Yeah, its kind of sad that the world is at this point. Seems to be just a matter of time before all "hell" breaks loose.

ok, that moved me like hell
the pope is the father of all, god help him in his plight to overcome the world's foretold ruin.
2003 is just the tip of the iceberg...we have 2005 not to look forward to imo.

Yeah, I agree with the Pope.

He looks like he's barely clinging to life these days. It's kind of creepy. Like, what does he know that compels him to cling to the papacy? Why not just step down and let one of the young(er) bucks take over? Doesn't he trust them?

Perhaps, he knows that after he is gone, the Catholism of old will return and further drive the church into disgrace.

Or the saying, only the good die young is true...

Who is eligible to be the next Pope?

I know one of the big things about catholism is that there is supposed to be a link of friends from the Pope to Jesus. With out a beloved Pope catholism and much of Christianity will fall.

It seems like nobody ever listens to the Popes messages to the world.

Its sad..

Lets hope that 2004 will be better!

Originally posted by jrod
Who is eligible to be the next Pope?

I know one of the big things about catholism is that there is supposed to be a link of friends from the Pope to Jesus. With out a beloved Pope catholism and much of Christianity will fall.

The Christian church, meaning the faith and its believers, came before the Pope. If you read the scriptures - which the Catholic church doesn't exactly promote - there are actually pointed rebukes to things you will find in Catholocism.. like Paul's admonishment to "not to pray to an endless chain of saints."

Originally posted by EastCoastKid

Originally posted by jrod
Who is eligible to be the next Pope?

I know one of the big things about catholism is that there is supposed to be a link of friends from the Pope to Jesus. With out a beloved Pope catholism and much of Christianity will fall.

The Christian church, meaning the faith and its believers, came before the Pope. If you read the scriptures - which the Catholic church doesn't exactly promote - there are actually pointed rebukes to things you will find in Catholocism.. like Paul's admonishment to "not to pray to an endless chain of saints."

ECK...

I agree with every word you say here.

Now that we have that out of the way. Why did you post this in this thread? This is off-topic, inappropriate and absolutely not within the intent of the discussion that has taken place so far.

*****

Then to the rest of the posters, YES, any one who is bringing messages of peace must feel very ignored and downtrodden in these times.

Peace... War... seems like lately war = peace and peace = war. Since when did War accomplish "peace" as they claim they are set out to accomplish in Iraq and in fact EVERYWHERE else in the world where there's war. Africa.. Israel.. Palestine... Russia... Chechnia... other places I missed.. endless state of war. Do humans truly define their reality through suffering or is that a confusing/weird piece of corrupt philosophy that never really made much sense? Or maybe that's just me...
Well obviously humans don't learn from their own written history, the ignorance just keeps on coming. But it is what it is, and suffering is really not the point. There'll always be those who want war and those who want peace, and it's obvious they aren't good at co-existing. But you can't exterminate either side, that'd be abrigement of the side's free will to live as they please, or do we not have that option anymore? This world is what it is for a reason, not necessarily random circumstances beyond everyone's control.. stuff doesn't JUST HAPPEN. Anything that happens politically, war being part of it, has been planned and is usually (ok, always) not what the elites tell the populace. Sad, but true. What can the people do? Why do anything? So this has been a bloody year, but why do we cherish our lives SO MUCH that we're willing to do anything and everything to make them better, including stepping over others' lives. The only point of living is because it feels good... everything we do is because it FEELS GOOD. So in order to continuing our blissful/ignorant/meaningless existance for the sake of feeling good and without an actual reason or basis, we destroy others and fight for that feel-good existence. How stupid and pointless, yet we do it every day. Think about it, EVERYTHING YOU ALL DO EVERY SINGLE MOMENT is because it feels good, no other reason. Love/Hate/Charity/Games/Sex/Sleep/Food/Relationships/Family/Holidays/Work/All entertainment/Our ignorant ideals... all designed for and BY those who want to feel good, no other purpose. Apparently that is the meaning of life. We do learn lessons, but that's not the "priority". Sad. Well why can't we just forget about all those feel-good activities and concentrate on truth/knowledge/learning to understand the universe and get the hell out of here, this world is so chaotic for the reason of learning, but we are so busy trying to CHANGE it that we completely forget that reason... tsk.

You make it sound like there is something wrong with feeling good. I'm sorry, I may have missed something in your post. I mean, if this life has a point--it is to make your time count for something. What is wrong with doing the things that make you happy? I won't beat myself up because I do the things I love. They maybe petty in insignificant to the outside world, but my joy is my peace. Let me be a blind sheep bah, bah'ing my way to death. If that is what puts a smile on my face so be it. Whatever is next could be better or worse. So, make life heaven. There is nothing wrong with that.

Even those that fight--battle after battle--find some joy in the winning and misery in the losing. We are emotion driven beings. Even those that spend their days and nights with their nose in book find joy in learning. The search is a high, and without the tug of feelings who would ever get up outta bed--would we even have beds??? We'd still be draggin our knuckles on the ground if we didn't feel, and experience emotions. To me it isn't something to knock, but something to celebrate...yah! i'm happy. boo, i'm sad. grrr, i'm mad.

