Re: "I'm Catholic and disgusted by the actions of those priests who used their role to commit such atrocities."

Glad to hear it. You should be.

Re: "But ..."

Sorry to say, nothing good ever comes from a "but" like that.

Re: "... when you look back prior to 1990, a lot was not understood about psychological abnormalities such as pedophilia ..."

Hate to say it but I don't buy that. Not for even a second. Hurting kids is hurting kids. It was wrong, and known to have been wrong, before 1990 as well as after.

Re: "... and such abuse occurred in public schools, in offices (positions of power for sexual favors and even cases of outright rape) etc. and it was ALL swept under the carpet and/or kept quiet, not just the Catholic Church."

I knew this would be coming. The old "but it happened elsewhere, too" excuse. Well, it was wrong in all of those settings, in addition to the Church. So I really don't care about all the other venues where kids were hurt. It shouldn't have happened there, either.

Re: "Of the thousands of priests that served throughout the diocese, the accusations were against a small number."

Nevertheless, it happened. And that "a small number" were accused, has absolutely no bearing on that reality. It just doesn't.

Re: "Sexual predators come from all walks of life, not only the Catholic Church."

True enough, but that also is not relevant here. You're pursuing "two wrongs make a right" thinking, and as such, are guilty of a fallacy. That kids are hurt in other places than the Church cannot and will never absolve the Church of its wrongdoing. Your "it's not just a Catholic thing" apologia is noted but dismissed. Not only is it fallacious, but I have never even so much as suggested it was solely a Catholic problem. I've repeatedly said it's not. What's more, the news media don't, either. Just a few days ago the New Haven Register and WTNH-TV began an expose on a rash of accusations and investigations of public-school teachers. The media report such stories all the time. Do a Google News search on "teacher arrested" and you'll always get a bunch.

What makes the Catholic Church's pedophilia problem worse, is that the Church claims to be an arbiter of morality. When it's caught protecting child abusers, though, that makes them hypocrites and destroys their moral credibility. If they really wanted to be the moral arbiters they say they are, they'd have owned up to this issue decades ago and would have stopped protecting abusive clergy. But they haven't. They still block prosecutions and they still harass accusers. They reel off excuses, some of them rather egregious, and just keep doing what they want. They have no shame, and are certainly not the "men of God" people like you think they are.

Sorry to say, this is not about "doubts." "Doubts" are irrelevant. Disparaging what I say as mere "doubts" don't make what I say unimportant or insignificant, either (I'll give you credit for trying, though!).No, this is about demonstrable fact. And as I explained in this page, it is a demonstrable fact that Jesus' reported prediction -- recorded in Mt 16:28, Mk 9:1, and Lk 9:27 -- not only has failed to come true as stated, but it cannot possibly ever come true as stated.When explicit, verbatim predictions made in the Bible fail this utterly, nothing else in it can be treated as credible "prophecy." That's really all there is to say -- and no amount of believers' protests to the contrary can ever change that.

From what I hear, that's impossible. His negatives are far too high for him to win the general election. Supposedly. That's why the GOP is in a tizzy; if he's nominated, it all but guarantees Hillary (the presumed Dem. nominee) will win.

Re: "You are citing actions of individuals that have no Christian doctrinal source, whereas terrorism is fully supported in Islam ..."Irrelevant. If Christians are acting in the name of what they view as Christianity, then they're motivated by Christianity. Period. As for Muslims, many of them would throw out the same objection you just did to my pointing out that Christians can be terrorists. So call me unimpressed either way. As an outside observer of both Christianity and Islam, I see terrorism coming from both camps ... and that's just the way it is.Re: "... Bukhari :: Book 4 :: Volume 52 :: Hadith 220 ..."Do I really need to point out to you the vicious passages contained in Christians' own holy texts? Seriously!? You're making me do that? OK, then, by all means, let's go there!Now it came about at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle. (Ex 12:29)Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” (1 Sm 15:3)How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock. (Ps 137:9)I could go on but it would be pointless. If you and Muslims want to get into a pissing contest over whose scripture is more violent and savage than whose, I suppose you can, but in the process you indict both each other's religion and your own.

Thanks for your comment. It's a terrific example of how easy it is to go cherry-picking through the Bible texts, creatively interpreting (and re-interpreting) those snippets so that one can say it supports virtually any contention one wishes to support.

