Excellent comment Jan! I definitely do not approve of what the Catholic Church has done, but I agree with you that it is beyond time to respect those who belong to that religion for no other reason than b/c to receive respect we must first give it, and the peons in most religions truly have done nothing wrong.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with having faith. It is what one does with it that counts. So I agree with you and truly wish we could tamper down the hatred. Many in the church like Sister Dorothy Stang who was gunned down in the Amazon after living there among the people for years and helping to protect the forests and support the poor are not at fault for the crimes of those in the church who sought to abuse their authority. It is truly disgusting what those who committed crimes against others have done. I would hope the church addresses it and those guilty be punished. But I will not allow those stains to tarnish the reality that there are also many people of faith in this world who do work hard, care for the sick and poor, care for the Earth and do live the words of Jesus Christ. If this is to be the start of that "higher consciousness" the Mayans are said to have predicted it needs to start on all sides with all of us.

To be honest I was actually hoping to see a Pope who would be more progressive in bridging the perceived gap between science and religion. I think Pope Francis is Conservative on some issues so I don't know where he stands on that, but it is time. I read the Higgs Boson may well have been located.http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/14/tech/innovation/higgs-boson-god-particle/index.htm... . If so, it is a momentous find for science and the world on all levels, including the spirtiual because it is the raw power of nature. Those who believe in the power of science and faith to heal the world and bring us progress and perhaps someday peace should rejoice in that. Sorry for going on, but the hatred truly saddens me. This is our time to get beyond it and move to new horizons. I can do nothing more than continue to hope for that.

In a past life I was a very devout Christian; what changed that was seeing how many members of the church I attended insisting on judging not only nonbelievers, but their fellow church members as well. A persons' faith is theirs -- if they want to share their experiences with someone they should do that in love only, and judging another person is never right. I got into trouble for telling someone that if they really had faith they would pray, and leave the hard work to God. I truly believe that if there is a God He wants us to love our fellow peons -- share our experiences -- and trust Him to show Himself at the most opportune moment.

Though it sometimes seems like hate , i think it is deep long suffering resentment . I do not like to feel the feeling either . Why must i feel guilty and judged for NOT believing ? Even though I KNOW this religion has been used as a tool for lo these many generations , it is not any easier to live in a culture guided by it . (especially if you do not like the direction things are going ) I want all people to be free to believe as they see fit ... me included .

Are you talking about Current or the Vatican?

The Vatican.

The End.
P.S.(MMMMMEEEEEOOOOOWWWWW)

I admire this guy , he is insane. Good post.

The End.
P.S.(MMMMMMEEEEEOOOOOWWW...stay thirsty my friends drink XXs)

I swear it wasn't me! ;}

roflmao

Oh , my gosh treewolf , i did not know this ! They are NOT the people's friend in Latin America . I had hoped ....

The dark side. Vader has competition.

Oh yeah. All this "God's representative on earth" business is bull puckey.

If that's the case they're not good representatives. Sorry, when I see them I can only think of all the ruined lives they're responsible for. You can't sweep that under the rug. How many people will never come out and tell us what happened to them by these "representatives".

Right -- he's just like President Obama ...

Yeppers, just like all 3 branches of our government ... "I can only think of all the ruined lives they're responsible for." --- You sure hit the nail on the head with that comment!

Bwahahahahahaha!!

I like it!! Good caption would be -- OK you angry birds, clean my litter box or I'll have you for lunch! Voted up BTW

and their gucci and prada shoes. (LOL)

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid

I have noticed the devout are very vindictive to those who do not agree with them . Look at the theocracies and how THEY treat non believers .... it is a common trend in all organized religions . You need not fear the truth .

Got THAT right - it's all about "religion."

You got that right!

I've seen the figure that 6% of Catholic priests are pedophiles.
That's probably the international average of pedophiles.

All reports I've read state that the percentage of pedophiles in the Catholic Church is the same as that of the population as a whole.

I just voted your response up to 5.

Someone however determined that making a joke about the mathematical likelihood of pedophiles in fact committing the act of pedophilia was in poor taste and I am now under review.

I suppose if I was Christian defending their pedophile leadership that would have been perfectly acceptable. Taste wise I mean.

I'm not surprised.

You have ten people from all walks of life in one room. They are all socially respectable. A firefighter, a teacher, a police officer, a store owner, an auto mechanic etc and one of them is a Catholic priest. You are told you have to leave some children with a different one of them every day for 5 hours. You are told you have to do this for nine days so you can eliminate one of them from having 5 hours of unsupervised time with the children. Which one of them would you be most likely to keep the children away from?

Any one in their right mind would keep the children away from the Catholic priest. You have to know that single demographic of Catholics has more pedophiles than any other demographic group and probably more than many other demographic groups put together. This demographic group is supposed be the moral leadership of 1.2 billion Christians.

My boss turned out to be a pedophile so I quit my job. Our local school had pedophiles on staff so we home school now just in case. A large number of my service club leadership turned out to be pedophiles so I gave up my membership. My Christian moral leaders are admitting to sexuall abusing children, but I am a Christian so I will just give them a pass.

