RCC gets even closer to a real apology

Regular readers will remember two weeks ago when I gave credit where credit is due to the Pope for finally admitting that the abuse and its systematic and deplorable covering up of that abuse are the fault of the Catholic Church itself, and not a cabal of people trying to ruin a good organization. It looks like Benedict thinks that blaming ‘Sin’ was enough, and is now asking Catholics worldwide to forgive the Church:

Pope Benedict XVI has begged forgiveness from clerical abuse victims and promised to “do everything possible” to ensure priests don’t rape and molest children ever again.

I have a question for you, dear readers. Have any of you been in, or been witness to, an abusive relationship? Have you ever been stuck in a vicious cycle with some asshole who swears “I can change, I swear I’ll do whatever it takes” as long as you take him/her back? I’ve seen it, and believe me it isn’t pretty. We’d all like to believe that people can change if they love you enough – that their feelings for you are so strong that they’ll move Heaven and Earth just to keep you.

What ends up happening in those situations? I’ll tell you: the change lasts for about as long as it takes for you to stop being angry, and then everything goes back to the way it was before. People don’t change. As much as they’d like to believe it, people don’t suddenly become better people by sheer force of will. It takes years for us to form our personalities, and it will similarly take years to change those personalities. Press the apologizers for details on how they’ll change, and you’ll find that they have no plan, no specific behaviours, no real concrete idea of what they’re going to do. But they’ll do it!

So whenever I hear someone say something vague like “do everything possible”, I roll my eyes and say “sure, tell me another one.” Organizations don’t change wholesale, especially in the absence of real ideas for reform. When a change is proposed that offers zero specifics on how to make it happen, it’s the equivalent of saying ‘I don’t think what I did was wrong, but you’re mad, so I’ll feed you a line until you stop being mad.’ I’ve done it to my parents, I’ve had friends do it to their significant others, I’ve seen friends’ significant others do it to them, and I’ve been on the receiving end more times than I care to recall. It inevitably ends the same way.

So while I’m willing to believe that the Pope (and the Church by extension) feels really really bad about what happened, I’ll withhold any talk of forgiveness until I see real change. Asking for forgiveness does not oblige me to grant it to you. Seeing as the abuse happened for decades and was rife throughout the entire organization, it’s going to take a lot before I’m willing to believe that any progress has been made.

Update: Gay couple in Malawi pardoned

A couple weeks back I talked about a couple that was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for the shocking, deplorable act of… well, being in love with each other. However, ultra-religious Malawi doesn’t like it when you’re in love with someone who has similar genitalia (although to be 100% clear, it was a law that was brought in by the British).

However, it seems that what Malawi likes even less than ‘teh butt secks’ is getting their own ass pounded by the international community:

Mr (President Bingu wa) Mutharika, speaking as UN chief Ban Ki-moon visited his country, said he had ordered their immediate release.

We don’t get a lot of flashy victories in the fight against the forces of stupid, but this one is a bit of good news. Luckily, the voices of reason were able to shout down the voices of “that’s just how they do things in their culture” and get these two guys out of jail. Listen, folks: when my country trades with your country, when the health and well-being of your citizens affects my bottom line, and when you are violating their human rights (as I define them), then I absolutely have a right to speak up. When the suffering of your people inspires outrage and sympathy in my people, and they demand that I do something, you’d better believe that I’m going to speak up. If you want to practice barbarism, then you’ve got to deal with the consequences; one of which is the fact that the richest parts of the world have moved past your small-minded interpretation of scripture. You want our money? You’ve got to play by our rules. You want to keep your practices the same? Then you’ve got to convince me (and my people) that you’re justified in doing so. “This is the way we do things here” is not justification, it’s special pleading, and I’m not swayed by it.

Of course, there’s no happy ending to this story. Homosexuality is still illegal in Malawi, and bowing to legal pressure (and probably threats of physical violence), the couple has split up, and one man is now pretending to be heterosexual. It’s tragic that they’re unable and seemingly unwilling to stand up for gay rights in their country, but I can understand why. I can only hope that other gay people in Africa are more willing to stand up to the pressure and demand their human rights, despite the horrible cost.

Why can’t you just leave them be?

