My imaginary friend can beat up your imaginary friend.
September 5, 2001 7:40 PM   Subscribe

My imaginary friend can beat up your imaginary friend. It seems that the absolution vending machine formerly known as Mother Theresa was feeling a bit poorly one day, so she rang up the local Damien Karras franchisee and washed those demons right out of her habit. So, if the forces of evilness can rent condo space in the soul of the mostest holy Mommy T, what chance do the rest of us poor mortals have?
posted by Optamystic (28 comments total)
 
My imaginary friend can beat up your imaginary friend.

Best. post. header. ever.
posted by jpoulos at 7:44 PM on September 5, 2001


After the exorcism was over, the archbishop said Mother Teresa "slept like a baby."

yuck!
posted by mcsweetie at 7:47 PM on September 5, 2001


Well... why is this a surprise?

What's the point of worshiping a God with NO power?

Not even to drive the Evil One out of the nice incredibly old Lady who keeps thousands of babies from starving...

Jehovah's followers prevailled over Pagans... at point of sword, yes, but... also because
of Love and:
cans of whoopass.
posted by crunchburger at 7:56 PM on September 5, 2001


Wasn't this posted earlier today, and then somehow deleted? I could swear that I saw it on here before. The headline was not nearly as cool though.
posted by donkeymon at 7:57 PM on September 5, 2001


Jehovah's followers prevailled over Pagans... at point of sword, yes, but... also because
of Love and:
cans of whoopass

Okay, I get the whoopass part. But are you telling me that the Crusades were just an early example of tough love?

"We had to destroy the village in order to save it" --General William Westmoreland
posted by Optamystic at 8:17 PM on September 5, 2001


Sigh...oh fine, I'll bite:
Exactly what has this woman done to warrant this kind of scorn? I'm no more likely to call for an exorcist than the next guy, but really, what's the point of that kind of outburst just to try and make yourself sound clever? You can do better.
posted by ChrisTN at 8:21 PM on September 5, 2001


*pictures Mother Theresa possessed*

*shakes head to clear images of elderly nun bent over backwards descending stair case like grotesque spider while using rosary as anal pleasure beads and chanting 'let Jesus fuck you!'*
posted by obiwanwasabi at 8:23 PM on September 5, 2001


I'm no more likely to call for an exorcist than the next guy, but really, what's the point of that kind of outburst just to try and make yourself sound clever?

Read the Christopher Hitchens article linked in the post. It should answer your question. Although, I am a sucker for trying to make myself sound clever, so.....

obiwan...save me a nice seat in Hell, willya? ;-)
posted by Optamystic at 8:27 PM on September 5, 2001


One spike or two, Optamystic? :)
posted by obiwanwasabi at 8:33 PM on September 5, 2001


Read the Christopher Hitchens article linked in the post. It should answer your question. Although, I am a sucker for trying to make myself sound clever, so.....

Well, I can be a sucker to throw in snarky comments, so my apologies for that. But the question still stands. The Hitchens interview does raise some needed questions (about all missionary activity; about uncritical acceptance of any public figure), but is coming from a position that will be biased against any religious worldview. I guess my point is that Mother Teresa, in allowing the exorcism to take place, was behaving consistently with her stated positions, without hypocrisy. And since the exorcism itself didn't hurt anybody, I'm not sure that should be the focal point for criticism.
posted by ChrisTN at 8:44 PM on September 5, 2001


ChrisTN (is that a pun-handle, or is it just one of those happy coincidences given the nature of this thread?): Well, the general criticism of Mother Teresa is [arguably] deserved; this particular article does have a pretty reverential and unchallenging tone about it, per usual embracing that western media myth that Mother T was at all admirable- hence the need to put in the opposing viewpoint.

I'm kinda torn on Hitchens. He's like a troubled but fiercely talented relief pitcher: when he's on, he's unhittable, but when he's off he's a walking disaster. Hitchens can do some mighty fantastic investigative journalism but can also do sloppy hatchet jobs (more so now than in years past- I think the guy's completely off the wagon and slowly going bonkers). I've read "The Missionary Position"- which I'd lump in the former category of "fantastic... journalism"- and it includes many more details than that interview, enough to realize that not only was Mother Teresa not such a holy woman, but in that bejeweled Catholic way a rather evil woman. Whether Hitchens is a secular humanist is irrelevent; he has shown respect for other religious leaders, but this particular religious leader needed much more criticism than she got.

