Good news, aspirants! The Vatican no longer requires you to give up sex to become a priest; only sex with adults!

bareboards2, your arguments all, may be condensed into one barrel of the same bilge.
Inflammatory rhetoric tinctured with convenient appeals to some idyllic world where assholes don't exist.

How bout some wake-up news from June of this year?? Hugo (Penn's best buddy) Chavez, cocksucking "president" of Venezuela, did what all great "leaders" do when they want no dissent and a country full of obedient and easy-to-control automatons:
-Outlawed all private ownership of guns, except of course for the military, the police, and certain private security monkeys. Their judicial system is total shiet, do some reading-up on how completely fucked it really is-

He's been in office since 99', "elected" once again by "popular" vote (give me a break), and if cancer doesn't kill him he'll probably die in office.

Guns are not the problem, society in decline, culture in decline, morality, ethics out windows, retarded ego-maniacal control-freak paranoids asshole douchebags in power..THIS is a much more pressing problem that mentally-retarded idgits raised by the developmentally-disabled twisting-off and going on killing sprees. If this recent shit happened in Inglewood or South-Centra-LA, there would not be a national uproar. It happened in a hamlet in Connecticut and the kid was living in his out-to-lunch, survivalist mother's home that was loaded with a massive collection of guns.

Didn't some Chinese guy twist \-off a few months ago and walk into a school and kill about 30 kids....WITH A FUCKING KNIFE!!?? Crazy fucks are the problem sir, firearms in their hands simply let's them reach-out and touch someone else with crazy. SO, keep guns in the hands of citizens with judgement and restraint and sound minds...Or go live in some shit-hole where only cops, soldiers, and officers of the King have weapons...How about Vatican City?? Bet that place is safe enough for ya??

Sorry Maynard, keeping my guns until I expatriate to a country without retarded fuckers being bred like tadpoles!

How about Superman: Superstar

He grows a beard; wears red sandals; swaps the big S for a big J; then goes to the Vatican and trolls the Pope.

It's not that there is a 'war' on... it's that there are a bunch of non-scientists walking around saying they're 'creation scientists'.

Many creation scientists have advanced degrees and have published many papers. Why aren't they scientists? What makes a scientist a scientist?

You're absolutely correct, there is no research being done on 'young Universe'... but there is also no science being done to prove 'old Universe'. Science is done by taking small bits of knowledge that have little gaps, and filling those gaps in. We didn't figure out the half-life of Rubidium in order to prove the age of the earth, we figured out the half-life of Rubidium to figure out the half-life of Rubidium. Some other scientists had taken measurements of the natural occurrence of elements and their isotopes in various parts of the world. And then more scientists apply the knowledge acquired in both fields and try to find out what it tells us.

There was a very concerted effort, especially during the 19th and 20th centuries to come up with evidence for an old age of the Earth to support the ideas of uniformitarian geology and macro evolution. There was an ideological war going on, just as there is today, between those secular scientists who wanted to establish their own secular idea of origins to undercut the account of biblical creation. Up until that point, all geologists were flood geologists. Now a days, you're right, they are resting on their laurels, because as I said it has become conventional wisdom, which is not science but philosophy.

I agree, you absolutely should question scientists with an agenda, but I've NEVER heard a non-christian suggest that there is scientific evidence for the earth being younger than 4-5 billion years old.

I grew up in a secular home with a great love for science, and I very activiely pursued studies in astronomy and biology. In all of my studies, I never heard so much as a peep about the controversy. There is an information filter on this subject, and it had kept me in the dark about the whole thing most of my life.

You want to cast doubt on scientists by saying that there are millions of dollars and reputations on the line, but this reasoning is more destructive if you aim it at the young-earthers: Their religion has made explicit claims as to time-spans that occurred 'in the beginning'... their religious leaders have made explicit claims as to the literalness of the Bible. And most church leaders have been explicit that other denominations of Christians may not be allowed into heaven... So you have a large group of individuals who are not only risking their reputation, but what they believe is their eternal soul, on something that they didn't discover, but have worked backward to find evidence to prove that their book is correct.