As for "the only person in History that fits the prophecy told by God" being Mohammad, that's not clear at all. The word in question in Song 5:16 actually contains different Hebrew consonants than are found in his Arabic name. So technically, he's not named there. The thing about the -im being a token of respect rather than an actual plural (meaning more than one person is mentioned) is also not clear at all. The "royal plural" was used at times in ancient Near Eastern languages, but not all instances of it can safely be assumed not to refer to multiple persons. The context matters, and in this case it could go either way. The word may well also be an adjective rather than a noun (which is how it's translated nearly all of the time).

In any event, as I explained at the end of my original post, the notion that the Bible contains accurate "prophecy" is belied by the fact that it contains overt predictions which not only have failed to come true, but which cannot possibly ever come true. Nothing you've said here refutes that.

Please, by all means, Muslims, Christians and Jews should continue sifting through these texts, sifting out snippets they want, ignoring others, and arguing with one another over it the supposed "predictions" those snippets make. Sometimes you even come to blows over it. Keep it up! We outside observers find it all very amusing. Just leave us out of it, OK?

FWIW when I say the scandal is c. 15 years old, I mean that in a literal sense: The "scandal" is, indeed, that old. The child abuse and obstruction of justice that was at its heart, is considerably older than that. I have no doubt it goes deep into Church history, likely originating around the time clerical offices became institutionalized (i.e. in the first half of the 2nd century). I'm aware of early Church documents suggesting there'd been untoward behavior on the part of some clergy, and sporadically, rules were suggested to deal with it. Those rules, of course, weren't always implemented, and even when they were, they often were later circumvented, rolled back, or even ignored. Interestingly, among advocates for universal celibacy of clergy were some monks (aka "regular clergy") who accused the "secular clergy" (i.e. many of the parish priests, bishops, etc.) of various shenanigans, including pederasty in addition to dalliances with nuns, and they contended celibacy would prevent that. It clearly did not work out that way. I won't even get into the fact that some of those monks who championed celibacy were not, themselves, anywhere near as "pure" as they claimed to be ... but that's another matter.

You're also 100% correct that the R.C. Church long ago lost any moral authority it might once have had. It's possible for them to regain it, but they persistently refuse to make any concessions or implement any serious, institutional changes that might help restore their moral credibility. Oh no. All they do, instead, is stamp and fume and pitch fits over how they've lost their influence, and they keep demanding people's deference in spite of the fact that they haven't actually done anything to earn it.

Re: "Abortion is the killing of an innocent human person."

Interestingly, allowing pregnant women to die in the name of preventing them from aborting a fetus -- which is what Walsh and a lot of the R.R. demands happen -- also happens to be "the killing of an innocent human person." One who happens to really be alive already.

But hey, who cares about that? Women of child-bearing age are disposable, aren't they? In the eyes of the R.R., that is.

BTW your comment-profile has a spammy link in it. Please delete it, or I'll have to delete your comment. Not because of its content, but because you're using comments to promote spam.

Because burning books is something the Nazis were famous for. It was a hallmark of that regime. I looked for a photo of someone burning books and that one came up. So I used it. If the folks in this church in Canton NC don't want to be associated with Nazis, there's a simple solution: They can stop acting like them. See how easy that was?In any event, burning books is a childish, asinine, and (most importantly) useless thing to do. It accomplishes nothing whatsoever aside from venting one's rage over something.

Re: "If you all believe in equal rights and cultural varieties."

I'm not sure the kids are being taken on field trips to engage in any other religion's rites. So I don't think the principle of "equality" applies here.

Re: "Why don't you just have your child not the field trip?"

Because it's a class activity. As in "the whole class." Should be obvious, but I guess it needs to be pointed out.

Re: "It REALLY isn't about religion or anything, BUT the mothers NOT wanting her child to attend!"

Correct. Why force the issue? Why not just let parents take their kids to visit Santa on their own time instead of on school time? Who's stopping them from doing so?

Re: "Santa Claus is someone EVERY child BELIEVES in."

Really!? Is that so? Even the Jewish and Hindu and Muslim and Buddhist kids believe in Santa? Since when?

Re: "How does ONE child's parent ruin Christmas for every child in a kindgertain class?"

The better question to ask is, why was the school forcing Christianity on all the kindergarten kids?

Re: "Where is this du=istrict meeting!"

I have no idea. But I'm sure you could find out. Google is your friend: http://www.cambriansd.org/Domain/4 Be sure to go there, with all your Christianist neighbors, armed with torches and pitchforks. There's nothing like a mob of peasants to inform school administrators how to do their jobs! I'm sure it'll be a fun night for all concerned!