wordfailure

Brighid:

I'm a little unsure how best to respond. I imagine you are expecting me to address your charges point-by-point, and I'm not entirely unwilling, but I'm not an apologist for Mother Teresa or the Catholic Church. I had not seen this thread. I read it straight through all at once and was pretty appalled at the blatant, undeniable bias. I'm trying to address the bias, not the specifics of MT's behavior.

Perhaps I should provide some general thoughts on religious behavior and MT. If you read any new-agey literature, just for example, you can't help but notice that nobody is really talking about the nature of reality or the actual composition of the universe or anything like that. They talk about personal subjective experience. "I felt this. I realized that." It seems to me that all religious experience is like this, only usually it's not so obvious. I don't know how familiar you are with the Mormon missionary program, just to pick another example. The LDS leadership speaks of the missions as an opportunity for the young person to learn, grow in his faith, and serve God. Blah, blah, blah. I can't imagine them thinking sending 19 year-old kids out preaching is the most efficient means of evangelizing. The focus seems to be on providing the religious experience and training for the individual young person. If you read the early MT quotes, she doesn't speak of the poor and destitute for their own sake. She talks of her own inner life, her "relationship" with Jesus and her calling to suffer and sacrifice. If the poor and destitute were really the concern she might have said to hell with the Catholics... I'm going to go be a doctor or nurse or something. A humanist she was not. But the thing is this is how religious behavior is. It's self-oriented behavior focused on private subjective experience. Like it or not, this is an aspect of human behavior, but an aspect not invented by or the sole responsibility of Mother Teresa.

Anyway, imagine stumbling upon an equivalent thread on a religious site, maybe titled "Should Carl Sagan be called bastard" in which people call him a penis and generally present him as a total bastard without any humanity or worth despite a few protests that he wasn't really the devil incarnate. I don't know. I'm wishing I never saw this thread. I'm out of time again. Sorry to hit and run again.


Rhea: I owe you a response (and a grudging apology )

Rhea

no problem, I look forward to your response whenever you have time.

Try to divorce the bad language from the actual accusations.

If Carl Sagan were being vilified, the best defense, IMO, is defense of Carl Sagan, not offense against the vilifiers.

This is what he did. This is what he said.
They match.
His actions have integrity against his words.
His actions have integrity against the law.

That is how to debate it, in my opinion. I support his actions and his actions support his words.
Then I and the bashing site can agree to disagree about whether his actions deserve support.

But if I refuse to SUPPORT HIS ACTIONS or even address them, then I have contributed nothing to the discussion except, perhaps, validation of the bashing.

What's happening here is that we are accusing MT of:
Fraud
Sadism
Hypocrisy

And the defenders will NOT say,
I support her fraud.
I agree with her view of suffering
I think her hypocrisy was warranted.

Instead, they appear to be saying, "well, maybe she was defrauding contributors, causing needless suffering and taking for herself what she denied to others, but that's not the point. The point is, you have no right to accuse her of it."

And that response is INCREDIBLE!!!

Rhea

A thought to ponder for your reply:

The bias that you see has NO BEARING WHATSOVER on the facts of Theresa's actions. NONE. Her actions do not become right when bias exists.

In many cases the bias is a PRODUCT of her actions, not a lens through which they're viewed. People aren't viewing her as despicable and judging her actions from that bias, they are judging her actions and FORMING a bias. Do you see htis difference?

At any rate, if you want to discuss the people posting and not MT, perhaps a new thread is in order so that the MANY of us who want to discuss MT's ACTIONS can continue to solicit discussion OF THEM. Discuaaion of the people posting and not the topic is perhaps a "red herring", derailing the actual desired discussion.

Just a view to ponder...

brighid

Wordfailure,

Thanks for the reply. A religious person has the right to pursue the religious experience however he/she sees fit. I have no problem even with people "offering up their suffering" if it is a voluntary act. However, I have a serious problem with others imposing their religious beliefs on others who do not share them, and an even greater problem when that system is imposed upon the most vulnerable of our neighbors. That is one of the key elements of my argument and I believe I have delineated it well in previous posts.

I am very familiar with New Age literature and the movement, specifically the subjective aspects of it (but my involvement in that is really for another discussion.) I also understand the religious experience and Catholicism. Although those things are quite possibly at the “heart” of what MT has been taught, or even truly believed, I find that matter to be entirely beside the point when attempting to get to a moral understanding of her actions as compared to her Catholic counterparts, reasonable expectations of a person in her position, and the actions of other non-Catholic charity/relief organizations.

