Summations Only

Sorry, I'm a little busy. This is going to be a drive-by: Right now, the top of the "World" section of Google News is, from CNN*: Pope suggests it's better to be an atheist than a bad ChristianQuoted from the article:

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"So many Christians are like this, and these people scandalize others," Francis said during morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta, according to Vatican Radio. "How many times have we heard -- all of us, around the neighborhood and elsewhere -- 'But to be a Catholic like that, it's better to be an atheist.' It is that: scandal."
"But what is scandal? Scandal is saying one thing and doing another."

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From a different article from Reuters that I found, they quote:

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"There are those who say 'I am very Catholic, I always go to Mass, I belong to this and that association'," the head of the 1.2 billion-member Roman Catholic Church said, according to a Vatican Radio transcript.

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He said that some of these people should also say "'my life is not Christian, I don't pay my employees proper salaries, I exploit people, I do dirty business, I launder money, (I lead) a double life'."

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"There are many Catholics who are like this and they cause scandal," he said. "How many times have we all heard people say 'if that person is a Catholic, it is better to be an atheist'."

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Since his election in 2013, Francis has often told Catholics, both priests and lay people, to practice what their religion preaches.

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That's a little different. This is where I would go to a source like the Vatican and look for a transcript of his speach to see what he really said and to see it in context. Asking the question 'How many times have we heard X', at face value, isn't an endorsement of X.The Pope certainly didn't say that "it's better to be an atheist than a bad Christian". Did he suggest it? I dunno yet.Given that the gospel he was giving the Homily for (I assume its from the homily) was the "If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off." one, maybe he was, but I'd have to look into what he actauly said, in context.I surely don't trust the spin that CNN put on it. But I haven't finished the article yet, and I got to get going, so maybe it redeems itself. Or maybe I'll find what the Pope actually said and agree with the article.I just went to Google News and took a look at the headlines after you requested a link and that one jumped out at me as a potential candidate.I haven't dug into it yet, but this is the kind of details and arguing (what did they say and what did the words mean) that I wouldn't think would not be appropriate for this thread, or honestly, my time. I honestly don't really care how accurate these articles are, but I did want to provide an example of the type of things that I am talking about.*upon review, this might not be a good example of truth spun so far that it's barely recognizable, but I'm gonna go ahead and submit this and run. See ya later.

I agree that headlines are over-sensationalized, but some several news outlets were very consistent in rendering his remarks into a headline. Here's a broader sample:

• USA Today: Pope denounces Catholics who lead a 'double life'
  
• New York Post: Pope: It’s better to be an atheist than
  
• Russia Today: ‘Better to be an atheist’: Pope Francis takes aim at ‘hypocritical Catholics’
  
• Washington Post: Pope Francis suggests it’s better to be an atheist than a hypocritical Catholic
  
• Reuters: Pope suggests 'better to be atheist than hypocritical Catholic'

Interestingly, the New York Times, Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC were completely silent about this, at least on their front page.--Percy

Modulous responds to Faith:

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You posted one video that said essentially that 'The numbers don't exist but we know Sweden's 'rape problem' is due to immigration because foreign right-wing newspapers like the Daily Caller and the Daily Mail report rapes weekly - and even though there are tens of thousands of rapes - and only 52 weeks in a year - we know this accounts for a rise in the order of tens or hundreds of thousands of rapes'. That doesn't seem like sound reasoning to me.

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And on top of it, it isn't true. Sweden hasn't seen an uptick in crime. What President Trump gets wrong about immigrants and crime in SwedenHere are the immigration numbers for Sweden: And here are the crime numbers for the same period: From the story: So when Trump backpedaled on his comments about Sweden saying that he didn't mean a terrorist attack (then what was the "what's happening last night in Sweden" comment supposed to mean?) but rather about crime, he was still talking out of his posterior.Despite what Faith wants us to believe, Interpol actually understands what the crime rate is in Europe and according to them, the largest source of terrorism isn't Muslims.It's right-wing groups.Same here in the US.

Your charts of course miss the whole point, since the big increase in crime began with the current influx of '"refugees", within the last couple of years. I suspect there's more to the earlier story than the charts show too, but the problem at issue at present is more recent.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Here is preliminary 2016.
Just a moment...What is your excuse now?