Oh come on, thats what the pope always looks like.

Thats a happy pope!

Plus as far as Humanity goes, we've had worse years.

Originally posted by Valhall

Originally posted by EastCoastKid

Originally posted by jrod
Who is eligible to be the next Pope?

I know one of the big things about catholism is that there is supposed to be a link of friends from the Pope to Jesus. With out a beloved Pope catholism and much of Christianity will fall.

The Christian church, meaning the faith and its believers, came before the Pope. If you read the scriptures - which the Catholic church doesn't exactly promote - there are actually pointed rebukes to things you will find in Catholocism.. like Paul's admonishment to "not to pray to an endless chain of saints."

ECK...

I agree with every word you say here.

Now that we have that out of the way. Why did you post this in this thread? This is off-topic, inappropriate and absolutely not within the intent of the discussion that has taken place so far.

*****

Then to the rest of the posters, YES, any one who is bringing messages of peace must feel very ignored and downtrodden in these times.

Because I asked a question. Someone answered. And we were having a conversation. You're intelligent and should've seen that. There's nothing inapropriate about that.

Originally posted by Saphronia
You make it sound like there is something wrong with feeling good. I'm sorry, I may have missed something in your post. I mean, if this life has a point--it is to make your time count for something. What is wrong with doing the things that make you happy? I won't beat myself up because I do the things I love. They maybe petty in insignificant to the outside world, but my joy is my peace. Let me be a blind sheep bah, bah'ing my way to death. If that is what puts a smile on my face so be it. Whatever is next could be better or worse. So, make life heaven. There is nothing wrong with that.

Even those that fight--battle after battle--find some joy in the winning and misery in the losing. We are emotion driven beings. Even those that spend their days and nights with their nose in book find joy in learning. The search is a high, and without the tug of feelings who would ever get up outta bed--would we even have beds??? We'd still be draggin our knuckles on the ground if we didn't feel, and experience emotions. To me it isn't something to knock, but something to celebrate...yah! i'm happy. boo, i'm sad. grrr, i'm mad.

Didn't say it's wrong, but why is it the GOAL of everyone's life, to be happy? Happiness is relative, you can be the poorest person in the world and be happy. So we all search for money/love other crap that society SAYS makes you happy but when we get it, we realize it was bull. The highest suicide rate in the world is rich white people. Aren't they supposed to be happy? Hmm.. and this is the whole point. We strive for happiness more than we strive for truth. Whatever brings us emotional/physical/mental satisfaction is what we live for, but you know, ALL humans are service to self beings, and that's the reason. We can't fathom an existance without the strive for "love, family, happiness, pleasure..." because that's all we know, too bad most of it is an illusion. Love doesn't exist, it's just a word describing a bunch of pleasure-inducing synapses in your brain, so love is pleasure.... that's all it is. "I love you" means "I get pleasure from being around you, you give me sense of control because I feel like I own you since you don't have sex with anyone else, you have a nice facial structure, you give me your energy just because you "love" me when no one else did, and you're my provider of physical/emotional pleasure.... Many times you think about getting out of this but society and other "pressures" make sure you think twice, or face consequences! And that means I lose my control over you, control over my constant FEED of energy from you, so I'd go nuts and really upset that this has to end. You're terminating my energy feed, you shall be avenged!".

okay.

I get what you are saying...all we want is to feel good and we do all this crap to make it happen. My point is, and so...that's how we we work. That's just the way it is.

You are over-thinking love. I mean, I'm not a fan of it, but who sits down and really tries to define why they love. You love, that's it. The feelings are there and they move you to try to keep things going with your partner. And over time you've been together so long and shared so much that this person actually knows you.

When I had to leave my ex I felt sorta what you explained, but it didn't stop me from leaving. The pursuit of happiness is what moved me leave. But, I've always been the type that says damn what you think I'ma do me...so it kinda depends on your personality. My ex and I are really good friends now. I couldn't completely give him up...you maybe totally right, we still need to feed off of each other for pleasure, but who cares. It's all perception anyway.

Come on people wake up and smell the death.
There has never been and never will be peace. It is not human nature to live in peace. No religion will change that, they only serve to keep it going. Even if we still lived in mud huts and had no religion, the tribe in the next vally would always look like they had more and we'd kill them to get our hand on what they have. Sure we've evolved technology wise but we're still living in those mud hut spiritually speaking.

Just the calm before the storm folks....and if this is the "calm", I sure as hell am not looking forward to the "storm"....

Originally posted by IMMORTAL
It seems like nobody ever listens to the Popes messages to the world.

He banned condoms from countries where AIDS is spreading like a simple flu. You need to be patient to get some good messages behind his middle-age attitude.
As for 2003: We are at 65° C - going for 90° in 2004 and I hate to see the atmosphere boiling