The Skeptic Next Door

At TAM7 Fintan Steele gave one of the more interesting talks. He is currently Director of Communications at MIT’s Broad Institute. He holds a Masters of Divinity degree from St. Meinrad School of Theology as well as a Masters of Arts in Medical Ethics/Religious Studies from Indiana University.

As part of his Masters of Divinity courses, they ordered different activities into a moral hierarchy. The example that he use during his talk was the following:

• Bestiality
• Contraception
• Homosexual acts
• Incest
• Masturbation
• Premarital Sex
• Rape

The audience was asked to order these from least bad to worst. He presented his ordering and that from his Catholic divinity textbook “Moral Theology“. There may be some minor variations but most people would likely come up with similar lists. We tried this at the last skeptics meeting and got similar results.  The biggest problem is that some of these activities were not considered immoral or “bad” so how could you order them.

Try this yourself.

Admittedly the text is somewhat dated and is no longer used. The copyright date given by Amazon is in the early 50s. There are still many in the clergy who have been trained using such texts and the Pope has been emphasising a return to traditional values.

The ordering given in his textbook is:

• Premarital Sex
• Rape
• Incest
• Contraception
• Bestiality
• Homosexual acts
• Masturbation

In this example, things that possibly lead to conception are not as bad as things that do not. As Money Python pointed years ago every sperm is Sacred.

This goes a long way to explaining such things as the excommunication of a mother who arranged and the doctors who performed an abortion for a 9 year old Brazilian Girl.  The girl was impregnated by her stepfather who remained in the church.

It may also help explain why the church has historically covered up reports of abuse. Perhaps molesting children is preferable to having priests masturbate.