Why do Atheists/Agnostics come to CAF?

[4elise]

Even if you aren’t the person I believe you to be (which I don’t believe) you have still acted very insulting towards me (I’m taking into consideration all the things you’ve said to me thus far).

Just as an observer - without knowing the history of the posts between you two - I must admit I was surprised when I read that you took yankee_doodle’s post personal. Of course previous discussions and give and takes can influence the way we read each other’s posts. My comments here are not to imply ‘taking sides’ in the discussion between the two of you, just that as an ‘outside’ reader of the thread - yankee_doodle’s reply did not sound personal, perhaps it was intended to be ‘between the lines’ given previous discussions, but just on the face of it - it seemed to be a general reply to the OP

 

[Ronsatron]

Look up the definitions in the dictionary. In any case none of this is right. The issue is when trying to focus on a solution it is essential you understand the root problem.

The root problem of paedophilia is not the issue being discussed, it is the actions of the CC. It is quite clear what the solution is. Handing known paedophiles over to the police. I don’t see how this is such a difficult issue to agree on.

 

[yankee_doodle]

actually the Egyptian religion (paganism/pharaoh worship) was around for several thousand years. Judeo-Christianity has only been around for about 2,700 years. It’s only been a dominant world religion for perhaps 1,700 years.

 

[Ronsatron]

It is necessary to know that they were homosexual in nature and preying on post pubescent boys because we need to understand the nature of the disorder and how to deal with it, the Church from my understanding is now in the process of screening potential priests before they can enter seminary.

So they will only be screening for homosexual paedophiles? Their sexuality is not the issue.

 

[KindredSoul]

guess who most of these deviant perverts are? You guessed it … the religious. You’ll find an amazing absence of non-theists in those type of statistics, why? Because our brains work properly

Maybe some people need to fear the wrath of some god (even if fictitious) to control their deviant disposition. I guess Nietzsche was right, being an atheist isn’t for everyone.

Actually, this in no way displays that religious people are more likely to be perverts/pedophiles due to their religion, nor are pedophiles more drawn to religion for the religion’s sake…as stated in my previous post, such people are usually smart enough to know what is most likely to make people trust them. Playing the part of a religious, God fearing man is one other such tactic, and they are usually determined enough (and likely enough to be unreformed) so that playing that part has value for them even after they are found out. This says nothing of the act of being religious in itself…in a world where Atheism was the default codeword for “Trustworthy and moral” as Christian has tended to be in many parts of the world today (somehow despite how secular we are) pedophiles would claim to be that in order to gain people’s trust.

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

 

[yankee_doodle]

From all I’ve read there is no cure for pedophilia (except for a prison cell).

 

[buffalo]

Handing known paedophiles over to the police. I don’t see how this is such a difficult issue to agree on.

Did you read the John Jay Study?

One point - Catholic teaching is to settle disputes among yourselves. I know of cases where an altar boy was fondled and he told his parents. His parents saw the pastor and asked that this priest be removed. The pastor asked the diocese and he was gone. The parents asked it be handled quietly as they did not want scandal for their son or the Church. They left it to the judgement of the Church authorities to handle it.

Also, Church authorities did send many to counseling and they relied on the failed opinion on whether a Priest could return to ministry. Obviously, we now know these counselors had failed in their assessments.

When the parole board releases a prisoner and he commits the same crime they blew it. It would be nice to have a crystal ball.

 

[yankee_doodle]

Actually, this in no way displays that religious people are more likely to be perverts/pedophiles due to their religion, nor are pedophiles more drawn to religion for the religion’s sake…as stated in my previous post, such people are usually smart enough to know what is most likely to make people trust them. Playing the part of a religious, God fearing man is one other such tactic, and they are usually determined enough (and likely enough to be unreformed) so that playing that part has value for them even after they are found out. This says nothing of the act of being religious in itself…in a world where Atheism was the default codeword for “Trustworthy and moral” as Christian has tended to be in many parts of the world today (somehow despite how secular we are) pedophiles would claim to be that in order to gain people’s trust.

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

of course you’re right … I certainly don’t blame religion for these deviant people. The fact is non-theists (atheists, agnostics, and I would put deists in this category) are almost exclusively intelligent people. They’re usually well educated (although you don’t always need a degree to have a good head on your shoulders, it does give you more knowledge than most less educated people have). And they think about this sort of stuff (and let’s face it, people who spend their free time thinking about geeky stuff like philosophy are usually not criminals).

