Why is Ruari Quinn so anti-Catholic?

Byron85 wrote: »

What would you do with atheists?

I wuld not DO anything. I am not an authoritarian! They are free to do as they like. and if enough of them want a school they are entitled to state support.

bluewolf wrote: »

No it's not

Ill show you my supporting evidence. Will you show me yours ?

gman2k wrote: »

All this talk about Catholic Run schools being better because of their 'ethos'.
Can someone explain to me what this 'ethos' actually translates into?

It translates into people wanting their children to go to schools which support a belief in God.

Last time I looked, Irish literacy levels had slipped way down the league table, and there was no major change in 'ethos' in the same timespan.

Well first of all wher is your evidence of that?
Second suppose it is true how can you show it demonstrates that religious involved in education cause lower achievement and not in fact the opposite i.e. that actually less religious involved in education caused lower academic achievement?

The only thing that influences the quality of education is funding. The reason why Catholic Schools were/are so popular in the US is down to funding - rich benefactors etc.

Why then do very poor countries have high academic achievers coming from religious schools with little or no funding? How do you explain that? How is it Christain Brothers with little or no funding compared to today produced good graduates and how is it they are still doing it today in deprived Inner city US schools where they get NO State funding because the are religious?

Funding of Irish Schools has been/will be totally pathetic. I believe that 95% of the budget for Primary education in this country is salary, yet it is nearly impossible to sack a bad teacher.

Yep. But trade unions are not church organisations.

Now let's look at the realities. Todays generation of parents are not practicing Catholics, yes many do go to church, but that is purely so as to bring their children to church so their grandparents will be happy.
When todays children reach their late teens (say 2030), and they stop going to mass, because
A: Their grandparents are too old to know about it.
B: They realised their parents are not really catholic and never really cared anyway.
C: The Church's teachings on things like contraception, women priests, homosexuality etc are an anachronism from a bygone century.
Mass is no longer said by Irish people, but there is foreign missionaries here with even stronger views on point C above.
When the parents of that year start having their own children, bringing them to mass will be an alien concept.
2030 or thereabouts will be when the Catholic Church is finally gone from Irish Society.

So you predict. did you also predice investments and house prioces? Are you a profit or a prophet?
They said similar in the past and even persecuted Catholics and only around 1830 gave Catholics a vote. They haven't gone away you know.

It's better to now start having a properly run education system without church involvement. Let the parents who pretend to care about religion teach their children religious studies at home, or set up their own Sunday schools.

Or if there are enough of them to ask the state to provide one. As is their right.

Finally,
To the OP and his ilk;
If religious studies are so important,
Why is religion not a mandatory exam course at second level?

Because passing exams and knowing facts is not what being Christian is all about.
Religion is mandatory in ethos schools. It is assumed the most important part of your education is being a good person.

Why are they not continued into third level as a mandatory course?

They are for those who study philosophyor theology. Just as ophysics and maths are mandatory for those studying science but not for those studying history.

Now get this straight OP and other apologists:
I DON'T WANT MY CHILDREN INDOCTRINATED WITH YOUR BELIEFS JUST BECAUSE THEY GO TO A STATE SCHOOL.

Good for you. You ahve every right to educate them at home or move them to a non religious school. IOf ther is not such a school in your area it is the local church who will be helping you to acquire one.

Einhard wrote: »

Eh, 100 years ago, one could have made the point that there were no long lasting democratic societies either!

Different types of democracies existed since ancient times. Rome and Greece had republics. Since Magna Carta ten centuries ago there was a mitigated change from absolute rulers. Democracies also existed in the early Church and in non western Societies.

Modern democracy in terms of mass election of government dates from the late sixteenth century. It was therefore around for centuries a hundred years ago! So you could have made the point and you would have be been WRONG!

The fact that atheists and those who didn't believe in the prevailing orthodoxy have so often been persecuted mercilessly might have something to do with the lack of atheistic societies over the centuries.

Nonsense. The Church in Ireland are not persecuting atheists or anyone else! They are happy to provide non Catholics with schools if there are enough people to run them and to commit to keeping them running.

