Atheist group at Dartmouth plans anti Mother Teresa event

[rug]

By Oliver Darcy, on Nov 16, 2012

An atheist group at Dartmouth College is planning an event aimed at skewering the reputation of the late Mother Teresa.

The Atheists Humanists Agnostics (AHA) club sent out a campus-wide e-mail announcing the program on Tuesday and promising a “full-out romp against why one of the most beloved people of the century, Mother Teresa, is as Hitchens put it… ‘a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf.’”

Mother Teresa is widely known for her life’s work of aiding the poor and comforting the sick.

The e-mail says the group plans to screen an anti-Mother Teresa film, discuss Hitchens’ book, Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, and question how the public has been “conned into thinking this woman [Teresa] was good.”

http://www.campusreform.org/blog/?ID=4503

"Albanian dwarf". Well, they're off to a good start. They must have thought "Slavic midget" was too offensive.

[hrmjustin]

1. That ought to make them some friends.

[elleng]

3. Really.

Think they're studying Public Relations???

[Politicalboi]

2. I consider myself an Atheist

And I wouldn't do something like this. The woman is dead. Go after the Pope and his pedophiles. Destroy the Vatican. Now that would be some fun.

[MADem]

7. I agree with you. There's just no point, and it's petty.

They can't, no matter how many names they fling, hurt her.

She's deceased.

Challenging the abuses of the Pope, though? There's fun with a purpose.

[southernyankeebelle]

31. Yes I agree with you also. Really she did do some good things for the poor. Let

her rest in peace. She is dead. Go after that creepy pope who I never liked from the beginning.

[stopbush]

37. What did she do for the poor outside of the occasional bowl of soup? Not much.

And for the dying, not even that.

You do realize, don't you, that she didn't run hospitals or medical centers. She ran dying centers where the sick came to die, not to receive medical treatment. The reason she took in the dying was because her religious order believed that watching the sick die would bring them closer to god. That was the motivation behind her opening her dying centers around the world. Nothing was dome to alleviate the suffering of these poor souls. According to Wikipedia:

She has also been criticized for her view on suffering. She felt that suffering would bring people closer to Jesus.[87] Sanal Edamaruku, President of Rationalist International, criticised the failure to give painkillers, writing that in her Homes for the Dying, one could "hear the screams of people having maggots tweezered from their open wounds without pain relief. On principle, strong painkillers were not administered even in severe cases. According to Mother Teresa's philosophy, it is 'the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ'."

The quality of care offered to terminally ill patients in the Homes for the Dying has been criticised in the medical press. The Lancet and the British Medical Journal reported the reuse of hypodermic needles, poor living conditions, including the use of cold baths for all patients, and an approach to illness and suffering that precluded the use of many elements of modern medical care, such as systematic diagnosis.[77] Dr. Robin Fox, editor of The Lancet, described the medical care as "haphazard", as volunteers without medical knowledge had to make decisions about patient care, because of the lack of doctors. He observed that her order did not distinguish between curable and incurable patients, so that people who could otherwise survive would be at risk of dying from infections and lack of treatment. Dr. Fox makes it a point to contrast the term "hospice", on the one hand, with what he calls "Mother Teresa's Care for the Dying" on the other hand; noting that, while hospice emphasizes minimizing suffering with professional medical care and attention to expressed needs and wishes of the patient, her approach does not.

As far as other people calling Christopher Hitchens "scum," at least he didn't support Baby-Doc and his father, François (Papa Doc) Duvalier, who had the full support of the Vatican and were favorites of Mother Teresa. For her loyal support of the Duvalier family, Baby Doc Duvalier presented her with a Legion d'Honneur in 1981, which she graciously accepted, along with monetary donations. The Duvalier family is estimated to have murdered over 300,000 people.

In 1989, MT traveled back to her native Albania to pay her respects to communist dictator Enver Hoxha and lay a wreath on his grave. Hoxha was one of the most repressive rulers of the 20th century. Under his reign of terror Albania was a virtual prison camp and almost every citizen had either been interrogated, tortured or imprisoned by the dreaded Sigurimi secret police. The country was impoverished by the lunatic policies of Hoxha and his rampant military spending.

She was supported by Charles Keating, who stole in excess of $252 million as part of an organized fraud in the Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980s. He gave $1.25 million of his loot to Mother Teresa. When Keating was facing prosecution she interceded on his behalf and wrote a letter to the court urging leniency. When the district attorney informed her that the money she had received was stolen money and needed to be returned, she refused to return the money and evaded the courts attempts to recover the money.

Teresa also stated that the greatest evil in the world was abortion.

