>> ^Boise_Lib:

Well, this just confuses me.

It mostly made me chuckle. The Catholic church goes ultra-Keynesian in defense of social justice. Somewhere, there's a fleet of Ron Paul supporters whose heads just exploded.

As for the merits of the idea itself, I don't think we're at the point where a global monetary union would be useful. While the IMF doesn't have the same sort of dedication to social justice one would imagine a Papal Global Bank would have, it's not actually doing too bad a job given its limited resources and authority, and given the kind of ideological mindsets that tend to infest monetary institutions.

I'm also somewhat fascinated at the idea of the Catholic church putting out a statement about a need for expansionary monetary policy to ease poverty in the world. I wouldn't have expected such a scientific idea to come from them.

>> ^nanrod:

OK let's check the list.
Polish the pope
Spank the monkey
Choke the chicken
Bash the bird
Beat the meat
Jerkin the Gherkin
Tickle the pickle
Burp the worm
Charm the snake
Nope that's a new one.....adds Pets the Tortoise to list


Double-click your own mouse

Oh wait, that's for females. One finger for Mac users and 2+ for Windows.

OK let's check the list.

Polish the pope
Spank the monkey
Choke the chicken
Bash the bird
Beat the meat
Jerkin the Gherkin
Tickle the pickle
Burp the worm
Charm the snake

Nope that's a new one.....adds Pets the Tortoise to list

I had to pause to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me:

"religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes." - Pope Homophobe-don't-use-Condoms the 2nd

I simply cannot find a comment that suitably expresses the way I feel about this hypocrisy-laden absurdity.

>> ^Phreezdryd:

Why not just put a picture of the pope glaring at you on the package. And is this one of those places where some believe sex with a virgin will cure aids, leading to a high incidence of rape?


A majority of the rapes are by the militias in the jungles who do believe rape gives them magical protection, though they are more interested in protection from bullets than aids. Still, they recruit their child soldiers by addicting them to drugs and training them that the only way to survive any length of time is to strengthen themselves with the magical protections afforded from raping people.

If you'll remember the Rwandan genocide, there is a dirty little forgotten piece of it. Virtually 100% of the people that participated in that slaughter safely retreated in the jungles of the Congo where they still live and recruit to this day. They contribute in no small part to the human tragedy that is the Congo today.

Why not just put a picture of the pope glaring at you on the package. And is this one of those places where some believe sex with a virgin will cure aids, leading to a high incidence of rape?

thanks, my mistake (that'll teach me to blindly copy yt tags).

>> ^wormwood:

Maybe fix the tags. It's John Cleese and Eric Idle (with intro by Graham Chapman). No Gilliam on stage here.

>> ^Contagion21:

>> ^hpqp:
@ponceleon
The pope did recently reject human evolution though... I guess science really doesn't deal kindly with the whole anthropocentric human-worshipping that is at the basis of monotheism, which created god in man's image.

To clarify, he rejected random evolution. That is, that it could have occured naturally and without guidance. (See Dawkins writings on why evolution should never be considered "random" to begin with, but that's another issue entirely.) So, based on what I'm reading in that link, he's not saying we don't have a shared ancestry with other primates, just that IF we do, it's not a random occurance.
So catholics are still allowed to believe that evolution has occured, even for humans, they just have to accept that God is the driving force behind it.


Thanks for pointing this out and also thanks for actually reading the article, unlike (I suspect) the other 7 people who upvoted the original comment.

>> ^hpqp:

@ponceleon
The pope did recently reject human evolution though... I guess science really doesn't deal kindly with the whole anthropocentric human-worshipping that is at the basis of monotheism, which created god in man's image.


To clarify, he rejected random evolution. That is, that it could have occured naturally and without guidance. (See Dawkins writings on why evolution should never be considered "random" to begin with, but that's another issue entirely.) So, based on what I'm reading in that link, he's not saying we don't have a shared ancestry with other primates, just that IF we do, it's not a random occurance.

So catholics are still allowed to believe that evolution has occured, even for humans, they just have to accept that God is the driving force behind it.

@ponceleon

The pope did recently reject human evolution though... I guess science really doesn't deal kindly with the whole anthropocentric human-worshipping that is at the basis of monotheism, which created god in man's image.

Well this is the current Vatican position:

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=18503
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/06/us-pope-bigbang-idUSTRE7052OC20110106

Oh, wait, I forgot, those are the wrong kind of Christians... only Shinyblurry types know what's right and what's not!

In all seriousness, I just don't get why idiots have to close their eyes to the evidence that the world wasn't created 6000 years ago. FFS, just do what the Catholic church is doing and basically point out that the ultimate question of what caused it all to start is one that will likely always be a mystery. That I can respect.

Jesus and Robin Hood and Socrates, and any other popular figures from more than a couple of centuries ago, have their existence/non existence blurred with legends, stories and all sorts of stupid demented bullshit to the point where no one really knows what the story is. Anyone who claims to is lying.

You take the good stuff and kind of hope they were like that. Christianity is the selective filtering of some ancient stories from an uneducated diseased fearful superstitious population of people who rarely lived past 35, warped to suit the morality and power structure of a succession of morally dubious civilisations in which the ones with the big hats claiming to know more about what 'god' thinks are invariably FAR more like the self righteous fat ruling class who had Jeebs nailed up. If that actually happened. I mean , if Jeebs was real enough to drive a nail through - they certainly nailed up thousands in that time.

I mean what about the pope/nuns/monks/water into wine etc etc? That's not in the bible. People add, and remove, whatever they want to suit their purpose. They don't seem to be afraid of retribution for it, so either they have a HUGE ego (god will agree with me!) or they don't really believe in any of that shit. The pope sure as hell doesn't, or he'd clean up the Vatican bank sharpish.

Shiny may be bonkers but at least he's not wearing a silly hat in a golden city tricked from the poor and desperate, shouting at Africans that the fantasy god he has violently imposed on them will hate them for using Jonnies to stop Aids.



>> ^hpqp:

Well considering that the Jeebs is probably a fictional character altogether , it's not surprising that there is differences between the ways different authors imagined him to be.

I'm gonna step out here and defend the Puritans. In the early 17th century the Puritans in England were not happy with the Church of England (which they were a part of at the time). They saw that its reformation had not gone far enough, meaning, it was still way too close to Catholicism. Above all else, Puritans despised Catholicism, the Pope, and everything the Catholic Church did and they didn't want the Church of England to be anything close to it. When they tried to further the reforms within the Church of England, they were blocked. Though protestant, King James I refused to allow the reforms and told the Hampton Court that he preferred the status quo and that the monarch should rule the church through the bishops. The Puritans felt alienated by this move. In 1625, Charles I became king and he tried to dissolve Parliament entirely to neutralize his enemies, which included plenty of Puritans. This, coupled with the Thirty-Years War (Catholics vs. Protestants), which had over 8 million casualties, now being in full-swing prompted the Puritans to flee to the New World.

The Puritans weren't trying to establish a religiously free society. Roger Williams, who wanted separation of Church & State, was banished and founded Rhode Island. However, the Puritans did want their own society where they weren't underneath the authority of the monarch, the Church of England and where they didn't fear for their lives because of what they believed.

You know the current pope said that intelligent design doesn't belong in the classroom.

Oh wait, he's the wrong kind of Christian... my bad. I thought skydaddy would have some consistency in those delivering his message.