Their followers are just as guilty as they are for being enablers and not leaving the Church in droves. They are going to get labelled right along with the pedophiles they call moral leaders.

Thanks dude!
Wow the shit's flyin' tonight.
And that's not a bad thing.
Just want you to know that I appreciated your comment and voted it up.

You make some excellent points. And I must admit, I'd keep the children away from the Catholic priest.

Careful jim the religious police are out. I mean can you believe that some sort of can we start this whole Catholic thing over now that we got a a man of the poor in power bull crap.

In what way is the shit flying. The fact is the Christian moral leaders known as the priesthood are so riddled with pedophiles that they are the only demographic, profession or group that has their own sex offender’s data base.

It should also be pointed out that a lot of the people on the sex offender’s data base that is for everyone else, have been added to it for urinating in public or other fairly innocuous things far from molesting children. We can’t say the same thing about Christian moral leaders though can we.

I don’t think the word catholic should be mentioned without addressing pedophiles in the priesthood and their enablers.

I have my doubts that very many Catholics themselves would leave the children with one of their own priests either. This is one of the many problems I have with Catholicism. They are pedophile enablers and they know it. I don’t think they actually worship a God. I think they worship the Church.

I think if there was such a thing as being judged by their God, (and I have no doubt there isn’t) He would have to ask them what made them think an institution that suppressed women and minorities, enabled slavery, facilitated genocide and the destruction of cultures and hid and enabled institutionalized child rape was His representative on earth.

What possible answer could there be for a question like that no matter who posed it let alone the God they claim to believe in?

None.

Well you know how it goes. Free speech is fine but Christians get special privileges in everything so Current has to go along with it I guess. Current is doing nothing more than embarrassing themselves as far as I can tell.

Imagine what would happen to free speech if Christians got a hold of the reigns of power.

If they could turn our secular societies into the theocracies they want them to be, they would go over old records, files, official documents and communications and arrest us all for sin crimes and blasphemy. The last blasphemy conviction in the U.S. was in 1928 when atheist Charles Lee Smith was fined $100 for claiming evolution was real on his store front.

The last attempt to charge someone with blasphemy happened in 1959. That’s right, 1959 in Joseph Burstyn Inc. vs. Wilson.

Give these moral Christians half a chance and there will be religious executions in the public square in a heartbeat. Tell me about one theocracy that isn’t murderous, suppressive and has moved out of the 15th century. Just one. There is no reason to think a Christian theocracy would be any different.

Blasphemy laws in England were not abolished until 2008. If Christians had taken over that country as a theocracy in 2007 they would have immediately put that law to work and ended free speech the first day they took power.

100%

Well said Jim, and they call me nutty with my belief in UFO's. I've seen video and pictures of UFO's, I have yet to see a picture of God! LOL

Spot on Kenny! All the gods are probably ETs anyway.

Yes, I agree! I'll try and get a hold of you this weekend my friend....sorry it has taken so long! :)

Keep them away from churches , period ... look after them yourself , if you can .

Superb comment .

The difference is ? Yet , far less of them go to JAIL .... so , you see now the difference ?

I just don't think it's helpful or polite to label 1.2 billion Catholics 'Satanists.'

I think the majority of them don't know what the Catholic Church is all about.......Sheep, and ignorant of history! Satanic at the top, and the blood of millions on their hands, but hey why inform them? Religion does such a great job of keeping serf's or slaves in their place, right?

The cabala of down voters may have tried like HELL to shut me up, but guess what? It didn't work! LOL

Perhaps a list of those in the cabala on line at the time of my post being number 6 and the cabala down voting that shoved it to 36 is in order, or is that something Good Christians and Catholics would be proud of or not? LOL I do have the list, you know the fake friends and the ex-huff pos.

I'm certainly not a fan of the Catholic church, or any church for that matter.
We are all aware of the endless crusades in the name of God.
But I dislike demonizing even more. It gets us nowhere as history bloody shows.
As a practicing Christian I try to find the good in everything and contribute to bettering the world. I liked and supported the work the Jesuits did in Central America in the 1980s helping the poor indigenous during the Contra war.
And I deeply admire Saint Francis.
I'm just sick & tired of the same old name calling and demonizing.
It is getting us nowhere.

You have a lot to learn about Catholicism it appears, and my words in my post except for satanic reference were not name calling. Now if GOD actually created the farcical ceremony's those in the Catholic religion follow then my entire post should be damned to hell. But a Religion that embraced the Nazi's and the inquisition and countless wars fought in their GODS name doesn't deserve any respect! I hope like Hell the prophecies of Saint Malachy come true and this is the last Pope.

The reason we have the option of voting a story or comment up or down is to express our democratic like or dislike of something posted. It is not some cabal out to get us.
Hey I deal with the big oil whores who vote my posts down all the time.
Get over it!

im very catholic and know a lot of the rituals. And believe me it is 100% satanic, if you know the true definition of Satanism.

Yup!

