The Catholic Church is definitely not to blame for this!

[Berzerker]

Uh, You believe that the life of an atheist is as valuable as God? Really? That makes no sense to me.

God didn't sacrifice his life, the atheist did... Whatever God did sacrifice was temporary and God knew that, the atheist doesn't know or believe and still gave their life. No doubt in my mind which sacrifice was more altruistic, if such a concept is even possible.

If Jesus wasn't God, then there's nothing separating him from the Atheist.

Sure there is, Jesus' sacrifice was made with the expectation of a heavenly reward, the atheist made their sacrifice without that expectation.

Again, the standard is Christ himself. Helping people without accepting Christ means nothing. It won't save you because good deeds are not balanced by evil ones.

But accepting Christ without helping people means everything? Then why did Jesus spend most of his ministry telling people how to lead a righteous life through "deeds"? When Jesus speaks of accepting him, he meant accepting his message. And his message was about deeds, even the admonition to forgive trespassers as we ask God to forgive our trespasses is a deed. Now, what happens to all the righteous people who never heard of Jesus? They go to hell (or whatever) but a Hitler making a death bed conversion goes to heaven?

Yes, because where your treasure is there your heart is also. Do not store up treasures on earth because they are ephemeral. They will vanish. Only God.

And how does one store up riches in heaven? Deeds...

Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

See Ben?

Where does Christ say that good deeds will save you?

He says it all the time, accepting him means accepting his message of doing good.

I challenge you given a video of two men performing the same act to distinguish which one is the Christian and which one is not.

Knowing which of the two was being altruistic requires knowing their beliefs. The Christian expects some reward for their sacrifice, the atheist doesn't (not from "God" anyway).

He DID die. He died on the cross and was buried.

He didn't die and he wasn't buried, he spent 3 days in a cave and God rewarded him for his sacrifice.

Yes, He did.

John 10:18

"No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again."

Jesus didn't say he resurrected himself, you edited the verse to leave out the source of that authority

this command I received from my Father.

See Ben? But if Jesus resurrected himself then he didn't stay dead and knew he wouldn't stay dead. The atheist made their sacrifice without the luxury of knowing they could resurrect them self.

He who does the will of my father in Heaven... This includes faith in Christ. Good deeds will not save you.

And what Christian thinks good deeds are irrelevant to Jesus' message? Accepting Jesus, having "faith" in him, is a deed.

[Elok]

Wiki reports the death rates of Ireland for most of that period to be around 14‰, so this would mean about a fifth to a tenth of the home.

So, the death rate is more or less exactly what you would expect?

Do tell me what level of budget, staff to population ratio and crowdedness justifies even one dead disposed by throwing him into a septic tank?

As I noted in post 137, the area was only used as a septic tank for the first third or so of the time period. Also, unless they reeeeaaallly hated those twenty kids, it wouldn't have made sense to open up an underground vat of stinking liquid feces to dispose of them instead of just digging a shallow hole. I don't know how septic tanks are usually built, but do they typically have easy-access openings big enough to shove an infant's body into? I should also note that, depending on their budget, if they were losing twenty-odd kids a year they might not have been able to afford coffins.

[Elok]

Ah, I just noticed that you typed ‰. Had to look it up, I've never seen that used before. So, pretty high compared to the population--but did you use figures for infant mortality, or general population? Could you link me to the figures you used?

EDIT: This site only goes back to 1960, when it says Ireland's infant mortality was thirty per thousand live births. So, 3% would be exactly normal. Don't know how many of the bodies were older than infants, or might have been stillborn.

[kentonio]

These kids were only there because the church shamed their mothers into abandoning them, then treated them like filth (including refusing to baptise them), let them be used in dodgy medical experiments and then dumped their bodies like garbage.

There is literally no way to defend the church about this, so please don't waste your time even trying. Even todays Bishops are just going 'Jesus, thank **** we don't act like this any more!'.

[Elok]

Ken, I've just established that the version of events parroted in the press (including your Salon vaccine story) probably got the number of bodies wrong by a factor of forty due to extremely sloppy reporting. Furthermore, the "septic tank" part of the story is not necessarily correct, and a little thought should show you how unlikely it is. If nothing else, you should at least pause to wonder how much about this situation we understand correctly.

[Alexander's Horse]

Ireland was in the grip of a kind of catholic fundamentalism for many centuries, intensified by nationalism and foreign occupation and oppression.

These crimes were not uncommon, and influenced catholicism in other countries like Australia where there were large Irish catholic communities under English protestant domination.

The church could do no wrong, secrecy was normal, we see the terrible results. Ireland has been very slow to come to terms with past for understandable reasons. It is still very backward socially.

