HelenM

Thanks for disagreeing politely - I appreciate it

I think that whether the consequences of an act are evil and whether it was done with evil intent are two separate things.

Someone well-intentioned may do great evil nevertheless. That's different from when someone does evil in full knowledge of what they are doing, and deliberately because they enjoy seeing others suffer (for example).

When a well-intentioned person does evil, it's still evil; but I think it's important in judging them, to ask "Should they have known better". I think you are implying they should.

But there certainly are situations, imo, where evil results and we could not reasonably have expected the person to know better.

And perhaps there will always be a difference of opinion in the case of Mother Theresa, whether she should have 'known better'.

Helen

Jobar

I know that MT made many statements to the effect that 'the suffering of the poor is beautiful in the eyes of the Lord'. If she then hied herself to a modern hospital when she was sick, there is no other word for her but 'hypocrite'. She stands for the ideal of loving one's neighbor as oneself; her actions give that the lie.

christ-on-a-stick

This is an excellent point, Jobar. Setting aside the other issues momentarily, I am very curious as to how Amie, Gemma and other supporters of MT reconcile this. It is *factual* that she made such statements regarding suffering, and it is *factual* that she herself received only the best medical care when she became ill. How is this not rank hypocrisy?

brighid

I would like to ask those Christians who defend Mother Teresa a few questions.

For a moment put yourself in the position of being the benefactor of tens of millions of dollars given to you by a multitude of people with the express desire that this money be used to feed, clothe, house and care for the millions of poor, indigent, homeless, sick and dying people of India. How would you use the money, and what ethical obligations (as Christians) would you feel you have to the donors and to the people in your care? You resources are literally tens of millions of dollars in cash funds, reduced and free rental payments, donated medical supplies, medicines, clothing, food and other essentials. You have the media as a willing resource and do not have to pay for advertisement. You have the strength of a highly esteemed reputation that opens doors where others cannot gain entrance. A simple pleading by you has millions of people around the world willing and able to help. What would you expect to accomplish?

Further imagine yourself as one of the homeless, poor or desperately ill (or all of these) knocking on the door of a place (not of your faith) where you are told you will receive food, shelter and medical treatment. How would you want this place to be set up and run? As Christians how would you treat these people? How would you feel if you were told you must relinquish the rights of your children before food, or shelter will be given to you, etc?

If you will, please be as detailed as possible in your answers.

Example: Would you provide a clean environment, clean linens, sterile medical facilities, pain relieving medication, proper medical care (or best as can be provided), healthy food, clean water,

Now compare that to what we KNOW, not what is believed (either positive OR negative) about Mother Teresa. Does she really deserve the blind veneration she has been given? Does she deserve the vehement denigration, or is the answer somewhere in between?

Perhaps Mother Teresa does not deserve our “judgment”, but it would be fool hardy NOT to examine what can be reasonably determined about the claims made for and against her.

What if it is true that she allowed men, women and children to die painful deaths, living in squalor and suffering when she literally had the world at her disposal? If it is true then we should not turn a blind eye to this suffering, and we should all (Christian, atheist and otherwise) seek to learn from the truth and make sure that others don’t suffer the same fate.

The poor should be cared for. They should be treated with dignity and respect. When we do have the resources (and it seems MT surely did) we should do ALL in our power to help them.

The heart of the matter for me is not always what Mother Teresa did do, but what she did not do given what was at her disposal. Did she TRULY fulfill her Earthly obligation to the people of India entrusted to her care?

Brighid

njhartsh

Forgive the long post: it seems to me that there is much in this thread worth responding to.

I do not understand where the Teresa defenders on this thread (or, for that matter, in the world at large) are coming from. I can understand a reluctance to denounce a heretofore hero, suspending judgment before one has examined the offered evidence carefully and dispassionately. All well and good. But dismissing the evidence and thwacking the messenger? That seems to me useless and irrational.

I have not read Aroup Chatterjee's Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict. I have read Christopher Hitchens' The Missionary Position. (I've also seen Hitchens' original Teresa work, a television documentary entitled Hell's Angel. I suspect Hell's Angel is the most harrowing of the three, because it allows the observer to see the horror of life inside Missionaries of Charity hostels.)