 

[KindredSoul]

From all I’ve read there is no cure for pedophilia (except for a prison cell).

Which, if true, strengthens the argument that, rather than being an example of how genuinely religious people tend towards pedophilia, a pedophile who was in fact only pretending to be religious would still do so even after getting caught instead of ever admitting “That was just a front so I could get your trust”–because they still cling to the hope of keeping people convinced so that they may regain their trust and do the same crime again, hoping to not get caught the next time. Which means, as stated above, that religion was never the issue, nor is a religious man any more likely to be a pedophile when a great many pedophiles probably don’t really believe in their religions anyway. As I said, if saying “I’m Atheist” brought up the same implications of automatic morality and trustworthiness that being religious tends to in our culture (again, I don’t know why, seeing as how we are such a secular culture) then it would be Atheism that pedophiles would proudly claim to believe in.

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

 

[Ronsatron]

Did you read the John Jay Study?

I did have a scan through. There was nothing I read that has changed my mind on the issues we are discussing. Paedophiles should be dealth with by the law.

 

[yankee_doodle]

Which, if true, strengthens the argument that, rather than being an example of how genuinely religious people tend towards pedophilia, a pedophile who was in fact only pretending to be religious would still do so even after getting caught instead of ever admitting “That was just a front so I could get your trust”–because they still cling to the hope of keeping people convinced so that they may regain their trust and do the same crime again, hoping to not get caught the next time. Which means, as stated above, that religion was never the issue, nor is a religious man any more likely to be a pedophile when a great many pedophiles probably don’t really believe in their religions anyway. As I said, if saying “I’m Atheist” brought up the same implications of automatic morality and trustworthiness that being religious tends to in our culture (again, I don’t know why, seeing as how we are such a secular culture) then it would be Atheism that pedophiles would proudly claim to believe in.

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

like I said above, I don’t blame religion for deviant conduct (that would be logically absurd), but I also don’t think all of these pedophiles weren’t genuine when they entered the priesthood (which is IMO an equally absurd assumption).

I don’t know what causes this defect in the human brain. However, it stands to reason that many of these men probably hated themselves & probably were very faithful and loyal Catholics (and it’s possible some of them sought the solitude of the priesthood to somehow redeem themselves … who knows). They just have a brain disorder; but the bottom line is society needs to be protected (and I can’t think of a better place for these deviants than a jail cell – or at least a maximum security mental institution).

 

[4elise]

I feel the need to add one more category: those who feed off of, and love, drama. Of course, that sickness could be found on both sides of the debate.

I used to be an atheist, so I can see where they are coming from (except for those who just love the drama and the “everyone else is stupid but me” mindset). They come here usually out of curiousity–why do we believe what we believe? And maybe we should take heed here. Be clear on what we believe, and put it into practice in our daily lives–our own “Calcuttas,” as Mother Theresa would say.

Just a thought…

Which category did you fit when you were an atheist? Were you among the curious?
I think that each forum gives an opportunity to be authentic to what we believe - and to really try to be respectful of each other - I believe that a web site called Catholic Answers should be open to just that - give us Catholics an opportunity to answer why this faith community resonates not only with our hearts but our minds as well. Of course to be a person of any faith takes a belief in something unseen. I think for some, that is just too big an leap - so for my atheist and agnostic brothers and sisters - love you and am praying that God makes his presence known in your lives.

 

[yankee_doodle]

I did have a scan through. There was nothing I read that has changed my mind on the issues we are discussing. Paedophiles should be dealth with by the law.

 

[josie_L]

Incest has been cited as the most common form of child abuse. Studies conclude that 43 percent (43%) of the children who are abused are abused by family members, 33 percent (33%) are abused by someone they know, and the remaining 24 percent (24%) are sexually abused by strangers (Hayes, 1990). Other research indicates that over 10 million Americans have been victims of incest.

One of the nation’s leading researchers on child sexual abuse, David Finkelhor, estimates that 1,000,000 Americans are victims of father-daughter incest, and 16,000 new cases occur annually (Finkelhor, 1983). However, Finkelhor’s statistics may be significantly low because they are based primarily on accounts of white, middle-class women and may not adequately represent low-income and minority women (Matsakis, 1991).

