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The Great Catholiic Cover-Up by Christopher Hitchens
Posted on: March 28, 2010 - 1:48am
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The Great Catholiic Cover-Up by Christopher Hitchens
check -out the stoy here www.slate.com/id/2247861/ it makes you wonder ,just how much of this child raping priest it will take before people say ENOUGH !!! close this institution down it serves no purpose. Signature ? How ?
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i strongly agree although there aren't any new revelations for me in this article.
incidentally, this is the first thing by hitchens i've ever actually read (though i've seen him on tv several times). is his style always this purple? i have to say, i didn't care for it.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
He's only that way when he's been drinking.
So...yea, he is always that way
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
It isn't that simple. HOW it is shut down is important. Pressure on any label for harm to a child is understandable. But to equate one label as being the only label that does bad is absurd. Harm to children goes on in every country in the world in every political and religious structure. It is an unfortunate ratio that repeats in human behavior, and has throughout our species history.
Christianity needs to die like every other super hero fan club, the fact that this took place and the reaction is label based is a distraction that allows a label, rather than the human condition, to be focused on.
The focus here shouldn't be that "Catholics" covered it up, but that humans covered it up. I am not by any stretch advocating a defense for such harm, but merely that human behavior is not label driven, but a artificial drive that we, as a species falsely cling to, when the reality is that all humans are capable of the same range of emotions and actions.
Christianity needs to die, not through force, but through appeal to reason, so that issues of harm to children can be focused on. Christianity is not worldwide, the only label that protects it's own when accused of bad.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Why these kidfuckers aren't being systematically dragged off to court on charges of aiding and abetting and obstruction of justice completely baffles me.
Labeling (or rather, fear of that which is different and alien) is also a consistent notion found throughout our species. It's a defense mechanism that was completely necessary before civilization, and is completely displaced during the time of civilization.
It's inevitable.
In an ideal world, this would all work.
In a realistic, human world it would never work. By our genetically induced and psychological nature, we are driven to be averse to foreign concepts and unfamiliar individuals. This typically comes out as ethnocentrism. So in defending ourselves from foreign ideas and "strangers from another land", we label things for convenience. We then watch for danger... another artifact of distant evolution.
To quote a stranger I knew once; "Stereotypes... they're a time saver!".
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
Ironically, I only ever read Hitchens after drinking. I kind of wish he stayed the Trotskyist he claims to have been.
I have never liked Hitchens, even before his warmongering and profiteering. Too much sarcasm and self-loathing in that tiny little body to leave any place for integrity.
Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
That is not what I am trying to do here. I am simply saying that this goes on because Catholics protect their own, just like a lioness will protect their cubs. It is easyer to falsely equate morality to a label, than it is to aim introspection and scrutiny at oneself. I am saying that this should be one example of WHY labels are bullshit and that no label deserves a pedestal, THAT IS MY POINT.
I am not saying don't go after the Catholic Church. I think it is about time the world saw this institution for what it is, human run and not divine. It doesn't deserve special protection. And I am glad to see that asshole Pope on the hot seat where he belongs.
We have so much media today, that it isn't so much that a ratio is lopsided(on any given issue) more along the lines that it is more widely reported because there are more outlets to report it and quicker real time reporting.
I bet you there is a ratio of molestation going on in China, maybe not to the same degree, but I am sure it happens because our species is consistent in its ratio of behavior. China is a very image conscious society, so it would be less likely to report such things out of fear of embarrassment from the outside world. So there would be no way to tell.
I am saying that if you are going to go after one label, go after them all. Molestation is one crime, but Muslims, Jews, Christians, and even political gangs all do the same thing, they protect their own first and it is hard for humans to see that is what is going on. The Vatican deserves what it is getting now. And even if it didn't protect child molesters, it has also slaughtered people in the Dark Ages, hampered the advancement of science, and protected the pilfering of Jewish property during WW2. And even today through it's own narcissism promotes unwanted babies and the spread of disease. The Vatican's apologies are hollow to me and it deserves every bit of condemnation it is getting now.
I hope to see the actual Vatican building to become a relic myth of the past like the pyramids.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog