Needs to be said.

Often.

the more pathetic and silly they seem.

In the words of the late, great Don Van Vliet, "There's no point in digging into the bullshit just to see what the bull ate".

But it's expected, with ignorance running so deep.

They need to grow up.

It's an illogical conclusion except to their most fervent apologists.

PZ is not really known for logic.

The fact is, it's their own words and their own actions. If it comforts you to ignore it, feel free. Won't change the reality of it.

on something that is true well beyond religion as well.

Many people ignore the character flaws or lies of those whose opinions or politics they share, all the while exposing the character flaws or lies of those with whom they share no opinions or politics and presume it's an acceptable way to proceed through life.

It's a reflection of our society as a whole, we love the reprobates on our side and we hate the reprobates on the other side. All the while telling ourselves that our liars are somehow better humans than those other liars.

It's quite entertaining to watch when taken as a societal whole because it's applicable across so many things beyond religious belief or lack thereof.

We are a nation of liars from top to bottom, we like to pretend otherwise but our own actions prove we are hardly the society we profess to be at dinner parties.



Just my $0.02 of course YMMV as it most certainly should.

I see this scenario over and over. It has ZERO TO DO WITH ATHEISM, despite your desperate threshings to link the two.

I'm a part of MANY communities that have a stark lack of female participation, and stiff opposition to any visible entrants to the community from said female population.

Motorcycles.
Shop/mechanics.
Running.
Welding.
Home construction.
Firefighting.
Software development.
Project management.
Atheism.

All of these group/domains/populations/societies are informed by cultural patriarchy. Every single one of them. It takes time and active opposition to wear down that barrier to entry and normalize the population.

But it didn't come FROM 'atheism'. It didn't come FROM 'motorcycles'. It came from social mores that the members of those groups carried with them.

Where would a Atheist community get that patriarchy from? Previously inculcated social rules.
From where? In America, the bible holds some clues, given we are Christian dominated society:

Nevertheless . . . .

Statement about yourself, complete with CAPS: "I'm a part of MANY communities".

The excerpt is not about you although it looks like you've embraced it.

Words, words, words . . . . "shit like that" . . . .words, words, words.

And the charming closer, "Namaste, motherfucker."

I hope you didn't spend too much time on it.

Good luck with the alert.

AUTOMATED MESSAGE: Results of your Jury Service

Mail Message
On Mon Feb 8, 2016, 06:09 PM an alert was sent on the following post:

Pretty much a bunch of bullshit.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=223017

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

"Namaste, motherfucker."

Charming.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Mon Feb 8, 2016, 06:15 PM, and the Jury voted 3-4 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Nothing is wrong with this post until the final word. Pity - the post made some good points.
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Who cares?
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Namaste
Juror #4 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: I have seen worse. No hide.

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

The person who sent it to me was completely unknown to me.

-Namaste

Now as to the messaege you recieved: DUMail is not anonymous so the sender is not "Unkown". Are you lying?

I cannot predict if that user is friendly to, neutral, or hostile to me, based simply on forwarding a jury result with no commentary/context whatsoever.

I have never seen that poster post anything before. Complete unknown to me. So no, I cannot guess if it was juror 3.

I know nothing whatsoever about that person, beyond that person either served on a jury, or was giving visibility into the jury results, and forwarded it to me. The 'from' field/name is the first time I have ever seen it on DU.

So no, that would not be a 'lie'.
Try again.

So that would be two lies.

So, zero lies.

You asked:

Always gotta have the last word, no matter what.

Last year for 40 days, you vanished from DU.
I asked if you were going to do it again.

You know damn well what I was asking about.

Why is that. AC?

You make one - no two - personal remarks about me and now you go all doe-eyed.

No need to re-hash it, but if you want to raise the search index on it by repeating it over and over, I can't stop you.

You attempted to mock me, or my religion, or both, and now you try to back away from it.

You're a piece of work, AC.

I asked a question. Was curious if you were partaking this year. You did it the year before, and the year before that, if memory serves.

It's a simple question unrelated to my previous open and honest sharing of feelings.

It's nice to have company.

And you're still dancing away.

I didn't say it was 'addressing'. I just observed your language.

Also, if you're going to quote me, it's polite to spell it correctly.

Par for what you're putting up today.

Along with more bullshit.

You wrote in post 11, "Namaste, motherfucker.", second person, singular.

Since I'm not psychic. 'Seem' means I don't have to defend calling you one thing, when in reality you are something else.

DU's community standards were cautioned to me by the jury on post 11. So I won't repeat that today. Regardless of how many times you copy paste it.

Seem: (verb w/out object) give the impression or sensation of being something or having a particular quality


Seems a perfectly fine word to me.

PZ nailed it!

Religions bigots use their god as a screen to hide behind, atheists come to their positions on their own.

