Yeah... cause if it's atheists pointing out the wrongful behaviour of a christian, it's automatically bullying.
Mother Teresa attacked by Atheist/Anostic group -
by james_woods 205 Replies latest jw experiences
-
-
Benjie
I have read the whole of this thread, and the whole of some other much longer threads, because I wanted to find out what is behind some of the things I see going on here in this forum. They are not what I expected to find here.
Chariklo. I don't know quite what you are talking about in some places, for instance about another forum, but even after just a few days quietly reading through a lot of posts I can see some of the things that are happening here.
I do not like to see a woman like Mother Teresa, so good and kind, having her name drawn through the mud like this. It's really not at all good.
You have not distorted anything. You have simply said what you think, and the first reply to your post says very much more than the words it contains.
Even if nobody else agrees with me, and even though I am very new here, I will still say what I see and speak as I find. Mother Teresa was a good woman who was a human being and so she won't have been perfect. But she was still a very, very good person.
Why do so many people want to spoil what is beautiful and lovely?
-
botchtowersociety
She deserves scrutiny.
When those mentioned in the OP give up everything to go to one of the poorest fitlhiest places in the world, and help the dying for the rest of their lives as those of her order did, then they will be able to legitimately scrutinize this dead woman. These privileged coddled college atheists mentioned in the OP have no moral authority to criticize from their comfortable secure situations. And neither does the trotskyite atheist lush Hitchens, brilliant as he may have been. When they renounce their creature comforts and go scrub filth and walk through the valley of shit, vomit and death and tend open festering sores and hold the abandoned sick dying in their arms, then, maybe then, will they have some credibility.
-
NewChapter
Is that the criteria, Botch? Walk in their shoes before we look at her deeds? Can I hold you to that when you criticize others?
There are plenty of lives I have not lived, but that does not disqualify me from looking at how others behave. Many did actually go there and see and help---then they came back and told what they saw----I think THEY are qualified to relate what was going on---and it wasn't good.
-
botchtowersociety
If it were merely criticism or scrutiny, perhaps. No one is above that, and certainly not MT. What these atheists are doing, however, is an attempt at character assassination. I believe it is driven by ideology and hatred.
-
Chariklo
Oh, very well said, Botchtower!
And thank you, Benjie.
Truth will always out, and be seen by those who look.
-
botchtowersociety
They have never heard of the dark night of the soul and are unaware of the spiritual struggles that so many who were later pronounced saints underwent in their lifetimes.
Eli eli lama sabachthani?
-
NewChapter
If it were merely criticism or scrutiny, perhaps. No one is above that, and certainly not MT. What these atheists are doing, however, is an attempt at character assasination. I believe it is driven by ideology and hatred.
Except it is not only atheists that are appalled. I had no issue with MT before I started hearing those that worked with her talk. Even as an atheist, I had no special hatred for her. In fact, those that she supposedly cared for likely shared her faith. At least some of them. I heard from her own mouth give speeches where she condemned birth control. That in itself is enough to drive me over the edge. She was dealing with extreme poverty and mandating that these people stayed in extreme poverty and bring more and more children into it. Children they couldn't care for.
You can guess at motives, but why would I care about those that I believe were hurt by her? Would I not also hate them? Would I not rather say something like, "stupid Catholics, following stupid rules, being irresponsible and bringing all these children forward that they are too poor to care for! They deserved what they got!" No. I don't think like that. So it can't be hatred or ideology driving me.
Instead, I look at these poverty stricken Catholics, and those that fell in with them, and I think they didn't deserve the treatment they got.
I look at devout Catholics that donated to her cause, and learn she didn't use the money to do what it was intended to do, and I think how wrong it was to misuse their money that they gave out of love.
Anything negative that comes out about this woman will appear to be a character assassination, because she has been elevated to unreasonable heights. Any suggestion that she was not well motivated will be a character assassination.
It's not Christopher Hitchens, or Penn Jillette that this information orginates, but people that served with her, people that went there, people that had the best expectations and were devastated by the reality.
So I reject your theory that it is ideology and hate. Can you think for one moment that this information changes the narrative? And we don't have to have any special hate to hear of it. I, for one, was very disapointed to learn all this. Because even as an atheist, she had my respect. She didn't deserve it. And that was a let-down.
I have said this before and I will say it again. People look at Catholic charity and insist that we must view that as a good thing. But telling the poorest among us that they MUST continue to have children they cannot care for, and then opening orphanages and homes to die in---giving out rice---is nothing more than cleaning up their own mess.
-
NewChapter
I don't care about MT's supposed atheism or agnosticism. In fact, I KNEW all that long before I heard about this other stuff. And I just figured that she lived a difficult life, and saw the worst that the world had to offer, and it caused her to question her faith at times. That is not even a criticism I have of the woman. People fluctuate and struggle all their lives, so moments of deep doubt mean nothing in the whole. Why would I care if she was really an atheist? I wouldn't. But since she beleived that other people's suffering brought her closer to her god, I think it is safe to say she never seriously played with atheism. And I wouldn't have cared if she had.
-
Chariklo
Yes, Botch, that was actually in my mind when I wrote, but these days, as I am writing in some threads, I'm al too aware that my words will be shredded, and I didn't think a reference to Christ's suffering would escape the barbs.
But, now that you mention it, yes, very much that. You'll find the same kind of thing not infrequently among the saints and mystics throughout the ages, viz Padre Pio's stigmata.
(They'll have a field day with that one!)