Except when people say 'that's absurd, I cannot possibly believe that' they are citing absurdity as evidence against the idea that they are rejecting. Of course you can, just not by pointing to its absurdity. For example, the YEC god doesn't exist, I'm certain of that because there's contradictory evidence. Might I suggest you don't impose a position on me that I do not hold. I am skeptical of the claims, that is why I do not believe them, I am also skeptical of your apparent certainty that they are false, that is why I do not believe you.On the other hand, you are skeptical of the claims but apparently not so skeptical of your own ability to know that they are false. I think RAZD calls that pseudoskepticism. Nor did I claim that they were evidence. A photo of a freezer uploaded to the internet with the caption 'murder' is pretty weird though. A photo of a young girl bent over a table with her hands taped to that table is also weird. In light of all the weirdness I don't feel comfortable concluding that there is nothing else weird going on. You do and that's fine, but it does not give you the right to attempt to ridicule me into accepting your conclusion. I am happy with not having drawn a conclusion, why do you feel it necessary to force me to one? I've never known anyone to draw things on hankies, people generally use them to catch bodily fluids in my experience. Obviously it is the pizza-related map and not the hanky itself that the person asking the question thinks could be important, wouldn't you agree? A simple drawing of a map could be photographed and the hanky discarded, if the map is actually a stain of some bodily fluids then it could have some specific physical significance.We could do this all day and at the end of the day all we would have achieved is you saying it's absurd and unbelievable and me saying it's not that absurd that I can simply dismiss it as false. It makes no difference to my point. Since humans are known to engage in child abuse and humans are known to use codes to communicate subtly there is no comparison to magical humans riding critters that didn't even co-exist with humans. The two claims aren't even in the same ballpark. Pretty obvious if you try a bit harder to think about it. Perhaps they wanted a code they could use in public without setting off alarms. The alleged code would work for that. I don't believe it's a code. I don't disbelieve it's a code. My position is one of non-belief. This should not be a hard concept for an athiest to grasp, Mod. Your charge of credulity can only be based on you assigning me a position of belief, one I do not hold. Stop it. Credulous people believe the claims, incredulous people dismiss them. I do neither of those things, so I would appreciate it if you would stop claiming that I do. It would be nice if you could point to where I have found some 'denial' implausible or whatever you were rambling about there. I'm guessing you aren't going to show your math? Everyone seems to genuinely think they've found a pedo code as far as I can tell. Even if the weight of probability is in your favour, you're still being an arrogant prick by insulting others in order to humiliate them into accepting your conclusion. I would want to be certain before I would take such action.

I've already posted a lot of evidence on this thread that I trust. If your information agrees with it great, if not I trust what I've posted. Since what I posted clearly shows that the official information from Swedish leaders is not trustworthy, that they suppress the truth because of political correctness, also that people willing to tell the truth, such as a couple of policemen, seem to be bullied into changing their minds, saying they don't want to appear racist, I would find it difficult to trust anything on a Swedish news site.

No, they aren't. They are citing their perception of absurdity as a reason for not believing something. Might I suggest you follow your own preaching? I am certain that building a specific theory of a child sex ring on the evidence presented is absurd. I am no more certain of their falsity as I am of any other grouping of people being involved in a child sex ring. The probability of any given group is low, but some groups obviously exist.To suppose an email about handkerchiefs, a pool party of colleagues, friends and family, questions about unexpected gifts of cheese is any way suggestive of a child sex ring, however, is absurd. Their is lots of weirdness in the world. I will mock the idea that this is indicative of child abuse. There is a photo of me wearing a bear costume with a child dressed as a dog barking at a stuffed sheep while someone in the background is balancing a lemon on spoon. That photo of me in my profile pic as at a wedding. Strange things, for some people I'm sure. She's sat at the table (or standing, its not definitive), not bent over it. That you are remembering her being bent over it is strange. It's a funny picture, suggestive to me of the restlessness of kids at restaurants and how it is difficult to keep them at their seat. There is a picture of my wife as a teenager being tied to a pole by her father in a 'sacrifice a virgin to the gods' joke - should I be worried? But this isn't what happened though is it? The picture didn't have the caption 'murder'. It was posted, a commenter added a comment of #killroom, jimmycomet added the comment #murder then someone else posited a Drunk Tank, another person made reference to a minimalist artist and another poster commented its were werewolves lock themselves in during a fool moon.Unless someone is priming you with spooky music and claims of nefarious goings on, its not that odd. Especially since the freezer was subsequently used to store food at a low temperature.Yes, to go from other people's public banter about the uses of an empty freezer room to 'these people are child murdering rapists' is absurd. And yet that's what some people did. And it was absurd of them to do so. As I've said, I am only ridiculing you if you think the evidence builds a prima facie case of a child sex ring. Since you claim not to think that, I can't be ridiculing you.I might mock you for exaggerating my position as a personal attack against you or that I'm going to great lengths to manipulate you or others into thinking that all the people involved are completely proven to be innocent of all alleged crimes. I think I do have the right to do that. So? No. Kathryn Tate sent an email that said this:

