'm sorry, two stage magicians who dabble in social commentary are a credible source on Indian poverty, Catholic religious orders, and international banking?  Because you know them personally?

Is that really your claim?

Permalink Reply by Real Life James Bond on March 14, 2013 at 11:52pm

Why does their profession take away from their research and the research of the people they interview? It doesn't. If you notice they take all of their evidence from professionals and people who study the subject matter. They also have an entire research team. They spend time and a lot of effort to research the topic they present. Being stage magicians doesn't take away from that at all.

Permalink Reply by Real Life James Bond on March 14, 2013 at 6:35pm

Also lets not forget who she was taking money from
The Duvalier family who stole all their money from the poor (Mother T took an undisclosed amount)
Charles Keating whose junk bond scam cost a lot of people their life savings. (She took over a million from Keating)
In essence she was taking from the poor to build her religious institutions. That is not what the money was supposed to be used for.

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Permalink Reply by MikeLong on March 14, 2013 at 12:34am

"condemn a man because someone filed a complaint?"

Fully agree. I've asked for a retraction. None has been forthcoming.

"The Jesuits are the Catholic Church's progressives."

True. But the LAST thing we atheists should want is Progressive reform. Reform will have NO purpose other that to appease and retain the disgruntled. We should want them to say, "This is ALL bullshit. Let me OUT of here!"

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Permalink Reply by Professor Robert on March 14, 2013 at 9:56am

LOL.  Well, fair enough.  I never really thought of atheists as being evangelical in that way, of wanting to convert others.

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Permalink Reply by Kairan Nierde on March 14, 2013 at 1:00am

I had a flash of genuine hope that this Pope might be better because of my experience with progressive, seemingly agnostic but "culturally christian" Jesuits.  Sounds like Jorge may be more a product of his generation and national culture than his order.

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