IMHO, next to Ronald Reagan, MT has enjoyed more undeserved favorable press than anyone else in recent history.

[lalalu]

4. About time.

In Europe many have already questioned her so called sainthood. She raised a lot of money for the church by telling poor women to not use contraception and have more babies. Posing with them was a big money raiser. Then she would go hobnob with the rich and live comfortably.

[MADem]

5. Ah, the intemperance of youth.

This'll bite someone in the ass ten or twenty years from now...

[sigmasix]

6. reminds me-septic tank needs pumping

I guess teabaggers aren't the only ones that fall for the "if it subverts popular opinion it must be true" attitude about facts of history and the agents of human change. I used to be an atheist and i still feel and understand the frustration experienced by those that feel our (America's) strengths are the product of relying on the science and understandings produced by our secular side, rather than supernatural explanations. This plan is just a silly waste of effort and an expenditure of goodwill, at a time when atheists and secular humanists don't really have any extra goodwill points with those that are fence-sitters in the secular vs. supernatural narrative of the world and human history.
Not terribly pragmatic...

[rug]

11. Welcome to DU!

[cleanhippie]

27. "I used to be an atheist" - What changed for you?

And welcome to DU.

[sigmasix]

42. thanks for the welcome

I spent the better part of my post adolescence and adulthood as a confirmed Atheist with an almost militant attitude towards religious thinking- I still abhore religiosity- but about 10 years ago I had an experience that answered many questions for me in a way that has brought me a great deal of intellectual satisfaction, while also making me aware of a side to my existence that I used to disregard as meaningless and a product of my environment. I know that the answers that work for me aren't the same that work for others, so I'm not much for evangelism. I find that this change was fueled by what I can only describe as an aesthetic sense of a type of beauty that comes from a life that aknowledges a faith in something that is unrestrained by the natural laws and other limits of this existence. Of course I dont expect anyone else to see my experience as proof for or against the existence of a supernatural, benign entity- but these experiences and answers are enough for me to feel sure that I am being honest with myself and not wasting effort or time on attempting to construct an intellectual circus of excuses to make inconsistencies within my world view match reality.
As I said; I used to be an Atheist, but this change in my belief structure did not entail deconstruction of my ability to recognize the intellectual pit-falls and moral conundrums presented by belief in an invisible good guy. I just require less specificity from my faithful side than from my secular side when it comes to questions about this particular natural expression of existence. I lower my expectations for specificity from my secular side and increase demands on my faithful side when I deal with questions that appear to have the supernatural realm in mind.
I am a real fan and follower of Jesus and His teachings in regards to the revolutionary act of love. I know it sounds hokey to some, but His message pierced my entire being as if I were a butterfly in a pan of wax. I disregard most religious tracts as sales brochures, but if one were to read the new testament and pay close attention to the things Jesus says, while disregarding all the bullshit written by the early church founders, it is difficult to gainsay His teachings as anything other than a revolution in human understanding and love. In fact you might say Jesus let's us know that our next stage of evolution as a species is upon us- and it is the most important one of all. We are the first creatures on earth with the ability to control our own evolution- and through the realization of revolutionary love we can control it for the better-ment of mankind.

[AlbertCat]

8. They must have thought "Slavic midget" was too offensive.

Yeah. "Fraud" would have been fine.

[rug]

9. Fraud is one thing. Racist, bigoted epithets, another.

One might say their privilege shows.

[skepticscott]

12. How is any of that "racist" or "bigoted"?

She WAS Albanian, and she WAS very short. And she was also a liar and a thief. But none of that was claimed to stem from her nationality. It's not like she was called a lazy Mexican or a penny-pinching Jew.

[rug]

13. Keep trying.

Aside from the fact that her ethnicity and stature are irrelevant to her alleged lying thievery, it's fascinating to observe the flailing involved in defending this. BTW, being short does not equal being a dwarf unless, of course, one needs a hook to hang one's bias on.

[skepticscott]

14. So try again

How is any of that "racist" or "bigoted"? Are any Albanians or dwarves reacting with outrage? Liars and thieves might be, given that they've been tied to such a scumbag. How is any of it even untrue? Mother Teresa was a despicable human being, and a few jibes are the least that her undeserved reputation as a angel of mercy deserves.

[rug]

15. Then surely you must not object to my referring to Hitchens as a Maltese carcass.

[skepticscott]

17. Why would I care?

I'm not one of the ones on this board who needs to fling the label "bigot" at everyone who tells the truth about religion and the religious.

