No True Scotsman

I love posting on Facebook, particularly, the hypocrisy of religion.  Recently, there was a terrible incident where a priest was caught with his pants down with a 15 year old boy.  Yes, this is a big deal and happens all time.  Being a mathematical/logical sort of person, a friend gave me the opportunity to point out the No True Scotsman Fallacy.  Usually, not many people comment, but this time one of my hard core Christian friends commented on this

“…these guys give us genuine believers a bad name”

As I told my friend, I’m sure they believe just as much as you do.  What it comes down to is that the belief is flawed.  Just because they do not believe in the same way you do, does not mean they do not believe.  I am also sure that some believers who are the same as my friend, may not find this incident as egregious (I hope I’m wrong).

What it comes down to, is we have to be cool to each other.  Treat each other with dignity and respect.  I will continue to respect you the person, but I will attack your beliefs, not you.

-SB

Girl Scouts kicked out of Church

I have never been a big fan of scouts.  The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) with their disdain for the LGBT community and total shunning of the non-religious, puts them in my eyes as a hate-filled organization.  No, not the boys, but the leaders.  On the contrary, there are the Girls Scouts of America (GSA), who appear to accept the LGBT community and in fact all member of society, regardless of religion (lack of).  My wonderful daughter, the Madster, had some great times with her troops, and I am glad for that.  I still had in my mind that they were still a little to right wing for my tastes, overall, I never saw any animosity towards any part of society.

This brings me to the topic of this discussion, a Catholic church in Arlington, Virgina, just a dog-sled ride across the Potomac River, felt it was necessary to kick the local girl scout troop out of their building.  You can read about it here. The reason? 

In recent years, the Girls Scouts have accepted gay and transgender children into its ranks. They have also provided age appropriate sexual education sometimes in conjunction with Planned Parenthood.

Really?  What are the Catholics afraid of?  Some young girl might use contraception before marriage?  Oh for the love of the flying spaghetti monster.  They are teaching the girls about being safe.  About being responsible? Would we rather have teenage girls running around getting pregnant, getting STDs?  And do not think that Catholic teenage girls are chaste, the Catholic School girls when I was growing up were always great (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  My virtual blogger friend J.T. Eberhard, sums it up quite nicely.  “Want to know the fastest way to get kicked out of a church of the most loving religion?  By failing to discriminate”

What I would like to see are my religious friends in this area talk to their church leaders and ask them to denounce the message of the Catholic Church.  Usually, I just say it is their wacky religion, but in this case, they are harming children…knowingly.  And I refuse to not say anything about it.

-SB