Look at the history of the Catholic Church and you need look no further than the Inquisition to find evidence of abuse and torture. I remember a nun once told our classroom "if God was willing to sacrifice his only begotten son, just think what I can do for you if you don't behave". I know there are a lot of Christians concerned about this issue, but if they ever recommend Christianity as being the solution to ritual abuse and pedophilia, I'll tell them that any Savior that mouths the words "suffer the children to come onto me" is no Savior of mine.
Was God's sacrifice of his only begotten son a "good thing"? I can almost hear a pedophile quoting the same phrase as they try to buy a child from an impoverished parent. Prayers won't help this situation if prayers are being used as the punishment for pedophile priests, though on a personal level it can prepare you for battle. There is a Pope involved here. That won't be a good thing going forward. He'll mix lies with the truth and confuse everyone. You need to step away from God to fight evil.
"Was God's sacrifice of his only begotten son a "good thing"?"
From my perspective the answer is both. It was costly to God to give His Son for mankind's sin, but for me and anyone who will accept it, Jesus' death atoned for my and their sin.
"I can almost hear a pedophile quoting the same phrase as they try to buy a child from an impoverished parent."
The full quote, though, is "for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." When asked who is the greatest in Heaven, Jesus set a little child before them all. And He said we must be born again and become as little children to enter Heaven. On what a pedophile might say, they might say anything, or misuse just about anything that can be said.
"Prayers won't help this situation if prayers are being used as the punishment for pedophile priests..."
Something made clear throughout the Bible is that the choice of certain people to be wolves in sheep's clothing makes no difference in some senses. If a pastor is a wolf, but someone comes to believe in Jesus through his preaching, that person's faith is real. If when they learn their pastor is a wolf they decide to abandon God's way and act like the wolf, then that will be their decision.
On the Catholic Pope saying that pedophile priests should be sentenced to a life of prayer, it sounded like a punishment to me when prayer isn't a punishment. Perhaps he didn't mean it that way, but it was troubling nonetheless. I'm not Catholic, and believe many of the Catholic Church's doctrines aren't true. On fighting evil, I believe it's necessary to depend on God to fight it. There is evil in each of us, but God offers us rescue from it.
Maybe it is just my Catholic upbringing. I was taught the only true religion is Catholicism because it is the only Church on earth that was founded by Jesus. No other religion counted. So I wonder, how can religion solve this problem, when for the past 40 years (and more, who knows how many years before it was reported) it has been a major player in the problem and maybe even the originator of the problem?
And how is our government supposed to solve the problem, when it is within the government that we find corruption that facilitates the problem? If the government is corrupt, and religion is corrupt, who is best to solve this problem? And doesn't it play into the pedophile's hands if we do nothing and wait for the Divine Prescience to act? And if God is the answer, why hasn't God acted before the children were victimized? In other words, if God is the solution, why has he let the people closest to Him be the problem?
I'm taking it as a sign that mankind has to act and act with prudence, and if it isn't mankind that is supposed to act, then we have been praying to the wrong God, an impotent God, or maybe even the religion of inertia, a religion designed to protect the perpetrators of the evil we're trying to fight. In other words, following the religion of the pedophiles is not going to resolve the pedophilia problem. Doing nothing plays into the pedophiles' hands, and it is the people who created the wrong God, the impotent God, or the God of Inertia that tell us to kneel and pray and wait for this Divine Intervention that never comes in time to save the innocent. And didn't even act to save His own, innocent Son.
Well, if he hasn't intervened before the children were enslaved, raped and sacrificed, he won't intervene now. And it is mankind that must resolve the issue. And I do not mean vigilante justice, for no one has the right to harm, judge or condemn anyone but our very own courts of law within the American justice system. I say, Pray, if you must, to clear your head for what you need to do. Support dutifully those who are moving to resolve the problem. Judge the actors by the strength of their evidence and the outcome of their pursuits, and thank no one but those who have solved the problem. Let the worshiping of the spirit that has guided them to the desired outcome completely up to the actors.
In other words, don't offer poison as an antidote to the poison, and don't give thanks and praise to the poisoner once the real antidote is administered by the rightful receiver of gratitude.
