I was by myself on Father's day while the girls were waiting on me hand and foot and I had a hammock, I had a High Life, I had a laptop, and I had a keen sense of righteousness. Anyway, I decided to try to start a movement to defund the Catholic Church. This probably doesn't resonate with any of the apostate heathens that hang out here, but if you know anyone...spread the word!
I want you to imagine that you could go back in time, roughly a thousand years, to the moment where it was commanded by the Roman Catholic Papacy that the inhabitants of a worthless piece of real estate in the Middle East be exterminated. What if you, even as a member of that faith, had the authority to stop those Crusaders from shedding all of that blood in the name of one Jesus Christ of Nazareth? Would you do it?
Imagine that you could go back five hundred years and put yourself in the torture tribune of a church basement where some lowly heretic’s head was being squeezed in a vice in the name of the Messiah. What if you, even as a member of that faith, had the power to stop that Inquisitor from crushing the skull of that man in order to vindicate the seemingly victimless crime of apostasy? Would you do it?
Imagine that you could go back just about a decade ago, and put yourself in some of these third world African countries where the only thing that people have is their faith. The Roman Catholic Church provided the only source of knowledge of the outside world for these people and what did they do with that power? They had the brilliant idea of preaching to the part of the world where the AIDS virus is most prominent, that condoms not only don’t prevent the spread of that insidious disease but actually assist in spreading it. How many millions of people have died because of that brilliant policy? Make no mistake about it…this was genocide executed perfectly by an organization of old, ignorant virgins, which to this day has not even been apologized for. What if you could have tapped one of those Bishops on the shoulder as they were passing down this bullshit dogma and said, “No…this is wrong…this is enough. It ends here.” What if you had that power, even as a member of that faith? Would you use it?
Now imagine that you could go back in time two thousand years to an ancient land where you saw another heretic being tortured and persecuted, but only this time…it’s YOUR heretic. Imagine bearing witness to this prophecy being carried out. Watching the nails being driven into his hands and feet. Watching those soldiers drag him through the desert on that cross, continually beating and stabbing him and finally leaving him hanging on that cross to die so that this blood sacrifice could come to fruition. What if you could have worn the shoes of Pilate on that day? What if you could have prevented these violent and deadly acts against this man? As a member of the very faith in which he passed down to you…Would you have stopped it?
In spite of what your answer is to any of those questions, I think most of you can see them as legitimate moral dilemmas…or maybe not even. If you answered yes to any of those questions, and I think as moral beings, you probably did…let’s take a look at one more question. As you may or may not know, a few months ago, the Vatican was served with court papers to bring them to justice on the cover-up of a crime committed in Milwaukee by a priest at a deaf boys school that had molested over two hundred children. This Catholic child abuse scandal cannot be taken lightly. We’re not talking about a few bad priests who lost their way here. We’re talking about the systematic rape and torture and subsequent cover-up of a network of pederasts that have committed countless crimes against children in every country in the world. If these charges were brought against any other organization, justice would have been served a long time ago. As of now though, all we have is a few apologies. The very Pope that sits upon the 50 billion dollar empire in the Vatican sent out memos to every Bishop in the world to deal with child rape accusations in the utmost secrecy and to place the reputation of the church far ahead of actual justice. This is deplorable and we have the paper trail to prove it. Yet, for some reason this isn’t the #1 story on the news every night. For some reason, nobody really seems to be taking these charges seriously. Why? Well unfortunately, the common perception is that the church has too much money and power and influence in the world right now to ever be brought to true justice. Well that’s not good enough for me and it shouldn’t be good enough for anybody. WE don’t live in a Theocracy.
As a society, we appear to see pederasty as the most heinous crime that can be committed. Even after pederasts are released from jail, we publicly shame them. The pederasts that sometimes join them morally appall even the murderers and thieves in prison and they usually need to be protected in some manner. It’s a crime that can’t be forgiven and shouldn’t be but of course it makes perfect sense that it would run so rampant amongst the clergy. They hate children.
When you have a doctrine as vile and disgusting as that of Original Sin and actually believe that shit, of course the innocence of a child means nothing to you. Only the Church can look at a beautiful, innocent baby and say nope…they’re born as guilty, filthy sinners, responsible for the death of our savior and until he redeems them, they’re nothing. The deacon at the Church where I had my daughter baptized took that a step further by flat out calling her a demon to my face. I can’t thank that man enough for making me realize how truly evil this church is. Of course, the irony here is that the church needs children and they know it. You ever wonder why you never hear of a Republican baby or a Democratic baby but it’s perfectly logical to have Catholic babies and Muslim babies? It’s quite simply because if we allowed people to wait until they reached the age of reason before introducing them to religion, they would see it as nothing more than a cult of blood sacrifice and stay as far away from it as humanly possible.
