Someone Asked What I Thought

Someone asked what I thought about this piece by Sarabeth Caplin at the ironically called religion bashing venue, "The Friendly Atheist".  I will quote the entire thing so no one can accuse me of leaving anything out.

Sexual Predator Jeffrey Epstein Considered Becoming a Minister to Earn Trust

A year before convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein died of suicide, a writer for the New York Times met him at his cavernous Manhattan mansion to discuss a possible news story involving the car company Tesla.
Reporter James B. Stewart recalls one interesting anecdote that may or may not be true, but sheds some light into both Epstein’s mindset and a serious loophole with religious exemptions in the law.

At one point, after he became “radioactive,” he says a lot of his contacts didn’t want to be publicly associated with him, though they still asked for money and came to his private dinner parties. But Epstein wondered if there was a way to earn their trust once again:

… Mr. Epstein told me without any trace of irony, he was considering becoming a minister so that his acquaintances would be confident that their conversations would be kept confidential.

As we’ve talked about on this site before, priests who are told secrets under the veil of religion (like in a confession booth) are not required to report any wrongdoing to law enforcement. Epstein, a man with many secrets, figured that loophole could theoretically allow him to regain trust from colleagues who worried he might one day share what they told him.

 If it ever occurred, it would have been a cruelly smart move on Epstein’s part. Clergy members have a great deal of power and assumed trust. Epstein’s religious title could have lent him unearned trust, led to more people sharing their secrets with him, and even access to more underage girls. As we’ve seen from the recent revelations into his life, many of the people who surrounded him kept their silence in exchange for money or access. You have to wonder how much more serious his crimes could have been if he could use religion as another shield.

He never became a minister. But it says a lot that Epstein, a man who ruined a number of victims’ lives, felt like it was a role he could’ve adopted with ease if he wanted to. It’s not like you have to be a decent person to earn the title.

First, note that Caplin, herself, says that "the anecdote may or may not be true" which is to say the entire premise of her piece might be fictitious, not that that keeps her from plowing ahead as if it is true. 

Second, notice that everything she claims he could have gotten by going through the fiction of becoming a minister HE WAS ABLE TO DO AS A RICH WHITE MAN OF PRIVILEGE FOR DECADES AS THE RICH AND POWERFUL AND EVEN THE LAW KNEW HE WAS DOING IT.  IF YOU LIKE I'LL GO THROUGH THE LIST OF IDEOLOGICAL, ANTI-RELIGIOUS ATHEISTS, MANY OF THEM EMINENT SCIENTISTS WHO PARTIED AND FED OFF OF HIM AS THAT WAS AN OPEN NON-SECRET, AGAIN. 

If, as that was just beginning to mildly sting him on the butt he was thinking of rather stupid ways to get his mojo back it's not surprising that he'd go to the ploy of pretending to be a minister, something that is a direct product of the idiotic insufficiency of the Bill of Rights as written and interpreted which allows such fictions.  Jesus gave some very sound and useful methods for identifying false prophets, phony followers of his that are, clearly, beyond the capabilities of secular law to use.  The failure of Christians to apply them has always cost them dearly, as, in fact, this post by this semi-pro atheist hater of Christianity is another item in that list.   That is a fault of secular law, not of the Bible. 

It is remarkable that the semi-pro atheist also fails to note that James B. Stewart in that organ of the "free press" which is the New York Times would seem to have covered up this little bit of information about Epstein as he was interviewing him as part of financial reportage.   Forget the typical anti-Catholic exaggerations about the seal of confession being a cover up, the free press regularly covered up for him as did, I'll remind you, a host of celebrity atheists who traveled on the "lolita express" and partied and "conferenced" on Epstein's dime.  I wonder if there is a list of clergy who partied with him like that.  If there is, bring it out.  I have no problem with clergymen having to answer for their sins, or being judged on that basis, as Jesus recommended.

And note this, Epstein thought that he could use his status, not only to cover up for himself with people who would have to be massively gullible as to take him as a man of God,  but to entice the men he associated with in the cover-up world of elite, secular, criminality.  He figured that even as besmirched as he had made himself, he would be totally acceptable to such guys as he enjoyed being with, if he could use the legal fiction of him being a clergyman to regain their confidence.   If, and it is a big if, Epstein was so dumb as to figure he could benefit from that, it's a commentary on the secular world's manipulation of "religion" not religion that is at question.  Though you have to be smarter than an atheist to figure that out.  Like I said, atheism is not an intellectual ideology

This reminds me of a conversation I once had with a feminist who claimed all the problems women had with patriarchy were primarily the fault of "religion". I asked her if that were the case, if such patriarchal oppressors of women were primarily influenced by religion, why, so notably, so consistently, so constantly, that oppression consisted in exactly those things which are strongly forbidden and condemned by "religion".

Certainly the rape of young girls is forbidden by Christianity, adultery, fornication, prostitution, etc. the very substance of the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein are absolutely forbidden by Christianity, Jesus, in some of the most explicit  things he said about the consequences of sin, would have said Epstein would have been better off to have never been born, to have had a millstone tied round his neck and be drowned in the sea. 

It is such secularists who so often get round to calling for the lowering of ages of consent, the decriminalizing of various means by which men exploit women, children, other, less powerful men, by sexual exploitation as a glorious expression of "freedom" who are the natural place to turn to assign blame for someone who was living the libertine lifestyle that so many traditional secularists seemed to hold as some kind of paradise (for elite men and a few elite women).  

The world of Jeffrey Epstein and his high livin' high life buddies, his female associates isn't what is held out as good in any religion I know of.  I know of many a scribbler, script writer, movie maker, TV director who would want a share of that without violating their profession's standards.  The world of pre-second-wave feminism has never not reigned in the media and show, biz and the pro-scribbling industry as we have found from me-too.

I don't know of a single Christian or Jewish clergyman who would NOT be in obvious violation of their professions of faith in participating in it.  Jeffrey Epstein was living the dream life of a variety of male secularists, a Hollywood, TV white, rich male wet dream,  not much like a figure of religion. 

If Epstein floated the idea of becoming a mail order "minister"seriously, in one of the few things I will ever agree with Stephen Pinker on, Jeffrey Epstein wasn't brilliant, he was wily and skilled at taking advantage of other peoples' weakness.  

If he wasn't serious, it's clear he was taking such advantage of the weakness of so many New York Times scribbler types and those who go with such stuff. 

You want the law to tighten up the regulations so phony "ministers" and clergymen don't get away with it, I'd love to see the proposal to see if that can work because it would be really good for religion and the rest of us to get rid of the phonies.  It would be good for Christianity if only those who tried, hard to live up to the teachings they espouse had to to follow them to earn the status of clergy.  Only atheists and the enemies of the Gospel benefit when hucksters and frauds can get away with that. 

Update:  There I think I got rid of most of the HTML problems, the worst ones, anyway.  Blogger seem to be generating a lot of those for me these days.  I'm not going to touch that one paragraph for fear of screwing up the others.