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Palladin, you are too smart to not know that those things I listed were not questions from me. I already know they are untrue. Catholicism, and religion in general, as well as atheism, are all marginally relevant to this discussion if people here go back and forth about whether a faith should be questioned, or whether it should be followed without questioning. And behind some of these allegations (maybe not your allegations) about church-sponsored wrongdoing, I think there is a desire to discredit religious institutions which have taken unpopular stances on certain political issues such as abortion and family life.

I think you once implied that you had attended Catholic schools. If you did attend Catholic schools, then you know: Catholic schools include Religion class as part of the curriculum, day in and day out, every single grade. Here's how it went in mine, and I think this is typical: We were taught every possible detail of our religion, year after year, going through sacraments, sin, morality, the Mass, and every other aspect of the beliefs one must have to truthfully call himself a Catholic. By about 10th grade, we'd had a good foundation in the religion. Then we spent a year being taught about the Dead Sea Scrolls, the overlap between Hebrew ways and the origins of Christianity, and I recall excruciatingly detailed discussions of the word Yahweh, and Qumran, and the relation of the words to the meaning. Then the next year our teacher began surveying the principal religions of the world. Of course, being a survey, there was only so much detail that could be gotten.

Then our teacher branched out into a survey of philosophy, again just touching on things, but giving us the resources to look at them in more detail if we wanted. He talked about many of the major philosophers, and some modern ones, comparing their views of morality. Of course we had earlier had the ideas of free will and determinism at least touched on.

The high school religion classes went far beyond just the teachings of our own church. They taught people to question things, and fostered a certain skepticism at times.

That is where I think, ironically, Catholic education has actually almost done too good a job. There is this emphasis on learning to reason it all out through whatever means your mind allows you. Some people lose faith at this point, it's almost like knowing too much.

When this skepticism is used by a member of Religion A to
continually attempt to undermine the beliefs of a practitioner of Religion B, I don't see the purpose of it. If no one is forcing the LDS religion down a person's throat, then why is it necessary to continue to question that religion's motives or beliefs? If one feels suspicion and skepticism as to the religion's motives, practices, and beliefs, then that person should just reject the religion and move on--not try to undermine the good that the religion may be doing for someone else.

As Scaredkat says, back to Elizabeth Smart. This post was too long, but I just wanted to say why I am just not interested in hearing every detail of every alleged scandal of the Mormon church--some of which are surely only internet conspiracy theories. If it ever turns out that someone was using so-called religious practices as an excuse to do something illegal to Elizabeth, then I will be right there, ready to discuss it. But right now that idea seems as farfetched as the idea of the international slave rings.

How special.

Not to get off topic, but weren't the Smarts on the John Walsh show last week? I was frying tacos and missed their segment. The Runnions were on as well as the parents of another young girl who was murdered this summer. I expected to read people's reactions and what the Smarts had to say -- was kind of hoping for some new fodder for this thread.