World Destruction!

Happy end of the world everyone!  Total annihilation never felt better.

I'm going to go get a drink now.  Perhaps toast Harold Camping on his next apocalyptic miscalculation.

Parsing Original Sin P. II

In part I of this essay, I concluded that I couldn't bring myself to believe the doctrine of original sin.  It is contradictory to hold that man is inherently evil, expect that he will be good by accepting the grace of God that his 'evilness' prevents him from receiving, and then consider him condemned for his inability to do the very thing he was predisposed not to be able to do.

From this it is argued that such a contradiction is resolved by God's enabling a person to receive his grace, for such is the nature of grace that it brings about what cannot be accomplished by a person's will.  To begin with then, a person is created predisposed against God's grace, but then by God's grace is favourably inclined to God again.  It should strike the reader as suspicious that God's initial activity toward his highest creation -- people -- is, as original sin shows, lowly and capricious: he sets the conditions by which to manipulate a person's will while declaring the most extreme results for the outcomes of his own manipulations.  That is if a person's original state of separation -- the one that he creates people in -- is not reconciled, that person is condemned eternally to hell.  If that same person is enabled by God's grace to reconcile to God, that person is eternally saved.

What is interesting to realise in this scenario is that despite the efforts of apologists to place a person's "eternal address" (Victor Hugo) on their own shoulders, people never had free choice to begin with.  For if it is true that people are born in original sin (that is, they have inherited an inclination to sin and evil), the their moral tendencies have already been weighted in a certain direction.  So saying, people are not so much freely choosing as they are struggling to beat the odds of a choice already made from them.  Thus the reason for Ayn Rand's words:

"A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality... Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with free will, but with a 'tendency' to evil.  A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice.  It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear the responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he has no power to escape.  If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice, he is not free."

People are either free or they are not.  A is A, and not ~A.  If people are free-willing creatures, then original sin is a damnable doctrine because it is unapologetically damaging to a sense of human wholeness.  If people are not free-willing creatures, the original sin makes God responsible for, and accountable to humanity's depredations; God would, in effect, be a devil.

All this talk about free will, however, begs definition.  In short, free will is the capacity of a conscious creature to choose between alternatives.  In a negative sense, if there are no alternatives, then no choice exists.  Add to that , that the notion of original sin implies the alternatives are morally laden; they are between the "knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2:17).

Since the alternatives within the doctrine of original sin are between those things we understand or perceive as 'good' and 'evil,' we are forced to conclude that having a knowledge of good and evil (i.e., having a moral awareness) is the essential sin in original sin.  Apologists would take umbrage with that assertion, citing instead that the original sin was the choice to do what God commanded them not to do: eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17).  But this does not advance their opposition at all because it fails to recognise that by making an alternative choice available (eat from the tree vs. do not eat from the tree), God had initiated the process of knowing good from evil, of having a moral choice.  So to command a prohibition from action, God had first to initiate a knowledge of good and evil in order to prohibit a knowledge of good and evil, which apparently eating from a forbidden tree would bring about.

Such a contradictory premise is hardly worthwhile to any thinking person: bring about an awareness of good and evil in order to prohibit an awareness of good and evil.  Not put too fine a point on it, but such utter and nonsensical (un)thinking is beneath human dignity and reasonableness.

One further point should serve to finish digging the grave for original sin: though man is guilty of making a choice to become morally aware, even though God's prohibition brought about that awareness (not the forbidden tree), the questioned doctrine ascribes the full weight of man's guilt to man.  It is worth asking the question at this point, "what is the nature of man's guilt?  That is, what is man guilty of?"  For the answer to that question, I quote Ayn Rand again:

"What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call his Original Sin?  What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection?  Their myth declares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge--he acquired a mind and became a rational being.  It was the knowledge of good and evil--he became a moral being.  He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor--he became a productive being.  He was sentenced to experience desire--he acquired the capacity of sexual enjoyment.  The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy--all the cardinal values of this existence."

Because man became morally aware, a rational being; because man became a creative and productive creature; because man learned of desire and sexual fulfilment, man was therefore damnable.  In other words, an understanding of the human condition and how to fulfil it is what made man worthy of hellfire.  Now, I ask you, does this doctrine sound like the inspirations of an ominpotent, omniscient, and all-good God?  Or does it sound like the evil and controlling manipulations of demented leaders who needed some way to enforce their religious headship over the masses?

Clearly the guilt man experience for his existence has nothing to do with an all-good God, and everything to do with a malicious psychological manipulation perpetrated on otherwise rational, good people in an effort to control their lives, and make them somehow obligated to a tyrranical system of bigoted piety.  To date, that doctrine has served its purpose well, but it is a doctrine that deserves a special place in the fictional hell it condemns people to.

38% of Americans Are Insane

What happened in Japan recently was terrible. The aftermath, and continued crisis is devastating. But is it "divine retribution," as one Japanese official put it? 38% of Americans seem to think so. So, with a well-deserved leap over the middle (the excluded one, that is), I have concluded that of those Americans polled, 38% of them are utterly insane.

What causes an earthquake is pretty basic: shifting of tectonic plates.  It is a natural occurence not needing divine prompting.  If God sees fit to dip his hand into the Sisyphean burden of pushing giant rocks, well then whatever.  Who's going to argue?  In the meanwhile, until we have some evidence of that reality, I'm content to take the operations of the planet on an evidentiary, naturalistic basis.  Because I'm not insane.

*Thank you Atheist Media Blog for this gem.

Family Guy on Religion and Violence

I normally don't care at all for Family Guy, an adult animated comedy that--I think--cheaply satirizes popular culture, and blitzes people with fast-paced one-liners and scene transitions in horribly irreverent ways.  Okay, admittedly, I do enjoy a little irreverent humour: for example, George Carlin, Ed Byrne, Keith Lowell Jensen, and Billy Connolly.  But from what I've seen of Family Guy, it's usually vapid and principally uncouth.

Enough of my assessments, however.  I just watched a 19-second clip from Family Guy that had me chuckling and chortling quite loudly.  And now I present it to you:

Obviously the video is not historically accurate.  It is an entertaining mockery of religious people's predilections to violence, though.

Thanks to Atheist Media Blog for tipping me off to this clip.

Defending Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais, comedian extrodinaire.

I haven't written an interactive snark-piece in quite a while.  I suppose I lost my enthusiasm for it and tried my hand at new forms of literary scrutiny.  Tonight I find myself somewhat riled and inspired to lay a curmudgeonly type-lashing to a one Josephine Vivaldo of the Christian Post.

Aside from being exceptionally poorly written, Vivaldo's comatic awareness of her subject material reads as an insult to her own intelligence.  But to spare you from my own nitpicky appraisals of Vivaldo's technical abilities, let's just jump right into the slaughter, shall we?

In her piece, Vivaldo has singled-out Ricky Gervais, a public atheist, brilliant comic, and first-class actor (see: Ghost Town, The Invention of Lying) who, during the Golden Globe Awards, made a playful remark:  "Thank you to God for making me an atheist."

Vivaldo's ignorant little scribble can't even be bothered to quote Gervais properly, let alone take the comedian's jibe in context:

"During the Golden Globe Awards, host and professed atheist Ricky Gervais said, “Thanks to God for making me an atheist,” but in an interview with Piers Morgan on CNN, he says he was not mocking Christians."

The conspicuous absence of the personal pronoun "you" in Gervais's joke let's us know that Vivaldo's reporting is lackadaisical at best.  I wouldn't usually take interest in such a triffling detail, but let's face it: Gervais's comment wasn't so long as to make missing words a strong possibility.  But then to cite Gervais's rebuttal to the ridiculous allegation that he was mocking Christians only shows that Vivaldo is pedaling mealy-mouthed tripe fed to her by other jaded, evangelical alarmists.