I watched a mini-drama unfold on a thread that was linked to my Deepak Chopra post a couple weeks ago. Some of the massage professionals on the site did not take kindly to the idea of skeptics telling people that they were wrong.The ‘arrogance’ card was pulled out (although I think telling people you have special insight into the supernatural, with no evidence to back that up, is far more arrogant than mentioning the lack of evidence), and my buddy Brian decided to go on the forum and explain some things from the skeptic position. He was particularly ill-received by a gentleman named Emmanuel Bistas, who derided both Brian and the originator of the thread for elitism and arrogance, and suggested they focus on things that were more important than Deepak Chopra. The precursor post to our activity in Vancouver spells out very clearly why we care about Dr. Chopra’s line of bull, and why it’s important to speak up about it.

And then I ran into the same plaintive cry that all people whose beliefs are supported by no evidence retreat to when someone challenges them:

“I am not saying I would not do all in my means natural and medicinal to care for my children but that is my decision and it is not up to me to make another feel or believe as I do it is up to each and every individual to find the path that is right for them.”

Ah yes, the “let people believe what they want to believe” card, also known as the “why can’t you just leave people alone?” card. The argument is that people are entitled to believe as they like, and we have no right to tell people their beliefs are wrong. I’ve heard the argument most frequently when it comes to discussions of religion. After successfully pointing out the fact that there is no rational case for belief in God, that the practice of religion often leads to horrible abuse, and that there are much better alternatives to belief in the supernatural, I inevitably hear something along the lines of “if it makes people happy, why take it away from them? Why can’t you just let people believe what they want?”

As I’ve said many times before about arguments like this, on the surface of things this seems like a reasonable response. If belief in the afterlife or a loving deity who answers prayers or a middle-eastern priest who cures lepers makes people happy, then there’s no harm in letting them continue to believe. In other words, why can’t you just leave people alone?

There’s a good answer to this question, and it’s a little glib:

They don’t leave me alone

Apologists for religious belief (and when I say religious, I mean any belief system that is based on faith in a supernatural being, not merely organized religious entities) like to paint this picture of poor beleaguered faithful people who just want to be left alone to practice their religion in the privacy of their own home. They are perfectly happy to let others believe what they want; why can’t I extend them the same courtesy?

The answer is that, just like the cake, the picture is a lie. The only way you could possibly believe that religious groups aren’t attempting to (and succeeding at) seize political power to enforce a faith-based agenda on everyone is if you’re not paying attention to anything happening in the world. Part of the reason I started this blog was to highlight specific incidences where religious groups have hijacked political systems to pass laws based on a Biblical/Qu’ranic justification of some issue or another. By my count, I have no fewer than 15 posts with specific examples (keep in mind this blog is only 4 months old), and I invite you to go back through the archives if you still think religious groups are content to leave well enough alone.

The fact is that while we have been wrapped in the blanket of complacency, soothing ourselves with meaningless jibberish like “everyone’s entitled to their opinion” and “who are we to say what is right and wrong“, religious groups have been taking the exact opposite position, forcing your laws to abide by their opinions and deciding for you what is right and wrong. This will not change unless someone speaks up in opposition and says “you do not speak for me, and I want to see the justification for your position.”

“But Crommunist,” you may be saying “most people aren’t religious fundamentalists. They aren’t trying to pass laws, they just want to live their own lives.” This is true, and most of my friends who are “religious” are that way very quietly, in name only. They don’t buy things like literal Biblical interpretation, or scripture-based laws, some probably even doubt the divinity of Jesus. I know this, because I was in the exact same position not too long ago. While I have sympathy for those friends who just want to be left alone, failing to speak up against those who want to relig-ify our country in the name of appeasement gives political cover to the hard-liners. Lack of dissent is assent – if you don’t speak up, you’re implicitly agreeing with them. If you do agree, then say so; if you don’t, you have a responsibility to say so too.

But this type of excuse doesn’t confine itself to religion. The people on the massage forum weren’t explicitly talking about religion, they were talking about medicine – specifically, energy medicine. A modality for which there is no evidence, which has been tested and found not to work, but is still practiced anyway. It’s all well and good to talk about “leaving people alone”, but when you are in a position of trust (as you are if you are a medical practitioner), and you abuse that position to “treat” people with modalities that are completely ineffective, you are violating that trust. It is wildly unethical to mislead someone into thinking they are receiving treatment when all you are doing is giving them a placebo (remember: if you have to believe in it in order for it to work, it’s a placebo). Informed consent is the cornerstone of the ethical practice of any profession, but particularly one in which the recipient is in such a compromised position. Lying to people, and a lie of omission is still a lie, is not “leaving them alone”, it’s deceit.

