"Almost Saint" Mother Teresa

T'ai Chi said:


Fine, whatever, but you and I didn't even give them rhetoric.

I think the intelligent folks who gave her a Nobel Prize disagree with you. :) [/B]

irrelevant appeal to authority. besides, yasser arafat won a nobel peace prize, too.
 
T'ai Chi said:


I personally doubt anyone on this board has done as much humanitarian work as Mother Teresa has.

http://www.nobel.se/peace/laureates/1979/ Yeah, what a slacker she was! :rolleyes:

By your comments you are insulting the entire Nobel committee (for starters).

If she is a bad person, I'd hate to know what that makes us good people.

the nobel committee is very deserving of derision. if you don't understand why mother theresa isn't the great person the catholics make her out to be, you'll never understand. afterall, the explanation is very clear in this thread.
 
The not donating money part, besides being almost entire speculation (prove me wrong), is pretty silly, as she did donate a lot. Also, a large portion of the centers were mainly for the dying. That is, people already dying. She made sure they died with dignity intact.

And again, can anyone here claim to have done more than her? Or can you only snipe from the sidelines, not having 'walked the walk'? Can you only muster the sad argument of 'she should have done more!' without you yourself having done anything even approaching a small fraction of what she did?

Those who criticize her, when they themselves have only sat on their butts are the ones who should be criticized.

Of all the money Mother Teresa got from her awards (all 7 of them), she gave to the centers she helped set up for these people, not to mention the massive donation of her time, the time of thousands of others to the cause, and buildings and equipment.

She basically dedicated her entire adult life...That's pretty amazing. :)
 
EdipisReks said:

irrelevant appeal to authority. besides, yasser arafat won a nobel peace prize, too.

Not an irrelevant appeal to authority. It is an appeal to evidence, an appeal to fact. Evidence and fact that many people realize she did good rather than bad. That she benefitted the world rather than tried to scam it.

Arafat did some good stuff for the peace process too, so don't knock him. :) By the way, he shared his Nobel with 2 others.

Have you won any Peace Prizes lately for your efforts? Let us know.
 
T'ai Chi said:


Not an irrelevant appeal to authority. It is an appeal to evidence, an appeal to fact. Evidence and fact that many people realize she did good rather than bad. That she benefitted the world rather than tried to scam it.


no, she scammed it rather well by convincing people to convert to catholicism and having lots of children "for god" despite an inability for the people to take care of them

Arafat did some good stuff for the peace process too, so don't knock him. :) By the way, he shared his Nobel with 2 others.

arafat is a terrorist, has been a terrorist, and will be a terrorist until he dies. he was offered everything that he had demanded in the mid 90's and rejected it. he is the major roadblock, in my opinion, to peace in israel. the fact that he shared the prize doesn't negate the fact that a terrorist won the nobel peace prize.

Have you won any Peace Prizes lately for your efforts? Let us know.

this is totally irrelevant. grow up.
 
EdipisReks said:

no, she scammed it rather well by convincing people to convert to catholicism and having lots of children "for god" despite an inability for the people to take care of them


Well then she convinced the whole world ... except for about, what, 10% of the skeptics? There will always be those who snipe on somebody, no matter how much good they do I guess. They are called "playa hatas".


arafat is a terrorist, has been a terrorist, and will be a terrorist until he dies. he was offered everything that he had demanded in the mid 90's and rejected it. he is the major roadblock, in my opinion, to peace in israel. the fact that he shared the prize doesn't negate the fact that a terrorist won the nobel peace prize.


The facts are that Arafat:

1. declared publicly that he recognised the state of Israel -- no other Palestinian leader dared do that so publicly.

2. said he would abandon terrorism, and

3. agreed that peace would be based on the borders of 1967 and not 1948."

Peres, Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin were awarded the Nobel prize in 1994 for their effort towards the 1993 Oslo peace accords.


this is totally irrelevant. grow up.

So that's a "No." then? :D It is fairly relevant I feel. You're saying these people have done nothing, etc., so I'm asking you, what have you done, to show that these people have indeed done something, good things that people have recognized them for on a global scale.
 
Has anyone here read Christopher Hitchens' book about Mother Teresa? I picked it up when it came out 7 or 8 years ago. So far as I am aware, there has been no stronger case made against this woman's character. However, although I love Hitchens' style, it was not the most persuasive of tracts. I felt that Hitchens detracted from his strongest arguments by exaggerating many of his weaker ones, and his zealous bias regarding the subject (which, to his credit, he freely acknowledged in the book) ended up hampering his effort.

