RC's McCarrick Scandal Will Provide Another Opening For Materialist Ethics To Trump Religious Absolutism

In the image above, we see the ardent religious absolutists at work - carrying out Holy Mother Church's "sacred" Inquisitional tortures -  on a putative "witch" (suspended  at far right, after being disembowelled), a heretic with a red hot iron applied to his pudenda, and a generic unbeliever about to have his tongue ripped out,  then his eyes.  The picture, from 'A History Of Torture Through The Ages',  shows what happens when people - believers-   are convinced they have absolute moral truth on their side.

This introduces the recent WSJ op-ed ('When The Cardinal Sins')  by William McGurn from yesterday (p. A15)  in which we are treated to 4 columns (truncated fortunately) of religious caterwauling on account of the pederasty of one Archbishop Theodore McCarrick being exposed.  As we know the pope demoted the filthy maggot, but now all the likes of McGurn can do is wring his mitts at how it will be another blight on the Church's moral credibility.  He writes, for example:

"Think of it as akin to the (Protestant) Reformation, except here it will not be Protestant Christianity but some materialist orthodoxy that will likely move in after the Church takes this latest hit."

I have news for McGurn: that materialist orthodoxy has already "moved in". It was well on its way long before McCarrick's crimes, flaring after the first priest sex abuse crimes made headlines. Once repeated transgressions were made known, as well as how John Paul II and Benedict XVI played roles in concealing the deeds of many priestly pedophiles - and enabling their easy movement from parish to parish- while diverting calls for accountability- it was all over but the dirges.  Anyone with more than air between the airs knew the RC Church had lost whatever remaining vestige of moral authority it possessed.

But you wouldn't know that from reading McGurn's twaddle, e.g.:

"In our day the battle is no longer between competing versions of Christianity.  It's not even  about God, though it's often characterized that way. The real fight has to do with who's right about the reality of the human person- those who posit him as a physical combination of matter and energy or those who believe him - as the Eighth Psalm put it, "a little lower than the angels"'

Himmm...how about a LOT lower than the angels, as in risen apes? E,.g.


See, any species that is capable of the violence unleashed in "ethnic cleansings", mass rape,  atomic bombings,  developing gas chambers for annihilating a whole race,  ripping infants from parents and caging them - is no angel, not even close to it. Hell, in the case of the latter behavior (as demonstrated by the Trumpite vermin) one could argue humans aren't even as decent as apes.   But this is the la-la land McGurn appears trapped in, so he can't fathom that fantasy train has already left the station, except for the odd cases of  "sin" preached about by "frustrated old men in robes".  (I suspect "robed fossils"  is more apropos.)

He also whines that the Church's teachings, like about sex and such - e.g.. masturbation, use of artificial contraception ("mutual masturbation" according to one ethics prof I once had)  are "incomprehensible to increasing numbers of people".

Well, why should they be comprehensible when sensible, intelligent people were told over and over again by the Church's prelates and popes that they had the moral answers and authority - but in the next breath were busy either raping children or hiding the rapists? Doesn't McGurn give the skeptics any credit for having brains at all? Evidently not!

At least scientific Materialism recognizes humans for what they are:  evolved apes with many ape characteristics, and behaviors. It doesn't glorify Man as some demigod or an angel in the works. At the same time this perspective enables us to dispense with the virus of moral absolutism.    Indeed, the archaic notion of "sin" can be seen in a new perspective.

Consider the Church's historic obsession with sins of the flesh that McGurn references, e.g. "Throughout history Christian teachings about the history and purposes of sex have often proved a hard sell.".    But if one steps back and examines Church history one can grasp why.  Thus, many of the Church sexual prohibitions date from Augustine's time.  Less known is that Augustine was originally a Manichean. The ancient Manicheans (founder Mani, b. 219 BCE) absolutely believed that the human was essentially a spark of deistic light locked within a body of flesh fashioned by 'Satan'. Of course, semen was the satanic fluid that kept the cycles of evil going.

Birth was the manifestation or culmination of the evil when the devilish flesh finally sprouted. Hence, enabling birth, was in effect tantamount to multiplying the total of diabolically imprisoned 'sparks' in the world. Since there was never any assurance these sparks could be liberated, it was paramount that the diabolical flesh be prevented from reproducing itself.

Interestingly, when Augustine converted to Christianity in 387 CE, the only Manichean tenet he ditched was the contraception. He retained all the other flesh/pleasure =demonic connotations and interjected them into his various teachings including his 'letters'. (For more on this, see the excellent monograph 'Eunuchs For the Kingdom of Heaven' by Ute Ranke-Heinemann, Doubleday, 1990). 

Augustine's Manichean teachings (after his conversion) held that any sexual pleasure whatsoever was "diabolical" in origin. However, it could be countenanced IF a baby was the end product. Otherwise, the offending parties were trafficking with demons. (He cites at one point, for "proof", the demon Asmodeus, who "slew seven men in 7 beds with seven women, but not when they were sitting at a table".)

 Augustine's harsh and sterile dogmas also probably spurred the Church Father Origen (of Adamantius) to cut off his own sexual organs - because he was unable to control them. Since each 'stimulus' enabled a particular demon to gain a foothold, it was better to get rid of them entirely.

Ramping up the ante much further are the essays in the book, 'In Defense of Sin', edited by John Portmann.  Thus, we find stirring contributions under the chapter headers: 'In Defense of Idolatry'( One), 'In Defense of Lying'(Six), 'In Defense of Adultery'(Five), and 'In Defense of Lust' (Twelve).

In regard to Augustine's up tight views on sexual sins, Portmann writes (p. 223):

"Missing from Augustine is the idea that lust completes us (however temporarily), fills us with a vivid sense of being alive, propels us along the way to self-fulfillment...Lust like the playfulness of children or the treasures of the Louvre, lights up a rainy day."

The author also makes a good case for enhancing creativity before listing (including with reasons) all those things we think qualify as "sex" but which really aren't, including: Phone sex(lack of touching so can't be sex), ogling porno photos or videos (voyeurism, but not sex, doesn't make the touching or intimacy cut), oh and flirting is not sex.

He also (rightly) rips into masturbation as sinful (p. 229) since it is based on a phantasm engineered by the early Church Fathers: to wit,  that each sperm was a "homunculus" or "little man" - hence each and every sperm had to be protected. Extended the same rights as the big man in whom it lived, else akin to mass murder on a miniature scale. Thus, spilling it was a no-no (often confused with Onanism ....which was actually a different category of "sin" since it was an offense against the Hebrew law of succession. In this, the nearest male relative of the deceased husband is obligated to fertilize the wife. If he refused, and spilled his seed, he was guilty of onanism. This is different from the early Catholic view that each seedling is a little man with life of his own. (This position didn't change until after better optical resolution in microscopes was achieved and individual sperm could be as similar to single celled flagellate creatures.)

Once the actual sperm could be observed in high powered microscopes, as well as photographed, the Church's antiquated position was dispelled, and there was no more reason to oppose masturbation other than on an irrational basis. (Thus, the Church had to come up with its absurd "natural law" doctrine, which holds no weight - given it was also invoked to defend slavery.)

A  common misconception, repeated as a subtext in McGurn's piece, is that Materialists have no ethical standards to offer. That we are fans of "survival of the fittest" thinking and "do as you please".  Nothing could be further from fact. The reason is that precisely because the Materialist invests in no 'hereafter' or supernatural realm, he values the material world in all its attributes and dimensions.

