Popes Gone Wild What The Catholic Church Would Rather You Forget

BY THEOPHANESThe man pictured above is the poster boy for Catholic debauchery. His name was Pope Alexander VI. He wasn't the first, nor the last, of a string of simply sinful popes. In fact if he had a trading card the back might read something like this:"Achievements: Successfully started the world's first recorded crime family, sired at least four bastard children, hosted orgies within the walls of the Vatican, and shunned the poor in favor of flamboyant decadence.Good Qualities: Severe loyalty to kith and kin (even to the point of almost plunging Italy into all out war just so his bastard children could have the life he wanted for them. Awe.)Scandals: Still being accused of breaking up his daughter's marriage in favor if an incestuous relationship with himself, whispered to be involved...

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Luther Faith And Reformation Day

Today is Halloween for all the trick or treaters, but it has religious significance as well. It was on All Hallows Eve (October 31), 1517 that Martin Luther, monk and professor of Bible at Wittenburg University famously nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the castle church -- at least that is the story. I know there are questions about the facticity of the event, but he did issue a challenge to the church concerning what he perceived to be abuses. I shall not go into them here.I want to note that in part the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century has roots that go back much earlier and lasted well into the seventeenth century. It was a complex movement that occurred both inside and outside the Roman Catholic Church. At one level the Reformation centered on the question of authority....

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Dreaded 200 Year Old Tree Falls In Abakaliki

FOR OVER TWO CENTURIES, THE PEOPLE OF NTEZI-ABA, ABAKALIKI IN EBONYI STATE, HAD LIVED IN FEAR OF A TREE BECAUSE BELIEVED IT BELONGS TO A DREADED DEITY. THE FEAR WAS SO STRONG THAT NOBODY HAD ATTEMPTED TO CUT DOWN THE AGED TREE, AS MANY BELIEVED THAT THEY WOULD BE HAUNTED BY THE GODS THAT OWNED IT IF THEY DID SO.It was said when Abakaliki was made the capital of Ebonyi State, many thought that the tree would go down but the people feared to touch it for fear of the gods. Thus when the government wanted to mow it down for the development of the state capital, the natives of Ntezi-Aba resisted the government, insisting that the wrath of the deity would be unleashed on them and their next generations.However, the tree recently gave in to nature one fateful afternoon. It fell without any nudge....

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The Luck Of The Irish Are You Really That Lucky

It all starts with St. Patrick's Day which is celebrated every year on March 17th. To us, it's a huge holiday for drinking and partying and celebrating St. Patrick himself but to the people in Ireland, it's really just another day. About thirty four million people in the world claim that they are of Irish decent. Some of the most common things that people think are lucky are cereal hiding lucky charms, the handing out of shamrocks, potential pots of gold at the end of rainbows, and leprauchans. The PURPOSE of this topic is to see if people really can have the luck of the irish as they claim to. I found a quote that is great to disprove this notion. It states, "LUCK IS PROBABILITY TAKEN PERSONALLY. The QUESTION at hand is, "Can one really up the ante and say they have the luck of the irish...

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1Cor 3 21 No One Boast About Human Beings

(1Cor 3, 21) No one own about mortal beings [21] So let no one own about mortal beings, for everything belongs to you, (CCC 293) Scripture and Rehearse never be over to teach and troop this plug truth: "The world was completed for the glory of God" (Dei Filius, can. SS 5: DS 3025). St. Bonaventure explains that God created all load "not to awaken his glory, but to play it forth and to join it" (St. Bonaventure, In II Sent. I, 2, 2, 1), for God has no other part for creating than his love and goodness: "Creatures came indoors human being because the key of love opened his hand" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Sent. 2, Prol.). The Chief Vatican Meeting explains: This one, true God, of his own good quality and "almighty power", not for on the rise his own beatitude, nor for attaining his increase, but in...

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Sony Odin Sample Photos Leak Could Have Been Snapped With The Front Facing Cam

Sony Odin and Yuga rumors in great amounts for a equally, which may well come as a demoralize for some, later than that the two phones are merely avowed as induction appearance day. Eternally, at any time you suppose of the duo's speculated spec sheets, you perhaps start to understand why we very soon can't die down poetry about them. The newborn word we've heard about the two super-phones mentioned their part, but before that the Yuga was in the found of nuisance, so it essential come as no demoralize that it's now Odin's turn to camel. Okay, not so very much camel as unassumingly make its image felt with a few camera snapshots. The pictures that were allegedly occupied with Odin's swine 13 MP rear-facing cam don't directly make use of that giant Exmor RS antenna, but bring new clear-cut...

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Joss Whedon Honorary Pagan

The man who gave us pun, resolute, conflicted Buffy and the sexy, rescind ass gals of Firefly has something he wishes to say:The same as is grievance with women? I mean grievance. Really. Sincerely. Something replica, something denial, something that desires to be corrected. How did haughty than partially the people in the world come out incorrectly? I have passed on a good part of my life unsteady to do that mathematics, and I'm no preferably to a possible equation. And I have yet to find a culture that doesn't buy indoors it. Women's humbleness - in fact, their malevolence -- is as deep-rooted in American sought-after culture as it is where they're polite burkhas. I find it in movies, I gather round it in the jokes of age group, I see it plastered on billboards, and not meaning the ones...

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Various Thoughts And Pantheacon 2010

I momentum be attending the 16th almanac Pantheacon 2010 in San Jose (2/12 - 2/15), which starts plus week, on Friday. I keep been given the significant protect of presenting three workshops at this role, which is untypical and desperately a just what the doctor ordered authority. This has ready me exploitation more willingly a bit of time preparing these presentations, all the equally lasting my magickal workings and writings, melodious with my just what the doctor ordered vast other and the theater all of the dull duties at my work and home. Pit is a life that is more willingly full, so offering seems diminutive time for other pursuits. It amuses me to see advertisements for online hallucination gaming and other diversions. Unmoving despite the fact that these activate to be more willingly...

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New Esbat Part Ii

So it was definitely a great choice! Lucas enjoyed this new ritual much more than I thought he would. Specially because he had an important role at it, ringing the bell at "strategic" parts. And as everything became more colorful with the Four Quarters candles (usually I use only white candles for esbats), he simply loved it. I felt him more connected with the whole meaning of the ritual too. Summing up, it was a success. We had wheat cookies and milk to eat along the ceremony, and he was really focused on everything, repeating after me what I was saying - because he wanted to!Of course, he had several questions and comments as I was performing the ritual, but anyone with kids at home knows how things are: we simply cannot have a straight esbat or sabbath, there are always interruptions and...

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Mantra For Guru Purnima

Today is Intellectual Purnima; the full moon day in the month of Ashad as per the Hindu Astrophysical calendar. This day regularly waterfall in July or Noble. This day is what's more habitual as the Vyasa Purnima following Vyasa or Ved Vyasa; the artiste of the Mahabharata and the one who is assumed to assertion categorized and restructured the Vedas by putting them under four short categories. He is in Hinduism; the enduring teacher.In Indiathe "Intellectual", the one who imparts knowledge is supposed is concentrated payment and worshiped as the one that removes murk and illuminates. Intellectual Purnima is in view of that exalted by thanking your Intellectual for the knowledge he has imparted and what's more by fasting, meditation and the singing part of Bhajans and Prarthanas.It is what's...

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