Hey if everyone is doing it then why not?

[Blog of Reason]

Discussion thread for the blog entry "Hey if everyone is doing it then why not?" by rabbitpirate.

Permalink: http://blog.leagueofreason.org.uk/reason/hey-if-everyone-is-doing-it-then-why-not/

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I was a kid in the last 70s-early 80s, and I can tell you sure as shit that kiddie rape was not the "in thing" among normal average folks, but Catholic priests already had the reputation for pedophilia.

Oh, and Ray Comfort is a fucking moron who understands neither mercy nor justice, which is the only way he can attribute either to his imaginary butt-buddy.

 

[SpaceCDT]

Rabbit Pirate is right on, the only way the Pope's "argument" (or Ray Comforts) could ever make sense is if you are already convinced of your own correctness and have no self - doubt at all. They are completely incoherent under any kind of analysis.

 

[Themgclgopher13]

I cannot believe I used to be Catholic. But we can't look at every Catholic as the same. Can we?

 

[lrkun]

I'm disturbed

 

[Themgclgopher13]

I read his Christmas speech and I couldn't find that any where? Mind quoting it or giving a link?

 

[Themgclgopher13]

Found it, the Pope said, "[...]We are aware of the particular gravity of this sin committed by priests and of our consequent responsibility. Yet we cannot remain silent concerning the context of our time in which we see these events taking place. There is a market for child pornography which, in some way, seems to be increasingly considered by society as something normal. The psychological devastation of children in whom human beings are reduced to the level of a market commodity, is a frightening sign of the times. To oppose these forces we must look at their ideological foundations. In the 1970s it was theorised that paedophilia was entirely consistent with man and with children[...]"

here is the site: http://www.diosav.org/news-2010-12-20

 

[doctormo]

I always thought mercy was what you gave when you needed justice and not revenge. If the judge was forced to sentence with $100k fine but still thought the fine was unjust _and_ care about it enough to do something about it; I could see the judge using mercy to help with the fine. Theoretically.

I've never heard of this guy you've just ragged on. But even if he's a complete arse, do you want to look as bad as you do with the childish insults above, repeating each other like children in a school playground? *shake head*

 

[UNFFwildcard]

Rabbitpirate, at no point during Benedict XVI's Christmas speech was he trying to minimize or reduce the magnitude of the sexual crimes malevolent priests committed against the youth, the moral culpability of the perpetrators involved, nor the moral responsibility of the Church to protect the youth from further harm. As the Pope said during that speech, "We are aware of the particular gravity of this sin committed by priests and of our consequent responsibility...Under the veil of the sacred [those priests] inflicted profound harm on human beings in their infancy, causing damages that lasts a lifetime" Furthermore, he compared the Church with the vision of St. Hildegard, seeing it as "solied with dust" and "[with] vestments torn". To this the Pope said "We must humbly accept this humiliation...We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair, as much as possible, the injustice committed"and that "We must strive to do everything possible, when preparing people for the priesthood, to ensure such a thing can never happen again." So for RabbitPirate to give the impression that the Pope is trying to deflect the Church's moral culpabilities and responsibilities is unfounded.

Second, while RabbitPirate claims otherwise, Benedict XVI' statements concerning pedophilia are correct. This can be seen in books such as Sexual Behavior in The Human Male (1948) , and Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female (1953) , both by Alfred Kinsey. These books served to normalize promiscuity and deviancy over a scientific backdrop, going as far as to suggest that sexual relations between adults and children may be beneficial to both, and that children are "sexual from birth".
A more recent example would be Not Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Kids from Sex (2002) by Judith Levine. She promotes the child sexuality, lambastes laws concerning statutory rape and child pornography, and goes as far as to say that there really isn't anything we call 'pedophilia', dismissing it as a projection of society's anxiety about children and sex. So while the Pope's statement that " paedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children" is demonstrably correct, Rabbitpirate's retort that, "Yup, apparently in the 1970 everyone was just fine and dandy with the sexual abuse of children and so the Catholic Church", is erroneous. Of course not everyone is "fine and dandy" with this form of sexual activity, but there are people out there who do advocate and theorize about this stuff, and worse, that a growing body of people are listening to these theorists. Among those followers are those who have the greatest vested interest in these theorists - the pedophiles themselves - who can justify and defend their actions on the grounds of supporting academic literature.