Half a second of thought would illuminate to Vivaldo and any of her like-minded and equally addled co-conspirators that Gervais was taking a playful poke at the untold scores of actors who, year after year, curry favour with the wider public by tossing out superficial homages to 'God'.  This fact is made startlingly clear when Vivaldo goes on to report that CNN reporter Piers Morgan challenged Gervais with a note on the American Christian population:

Morgan began by pointing out to the British comedian and actor that millions of Americans are in fact Christian and it seemed obvious that he was poking fun at that particular religion. In response Gervais negated the assumption of offending American Christians, especially when he personally doesn’t find it offensive when people say “thank God” all the time.

Notwithstanding the fact that the use of the word 'God' is not exclusive to Christians, it really doesn't help Morgan's case to make such blunders when Gervais openly admits that he doesn't find people's use of the phrase "thank God" in any way offensive.  This highlights a strange irony: the demand for religious tolerance is openly upheld as long as no-one is irreligious.

In North American countries, a Christian can careen headlong into a blowhard speech about evil, gay Teletubbies, or the insidious, creeping poison of condoms; and in doing so, write off a whole culture of people as godless, sinning, reprobates who will never be whole without their particular brand of Christianity, and the God they envision.  But because Ricky Gervais took a harmless poke at a customary exit quip made during celebrity galas ("thank God"), he must be mocking Christians, and should damn-well be dragged through the media's kangaroo court.

Having turned his pedestal upside-down so he can more assuredly stick to it, Morgan pressed the issue further by "rephrasing" his original question:

Morgan continued on by rephrasing his question and Gervais, 49, said “no no, I’m not mocking them, people’s beliefs aren’t my concern at all, I certainly don’t differentiate religions either, I look at all religions the same, unlike religious people I look at all religions equally.”

American Christian Jesus

Gervais's response further emphasizes my point that the amorphous title 'God' is not the exclusive property of Christians, much less "American Christians" (as if their nationality makes their spirituality somehow a purer pedigree).  The fact that Gervais considers all supernatural views as part of a homogenous batter called 'religion' rips the stuffing right out of Morgan's juvenile insistence, and any other puerile attempts at directing Gervais's remark to any specific religion at all.  And good for Gervais for pointing out that segregating between religions is the practice of religions, not the areligious.

Gervais also pointed out that the religious don't have a monopoly on what is 'good', and that,

“Some people say who says what good is but you know what I say ‘I do’ I’m good to people because it’s the way I want to be treated and I don’t believe I’ll be rewarded in heaven, I will be rewarded now.”

Despite the awkward wording of Gervais's remark, he brings up a good point: what is 'good' is not good because certain people, or religions say it is.  What is good is 'good' on its own, and if you practice those things that are evidentially good (e.g., treating people the way you'd like to be treated), then that goodness will be its own reward now.  If you're religious, you may also believe that you'll have some kind of reward for your present goodness when you're in heaven.  But the point remains that by practicing what is evidentially good now, that goodness will be rewarded or enjoyed now, in the present.

Not to be undone too easily, however, Morgan moved on to suggest that atheists, in their dotage, must feel a sense of waste if this life is all they have.

Morgan expressed his sentiment about how “the problem for atheist it must be doom and gloom when you get to like at 70 or 80, to think that’s it, that’s the end of everything, so you must fear death ten times more than Christians”.

Morgan's intensely ignorant segue, notwithstanding, Gervais responded eloquently by noting that there are many different conceptions of 'God' and that, by implication, if the aggregate number of gods in the world has still not reasonably assured people of their present and future states, why should anyone think atheism is on the deficient end of the spectrum?  Says Gervais:

“I can’t help what I believe anymore than you can, it’s up to you what you believe in. This thing about not believing in God, there are 2,780-odd gods, and if you’re a Christian you believe in one of them and you don't believe in all the others.”

Far from being a "dispute" as Vivaldo mislabelled it, the exchange was a simple exchange between two people with contrasting points of view.  Gervais, I think, came out on top of the intelligible end of things.  And as far as I'm concerned, reviewing Gervais as a tasteless air-pounder with a preachment up his sleeve is the kind of moronic ignorance Morgan and Vivaldo should be repenting of.  Gervias was who he is: a comedian with an observation and ironic comment to make, not to Christians in specific, but for the sole purpose of a joke.  Besides, if celebrities can rig galas for the singular focus of "roasting" each other, why should Gervais be harangued for telling a joke when that is what he was specifically employed to do?

Having Their Cake And Eating It, Too

I don't really know anymore if it is morally acceptable for me to pick on such unwitting targets.  However, the Catholic Church really does provide a limitless storehouse of stupidity to whittle away at.  For example, I just learned that the Catholic Church has listed the "attempted ordination of women" amongst their roster of horribly horrible crimes.

The Catholic News Service notes that,

the "attempted ordination of women" will be listed among those crimes, as a serious violation of the sacrament of holy orders, informed sources said. As such, it will be handled under the procedures set up for investigating "delicta graviora" under the control of the doctrinal congregation.

And let's not forget that the delicta graviora is also the same description pinned to such base crimes as "sexual abuse."  So, while it is that the Catholic Church and I can agree that there are a good many actions and states that are horribly immoral, we certainly must part ways when it comes to whether a woman can chant the mass and preach a sermon.  And just for those technically-minded Catholics out there, we can still part ways on whether it is immoral to give a spiritual appointment (ordination) that sets a woman up as an authority in the assemblies of God.  Because while I really see no problem with dashing the hopes of an oudated and repressive patriarchy, those technically-minded Catholic parrots who just put-up with whatever's tossed at them are just as immoral, in my mind, as those people who are actually committing crimes against humanity.

How?  They've decided to jettison their reason in favour of allowing someone else -- namely the pope and his posse of misogynistic cronies -- determine their morality in opposition to observable reality.  In general, this sort of misguided acceptance of a single ruler's decrees is understood as a dictatorship, which most of the world considers immoral and inhumane.  But as long as suppressing and oppressing women is considered acceptable because such actions are declared under the banner of a "religion", then it's fine.  Because once religion is appended to a dictatorship, what is instinctively understood to be really fucking evil, is suddenly moral.

To sum:

1. The Catholic Church and I agree that sexual abuse is wrong, even evil;
2. The Catholic Church and I strongly disagree that attempting to ordain women is just as evil as other crimes against humanity.

Mind you, as an independent entity, Catholics can set up their own rules for self-governance and internal expectations, and women wanting to become priests really ought to look elsewhere.  But when the threat of damnation is extended to people who are not part of "the true Church", why would a sincere believing woman who has all the giftings of a priest not want to be a Catholic priest?  If by not being a Catholic you risk your salvation, then an intensely devout woman who wants to be a priest has to make the decision: forget her dreams and self-identified personhood, or risk her soul.  So, essentially, the priestly woman is damned if she does, and damned if she doesn't.  Looks like the Catholics can have their cake and eat it, too.

But don't worry: that same woman can just go home and have 12 babies, like a good little Catholic.  She can be "saved through childbearing" (1 Tim. 2:15).  You know, where she can find true fulfillment.

Here's another source on the same issue.

Muzzle the Man, Please

Darth Benedict, head of the Catholic Empire, has used his force to publish a book.  Again.  This time, in Light of the World, one of the topics he tackles is the subject of condom use -- something he and his other spindly-fingered, virgin Sith Lords know a lot about.  I suppose when we want advice, we're all be beholden to the experts, right?

Anyway, Catholicism's chief mouth-breather has announced it to the Empire, and to the scattered remnants of the Rebel Alliance (i.e., Protestants and Non-Catholics alike) that people can hereby use condoms in exceptional circumstances; e.g., if you're going to have sex with a male prostitute.  Or perhaps he should add "if you're going to have sex with a priest."

