Men of the cloth. - Jesus fuckin christ

[PollyannaFlower46]

And where did God come from? Did he just sudeenly appear with groovy powers?

I think it was Descartes (who bored me to tears and made no sense) that explained god as the unmoved mover....yea okay....he just popped outta no where and no one created him....sure.... God was good a long time ago before there was science to explain things and no laws to keep people in line, but the idea has out lived it's purpose.

[crx girl]

yeah, what sluggo and gonzo said

[OAS]

every other month we had rollerskating with the bishop parties.

Seeing as the bishop can only move diagonaly, that had to have been a hoot to watch on an oval skating rink. :roflmao:

[Lord Reefer]

First off it’s totally wrong and morally reprehensible to use your position to abuse anybody. I am just very suspicious that ….at this moment in time…..that all these priest abuse stories are surfacing…..

….as I respond to this topic I recall the notable German philosopher words …. “without God all things are possible”…..unfortunately I can’t spell the Philosophers name……but those of you can will also remember his motivations….

….I suppose I’ll take some heat for this but I suspect what were seeing here is the Machinations of evil at work here. People today just don’t understand the relationship of good v. evil and the power of temptation.

[Ken'sPen]

I got suspicious about all those alleged "shark attacks" that we heard about.
I think they were just attentions starved tourists.
sharks don't bite people
and pedophile priests don't rape little boys.

[Arthur Dent]

Wow, where do I start?

First a little history lesson.

When the apostles first went out to start preaching, they gathered groups around them and told all the stories to their followers. Everything was passed on in an oral tradition. The apostles genuinely beleived that the Second Coming would be in their lifetime. So, they didn't bother writing anything down. It was only as the apostles started dieing or being martyred that their followers started writing everything down. It was collected until years later and then was VOTED on by a collection of Bishops.

For the first couple hundred years, it was NOT organized. There were no priests, bishops, etc. Just knowledgable people who knew all the stories. People would gather on Sunday for a big dinner at someone's house where the knowledgable person would tell stories and they would all DEBATE the meaning. (A LOT of those knowledgable people were women.) And they would "break bread" as Jesus had shown them to do. That was it. That was the whole religion.

It was only later as it grew that men sought to use and control it. They banned women from being priests and bishops and "organized" everything. And they decided what books did and did not get into the bible. The ones that were rejected can be found in the Agnostic Gospels. Including the gospel of Mary Magdeline that claims Jesus MARRIED her and they had kids.

Now, as for priests not marrying, that was started by a guy who spent his youth drinking and screwing everything in sight. Then he got older, felt guilty, converted to Christianity and decided since it was bad for him to drink and screw noone else should either. He started the whole "sex is bad" movement and made the priesthood and nuns celibate. He would have made everyone celibate, but even he realized if your followers don't have kids, then there is no next generation of followers and you'll scare away new followers. Thank you, Saint Thomas Aquinas.

And just to fill everyone is, there IS a psychological screening for the priesthood. The screening is done BY PRIESTS who have degrees in psychiatry. You can easily see the conflict of interest there. "We're running out of priests, so don't reject anyone without a damn good reason."

If you look back at the last attempt to revolutionize the church, the last pope wanted to go MUCH further. There were rumors that the changes included letting priests marry, permitting contraceptives, and stuff like that. Then the guy died and we ended up with the current pope.

Pope John Paul II is great for international diplomacy, but lousy on reform. Why? Because he was a priest in Poland during Nazi occupation. The Nazi's tried to stamp out religion and he, along with other priests, resisted strongly. That kind of situation breads fundamentalism.

As for the value of religion, even Napolean saw it. The French Revolution BANNED religion and forcibly kicked it out of France. Napolean brought it back for it's value as a source for morals, ethics, and pacification of the populace.

For all of religions faults, the ethics and morals presented in the pure form of ALL religions have provided a foundation for civility and a better quality of life. It doesn't take a genious to see the value of the Ten Commandments to every day life even without the religious context.

As for me, well, I'm still debating the issue with myself. Probably never come to a satisfactory conclusion.



Edited By Arthur Dent on April 15 2002 at 08:22

[Arthur Dent]

Some people like to say if women were in charge there would be fewer wars. WRONG!
Women have started a shit load of wars. Just look at Bloody Mary in England (religious war again) and plenty of tribal wars in Europe pre-christiantity and in African where machriarcal tribes were very common.

