https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67238572

You may have noticed that I occasionally have my issues with religion. I could point to the innumerable horrors and the incalculable human suffering experienced over millennia, and this would be an ecumenical exercise as they are all guilty. I could point to what we know about how these accretions emerged over time, and how they are clearly man-made, how they are historically inaccurate, and how they are internally inconsistent, and how they demand the most inhumane actions from us, and how they prevent us from truly appreciating the wonders which our universe has to offer. Instead, I'll point to yet another ghastly discovery that the pious clergy in Spain were found to have abused 200,000 children, and that damn euphemism "clergy abuse" will be bandied about as we can't be too graphic for the television viewer. Instead, why not detail the anal rape and mental and physical torture visited upon these helpless victims. It's somewhat akin to EEE mentioning Mellencamp's plea to actually release photographs of the children blown to bits by assault weapons. It's been said that religion teaches us how to come to grips with our demise. We need to get over this cowardice, accept our death, and realize that our time is brief, and it's up to us to create our own meaning in a universe that itself has none. And for the record, being the obedient little Roman Catholic kid of the 60s, I received all the required sacraments, was never abused by anyone, but the betrayal I have felt, as I discovered the crimes committed from the papacy to the local pastor, is total and irreversible. And if I'm wrong, and there is an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent deity, then said deity is awash in the blood of his creation.

Peter T.