None of this has anything to do with the question of salvation. The conflict you're seeing is coming from a liberal movement within the church which tends to embrace secular values and rejects traditional interpretation of scripture. As numbers go, it is a small amount of people. As a recent survey shows, the majority of Americans (ie 46 percent) believe in creationism:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/americans-believe-in-creationism_n_1571127.html

These views get overreprented in the media by liberals sympathic to their causes. It gets presented in such a way that it looks like it is the majority view when it is actually the minority view.

As far as what Creation scientists have to lose..not much. They already lost much of what they had to lose by becoming a creation scientist in the first place.

Young-earthers each, individually, have much more to lose than scientists. And let's be clear... religions have enough money to staff up scientific R&D labs and fund their own research if they wanted. In fact, the Vatican DOES have it's own, world-renowned observatory. So, how old does this Priest thing the Universe is?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OwWqrXGtrRs#!

I don't agree with the catholic church on practically anything, let alone this.

So, to be clear, it's not Scientists vs. Christians. It's Scientists AND Christians vs. People Who Don't Trust Science.

It's actually the wisdom of God versus the wisdom of man.

And I expect this. Christians have long fought against persecution, and it thrived while it was being persecuted. Now that it's the dominant religion, many of the teachings have lost their luster. Members who believe that the Bible has something personal to say to them will pick up on the persecution aspect, which was intended to help those in the year 200AD... not 2012. So they make up bogey-men and pick a fight with anyone who says something that isn't explicitly allowed in the Bible (and is convenient for them)... hence the anti-Gay-Marriage protests, but no anti-shellfish protests.

Over 200 thousand Christians are martyred every year for their faith, all over the world.

You're a product of your environment, shinyblurry... you're as predictable as Islam producing suicide bombers... and just as pathetic in your misunderstanding of the Universe.

All I'll say to this is that ad hominem attacks reveal more about your character than they do mine.

It's not that there is a 'war' on... it's that there are a bunch of non-scientists walking around saying they're 'creation scientists'.

You're absolutely correct, there is no research being done on 'young Universe'... but there is also no science being done to prove 'old Universe'. Science is done by taking small bits of knowledge that have little gaps, and filling those gaps in. We didn't figure out the half-life of Rubidium in order to prove the age of the earth, we figured out the half-life of Rubidium to figure out the half-life of Rubidium. Some other scientists had taken measurements of the natural occurrence of elements and their isotopes in various parts of the world. And then more scientists apply the knowledge acquired in both fields and try to find out what it tells us.

I agree, you absolutely should question scientists with an agenda, but I've NEVER heard a non-christian suggest that there is scientific evidence for the earth being younger than 4-5 billion years old. You want to cast doubt on scientists by saying that there are millions of dollars and reputations on the line, but this reasoning is more destructive if you aim it at the young-earthers: Their religion has made explicit claims as to time-spans that occurred 'in the beginning'... their religious leaders have made explicit claims as to the literalness of the Bible. And most church leaders have been explicit that other denominations of Christians may not be allowed into heaven... So you have a large group of individuals who are not only risking their reputation, but what they believe is their eternal soul, on something that they didn't discover, but have worked backward to find evidence to prove that their book is correct.

Young-earthers each, individually, have much more to lose than scientists. And let's be clear... religions have enough money to staff up scientific R&D labs and fund their own research if they wanted. In fact, the Vatican DOES have it's own, world-renowned observatory. So, how old does this Priest thing the Universe is?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OwWqrXGtrRs#!


So, to be clear, it's not Scientists vs. Christians. It's Scientists AND Christians vs. People Who Don't Trust Science.

And I expect this. Christians have long fought against persecution, and it thrived while it was being persecuted. Now that it's the dominant religion, many of the teachings have lost their luster. Members who believe that the Bible has something personal to say to them will pick up on the persecution aspect, which was intended to help those in the year 200AD... not 2012. So they make up bogey-men and pick a fight with anyone who says something that isn't explicitly allowed in the Bible (and is convenient for them)... hence the anti-Gay-Marriage protests, but no anti-shellfish protests.

