Dear Banjo,

I understand that you would have liked, if you could, to have religion disappear altogether. What is strange, however, is that if you can't have it all as you want, then you would particularly want to deny confession to the most vulnerable - children, including sexually-abused children.

Half the healing comes from being able to share the load and tell someone.
Abused children who for a variety of reasons are unwilling for the public to find out about their being abused, are already (due to mandatory reporting laws) denied the opportunity to confide in therapists - doctors, counsellors, teachers, psychologists, etc. Until now, they could at least tell God of their abuse through the confessional, trusting that whatever they said will remain forever in that little room, but from now on, how would they tell God? Ah yes, a child might conclude: "by jumping off a bridge I could see God today!".

There are of course children who wish to confess other things: stealing, placing a frog in the teacher's handbag, cheating in an exam, masturbating, etc. Do you really want their guilt-feelings to fester?

Formal absolution is not that important - what matters is that the person confessing is assured of absolute confidentiality. Priests just happen to provide this assurance as part of their religious vows. Priests also don't have to be male - the Anglican church for example has female priests. Lay people should also be able to take similar vows and not be prosecuted for keeping them.

«but at least I don’t commit “sins” like people who believe in some hypothetical god – no god, no sins.»

Interesting logic: assuming there is no god, believers still sin...
Had objective reality been real, then either both believers and unbelievers were sinful, or none.
I do however like this idea of there being no objective reality, that there can be different realities for different persons - so in the believers' reality god exists, while in yours he doesn't: actually this is closer to the truth than you think!

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Dear Is Mise,

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You wrote :

« However, on the issue of pederasty, I don't think that in every case or even in most, that it is not a free choice, its widespread occurrence throughout Afghanistan and historically through other parts of Asia seems to be a matter of choice by the dominant »

You could be right, Is Mise. What some may see as an advantage is that it’s a technique of having sex (with a man or a woman) without the risk of producing children.

Nevertheless, as I indicated in my post on the top of page 12 of this thread, homosexuality is a natural phenomenon which is observed in all animal species without exception :

http://pactiss.org/2011/11/17/1500-animal-species-practice-homosexuality/

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« I understand that you would have liked, if you could, to have religion disappear altogether »

Not at all, Yuyutsu. I don’t think anyone is capable of making an accurate overall assessment of the positive and negative effects of religion for humanity to date. My guess is that it more or less balances out.

If there is a problem, it’s not due to religion. It’s due to the difficulty many people have in coping with their daily lives and/or death – an existentialist problem. Religion offers a simple solution that anybody, rich or poor, can adopt.

Apart from dangerous religious fanatics, I see no reason to deny anybody a solution that satisfies them.

But I do not exclude the possibility that science might enlighten future generations more fully on these important matters in due course.
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You state :

« Abused children who for a variety of reasons are unwilling for the public to find out about their being abused, are already (due to mandatory reporting laws) denied the opportunity to confide in therapists - doctors, counsellors, teachers, psychologists, etc. »

Unfortunately, it is a well-known fact that most abused children never tell anybody about being abused, not even their parents :

http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/sexual-abuse

In Australia, child protection laws are based on “The best interest principle” :

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« Legislation in all jurisdictions identifies the best interests of the child as the primary principle » :

http://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/australian-child-protection-legislation
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To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence to indicate that any hypothetical god has ever intervened to prevent or protect any child, anywhere in the world, from being sexually abused.

And as the Church has so badly betrayed the confidence placed in it by society, it can no longer be trusted to hear the confessions of young children. Priests may be paedophiles who take advantage of what the children confess. It's far too risky.
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I wrote: « no god, no sins ». You commented : « interesting logic: assuming there is no god, believers still sin... »

No they don’t, Yuyutsu, but they believe they do. The OED defines “sin” as :

« An immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law »

For there to be “divine law”, there must be divinity, i.e., deity. Many people say they believe in deity but, so far, it’s just a hypothesis – defined by the OED as :

« A proposition made as a basis for reasoning, without any assumption of its truth »

Many people believe that they “sin” because they accept that proposition. That’s fine with me. They are perfectly free to believe what they will.

