Have to say I also thought the analogy didn’t work, because while some Muslim terrorism can be said to be done in the name of Islam, priests’ pedophilia is not done in the name of Christianity. The problem is instead human failure protected and abetted by a corrupt organisation, the Catholoc church.

You’ve pretty much made my point j.a.m. You may not hear it, but many of us hear all the time that such-and-such isn’t real Christian behaviour and therefore so-and-so isn’t a real Christian. People with a more ground-of-being interpretation of Christianity aren’t usually so hypocritical, but there are plenty who are.

Both Christianity and Islam have teachings that give warrant to some pretty bad stuff. At the moment there are witches all over the US in particular who are casting spells for President Trump to be removed from office. The Bible says, “Though shalt not suffer a witch to live.” (Exodus 22:18) Some would say that gives them the right to go out and kill witches. The only real difference in most Western democracies is that we’ve have the Enlightenment and they’re secular and are therefore now governed by rule of law rather than Biblical law. It’s not that long ago that witches were indeed legally killed by the state.

There are Christian countries in Africa where women, and sometimes men, suspected of witchcraft are still killed and not just in isolated areas. It’s common in Papua New Guinea, and parts of the Caribbean too. There are Christian countries where witchcraft is a crime on the books.

There is nothing in the Bible that forbids paedophilia. Mary was very young when she was allegedly impregnated with Jesus.

The point is, you can’t say someone isn’t a real Muslim because they’re a terrorist like Cardinal Dolan has, and you can’t say that about any Christian either. Scripture is open to interpretation and interpretation changes all the time and is different in different places.

Look up the “No True Scotsman” fallacy at the link given in the post. It will explain it better than I can.

Thanks for the clarification, but I’m not sure that it helps the analogy. All real Christians are sinners, and some real Christians suffer from mental illness. Cardinal Dolan nor anyone else would deny that all real Christians do bad things, and some do really vile things. There are pedophiles who are real Christians, but the question is whether anyone is a pedophile *because* he is a Christian.

As I understand the claim about Islam, it is that some of its teachings are interpreted to give warrant to terrorism. Unless you want to say that something in Christian doctrine can be fairly interpreted to give warrant to pedophilia, then it is a false analogy.

I missed out a word in that sentence – it was supposed to read REAL Christians, not just Christians. I’ll fix the text later when I have access.

I can’t speak for Cardinal Dolan, but I’m pretty sure he’s never claimed that a man who has received Holy Orders from the Catholic Church is not at least nominally affiliated with the Christian faith.

In any event, respectfully, it’s a poor analogy: terrorism is to Islam as pedophilia is to Christianity. Your thesis is that a terrorist who happens to be Muslim would not be a terrorist (or would be less likely to be) if he did not identify as a Muslim. The analogous claim would be that a pervert who happens to be Christian would not be a pervert (or would be less likely to be) if he did not identify as a Christian. I don’t believe you intended to draw such an analogy, since the latter claim would be wholly unreasonable.

That’s actually a really important point that I myself have failed to point out – a majority of those in Northern Ireland actually want to stay part of the UK.

The IRA has it’s historic roots way back in the English Reformation of the 16th century when Henry VIII broke from Rome and the Irish (conquered by England in 1169) remained largely Catholic.

In most countries it’s paedophile priests that the Church moves from place to place. I recall at least one priest in Northern Ireland who killed for/with the IRA in a bombing. He was moved to a parish on the west coast of Ireland for the rest of his life. At the time it was decided it would be bad for the Church to expose him. The story didn’t come out until the 1980s when he died.

That was a reply to Coel.

This whole thing is not about religion, it is about politics, power, control (just as when the Irish were/are trying to get rid of the English).

But it’s not true that in Northern Ireland, “the Irish were/are trying to get rid of the English”. Rather, about 40% of the Northern Irish want to be independent and about 60% want to remain part of the UK.

What is the difference between these two factions? Well, the only real difference is religion. They have proceeded with parallel cultures and histories for the past couple of hundred years, with schools being for children of one faction, or for children of the other faction, but not for both, and with churches being for one worshippers of one faction, or for worshippers of the other faction, but never both.

Why this separation? Religion. That’s the only major reason why those two factions have developed separately for generations. So yes, the IRA was not driven by theology and its goals were political rather than religious, but it’s just not true to say that religion had no part in it.