Saniton

 Reply:   If you are so lacking in any sense of proportion that youequate truthful observations about the people on this thread constantly callingeach other stupid on one hand, and the accusation that someone’s husbandcondones child rape on the other, then your need to socialize more often mustbe truly dire.    I suspect that you made sure that your posts were asoffensive as possible so that you would provoke my anger so that you could clubme with the accusation of hypocrisy for expressing it.    Ifthat’s your idea of debating, you don’t belong on this site.   You belong on Quora.  

re:    I think yourBob story is absolute bollocks. And this is why:  (etc. etc. etc.).   

Reply:   You seem to be confused about the timeline of my account ofBob’s relationship with the Church.   Bobleft the Church in 2012—long before Pope Francis asked “Who am I to judge?”when it came to gay Catholics.   

re:   “But didn'tleave the church because of the violent rapes and sexual assaults by hisbrethren against children though did he!!!!??  . No, he"broke away"  ONLY when  -YOU SAY - he didn't like how afew Nuns were being treated in regards to "reaching out tohomosexuals".   //  Do not god's priorities and commands comebefore anyone else? 

Reply:    As I have pointed out elsewhere, leaving the Catholic Churchis not necessarily the best response—for a Catholic—to the Church’scrimes.   There is no Church teaching that supports child rape, and criticism from within theChurch gets the hierarchy’s attention more than criticism from outside ofit.    The same cannot be said of being a homosexual who is consistentlycondemned for existing by his own Church’s teachings.   Remember:   2012 was not 2023.   Pope Franciswas not Pope in 2012.  

re:    "YOUR BIBLEIGNORANCE IS SHOWIN AGAIN IN THIS QUOTE OF YOURS: "What ismore, the existence of a universal almighty deity would not necessarilyvindicate anything that various so-called authorities in religion have to sayabout the deity's opinion of homosexuality?     

Reply:  My point isn't even about the Bible, so how can it reflectignorance of the Bible?   Believe it or not, Abrahamic believers donot own a copyright on the notion of a monotheistic god.   See, forexample, Sikhism.    Also, since I have no faith that God exists, why would Icare about the Bible's alleged proscriptions against homosexual behavior?   That was the point I made in my post.  Youhave simply refused to understand what I wrote.  

re:       “What did you just say? Because Jesus and Mary did not rape innocent children wasthe reason your Kathylick Hell bound husband "Bob" stayed with thedespicable Kathylick Church?  This shows how your Hell Bound husband"Bob"  was ungodly WRONG in staying with said church whosePEDOPHILE PRIESTS were buggering little innocent children that were left intheir care by their parents!!!!   The hardships of the children later inlife that were being FU*CKED by stinky old men priests, goes without question,and you married this Kathylick man named "Bob" that "looked theother way" in this situation, and felt good about it?  Surely youjest!!!  How sickening can you get?” 

Reply:   Once again, yourridicule (e.g., “your Hell bound Kathylick husband”) proves absolutely nothingand does you no credit whatsoever.   Youreally should consider how your ridicule reflects on you as a Christian.   

Yes, the fact that the objects of Catholicveneration (Mary) and worship (the Trinity) did not rape or molest children isa reason why Bob stayed with the Church.   It’s weird to read a self-professed Christian write as if these beingswere not real and that the sins of the human priesthood would annihilate anyreason to continue to worship them in the prescribed Catholic manner.    You forget that the rape of children isNOT part of any Catholic teaching.   Infact, Catholics accept Jesus’s prohibition against harming children.  I assume you remember the millstone quote.  

This is reflected by the fact that most Catholics,including most Catholic priests, were not involved in child rape.   The horror of the abuse scandal in the Churchcomes from the fact that the Church hierarchy played shell-games with child-molestingpriests rather than bringing them to justice.    The fact of these crimes doesn’tnecessarily imply that leaving the Church is the best option for aCatholic.   Catholic voices of protestfrom within the Church will have a greater effect on the Church hierarchy thanvoices from without.   

Your posts, Brother, are tales told byan ideologue, full of words and invective, but signifying very little.    

Ummm, what exactly did I say that contradicts your account of the Genesis story?    When Adam and Eve did what God prohibited, they didn't consign themselves to mortality, any more than murderers who are caught, convicted, and given the death penalty kill themselves.   God punished A & E when they violated his prohibition by banishing them from the Garden of Eden and making them mortal.  

As for the supposed incoherence of atheist-agnosticism, I have already stated the meaning of this position:   disbelief in God that comes without any claim that God's nonexistence can be proven.   The fact that it's usually impossible to prove a negative existential claim about anything that isn't evident in the here and now only supports, rather than undermines, that position.  

What is more, religion isn't merely a set of propositions that one accepts or rejects:   it requires participation.   A person who decides not to practice a monotheistic religion that promises salvation from Hell, or at least alienation from God, cannot be reasonably said to believe in that religion.   

As for your laughter and ridicule, they prove nothing, so there is no need for you to waste your own time generating more. 

Stephen:  "I did. And I have read much of Russell too. He was an out "n" out atheist."

Russell was much clearer about his position than your term "out 'n' out atheist."  

Stephen:   "Do you agree with this [i.e., that 'gay' and 'homosexual' are synonyms in modern American English usage] because it softens the blow of the act that God calls an 'abomination'?

Since I lack any good reason to affirm that God exists, I don't give two hoots whether God calls homosexuality an abomination.   What is more, the modern synonymy of "gay" and "homosexual" is a fact about modern American English usage, not an opinion with which I may agree or disagree.   What is more, the existence of a universal almighty deity would not necessarily vindicate anything that various so-called authorities in religion have to say about the deity's opinion of homosexuality.

