Mother Teresa.

Seloth

Sorry for bumping this thread but I had to laugh at allot of the posts.

My mother worked with Her when she was a young Nurse and can throw in a few things.

1.Those buildings she built were yes of a religious nature,but they were used to house the suffering.

2.They weren't just brought into these buildings to die in a "Holy place" It was done so to provide them with comfort and better surrounding...Would you prefer if they died on the streets with no comfort or care.

3 Money...well a good bit of it did go to the comfort of the patients but medicine was far more expensive then with less of the compassion shown as companies do now with many offering them at cheap prices for these areas.

My Mother said to the staff she was a bit of a bitch..but that's only because she had things done efficiently and Organized like any good manager or boss.But however to the patients she was very kind.

I find it very ignorant of people criticizing how they brought people in just to "Suffer and die" when infact it was to provide what comfort they could those that were about to die and try and help those they could.

One thing my Mum did criticise the most is though upon her death the Vatican held most of her funds,but that's a different story altogether

nitrogen

This might be of interest to some. Penn & Teller did an episode of Bullsh!t on her.

checkyabadself

Seloth wrote: »

Sorry for bumping this thread but I had to laugh at allot of the posts.

My mother worked with Her when she was a young Nurse and can throw in a few things.

1.Those buildings she built were yes of a religious nature,but they were used to house the suffering.

If I, or anyone else was dying or sick, a hospital is where you are to be treated if you are sick, or a hospice where you can die peacefully and painlessly. Bringing sick people off the street into a "religous building" to "house their suffering", to me sounds like you are less likely to be identified by a sane person as needing medical attention.

Seloth wrote: »

2.They weren't just brought into these buildings to die in a "Holy place" It was done so to provide them with comfort and better surrounding...Would you prefer if they died on the streets with no comfort or care.

Yes they were! Lets face it, there wasn`t an outpatients clinic. I`d rather have a quicker death on the street than to be fed in a building that prescribed prayer instead of morphine.

Seloth wrote: »

3 Money...well a good bit of it did go to the comfort of the patients but medicine was far more expensive then with less of the compassion shown as companies do now with many offering them at cheap prices for these areas.

If it didnt all go to the patients, excluding admin costs similar to that of Concern, Goal, etc, then it was a travesty and frankly a racket. (by the way the fact you called them patients means you`re aware they required hospital treatment by doctors)

Seloth wrote: »

My Mother said to the staff she was a bit of a bitch..but that's only because she had things done efficiently and Organized like any good manager or boss.But however to the patients she was very kind.

Efficently, yet spent the money on building religous orders and not as much as possible on medicine to treat the sick.

Seloth wrote: »

I find it very ignorant of people criticizing how they brought people in just to "Suffer and die" when infact it was to provide what comfort they could those that were about to die and try and help those they could.

Clearly she "provided what comfort she could", with the money that was left over from building religous orders all around the world.

Words fail me, to wonder how you find someone criticizing her ignorant. Nobody in their right mind donated to Mother Teresa with the thought that the money might build a convent.
To think of what Unicef could do with the mountain of cash thrown at her.

20goto10

Seloth wrote: »

2.They weren't just brought into these buildings to die in a "Holy place" It was done so to provide them with comfort and better surrounding...Would you prefer if they died on the streets with no comfort or care.

Seloth wrote: »

I find it very ignorant of people criticizing how they brought people in just to "Suffer and die" when infact it was to provide what comfort they could those that were about to die and try and help those they could.

With the power of prayer, right? how much does a prayer cost? Was she charging 3 gold pieces to get into heaven?

sponsoredwalk

Seloth wrote: »

Sorry for bumping this thread but I had to laugh at allot of the posts.

My mother worked with Her when she was a young Nurse and can throw in a few things.

1.Those buildings she built were yes of a religious nature,but they were used to house the suffering.

2.They weren't just brought into these buildings to die in a "Holy place" It was done so to provide them with comfort and better surrounding...Would you prefer if they died on the streets with no comfort or care.

3 Money...well a good bit of it did go to the comfort of the patients but medicine was far more expensive then with less of the compassion shown as companies do now with many offering them at cheap prices for these areas.

My Mother said to the staff she was a bit of a bitch..but that's only because she had things done efficiently and Organized like any good manager or boss.But however to the patients she was very kind.

I find it very ignorant of people criticizing how they brought people in just to "Suffer and die" when infact it was to provide what comfort they could those that were about to die and try and help those they could.