I do appreciate your ideas on this, but it is truly my feeling that that is all really beside the point and fails to address the substantive objections thus far outlined. I would prefer the discussion stay focused on material facts.

Yes, I would sincerely appreciate any person either neutral on, or a defender of MT to actually go through and answer the questions I, and others have presented. I do not think any sort of amicable conclusions can be come to unless we focus on the facts and what we, as reasonable people would do in similar situations. Again, this really isn’t meant to vilify MT but meant as a mental exercise to attempt to address (and possibly correct) what many people see as morally wrong, or at least ignorantly negligent actions. It may end up that MT is vilified, or exonerated and I am completely open to either. I doubt we will ever be able to conclusively prove any person’s motive (especially one who is no longer of this Earth) but that really isn't necessary in this discussion.

It is very important to discuss the moral implications of her actions and inactions. We must be able to come to educate conclusions about what we DO know. We know plenty, certainly enough to come to reasonable conclusions and judgments (even if they are uncomfortable.) Do you find that premise to at least be logical?

I personally want to know what others (who haven’t thus far answered) would do in the same situation? If not what they would do, what they would expect someone to do and compare that against MT’s actions, as well as those of other Catholic Institutions operating with less funds, fame, etc.

Wordfailure, for me the answers are as obvious as the nose on my face. I personally see a human failure, not necessarily motivated by hatred, prejudice or otherwise, that should have been handled differently. We certainly cannot change what happened, but we can learn from it in order to prevent those failings and help those who truly need it. I would say the poor, sick and homeless of Calcutta are but one group of people desperately needing assistance.

Let us for a moment remove any religious overtones in this conversation and examine the facts about money, distribution of wealth and resources, what could be reasonably expected as compared to what appears to have taken place, and how all that relates to the morals we all (theist, atheist and all in between) share with regard to charity and the care for the sick, etc.

I think I posed those very questions in my first post in this OP. If you would be so kind as to simply address that post (as I don’t expect all my substantive posts to be answered) I would be very grateful. I am truly interested in a dialogue on this issue and I am open to new information that may cast MT in a more positive light, but for the purposes of this discussion it cannot be abstract ideas or emotive appeals. We need facts and we need to use the best light of reason to flesh out the answers to those questions.

If that is too much to ask I will respect that, but I will be disappointed none the less.

Brighid

brighid

I would also like to address this. Although there are some posters who have made quip sorts of remarks, there are plenty who have provided substantive, educated and factual (to the best of their ability) posts on this matter. We should focus on those.

I think part of the "bias" you see may stem from the very thing that has frustrated many of us: the lack of informative or reciprocative responses for those who support, defend or remain neutral on this subject.

It is very difficult to have a rounded discussion with people who are unwilling to answer questions, or address substantive responses but chose to focus on, and use emotive, fallicious appeals to ignorance, etc.

I also agree that a "bias" has been formed through education on the matter. Many of us grew up venerating this woman (myself included) to become very disillusioned later.

So let us focus on the material facts and the moral implications of this discussion. Once we come to those conclusions we can them examine the deeper religious implications that certainly play a part in those events.

Brighid

wordfailure

Please forgive me for sticking my nose in then not following through. Things are a bit hectic here just now. I hope to be able to respond properly on Sunday. I'm trying not to say anything else provocative until I can cach up. Not that I suppose y'all are breathlessly awaiting a post from me.

Mashriqi Mercenary

If mother Teresa was so hateful and such a crook why did hundreds of thousands of people majority of them dirt poor indians show up at her funeral? Why did the indian govt. give her such a elaborate burial? Or was that all staged?

Bree

i think that the majority of people have no idea what the real story is. she had a great PR person.

Rhea

If hundreds of thousands of dirt poor people showed up at her funeral, why did the papers ask afterwards, "why were there no poor? Aren't the poor grateful?" Why do you suppose the papers would write such a thing? Hmmm. Could be that there were NOT, in fact, hundreds of thousands of dirt poor there after all? Could it have been staged? Well, yes and no. All the people who didn't really know what she did were there, perhaps, due to propaganda.


Interesting thought.

Why do you think there were 100s of 1000s of poor there? And why do you think the papers thought otherwise? maybe I'm missing something that you know...

Mashriqi Mercenary

i'll try to find a similar article on Gandhi and his hyppocrisys and the way he used symbolism to further feul the hatred among indian ethnicities and how many prominent scholars from the britsh isles considered his sattyagrah and ahimsa rhetoric as hogwash. Would that convince atleast some of you that he was not what he has been propagated to be? Further is there really any purely altruistic personality out there?