The Roman Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals, after intense prayer and guided by the Holy Spirit, has selected popes for nearly a millennium. Some Holy Fathers have turned out to be saints; others became murderers (Pope John XII), torturers (Pope Urban VI) and adulterers (too many to name).
Less reliance on faith and more, for example, [...]
In a packed sanctuary that held hundreds, Father Mike, as he was known, stood before the congregation he had led for a dozen years. Reading from a statement, he told them that 19 years ago he had “transgressed the personal boundaries of an adolescent.” (Only later would it emerge that the diocese knew he, in [...]
Fundamentalists sometimes use this C.S. Lewis quote in support of Christianity being important:
Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.
But that quote works both ways. I know of no evidence for any of the miracles which the Christian faith is built on, [...]
We made a test run [of attending church] at our local parish, but it ended badly when Father Jerome Karcher (son of Carl’s Jr. founder Carl Karcher), with a kind smile on his face, explained to [my wife] Greer that she was an adulterer because she hadn’t gotten married in the church.
“You don’t really believe [...]
I started reading The Greatest Show On Earth last night and one thing Dawkins says in the first chapter is that:
I shall be using the name “history-deniers” for those people who deny evolution: who believe the world’s age is measured in thousands of years rather than thousands of millions of years, and who believe humans [...]
Today only 35 percent of the oil in the average oil field is recovered, meaning that about two thirds of the oil in known fields remains underground. That resource is rarely mentioned in the debate on the future of oil.
—Leonardo Maugeri, “Squeezing More Oil From the Ground” (Scientific American, Oct 2009)
If you could live forever with a healthy body and mind, and could get away with it environmentally, would you want to?
I don’t know about forever, but I’d be up for it for at least a few hundred years. How about you?
The church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example.
—Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad
Shawn Abbott: I have already gave several examples of why Christianity is different you just dont seem... The Top 30 Atheist/Agnostic/Skeptic Blogs
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1minion: That was going to be my question, Jerdog. Do some good with all that “evil” stuff for a... The Book Burning That Wasn’t
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Nelly: ditto The Book Burning That Wasn’t
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