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I just came from checking the Field house and I have a square cloth handkerchief (white w/ black) that was left on the kitchen island.

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Note, while describing the handkerchief she doesn't mention any distinguishing characteristics such as a map drawn on it, or semen being encrusted on it.The person Ms. Tate sent that to forwarded it to John Podesta to ask if it was his. She seems party some information not contained in the email chain that a map is involved - perhaps that's why she thinks it might Podesta's since he is in fact organizing a pizza party at the time. It doesn't say the the map is drawn on the hanky, that is one possibility.. The handkerchief may have a map drawn, or printed inside it, underneath it or in some other way. The email is ambiguous on this point (simply using the verb form 'has'), presumably because the sender didn't think strangers would be reading it and the intended recipient would understand in what way it 'has' a map Indeed, it's strange that you felt the need to get on a high horse about how it might be true. It can't be proven to be false. But then, of course it can't. That's the nature of these kinds of allegations - I can't prove anybody isn't abusing children unless I had a film detailing every minute of their life.To give these allegations more weight than any other similarly evidenced allegations is epistemologically problematic (is that a term that is sufficiently neutral for you?). Well, yeah it does. And the comparison I was drawing wasn't regarding the magical nature of the humans. You can't prove that dinosaurs didn't co-exist with humans, for a start. You can't prove that dinosaurs are presently extinct, to continue. You can't prove Jesus wasn't magical. You can't prove that Ghandi didn't suck Hitler's cock. You can't prove that you aren't a motherfucker. You can't prove Mr Rogers wasn't a child rapist. You can't prove the moon landings aren't an elaborate hoax. All you can do is say 'do you have any evidence that dinosaurs exist, that Ghandi sucked Hitler's cock that the Catholic church is working with the Jews and Muslims to infiltrate American Universities and install socialism so as to issue in the New World Order' and either point out any proferred evidence is insufficient to draw the conclusions or, if the evidence is woefully lacking and the claims overly insistent or specific - mock those that hold them in the hopes of deflating their potency or dissuading the individual from spreading what basically amounts to lies, deceptions, propaganda and libel.You know, before someone charges into a family restaurant with a firearm demanding to see the rape tunnels. So what a code that random members of the public couldn't know. It would work better. And also, they weren't in public. These are private emails. Fantastic. Same here. I see no evidence it is an actual common code. I've seen some of those common codes, and this resembles none of them except the common feature of 'cp'. Further - given how famous the claim is, and that I have seen no credible source back it up, that strongly reinforces that it is bullshit. You want me to prove that liars are more common that child abusers with maths? Erm OK, I'll do my best: To a reasonable approximation all child abusers are liars. And there are lots of liars who haven't abused children. Really? You haven't for instance, been reading what I've been saying? I don't think it is a paedo code. The people that do, all seem to ultiumately point to the same source - an anonymous unsourced claim of a 4chan poster. While many people may be poor assessors of evidence, I don't think you can find much in the way of credible named researchers, social workers, ISP professionals, or Law Enforcement agencies that will back it up as a code that existed at the time of the emails. It's as if the code was created by said 4chan user, but feel free to correct me rather than wasting time chastising me, rather than discussing whether this is as fake as 'Lord Lucan on the moon', 'Giant crab attacks portsmouth', 'Aliens impregnated my daughter', 'Obama is a Kenyan Muslim with a gay Muslim lover who is going to steal your guns and import millions of Muslims, ignore the term limits and establish an American Caliphate'. Apparently you missed the point entirely. Let me try again. By mocking the position I am either deflating its potency - or putting myself at risk of being embarassingly wrong. I am giving you, or anyone else, a big target. I am taking a rhetorical risk. Either I am embarrassed, or the believer is.Is it insulting to be called gullible? Is it insulting to be exposed as a credulous dupe? Perhaps. But it is more so if you (2nd person plural, before you (1st person singular) get upset) stubbornly