We have a duty to each other to be honest and forthright in all of our dealings. Part of that process is to look at reality to see if our beliefs are supported by fact. If there is no fact for or against, then we have to go by logic and reason. Once logic and reason have exhausted their usefulness, then I suppose all opinions are equally valid. However, that’s not the case for quack medicine, and it’s certainly not the case for religion. I refuse to stand by with my thumb in my ass while people spout absolute lies and fabrications that don’t hold up to the evidence, especially when they’re getting rich while doing so. If you still think that it’s the inherent right of people to believe what they want even when it’s contradicted by evidence, ask yourself if you think it’s the inherent right of people to be able to defraud each other for profit.

Do you believe in flying teapots?

I grow very tired of hearing people tell me that atheism is the same as religion. “I believe there is a God, and you believe there isn’t. We both BELIEVE something – it’s the same!” This is the problem when one makes assertions based on “common sense” (a.k.a. not thinking before you speak), and is somewhat reminiscent of the “science is religion”  fallacy that I’ve talked about previously. There is a difference, and not simply a semantic one between the statement “I believe there is no God” and “I don’t believe there is a God”. The first is indeed a statement of belief – a belief in non-Godness. The second is a statement of lack of belief – a failure to believe in the existence of God.

To illustrate this difference, I am going to resurrect the oft-disturbed ghost of Bertrand Russell and his celestial teapot. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this thought experiment, Russell invites you to imagine that there is a teapot floating out in space, somewhere between the Earth and Mars, in an elliptical orbit around the sun. He further states that, even with the most powerful telescopes, it is impossible to detect the teapot – it is going too fast, there’s no light shining on it, it’s too small; the important thing is that it is impossible to detect by any means. But since you cannot detect it, you cannot prove that it isn’t there. He then invites you to consider the proposition that since you can’t prove it’s not there, you are required to believe and behave as though it is.

Of course reasonable people will dismiss this teapot out of hand. The idea that there could somehow be a teapot – a manufactured item of human origin – floating out in space is patently ridiculous. How would it have gotten there? “No, no, no” you are happy to say “even though we can’t prove there is no teapot, I’m perfectly willing to accept the position that in the absence of any confirming evidence of a teapot, it isn’t there in all likelihood.”

“But no!” says Russell “the teapot is THERE! How else do you explain why the lawn is wet in the morning? It’s because water from the teapot pours over the atmosphere and gets on the lawn!”

“Bushwah!” you retort. “We know where dew comes from – condensation of water vapour when the air cools overnight. And besides, any water that would come from space would evaporate instantly one it hit the outer atmosphere, and would never reach the ground.”

“Folly!” Russell comes back. “Why else would tea be so popular all over the world, if not for the fact that there is a subconscious recognition in all cultures of the existence of a teapot out there somewhere.”

“Fiddlesticks and balderdash!” say you. “We also know why tea is so popular – part of it has to do with the expansion of an empire that drank tea for historical, agricultural and climate reasons. Part of it has to do with the fact that tea is tasty. Besides, not every culture in the world drinks tea!”

But Russell keeps coming at you with facile explanations of real-life phenomena, invoking the intervention of an invisible teapot. He goes further and describes the colour and shape of the teapot (it’s white with blue flowers, medium-sized, and has a small chip on the handle), despite the fact that it is, by its nature, impossible to see. He even goes so far as to say the teapot demands that we wear used tea bags on our ears, and get together once every week to sing “I’m a little teapot, short and stout”, lest we tempt its ceramic wrath.

Eventually you get so tired of this clown that you slug him in the face and walk away – not a very teapot-like thing to do, says Russell.

I have stretched the metaphor beyond its original context, and made obvious allegorical reference to belief in God. But this is precisely what any faith requires you to do. In the mildest form, it demands that you believe completely in the existence of something for which there is absolutely no evidence, and never can be. In its next form, it twists observable phenomena to fit a blind belief, despite far more reasonable alternative explanations for which there are mountains of evidence. Eventually, it makes wild assertions about this evidenceless entity’s characteristics, and what it wants from humans (but not other animals). Any attempt to introduce reason into the conversation will inevitably be met with “well you can’t prove it’s wrong, so therefore it must be right.”