Furthermore, contrary to RabbitPirate's mischaracterization of the Pope's message as one of "we were just keeping with the times", Benedict XVI raised this issue not to dodge responsibility, but rather to comply with the acknowledged responsibilities the Church now holds in restoring justice and the lives damaged. To elaborate, in this same speech, the Pope raised this issue of society's perversion of "ethos" to a form where "nothing is good or bad in itself, everything depends on the circumstances and the intended goal." This statement aligns itself well with child sex promoters. Benedict XVI then continues, "Morality was replaced with a calculation of consequences, and by this process ceased to exist. The effects of these theories are evident today. Against them, Pope John Paul II, in his 1993 Encyclical 'Veritatis splendor', indicated with prophetic force the great rational tradition of Christian 'ethos' as the essential and permanent foundations for moral action. Today this text must once again be placed at the centre as a way to form consciences".

While you are free to agree or disagree with the above statement, surely you will agree that while individuals are indeed morally accountable for their actions, their actions are influenced by the moral 'ethos' of society. And if that moral 'ethos' is corrupted, then restoring it to proper form will help ameliorate the deviancy and wickedness seen in society. As human beings, Catholic Priests are also susceptible, and hence, restoring the 'ethos' that Benedict XVI claimed was corrupted will provide a partial solution to these sexual crimes. Hence, Benedict XVI was not trying to defend the crimes of the clergy, but was identifying a root cause of the sexual misconduct, a root cause arguably relevant to so many other moral issues as well, so as to further his cause of protecting the youth and preventing further crimes against them.

 

[Brunks]

A while back my dad showed me a book on parenting he got in 1985, there is a section in there explicitly condoning pedofelia and pedofelic relations. I'd post a scan, but I'm afraid its in dutch. I don't know if this was just a dutch thing or not but it was slightly startling when I read that.

 

[rabbitpirate]

Hey there UNFFwildcard

I just wanted to say thanks for your post. You raised a number of issues that I was not aware of and I am happy to stand corrected on them. I did not hear the full speech and was commenting more on the news article than anything else and will admit that I should have done a bit more research into the matter. That is a failing on my part. I will say that I see a speech like this and the actions of the Pope in these matters as simply too little too late. The Catholic Church has known about the sexual abuse of children going on within its boundries for years and has done very little to deal with it, even going so far as to cover it up in many cases. Now while it may be true that a few people have argued that sex with children is not all that bad and is simply a misunderstanding of sexuality this is far from the general consensus. In any other occupation, even during the times when these ideas were being strongly promoted, if you were discovered to be having sex with children there would be very real consequences. That the Catholic Church apparently went out of its way to reduce or even remove completely these consequences from affecting the priests involved is, in my mind, completely unforgiveable and is not something that is addressed by fancy words or promises for the future. I see the actions of anyone involved in the covering up of childhood sexual abuse as criminal and I believe that they should be held to account for these crimes by a secular authority.

But those are just my feelings on the matter and I thank you again for explaning a number of things of which I was not aware.

RP

 

[RichardMNixon]

the Pope raised this issue of society's perversion of "ethos" to a form where "nothing is good or bad in itself, everything depends on the circumstances and the intended goal." This statement aligns itself well with child sex promoters.

How do you figure? The consequences of buggering kids is severe and long-term psychological damage. That should be reason enough not to do it, how does considering the consequences make pedophilia ok?

An authority based moral system, in which whatever the priest says is right, is how a lot of these happened. Kids won't tell on the priest, he's the moral authority. Morals must be open to argument.

 

[lrkun]

the Pope raised this issue of society's perversion of "ethos" to a form where "nothing is good or bad in itself, everything depends on the circumstances and the intended goal." This statement aligns itself well with child sex promoters.

How do you figure? The consequences of buggering kids is severe and long-term psychological damage. That should be reason enough not to do it, how does considering the consequences make pedophilia ok?

An authority based moral system, in which whatever the priest says is right, is how a lot of these happened. Kids won't tell on the priest, he's the moral authority. Morals must be open to argument.

What UNFF meant was the Pope was accepting responsibility.

 

[UNFFwildcard]

the Pope raised this issue of society's perversion of "ethos" to a form where "nothing is good or bad in itself, everything depends on the circumstances and the intended goal." This statement aligns itself well with child sex promoters.

How do you figure? The consequences of buggering kids is severe and long-term psychological damage. That should be reason enough not to do it, how does considering the consequences make pedophilia ok?

