Acting PM and devout Catholic, Barnaby Joyce has made the off the cuff sweeping statement that "The Catholic Church had been good for Australia."
As one who was baptised a Catholic, more than sixty years ago, and subjected to the sisterhood, brotherhood and priesthood in the earlier part of my life through school and church, even to the point of being an active member at one time, I believe I am well enough informed to comment on the Church. Given my personal experience with the Church, and the fact that Barnaby did not expand on his broad brush statement, I cannot agree with the politician and devout Catholic.
I will agree some sections of the Church have done good works, and been a positive for society, so too have the Hell's Angels, see; 'Bikies ride for charity". Given their dark side, I am not suggesting that bikie gangs are good for Australia, because they have done some good works, they are not, no more than I would suggest the Catholic Church has been an overall positive good for Australia. Others may not agree, and see it differently.

Paul,
My first day at school in May 1946 at 6 years was in a little country Catholic school. I volunteered to help cut some wood with two other boys it was my turn on the cross cut saw and I managed to cut my hand for that I got the cane by the Nun. I was protestant so did not attend Mass each month when the Priest attended. I do no have happy memories of my experience with that Church. However my experience is not the total of the contribution of the Church. Because the Priests and Nuns did not have family of their own children were treated needing discipline. However Many Catholic families I have met are fine members of community.

I can only assume that Barnaby Joyce was talking about charity work - and that he’s Catholic.

The fact that the Catholic Church can do good is a testament to the fact that there are good people in the world, but the organisation itself is corrupt and poison to its core.

I can't speak on behalf of Mr Joyce and his beliefs.
However, I too was raised as a Catholic.
And having read Dr. Paul Collins book, "Believers:
Does Australian Catholicism have a future?" I'd like
to quote what Dr Collins has to say on the subject:

"Catholicism has
remarkable staying power, an ability to survive unmatched
by any contemporary institution. If you've been around for
over 2000 years you will have learned a few tricks."

"There is of course a theological explanation for this: that
Christ predicted that through his Holy Spirit he would be
with the church "always to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).
This doesn't mean that the church will be perfect or that
parts of it won't wither and die, or that it won't make
mistakes."

"Essentially it means that the Holy Spirit would sustain the
church through all the vicissitudes of history in the sense
that ultimately the church would not betray Christ or lose
the sense of his message completely. It is a case of the
Spirit of God assisting the church to make sense eventually
out of its own human confusion."

"Australian Catholics need to keep these theological
principles in mind because there is a danger that the magnitude
of the task facing the church might engender a sense of
pessimism and hopelessness. Catholicism has survived precisely
because ultimately it is adaptable and able to change."

"The other thing in our
favour is that the Australian church is just the right size.
Not too small so that it becomes incestuous or destroys itself
in the fighting, not too large so that it becomes impossible
to change."

"Personally, I am optimistic that Catholicism in Australia
will survive, certainly with lesser members. but with more
commitment and ministerial energy. But to achieve that
Catholics will require genuine local leadership and a
willingness to confront both the difficulties and opportunities
that the church faces. My feeling is that we are uniquely
placed in Australia to be able to do precisely that."

The Catholic Church is like any human organisation which has its good qualities and its imperfect individuals. It has done many great things and many things it would have been better not to have done.

Many people have an ‘agenda’ against the church and religion in general and this comes to the fore whenever the Church is found guilty of some wrong doing. Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon even though they are themselves not victims of injustice by the church.

If anyone is to blame for your bitterness about the Catholic Church or any other religion then it is your parents who introduced you to religion as a child. They were emotionally dependent on religion and wanted you to take up that same dependency. If you somehow questioned their dependence your very existence could be threatened because you were physically dependent on your parents for basic survival. Only when you became able to care for your own basic needs were you free to let go of that type of emotional dependence.

Many people never quite grow up and accept what their parents did to them as children. It is much easier to vent your spleen at the church than it is to confront what your parents did to you. Because of this failure to deal with the real causes of bitterness and resentment the Church has to cop a great deal of abuse that is really meant for the parents of the resentful and bitter.

There would be no Catholic schools if parents did not send them there and there would be no churches at all if people did not introduce their kids to emotional dependence on religion. Bitterness and resentment are the signs of immaturity and a failure to confront the realities of one’s past. What emerges so often in these debates is the immaturity of people who are still denying the reality of their experience and trying to blame someone else.

I have no religion at all. My attendance of churches amounts to a few weddings, christenings & a funeral.

My experience of religion was in playing school boy football against a number of church schools. That experience showed that the Catholics played dirtier than the Church of England boys, but the Methodists left both of them for dead in playing dirty. Thus my knowledge is great.

My daughter on the other hand, equally non religious has the grand kids attending a Catholic school. She found the public school, in a nice suburb in the Gold coast corridor was woeful, both with discipline & teaching standards. I'm old fashioned enough to still have some sympathy for that old, "spare the stick & spoil the child" idea.