Victims of incest are often extremely reluctant to reveal that they are being abused because their abuser is a person in a position of trust and authority for the victim. Often the incest victim does not understand – or they deny – that anything is wrong with the behavior they are encountering (Vanderbilt, 1992). Many young incest victims accept and believe the perpetrator’s explanation that this is a “learning experience” that happens in every family by an older family member. Incest victims may fear they will be disbelieved, blamed or punished if they report their abuse.

ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32360

 

[buffalo]

I did have a scan through. There was nothing I read that has changed my mind on the issues we are discussing. Paedophiles should be dealth with by the law.

If you read the study can you tell me how many were dealt with by the law?

 

[KindredSoul]

of course you’re right … I certainly don’t blame religion for these deviant people. The fact is non-theists (atheists, agnostics, and I would put deists in this category) are almost exclusively intelligent people. They’re usually well educated (although you don’t always need a degree to have a good head on your shoulders, it does give you more knowledge than most less educated people have). And they think about this sort of stuff (and let’s face it, people who spend their free time thinking about geeky stuff like philosophy are usually not criminals).

I am one of those educated people, who spends a lot of time in deep thought and philosophizing, who think about “geeky stuff” So were many of the saints, as far as being educated deep thinkers. So religious people are just as likely to be well educated, intelligent thinkers…there are just a lot more of us around so there’s more room to get examples of the not-so-well-educated. Consider, though, that when becoming Christian deviated from the greater culture (as particularly non-theistic belief does to some extent today–the majority of non-religious people still loosely affiliate themselves with some religion or another) it tended to be full of highly potent thinkers compared to now, and I would argue that is because it required a person to contemplate why their current (pagan) world view was wrong, with “contemplate” being the key word, just as most Atheists “contemplate” their way there (correctly or incorrectly) rather than just accepting what culture has given them…I believe that’s simply because it takes more intelligence to go against the grain than to go with it, regardless of whether “the grain” is true and right or not. If the world were 2/3 atheist, so that a great deal of people found themselves being reared as such by default without having to use their brains to contemplate their way to such conclusions (whether or not those conclusions were correct), atheists not be so exclusively intelligent today either.

Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul

 

[yankee_doodle]

Incest has been cited as the most common form of child abuse. Studies conclude that 43 percent (43%) of the children who are abused are abused by family members, 33 percent (33%) are abused by someone they know, and the remaining 24 percent (24%) are sexually abused by strangers (Hayes, 1990). Other research indicates that over 10 million Americans have been victims of incest.

Yeah, reconstruction of the South is still a work in progress.

 

[4elise]

Personally, I come here to resolve conflicts in my worldview that I may not have realized on my own, to learn more about Catholicism, and because I like engaging others in debate.

I hope that you find some of those conflicts resolved - sadly however the ‘world’ often doesn’t get it right - too much selfishness - lack of ‘other oriented’! For me the teaching of the Jesus, and that of Catholic Church calls me to be more about you than me. Peace.

 

[josie_L]

Just as an observer - without knowing the history of the posts between you two - I must admit I was surprised when I read that you took yankee_doodle’s post personal. Of course previous discussions and give and takes can influence the way we read each other’s posts. My comments here are not to imply ‘taking sides’ in the discussion between the two of you, just that as an ‘outside’ reader of the thread - yankee_doodle’s reply did not sound personal, perhaps it was intended to be ‘between the lines’ given previous discussions, but just on the face of it - it seemed to be a general reply to the OP

When I said what I said I was refering to other discussions we had in which he specifically called me a bigot and then proceeded to tell me I had serious issues (in his “humble” opinion), so yes, between the lines.

 

[josie_L]

I don’t really feel like discussing this anymore. It’s disgusting & IMO anyone who acts as an apologist for their church in such an affair is both an enabler and shares some culpability.

It’s sort of like when a Taliban murderer is given refuge among Pakistani villagers. Sure you don’t want to kill innocents, but are they really innocent? After all without their assistance the Taliban murderer wouldn’t be able to operate. Indeed the Taliban gets all their recruits from such villages. So arguably, why not bomb the whole village?

So you ask why do some people have a bone to pick with the religious? Your support for your church enables this criminal activity (and their arrogant feeling that they’re above the law). Therefore, you’re not an innocent in this affair, just like the Pakistani villager providing assistance to the Taliban killer.

This is how I feel, therefore I will abstain from discussing this issue further (because it really, really ticks me off).

Oh I see you bring it up but it really really ticks you off to have to discuss these issues.