In any case, people are going to hit the sheets.  There's no exception to that reality.  So, just what kind of "exceptional circumstance" warrants capping one's John-Thomas?  Why, if one's John-Thomas is going to potentially threaten the life of another, of course!  But if you just want to have an hour well-spent with your partner, and not be given over 9 months later to an 18-20 year responsibility, well that's just wrong, evil, sinful, and damnably ungodly.

So are condoms valid in AIDS-riven Africa?

"The Pope made clear in his view condoms were no answer to the Aids pandemic."

So there you have it, commmoners, Darth Benedict has indicated that despite the exceptional circumstances of sexually transmitted diseases that will kill you, they are not the kind of exceptional circumstances that warrant a latex moment. But if you're an African male prostitute, perhaps with AIDS, well that's fine. Go ahead. It's exceptional only when it's exceptional, and not all exceptions are the same. Excepting exceptional circumstances, your circumstances are only exceptional if they're exceptionally exceptional. Then you can put a cap on it. But don't do it if you're just out for some fun. That would make you an evildoer.

Religious Oppression

PZ Myers is usually a little too terse for my tastes, but I found myself really enjoying this particular article.

Caveat: If your religious beliefs are sensitive and delicate, read at your own risk. You have been warned.

Belting Ford In The Head

A little over a week ago, I picked up a copy of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) magazine called, Acts & Facts (v. 38, no. 5, May 2009). I was interested in finding out what is being said at the forefront of evangelical culture as regards evolution, that maniacally controversial hypothesis.

The opening article was a letter from the editor, Lawrence E. Ford, called “Time to Tighten Our Belt”. Ford's premise is that religion and politics have strayed from the conservatism of yesteryears. He disparages of the reality that in Texas, the 'buckle' of the Bible Belt, Christians have become more liberal. Ford identifies this drift away from religious and political conservatism as “battles raging against truth,” the antidote to which is to have a “commitment to truth – uncompromising biblical truth.”

And just what are these battles “raging against truth”? First, Ford states that Christians are accepting a diluted worldview that is a result of how scripture is read and interpreted. But that speculation stops with a deferal to Dr. Henry Morris III who has furnished Acts & Facts with an article dealing with the “Conflicts Between Text and Theology”. Morris's ½ page précis of classic Christian hermeneutics does nothing to validate Ford's deferal; it clarifies even less. What Morris's article does do, however, is admit that, “Interpretation places a filter on the words of Scripture so that one can 'rightly divide' (according to one's theology)” [italics mine].

So when Morris's article is taken alongside Ford's concern for the dilution of the biblical worldview in Christian culture today, we are left with two results: the interpretation of scripture is necessarily a free act done by individuals, which warrants liberalism in religion and politics; and, a justification to pick freely which side of the battle one will fight on. For if scriptural interpretation is a free act that every individual can do, then the interpretation that individual accepts may, or may not bolster the cause of evangelicals for or against evolution.

Second, Ford identifies the nature of 'science' as another battle. Says Ford, “'Science' is the critical word in this fight. Who has the right to define science and how it should be conducted and taught?” At this point, Ford unwittingly reinforces Sam Harris's crucial point that there is a “social disorder, a conversational disorder” between religionists and secularists. There will necessarily have to be disagreement on the scope and definition of certain fields of study like 'science' if the starting points of meaning are fundamentally opposed. Science does not start with religious assumptions; religion does not start with scientific assumptions. So saying, secularists are not beholden to religious definitions of science, nor are religionists bound to secularist definitions of science.

This really should come as no surprise to Ford, since he more than likely swears by a certain denominational creed. At the same time, he probably tips his hat in a warm and loving hypocritical nod to other Christian traditions not his own. Ford begins his religious definitions with the assumption that his current loyalties are correct and – in true missionary fashion – other's religious convictions are either incorrect, or somehow misguided. The point is that Ford has a different definition for his religion than others of the same faith. How much more the difference in definition between the religious and non-religious?

To see this as a battle, however, is really just blustering and propagandism. Ford has deliberately used the word 'battle' to muster the emotions of his religious cohorts and “spur [them] on to love and good deeds” (Heb. 10:24). By trumpetting out the battle-cry, as it were, Ford has bypassed the human intellect and relied solely on the reactionary emotionalism of others sympathetic to his cause. Ford does his readers a great disservice at this point by rendering conversation mute; who can levy definitions when they're too busy shouting to listen? How are secularists and religionists going to come to a place of agreement, even on such paltry items as definitions, if at least one of the two camps is stuffing the air with empty-headed emotionalism?

Nevertheless, Ford's blowhard rhetoric does put his point across, even if that point is blunt and ineffectual: Christians need to counter the claims of the non-religious scientists. There is no point of contact between creationists and evolutionists, and the sooner evolutionists admit their dunderheadedness the sooner we can get on with some real 'science'. You know, the kind of science that starts with a literal reading of Genesis, that doesn't blush at the notion of talking snakes, and willingly accepts that the earth only appears to be old, but it's actually young. The kind of science that betrays its own principles of verification by faithfully accepting a non-empirical god who currates the minutiae of the universe. The kind of science that disregards what is relentlessly provable (in this case, evolution) in favour of speculative gaps (i.e., intelligent design). The kind of science that is, in fact, religion.

Despite Ford's congenial triumphalism, his shameless plugs for ICR would read just as disingenuously if he were editing Skeptic Magazine. The fact of the matter is that Ford's whole premise rests on his presumption, nay, his faith that his religious perspectives are more science-minded than that of non-religious scientists. Because he can double-distill his scientific knowledge through his religion and his position as a spin-doctor/editor, he thinks he can afford the luxury of writing as though the irreligious are a pack of petulant bias-mongers out to stunt and stilt human growth. It does seem somewhat non compos mentus, however, to believe that evolutionists are out to harm or destroy the intellectual health of our species, when the whole point of their publications is to illuminate about the mechanisms of health and survival.

This point is lost on Ford, unfortunately. He's not interested in intellectual expansion, or socio-philosophical health and survival; he's interested in preserving his campy religious ideologies, receiving blind support from the emotionally volitile, and waging a war against evolutionists. He's interested in survival at any cost. Which is funny, overall, since that's exactly what the people he's fighting against are trying to teach, and what he's actively denying.

Arresting the Pope: Good

Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are planning on arresting the pope. Here is the article.

Good!

He should be arrested. Anyone else doing what he's done would be charged with conspiring, and aiding and enabling criminal activity. Oh, but because he's religious, he's beyond justice. *cough, cough* Bullshit!

Ratzinger's Plausible Deniability Is Bunk

Apparently the pope needs no defense: he's clean, he's without stain, and he never involved himself in the alleged cover-up of child-raping priests. Everybody should be slapped on the hand for even thinking that Ratzinger might have something to do with protecting deviant priests, and the image of the church. Afterall, that reporter shouldn't have been so insidiously rebellious to question the authority of a leader he has no allegiance to. He deserved that slap. We should all practice assault when we don't like how questions make us feel, or when they show up our hyporcisy.

On the other side of papal obstructions to justice, the Vatican has offered three reasons why it isn't liable for the abuses thousands of its faithful have endured over the past 50 years:

1. As the head of the Vatican, a city-state, the pope has immunity;
2. American bishops who abused thousands of wee uns weren't actually employed by the Vatican;
3. The 1962 document Crimen Sollicitationis does not provide proof of a cover-up.

Perhaps I'm out of my depth making comments on international politics and their interface with religious powers and power-mongers (e.g., the pope). So be it. But it does seem a matter of practical logic, to me, that if crimes are committed internationally, by priests of various nationalities, and who all happen to trace their legal fiat back to a single religio-political entity called The Vatican, that perhaps that single religio-political entity and the person who oversees it should be made accountable for the actions of the people he is claiming sovereignty over.