An authority based moral system, in which whatever the priest says is right, is how a lot of these happened. Kids won't tell on the priest, he's the moral authority. Morals must be open to argument.

But the point was that - as my previously cited authors have argued - adult-child sexual relations can be healthy. Hence, no one is getting 'buggered up' . The question that follows is whether you think there is anything intrinsically or innately wrong about adult-child sexual relations even if no one is physically or psychologically harmed, or whether the act may be morally acceptable if no one gets hurt. The latter view is the perverted ethos the Pope was describing, and with the appropriate supporting literature, is used to justify such sexual relationships.

As for your other comment, priests no doubt have a unique authority role with children. This greatly aggravates the child-abuse situation as it allows abusers to hide the crime more easily. This is a problem I believe the Pope has recognized quite clearly when dealing with this issue over the last few decades.

 

[RichardMNixon]

But the point was that - as my previously cited authors have argued - adult-child sexual relations can be healthy. Hence, no one is getting 'buggered up' . The question that follows is whether you think there is anything intrinsically or innately wrong about adult-child sexual relations even if no one is physically or psychologically harmed, or whether the act may be morally acceptable if no one gets hurt. The latter view is the perverted ethos the Pope was describing, and with the appropriate supporting literature, is used to justify such sexual relationships.

As for your other comment, priests no doubt have a unique authority role with children. This greatly aggravates the child-abuse situation as it allows abusers to hide the crime more easily. This is a problem I believe the Pope has recognized quite clearly when dealing with this issue over the last few decades.

Ok, I see your point there, but I don't see any better alternatives. One system has John Doe saying "Foobar is ok because of A" and other people respond "No, it isn't because of B, C, D, and E." The other is a priest saying "Foobar is ok because I said so." Morals from authority are useless and practically arbitrary (e.g. contraception).

The Pope has not recognized the authority issue at all: he's exacerbated it, using his power to cover up sex crimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25vatican.html

I also see no mention of this in any transcripts of his speech. Yes, the church has some pedophiles; so do schools, it's extremely unfortunate, let's try to make it better. Fine, good. But where the Church really took the cake is in its coverup of those cases and moving priests around from place to place where they often found fresh victims. The Pope didn't mention that explicitly and has fought secular investigation in 2010. He needs to make his actions speak as loud as his words.

 

[richardbrucebaxter]

I read his Christmas speech and I couldn't find that any where? Mind quoting it or giving a link?

A copy of the address may be found here;

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/b.../hf_ben-xvi_spe_20101220_curia-auguri_en.html

 

[dotoree]

2 quick comments on Catholic pedophelia:
1) While there are many admirable Catholics and atheists in many different areas (every worldview has some people we should admire and respect for their contributions), these 2 systems in history have destroyed the Bible, burned it, banned it and oppressed people for trying to even read it more than any other systems in history. The Catholic system is in fundamental opposition to Jesus' instruction in Mark 7:5-13 that churches not replace God's instructions with their own man made laws. Yet, this is what the Catholic church explicitly and officially does in a whole range of cases. One of them is this one:
"The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry..." 1 Timothy 4:1-3

God created the sexual desire LONG before sin and Bible writers call it a pure and holy thing within marriage (and much science research confirms that restricting it to monogomy brings far more sexual pleasure and happiness in marriage, esp. long term as well as even orgasms). But, the Catholic church banned it for it's priests and then they are around kids as part of their work. It's a terrible recipe for disaster that almost anyone could predict (and it will be happening in the future again and again because the Catholic system has set aside God's instructions for it's own foolishness), something that usually happens when people ignore God's instructions.

2) ANY worldview or group that is large enough will have some crazies and immoral people in it. To take the best part of concept A and compare it to the worst part of concept B and get rid of B is just the worst logic imaginable. This kind of logic if used in other areas of life would mean that we should get rid of education, democracy, science, government, police, laws, parties, pediatricians, atheism, skepticism, deism, teachers, any ethnic, religious or political group, people who own comic book stores, camp counselors, people who go to nudist colonies, social workers, juvenile and the majority of civilization. You can condemn pretty much anything under the sun with this kind of logic (which is textbook cherry picking).

