In the video below, he discusses this hope with CNN’s Hala Gorani:

He seems to have little patience for her pressing about whether or not the Pope’s cover-up of the rape of children in his previous roles as Archbishop and Cardinal technically constitutes a crime against humanity. Really, the fact is, even if it wasn’t a crime against humanity specifically, it was still a horrific cover-up, that any reasonable person would think would be severely punishable given his authority.

For those wondering anyway, here’s the definition:

“[Crimes against Humanity] are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. Murder; extermination; torture; rape and political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances, war crimes, but may fall short of falling into the category of crimes under discussion.”

You have to wonder, had they ever heard of anyone they know praying when very sick and then coming through? Did they not think about all the sickness and disease in the world, or did they think that all those that stay sick or die just didn’t pray enough? Surely, if you think God answers any prayers at all, you have to be concerned whether he will or not with your sick child, keep a backup plan of actual medical care.

Examples like these are great for forcing people to really get their hands dirty with respect to other people’s religious beliefs. Tolerance and acceptance of others is key to religious peace in our day and age when religious beliefs are still common. That said, we are forced into difficult situations when blatantly bad decisions are made through religious thinking. Just as it is tragic when Jehova’s Witnesses refuse blood or organs, it’s such a shame when religion with good intentions ends up killing people through ignorance. While we may let people carry out a strange form of unintended suicide when adults, we feel a need to step in and blame when it’s the case of a child dying because of the parents’ beliefs.

Let’s start – naturally – with a psychotic preaching baby:

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One way to make a convocation less boring. Maybe more depressing, though. Behold this incredibly awkward and tragic benediction. Fast forward to around 2:40 to see when she starts to spaz:

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There’s a more informing news video about this next incident, but this video sums it up nicely, with hilarious Christian Rock overtop. Basically, a tornado ripped through religious Union University in Jackson Tennessee, and all the Christians there prayed thanks for God’s protection because no one got killed.

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I can’t begin to wrap my head around a God powerful enough to protect me in a storm yet seemingly unable to stop it, that would permit the annihilation of my Christian university and little else with this particular tornado, and me being like “thanks man!” If you look around YouTube, there are a bunch more exactly equally cheesy Christian Rock video overlays just like this one. What’s funnier is that they’re often titled as “tributes”, even though no one died (thankfully!) This is what you would call an easy crowd:

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Once we’re on the music theme, check out this music video. Nope, not a joke:

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Classic screaming fanatic:

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One angry mom leveraging gifts to build faith in Jesus. Nice:

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Giggle giggle WRATH giggle BURN IN HELL giggle:

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Makes you wonder about the expectations these kids have about the world as they get older. Got to have at least one speaking in tongues…:

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Always fun to agree with Sean Hannity! Well, kinda.

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Gospel aerobics man. Yet another way to feel uncomfortable.

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Just wow. The irony of how demonic and possessed this woman seems is expressed in the frightened bafflement of the child on the couch. Best Wife Swap ever:

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In attempting to comprehend the religious perspective, I’ve tried hard to see the world through the lens of pure belief in the existence and involvement of a higher power. I try to pull myself from godlessness, to find a place of feigned but complete conviction, to see what beliefs and insights follow from the initial perspective. Indeed, religion is not quite irrationality but reasoning that follows from false premises.

I always end up hitting a mental wall, however, when faced with faiths other than the one I’ve attempted to adopt for my personal thought experiment. Once “convinced” of my religion, it’s hard to imagine how to treat others in contrast. Are they “wrong”? As we both right, somehow?

Society has led is into one perspective: keep a healthy respect for the religions of others. This means no discrimination, no attacking on religious lines, to maintain a spirit of religious freedom in contrast to various periods in history (and modern day societies such as Saudi Arabia’s, where only one religion is permitted).

But religions themselves, surprisingly, often do quite well to accommodate each other. One strategy has been more inclusionary, focusing on the similarities between the religions as evidence of universal truth. Indeed, one peculiar argument for the validity of religion is that disconnected cultures from around the world tend to end up there. While that’s hardly proof, it’s an interesting way to look at it, and relevant in inter-religion relationships today.

The strategy is greatest common denominator, where the focus is on overlapping concepts instead of the details that divide.

A second way to accommodate many religions, is to have one absorb another as part of its history, as Christianity did much of Judaism, and Islam of both of these. Established religions are brought in through the concept of prophetic succession, progressive revelation, suggesting that conversation with God across history are of an intended linearity. At this the atheist eyebrow raises further, while the Bahá’í faith endorses it and the religious systems included therein, placing itself as the most recent, with the next due to arrive in a few hundred years’ time.

While the absorption type is a whole discussion in and of itself, my concern right now is with this finding of common ground between religions. While I understand the spirit behind the unity people like to try and show, does it not marginalize a deeper conviction? If religious people genuinely believe their text is the word of God, so strongly that they live by it at their deepest core, then how can they present other religions as any more than fallacious curiosities? To present them as substantive alternatives is to undercut their position. The irony is that in the social spirit of accommodating all religions, the religious spirit has to die a little.

Occam’s Razor Dulled

My bet is that most of the overlapping bits between the religions, with the exception of claims about God, are common sense good and proper ways of being. From an atheist’s perspective, to say “let’s boil our religions down the the overlapping bare essentials” and focus on how religions “breed good will” doesn’t really leave much in the way of directly religious material. In face, the bare goodness in morality essentials would overlap with and normal atheist mindset.

So, instead of mentally allowing for a variety of at least semi-true religions to get at what really makes sense between them, isn’t it just easier to start at the conclusions we’re trying to make the religions fit, and leave it at that? If the extra details are not as important, then let them disappear. If they are important, then you really should stick to your religion’s guns, and ignore the others.

Interpreting Multiplicity

I am, however, sympathetic to ecumenical strategies, because without a mechanism that explains other religions, you’d otherwise be left with a mathematical kind of doubt that would be hard to shake. I’ve always been struck by the math of it all. Many religions tend to be similar with respect to the real basics: that you are part of a higher plan involving a higher being(s) that somehow affect the world you live in, and you are to act in ritualistic and devotional ways vis-a-vis this plan and this being. Given how many religions there are around the world with their own placeholders for the elements in this list of basics, what are the odds that and particular one is correct? This is a general and fairly abstract point. You don’t have to get into the veracity of any one if you can demonstrate that all competing parties are of a similar type. Since they can’t all be right, it’s more likely that none of them are right.

And again, if you think that they are all potentially incarnations and revelations of the same God and divine process, then, while saluting the creativity and originality in the variety of it all, you might be best off just sticking to what makes sense. Plus, if you are willing to embrace the details and rituals of one particular religion, you should then be prepared to adjust to the rest. Otherwise, the entire process seems dangerously and underminingly a la carte.