There's also a much harsher view put on atheists who aren't "good" while priests get a free pass to be monsters.

Maybe if theist bigots/abusers were called out with as much regularity as atheists we'd take it seriously, but anti-atheists just want to distract from their own problematic behavior.

It's all about the children you know but I can't recall any blanket condemnation of the teaching profession or teacher unions for their massive child sexual abuse problem from these very same posters in any other forum. Why is that?

A mask they can't let drop.

a claim that the RCC is not a pedophile organization would have an inconvenient problem with the now well documented fact that it has spent decades enabling pedophilia all over the world.

There's a measurable incidence rate of... say.. teachers abusing children. Happens in any field where adults interact with children.

It's the controlling organization's response to that abuse that tells the tale.

so as not to have to deal with it.


Well, not in Public Schools anyway.
http://www.inquisitr.com/2385687/christian-school-co-founder-purposely-hired-child-molester/

He specified Teacher's Union. Here on DU, he slandered an union.

Since that was not what I said. Do you deny that there are child sexual abusers that are members of teacher unions or in the profession of teaching?

them around, moving them to new places where they could re-offend and the victims had no idea what they were dealing with. The organization sheltering, not simply having a member that offended.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parish_transfers_of_abusive_priests

It might be my google-fu failing me, but I don't see a similar article about district transfers for teachers union members.

I believe I have made it clear. If you want someone to defend the policy of moving the guilty from parish to parish and keeping it secret and not alerting the police I'm not your guy.

The major problem with the RCC is not that it had some members that did bad things.

The problem is that it hid it, covered up for it, moved them around, cloaked them among the population, and effectively enabled them to re-offend over and over and over.

Was the purpose of the church to enable those priests to continue their crimes?

I said 'has the effect' for that reason, because the behavior may have been merely protective of the church's interests, but it had the EFFECT of giving them cover, and the EFFECT of enabling them to victimize new populations.

The PURPOSE not the EFFECT. We all agree that the effect was to allow them to repeat their crimes and it should have been handled differently.

how are we defining 'the Church'?

The whole thing, from the pope down, or will distinct hierarchical elements that are sufficiently large/powerful enough to carry their own oversight and act with relative impunity, suffice as 'the church'?

In my estimate, Cardinal Law's position/branch appears to have operated with that goal in mind. The offenders were left, intentionally, in contact with children. The option to move them away from children was available, and not used. That suggests a purpose.

"The Massachusetts grand jury has focused on accusations that Cardinal Law and bishops under him knowingly transferred priests charged with sexually abusing children from parish to parish while not warning their new churches of their histories. In some cases, Cardinal Law even wrote glowing letters of commendation for the priests after learning about their abuse of children."

This is not simple clerical shuffling of priests, to avoid liability. There's more to this. But it is not likely to reach a court, and Mr. Law lives in the Vatican now, unreachable by US law.

abuse more children. That was the purpose of the RCC handling of this. They wanted these men to continue with their crimes.

You sound shocked. Given the evidence, I'm shocked that you sound shocked.

There are few alternate conclusions, given the now-publicly-known behaviors of some elements of the church.

Appearance, really? It's a simple yes or no. Yes you think it was deliberate act or no its outcome was unintended.

keep it up with the negative connotations though.

For some reason I think a picture of Janus should be your new avatar. Your willingness to use insinuation and innuendo to slander the RCC is noted as is your inability to own up to your action when confronted .

Yet you 100% stand by the bullshit you have said about teacher unions.

You're precious.

Do you have anything to add other than more misrepresentations of what I actually did say?

Still there. Can still see it.

It's your post, not a misrepresentation of it.

the teaching profession and are members of a teachers union whose victims are school children? That's what I posted about the shouts to high heaven about it in the RCC and silence and even denial about it happening in schools. Can't do both things and still be seen as an honest person on the issue.

That's where the backing organization issue comes into play. When you are talking about THE RCC(TM) and conflate that with the actions of MEMBERS of a teachers union (whose members do indeed attack children, as any population of adults that interacts with children does at similar rates) you are constructing a clever ruse.

You want to compare individual teachers that offend, to individual priests that offend, and the rates of offense, same issue. Fair comparison.

When has the TEACHERS UNION sheltered, moved, protected, paid hush money, and shuffled teachers who have attacked children to new cities, lied about their past and put them back in contact with children?

You want to deflect and defend the RCC as an ORGANIZATION that has ENABLED this by throwing out the Teachers Union? You better come correct with evidence of the same behavior by the org in question.

you can do so. I was asked to provide just one example of a union doing just that and found it in less than a couple of minutes. I'm sure that it's the only case on record, right. I feel sure that you will look deeper at the facts of what is going on in the schools won't you?

ers to THE RCC. Not individual, abusive priests.

The mistake was yours. There is NO correlation between the behavior of the RCC(TM), and the Teachers Union(TM).

