Marc said about 19 hours later

I always thought the Church's stance on the Shroud was that it was merely a symbol and that they didn't officially support that it was a real thing. Is that not true? Granted, I will admit they certainly don't try to show this stance, by neither officially confirming or denying, they are essentially leaving it up to the millions of people to make the choice, and we all know how large crowds usually work out supernatural things. :)

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GJ said about 22 hours later

Here's a snippet of the timeline for the shroud:

1983 The House of Savoy gave the shroud to the Holy See.

1988 Postage-stamp-sized pieces of the shroud were sent to three different laboratories for radio-carbon testing. All three labs dated the shroud to between 1260 and 1390. The Catholic Church accepted this, announced that it was not authentic, but could continue to be an object of devotion. The shroud is widely considered a medieval fraud.

1997 Another fire (possibly arson) threatened the shroud, but it was rescued from further damage by a fireman.

1997 Two Israeli scientists said that the shroud could not be from Jesus' time because the material could not have remained intact for 2,000 years.

1998 Pope John Paul II said of the shroud, "Since we're not dealing with a matter of faith, the church can't pronounce itself on such questions. It entrusts to scientists the tasks of continuing to investigate, to reach adequate answers to the questions connected to this shroud."

2000 Shroud is publicly exhibited for the 2000 Jubilee.

2000 An archaeologist discovered shroud-wrapped remains in a Jerusalem tomb, and the shroud was dated to the first century.

2002 The Holy See had the shroud restored. In the process, the cloth backing and 30 patches were removed, enabling the reverse side to be viewed for the first time.

2004 A National Geographic article suggested that the samples tested in 1988 came from a medieval repair job on the shroud.

so...

The Church says it's not authentic in 1998 (ten years after the first scientific study cast serious doubts on it), and yet can still be a symbol of devotion. Meanwhile, they pull it out for the 2000 Jubilee. In other words, they seem to want it both ways--and yes, like you said, leaving it up to millions of people to make the uninformed choice to believe in it and further bolster their faith--with a medieval fraud. That says an awful lot about the Church leadership, and their respect for their flock's intelligence and dignity.

Geoff said about 2 hours later

must be too good to be true, hilarious.

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GJ said about 2 hours later

Not fake: http://www.austriantimes.at/news/General_News/2009-09-09/16236/Man_crushed_to_death_by_200-kilo_gravestone

Geoff said 2 minutes later

Rid yourself of this nonsense and join the rising A team. :)

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GJ said about 2 hours later

Shooting fish in a barrel. Treat the Bible as a true historical account and you will find all sorts of things that don't make sense, or even better, contradict one another.

That being said, Geoff, what to make of the fact that so much of the world's population believes in some kind of deity, or force, or whatever? Could we be "programmed" in some way to seek it out, whatever it is, and try to make some sense of it?

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Kristen said about 4 hours later

I think it's interesting that most other religions identify their supreme being as somewhat human-like, kind of like the Christian "made in His image and likeness" idea. Think Bhudda, "mother" nature...

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GJ said about 5 hours later

Except for the Cthulhu followers...

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Marc said about 19 hours later

Did anybody else think he looked like Edward Norton straight out of Primal Fear?

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GJ said about 21 hours later

He did look a little Notron-esque.

Kristen said about 6 hours later

So of course the step-father, guilty of raping a child, probably throughout the course of her lifetime, will be excommunicated? No?? Apparently the doctor and mother are guilty of murder. So does the church not differentiate between circumstances surrounding the "murder", like levels of intent? So if I kill someone who is attacking me or my child I am automatically excommunicated? What if I hit someone with my car?

The fact that excommunication exists is the ridiculous part. I understand their beliefs as to why Catholics believe abortion is wrong. But this wouldn't have made the press if it weren't for one of these countless, unnecessary rules the Church spends so much energy and money trying to enforce. The Catholic church says that only God can create and take life...so why isn't it only God who decides who can be a member of his church? Why does an earthly institution have the power to do that? If they can mediate on God's behalf for that, then why can't the same institution make exceptions, or at the very least, turn a blind eye on a situation like this? They've sure turned a blind eye on other things...

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GJ said about 18 hours later

They can excommunicate because the church is created by people, not God. I don't think they're saying "You're cut off from God," as that would be egotistical in the extreme. However, they are saying "You are no longer a Catholic," which, for many Catholics, is the same thing as believing in God.

There is all this song and dance about how atheist morals are relativistic, but honestly--in times like this--isn't that exactly what you want, rather than jack-booted adherence to rules that are created by humans (inspired by God, maybe, but created by humans for sure).

