Fitna

[Maxxthepenguin]

Neosutra, do you think that every idea that comes to your mind is right?

My wife tells me no.

But in a debate where someone brings forth a weak argument based on nothing but repetitive schemes of religious merits (regardless of that being shot down on every page of this thread), then I dont think it is too extreme to lay into them a bit.

So wait, pure hypothetical based on your ideas is a strong argument and showing the history of the world, how religion is intertwined with almost everything ever, and the real actions of religions is a weak one?

Are you fucking serious?

I'm a fucking aetheist and it's people like you who give us with a realistic view of the world a bad name. You make senoska look like saphiera.

[Neosutra]

Neosutra, do you think that every idea that comes to your mind is right?

My wife tells me no.

But in a debate where someone brings forth a weak argument based on nothing but repetitive schemes of religious merits (regardless of that being shot down on every page of this thread), then I dont think it is too extreme to lay into them a bit.

So wait, pure hypothetical based on your ideas is a strong argument and showing the history of the world, how religion is intertwined with almost everything ever, and the real actions of religions is a weak one?

Are you fucking serious?

I'm a fucking aetheist and it's people like you who give us with a realistic view of the world a bad name. You make senoska look like saphiera.

Oh, theist can reference historical evidence and get credit for it, but I was just making hypothetical meanderings? Did you read any post in this thread? Your statement doesnt even make sense Q.Q. Your saying that religion has been intertwined in our history somehow undermines the argument that it has had detrimental effects?

Secondly, its atheist, not aetheist. And your "realistic" view of the world is nothing more than your childish interpretation of it. For an atheist, your not to bright. You make guartz look like firaz.

[evilbau]

You are delusional because you can't see that you cannot prove that religion is the cause for the destruction of the Library of Alexandria (could you come up with more examples?). People don't even know how it was destroyed, it could have been in any number of (non-religious) invasions. You are justifying your stance with history when you don't know what would have happened without any one person let alone an entire religion. Saying we should move forward without religion is fine but you insist that the past was irrevocably harmed by religion and you can only do so by speculation.

[Neosutra]

You are delusional because you can't see that you cannot prove that religion is the cause for the destruction of the Library of Alexandria (could you come up with more examples?). People don't even know how it was destroyed, it could have been in any number of (non-religious) invasions. You are justifying your stance with history when you don't know what would have happened without any one person let alone an entire religion. Saying we should move forward without religion is fine but you insist that the past was irrevocably harmed by religion and you can only do so by speculation.

And if you would have read the rest of this thread, you would have seen that even barring the obvious historical travesties that religion has called (the inquisition maybe? or the saleem witch trials? its not hard to find examples..), we are focusing on even the benefits of religion being counterproductive.

You have stated (even if you didnt "mean" it), that religion can be used to help "motivate" less enlightened people to follow moral codes. It was then counterstated many times that solid foundations in education and just arbiters will always have a higher effect on ensuring moral sociatal behavior than fictional wrath of dieties.

[evilbau]

And I reject your premise. I don't think you have shown that at all.

[Neosutra]

And I reject your premise. I don't think you have shown that at all.

Your counterevidence, where by you prove that theist values encourage social order more than educational programs and just arbiters, is what again?

Common sense asside, lets dive into a few theist driven/secular driven social systems and see how the people responded:

One example of a secular law system that displays the social order developed from real world concequences would be Draconian law. Where as members of that society were faced with the punishment of death for -any- crime commited. As you can imagine, crime was pretty rare

A counterexample to religious influences on morality would be the overwhelming failure of the prolife movement to encourage people to just not have sex (instead of using protection). People are not going to follow a set of moral codes because they fear supernatural repercussions, they follow moral codes because there are real world concequences.

[evilbau]

One example of a secular law system that displays the social order developed from real world concequences would be Draconian law. Where as members of that society were faced with the punishment of death for -any- crime commited. As you can imagine, crime was pretty rare

Well first of all death was not the punishment for any crime under Draconian law. Also, What evidence do you have that crime was rare? By most accounts it failed since it did not last even 100 years.

A counterexample to religious influences on morality would be the overwhelming failure of the prolife movement to encourage people to just not have sex (instead of using protection). People are not going to follow a set of moral codes because they fear supernatural repercussions, they follow moral codes because there are real world concequences.