Somewhat difficult to establish such a society when one is persecuted for expressing such sentiments.

There you go again! Who is persecuting atheists or antitheists. Nor do I persecute holocaust deniers.

Nobody's claiming otherwise. FACT!

Godless anti religious atheists killed Millions at a rate nowhere near any deaths caused by the Church. And they contributed nothing to society. and now we have anti religious atheists harping on about getting the church out of society for good.

See what I did there?

Attempting to prove the entire philosophies of myriad regimes by selectively quoting individuals is absurd.

No it isn't! You are quoting the Bible which you no doubt reject as made up stories about mythical beings. No mainstream Christian ( not a Biblical fundamentalist) would say they believe in killing all the opponents of their religion.

But taking your Biblical point from the story... Jesus said Himself that He came to this earth to live, work and die for sinners. It relates to personal choice. Even after their continued wars and attacks in killing of the old and weak would the Amalekites have been destroyed if they would have turned from their sins?


I am quoting from LENIN the father of modern Russian Communism. One can not deny that such clearly recorded atheistic philosophy led to the death of tens of millions.

You're not comparing like with like. I suspect you know this. Much of the killing carried out in the name of Christianity wasn't directed by the Church authorities, but by temporal authories in the name of Christianity.

But you are the one on the side of "it is all the church's fault" not me!
You can't claim an authoritarian Church is controlling education and manipulating governments and then also claim that people are acting on misguided notions of what they think the Church wants.

You're being entirely disengenuous. Millions were killed by Imperial Japan, where state Shintoism played a major role in shaping and supporting racist imperial ideology.

And one can state Buddhism is a form of atheism.

Nobody though, is suggesting that the depredations of the Japanese before and during WWII was because of religion.

One Anglican Bishop who recently died in africa eventually turned against Emporor worship and he is for from nobody!

You are being entirely dishonest in how you frame your argument. I'm an atheist, and I don't have a problem with religion or the religious in general.

Good for you! You don't claim to nor do you represent the antheist people then.

However, what troubles me, is when I see obviously intelligent people willfully delude themselves on a subject, or make arguments they must know to be dishonest, purely because it supports a particular ideology.

Where do you suggest I am lying or deluded? Care to point that out?

It bothers me with those who hate America, with those who champion Cuba and denigrate the West, and also with people who do so in defence of religion.

Me too! considering i have family and Friends in America and never stated I was a supporter of Communist Cuba. Clearly I was indicating one can be both communist and a dictator but not involved in wholesale slaughter. atheistic communism was however involved in whole slaughter.

Atheistic communism and non atheistic communism. Any ideas what might be the difference?

bluewolf wrote: »

Right, I assumed you meant that old constitutional provision. Well the majority might be "officially" catholic but it is not the official country religion so I would not call this a catholic country. Hopefully this census will show us the truth of whether the majority are or not.

America also has a seperation of church and State but it is no "officially" atheist given that about 1 or 2 per cent are atheist.

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Name any other organisation which abused children covered it all up and then still gets charity status?

Kincora Boys home?

raymon wrote: »

The catholic church has no moral authority to lead in education or anywhere else.

And you have the authority to say that?

In addition to removing the link between church and education, the prayer before Dail sessions should be banned in addition to the 12 noon and 6 pm angelus.

And if we elect you we know what you will bring in.

NTMK wrote: »

Secular countries do far better than religous countries in terms of education
http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/12/46643496.pdf

Where in the PISA report is there any evidence of that?

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

What an outrageous figure! The only reason why so many people say they adhere to a particular faith, particularly the Catholic faith, is because they know they'll have a better chance getting their children into a primary or secondary school - most of which are still under the patronage of the Catholic church. If every school in the country was to be made strictly secular, then you'll find that that figure would drastically decrease - probably to about ~50%. Saying that 95% of people in Ireland are religious is basically saying that we're one of the most religious countries in the world which is so outrageous it's actually quite funny.