I want to pause for a second here and talk about that statement. “You can’t prove it’s wrong” is a ludicrous standard to hold anything to. It’s literally impossible (not just really really hard, but actually impossible) to prove that something is or isn’t there. I can’t prove to you that I exist, that you’re reading these words, that your computer is in front of you. If you’re creative enough, you can explain away pretty much everything (except your own existence). All we can do is look at the evidence and test alternative explanations. You could be hallucinating this whole thing, but you haven’t had any psychotropic drugs and don’t have a history of vivid hallucinations (plus, how lame a hallucination is this?). It’s far more reasonable to conclude, until there is evidence to the contrary, that the world is as it seems. Once there is evidence to the contrary, then you evaluate it and change your ideas accordingly. The part that really grinds my gears is the “… so therefore” part. Just because I can’t prove you wrong, that doesn’t mean you’re right. Just because I can’t prove that the food in the fridge doesn’t disappear when the door is closed is not proof that gremlins eat it and poop it out again exactly as it was. It’s not proof of anything. You don’t just get to make shit up because there’s no way to prove you’re wrong.

But it turns out that Russell is very persuasive, and people start to believe in the celestial teapot. When you say “well I don’t believe in a magical flying teapot that nobody can see”, they begin to call you an “a-pot-ist” (or if they’re clever, an a-pot-ate). They tell you that you secretly do believe in the pot, you are just bitter and angry at it, or your life has been bad and you resent the teapot, or that your belief in the absence of the teapot is just as facile as their belief in it. None of those things are the case – you are simply being reasonable and saying that in the absence of any evidence whatsoever, you don’t think there’s a pot there. And you’re right to do so. You might even go so far as to say “there is no evidence that there is a pot, and since it’s highly unlikely that a pot could get into space on its own, there probably isn’t one there.”

Your friend calls himself teapot-agnostic. “We can’t know if it’s there or not,” he says “so I’m not taking a stand on either side.” You then ask him directly if he believes in the existence of the teapot. He says “I don’t know if it’s there or not, it’s impossible to know.” But you press him – does he think there might be a dragon in his back yard? “Well no,” he says “dragons aren’t real.” But they might be, you remind him. There’s no way to know for sure. “Fine,” he says “there might be a dragon in my back yard that I just can’t see.” Does he believe in anything, you ask? Does he, for example, believe that the money in his pocket is real? “It’s impossible to know,” he says “and I refuse to take a position.” Fine, you say. Give me all the money in your wallet, since you don’t know whether it exists or not. See how far his ‘not taking a stand on belief’ goes. Scratch the surface of a systematic agnostic, and you’ll find someone who is actually a non-believer but just isn’t ready to say so. I would invite so-called ‘agnostics’ everywhere to (WARNING: Pun ahead) shit or get off the teapot.

This is the case of skeptic atheism. It is the result of following the philosophy of if there is no evidence for something, then it might as well not exist. If evidence appears later, then it probably does exist, and that’s great. But if there’s something out there that has no effect on the observable universe, whose effects are completely invisible, and without the existence of whom absolutely nothing would change, it’s perfectly fine to say it doesn’t exist, and spend your time on the stuff that you can see. You don’t have to believe that the teapot isn’t there, you just don’t see any evidence that it is.

Movie Friday: Religion… not just INTELLECTUALLY bankrupt

I have a headache after watching this video:

No mention of the fact that the “Christian” United States and its ultra-capitalist system is what got the recession rolling in the first place. No mention of the complete contradiction inherent in the argument that people shouldn’t wait around for the government to help… they should just wait for God (who’s about 5000 years overdue – any day now though…). The only voice of reason got sandwiched in between the moron host and the more moronic priest who somehow manages to make arguments on both sides of his own point. The host’s final statement made me chuckle: they could have put something newsworthy on, but instead we talked to a priest who knows less about economics than he does about secularism (or Christianity, it seems – Jesus was definitely a socialist; “render unto Caesar” and all that…)

Secularism doesn’t make you poor, secularism makes you make decisions that are based on what is good for others rather than what it says in a religious tome. Can that socialist instinct take you too far? Absolutely. But right now we’re all living through what happens when capitalism allows to go unchecked.

I’m not smarter than these people because I’m an atheist; I’m an atheist because I’m smarter than these people.