My other experience of religion was in the school debating team. The other 3, all girls, were each the daughters of ministers of different religion in our town. They wasted a considerable amount of our preparation time, trying to convert me to their ideas.

They did not succeed in this, but I decided that although I did not need their religions, that it produced such great young ladies, it could not be all bad, & was an asset to the community.

I'll repeat what I've written in the past:

Although religion is a universal social institution, it
takes a multitude of forms. Believers may worship gods,
ancestors, or totems; they may practice solitary
meditation, frenzied rituals, or solemn prayer.

Emile Durkheim, one of the earliest sociologists believed
that the origins of religion were social, not supernatural.
He pointed out that, whatever their source, the rituals
enacted in any religion enhance the solidarity of the
community as well as its faith.

Rituals such as baptism, bar mitzvah, weddings, Sabbath services,
Christmas mass, and funerals. Rituals like these serve to
bring people together; to remind them of their common group
membership; to reaffirm their traditional values; to
maintain prohibitions and taboos; to offer comfort in times
of crisis and in general, to help transmit the cultural
heritage from one generation to the next.

In fact, Durkheim argued, shared religious beliefs and the
rituals that go with them are so important that every society
needs a religion, or at least some belief system that
serves the same functions.

The cause of much of the social disorder in modern societies,
he contended, is that "the old gods are growing old or
are already dead, and others are not yet born." In other
words, people may no longer believe deeply in traditional
religion, but they have found no satisfying substitute.

For many years it was widely felt that as science progressively
provided rational explanations for the mysteries of the
universe, religion would have less and less of a role to play
and would eventually disappear, unmasked as nothing more
than superstition. But there are still gaps in our
understanding that science can never fill. On the ultimately
important questions - of the meaning and purpose of life
and the nature of morality - science is utterly silent.
And by its very nature, always will be.

Few citizens of modern societies would utterly deny the
possibility of some higher power in the universe, some
supernatural, transcendental realm that lies beyond the
boundaries of ordinary experience, and in this fundamental
sense religion is probably here to stay.

phanto,

How do you know that Paul’s beef with the Catholic Church is merely “bitterness”, or something he just needs to get over? Do you have experience with the Catholic Church? I don’t, so I have no way of knowing that he just needs to get over something, or that his parents are to blame.

Paul’s problem with the Catholic Church might be something worth listening to; Paul might have a genuine grievance, beyond mere bitterness, which we could all learn something from; but you’ll never find out if that’s the case for so long you continue to play amateur psychologist.

Your amateur psychology is - how would you put it? - patronising.

--

Dear Foxy,

Durkheim was of the Structural Functionalist school of thought, which attempts to describe how different social phenomena work to contribute to the stability of societies. Structural Functionalism can also describe how crime contributes to the stability of a society, but that doesn’t make crime a good thing. So, to promote religion by plugging Durkheim’s thoughts on it, is to somewhat miss the point of Durkheim’s work, and is - to an extent - a tautology.

<<On the ultimately important questions - of the meaning and purpose of life and the nature of morality - science is utterly silent.>>

Science is not utterly silent on morality:

http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=cognitive+science+of+morality

Deontology is an area of study which overlaps morality.

Nor does religion seem to be of any use on the topic of morality (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwz6B8BFkb4). At least not in civilised societies where the threat of a vengeful god is no longer necessary.

<<Few citizens of modern societies would utterly deny the possibility of some higher power in the universe …>>

Sure, but few people would utterly deny anything. As is the case with absolute certainty in these discussions (But how can you be absolutely sure there’s no god?!), the utter denial of anything is a red herring. We can quite happily live out our entire lives without having to be absolutely certainty on any given proposition - it’s not necessary, and may not even be possible to achieve.

Philips:

Who said I was talking to Paul?

Well, phanto, you obviously weren't talking about Josephus. I've never shown any bitterness towards the Catholic Church (or any other church, for that matter). Certainly, my criticisms have never been unfair. Nor do I see any reason to assume that Paul's criticisms are unwarranted. Therefore, given that Paul is the one who started the thread, I can only presume that you were talking about him.

Philips:

Then you have nothing to worry about have you?

Dear AJ,

Yes Emile Durkheim was one of the earliest functionalist
theorists. He was also the first sociologist to apply the
perspective to religion in a systematic way. His study,
"The Elementary Forms of Religious Life" was first published
in 1912 and has since become a classic.

Many of Durkheim's contemporaries saw religion as nothing
more than a primitive relic that would soon disappear in the
more sophisticated modern world. But Durkheim was impressed by
the fact that religion is universal in human society, and he
wondered why this should be so. His answer was that religion
has a vital function in maintaining the social system as a
whole.

The Catholics look like saints when you compare it to the putried dogmas of secular humanism. While many Catholic teachings are unbiblical the amount of harm caused by secular humanism in a very short time is astounding.