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Steve said 1 day later

I don't think excommunication should be done - the key to Catholicism is forgiveness. Who do we think we are to tell someone they cannot be a Catholic?

According to church law, the only time an abortion is not a sin is if the child is not going to live and the mother's life is at risk if she were to continue to have the child. Not sure how often that happens, of if you know it. Sounds like most of you slept through religion class back in high school. Kristen is excused, she didn't stay at Ludden for the year that was reviewed.

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GJ said 1 day later

I know Church law pretty well, Steve. The point here is ridiculing it. What a great law it is that considers it a sin to abort the product of a rape. I've heard all the justifications about why the fetus' life is still so very important, yet the physical and mental health of the victim is apparently not overly critical. It's "rules" like this that keep the abortion debate such a hot, hot topic.

On top of that, it's not just *any* old sin, you get excommunicated to boot. The rapist? I bet he got he got a medal for his trouble--I mean, he created life, didn't he? Isn't that always good? Note: I don't know much about the rapist, or how the church views him, but given how they have treated the victim and victim's family, it's not a big stretch to envision this, is it?

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Kristen said 1 day later

I did a bit of research on excommunication, and apparently it is really just telling a person that they cannot receive the sacraments (especially communion). Excommunicated people are supposedly encouraged to go to church, and apparently the whole point is to pressure them to turn from their evil ways and seek forgiveness. For some reason if someone declares me as "excommunicated", it makes me feel a tad uncomfortable with stepping foot in church.
For me it is one more example of how the Catholic Church is so exclusionary to groups of people (women, unconventional sexualities, people not Catholic---even Christians that are not Catholic!) Excommunication was rule written with a political agenda...another way to interpret a few bible clauses that would justify shunning certain individuals. The Church, trying to stick to what's on the books instead of changing with the times, now is applying that same rule, further ostracizing people...

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GJ said 1 day later

They're not too good with changing with the times (they locked up Galileo, for crying out loud), but they at least now accept the concepts of science being a separate thing from faith (as in, the Earth isn't 6000 years old, etc.). But this pope isn't the buckling kind, so I half expect he'll energize the conservative base, and drive away the progressives in droves. It's no wonder the non-denoms have seen such explosive growth over the past thirty years.

Eric said 2 days later

No doubt, old folks like me had a tough time reading this!

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Geoff said 2 days later

haha I did as well; but we have a lifetime to decipher this great mystery.

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GJ said 2 days later

JUST WATE UNTIL UR KIDS GAT A LITLE OLDER!1!!111 OMG WTF LOL

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GJ said 2 days later

courtesy of the AOLer translator.

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GJ said 2 days later

And just for grins, this is what it spat out. Slightly different than the post's version, which is far LOLer.

1. IM DA LORD UR GOD
2. U SHAL NOT MAEK FOR U AN IDOL
3. U SHAL NOT MAEK WRONGFUL UES OF DA NME OF UR GOD

and so on.

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Marc said 2 days later

I thought it made for some very efficient reading. You knock one character off a couple words and you can read and write millions of times faster. It's a proven fact, the interwebs tells me so. Maybe you geezers will catch up some day. ;)

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GJ said 2 days later

it's all about faster texting--has nothing to do with faster reading. Science (tm) tells me so.

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Kristen said 2 days later

I have become bilingual without realizing it just by the nature of my job. Couldn't figure out what "slip" was today though--some new nickname for a drug. Couldn't get google to cooperate. Let me know if you can figure that out!

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Kristen said 2 days later

Just found the government site with a comprehensive list of street names for drugs--no "slip", but have you ever heard of a "smurf"? A cigar dipped in embalming fluid! I don't think I could ever get that bored.

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GJ said 3 days later

The Partnership for a Drug Free American doesn't know of slip. Then again, they don't know of smurf, either.

Of course, with a little reading comprehension, you know they're talking about a drug when they use an unfamiliar term, you just don't know which one. Does it really matter which one? Just curious.

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Kristen said 3 days later

Doesn't really matter-just trying to stay up on the lingo!

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Steve said 3 days later

You guys had difficulty reading those? Really? Guess Parsla has had me texting too much for too long....

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GJ said 3 days later

wht drvs me crzy is ppl who im this wy, speclly ppl @ wrk. its vry hrd 2 tak thm srsly, ya knw?

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Steve said 4 days later

I hate people that try to sell you something and type like that. I was interested in buying a car from a used car dealer, the used car salesmen contacted me with that kind of text. Needless to say, I didn't bother to respond.

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GJ said 4 days later

Yeah, for some reason some folks think there is some kind of changing of the guard here regarding this kind of chatspeak, as in we're all going to convert over to it because it's so easy. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but it takes me far longer to decipher that then plain old properly spelled English.