Cardinal Law went out of his way, not to move these priests away from children, away from exposing the church to liability, no. He put them in fresh environments with unaware children, and wrote "glowing letters of recommendation" to place them in the community.

That's fucked up. He KNEW the allegations against the priests. He had an opportunity to do something about it. He didn't.

As all this finally comes to light, the Vatican moves him far beyond the reach of the US Justice System.

What would ANY reasonable person think of that?

To what sad, misfortunate circumstance would you ascribe the Cardinal's behavior? Come on. Tell me what a reasonable person would do in that situation, that includes cloaking these priests in YOUR OWN CHARACTER REFERENCES, and placing them in new communities, in contact with children.

What fucking accident of circumstance makes that a "outcome was unintended". Are you serious?

In the one hand he's paying out hush money to the families of victims, and swearing them to secrecy, and on the other hand he's moving them to a pool of fresh victims, and LYING TO THEM SO THEY WON'T QUESTION THE PRIEST'S CHARACTER.

The diocese he ran covered some 290 parishes, and 1.8 million catholics. That's not a trivial position at some random level of the RCC. And the Vatican didn't throw him in jail. Didn't fire him. Didn't censure him in any meaningful fashion. He was given a voice on the committee that slammed the American nuns last year. Quite possibly the strongest voice, since he's holed up in the Vatican itself, and there for every meeting, all the time, as opposed to the other members of the committee, scattered around the world. Even now the pope will hold an audience with him. After all that.

No, I think any reasonable person smells a rat, there. From an organizational structure. Something is not right, and it's not your bullshit 'mistakes were made' handwaving dismissal.

Have the balls to say you think it was a deliberate act to provide the pedophiles with new ground and new victims if you think it was.

a societal problem for going on thousands of years and only recently being rectified by the 20th and 21st century or so. This indifference isn't unique to the Catholic Church, but in much of wider society, it has been rectified, but under the cover of religion is such indifference allowed to flourish. This also isn't unique to Catholicism either, look at the indifference(legal and societal) and excuses made to justify neglect and abuse of children in the Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Hasidic Jewish communities, etc.

Religion should be no excuse for abuse or neglect of children or the powerless. Those who use it for that purpose are despicable.

privileged place in society, then you have a recipe where abuse is ignored, another example is among the Amish and Scientologists.

To take your example, if the leadership of a teacher's union in say Illinois, shuffled around several teachers from one district to another(assuming they had that power) with full knowledge that they abused children and also made sure to settle with the victim's families to keep such knowledge out of the public eye, they would be charged with conspiracy, it may fall under RICO statutes, etc. The union itself may be dissolved through court order, the leadership and abusers imprisoned, etc.

This is precisely what many Diocese of the Catholic Church has done, yet many of the leadership who committed these acts are still around, some have fled jurisdiction, and more so, allowed to, and the Church itself isn't investigated with the full legal weight of the government behind it, at least in the United States. Can you name any secular organization that was able to perpetuate such activities for so long, and still able to exist in their current form with their leadership intact?

I have listed facts, pertaining to a major wing of the RCC in the United States. The same story has repeated itself all over the world. New details come to light all the time. New victims. More and more. It is a scenario QUITE UNLIKE your feeble deflection the Teachers Union.

I have detailed a lot of things that point to deliberate acts to enable that sort of abuse at different levels of the church. Can I prove it for certain? No. Most of those cases won't ever see court. The delay and evasion was too effective for too long for some of the cases. For other cases, the victims are long dead. For some cases, the victims are unwilling to come forward. For some cases, the perpetrators have been moved BY THE CHURCH beyond the reach of law enforcement with jurisdiction.

All known, widespread knowledge. QUITE unlike the history of the teachers union.

So, I don't know what organs you think with, testicles seem to be far from the normal processing centers, but whatever you use, try putting 2 and 2 together and see if you come up with the same answer as everyone else, because that pattern of abuse and coverup, and ENABLEMENT putting abusive priests with fresh victims, means something very unlike 'mistakes were made'.

Personally, I don't think much of people who carry water for an organization that enabled, at very high levels, the wanton, and repeated abuse of children.

So, you can be sure your opinion of me is noted and concerning to me.

He has the courage and honesty to say what he means straight up without hiding behind insinuation and refusal to answer directly.

Except HA included other religions in the mix, whereas I did not, because this thread fork was ABOUT the RCC. If you want me to point out sexual abuse covered up and hidden by the Mormon church, sure. I'm happy to oblige.

Not terribly relevant to the RCC's proclivities, and your feeble deflection to the Teacher's Union.

for example, people in larger society didn't really care that children as young as 5 were working in mines and factories until the end 19th century or so, I would dare say that in must of western society, people had a cavalier attitude towards children. What the Catholic Church leadership displays is this same attitude carried into the 21st century.