You're a product of your environment, shinyblurry... you're as predictable as Islam producing suicide bombers... and just as pathetic in your misunderstanding of the Universe.

Hey, @shinyblurry, do you even know what Pat Robertson is referencing here?

Some guy added up all the begats in the Bible and worked his way back to Adam and Eve. That is your biblical basis? That is what you would have to "compromise scripture" in order to accept an older age?

Oh dear.

Well, I shall take comfort that Pat Robertson is not rejecting science, and that the Vatican has priests devoted to studying actual science, and let you and your fellow "believers" have your "beliefs."

Oh dear.

Well, don't forget about peer review. That's the crucial thing that sets science apart from religion. No hypothesis becomes a theory until it's been road tested like a motherfucker. Since religion relies on "revealed wisdom," it can't possibly hope to keep up.

For instance, did you know that Galileo might have been wronged back in 1632 when he was ordered to stand trial in Rome for heresy?...and that this was revealed to the Pope...in 1992??

That's correct, it took 360 years for the Vatican to admit that the earth is not the center of the cosmos. Granted, there wasn't a lot of peer review happening in 1632...but it did happen eventually. More importantly, it happened in spite of religion, not because of it.

So with religion's impressive track record of getting it wrong, and more impressive foot-dragging, why should they be the authority about the age of the cosmos? Or condom use? Or homosexuality? They have proven themselves quite unable to do so.

Science is the one with the winning track record, fuckers.

Warning, extremly angry rant follows. this was my hometown and goddamnit I am fucking pissed off.

So yes, welcome to Ireland, where they actually tried to stop a raped teenager from leaving the country on the off chance that she might get an abortion! Google the "X Case"

Ireland, where haemophiliacs infected with aids from tainted blood weren't allowed have condoms so they could have sex with their own wives.

Where divorce was illegal until the mid 90's.

Seriously, as @hpqp said, fuck the Catholic Church. If you want to believe in an imaginary friend, fuck it, go nuts, but I cannot understand how anyone could continue to support such a morally bankrupt institution. The WBC are bad, but they're just fucking redneck idiots. The Catholic Church right now is being investigated in Australia. Not because they raped kids, but because they helped the rapist priests move to other parishes, dioceses, even other countries so they could keep being the evil fucks they are.

And I don't want to hear about missionaries or hospitals or whatever. It doesn't balance out. You can do good without the church.

@Yogi, you want to invade somewhere, bomb some white people?
Vatican City, bro. Nuke the fuckers

3 guys who randomly swear a lot... in Scotland? Seems the perfect country for them to fit in.

I'd like to see them get their own travel show where they take holiday to visit other places - lets make a list. Start with Vatican City. Perhaps Zack can join them.

Works okay!

I tried to post something from Colbert and kept getting rejected.

Yours at least posted!


In reply to this comment by hpqp:
http://videosift.com/video/Colbert-Radical-Feminist-Nuns-Reprim
anded-by-Vatican

Could you tell me if this is working in the US? For some reason VS is not accepting the embed from colbertnation.com, so I posted it from here blindly. Thanks a billion!

You've apparently missed all those Russian driving videos or ANY Japanese game show. Or almost every single press release from Vatican City. I could seriously go on all night. But you get my point.

>> ^Dread:

>> ^deathcow:
>> ^G-bar:
im just flabbergasted at how the U.S. is an empire with a population such as this...


Yeah ALL Americans are like this, and NOBODY from other countries, weird eh

It is strange that the vast majority of videos demonstrating the intellectually challenged and their points of view tend to originate from the good old U.S. of A. Perhaps it has something to do with a lack of educational funding over the past few decades, or a complete disregard for quality education and a belief that education can be formed around some mythological views.
I guess every village has its idiot(s)... I lost my village a long time ago

>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^VoodooV:
Yeah I got no problem with the idea of a creator. There are plenty of science fiction stories that assert the premise that humanity is a created species. But you do have to prove that it exists if you want public policy to be based on a creator, and not only that, you have to prove that this creator agrees with your viewpoint/religion. None of which has been done. God is not an American, nor is he a Republican.
Till then, I'll throw my lot in with things that actually can be demonstrated and repeated.
It's fun to theorize and speculate on what a creator wants, but it really needs to be left out of civilized, adult matters of importance where lives and liberty depend on the outcome.