stick to your story without justifying your belief.In the war against Fake News sometimes we have the luxury of being able to dispute the facts. With an unfalsifiable claim such as this one, all we can do is mock people for extrapolating from tenuous facts to extreme conclusions and show the reasoning is flawed and challenge those people to do better or to give up their inane theory.If you have a better strategy, I'm all ears. All you have done is take offence at me mocking a baseless conspiracy theory. I can only go off your actions and words here. On the one hand you back away from belief, but on the other hand you accuse me of taking shots at you when I am mocking the conspiracy theory and those that believe it. The point I was making in the case you are replying to is that some people don't find the 'denials' (note the quote marks) of the alleged child abusers 'plausible'. At best you think they are 'strange' or 'weird' and their strangeness gives credibility to the coded nefariousness theory. So as a code that is intended to give plausible deniability, even for someone open minded like you, or credulous like Faith, or utterly hopelessly foolish like Edgar Maddison Welch it has evidently failed. As it would be expected to if it was the kind of code some random troll on 4chan could crack and expose. A situation that could have been avoided by taking perfectly sensible precautions like using a code only known to the people involved - as everybody else in the universe does unless they are trying to communicate with strangers they haven't had the opportunity to agree a more secret code with in a public space such as the street or in internet chatrooms where these codes actually are used for the reasons I gave.As such, it makes the story less credible that they are using this kind of code in this kind of fashion. It is not the behaviour of an elite sex ring. Nor is copying in journalists. Nor is using emails that are being stored on a business email server. These things make the story more and more incredible. Saying 'well it seems to work because there exists an 'army of people like you willing to ridicule anyone who doesn't immediately dismiss the claims' is needlessly personally confrontational, generating more heat than light and misses the point that apparently the plausibility of the denials is not in fact preserved as the intended purpose (which I don't argue is a successful strategy, we're talking about low level wierdos in chatrooms, not elite sex rings - the kind that think 'are you a cop' has to be answered honestly, using 'codes' makes them feel a little safer in the crimes, even though - if they are so common 'everybody', as you say, thinks they're a paedo code on whatever basis you think they have for that - that would mean judges and prosecutors and juries won't be fooled either, so it won't really work - and I think an elite sex ring would know this)However, you have at least explicitly stated you don't believe the claims, so that's something. And I hope now, after another round of explaining it that I am not attempting to 'humiliate them into accepting {my} conclusion' (as you repeatedly claim despite my saying otherwise) but rather attempting to use the humiliation of mockery to motivate people to either produce evidence to prove me wrong, or to reassess the strength of their convictions and to reconsider their epistemological model of believing what some 'guy on the internet said'. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Again Faith the fact that you trust a source is not in itself a good reason for anyone else to trust it. And the fact that you trust a site that is clearly not trustworthy only shows your questionable judgement. If your belief is based on prejudice - as it is - you cannot expect people who do not share your prejudice to agree with you. And asserting that you are right all the time - ignoring all the cases where you have been obviously wrong is at best non-productive.Also making up excuses as to why the official figures disagree with you may help you cling to your beliefs but it does nothing to convince others and you should not expect it to. Especially when you are trying to dismiss sources more reliable than those you choose to believe.This story may be illuminating.A right wing politician claims that the Swedish city of Malmo has a disproportionate number of rapes and attributes it to immigrants. The reality is somewhat different. So rape figures are high but they are not comparable to those from other EU States because the criteria they are produced under - and a comparison ignoring that makes Sweden look worse than it is. Since the original claim is based on the official figures this is fatal to it. Unless there is evidence of a large number of unrecorded rapes perpetrated by immigrants there is nothing more to say.