Are you speaking about the present in America? Because if you are, that is the agenda of the Christian Right and Catholics, they don't represent the morality of all religious people. Those which defy it realize such thinking is dangerous and outdated. I agree they failed, but it is not because people don't fear supernatural repercussions, its because they have common sense. You are attributing changes in societal morals to a rejection of religion, which isn't really the case.

[Neosutra]

One example of a secular law system that displays the social order developed from real world concequences would be Draconian law. Where as members of that society were faced with the punishment of death for -any- crime commited. As you can imagine, crime was pretty rare

Well first of all death was not the punishment for any crime under Draconian law. Also, What evidence do you have that crime was rare? By most accounts it failed since it did not last even 100 years.

Your correct in saying that "every" recourse wasnt death, but most of them were. Slavery was one of the minimal punishments.

For example, any debtor whose status was lower than that of his creditor was forced into slavery. The punishment was more lenient for those owing debt to a member of a lower class. The death penalty was the punishment for even minor offenses. Concerning the liberal use of the death penalty in the Draconic code, Plutarch states:

????? ?' ???????, ?? ?????, ?????????? ??? ?? ???? ????????? ????????? ?????? ????? ???????, ?????????? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????????, ???? ?? ???????? ??? ????? ???????.[4]
In Stewart and Long's translation,

It is said that Drakon himself, when asked why he had fixed the punishment of death for most offences, answered that he considered these lesser crimes to deserve it, and he had no greater punishment for more important ones. (Plutarch, et alia. Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4). Aubrey Stewart and George Long, translators).

If you are claiming that violators of these edicts were of great multitude, youll have to provide some evidence to suggest this sytem did not provide order (at the cost of great public fear and liberty). Assuming that the system "only lasted 100 years" is naive as a foundation for dismissal of the main premis (that real world concequences hold greater influence than fictional dieties).

Are you speaking about the present in America? Because if you are, that is the agenda of the Christian Right and Catholics, they don't represent the morality of all religious people. Those which defy it realize such thinking is dangerous and outdated. I agree they failed, but it is not because people don't fear supernatural repercussions, its because they have common sense. You are attributing changes in societal morals to a rejection of religion, which isn't really the case.

What would be a good "moral" edict for you? Murder? Stealing?
"I can do all things through christ who strengthens me", stated by Jeffrey Dalmer while be tried for murder.
Or how about this woman http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4625603/, whom killed her children because god told her too.
Religion sure does influence people to follow the law..

[evilbau]

Concerning Draconian law, I knew about those details, and for those that didn't know, thats an excellent summary with cites. However, such extreme punishments could be considered excessive and immoral as well, and they were done w/o religion. Which brings me back to my original point that what we now consider 'bad' should be taken into the context of history, and I have a hard time believing the presence of religion or lack of it definitively affected it for the better or worse. We should not judge the past through the lens of our current morality.

Would Jeffrey Dahmer have done those horrible things without religion in his life? Or that woman? My common sense tells me her mental illness manifested itself in a belief god was speaking to her, not that religion itself had much to do with her acts. I really don't wish to speak more on this subject because I find defending religion disgusting, even if I do hold beliefs that it has an important place in history.

[Beckwin]

We should not judge the past through the lens of our current morality.

Interesting concept. But shouldn't that also mean we shouldn't use past religious "achievements" to argue in favor of religion in today's world?

[Maxxthepenguin]

We should not judge the past through the lens of our current morality.

Interesting concept. But shouldn't that also mean we shouldn't use past religious "achievements" to argue in favor of religion in today's world?

Irrelevant. It means that the context of events is how you have to view them to get a accurate view. Like, don't judge every president before Lincoln badly because they let slavery exist in the USA.

[evilbau]

We should not judge the past through the lens of our current morality.

Interesting concept. But shouldn't that also mean we shouldn't use past religious "achievements" to argue in favor of religion in today's world?

I am not defending religion in today's world. I am defending its place in history within the context of its times. I feel we are in a transition period to as I put it "the Church of the Scientific Method". So I agree with Neo in spirit if not in his arguments. There is no need to flame the past to get to the future he desires.

[Beckwin]

You're right, I misinterpreted.

[Neosutra]

We should not judge the past through the lens of our current morality.

Interesting concept. But shouldn't that also mean we shouldn't use past religious "achievements" to argue in favor of religion in today's world?

I am not defending religion in today's world. I am defending its place in history within the context of its times. I feel we are in a transition period to as I put it "the Church of the Scientific Method". So I agree with Neo in spirit if not in his arguments. There is no need to flame the past to get to the future he desires.