The book generally paints a portrait of a woman who really wasn't all that holy or helpful- the people in her missions weren't being saved or helped, they basically were death houses where the poor and sick would lay there, getting surreptiously baptised even if they didn't want to be, while tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars poured into the coffers of Mother Teresa, Inc. Further, she embraced that sycophantic double standard of condemning the poor as meant to be poor, even celebrating their poverty and misery, while having a wholly different view and moral judgment for her wealthy friends- be they Princess of Wales, millionaire bilco artists, or third-world murderous dictators.
posted by hincandenza at 9:50 PM on September 5, 2001



chances are the irritability that mother teresa demonstrated were due to the medication given to her. fixing the doses probably would've had a greater effect. as far as we know, that's actually what happened -- did anybody ask the doctors?
posted by meep at 2:28 AM on September 6, 2001


the nice incredibly old Lady who keeps thousands of babies from starving...

Keeps babies from starving? More like "makes sure tens of thousands of babies are born into poverty and hunger". I'm sorry, but proclaiming to help the poor and then turninng around to condemn birth control is not only hypocritical, it's plain evil.
posted by kvan at 4:12 AM on September 6, 2001


I have no idea who this woman is (she's fresh googlejuice to me), but she explains here Why Mother Teresa Was Evil.
posted by pracowity at 7:31 AM on September 6, 2001


Well, I'm still torn on this subject. Lord knows that hagiography on anyone is never helpful, and often covers up immorality on all sorts of levels. And to the extent that some of these accusations are true, they are shameful. But there's still a lot of inconsistency in some of these arguments. In reading that Hitchens article again, for instance, he (rightfully) criticizes colonial Western attitudes in missionary activity such as Teresa's, while at the same time advocating the building of an "absolutely spanking new, modern teaching hospital," presumably built to Western standards and protocols of medical care. I guess I just felt a need to flash a warning signal before heading into this particular argument. And to say that my definition of "evil" must be more stringent than some others'.
posted by ChrisTN at 8:02 AM on September 6, 2001


Well, ChrisTN, in Teresa's defense she wasn't particularly deceptive- I mean, she didn't deny what her views were, or that the millions her organization collected in donations weren't even paying for basic antibiotics or sanitary conditions (although as her critics pointed out, when MT got sick with heart disease, she was treated at the best hospitals her ill-gotten money could buy). However, she didn't really make even the slightest effort to correct the media presentation of her, which was that she some kind of saving angel living in squalor who was pulling a Sally Struthers for all the suffering children in India, when in reality she'd be jetting around on her rich friends' private airplanes. Suffering like that I could with more of... A good- no, a great deal of the money raised for her organization, virtually inestimable in its hundreds of millions of dollars or so, was donated by people who figured she was bringing relief to the people of Calcutta, salving their wounds and giving her life to helping them. That, you see, was hardly the case. Bill Gates in a typical day does more to help the poor and sick around the world than Mother Teresa did in her misbegotten lifetime.

That Sarah Lawrence is a character; the TCS movement was referenced in a thread a few weeks ago about home-schooling, and she's certainly intriguing. Gonna have to check out more of her site...
posted by hincandenza at 12:40 PM on September 6, 2001



hincandenza, I would be interested in hearing how Bill Gates does more to help the poor and sick around the world than Mother Teresa ever did. Even with all of the criticisms toward Mother Teresa in this thread and Christopher Hitchens' article, I do not believe I am alone to disagree with your accusation.
posted by crog at 3:55 PM on September 6, 2001


Crog: Now that it has been established that despite the hundreds of millions of dollars raised by Mother Teresa, she wouldn't even splurge on basic antibiotics to save the lives of dying children in her missions; now that is has been established that medical experts who visited her "hospitals" couldn't figure out where the money was going because they were among the poorest they'd ever seen, grossly unsanitary, reusing needles and having little or perhaps detrimental medical benefit overall; now that you know this, consider the following:

