Who Would Have Thought?

[billy rubin]

an honorary american

[Recusant]

Don't want to let Christians hog the spotlight.

"Buddhist monk arrested in suspected $3m embezzlement scandal" | BBC

Thai police have arrested a Buddhist monk on suspicion of embezzling 100 million baht ($3m; £2.2m) from his monastery, along with a suspected female accomplice he was filmed having sex with.

Phra Wachirayan Wi, a former abbot at the prominent 14th-Century Wat Phutthaisawan in the ancient capital of Ayutthaya, allegedly pocketed donations meant for the temple on more than 20 occasions over two years.

In Thailand, Buddhist monks take a vow of celibacy and also renounce material possessions. He was defrocked after his arrest. He has yet to comment publicly.

The latest arrests come just over a year after another sex-and-blackmail case involving senior monks rocked Thailand's monastic community.

The 66-year-old was known for creating a highly-coveted coin amulet. Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul reportedly owns some of his creations.

Thailand's Buddhist institution has long been plagued with reports of monks breaking their vow of celibacy, trafficking drugs and committing financial crimes.

[Continues . . .]

[zorkan]

https://news.sky.com/story/archbishop-of-canterbury-revokes-award-given-to-cleric-who-praised-osama-bin-laden-13589162

[Recusant]

   I suppose I shouldn't laugh, it's all very serious. 

Still, it's remarkable how they all managed to come off looking like muppets (British sense of the word).

[zorkan]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/330000-children-victims-of-church-sex-abuse-french-report-finds

So what? Ask Richard Dawkins.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/09/11/221319401/book-news-richard-dawkins-under-fire-for-child-abuse-remarks

[billy rubin]

richard dawkins was a pioneering sociobiologist, but the more he opens his mouth on anything else the less i respect him.

[Recusant]

Dawkins seems to be stuck culturally in the 1950s. I don't sense genuine malevolence from him but that doesn't excuse the harmful nonsense he spews on occasion.

[billy rubin]

dawkins is the archetypical dotty old professor. his work in biology is sound. his discussions of religion are naive and parochial, and most everything else he opines on just sounds silly these days.

remember the Brights? what happened to them?

[Dark Lightning]

The Brights dimmed pretty quickly.

[Recusant]

Ah, the storied history of "new atheism." Remember Atheism+  .  The collapse of the atheist conferences under the weight of their coddled (and curdled) testosterone. How about the author of The Happy Atheist, PZ Meyers? This site existed several years before he used that name for his book; not sure if a website has copyright grounds but it never was an issue anyway. Haven't heard anything from him and his devoted fanbase in years.

The best of the "Four Horsemen" have died, leaving us with Dawkins and Sam Harris. I wouldn't argue with the comment "The less said about them the better."

I don't know if that atheist "mass" still exists, first I have to remember what they called it. 

There are still a few discussion boards, pretty much all dominated by men of a certain age, or even like this one, populated almost exclusively by that demographic.

It's the nature of atheism though. Plenty of atheists about, but we mostly just get on with our lives.

[Dark Lightning]

PZ has a blog over at Free Thought Blogs. When I first started out with atheism on the 'net, I hung out at Raving Atheists. Pretty virulent. It is no more.