He who ignores the past is doomed to repeat it.

Examining the past attrocities of religion (and the current inadequacies of it) are methods in which we can move on to this future. Adding to the fact the continually ignored point that even when all the bad caused by religion pushed aside, you still get a system of psychological placebos that do more harm that good via their lack of real world support systems. Presidents that think their will is that of god's and thus without reproach. Alchohol addicts who think god will protect them when they drive home drunk for the 11th time and plow through your car, killing your wife and child. People who vote for evolution to be removed from schools because it violates their personal religious beliefs. There is no positive benefit for a society that adheres to mass social dellusion.

[Kaelan]

Looks like I'm late to the party, I got whole pages to catch up with here

My point is that religion allowed a framework with which people can understand a reason to be moral and good.

The problem with associating morality with religion is because religion tries to encompass anything and everything at once and the ground it uses for that is faith and unquestionable authority. That's not a very good ground to stand morality on. You can, on one hand take some sayings from Jesus that I'd think any rational person would agree with. I'm sure we're all for the golden rule here (even though Jesus wasn't the first one to come up with it, but I'll still give him credit for advocating it).

But because of the fact that it always ends up going back to the faith and the dogma, the lines between good and bad tend to get blurred the more complicated the topic gets. Take something like child circumcision - if you look at it from a secular perspective, it's fairly clear that it's not something you should be wasting your time doing - it's arguable if any benefits even exist and if they do they're not so critical as to require doing them prior to the child actually growing up and deciding on their own whether they'd like to do it or not (I would personally say it's not very moral to inflict that kind of pain on small children that have no say on it if there isn't an actual consensus in the medical community that this is the right thing to do). But when you associate it first with religion and second with tradition, people are suddenly not so sure whether they really want to call it a bad thing.

It is generally considered a good thing to teach teenagers proper sexual education and inform populations about condoms, but the Catholic church isn't too sure about that. They would say it's more moral to avoid it altogether, but if you must do it, you have to get married and can't wear any protection while doing it. Most, if not all monotheisms seem to have an incredible urge to link morals to your sexual preference, what kind of food you eat, what you dress like and, in the case of the usually mild archbishop of Canterbury, with the local meteorology.

You could of course say, "well it's obvious those kinds of things shouldn't be taken seriously", but on what basis can we say everyone or even most people will be able to make the distinction if all of it is advertised as the supposed absolute truth? I'm sure most of us have heard cases of perfectly sane people, perfectly moderate in their religion with no support for extremists, with at least average intelligence and morals that have done something completely nonsensical or completely immoral because they believed what their religion told them when they said it was the right thing to do. The only real way to fix this would be if we (and when I say we I am not referring to "Atheists" here, in case I'm not being clear about this) could legitimately and openly consider it not as absolute truth, but as part blatant fiction and part purely speculative humanist metaphysics, from which we could take the good and strip away the bad. But to do that would be to openly admit it's not actually true, and way too many people have a problem with that.

What did she do? Assuming we're not just using a handful of people to pass judgment on the rest.

I'm not trying to generalize, but I do think it's a perfect example of bad motivations(religion) for doing good actions (trying to help poor people) going wrong exactly because of the nature of the motivations. As for what she did well, if you really want me to go there I'm already going to have to apologize for the extremely long post. If I don't post enough, people will accuse me of pulling facts out of my ass and if I post too much people will tl;dr. Since I'd rather not have it said that I couldn't back up my argument, I'll just go with the latter and provide everything I can on this.

There are several things about her worthy of mention - first of all her repeated, public and willing, and suspiciously frequent association with some pretty contemptible people. Before I even start, let me say in advance that all of these relationships of hers were openly and admittedly public, photographed on several occasions and, even in the cases where it was pointed out the nature of the people she was associating with (in the slim chance she honestly had no idea) she did not cease, much less ever apologize about any of it.

They include: the Haitian Duvalier family (prior to their running off to France with the National Treasury in their suitcases but during their despotist rule, which she had no problems praising as "friend of the poor" despite it leaving the country, as the wiki quotes it "economically ravaged, lacking functional political institutions, and devoid of any tradition of peaceful self-rule."); Roger Delano Hinkins, also known as 'John-Roger', leader of the Christian-based cult 'Movement of Spiritual Awareness' (or MSIA - pronounced "Messiah"), repeatedly exposed for financial fraud (from whom 'Mother' obtained and accepted a $10.000 cheque, after posing for what we now know is a PR photograph done with a fake background of the poor of Calcutta inside a studio). The best one of them all was, in my opinion, her involvement with Charles Keating, the known and later convicted crook from whom she received millions of dollars. When he was sent to trial, she sent the judge this letter:

Dear Honorable Lance Ito,

We do not mix up in the Buissness or Politics or courts. Our work, as Missionaries of Charity is to give wholehearted and free service to the poor.

