Amie

Then how can you form the opinion that Bill Gates is a "better" person? Just curious...
I think here we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Arrowman

Start here:

http://www.secularhumanism.org/libra...hens_16_4.html

http://www.secularhumanism.org/libra...elds_18_1.html

Scary shit.

beyelzu

i used mother theresa only as an example of someone who gave their life to he service of other people and bill gates as an entrepeneur. most people associate mother theresa with helping others and bill gates with making money. so i thought they were logical choices. but i also used the pope for similar reasons.

Arrowman

Beyelzu: No worries, I wasn't having a go at you (your point, and choice of analogy for that purpose, is sound) so much as responding in general to something I have come to revile - the adoration of Mother Teresa, by Catholics and non-Catholics alike, based on a myth. Oh, and the appalling diversion of generously donated resources from the people they were intended to benefit.

Oh, PS: Here is the thread Thor Q Mada referred to above:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=25519

Sabine Grant

Hello everyone... in any case (and in my opinion )it is nonsense and dangerously prejudicial to nullify the goodness of anyone based on their race, religion, nationality, gender etc....could not we simply apply to all human beings what we defend so dearly? that is rights which protect us from prejudicial thinking and actions.

Should an homosexual's goodness be demeaned because he or she is an homosexual? non! should a religious person's goodness be demeaned because he or she is a religious individual... same answer. At least in my mind.

seebs

Well, to be fair, a religion generally implies something about your ethical system, and homosexuality doesn't.

However, most religions have ethical systems which, while you may not agree with them, it's pretty hard to make a case for an objective standard by which you can call one better than another unless you yourself are religious.

Arrowman

Hello Sabine. To the extent that your comments are about Mother Teresa, I would strongly disagree but if you want to take that further, perhaps you would like to post in the Mother Teresa thread I linked to above.

In more general terms - I for one, do not "nullify the goodness of anyone based on their race, religion, nationality, gender etc...". A good person is a good person, and good works are good works, whoever does them.

However, I might disagree with some religious people as to what constitutes "good works". Some people are admired and thought of as "good" because of their religious faith and practice, and not because of any practical "good" they actually do. For example, Gemma Therese seems to think people should be admired for shutting themselves away in a monastery. I find those things to be grounds for neither approval or disapproval.

In other words, it's not that I dismiss "good works" because they're based on religion; it is that some people define some things as "good works" because they're based on religion.

beyelzu

wow, i just read both of those links and i must say mother teresa is really cracked. one has to wonder what she is doing with all the money. i am not alleging financial impropriety, but where does it go. and of course, people should be more careful about where they send their money.

Amos

For every winner there must be at least one loser and Mother Theresa took care of the losers that allowed entrepenuers to be winners.

Arrowman

Funnily enough, I think I'd have less of a problem if she and her nuns had consciously misappropriated the money. At least that would make sense! The fact that they more than likely did not, but simply thought they were on some level "doing the right thing" is what is really scary.

Absolutely. But that is the power of image (and the image of religion) in our world. Would you like to have tried to tell Bob Geldof that he should disdain from embracing Mother Teresa? Would you like to have tried to explain to an adoring planet what she was actually up to? You'd have been lynched - and not just by Catholics.