patrick.net

Reader says

Extremism happens in all places and with all religions. I am Catholic.

I don't have any beef with rank-and-file Catholics. Just the shenanigans that go on "at the top."

That Laundry shit was interesting.

Funny how no matter how bad these kinds of facilities are (BOTH secular and religious), and their general failure in rahabbing even a fraction of their inmates, we keep thinking they work.

Like Sheriff's Boot Camps for Juvis, etc.

Raw says

It took criticism and force to bring the Christian world into the modern world.
Now the modern world refuses to use criticism and force to bring Islam into the modern world.

Look no further than the arguments that Marcus and I have had on this site. There's a reason I've fought against the position that we should accept the evils of religion by pretending they don't exist and aren't a fundamental property of religion itself. There's a purpose to atheists and rationalists being vocal. As I've quoted MLK many times, "There comes a time when silence is betrayal.".

Still, I think the Islamic world can be modernized without force. The Internet is a powerful tool for spreading information. If the Middle East had unrestricted Internet access -- at least unrestricted in some places -- then the culture will change.

freak80 says

I don't have any beef with rank-and-file Catholics. Just the shenanigans that go on "at the top."

Some of those rank-and-file Catholics don't believe people should have access to birth control or fertility treatment and think that homosexuality is a sin.