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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[misko27]

It's a rare day when I defend religion. I'll need to write this down in a diary or something. I'm genuinely sorry for picturing you with a fedora right now I can't help it

Perhaps you should drink the blood of Christian children. That should even it out a bit.

[FearfulJesuit]

Look, MSH, I'm sorry, but that's possibly the most euphoric thing I've heard since /u/aalewis was enlightened by his own intelligence.

Yes, the Catholic Church has done a great amount of harm to the world. It has also done stark amounts of good. Yeah, the equality issues need to be fixed- but you're making the mistake of taking the institution for its doctrine. The Church is fallible- it has said so itself on many occasions. The Crusades, the conquest of the Americas, the Thirty Years' War- perfectly fine indictments of the Church. But they're not an indictment of Christianity or Catholic doctrine as it really is. (The medieval Church is a good example of why you don't let politics mix with a pacifist theology- the theology always gets pushed to the side).

For that matter, the Gospels themselves are nothing short of egalitarian. Paul has some things to answer to- but he's Paul, not Christ.

(I myself am an agnostic with crypto-Catholic sympathies.)

[Leafsnail]

MSH mentioned several modern examples but everyone else seems to be pretending not to hear them.  I'll restate:
- The child abuse coverup that went all the way to the top of the Catholic church
- They advocate against contraception in heavily AIDS-ridden countries (and indeed developed countries too)
- They consistently oppose basic equality measures for gay people

These are more than enough to make it a bad institution.

[FearfulJesuit]

Right, but that doesn't mean "Catholicism" (the Platonic ideal of it, you might say) is necessarily wrong.

[LordSlowpoke]

To be honest, my argument can't be said to be defending the church in the first place. You know, now that I'm rereading this stuff. It's more of poking holes in MSH's argument than stating my own views. I don't really have an opinion when it comes to Christianity in any form (okay, other than Westboro, but that's not really Christianity is it)

[Sheb]

Pretty much every ideology, no matter how cool and pure, tend to be corrupted when exposed to the real world.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

You know, now that I'm rereading this stuff. It's more of poking holes in MSH's argument than stating my own views.

Sure is, mate. Some people will tell themselves anything I suppose.

Because hell, the times when they manipulated the scripture in order to further their own political goals are gone for around a century now. Were we to go with the "shit, let's be Catholics" stance in the actual-true-Scotsman manner, we'd ultimately be better off, what with tolerance (as assumed by... the second commandment, was it?) and Christian communism and all the other good stuff nobody really cares about. So yeah, once you're pulling extremes like that go ahead and push them a little bit further than the "dystopia" mark on the scale, thanks.

If you find this to be poking holes in anyone's logic...... Let alone a rebuttal to MSH's point proper.. Oh my.

I'd like for someone to give me a notarized list of the good things Catholicism has accomplished beyond the passive charity aspects. [Which, by most accounts, seems to go directly back into the church's pockets after all these years] Subjective? If you say so. But I'll be shocked if someone can come up with more than one or two.

[LordSlowpoke]

Talk about being unable to backpedal.

* LordSlowpoke absconds before the firing squad is deployed

[10ebbor10]

MSH's problem isn't with the catholic Doctrine. He has a pretty severe dislike of everything that has anything to do with religion. Only likes reason and scientific method and such.

I'd like for someone to give me a notarized list of the good things Catholicism has accomplished beyond the passive charity aspects. [Which, by most accounts, seems to go directly back into the church's pockets after all these years] Subjective? If you say so. But I'll be shocked if someone can come up with more than one or two.

Good the Church, as institution, has done, or good the Catholic doctrine has done. Because the earlier might be a bit hard. (Because you eliminated the Charities, and probably will refuse the individual acts of priests and such as well).

And if the latter then I will probably again be accused of claiming all good values are Christian values. (Which kinda, they are. Christianity had a very severe influence on European, and therefore the rest of the anglosphere, culture.)

[Sheb]

The Peace of God during the middle age? The support to anticommunist forces in Poland?

[Leafsnail]

Right, but that doesn't mean "Catholicism" (the Platonic ideal of it, you might say) is necessarily wrong.

Then you aren't refuting MSH's point at all, which is that the Catholic church as an institution that actually exists is bad.

[10ebbor10]

Right, but that doesn't mean "Catholicism" (the Platonic ideal of it, you might say) is necessarily wrong.

Then you aren't refuting MSH's point at all, which is that the Catholic church as an institution that actually exists is bad.

I'm 100% sure the MSH's point is that all religion is bad. The Catholic church is merely a part of it.

[10ebbor10]

More seriously, it's going to be hard for the church to be totally cool with gays because, well, it's written right there in the Bible it's bad, and unlike most of the rest, sexual stuff wasn't invalidated by St Paul and his pals in the new testament.

Pretty sure it isn't explicitly stated. Sure, a major part of the evildoers are (amongst a hundred other things) homosexual, but still. Hitler and sugar argument, kinda.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Good the Church, as institution, has done, or good the Catholic doctrine has done. Because the earlier might be a bit hard. (Because you eliminated the Charities, and probably will refuse the individual acts of priests and such as well).

And if the latter then I will probably again be accused of claiming all good values are Christian values. (Which kinda, they are. Christianity had a very severe influence on European, and therefore the rest of the anglosphere, culture.)

If 'the doctrine' is good enough then all religions in the world have had positive effects. [Arguable as interpretations of holy literature can go from benign to batshit crazy] I'm talking about in practice, the actions of the Catholic Church and her underlying dogma have been harmful as stated by MSH. Anyone disagreeing with that would have to prove their case. Or atleast go to lengths to help me understand whatever non-subjective examples which are out there.

Also yeah, I'm not allowing wishy-washy charity claims to be included in the Catholic Church's claim to positive change. I'll leave this here:
https://www.eccu.org/resources/advisorypanel/2013/surveyreports20
http://holysoup.com/2013/08/06/the-shocking-truth-of-church-budgets/

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Note how the largest churches spend the least on social programs. And this is just scratching the surface of what we call the Catholic Church and their misuse and mismanagement of fundings.


E: Late night typing strikes again.

[10ebbor10]

Well, doctrine wasn't the best word. Philosophy, morale, ideology. One of these is probably better.

- The child abuse coverup that went all the way to the top of the Catholic church
- They advocate against contraception in heavily AIDS-ridden countries (and indeed developed countries too)
- They consistently oppose basic equality measures for gay people

- Not going to justify this. Really. Only thing I can say is that it wasn't the only organization to cover up things like this.
- The idea here was that sex for lust/pleasure is a bad thing. Truly, it should only occur between married couples (who trust each other and would tell, and take precautions) or with the intent of having children. Hence why they said that Condoms don't work. Not the most intelligent statement, to make, I agree.
- IIRC, the last statement on this was (abridged version) is that while homosexuality is still evil

tm

, it should not be a priority for the Church to judge them. More important things are going on.

And that's about as far as I'm willing to defend the Catholic Church as an institution.