Hi Phanto, if you are referring to me as the one bitter towards the Catholic Church, I would have to agree. Do I in someway blame my parents (my mother) for what transpired between me and the Church, no I do not, she could not have foreseen such trouble. The problems with myself and the Catholic Church were very much of my own making. Without realizing it at the time, I was a nonconformist within an organization which demanded total conformity. I am talking about the Catholic education and religious institutions of the 1960's and 70's which I was a part of. My peculiarity was that I was also a very good student, in fact top of the class from first to fourth year of high school, the final year before I transferred to the state education system, something not lost on the Catholic educators of mine. I was not awarded dux of the class in fourth year, although I had the highest aggregate mark, I was told it was because I had a "poor attitude", and I did, in fact I received no academic prizes that year at all despite topping three subjects. What I did wrong was to openly question the social and moral position of the Church on virtually everything. How did this rebellious attitude manifest itself. For example I refused to volunteer for the school cadet unit, in second year, stating I was a pacifists, which branded me as a homosexual. Later I took part in anti Vietnam War demonstrations, never hiding the fact, which branded me as a communists. I questioned Church, moral and religious teaching, which branded me as an atheists. Many attempts were made to reform me, from simple cajoling to hard line punishment, none seem to work. It was not easy being an atheistic, homosexual, communists attending a Catholic school in the 1960's. Things I was not.

Do I take what Barnaby Joyce said "The Catholic Church had been good for Australia." as a red rag to a bull, I suppose I do, when my own experience tells me otherwise.

Dear Foxy,

I don’t remember too clearly what Durkheim’s thoughts on religion were. I do remember there were plenty of criticisms of it, though.

In my view, religion fulfils certain needs, all of which can be found elsewhere (e.g. community, rituals, and the feeling that there is something bigger and more significant out there than oneself). Where religion’s strength lies, is in its offering of all these things in one mass-marketed, handy, pre-packaged system.

Re-located? No problem! Just go to your local church and… Boom! Instant community. No need to even add water.

But all these needs can be found elsewhere, and in places which don’t carry the risk of losing family and friends just because you may one day decide that you want to leave. The internet has only helped in this regard by enabling people to organise weekly meetups, with like-minded people, on the basis of just about any interest.

I’m cautious about predicting the end of religion, though. When the internet started to become a standard household thing in the mid-90s, I remember there were predictions that we would all become so well-informed that pseudoscientific nonsense would eventually disappear. And while that has been the case to some extent, what we’ve also seen is the ability for people to better shelter themselves from information, that doesn’t suit their worldviews, by making use of the blogosphere, and highly-personalised YouTube subscriptions and social media feeds.

However, unless there is some cataclysmic event somewhere down track, thrusting us all into a post-apocalyptic world, I do still think that religion will fade away to a point of near insignificance.

Paul1405:

That is a lot of angst to have to endure growing up. Had you gone to a state school you would have been spared all of that. The decision to send you to a Catholic school was made by your mother presumably so she was the cause of your trials.

There is no avoiding that and the pent up anger that such a decision would naturally create. It was an experience you did not have to have. Feeling no anger would be quite inhuman. You want to blame your teachers but they were only doing what they were given permission to do by your mother.

The fact that you want to tell us your story is a sign that you are trying to find someone to blame other than your mother. Everyone has a story but not everyone faces the reality of who is to blame for their story. It is much more comfortable to blame an institution than the person who claims to have cared for you. It is more comfortable but ultimately it brings no real peace.

Dr. phanto,

That's got to be the most specific amateur diagnosis I have ever seen you give. On what psychological theories/perspectives are you basing your diagnosis, and could you please cite the research supporting them?

Regards,
A former unwilling patient

So what do you know.

Paul was a pain in the ass at school. A smart ass who thought he knew everything.

Looks like nothing has changes. I wonder if he will ever grow up?

Dear AJ,

Well you've put a lump in my throat and some tears
in my eyes. I fully understand your feelings
about religion considering your background and
experiences. My husband went through very similar
experiences. He was educated by the Christian Brothers
and they managed to turn him off religion for life.

However, I find religion to be a source of comfort and
hope to me. I recognise the serious challenges facing the
Catholic Church in Australia. I believe that the Church
can be reinvigorated as a vital backdrop to contemporary
Australian life. I know that other churches in other
regions throughout history, for example North Africa, have
simply dwindled into irrelevance. It could happen here as
the century marches on. So if the Church is to remain a
precious jewel in everyday life, I guess hope is the
prerequisite - probably easier said than done.

Anyway, I am not looking to convert any body, each of us has to
find our own way in life. However, as Geraldine Doogue once
stated,

"In all the copious debates about religion and society,
one of the key questions is never properly canvassed: what
would Australia feel like without an active, vaguely relevant
Catholic Church? Correctly, there's interest in some of its
poor legacies like sexual abuse. But consider the vacuum caused
by the surrender of a hopeful Church, together with its ritual
life, its routine generosity, its largeness of spirit, it's
road map for s soul's journey through life as opposed to Economic
or Intellectual Man or Woman's Progress? Imagine the profound
gap that would leave."