My recollection is that only a minority of the mainstream book critics found Hitchens especially convincing - for whatever that's worth.

On the strength of what research or writing are people here convinced that M.T. was such a terrible person?
 
T'ai Chi said:


Well then she convinced the whole world ... except for about, what, 10% of the skeptics? There will always be those who snipe on somebody, no matter how much good they do I guess. They are called "playa hatas".


incorrect. as an example, my mother is a rather credulous person in many regards, and i certainly wouldn't call her a skeptic. she doesn't believe that mother theresa really did any good. it only takes one example of someone not a skeptic agreeing with me to destroy your little story. good job.


The facts are that Arafat:

1. declared publicly that he recognised the state of Israel -- no other Palestinian leader dared do that so publicly.

2. said he would abandon terrorism, and

3. agreed that peace would be based on the borders of 1967 and not 1948."

Peres, Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin were awarded the Nobel prize in 1994 for their effort towards the 1993 Oslo peace accords.


of course, he hasn't abandoned terrorism, and when offered basically what he asked for didn't take it. good job arafat. what a humanitarian.


So that's a "No." then? :D It is fairly relevant I feel. You're saying these people have done nothing, etc., so I'm asking you, what have you done, to show that these people have indeed done something, good things that people have recognized them for on a global scale.

once again, irrelevant. being recognized on a global scale is meaningless, as arafat's nobel prize shows. no, i have never won a nobel prize. however, i have volunteered in cancer research fund drives, tutored poor children in reading, and participated in food drives for poor families. i think that what i did was more meaningful than mother theresa's evangelization of poverty.
 
ceo_esq said:
Has anyone here read Christopher Hitchens' book about Mother Teresa? I picked it up when it came out 7 or 8 years ago. So far as I am aware, there has been no stronger case made against this woman's character. However, although I love Hitchens' style, it was not the most persuasive of tracts. I felt that Hitchens detracted from his strongest arguments by exaggerating many of his weaker ones, and his zealous bias regarding the subject (which, to his credit, he freely acknowledged in the book) ended up hampering his effort.

I've read the book within the past year. I'm just wondering what you thought the 'weaker' points were that were overexagerated?

For anyone unfamiliar with the book "Missionary Position" (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...6690112/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/104-5719326-6238364) Hitchens describes many of the 'flaws' of Mother Teresa (some already mentioned here.) Some of the things he covers:

- She regularly gave support to some of the worst dictators in the world, such as the Duvaliers in Haiti.
- Her 'hospitals' provided little real medical care; patients were not given pain medication (in fact, often no effort was made to treat them); Needles were reused after rinsing them in cold water; sometimes patients were not allowed to see family and friends. (Of course, she always got the best medical treatment herself.)
- Millions were collected by her charaties, yet nobody knows where much of the money went. With all the money they collected, they could have built a modern hospital, and/or fed thousands. Instead, the money seems to have been hidden away
- She campaigned in Ireland against divorce (even in the case of domestic abuse); yet she thought it was best that her friend Lady Diana to get a divorce because of how bad her personal situation was
- She had collected millions from one of the investors in a Savings and Loan scandal, and when he was arrested, she wrote a letter to the judge asking for easy consideration for him. (The prosecutor wrote a rebuttal, pointing out that many of the people who lost money in the scandal were also poor, and if she cared about justice she'd return the money. She never responded.)
 
Why are you guys so worried about this? If she was being given another noble peace prize or a presidants medal (I think that is what it is called) I could understand, but this is an internal matter for the catholic church. If you are arguing that it exposes further hypocrisy and opitunism I think there are far better cases avaible (see first saint of marist group).
It is hard to deny that if she had not existed then the world would be a worse place and what more can you ask of her as a person. If she was a saint or not does not ultimetly mater outside the church.
 
geni said:

It is hard to deny that if she had not existed then the world would be a worse place and what more can you ask of her as a person.

it's not hard to deny it at all. read the post right above yours.
 

incorrect. as an example, my mother is a rather credulous person in many regards, and i certainly wouldn't call her a skeptic. she doesn't believe that mother theresa really did any good. it only takes one example of someone not a skeptic agreeing with me to destroy your little story. good job.


No. That makes your mother a skeptic in terms of her views on Mother Teresa.


of course, he hasn't abandoned terrorism, and when offered basically what he asked for didn't take it. good job arafat. what a humanitarian.


Tell it to the Nobel committee. I only report on the facts. He did good stuff and got a prize for it. So did Mother Teresa.