Not surprisingly, the Materialist is much more likely than the supernaturalist to place a premium on revering the Earth and demanding the rational disposition of its resources. As a Materialist, after all, I can examine the evidence and determine that our planet is possibly the only inhabited one, at least in our galaxy. I can also ascertain that this life is most likely the only one and that I must strive to enhance it in any way possible. I should emphatically not squander what I have now, while awaiting a mythical afterlife.

As a Materialist I refrain from looking to any hypothesized deity for deliverance, or lay blame for human ills on some mythical demonic entity. On the contrary, Man alone is responsible for his actions and is the ultimate master of his fate. As a Materialist I maintain that Man need not suffer extinction as a species if he has the courage and vision to assume control of his destiny through the use of reason.

It isn’t necessary to wave a bible or the ten commandments at a Materialist, nor quote the "golden rule". The true Materialist, by definition, respects his fellow men and reveres all life, since he recognizes (through his philosophy) that they share a planet that may be unique in the cosmos. Thus, the true Materialist treasures and conserves the Earth's finite store of resources, since he comprehends that Earth also has one life to live - and there is no more after the existing resources are consumed.

With these things in mind, the true Materialist does not give his offspring any and every thing that grabs attention. He certainly does not wish to encourage the sort of wanton greed and over-consumption that has brought our world to its present sorry state. The Materialist knows well enough that the planet can ill-afford more such uncaring people.

Embodied within the above examples are a practical ethics, which have been forged out of the Materialist's reason and his priorities. This has one overriding aim: to cherish the Earth and all life upon it. Consequently, the true Materialist disdains all forms of violence, since ultimately these are inimical to the community and to species' survival. Since violent acts undermine a community's cohesion and threaten its very existence, the true Materialist must regard them as irrational. The Materialist is compelled to co-operate with his fellows and promote a common good, not out of fear for the wrath of a deity, but to held insure a thriving, harmonious community with high survival value.

As William Provine noted in his article Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics [1], young people should be encouraged to think rationally and critically concerning ethics, not out of fear of some divine force's wrath, but to protect their own long-term self-interest.

If a person asked me for a specific ethical code that Materialists can follow, I could do no better than to cite : "moral provisionalism" or what I would call: "ethical incrementalism".  This ethical standard is superbly covered by author Michael Shermer in his monograph, The Science of Good and Evil. We are informed, for example (p. 168):

"Provisional ethics provides a reasonable middle ground between absolute and moral relative systems. Provisional moral principles are applicable to most people, for most circumstances, for most of the time - yet flexible enough to account for the wide diversity of human behavior"

As an example, let us recall how back in 2010, the Catholic Church  excommunicated  an American nun  in Arizona  for saving a 27 year old mother’s life at the expense of her fetus’. The physician nun's moral choice was either to let the birth occur and see both mother and infant die, or prevent the birth (because of the mother’s blood pressure complications) and save the mother.  Meanwhile, absolutist ethics would have argued that an effort to save both ought to have been made, despite the fact that medically both would have died.

In yet another example of the triumph of Materialist provisional ethics over RC Church absolutism, Brittany Maynard chose to end her suffering from brain cancer 4 years ago.  The Vatican's pseudo-moralistic fossils wasted no time in yelping from their high horse, condemning her decision as "reprehensible" .  Evidently, the Vatican's relics would rather she had been reduced to a drooling vegetable, with no bowel or bladder control, and not even cognizant of those around her. But this is typical of the Vatican's scornful approach to morality, and also McGurn's endorsement of it.

To the Materialist moral provisionalist what is reprehensible is allowing a sentient being to descend into a totally vegetative state lacking any life quality - with excruciating pain to go with it. Hence, Brittany's choice to end her life was a greater good over merely existing in a debased vegetative condition,  based on the specious presumption of "sanctity of life" demanded indiscriminately for any and all conditions.  Hence, the greater good here is ending the suffering and degradation of life quality rather than allowing it to progress to the stage one can make no authentic choice.

So what is McGurn's Catholic rejoinder to the advance of Materialist ethics? He scribbles near the end - in the wake of the McCarrick travesty:

"The Church certainly has the sacramental tools for healing and forgiveness."

Hmmm....then why haven't they yet been successful in halting the predations of many current padres on their young charges?   And this followup classic:

"The classic rejoinder is that we are all sinners and the Catholic Church will survive the McCarrick scandal as it has survived so many scandals over its 2000 years."

Brave words for a Church, a religion, on the ropes.

Will the Catholic Church go on? I have no doubt at all. Will it gain more converts? Sure, mainly of the poor, the ignorant and dispossessed in the more backward nations of the planet, as well as immigrants. However, its days as the moral arbiter and voice for the advanced nations in Europe, North America and Australia are forever gone. Those nations are becoming ever more secular, and even in the U.S. now the "Nones"  (no religion professed) are increasing at a rate faster than new Catholics.  Meanwhile, in the most advanced secular nations the Vatican’s voice has been reduced to barely above a raspy whisper.

The Roman Catholic Church will persist but also become a literal shell and shadow of its former self, paving the way for Materialist ethics (or secular humanist ethics) to make major inroads for millions to adopt a saner alternative.

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/05/moral-absolutism-is-trumped-by-moral.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/06/nun-articulates-sexual-ethics-for.html

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[1] MBL Science, Vol. 3, No. 1, p. 25, 1988

San Fran Priests Gives Kids Sex Pamphlet to Use for "Confession": What Were They Thinking?

Two San Fran Padres,  Rev. Joseph Illo and Rev. Patrick Driscoll, are real pieces of work, and dumb ones at that. Evidently distributing a sex pamphlet to 8- 11 year olds as a means by which they might consider their "sexual sins". What were these boneheads thinking? Wait! They weren't! Padres (most) don't think, they just blindly follow some antiquated noisome moral "orders".  It was then left for many parents to complain (from the 'Star of the Sea' Catholic school) and erupt when they saw what was in the stupid pamphlet.

Driscoll, trying to be a good little RC padre,  distributed the pamphlets for the kids at the private RC school that they might better make "an examination of conscience" before their first confessions. The incredibly explicit  pamphlet (thank goodness he didn't include images) asked kids:

- Whether they had "engaged in impure acts with themselves" (masturbation) or others (adultery, fornication, sodomy)

- Whether any of the students or "their spouses" had practiced artificial birth control or been "sterilized" via tubal ligation or other means (e.g. vasectomy for males).

- Whether they "had an abortion" or "encouraged someone else to terminate a pregnancy".

-Whether they had accessed any nasty internet porn or passed on links to others.

Naturally, most of the parents on seeing this went batshit crazy and were rightly infuriated. Some even opined that the priests had actually created "occasions of sin"  for the kids. Many of the teachers, to their credit and sanity, realized on first inspection what incendiary crap the padres had allowed in and wisely withheld the material from their innocent charges. (And as most of us know - especially those who grew up RC and sex stupid, when you see sex terms like the ones in the book, your curiosity is triggered and you want to find out what it all means.)

Of course, all Catholic kids have to endure the "examination of conscience" ritual prior to making a first confession and what one often recalls in retrospect is how ridiculous the preparation can be, especially with  the notorious Catholic obsession with "impurity".   In my own case, at age 7, I had to go through a "prep" with Sr. Vivina along with classmates at St. Leo's Parochial School in Milwaukee.

Like all RC's (and the SF padres) she also was obsessed with "sins of impurity" and doggedly belabored each of us to recall exactly what we did. We knew we had to have done something, so we could as well spit it out when we got to confession. Harangued for over a week by the good nun, I finally admitted what I did to Fr. Kosciuscko: "I farted in my pet cat's face three times!"