Sometimes… some crimes… go slippin’ through the cracks

One of the frustrating things about doing this (blogging) is that there’s only 5 blogging days in the week (4 if you consider Movie Friday) and I don’t like inundating you with blog posts. Maybe once I am able to build a larger reader base I’ll be able to get away with it, but I think one post every day is probably enough. Because a lot of my content comes from articles in the news, there are a lot of stories that I’d like to write about but don’t make the cut for whatever miscellaneous reason. To illustrate what I’m talking about, here is the stuff that didn’t make it into its own post this week.

I’ve talked recently about the unbelievable stupidity of trying to pass religious-based “morality laws” that outlaw homosexuality. First of all it’s not even “immoral”, and second you can’t legislate the way people are born. Of course, nobody has told that to Zimbabwe, who is now arresting gay rights activists on drummed-up pornography charges and “insulting President Robert Mugabe”. Hey Mugabe – you’re a moronic pig-fucker who still breast feeds and wears Rainbow Brite pyjamas to bed. Maybe we should start an “Everybody insult Robert Mugabe” day. All this while the White House and the House of Representatives are trying to abolish “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Ever get the feeling some places are moving in opposite directions? Well have no fear, because we’ve still got homophobic assholes here in Canada. Let’s all join hands!

I was joking when I said women shouldn’t vote. Apparently Rabbi Elyakim Levanon reads my blog and doesn’t have a sense of sarcasm. He’s told the female members of his community that voting is a man’s job. He wants to prevent a circumstance wherein women would have different votes from their husbands. Good thing there’s still someone out there promoting “traditional family values”. Sheesh.

Yeah, it still sucks to be a woman in a theocratic country. An imam in Mali suggested that maybe women shouldn’t be religiously and legally required to obey their husbands, and the cry went up. Mali, which is Muslim, ought not to be confused with Malawi, which is Christian. They’re both asshole countries ruled by religious stupidity, but it’s a different kind of religious stupidity so the differences abound. The joke of course being that it doesn’t matter what god you believe in, you’re going to keep doing the same bigoted and abusive things to your women.

Gotta admit, it’s a step in the right direction. Zimbabwe is relaxing the tight grip that the government holds on newspaper publication. This is a good thing, as I talked about earlier this week. If you allow free media, you allow a robust opposition, which in turn allows tyrannical leaders (like Mugabe) to be cast down. Let’s hope this gains some steam. Maybe they’ll start writing about how Robert Mugabe likes to sniff the underpants of old ladies and dresses up as a Japanese school girl on weekends.

Ban internet porn? Two words: Good luck.

This is what I like to see. A school is not living up to its educational standards? Shut it down. So what if it’s a religious school? They have standards to maintain, and are staunchly refusing to adhere to provincial requirements. You don’t want to play by the rules? Great. Shut your doors.

I’m sure you think you know where I’m going with this story, but actually I’m all for it. A lot of good things have come out of the Islamic world, and those things are part of our shared history as human people. We should be aware of both the good and the bad that comes out of religion. We can take the good stuff (art, music, culture, mathematics) and leave behind the stupid parts (YahwAlladdha). Put it all in museums, and let people see all sides of Islam.

So yeah, that was all stuff from this week alone (and by this week, I mean the last week of May, because I write these things way before they go live). There are a few other things (the mosque bombing in Lahore, the rise in internet banking in the developing world, rugby becoming an integrated sport in South Africa) that I am saving and hope to write about in context with some other things. The take-home message is that there’s a lot going on out there. Lots of it negative, some of it actually wonderfully positive. I don’t have the time to write about it all, and I suspect you don’t have the patience to read my take on everything even if I did.

P.S. Bonus points about for anyone who recognizes where the title of today’s post comes from.

P.P.S. Robert Mugabe lost an arm-wrestling contest to a 6 year-old, and has Hanson posters all over his bedroom. C’mon, pig fucker! Arrest me!

Update: Pakistan’s “Everybody be Stupid Day” Facebook/Youtube Ban

You might remember a couple of weeks ago when I mentioned that Pakistan, reacting to a Facebook campaign to showcase the stupidity of bans on drawings of Muhammad, decided to up the ante of stupid and ban Facebook, Youtube, Flickr… basically the whole internet. Of course, this move completely missed the point of the event, which was not about attacking Islam, but about protesting the fact that people’s individual religious beliefs are somehow sacrosanct, and that non-believers must make allowances for other people’s superstitions. Why not a governmental cull of black cats, or a ban on the number 13? Those are obviously stupid, but throw belief in a magical sky-genie into the mix and all of a sudden “there are some things you just don’t question.”

