According to this website, a new "study found that through “purposeful distortion or genuine ignorance,” hardcore criminals often co-opt religious doctrine to justify or further their crimes." Further, "criminals will often employ “elaborate and creative rationalizations” to reconcile their belief in God and their serial offending."
Mary Johnson, now an atheist, used to be very much a Catholic. No more. As published in the Friendly Atheist, here is how she characterizes the modern Catholic Church:
The Catholic Church has a two-thousand year history of liberation and oppression, education and superstition, inspiration and exclusion. Today, in areas of the world where the rights of women and children and the poor are routinely denied, or where medical and educational facilities are woefully inadequate, the Catholic Church can provide a step up — when it’s not acting as a tool of repression. It’s clear to me that much of the Western world has outgrown the Church, though Church members often remain fiercely attached to a group they consider family. I believe the Catholic Church is becoming less influential, and I think that’s a good thing. The Church hierarchy is becoming increasingly less tolerant of dissent while Catholics in the pews are thinking more for themselves.
Citing his advancing age and deteriorating health, Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation from the papacy Monday, saying he no longer possessed the strength and energy required to lead the Catholic Church backward.
Amazing story of a well-preserved 500 year old Inca girl who was sacrificed 500 years ago. Sad story too.
Judging from the condition of the body, it is believed that she was drugged and left to die in the mountains. It would not have taken much time for her to die due to the high exposure. The Incan high priests took their victims to high mountaintops for sacrifice. As the journey was extremely long and arduous, especially so for the younger victims, coca leaves were fed to them to aid them in their breathing so as to allow them to reach the burial site alive. Upon reaching the burial site, the children were given an intoxicating drink to minimize pain, fear, and resistance, then killed them either by strangulation, a blow to their head or by leaving them to lose consciousness in the extreme cold and die of exposure.
My relationship with the Boy Scouts of America was not the most pleasant. I was an oddity, to be sure. I think I was at one time the only—only—second class scout to be a patrol leader. Second class. For those who may not have been through the quasi-military organization, the…