But often, things aren't so funny, especially when one grasps that Catholicism has deep Manichean roots in which the body and all things to do with it, especially yielding any kind of pleasure, are viewed as "Satanic" or "sinful" because of being bound to the "flesh".  So it is not surprising that a common thread throughout RC Church history is an unhealthy obsession with common sexual acts. These are what we call the "pelvic prohibitions" and they include masturbating, fornicating, oral sex and many other expressions of intimacy because well.... the popes and padres and their bureaucracy of fossils all view humans as fallen angels as opposed to risen apes - which is what we really are.

Ever see males apes masturbating at the zoo? Well, then you know it's a fairly common primate act, and under no conditions a "sin". Besides which the whole concept of sin is bogus anyway. I mean, how can an allegedly omnipotent being be affected in any way by a puny mortal human's deeds or misdeeds? It's laughable!

Getting back to the harping on "impure actions and thoughts" it was left to a former RC priest, Fr. Emmet McLoughlin to document the extent of this RC  sexual obsession and its ill effects on the minds of Catholic youth in his book: 'Crime and Immorality in the Catholic Church'   (Lyle Stuart Books, 1962) in which he detailed using statistics the extend of seeding sexual paranoia in kids' minds leading them into precarious mental states. These mental states often incepted great emotional suffering and shame, and in extreme instances, confinement to psych wards. Often the affected kids -usually teens- would literally be terrified of going to sleep lest they die having forgotten some "impure act" or other and ending up roasting in Hell.


In one of his chapters ('Let the Statistics Tell Their Tragic Story', pp. 189-214) ) McLoughlin documents how relentless hectoring about "sexual fantasizing" (which every normal male does, at least 200 times a day)  led dozens of students at an RC school to be hospitalized for depression or acting out. Many others, too terrified by the prospect of their "sins" - willingly turned themselves into eunuchs for the padres and whatever pope at the time - despite most sexual experts (e.g. Dorothy Baldwin) warn of the dangers of teens not ejaculating regularly.

Now, recently to the rescue we have Sister Margaret Farley, who in her 2006 book,  Just Love.      has shown how the Vatican has overstepped the bounds in its sexual ethics and how sanity can be brought to bear. Those interested in the details can check out my earlier post,

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/04/vatican-sics-bishop-enforcers-on-nuns.html

For the rest of us who've left the RC's for sanity, or to quote George Carlin in one of his routines, "once we reached the age of reason", we never look back.

Those interested in how bad this crap was can watch a video,  reported by KNTV-TV

The Benefits of Sin - Can We All Agree on Them?

It was last year - in May to be exact- that a long time atheist friend and my dear sister-in-law,  Krimhilde (see photo) got together with wifey and myself to discuss religious issues, and in particular whether atheism had any 'commonality' points with a spiritual teaching such as Eckanckar.

Among the topics which came up were: 1) "original sin" and 2) sin in general.

On the first we all concurred, there is no such thing as "original sin" since infants can't enter the world with any such millstones. Original sin is merely a confection of theological idiots who take the "Adam & Eve" story literally. Humans are evolved apes and thus their behavior is totally explicable in terms of our Simian past and tri-partite brains composed of both more recent structures (e.g. neocortex) and more ancient ones (paleo-cortex, reticular formation).

The generic topic of sin overall, including the "seven deadly sins" was rife with much more debate, with Rick and I tending to the view that they didn't exist, period, and the word was simply invented to make humans ashamed of their animal selves, or their instincts - which yes, could sometimes go into overdrive. Krimhilde and wifey, meanwhile, leaned to a more moderated stance that 'sin' could indeed exist and cited mass murder, rape as examples. The atheist contingent, however, preferred to see those examples as aberrations or deviations. We disdained the term "sin" as too fraught with religious overtones.


In reality, “Sin” is predicated on an exaggerated importance of humans in the universe. Thus, it elevates (albeit in a perverse way) the importance of humans in an otherwise meaningless cosmos. With “sin” the overly self-important and morally smug, self-righteous human has at least the potential of offending his deity – thereby getting its attention – as opposed to being relegated to the status of a cosmic “roach” (which any advanced alien sentience would regard us). "Sin" is thus an attention getter to a Big Cosmic Daddy.

“Sin” then is a catch all term for any localized and reactive behavior, e.g. at the personal, individual level. In the strict religious idiom, “Sin” impinges on and affects the deity that so many believe in...so if a deity doesn't exist there can be no sin. Take away the deity, and the whole sin fetish, obsession loses its allure and quickly becomes redundant. How can there be “sin” if there is no deity to offend or to notice “sin”? To tote up all the little “black marks” in its “book of future judgment”.

Thus, we eventually agreed on the rational stance that "Sin" is a macguffin invented by religions to keep humans in an inferior state as opposed to attaining mastery over their lives. Sin is also a ridiculous concept. As Rick put it, how can a finite tiny flesh being "offend" a supposed infinite Being? it's totally ludicrous. If such a Being existed one could no more offend it than an ant could offend a human ten billion times its size by attacking the human's boot with his antenna!


Now, it appears that there may be actual benefits to "sin"! According to a new book, 'The Science of Sin' , by experimental psychologist Simon Laham, there are definite benefits that can accrue from ....well...for lack of a better term: Sin. In his book, he thereby shows how indulging in each of the "seven deadly sins" can be advantageous. (None other than Pope Gregory the Great popularized the seven deadlies in the 6th century.)

Laham's research discloses that these 'sins' and likely others, are much more complex and less simple than humans like to believe. (A point I've often made in arguing for an ethics based on scientific Materialism instead of bibles and canon laws).

Ramping up the ante much further are the essays in the book, 'In Defense of Sin', edited by John Portmann.  Thus, we find stirring contributions under the chapter headers: 'In Defense of Idolatry'( One), 'In Defense of Lying'(Six), 'In Defense of Adultery'(Five), and 'In Defense of Lust' (Twelve). 

In Chapter Twelve for example, John Portmann, the contributing author first describes St. Augustine's problems with lust as related in his 'Confessions'.  Make no mistake here that this saint was over the top in his opposition to the flesh and its sinful ways. Much of this is derived from the fact that Augustine was originally a Manichean. The ancient Manicheans (founder Mani, b. 219 BCE) absolutely believed that the human was essentially a spark of deistic light locked within a body of flesh fashioned by 'Satan'. Of course, semen was the satanic fluid that kept the cycles of evil going.

Birth was the manifestation or culmination of the evil when the devilish flesh finally sprouted. Hence, enabling birth, was in effect tantamount to multiplying the total of diabolically imprisoned 'sparks' in the world. Since there was never any assurance these sparks could be liberated, it was paramount that the diabolical flesh be prevented from reproducing itself.

Interestingly, when Augustine converted to Christianity in 387 CE, the only Manichean tenet he ditched was the contraception. He retained all the other flesh/pleasure =demonic connotations and interjected them into his various teaching including his 'letters'. (For more on this, see the excellent monograph 'Eunuchs For the Kingdom of Heaven' by Ute Ranke-Heinemann, Doubleday, 1990). 

Augustine's Manichean teachings (after his conversion) held that any sexual pleasure whatsoever was diabolical in origin. However, it could be countenanced IF a baby was the end product. Otherwise, the offending parties were trafficking with demons. (He cites at one point, for "proof", the demon Asmodeus, who slew seven men in 7 beds with seven women, but not when they were sitting at a table.)

Augustine's harsh and sterile dogmas also probably spurred the Church Father Origen (of Adamantius) to cut off his own sexual organs - because he was unable to control them. Since each 'stimulus' enabled a particular demon to gain a foothold, it was better to get rid of them entirely.


