This is why people hate Christianity and Christians...

[BroomJockey]

No because the majority of Moslems will loudly and vocally denounce the perpitrator*-that is rarely seen within Christianity. How many religious leaders have come out against Fred Phelps and his ilk? one has publicly denounced him-just one.**

Thank you for making my point better than I ever could.

Newspapers are famous for printing stories along the lines of, "Priest shagged choirboy," with pages of salacious content, and then at the end sticking in two lines from someone saying that it was a minority and not representative. I'm not certain if protests happen each and every time, but I know what gets reported.

Rapscallion

Newspapers around here _love_ printing letters to the editor about stuff like this. Why? It gets them readers. It's controversy. Especially when it's from a higher-up in an organization. It's pretty much guaranteed to be printed within a day or two if it's sent in. If it's not being printed, it's not being sent.

[Fryk]

I need to point out that in the protestant flavors of christianity, it is very difficult to disown a gourp like this. There are literally hundreds of splinter groups and offshoots in protestant christianity, and it's not like you can force a church to call itself something else. For instance, I am pretty sure that the Westboro Baptist Church is not actually part of THE Baptist Church. They just tacked the title onto their church because they base SOME of their theology off of the teachings of Calvin. There is no way to make them change their name. The baptists are pretty much stuck with the situation.
Even more to the point, the Methodist Church has nothing whatsoever to do with any of it, and ditto for the Episcopalians, the Nazerenes, Lutherans, Pentecostals, and many many other denominations. There is nothing ANY of them can do to ANY of these local groups that claim the name "Christian" as part of their title, except to say loudly that they do NOT approve of their actions, which most of them DO.

[BroomJockey]

say loudly that they do NOT approve of their actions, which most of them DO.

Except they don't. You never hear of church leaders on talk shows condemning the actions of any of these people, no protests, not even any letters. To talk it amongst yourselves is worse than useless. And while there may not be an overriding organization for every church, they are still loosely organized, and so could communicate to send a strong message to the world. Again, they don't. Instead they let these people besmirch Christianity.

[BlaqueKatt]

Except they don't. You never hear of church leaders on talk shows condemning the actions of any of these people, no protests, not even any letters. To talk it amongst yourselves is worse than useless.

It's akin to ignoring the crazy cat lady down the street until her house becomes a health hazard.

Or ignoring the creepy person/kid spouting off he's going to "get even/do something"-until he actually does something horrible. Then it's all either "they were so quiet/nice", or "I knew something wasn't right" But you do nothing until it's too late. You want to tell me a small group of motorcyclists has more organizational skills than any random church, and expect me to believe it?

The WBC showed up in WI, at a college campus, the(completely unorganized) students yelled them down and forced them to leave in humiliation-but an organized group of people with a common shared goal can't be bothered? Right

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."


to further the point, National Right To Life denounces those that commit violence at clinics-yet no church does or says anything about the hate-spewing "so-called/self-proclaimed" "Christians" at all.

[Flyndaran]

Just because you say you believe Christ existed, it doesn't make you a Christian.
Christianity is not only a belief in Christ, but it is also following his examples and teachings.

These people mentioned in the link, and by others as examples to refute my statement, are not following his teachings with their actions, so to hate all Christians and Christianity because some flawed humans have behaved horrendously in its name is, in my opinion, extremely bigoted.

I am a Christian, and while I'm far from perfect, I do try to live up to the example set by Christ.
I find it offensive that someone would justify hating me and my religion because others have trouble living up to their own faith and act in contradiction to it.

The Catholic church does not teach child molestation as a part of their doctrine.
I do not condone child molestation.
To say that I am an accessory after the fact in these horrendous abuses, just because I am a Catholic, is a reckless statement.

I still absolutely believe it to be true. You are part of a corrupt organization that continues to fight any attempt to help it own up to its past.
That is of course only if you follow the church. You can believe whatever you wish in the privacy of your own home with as much intellectual honesty as you like.