I do not know anything about Mr. Charles Keating's work or his buisness or the matters you are dealing with. I only know that he has always been kind and generous to the God's poor, and always ready to help whenever there was a need.

It is for this reason that I do not want to forget him now while he and his family are suffering. Jesus has told us "Whatever you do to the least of my brethren...YOU DID IT TO ME". Mr Keating has done much to help the poor, which is why I am writing to you on his behalf.

Whenever someone asks me to speak to a judge I always tell them the same thing. I ask them to pray, to look into their hear, and to do what Jesus would do in the circumstance. And this is what I am asking of you, your Honor. My gratitude to you is my prayer for you, and your work, your family and the people with whom you are working.

God Bless You

Those who were aware of what she was like as the time (which included those involved in Keating's case) had a slight but tangible suspicion that the image of this supposed wooly compassion and innocence in her letter may not be entirely honest. She was replied the following:

Dear Mother Teresa:
I am a Deputy District Attorney in Los Angeles County and one of the persons who worked on the prosecution of your benefactor, Charles H. Keating, Jr. I read your letter to Judge Ito, written on behalf of Mr.Keating, which includes your admission that you know nothing about Mr.Keating's business or the criminal charges presented to Judge Ito. I am writing to you to provide a brief explanation of the crimes of which Mr.Keating has been convicted, to give you an understanding of the source of the money that Mr. Keating gave to you, and to suggest that you perform the moral and ethical act of returning the money to its rightful owners.

Mr.Keating was convicted of defrauding 17 individuals of more than $900,000. These 17 persons were representative of 17,000 individuals from whom Mr. Keating stole $252,000,000. Mr. Keating's specific acts of fraud were that he was the source of a series of fraudulent representations made to persons who bought bonds from his company and he also was the repository of crucial information which he chose to withhold from bond purchasers, thereby luring his victims into believing they were making a safe, low-risk investment. In truth and in fact, their money was being used to fund Mr. Keating's exorbitant and extravagant lifestyle.

The victims of Mr. Keating's fraud come from a wide spectrum of society. Some were wealthy and well-educated. most were people of modest means and unfamiliar with high finance. One was, indeed, a poor carpenter who did not speak English and had his life savings stolen by Mr. Keating's fraud.

The biblical slogan of your organization is "As long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, You did it to Me". The "least" of the brethren are among those whom Mr. Keating fleeced without flinching. As you well know, divine forgiveness is available to all, but forgiveness must be preceded by admission of sin. Not only has Mr. Keating failed to admit his sins and his crimes, he persists in self-righteously blaming
others for his own misdeeds. Your experience is, admirably, with the poor. My experience has been with the 'con' man and the perpetrator of the fraud. It is not uncommon for 'con' men to be generous with family, friends and charities. Perhaps they believe that their generosity will purchase love, respect or forgiveness. However the time when the purchase of 'indulgences' was an acceptable method of seeking forgiveness died with the Reformation. No church, no charity, no organization should allow itself to be used as a salve for the conscience of the criminal. We all are grateful that forgiveness is available but we all, also, must perform our duty. That includes the Judge and the Jury. I remind myself of the biblical admonition of the Prophet Micah: "O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you. To do justice, love mercy and walk humbly". We are urged to love mercy, but we must do justice.

You urge Judge Ito to look into his heard - as he sentences Charles Keating - and do what Jesus would do. I submit the same challenge to you. Ask yourself what Jesus would do if he were given the fruits of a crime; what Jesus would do if he were in possession of money that had been stolen; what Jesus would do if he were being exploited by a thief to ease his conscience? I submit that Jesus would promptly and unhesitatingly return the stolen property to its rightful owners. You should do the same. You have been given money by Mr. Keating that he has been convicted of stealing by fraud. Do not permit him the 'indulgence' he desires. Do not keep the money. Return it to those who worked for it and earned it!

If you contact me I will put you in direct contact with the rightful owners of the property now in your possession.