Ho ho ho . funny but true! FACT! You cant make people atheist! They believe or they don't!

What we need in Ireland is a bit of rationality and the Labour Party, in terms of their social policy (not really their economic policy), certainly seems to be as rational as you get.

LOL. fifty per cent of schools should be non religious! Rational?
They will achieve all this in their "five year plan" ? LOL

Dades wrote: »

Approximately one-third of the population are under 18, and have somebody else filling in their census data. Even you have to admit that saying 95% of the one-third in question are "catholic" is a stretch.

so you dont believe what the people say. fair enough. I can only go by what the vast majority say and not by you opinion of how they really think.

About 300,000 of them are still in nappies, for a start, and I'd suggest Boards.ie is a fair representation of the older ones in that demographic.

How so? How is it fair? In fact the fairest stastics are official ones. That say about one or two percent ore atheist. You of course may believe this few percent should be telling the rest of the people how to think.

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

According to that logic, a majority of those 5% Irish atheist spend most of their time on the internet :P

How so? Certainly more atheists spend time having a go at religion on the internet than the percentage of anti religious Irish people. Ther is also quite a vocal group of holocaust deniers and conspiracy kook but they also are a tiny minority.

Honesly, a number of Polls on boards.ie have indicated that atheism/ agnosticism are by far the most popular philosophies.

LOL . Boards should be dictating to the country now? You are arguing against yourself! Atheism is not a common position! It is about one or two percent. If boards has such huge majorities on such views then the faux popularity is only showing how biased the opinion is with respect to reality which is vastily majority belief in God!

One of the conclusions you could get from these polls is that atheism is increasing in the younger population (don't forget that the Irish population is actually quite a young population compared to other European countries) and that there are a deal of atheists/agnostics who are still "in the closet" with regard to their religious beliefs.

Look! you can't get any realistic conclusion from an invalid and unrepresentative poll!

ceadaoin. wrote: »

And I seriously doubt that over 95% of people in this country are religious believers. Did you just pull that figure out of the air?

Nope! I pulled it from a US report and the Irish census.
http://census.cso.ie/Census/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=74640
Population = 4.2 million Atheist plus agnostic= 186,000 given about half are atheist that is 90 k in 4.2 million about 2 per cent!

A sizeable amount of people might tick that box on the census form but in fact they are non practising if not non believing.

So 95 per cent of people lied ?? Thats your counter argument!

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

Using ISAW's logic, when he says that there is a risk of a Stalinist/Maoist atheist threat because there's an atheist in power, I could easily say that there is a risk of another Inquisition if there is a Catholic in power.

In history Stalinists killed hundreds of millions in 50 years. The inquisition brurned 2000 people in 450 years!

NTMK wrote: »

Religous regimes and conflicts have resulted in the deaths of 100's of millions FACT!

Source? In fact you would be really pushing it to show more than a million and you wont get anywhere near ten million for the Catholic church.

sensibleken wrote: »

Is saying FACT! at the end of a sentence a bit like 'Jinx no come backs!'

No1 saying fact when it is a fact and when i can provide backup is valid. Gainsaying isnt valid. Ill so you my sources for hundreds of millions andf for 2000 burnings in the Inquisition ? will you show me yours?

clown bag wrote: »

A lot of mothers say everyone in their house on census night is a catholic. Not the same thing.

Yo are back to 95 per cent of people lied on the census!
You just are living in reality! Like the sign on Mulders wall with the UFO you "want to believe" but the facts show you wrong!

My own mother use to do it all the time when I lived at home, even though she was the only catholic in the house. Our census should have read 75% atheist, 25% catholic but instead it read as 100% Catholic. How many people tick Catholic without thinking just because they were baptised?

Based on your "mother" argument you claim 75 per cent of Ireland are atheist! LOL!
It is a valid survey and is internationally validated! Similar surveys are done in the US.

ISAW's 95% figure is way off. I could count on one hand the number of practising catholics I know under the age of 40.