Well Pakistan is a theocracy, and like many Muslim countries is run essentially by religious leaders. So when they saw a criticism of their superstition, they reacted by throwing a tantrum, taking their ball and crying home to their mommy. But, because they’re politicians, they made sure to use the opportunity to seize more political power:

Many observers and internet users in Pakistan now feel the authorities have gone too far and used the Facebook row as an excuse to bar any content deemed too critical of the government.

Political power and opposition have a bizarre relationship, something like a rebellious teen and a parental figure. While those in power hate being opposed and will do just about anything to get out from under the opposition’s thumb, the only way to ensure long-term stability is to have an effective opposition. It forces those in power to make concessions to their policies, ensuring the maximum benefit to the greatest number. But of course, nobody who has power likes to be reminded of that. The first step in establishing an iron fist to rule over people is to silence your opposition. The trick to this, of course, is that if you’re caught doing it, then people begin to cry ‘foul’. However, if you can spin it such that you’re infringing on free speech ‘for the good of the people’, you get carte blanche to do whatever you want. This is exactly what Pakistan has done.

Even after the government started allowing content to go through again, they kept their thumb firmly planted down on Facebook. It’s funny, I was among the number of people who derided Facebook when it first came on the scene. “I’ll never get Facebook,” I said “I’m not a 12 year-old girl.” It has since completely replaced my use of MSN messenger, and largely eliminated most of my non-professional e-mail use. And I’m not the only one who’s seeing this:

The research by Spot On Public Relations, a Dubai-based agency, says there are more than 15 million subscribers (from Arabic countries) to (Facebook). The total number of newspaper copies in Arabic, English and French is just under 14 million.

I realize that Pakistan is not an Arab country, but since the Arab world is largely Muslim, and Pakistan is a Muslim country, I hope it’s not too much of a stretch to conclude that Facebook plays a major role in how many people in Pakistan communicate with each other and gather information. Shutting down Facebook is then basically the same as banning free press, a textbook tyrannical move. All done in the name of “religious protection”. YahwAlladdha forbid anyone see anything that is critical of religious superstition.

Political opposition and free press are the lifeblood of an egalitarian society. Erosion of the fundamental right to free expression is the first step in establishing a tyrant government. And if that offends you, you don’t have to read it.

Movie Friday: The Christian Right in Canada

We can no longer afford to believe the lie that Canada is immune from the religious fervour that is ruining the United States.

It’s happening here too.

What can we expect when the Christian Right takes over? Goodbye free speech when it comes to discussion of religion. Goodbye freedom of religion (obviously). Goodbye personal freedoms of many kinds, as well as gay rights and abortion rights. Hello religious tests for political office, creationism in schools, and probably finding a way to throw God into the national anthem a couple more times.

Anyone who says that religion is harmless and is a personal choice that nobody is trying to force on anyone else, I say that you are talking out of your arse sir, and I would like you to teach me to do that trick.

The Pope comes soooo close to getting it right

Richard Dawkins has a really funny line about how Christianity is “better” than Hinduism because it’s much closer to recognizing the actual number of gods; but they overestimate by one. It’s amazing how tantalizingly close you can get to the truth with religion, but fail to make that final leap across the chasm of rationality (to borrow unashamedly from Kierkegaard).

After watching the Catholic church blame isolated pockets of individuals, the media, and finally “the gays” (it always seems to come down to them), Pope Benedict finally came close to actually acknowledging that the systemic sexual abuses taking place in the Catholic Church were the fault of… THE CHURCH:

Critics have previously accused the Vatican of attempting to blame the media and the Church’s opponents for the escalation of the scandal. But the Pope made clear its origin came from within the Church itself, and said forgiveness “does not replace justice”.

I’m not a demagogue. I am completely willing to recognize when someone I disagree with does something noble. Recognizing that the church had a role in the abuse and saying that having God’s forgiveness (note: evidence not shown) does not replace earthly justice is a marvelous and courageous admission. It takes a great deal of humility and respect for others to stand up and say “I have made a mistake, and the fault is mine.”