In regard to Augustine's up tight views on sexual sins, Portmann writes (p. 223):

"Missing from Augustine is the idea that lust completes us (however temporarily), fills us with a vivid sense of being alive, propels us along the way to self-fulfillment...Lust like the playfulness of children or the treasures of the Louvre, lights up a rainy day."

The author also makes a good case for enhancing creativity before listing (including with reasons) all those things we think qualify as "sex" but which really aren't, including: Phone sex(lack of touching so can't be sex), ogling porno photos or videos (voyeurism, but not sex, doesn't make the touching or intimacy cut), flirting is not sex.

He also (rightly) rips into masturbation as sinful (p. 229) since it is based on a phantasm engineered by the early Church Fathers: to wit that each sperm is a "homunculus" or "little man" - hence then each and every sperm had to be protected - extended the same rights - as the big man in whom it lived. Thus, spilling it was a no-no (often confused with Onanism ....which was actually a different category of "sin" since it was an offense against the Hebrew law of succession. In this, the nearest male relative of the deceased husband is obligated to fertilize the wife. If he refused, and spilled his seed, he was guilty of onanism. This is different from the early Catholic view that each seelding is a little man with life of his own. (This position didn't change until after better optical resolution in microscopes was achieved and individual sperm could be as similar to single celled flagellate creatures.)

Once the actual sperm could be observed, as well as photographed, the Church's antiquated position was dispelled, and there was no more reason to oppose masturbation other than on an irrational basis. (Thus, the Church had to come up with its absurd "natural law" doctrine, which holds no weight since the RCs insisted at one time that slavery was justified under natural law).

Of course, it's much more difficult getting rid of the cultural, societal baggage which - if we could - might reduce teen pregnancies immensely. Again, a major benefit accuring from a once maligned "sin". (If we could only get teen males to see it as a useful release mechanism as opposed to a "loser's" option!)

But the point of the above is to show and highlight how irrational the whole concept of sin is. For those whose interest is piqued, I suggest getting the two books cited.

Nun Articulates Sexual Ethics for Vatican's Anti-sexual Fossils

Leave it to a nun, in this case Sister Margaret Farley (of Yale Divinity School) to school the Vatican's ossified, anti-sexual relics in a practical sexual ethics that nearly all normal, non-psychotic people would be able to live by. This she did in her (2006) book, Just Love.   Evidently, this daring and insightful book only got onto the Vatican's radar screen later, after it had taken issue with American nuns standing for reason (and especially the Obama Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - including the revised contraception aspects).

See also my earlier blog:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/04/vatican-sics-bishop-enforcers-on-nuns.html

So, not long after these Theo-fascists grabbed control of The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (the main activist outlet for American nuns) Sister Farley's book evidently came onto their radar and all hell broke loose. The aged dinosaurs in Roman collars heaped all sorts of opprobrium and then questioned Sr. Farley's bona fides as a Catholic, or religious. For her part, Sister Farley calmly and briefly replied in one op-ed:

“I can only clarify that the book was not intended to be an expression of current official Catholic teaching, nor was it aimed specifically against this teaching. It is of a different genre altogether.”

Indeed. And that genre is a refreshing liberation of Catholic Sexual ethics from its anti-sexual Manichean roots, as opposed to the deformed hyper-Manichean blunderbust  embodied in the Church’s antiquated Magisterium (Teaching office - and once more, as we were taught at Loyola University in our Ethics classes, NO ONE is obliged to adhere to any injunctions of the Magisterium - they're intended as 'guiding'suggestions' and not predicated on the 'ex cathedra' (infallible) pronouncements). This is also a major reason why young married Catholics have been advised by enlightened priests to "follow their own consciences" in regard to practicing artificial birth control.

This is good because let's face it the common thread thoughout the RC Church's Ethics history is an unhealthy preoccupation and obsession with sexual acts, including condemning a host of natural behaviors such as masturbation, and entertaining sexual fantasies. Indeed it was the last that got the attention of a former priest, Emmet McLoughlin who documented in his book 'Crime and Immorality in the Catholic Church' (Lyle Stuart Books, 1962) how the Church's demonizing (and Hell -sanctioning) of sexual fantasies was responsible for more Catholic committals to insane asylums and psychiatric wards than anything else. 

In one of his chapters ('Let the Statistics Tell Their Tragic Story', pp. 189-214) McLoughlin actually documents the extent to which the RC fossils' proscriptions against sexual fantasizing (especially those instances which produced hard-ons) engendered no end of torment in the most sensitive and earnest Catholic youths. The latter's subsequent preoccupations with the tortures of Hell (e.g. if they died in their sleep after masturbating) then sent them into precarious and unstable mental states that often led to an asylum or hospital psych ward. Those that didn't suffer such an end, often turned into de facto eunuchs.....thereby accomplishing the Church's primary aim of seizing control of its flock's collective gonads. As all power mongers on the planet know: control the gonads of subjects and their brains will (usually) follow!

The question arises:  Why should anyone give a royal crap what this absurd, archaic throwback institution asserts or teaches?  Well if the preceding wasn't enough let me add two more reasons: 1) It lost all moral standing once it opted – at the highest levels of the Vatican (e.g. Ratzinger) to protect priestly pederasts, and 2) its repulsive dogmas, including the ban on artificial contraception, continue to spread destitution and misery globally. (Why the late Arthur C. Clarke dismissed John Paul II's encyclical ‘Veritatis splendor’ as a "crime against humanity")

The fact is the Church has used up its moral capital and doesn’t even know it. The fact they've gone after enlightened nuns like Sister Farley shows they're too damned dumb to recognize when they're out-maneuvered. Meanwhile, recognizing the exhaustion of that capital, Sr. Margaret Farley has advanced a refreshing, realistic sexual ethics predicated on real flesh and blood humans, not glorified angels inhabiting human bodies. For that she is to be commended, and one reason I recommend her book, even to non-Catholics and atheists! The fact is we ALL need the vision provided by a rational sexual ethics devoid of antiquated doggerel, foolish ancient crutches (e.g. "natural law") and absurd encyclicals that look backward instead of forward ....and making the planet better.

In my own book, ‘The Atheist’s Handbook to Modern Materialism’, I included a Chapter (Six: Materialism and Morality) which subsumes sexual ethics. Some of the objections to orthodox Catholic sexual morality I give below, many of which dovetail with Sr. Farley’s reasons for advancing a rational alternative:

- Reducing valid intercourse to the pure animal level by demanding “openness” to conception, while disallowing the variants of human sexplay

- Using invalid ‘natural law’ arguments to reject contraception, masturbation, etc.

- Hyper-emphasis on sexuality and sexual “transgressions” arriving at unbalanced ethical sanctions (e.g. prescribing ‘Hell’ as a punishment for masturbation or artificial contraception and also for a mass murderer that slaughters 44 people with an AK-47). As I noted, this leads to an "upside down" ethics where really evil acts are conflated with insignificant natural ones.

- Violating the ‘genetic fallacy’ to argue against abortion and also being hypocritical (since the Church supported abortion in the first trimester until the infallibility doctrine was introduced in 1859)

- Arguing- a la Aquinas- for a ‘moral perfection of the generative organs” which doesn’t exist in reality. (E.g. By what objective criteria is a moral ‘defect’ measurable? How may we discern it from other defects?)

- Allegiance to Aristotelian modes of thought which fix behaviors within defined limits and hence limit ethical response, intuition, action. (E.g. the Church long held slavery was acceptable under natural law since some men "naturally" needed masters to guide them)

The totality of these disclose that the warp and woof of Catholic sexual ethics is predicated on unrealistic phantasms or hopelessly surreal ideations that have more place in an insane asylum than a supposed institution embodying spiritual righteousness. But this isn’t surprising, because given this sort of inchoate sexual ethics, one can then perceive how and why priestly pederasty and its protection would arise.