Sincerely, Paul W. Turley

Mr. Turley never received a reply to his letter, nor was any money ever accounted for, much less returned.

She had very unusual views of the poor as well: "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people". She was once asked if there was a danger in people mistaking the means for the end as it related to her charities towards the poor. One would assume religion was the means and helping people was the end. Apparently, she had a completely different idea in mind: "There is always the danger that we may become only social workers or just do the work for the sake of the work...It is a danger; if we forget to whom we are doing it. Our works are only an expression of our love for Christ. Our heards need to be full of love for him, and since we have to express that love in action, naturally then the poorest of the poor are the means of expressing our love for God." I shouldn't think I have to underline exactly which are the important bits here.

And then there's the multitude of testimonies of people who actually worked for her or made visits to any of her homes, expecting humane, noble charity work. I'm just going to quote them because I honestly think I don't have to add anything else on my own:

My own experience of Mother Teresa occurred when she was being honored at the 1989 luncheon meeting of the International Health Organization in Washington, D.C. During her acceptance speech, she spoke at length of her opposition to contraception and her activities to save the unwanted products of heterosexual activities (She also touched on AIDS, saying that she did not want to label it a scourge of God but that it did seem like a just retribution for improper sexual conduct). Although she said that God could find it in his heard to forgive all sinners, she herself would never allow a woman or a couple who had an abortion to adopt one of 'her' babies.

In her speech Mother Teresa frequently referred to what God wants us to think or do. As my table-mate (an MD from Aid to International Development) remarked to me: "Do you think it takes a ceirtain amount of arrogance to assume that you have a direct line to God's mind?" Is it going too far to liken Mother Teresa to some of our infamous televangelists, turning their audiences on to what is in God's heart and mind while encouraging and accepting all donations?

There are doctors who call in from time to time but usually the sisters and volunteers (some of whom have medical knowledge) make decisions as best as they can. I saw a young man who had been admitted in poor shape with high fever, and the drugs prescribed had been tetracycline and paracetamol. Later a visiting doctor diagnosed probable malaria and substitude chloroquine. Could not someone have looked at a blood film? Investigations, I was told, are seldom permissible. How about simple algorithms that might help the sisters and volunteers distinguish the curable from the incurable? Again no. Such systematic approaches are alien to the ethos of the home. Mother Theresa prefers providence to planning; her rules are designed to prevent any drift towards materialism: the sisters must remain on equal terms with the poor...

Finally, how competent are the sisters at managing pain? On a short visit, I could not judge the power of their spiritual approach, but I was disturbed to learn that the formulary includes no strong analgesics. Along with the neglect of diagnosis, the lack of good analgesia marks Mother Theresa's approach as clearly separate from the hospice movement. I know which I prefer.

It might be worthwhile mentioning that Dr.Fox was at the time the editor of The Lancet, one of the worlds oldest and most respected peer-reviewed medical journals.

Sent to cook in her hostel, tactfully named "The Gift of Love" (it is for homeless men with HIV), I found a dozen or so very sick men; but those who weren't very sick were exceptionally depressed, because they were not allowed to watch TV or smoke or drink or have friends over. Even when they are dying, close friends are not allowed. They are never allowed to drink, even (or especially) at the funerals of their friends and roomates and some have been thrown out for coming home in drag!

When I mentioned the Olympics to them, they looked even more depressed. "We are not watching the Olympics," said a sister from Bombay, "because we are making our Lenten sacrifice". When they're very sick and very religious (which is often the case) this doesn't matter, but with brighter men or older men it seems intolerable.

A Guatemalan writer that I befriended there was desperate to get out, so a friend of mine who also cooks there (an African American who is a practicing Catholic) adopted him for as long as she could. He became much sicker and when she begged him to go back because she couldn't mind him, he begged her to keep him because he knew they didn't medicate enough, or properly, and was afraid he would have to die without morphine...I am now cooking occasionally for the homeless men at the Franciscans where one of the patients, Bruce, is an ex-Mother Teresa and neither he nor the priest have a good word to say for the Sisters at "The Gift of Love".

My initial impression was of all the photographs and footage I've ever seen of Belsen and places like that, because all the patients had shaved heads. No chairs anywhere, there were just these stretcher beds. They're like First World War stretcher beds. There's no garden, no yard even. No nothing. And I thought what is this? This is two rooms with fifty to sixty men in one, fifty to sixty women in another. They're dying. They're not being given a great deal of medical care. They're not being given painkillers really beyond aspirin and maybe if you're lucky some Brufen or something, for the sort of pain that goes with terminal cancer and the other things they were dying of...