Phanto,

I need to justify the position I have taken, and I use my personal experiences to that end, I do not see them as private nor am I particularly sensitive to them. I was once knocked off my bike while doing an errand for my Mum, should I also blame her for the injuries sustained?

Another one of the forums Grumpy Old Men has blown in. Hassy, as a knowledgless numskull you certainly take the cake. I assume at school you were that big fat kid, sitting down the back, who spent the entire lesson trying to catch fly's with his mouth. still at it 80 years later. Being an under achiever as you are, I can understand why you are jealous of anyone you perceive as educated, academics, technical people, skilled persons, its not their fault you did't make it. .

Dear Foxy,

Thanks for the sentiment, but my experience as a Christian was actually pretty good. Not all people lose their faith due to bad experiences. As I have mentioned several times before, I was quite active in the church assisting the Sunday school teaching, being a youth group leader, and attending the weekly Bible study group. These are not things people do when their experience of church is bad.

I still get warm and fuzzy feelings when I think back to my Church-going days. The thought that I was going to live forever was an immense source of comfort; the sense of community was amazing; and going to church was always a joyful experience which filled me with a scientifically-explainable euphoria that I was convinced at the time was the Holy Spirit.

There was just one problem: it was all based on a lie.

That’s not to say my life is worse now, however. If anything, it’s better. Sure, my lifespan is infinitely shorter than what I once believed it to be, but I never actually lost anything, and my realisation gives everything I want to do an important sense of immediacy that was never there before; it makes every minute I have infinitely more valuable. I now find a sense of community and purpose with sceptic organisations; only now, our combined energies are devoted to dispelling nonsense, rather than comforting each other with reassuring lies.

I know you don’t mean to be condescending, but this assumption, that apostates must necessarily have had bad experiences, is false. Our friend George assumed the same of me. Even my own mother (who should have known better) expressed regret for my “bad experiences”! When I told her that I just couldn’t see any evidence for a god, the notion of evidence was so foreign to her that she just stared at me blankly.

The problem with such assumptions is that they dismiss the possibility that the individual may have had a good reason for losing their faith, because a bad experience with the Church is not a good reason by itself.

Dear AJ,

My apologies for having misunderstood what you were
saying. I suppose I had assumed the same of you as
so many people (including my husband) left the Church
because of what they had experienced. I'm glad that
you had more to it than that.

I wish you all The Best in Life.

No need to apologise, Foxy. Even if you didn’t misunderstand what I had said, it’s an easy assumption to make. After all, many people have had bad experiences with the religion/church they were raised in. It’s not just sexual abuse in the Catholic Church either. Speak to any former Jehovah’s Witness and they can tell you some shocking stories of psychological abuse, for example.

Paul1405:

“I was once knocked off my bike while doing an errand for my Mum, should I also blame her for the injuries sustained?”

Presumably it was your choice to run an errand for your Mum and your choice to ride your bike so it is your responsibility. Where you went to school was your mother’s responsibility so she is to blame.

“I need to justify the position I have taken, and I use my personal experiences to that end,”

Why have you taken any position at all? When you were at school you had to do things you didn’t like doing but when you left school you had no reason to have anything more to do with the Church. Why does what they do now have any effect on you as a free adult? You do not have a position to justify. If you disagree with their teachings then ignore them. They have no power over you any longer.

You have nothing to justify any more but you still feel the need to tell us your story. Why would you tell us your story if you were at peace with yourself now? It is like you are trying to understand why you had to go through all that angst when other teenagers were spared it. I have suggested that your mother is the key to your understanding.

You said you have bitterness but bitterness is a failure to accept and own your own story. You have every reason to be angry with your mother but no reason to be bitter with the Church. The church should be totally irrelevant to you and what Barnaby Joyce thinks about the church should be even less relevant.

Dear AJ,

My husband has some horrific stories that he's told me.
So I understand. I also remember several Sisters of Mercy
who should not have been teaching. They were anything but
merciful. However, as I stated earlier -
I cannot imagine the prospect of life in Australia without
the Church's influence. However, I am no Pollyanna about
this same Church. That's the trouble. It is embedded in my
identity, which means I know all too well where it falls
short. Anyway, I won't go into the details here. Except to
add that I respect your views. And as I've stated many times -
I enjoy reading your posts.

AJ,

How about the proposition that if I watch Parliamentary Question Time on the ABC I will start to nod off and even go to sleep?

Foxy, "It [Catholicism] is embedded in my identity.."

Which reminded me of a quote, which I have found again,

“The fish are the last to discover the sea.”

from, The Macabre Side of Growing Up Catholic
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the-ooze/201504/the-macabre-side-growing-catholic

Faith is like Wi-Fi,
it's invisible
but it has the power to connect
you with what you need.

phanto,

You obviously didn't know my Mum, and her interpretation of the rights of her children when you say. "Presumably it was your choice to run an errand for your Mum and your choice to ride your bike so it is your responsibility."

