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Reposted from The Dyslectic Atheist
I had been hearing about this religious knowledge test conducted by PEW for at least two weeks now. The results simply confirmed what I have always known – Christians and most other religious people, don’t know jack-shit about religion, including their own. Most have never even read their own “holy-books,” or have done any type of real research. As someone who has read the bible from cover to cover at least twice, and studied religion and mythology for about 5 years in my teens, I have always wondered just how any half-way intelligent person could read the whole bible, and still walk away believing such utter nonsense. The story of Christ is simply stolen from the stories of the dozens of other solar messiah’s, and all of which, predate Christianity, and some by 1000’s of years. I thought, why should I even waste my time with this test, I thought that I would just ace the test anyway - so why even bother looking for the URL.
Then I was over at Krissthesexyatheist’s blog, and I found the first working link – so before reading his post any further, I clicked on the link. I started taking the test; there are 15 questions, and as I was answering the last one, I realized that I had fucked up on 14. “Which of these religions aims at nirvana, the state of being free from suffering?” well I can blame that one on my dyslexia – I knew the answer was Buddhism; however, I had clicked on Hinduism, I thought, what the hell, I’ll still get 14 out of 15 right anyway. Then the next page which gives you, your score read: “You answered 13 out of 15 questions correctly
for a score of 87%.”
I thought, WTF, I missed 6 too? 6. “Which of the following best describes the Catholic teaching about the bread and wine used for Communion?” I thought, how in the hell did I get that one wrong; I have always thought that eating and drinking zombie-jesus, was just a symbolic ritual derived from the “last supper” story. So I had given this answer: “The bread and wine are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” – Wrong answer? WTF – the correct answer is: “The bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” I thought to myself: and all of this time that I have been thinking that they were just symbolically eating on jesus, and drinking his blood – when in fact, these sick and deluded folks have actually been gorging themselves on this dead-zombie-jesus – what a sick fucking lot of vampires and fucking cannibals. I have always known that the Catholics loved themselves some jesus; but I never even thought that they were this fucking sick – I guess as long as we don’t close our minds, we can learn something new every day?
VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI sees the priestly sex scandal as a "test for him and the church," his spokesman said Wednesday, as bishops around Europe used Holy Week's solemn call for penitence to pledge transparency in dealing with the abuse of children.
But amid such signs of humility, a senior cleric also mounted a sharp counterattack to the allegations now swirling around the papacy. In an article, the official accused the New York Times of faulting the pope unfairly for his treatment of past abuse allegations.
Swiss bishops urged victims to consider filing criminal complaints. German bishops opened a hot line for victims. Danish bishops launched an inquiry into decades-old claims. And Austria's senior cleric, Cardinal Christophe Schoenborn, admitted church guilt as he presided over a service for victims billed as a sign of repentance.
"Thank you for breaking your silence," Schoenborn told the victims. "A lot has been broken open. There is less looking away. But there is still a lot to do."
A week after Pope Benedict XVI excoriated Irish bishops for gross errors of judgment in handling cases of priests who rape children, European bishops one after another admitted to mistakes, reached out to victims and promised to act when they learn about abuse.
I find this popes statement appalling on so many levels. In May of 2001 the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinge sent out a memo stating:
it orders that 'preliminary investigations' into any claims of abuse should be sent to Ratzinger's office, which has the option of referring them back to private tribunals in which the 'functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests'.
'Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,' Ratzinger's letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication.
The letter is referred to in documents relating to a lawsuit filed earlier this year against a church in Texas and Ratzinger on behalf of two alleged abuse victims. By sending the letter, lawyers acting for the alleged victims claim the cardinal conspired to obstruct justice.
Daniel Shea, the lawyer for the two alleged victims who discovered the letter, said: 'It speaks for itself. You have to ask: why do you not start the clock ticking until the kid turns 18? It's an obstruction of justice.'
Their mea culpas and pledges to be more open and cooperative with police echoed American bishops' initial responses when the U.S. priest-abuse scandal emerged in 2002. They come amid mounting public outrage over a new wave of abuse claims across Europe and what victims say has been a pattern of cover-up by bishops and the Vatican itself.
And they were all announced during the most solemn week of the church's liturgical calendar. As the Swiss bishops noted Wednesday, Holy Week is a period of penance, when the faithful are supposed to admit their guilt, examine wrongdoing, find ways to improve and ask God and people for forgiveness.
One can only hope that the less faithful will start seeing just what an evil and corrupt organization that they have been supporting are; and see just how evil this little hypocrite of a fucking toad their pope is.
This is finally starting to bring hope that one day this ignorant and asinine religion; will follow the same path as did the others that were rife with pedophilia. Like the old Greek religions and all their baby-eating fucking gods did. But until that day, this presents an excellent business opportunity; I’m going to start selling anatomically-correct blow-up little boy sex dolls. I figure I’ll make mass dollars off of the priests; because they’ll be under so much scrutiny – they will no longer be able to fuck the real ones!