They didn't have enough drips. The needles they used and re-used over and over and over and you would see some of the nuns rinsing needles under the cold water tap. And I asked one of them why she was doing it and she said: "Well, to clean it." And I said, "Yes, but why are you not sterilizing it; why are you not boiling water and sterilizing your needles?" She said: "There's no point. There's no time".

The first day I was there when I'd finished working in the women's ward I went and waited on the edge of the men's ward for my boyfriend, who was looking after a boy of fifteen who was dying, and an American doctor told me that she had been trying to treat this boy. And that he had a relatively simple kidney complaint that had simply gotten worse and worse and worse because he hadn't had antibiotics. And now he actually needed an operation..."

And finally (and probably lengthiest), there's Susan Shields, who worked for nine and a half years as a member of Mother Teresa's order, in the Bronx, in Rome and in San Francisco.

I was able to keep my complaining conscience quiet because we had been taught that the Holy Spirit was guiding Mother. To doubt her was a sign that we were lacking in trust and, even worse, guilty of the sin of pride. I shelved my objections and hoped that one day I would understand the many things that seemed to be contradictions.
...
One summer the sisters in the Rome novitiate were given a great quantity of tomatoes. They couldn't give the tomatoes away because all their neighbors had grown their own. The superior decided that the sisters would can the tomatoes and eat them in winter. When Mother came to visit and saw the canned tomatoes, she was very displeased. Missionaries of Charity do not store things, but must rely only on God's providence.
...
In San Francisco the sisters were given use of a three-story convent with many large rooms, long hallways, two staircases and an immense basement...The sisters lost no time in disposing of unwanted furnishing. They removed the benches from the chapel and pulled up all the carpeting in the rooms and hallways. They pushed thick mattresses out the windows and removed all the sofas, chairs and curtains from the premises. People from the neighborhood stood on the sidewalk and watched in amazement. The beautifully constructed house was made to conform to a way of life intended to help the sisters become holy. Large sitting rooms were turned into dormitories where beds were crowded together...The heat remained off all winter in this exceedingly damp house. Several sisters got TB during the time I lived there.
...
In the Bronx, plans were being made to establish a new home for the poor. Many of the homeless were sick and needed more permanent accommodation than that offered by our night shelter. We had bought a large abandoned building from the city for one dollar. A co-worker offered to be the contractor and arranged for an architect to draw up plans for the renovations. Government regulations required that an elevator be installed for the use of the disabled. Mother would not allow for the elevator. The city offered to pay for the elevator. Its offer was refused. After all the negotiations and plans, the project for the poor was abandoned because an elevator for the handicapped was unacceptable.
...
The flood of donations was considered to be a sign of God's approval of Mother Teresa's congregation. We were told that we received more gifts than other religious congregations because God was pleased with Mother, and because Missionaries of Charity were the sisters who were faithful to the true spirit of religious life. Our bank account was already the size of a great fortune and increased with every postal service delivery.

Around $50 million had collected in one checking account in the Bronx...Those of us who worked in the office regularly understood that we were not to speak of our work. The donations rolled in and were deposited in the bank, but they had no effect on our ascetic lives or on the lives of the poor we were trying to help.
...
For Mother, it was the spiritual well-being of the poor that mattered most. Material aid was a means of reaching their souls, of showing the poor that God loved them. In the homes for the dying, Mother taught the sisters how to secretly baptize those who were dying. Sisters were to ask each person in danger of death if he wanted a "ticket to heaven". An affirmative reply was to mean consent to baptism. The sister was then to pretend she was just cooling the person's forehead with a wet cloth, while in fact she was baptizing him, saying quietly the necessary words. Secrecy was important so that it would not come to be known that Mother Teresa's sisters were baptizing Hindus and Muslims.

I rest my case. If anything still needs to be said, or if you think I just pulled all of these out of my ass in my "atheist crusade against religion" (as seems to frequently pop up in religious debates in this forum), you can always try to look it up. There was a documentary done back in 1994 titled Hell's Angel, which was at the time publicly condemned by certain fundamentalists for being "a Jewish/Muslim conspiracy against the One True Faith", that can shed more light on this.

I'll comment on/answer the rest later cause, eh, I've been either studying or working since I woke up until a couple hours ago and I don't feel like writing more after all of the above. Cheers.