Why, when a public figure like Barnaby Joyce, makes a short bland statement, like he did, it is inappropriate for others, including myself, not to offer comment.

A hypothetical, should Malcolm Turnbull happen to say "Kim Jong-un is a good bloke!" Would others have the right to comment on that, or should they ignore it as it does not effect them?

As for the Catholic Church, and why I disagree with Barnaby's statement, I could also point out non personal reasons. The disgraceful actions of many of its clergy in Australia, over many years, and the Churches response to those actions, an on going issue. The Churches position on social matters, like homosexuality and birth control etc.
For me, these and overall personal experience, are things that give the lie to Barnaby's statement.

Like others on the forum, at times I also had good experiences with the Catholic Church. I could even nominate a couple of "Brothers" and "Priests" I particularly liked, and others I particularly did not like.

On Catholic education, by far the biggest single improvement, has been the removal of socially ill-equipped, poorly trained teaching clergy, and their replacement with professional secular educators. Something the Church itself had little choice in, due to both declining numbers of clergy, and state demands for qualified educator in the classroom. Today Catholic education, is on a par with the State system.

Sure, Is Mise. That is, if you can provide a definition of “nod off” which we can all agree on? Philosophers have debated that one for centuries. And if you’re watching Question Time in Parliament, are you REALLY watching it? What does it mean to “watch” something, anyway?

Paul1405:

“Why, when a public figure like Barnaby Joyce, makes a short bland statement, like he did, it is inappropriate for others, including myself, not to offer comment.”

It is not inappropriate at all but it is inappropriate to give your personal experience in the past as evidence for anything the Church is doing in the present. If the Church is doing the wrong thing now then by all means they should be held accountable and criticised. Joyce was making a comment about attitudes to the Church as it is now based on what it did in the past. It no longer does those things so why should it be judged in the present in a way that no one else would deem fair?

The fact that both you and Philips needed to tell your personal stories as if they somehow are evidence of wrong doing by the Church in the present is telling. Your personal experiences are totally irrelevant to what is happening now and so it is natural to wonder why you would offer such irrelevant information unless you are trying to come to terms with your own personal anger and the bitterness that exudes from unresolved anger.

That is why my initial post was about bitterness and resentment because it irrationally affects many attitudes to the Church in society today and I think Joyce was trying somehow to counter balance some of those attitudes.

Go ahead and hold the present Church up to criticism but not because they once tried to make you join the cadets.

phanto,

Since when have I ever spoke of my personal experience when it was not relevant today?

<<The fact that both you and Philips needed to tell your personal stories as if they somehow are evidence of wrong doing by the Church in the present is telling.>>

On the contrary, I have always taken great care to ensure that what I say about my experience is still relevant today. I have even gone to the extent of checking opinion polls to gain a sense of the general opinion among Christians nowadays. Not that I need to very often. I deal with them all the time.

My personal experience is very relevant to what is happening in Christian circles today.

<<… it is natural to wonder why you would offer such irrelevant information unless you are trying to come to terms with your own personal anger and the bitterness ...>>

The fact that my experiences (which are far more contemporary than Paul’s, I might add) are indeed relevant aside, since when have I ever displayed signs of anger or bitterness towards the Church?

phanto, obviously you did not hear or read what Barnaby had to say. He did not refer to the present tense, it was all encompassing "The Catholic Church had been good for Australia." in fact it was past tense. The first permanent Catholics arrived in 1788. Since my experience falls with the period 1788-2017 that experience is relevant.

Why did you feel it necessary to alter the tense? Is it because you believe the Catholic Church was not good for Australia in the past, but has somehow reformed itself to the point where today it is now good. At what precise moment did you see it transform from bad to good?
Given recent on going detrimental news reports about the Church in Australia, I can not agree that it is now good.

The Catholic Church has been good for AAustralia, why even the number of jobs created by the building of the Cathedrals must have had a positive impact on jobs and the quarrying industry at the time, so also the number of churches, schools and residences built right across the country, mostly without Government support.

Then there are the hospitals and the remote leprosariums.

Philips:

Then you have nothing to worry about do you?

Paul1405:

So why did Joyce make that comment? Was is just a throw away line with no relevance to the present and if it was why did you think it was a relevant topic for discussion? If it has absolutely no context then why say it and why discuss it?

Not entirely, phanto.

<<Then you have nothing to worry about do you?>>

You still made a claim; a claim that was intended to defame someone else. So, you need to justify it, and I have every right to ask you to do so. Is it any wonder that you apparently can’t?

But thanks, all the same, for not-so-subtly trying to imply that I must have something to worry about. As I have pointed out to you in the past, not everything everyone does is done to reassure themselves of something. Psychology really isn’t your forte, is it?

On another note, Paul has legitimate criticisms of the Catholic Church - both past tense (yet still relevant, as he has just pointed out) and contemporary - and yet you just want to make it about him. And about me, too, as we have recently learned (as if it weren’t obvious in your first (misdirected) post).