When Saddam Hussein slaughtered the Kurdish people, his immunity as head of the Iraqi state wasn't worth spit. On December 30th, 2006, Hussein was executed for his crimes against humanity. I'm certainly not calling for the exectution of the pope, not by any means. However, I am concerned that the pope's factual involvement in protecting the image of Catholicism, and the offices of the priests under him, amounts to nothing more than a chance for Ratzinger to plead plausible deniability on the world stage.

Let him deny it, if he dares. But to then move on and say that the bishops involved in covering up the actions of lecherous priests were not actually employed by the Vatican is a clear-cut case of four-square stupidity. If they weren't employed by the Vatican, they wouldn't have been acting in their offices. There wouldn't be any question of their alleged cover-ups because they wouldn't have been Catholic bishops. How fucking stupid do they really think the observing public is? The medieval period is over, Ratzinger. We're not baffled by ecclesial Latin anymore, and you certainly can't moonshine us any longer by suddenly changing the story and preying on our illiteracy.

Still, Crimen Sollicitationis is not proof of a cover-up. I'll quote the document, and you be the judge about whether it is a blatant attempt to keep sexual crimes secret, or just an exercise in fancy rhetoric.

"As, assuredly, what must be mainly taken care of and complied with in handling these trials is that they be managed with maximum confidentiality and after the verdict is declared and put into effect never be mentioned again (20 February 1867 Instruction of the Holy Office, 14), each and every person, who in any way belongs to the tribunal or is given knowledge of the matter because of their office, is obliged to keep inviolate the strictest secrecy (what is commonly called "the secrecy of the Holy Office") in all things and with all persons, under pain of automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication, incurred ipso facto without need of any declaration other than the present one, and reserved to the Supreme Pontiff in person alone, excluding even the Apostolic Penitentiary."

To end this article, I would like to draw your attention to the words of Christopher Hitchens, who wrote the following on March 29th, 2010. I echo his sentiments, and could not have phrased them any better.

"This is what makes the scandal an institutional one and not a matter of delinquency here and there. The church needs and wants control of the very young and asks their parents to entrust their children to certain "confessors," who until recently enjoyed enormous prestige and immunity. It cannot afford to admit that many of these confessors, and their superiors, are calcified sadists who cannot believe their luck. Nor can it afford to admit that the church regularly abandoned the children and did its best to protect and sometimes even promote their tormentors. So instead it is whiningly and falsely asserting that all charges against the pope—none of them surfacing except from within the Catholic community—are part of a plan to embarrass him.

This hasn't been true so far, but it ought to be true from now on. This grisly little man is not above or outside the law. He is the titular head of a small state. We know more and more of the names of the children who were victims and of the pederasts who were his pets. This is a crime under any law (as well as a sin), and crime demands not sickly private ceremonies of "repentance," or faux compensation by means of church-financed payoffs, but justice and punishment. The secular authorities have been feeble for too long but now some lawyers and prosecutors are starting to bestir themselves. I know some serious men of law who are discussing what to do if Benedict tries to make his proposed visit to Britain in the fall. It's enough. There has to be a reckoning, and it should start now."

Step Down Ratzinger

More needs to be said about the current scandals attending the Catholic Church. But saying more is difficult when the lasting effect of such moral depravity is to be slackjawed and shocked. Keeping close to developments is impossible, since the scandals are widening relentlessly across Europe, and sources are turning out information at an alarming pace.

Most recently, the pope has issued an apology to Irish victims of clergy-enforced sexual abuse. The contents of the letter certainly do make note of the fact that abuse has happened, and that it is terrible that such a reality exists. Says Ratzinger (I now refuse to call him by his self-decided honorific name):

Like yourselves, I have been deeply disturbed by the information which has come to light regarding the abuse of children and vulnerable young people by members of the Church in Ireland, particularly by priests and religious.

I would be remiss to suggest that Ratzinger is not sincere in his lamentations but for one peculiar quibble: he is directly reponsible for the reason why the disturbing information regarding child-rape is only now coming to light.

Within the matrix of Catholicism, priests and bishops who make grave offenses against the public are to be tried infront of a church tribunal. That tribunal is sworn to the strictest secrecy upon threat of excommunication if any of the tribunal leaks information regarding offending clergy (see, Crimen Sollicitationis).

As, assuredly, what must be mainly taken care of and complied with in handling these trials is that they be managed with maximum confidentiality and after the verdict is declared and put into effect never be mentioned again (20 February 1867 Instruction of the Holy Office, 14), each and every person, who in any way belongs to the tribunal or is given knowledge of the matter because of their office, is obliged to keep inviolate the strictest secrecy (what is commonly called "the secrecy of the Holy Office") in all things and with all persons, under pain of automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication...

Crimen Sollicitationis received backing by Ratzinger in 2001, and was, in fact, enforced by Ratzinger for 20 years prior to his election to pope in 2005. Confidentiality itself is not bad conduct, but when it is used as a control mechanism -- as Ratzinger, in fact, has used it -- to suppress the goings-on of serial abusers, to cover-up mortal crimes, and divert the attention of the public away from alleged abusers, one has to call into question the actual purpose of that confidentiality.

Says Father Tom Doyle, Canon Lawyer, in a BBC Documenary, Sex Crimes and the Vatican,

Crimen sollicitationis is indicative of a world-wide policy of absolute secrecy and control of all cases of sexual abuse by the clergy. But what you really have here is an explicit written policy to cover up cases of child sexual abuse by the clergy, to punish those who would call attention to these crimes by churchmen. You've got a written policy that says the Vatican will control these situations, and you also have, I think, clear written evidence of the fact that all they're concerned about is containing and controlling the problem. Nowhere in any of these documents does it say anything about helping the victims. The only thing it does is say that they can impose fear on the victims, and punish the victims, for discussing or disclosing what had happened to them.

Indeed, Ratzinger has consciously orchestrated the scandal he is now the centerpiece of: by enforcing crimen sollicitationis, priests and bishops have stood with toothy grins in front of a 'holy' tribunal and, at worst, come away defrocked, but more likely scuttled-off to another parish with full access to children (future victims).

Given Ratzinger's 'disturbance' that the crimes he fought so desperately to keep secret are now in the public eye, I wholeheartedly reject his milquetoast apology, and call on him to step down. Nevermind the juridical reign of the Roman bishop, the in-office-'till-death mentality; have the moral fortitude to resign your office and be done with your hypocritical charade. Prove you have some quality left in you by removing yourself from 'supreme authority' over the church, and standing trial in a secular court for your brazen obstructions of justice, and your intentional use of truth-suppression and diversionary tactics.

Christopher Hitchens, reporting on this issue once again in his recent article Tear Down That Wall, states,

Pope Benedict's pathetic and euphemistic letter to his "flock" in Ireland doesn't even propose that such people should lose their positions in the church. And this cowardly guardedness on his part is for a good and sufficient reason: If there was to be a serious criminal investigation, it would have to depose the pope himself.

So while the fact remains that all of this abuse has happened, an equally disturbing fact has surfaced: the "vicar of Christ on earth", the pope himself has led a charge into purposeful lying, deceit, and evasion. If we were to remove the religious motif from this scandal just for the purpose of speculation, what do we think would be the result of these abuses and cover-ups in the real world? Trials would be held, people would be jailed, recompense (if that is even possible given the nature of the crime) would be levied, and in some places the criminals might even be executed.

But because the criminals are dyed-in-the-wool clergy, they can somehow claim religious immunity and be insulated from the world courts. This alone is criminal, and should be loudly protested. The pope's letter is a disgrace. I don't think I'm alone in suggesting that the only way any of this can get better is if the pope relieves himself of his office, and the entire system of Catholicism itself gasps its last breath.

The Pope, the Gates of Hell, and Useless Apologies

The devil's in the Vatican. Paedophile priests. A history of ambiguous relations to some of the most despotic and villainous leaders of all time (Hitler and Pius XII, for example). Residential schools. Witch-hunts. The selling of Indulgences to Europe's poor to facilitate the building of St. Peter's basillica. The Inquisition. Sociopathic Popes more inclined to murder and rape than teach doctrines of love and charity. Cover-ups and scandals heaped on cover-ups and scandals.

