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April 22, 2010

Counter-Criticism to the Catholic Child Rape Epidemic?

On Facebook I am friends with a, what I would call, fundamental Christian apologetic amateur theologian with an intellectual superiority complex. For the sake of this post, we will refer to him as "Charlie"... I was going to say we could call him "The Smartest Moron" but I know I'd get pseudo-intellectual hate mail from him.
Recently, I posted a link to a story about a Catholic priest in Canada who received an 8-year prison sentence for 18 separate charges of sexual abuse to children. Let's just call it what it really is, "Child Rape"... There are a number of crimes you can get more than 8-year confinement for. For instance..."Possession of narcotics with the intent to sell"... Why is that worse than 18 counts of child rape? Charlie seems to think that I was wrong to point the finger at Christianity for this... Which I didn't. I pointed a finger at the Catholic church. Here's the link and the following discussion with Charlie...

Priest gets 8-years for 18 counts of Child Rape!

Charlie:
"Let's see.... 0.00001% of all Christians have abused children, and you therefore paint all religious institutions with the same brush? Your logic, once again, is unassailable. Does your default respect towards the welfare of children apply to all children, or just to those whom you define, based on some arbitrary standard (such as age or size), as children?"

My Rational Response:
Exactly where did I say that "all religious institutions are child molesters?"... Charles, I'm not attacking religion here. Stop with the paranoia. I'm attacking a bad ruling that only puts children in danger. I think we can both agree that it's important to safeguard children from predators, right? A person who assaults a child, sexually or otherwise, deserve a much stricter sentence than this priest received. 

However, the pious Catholic public seems not too care too much about the obvious issue with an overwhelming number of child rapists in the Church. Of course, not all theists are child rapists. Not all priests, either. But when you notice a disturbing trend within a religious organization, or any organization, you must take action to bring justice to the offenders for the sake of the victims. And, if there's a noticeable trend, then the organization should take action to aid the authorities in prosecution of the offenders and commit to an investigation to find out why they have such a horrible trend occurring within their group. 

The Catholic church does not do this. They protect pedophile priests while paying off possible whistle blowers. Then in the cases where they are caught red handed, they call upon a special respect barrier to be erected to protect them from criticism. 

If they weren't a religious organization, they would be fully investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Imagine if this horrible trend were to be present in McDonald's restaurants... Imagine if McDonald's employees seemed to be raping children world wide on a noticeably higher statistical basis than the average public. Imagine if McDonald's was known to be safeguarding these employees while dismissing the victims... Would you complain about McDonald's being criticized, investigated, prosecuted and eventually dismantled?... I would hope not. 

Charles, stop allowing religion a double standard. If your God and his followers truly are the acme of truth and morality, as the Bible suggests, then they should have nothing to fear from inquiry. 

In response to Charles' statistic that only "...0.00001% of all Christians have abused Children"... I must point out that only 0.0000000001% of all atheists have ever committed political crimes against humanity and genocide... But that doesn't stop him from arguing that Stalin was an atheist and he should be used as a logical reference for atheism.

When non-consensual sex is the issue, age isn't much of a qualifier. Would the situation be that much different if it were priests raping adults?... Also, it's not an arbitrary standard. My standard for what is or is not a "child" is not the deciding factor. The standard is the legal standard. Are they 18 or older? If not, then they're a child. That's a stupid question in the end. Charles knew what my standard was. He's just trying to bring doubt to my reasoning process. But in the case of age, it's not my reasoning process, it's the law's. 

Utilizing Charles' logic, we should be upset that anyone would point a finger at McDonald's for the crimes committed by their employees and by the organization as a whole. We should not see the obvious big picture, just assume pedophilia, like shit, just happens.

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