Ronin

Sabine ~

So, if there is a someone with personal experience and a differing view than PsycheDelia, then you would also be willing to consider the criticisms of MT with more validity?

Don't make me bring my mother in here!

Spending too much time in the gray areas of life are ultimately unfulfilling.

brighid

Psychedelia,

I do appreciate your perspective too, but it does not change my position on Mother Teresa. Although SOMETHING was done by that order of women they had the ability to do SO MUCH MORE! They literally, because of the fame of Mother Teresa, had the ability to move mountains and could have, even in some small modicum of a standard (in comparison to the abysmal poverty in Calcutta) made a dent in the suffering there.

If you had the ability to treat and in many cases CURE the sick and dieing would you do it? Or would you simply allow them to "die with dignity?" Why allow a person to die when he can be saved?

The entire premise behind MT's "theory" on the poor is that suffering is GOOD for their soul and it will bring them to Jesus, so to do anything beyond the absolute minimum was to morally wrong in her eyes because it would take people away from Jesus. In a very sick and twisted way she perpetuated their earthly suffering. Many people were forced to convert and to me that is another heinous crime, especially of a woman who claims to be virtuous and to be of this ONE TRUE, PERFECT, LOVING, COMPASSIONATE GOD!

She was harvesting these people for her God because it was a veritable feast of suffering and devastation. She wasn't caring for them as human beings. They were souls to be won through their mortal suffering and that is all they were. She and her nuns picked them up off the streets because they were a prize and with the hopes that allowing them to "die with dignity" would deliver their souls to their GOD.

These people weren't given proper medicine to quell or heal their wounds. They were not given clean beds to sleep in. They were not given adequate food or water and NOT because it could not be provided but because it was WITHHELD! I consider that to be a greater crime then the petty indifference bred by a religion that believes suffering is a punishment (not all that unlike what Christianity believes.)

I was raised Catholic as well. I was raised venerating this woman. Mother Teresa is THEE icon of virtue and yet she is a vulture for her God, picking at the festered wounds of the most desperate people on Earth in order to win favor with her God and to perpetuate her cult of personality. This to me is morbid and it is utterly unconscionable.

Although I never lived in quite the conditions of the poor and homeless in Calcutta I know what abject poverty is. I know what it is like to go hungry, to go without medical care, to be at the mercy of others for the my own life and that of my child. If a man, or woman of this God I was taught was perfect, loving and compassionate treated me in such utterly inhumane ways, without an ounce of compassion for my humanity I would not be brought closer to this God. I would curse Him and I would see such a person as the embodiment of evil. Therefore my suffering would not bring me closer to this God and I doubt many of the suffering were either.

You have seen the devastation of poverty, homeless and disease in India first hand. If you had HALF the resources and power Mother Teresa did what would you have done for those people that you could help? Compare that to the reality of what she did do and all that she did not and honestly ask yourself if SHE (not simply those doing what they could with the morsels given to them by her - the nuns) really deserving of any admiration?

Brighid

Edited to add: I know if I had even a 10th of her marketing powers and fundraising abilities the money I raised would not be sitting idle in the coffers of the Vatican, doing nothing for anyone except accumulating dust.

Rhea

Okay if we're considering PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, then

WHY

Do you refuse to consider the personal experiences of Chatterjee, Shields and Hitchins?


These are people who PERSONALLY worked for Theresa or investigated her.

Why do you completely refuse to even consider their viewpoints?

Because they don't satisfy you like a SINGLE (ANONYMOUS INTERNET) story of one person getting picked up? (The adopted baby part of the story is SECOND HAND - no better than what you (incorrectly) claim of the books.)

Yet that one satisfies you. and you call others to use the "equal opportunity to consider another perception". Are you EVER going to give an equal opportunity to the position that shows other things that Theresa did? Or is she BEYOND REPROACH in your mind no matter what any first hand witness has to say?


simply amazing

Verily, I say to you. It is no WONDER that the priest pedophile scandal could occur. Exhibit A. Thank you for showing how it is done.

simply amazing

PsycheDelia

hello all,

first let me point out that i did not at any time express admiration for mother teresa the person in my post. what i was trying to say was that in my mind i separate mother teresa the celebrity from the order she founded which is doing a lot of good. sure, there is a lot of money, and she could have done more (brighid, i agree with you there - like i said, i did wonder why they didn't take that man to a hospital instead of taking him away to just simply die) but there are a lot of poor and sick people on those streets and not too many of her nuns around. i would guess that even the resources they have at their disposal (here i am speaking of human resources, not money) would not be enough to go around.

i do view with more than just a little suspicion the supposed humility of the woman, and i think it was ridiculous to elevate her to near sainthood even when she was alive, but i wonder if calling her a bitch is appropriate. that just goes to the other extreme in my opinion.