So what do we do? I submit to you that the continuous funding of the Catholic church will in fact prevent these vile dretches to society from ever being brought to justice and hence allowing these crimes to continue until the next apology and then the next one and the next one. Do you know that just a few weeks ago the church released a study whereby they spent two million dollars to investigate themselves for this scandal and concluded that the main reason for it was that the free-love era of the 60s confused the fucking priests! “Hey look world…we’re taking this seriously! We did a study! It was because of those dirty hippies.” So think about this for a second. You go to church….drop a sawbuck in the coffer which is in turn used to fund a study so that the church can hold itself less accountable for disgusting crimes against humanity. It will also be used to fight any charges brought against it and as long as that funding remains so abundant, those charges will continue to be dismissed. Think about what you might do to someone that ever committed this crime against your own child. It scares you, right? It scares me. Think about that the next time that basket gets passed over to you. This is not to say the Church never does good things with it’s money but they never do it without a blatant attempt to indoctrinate and therefore gain more power. There’s nothing altruistic about that kind of behavior. You’re better off giving your money to Unicef or Amnesty International.
So taking a little closer look at this moral dilemma…what would b the ramifications? Weigh these two things against each other:
1. There’s an ancient story about a God that decided to intervene with humanity and provide for us our paths towards morality and salvation. Accepting this story as the truth will make you immortal and provide for you an eternal paradise. Being skeptical will reward you with a big fat dose of eternal damnation. As the story goes, this God created man and woman but created them in such a way that they could never meet his demands. He would then punish all of humanity with the aforementioned “Original Sin.” Now this scenario meant that nobody could ever get into the eternal kingdom of Heaven so then came the great loophole. He would impregnate some Jewish broad with the idea of later torturing and sacrificing that child and then holding all of humanity accountable for this child sacrifice so that their only escape from fire and brimstone would be to accept the child as their savior. Saving us from the Original Sin which HE gave us because of the crimes of Adam. Of course unless you believe that the world is five thousand years old, you know that there is no Adam. A man by the name of Darwin killed him. Without Adam, there’s no need for redemption. No need for a child sacrifice (as if an omnipotent God couldn’t just forgive us without killing his son anyway). The whole thing blows right the fuck up. Yet, here we are today, still bearing guilty children because of the sin (knowledge) of a man that never existed. This is where morality comes from. The credulous reap the greatest reward. The only true crime is disbelief. In gratitude for this faith being passed on to you, you contribute a percentage of your money to the church that mandates it.
2. A conscious effort to defund an organization that will use it’s money and power to defend itself for crimes against humanity for the systematic rape, torture, and cover-up of children all over the world.
Which of those two practices would provide the most for humanity?
You’re better than your church, folks, and you don’t need it to be an upstanding member of your faith. There is NO such thing as papal infallibility and anyone who claims they can speak for God or be the arbiter for morality or even call themselves Holy should not be trusted. If you’re a Roman Catholic and your beliefs are in fact true and the Jewish Zombie really is coming back to end humanity, do you think a loving, benevolent God would be standing with these scumbags that threaten children with the depraved idea of hell and then take advantage of that threat in such a way that they have? Do you think he’d be standing with anyone who didn’t do everything they could to bring them to justice? Do you think that a loving, benevolent God could find it in his heart to accept a person that was willing to take a stand against these wretches even if they thought it might cost them their salvation?
I do…and I have a feeling I’m not the only one. WE have the power to do something about THIS…now.
You don't have to break the Church. You just need to join Twitter. Access to information is the enemy of any organization that relies on a single-minded worldview to exist.
A few years from now, any Catholic kid in a bad situation will have the wherewithal to reach out, find other options, raise flags on the pederasts and convert to FSMism. Of course, that doesn't mean justice for the ones who've already suffered, but you can't win 'em all.
Posted by: Assman | June 20, 2011 at 12:13 PM
They may have the tools but as long as they're threatened with eternal damnation and actually believe in the concept of hell and believe that ratting out clergy men will put them there, they won't use them.
Posted by: Vandelay | June 20, 2011 at 04:37 PM
Can we go a step further and include defunding them for mandating that if you're a female and attend one of their schools that you have to wear a skirt, which in turn becomes the basis for the biggest cock tease in a young man's life, relegating that young man to a lifetime of jack offery to any woman with nice gams in a plaid skirt?
Posted by: Dr. Whatley | June 20, 2011 at 08:02 PM
One mountain at a time, Whatley...one mountain at a time.
Posted by: Vandelay | June 20, 2011 at 10:39 PM
They may have the tools but as long as they're threatened with eternal damnation and actually believe in the concept of hell and believe that ratting out clergy men will put them there, they won't use them.
Sure they will. I mean, nobody believes in that Zeus crap anymore because we went up to the top of Mt. Olympus and didn't see anything. Once people start acquiring knowledge about multiple faiths, the history of religion, sociology and human psychology, it becomes harder to fear the threat of a hell that isn't there.