[DonCoquixote]

16. well when you use someone's race as an insult

it tend to be a slur. For example, let's say i called a poster here an "American jackass." The american would be part of the insult. Asfar as Dwarf, as a Doctor what a dwarf is; there are a lot of very short people who are NOT medical dwarves. As a scientist, you should want to avoid messing up defininitions of medical terms, and making life more difficult for actual dawrves, especially as many of them could not give a damn about Mother Theresa.

Now, to be clear, I can find many, many bad things to call that woman, and she would deserve all of them. I could even call her a conspirator to genocide, seeing as how she helped the church deny Africa the birth control it needed to involve mass slaughter. However, said insults would come from hard, provable fact. No, she was not called a penny piinching Jew, but you know that once you defend insults based on race, it becoems a slick slope.

Especially as a former communist nation like Albania would have been the first to say "we do not like what this woman does."

[skepticscott]

18. So how would an Albanian

find this offensive and insulting to their nationality? None of it plays into any stereotype regarding Albanians (if such even exist for people in this country). Please, be specific. And show us some actual dwarves who lives will be made more difficult by someone's referring to Mother Teresa as one, and tell us how in concrete terms.

[DonCoquixote]

22. So ya wanna split hairs eh?

OK, first off, when you call someone a dwarf who is NOT a medical dwarf, you confuse people about what an actual dwarf is, and what they have to deal with.
Theresa might have been short, but she did not have the breathing or bone or heart issues medical dwarves do deal with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarfism

But when you call someone famous a dwarff who was not, you help spread misinformation, which, in the case of medical conditions, can actually KILL.

Asfar as Albanians, I am not one, so my ability to answer is limited. However, we do know that albanians were hardline communist. Also, many Albanians are Muslim, related to their cousins, the Kosovars. You remember those folks, the ones the Serbians started world war one to kill, and with Milosevic, almost started world war III. Yet, Theresa became a Catholic. The point being is that she was nto a typical Albanian.

You are someone who is normally very careful to define terms, and stick to facts. Is it worth supporting the mouthbreathing insults?, when there are many legitamate, solid, backed by hard fact reasons to slam Mother Theresa? To quote Freddie Neitzche, be careful that when you fight monsters, you do not become one.

[skepticscott]

23. I asked for specific examples

and you apparently have none, which is not surprising. In fact, I defy you to show me that any but the most minuscule number of Americans gives even a single thought to dwarves in any but the Disney and Tolkien sense even once a year. If the deserved criticism of MT strays into a little hyperbole, so be it. The actual, real world consequences to anyone else are essentially non-existent.

[DonCoquixote]

40. did you read the article

where it talked about health concerns of dwarves? If you defy me to show that americans care about dwarves, you in effect make my argument, that mostpeople think of dawrves only in the tolkien sense, not people who already have to take a lot of crap, and who have scientific health concerns..

of course, you might want to explain your reasoning to Amy Roloff

http://amyroloffcharityfoundation.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_People,_Big_World

and explain that some miniscule number of Americans watch her television show...it takes more than a miniscule amount of Americans to keep a TV show on the air, btw, especially for SIX SEASONS.

Now I am sure you will say this is not an example, and that once again, I have not shown logic, even though there is quite a lot of math to crunch when you figure out how ANY televison show stays on the air for more than five years. It's not like the network can hire several million people to watch the show.

Of course, there are these shows too:
http://www.tv.com/news/why-are-there-so-many-shows-about-little-people-19928/

and if you want specific example about how spreading bad ifnromation about dwarves can hurt them, the shows I mentioned do provide it in pratical terms, from the dwarves themselves (they prefer little people though, namely because a bunch of people use the term dwarf as an insult.)

[skepticscott]

46. You're right, this is not an example

of how this remark caused harm to or offended anyone who is a dwarf. Still. And waiting for something substantial in that regard after this many exchanges wearies me.

[DonCoquixote]

53. sigh

because, if you claim Famous person is a a dwarf
and B) people base their views on dwarves based on famous people
C) you make misinfromation

It's like if I make an example:

I say "professor so and so is an athiest" (he's actuallly not, just like MT is not)
Professor so and so said bad things (just as MT said bad things)
therefore athiests say bad things..

Of course, we all woudl rightfully say such reasonign is BS.

You being a skeptic should see that, but you do not, for reasons that do not appear reasonable.. I do know that in hisotry, when we allow our standards of truth to be lax because of people we do not like, that same stuff gets used on people we do like. Ask any atheist Arab who has to take crap because of what a bunch of fanatics (who thought they were good muslims) did one September Day.

[AlbertCat]

32. once you defend insults based on race, it becoems a slick slope.

That's why I said "fraud" would have been fine.