One interesting side effect of the collapse of the "Irish Tiger" is we are now seeing significant Irish migration to Australia again, which is a good thing!

[kentonio]

Ken, I've just established that the version of events parroted in the press (including your Salon vaccine story) probably got the number of bodies wrong by a factor of forty due to extremely sloppy reporting. Furthermore, the "septic tank" part of the story is not necessarily correct, and a little thought should show you how unlikely it is. If nothing else, you should at least pause to wonder how much about this situation we understand correctly.

Actually the stories I read carefully used phrasing along the lines of 'buried in a plot of land that included a septic tank'. To be honest though the burial part means next to nothing to me compared to the way these kids were treated while they were alive.

Let me just ask you though, what exactly is motivating you to look for press inaccuracies about specific details? Do you believe that many thousands of kids weren't kept in these quite horrifying conditions across Ireland? Or that their mothers weren't shamed into giving them up? Or that medical experiments weren't performed on them? Because when even Bishops of the church aren't arguing it never happened, you can probably rest assured that it actually happened.

That and a whole lot more.

[DaShi]

This is cause that will make him switch sides. If the story is accurate, then he must admit that he was on the wrong side this whole time.

[Elok]

I'm not even Catholic, fumbduck. Let alone Irish Catholic. Catholics are heretical, I've repeatedly stressed that the Church has plenty of blood on its hands, and you've already been told that it's unwise for you to psychoanalyze other posters' motivations. Remember that time I thought my nephew was dying, and my request for prayers was (according to you) "an attempt to troll atheists"?

Ken, the OP clearly says "septic tank" and "800 bodies." At least the second, if not the first, is incorrect. That is, the bulk of this story is flat-out wrong, and wrong in ways which even the tiniest effort could have uncovered. That tiny effort was not applied because nobody could be troubled to apply it--because the RCC is a ready-made villain. I don't like lazy thinking, or caricatured villains. Like the way this is all the church's fault--as if the whole of Irish society were not complicit for casting off their daughters and sisters, no matter who told them! And as for being told that it is shameful, can you name a significant settled pre-modern civilization, Christian or otherwise, where unmarried mothers were not treated like trash? Greece, Rome, China, Japan--where there's monogamy, bastards are trash.

[kentonio]

Yes this is all the churches fault. Nothing you want to say about society is going to change that.

As for unmarried mothers, the only reason Ireland stands out is because it took so much longer for them to shake that crap off than everyone else. In some ways, they still haven't.

[Elok]

As for the bishops not denying it, they must have realized by now that the fastest way to make a press storm go away is to belly-up and grovel. The kiddy-fiddler scandals must have taught them at least that much.

[kentonio]

Or perhaps being modern humans even they realize that some crimes are utterly beyond the pale.

[Elok]

Yes this is all the churches fault. Nothing you want to say about society is going to change that.

Really. Why did almost every family cast off their girls and their children? Why was nobody else but the Church providing care? Why was there no significant state oversight? Did the Church use mass hypnosis or chemicals, to force this complete domination on the populace?

You act like this is a Sister Miriam/Snow Crash scenario: the Church dictates from on high, and everybody reflexively scurries to obey. A hoary anti-clerical worldview, and false for even the most patriarchal and hierarchical faiths. Even in the Middle Ages, when RCC power was at its height, the Church was shaped by society just as much as she shaped it.

[Ben Kenobi]

You act like this is a Sister Miriam/Snow Crash scenario: the Church dictates from on high, and everybody reflexively scurries to obey. A hoary anti-clerical worldview, and false for even the most patriarchal and hierarchical faiths. Even in the Middle Ages, when RCC power was at its height, the Church was shaped by society just as much as she shaped it.

This is part of why the Catholic Church draws a distinction between the eternal parts of it and the parts that change. The people themselves change, and they do influence the workings of the Catholic church. The core of it - the doctrine - is a portion that does not change - the Church shaping the society. It's a balance between the two.

[kentonio]

Really. Why did almost every family cast off their girls and their children? Why was nobody else but the Church providing care? Why was there no significant state oversight? Did the Church use mass hypnosis or chemicals, to force this complete domination on the populace?

No, they used over a thousand years of brainwashing and fearmongering.

You act like this is a Sister Miriam/Snow Crash scenario: the Church dictates from on high, and everybody reflexively scurries to obey. A hoary anti-clerical worldview, and false for even the most patriarchal and hierarchical faiths. Even in the Middle Ages, when RCC power was at its height, the Church was shaped by society just as much as she shaped it.

Except it wasn't. The church was shaped mostly by money and power, it had **** all to do with 'society'.