One thing my Mum did criticise the most is though upon her death the Vatican held most of her funds,but that's a different story altogether

Wacker wrote: »

Also, here is the first part of a documentary made by the Hitchster on Mother Teresa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WQ0i3nCx60

Hell's Angel is the name of it. Very harsh title.

(if the above doesn't show)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8Z7AI1J9Z0

Would like to hear your reply after you've seen both of these shows.

mehfesto

The P&T one is obviously quite light-hearted (and it's pretty rubbish regarding Ghandi and Dali for me), but there's some great points made about her nibs there. The nunnery spending was new to me and if true shockingly disgusting. Spending money on making nuns when as they put it 'she had the coin' to do good.

Hitchens was gas as always. Really laid into her. The glorifying of suffering angle was interesting too.

panda100

checkyabadself wrote: »

Efficently, yet spent the money on building religous orders and not as much as possible on medicine to treat the sick.

Clearly she "provided what comfort she could", with the money that was left over from building religous orders all around the world.

Also, I think a big factor in this is where she actually got her donations from.

If the drug dealing families in Limerick offered me 1 million euro to build a drug rehabilitation centre here in Limerick, there is no way I would take the money of them. It would be condoning what they did and how they earned their money.
What would be even worse is if I took their money all the while while praising them as Jesus disciples,fawning all over them and getting the use of their private jets. This is exactly what Mother Teresa did.

One of her donors was the Haitian dictator, Baby Doc Duvalier, who caused absolute untold misery,poverty and famine for millions of Haitians living under his regime. Yet she continued to endorse him and his regime:

"[Mother Theresa] said of Michele Duvalier, wife of Haiti's despised and ruthless dictator Baby Doc Duvalier, that she is "someone who feels, who knows, who wishes to demonstrate her love not only with words but also with concrete and tangible actions." At the time, Haiti had the lowest per capita annual income in the western hemisphere. (I think this remains the case.) Living conditions for most Haitians were intolerable. Stories abounded that US cosmetics companies purchased blood from poor Haitians to make shampoo with "human protein" ingredients. Eventually the Duvaliers were forced out of Haiti -- they absconded with large amounts of government money, to settle on the French Riviera. Still, Mother Teresa said of Michele that she had "never seen the poor people being so familiar with their head of state as they were with her. It was a beautiful lesson to me."

She also accepted stolen money from the fraudelent Charles keating:

"During the trial of Charles Keating, eventually resulting in a ten-year sentence for fraud in the S&L debacle, Mother Teresa wrote to the trial judgeAlso, her acceptance of stolen money from Charles Keating, “now serving a ten-year sentence for his part in the savings and loan scandal.” Keating, a “Catholic fundamentalist”, gave Mother Teresa one and a quarter million dollars and “the use of his private jet.” During the course of Keating’s trial, Mother Teresa wrote Judge Ito asking clemency and asked Ito “to do what Jesus would do.”
One of the prosecutors in the trial wrote her telling her “of 17,000 individuals from whom Mr. Keating stole $252,000,000.” He added, “You urge Judge Ito to look into his heart--as he sentences Charles Keating--and do what Jesus would do. I submit the same challenge to you. Ask yourself what Jesus would do if he were given the fruits of a crime; what Jesus would do if he were in possession of money that had been stolen; what Jesus would do if he were being exploited by a thief to ease his conscience.” The prosecutor asked her to return the money, and offered to put her “in direct contact with the rightful owners of the property now in your possession.” This supposed paragon of virtue never replied to his letter."

You can read the letters in full here : http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/mother.htm

fitz0

Zombie thread!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/Mother-Teresa-saint-of-the-media-controversial-study-says/articleshow/18760028.cms

Mother Teresa 'saint of the media', controversial study says

LONDON: A study conducted by Canadian researchers has called Mother Teresa "anything but a saint", a creation of an orchestrated and effective media campaign who was generous with her prayers but miserly with her foundation's millions when it came to humanity's suffering.

The controversial study, to be published this month in the journal of studies in religion/sciences called Religieuses, says that Teresa — known across the world as the apostle of the dying and the downtrodden — actually felt it was beautiful to see the poor suffer.

According to the study, the Vatican overlooked the crucial human side of Teresa — her dubious way of caring for the sick by glorifying their suffering instead of relieving it.

Instead, the Vatican went ahead with her beatification followed by canonization "to revitalize the Church and inspire the faithful especially at a time when churches are empty and the Roman authority is in decline".