One vote buddy doesn't knock a story from 6th to 36th, I've been here long enough to know that! Now maybe you should get over it! LOL

I'm well versed in Christian history and the history of religions.
I'm also well versed in conspiracy theories pertaining to the Knights Templar, the Masons, the Illuminati, the Jesuits, etc, etc, etc.
I like what Jesus said about all this: "He among you without sin let him cast the first stone."
Any student of history eventually concludes that modern man is a violent, egotistical monster.
Ah, Saint Malachi, the Irish monk who wrote the Pope Prophecy. Interesting dude that Malachi. According to his famous prophecy this is the last pope. It is said he will bring about the Last Judgment. Some think he's the return Peter.
All I care about is that we become enlightened as a species.

Well that won't happen here when a group of people squash a post. I think they call that hypocrisy! Hardly anywhere near enlightened......

Kenny, I don't know who was downvoting your post. I thought it was a valid post. I'm sorry.

I had to go and find your post - it's there - on "New Stories" - on the first page. Did read it - it's all of what you posted above.

Come on, Kenny!
I do not have the power to censor your stories.
There is no secret cabal on Current out to vote you down.
Perhaps it's Satan. ;~}

"One vote buddy doesn't knock a story from 6th to 36th"

Kenny, I have had a few stories disappear from the community page because they were too controversial and self-absorbed. Current does have moderators you know and I think they do a damn fine job most of the time.
Please stop blaming me and my imagined 'cabala' for your story not shooting to #1.

Awww, Kenny. I don't think that's fair at all. You're accusing coolplanet of something that I'm sure is not true.

I also don't think it was very nice to threadjack the story I posted by posting your entire story on it. Why would you do that?

Why don't you ask the Current mods what happened to your story? I also noticed that it dropped really fast. Perhaps there is a reason for it. I really don't think it was downvoted by a bunch of people at the same time. I have noticed lately that when a person votes up their own story numerous times, it doesn't suffice to keep a story at the top - ranking also relies on page views and comments made. Ask the mods - they should be able to explain to you what happened. Maybe it was a glitch or mistake. In the meantime, why don't you repost your story?

You know your history! It was a Jesuit that made me know the whole affair was BS. Holding men over women was another sure sign. Jesus was a cool dude.

Thank you for pointing this out.
I am especially interested in what you say about "when a person votes up their own story numerous times, it doesn't suffice to keep a story at the top."
This issue has come up numerous times without an satisfying answer.
From what I understand one vote per post or comment is all Current recognizes from the same computer. Often I will check back into a story I've posted and if I see it is not voted up I vote it up, assuming it's a glitch. Does this mean I keep voting my post up?
If this is true then Current needs to do something to fix this.

I'm not sure at all how this system works. That's why I recommended to Kenny that he ask the mods about it. Actually, it would be nice if Current explained it, perhaps in a FAQ section, then we wouldn't have to speculate. I definitely noticed that Kenny's story sank very fast - I've never seen a story drop that fast. That's why I suspect it was some sort of glitch.

Sounds to me like you're well versed in jibberish.

I couldn't agree more.
But I undertook my extensive study of world religions not to understand God but rather to understand human behavior, politics and modern history.
What I learned is that there is a Great Spirit but S/He is not understood by the world's religions. Aboriginals and scientists have a far better grasp of cosmic consciousness.

I have figured out that every time you post a story to more than one category it will show up as being posted and voted up for each category. That is why it looks like someone is posting their article up more than once. I think what happened is that cpad posted her article first and everyone jumped on it before Kenny's article. So it went to the front page right away. Many times I go to my activity page to see what those I am following have posted and will then go to those first, unless of course someone has sent me notice of an article they think would interest me. I'm sorry you got blamed for this whole fiasco. We should all know that there are socks on here whose only purpose is to vote some people down and others up but never leave a comment. Just look at all your environmental articles. You and I could be the only people who have commented, but both our comments are voted down multiple times.

Thank you for this. It makes sense.
I always appreciate your input.
After 3 years of posting stories mainly on climate change I am accustomed to being voted down. I'm just so grateful that they still make the top 10 despite the big oil whores.
I love Current! And I try not to be a post hog.

You're never a hog. I've learned so much from your post. I especially enjoy your videos from TED because I learn something new every time you post one. So I'm glad your not discouraged by the oil whores and trolls on here who are hoping they will make you want to quit in frustration if they keep attacking your articles.

That means very much to me, expat, and it helps me focus on why we are here.
When I discovered Current four years ago I saw something here that was no where else. I am still thrilled to be a contributing poster and fuck the trolls, socks and big oil whores!
I could post TEDxTalks every day because they hold the solution to our massive mess.
The entire problem is ego.
Attacks are really just a plea for help.

My new ex girlfriend is a catholic. She told me that god was giving us bad luck (hadn't won the lottery) because we weren't married. Catholics are taught to fear god I hear.

St Francis WAS cool ... but beware , they ride on HIS shirt tales ! It is a great marketing ploy . Remember , ACTIONS , not WORDS define a person's character .