Catholicism and the paedophilia problem.

News came out this week that the Pope has said that the level of Paedophilia in the church is at 2%. I had an argument with a priest some years ago, where he said that the levels inside the Church are the same as outside, my counter to that was that the difference is offenders outside go to gaol (jail for any Americans reading).
Of course 2% seems higher than I would assume the general population is running at... I was wrong. Well it would seem so at face value. (credit to redditor US_Hiker) Part of that article is behind a paywall, but more can be seen here.
The gist of it, anywhere from 4-9%, sad that so much of the general populace have paedophilic tendencies, I am sure that not all of those act on it though, and the stats seem to play that out.

This leads me to think, was the Pope saying 2% of the churches ordained are currently under investigation? Was he saying that there is 2% he or the police know about... what about the rest?


This study seems to allude to their being a group of people who are strictly attracted to children: paedophiles, and another larger group that contains the aforementioned paedophiles, those that molest children without being primarily attracted to them... Then of course there are likely paedophiles who control their urges and don't act (good on them).
It is undoubtedly a part of sexuality, a part I and I would imagine the rest of society wishes could be excised. Sexuality though is a complicated beast, so it is a tough comparison to make the 2% the pope claims and the 4-9% that other studies claim. That or the Pope is lying...

Oh wait he is; http://atlanticcanada.legalexaminer.com/miscellaneous/myths-and-facts-about-the-catholic-sexual-abuse-crisis/ Interestingly it seems to be similar to the general populace, surely there is some doctrine inside the Catholic church against lying?

I feel it is apropos to post this video again to show the long standing problem the church has had with this issue. If I were the Pope I would suspend any priest accused, hand them over to police for trial, and if they are found guilty they would be defrocked, and excommunicated. But that is just me...


I have posted about this as before, in my talk I delivered to Sydney atheists, synopsis here

Warning this video may be laughable to your atheism...

Like all good theist videos and blog posts neither of these allow comments, what are they afraid of, some discussion? A dissenting opinion?
Blog post; http://rbutr.com/http://godsnotdeadthemovie.com/blog/atheists-hate-video/
Video;


I think I have attacked the good old Kalam a fair few times, but I wanted to do a direct rebuttal for rbutr.com, as the only way to comment on these posts so here goes.


Firstly, wow flashy video, maybe it will distract from the vacuos content?

Whatever begins to exist has a cause, noppppee. Even if it did, why don't we save a huge God labelled step and say the universe never began to exist? Believing that something popped into existence is actually less of a stretch than magic, as if it pops into existence you only need to explain the thing that popped into existence not the thing and the magician and the hat and the magic, that is if you don't grant that the magician did a trick, are you equating god here to a trick, ruse, or a lie, cause I would agree with you there. The addition of a magician and magic complicates things immensely as the addition of a God using his powers to create does the same thing.

Why don't we see this happening all the time... we do at the sub-atomic level, virtual particles, pickup a book.

Did the universe begin, or has it always existed. Atheists haven't been the only ones who have sponsored the universes eternal existence, so have believers, they were both wrong based on current evidence, where is that evidence for God again.. oh you have word games to define him into existence, sorry but that doesn't cut it. Yes Science was wrong at one stage, but science adjusts its views based on what is observed, religion doesn't.
The universe could have always existed as a continuous cycle of expansion and contraction, this doesn't violate the second law of thermodynamics that is so often stated, incorrectly. The law states that all things tend towards disorder in a closed system. As the universe is running out of usable energy, but a reversal and collapse of this resets entropy. The usable energy doesn't dissapear, we aren't running out of it, it is simply dissapates into the universe, if the entire universe is collpased back on itself it becomes usable again, there is no where for the energy to be lost too as there is nothing outside the universe for it to dissapate too.

There are other hypothesis' that get around this problem, such as the aforementioned virtual particles over a finite amount of time causing a singularity that then expands into a new universe of matter and energy, and negative energy (dark energy), the positive energy being countered by the negative dark energy, for a balanced checkbook universe with no net energy being created, the ultimate free lunch.

All the arguments beyond here use evidence from science, evidence that has not once pointed to a divine creator, not once pointed to a supernatural cause to even the most mundane of events, there are no angels moving the planets in their orbits, there are no spirits guiding water down hill, and there is no God supported by modern evidence.

They then go on to quote mine Physicists, all of whom agree this universe had a beginning, but this universe could have formed out of the collapse of the last one, or be just another bubble in the multi-verse, we don't know, and we are OK with not knowing, the only way to find out the truth is to start with no knowing and go from there. Supposing the answer (God) before you investigate colours your view and will ensure bad conclussions.

The Universe has a cause?
If I grant the first two premises, which I am not, then it is a huge jump to that cause being an omnipotent, omnipresent entity. Why couldn't it be some stupid long dead being that had an accident with their super-collider causing this universe, after they had evolved naturally in their own universe.
Why couldn't it be a natural cause such as the multiverse theory of two other universes colliding? Which of these is more likely, the natural cause when all other events we have observed (save the virtual particles I mentioned) have had a natural cause, or a supernatural cause that we have never observed, let alone in a repeatable scientific test?

The universe can't cause itself, really? Where is your evidence for this statement, we know that virtual particles can, in certain situations cause themselves, so why couldn't the universe cause itself based on natural laws?
It must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, Uncaused and powerful...The universe or multiverse could certainly be timeless, on the others though, were is your proof, even a logical one. This is jumping to your preconcieved conclussion.

Thanks for playing, better luck next time...