PaladInChrist

livius drusus-

So, who is the leading atheist anyway?

Can I spout off all manner of slander against them at my leisure?

livius drusus

There is none.

I assume you mean libel since slander is spoken word. Biff could post a disquisition on his perceptions of the Pope's iniquities and it would still not be libelous. In order to prove libel, a public figure must show that the person making the claims knew them to be false and made them with malicious intent. Satire doesn't count, as Jerry Falwell found out at the hands of Larry Flynt, nor do comments made on internet bulletin boards by people who reasonably believe them to be true.

What you're talking about is not libel or defamation of any sort. It is simply an unsubstantiated assertion. Your request from proof was reasonable. Your insults were not.

Should you have any further comments or concerns about my moderation of this thread or any other, please open a thread in the Bugs forum or contact the Administrators if you prefer to discuss the matter privately.

The subject of this once charming thread, you may dimly recall, is Worldtraveler's donation to the Cologne Cathedral and the implications of that given his atheism and the institutional role of the Catholic Church. Please return to it.

Thank you,
livius drusus
Moderator - GRD

Biff the unclean

I don't think any criminals should be hidden. I also don't think you should have free licence to paint the Pope and the good priests in whatever light you want.
The Pope as the head of the organization is responsible for it's policies. He is aware of the crisis in the United States and the policy of spending large sums of money to make the problem go away apparently stems form directives put forward by the College of Cardinals.
No mention of any "good" priests has been made. I'm sure that they are both perfectly fine fellows.

Do you value religious freedom and tolerance?
When did raping little boys and girls and killing large men in hit and runs become part of a persons religious freedom?

There have been many threads on many forums where people pull out this trump card against me when they are losing a debate about Catholicism, and I have typically ignored it. I chose not to ignore your post because it struck me as a generalization of the priesthood as a whole.
It is a generalization of church policy as a whole that when a member of the RC clergy commits a crime that this crime is not reported to the police. That the Priest in question is not punished but only moved to another location. The victims are warned not to report it. The parishioners at the new location are not notified that there is a sexual predator in their midst.
And if anyone should speak out Good Catholics, like yourself, pitch fits. As terrible as these crimes against children are, condoning them, facilitating them through church policy is even worse.

You say "HUGE" number of priests are child molestors? Prove it...count the number of molestors and count the number of priests, then show me the percentage.
And how many butt f***ed altar boys would be an acceptable number for you?

Gurdur

An excellent idea.
I can't stand Robert Heinlein. Terry Pratchett (another atheist) and a hundred other SF authors way before taking Heinlein.
You and Leonard Cohen both.
Leonard Cohen gave a beautiful concert in Cologne (Köln) once; he gave a short talk describing his vist to the Dom (Dom = cathedral; therefore Kölner Dom).
He also work in the line.
I walked into the Kölner Dom, in his song, Ain't No Cure For Love.
And why the hell not ?
The Kölner Dom is a beautiful piece of history, and every cent that is donated specifically to entry and upkeep go into that.
Since historical mounments like the Kölner Dom are subject to even more stringent financial control than usual, and the church is in any case subject to much state control regarding finance, then you can be sure that the money you gave goes into upkeep of the Kölner Dom directly and solely.
Of course not.
It makes you a good humanist who realizes the important role of keeping history alive for future generations.

Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it

I've visited Buddhist temples galore, Hindu temples, Shinto shrines, Christian cathedrals and churches, and mosques.
I've always donated a little something for upkeep on those occasions.
Some facts about the Kölner Dom:

It is the only cathedral in the world to have the church clock indoors, mounted near ground level.

It took 800 years to complete the building.

More than 30 professional stonemasons are employed full-time all year to repair and replace stonework --- in fact, it's became the de facto stone-masonry practical teaching place in that region.

There is a reliquary containing the full skeletons of the supposed/alleged Three Wise Kings in the Dom.
The ribs are plastered with pearls. You only get to glimpse inside the reliquary box containing the 3 skeletons on every January 06.
It is garish and baroque to the extreme.
Mind you, the skeletons lack one index finger each (the 3 index fingers are in a church in Italy) and one rib each (the 3 ribs are in another church in northern Germany).

Scars from artillery/tank shells and machine-gun fire still are noticeable on the outside, from WW 2.
Been there, done that, three times.

Finally, on the whole, it's really well worth while a visit.

Just don't donate to the more general-purpose collection boxes, only to the upkeep/entry ones.

Gurdur

I'll also add:

in roughly a 40-Km radius from Cologne are also the following, all very worthwhile visiting:

the Engels family house museum in Wuppertal (Friedrich Engels, as in The Communist Manifesto etc.)

The Schwebebahn in Wuppertal --- the world's first more-or-less monorail (hanging railway), still going strong

Burg an die Wupper, also known as Solingen Schlossberg (a castle) (where an archbishop of Cologne was once held captive in a dungeon for 18 months, in the Middle Ages)

The best cutlery museum in the world (in Solingen); lots of swords, too --- Solingen was a mjor sword-manufacturing place which beat its swords into forks later

the Beethoven family house in Bonn

me ----- I live in Solingen, roughly 35 Km from Cologne

Amos

We call it the "Dom van Keulen" but I've never been there. I've been to Kevelaar where we visited the Maria chapel and the Candle chapel and I am not sure if we were asked to make a donation.

Worldtraveller

Me too, I spent a few years in Okinawa, and visited several Shinto and Buddhist temples there. I've been to a mosque in the states, but I really want to go to Turkey or somewhere to see some of the older/nicer ones.


Thanks for helping get this thread back on track Gurder. Although at least I found Biff's joke funny.....

According to the tour I took sunday, a few things have changed. They employ 60 stonemason's to upkeep the church! And given the fact that there is always a fair amount of scaffolding around, I'd say it's job securty.

I will definitely have to try and find that cutlery museum, being a bit of a sword buff (and starting a collection) myself.
Thanks for the info!

Lane

Rousseau_CHN

like heck, I just joined the YMCA.

Shake

Lane, if you've got a URL for your 'non-standard' smilies, you can use the IMG button and paste the URL there. OR, if you go to sites like this or this, you click on the smily you like and copy the code and just paste it into your reply.

For example: {IMG}http://www.heresyhouse.com/graphics/...opening_02.jpg{/IMG}, with [] substituted for {}, produces this:

Ronin

or even this:



~ if you substitute $$ for [].