Tag:Religion

My Religious Opposition

I was raised in an not especially religious household, we went to Church on an infrequent basis and I was sent to Sunday school for a while, but in general there was no great emphasis on religion that I remember. I was encouraged to pray, but mostly religion was not a subject that was discussed a great deal

I went to Sunday school because my parents wanted me to go, while there we were told stories from the bible and while interesting, I quickly identified them as fiction. There was no basis in reality that I could see, simple, cute, whimsical stories that often had a moral to them. In near every example the story proved that being good to others would generally lead to a good outcome, while being bad would generally be your downfall. I got good at this, I could identify the bad actors within a couple of minutes. I paid all of this education lip-service, because my parents wanted this.

I distinctly remember some of my peers taking this seriously, they took the stories to be actual records of things that had happened, rather than my interpretation of them as being moral-based stories that promoted better behaviour.

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Thoughts on the challenges that the new Pope will face…

When it was announced that Pope Benedict XVI was stepping down, I wondered what the real reason behind his decision was.

As the leader of the Catholic Church, I like to think that he was aware of pretty much everything that goes on among the rank and file priests around the world.

Therefore I cannot see any reason why he would not be aware of the appalling instance of priests that sexually abuse children.

The Pope, is, or at least should be, the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church and as such should, in my opinion at least, be responsible for bringing to justice those that abuse the exalted positions that allow the predatory priests access to those that they crave.

To me, at least, Pope Benedict failure to change the Vatican’s traditional methods of handling child sex abuse by priests and so abuse of children is criminal.There is no way that he was unaware of what goes on in the churches around the world. Every time you are exposed to the news, it seems that more and more cases spring to light almost daily.

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