One philosophy I always liked was the idea of looking at every religion humanity has ever followed and finding the common threads between them all. Because you'll either find the most fundamental truths about humanity or you'll find the purest message from whatever created the universe that has been diluted, perverted, and abused by the creation of "organized" religion.

[Luna]

For all of religions faults, the ethics and morals presented in the pure form of ALL religions have provided a foundation for civility and a better quality of life. It doesn't take a genious to see the value of the Ten Commandments to every day life even without the religious context.

I can understand that. There was a time when I was quite fascinated with all kinds of religions and different cultures, so I did some exploring on my own. Every religion has it's positive aspects and negative points. I take what I like and leave the rest. The religions I became skeptical about were the ones that claimed to be the ultimate answer to life and then trying to force that will upon others. In many ways I feel this has been responsible for many, many conflicts on this planet.

Will it ever be perfect...hell no. If you are looking for perfection you've come to the wrong planet.

[Ken'sPen]

I think the values of religion are usually very good.
and if properly applied valuable.
It is just that the church, temple etc. become very institutionalized and ultimately seem more concerned with the business of religion than of the message itself.

[JIMMYSNUKA]

Hey..I have anal beads with a cross hanging from them. do they count as rosary beads? if so...does that mean im a priest?

OHHHH HOLY HOLY HOLY LORD........GOD OF POWER AND KID TOUCHING.....LICK MY TAINT......YOU THINK THATS WINE?......NOPE, IT AINT.

[OAS]

For the first couple hundred years, it was NOT organized. There were no priests, bishops, etc.

Then who molested the children in those days? :clueless:

[Sluggo]

You did.

[IkeaBoy]

If you look back at the last attempt to revolutionize the church, the last pope wanted to go MUCH further. There were rumors that the changes included letting priests marry, permitting contraceptives, and stuff like that. Then the guy died and we ended up with the current pope.

The guy didn't just die, he was assassinated.

[Sluggo]

By who?

Could it have been...SATAN?!?!

[AdolescentMasturbator]

Religon corrupts the state. And the state corrupts religon.

As for Bonaparte unbanning religon in France I'm not sure it was him. I think it was the ruling executive council called "the Directory" that took over after Robespierre and the rest of the Committee of Public Safety were forcibily removed.

Christianity was your normal Jewish cult(hundreds of similar ones at that time). It held many of the same Jewish traditions such as Passover. But as it spread out it degenerated into a terrible monster. It truly turned for the worse when Constantine made it the official Roman State religon.

Constantine called for the Council of Nicea. In it many of the doctrines that we know today were made such as celibacy. There was also a certain sect of Christianity to be divine and human at the same time(I think my memory is vague on this part). Constantine banished two bishops who suscribed to this.

Constantine is viewed by many as a great man who brought Christianity to the masses. But in fact he was still a Pagan until his deathbed when he FINALLY converted. He was notably anti-Jewish because he viewed the Jews as a pestilence so he wanted to remove anything distinctly Judaic from Christianity. This is when the seeds were planted for the Catholic Church of the Dark Ages to spiral into an abyss of hypocrisy, lies, ambition, murder, and corruption.

[IkeaBoy]

The mafia actually Sluggo. Vatican banking was questionable, he wanted to make things right and they killed him. REad abotu it here

[fbd]

i tend to stay out of these religious arguements because they never accomplish anything, but i just have to correct a few minor facts

Now, as for priests not marrying, that was started by a guy who spent his youth drinking and screwing everything in sight. Then he got older, felt guilty, converted to Christianity and decided since it was bad for him to drink and screw noone else should either. He started the whole "sex is bad" movement and made the priesthood and nuns celibate. He would have made everyone celibate, but even he realized if your followers don't have kids, then there is no next generation of followers and you'll scare away new followers. Thank you, Saint Thomas Aquinas.

that was either augustine or ambrose(i forget which).they were both old bishops back in the first millenioum.aquinas was killed by henry VIII, much after the cellibacy stuff

There was also a certain sect of Christianity to be divine and human at the same time(I think my memory is vague on this part). Constantine banished two bishops who suscribed to this.

the arians/arianism(not to be confused with the nazi aryian race).they said that jesus became god when he was baptised in the jordan and stopped being god when he was out on the cross.the regualr christian doctrine is that jesus is both fully man and fully god at the same time, all the time

[windowlck]

Q: What's the difference between a Catholic Priest and acne?

A: Acne doesn't cum on a boys face until he's 13

[Sluggo]

Did I forget these? [Church Lady][/Church Lady]

[IkeaBoy]

No, I got the reference. I just like showing off my knowledge of assassinations.