Since the evidence for Christ is absurdly shaky, I consider any belief in him to either be faith based or accepting it just to avoid controversy.

One can believe he espoused anything. We don't have any christian writing older than a couple centuries after his supposed death. Since no one actually follows the dead sea scrolls, I say that no one is any more or less christian than anyone else. You are all following a heavily modified version.

[Ree]

I still absolutely believe it to be true. You are part of a corrupt organization that continues to fight any attempt to help it own up to its past.
That is of course only if you follow the church. You can believe whatever you wish in the privacy of your own home with as much intellectual honesty as you like.

Since the evidence for Christ is absurdly shaky, I consider any belief in him to either be faith based or accepting it just to avoid controversy.
.

Whatever helps you sleep at night. It's a free country, and just as you are free to believe that, I am free to believe as I do.

I do not condone pedophilia, heretics who set themselves up as God, or others who use their church to sexually assault women.

I do, however, continue to believe in Christ and hold to my Catholic teachings in spite of the fact that there are flawed humans who also do the same thing.

I care about my own relationship with God. I just don't feel it's fair to have a title claiming hate for all Christians just because some asshole couldn't keep it in his pants.

[Flyndaran]

...
I care about my own relationship with God. I just don't feel it's fair to have a title claiming hate for all Christians just because some asshole couldn't keep it in his pants.

You support a church that has been shown repeatedly to be corrupt. That makes you an accomplice after the fact.

I don't hate all christians, but I darn near hate all churches.

The world would be a marginally better place without religion. But it would be orders of magnitude better without churches.

[Ree]

You support a church that has been shown repeatedly to be corrupt. That makes you an accomplice after the fact.

Oh, we're going to go there again, are we?

[Fryk]

And while there may not be an overriding organization for every church, they are still loosely organized, and so could communicate to send a strong message to the world. Again, they don't. Instead they let these people besmirch Christianity.

Except that they're NOT. The Baptist Church doesn't even organize with the SOUTHERN Baptist Church, Let alone organize with Episcopalians. The United Methodist church does not share any form of organization with any other denomination. They are all their own separate entities, and while they may COMMUNICATE, they are not organized together, loosely or otherwise. And I hear of Christians protesting and speaking out publicly against this sort of thing all the time. Once these people latch onto the label of "christian", which anymore I view as completely meaningless, by the way, there is nothing an outsider can do to change that. And vocally denouncing and distancing yourself from these sort of freaks is ointless when, as Raps and others have pointed out, the media decides that their efforts in countering these behaviors is not a sexy enough story to merit any real coverage.

[Ree]

Anyone that supports the catholic church is an accessory after the fact for all the child abuse scandals, for example.

You support a church that has been shown repeatedly to be corrupt. That makes you an accomplice after the fact

As a victim of childhood sexual abuse, (from a heterosexual male who was not a priest, by the way) I find those statements extremely offensive, and I am actually quite disgusted by them.

[guywithashovel]

To be fair, you could find corrupt people in almost any organization. Granted, some organizations may have more corrupt people than other organizations do, but I don't think all individual members deserve to get thrown in the same category as them.

Now, I realize that some people in this thread who have been accused of doing this may not have meant to do that.

I also realize that I might be hypocritical for saying these things, because over the years I have caught myself harboring bitterness towards clergymen, regular church-goers, and other such people. I know it's wrong to feel that way, and I've tried to fight it, but it's still there, due mainly to the experiences I had in church as a kid.

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

Ok let me chime in here again.

The Bible states that one of the primary goals of Christianity is to preach the gospel to non believers and hopefully claim souls for the Lord via conversions to the faith. The issue is that there's so much awful stuff that gets publicized about churches and priests that it's not surprising to me that a lot of non believers aren't really that keen on Christianity (not to mention the former believers who have drifted away from the church).

