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Also, how many institutions at the end of the day have a tax exempt status?

 azazel the cat wrote:
I seriously doubt the latter element of your claim.

Doubt away. Jefferson and I share an alma mater.

"Individuals within an institution" is only an excuse when said institution doesn't have a solitary man at the top who is said to speak for a divine power. The entire institution is designed to create the circumstances of whatever he says, goes. Such is the nature of every grift wherein a conman claims to speak for the divine. You inability to recognize that honestly does make me sad.

Even if, once upon a time (doubtful still) the Catholic Church wasn't geared towards social control and wealth accumulation, your silly "a few bad eggs" idea altered the structure of the institution such that the machinations of those bad eggs is now the status quo, and has been for over a thousand years.

I'm not sure why you need to change your argument quite this much, but I'll play along. I'll take it you've vacated your, "the Catholic church exists only to judge," nonsense, and have now moved on to "the Catholic church exists only to gain social control and accumulate wealth?" I need to know which moving target to hit here.

Seaward wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
I seriously doubt the latter element of your claim.

Doubt away. Jefferson and I share an alma mater.

Hate to tell you this, but zero is the exact number of feths I give about where Jefferson went to school. Also, please compare #30 to #184, since your hubris demanded that you travel down this absolutely pointless and silly road.

Seaward wrote:

"Individuals within an institution" is only an excuse when said institution doesn't have a solitary man at the top who is said to speak for a divine power. The entire institution is designed to create the circumstances of whatever he says, goes. Such is the nature of every grift wherein a conman claims to speak for the divine. You inability to recognize that honestly does make me sad.

Even if, once upon a time (doubtful still) the Catholic Church wasn't geared towards social control and wealth accumulation, your silly "a few bad eggs" idea altered the structure of the institution such that the machinations of those bad eggs is now the status quo, and has been for over a thousand years.

I'm not sure why you need to change your argument quite this much, but I'll play along. I'll take it you've vacated your, "the Catholic church exists only to judge," nonsense, and have now moved on to "the Catholic church exists only to gain social control and accumulate wealth?" I need to know which moving target to hit here.

Not at all. The judgement is the tool from which the social control exists and the wealth is accumulated. However, not explaining the statement at length in my initial post was my failing; however I already explained it far more clearly in subsequent posts, and you already replied to them. The fact that you're left with no retort of any value at this point does not mean the last few posts never happened.

 Soteks Prophet wrote:

 Aerethan wrote:
There is nothing in the Bible that says you can't shrinkwrap your bolter to prevent a misfire that ends up with 2 lives being ruined .

It never made sense to me, that the Catholic church would easily forgive fornication and adultery, but NOT if you used protection. It's a double standard that is VERY present in lower income areas. Plenty of Catholics, and sex is free(mostly) so those who can't afford to go jet skiing get down and sin. But they don't use any protection, get pregnant all the damn time and have to live with that. As opposed to just tacking on the made up sin of a condom onto the already known sin of fornicating.

Possibly the stupidest double standard I've seen in my life.

The penalty for one mortal sin is the same as for two.

Also there's nothing in the bible mentioning the Trinity either..

...What are you talking about? The concept of the Trinity comes up all the time in the New Testament.

~Tim?

I think he means that the principle of the Trinity is not explicitly stated. It was constructed based on scripture, but the scriptures do not contain the words 'Holy Trinity.'

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

cadbren wrote:
The small rules are what keep people close to the church. You lower expectations and people feel they don't have to try as hard. I've seen that in sporting/martial arts where clubs that have an easy going atmosphere end up with attendence issues and committment issues as the easy going approach encourages people to slack off in their efforts.
Everytime a mainstream church like the Catholics or Anglicans bring in a more open, more liberal interpretation of the religion they bleed members. Evangelical churches are booming though, muslim mosques are full for the same reason.
Water down your faith and you water down your membership, remove your moral boundaries and your membership drops off.
The churches have been criticized for being behind the times for decades and they attempt to liberalise to address this. Problem is is that most of those being critical never had any intention of belonging to any church, let along the one being criticized.
So the church liberalises, gains no new members, alienates those who believe in the traditional church.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This pope is also on a hiding to nowhere. European catholicism is dropping off, dying off. In the future the majority of catholics will be latin American and African, both populations which are very traditional in their interpretation of morality.

Where do the people that leave the church usually go?

Duh, Hell

lol i kidd i kidd

 LordofHats wrote:
I think he means that the principle of the Trinity is not explicitly stated. It was constructed based on scripture, but the scriptures do not contain the words 'Holy Trinity.'