I wouldn't expect you to believe we should follow biblical morality unless you already believed in the God of the bible. This is what is written:
1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned
I understand that this country is going in a secular direction, but I think any student of history would have to acknowledge that it has a Christian background, and was founded on those principles. If you want to disagree with that, that's fine, and I am not going to argue the point. It's not really about what our public policy should be, to me. Humanity has been in constant rebellion since the Creation began, and this isn't going to change while we are still allowed to govern ourselves. The nation of Israel, after seeing Moses part the red sea, and countless other miracles, fell into apostasy and worshipped idols during the short time it was waiting for Moses to return from Mt Sinai. It's not about evidence, because He has given it to us. It is that there is no limitation to the wickedness of the human heart. I'll direct you to my previous post for further illumination of this point.


And what you need to acknowledge, sir, as a self-proclaimed student of History is that is that Christianity meant something profoundly different to the Founders than what Christianity is associated with today. So claiming that the founders were Christian and thus America is founded on Christianity is pretty disingenuous. There might be a slight grain of truth to it, but you're willfully disregarding the larger evidence that they knew the dangers of Religion. It's obvious that a human being is going to attempt to govern according to their morals and back then, most people's morals did come from religion and the founders had a wide variety of different religions, so to claim that the nation was founded on Christianity willfully ignores everything else the founders drew upon and is deceitful at best, a sad attempt at a coup at it's worst.

There is a reason why only two commandments are actually laws.

The Constitution is a secular document. The establishment clause is pretty clear on how religion should be treated in regards to our gov't. There's a reason we don't tax church. Gov't doesn't involve itself in Church, therefore the opposite must be true, Church doesn't involve itself in gov't. No taxation...no representation. You can vote your beliefs at the ballot box all you want. More power to you, but you have to do it as an individual. And the Constitution is also pretty clear on what it thinks about the majority taking away minority rights.

With that separation in mind, and getting back to the original topic since you like to tangent. I have zero problem with marriage being a religious institution. You want to be recognized by gov't? Get a civil union. Want to be recognized by god? Get the head of your church to marry you. Since church is a private organization, that's up to them. But there are plenty of churches that do marry gays, so it really is a matter of time before the acceptance of gays becomes universal (we're already at 50 percent and those numbers aren't going to go back down) and there will be enough pressure for even the Vatican to change their stance. They've changed stances before. If not, they'll be left by the wayside like we leave other old and outdated things.

Just because you claim that there is evidence, doesn't make it so. I don't recall ever hearing about any published papers about evidence of a creator in any scientific journals. I would think it would be big news.

Therefore, we're back to square one sir, the burden of proof is on your God. If it wants a Christian gov't, it's going to have to do a lot better than an ancient book that's been translated countless times and has had its meaning changed countless times and portions of it's "morality" are flat out wrong. Not to mention the phenomenon by which people reject the faith when they actually read the bible. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that even you don't agree with stoning and slavery. If you do, then I don't think you and I can continue having a civilized discussion.

You are welcome to your faith, sir, but when you govern a nation of many people of many different faiths and non-faith, you have to have a better standard by which to govern by. The burden is on you to prove that homosexuality infringes on your freedoms and you simply haven't made your case...and you probably never will.

>> ^Jinx:

>> ^DrewNumberTwo:
Just where does this dumbass think homosexuals come from?

The original homosexual, Satan, corrupted the minds of the young and tricked them into thinking they could love another of the same sex. If you put all the gays away someplace then they can't turn our children gay! or something.
But lets be fair here. He doesn't want to kill the gays, he just points out they can't reproduce if you imprison them for life for being homosexual. Thats a big distinction between him and Hitler. Yeah. Plus Hitler was an atheist ofc, this guy is on GODS side.


