Yes, Jim, if you're the one who makes the rules, I suppose you can set specifications. My point, however, is that we all have faults, and we all are associated one way or another with people who have horrible faults. Our own guilt, or our guilt by association, does not disqualify us from speaking.

For the most part, we're better off speaking logically and from the facts, and not from any authority we might claim. To attempt to refute somebody by saying he has no right to speak because he's guilty of something or associates with somebody who's guilty of something, is not a particularly convincing argument.

So, what was it we were talking about before you tried to discredit me because of my association with priests?

I forget.

Oh, yeah....it was something about a moral compass. I think morality is best determined by rational thought, not by the bleatings of conservative clerics. And I believe I am just as capable of rational thought, as the most atheistic of rationalists, or as the most rational of atheists. Playing games about who has moral authority is silly. If what I say makes sense, THAT has authority, no matter what guilt I might have to bear for the offenses of my priests..

-Joe Offer-