Since the powers-that-be in Sweden have decided they have a vested interest in suppressing the facts, surely they will have suppressed them. If something is called "right wing" you automatically dismiss it without cause. You believe what you want to believe, and I disagree with you.

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Since the powers-that-be in Sweden have decided they have a vested interest in suppressing the facts, surely they will have suppressed them.

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Do they ? Can they do so simply without it leaking ? And how do we determine what the actual facts are ?

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If something is called "right wing" you automatically dismiss it without cause

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It is notably hypocritical for someone who continually whines about truthful criticism to engage in outright lying about opponents. That has never stopped you, though.

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You believe what you want to believe, and I disagree with you.

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It is rather obvious that you are the one who believes what she wants to believe with no regard for evidence or truth.

Obviously it does leak. The "right wing" seems to have a different set of statistics.'

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Obviously it does leak. The "right wing" seems to have a different set of statistics.'

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Not in the example I produced, which was based on a naive - and very misleading - view of the official statistics. Now if you can produce some other statistics from a reliable source with reliable methodology then let us see them.

Faith responds to me:

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Your charts of course miss the whole point, since the big increase in crime began with the current influx of '"refugees", within the last couple of years.

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It seems like you didn't actually read the information you were presented with. The very first chart showed the immigration numbers. Your claim of "the last couple of years" is false. Sweden has taken in more refugees per capita than any other country in 2014 (yes, I mean that world wide). More than 15% of the population of Sweden is foreign born. It started a long time ago. Have you forgotten that the Arab Spring happened in 2011? That the Syrian Civil War started as a consequence of that event?And despite Sweden taking in large numbers of immigrants, the crime rate hasn't budged.And it seems like you didn't actually read the source. Here's what it said: So why would Sweden lie about their crime rate? Are you suggesting they don't care about their citizenry?

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I suspect there's more to the earlier story than the charts show too

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Well, of course you do. Your opinions have disintegrated on contact with reality, so reality must be a Grand Conspiracy to Suppress the Truth (C) and thus, your opinion gets to remain intact.The claim was that Sweden has had a rise in crime due to the influx of immigrants.The reality is that it isn't true. Despite a large increase in immigration to the point that more than 15% of the population is foreign born, crime hasn't increased. There have only been 87 murders total in 2014. As Sweden pointed out, more people were killed just in one city in Florida than in all of Sweden.And yet somehow, that's proof that Sweden is a hotbed of crime.

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but the problem at issue at present is more recent.

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Except it isn't.When did the Syrian Civil War start, Faith?

Faith writes:

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I've already posted a lot of evidence on this thread that I trust.

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And you've been shown why you shouldn't trust it.Why do you persist? Are you claiming that Sweden is lying about its crime rates? That they don't care about their citizens?

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If your information agrees with it great, if not I trust what I've posted.

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So despite the fact that Sweden cannot find any evidence of a crime wave, you're sure it's happening because you agree with someone who says there's a crime wave?Are you claiming that Sweden is lying about its crime rates? That they don't care about their citizens? That actually more people have been murdered than law enforcement has tracked?

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Since what I posted clearly shows that the official information from Swedish leaders is not trustworthy

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And there we have it. It's a Grand Conspiracy to Suppress the Truth (C). Sweden is actively trying to kill its citizens. It is lying about its crime rates because...well, we don't know why it would be lying about its crime rates, but we know that they are because you know better than Sweden does what happens in Sweden.

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that they suppress the truth because of political correctness

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Right...because even though we can't find any evidence of people being murdered by the hundreds in Sweden, it's only because they've suppressed it. The Grand Conspiracy to Suppress the Truth (C) is vast.

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such as a couple of policemen, seem to be bullied into changing their minds, saying they don't want to appear racist

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And exactly who are these people? You've had false information about everything else, Faith. You're going to have to be more specific.

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I would find it difficult to trust anything on a Swedish news site.

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Oh, that's right...the Grand Conspiracy to Suppress the Truth (C).