I think religion is dumb. I know and enjoy the company of lots of "believers", my family included. I don't think they are dumb. I just think that their beliefs, where all things creationism, deity, and miracles are concerned, are dumb. I could choose a variety of current issues illustrating the hypocrisy and simple-mindedness of religion but today I am choosing Father Lahey. I mean, the guy and his church make the job of an atheist blogger stupid-simple. So here's the deal: Pedophile behaviour is wrong on every level imaginable and, as the father of an infant, I think the bastards that do it should be kept out of the vicinity of children for the rest of their history. Which leads to Exhibit A against religion: the willingness of the roman catholic church (I'm aware it's supposed to be capitalized) to jeopardize the innocence and sanity of "God's children" for the purpose of protecting the reputation of the molester in question and the church itself. I challenge any catholic reading this (my guess is that most would avoid it) to find the verse in your book of fables that supports this behaviour - although, there are many passages that condone beating women, killing "sinners", and selling daughters to slavery, so you might just prove me wrong. In which case catholicism is all it's cracked up to be and those that choose to defend it are also defending these practices.
But here is where I hold a somewhat sympathetic view towards the robed bastards. This does not equate to condoning the behaviour by any stretch. However, I am driven to find the reason (which is not an excuse) for deviant behaviour. Here is my unproven theory: I believe that, if not a majority, a significant percentage of priests are gay. I also believe they have chosen the priesthood as a method of avoiding the urge to act on it and hence expose their "gayness" to a society that still, for the most part, persecutes homosexuals on some level (mostly, I might add, because religion has declared homosexuality a sin – oh the irony). I also suspect that some gay men choose "the cloth" as an "intervention" in hopes of reversing their desire to get it on with men. Why do they feel the need to intervene? Because they grew up in a religious family or community and feel they are wired wrong. So they enter the priesthood and solemnly vow never to have sex while devising a plan to work with the man above in an effort to fix themselves. But here is where the plan goes terribly wrong. As men are the evolutionary catalysts to our existence, their physiological urge to act on their sexual desires kicks in exponentially the more they attempt to suppress it. The more they deny their urge, the more the desire eats at their will to a point where they eventually crack. Maybe first they turn to the internet; a "place" where they can observe their desires acted out on a stage. However, over time this is not enough as their genetic and hormonal reality plays out and eventually they are internally forced to become the actors on their own stage. At this point I am sure many priests quit the "'hood" while others choose to live a parallel life with consenting adults. However, a few choose to maintain their facade by forcing their desires on a group they have the most unbridled control over: children. The initial attempt of an internally conflicted gay man to come to terms with his "problem" ends up leading him to commit criminal behaviour caused, in part, by the illogical beliefs of the organization he has chosen to "cure" his condition. My "sympathy" is not a defence of the behaviour but rather a recognition of the fact that if religion didn't exist, or at least did not persecute homosexuality, these men would have been able to act openly on their desires and the lives of children around the world would not be scarred. And please, don't start a rant that I am saying only homosexuals are pedophiles. In fact, I am open to the theory that both straight and gay men who enter the priesthood end up in this horrible scenario. My point being that the ridiculous premise of suppressing natural, physiological, and evolutionary behaviour causes man to commit deviant behaviour.
Like I said, there is no empirical proof to this theory. However, I think the frequency and similarity of the stories unfolding on our 24-hour news channels speaks to the anecdotal evidence of something related to what my gut and brain tells me. Mark my words: at some point in our future humanity will look back at this point in history as a "the Earth is flat" moment and boy will we look stupid.
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