Or at the very least, it becomes more clear to the kid that the guy doing the bad touch is the villain here, not them. The more of these guys that get exposed, the easier it is for a kid to categorize their abuser as "one of them" and to treat them as such.
Posted by: Assman | June 21, 2011 at 12:54 PM
Can we go a step further and include defunding them for mandating that if you're a female and attend one of their schools that you have to wear a skirt...
Alright now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Not every idea is a bad idea, you know? Those three years of Catholic school were BRUTAL for me, with this part as the mild exception.
Posted by: Assman | June 21, 2011 at 12:56 PM
But Assman...religious fables are far more appealing to children than real knowledge. That's where the hook comes from. Who is a 6 year old going to listen to...someone telling them about a talking snake or someone trying to explain genetic mutations and natural selection? Especially when you scare them into believing the former.
My kid thinks I'm an idiot for believing in "that monkey thing." Magic is far more intriguing than science to young minds. I said, "Audrey don't you think it's a miracle that after billions of years a molecule found a way to make a copy of itself and that would evolve over a couple more billion years into a creature that then came to wonder where it came from?" Nope. Not until, natural selection gives snakes vocal chords.
Posted by: Vandelay | June 21, 2011 at 01:35 PM
My kid thinks I'm an idiot for believing in "that monkey thing." Magic is far more intriguing than science to young minds.
Entirely untrue. Science is intriguing when you story-tell it right. You can compete with Genesis. Just tell a funny story about how monkeys slowly turned into humans by learning how to use tools and becoming a little bit smarter every day? At least that's how I peddle this science horseshit on my little dorks.
Everything is marketing.
Posted by: Assman | June 21, 2011 at 06:28 PM
12 years of Catholic school and I couldn't dislike the Catholic church more than I did now if you paid me to.
Posted by: randi | June 21, 2011 at 07:23 PM
Okay, so what's your timeline here, Assman? Theoretically it would only take one generation to do away with it forever. The second it stops getting passed down and we stop indoctrinating children, it begins to die. How many generations is it going to take for the people that value evidence and reason over faith to become the majority? Until we start putting pressure on people's religious beliefs, it ain't gonna happen.
In one of the 2008 Republican primary debates, four people when said they don't believe in evolution and that was it. End of the subject. No follow-up questions. If someone said they believed in Poseidon or Zeus or Venus they'd be done in this country. The only reason people don't believe in those Gods anymore is because that civilization went down in flames. How do we do it without being wiped out? How do you fight illogical people with logic?
Posted by: Vandelay | June 21, 2011 at 11:10 PM
Good question, but you're not talking about religion as much as education. You've got people making unnecessary babies because they don't understand birth control. You've got people fighting evolution because they don't understand that it's not a challenge to their beliefs.
Maybe I'm a pollyanna, but yeah, I think this thing has got maybe a generation or two left in it. Not religion dying; but more the fear of science. Access to info has pretty much always won out.
Posted by: Assman | June 22, 2011 at 09:03 PM
My biggest question is why do you bring your kids to church in the first place? They get fed the most outrageous misinformation ever conceivable and they run the risk of getting molested.
Secondly, Pollyanna aside, the fact remains that natural selection does not focus on the brightest and strongest individuals of any given species. It simply favors the ones that produce the most viable off-spring. I'm not saying ignorant, dull-minded parents can't reproduce smart kids but it's the culture they create which tends to supersede whether or not the bright one will have an offset effect.
Posted by: Mr. Kruger | June 23, 2011 at 01:31 PM
You've got people fighting evolution because they don't understand that it's not a challenge to their beliefs.
But it absolutely is. If I may summon the great Carl Sagan...Without creation, you no longer have a creator. Without a creator, what does that say about our theologically based moral codes?
Unless you're a proponent of ID...and I know you're not (remember when I never heard of ID?), it firmly disproves all three of the monotheisms. Even if you were a proponent of ID though, it still kills Christianity as I explained above because it's central belief (Jesus died for our sins) is directly tied to Adam...the guy that was made from dirt.
Posted by: Vandelay | June 24, 2011 at 12:40 PM
"the fact remains that natural selection does not focus on the brightest and strongest individuals of any given species. It simply favors the ones that produce the most viable off-spring."
While the strongest and brightest tend to live longer and therefore produce more offspring (more seeds, more likely some should be viable), this is still absolutely true... It's as though the instant we began adapting our surroundings to suit us as oppose to us adapting to our surroundings, we began devolving... The intelligent minded are having less children, while the poor uneducated are dropping babies like mana from the heavens... Education is the only solution... Destroy the fear of the illogical with knowledge... That and having tons of unprotected sex with women so that our intelligent genes are passed on!
Posted by: SteelSox | June 28, 2011 at 03:11 PM
Nothing explains my point better than the intro to this movie... Idiocracy
http://youtu.be/BXRjmyJFzrU
Posted by: SteelSox | June 28, 2011 at 03:21 PM
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