Swazi King Rejects Pants: War on Terror Lost

[MichaeltheGreat]

Yep, all Catholic priests do that, and no protestant priest ever would.

Go check out Fred Phelps if you want to see the benefits of modern decentralized fundamentalism run amok. Self-ordained by his own church, accountable to nobody.

[monkspider]

Well put Mikey.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
He just decentralized fundamentalism.

Eventually religious tolerance came out of the decentralization though.

[Sava]

this only drives home my concerns for the world...

Bush, the leader of the best nation on Earth, is a complete moron. And if the best nation has a leader who's a moron, what does the rest of the world have?

dear god! humanity is retarded!

[Dis]

I think pedeophilia with priests is a recent phenomena. I don't think the catholic church is in the business of promoting paedophilia.

What I think happens is young men grow up and know they desire kids. So they look at the church and see that as a good way to get access to kids and get their trust. So they then go into that line of work. In fact I wouldn't be suprised if paedophilia websites recommend getting a priesthood in some manner to fulfill their disgusting desires.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Yep, all Catholic priests do that, and no protestant priest ever would.

Go check out Fred Phelps if you want to see the benefits of modern decentralized fundamentalism run amok. Self-ordained by his own church, accountable to nobody.

How many people did he control?

How many people did the Catholic Church once control?

Please consider magnitude of the suffering. It matters.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Dissident
I think pedeophilia with priests is a recent phenomena. I don't think the catholic church is in the business of promoting paedophilia.

What I think happens is young men grow up and know they desire kids. So they look at the church and see that as a good way to get access to kids and get their trust. So they then go into that line of work. In fact I wouldn't be suprised if paedophilia websites recommend getting a priesthood in some manner to fulfill their disgusting desires.

No, it is not. People back then didn't dare or were too ashamed to report. Since the churches enjoyed far more power (or esteem)even 50 some years ago, nobody would believe the victims anyway.

[MichaeltheGreat]

He's around now.

The Church ain't in the business of running empires any more.

Actually, the church was never in it, it was just nicely coopted. It was really cute during that brief chunk of the schism when there were three, count 'em, three popes.

If you want to talk things like inquisitions, the same period Protestant churches and their adherents were pretty nuts themselves. Cromwell anyone?

In the cemetery in Boston where Sam Adams and Ben Franklin are laid to rest, there's also a grave for a 16 year old girl who was hanged by the Puritans in 1660 after a heresy trial, for the "crime" of being a Quaker and advocating Quaker doctrine.

Middle ages humanity sucked a little more than modern day humanity.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless


No, it is not. People back then didn't dare or were too ashamed to report. Since the churches enjoyed far more power (or esteem)even 50 some years ago, nobody would believe the victims anyway.

So now we have stats for unreported crimes?

[mindseye]

Question: was Swaziland part of the "coalition of the willing"?

[mindseye]

I think pedeophilia with priests is a recent phenomena.

Get real!

I remember reading a book based on the surviving chronicles of a small Spanish mountain village during the time of the Inquisition. Amazing amount of detail, and of course I forgot the name of the book.

Anyway, a story is recounted in which one day a boy slips and falls, and a monk behind him topples onto him. When the monk immediately springs to his feet, a bystander quipped that it was the first time he saw a monk get off of a boy so quickly.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
He's around now.

The Church ain't in the business of running empires any more.

Actually, the church was never in it, it was just nicely coopted. It was really cute during that brief chunk of the schism when there were three, count 'em, three popes.

If you want to talk things like inquisitions, the same period Protestant churches and their adherents were pretty nuts themselves. Cromwell anyone?

In the cemetery in Boston where Sam Adams and Ben Franklin are laid to rest, there's also a grave for a 16 year old girl who was hanged by the Puritans in 1660 after a heresy trial, for the "crime" of being a Quaker and advocating Quaker doctrine.

Middle ages humanity sucked a little more than modern day humanity.

Sure they sucked. Even though Martin Luther was a fundamentalist (by today's standard) himself, his actions set a process into motion that would eventually break the church's stranglehold on Western society.

Islam is mostly still run hypocritical clerics.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


So now we have stats for unreported crimes?

What do you want to get at? Saying people in the past were noble and people today have degenerated morally?

[Dr. A. Cula]

Originally posted by St Leo

Do you know that one of the oldest surving Sumerian writings is a tablet condemning the "youth of today" and the "downfall of society"? In fact, I suspect that the Modern Western Civilization is much less screwed up than that of the Sumerians.

Link, please.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Not at all. Although we are more degenerate today, like it or not.

The point is real simple: you can't quantify that for which you have no evidence.

And Luther didn't set in motion anything that broke the power of "The Church" - he simply created substitutes to hold that power. The Cotton Mathers and whole slews of Calvinists held tighter grips on their communities than the Catholic Church ever did. The Catholic Church derived it's power from the nobility, who co-opted it quite nicely, installing themselves as Cardinals or even Popes, and gave themselves a little "extra" power, since they claimed the legitimacy of God as a basis for their secular power.

Luther, in his later years, was one of the vilest characters around, (read his tracts on Jews, they were a favorite of Adolph Hitler and others). Cromwellian England was more of a religious state than was Spain at the time.