PsycheDelia

hello gemma therese,

it's nice to see someone else from philadelphia here. i wish i had more time to answer your question right now, but i am supposed to be studying, and an answer would require me to go hunting for some sources to back up my claim leaving me with very little time to finish the paper i have to hand in this evening. please bear with me for a few days - i will be done with my exams this weekend, and i promise to answer you then; either on this thread, or to start another one on the topic.

brighid

You bring up good points! Why isn't there more staff at the Home for the Dying? Why are there NO medical staff and why are the nuns not trained in basic medical skills? Why are the hundreds of millions of dollars (not including donation of other valuables like gold, art, expensive books, etc.) not used to help those that can be helped?

Why is there no hospital built by this order of nuns? The organization has more then enough money and with all the aid, volunteer work and abilities Mother Teresa had (and her fame still brings to the order) ... why are the facilities so POOR? She and her staff vowed poverty, not the people they care for?

Mother Teresa's organization brings in more money then the whole of UNICEF! Yet UNICEF manages to do much better for the people it serves, but it sure could use those resources to serve MORE of the worlds poor, dying and suffering.

I think the answer to those questions comes straight down to MT's personal philosophy of suffering and the poor. It is an spiritual and morally bankrupt philosophy that has brought and continued more suffering then it has solved.

This is what blind obedience gets one and honestly, if the God of Love, Compassion and Mercy (this Christ) desires this abject denegration of the human body and thereby the soul (if one exists) then He cannot be called loving, compassionate and surely not merciful.

Compassion, love and mercy dictate that one do all in his/her power to eliminate and quell the suffering of those in need. Imagine allowing a child to die of an easily curable infection or disease by withholding life saving anti-biotics in order to make sure this child suffers for Christ? IS THIS NOT INSANE? What if it were your child Sabine, Amie, et al? Would you allow your child to die a horribly, painful death in order to expedite his/her entrance into Heaven by withholding treatment and medication? Is that not at the basest level unethical and in any civilized world criminally neglegent and punishable by the lost of life or liberty?

Why, exactly why should this woman be venerated? I personally do not care what religion this woman was, and if she were an atheist I would be outraged. However, I am more outraged by those who perpetrate crimes against humanity in the name of a loving God for His supplication and enjoyment.

Brighid

njhartsh

Indeed! Now we're actually talking about facts. It's about time.

Kudos all around.

- Nathan

christ-on-a-stick

brighid said, Further to that, if that money is *not* being used for the "ministry" (MT's organization) that the people who donated it specifically donated it TO, is that not outright fraud?

It's really frustrating that the individuals who in this thread have stated their specific support and admiration for MT refuse to address the questions of her hypocrisy and fraudulent financial practices.

winstonjen

BZZZZT! There is no difference between actively causing suffering and passively allowing it to occur. Would you pardon a criminal accomplice who 'let' his partner murder someone on the grounds that he didn't actively do anything?

Given her extensive resources, this is not unexpected, but proportionately, to us, I doubt she did fuck all.

njhartsh

Hm. It's pretty tangential to the Mother Teresa point, but I'm not sure that this is necessarily true.

Let's say you are the greatest heart surgeon in the world--so good that hundreds of people who die every day of heart disease would be saved if and only if you just showed up in time to operate on them. (And your skills are beyond the reach of any other surgeon; they can't be taught.) But instead of flying hurriedly all over the world and rescuing as many people as logistically (and physically) possible, you stay in one city and have a normal 60ish-hour-a-week practice, saving a small number of people but letting others in other cities die.

Doesn't the denial of the act/omission distinction mean that you, the heart surgeon, are no better than a serial killer who travels the world, murdering hundreds of people a day?

Sorry to keep dragging law into this thread, but Western legal theory definitely incoporates the notion that action and omission are quite different things. (And, by the way, the distinction doesn't get Mother Teresa off the moral hook in the slightest.)

What do you think?

- Nathan