[humblebum]

10. A hate group. nt

[stopbush]

19. Have any of you ever read Hitchen's book on MT?

If not, then hold your comments. He exposed MT for the charlatan she was.

[humblebum]

20. This is not the place to be holding comments. Hitchens himself can easily be desribed

as having been a hate monger and a few other things. The very history of radical atheism is often one of repression, hatred, and violence.

[stopbush]

21. Radical atheism. Did you just make that up?

Give me a break.

I'll take it the answer is that you haven't read his book on that shit MT.

[ButterflyBlood]

25. Some might have legit criticisms of Mother Teresa but I'm not listening to scum like Hitchens

Hitchens was filth of the top order, and a torture supporting, neocon-allying, cheerleader for killing Iraqis and imperialism who endorsed Bush in 2004. Fuck Hitchens. No one should've given that piece of shit the time of day when he was alive, and now that he's dead we should all just ignore and forget him.

[stopbush]

34. Just curious - which of Hitchens' books have you read?

[skepticscott]

43. The truth or falsehood of a proposition

or the likelihood of its being true or false, is not affected by the personality, actions or demeanor of the person advancing it. Disregarding the truth of the message because you don't like the messenger is simply irrational. Evidence is what matters. Do you have an argument that any of Hichens' claims about MT were just justified by the evidence?

[humblebum]

52. So you don't consider there to be radical atheism.

Hitchens, the old Bolshevik himself, I considered to be rather radical.

[cbayer]

30. Yeah, because Hitchens was right about so many things.

How'd you like his stance on the war?

[stopbush]

33. Yes, he was right about so many things. I disagreed with him on the war,

though I did not disagree with his belief that one need not feel remorse about destroying one's enemies, especially if they attack you.

But you've never read anything he ever wrote, so what would you know?

[cbayer]

36. You know nothing about me or what I have read, so what would you know?

[stopbush]

38. And apparently, you know nothing about Hitchens' work.

[cbayer]

39. You are wrong. But one might question the credibility of one who draws

conclusions of another based on no information. You have accused me of that while doing it yourself.

[skepticscott]

44. See number 43

Lots of people are right about some things and wrong about others, wouldn't you agree? You've been wrong about a lot of things in your life, right? Does that mean that nothing you say here should be taken seriously, but rather that it should all be dismissed out of hand just because you've been wrong in the past?

Sorry...really, REALLY bad argument. Monumentally bad.

[rexcat]

57. The audacity to accuse...

her of ever being wrong. Such personal attacks!

[struggle4progress]

24. But who could live up to the high moral standard of the alcoholic war-monger, Mr Hitchens?

[skepticscott]

45. And the fact that he drank a lot

means that he's wrong about something...why, exactly? What evidence against any claim he's made does his drinking constitute?

[okasha]

47. Do you really need it explained to you

that alcohol impairs judgement? We know, for instance, that Richard Nixon almost started a nuclear war when he was drunk, and would have done so if Kissinger hadn't countermanded his instructions.

[skepticscott]

48. Do you really need it explained to you

that that's irrelevant? If the evidence supports a claim he made, then the fact that he was drunk while he made it is irrelevant. If the evidence contradicts a claim he made, the fact that he was not drunk while he made it is irrelevant. The fact that he drank a lot is not evidence of anything except that he drank a lot.

Is anyone here saying that we should accept anything that Hitchens ever said solely because he was the one who said it? Yes or no? Failure to answer will be considered a dishonest, ignorant dodge.

[okasha]

49. The question is whether his judgement of the evidence

was also influenced by alcohol. Of course, the evidence he supplied may have been influenced by bigotry as much as the bottle. That wouldn't surprise me in the least.

"Failure to answer will be considered a dishonest, ignorant dodge." Goddess knows, you're an expert at it yourself.

[skepticscott]

54. Unless HIS evaluation of the evidence

was the sole criterion for accepting any of his claims, that's irrelevant too, as you'd know if you had any ability to think clearly here. But it isn't, as pointed out, and as you failed miserably (as expected) to provide any evidence otherwise.

And if you have any evidence of "dishonest, ignorant dodges" by me, bring it on. I suspect you'll dodge that one too, though. You've crashed and burned here, despite all your snark and intellectual puffery.

[okasha]

58. You're always good for a giggle, scottie.

It's what I like best about you.

Please don't ever let go of your darling pomposity.

[skepticscott]

61. And you're always good for content-free snark

that addresses nothing of substance and fails miserably to back up your bullshit claims. More dishonest, ignorant dodges by you...but still waiting for you to lay mine out there. Not holding my breath.

Seriously, do you really think this kind of response fools anybody that matters? Are you really that far out in the intellectual weeds?

