Cluck U wrote:JoltinJoe wrote:
Who's laughing at who? People are laughing at the ass who cannot debate these things fairly. Seriously, I don't care what unread dopes like you and Cluck think. You betray your ignorance on these subjects in every post.
Interesting that you believe I'm, "unread".
I'll admit, I haven't delved much into the writings of the Church of Latter Day Saints and don't have specifics about intergalactic spaceships and the planet Zoltan, but I'd be willing to bet that Tom Cruise and the rest of those "well read" zealots would, when pressed on the wild inconsistencies of their beliefs, fall back on defenses similar to yours...that I'm just an "unread dope".
Yes, you deserved that reply.
I asked the question about the priests because it is an important one. Not in the shallow D1B “gotcha” way…but as a way to build an understanding of your grasp of what it takes to be a Christian and what you believe is God’s ultimate goal for humans and humanity. Sure, the question about pedophile priests was direct – and certainly a topic you’ve avoided consistently on here, and at first it might seem a bit off topic, but it really isn’t. The Catholic Church is losing the race for American souls…mainly because they’ve seemingly always taken the attitude that the populace isn’t smart enough (unread, if you will...and for centuries that was actually true) to understand God so it is best if we leave it up to the church leaders to work it all out for them. And the question’s answer will help me understand why you dismiss any Christian’s “individual” actions as representative of Christianity when it is convenient for you and yet you hold up individual psychopaths as the end game for any differing philosophy or governance.
I believe that your approach is dishonest, so I am going to try to figure out where we differ. And that journey all starts with a simple question…are the pedophile priests Christians?
Ignore the troll, he has a different agenda. But please answer the question. And be patient…it could be a long road but I promise from here on to keep it on the up and up.
No, it's your approach which is dishonest. If you want to have a serious and honest discussion about things, you have to take someone's ideas seriously, even if you disagree. When you start saying stuff like Christians are like Superman, they do something horrendous, and then voila, say they're sorry ... well, I tune out.
Regardless of whether a pedophile claims he is a Christian, he has certainly committed an evil, vile act of moral turpitude, or what we call in the Catholic Church "mortal sin." As long as he remains in a state of mortal sin, he has separated himself from God. In to repair that breach, he must engage in repentance. But true repentance is not simply saying or believing you are sorry and then confessing your act. In cases in which one has violated the rights of another, it also involves accepting responsibility for the act and accepting the consequences. And that's where many Catholics have had a problem with how church leaders dealt with pedophile priests. The priests themselves were not sufficiently repentant, in that many "confessed" their sins but never genuinely took responsibility for their actions. Similarly,in many dioceses, bishops refused to adequately take responsibility for their own devious decisions in how to handle the situation. It is not my place to judge another, but these were cases where confession was simply one part of the repentance process. Many of us found the decision to take responsibility lacking and thus the persons involved insufficiently repentant. At the very least, a poor example from leaders, and even worse, acts which undermined claims of being a Christian.