(bolded by me)
no, i have never won a nobel prize. however, i have volunteered in cancer research fund drives, tutored poor children in reading, and participated in food drives for poor families. i think that what i did was more meaningful than mother theresa's evangelization of poverty.

Once again, it is relevant. You are claiming to have done things that are more meaningful than Mother Teresa, yet you are virtually unknown to the world while she is known to all. That makes me think that she (and her order) probably did very good humanitarian work. Again, while you've done good work, you still don't have a medal for your efforts. She does, several, from very prominent organizations. :)

Yeah, I've volunteered helping clear flood victims' yards, have given money, food and clothes to the poor, as well as donated blood to those in need. However, Mother Teresa was on a whole other level than us in terms of humanitarian work. The distance between amateurs and pros is the greatest distance there is.
 
Doing bad things does not justify doing good things, especially when the "good things" could be overexaggerated.
 
T'ai Chi said:


No. That makes your mother a skeptic in terms of her views on Mother Teresa.[/b]

ah, but that isn't the way you used the term


Tell it to the Nobel committee. I only report on the facts. He did good stuff and got a prize for it. So did Mother Teresa.

no, he didn't do good things. the nobel committee gave him the prize for its political expedience.


(bolded by me)


Once again, it is relevant. You are claiming to have done things that are more meaningful than Mother Teresa, yet you are virtually unknown to the world while she is known to all. That makes me think that she (and her order) probably did very good humanitarian work. Again, while you've done good work, you still don't have a medal for your efforts. She does, several, from very prominent organizations. :)


what does a medal mean? nothing. is recognition the only means you use for deciding whether someone has done something good? that is hollow and pathetic. why don't you use wealth, too? i'm poor, does that mean i'm bad?

Yeah, I've volunteered helping clear flood victims' yards, have given money, food and clothes to the poor, as well as donated blood to those in need. However, Mother Teresa was on a whole other level than us in terms of humanitarian work. The distance between amateurs and pros is the greatest distance there is.

the level between amateur and pro is much less than you think. most computer enthusiasts i know (including myself) are much more knowledgable about computers than the IT pros i know. i am a history student, but i know much more about certain topics than my professors. being a "pro" at something does not mean you have greater "intrinsic good". this is simply another face to your apparent "recognition is the way to measure good" spiel.
 
MoeFaux said:
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/mother-teresa/

She's a fraud and a charlatan. She's a bad person who decieved a lot of people.

And turning her life story into a musical? Ugh, putting two bad things together.
rooten.com? Now that is a really good source of information:D

Besides that, the only real thing in that is that she was against, abortion. The rest is highly questionable.

Does that make she a bad person, I don't think so.
 
Lord Kenneth said:
Doing bad things does not justify doing good things, especially when the "good things" could be overexaggerated.
What about bad things being overexaggerated?
 
Segnosaur said:
I've read the book within the past year. I'm just wondering what you thought the 'weaker' points were that were overexagerated?
It's been a number of years since I read the book, but as an example, if I recall correctly at one point Hitchens tried to associate Mother Teresa with a treaty of friendship that Benito Mussolini signed with King Zog of Albania.

Also, some of Hitchens' reproaches seemed to boil down to disliking the fact that Mother Teresa was a religious person to begin with. I was racking my brains for specific examples (as I don't have the book) but this review from the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer (02/11/96) pretty much exemplifies what I remember in that regard:
Hitchens does not try to hide his own anti-religion mind-set, and is least persuasive when he criticizes Mother Teresa for, essentially, being Catholic. He takes great umbrage, for instance, at her comments upon arriving in Bhopal, India, soon after the Union Carbide chemical disaster. Asked what advice she would give the victims, Mother Teresa replied, "Forgive, forgive, forgive."

That seems a rather unsurprising remark for Mother Teresa to have made, hardly out of character considering her religious calling. But Hitchens apparently would have rather she said, "Sue, sue, sue."
The most compelling and troubling critique, in my view, was Hitchens' discussion of the questionable medical care allegedly dispensed in the Sisters of Charity facilities. I would have loved for that point to have been followed up with more investigative reporting following the publication of the book. But my impression of Hitchen's book (almost more of a long pamphlet, really) as a whole was that it skimped on source citations and lacked objectivity - even though I was predisposed to appreciate the book because I admire Hitchens' writing.
 
Getting back to basics; whether Mother Teresa was a good or bad person, she certailny is not supernatural the case for a miracle attributed to her is highly suspect. The Catholic Church has prostituted itself in its eagerness to canonize her.
 

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