uhcord

I'm I the only one that thinks we should just start completely ignoring randman comments and responses?

Everytime, no matter how much reason, evidence and logic we use to refute his ignorant and bigoted views, he still holds to them without even flinching. Every response we post to him is a waste of breath, time and space.

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Ok, back onto the topic.

They should (and are) allowed to try and impose laws on us, but 'Because our religion[bible] says so' should (and is not) not be considered a valid reason or arguement. They should (and do[well most of the time anyways]) present it in a secular way, and explain why and how it would benefit the whole majority of the people in a positive way.

Malaclypse the Younger

Color me a wild-eyed optimist, but I think randman has some potential.

randman

Schroedinger's Kitten, I appreciate your post, but with all due respect, I don't think a pedophile is going to just announce to you what he doing.

I also think you are mistaken if you think gay men don't sometimes go after teen-age boys. Though anecdotal, I have seen gay men try to do exactly that on a number of occasions, and in some other countries such as in Khandar in Afghanistan, having a "pasha," a 15 year old boy lover, is both practiced, and among the Pashtuns, it is a status symbol.

I am sure your gay friends are more responsible, but I am also sure there are many who are not.
On the question someone raised about ceibacy, I could not agree with you more. Let these men marry. That ought to help.
I know that someone is bound to state that actually many married men are pedophiles too, but it seems to reason that forcing a man to give up sex altogether in order to anser the call is not a healthy thing. Not trying to slam anyone's religious beliefs, but the historical context of celibacy was so that priests would not pass down the office to their children, and thus the church's wealth and property. It was meant to help reform the priesthood, and to coopt some of the practices of monasticism, but not all seeming good ideas are workable.

[ March 24, 2002: Message edited by: randman ]</p>

Aethernaut

Your reading comprehension could use some improvement. I was refering to my personal experience and not the homosexual population en masse as that would be quite impossible. I never said that "gay men don't sometimes go after teen-age boys" and I think that they are sick fucks if they do, just like straight men going after teen-age girls.

In fact, you missed the point of my entire post. That being, the Catholic church should be the one having the finger pointed at it for covering this up for so long and quit trying to shift blame every chance they get. All they did was perpetuate an already bad problem and show total disregard for thier parishioners

I found <a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020323/ts_nm/church_racketeering_dc_1&cid=578" target="_blank">this article</a> today. Somebody is finally going after the corruption in the Palm Beach diocese.

-SK

[ March 25, 2002: Message edited by: Schroedinger's Kitten ]</p>

randman

Um, what was your point in stating your personal experience if you weren't trying to say it was relevant. Look, noone I know has come up and told me they are a pedophile, but that doesn't mean there isn't the possibility of that. That was my point, that this is a problem bigger than people suspect.

Also, I agree the Catholic church is to blame, and I will grant you that there are heterosexuals that have the same problems. Nonetheless, and this is hard to quantify here, but there are a number of priests who claimed this, and I have seen it elsewhere as well, but there appears to be a far higher percentage, perhaps approaching a majority of homosexuals in the priesthood when compared to the rest of soceity. I have noticed many gays in traditional denominations as well, often married for awhile, but the gay aspect comes out after awhile. I really don't know why this is so.
Maybe you can shed some light into it, not the pedophilia but the homosexuality in the ministry. It is a whole lot more prevalent than one would suppose.

Hastur

Because in a society where 'the closet' is so much a more comfortable place to be, what better occupation (where one can feel wanted, useful, respected) than one where your sexual preferences are specifically null?

In simpler terms, if you'd rather not 'come out' what better occupation than priest; where the whole issue of sexual orientation is moot?

randman

Well, that is an explanation for the priesthood, but I would say a similar phenomenon has been occuring in some main-line denominations, although I haven't heard charges of sexual abuse, but the homosexualization of some aspects of ministry is a real phenomenon from what many ministers and others have noticed, maybe less pr onounced than the priesthood, but an odd phenomenon nonetheless.