It seems to me Teresa's defenders, here and elsewhere, have abjectly failed to respond to the profuse factual record built up by her critics--a record of Teresa's greedy hoarding of cash and resources (a notable proportion of it ill-gotten); of unflinching public support for right-wing dictators; and, probably most importantly, of unconscionable sanitary standards and practices in the hostels she (barely) maintains.

If the above were all there were to it, then I suppose Mother Teresa would be not much more than yet another poseur in a long line of faith-healing publicity hounds, duping the credulous and letting the innocent suffer, neither better nor worse (nor more deserving of attention) than a Benny Hinn or Peter Popoff. But that is not how the public sees her: since Malcolm Muggeridge's fawning 1971 documentary Something Beautiful for God, Teresa has been a global symbol of kindness and charity, a baptismal fount that the crook and the fascist alike need only visit to get their reputations cleansed. There is no doubt that this saintly image--one that, it's clear, Teresa doggedly cultivated--can be terribly infuriating to people who are aware of what her career actually was about.

Then, to this thread:

Sabine has argued that it is improper of us to judge Teresa based upon "what we read or various mass media," because "have never met [her] in person or ha[d] a relationship" with her. Sabine argued that we do not "have the right to judge anyone as if we know so well the intent of their mind." When it was pointed out to her that our judgments of "George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Adolf Hitler, Charles Darwin, etc." are no less based upon books and other media, rather than personal meetings or relationships, Sabine replied that in some of those cases (actually just one, I hope) "we have historical facts which confirm horrendous actions," whereas in Teresa's case "we have reports written by individuals who favor her and reports of individuals who do not favor her." She argued that "that judgement is not a right we have for none of us has the ability to evaluate the intent of the human mind."

I work for a court, so I am slightly perturbed with the idea that human beings do not have the "right" to judgment. Like it or not, we are all unavoidably thrust into the position where we must judge other people's actions and (yes) intentions. Certainly we are fallible judges, but I'm not sure what alternative we have available to us.

I do not understand Sabine's distinction between the "historical" nature of the case against Hitler and the "read[ings]"/"mass media" case against Teresa. In both cases it's in fact history that we're talking about: and the documentation of Teresa's actions (maintaining horrendous hostel conditions despite untold millions of dollars in available resources; outspoken support of right-wing regimes; receipt of stolen funds) is no different in form than that of Hitler's. In both cases, what we have is eyewitness testimony and administrative documentation. (When what we're talking about is evidentiary reliabilty, I don't understand the difference between documentaries filmed in Nazi concentration camps and Hell's Angel. Surely Sabine wouldn't say that the former was mere "heresay," would she?)

As to intent, in my court (as in all courts I'm aware of) intent is something that one proves by presenting evidence of the accused's actions. Sabine is correct that it is often impossible to find direct evidence of "the intent of [anyone's] mind," but thankfully that does not prevent real-life judges and juries from convicting people for robbery, assault, rape and murder--all of which are crimes that require the prosecution to prove intent. As a judicial philosophy, I suspect Sabine's statements would prove very dangerous.

As with Hitler and other people who have caused horrendous suffering, the crux of the case against Teresa is thus in the profuse evidence of her acts. Here, the evidence emphatically does not come merely from unsupported statements from critics like Aroup Chatterjee and Christopher Hitchens (or, as Radorth oddly puts it, "one second hand account and personal interpretations of actions"). Teresa's many objectionable actions--maintaining horribly substandard hostels, raking in a pile of cash and sitting on it while her charges suffered horribly, giving loud support to dictators, refusing to return stolen funds--are largely a matter of public record; Chatterjee and Hitchens just happen to be the first two people to do much to collect that evidence.

Sabine has blandly asserted that in Teresa's case "we have reports written by individuals who favor her and reports of individuals who do not favor her." Again, the same could be said for Hitler; but more importantly, I have yet to see a "report" from a Teresa fan that has anything to do with the factual allegations presented by Chatterjee, Hitchens and company. All I've seen is vapid, sometimes indignant appeals to Teresa's glowing reputation. I for one would be extremely interested in an explanation for the horrendous suffering, disease and death inside of the Missionaries' hostels; of Teresa's unwavering support for the murderous Duvalier regime in Haiti; of her campaign against the Irish constitutional amendment allowing divorce even as she told the Ladies' Home Journal that the divorce of a certain one of her mega-rich supporters from the Prince of Wales was a good thing. I would like to see such a case made for the defense, but to my knowledge no one has made one.

