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Dear Candide, Dear Suseonline,

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Unlike cannibalism, I have never heard of paedophilia being practised by any living species other than human beings.

Among human beings, no particular social group seems to have a monopoly on such practice.

The fact that it has become common practice by the Church is particularly shocking because the Church is meant to be a safe haven for all of us. In addition, the Church is supposed to uphold the highest moral standards while condamning the very paedophilia it practices itself.

That is the equivalent of high treason and is absolute hypocracy.

Parents who continue to entrust their children to members of the crergy may be considered as wilfully exposing them to potential sexual abuse.

The Church has revealed itself not only as being perfectly incapable of providing a safe haven for our children, but its own representatives are a very real moral danger to them.

Judging from the ineffective corrective measures implemented by the Church in other countries following similar "Royal Commission investigations", it is not to be expected that results will be any different in Australia. The Pope will see to that.

The sole purpose of the whole exercise is to defend the right of the Church to continue to bring in as many innocent children to its fold as it can.

All the rest is aimed at giving otherwise reluctant parents good conscience.

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…The “confessional” lies at the heart of the problem! This little institution of “Mums-the-word”, where criminals are given absolution, perpetuates crime; (difficult though this is to comprehend when RC Cannon Law itself condemns compliant criminal practice under the rule of “Complicit Absolution”).

…Cardinal Pell recently complained of the difficulty of the confessional confidentiality: But how could Pell not be guilty of hiding a crime when, under Cannon Law, the sins of a priest must be absolved under a hierarchical system involving senior clergy, where the knowledge and forgiveness of a particular crime is exposed for the “sin” of the crime to be forgiven. Transgression of those rules is termed a “sacrilege”. Is Pell then compliant in the crimes of pedophilia as well as “sacrilegious”?

…It appears to my logic and observations over the years that the root of the problem of pedophilia in the Catholic Church is with the complicit Bishops: Being those giving absolution to criminals, and who are aware of the crime; the “buck” must stop somewhere on its upward journey

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Dear George,

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Thank you for your explanations and clarifications.

Please allow me, in turn, to refer you to the British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic, Bertrand Russell, whose debating techniques are not generally considered to be of an irrational nature.

In his 1952 article "Is there a God", Russell coined an analogy in order to parody religious argument. This is " Russell's teapot". Here is the link to the article:

http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/religion/br/br_god.html

Contemporary versions of "Russell's teapot" are the "Invisible Pink Unicorn" and the "Flying Spaghetti Monster".

Though parodies of this nature are generally not considered an irrefutable principle of logic or a scientific result, they are an appeal to common sense which the Cambridge Dictionary defines as "the basic level of practical knowledge and judgment that we all need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way".

Cicero pointed out that the orator had to take into account the common sense of the crowd if he were to influence them. John Locke seems to have been of a similar state of mind in his "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding".

William of Ockham and his "Ockham's razor" maxim is not exactly at odds with this principle in so far as it celebrates the virtue of simplicity as a criterion of choice among competing theories.

These are some of the reasons, George, why I feel justified in thinking that parody as an appeal to common sense has its place in rational debate.

Which, of course, does not exclude the fact that parody is just as falsifiable as anything else you may consider to be authentic rational debate.

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Oops! I posted that on the wrong thread.

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I have now posted it where it should have been:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=14358&page=5

Sorry about that.

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