The bar is set so low morally.
ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) was claimed by James O’Keefe and company to have looked the other way and not reported child molesters. Turns out the accounts were totally fictitious and they were cleared of all wrongdoing by the local authorities, meanwhile the guy who perpetrated the fraud is a conservative hero and received an award at CPAC alongside various congressmen, the former vice president and other mainstream republican speakers. ACORN meanwhile had it’s funding blocked and ceased to exist because of a single false allegation.
But the pope actually looks the other way for decades about a guy molesting two hundred deaf kids while his organization is embroiled in a steady stream thousands of lawsuits over child molestation and… nothing. Will the catholic church cease to exist? Almost certainly not. Will the pope go to jail? Almost certainly not. Will catholics demand this? Probably not.
Isn’t religious morality great?
If I looked the other way while someone fucked one single solitary kid I’d be crucified (no pun intended) and rightly so. But some religious figurehead fuck looks the other way while a guy fucks a few hundred kids (and this is just the one guy we know about) and nothing happens.
One false accusation can bring down a large secular organization, thousands upon thousands of real cases of kid-fucking is a mere nuisance to a religious organization.
agnophilo 
@ElliottStrange – Actually, although the Roman Appostle Paul advocated celibacy because he himself didn’t like women and objected to them having any power in the church at all, he was the only one and for him it more a matter of maintaining the Roman status quo. The church itself didn’t originally require celibacy for priests. Originally, there were even harems inside the church, but marriage itself was forbidden to priests so that they would not leave legal heirs to their title as officials in any other office of power would tend to do back then. When the byblows born of church fathers came to start inheriting anyway due to their privaleged positions, that’s when celibacy became a requirement. It solved the problem of the moment; a solution that would be safe to dispense with now. Let the priests marry. Their children will no longer be expected to automatically inherit their father’s title. That’s not done anymore. Priests are not modern day nobility.
@Ampbreia – Good comment : )
@Ampbreia – Damn good comment, indeed.
@agnophilo – “peoplehad screwed up the teachings somehow” Dude you don’t know how right you are! If you do some research on Christendom’s(not Christianity, there’s a difference) first half century of history you’ll see a lot about what went wrong. I was reading this book on religions (surprisingly concise) that covered the main or major religions of the world today and how they originated. What it said about Christendom was very interesting and enlightening. The chapter on Christendom asked this question, “WHY are Christendom’s first 400 years of history so important? For the same reason that the first few years of a child’s life are important—because they are the formative years when the foundation is laid for the future personality of the individual. What do Christendom’s early centuries reveal?” Excellent points were made in which why you could see why Christendom is the way it is today.So what are you atheist or agnostic, or are you one of those individuals who sway in between?
@bluepillorredpill – I think christianity has been perverted and made worse in some ways and perverted and civilized in other ways. And what I meant by the bit you quoted was that I was sure that the christian god was real but that the irrational scriptures and mythologies were man’s mistakes. In other word I thought god could do no wrong, let alone not exist.Took ages to wash that stuff out of my brain so I could think about it objectively.And to answer your question I’m an agnostic atheist. Almost all atheists are also agnostic.
@agnophilo – do you mind explaining a couple of those scriptures and “mythologies” to me and why you think they’re irrational? At least one or two of them? I’m just getting real curious now. lol
@bluepillorredpill – I wasn’t referring to any specific doctrine, just whatever I had a problem with when I was 15. But if you insist a few that leap to mind is the doctrine of human and animal sacrifice, that god demanded animal sacrifice to be appeased for our sins which he himself is responsible for, and then insisted we murder himself as a sacrifice to himself so that he didn’t have to punish all of us for existing, just almost all of us.
@agnophilo – Again, it’s not the songs. It’s the player. Expecting something doesn’t make it less annoying. It’s just kind of fatigue-inducing, and when I’m contemplating whether to come over here and read something you’ve written, it’s going to stay a point against. I just had that experience, remembered thinking you cared about whether you got page views, recs, etc. and thought I’d share.I’m sorry to have bothered you, but was it really necessary to mock me?