[okasha]

67. Please don't talk about yourself that way, Scottie.

It takes away from your general--je ne said quoi--insouciance.

[struggle4progress]

50. And the fact that she was short and Albanian means what?

Since we are hearing that she was a "a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf"

[skepticscott]

55. Uh, it means she was short and Albanian

If that's the worst thing that someone says about such a despicable human being, what's the problem? As pointed out, a little hyperbole never hurts in a situation like that.

[Ian David]

26. If it wasn't for the crack about her height, it would have been perfect.

The message may be muddied, but they have the truth on their side.

[MotherPetrie]

28. MT was no saint. She did good work but she did plenty of bad work too.

[cbayer]

29. Hateful. Sorry they choose to spend their time this way.

If they don't think she was the real deal, that's fine, but I sure wish they would make their point by exemplifying some of the qualities they say she lacked.

Dartmouth - often known for it's childish, privileged white boy *antics*.

[AlbertCat]

35. Dartmouth - often known for it's childish, privileged white boy *antics*.

and

"Hitchens was filth of the top order,"


No prejudice to see here.... Just facts.... move along....

[okasha]

41. Anyone who recognizes torture from his own personal experience of it

yet explicitly refuses to condemn its use by his own nation and the politicians he supports, fits any number of unpleasant labels, beginning with "hypocrite," and on through "scum," "filth," etc.

[Goblinmonger]

56. Um, that's kind of not what happened

but you keep thinking it--attempts to point out your incorrect presentation of this have not worked before.

But anybody else reading along, please look into what Hitchens said after he was water boarded (hint: it was not what okasha is going to tell you he said--prepare yourself for some out of context quotations from Hitchens supplied by okasha).

[okasha]

59. Which are you denying, Goblinmonger?

That Hitchens admitted that waterboarding is torture?
If so, you're wrong.

That Hitchens refused to condemn its use by the United States?
If so, you're wrong again.

[Goblinmonger]

60. So when he titled his article "Believe Me, It's Torture"

what do you think he meant? (edit to add: I misread your original. I thought you were saying he didn't claim it was torture. My bad.)

And when he wrote:

I had only a very slight encounter on that frontier, but I still wish that my experience were the only way in which the words “waterboard” and “American” could be mentioned in the same (gasping and sobbing) breath.

do you not think that is a strong statement that Americans should not waterboard?

But, hey, you've got your Hitchens hate on, so proceed. Don't let what the guy actually said stop you from saying whatever you want about what you think/wish he said.

[okasha]

66. I think Hitchens had an immediate emotional response

to his experience, which was reflected in the Vanity Fair article. Apparently, though, he had second thoughts, as this quote from the Guardian illustrates:

Still, Hitchens cannot escape the grip of American exceptionalism that has so permeated his work since 9/11. "Any call to indict the United States for torture is … a lame and diseased attempt to arrive at a moral equivalence between those who defend civilization and those who exploit its freedoms to hollow it out, and ultimately to bring it down," he huffs.

For Hitchens, in America's pitched battle with "tormentors and murderers", the ends justify the means

www.guardian.co.uh.commentisfree/2008/jul/03/usa.civilliberties

By the way, I don't hate Hitchens. Hate requires a high level of emotion, commmitment and investment in time and effort that I've never seen any reason to accord him. In fact, I admire his courage in allowing himself to be waterboarded and in the way he faced his death from a terrible disease. But he was an unabasahed apologist for the Bush administration and its resource wars in Western Asia, wars which have by now taken hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of innocent lives. That I do not find admirable, in Hitchens or anyone else. And yes, I do believe his judgement may have been impaired in this as in other issues.

[Drunken Irishman]

51. This will certainly endear people to their cause.

[Taverner]

69. Atheists are about truth, not friends

If you want a friend, get a dog

[Drunken Irishman]

70. Then don't complain when people bitch about 'em...

I see that a lot. "Oh, Atheists are hated so much!"

Now you know why. When you do things that divide like this, don't expect others to just have an epiphany and start supporting your cause.

[Taverner]

71. Meh, someone likes playing 'kill the messenger'

[Odin2005]

62. Good. Hitchen's exposed her as the creep she was.

[cbayer]

65. Or vice versa

[edhopper]

63. I notice that the atheists

discuss the facts that show MT might not be someone to revere and very far from a "Saint'. And her defenders attack the semantics and personality of her attackers. But don't offer a rebuttal to the premiss.

[cleanhippie]

64. You noticed that too, huh?

That tactic seems to be prevalent here.

[Taverner]

68. Good on em!

Everything Christopher Hitchens said was true, and no one has ever denied it.