Well, your reason for the first does not follow the second.

God acknowledges that man do not understand His world. It’s right there in the Bible. Yet this is no excuse. He wants you to follow despite imperfect knowledge or inability to understand.

As for the reason for the post on the responsibilites of the Catholic Church, a coverup is worse than the crime and the church is corrupt. I believe the Catholic Church has so wrapped up itself in traditions and bureaucracy that it isn’t capable of being redeemed. It has not followed Jesus’ teachings for a long time.

I’m not a Catholic, but a Christian, a born-again type. So that makes me a fundamentalist, I admit. Sure, it can be tough to follow the faith, but it is definitely personal. That’s where faith needs to start.

Quote “WWJD? Start his own religion – which is precicely what he did, which is precicely what hundreds of men have done throughout history.”

Hmmm. Be careful. The Catholics would claim Jesus as the founder.

Laura, there are many benefits to belonging to a church – and that’s largely for a sense of belonging and community. Makes me wonder why there aren’t more Internet churches? :)

Jen, I refuse to give my beliefs a label.

Dawn, nobody’s expecting anybody to throw Jesus out with the bathwater – my disillusionment with man is largely unrelated. I never used the word “hate” on purpose, and I was careful not to call on statistics because my guess is that an overwhelming majority of abuse cases never get reported. And to call upon my statement to Isabella, I have the right and ability to change the way America works – but you have absolutely no right or ability to do that with the Catholic church (they’re two separate social structures).

Ebarra, The Judean People’s Front are a bunch of wankers.

Travis, your link suggestion provides good counterpoints – but both sides are necessary for proper discourse and discovery.

Jason, Jesus Christ pretty much started Christianity. :) Nobody has this figured out, which is kinda my point. Social institutions (churches, religion) only “work” because the people who support them believe that they DO have it all figured out. Moreover, you simply can’t disprove something that can’t be proven in the first place. Faith is a wonderful thing – but it’s also a very personal thing.

The universe is an amazing wonder, and it’s the height of hubris for man (Dawkins, you, anyone) to think that they’ve got it all figured out. Faith begins where knowledge ends so they say.

Maybe a good topic for a late night Gnomedex chat, eh Mr. Pirillo?

Guess I should have used symbols that were mistaken for html.

Funny that your program make s ex into ***. Ha! :)

Over 95% of the sex abuse was homosexual. The media says “pedophilia” to be PC, but the victims weren’t young enough to be pedophilia. Chris are you as prepared to hate and condemn all homosexuals for the actions of some? Your post suggests you’ll be a hypocrite if you don’t.

Every faith has leaders who abuse people sexually and otherwise. Every town, village and Geek convention has sexual abusers. The Church is made up of humans and can never be perfect.

> Nice try, but sexual abuse is not church doctrine.

I hope you don’t consider yourself an American, Chris, just to be consistent.

I’m still trying to figure out the benefits of church. I know tribal instincts and other social drives can fuel participation in church. Just wonder what the faith thing is all about. I just don’t have any of that.

of course, if we accept this argument, then we REALLY can’t expect anyone from outside a specific religious group to accept their writings as holy and therefore authoritative!

anyways, thanks for going out on a limb on this. it’s hard to write personal entries in a blog that usually has a totally different focus.

thus spake isabella, who worships at the altar of many male and female gods, and would secretly like everyone to pray to dr. seuss’s lorax.

If one priest (Judas) can be severely flawed out of 12, imagine how many can be flawed now.

No doubt there are problems with the church – everyone in the church is human. I’m not sure exactly what I’m trying to say here but even though there have been very bad things happen in the Catholic church, it isn’t alone…every church has some kind of scandals going on… and if they haven’t they will.

Overall, I think there is more good than bad…but it only takes 1 bad apple to screw things up.