Gemma Therese

Mostly prayer, recreation, and manual labor.

Gemma Therese

Eudaimonist

Please don't interpret what I'm about to write as a message to "go away", but if those activities are preferable to posting at a message board, why aren't you doing them right now?

Gemma Therese

I said they were preferable for nuns, cloistered women religious. I am a college student home on break.

I do pray a lot, and I certainly engage in recreation, but since I am not living in a self-sustaining convent, manual labor is not really imperative.

Defending the Catholic Faith is something I feel strongly about.

Gemma Therese

Debbie T

I have seen statistics that on average a pedophile will abuse 250 children in his/her lifetime.

The origin of the cause is hard to pinpoint. On an individual basis some that have been abused becomes abusers. On a larger scale the problem, in the not so distant past, wasn't even dealt with. It may seem like it is bigger problem now but it isn't, it is just now that we are realizing the depth of it. Much like the rape of women we have not given it much importance until the recent past. The system has not been kind to those who come forward and report rape or child abuse.

Amos

250 Is a lot but I will accept it as true. It was never heard of before and even my parents (in-laws) can't remember, nor have they ever heard their parents talk about it. True, this does not mean that it did not exist but it sure suggests that it was not a frequent occurance.

My position is that it is a more recent problem that emerged as a nasty side effect from the modern gender equal society wherein the psychology of man is encouraged to cross the biological [non]barrier. The basis for my argment is that our sexuality is an illusion that is created out of the controversy between the opposites and must therefore also be maintained in this conflict.

I'll say no more about it.

Gemma Therese

We live in a very gender-confused society.

Gemma Therese

Philosoft

You don't suppose that has anything to do with society's insistence on forcing kids into gender roles and the resultant backlash when individuals realize they don't fit, do you?

Consider the word "gender." We already have a perfectly good word, "sex," to refer to a particular subset of the genotype, and usually the resultant phenotype. Why do we need the word "gender"? Well, aside from labeling certain words in certain languages, we have observed the behavior of the respective sexes and decided that those behaviors which we usually associate with one sex or another are the standards to which those sexes are held. Hence, "gender" is a term for a set of behaviors deemed socially appropriate for a particular sex.

Now, sexes and genders are strongly positively correlated. But, you can't be surprised when your artificial "gender" doesn't match perfectly with the natural "sex." There are simply too many factors, genetic and environmental, that influence personality development to be able to say with any degree of certainty, "This one has a penis. He will doubtlessly enjoy football, beer, naked women and fart jokes."

Rant over.

Debbie T

Amos I do not agree that it suggests that it happened infrequently. It just wasn't dealt with. It may appear to be like it is happening more but that is because as it has come out into the light and that the system is taking this seriously now, more children are coming out in the open about it. Rape of women used to be infrequently reported too. But women didn't used to report it because they were put to shame when they did. More women report rapes now because the system is getting better on how it treats victims. It isn't perfect yet but victims are treated a lot more compassionately and not thought of as bad like it used to be. So it may now seem like more rape is being committed, but in actuality just more cases are being reported.

Sorry if this was disjointed one glass of hubby's home brew beer does that to me.

Amos

I understand your argument very well but do not accept it. I considder masculine and effeminate qualities gifts from God that cannot (?) be learned and such things like rape, family violence, child abuse, homosexuality, mothering, fathering, sexual identity, gender identity and all such things are God given qualities. This makes rape just one of the many aspects that have changed as a result of our modern gender society.

sullster

Amos, according to you, child abuse is a "god given quality". Your god is a piece of excrement if that is true.

Thus, according to Amostheology, Bernie the Pimp, could do nothing about child-raping priests because those priests were just doing "god's will".

This supports my argument that catholicism is nihilism.