Religion: Real or Fake

[Ming]

I never said he was perfect. But of course you see me as an enemy so you're engaging in personal attacks and saying random crap about me

Ahhh... His idea of Christian spirit.. he shows everybody that disagrees with him. He is probably the worst example of true christianity of anybody on these forums.

[Kidlicious]

Mother Teresa is overrated...

I never said he was perfect. But of course you see me as an enemy so you're engaging in personal attacks and saying random crap about me

Nobody is perfect. Not even close. But you idol someone who can create nothing, only destroy. He's nothing like Mother Teresa at all. He's a fraud.

[MikeH]

You idol something hypothetical.

[giblets]

Nobody is perfect. Not even close. But you idol someone who can create nothing, only destroy. He's nothing like Mother Teresa at all. He's a fraud.

WTF? I never said I looked up to him. I just object to the silly us-and-them nonsense you have going on where you demonize everyone who isn't nominally Christian.

[Zoetstofzoetje]

You idol something hypothetical.

We all idol something hypothetical. Some of it is just more hypothethical than others. Logical cogency FTW in the meantime.

[Kidlicious]

gribbler rushed to his defense and now accuses people of attacking him. :rofl:

[Wezil]

I do find you amusing.

Btw Kid, here is what Hitchens actually has to say about MT. I don't expect you to concede I was right (it isn't in your nature) but here's a big I Told You So anyway.

I think it was Macaulay who said that the Roman Catholic Church deserved great credit for, and owed its longevity to, its ability to handle and contain fanaticism. This rather oblique compliment belongs to a more serious age. What is so striking about the "beatification" of the woman who styled herself "Mother" Teresa is the abject surrender, on the part of the church, to the forces of showbiz, superstition, and populism.

It's the sheer tawdriness that strikes the eye first of all. It used to be that a person could not even be nominated for "beatification," the first step to "sainthood," until five years after his or her death. This was to guard against local or popular enthusiasm in the promotion of dubious characters. The pope nominated MT a year after her death in 1997. It also used to be that an apparatus of inquiry was set in train, including the scrutiny of an advocatus diaboli or "devil's advocate," to test any extraordinary claims. The pope has abolished this office and has created more instant saints than all his predecessors combined as far back as the 16th century.

As for the "miracle" that had to be attested, what can one say? Surely any respectable Catholic cringes with shame at the obviousness of the fakery. A Bengali woman named Monica Besra claims that a beam of light emerged from a picture of MT, which she happened to have in her home, and relieved her of a cancerous tumor. Her physician, Dr. Ranjan Mustafi, says that she didn't have a cancerous tumor in the first place and that the tubercular cyst she did have was cured by a course of prescription medicine. Was he interviewed by the Vatican's investigators? No. (As it happens, I myself was interviewed by them but only in the most perfunctory way. The procedure still does demand a show of consultation with doubters, and a show of consultation was what, in this case, it got.)

According to an uncontradicted report in the Italian paper L'Eco di Bergamo, the Vatican's secretary of state sent a letter to senior cardinals in June, asking on behalf of the pope whether they favored making MT a saint right away. The pope's clear intention has been to speed the process up in order to perform the ceremony in his own lifetime. The response was in the negative, according to Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the Canadian priest who has acted as postulator or advocate for the "canonization." But the damage, to such integrity as the process possesses, has already been done.

During the deliberations over the Second Vatican Council, under the stewardship of Pope John XXIII, MT was to the fore in opposing all suggestions of reform. What was needed, she maintained, was more work and more faith, not doctrinal revision. Her position was ultra-reactionary and fundamentalist even in orthodox Catholic terms. Believers are indeed enjoined to abhor and eschew abortion, but they are not required to affirm that abortion is "the greatest destroyer of peace," as MT fantastically asserted to a dumbfounded audience when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize*. Believers are likewise enjoined to abhor and eschew divorce, but they are not required to insist that a ban on divorce and remarriage be a part of the state constitution, as MT demanded in a referendum in Ireland (which her side narrowly lost) in 1996. Later in that same year, she told Ladies Home Journal that she was pleased by the divorce of her friend Princess Diana, because the marriage had so obviously been an unhappy one …

This returns us to the medieval corruption of the church, which sold indulgences to the rich while preaching hellfire and continence to the poor. MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go? The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been—she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself—and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Excuse me, but this is modesty and humility?

