weaktwos | (no subject)

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Wow. Today was a big day for my bank account. Not only does my new rate of pay start today, but my annual bonus showed up, my federal tax refund showed up, and then my state refund.

My bank account is positively beaming!

Now to pay off some debt, and what-not.

Of course, there are a few toys I want to purchase, too.

I just realized that my Saint du Jour posts would probably be considered heresy at some point.

I was feeling a bit sorry for the persecution of the Christians way back when. But then I realized that despite having this rich history of persecution, the Christians/Catholics were doing the same thing (give or take) with the Spanish Inquisition, etc. Hmmmm. There's more bouncing around in my brain on this, but that shall come later. I must take preventative measures to avoid showing up to work in naught but my underpants and a fluffy blue robe.

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Just an aside. Catholics are Christians by definition. No need to differentiate, ie. Christians/Catholics. However, a more apropos statement would be Protestant/Catholic as they are different denominations of Christianity. Of course in this context it wouldn't be accurately used as the Protestants were the ones being persecuted by the Catholics, and the Protestants doing the persecuting didn't happen until recent history, and then it was only select sub-denominations, frex: Southern/Northern Irish.

But now we all get along like fluffy bunnies and yellow chickies! :)

If only that were true...

Yes, since this was pre-protestant revolution and even pre-Anti-Pope, they were pretty much all Catholics. So the ones persecuted back then were pretty much Catholics as we know them today.

"...and even pre-Anti-Pope,..."

Interesting statement. What is the general thought regarding Protestant "separation" from the Catholic church? Is it that they were anti-pope? I'm curious what you have found.

The AntiPope reference was with regard to a little chasm within the Catholic church when we had two popes, one in the Vatican, and one in Avignon, France. Now that I look into it further, there were more than just a few antipopes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-pope#List_of_antipopes well before Avignon...

Ah I see. Well to go even further, you may want to look into the original division within the Catholic Church itself that occured, IIRC, around 500 AD. It may have happened early, but my church history is a little rusty.

The gist is that the Roman-Catholic and Russian-Orthodox were once the same, but there was a power struggle between the two leaders, one in Rome and the other was Byzantine I believe. Again, not positive. Anyway, they refused to accept one another as brothers in the faith and refused to let the other be the 'rightful' head of the church and split.

There is a ton more to the story, but that is the gist. Quite fascinating stuff when you start learning about it. BTW, I'm _not_ Catholic in case you were wondering. :)

Yes. God's will works in mysterious ways, dividing up his flock like that. Most curious.

I didn't think you were a Catholic. I was merely baptized as one. But the rest of my family is Catholic, with small tuft of Lutherans in my Uncle's family. On my mother's side. The relatives on my father's side were practicing jackasses, I believe.

Hey, nothing wrong with creative heresy. Say whatever you like about Paul! We hates him, we does.

The thing about the history of religion is it is really more about mankind than any higher power - religion conveyed power, even to this day, though rather more at past points in history. Being able to manipulate a flock gives the pulpit real world power over politics, social structures, etc.

I am darkly amused by those who claim the bible is the inviolate word of god, which it has been edited, elided, added to, re-ordered, etc, many times, as required to better suit the political needs of the church at the time.

Exactly, and I believe some of those people who wrote the gospels were under the influence of some funky herbs or shrooms, too.

I don't think it's a coincidence that we saw a rapid drop in miracles once technology that can record evidence came about.

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