I will never attend another function at a catholic church, and I am catholic. I’m looking into ways to be ex communicated. Seriously, just not attending isn’t enough – I don’t want to be associated with them in any way, shape, or form. In the past when I have posted about this, I have gotten the standard, “no one person or institution can stand between you and god” argument, which totally misses the point altogether.
@BobRichter – You said before you didn’t like it because it was unexpected sound. Now what, any sound is bad? If you don’t like the music you can just say as much.And I wasn’t trying to mock you, I was just being silly.I don’t get what recs and page views have to do with anything.@gottobereal64 – Good luck with that. As I think richard dawkins pointed out, the church likes to count you as a member long after you leave, you have to actively get excommunicated to get them to stop counting you in their statistics. I never went through “confirmation” so maybe they don’t count me, I don’t know.
@agnophilo – I just don’t like having to deal with the player. Not wanting to deal with the player means I’ll swing by less, swinging by less means less recs. Not that you care that much about my opinion.It couldn’t possibly be the music. I don’t listen to it. I couldn’t stand the stupid thing switching songs every time I reload the page.
morons. may the catholic church burn in satan’s fiery rectum.
@BobRichter – Okay. Still don’t get it.And would you rather it play the same song a million times?@northernskylights – Heh.
@agnophilo – I prefer to finish a song before moving on to the next. I both read and type pretty quick, meaning that it often won’t have a chance to get to the end of a song before I navigate away and force it to reload and pick a new song. It’s inferior in terms of my experience to winamp, and I’d rather not have it trying to compete.I’ve mentioned before that I have my own muzak? For that matter, there’s not that much difference between your playlist and mine.
in me region, if people imply christianity = religion, people would give the confused look… hehh, just thinking out loud, nothing to add to the post…
@BobRichter – You know you can leave the page up and listen to the song while you do something else and then click “submit” when it’s over.@maniacsicko – I have no idea what you’re saying, lol.
@agnophilo – of course you don’t, haha… we live in a different world… i live in a region where christianity is somewhat minority… so rarely people generalize religion with christianity… wait, on second thought, people still do, but it is largely due to the influence of hollywood movie that make it seems that the white people is the majority of the world population and the US is the center of the world… haha… i bet i’m not making any sense still… i think i need a nap…
@agnophilo – Why in hades would I do that? Have I mentioned I have my own muzak?Again, it’s not the songs, it’s the player. It’s a bad user experience. If it didn’t auto-play, that’d be one thing, but it does, so I simply can’t approve of it, I’m not going to warm up to it, and there’s no point in your arguing with me about it.Sorry, skull, but I’m just never going to like your playlist and as long as it’s there I’m going to be more reluctant to come here.
@BobRichter – If it didn’t auto-play there’d be no point. And if it bothers you so much take 2 seconds to let it load and then click pause.Again you’re the only person who doesn’t like it I’ve ever heard from.
@agnophilo – What purpose is auto-play supposed to satisfy? It doesn’t provide mood or content, since the song chosen is completely random out of a rather eclectic mix of songs, so the purpose isn’t artistic. Is it commercial, then? Are you being paid to promote the songs on your playlist and are afraid you wouldn’t be serving that purpose if they didn’t autoplay? Or maybe you’re promoting them for noncommercial purposes. But then you have to realise that what you’re doing is the equivalent of running banner ads not even with commercial motive, but just for the sheer hell of it. If it didn’t auto-play, I could play it if I wanted to. It’s hard to argue there’s no point to that. I listen to online radio stations when the mood strikes me, after all. Then you’d be providing a service. Then maybe I’d come to your site just to play your groovy music (which, all things considered, is the only occasion on which I could imagine wanting to hear it.)Waiting for it to load and then pausing it is just that much additional effort I’d rather not be taking, and can only ever count against my desire to visit your site.Even if I stipulate that it’s true, the fact that I’m the only one that’s ever complained doesn’t mean I’m the only one it bothers. There’s some people who like it (I can’t imagine why) and there’s some people who hate it. Whether the haters outweigh the lovers is beyond your ability to determine. The most I guess you can do then is decide which you’d rather have on your lawn. In either case, you’re not going to convince me to like it. There’s really no remaining point in discussing it.