4 ms·

The current Edison mythbusting is actually very similar to the Mother Teresa mythbusting, in that it's a vast overcorrection to the veneration, and relies on a

The current Edison mythbusting is actually very similar to the Mother Teresa mythbusting, in that it's a vast overcorrection to the veneration, and relies on a lot of myths itself. Like you said, somebody can be a brilliant inventor and a shameless self-promoter. Edison was both engineer and executive. The Warhol comparison is pretty great.

DonHopkins 3y ago
What did Christopher Hitchens get wrong about Mother Teresa? Sounds like her veneration was a vast overcorrection of a terribly harsh reality, that people who are faith and fairytale based instead of fact and evidence based simply refuse to accept. Not even the highly but undeservedly venerated Elon Musk is known to have been involved in wrongly defending child sexual abusers, like Mother Teresa absolutely did (although he's certainly well know for accusing innocent people of being child molesters). And if you're actually against abortion, then it's pretty idiotic and counterproductive to also be against contraception and empowering women, don't you think? That just causes even more abortions and poverty and suffering, which is the height of hypocrisy. Unless causing poverty and suffering is actually your goal, which is exactly Hitchens' spot-on criticism of Mother Teresa. Hell's Angel (Mother Teresa) - Christopher Hitchens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJG-lgmPvYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJG-lgmPvYA >Christopher Hitchens investigates whether Mother Teresa of Calcutta deserves her saintly image. He probes her campaigns against contraception and abortion and her questionable relationships with right-wing political leaders. Is there anything factually incorrect or "vastly overcorrected" in the wikipedia article about her? If you have better facts with supporting evidence, then you should edit the wikipedia pages so they're correct, instead of just posting about it here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Criticism >Criticism >Main article: Criticism of Mother Teresa >According to a paper by Canadian academics Serge Larivée, Geneviève Chénard and Carole Sénéchal, Mother Teresa's clinics received millions of dollars in donations but lacked medical care, systematic diagnosis, necessary nutrition and sufficient analgesics for those in pain;[120] in the opinion of the three academics, "Mother Teresa believed the sick must suffer like Christ on the cross".[121] It was said that the additional money might have transformed the health of the city's poor by creating advanced palliative care facilities.[122][123] >One of Mother Teresa's most outspoken critics was English journalist and antitheist Christopher Hitchens, host of the documentary Hell's Angel (1994) and author of the essay The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (1995) who wrote in a 2003 article: "This returns us to the medieval corruption of the church, which sold indulgences to the rich while preaching hellfire and continence to the poor. [Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction."[124] He accused her of hypocrisy for choosing advanced treatment for her heart condition.[125][126] Hitchens said that "her intention was not to help people", and that she lied to donors about how their contributions were used. "It was by talking to her that I discovered, and she assured me, that she wasn't working to alleviate poverty", he said, "She was working to expand the number of Catholics. She said, 'I'm not a social worker. I don't do it for this reason. I do it for Christ. I do it for the church'".[127] Although Hitchens thought he was the only witness called by the Holy See, Aroup Chatterjee (author of Mother Teresa: The Untold Story) was also called to present evidence opposing Mother Teresa's beatification and canonisation.[128] >In 1994, Mother Teresa argued that the sexual abuse allegations against Jesuit priest Donald McGuire were untrue. When he was convicted of sexually molesting multiple children in 2006, Mother Teresa's defense of him was criticised.[129][130] >Abortion-rights groups have also criticised Mother Teresa's stance against abortion and contraception.[131][132][133] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa
- throw4847285 3y ago
  I recommend reading this Reddit post. https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/gcxpr5/saint_mother_teresa_was_documented_mass_murderer/ https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/gcxpr5/saint_mo...
  - rewmie 3y ago
    That Reddit discussion reads like a long-form strawman. I mean, you do not refute the statement that "Teresa ran hospitals like prisons, particularly cruel and unhygienic prisons at that" by answering "oh they were not hospitals, just homes where the dying and destitute were housed without care". You also do not refute the accusation that "mother Teresa withheld painkillers from the dying with the intent of making them suffer" by claiming that they didn't died on the street and those who did not died could eat a good meal and leave, or claiming that other hospitals on India were also not clean. I stopped reading that nonsense. It is a wall of text where none of Hitchen's observations were refuted or addressed.
    - check89 3y ago
      Pot calling the kettle black. Your comment proves you didn't read it. (You even admit as much, but felt obliged to post your tripe anyway!)
- exolymph 3y ago
  here's the de-debunking: https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/gcxpr5/saint_mother_teresa_was_documented_mass_murderer/ https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/gcxpr5/saint_mo...
  - DonHopkins 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - check89 3y ago
      Making yourself look unhinged is not helping your case.