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Marc said 5 days later

There's also, obviously, no standard for shorting of the words, which is part of the reason why it feels like reading a new language every time.

I noticed with a lot of younger kids in college, who were big on texting, that they weren't capable of writing a formal document from both a grammatical and spelling standpoint. It was quite common to find those words sprinkled in too, but usually when they went to spell those words, they didn't know how.

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GJ said 5 days later

They have their place and time--IM and phone texting makes some degree of sense. Writing long form, in emails, blog entries, letters, or essays should use the full language. But of course, if you spend all your time practicing the short form...well, you know what happens as a result.

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Marc said 5 days later

BTW, Thanks for the birthday card GJ. This topic seemed like a fitting place for thanks. :)

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GJ said 5 days later

LMAO!!!! Only wish I could say I planned it that way!

Marc said about 1 hour later

Ignorance is usually the case with stupidity. People in power are often confused with being intelligent. Hopefully there's some intelligent people in there to stop such a generic bill. Do you have a link to the pending legislation? I'd be interested in seeing how it's all worded.

Oh, and if you have the cliff notes, that would be better, because I hate reading really long things. :)

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GJ said about 3 hours later

Crap, I mean to add a link to the story I came across.

The story. No wording there, and I may be jumping the gun since I haven't reviewed the actual bill. Good catch, Marc.

Now, it's possible it has wording similar to this defeated bill from the US Congress. If so, it's specific to embryos and theoretically cannot be applied to the insulin item above, but it could quite possibly be brought to bear on the stem cell angle, which really doesn't surprise me much at all.

I'll see if I can find the LA bill later when I have some time.

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GJ said 1 day later

Gee, nobody called my on calling a bacteria an "animal." Technically, they aren't one, they have their own classification, but suffice to say, they're definitely "non-human." Or, are they? Scientists are beginning to look at humans as really a symbiotic kind of animal, as cells of bacteria outnumber what we consider to be "human" cells in any one human by a 10 to 1 ratio. Still, they take up little space, since bacteria cells are far smaller than typical animal cells (that'd be our human cells). They're beginning to look at treating a lot of disease in terms of both animal cell and bacterial cell response--since either one going out of whack spells doom for Mr. Human.

See the fun topics you dig up when getting all hot and bothered? :)

GJ said about 2 hours later

Not looking for an argument...I just thought this sign was funny.

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GJ said about 14 hours later

Oh, and I think the word they really wanted here was "rationalization." That gem gets people in trouble no matter what their spirituality and moral compass.

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Marc said 1 day later

Maybe they meant "Reisen." It is Lent after all and those are delicious.

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GJ said 1 day later

Marc wins the internet today.

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Geoff said 2 days later

You can thank Al Gore. He did invent it after all.

Geoff said about 14 hours later

Oh boy. I may be home schooling my kid if this garbage reaches the enlightened world. I love how they claim there are no transitional fossils to be found. Maybe it's time they actually pull their face out of a bible and go to a museum, or hell, do a Google search...but they probably think Google is the work of the devil.

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GJ said 1 day later

Oh, they go to a museum, all right--they go to this one. They crazy, it's strong in these folks.

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GJ said 1 day later

Breaking news--the creobots lost. Final vote tally was 7-7, and they needed a majority to take it. Many thanks to the Republicans on the board that refused to give up their principles to these creobot morons and keep this crap out of the science textbooks. Huzzah!

Of course, the fact that it was even this close is depressing. You can bet they won't give up on this battle anytime soon.

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Geoff said 1 day later

victory at last!

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GJ said 2 days later

Nope. The creobots added an amendment to allow teachers to discuss that there are differing theories on the age of the universe. I don't think they're talking about 13 billion vs 12.5 billion, I think the different theory they have in mind is about 6000 years old. Measure passed, 13-3. Idiocy reigns supreme in Texas.

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GJ said 4 days later

Yay, both creobot amendments were stripped off. See the Dallas News for the article.

Geoff said about 1 hour later

I wonder what our indulgence is worth GJ? We probably owe more than the federal deficit.

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Steve said 1 day later

What a bunch of sh....horse poopie...

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GJ said 1 day later

You started it. :) But indulgences are definitely up there as "cracked up theology." Still can't hold a candle to the church's morbid attachment to keeping comatose people alive indefinitely, though.

Geoff said 16 minutes later

That is too good.

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Marc said about 1 hour later

*smacks head*

Fundamentalist is an ironic word to label them with too.

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GJ said about 7 hours later

OK, make that "creative literal interpretationists."