Thursday, February 26, 2004
There only can be hope, not certainty, that is the sense of a faith. If it was not hope but certainty it would not be a faith. Yet, faith is a hope that behaves like a certainty.
It is surely very handy to state that something is true, while at the same time not requiring any evidence.
Religion and philosophy (or science) are incompatible to the utmost degree: one is the realm of arbitrariness and fantasy, the other asserts as true only what can be based upon evidence, and surely not in an absolute and indisputable way, but only until proved wrong. The first is the realm of ungrounded claims, built upon mere words by humans lucky enough to find followers (but many religions died in the history of men). The second is based upon claims based on evidence and is prepared to correct or even upturn a past truth to embrace a new one.
The first one defends strenuosly a presumption of truth (a priori, merely stated, unproved), even blindly, often to the extent of confusing religious books with scientific books, and deeming religious books scientifically more reliable. The second is more prudent, and its statements are universally accepted: nobody would argue that 1 + 1 = 2, either buddhist or animist or christian, while differences, irrationality, intolerance emerge when people expect their contrivances to be better than others.
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Abusers in the name of God
An article on Cnn.com reports that over 11,000 allegations of sexual abuse were made by children for sexual abuse by 4450 priests. This according to a draft study commissioned by the U.S. COnference of Catholic Bishops. The 4450 priests represent 4% of the 110,000 priests in service during the 52 years covered by the study.
As the numbers are drawn from church records, it appears plausible to think that the actual figures are higher. This is the opinion of the director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
Even according to church records, Catholic parishes set themselves as one of the most widespread, powerful and perversely efficient network of sexual abusers and provokers of mental disturbances.
According to Cnn.com's article, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory said "[...] I want to reaffirm that the bishops requested these studies so that we could understand as fully as possible what caused this terrible occurrence in the life of our community to make sure that it never happens again."
But the answer is quite simple: the core reason is a perverted view of life by the Catholic Church, which negates life and despises it in its most typical forms (sexuality), also imposing a unnatural pathological chastity on priests. Factors which in large part only give way to clandestine sexual behaviours.
