Don’t be scurred. Haters gon’ Hate. I’ll start off then? While it’s quite a witty comeback and I can’t agree with her policy on public hanging nor agree with some of her other beliefs, and I cannot reconcile how she would have such fundamentally conflicted views- and believe she is likely ignorant and hateful as a person...
We don’t actually know what religion she is. Even if we take her mention of the Bible as a sign she is some type of “Christian,” we don’t know what kind. Some denominations are more well known for scandal, and some are all but unknown to have scandal. There are other issues as well. Firstly- many cases of abuse are labeled “pedophilia” when pedophilia refers specifically to an adult and pre pubescent child. There is also pederasty- an adult and adolescent male, and ephebophiles who have relations with pubescent girls. Statistically the pope claims that 2% of catholic priests are sex offenders. Other figures put the averages closer to 4-5%. In general estimates...
... place the general number of clergy of Christian denominations who abuse at about the same range, but at an individual church the percent of total clergy who abuse can be higher even if the total for the whole religion is lower- like one Australian church where 40% of clergy were found to have abused the underage congregation. The general population figures for pedophiles range from .05-5% estimated. On the high side that is very close to what we see in the figures for clergy. But here is where it gets complicated. .5-5 is a big jump. Why? Well- we can only estimate. In a self reported survey or even a screening test of some sort, there will be false positives and negatives. Perhaps not surprisingly many who like children sexually tend to hide it or even self deny it. As our Australia example shows and other imperial data shows we also have sample to worry about. Certain demographics or areas are statistically more likely to either have more or fewer of the local populace who are...
... pedophiles. So if you secretly studied one church with total omnipotence for a year- you might find less than 1% or even 0% pedophillia, and if you extrapolate that data would say a low percent of people were pedophiles. However another church could be all pedophiles, and thus your extrapolation would be 100% of humans are pedophiles. So the actual sample is important as are controls etc. and we cannot observe thoughts with omnipotence so can only gauge actions or deduce theoretical intent. If we go off only reported abuses we don’t actually know how many pedophiles their are- only how many act on it, and then we have to decide what to include- all allegations, only convictions, etc? There will still be false accounts, unreported incidents, and those who got away with the crime...
... AND THEN we get back to wording. A pedophile is one who has sex with prepubescent children. But not all underage sex is pedophillia by definition. So how we group and interpret that is important. Also- what we consider to be inappropriate contact is a huge part of the equation. A pedophile can take sexual pleasure from acts like routine touching of a child in ways that are generally considered socially appropriate such as pristine their hair, cleaning a wound on a scraped knee, lap sitting, hugs, etc. Lastly we go back to the difference between one who has the urges and thoughts and fantasies but doesn’t or hasn’t yet acted upon them. So we can’t really get a solid number on how many pedophiles there are, not all underage sex offenders are prdophiles in a technical sense, and at 2-5% not only would that put the church at about the same occurrence as anywhere else- but losing 5% of the clergy wouldn’t actually prevent the religion from functioning. So there would still be 95%...
He's just making a point that it's somewhat hypocritical of any christian to condemn pedophilia after all the scandals in the church. Far from the only hypocrisy in the bible or religion but it hardly matters.
... of the non sex offending leadership to run the religion. Thusly while humorous, the reply actually doesn’t work. And to be clear I am not defending the church, sex offenders, etc. I am merely saying that he attacked her religion when her ignorance and bad attitude are her own fault and not the fault of religion, and that even if we magically poofed all pedophooes away, it is likely based on best estimates that it would not have any serious impact on any organized denomination adhering to the rough average theoretical numbers for decades offenders in the clergy as there is not sufficient data to suggest that a majority or even substantial portion- or one larger than the general public- are sex offenders.
@jeremy- his point is not valid nor logical. Can a citizen of any country who’s military has killed children not say that it is wrong to kill children? Are you personally accountable for anything that your government representatives do? When a human is elected or placed to uphold ideals and responsibilities of a station, but of their own failings acts against those principals they are sworn to uphold, is that the fault of those they are supposed to serve? Is it a failing of the thing they represent? If your President is involved in a scandal does that mean your whole country and government is corrupt and hypocritical, or does that mean that one person is? Now- the churches have covered things up, and those involved have their own guilt for that. Religion is whatever an individual chooses to interpret it as. If a person sees an excuse to be an asshole then that’s what it will be to them. If they see hypocrisy that’s what it will be to them. But people seem to confuse and conflate....
... the failings of people with failings of a larger idea like religion. There tend to be 2 main people you run in to when you talk about religion- ignorant people saying crazy things about what the “holy text” says must be done, and ignorant people saying ignorant things about what the “holy text” does wrong. But both are the same. 2 sides of a coin. Fanatics who likely haven’t personally dedicated the time and study to actually understand for themselves what is being said but instead rely on the interpretations of others they put faith in. Funny enough long ago the Bible was in Latin so that people couldn’t read it alone and needed a priest. Now anyone can read it in any language- but without knowledge of religious theology, history and culture of various regions and times, and the root languages of the times it’s all just words. So ignorant people just grab a mouth piece who says what they want to hear- and that’s the same for those with or without religion who tak about a book...
Tl:dr- people are just people. They see what they want to see and find people who reinforce their belief in themselves. That’s got nothing to do with religion. In a way it is the universal religion followed by the majority of people in the world. Those are the hypocrites of which you speak.
We don’t actually know what religion she is. Even if we take her mention of the Bible as a sign she is some type of “Christian,” we don’t know what kind. Some denominations are more well known for scandal, and some are all but unknown to have scandal. There are other issues as well. Firstly- many cases of abuse are labeled “pedophilia” when pedophilia refers specifically to an adult and pre pubescent child. There is also pederasty- an adult and adolescent male, and ephebophiles who have relations with pubescent girls. Statistically the pope claims that 2% of catholic priests are sex offenders. Other figures put the averages closer to 4-5%. In general estimates...