So, what’s with the ad hominems?

You’re not even religious, let alone Catholic. Why attack personalities instead of addressing the substance of the arguments? What reason could a non-believer like yourself possibly have for wanting to so falsely and fallaciously shift the focus and blame from the Catholic Church and onto the people here discussing it?

Are you really just that much of a troll?

Philips:

Who said it is defamation? It may well be true but there is not much point in discussing it with you given your very limited capacity for self-reflection.

If you feel defamed then you can sue me.

I see you’re being obtuse again, phanto.

<<Who said it is defamation?>>

When you post offensive remarks about someone, that you later demonstrate you have no basis for, then that is defamation (or slander) as it becomes apparent that you had no legitimate reason for making the remark in the first place.

<<It may well be true but there is not much point in discussing it with you given your very limited capacity for self-reflection.>>

So, now Dr. phanto has determined that I have a limited capacity for self-reflection, eh?

Do you have any examples of that? No, of course you don’t. You just thought you’d sling some more mud in my direction. I guess it must have just been by some miracle, then, that I went from being a devout Christian to realising that I had no justification for my beliefs.

But thank you for once again derailing what could have been an interesting discussion by attacking personalities with your tedious pseudo-psychology instead of addressing arguments.

You’re nothing more than a troll.

"You’re nothing more than a troll."

It seems to work well with you!

phanto,
When a prominent person, in this case the acting PM, makes a public statement on anything, it is always worthy of discussion. Obviously the forum moderator deemed it worthy as he approved it. The moderator does not approve all topics, that I can testify to, my previous submission to this one, was not approved.

I can recall there was much justified public debate and outcry, when PM Rudd said "fair suck of the sauce bottle". that faux pas of Rudd's clearly demonstrated he was out of touch with dinky-di Aussies, and had no understanding of what it is to be an fair dinkum' Aussie ocker! The bloke even privately admitted he didn't wear thongs, didn't even own a pair. And such a person had the gall to lead our great nation. I put the blame squarely at the feet of Rudd's mother, forcing the little tike to suck sauce bottles. Many people don't know this, but Rudd had a deprived childhood, not allowed to eat a meat pie, or even a lamington, always forced to eat quiche! Terrible depravity wouldn't you say. Fortunately after much debate, the good Aussie battlers, like the green and gold tracky dacks Howard, were able to boot the unworthy one from office.

Paul1405:

Rudd wasn’t expressing an opinion though was he? Joyce was expressing an opinion about the Catholic Church. If he was just doing so as a private citizen then there was no real need to refer to him. You could have expressed the same opinion yourself as a prelude to a discussion if that is what you wanted to discuss. Every discussion on this forum does not have to be triggered by a politician’s utterance.

You picked it up and decided to initiate a discussion about it. Your initial post was not about the Catholic Church as it now exists, which might have been a worthy topic for discussion, but about your experiences growing up in the Catholic Church. This is not really a worthy discussion on a public forum. Your experiences were hardly unique – millions had the same experiences.

We did not need to know what happened to you we only need to know what you think about the Catholic Church as it exists in society today. This is the only discussion which would be appropriate in a place where people come to exchange ideas or opinions.

My first post was to highlight how people such as yourself and Philips allow their personal experiences of the past to colour their judgement of the present which is decidedly unfair. Many had the same experiences as you did but are able to judge the Church as they find it in 2017 which is the only judgement that matters.

If you expose your past to us then you must expect a reaction to that and just because it is not the reaction you would have liked does not mean that it is not a reasonable reaction.

And exactly how have I ever done that, phanto?

<<My first post was to highlight how people such as yourself and Philips allow their personal experiences of the past to colour their judgement of the present which is decidedly unfair.>>

Give me an example and I will retract what was said now.

That being said, just how exactly would overwhelmingly positive experiences like mine inspire an alleged bitterness (that you cannot point to an example of, I might add)?

You haven't been reading this thread very carefully, have you?

Philips:

You have already agreed that you are a victim of my behaviour and that I am a troll so why do you keep responding to my posts?

It seems you also harbor masochistic tendencies.

So, phanto, you thought you’d take advantage of that, did you?

<<You have already agreed that you are a victim of my behaviour and that I am a troll so why do you keep responding to my posts?>>

How very dishonest of you.

The reason I keep responding, and will continue to do so for so long as you sling mud my way, is because I like to defend myself against scurrilous claims. Then there’s the added advantage of exposing your dishonestly. The fact that you rely on your opponents' exasperation, maturity, and resulting departure, to continue with your bogus claims and slander against them, isn't exactly a deterrent either.

And, let’s face it, responding to you is not exactly a time-consuming activity.

The fact that you would rely on the internet adage of, ‘Don’t feed the troll’, to continue slagging off at me, under the mistaken belief that I had gagged myself with a vow to not respond to your trolling, is rather low.

http://goo.gl/xvE3zf

<<It seems you also harbor masochistic tendencies.>>

Thanks, Dr. phanto.