So are they three things or one?

 Rainbow Dash wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I think he means that the principle of the Trinity is not explicitly stated. It was constructed based on scripture, but the scriptures do not contain the words 'Holy Trinity.'

So are they three things or one?

That is a question for it's own thread, likely on a different forum.

The most basic comparison would that of a person's mind and their body. The mind doesn't exist without the body, but the body doesn't function without the mind(do a degree if people want to nit pick).

3 aspects of the same being. Not too dissimilar from the three traditional states of matter: gas, liquid, solid. Granted that plasma is the 4th state, but I've never seen plasma water.

 Crablezworth wrote:
Also, how many institutions at the end of the day have a tax exempt status?

Pretty much all of the ones that exist for a reason other than to make money.

Seriously, tax exemption for a religious organisation is as contraversial as tax exemption for the local little league.

 Rainbow Dash wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I think he means that the principle of the Trinity is not explicitly stated. It was constructed based on scripture, but the scriptures do not contain the words 'Holy Trinity.'

So are they three things or one?

Both. Its a religion thing. Don't think about to much. You'll give yourself a headache Trust me I know XD

 sebster wrote:
Seriously, tax exemption for a religious organisation is as contraversial as tax exemption for the local little league.

So where exactly are the little leagues that are making obscene amounts of money and then using it to do things like protect priests who rape children, blatantly break the laws about tax-exempt organizations participating in politics, or just buy lots of expensive palaces/works of art/etc for their highest officials to enjoy? There are religious organizations that deserve their tax exemption, but there are plenty of them that need to lose it. And we can start with the Catholic Church.

 Peregrine wrote:

 sebster wrote:
Seriously, tax exemption for a religious organisation is as contraversial as tax exemption for the local little league.

So where exactly are the little leagues that are making obscene amounts of money and then using it to do things like protect priests who rape children, blatantly break the laws about tax-exempt organizations participating in politics, or just buy lots of expensive palaces/works of art/etc for their highest officials to enjoy? There are religious organizations that deserve their tax exemption, but there are plenty of them that need to lose it. And we can start with the Catholic Church.

1. The CC has paid out millions to victims of the sex abuse scandal. Enough to bankrupt diocese.
2. Having an opinion on politics isn't breaking the law.
3. What works of art/palaces has it purchased in the last century for the sole purpose of its highest officials to enjoy? Its selling property pretty much everywhere.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azazel the cat wrote:


It's been a while since I've seen a shotgun loaded with so much bs.
1) Nobody said the Catholic Church is unique; so please stop projecting that.
2) Not being unique in its dickishness does not make that dickishness okay by any stretch.
3) The government doesn't claim to speak for a divine power, and thus I am able to participate in the legislative process, thereby creating a reasonable basis for my tacit participation and acceptance of its institutionalized judicial processes.
4) Nobody ever said that the accumulation of wealth was intrinsically evil, so if you want to participate in this discussion, you should try to keep up.
5) Since you brought it up, the accumulation of wealth from an organization that claims to be charitable is pretty disingenuous, particularly when paired with the fact that it uses its standing as an instution to claim it speaks for the divine in order to coerce that wealth out of people.

1. Not projecting anything, just pointing out that the ire with which you have for the Catholic Church can be placed on any institution that regulates its members.
2. Sure.
3. But you have no choice but to participate, Catholicism is voluntary. Whether it speaks for a divine power is irrelevant.
4. You were the one that described the church in a negative manner in that it is all about social control and accumulation of wealth.
5. When that wealth is used to build schools, hospitals etc, there is nothing wrong with it.

 NELS1031 wrote:
1. The CC has paid out millions to victims of the sex abuse scandal. Enough to bankrupt diocese.

Meanwhile evading claims elsewhere, and shuffling money around to prevent it from being seized when they've lost cases. And that doesn't change the fact that the church used their money to hide the rapists in the first place. Until they got caught and faced widespread outrage over their behavior they had no interest in doing the right thing. They should be treated like any other criminal organization: seize all of their assets, and throw everyone responsible in prison. And their supposed "remorse" at getting caught should be treated no differently than any other criminal who suddenly gains a conscience when their sentence is about to be decided.

2. Having an opinion on politics isn't breaking the law.

No, but endorsing or funding political candidates is against election laws in the US (and probably elsewhere as well), and funding political ads is probably crossing that line as well. The only reason churches are able to do that is that the federal government is completely spineless on this issue even when churches openly say "we're breaking this law, I dare you to do something about it".