All of these things and more coming out of a church that claims a laughable duology of doctrines that it is the "one true church", and that "the gates of hell will not prevail against [it]". Assuming Catholic claims are true that it is the 'one true church', it would seem stupidly obvious that hell has not needed to prevail against its gates: hell has been rather successfully living itself out within the church for quite a while now. If there's to be any gate crashing, let's hope it will eventually be by an internal movement to get the hell out.

Fortunately, there has been a recent spate of sex abuse scandals in Europe that expose the current pope's collusions and cover-ups, and a rather wide ring of child-raping priests. The current pope, Benedict XVI (formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and oft-named Pope Palpatine) has, for a long time now, been indisputably involved in not only shuffling off psychopathic priests, but also shuffling off the justice that should be visited upon them.

As Johann Hari reports:

Far from changing this paedophile-protecting model, Ratzinger reinforced it. In 2001 he issued a strict secret order demanding that charges of child-rape should be investigated by the Church "in the most secretive way... restrained by a perpetual silence... and everyone... is to observe the strictest secret."

It doesn't stop there, however. As Christopher Hitchens points out in his article The Great Catholic Cover-Up

The accusations, intoned Ratzinger, were only treatable within the church's own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. Charges were to be investigated "in the most secretive way ... restrained by a perpetual silence ... and everyone ... is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office … under the penalty of excommunication." (My italics). Nobody has yet been excommunicated for the rape and torture of children, but exposing the offense could get you into serious trouble. And this is the church that warns us against moral relativism! (See, for more on this appalling document, two reports in the London Observer of April 24, 2005, by Jamie Doward.)

It would be fair of a Catholic apologete to question my sources. Both Hari and Hitchens are, admittedly, atheists. However, given the history of Catholic deceptions, and the urgent spot Catholics find themselves in at present, I have no reason to trust Catholic sources at all. Too much is at stake, and their practice of moonshining the public about their moral turpitude gives them all the more reason to diminish the impact of the situation through sophistry, and doublespeak (e.g., the Catholic church never errs in matters of faith and morals).

And the fact that Benedict XVI has delivered an apology to Ireland's abused today (March 20th, 2010) does nothing more to ameliorate the problem than an abusing husband's repeated apologies for kicking the shit out of his wife: the offense is still alive, and will likely continue to happen. Why? Because it's not the fact that paedophile priests exist in the clergy of the Catholic church that is the greatest concern -- though it is certainly an incredibly important concern. The reason why these kinds of offenses will continue is because the system of the Catholic church that enables and harbours paedophile priests is not likely to change. That, to me, is the greatest scandal in all of this: that there is no way to get rid of the abuse problem unless the Catholic system dissolves itself, a reality we know will not happen, but we'd all be better off with if it did.

IQ, Education, Scepticism and Religion

Skewing statistics is easy: choose a sample group, survey them, determine percentages, and then use those percentages to state a universal about the population at large. In logic it's known as a hasty generalization. In statistics, it's common practice. Its purpose? To connote the goings-on of our surrounding culture(s).

Unfortunately, those kinds of inductions are, generally speaking, far from accurate. For example, it is not uncommon for some sceptics to argue they have superior IQs to the religious-minded. Ad hominem aside, belief in the relevance of IQ is certainly a topic of increasing interest.

Which brings us to the next plausible progression in the intellectual culture wars between atheism and religiosity: what is the correlation between faith/disbelief and education? This article suggests there is no direct link between atheism and education. I'm inclined to agree; you?

I wonder if Richard Dawkins has any 'cranes' to help elevate our understanding of this issue? Was that harsh? Good. It was meant to be.

Anti-Facebook

I deactivated my Facebook account a couple of weeks ago. The reason: I find it to be an inexcusable waste of time. When I mentioned deactivating my account with Facebook to a friend of mine, he said, "Good! I was going to tell you to get off that thing. It's addictive. It's like crack cocaine. Besides that, you were being too conformist being on there."

Aside from the wry chuckle I enjoyed at his comments, I found his perspective on Facebook insightful: it's addictive, and it promotes conformity.

First, let's look at some behavioural characteristics of addiction.

1. Obsession - person cannot stop thinking about an activity.
2. Relentless Pursuit - person will engage in activity even to the detriment of his/her physical and psycho-social well being.
3. Compulsiveness - person will engage in an activity despite not wanting to, and finds it difficult to stop.
4. Withdrawal - once the addictive activity is stopped, person becomes irrational, irritable, depressed, restless.
5. Lack of Perception of Time - person cannot control how long, when, or how much s/he will engage in an activity.
6. Denial - person cannot, and will not accept that s/he has an irrational attachment to an activity, even despite the negative effects.
7. Covert-Ops - person hides his/her activity from friends, family, and concerned individuals.
8. Blackouts - person simply blanks-out during activity, which results in a lack of recall about what went on during addictive activity.
9. Depression - person experiences depressed states surrounding, and even during activity.
10. Poor Self-Esteem - person deals with personal anxieties and low self-esteem issues by "filling in their lack", as it were, with an addictive activity.

As a loose gauge for my own participation with Facebook, this list shows me that I fit at least 7, possibly 8 of the characteristics usually associated with addictive behaviours. As a family man, and a man with a conscience, I find that unacceptable. So, for this reason alone, I shut down Facebook.

Now, just so we're clear, I am not blaming Facebook for my problems. I am solely responsible for how I attend to an activity, how much time I spend doing it, and in what manner. Facebook itself is simply a computer application and has nothing to do with my addiction to it. But, as a vehicle for part of my social life, I cannot trust myself to use Facebook anymore because I was not able to control myself around it. Also, because I was allowing my time on Facebook to interfere with my family, my real-life relationships were starting to break down. So, for me, having parrotted the common sentiment that I would "take a bullet" for my family if I had to, why would I allow myself to shoot my loved one's down with an inordinate compulsion toward Facebook?

The answer to the rhetorical question above is an easy, "I wouldn't." But I did. And I did so unintentionally, and to my shame. But even unintentionally having hurt my family because of my own addictive behaviours surrounding Facebook, the result is the same: my family was hurt. Intentionality does not exhonerate me from the pain my family has felt this past while. My work is ahead of me; I have a lot of wounds to heal.

Coming at this from a different, more 'academic' angle, however, there is a certain conformity proffered in applications like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, et al. That is, applications such as the ones listed dole-up a common denominator people can easily access and use. The fact that applications like these offer the same basic templates for social interaction, aesthetics, and mindless pursuits (e.g., Farmville) now strikes me as a little creepy. I don't ascribe anything apocalyptic to it, but the fact that there is a definite sense of sameness across the board comes across a little Hux-Wellian.

Facebook is a little like a prototype for the 'Feelies' so excellently imagined in Huxley's Brave New World: slip into a virtual reality where everything surrounding you is a template for homogeneity, and predictability. The best part about it is that you don't actually have to carry on a real relationship with a real person. You can simply 'Add' and 'Delete' on a whim, and at will.

At the same time, Facebook is also a little like Big Brother. Mind you, the government is not prescribing Facebook as a means of mass-control, so the comparison is very loose. Still, people are screened for jobs by employers looking up Facebook accounts. Corporations actively monitor people's use of Facebook to keep an eye on the corporate reputation. Facebook does not protect your privacy, but instead, allows your information to be readily accessible to marketters (data-mining), industries, government, etc. It is a wonderful vehicle for corporate voyeurism (ever wonder why your stuff is hyperlinked without you having hyperlinked your information?). It is not quite Big Brother, but it is like having Big Brothers.