It's sort of like hearing about the Abu Graib prison and then alleging that those abusers are typical Americans. While abuses and crimes should never ever be minimized, excused or condoned, every organization is made up of human beings who are imperfect. This is especially true of education and religion which try to reach out to the disenfranchised and those in dysfunctional and abusive conditions and helps them rise above their background. But, it takes time and lots of effort and mistakes happen.

While we must never in any way condone or excuse the terrible crime of child abuse (OR any other) and systems that lead to this should be changed as quickly as possible and those guilty punished severely, stereotyping an entire group based on the behavior of a few crazy people and ignoring all the good done is something anybody would consider unfair. Gail Collins wrote in a NY times editorial that "it is important to remember that about 5 percent of our population is and always will be totally crazy."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/opinion/09collins.html

While I STRONGLY disagree with Catholicism and think it has been a far more dangerous and sophisticated system to the Bible than atheism is (due to it's philosophical foundation of setting aside Bible doctrines whenever it wants to, explicitly violating God and Jesus' instructions and still pretending to be Christian), to judge any concept or institution by a crazy 5% is not only unjust, it can be harmful to us personally and to all humanity and I will defend even those I oppose from this injustice (and have done the same defending both atheists and Catholics).

Let's take another example. There have been certain "evil scientists" from to time such as the infamous Nazi Mengele. Should we try to get rid of all branches of science and all science education because of scientists like that? If we wouldn't think of getting rid of science because of a few crazies, then we shouldn't use that harmful double standard when considering the value of education, Christianity, politics, democracy or a host of other things either. Modern society is rife with this cherry picking fallacy. I detest it no matter who does it, Glenn Beck and Fox news very commonly use this fallacy, but atheists are no less guilty of using the same dishonest fallacy countless times.

For many lines of evidence for the Bible, see my playlists at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TruthIsLife7 (for a short overview see the !Why Be A Christian playlist especially).

Pascal wrote that being a Christian you can't lose. There are many benefits in this life (this is usually not included by most atheists when they straw man Pascal) AND you get a great chance at life forever. He wrote:
"I will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life, and that, at each step you take on this road, you will see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last recognize that you have wagered for something certain and infinite, for which you have given nothing."

Just ONE of these ways Christians have benefited for milennia over those who refused to follow the evidence is that those who folow the Bible's health principles (very few Christians except Adventists do) live ~10+ years longer than the average. Many of these principles were unknown to science until very recent times.

Dan Buettner, a secular scientist and lead research for Blue Zones (he worked for National Geographic) states that just having faith or a belief in God adds 4-14 years to life. Much secular research confirms this. For those who follow Bible health principles carefully, it's at least 10 years high quality extra life (as in people water-skiing at 103, working as heart surgeons at 97, playing basketball into their 80s like my grandpa, etc.). See these links for more details on this:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100.html (secular researcher)
http://eslmission.truth-is-life.org/docs/esl/Health--choose%20your%20future-best.doc (some Bible health principles)

God's promise of health and longer life to those who listen to him (see Prov. 4:4, 22, Matt. 19:17, Prov. 7:2, Prov. 10:27) has been literally fulfilled. Science is catching up to the Bible some now, but for 1000s of years, those who trusted and followed God had these health benefits (and those below), while those who didn't lost them.
Bryan

 

[Memeticemetic]

A sermon.

This is not the venue for your proselytizing. Your point regarding the the inevitability of a regime of enforced celibacy leading to deviant sexual behavior is, I'm sure, recognized and appreciated. The rest of that tripe is complete bollocks and not only irrelevant to the OP and the thread, but completely irrelevant in general. No one is interested in your long winded rants about your particular flavor of christianity. You are butting into this discussion in bad faith. I know it, we all know it, and if you actually look honestly at yourself and your behavior you damn well know it too.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Did he seriously just bring up Pascal?

"No faith? That's alright, just fake it! God won't know the difference." :lol:

 

[Andiferous]

Because saying 'yeh hey' when painting blurry brush strokes makes us think we have the right to do so. How can oblique stereotypes of large groups of people be very different than what we are doing in this article?

I am sure many, many Catholics think the Pope is an arse, and I am sure most, statistically, disagree with child rape. And I am sure we could all be surprised at the average of dissonance itself within the community, except we should probably factor in the acceptable response and most motivational response within this community. There isn't a lot of international testing to measure dissonance within - and effort to change and correct - in any community. But it is always there.

That the Pope himself is a twit - I have little defense for. That we shouldn't be quite as idiotic - I tend to agree with.