The difference between teaching kids about religion and teaching kids religion is huge. Teaching kids about religion is important. Teaching kids religion is wrong.
Would you be saying the same thing if kids were being forced to read the Koran in class?
If they read the whole thing, then yes.
But the bible as it is presented to children is almost always the Cliff Notes version with all the sex, murder, genocide, and just plain weirdness cleaned up. Granted a few of the core stories that they can't clean up are left in, like Noah's genocide...
I have seen similar groups. The problem I have there is that I can't really give the RCC as a whole lot of credit for those organisation: in my experience they are vastly under-funded, sometimes as a direct result of not lining up with RCC ideology. A good example of this is needle exchange...
Okay, shoot. What comparison do you have that will make it okay for a priest to abuse a bunch of kids?
I question what exactly those things are, but assuming you are telling the truth, that's your fault, not anybody else's.
But it doesn't make you a good person.
Morals are not...
One exceptionally brilliant man did this and even with all of his intelligence only barely managed to do it. If you or I tried to do this we would fail miserably. And the only reason that movie has never been made is that it happens so often it isn't remarkable enough to be made into a movie.
I suppose you also would be willing to fly on Wings of Faith Airlines.
Up up up up!
But seriously, if you make major life decisions just hoping it works out, you're in for a lot of pain.
If everyone in the world was a murderer except one rapist, would that mean the rapist was a good person?
The example is a bit extreme, but the point is that a person or organisation's good or evil isn't measured by comparison to other people or organisations; it's measured by whether what they...
Okay, let's compare their misdeeds to their positive influences. They've given a lot of money to charities, and indeed do a lot of charitable work themselves.
But then if you look just a little bit closer, nearly every one of their positive endeavours is coloured by ulterior motives. From...
Not to rain on your parade, but when the only comparison you can make that comes out positive is to the prison system, you've already lost the argument.
If you believe the right things and do the wrong things, that doesn't make you a good person, it just makes you a hypocrite in addition to...
Storm, I'm going to come at your statements from a different angle than I've seen so far in this thread, but I'd like to add that I totally agree with the above statement and everything I say about this subject should be seen in that light.
I have a problem with this logic. "Not being worse...
Since when is "the end" not a part of something?
Please point out which parts I am ignoring.
Life and existence are not equivalent terms. There are plenty of things that exist that aren't alive (rocks, tables, computers) and plenty of things that are alive that don't exist (unicorns...
Death and suffering isn't atrocious?
If we can't agree on that simple concept, then there certainly won't be any headway in a discussion, so I again present to anyone reading that sojourner's idea of god's innocence is based on the idea that death and suffering aren't atrocities.
Life and existence are also not equivalent terms. Death AND life are both parts of human existence.
I have provided sources to show that omnipotence does in fact mean exactly what I have used it to mean. So far you have claimed that "love" = "relationship", "omnipotence" != "able to do...