Facebook promotes uniformity not in people's ontology, but in people's expressions. That is, you don't stop being who you are by using Facebook, but you begin to alter how you express yourself to fit the mold offered. Eventually, this will impact who a person is. The same principle is illustrated in a positive light in the movie Patch Adams: if you change the conditions, or parameters of a persons environment, you affect their response. This in turn affects who the person is on a fundamental level. Seeing as Facebook is generally a breeding ground for poor grammar, thoughtless banter, useless games and quizzes, ambivalent attachments, and techonological distancing (i.e., moral ambivalence via technology), it shouldn't come as a surprise when people start communicating in real life as they do on Facebook. I imagine conversations would sound like Valspeak, but less eloquent.

I refuse that measure of conformity. I refuse that common denominator, which, as I see it, will continue to get lower and lower as the phenomenon of social-networking applications trim out the fat of human-to-human contact, and unwittingly inject us with the narcotics of virtual reality, and pseudo-relationships. I will not follow suit any longer. I am officially anti-Facebook.

The Never Erring Story P. III

Apparently Gregory finds my posts on Catholic doctrine to be misguided, and not worth his time until I correctly define the doctrines I'm contending with. At the same time, in poor debate form, Gregory offers no definitions of his own, so, in some crude, horizontal twist of ultramontanism, I'm supposed to just believe him because he said so. How very Catholic.

More, it seems that Gregory thinks my wife, Imogen, is a voice-piece for my concerns: "Since she decided to weigh in on our discussion, I assumed you two must be working as a unit, and the adjective ['vitriol'] applied on both sides." Still, Gregory did "apologise" if this is not the case. But I can't help thinking that the maxim 'too little too late' applies nicely here. For why would Gregory even assume that my wife and I are incapable of thinking apart from each other? What measure of presumption leads a person to such a conclusion? And after admitting that he "...didn't have time to read all the way through. Read enough to get annoyed again, though", too! Fine measuring stick, Gregory: get annoyed at an article you haven't fully read, assume later that my wife and I are occupying the same voice, and then mete out a response? Poor form, my friend. Poor form.

Let me be clear about Imogen's position, since you seem not to have understood from her writings themselves: she quite literally does not care what definitions Catholicism wants to place on notions of impeccability, inerrancy, infallibility. That's her last concern, if it even is at all. She is not, never has been, and does not foresee ever being a Catholic, so she is not bound to whatever spin Catholicism wants to place on the words they choose.

What Imogen is concerned with is the lived-out reality of the Catholic Church, the people it effects, and the fact that billions of people are held in sway under a superstructure that enforces manditory beliefs. She's concerned about the intellectual tyranny of Catholicism, to put it in brief. She's concerned that the Catholic Magisterium finds it a viable line of thinking to set out statements that are not only binding on 1.1 billion believers, but that there seems to be no recognition that in the face of 5.6 billion other people there may be a chance that Catholicism could have missed some understanding while it prattles endlessly about its absolutist doctrines.

What I am concerned about is the fact that no matter how much the Catholic church is brought to task by concerned parties, if they are non-Catholics, they apparently don't understand. I'm sure that's probably true in a number of cases. However, I am equally sure it is not the case for everyone who has what they perceive as legitimate concerns.

This is where I charge Catholics, loosely, with gnosticism. To be clear, however, Catholics are not one of the historical groups of Gnostics. Catholics practice gnosticism by being a self-selected group that deny understanding to non-Catholics to the point that they are willing to assert that they have "the fulness of the faith", the "one true faith." The formal implications, of course, being that all other non-Catholics are somehow deficient, under the captivity of lies, or unable to enjoy the same richness of faith and understanding unless somehow initiated (e.g., R.C.I.A.) into the rank-and-file of Catholics.

Nevermind that other churches are considered 'valid' (as if that hat-tipping concession really means anything useful at all); they are not as elevated, as close to God, as 'full' or 'near to the truth' as Catholics are. What kind of neurotic hubris goes before such snobbish bullshit, anyway? "Yes, you're Christians. But you're not as high a quality Christian as you would be if you bore the indelible stamp of our papally approved doctrines."

Nevertheless, from the time I started debating with Catholics, I've never witnessed a case where the non-Catholic is validated as understanding this-or-that Catholic proposition. As soon as a Catholic is pushed into a corner by force of another's concerns, the old Catholic stand-by is "you don't understand; your definitions are wrong; you can't understand because you're not Catholic." In other words, I'm concerned that the rampant in-group/out-group mentality of the Catholic Church is belief by social pressure, not necessarily by a clear conscience and a willing conviciton.

More, the fact that Catholic beliefs are conscripted renders the beliefs of Catholics largely "belief in belief", to borrow Daniel C. Dennett's term. I'm sure many Catholics sincerely believe Jesus was real, that he rose from the dead, and all that basic dogma. However, enforcing much more than that (e.g., the assumption of Mary, Extra Ecclesium nulla salus, The Communion of the Saints, et al.) is a coercion of belief. That is, a Catholic cannot truly be Catholic unless s/he willingly takes on the convictions of a brace of dead people that declared this-that-or-another proposition true because they believed it (i.e., Tradition). This degenerative reasoning process is, as I've pointed out before, performative logic (what is said constitutes the thing referred to; or, what is said becomes its own proof, or point of reference).

So, the first and most important error in Catholicism is not that it declares certain of its doctrines free of error, but that it conscripts belief from a largely naive population of well-meaning Christians. The second error is that one of those conscripted beliefs is that Catholics are to believe in the belief that the Catholic Church never errs in matters of faith and morals. That, properly speaking, is not belief, but propaganda and pretence.

Of course, people are free to not become Catholics (now) but they are still considered second-class Christians, which is the third error in the teachings of Catholicism, and it effectively equals bigotry. The same charge of bigotry can be levelled against almost all Christian denominations, so Catholicism is, in this instance, not uniquely isolated. However, Catholicism makes it a point to absolve itself of this error by immodestly claiming its inerrancy in matters of faith and morals, so it opens itself up to freethinking criticism, and cannot escape the attention given to this issue no matter how proficient it is at back-pedaling, splitting hairs, and jumping between literal and figurative meanings when it suits its interests, or serves its purposes.

Yes, we can modify the statement "without errors in matters of faith and morals" to read, as Ed suggested, "The Catholic Church has never, can never, and will never err in HER OFFICIAL TEACHING ON matters pertaining to faith and morals," but that does next to nothing to alleviate the spuriousness of such a claim. As Ed continued to note, the Catholic Church considers certain teachings to have a special status. But so what? So they are claimed to have a special status. This simply implies the notion of a hierarchy of truths in Catholicism, which is purely notional and not demonstrable as actual.

And the fact that truths are ranked by some pre-determined levels of certainty (hierarchy of truths) requires that the stated case that there is a hierarchy of truth would form the ultimate truth about truth, the ultimate certainty about certainty. That is another reason for that particular teaching to be held in suspicion: truths of that magnitude, that is, truths that are so truly true that they are undeniable would be self-evident, one might reasonably assume. Kind of like noting that everyone dies: it's simply obvious and undeniable. The immaculate conception of Mary? Not so much. It's simply propositional, and then somewhere along the line of Catholic hermeneutic convolutions it becomes performative. I don't buy that kind of rigorous nonsense, no matter how neatly packaged in fancy rhetoric it is.

Which brings us back to Gregory's desire for me to define the terms I take difference with: impeccability and infallibility. And unless I use the Catholic doctrinal definitions, what I have to say is not worth his time. Why? Because unless I do that, I am apparently setting up a straw man argument. Very well then, here are your church's definitions:

1. Infallibility: "In general, exemption or immunity from liability to error or failure; in particular in theological usage, the supernatural prerogative by which the Church of Christ is, by a special Divine assistance, preserved from liability to error in her definitive dogmatic teaching regarding matters of faith and morals."
   