Also, nobody is saying that churches can't have political opinions or participate in politics. The issue here is churches doing those things while simultaneously claiming tax-exempt status that requires an organization to stay out of politics. Churches are welcome to exercise their rights to free speech, just as long as they give up their special privileges and speak as ordinary citizens.

3. What works of art/palaces has it purchased in the last century for the sole purpose of its highest officials to enjoy? Its selling property pretty much everywhere.

And until it has sold everything down to the level of an actual non-profit organization (basic office buildings, etc) it is operating as a for-profit business and should not have tax-exempt status.

(Note that IMO the same applies to "charities" that pay obscene salaries to their upper management instead of spending that money on legitimate charity work.)

1. So the sins of 4% of an organization should be enough to shut down the rest? You equate the Catholic Church with criminal organizations because a few within it committed crimes?

2. Who did the Catholic Church endorse or fund in politics?

3. So a non-profit organization should display no art, no grand structures, no celebration of their culture and history?

As to your comment in parenthese, charities still have to be well run to function, so you have to pay well to attract quality, otherwise turnaround or incompetence will impede whatever the mission is. I know it sometimes looks or even is hypocritical, yes, but it has to compete with the regular job market and retain decent employees.

 Peregrine wrote:

So where exactly are the little leagues that are making obscene amounts of money and then using it to do things like protect priests who rape children...

Are you not concerned with coaches that rape children?

 azazel the cat wrote:
Hate to tell you this, but zero is the exact number of feths I give about where Jefferson went to school. Also, please compare #30 to #184, since your hubris demanded that you travel down this absolutely pointless and silly road.

Cute, but unfortunately we're obliged to conclude that any institution that teaches the Catholic church exists solely to judge is going to be considerably inferior to one that doesn't, no matter what the Brits might think.

Though actually, I do agree with you; arguing about who has the best history degree is like arguing who has the best one-legged dog.

Not at all. The judgement is the tool from which the social control exists and the wealth is accumulated. However, not explaining the statement at length in my initial post was my failing; however I already explained it far more clearly in subsequent posts, and you already replied to them. The fact that you're left with no retort of any value at this point does not mean the last few posts never happened.

No, now you're simply changing your argument. Initially it was, "the Catholic church exists only to judge." Now it is, "the Catholic church exists only to exert social control and gain wealth, and judgment is the means by which they do it." Those two statements do not become synonymous no matter how much you want them to.

Nor are either one of them correct, unless you're asserting that the entirety of the organization's leadership through hundreds upon hundreds of years has decided to completely abandon any real belief in the Catholic faith. Given some of the arguments you've come up with in the past, I'm fully capable of believing that you believe that, but you'd have an incredibly hard time proving it, because it's simply not the case.

The argument you want to be making is that gaining social control and wealth have come about as a result of the manner in which the church does what it exists to do - spread and lead the Catholic faith. Said social control and wealth have waxed and waned, of course, but their acquisition has never been the primary purpose of the institution.

 Peregrine wrote:

The only reason churches are able to do that is that the federal government is completely spineless on this issue even when churches openly say "we're breaking this law, I dare you to do something about it".

It is almost like you have a grudge against churches.

 dogma wrote:
Are you not concerned with coaches that rape children?

I think this may be the most dishonest post I've seen in a while. Of course I'm concerned with coaches that rape children, and the absurd glorification of sports that lets them get away with it. But that has absolutely nothing to do with this thread.

 dogma wrote:
It is almost like you have a grudge against churches.

Yeah, because the only reason anyone could be in favor of enforcing laws that exist for very good reason is some kind of petty grudge...

 LordofHats wrote:

 Rainbow Dash wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I think he means that the principle of the Trinity is not explicitly stated. It was constructed based on scripture, but the scriptures do not contain the words 'Holy Trinity.'

So are they three things or one?

Both. Its a religion thing. Don't think about to much. You'll give yourself a headache Trust me I know XD

The Missionaries told me they were 3 different things, as I have said before if I had to be a Christian it would be a Mormon, they are the cookiest ones... well their religion is, the people are nice... and send people to your door

 NELS1031 wrote:
1. So the sins of 4% of an organization should be enough to shut down the rest? You equate the Catholic Church with criminal organizations because a few within it committed crimes?

Yes, because that 4% represents the leadership of the organization, and it's pretty clear that the problem of shielding rapists was widespread in that leadership. It's just like how if a corporation's management decide to commit crimes we don't refuse to shut it down because the poor janitor would lose their job.