Which is almost what Benedict did here. Now I am not trying to suggest that Benedict (as his Clark Kent alter-ego, Cardinal Ratzinger)  himself is solely or even primarily responsible for covering up the sexual abuse, although there is evidence to suggest that his office was complicit. I am not expecting him to go out and own up for all of the abuse that’s ever happened in the church. However, there’s one final step that the Pope needs to take if he’s interested in being honest – he needs to stop blaming “Sin”.

Sin is a ridiculous ephemeral concept. It’s a disembodied entity that sneaks into the souls of righteous people and influences their acts. It’s like blaming the devil for possessing you and making you get drunk and beat your kids. Saying that sins within the Church are responsible for its actions is creating a non-corporeal scapegoat. It’s like Jeffy from Family Circus and his ghost pal “Not Me”. You can’t confront “Sin” and take it to task for its actions. You can’t remedy “Sin”. “Sin” is just out there, and there’s nothing to be done about it.

I’m waiting for the pope to recognize that wearing a cloak of impenetrable infallibility is going to lead to corruption. Insisting that the “good of the church” should trump doing the right thing is begging the question – how do you know that what’s good for the church is good for anyone else? What we see over and over is that the more power and secrecy a group has, the bigger the potential for abuse. That isn’t because of “Sin” or because of bad people who sneak in under the radar. It’s the inevitable outcome of an establishment that refuses to play by society’s rules and insists on its own superiority without evidence. The reason the RCC is catching all the attention right now is because it’s the biggest organized religious entity – I’d be shocked to learn it isn’t happening in other places.

As I said, I applaud the Pope for coming close to getting it right. His office’s unrepentant actions immediately following this pseduo-apology are contemptible and I am still no friend of Benedict, but I am willing to recognize when steps are made in the right direction.

It’s not all doom and gloom here at the Manifesto

I’ve been pretty critical and negative for the past couple of weeks, so I thought I’d clear the air with some more things that make me happy.

(WARNING: Pun ahead). This is the kind of international conflict I can sink my teeth into. I’ll pause for a moment until you stop splitting your sides with laughter at my hilarious jokes.

…

Done yet?

Okay, good.

Apparently in between bombings and incursions into each other’s national territory, Israel and Lebanon have been waging a delicious war to see who can make the most hummus (a delicious chick pea-based spread/dip). I’m all for international rivalries, so long as they’re peaceful and fun like this one. Competition makes us strive to be better. There’s no ethical or philosophical point to be made here, it just made me chuckle.

Muslims are exhorted to pray 5 times a day at specific times. A muezzin calls them to prayer at those times from a loudpseaker at the mosque. Apparently though, some muezzins in Turkey weren’t quite up to scratch, pitch and tone-wise. So the city’s religious affairs officer arranged to get the more egregious offenders singing lessons. I am anti-religious, and I make no apologies for that. However, I realize that not everyone shares my belief that religion should be (or can realistically be) completely abolished. The trick is to find a way to make religious practice more tolerable for everyone, and subsume religious identification in favour of secular identification and obligation. This is at least a step along the right path. Although, now that I think about it, it makes religious practice easier to do… dammit!

Metropole is a club in the area where downtown meets Gastown (incidentally, only a few blocks from where I live). That area (referred to as the Downtown East Side or DTES) has a major drug problem. In addition to being a city with a large homeless population, drugs run through the DTES like mad. Main and Hastings is Vancouver’s Jane/Finch equivalent – low income, high crime, lots of drug use (without the benefit of York University being there). Donnelly Nightclubs is a major group that owns a lot of restaurants, pubs and clubs around metro Vancouver. They (Donnelly) just purchased the Met and are turning it from its seedy roots into a more upscale place. “Gentrification!” the cry goes out. Here’s the cool part: 25% of the annual Metropole profits are earmarked for local charities, including the Vancouver Food Bank and the DTES Women’s Center. It gives me warm and fuzzy feelings when companies show social responsibility and reinvest in the community. Yeah, so it’s all a big PR stunt that makes people look the other way as Donnelly consolidates its grip on the hospitality market. You know who doesn’t care? The single mother who gets food for her kids and job counselling for free from the charity groups supported by rich people’s drinking habits.

So yeah, things do penetrate my heart of stone and put a hop back in my step.