Thus, padres, as putative incorporations of the Church’s ‘sublime’ order, are not subject to natural law limits.  (As one priest once told my younger brother after serving a Mass and trying to make a move on him in the sacristy. “Natural law is for you, not for me!” )  In another case in Barbados in 1974, I learned of a priest based at the local Cathedral (St. Patrick’s) who tried to entice an affair with a young 17 year old girl to whom he was giving “lessons” by assuring her that he was the vested vehicle to the Almighty! “I am your channel to God” he once told her. Fortunately by this time she’d become suspicious and left.  Unfortunately the conflict subsequently aroused within her caused her mounting psychological distress culminating with being committed to "Jenkins" - Barbados' Psychiatric Hospital.

Will these cloaked reprobates ever learn? Not bloody likely so long as they can expect so much protection from higher ups and often the same jackals that call down perdition on innocent youths merely becoming acquainted with their own bodies in their own ways. (Which Sr. Farley courageously defends, just as former Surgeon General Joceyln Elders did before being unceremoniously- and cowardly -  ousted by the Clinton admin.)

Thus, the misshapen and imbalanced  doctrines of the church as to sexuality, is what confers the doctrines' very malignancy and the sense of exceptionalism for the hierarchy. They believe they’re entitled to do whatever they want, and to make allowances or worse, escape hatches, to avoid sanctions. And of course there's always "confession" to assuage all their sins or crimes if needed. Then….they have the temerity to pronounce judgment (in confession say) on a youth merely for relieving sexual tensions via self-stimulation!

Sister Margaret Farley's rational proposal of sexual ethics therefore merits serious consideration and kudos for doing her part to sanitize this cancer on the face of the Earth, this spiritual scourge. Yes, there are components of the broader church that are decent, mainly those devoted to charitable work, but let us not mistake them for the vipers that inhabit the Vatican…..or the Vatican Bank….still accumulating wealth over the centuries while so many starve, even in Italy.

Sister Farley, we look forward to your next book (hopefully!) ripping the Vatican Vipers and their apologists to shreds!

Is The Catholic Church Certifiably Insane....or Simply Immoral?

This is an apt question after RC Cardinal Timothy Dolan recently got on his pseudo-moral high horse and insinuated that if his Church were coerced into abiding by the contraceptive provisions under Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, his Church might have to resort to pulling back on assisting the poor via their assorted charities. Okay, so let me see if I've got this straight, and paraphrase Dolan: "If the government forces the Church to provide lawful benefits to NON-Catholic employees, we may have to respond by cutting all services to the poor including meals and housing to the homeless, health care to impoverished kids and meals, assistance for the elderly and disabled."

Sorry, Timmy, but that's the response I'd expect from a psychopath. All this over the provision of a law that says nothing on how the Church must deal with its own members, only the Protestants, Jews, agnostics or atheists that may be working at its institutions, e.g. schools, universities, hospitals etc. What is it that these ideologues don't grasp?

Maybe a better take entails examining the claims of the Church's archaic apologists. This also includes why artificial contraception is such a big deal to this Church.

Perhaps we need to begin with a bit of history. The ancient Manicheans (founder Mani, b. 219 BCE) absolutely were against ANY form of birth. They believed that the human was essentially a spark of deistic light locked within a body fashioned by 'Satan'.   Hence, enabling birth, was in effect tantamount to multiplying the total of diabolically imprisoned 'sparks' in the world. Since there was never any assurance these sparks could be liberated, it was paramount that the diabolical flesh be prevented from reproducing itself.  Thus, contraception became a regular practice and most often via coitus interruptus. (Those diabolical sparks that were conceived had to be carefully trained and disciplined lest the Satanic flesh break out).
Females figured into this, and came to be regarded as 'vessels of the Devil' - since it was within their wombs that the devilish flesh sprouted.

St. Augustine, the early Church Father, was originally a Manichean, and like his peers, practiced contraception. While he converted to Christianity in 387 CE, however, the only Manichean tenet he ditched was contraception. He retained all the other flesh/pleasure =demonic connotations and interjected them into his various teaching including his 'letters'. (For more on this, see the excellent monograph 'Eunuchs For the Kingdom of Heaven' by Ute Ranke-Heinemann, Doubleday, 1990).  Most scholars, like Ranke-Heinemann (and also Elaine Pagels, the Harvard-based author of 'Adam, Eve and The Serpent') believe Augustine's stance altered owing to a passage in the bible to do with Onan "spilling his seed".

As Augustine himself writes:

"It is impermissible and shameful to practice intercourse with one's wife while preventing the conception of children. This is what Onan did, the son of Judah, and that is why God killed him". ('The Adulterous Relations', II, 12).

In fact, this false interpetation of the Onan passage is also what is probably responsible for engendering the masturbation bogey- which has also incepted vast frothings at the mouth from Catholic clerics (who seemed to have no froth left when the priest pederasty was disclosed some years ago) . Anyway, from then, "spilling seed" was equated to "onanism" and onanism to masturbation as well as artificial contraception (which is still called "mutual masturbation" by many RC ethicists today).

In reality, Onan's sin was neither a form of contraception (coitus interruptus) or masturbation but rather an offense against the Hebrew law of succession, wherein the nearest male relative of the deceased husband is obligated to fertilize the wife. He refused, spilled his seed, and was therefore guilty.  But it evidently turned out to be a convenient peg on which the Church could hang its anti-sexual crusades (unless its own priests were engaged in child molestations.)

Fast forward now to the early 20th century and the arrival of a meme that insinuated itself not only into western society and nations, but the Catholic Church. This was spelled out by author Leslie Dewart in his chapter Casti Connubii and the Development of Dogma (pp. 178-79) in Contraception and Holiness: The Catholic Predicament  (1965, Fontana Books, UK). This referred to a "social morality in which a social premium was put upon the repression of genital activity".

In many ways, western society at the time deemed it critical that they control their citizens' gonads, since as those gonads were chained down, so also were the owners' minds. How truly genuine a free thinker could one be, after all, if his or her most private parts were put under lock and key by either the state or the Church?

In the U.S. the seed of sexual-genital repression was probably sown as early as 1873 via the infamous Comstock laws, e.g.

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/laws/a/comstock_law.htm

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws

But little known, or seldom mentioned today, is that these laws not only targeted "obscene" literature but also all contraceptive devices and any and all educational material explaining their use. It was exactly these archaic Comstock laws that Margaret Sanger confronted when trying to widen the availability of contraception for the poor women she beheld being ground under.

The RC Church's role emerged coincidental with Sanger's editorial oversight of The Birth Control Review (1917- 1938) and in the encylical Casti Connubii issued by Pope Pius XI on December 30,  1930, viz.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_31121930_casti-connubii_en.html

More specifically, this was a pre-meditated response to the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Church which had approved birth control in limited circumstances.

In so many words, what Pius XI sought to do was issue a comprehensive definition of "Holy Christian Marriage" that amounted to a pseudo-rational reinforcement of atavistic attitudes of fear, hatred and contempt for human sexuality that had long lay smoldering in the Manichean recesses of the Church's primitive collective mind. As Ute Ranke -Heinemann notes, these were foursquare mounted for control of the body in any and all its sexual expressions since it was believed this was the most straightforward way to control minds. (As indeed it is because, again, if one is prevented or inhibited from manipulating his or her own sexual organs then the ultimate test for individual autonomy has failed. One may believe himself to be an "individualist" but in fact he's merely a eunuch or appendage for his church's or society's dictates, and he's certainly no free thinker. Sexologist Betty Dodson has correctly insisted the first litmus test of a true free thinker- whether male or female-  is the ability to masturbate.)