2. Who did the Catholic Church endorse or fund in politics?

I didn't say the Catholic Church specifically. The statement you're responding to was about was about tax exemption for churches in general, and there are indisputably churches that violate election laws by endorsing candidates.

Also, let's not pretend that the Catholic Church doesn't try to get involved in politics. They might not be stupid enough to openly violate the laws, but that's because the existing laws are way too limited and don't properly accomplish the goal of having tax-exempt organizations stay out of politics.

3. So a non-profit organization should display no art, no grand structures, no celebration of their culture and history?

That depends. Are we talking about a non-profit organization dedicated to museum work, or a "non-profit" organization that is supposedly dedicated to charity and spiritual matters?

As to your comment in parenthese, charities still have to be well run to function, so you have to pay well to attract quality, otherwise turnaround or incompetence will impede whatever the mission is. I know it sometimes looks or even is hypocritical, yes, but it has to compete with the regular job market and retain decent employees.

Yes, charities need to pay reasonable salaries if they want to succeed. That has nothing to do with the problem of certain charities spending only very small amounts of money on legitimate charity work while spending vast amounts of money on making their management richer.

 Peregrine wrote:

 NELS1031 wrote:
1. So the sins of 4% of an organization should be enough to shut down the rest? You equate the Catholic Church with criminal organizations because a few within it committed crimes?

Yes, because that 4% represents the leadership of the organization, and it's pretty clear that the problem of shielding rapists was widespread in that leadership. It's just like how if a corporation's management decide to commit crimes we don't refuse to shut it down because the poor janitor would lose their job.

Well in that case lets just throw our whole government under the bus then.

 Peregrine wrote:
Yes, because that 4% represents the leadership of the organization, and it's pretty clear that the problem of shielding rapists was widespread in that leadership. It's just like how if a corporation's management decide to commit crimes we don't refuse to shut it down because the poor janitor would lose their job.

When's the last time we did that? If individuals are guilty of a crime, we charge them, but we don't shut corporations down for breaking the law. We fine them, normally.

 djones520 wrote:
Well in that case lets just throw our whole government under the bus then.

You realize that "but someone else is bad too!" is a concession of defeat, right? Are you really intending to admit that you can't defend the church leadership?

 Seaward wrote:
When's the last time we did that? If individuals are guilty of a crime, we charge them, but we don't shut corporations down for breaking the law. We fine them, normally.

Well, same end result. We might not explicitly shut down a corporation but we don't refrain from doing things like fining them, throwing the CEO in jail, etc, just because it might be bad for business or even destroy the company.

 Peregrine wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
Well in that case lets just throw our whole government under the bus then.

You realize that "but someone else is bad too!" is a concession of defeat, right? Are you really intending to admit that you can't defend the church leadership?

That's hardly what I'm saying. I'm just saying we need to be fair here. If the whole Catholic Church is a criminal organization because of the actions of a few, then our whole government is a criminal organization as well, and any other organization that has shady members a part of it.

 djones520 wrote:
That's hardly what I'm saying. I'm just saying we need to be fair here. If the whole Catholic Church is a criminal organization because of the actions of a few, then our whole government is a criminal organization as well, and any other organization that has shady members a part of it.

Do you have any examples of the same kind of widespread crimes and coverups happening in those other organizations? Remember that the problem with the Catholic Church isn't that some priests raped children, that's a crime by individuals that should be punished as an individual crime. The organizational guilt is that when those crimes happened the Church decided that protecting their public image was more important than protecting the victims or punishing the guilty, and blocked any investigation while moving the rapists off to new positions where they could rape new victims (who of course had no warning). Obviously we'll never know the full extent of the coverup, but it's pretty clear that we're talking about a widespread problem with the organization as a whole, not the actions of a few individuals who can be neatly removed from the organization and punished.

 Peregrine wrote:
Well, same end result. We might not explicitly shut down a corporation but we don't refrain from doing things like fining them, throwing the CEO in jail, etc, just because it might be bad for business or even destroy the company.

That's true, but I don't think we refrain from doing that with churches, either, do we? If a priest molests a kid, we're not going to not arrest him just because he's a priest.

 Peregrine wrote:


Do you have any examples of the same kind of widespread crimes and coverups happening in those other organizations? Remember that the problem with the Catholic Church isn't that some priests raped children, that's a crime by individuals that should be punished as an individual crime. The organizational guilt is that when those crimes happened the Church decided that protecting their public image was more important than protecting the victims or punishing the guilty, and blocked any investigation while moving the rapists off to new positions where they could rape new victims (who of course had no warning). Obviously we'll never know the full extent of the coverup, but it's pretty clear that we're talking about a widespread problem with the organization as a whole, not the actions of a few individuals who can be neatly removed from the organization and punished.