Stephen:   "Your link is not very informative as to what you claim above ie:

You're right.   This Wikipedia link has more information:   Jeannine Gramick - Wikipedia    Gramick was trying to convince homosexual Catholics that God loved them.  When she and Fr. Nugent were silenced, Bob left the Roman Catholic Church to join a tiny but progressive independent Catholic church. 

"So your husband Bob had no problem with priests raping and buggering children of both sexes  for absolutely decades, but he only felt that "enough was enough" when a group of Nuns - you say - "reached out to the "gay" homosexual community!? #193 .  At least we know your husband Bob's priorities."

Bob had a big problem with rape in the church--he just didn't believe that God, Jesus, or Mary ever raped or molested children, and consequently stayed with the church for that reason.  So you can take your sanctimonious bitching about my husband's priorities and park it where the sun don't shine. 

"First you tell us that you are a comical "Atheist-Agnostic" whose philosophical position is you don't believe in the existence of a god and because gods are unknowable in principle of fact.  Then you remove one foot  from your mouth to  insert the other when you blatantly state that the God within Genesis did not lie when he said that Adam and Eve would surely die, which is taking a position of this god existing as a given fact!  GET IT? Huh?"

You do realize that characters in fiction can be depicted as lying, right?   Some critics of the Genesis story think that--in the story--God lied to Adam and Eve when he said that eating the Fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would cause them to die--and that therefore the god depicted in the story was a deceptive fiend unworthy of worship.    But--in the story--God was not lying because eating the infamous fruit made the two human characters mortal.  

As for atheist-agnosticism, consider this proposition:    "There are forms of energy other than gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and whatever dark energy is."    There is, at present, no good reason for anyone to believe this proposition.   But that doesn't mean that we can disprove the existence of such forms of energy.   So too with God.   Your argument for the incoherence of this position doesn't hold water. 

Stephen:   "Russel was an out 'n' out atheist. And a tea cup has never orbited the moon - unless an astronaut or cosmonaut was holding one on his trips into space."

For a reference to Russell's "technical agnosticism," please read this article.   Bertrand Russell and F.C. Copleston Debate the Existence of God, 1948 | Open Culture   

I never said that a teacup orbited the moon in 1924.   Kindly read the post.   

Russell is spelled with two "l's."   

Stephen:   "I think you mean the homosexual community."   

"Homosexual" and "gay" are synonymous in modern American English.   This is common knowledge. 

Stephen:   "And this breakaway was recent was it?"

Bob's break with the Roman Catholic Church happened in 2012 in the wake of the events described here:   "Nuns Speak About Vatican Criticism - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

He was a parishioner.   He almost entered the priesthood, but, fortunately for me, he decided against that.   

"Really!?  So you categorically do not believe in the existence of god, while stating that you don't know if there is or is not a god."

I, and most atheist agnostics, do not know of any good reason to believe in God, but at the same time do not claim to be able to prove that there are no gods.   Once you accept the facts that humans are finite creatures and that we can't have a God's eye view of reality, the position becomes perfectly intelligible. 

Famous atheist Bertrand Russell considered himself technically agnostic, though he compared the likelihood of God's existence to the likelihood of a teacup orbiting the Moon.   He wrote that in 1924, before artificial satellites were a gleam in any engineer's eye.   See his popular work, "Why I am Not a Christian," in which that observation occurred. Why I am Not a Christian - Bertrand Russell.pdf - Google Drive

He was a Catholic for many years but broke from the Church when it silenced a group of nuns who were reaching out to the gay community.   Enough was enough.  After he left the Roman church, he joined a tiny independent Catholic church whose progressive teachings permit the ordination of women and members of sexual minorities.   It's unofficial motto:   "All of the liturgy and none of the bullshit."   

Disclaimer:   I'm an atheist-agnostic, but I'm married to a Christian who has an M.Div from a Catholic seminary.   Thanks to his knowledge, I can address a lot of questions about that faith with some confidence.   

Please forgive me if the following points have already been made.   To be honest, I decided not to review every post in this thread, characterized as it is by frequent and pointless vitriol.    

one:   One of the uses that the ancients had for God was the explanation of their history and then-current events.   If the God of the Bible looked savage, it was because his occasional anger and indifference was used to explain some pretty savage wars and tragedies.    For example, if the Babylonians conquered the ancient Israelites, it must have been because God was too angry or displeased with his people to protect them.  

two:    The paradigm for the Abrahamic God was the ancient Middle Eastern despot.   Such ancient kings could expect to be able to murder and war with impunity and, at the same time, demand love and loyalty from their subjects.    Throughout most of history, citizens were more interested in having a strong government that could protect them than they were in representational government.    Only after the economic survival of nations came to depend on a critical mass of highly educated workers did representational government become necessary.   

three:   With the latter points in mind, we should caution ourselves against presentism:   the tendency to judge the past according to the moral standards of the present.    Since the past can't be changed, such judgement is pointless.   More importantly, presentism distorts our view of the motives and character traits of history's movers and shakers.   

four:   However, despotic governments and cruel institutions like slavery are unquestionably wicked by the standards of modern person-centered egalitarian ethics.  This is not a problem for Christians who think that Christ, rather than the Bible, is the Word of God, as it says at the beginning of the Gospel of John.    For such believers, the Bible's works are ancient human responses to the presence of the Godhead--while Christ's love is the ultimate guide for our lives.   However, this wickedness is problematic for those who believe that the Bible was dictated by God to Humanity and that its every precept is divine.   

Now can we quit calling each other stupid and benighted?    

In the story of Adam and Eve, which, as an atheist-agnostic, I take to be mythical, God did not lie when he said that Adam and Eve would surely die.   Although he did not strike either of his first humans dead, he did make them mortal, such that the number of years they lived was mentioned later in Genesis.