Iskander

No taxation for churches, mosques...
Granted the educational separation that makes them happy.

The god-full enjoy unlimited access to television to peddle their biblical and koranic verses and protection from legitimate criticism.

The second coming has arrived and the world of myth is triumphant for the benefit of the dead!



Italian Catholic Church under pressure to start paying property tax
The Roman Catholic Church in Italy is under growing pressure to start paying taxes on its massive property portfolio, in a move that could raise up to 800 million Euros (£680 million) a year and help bail the country out of its economic crisis.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...erty-tax.html#


Amid Economic Crisis, Spain Ponders Taxing Catholic Church Property
A concordat with the Vatican has exempted the church from taxation but towns and cities are looking for loopholes to get at funding during austere times
http://world.time.com/2012/06/07/ami...urch-property/

outhouse

they dont have a historical jesus


they do however have a biblical jesus, that they do need to patch up to try and follow reality.





its well established and has been for a long time that no one knows anything about the birth, childhood, or anything pre 30 years of age.

Chili

It would follow that if Jesus was the reborn Joseph the infancy refers only to the new creation he was, and so a childhood does not exist.

The manger episode is critical to find inner direction, and that is confirmed by the shepherds who looked in and understood.

Notice that in Matthew the shepherds never even looked in to uderstand and when the magi arrived the poor guy was not even 'home to receive' as back in Egypt he was still dreaming away, wherefore then the Christchild was wrapped to conceal the prevailing mood in Luke untill all was understood and so the Cana event was ordered to be. And notice please that there was no manger in Matthew where Joesph was an Egyptian with no Nazareth about him for sure.

I think Hardy has a poem on this called "Voices of the Graveyard" that he had recalled in his own lineage, and likely is how some of them OT people claimed their age up to 1000 years. IOW Joseph here received a journey inward to understand what had happened to him by showing these different levels of heaven to him. So the Cana event is also an allegory that points at his affirmation to chose his new direction by drinking the better wine that his second half of life promised to be.

And then he parts company with religion with the temple ruckuss made from the precinct to never set foot in there again, now as a Christian with a mind of his own = no religion for him!

And so then the cross that he carried were the sins of 'good old Joseph' who we made Patron Saint of the Family, to be sure, and be a sinner like him.

My guess is that to pope is piping the protestants who will be buying his book because I do not think that Catholics even know he wrote the damn thing, nor would they care if they did.

cornbread_r2

I've read that the Pope's book does not have an imprimatur. This seems to allow orthodox Catholics to reject anything or everything in it as mere speculation. Well played Mr Poop, well played.

Chili

What I read here about it is not Catholic for sure, and so not even real and hence my opinion on this.

andrewcriddle

The pope has made it clear from the beginning that his books on Jesus are not an exercise of the papal magisterium (teaching office). In the books he is speaking as a student of the New Testament not as Pope.

He says explicitly that any Catholic is free to disagree with the books, although he does hope, (unrealistically ?), that anyone criticizing him will show him the charity that they would hope their own ideas would receive.

Andrew Criddle