(CBS) In life, Mother Teresa was an icon — for believers — of God’s work on Earth. Her ministry to the poor of Calcutta was a world-renowned symbol of religious compassion.
But now, it has emerged that Mother Teresa was so doubtful of her own faith that she feared being a hypocrite
In a new book that compiles letters she wrote to friends, superiors and confessors, her doubts are obvious.
According to her letters, Mother Teresa died with her doubts. She had even stopped praying, she once said.
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Bad Behavior has blocked 4732 access attempts in the last 7 days.
@25 – “And just because it was nuns running these places doesn’t mean everything was peaches and cream: they had to do things the Mother Teresa way, including making sure the residents were suffering, to bring them closer to Jesus.”
…care to provide a source ?
#4 “It really doesn’t matter what she felt, it matters what she did. She is the perfect example of someone who transcends religion by their acts. THAT is what we need to remember about her.”
Exactly! Well said!
I think of religion as software and if you don’t have software does the things you do stop….?
Cheers
@5
I watched the whole clip. I don’t really think a few 2nd hand accounts of people who briefly knew or were involved with Mother Teresa really qualifies as investigative reporting.
It may be true or may not be true, everything is relative.
Typically, it is not that difficult to find 5 or 6 people who agree with your point of view, interview them and portray that as the truth.
And typically, it is not difficult to make to publish information and then have a substantial number of the viewers believe what they are told at face value.
The answer? Who knows. I just know that a biased segment by Penn and Teller is probably not the best way to discover the truth any more than interviewing Steve Balmer is a good way to learn about Linux.
Seems to me like that one girl seemed to have a chip on her shoulder and the Penn & Teller segment hardly seemed neutral.
Zzzzzz.
By the way, to anyone who actually cares, the word about Mother Teresa is that she converted to Christianity only very late in life (40? 50?) and really was only nominally Christian. I’m not sure what her true religion was and really am not that interested to do the Googling to find out for this post.
Just a heads up.
#31, see the links at posts 5, 23, 25, and 27.
#33. Who says P&T are neutral? See post 19. And there are many more sources of this kind of information about M.T. See post #35.
In addition, my father is a minister (now retired) who had colleages who worked with MT at one point or another, and they were extremely bothered by her methods. They were upset that the media does not portray her in a very accurate light.
@36
I agree along of the lines of representing a point of view that the media does not normally portray.
It would not surprise me if her methods were not disturbing, perhaps part of this can be attributed to limited resources, fatigue, the strain of dealing with abject poverty or the strain of dealing with the behaviors of people who have had to live in abject poverty.
I guess even if all the above were truth, I tend to judge people in context of their times and circumstances. I mean, Jefferson owned slaves.
#37, her methods were pretty harsh. Follow the link at #25 to see what I mean.
# 34 I don’t know where you heard about her conversion but it’s wrong. She was raised a Catholic and become a nun at 18.
and as for speaking out against abortion and contraception…she’s a Catholic nun and that’s the position of that church so why is that surprising or particularly despicable because she followed the teaching of her faith? She didn’t exactly stand in the way of those who believed differently did she?
14 …but our faith is always subject to being tested.
Why?
Why does your God need to keep jerking you around?
He’s supposed to be loving and compassionate… not some insecure dweeb who needs constant reassurance…
14 …giving of ourselves in the service of something higher and better than we are…
The “giving of ourselves” part is great.
But why isn’t that enough?
Why does it have to be “in the service of something higher and better than we are”.
All religion boils down to: “It would really suck if this life is all we get”.
It’s not surprising. I have learned something new today.
At least we live in the age of YouTube and similar services, I do somehow think the ability to share videos will draw attention to things in this world that can be done better.
#39, the problem in this case is that MT’s message against abortion and contraceptives probably reached a huge number of people; people who are arguably in the worst position to be denied access to these services, and who would benefit the most; extremely poor, uneducated, and living in a third world country.
And she did “stand in the way” of those who believed differently, by not offering access to these services, and probably denying care to those who wanted them.
R O F L . . . . .Penn & Teller rock, nice to see peeps unafraid to call it as they see it with religion and religious figures. I am SOOOoooo sick of everyone kowtowing to religion in fear of maybe, possibly, offending someone, somewhere.
Its the 21st f**king century and we are STILL stuck with so many people and their ridiculous mythos oriented beliefs and magical thinking???? yikes. . .
And of course we all know the truth because we’re so smart, unbiased and have a complete perspective of the world and everyone in it. Sometimes we should smell what we’re shoveling….oh and wait for the ‘intelligent’ comments to come from this one….can’t wait.
Religion is all based on DOUBT. The ultimate sin is doubt, and thats a great way to keep folks trapped in a religion. They think the moment they doubt, they’re committing a grave sin punishable by hell. This happens to the most devout because they’re striving to be as perfect as possible, and the doubt slips in and they become trapped in their own devotion.
Thats why religion purports to give you “all the answers” because you aren’t allowed to doubt those answers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7R002kBjG8
I just had to!
…and what, pray tell, have YOU all done for the poor and destitute and dying. Try walking a mile in Mother Teresa’s shoes (DARE you!). The Indian Government itself heard complaints about her work by India’s own people and wanted them to shut her down, but when the Indian Government asked them the same question, they backed off, because, like you, they could never walk so tall or fit such shoes or cared enough to do anything about their “untouchables.”