The rich world has a poor conscience, and many people liked to alleviate their own unease by sending money to a woman who seemed like an activist for "the poorest of the poor." People do not like to admit that they have been gulled or conned, so a vested interest in the myth was permitted to arise, and a lazy media never bothered to ask any follow-up questions. Many volunteers who went to Calcutta came back abruptly disillusioned by the stern ideology and poverty-loving practice of the "Missionaries of Charity," but they had no audience for their story. George Orwell's admonition in his essay on Gandhi—that saints should always be presumed guilty until proved innocent—was drowned in a Niagara of soft-hearted, soft-headed, and uninquiring propaganda.

One of the curses of India, as of other poor countries, is the quack medicine man, who fleeces the sufferer by promises of miraculous healing. Sunday was a great day for these parasites, who saw their crummy methods endorsed by his holiness and given a more or less free ride in the international press. Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. More than that, we witnessed the elevation and consecration of extreme dogmatism, blinkered faith, and the cult of a mediocre human personality. Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT: Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions.

http://www.slate.com/id/2090083/

"MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God."

And my further criticism:

"And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return)..."

You were stunningly wrong Kid.

[Kidlicious]

You idol something hypothetical.

I idolize the Ideal, that which is infinitely positive and negative at the same time. Which is better than idolizing something or someone that is wholey destructive and negative, with nothing positive to it at all.

I've got no problem with negativity except with those who destroy the good. Negativity is a good thing when used in conjunction with positivity.

The problem with atheists is they want to destroy everything, and have nothing positive to replace it with.

[Kidlicious]

WTF? I never said I looked up to him. I just object to the silly us-and-them nonsense you have going on where you demonize everyone who isn't nominally Christian.

Why isn't he demonic?

[Kidlicious]

I do find you amusing.

And I find you one who is dishonest in your discussion of these matters. i.e. your disagreement with JM.

In fact, hardly any of you is better.

But I will continue to put forth the positives to christianity, such as people like Mother Teresa, and values like true forgiveness.

You all can attack Mother Teresa all you want. It only shows how destructive you are. But is there anything positive about you? No.

People like Hitchins are nothing more than shock jocks for people like you. Ditto heads are more positive than people like you and gribbler.

[Ming]

The problem with atheists is they want to destroy everything, and have nothing positive to replace it with.

Destroy EVERYTHING? Gee, since when does not believing in god equate to wanting to destroy everything?
Do you even think before you post?

[Ming]

People like Hitchins are nothing more than shock jocks for people like you. Ditto heads are more positive than people like you and gribbler.

But I will continue to put forth the positives to christianity

Yep... the postitives you continue to show by attacking and insulting people. A true Christian...

[Kidlicious]

Yep... the postitives you continue to show by attacking and insulting people. A true Christian...

Like I said, obviously I think destruction is a good thing so long as it destroys that which is bad. But one must also be positive.

Christ destroys that which is evil as well.

[Ming]

Like I said, obviously I think destruction is a good thing so long as it destroys that which is bad. But one must also be positive.

Christ destroys that which is evil as well.

Changing the subject I see... My quote had to do with your unchristian spirit of insulting people... nothing to do with distruction at all.

But don't worry... it's clear to all that your personal attacks and insults are poor examples for real christians... Maybe you should start practicing what you preach... because otherwise, you continue to give christians a bad name with your actions.

[Kidlicious]

Changing the subject I see... My quote had to do with your unchristian spirit of insulting people... nothing to do with distruction at all.

But don't worry... it's clear to all that your personal attacks and insults are poor examples for real christians... Maybe you should start practicing what you preach... because otherwise, you continue to give christians a bad name with your actions.

Jesus offended the pharisees and he destroyed them (specifically their evil influence over people).