So, not only do I want to take away people’s human rights, sexually assault women, discriminate against de facto couples, like to watch people suffer, am a pervert who gets off on other people’s stories, and use people; but now I have masochistic tendencies?

This growing list of yours becomes less and less believable every time you add another obvious slur to it. Why, one might even be forgiven for mistaking slander and just a part of your MO.

Now, back to my question:

Just how exactly would an overwhelmingly positive experience with the Church, such as mine, inspire an alleged bitterness?

Philips:

"So, not only do I want to take away people’s human rights, sexually assault women, discriminate against de facto couples, like to watch people suffer, am a pervert who gets off on other people’s stories, and use people; but now I have masochistic tendencies?"

We should add to that your pathological self-absorption and concern for what others think about you.

phanto, I should have realized you have been appointed the forums moderator of "worthy topic for discussion" and you must have a monopoly on, "only discussion which would be appropriate". Could you publish your complete guidelines as to what you will, and will not, accept for discussion, and how that discussion should take place. So I will know better next time.

No.

phanto, okay, thank you for your well throughout and considerate response, but there was no need to go into such depth, a simple answers would have satisfied. I see from your answer you are somewhat undecided as to what to say. I will give you all the time you need.

You were presenting an argument but now you have resorted to sarcasm so there is not much else to say is there?

Thanks, Dr. phanto. I’ll add that one to the list.

<<We should add to that your pathological self-absorption and concern for what others think about you.>>

After all, each accusation diminishes in believability every time you add another one.

In what I now dub the ‘Phanto False Monochotomy’ (Don't you feel special now?), where you present the most offensive and denigrating possibility as being the only possibility, you have excluded other the other possible motivations for my actions, some of which I mentioned.

As for Paul's reasonable request, I'm not surprised that you refuse to co-operate. After all, what you (as OLO's self-appointed moderator) consider to be acceptable discussion is somewhat arbitrary, isn't it? It depends more on who is making the argument than what is being said. I mean, there are plenty of others on OLO to whom you could apply your amateur psychology, given the content of the discussions they start, and yet don't because you reserve that for those who (for whatever reason) rub you the wrong way.

Now, back to my question that you (unsurprisingly) seem keen to avoid:

Just how exactly would an overwhelmingly positive experience with the Church, such as mine, inspire an alleged bitterness?

Philips:

I think you are lying about it being an 'overwhelmingly positive experience' so there is not much point in discussing it with you.

I knew you’d go there, phanto.

<<I think you are lying about it being an 'overwhelmingly positive experience' ...>>

So I prepared these links in advance:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15995#277436 (11 February 2014)

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=7032#215483 (15 October 2015)

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18201#325584 (1 July 2016)

In the first two, I mention my activities in the Church which, as I noted to Foxy earlier (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=7844#242358), are not the kinds of things people do when their experience of the Church is bad.

In the third link, I also note how joyous those times were for me.

Of course, I could have just done all that in anticipation that you would one day accuse me of lying about how good my church-going days were.

But you’re not quite THAT predictable.

Like I said I think you are lying and that is all I need to know.

Having been a lifelong atheist I'm not a particular fan of any church. However, I'm not blind to the good that they do and the large number of people that donate their money and time selflessly, even to the point of helping out with Salvation Army collections myself.

While the Catholic church has had many despicable priests, and their handling of the issue has been self-serving, the education and care for the less fortunate hundreds of thousands cannot be forgotten.

I also note that the most rabid critics of the church are often those defending Islam against any criticism.

Yes, phanto.

<<Like I said I think you are lying and that is all I need to know.>>

I once thought that Jesus loved me, and that's all I needed to know, too. Both are examples of belief in the face of evidence to the contrary.

That would have been a long time to sustain a lie, by the way. Especially when some juicy stories of the horrors of Christian life could have helped my arguments along the way.

--

Shadow Minister,

If you read through the comments carefully, you will see that the good that has come from the Church as not been overlooked.

<<I also note that the most rabid critics of the church are often those defending Islam against any criticism.>>

I'm glad to see that you don't consider me to be "rabid" then, at least.

Philips:

"the face of evidence to the contrary."

And how do we know your 'evidence' is not also lies?

You are getting awfully desperate to defend yourself.

I already addressed that, phanto.

<<And how do we know your 'evidence' is not also lies?>>

Because it is far more fanciful to believe that I had sustained such a lie, for such a long time, and so consistently. Especially when horror stories could have served me better over the years.

When you start accusing others of lying, with no evidence to suggest that they are, you've lost the debate.

<<You are getting awfully desperate to defend yourself.>>

And how do my actions suggest a desperation? After all, it doesn’t exactly cost a lot of time or energy to respond to your slanderous accusations.

No, I think you’re just trying to shame me out of responding so that you can get the last word in and make it look like you were on to something.

It’s that ‘win-win’ tactic of yours that I’ve mentioned several times before: try to convince your opponent that they’ll look guilty if they continue to respond so that you can get the last word in and make them look guilty when they don’t respond.