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is [I believe] the largest charity endowment in the world, almost exclusively from Bill's own pocket with around $22 Billion Dollars; Gates has repeatedly said in the past that over the course of his lifetime he plans on giving virtually all of his vast fortune to this foundation. On a regular basis, grant money is dispersed to worthy causes, and Bill's goal with this foundation isn't as you might think just some self-serving faux "techie" charity like putting computers in every school. Rather, his focus is attempting to end the downward cycle of poverty and disease in third world countries that prevents them from achieving stability and prosperity, as well as funding educational initiatives at home and abroad. From Bill's own words:

Our focus on global health equity was born of a growing realization that many of the diseases that have been all but eliminated in this country, such as measles, kill and disable nearly 1 million children in the developing world each year. Our grant making is grounded in the belief that the death of a child in Africa is no less tragic than the death of a child in America, and the understanding that those of us who were born in rich countries have a fundamental responsibility to help those who weren't.

Improving health is key to reaching other development goals, such as reducing poverty. Some worry that by reducing the burdens and deaths caused by disease we may be inadvertently contributing to another serious problem: rapid population growth and high fertility. Actually, the reverse is true. Studies show that mothers voluntarily limit the number of children they have when they have confidence that existing children will survive. We need to empower women by providing voluntary family planning services to the 150 million women in developing nations who want to prevent or delay their next pregnancy, but lack access to contraception.

Some of his giving includes $750 million dollars to fund immunizations and inoculations for an estimated 42 million children in 68 countries, several hundred million (in various grants over the years) to fund AIDS vaccines, treatments, and education programs in Africa and other poverty stricken locations, a BILLION dollars (over 20 years) to the United Negro College Fund... and those are just some of the biggest grants. The list goes on and on and on and on, and you can check out the site to find more, so much more.

So yes, whatever you or I might think of Microsoft's business practices or their software programs, I do believe it's fair, reasonable, and justifiable to say that Bill Gates' charitable giving eclipses by an incalculable margin anything the Holy Momma has done, whether in total or even pro-rated to a daily basis. Quite frankly, I used to think of Gates as just another unfeeling overly geeky tech billionaire, albeit the most wealthy. I've come to have incredible respect for him, and for his maturation into someone who sees that his wealth and influence comes with a responsibility that he uses well. If Mother Teresa were still alive, she could learn a lesson from Bill Gates...
posted by hincandenza at 5:23 PM on September 6, 2001



I'm sorry, but proclaiming to help the poor and then turninng around to condemn birth control is not only hypocritical, it's plain evil.

Bravo, kvan!
posted by rushmc at 7:57 PM on September 6, 2001


I'm sorry, but proclaiming to help the poor and then turninng around to condemn birth control is not only hypocritical, it's plain evil.

"I'm sorry, but proclaiming to help wounded soldiers and then turning around to condemn the peace movement is not only hypocritical, it's plain evil."

Wanted: Logical contortionist who can navigate either of the above sans pratfall.

Mother Theresa was not a saint. Surprise, surprise, surprise. World kinda wishes she had been a saint. Surprise, surprise, surprise. World resists details of her demystification. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

In other eerie news, world is beginning to deify Bill Gates...

Why is almost *everything* a compelling argument for rapid and radical genetic engineering?
posted by Opus Dark at 9:17 PM on September 6, 2001


So I've had this theory for a while that Opus Dark is in fact clavdivs' alter-ego...
posted by hincandenza at 10:35 PM on September 6, 2001


So I've had this theory for a while that Opus Dark is in fact clavdivs' alter-ego...