DonHopkins 3y ago

What did Christopher Hitchens get wrong about Mother Teresa? Sounds like her veneration was a vast overcorrection of a terribly harsh reality, that people who are faith and fairytale based instead of fact and evidence based simply refuse to accept. Not even the highly but undeservedly venerated Elon Musk is known to have been involved in wrongly defending child sexual abusers, like Mother Teresa absolutely did (although he's certainly well know for accusing innocent people of being child molesters). And if you're actually against abortion, then it's pretty idiotic and counterproductive to also be against contraception and empowering women, don't you think? That just causes even more abortions and poverty and suffering, which is the height of hypocrisy. Unless causing poverty and suffering is actually your goal, which is exactly Hitchens' spot-on criticism of Mother Teresa. Hell's Angel (Mother Teresa) - Christopher Hitchens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJG-lgmPvYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJG-lgmPvYA >Christopher Hitchens investigates whether Mother Teresa of Calcutta deserves her saintly image. He probes her campaigns against contraception and abortion and her questionable relationships with right-wing political leaders. Is there anything factually incorrect or "vastly overcorrected" in the wikipedia article about her? If you have better facts with supporting evidence, then you should edit the wikipedia pages so they're correct, instead of just posting about it here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa#Criticism >Criticism >Main article: Criticism of Mother Teresa >According to a paper by Canadian academics Serge Larivée, Geneviève Chénard and Carole Sénéchal, Mother Teresa's clinics received millions of dollars in donations but lacked medical care, systematic diagnosis, necessary nutrition and sufficient analgesics for those in pain;[120] in the opinion of the three academics, "Mother Teresa believed the sick must suffer like Christ on the cross".[121] It was said that the additional money might have transformed the health of the city's poor by creating advanced palliative care facilities.[122][123] >One of Mother Teresa's most outspoken critics was English journalist and antitheist Christopher Hitchens, host of the documentary Hell's Angel (1994) and author of the essay The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (1995) who wrote in a 2003 article: "This returns us to the medieval corruption of the church, which sold indulgences to the rich while preaching hellfire and continence to the poor. [Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction."[124] He accused her of hypocrisy for choosing advanced treatment for her heart condition.[125][126] Hitchens said that "her intention was not to help people", and that she lied to donors about how their contributions were used. "It was by talking to her that I discovered, and she assured me, that she wasn't working to alleviate poverty", he said, "She was working to expand the number of Catholics. She said, 'I'm not a social worker. I don't do it for this reason. I do it for Christ. I do it for the church'".[127] Although Hitchens thought he was the only witness called by the Holy See, Aroup Chatterjee (author of Mother Teresa: The Untold Story) was also called to present evidence opposing Mother Teresa's beatification and canonisation.[128] >In 1994, Mother Teresa argued that the sexual abuse allegations against Jesuit priest Donald McGuire were untrue. When he was convicted of sexually molesting multiple children in 2006, Mother Teresa's defense of him was criticised.[129][130] >Abortion-rights groups have also criticised Mother Teresa's stance against abortion and contraception.[131][132][133] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa

throw4847285 3y ago
I recommend reading this Reddit post. https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/gcxpr5/saint_mother_teresa_was_documented_mass_murderer/ https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/gcxpr5/saint_mo...
- rewmie 3y ago
  That Reddit discussion reads like a long-form strawman. I mean, you do not refute the statement that "Teresa ran hospitals like prisons, particularly cruel and unhygienic prisons at that" by answering "oh they were not hospitals, just homes where the dying and destitute were housed without care". You also do not refute the accusation that "mother Teresa withheld painkillers from the dying with the intent of making them suffer" by claiming that they didn't died on the street and those who did not died could eat a good meal and leave, or claiming that other hospitals on India were also not clean. I stopped reading that nonsense. It is a wall of text where none of Hitchen's observations were refuted or addressed.
  - check89 3y ago
    Pot calling the kettle black. Your comment proves you didn't read it. (You even admit as much, but felt obliged to post your tripe anyway!)
exolymph 3y ago
here's the de-debunking: https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/gcxpr5/saint_mother_teresa_was_documented_mass_murderer/ https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/gcxpr5/saint_mo...
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - check89 3y ago
    Making yourself look unhinged is not helping your case.