Dear Pericles,

Suit yourself - your experiment will correlate between those who think they are religious and those who do not think so (assuming that no significant portion of responders are lying).

How many truly know whether they are religious and to what extent?
Perhaps I only wish I were religious but do not truly deserve this title?
Perhaps you are more religious than me?

Can you tell for sure? I can't.

Perhaps, if there will be no discernible differences, the conclusion of this experiment will be:

"Considering oneself religious - we don't need it".

Dear Belly,

<<I wade through the words of Y unable to understand the need to not talk, in truth about victims.>>

It is not the topic of this discussion.
The topic is "religion - do we need it".

I know very little about the history of child-sexual-abuse in the Catholic Church,
I do not belong to that church,
I have very little contact with it,
I don't know any case personally,
so I rather not talk about things I don't know about.

If you excuse me, there are another 22 million Australians who also did not write about the victims on this particular OLO thread.

What I CAN say, is that child-abuse (sexual or otherwise) is NOT a result of religion.
Religion is the process of coming closer to God.
How possibly can coming closer to God lead to child-sexual-abuse, is well and truly beyond me.

Y thanks that will do it for me.
I see no point in going on.
Cars then have played no roll in deaths during a crash.
Guns do not kill it is those who hold them.
I think symptoms of control can be found in all religions.
And in the covering up of even sexual assaults.
I question followers who think they can hide that from the God they follow.
Or just maybe God approves their action.

That's exactly what I had in mind, Yuyutsu.

>>...your experiment will correlate between those who think they are religious and those who do not think so<<

If you don't allow self-selection on a question such as this, the word itself will lose every scrap of meaning. The cross-checking of responses will arrive at the meaning that the majority of people relate to.

The alternative is to create your very own, personal definition, and use that as a yardstick. Problem is, you will find that this will tell you nothing about other people, only about yourself.

Nothing wrong with that, of course. Except that it allows you to say things like this:

>>What I CAN say, is that child-abuse (sexual or otherwise) is NOT a result of religion.<<

Sadly, what is going on in the real world at the moment tells an entirely different story. People who have been using the cloak of their religious beliefs to protect themselves from the law, are being exposed as sexual deviants of the very worst kind. And there is evidence to suggest that religious practices such as enforced celibacy and the sanctity of the confessional, have aided and abetted such criminal activity.

>>Religion is the process of coming closer to God.<<

You have mentioned this before. But you should have become aware by now that this is not a description that helps the discussion along.

It may be your own personal theory, but it is a bit like describing the Mafia as a close-knit, supportive and loyal family. You can defend its logic and its accuracy as a statement, but it sheds no light at all on what most people would contend is mafiosi-like behaviour.

>>How possibly can coming closer to God lead to child-sexual-abuse, is well and truly beyond me<<

Ummm, isn't this what Belly was wondering also?

DiamondPete “They hate being told that. It really offends them. Too bad”

I don't hate being told there's “no this, no that” by an idiot.
It's simply not an actual argument, just a statement of opinion, which you just assert over and over, as if you actually “know” something that's impossible to know.

It doesn't offend, merely irritates.
Religion offends you? Too bad.

And for the millionth time, I haven't “waffled on with [my] "beliefs", page after page after page”.

I don't have any beliefs, so how could I?
You are the waffler.

“what other "excuses" can you make up?”

I haven't made any excuses for child abuse. That is not what the fundamental discussion is about.

Religion wasn't *intended* to foster child abuse or any other tragedy.
State orphanages are just a guilty, so Belly, “Do we need orphanages?”
Is child abuse what they're *intended* for?

Belly makes a comparison to guns and cars.
Well, those things cause many deaths and injuries, but do you then overlook the benefits and blessings those things are *intended* for?

Guns, do we really need them? Ask the lumberjack staring at a snarling grizzly bear. Or the village invaded by rape-and-pillage marauders.
Cars, do we really need them? ROFL!

Belly “And how do we confront a single world, while divided by? GOD?”

Or divided by language?
Or divided by politico-economic theories?
Or divided by incompatible aesthetics?

We don't have a “single world”. That's precisely why there are so many religions.
Our species lives in *many* worlds, and worlds within worlds.

Our “worlds” have only multiplied with time, as one ethnicity split off into two or more new branches, then those split off again.
Culture works the same way as that biological evolution you love so much.

As new ethnic identities may form in the future, other religions may appear, the same archetypal concepts morphing along with the cultures.

Strange that your type claims to love the many cultures of Man, but fails to include religion in that adored “diversity”.

Shocka while I hold no ill against you I differ greatly with your thoughts.
I have an idea throwing SOME catholic priests at that charging bear rather than a child may be worth while.
Lets face it, I avoided putting the Muslim faith here, we could have had 100 more posts now.
And in truth only the news, here in NSW not far from me, and Victoria turned the thread.
I while out in the garden thought about child rape.
Never ever forget children grow up, never forget they remember.
We must see all kids are left to do so.
Forget creed, ask about GOD, what one would skip around the horrible things done to these kids?
PEDOPHILIA is never acceptable never to be forgiven.