2. Impeccability: On this point, I admit that I confused infallibility with impeccability (sinlessness) when I was criticizing the errors of the Catholic church, even after I made note that they are often confused. I suppose that is a truth now proved. What is more, I cannot find any reliable sources (at this point) that lay out a concise Catholic definition of impeccability. So, I offer Wikipedia's definition.

Nevertheless, my contentions about the claim that the "Catholic Church, in her official teachings, has never, can never, and will never err" remain. Especially concerning "can never" and "will never", for unless such sophistry is divine prophesy, the Catholic church simply has no place to spout such trumpery.

What is more, I reject and utterly refuse the notion of impeccability being a quality of Mary, as do some Catholic theologians. It is a quirky irony that Catholicism condemned Pelagianism (people in co-operation with divinely revealed truths can live without sin), but allowed that Mary was able, through her co-operative will, to avoid sinning. Why condemn the one, but allow the other? And even if we consider the official teaching of the Magisterium that Mary was 'preserved' from sin by a special dolloping of grace, even at the time of her conception, we are left with the question, 'Why would he kill his son to save the rest of us, when it is at least anecdotally clear that he could've just tweaked the grace-factor in everyone's favour to begin with?' It seems from that that either God is a sadist, or the Catholic Church is wrong. In this case, I'm willing to wager on the latter.

In the end, however Gregory decides to respond, he still has his work ahead of him. My criticisms are still the same despite the confusion in terms I admitted. In fact, they are more pressing for the occasion. Catholicism, as I have observed, has erred, continues to, and will probably carry-on erring as long as it holds to the mixed up teachings it currently enjoys.

The Never Erring Story P. 2

I didn't think I'd be writing a part 2 to this subject but, like the movies that inspired my title, I'm fated to weigh-in once more. This time, however, my good friend, Gregory (a first-rank Catholic apologist) has opened the opportunity for some hearty debate. His response to my first article carried with it the flavour of tart sauciness, and seemed steeped in more than a little spicy polemic.

What follows is my response to his comments. His remarks will be in red and mine will remain black.

"I suppose if we want to ignore the nuances of definitions, we can say all sorts of silly things, and point out ample non sequiturs to bolster our defense."

More than likely true. And most certainly true for the usual operations of Catholic rhetoric. More about that later, however.

"The statement, 'The Catholic Church has/can/will never err(ed)' is at best shorthand for 'When officially defining and promulgating doctrine pertaining to Faith and Morals, the Magisterium of the Church is preserved by the Holy Spirit free from formal error.'"

Thank you for that information, Gregory. This raises a particular concern for me. Namely, that I included this very definition in my original article, albeit with a slightly different arrangement of words. Here, again, is what I wrote:

"...the Catholic Church believes she has never erred in matters pertaining to
faith and morals; it has nothing to do with historical opinions. To quote the
Wikipedia entry, "in Catholic thought, the exemption of the Roman Church from error extends only to its definitive teachings on faith and morals: not its historical judgments." In other words, those teachings that are not held to be divine revelations but are free from error and essential to proper belief."

As I failed to mention in my original article, this idea of the Catholic Church's impeccability is an extention (without warrant) from the doctrinal claim that Jesus was without sin. If Jesus was without sin, and the Church (i.e., those who gather in Christ's name and share in his sacramental life through the emblems of the church) is Christ's body, then it seems to follow that the Catholic Church would not be subject to error/peccability.

Reality bears out otherwise, I'm afraid. You see, unless a person is willing to divest themselves of any interest in rationality, there's simply no possible way to make such a sweeping claim demonstrable. Unless... Unless we make metaphysical disections between the spiritual and the physical. That provides the opportunity to make rhetorical manipulations (I mentioned I would get back to this) that completely obfuscate communication, and render free inquiry meaningless.

Theo: "The Catholic Church has never, cannot, and will never sin or make erros in matters of faith and morals."

Kim: "But what about the systematic pograms during the Crusades? The popes that raped and impregnanted women with bastard sons? What about buying offices? What about the witch-hunts? What about Pius XII ambivalence to the Jews? What about the Vatican openning the geneological records of Jews living in Germany to the Third Reich? Don't those kinds of things imply culpability on the part of the Catholic Church?"

Theo: "Yes, but those examples are simply mistakes of people. Clearly you don't see that sort of stuff being given the a-okay in our Catechism, do you?"

Kim: "Well, no. But..."

Theo: "And that's because the Holy Spirit preserves the Church from error in matters of faith and morals."

Kim: "But those horrible things were done by the Church. They certainly weren't actions that were borne of true faith. And they certainly weren't moral actions!"

Theo: "That's true: they weren't moral actions. They were the actions of sinful people."

Kim: "But it's people who are the Church. You can't just divorce the people from the Church. That doesn't make any sense. You're just playing with words now."

Theo: "The Church is comprised of people, yes. And sometimes people do bad things. But the Church is the Body of Christ, and Christ cannot sin. The Holy Spirit preserves the Church from error. Sometimes people make bad decisions. Even the pope makes bad decisions sometimes; like, the witch-hunts, say. But that doesn't mean that the Church sins because individual people sin."

Kim: "So, are you saying that the Church is both the people and Christ's body? Are you saying that if the Church does something horrible then the blame gets dumped on to the people, while the entity called the 'Catholic Church' remains unstained by what the people within it do? Why is it that our sins hurt Christ so much before that he decided to die an agnonising death for us, yet now that he's gone and ascended suddenly his body, his Church, isn't implicated by what it's members do? Why don't Catholic errors make a difference to what our faith means, and what our moral standards are? How can you divide Christ from the people that make up his body like that?"

I sympathize with Kim: at what point does any institution get the jurisdiction to divide reality for it's own purposes? Theo clearly believes that if bad things were done, it was because that was a result of human taint/sin/depravity, call it what you will. At the same time, Theo dumps all his confidence in the doctrinal claim that the Catholic Church is impeccable in matters of faith and morals. Theo has no way to measure the truth of this kind of claim, so he has to resort to meaningless rhetoric, hair-splitting, and performative logic (what is said constitutes the thing referred to; or, what is said becomes its own proof, or point of reference).

This is quite obviously ridiculous. No-one can live out this kind of mentality in real-life without being thought insane. If I were to shoot a classroom full of kindergaarten kids, I wouldn't have any kind of defense for my actions. I wouldn't be able to say, "well, that was just my body, my fleshliness. My mind was pure apart from the actions of my body. I've told myself over and over again that I shouldn't shoot children, but my body didn't listen." That kind of talk would have me implicated on not only charges of mass murder, but also have me committed for irremediable insanity.

No logically capable, or emotionally stable individual would be free to use claims such as the Catholic Church's impeccability clause on an individual level. It simply cannot be applied or accepted in reality without a person being understood as clinically insane. So, since it cannot be in any way a practical, or livable reality, it is in all ways irrelevant. It is a fantasy that provides a convenient loop-hole when stuff goes wrong in the Catholic tradition. It is a way of dodging responsibility and accountablity. It is a highly sophisticated use of a childhood method for avoiding homework: an excuse.

"This does not mean that the Catholic Church's members are free of sin (impeccability). It only means what it meant for the writers of Sacred Scripture--that, when they wrote Sacred Scripture, they didn't make formal mistakes pertaining to faith and morals. In fact, the writers of Sacred Scripture got a second gift that the Catholic Church does not claim for itself today--that of infallibly declaring new revelation."

Let's stick with one topic, shall we? It's one thing to bellow-out that I've got my definitions mixed-up, muddled-up, and back-asswards. It's another thing to counter that alleged confusion with a new topic: the infallibility of scripture. We can go that direction if you'd like, but let's examine the course I set out already: the supposed impeccability of the Catholic Church. One thing at a time, as is so often quoted.

"In other words, all Christians can (or should be able to) agree that the Bible, being the Inspired Word of God, is inerrant. Catholics state that in a similar manner to God's transmitting the inerrant Scriptures to us, He preserves the Church He founded free from similar error, as it continues to ponder and grow in its understanding of those once-for-all revealed truths."