In my view the church leadership has in some instances done this to themselves, by excusing or hiding or burying abuse rather than treating it as Christ himself would. The "people" referred to in the title of this post are non believers. I'm not claiming all Christians are bad, I AM claiming a lot of folks think most any and all Christians are holier than thou hypocrites who certainly do NOT practice what they preach.

Also on a brief note, I think it's funny every time I see the "no solid evidence proving the resurrection or the existence of Christ" arguments. The whole concept of Faith is centered around accepting something as true WITHOUT having any solid proof.

[BroomJockey]

They are all their own separate entities, and while they may COMMUNICATE, they are not organized together, loosely or otherwise.

*sigh* Apparently, we're using different standards of 'loosely organized.'

Do they have a single person who can talk for a parish? Yeah, the priest.

Does each parish report to anyone else? If so, those parishes are loosely organized. If not, they are at least familiar with similar churches in the area? The organizations are aware of each other's existence, no? Then they are capable of communication with each other, and sending a single letter all co-signed condemning certain individuals. If they're not capable of doing that much, then they're doing just as much damage as the so-called "unbelievers." The inability to put aside differences of religion long enough to condemn obviously immoral acts would say to me that those organizations are extremist, and should be equally condemned. If they can't suck it the fuck up long enough to take out some trash, they fucking deserve the bad press. Yes. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." If Christians of various denominations are fundamentally incapable of working together towards a common, mutually beneficial goal, they have failed as Christians, utterly and completely.

And as I said, the papers around here love printing this kind of stuff. They eat it up. It's conflict, and it has a built-in audience. With a condemnation, people want to see the reaction. And they usually get it from extremists, which is why they print it. And further, a large enough group shouting loud enough CAN get coverage, damned near anywhere. So I say again, if the leaders can't condemn it, outsiders assume it's condoned throughout the organization. And ya'll deserve the reputation, for putting up with it.

[Mytical]

I believe some people are confusing the religion with the people in the religion. Which is understandable. Let me try to explain (I am sometimes terrible at getting my point accross because I am a bit chaotic, and have STS (shiny things syndrom .. ie easily distracted).

Anybody can say they are one thing or another. Some might even be, but have been confused by others. A lot of time the 'word' is twisted for a person or groups own agenda. They then convince people that is what the original text intended. This is in ANY religion.

The idea must be seperated from the person. A 'Christian' or a 'Muslim' or even an 'Atheist' is just a person. They are HUMAN and capable of terrible deeds. People don't seem to understand that, however.

I was once told by a christian. "A christian can not be a murderer." Ok..are they human? Check. Are the perfect? Nope. Then they are capable of murder. They may not NORMALLY do it, and even mostly try to avoid it, but they are CAPABLE. It is not physically impossible for them to do so.

As to what punishment, if any, or actions happen AFTER the murder, I won't speculate on.

Hating, disliking, blaming (etc) a religion because of what the PEOPLE do who happen to identify as such is in honesty rediculous. I won't even get into the double standards that some PEOPLE have. ((IE the same Christian blamed Islam and Muslims as a whole for 'terrorist'. Forget the fact that one persons terrorist is another persons hero)). That is the key though, you must seperate the person from the 'group.

That would be like saying "All black people are criminals" (Don't shoot me, this is just an example). Or "All Americans are Racist, Nationalist, Red Necks who love their guns and tramping on everybody else." it is not only absurd, but simply not true.

[HYHYBT]

In most of these cases, especially the ones like in the OP, there are no reasonable people who attribute the individual's action to all of Christianity, and therefore there should be no need to explicitly deny it. The pedophile cover-up is a different matter, and has in fact been widely condemned by Catholics as well as any other denomination I can think of, though certain people with an axe to grind against that church or religion in general like to pretend that it hasn't been, or that the condemnation is meaningless, or that most priests behave that way. As for Fred Phelps' church, well, does *anyone* really take them as a representative of anything beyond themselves? They're their own counterargument: the best and fastest way to move people's opinions the other direction is to let them keep on at what they do.