Believe me, I am not defending any spiritual institution - far from it. You are the one who suggested that humans are inherently sinful. I never even suggested that. I proposed that humans are essentially weak. If that were not so then humans would be infalible which is palpably not true. Therefore humans all contain an element of weakness. That goes beyond the concept of choice.
I don't want to go too far into the topic of organisational behaviour but suffice to say that as organisations grow and become more complex they will tend to adopt structures and codes that seek to protect and defend the organisation itself. This is what i believe has happened in our established churches - it is not unique to the Roman Catholic church. However, it is to the credit of those within the catholic church who, when they became aware of the abuse fought tirelessly to bring the issue into the open and put in place systems to ensure that such a cover-up could not happen again. Whilst they were doing that they aslo sought to ensure that any priest who was involved was brought to the public courts to receive justice. It is the spirit of openness in these actions that is to be applauded because that candor is directed towards those who have no love for the institution itself. Just as an evaluation of the British Empire using todays moral codes and understandings is quite pointless then so is the evaluation of the 'health' of religion solely in terms of numbers. I would argue that as church attendance is no longer considered as a social necessity then the numbers who do attend now represent a more committed proportion of the population. It should also be noted that unlike in other religions there is no specific requirement for a Christian believer to attend church - and certainly not at a specific time.
Good to see you back. I thought the tone and style were very you in another thread earlier. Is this your unveil or did I miss that with not being on over the weekend? Appropriate name!
I was trying to avoid arguments and stay out of trouble this time. But as you can see I'm a complete failure!!! However, I have promised myself and therefore everybodyelse that i won't take things too seriously or personally under this guise.
Lol, yer ok, I've been a bit grumpy and uppity recently. Decided today "feck it" will try to just be silly. Then this bloody thread Hasn't shortened my posts any though.... Not many of the critters about at the mo anyway.
Is that Foredeck back as the phoenix? should have recognized that... My ninja! In terms of this Sisu, not so much my cup of tea, very episcopal family, went to a catholic high school, and just meh about it all if I am honest.
So many of you are not spiritual ."All sins can be forgiven but sin against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven" "Do not judge for you not to be judged" "Do not touch my anointed"
For the record, I believe faith is a good thing when it provides strength to deal with adversity and to promote goodwill between people, the Vatican have abused the faith of billions. You can have faith and be a good auld sod because of it without the guilt and self immolation. I choose not to be an arsehole, and will help out if I can because I believe in not being an arsehole and also that cooperation makes it easier to achieve, religion plays no part in it for me. The institution is rotten corrupt and immoral and obscures the good work done by the many who are not corrupted, all too often those who do good are only connected by charitable deeds thought volunteering and/or of the lowest ranks. Humans are inherently programmable and open to manipulation and this has been exploited to the full by the Vatican and the plethora of **** priests and yes even Nuns who have mentally and physically abused young girls, I personally know a few women who have suffered at the hands of nuns whilst in their care. The systematic abuse carried out by the church is not the domain of men alone. It is a self serving institution using people as it's medium to sustain its survival especially today.
Good to have you back mate. You've now got the 'Oldest Poster' mantle back, thank **** Try and stay chilled and look after that ticker. This debate probably isn't a good one to get involved in. I have strong views but I'm not airing them on here