Karl Popper argued that a hypothesis must be falsifiable, and that one cannot regard a proposition as scientific if it does not admit the possibility of being shown false. Others prefer the criteria of verifiability. In both cases, the hypothesis must be submitted to crucial experimentation to test it before it can be considered “true” or “false”.

Cardinal Bellarmine gave a famous example of this principle in the warning he issued to Galileo in the early 17th century: that he must not treat the motion of the Earth as a reality, but merely as a hypothesis.

As for “reality”, Yuyutsu, I’ll stick to the universally accepted sense of the term :

« something that exists independently of ideas concerning it »

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Dear Banjo,

I am glad to stand corrected that you do not wish for religion to disappear altogether.

«If there is a problem, it’s not due to religion. It’s due to the difficulty many people have in coping with their daily lives and/or death – an existentialist problem.»

The existentialist problem cannot go away for as long as one believes themselves to be a body. One's body will surely die and cease to exist, so it's not a fantasy or paranoia, but a completely rational and realistic expectation.

«Religion offers a simple solution that anybody, rich or poor, can adopt.»

Simple? I doubt!

Religion does offer a solution, but it requires long and hard work. Theoretical/mental belief is not enough and believers fear death like all the rest. It is one thing to understand the IDEA that you are not your body, thus will never die, but only the direct (non-mental) experience of your identity with God actually saves you from existential/ontological fear. Religion aims at that (but then one must beware of all sorts of pretenders and ignorants who only claim to be religious).

«But I do not exclude the possibility that science might enlighten future generations more fully on these important matters in due course.»

Even if science does come up with correct answers about life and death, these answers will still only be theoretical. Religion [should] provide the practical practices that eliminate and uproot all fear permanently.

«Unfortunately, it is a well-known fact that most abused children never tell anybody about being abused, not even their parents»

And they often have good reasons for it. What they need is the ability to confide in someone else - this is magic, it works, it heals, but they are not likely to do so unless they have the absolute confidence that they will not be judged and that their disclosure will have no consequences.

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Again, it matters not that the person they confide in is a priest, except that there is no equivalent secular institution where the listening person can be trusted not to disclose what was being said no matter what, not even under threat of arrest, interrogation and torture.

«The OED defines “sin” as:...»

The word "sin" comes from archery, it means "missing the mark". In other words, if you are not yet with God, one with God, then you are in sin.

«Many people say they believe in deity»

But fail to understand that God is not a deity. Deities can be helpful on the religious path to God, but ultimately, to reach God and leave sin behind, one must also leave behind all deities.

«something that exists independently of ideas concerning it»

It was once commonly believed that matter exists independently of energy. Einstein refuted this (E=mc^2).

This was predicted by the ancient seers, who also predicted that just like matter is a condensed form of energy, energy (thus transitively also matter) is a condensed form of mind. Quantum theory just started to bite at this idea - let's see whether science will discover this within the short time we still have on this earth.

A few questions, Is Mise: now that Arcbishop Wilson has been convicted of covering up horrific sexual abuse, do you think he should be defrocked? Or possibly excommunicated?

And what sort of message does it send to Catholics if the Church refuses to punish their own for what most people regard as particularly grievous moral lapses?

Perhaps rather than the State trying to force the Church to do things their way, it would be better if the Church did things it's way, and modified the Seal of the Confessional.

If they're not happy to have Priests grass on people, perhaps a compromise can be reached where the church introduces a new level of sin above venal and mortal (let's call it 'Savile') and Priests are forbidden from granting absolution for Savile sins unless the would-be penitent makes a full and frank confession to the secular authorities as an act of penance (a necessary part of the Sacrament of Reconciliation). And if people don't seek absolution for Savile sins they will be considered excommunicate until they do.

Well, it's a start at least...

Lavis for Pope! I'm a baptised male, so I'm technically eligible. Make the Church Great Again!