Did the guy say he didn’t realize it was wrong? Do the Olympic Committee say they and only they know the basis of morality?

I could go on.

The Olympics Committee can go to hell for all I care, but any organization that would see them as a comparative standard for ethics — and fails — can go with them.

Then of course there’s the Olympics …
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2017/03/16/usa-gymnastics-president-steve-penny-resigns/99251344/

I think Heather has a point about women seeking church as a basis of social support. I believe there has been work done demonstrating a correlation between overall secularization of a country and when large numbers of women joined the workforce. But this alone would not explain the significant gender disparity in Godless attitudes nowadays. I don’t know if there are inherent differences: with one gender preferring to cope with life’s difficulties by seeking a social connection and what they see as an emotional salve.

Skepticism, secularism and atheism are also heavily intertwined with scientific literacy. In the U.S. at least magazines and talk shows geared towards women are notorious for getting sciency stuff horribly wrong. There should be no excuse for this. The only other place faring worse on matters of science (and for that matter with economics or any other faculty of reason) are the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal.

@ Amy, you don’t have children, do you?

Note, as a young boy I used to play with dolls too, just slightly differently. I let them fight a lot and (litterally) cut their bellies open ‘playing doctor’ (got me a good hiding too, destroying dolls).
Surgery, a real calling????

@ j.a.m., I’m not impressed at all, they are 2 completely different studies, the church one founded by the church (always a bad sign)-
There is great confusion about abuse (verbal or physical), misconduct, harassment etc. Also not much distinction other than ‘under 18’ in many of the studies studied. Retrospective reviews that lump all kinds of things toghether. Teachers or anybody in contact with pupils, the studies vary but no separation is possible for most parameters. No comparative study, but desperately disparate studies. A big mess.
This ‘professor’ so obviously does not compare ‘apples with apples’ at all (where did you get that idea?). The ‘100 times’ could just as well be ‘1000 times’, ‘2 times’ or ‘half as much’. Don’t get me wrong, there definitely is abuse in schools, but her conclusions about numbers are neither here nor there. Poor scholarship, to put it charitably.

My comments clearly had to do with the situation in the USA. The bishops’ response here has been ahead of the Vatican’s as well as that of other countries — and indeed, as stated above, ahead of other US institutions and groups. The claim that most clerical abusers in the USA continue to be protected is absurd and patently false.

It’s ridiculous to argue over how big a slice of the pie chart teachers should get. Meanwhile we ignore a horrendous systemic problem about which we have no data, and that powerful special interests want kept off the agenda. Then there is the media’s preposterous double standard: Each allegation against a priest is treated as an institutional story, and an excuse to rehash every spurious allegation ever made. On the other hand, every report of a teacher going to prison is treated as just an isolated item on the police blotter, with no analysis or context.

Obviously I don’t know how the US education system handles these things. My experience is NZ. Here any teacher who is reported is immediately suspended, and they lose registration if/when convicted. They are not protected by their union. Procedures of how they’re dealt with are constantly updated, which is what I meant about 2004 being a long time ago. It was not a comment in relation to the abuse perpetrated.

As for teachers enjoying power that the Church can only dream of. Is that some kind of sick joke? The Vatican is currently protecting multiple abusers. A former Australian bishop who ignored abuse for years and protected priests was promoted to one of the most powerful jobs in the Vatican and they are doing all they can to stop him testifying in the inquiry there. Priest/monk abusers have always got away with abuse to an extent other paedophiles can only dream of. They get caught, they promise not to do it again, they’re moved to a new parish, and the cycle starts again. Historically law enforcement has never been involved – that is a modern phenomenon. In many countries, priests are still getting away with it. The only thing that has made the Church better in some countries is the loss of money. Many officials still care nothing for the children involved. Several dioceses in the US have rearranged their finances and deliberately declared bankruptcy so their victims got nothing. Most abusers continue to be protected by the Church.

Given the modern climate, I think that if public school teachers were abusing children at a rate 100x that of priests, everyone would know about it. To suggest what must be at least 100s of thousands of victims are suffering in silence while the Church is “victimized” is ridiculous.

Now it gets complicated. I disagree with both Carrol and the Dalai Lama.

I would assume that Carrol dismisses the ‘hard question of consciousness’ as not even existing — i.e. that subjective consciousness is an illusion, so there’s nothing to see here, move on. I (and many scientists) take a different position, on that, namely, there is something happening that is mysterious and by its nature can only be ‘subjectively’ experienced.

The Dalai Lama is a body-mind dualist, which is not really Buddhism. I don’t know if he just speaks like that because some Buddhist techniques and teachings are most easily explained in dualist language, or if he’s more politician than meditator. (Personally I find the stuff he teaches idiotic, shallow and fake — just like the personality he projects.)

BTW, when you click on the above news link, be sure to keep scrolling (and scrolling and scrolling…)

If you want to swap anecdotes, have a gander:

https://www.google.com/search?q=teacher+sex+prison&gl=us&tbm=nws

If 2004 was a long time ago in terms of what’s considered acceptable, the 1970s and 80s (when alleged incidents by priests peaked) are even further distant by this point.

One may think that the US Catholic bishops have not done enough, but they’ve done much more than the public schools or any other institution or organization in our society. As well they should do. But an accusation that they haven’t taken the problem seriously does not bear scrutiny. If nothing else — if one wants to take the most cynical possible view — the disastrous financial consequences have got their attention.

One may find the Dept. of Education report by the Hofstra professor dodgy, but it’s the best there is. There is no comprehensive data set detailing abuse by teachers that is anywhere near the standard set by the priest study. The truth is, nobody wants to know — least of all the corrupt thugs who run the ed unions (and who wield power the bishops could never dream of).