Infinity Lover stated: "whatever suffering MT didn't end, she didn't cause it. whatever she failed to do, she still ended up doing way more than any of us will ever do in our lifetime."

Both of these statements are brought into severe doubt by the factual allegations collected in Chatterjee's book, Hitchens' book and Hitchens' documentary. All three document Teresa's institutions and their policies causing enormous suffering despite having massive resources available to alleviate it. Whether such institutions should be credited with "doing" much of anything good seems to me less than a sure thing.

yguy posted a link to a critical review of Chatterjee's book, a review which (as usual) consisted almost entirely of fallacious appeals to the wonderment of Teresa's character--a point that, obviously, the book brought into considerable question. The only fact reviewer Singh mentioned was an entirely irrelevant date issue; if that's the only fact Chatterjee got wrong, I'm afraid Teresa deserves what she got in his book.

Responding to yguy, I pointed out that Singh's bashing of the Nobel prize hardly demonstrated that Chatterjee was wrong to claim that Teresa actively campaigned for the Nobel. yguy responded:

One wonders: precisely what does this have to do with the (as yet merely gainsaid) claim that Teresa was a craven Peace Prize-campaigner? I fail to see what the (ig)nobility of the Nobel has to do with the factual case Chatterjee made.

Radorth wondered whether, if Teresa had been an atheist, "would she be vilified here? That is the question I think."

It appears to me that the question behind this thread is in fact whether Mother Teresa is worthy of esteem or moral censure. The appeal to Teresa critics' hypocrisy is a bald resort to the ad hominem fallacy. Any hypocrisy on the part of iidb atheists is quite beside the point: even if we would all be Teresa apologists if she were an atheist, that hardly demonstrates that Teresa was a good person, now, does it?

Gemma Therese quoted an amazon.com review which stated: "What [Teresa] did was gather people into her own arms and carry them into her home. She cared for real, dying people with real blood and stench, real life and death."

Besides the implied ad hominem accusation, once again, that Teresa's critics are hypocrites, where here is the response to the very factual case that Teresa's "car[ing]" was in fact horribly, callously uncaring? That the poor of Calcutta and elsewhere would have been vastly better off if she had left them alone--or if she had used her pristine reputation and bulging coffers to build them a real, honest-to-goodness hospital? The statement that Teresa "cared for real, dying people" very much begs the question whether what she did is "car[ing]" at all.


I would like to see Mother Teresa's defenders defend Mother Teresa instead of attacking her critics or the process by which we argue she is worthy of censure. Even if every Teresa critic is a baby-smashing, hypocritical genocidal maniac--nonetheless, so far as I know, the charges against Agnes Bojaxhiu stand unrebutted to date. Please enlighten me if I am mistaken on this point.

- Nathan

njhartsh

Apparently Mr. Chatterjee doesn't think much of his most famous co-critic:

wade-w

There has been some good discussion on this thread. There has also been a lot of very childish behavior. If the latter continues, I will have no choice but to close this thread. Grow up people!

Sabine Grant

NJHARTSH : are those type of statements accepted in your court based on an assumption to know that indeed the accusee meant to harm women? Please note that my posts have been focusing on the assumption made here ....I also presume that you would recieve a discourse held by a prosecutor with such inflammatory terms without batting an eye?

Winstonjen's comments are not objective and obviously phrased in a way which denote an INTENT to interpret MT's actions into a women hating agenda. Which implies that Winstonjen must have some degree of personal knowledge of the inner thoughts of MT.

And I do differenciate between a premeditated agenda and actions where an individual believes he or she is doing what is right. Or is that nuance not acceptable in a court of law?

I propose here that the benefit of the doubt should be considered when it comes to claiming that MT was a " women hater". In other words, I still refuse to believe she was a women hater based on the comments of Winstonjen.

If I were part of a jury held to render a sentence on MT's actions, I would certainly consider those comments as " heresay". I would urge caution to my fellow jurors while deliberating.

Robert G. Ingersoll

Putting aside the question of whether a person can be 'evil' in essense, I believe MT's documented actions were evil AND hypocritical, beyond any reasonable doubt. This is assuming all the relevant facts listed aren't lies perpetuated by a conspiracy.
That seems as unlikely to me as the alleged conspiracy by the LAPD to frame O.J. Simpson.