I show the source above! But your "I know better because of my atheist pals" is apparently a superiour source than the actually State funded properly conducted research? Next time you tell me the gravity law is untrue because your atheist pal say so try telling me that wile you jump off a high building and we will see whether your opinion measures up to valid research shall we?

Even if it was correct there's still no place for religion in the class room. If you want religious instruction then go to mass / mosque / synagogue etc.

Oh so you deny the figures are correct and demand that there are really a minority of religious believers who should be forced by atheists to do as they want but when it is pointed out to you that atheists are a tiny minority you still want to ram your opinion down other people throats anyway?

NTMK wrote: »

Finland
Korea
China
New Zealand
Holland
Austraila
Switzerland
Canada
Japan
Belgium
Norway
Sweden
Germany
Iceland
America

all secular state schools all systems that rank higher than ours

the PISA methodology (see page 64) http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/0/47/42025182.pdf is NOT of only non religious ethos schools. In other words the US data ( assuming you call US "secular" may include Jesuit secondary schools. SAme for Iceland New Zeland etc.

Also Look her and you may note Ireland ranks above two thirds of other countries:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/12/46643496.pdf

How is it the argument applies for the third above Ireland and not for the two thirds beloe Ireland?

what evidence do you have saying teaching kids religion makes our schools better?

Other than the fact that the schools with higher academic achievement are "ethos" schools ( look at University admissions and scholarships)? But it isn't for me to show it is better or worse. The argument being presented is that "at least 50 % ( and preferably 100 per cent) should not have any ethos" Given that 95 per cent of parents believe whay are you saying they should be discriminated against in favour of two percent who are atheist?

Holocaust
Crusades
witch hunts
inquisitions
and a whole lot of wars fought in the name of god

Care to list the number of people killed because of Witch hunts ( which by the way were mainly in Eastern Europe and in Protestant countries and not in roman Catholic ones)?
What has the Holocaust to do with the RC Church which preached against Hitler?
How many were killed by the Church in the Crusades?
I already pointed out at most tens of thousands and 200 maybe burned at the stake over 450 years of inquisitions!

Stalin and Mao's atheistic regimes killed about 50 MILLION each!

BTW athiesm was not the cause of the various genocides in russia and china religion has very little to do with it its all about authoritarian control and power. same goes for most religous conflicts.

A: Roman Anglican and Orthodox church ALL authoritian deaths - at most millions

B: Atheistic regimes (some anarchic some authoritian ) hundreds of millions dead

What ius the difference between A and B other than hundreds of millions of deaths?

Its all about Power and control nothing else.........FACT!:pac:

If it is all about power and control how is it oiver 2000 years the church conrrol caused maybe in the millions but the atheistic regimes in 50 years goes into the hundreds of millions?

And if it is all about control why remove belief in God? Why not just have a system where no political control (especially by atheists) is prevalent?

NTMK wrote: »

im talking about all religion

i realise these include religious schools however the majority of students in those countries go to non religious schools but notice the countries below us majority are 2nd world/3rd world countries a lot of which are religious

so what? If they are developing countries how do you know their low score (or even if they have a high one) is anything to do with religion and nothing to do with their being a developing economy?

you yet to provide any evidence that religious public schools are better than non religious schools or on anything you've said

I dont have to. Im not the one claiming there should be no State involvement in funding religious ethos education?

the orthodox church had quite a hold in Russia Lenin saw it as a threat removed it
the catholic church saw science as a threat attempt to remove it (hint Galileo)

the Catholic church had an already developed philosophy whioch galileo didn't consider in his "dialogue on two world systems". And hios better work on two new sciences was allowed to be published later on so the church didnt remove him! Hint : One of the postgrads I have devotes a sizeable amount to discussion of this subject.

Holocaust: Hitler was a Christian took made many speeches against atheistic Russia and killed millions of Russians Jews and other religious groups

Hitler was not a christian didnt act like one and was openly opposed by the RC Church.

efb wrote: »

Hitler was openly opposed by the RC, was that during the war?

Yes before and during the war! Go and learn some history. Catholics were specificalloy targeted by the Nazis.