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sponiatowski ago
Look at the history of the Catholic Church and you need look no further than the Inquisition to find evidence of abuse and torture. I remember a nun once told our classroom "if God was willing to sacrifice his only begotten son, just think what I can do for you if you don't behave". I know there are a lot of Christians concerned about this issue, but if they ever recommend Christianity as being the solution to ritual abuse and pedophilia, I'll tell them that any Savior that mouths the words "suffer the children to come onto me" is no Savior of mine.
Psalm100 ago
And it's "come UNTO me," not "come onto me." That just means for the children to come to Him, something absolutely innocent.
sponiatowski ago
Was God's sacrifice of his only begotten son a "good thing"? I can almost hear a pedophile quoting the same phrase as they try to buy a child from an impoverished parent. Prayers won't help this situation if prayers are being used as the punishment for pedophile priests, though on a personal level it can prepare you for battle. There is a Pope involved here. That won't be a good thing going forward. He'll mix lies with the truth and confuse everyone. You need to step away from God to fight evil.
Psalm100 ago
"Was God's sacrifice of his only begotten son a "good thing"?"
From my perspective the answer is both. It was costly to God to give His Son for mankind's sin, but for me and anyone who will accept it, Jesus' death atoned for my and their sin.
"I can almost hear a pedophile quoting the same phrase as they try to buy a child from an impoverished parent."
The full quote, though, is "for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." When asked who is the greatest in Heaven, Jesus set a little child before them all. And He said we must be born again and become as little children to enter Heaven. On what a pedophile might say, they might say anything, or misuse just about anything that can be said.
"Prayers won't help this situation if prayers are being used as the punishment for pedophile priests..."
Something made clear throughout the Bible is that the choice of certain people to be wolves in sheep's clothing makes no difference in some senses. If a pastor is a wolf, but someone comes to believe in Jesus through his preaching, that person's faith is real. If when they learn their pastor is a wolf they decide to abandon God's way and act like the wolf, then that will be their decision.
On the Catholic Pope saying that pedophile priests should be sentenced to a life of prayer, it sounded like a punishment to me when prayer isn't a punishment. Perhaps he didn't mean it that way, but it was troubling nonetheless. I'm not Catholic, and believe many of the Catholic Church's doctrines aren't true. On fighting evil, I believe it's necessary to depend on God to fight it. There is evil in each of us, but God offers us rescue from it.
sponiatowski ago
Maybe it is just my Catholic upbringing. I was taught the only true religion is Catholicism because it is the only Church on earth that was founded by Jesus. No other religion counted. So I wonder, how can religion solve this problem, when for the past 40 years (and more, who knows how many years before it was reported) it has been a major player in the problem and maybe even the originator of the problem?
And how is our government supposed to solve the problem, when it is within the government that we find corruption that facilitates the problem? If the government is corrupt, and religion is corrupt, who is best to solve this problem? And doesn't it play into the pedophile's hands if we do nothing and wait for the Divine Prescience to act? And if God is the answer, why hasn't God acted before the children were victimized? In other words, if God is the solution, why has he let the people closest to Him be the problem?
I'm taking it as a sign that mankind has to act and act with prudence, and if it isn't mankind that is supposed to act, then we have been praying to the wrong God, an impotent God, or maybe even the religion of inertia, a religion designed to protect the perpetrators of the evil we're trying to fight. In other words, following the religion of the pedophiles is not going to resolve the pedophilia problem. Doing nothing plays into the pedophiles' hands, and it is the people who created the wrong God, the impotent God, or the God of Inertia that tell us to kneel and pray and wait for this Divine Intervention that never comes in time to save the innocent. And didn't even act to save His own, innocent Son.
Well, if he hasn't intervened before the children were enslaved, raped and sacrificed, he won't intervene now. And it is mankind that must resolve the issue. And I do not mean vigilante justice, for no one has the right to harm, judge or condemn anyone but our very own courts of law within the American justice system. I say, Pray, if you must, to clear your head for what you need to do. Support dutifully those who are moving to resolve the problem. Judge the actors by the strength of their evidence and the outcome of their pursuits, and thank no one but those who have solved the problem. Let the worshiping of the spirit that has guided them to the desired outcome completely up to the actors.
In other words, don't offer poison as an antidote to the poison, and don't give thanks and praise to the poisoner once the real antidote is administered by the rightful receiver of gratitude.