And companies cover up bad working conditions of migrant farmers, drug makers bury negative studies, and cops have the blue wall. Organizations cover up bad things their members do. Only in some fantasy land is the Catholic Church the only organization in the world that hides the bad stuff people do under their roof.

 Seaward wrote:
That's true, but I don't think we refrain from doing that with churches, either, do we? If a priest molests a kid, we're not going to not arrest him just because he's a priest.

But that's exactly the point I was responding to: that we should punish those crimes because doing so would harm the church as a whole, and that's just not fair to all the members who weren't involved.

 Peregrine wrote:
Yes, because that 4% represents the leadership of the organization, and it's pretty clear that the problem of shielding rapists was widespread in that leadership. It's just like how if a corporation's management decide to commit crimes we don't refuse to shut it down because the poor janitor would lose their job.

Not every leader in the organization was involved though, and I believe only 1 Bishop has been convicted in secular law. Thats enough to bring the whole thing down?

 Peregrine wrote:

I didn't say the Catholic Church specifically. The statement you're responding to was about was about tax exemption for churches in general, and there are indisputably churches that violate election laws by endorsing candidates.

This thread is about the Catholic Church, and you mentioned involvement in political meddling as being one part of why the Catholic Church should have its charitable tax status revoked.

 Peregrine wrote:
Also, let's not pretend that the Catholic Church doesn't try to get involved in politics. They might not be stupid enough to openly violate the laws, but that's because the existing laws are way too limited and don't properly accomplish the goal of having tax-exempt organizations stay out of politics.

If they are not violating laws, why are you saying they should have their tax exempt status revoked for violating laws? They should be punished for how you want the laws to be?

 Peregrine wrote:

That depends. Are we talking about a non-profit organization dedicated to museum work, or a "non-profit" organization that is supposedly dedicated to charity and spiritual matters?

Art is an integral part of Catholicism. Only museums can have statues, paintings and architectural wonders?

 LordofHats wrote:
And companies cover up bad working conditions of migrant farmers, drug makers bury negative studies, and cops have the blue wall. Organizations cover up bad things their members do. Only in some fantasy land is the Catholic Church the only organization in the world that hides the bad stuff people do under their roof.

Ok, yes, if you generalize it to more than covering up rapists and giving them new children to rape, other organizations cover up bad things their members do. I guess it's a debatable point, but I'd argue that the church's actions are far, far worse since the crimes involved are universally agreed to be so thoroughly repulsive. Suppressing a study to protect your profits is obviously bad, but I can't even imagine the lack of empathy or morality that would allow someone to do what the church leadership did.

Also, let's not forget that "you're bad too!" isn't a valid argument.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NELS1031 wrote:
Not every leader in the organization was involved though, and I believe only 1 Bishop has been convicted in secular law. Thats enough to bring the whole thing down?

Of course very few people have been convicted, that's what happens when you have an organization as big and powerful as the Catholic Church doing their best to hide all of the evidence. It's not at all a surprise that it would be very hard to meet the required burden of proof in a criminal case at this point.

And yes, bring the whole thing down. There is strong evidence that the abuse and coverup were widespread in church leadership, and enough of that organizational structure is guilty that trying to single out the few people responsible isn't possible. Burn it down and salt the earth as a lesson to any organization that might consider doing the same thing.

This thread is about the Catholic Church, and you mentioned involvement in political meddling as being one part of why the Catholic Church should have its charitable tax status revoked.

Sigh. Read the comment I was replying to again. It clearly referred to churches and tax exemption in general, not any specific church.

If they are not violating laws, why are you saying they should have their tax exempt status revoked for violating laws? They should be punished for how you want the laws to be?

Sigh.

The churches that are blatantly violating laws are not the Catholic Church.

The laws on tax exemption and politics are too limited and should be much stricter. New laws should be passed that enforce a stricter barrier between supposed charitable organizations and political activism, and the Catholic Church should have its tax-exempt status revoked under those new laws if it continues to do what it does now.

Art is an integral part of Catholicism. Only museums can have statues, paintings and architectural wonders?

Yeah, let's pretend that the Church's wealth is all an integral part of its religious beliefs and not an attempt to provide a life of luxury to its top officials...