Whether her actions were a result of being off the beam, or just a mean old bitch, is besides the point - the point being, that to continue to hold her up as some sort of icon of virtue would be a fucking hilarious joke if it weren't such a fucking SAD joke.

Certianly there have been people who were atheists who have done things far more evil than MT - Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and Pot come to mind - but all that is beside the point, since none of these assholes are being held up as icons of virtue these days, as MT certainly continues to be so held.

I am perfectly willing to criticize any atheist who has committed acts similar to those committed by MT, and I suspect this is true for 99 per cent of the atheists who post here. Again, as mentioned by other posters to this thread, that is utterly besides the point, in any case.

What facts have been offered by the admirers of MT that she was indeed a saintly women deserving of all disinterested people's admiration, atheists included?

Nothing. The facts certainly indicate that she was a hypocrite who committed evil acts. Is it all a pack of lies, MT admirers? Have I been fooled? If so, how so?

njhartsh

I don't understand what you're asking. winstonjen's statements clearly are a conclusion that she reached for some reason. Sure, when it's stated as briefly as her comment was, it seems awfully conclusory; she's pretty much just name-calling. If what you're saying is that character attacks make more sense when they are based on stated facts rather than bald conclusions, then I agree with you. But (a) hinduwoman did post several facts about Teresa before winstonjen wrote anything, and (b) conclusory or not, I'm not sure that making a statement like "That Josef Stalin sure was a jerk" is all that horrible a crime.

And several of us have attempted to show that the criticisms of Mother Teresa that take more than winstonjen's fourteen words tend to provide a pretty substantial basis for that "assumption," whether it's held by winstonjen or anyone else.

I just don't think it's an adequate response to a long list of factual allegations about cruelty to innocent people to point out that the accusers can't really know what was in the perpetrator's mind. Barring a confession, guilty verdicts for serious crimes are always based on the very intent inference you claim we aren't allowed to make.

"Inflammatory terms" is merely another ad hominem diversion. Whether winstonjen and the rest of us critics are jerks is not the question here.

You purport to be able to infer winstonjen's intent (are you privy to her "inner thoughts"?), but you dismiss her statement because, you say, she's doing exactly that to Teresa?

Well, actually, in a court of law, "a premeditated agenda" is entirely unrelated to "an individual believ[ing] he or she is doing what is right." Indeed, many deeds that the doer finds good are part of "a premeditated agenda." I do not understand your point here.

I do not believe that the fact that an accused person "believes he or she is doing what is right" makes him or her innocent of wrongdoing. I suspect that many people we consider to be horrible have (had) senses of right and wrong that are sufficiently skewed (often toward overwhelming self-interest and arrogance) that even the most obscene crimes seem justifiable to that person. I seriously doubt that a Torquemada, Hitler, Stalin or Osama bin Laden in fact does think that his crimes are wrong. And yet (presuming for the moment that that's correct) that wouldn't make their actions acceptable, would it? The witch-burners of long-ago Europe and colonial America allegedly believed that burning witches saved the witches' souls. Does that make them innocent of wrongdoing? (Can we conclude that they were misogynists? I certainly would.)

As for courts of law, I do not believe that Tim McVeigh would have been acquitted had he taken the stand and convinced everyone that when he bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City, he sincerely believed that that action was the right thing to do. It seems overwhelmingly likely to me that he would have been convicted anyway, and I don't see the problem in that.

(The one defense that I can imagine coming out of your argument is an insanity defense--and I'd find that very interesting. Check out this site, describing the details of the most common American insanity standard, if that's the argument you want to make.)

Okay, conceded... But now that you've disposed of those fourteen words out of this fairly long thread, would you see your way clear to considering someone else's arguments? I suggest hinduwoman, Rhea, brighid, or Robert G. Ingersoll (the iidb poster, not the long-deceased author).

This is quite irrelevant, but winstonjen's comment, while arguably objectionable (because it's conclusory), is not hearsay. Hearsay is an out-of-court statement (with a few definitional exceptions) that is offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted.

winstonjen almost certainly based her conclusion on factual details of Teresa's life that she has read and heard about. If that's hearsay, then so is every statement you have ever made about anything that you've learned from books, documentary films, news reports, etc. I think you actually have a different objection in mind.

- Nathan