So, the original declaration for refusing to be "part of the mainstream" was issued in 1930. According to Catholic Theologian Janet Smith, of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit "the Church has long been pressured to change its position but has never accepted it".

She goes on to claim ('Faithful in Birth Control', The Denver Post, May 20, p. 1B)  that there is no shortage of statistics showing that contemporary views and modern contraceptives have created a messy society in which sex has been cheapened and family devalued. She also has the nerve to add:

"We are drenched in contraceptives in this country yet 42% of babies are born out of wedlock. More than half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by 45 and 3 in 10 women at current rates will have an abortion:"

So what is she trying to insinuate here? That contraceptives or the acceptability of them created the out of wedlock babies? If this is so, then why don't the Dutch,  for example, have an even greater out of wedlock teen birth problem than the U.S. - since Dutch teens in their Sex ed classes are actually issued condoms from the age of 12-13?  In fact, it must be something else! Because yes, while there is the widespread psychological acceptance of contraceptive use there is not the accompanying educational mastery of their use.

Why not? Because most U.S. Sex ed classes have fallen prey to the knuckle-dragger 'just say no' - teach abstinence only idiocy instead of adopting the practical Dutch methods of Sex Ed which really do work in reducing teen births, as well as preventing STD transmission.  So, one wonders why Smith avoids citing those stats, as opposed to only the sex-ignorant American ones. Well, because like most apologists she has an agenda!

This also addresses Smith's other complaints (ibid) that "Six out of 10 teens are sexually active and we have an epidemic of sexually transmitted disease."

OF COURSE WE DO! Because these kids are not being taught how to use condoms etc. in their Sex ed classes like the Dutch kids are!!! What the hell does she expect?

In the same way, of course more than half of American women are likely to have unintended births, because again, they aren't properly taught contraceptive use! Indeed, assorted polls have shown numerous cases where women have actually skipped pills - either because of money issues or because they thought they didn't need to take them every day if they only have sex once a month (they do!). Then, despite having an economic situation which can ill afford another mouth to feed, their only recourse is ex post facto birth prevention, as in abortion. Hence, again explaining how it is that 1 in 3 women will have an abortion by age 45.

Yet, fewer than 1 in 20 Dutch women do. Why? Because they're taught from early what to do and how to truly ensure control over their bodies to the extent of preventing accidental births. The antediluvian RC Church on the other hand would be quite happy to have as many accidental births as possible - because they erroneously believe higher numbers confer power in the world.

In fact, all they're doing - in a world of receding resources- is engendering more destitution. To me, this is both immoral and insane! (One reason the late Arthur C. Clarke included Paul VI's later encyclical - Veritatis Splendor - supporting earlier anti-contraceptive stands, as a "crime against humanity"). As many sober minds have asked: WHY are we even having such a regressive debate in the year 2012? Why do we allow a band of temporally misplaced robed misfits to dictate their temporally backward mores to people that don't even belong to their Church? And why do we allow them to do so in the name of a god that has to be totally whacked if it's main concern is the sexual proclivities of a mammalian biped inhabiting one dust speck planet two thirds of the way out to one ordinary galaxy among billions?

Next: The Chuch's Non-method of Contraception.

What the Catholic Bishops Still Don't Get

Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami who bellyached to his RC flock on Sunday about "overeaching and unprecedented state power into the doman of religious freedom". Is he aware he's threatening his Church's tax-exempt status?


"Pelvic Morality" was a term used for decades to describe the unhealthy obsession of the Roman Catholic Church with the human pelvic region, including the female vagina, fallopian tubes and ovaries, as well as the male organs, including the seminal vesicles and testes. One philosopher has suggested this obsession dated from the time of St. Augustine (fresh from his Manichean mental domination) and the belief that female carnality was a refuge of demoniality.

Well into the Middle Ages this view persisted, manifesting in the belief (often echoed by Church Fathers such as Aquinas) that sins such a adultery demanded much more severe physical punishment of the female than her offending male counterpart. This was because by her nature she was deemed closer to the demonic hordes. Indeed, a widepsread belief among prelates late into the Enlightenment was that male virtue and mental acumen was easily "ensnared in female wiles and the flesh". Hence, the recommendation of those like Aquinas for the female body to taste the whip when caught out in such things as adultery, or simply fornication before marriage. (See also Ute Ranke-Heinemann's: Eunuchs in the Service of Christ).

On the male side, the Church's pelvic fetishists obsessed over the intrinsic nature of human sperm (spermatocytes) which were viewed as "homunculi" or tiny -miniature humans, at least until the first microscopes with sufficient power showed otherwise. Hence, any mischievous spilling of seed could not be countenanced, lest these miniature humans perished in a pleasure-induced "holocaust". Thus, the fierce proscriptions against masturbation, and the Vatican's pronouncements of being "mortal sins".

Wearing their little brains out, prelates locked away in their ivory towers and behind hallowed halls of ivy also concluded that if any artificial contraception was used - say in the marriage act- it had to become reduced to no more than "mutual masturbation" since the "natural outlet for new life" was impeded. If a married woman did this, then she could be no better than a whore - hence the recent recounting by columnist Gail Collins of how a long time friend went to confession, confessed her use of birth control to some old fart padre, and was told in a loud voice: "Then, Missus.....YOU are a WHORE!"

But do these assholes really know anything? Hardly! In today's WSJ, for example ('Contraceptive Plan Still Draws Heat'. p. A8) we are informed that:

"At masses across the country Sunday, Roman Catholic priests blasted the Obama administration's compromise on contraceptive insurance coverage".

Hmmmmm...... let me grasp this: RC padres across the nation are fulminating against Obama's contraceptive compromise? Have they not paid attention to the specific IRS rules, regulations that demand absolutely NO politicking or political rhetoric (which is what this is) if churches are to retain tax exempt status?

Clearly, then, since all these padres have violated those statutes, the Church's tax exempt status needs to be revoked forthwith! One can't exercise this clause for the evangelicals and not apply it to the Catholics!

In the same piece, another numskull - a Rev. Michael Quinn of San Francisco, is quoted as saying "this is our Rosa Parks moment!"

Uh, no dope-wad, it isn't! You see, NO one is telling you to stop your most fundamental beliefs! You can still believe in the immaculate conception, Transubstantiation- the whole works! Hell, you can still demand your own faithful follow that stupid, archaic birth control edict (that tries to preserve those tiny spermal homunculi...for the positive outcome of conception). But what you cannot do is exercise influence and occupy the public square while denying those who are NOT Catholics and who work in that public square, contraceptive benefits.

See, the analogy to that would be like Rosa Parks telling all the white people they can't be seated on that bus so long as black folks are on it! Get your analogies straight for once, douche brain.

Then another rotund, overfed twit, Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami (see photo) bloviated about "overeaching and unprecedented state power into the doman of religious freedom"

Hardly! The actual "over reach" is the specious use of your own specious doctrines to deny health care rights via insurance that other employers are bound by laws - both state and federal - to give. So don't hand me that bollocks!

All of these Jacobins so exercised about their precious "religioous freedom" would do better to read Nicholas Kristof's op-ed "Beyond Pelvic Politics" in today's New York Times. As Kristof notes:

"A 2009 study looked at sexually active American women of modest means, ages 18 to 34, whose economic circumstances had deteriorated. Three-quarters said that they could not afford a baby then. Yet 30 percent had put off a gynecological or family-planning visit to save money. More horrifying, of those using the pill, one-quarter said that they economized by not taking it every day. (My data is from the Guttmacher Institute, a nonpartisan research organization on issues of sexual health.)