Any theory which you can describe in less than two-hundred words is a good theory.
posted by Opus Dark at 11:02 PM on September 6, 2001


Mother Theresa was not a saint. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

The all-too-obvious irony of that statement is that she soon will be.
posted by jpoulos at 10:14 AM on September 7, 2001


hincandenza, I had no idea that Bill Gates was doing that. I am happy to hear that he is doing this. Yet the next question that I would have to ask would be whether giving $$$ (as I see this is something that you have emphasised in your post) is doing any more to help to poor and needy than Mother Teresa did. I am not Catholic. I recognize that this lady may have done some immoral things. Yet I also recognize that she spent years of her life among dieing children. She gave her time to them. If there is a difference in opinion on whether giving away your fortune or sacrificing your time does any better to help the poor and needy, I believe this would be a difference in philosophical opinion and values.
posted by crog at 9:17 PM on September 8, 2001


Well, crog- basically, yes I do believe that Gates' money is doing more than Teresa ever did, precisely because- as has been pointed out repeatedly by her critics and her in this thread- she did less than nothing for them! I'll be honest, it's kind of frustrating, actually, because you seem to not be getting this- it's not whether she's done some "immoral things" (meaning what, getting a blowjob from an intern?) it's that she didn't do anything to help people who were suffering! Giving her "time" wasn't to help them, as I discuss more below, and of no value except to herself and her Church.

While there's something to be said for compassion- literally speaking, a compassionate person actually puts themselves in the same situation as the person(s) for whom they feel compassion- and it's true that Gates doesn't a significant portion of his time among the poor of the world, it's not "compassion" to simply hang around poor people and exploit them for the glory of yourself and your Church. This is what Teresa essentially did: the hundreds of millions raised by her high-profile persona went to fund two things:

  1. Those Calcutta 'hospitals' that were so much a part of her fame yet were nothing more than pre-morgues where people went to die and get virtually no medical treatment, not even basic vaccinations or antibiotics- and some were baptised against their wishes while they lay weakened in their deathbeds.
  2. She built convents and missions in her name and for her own glory around the world, often run in very poor conditions. I believe it was in one San Francisco mansion she bought and turned into a convent that several of her nuns contracted TB over the winter because the conditions were so poor- easily fixed by money if Teresa didn't have this (sarah lawrence's apt diagnosis) Munchausen's by Proxy thing.

So basically what you have here is a woman who rode around in private jets owned by her friends (the Duvaliers and Charles Keating being two often cited examples), hung around with Princesses and Kings and Celebrities, and occasionally dropped in on her convents and hospitals for photo-ops where she used the dying and starving of the world- again, whom she wasn't helping- to bolster her image as this Catholic "saint".

You really should go to the library and read Hitchen's "The Missionary Position" for more information; the truth is this woman did no more to "help" the poor than the average person, perhaps less- since the average person doesn't have worldwide acclaim and piles of riches to do something- most average people, if they win the lottery, give something back to charity. Apparently Momma T was too good for that...

As for the "philosophical" issue of time v. money: Gates money is the best way for him to help; those millions and billions will ensure that tireless volunteers and charitable workers can do the great work they do, far more than Bill could ever do by getting on a plane and going there himself (although he does travel to these places and help out every now and then- he's not just handing over cash). But yes it's true, his money alone wouldn't be sufficient, since there need to be people to translate that money into real changes, to "spend time" with the downtrodden, and those people are every bit as heroic as Gates himself- I'm not saying otherwise. But a person like Gates can do a tremendous amount because he happens to have been blessed with the financial resources to make broad, organized change with one swoop of his check-signing pen. Here's the thing though; so was Teresa, yet she didn't do a fraction of what he does.

Finally, rather than compare Gates and Mother Teresa, what if I said instead that the average American does more to help the poor than Teresa did? Do you know see that what I and her critics are saying is that Teresa not only didn't help these people, she clearly exploited their suffering for her own glory without lifting as a much as a finger to aid them with the millions of dollars raised by those heart-rending photo-ops with her among starving brown children. Sure, she "spent time" with them, but on the whole those people would have been better off if she had just stayed at home and done nothing to "help" them.
posted by hincandenza at 11:40 PM on September 8, 2001



/me buys hincandenza a cold one.
posted by Optamystic at 11:14 AM on September 9, 2001


Cold one of what? :)
posted by hincandenza at 3:42 PM on September 9, 2001


Why, Blue Nun, of course.
posted by Optamystic at 8:42 PM on September 9, 2001


« Older Why does this sound like a bad idea?   |   Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments



Tags

Share