Dear Editor,

Re: In response to sex scandals and the Catholic church

I’m a little confused. The title is: “In response to sex scandals and the Catholic church,” but I didn’t read anything addressing that horrific issue. 

Indeed in today’s news it was learned of hundreds of cases of abuse, physical and sexual abuse  perpetuated at the Catholic school run by the former Pope Benedict’s brother. And that’s right on top of Cardinal Pell’s accusation. 

There’s just no end to it, and we know it’s been going on for centuries.

The Catholic Church has, as far as I can tell, always been maniacally obsessive about sex. They have more rules and regulations regarding sex than just about anything else. If it has anything to do with sex, the Church has rules for it. 

Why sex? Because it’s so personal and private. If they can get to things like that, they can use shame, guilt and fear to control and manipulate people. 

But.... they also attract unnatural people, and end up with these sex scandals as a result. Being a celibate virgin is not normal in the natural world. Since the Church insists on referring to LGBTs as “disordered,” so too must be their unnatural behavior. 

The one redeeming value is that they have voluntarily removed themselves from the human gene pool as a result of their unnatural behavior, and will not be passing on their genes.

Leo did not discuss the sex scandal, but he did go on to extol the virtues of ignorance: “Mind you sometimes too much information can lead one (no doubt our friend Patrick [who claimed to be a recovered catholic] is a classic example) to some extent  of confusion’ as confirmed by one of my ‘recovered’ close Priest friend.”

Indeed, when it comes to religion, ignorance truly is blessed. Yes, when one learns how to think critically, it becomes practically impossible to believe in imaginary, invisible beings that live in the sky.

If there is a god, then he gave us the gift or “Talent” of intellect and critical thinking. Look back at the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30 Luke 19:12-27) to see what happened to the guy who didn’t use his Talent, but buried it in the garden. He came to a poor ending.

At least for those of us who seek knowledge and understanding, this god if he exists, won’t be able to punish us for using the tools we were given...... 

Well, I guess that’s not a given. Yahweh-Jesus is incredibly cruel and vicious, sending mere mortals who live but a handful of decades to millions, billions and trillions of endless, years of eternal, torture and torment, for failing to believe something for which there is no evidence!

It’s hard to beat that as the epitome of evil. Not to mention his Yaheh persona condoning, committing or commanding genocide, sexism, racism, homophobia, discrimination against the disabled, murder of innocents, etc.

There’s no telling what such a cruel and capricious god might do - which is why he is feared. That’s why they are called “God-fearing Christians.” What parent among us has to command that our children love us? Yet, Yahweh-Jesus must do so, even though love can’t be commanded. It’s like the abusive spouse yelling that their mate must love them, “or else.” That’s not real love, that’s extortion.

”for there are no more NEW ideas left to be invented in this life as Christ Jesus had fulfilled them all.”

I’ll give you a new idea.... germs and sanitation. Jesus knew nothing of these. He told his followers it was not necessary to wash their hands before eating. (Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23). Just think of how many millions of men, women and helpless children that he could have saved from horrific suffering and death, if he had said a word or two about germs and sanitation. 

But he didn’t. No prophet has ever known more about technology than what was available at the time. Jesus said the end of the world was imminent - as did Paul. They were both completely wrong unless the world ended and we all failed to notice it.

If he’d actually known the world would continue, he could have said something so we didn’t have to wait till the 1860s to discover germs and start to relieve the suffering. We, mankind, science, did this - not Jesus.

Another thing we’ve learned is that the five pillars for the existence of Yahweh and the other Abrahamic gods have crumbled away. We know today, beyond reasonable doubt, that there was no six-day creation, no two-person DNA bottleneck (no original sin), no global flood, no mass Exodus from Egypt and no conquest of Canaan.

Without these pillars, what foundation remains for the Abrahamic gods?

Patrick Gannon