Researchers Serge Larivee and Genevieve Chenard from the University of Montreal's department of psychoeducation, and Carole Senechal of the University of Ottawa's faculty of education, analysed published writings about Mother Teresa and concluded that her hallowed image, "which does not stand up to analysis of the facts, was constructed, and that her beatification was orchestrated by an effective media campaign".

According to Larivee, facts debunk Teresa's myth. He says that the Vatican, before deciding on Teresa's beatification, did not take into account "her rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding ... abortion, contraception, and divorce."

At the time of her death, Teresa had 517 missions or "homes for the dying" as described by doctors visiting several of these establishments in Kolkata. They welcomed the poor and sick in more than 100 countries. Two-thirds of the people coming to these missions hoped to a find a doctor to treat them, while the other third lay dying without receiving apt care.

'Miracle of medicine'

According to the study, the doctors observed a significant lack of hygiene, even unfit conditions and a shortage of actual care, food and painkillers. They say that the problem was not a paucity of funds as the Order of the Missionaries of Charity successfully raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Researchers said that when it came to her own treatment, "she received it in a modern American hospital".

The three researchers also dug into records of her meeting in London in 1968 with the BBC's Malcom Muggeridge who had strong views against abortion and shared Mother Teresa's right-wing Catholic values.

The researchers say Muggeridge had decided to promote Teresa. In 1969, he made a eulogistic film on the missionary, promoting her by attributing to her the "first photographic miracle", when it should have been attributed to the new film stock being marketed by Kodak.

Following her death, the Vatican decided to waive the usual five-year waiting period to open the beatification process. According to the researchers, one of the miracles attributed to Mother Theresa is the healing of Monica Besra, who suffered from intense abdominal pain, after a medallion blessed by her was placed on Besra's abdomen.

Larivee said, "Her doctors thought otherwise: the ovarian cyst and the tuberculosis from which she suffered were healed by the drugs they had given her. The Vatican, nevertheless, concluded that it was a miracle. Mother Teresa's popularity was such that she had become untouchable for the population, which had already declared her a saint."

Larivee however signs off on a surprisingly positive note and says there could also be a positive effect of the Mother Teresa myth. "If the extraordinary image of Mother Teresa conveyed in the collective imagination has encouraged humanitarian initiatives that are genuinely engaged with those crushed by poverty, we can only rejoice," they signed off.

Kivaro

So when I tried to read the Indo's article about Mother Saint Teresa, I kept getting this error, but every other link on the site worked fine.

Maybe another miracle?

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Sarky

I haven't seen the phrase 'Guru Meditation' since the days of dividing by zero on my Amiga 500. Good times, good times...

nozzferrahhtoo

Careful now of you will have our resident MT lover in here telling us that since none of us can show the money trail we can not prove she did NOT spend lots of money on the poor and was not in fact a great person and saint

CerebralCortex

Wasn't Christopher Hitchens on to her nonsense years ago?

robindch

^^^ Hitchens:

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice

PopePalpatine

robindch wrote: »

^^^ Hitchens:

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice

The funny thing is, I was on Facebook a while ago and noticed that the "Catholicism" page had a link to it as a "recommended page". :pac:

LittleBook

robindch wrote: »

^^^ Hitchens:

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice

Regarding the title's double entendre, Hitchens remarked, "it was either that or Sacred Cow, and I thought Sacred Cow would be in bad taste."

:pac:

robindch

Pope Frank has announced that Mother Teresa is now a saint:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37269512

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65JxnUW7Wk4

Cabaal

She seems fitting to be a saint,
The church has a whole liked inflicting suffering on its victims and she believed suffering was good and thats why she withheld pain relief from people.

recedite

There has been a bit of sniggering going on regarding the two miracles attributed to M. Teresa. The two people cured of tumours.
But just because somebody takes a course of conventional medicine, it does not preclude the possibility they were actually cured by a photo under their pillow of somebody who had died a few years previously.

magicbastarder

i recently bought what my wife refers to as a flour or baking station - an old enamel topped little press.
the guy who sold it to us claimed it came out of the convent in drumcondra, and that mother teresa had used it when she was based there.

notwithstanding the fact that the convent she was based in when she was here is one in rathfarnham, afaik (thus adding bilocation to her portfolio), this can only make my recent acquisition more valuable.

Bristolscale7

Remember the mother teresa cinnabun?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4562170.stm

recedite

magicbastarder wrote: »

notwithstanding the fact that the convent she was based in when she was here is one in rathfarnham, afaik (thus adding bilocation to her portfolio), this can only make my recent acquisition more valuable.