First, the scriptures are not inerrant. They're full of discrepancies, forgeries, and overt contradictions. But we can move that to another debate, if you'd like.

Second, Catholics often cite Matthew 16:18 for a dual purpose: to establish the Petrine supremacy, and to allege the impeccability of the Church. Peter is taken to be the 'rock' that Jesus is referring to, and the extention from there is simply that the Church Peter presided over -- the Catholic Church (!) -- would be free of error because Jesus established the Church through Peter. Therefore, since Jesus cannot sin, the Church that he founded, the one that is his body, cannot sin. Just the people within it.

Let's look at this in another way. If the people comprise the Church, which is the body of Christ, and because the Church is the body of Christ it cannot sin in matters of faith and morals, then every time an individual sins, that individual has somehow gone rogue. In an actual body, some cells do go rogue, and they are attacked by the white blood cells and destroyed. If they're not destroyed, if they're left unchecked by the immune system, they sometimes become cancerous and kill the body. So, perhaps the Inquisition was an immune response to the rogue members within the body of Christ, right? Perhaps the Reformation was/is a cancer due to the failure of the Catholic immune response?

If you answer 'yes', then you admit the imperfection within the body of Christ, and thus the notion of impeccability becomes flacid.

"Now, not every idea, theory, or pious devotion throughout history has been officially promulgated by the Magisterium as doctrine."

Yes, that's true. That's not my issue, and that's why I covered that nugget when I included Dr. Ott's definition of tertiary doctrines.

"As for the sex abuse scandal, and how the Church handles it, the Church has never dogmatically declared that it would always handle sinfulness in its members with the utmost in grace or wisdom. But since their actions in "covering up" the abuse scandal or in representing themselves to the Press do not constitute anything approximating its beliefs in matters of Faith or Morals, it falls well outside the pale of the Infallibility question."

It absolutely does not! The Catholic Church is beholden to a watching world. She must not close herself off in some hermetic seal officially pronouncing what is to be believed by humanity, and then claim immunity when challenged on her integrity. If the practice of Catholicism is not weighed against the reasonable dictates of a functioning conscience, then it is a force for evil in the world.

More, because Catholicism has "covered up" the sex abuse scandals, I'd say that it has handled the sinfulness in its members with the maximum grace. That's the problem, however! If we define 'grace' as giving what is undeserved, then "covering up" for licentious virgins in collarinos is giving to them what is not deserved: nothing. As far as I'm concerned, they should be strung up by their eyelids and kicked in the balls 'till they blink. In all seriousness, however, these abusers have stepped outside the pale of human decency, period. They should therefore be handed over to the civil authorities for court action and dealt with accordingly.

"The same response is easily given in the case of the Church's alleged inaction in Rwanda (though your link leaves much to be desired in the case of proof, though accusations abound. Either way, the lack of fortitude or ability to do anything on the part of African bishops does nothing to the notion of Catholic Infallibility."

It amazes me that you would attempt any defense of these assholes at all! It also amazes me that you may not see the reality that the actions taken by these cowardly leaders may have been, in part, as a result of what was inculcated in them by the Catholic community. Children are not free of the influence of their parents. By way of a parallel, criminal priests are not free of the Catholic schools, churches, and seminaries that taught them. To suggest there is no connection at all, would render anything else you have to say completely irrelevant.

"And so, I find I must level an old refrain of criticism toward you yet again, Chris."

You mean 'Kane'.

"Get your definitions right if you're going to criticise something--anything--Catholic Church or not! The only thing you've demonstrated in your article is that you, in fact, do err."

My definitions come from Catholic sources, so I won't apologise for the errors they contain.

Believing and Knowing P. II

In the first part of Believing and Knowing, I stated the following:

"For how can conversation happen when belief is taken to be knowledge? In other words, how can anything intelligible be conveyed about any one of the tenets of Christianity if a Christian is convinced that what s/he believes is what s/he knows? The dissonance this creates in the mind of the observant listener shuts down any chances of mutually beneficial dialogue since this blurring of distinctions results in wrong-headed dogmatism, fanatacism, and extremism."

Wrong-headed dogmatism. First, what is 'dogmatism'? The common understanding is that it is "unfounded positive assertion in matters of opinion; arrogant assertions of opinions as truth." However, in the history of the Christian religion, 'dogmatism' has been defined quite differently. Christian dogmatism is understood, basically, as "core principles that must be upheld by all followers" of Christ. For example, one cannot be a Christian unless one believes in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ; one cannot be a Christian if one does not believe in the Holy Trinity; one cannot be a Christian if one believes that all religions are basically the same, and lead to the same place. And just to advance this a little further, the Catholic church denotes 'dogma' as the following:

"But according to a long-standing usage a dogma is now understood to be a truth appertaining to faith or morals, revealed by God, transmitted from the Apostles in the Scriptures or by tradition, and proposed by the Church for the acceptance of the faithful. It might be described briefly as a revealed truth defined by the Church — but private revelations do not constitute dogmas, and some theologians confine the word defined to doctrines solemnly defined by the pope or by a general council, while a revealed truth becomes a dogma even when proposed by the Church through her ordinary magisterium or teaching office. A dogma therefore implies a twofold relation: to Divine revelation and to the authoritative teaching of the Church."

Even in the Catholic definition of 'dogma', the emphasis is placed on the disposition to believe as if what is believed is what is known.
This is a dangerous mistake to make, in my estimation, since the disposition to believe a certain set of propositions does not entail knowing those propositions to be true. It may very well be the case that my baptist friend believes dancing is evil because it inevitably leads to sex. But he may just be relieved to know that most of the dancing population of the world finds itself coitally-challenged at the end of the tango just as much as at the end of a harlequin. There is simply no correspondence between what my baptist friend believes and what is known. To therefore make a dogmatic assertion that 'dancing is evil because it inevitably leads to sex' is an empty, and useless proposition unless it can be backed with actual knowledge. And what is more, the assertion above begs the question of whether 'sex' itself is considered evil because of its association with dancing (which is believed but not known to be 'evil'). Nothing is actually known in this case except that a certain young man believes a useless and empty-headed proposition that masquerades as a known truth, but has no knowledge to substantiate its claim.

That being said, believing such a proposition is a dangerously wrong-headed thing to do. It is a wrong-headed dogma unfit for the thinking Christian. But how many other dogmatic assertions can come under the same scrutiny? For example, what is actually known about Mary's purported assumption? Quite literally, nothing. It is simply an assertion from tradition that is believed en masse because it has always been believed. But the glaringly obvious fact of the matter is that nothing is known about Mary's assumption, not even whether it happened or not. It is a dogmatic expression ardently believed by billions of Catholics that has no factual basis in reality. It is a wrong-headed dogma disguising itself as a known truth.

A little more, and we'll move on. If it is the case that Christian dogma is essentially propositional assertions that Christians believe but do not necessarily know, how much of what we take to be 'truth' is actually true? I don't mean to continuously pit belief and knowledge against each other; they are certainly not opposed in all ways. However, to figure out where belief and knowledge coalesce we must be willing to visit the possibility that they don't simply agree with each other because it would make things less difficult otherwise. There is no reason to dogmatically hold to mere propositions as if those same propositions were not only their own context but their own content, too. What is believed has a direct impact on what, and how you come to know things. And conversely, what you know will impact what you believe.

So which, if any, of the Christian dogmas are knowably true? And which, if any, of the Christian dogmas are simply believed to be true? It's a frightening question to ask, really, for it opens up the possibility that what you may believe may, in fact, be wrong. And, in fact, those beliefs may be wrong because there's no way to know if they're true. And to suggest that that's why we have to take the Christian testimony on 'faith' is to suggest the same thing as simply believing without knowing.