Then, of course, there is this image, which I just found over at A Useless Site:

1. I fail to see a strawman in Ron’s arguments. Where is an easily defeated (possibly made up) position argued against, assigning said position to a (possibly unrelated) group of people? I only see Ron taking on Donohue specifically. I don’t see him taking on the church as a whole. If you want an example of a strawman argument, look no further than President Bush. “Democrats want defeat in Iraq” is the usual strawman flavor of the day. “Donohue is a fundie tool” is not on the same page, or even in the same book!

2. A citation for your 5% argument would be nice. A cursory check of Wikipedia seems to confirm Ron’s assertions of heavy government influence from the Church starting from the early middle ages through the various inquisitions. Some were state sponsored, some were church sponsored, and some were both. All (inquisition related matter) were done with religious intent. Torture outside the inquisition certainly took place, but that’s out of the scope of the argument.

3. Oooh the evil ‘merican libruls strike again! First, now who is strawmanning here?! All homosexuals who enter the priesthood molest boys? No. That’s complete BS! Second, Benedict addressing this issue now (in whatever form) does not change the fact that it went on for DECADES and was covered up.

1. This Donahugh person does not represent the opinions of the Catholic Church or of most Catholics, so your conflation of him with Catholicism is a strawman.

2. Civil government was always seperate from the Church in the Middle Ages (except in the papal states and Episcobals states in the Empire–about 5% of the land in Western Europe). The Inquisition or the Church never had the power of Capital puishment. They handed over over heretics to the secular government which had its own laws against heresy and the state, not the church, executed them.

3. The main cuase of the the priest pedophilia scandal (and the attempts to cover it up were inexcusable) was that American seminaries were full in the 1950s and 1960s, and even today, with clsoeted homosexualies who are ashamed of their own sies and go into the church in an attempt to atone for or cure their sinful nature. naturally this often fials, and theiy take advantage of the teenage boys they find themselves surrounded by. Recently Benedict recognized this and started a campaign to expell closeted homsoexuals form seminaries, and was roundly criticiszed by AMerican liberals for it.

Your comment reminded me of this image, which I posted here once before:

“Re: Lewis Black’s new show

Dudes, chill! It was just a simple comedy show that spoke a few hard truths about The Bride of Frankenstein (AHEM!) Christ… I will admit the show was kind of lacking in format, but Greg Giraldo was phenomenal! C’mon, guys! I mean, you *should NOT* be offended if your beliefs are indeed sound, reasonable and true! Right? I don’t see scientists crying “HOLY RAPE!” over Pluto’s demise as a planet. Lighten up!

Also, have you seen the Pope lately? The guy is Senator Palpatine’s brother from another mother! He looks freaking evil, I mean, Jesus Chrispies, The guy is an ex-nazi sympathizer and certainly looks the part! Don’t be idiots as the majority of the fundies in America!”

Enjoy the mental image of an old guy in a black dress with his head exploding over these lines! w00t!

That whacky Bill Donohue….. I first heard of him when someone was telling me something stupid he’d said over coffee one day some years back. I misheard my friend and thought he had said Phil Donohue. I spent the better part of a year under the impression that a daytime talk show host had a nighttime job as a whacky religious extremist.