One-third of women in another survey said they would switch birth control methods if not for the cost. Nearly half of those women were relying on condoms, and others on nothing more than withdrawal.

The cost of birth control is one reason poor women are more than three times as likely to end up pregnant unintentionally as middle-class women. "

Like me, Kristof is also puzzled by how many RC folks are really offended or if this is a case of the Bishop's bark trying to impress us that there's a mass "bite" lurking somewhere behind it. As he writes:

" it’s not clear how many people actually are offended. A national survey found that 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use birth control at some point in their lives. Moreover, a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute reported that even among Catholics, 52 percent back the Obama policy: they believe that religiously affiliated universities and hospitals should be obliged to include birth control coverage in insurance plans. "

If a majority are behind Obama's compromise why the hell aren't they telling these noisome toads, the Union of Catholic Bishops, to STFU? One wonders! Why aren't Catholic women walking out of masses when these nitwits begin their scathing attacks on Obama and his policies? Are they that bound to the point of succumbing to a kind of perverse "Stockholm syndrome"?

Finally, I totally concur with Kristof when he concludes:

"I’m glad that Obama sought a compromise. But let’s remember that there are also other interests at stake. If we have to choose between bishops’ sensibilities and women’s health, our national priority must be the female half of our population. "

Bingo! And it's time for Catholics to tell their padres and Bishops that it's past time to move beyond the human pelvis in terms of forging a realistic morality - as opposed to a cheap moralism to use as a political brickbat!

NO! To Any Compromise with Religious Whackjobs!

Obama's health masterpiece, his Affordable Care Act, has seen enemies galore crop up since its passage, all determined to take it down despite the fact it has helped or will help millions of Americans, including: by allowing adult children up to the age of 26 to be put under their parents' insurance coverage, and disallowing medical insurers from employing the ruse of "pre-existing conditions" to block coverage or invoke much higher rates than otherwise would be available.

In addition, its recent provisions to enable coverage of contraception (which will particularly benefit the poor and working class) are monumental in terms of: raising the economic stability of families which simply can't afford more mouths to feed, and making abortion much less necessary since 6 of 10 abortions today are performed more as a default family planning method than merely "murdering a fetus". In other words, provide real birth control and abortion will become a thing of the past. Beyond this, nearly 1.5 million American women each year rely on contraceptives to provide medical relief for symptoms not at all associated with birth prevention (see the article by Barbara Boxer et al in today's WSJ, p. A17).

But despite this, there is risk of Obama's administration willingly diluting the last aspect of his plan, which will be a major setback - all to appease the frothing at the mouth religious crazies- especially the Roman Catholics - and their apologists in the media, as well as their Reich wing political whores. The news in today's papers, i.e. WSJ, 'Obama Seeks Deal on Birth Control', p. A5, is therefore extremely unsettling. It means, again, the administration may backtrack on the planned implementation of a benefit because howlers and moralistic banshees can't abide it.

As I already blogged,

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/02/catholics-need-to-make-choice-and-stop.html

most of this screechifying and tumult is totally unjustified because the birth control dictate is based on the Magisterium, or teaching office of the Catholic Church. It was NEVER EVER issued "ex cathedra" or "from the Chair of St. Peter" - meaning it is NOT AN INFALLIBLE PRONOUNCEMENT!

If not infallible, then it CAN BE WRONG!

In his marvelous book, Infallible?, Hans Kung indeed observed (p. 143):

" no one, neither Vatican I, nor Vatican II, nor the textbook theologians, has shown that the Church - its leadership or its theology - is able to put forward propositions which inherently cannot be erroneous."

Kung was questioning the very doctrine of "infallibility" itself, but his statement applies with special force to all claims or "moral proclamations" issued under the Magisterium basis. Why do so many Catholics refuse to see or acknowledge this before mounting their moral high horses?

Indeed, WHY are we paying any attention to this moral posturing at all given this Church has lost ALL its moral authority and credibility over the past decade after condoning thousands of cases of priest sexual abuse and rape of children and trying to cover the crimes up? Do their pronouncements on ANYTHING - whether fornication, contraception, masturbation or even homosexuality ....mean one damned thing? Hardly! They could as well be given the same gravitas as chattering apes or baboons in a zoo or bellowing winos on a street corner. So why pay attention to them?

Regarding the early years when the priest sexual abuse crisis exploded, Clayton Sullivan in his book 'Rescuing Sex from the Christians' cites quotes from assorted sources to the effect that the Catholics' fetishistic pseudo-moral obsession with sex acts has been a prime contributor to a spate of crimes, as well as mounting "anti-clericalism". He quotes Richard McBrien of Notre Dame University thus:

"The Catholic Church's teaching on human sexuality is that every sexual thought, word, desire and action outside of marriage (and some within - as for example use of contraception) are deserving of eternal punishment and Hell if the sin is not properly confessed and absolved."

Which is laughable irony given one is likely confessing such "sins" to a priestly pederast!

But in reading this sort of moralist bollocks one is led to inquire into exactly how the Church evolved to be such a ninny-ish, hyper-scrupulous nanny over sexual acts when humans are largely risen apes and not fallen angels anyway. The answer, as it turns out, carries us as far back as the time of St. Augustine, one of the most influential Church Fathers.

Augustine of Hippo was originally a Manichean, and like his peers, practiced contraception. While he converted to Christianity in 387 CE, the only Manichean tenet he ditched was the contraception. He retained all the other flesh/pleasure = demonic connotations and interjected them into his various teaching including his 'letters'. (For more on this, see the excellent monograph 'Eunuchs For the Kingdom of Heaven' by Ute Ranke-Heinemann, Doubleday, 1990).

Most scholars, like Ranke-Heinemann (and also Elaine Pagels, the author of 'Adam, Eve and The Serpent') believe Augustine's stance altered owing to a passage in the bible to do with Onan "spilling his seed". As Augustine himself writes:

"It is impermissible and shameful to practice intercourse with one's wife while preventing the conception of children. This is what Onan did, the son of Judah, and that is why God killed him". ('The Adulterous Relations', II, 12).

In fact, this false interpetation of the Onan passage is also what is probably responsible for engendering the masturbation bogey. Since from then, "spilling seed" was equated to "onanism" and onanism to masturbation. The acceleration of this erroneous conflation was due to an English Puritan, and physician, named Bekkers. This whacko wrote (in 1610) the polemic entitled Onania or The Loathsome Sin Of Self-Pollution, that one could expect:

"Vomiting, nausea, weakening of the organs of breathing, coughing, hoarseness, back pain, lack of libido, paleness, thinness, pimples on face, loss of memory, attacks of rage, madness, idiocy, malapropism, epilepsy, nightly ejaculations, stiffness, fever, and finally suicide".

Thereby recounting almost every normal human travail, but in his mind.....all as a result of practicing the solo act of sex relief (which if recent sexual statistics are to be believed, is practiced much more frequently among all races and nationalities than all other sex acts combined!)

Of course, the then Church seized on this and extrapolated it to contraception, thereby equating that to "mutual masturbation".

Now, getting back to Onan - his sin was in reality neither a form of contraception (coitus interruptus) or masturbation but rather an offense against the Hebrew law of succession wherein the nearest male relative of the deceased husband is obligated to fertilize the wife. He refused, spilled his seed instead, and was guilty - not of seed-spilling but refusing provision for succession.

Now, Augustine's Manichean teachings (after his conversion) held that any sexual pleasure whatsoever was diabolical in origin. However, it could be countenanced IF a baby was the end product. Otherwise, the offending parties were "trafficking with demons" . (He cites at one point, for "proof", the demon Asmodeus, "who slew seven men in 7 beds with seven women, but not when they were sitting at a table.")

