sullster

"The scientific light articulated by the age of reason in the effort to give some explanation." Thanks for that bit of excellent articulation. I had to trim a few of your nasty words among it, but now it says it all well.

Amos, my man, I will never agree with your mystical view of divorce and marriage. Your heaven is nonsense and is raging irrationality. So, what else is new?

You're starting to sound more like Martin Luther all the time. All this antipathy towards reason you express. The Protestant fundamentalists reject reason on a level that your church never has. Amos, are you a protestant wanna-be? A closet prod? "Reason is the enemy", said your new friend Martin Luther. You two sure think alike.

Amos

Poor guy, and the faculty of reason did run away with religion.

Thor Q. Mada

I have written this before, but this demented old man who has to be turned in the direction of the public, is just a straw man in the hands of the conservative power behind the curtains.
By his stance against contraception, he has caused many to suffer in extreme poverty, and has helped the spread of aids. It is bad enough to make other people believe your voice is the voice of your imaginary god, but apologizing for all the mistakes the church did in the past while blatanly ignoring your own stupidities is sick.

sullster

Huh? Come on Amos, don't get all strange on me here. I got you on the Luther point. Just admit that you hate reason as much as the primary founder of your religion's enemy did. Just a simple,"Yes, Luther and I agree on that point", would do. It is all I ask. Please, please.

Amos

So yes, I agreed with you and the faculty of reason ran away with the reformation against the wish of Luther. Luther should be forgiven for this because it was out of extreme ecstacy that he retalliated and nailed that thesis on the chapel. His reaction is quite common, it was very normal then and still is today in Catholic mysticism.

IvanK

Had Luther tried to nail Amos to the wall he'd still be at it today after 500 years. Try nailing Jell-O to the wall, it's easier.

More and more I'm forced to the reluctant conclusion that Amos occasionally makes sense due to the same phenomenon that accounts for the fact that a stopped watch is correct twice each day.

[ February 08, 2002: Message edited by: IvanK ]</p>

Boro Nut

Have you changed your mobile phone recently? Perhaps you just forgot to tell him your new number. It happens.

[ February 08, 2002: Message edited by: Boro Nut ]</p>

sullster

I see what you are saying. Although Luther raged against reason, he was motivated by the power of Catholic mysticism, which was behind his whole rage against the church. Reason, then became part of protestantism as it mutated across Europe and then North America. Luther, the catholic mystic, was powerless to stop reason's departature with the evolving Reformation. Very clever thinking, Amos!

You have just done turned Luther and the Reformation on its head and made it something catholic. Sorry, you can't make Luther and the Reformation into being just another brilliant move by the master players of Rome. Your Holy Roman Catholic church made collosal errors and had become a virutal mafia family in Rome. It had absorbed the sensuality of the Renaissance and the political venality of Italy and had lost its way. You just won't admit that the catholic church in the 16th Century was virtually ruined and was on the verge of collapse.

If Luther had a catholic aspect, it was one of the believer who was distressed by the corruption and greed of the church. If bringing on Luther and the Reformation was planned by your popes, then they were the biggest gamblers in history. It was the absolute last throw of the dice just before the casino closed.

As for the Reformation ultimately nurturing reason later on, that turned out beneficial particularly in England. Catholic mysticism stunted many parts of Europe for centuries. We are still trying to wake up from the stunted slumber of irrational mysticism.

DMB

What you do (if you care enough) is set up an antipope. They can keep themselves busy excommunicating one another and claiming to be the True Pope (TM). See <a href="http://www.angelfire.com/ky/dodone/Antipopes.html" target="_blank">this</a> and many other sites.

Amos

Luther was motivated by the innate power of mysticism. We all have it and all that needs to happen is that someone awakens this (Songs 2:7 and 7:4), but if it is awakened too soon in life it will lead to tragic results. This possibility has always been a danger to the Church. A premature rebirth (Luther was "from his mother's womb untimely ripped" Shakespeare would have said) are likely to happen to cowards who, when they get can't seem to face the problems of daily life, flee into the arms of some evangelist who will "lead them to Christ," as he would see it. This will lead to a premature rebirth . . . which is why they are "from their mother's womb intimely ripped."

It is an old technique that was used by the Jesuits when they moved into a new (and always pagan) territory. They would "zap" a couple of aboriginals who then regarded the Jesuits as gods or true messegers of god. These so converted would conquer among their own and that is how the Church gained a foothold in such areas. They would later (often much later) stiffle it because it is not a good movement within the Church.

Interesting is that some hundreds of years later protestants now work in these predominate Catholic areas to convert Catholics. They often use the same techniques (or at least they try to) and search out the most vulnerable members to prey upon.

It was OK for the Jesuits because they may have been like wolves, they were of a different clotch and thus not wolves in sheeps clothing. The protestants today are of the smae cloth and indeed wolves in sheeps cloting. See the difference?

Sullster, I wanted to tell you that I was totally impressed with the "Opening Ceremony" of the Olympics and would have never guessed that something like that could have come out of Salt Lake City. I now think that Mormons are not all that bad. Either that or they could not all be Mormons over there. What do you think?

Amos