Either way, you get what you want, so I may as well expose your dishonesty in the process.

I remain in amazed admiration of AJP's patient insistence on rational point by point argument in plain English in response to every ad hominem spray from OLO's resident narcissist troll who hibernated for a while but has started up again.

On the question of Roman "Catholicism" I have never had any good or bad personal experience of it (any more than of Islam which it closely resembles including in its accumulated historical martyred body count).

On logical grounds one must reject over and above rejection of all religion a cult which claims to be the "one true faith" and which embodies the black magic of transubstantiation and the pre-fascist Constantine structure of popery.

As for its body count the Church of Rome accumulated most of that in its 17-century war against Christianity. Foxe's Book of Martyrs and the accounts in the Sevvo Ellen White's book "The Great Conspiracy" cover this prolonged bloodbath pretty well.

The Spanish Inquisition was a high point in Roman Catholicism's bloodsoaked history, matched perhaps by its involvement with Musso and the rat line of war criminals to Latin America during and immediately after the war.

For a very satisfying account of the ending of the RCs' Spoanish Inquisition at the hands of Napoleon's army, have a read of www.scionofzion.com/spanish_inquisition.ht

Sorry, that link to the ending of the Spanish Inquisition should be
www.scionofzion.com/spanish_inquisition.htm
It's great stuff.

I've never heard it said 'God needs man'..... but it's obvious 'Man needs God'... why? perhaps an extension to a society desiring King and Queen....who knows...each for their own reason....and as far as religion goes....how and why does one choose a football team to support...usually influence of one sort or another...parental...sibling...communal and later in life the, romantic ideology.
Man wants someone to bear the final responsibility of his life...so why not God!
The Catholic church is merely another religious franchise offering God metaphorically dressed in a certain way as to find appeal to the masses
The social evil that is done is done by man....sometimes under the auspices of the church and the church is always in the name of God.
And now we're all discussing the merits of the Catholic church....because it fills a void and seemingly gives comfort...and brings home a truth that....man finds greater comfort in being wrong in the company of many .....than being right and standing alone

EJ.

There are many similarities between the medieval Catholic church and modern Islam. However, as the rest of the world has moved on from the barbaric brutality of the middle ages, it is not unrealistic to expect Islamic countries to do so too.

Shadow Minister said,"it is not unrealistic to expect Islamic countries to do so too;" referring to change.
Unless they get another prophet like Mohamed it will never change. He is revered above all men

Josephus: How would a new prophet like the original genocidal bandit Mohammed improve Islam? Are you aware of Mohammed's entertainment of his child bride by watching the massacre of Jews that went on all day? Revered among all men?? I don't know any men who revere him though I know many who despise him.

SM: The RC Church has moved on since Napoleon's soldiers destroyed the castle in which it held its Inquisition, but it is still trying to hold the government to ransom to fund special deals for schools to indoctrinate kids in RC theocracy.

EmporerJulian:

“I remain in amazed admiration of AJP's patient insistence on rational point by point argument in plain English in response to every ad hominem spray from OLO's resident narcissist troll who hibernated for a while but has started up again.

If you have a problem with OLO’s resident narcissist troll then why not confront the person directly about their narcissism and trolling instead of hiding your criticism behind a veiled compliment of Philips? I mean he hardly needs you to stroke his ego for him and how do you know he is patient? He may just be obsessed.

Time to ‘man up’ Julian! You are fast becoming OLO’s resident gutless wonder.

"as the rest of the world has moved on from the barbaric brutality of the middle ages,"

Shadow, have you forgotten about a couple of barbaric World Wars, and lots of other lesser wars fought over the last 100 odd years, or were they only minor dust ups by so called christian societies. Are you the master of the faux pas?

EJ,

Soooo, you are comparing the Catholic church negotiating government funding to people committing genocide?

SM: "Soooo, you are comparing the Catholic church negotiating government funding to people committing genocide?"

Actual post:
SM: The RC Church has moved on since Napoleon's soldiers destroyed the castle in which it held its Inquisition, but it is still trying to hold the government to ransom to fund special deals for schools to indoctrinate kids in RC theocracy.

Suggestion: Google "Non sequitur" or read https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/non%20sequitur or explore the meaning of "moved on"
I'm not AJP - I don't politely parse rubbish.

Re Phanto: Engaging in ad hominem slanging matches irrelevant to a thread with trolls elucidates nothing, it only feeds them. And it's a crashing bore to everyone else.

"Re Phanto: Engaging in ad hominem slanging matches irrelevant to a thread with trolls elucidates nothing, it only feeds them. And it's a crashing bore to everyone else."

Why do you need to tell us this? Why not just stop doing it?

Why do you need to comment on it at all by raising it in the first place when you cowardly hid behind a psuedo-compliment to Philips? You don't show much integrity between what you say and what you do.

Who are you to speak for everyone else about what is a crashing bore and what is not? That is very arrogant of you.