Before I continue, can anyone ....anyone with a grain of sense and intelligence inform me as to why a Church in the 21st century is harkening back to such horse shit as a means to lead its nearly 1 billion followers? (I will return to this at the end!)

Augustine's harsh and sterile dogmas probably spurred the Church Father Origen (of Adamantius) to cut off his own sexual organs because he was unable to control them. Since each 'stimulus' enabled a particular demon (e.g. Asmodeus, Belial, Baal) to gain a foothold, it was better to get rid of the putative pudendal avenues.....offenders?.... entirely. So much for nightly boners!

The poison of the Church's fraudulent, misguided teachings goes even further than this, as noted by former Franciscan priest Emmet McLoughlin (Crime and Immorality in the Catholic Church, 1962, Lyle Stuart Books). That is, unlike the Manicheans, they include sins of THOUGHT. Thus a person who even briefly entertained an "impure thought" could as easily be earmarked for hell as one who actually committed the acts. McLoughlin blames this implanted neurosis for the astounding and disproportionate number of Catholics then in psycho wards and in prisons (cf. 'Let the Statistics Tell Their Tragic Story' , pp. 189- 214, 1962).

"Natural law" itself was fashioned mostly on the basis of the cogitations of St. Thomas Aquinas, who in turn was influenced by Augustine. It is also important to note, that natural law applied to more than just sexual issues - but those are the ones it's most often tied into. For example, slavery also used to be justified under natural law, since the Church's Fathers argued that some men were "naturally unable to govern themselves and had to be told what to do. This was for their own good". (See: 'Contraception and Holiness: The Catholic Predicament')

What do we find from all this? The common thread throughout Church history is the pre-occupation with and obsession over minor sexual acts, commonly performed- those that every human being does ....some more frequently, some less. This includes even including sexual fantasies (also widespread) as earning a person's "soul" a spot in the nether regions of Hell, probably with the most fire.

So what's up with this continued antiquated defense of these indefensible moralistic suppositions when any sane religion ought to have retired them to the same place as torture of heretics, and burning the feet and genitals of sexual apostates in boiling oil? The short answer? It continues a pseudo-manifestation of power since this pathetic Church has lost it in most other arenas. It is no longer a worldly power like it was at the time of the Borgias, nor are its derelict doctrines even paid much attention to as it experiences the largest ouflow from its membership of any Christian sect each year. (Some 22 million Catholics have said hasta la vista in the past 10 years according to Pew Research study).

The only thing that halfway keeps it afloat in this country is new immigrants, mainly from largely Hispanic nations like Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua etc.

And what about clinging to these archaic doctrines like for contraception? (Which, btw, Pope Paul VI's own Papal commission recommended he reject lest the Church lose its larger moral perspective. The Pope, prodded by the likes of antiquated Cardinals in the Curia refused, and the rest is history). The reason is simple: to be able to exert control over their flock’s collective gonads and hence their very lives. (See also the excerpts attached from Arthur C. Clarke's published views on the previous pope and contraception, from a 1993 issue of Free Inquiry).

So long as these moral charlatans have their easily duped members by the balls, how far will they stray? Recall most still believe in the absurd Hell bogey. Hence, we see even some Catholic University students - as one ABC News last night- prepared to hold out and defend "Holy Mother Church" from having to accept them nasty contraception plans Obama's Health plan would impose. Bull shit! Holy Mother church is a wreck and needs to get with the program. That means putting her antiquated, ancient Manichean teachings concerning sex and demons - as first taught by Augustine, into mental dumpsters.

But ....will she do that? Hell no, because to do so is essentially (in her mind) to relinquish the last vestiges of temporal and political power. I mean, look how many insane ideological whore politicos are coming to her defense, everyone from Newtie (who abandoned one wife who had cancer for another with which he wanted a "threesome") to Mitch McConnell, the same asshole that wanted to strip Medicare to its bare bones.

Meanwhile, we also see the corporate media going into overdrive trying to paint any resistance to the "Church's moral prereogatives" as inviting some sort of electoral cataclysm for Obama in November. I fucking doubt it! The fact is there is NO where else for sane people to go with their votes! I mean, c'mon! I am talking to YOU Catholics out there too! You're going to pitch a hissy fit if Obama allows his original contraceptive rules to go through and vote for MITT? The multi-millionaire who doesn't even know the cost of a gallon of milk or loaf of bread? Who joked about making a $10,000 bet with Rick Perry during the Repuke debates and later insisted that "$340 grand isn't that much money" referring to what he received in speaking fees. So he very likely doesn't know what your heating oil costs are each month either! And NEWTIE? Are you fucking kdding me? This is the guy that wants to at once, hatch a colony on the Moon but also whose tax plan will create an $850 billion deficit in its first year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

And we won't even consider Ron Paul who wants to locate where all the Federal Reserve "black helicopters" are based (after he gets rid of the Fed), and would chuck all our money out as "fiat". Nor Rick Santorum, who's made it abundantly clear he'd like to issue an Executive Order prohibiting all contraception, and all abortions even in the case of rape and incest. So, Catholics are going to vote for THESE clowns, or do it via default, by not voting at all? Don't make me laugh! If Catholics do go this route, they're a lot more stupid and ignorant than even I thought - especially to defend a pseudo-moral teaching that went out with demons hiding in food (as described in the Compendium Malleficarum, demons often had to be "exorcised" from food boli, usually after being vomited up. Special attention was generally paid to "hairballs" ejected from felines and one reason millions of felines were incinerated as "familiars").

According to White House spokesman Jay Carney (WSJ, ibid.):

"There are ways, I think, to help resolve this issue that ensures we provide that important preventive service, that health care coverage to all women,...in a way that also tries to allay some of these concerns."

But Jay, I can't see it! How do you compromise with freaks - religiously -deluded fruitcakes, that still hold to doctrines that date back to the epoch of belief in demons obscuring themselves in food boli, and partaking of human sex acts? You can't make nice with insanity! You can't reason with these archaic nitwits or compromise in any way that supports rationality!

The only other way is unfair - mentioned in today's WSJ piece as being modeled after the existing plan in Hawaii, whereby employees who wish contraceptives have to pay the premiums out of their own pockets. (The result is no employer funds go to contraception).

But that means the less economically advantaged will suffer. The people, workers, who probably most need the availability of contraceptives, to prevent having more kids they can't support, will have to do without....and either give up sex, or ....take their chances. And if they lose in the latter lotto, likely resort to abortion.

This is a compromise that can't be made any more than squaring a circle. The effective compromise has already transpired and it allowed the Catholics to withhold contraceptives from their own members. They must not be allowed to do that for secular citizens who seek care at their hospitals, or work at their institutions. If they can't abide by that, then exact full penalties and let devil take the hindmost. And if they're insane enough to vote for a Mitt, a Newt or other GOOP, then so be it. I personally don't believe they are that disconnected from reality or stupid!

The unsavory but true fact in this whole charade is that it's not about "religious liberty" at all. Not any more than the Komen fiasco was about about abortions a week ago. In each case, powerful reactionary forces have used religious or moral fronts to seize on some issue to attempt to shatter the electorate and render an Obama victory much less likely. These degenerates can only succeed if we allow them to, especially those in the targeted "victim" groups (such as Catholics, or Komen supporters). Will they be the willing pawns for the nefarious moves of wealthy fascists, including corporate powers and the Koch brothers, or will they awaken to see how they're being played? We will have to hope the latter happens, but it needs to happen soon!