Question:
If anything qualifies as a no-brainer, it would seem to be honoring Mother Teresa of Calcutta on a stamp.?
Dr. Patrick
2010-01-30 02:50:44 UTC
I would like to know why anyone would care about this? I mean Mary, the Mother of God is on a stamp every Xmas since 1960 and I never heard anyone B and M about that. Why would anyone care? This woman helped humans, so what is she was a Nun.

So my questing is why is the The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a leading atheist organization that is organizing a boycott and letter-writing campaign against the stamp???

Previous postal honorees with obvious religious identities include Malcolm X, the former chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1986, the Post Office issued a stamp in honor of Father Edward J. Flanagan, founder of Boys Town, that is still widely used.
Six answers:
YY4Me
2010-01-30 03:00:25 UTC
"Mother" Teresa was a fraud. She thought that human suffering was "beautiful." Not her own suffering, of course. She had the best medical care money could buy.

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http://www.machineslikeus.com/cms/mother-theresas-mixed-legacy.html

[Excerpt]



"This conception of the poor is Mother Teresa's stock-in-trade: 'I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot...I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.' "

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http://www.slate.com/id/2090083/

[Excerpt]



"Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT: Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions."

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http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=shields_18_1

[Excerpt]



"When Mother spoke publicly, she never asked for money, but she did encourage people to make sacrifices for the poor, to 'give until it hurts.' Many people did - and they gave it to her. We received touching letters from people, sometimes apparently poor themselves, who were making sacrifices to send us a little money for the starving people in Africa, the flood victims in Bangladesh, or the poor children in India. Most of the money sat in our bank accounts."

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http://www.salon.com/sept97/news/news3970905.html

[Excerpt]



"What about her celebrated concern for the poor and the weak? Here the record is much murkier than her saintly image would suggest. I have been shown testimony from leading American and British physicians, expressing their concern at the extremely low standard of medicine practiced in her small Calcutta clinics. No pain killers, syringes washed in cold water, a fatalistic attitude toward death and a strict regimen for the patients. No public accounts were made available by her 'missionaries of Charity' but enormous sums are known to have been raised. The income from such awards as the Nobel Prize is alone enough to maintain a sizable operation. In one on-the-record interview, Mother Teresa spoke with pride of having opened more than 500 convents in 125 countries, 'not counting India.' It seemed more than probable that money donated by well-wishers for the relief of suffering was being employed for the purpose of religious proselytizing by the 'missionary multinational.' "

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http://website.lineone.net/~bajuu/

[Excerpt]



"In December 1984, three and a half thousand people died in Bhopal from inhaling toxic gas, leaked by the multinational giant Union Carbide, in the worst industrial accident the world has ever seen. The number of people actually affected cannot be logged as the effects are long-standing and future generations would probably continue to suffer.



"Mother Teresa, whose post-Nobel reputation within India was then very high indeed, rushed in to Bhopal like an international dignitary. Her contribution in Bhopal has become a legend: she looked at the carnage, nodded gravely three times and said, 'I say, forgive.' There was a stunned silence in the audience. She took in the incredulity, nodded again, and repeated, 'I say, forgive'. Then she quickly wafted away, like visiting royalty. Her comments would have been somewhat justified if she had sent in her Missionaries of Charity to help in any way. But to come in unannounced, and make an insensitive comment like that so early on, was nothing short of an insult to the dead and suffering. In the wider world however, her image became even more enhanced, as she was seen even more like Jesus Christ, who would turn the other cheek, although in this instance the cheek was not hers. People in Bhopal were not amused; it is said that the only reason Mother escaped being seriously heckled was by dint of being an elderly woman."

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http://www.textbookleague.org/95mthrt.htm

[Excerpt]



"Lincoln Savings and Loan eventually collapsed, and in 1992 Keating was brought to trial in Los Angeles. Mother T then sent to the trial judge a letter in which she sought clemency for Keating and exhorted the judge to 'do what Jesus would do.' The judge didn't reply, but a deputy district attorney, Paul Turley, did. After Keating was convicted of fraud, Turley wrote to Mother T and pointed out that the money which she had received from Keating was, in fact, money that Keating had stolen. Turley then urged Mother T to ask herself what Jesus would do in such a situation, and he offered to help her return the money to its rightful owners. He never got an answer."

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http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/312/7022/64/a

[Excerpt]



"... She has received hospitality, awards, publicity, and money from numerous people with overt political motives or dubious business histories: Robert Maxwell; the Duvaliers; the Reagans; Margaret Thatcher; and Charles Keating, the great American swindler. When Keating
?
2016-09-21 16:05:44 UTC
It's visible that Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X had been Americans. Why must Mother Theresa be on an American stamp??? Certainly there ought to be Catholic Americans who might be honoured with a stamp.
Innocent Victim
2010-01-30 04:42:17 UTC
ONLY a "no-brainer" would think to honor Mother Teresa. She is undeserving, by the accounts I've read.

And Malcolm X and Dr. King were recognized as civil rights leaders, not as religious leaders. Flanagan was recognized for his work with kids, of course. All three of them deserved it, IMO.
Falux
2010-01-30 02:56:38 UTC
Mother Theresa on a stamp is an issue?



Man, I wish I had that kind of problems, and so do many others these days, I guess.
anonymous
2010-01-30 02:56:59 UTC
you make an interesting and valid point, but look at their name, The Freedom From Religion Foundation." it's happening everywhere, like in some courthouses with the 10 Commandments on display, and so forth. from what Jesus said, this persecution is to be expected. some people hate God and make it their life's work to try and eliminate Him. it's sad and pathetic, i know.
pyjamatop
2010-01-30 02:54:19 UTC
Don't people have anything better to do with their time?


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