This blog has totally lost it on this one
We talk about this why.j.hlkeeeeeaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrq… zap!
Religious Statement: Mother Teresa is a saint doings Gods work.
Religious Response: Amen.
Question: Is Everything Mother Teresa did above reproach?
Religious Respone: You are biased! Its not True. Its true but doesn’t matter. There is a bigger picture. What have you done. Look at her good work.
And so, complexity, shadings of meaning, inherent contradiction, fall to the wayside so that “doubt” can be avoided. Excellent post #45.
#37, HM
MT lived in contemporary times. That can not be an excuse. Instead of using her talents and persuasion to bring industry to the areas she “ministered”, she instead only promoted poverty and suffering. Whether this was inadvertent or purposeful I don’t know, but the effect is obvious.
#42, Skippy,
Amen brother. Lots of good posts.
#43, MaTa
Penn and Teller have a personal mission to expose frauds. Calling them biased is merely blaming the messenger for the message.
#45, Steve,
Amen brother.
#47, Barbara,
Ya, those effen child size 5s were hard to fit.
Just something for you to think about. Murder is the purposeful killing of a person. Manslaughter is the unintended killing of a person. Either way, the person is dead. However, a depraved indifference can turn manslaughter into murder.
I wish you people would stop referring to an atheist as though they belonged to some organized religion, following some old mythology and believing in supernatural beings.. They simply do not believe in illogical and silly old campfire tales. They do not have meetings, collect money to further some cause. They simply ignore you and your silly practice of old superstitious rituals.
In all these pathetic attempts here and other blogs to discredit religion, did you ever wonder why the non believers are the ones that keep trying? Always a, Aha,Evolution is true and here is why. Looky there, a phony Christian!
Who really has doubts about their beliefs?
#51 “I wish you people would stop referring to an atheist as though they belonged to some organized religion…”
To save time typing I clipped this from one of my other comments – with some editing. 😀
How people get the idea that atheists have a ‘religion’ or a “belief” of sorts is how they are defined. The common definition for atheists is “one who denies the existence of God’ and another is “practising atheist”. Both of these these imply an active activity on the part of the atheist to deny a God assumed by others to exist therefore active denial is required.
Some (but not all) atheists I know are completely apathetic about God. God or a belief in a God has no more influence in their life than a moth farting in China. There is no active denial at all, so when asked about God it’s generally a shrug of the shoulders and a “who knows huh?”. This is not active activity at all so the act of ‘denying’ or ‘practising’ cannot be applied.
Same as people previously messed up in life somehow become equally messed up in the God that ’saved them’ atheists do the same. It is these active atheists who are on a mission to ‘prove’ there is no God and when you die (fart sound) that’s it! This active activity of ‘denying’ and ‘practising’ and gets labelled as a belief and a anti-religion of sorts.
See how easy that works?
hhopper has the right idea when he commented he likes sitting back and enjoying the debate between Apple Macs and MS Windows – its entertaining. Same as the debate of God.
I suggest if you are an atheist understand that nothing can be proven either way to those who don’t want the ‘proving’. Same as people who are passionate about either Apple Macs or PCs there is never any proving of which is better.
Like Coke or Pepsi. Which is better? That depends on which one YOU like.
Who is the more the fool. the fool or one who argues with one?
Speaking of cola drinks I am guessing Apple Mac users favour Pepsi over coke. 😉
Me, I rarely drink soft drinks but I prefer Coke when I do.
Lets see a show of hands!
Cheers
As a young woman she was a stripper and a cocktail waitress too!
#53 – TIHZ_HO – There is no active denial at all, so when asked about God it’s generally a shrug of the shoulders and a “who knows huh?”.
That answer might indicate that they’re agnostic, not atheist.
MT is just another religious statue promoted by the RCC, who believe in praying to statues of dead people to cure gout.
53–Tihz–the contest between religion and reason is not the same as the preference between coke and pepsi or mac and PC==until the fan boys of one side put the other to death that is.
About Penn and Teller: The two of them are a disgrace.
You can bend any story to suit a perspective but to put an uncharitable spin on the work this and dedication single minded woman put into selfless service to the most destitute and dying brothers and sisters of us all, the people no one wants, no one cares about, and to put it into a comedy routine is unenlightened and beyond any form of decent taste. It is Pandering. These men, at their best, bring us all down to the lowest level of thinking and kindness is removed from the very first word.
Mother Theresa always said: “do simple works of kindness” . And she did. And we all know it. And those of us who watched and listened to her actions and words, we taught by example how to use our behavior for acts of kindness and love..and thus towards peace.
What would you call the words and actions of Pen and Teller?
I personally worked in Calcutta with Mother Theresa in her mission for the dying at Cali Ghat. The men I attended to were the poorest of the poor, cast offs left dying in the streets. A sign in the mission directed us to only take in a dying person if no other agency would. These people, some of them, had never a chance of ending their lives with someone to care for them and smile to them, to hold them, to feed them, to tend to their wounds, to give them a bath, to massage their skeletal bodies to soothe their anxiety for even a minute. Mother Theresa showed us the way to not avoid what our eyes saw, but rather, to see before us a reason to be all that we can be in our hearts.
How does a guy work with nuns?
#59 – Milo – How does a guy work with nuns?
Same as with any other woman… In, out, squirt, sleep…