Reading Time: 4 minutes I’ll admit that I once suspected that there was something uniquely and inherently debased about Catholic clerics—a bias that only hardened as the avalanche of priestly pedophilia scandals crashed in wave after horrifying wave across the planet during the past few decades. But solely scapegoating priests is demonstrably unwarranted. Research indicates that priests, monks, and […]
Pedophilia
Posted inEthics and Morality, Sex & Gender
Comments on the Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal
Reading Time: 10 minutes I recently ran a pretty big article on the statistics for paedophilia in the Catholic Church, which received a number of very interesting comments that I think are worth sharing with you. Thanks muchly to the readership for indulging. Astrin Ymris: Many years ago in an online debate I pointed out that it didn’t really […]
Posted inSex & Gender
Are Catholic Clergy more Likely to Be Paedophiles than the General Public? REDUX.
Reading Time: 10 minutes This has come up in a thread again, so I thought I would regale you with a piece I wrote now three years ago on the subject, but now with some updated tweaks. This is a question that has been kicking around ever since the child sex abuse scandal involving the Catholic church came to the […]
Posted inReligion
John Ortberg: The Scandal That Just Keeps Getting Worse
Reading Time: 9 minutes Recently, yet another megapastor lost his cushy gig due to scandal. John Ortberg battled against this inevitable conclusion for weeks, but yesterday he finally resigned (effective August 2nd). This scandal’s got a lot of similarities to the ones we’ve seen erupting out of evangelicalism like the angriest volcano ever — so I wanted to look at it today. Today, let’s examine John Ortberg’s scandal — and see what it tells us about that end of Christianity.
Posted inEthics and Morality, Sex & Gender
Paedophilia: Potential Lack of Consequences to a Design Action
Reading Time: 3 minutes Today, I’m going to talk about moral consequentialism as an ethical framework as well as paedophilia, partly because it’s a real motive subject that gets people engaged and enraged. I recently bought a Stacey Dooley show on BBC iPlayer – she’s rather like Louis Theroux in that they can bring the most out of the people […]
Posted inReligion
Why It Matters: That Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report
Reading Time: 9 minutes This week, the world reeled at a shocking report issued by a grand jury in Pennsylvania. The report concerned predatory Catholic clergy in that state, and the abuses they committed against children. In reply, Catholics brought to bear a defense that we’ve seen before. Today, I’ll show you what that defense is, and how it backfires completely.
Posted inEthics and Morality
Pennsylvania Catholic Abuse: “It’s Your Word against God’s”
Reading Time: 4 minutes As many of you will know, Pennsylvania State has released a massive report of the Catholic priest abuse that has taken place over the years. If not, The Guardian reports it as follows: More than 300 “predator priests” were found to have committed sexual abuse in Pennsylvania, harming more than 1,000 children, according to a grand jury […]
Posted inSex & Gender
Milo Yiannopoulos Defends Paedophilia
Reading Time: 2 minutes A video has emerged of alt-right commentator and editor at Breitbart, Milo Yiannopous, defending paedophilia. The Independent reports: In the excerpt from the podcast being circulated, the Breitbart senior editor says he defines paedophiles as people who are sexually attracted to children who have not reached puberty. He adds that he believes some teenagers under the […]
Posted inEthics and Morality
No True Scotsmen, Religion and Criminality
Reading Time: 6 minutes This old chestnut. It rears its ugly head every so often when a believer is found to do some terrible crime. I think the last time I talked about it in this context was when Anders Breivik went and shot up a group of young political people in Norway. Let’s first remind ourselves of the […]
Posted inLGBTQ, Religion
3 New Marketing Slogans for the Religious Right.
Reading Time: 9 minutes I mentioned being very very helpful the other day, and today I want to demonstrate that helpfulness by giving the duly-appointed (and self-appointed) representatives of the Religious Right some new slogans they can use to market their simple, universal human message of terror, misogyny, brutality, tribalism, abuse, and violence.