Could it be used now to manufacture Mother Teresa's Miracle Wafers? There could be money in this.

magicbastarder

all the joints have failed in it and i have to try to inject them with wood glue. i had left it to see if it would miraculously heal itself, but no luck yet.

recedite

You need to pray harder and it will repair itself. Have you tried sleeping with a photo of M. Teresa under your pillow?

Just don't let the wife find the pic; it could be awkward to explain

cowboyBuilder

What always got to me about Mother Teresa was her anti contraception stance, she would happily advise poverty stricken women have 10 kids that would all live in misery and hunger, where they could have had 2-3 and been suffering a whole lot less.

That and all the dodgy money dealings im reading about since ..

Cabaal

cowboyBuilder wrote: »

What always got to me about Mother Teresa was her anti contraception stance, she would happily advise poverty stricken women have 10 kids that would all live in misery and hunger, where they could have had 2-3 and been suffering a whole lot less.

Catholics love misery, didn't you know that?
Pain and suffering is good for the soul

hgfj

For someone who was so in love with the idea (reality) of suffering she certainly knew how to look after herself. A lot better than the blunt needles she offered to the sick and dying in her poorhouses.


"In the April 1996 issue of the US magazine Ladies Home Journal, Mother Teresa said that she wanted to die like the poor in her home for the dying destitute in Kalighat. This is a very outrageous statement indeed. By then she had had numerous in-patient medical treatments in some of the most expensive clinics around the world. This includes the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, California and the Gemelli Hospital in Rome. She also had numerous treatments at Calcutta s Woodlands and Belle Vue Clinics, which are outside the reach of 99% of India s population. She also received (on numerous occasions) sophisticated and expensive cardiac treatments at Calcutta s Birla Heart Institute."


h ttps://deeshaa.org/deposition-mother-of-all-myths/

robindch

cowboyBuilder wrote: »

What always got to me about Mother Teresa was her anti contraception stance, she would happily advise poverty stricken women have 10 kids that would all live in misery and hunger, where they could have had 2-3 and been suffering a whole lot less.

That's because religious people are interested in live births, and those preferably to religious parents - the more live births there are to religious people (who tend to indoctrinate their kids), and the more that people live in poverty (which accentuates the religious belief), the more likely it is that the religious population will come to dominate the non-religious population over time.

Behold the power of memetic evolution.

wonderfullife

The hate and vitriol directed towards Mother T by the atheist community is kinda laughable. Hitchens fan-boys. She was no different to many religious and non religious icons of the 20th century. Good intentions but a flawed character.

looksee

wonderfullife wrote: »

The hate and vitriol directed towards Mother T by the atheist community is kinda laughable. Hitchens fan-boys. She was no different to many religious and non religious icons of the 20th century. Good intentions but a flawed character.

Hate? I am not seeing all that much hate. Its a popular argument to accuse atheists of hating religion, but really its more contempt for the sham, amusement at many of the ideas, and tolerance of the believers - the believers that don't try to inflict their ideas on non-believers that is. Hate is a very strong emotion that most atheists can't be bothered with, in respect of religion anyway.

wonderfullife

looksee wrote: »

Hate? I am not seeing all that much hate. Its a popular argument to accuse atheists of hating religion, but really its more contempt for the sham, amusement at many of the ideas, and tolerance of the believers - the believers that don't try to inflict their ideas on non-believers that is. Hate is a very strong emotion that most atheists can't be bothered with, in respect of religion anyway.

well i've seen plenty of animosity towards her on Twitter today.

Atheism is a sham in itself in many ways.

It amuses me that religious people and atheists have something hugely in common.

99.9% of atheists accept the Big Bang model to partially explain the beginning of the Universe. 99.9% of religious people think God created the universe.

What both models rely on, 100%, is the concept of "Ex Nihilo".

Science has a broad, accepted model of the formation of the universe (Big Bang Model) but haven't presented one cogent argument for the origin of the universe. I.e. All that energy that came together, heated up, creating the subatomic particles.... the only explanation science can offer for WHERE that energy came from is "Ex Nihilo" - It came out of nothing.

Equally, religious people wholly believe in the existence of God "Ex Nihilo".

Funny really. Both camps at polar opposites of a debate relying on the same abstract concept.

That something was just there out of nothing.

Energy was just there.

God was just there.

Meh. I wish people would take a more nuanced view of the whole thing. God might exist, and if "he" does, then i hope he's not a jackass. Or God might not exist, and in which case, i hope i'm not a jackass to people.