Get your facts before making a statement. Hitler was brought up a catholic and, even though he stopped actively following it, he remained a catholic until his death. The vatican even said prayers for him on his birthday and his troops bore the insignia "god with us" on their belt buckle. Hitler, also, in an address against atheism said; "We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."

>> ^surfingyt:

Perhaps some scientists feel if they can find life on another planet the final nail in religion's coffin will be hammered?>> ^critical_d:
Odd how the scientific community seems to have more enthusiasm for exploring the oceans of Titan than our own. I read somewhere that the technological aspects of a dive like Cameron performed are as complex as a moon landing. I guess the thinking was that if something went wrong seven miles below then you are just as screwed as if you were in the Frau Mora Highlands. If the ultimate goal is to setup a colony on Mars or our own Moon, then we should practice in our own backyard first.



What? Are you kidding? Even if scientists did confirm the existence of alien life the religious will just move the goalposts in the same way they did when the world was discovered to be round, and that the earth was not the centre of the solar system, or indeed the universe.

The Vatican's "Pontifical Academy of Sciences" has even held a conference on alien life:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6536400/The-Vatican-joins-the-search-for-alien-life.html

For the deeply religious no scientific proof that contradicts their religious beliefs will ever be proof enough.

Yep, change happened in the Auto Industry:

"As part of the 2009 restructuring of GM, the Obama administration insisted that “innovative labor agreements” be put in place at factories building small cars. The UAW pushed through, without a vote by local union members, a provision that allowed 40 percent of the workers at Lake Orion to be paid tier-two wages. The deal also opened the door to hundreds of even lower paid contractors."

Just how much are those tier two and three wages? I hear you ask.

"Not only has the UAW sanctioned second-tier wages of $16 to $19 an hour—little more than half of what traditional workers earn. It has also opened the door to a third tier of contract workers who earn as little as $9 an hour, with no medical or retirement benefits."

and

"In the present situation, however, rather than defending workers, the UAW is functioning as a cheap labor contractor. So thoroughly has the UAW reduced wages that American automakers are now boasting they can produce cars as profitably in the US as in Mexico, China or other low-wage countries."

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/linc-d14.shtml

Depression averted: To an extent this is true, however it was averted without fixing the mechanisms by which it happened in the first place, and America is on the path to bankruptcy at the rate it is accumulating debt. In the short term you can fix just about any economic problem you want by printing and borrowing money, but in the long term you need to have a way of repaying your debt, I'm not aware of such a plan.

Iraq war ended: His promise was that ending the Iraq war would be the first thing he would do as president.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VlXfs1K04g
And while the official war is now over, the US of A has an embassy in Iraq the size of the Vatican city, costing ~$3.8 billion this year (the most expensive in the world) and they still have around 16,000 people involved in the 'diplomatic effort', the majority of which are private security contractors.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12319798/#.TytXO1z9PUc
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/18/us-iraq-usa-diplomats-idUSTRE7BH04B20111218

Looking at the bigger picture, the total defense budget, magically, despite the 'end of the Iraq war' is going to remain at similar levels, with projected spending of just under $700 billion for the next 4 years. This is of course because while you shrink your Iraq footprint, you increase it in other areas such as the Asia-Pacific.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1103bm47s1.pdf

This also doesn't take into account the spending that makes it's way to the military through other channels such as emergency funds, special projects etc. In fact more than half of every tax dollar is currently going towards military expenditure according to this:
http://videosift.com/video/53-of-each-American-tax-dollar-going-to-the-military

Bin Laden dead: apparently, not really worthwhile debating this as afaik there is no proof he's been killed and no proof he wasn't.

Same sex marriage: The DADT repeal was a good change, however at the Federal level same-sex marriage is still not recognized, not that I can criticize this, it's the same in Australia.

Anyway, that's my 2c, as usual, feel free to criticize.