Sell the Vatican, Feed the world

Wow, this thread is idiotic.

So, when you sell the buildings that the Church owns, where will the residents live? When you sell the buildings that the Church owns that house hospices and hospitals, where will the sick and dying go? When you sell the museums that raise the money that pay for outreach to the sick and indigent, where will money come from in the future? When people want to be inspired by works of art in the future, where will they go? When the clergy and the people that work for the Church would like to be paid, where should they go?

It seems that while the tone on CiR has remained the same (slightly combative, eager to discuss issues, happy to pontificate), the level of erudition has dropped like a rock.

Eric

[edit on 12-10-2009 by EricD]

Originally posted by Devino


I believe that Jesus was against the establishment, like the Church, and was all for Understanding (or if you will, Gnosis). I have a congregation at my house every Easter. Everyone that is there is offered more food than they can eat, I don't hoard my money but actually give some away (hidden in Easter eggs) and everyone is considered equal (no rules about hats in my house).

Oh...and a few other things...
No excommunications.
No burning people alive at any time.
No inquisitions.
No raping nor molesting of children.
No belittling nor destroying of others' religions or their symbols/writings.
No preaching of fear and ignorance (we actually promote Love and Understanding or Gnosticism).

Now, can the Vatican say the same?

Aside from self aggrandizement, is there a point here?

Eric

Originally posted by Alethea

1) Remember when they sold indulgences?

Yes, you could pay your way out of hell and better your changes at...well, maybe purgatory.

They have always taken advantage of the illiterate and the ignorant.

2) Remember when they would not allow people to own or read the "holy books"?

3)Remember when they went into starving countries and bribed people with rice and yams?

[edit on 12-10-2009 by Alethea]

1) Read up on indulgences. It's not what you think it is.

2) No, I don't. Care to back that up with some sources? That's a typical anti-Catholic canard.

3) Sources please. And I'm asking for something that explicitly states that if you didn't do what they said you wouldn't receive the food.

Eric

reply to post by EricD


Eric, the idea was proposed not to help the poor ,but destroy the Catholic Church. Sell the Vatican to whom? Just who would have the money to buy it. It is not an idiotic idea it is an intelligent and well thought out plan to take over everything. Don't be surprised if someone has put up world heritage signs all over the Vatican.



[edit on 12-10-2009 by eradown]

Sure, they can sell the Vatican, but who's going to buy it?

All you'd be doing is moving money around, but you're still not doing anything with it.

If they really want to do any good, kick out the clergy, turn it into a free university site for sustainable development.

Liquidate the non-capital assets to pay the instructors..

reply to post by EricD


Well I guess I am an idiot, for I believe that people are more important than any religion, Church or self exaltation.
I believe that the purpose of life, or existence, is to feel and to take care of each other so we can experience this thing we call reality together.
I believe that the health, education and welfare of all our brothers and sisters on this planet is imperative.
We all have faults, we are human and I can accept that. It's the blatant hypocrisy that drives me and even worse, the act of accusing someone of doing the very thing that the accuser is guilty of. The guilty accuser is ashamed of their criminal actions so they attack and persecute other people, most of these other people have no idea what they did wrong.

The idea is not to destroy the Vatican, nor sell it neither, but to set all of this into perspective.
Look at what we have become!!!

The biggest critics of Catholicism usually are communists and socialists. They really should not point fingers at Catholicism for excomunication because the socialists and the communists have their own version of excomunication. It is difficult for dissenters in totalitarian Communist and socialist countries to obtain an education. Education and healthcare are the communist socialist version of communion. Socialists and communists need to repair their own houses before they condem other people's houses.

[edit on 13-10-2009 by eradown]

I think the world could be fed easily without resorting to selling anything. It would require food donations from a lot of places and transport to distribute food, etc. What is lacking is the will to do it and a spirit of cooperation. In addition, some countries are only too willing to keep a good proportion of their people at a subsistence level and would steal all the food aid or monetary aid anyway.

If the Vatican were sold, the money wouldn't even make to the food wholesalers. It would be skimmed off in a hundred directions all down the line. That goes for all of the world's great art collections.

The problem of world hunger is not one of lack of food or of resources tied up in art collections.

On the subject of Sarah Silverman. Yummy, yummy, yummy!

Originally posted by Alethea
Liars and thieves can never be "heroes".

Don't sell the vatican----end the vatican.

It has always been an oppressive regime.

Remember when they sold indulgences?

Yes, you could pay your way out of hell and better your changes at...well, maybe purgatory.

They have always taken advantage of the illiterate and the ignorant.

Remember when they would not allow people to own or read the "holy books"?

Remember when they went into starving countries and bribed people with rice and yams?


Is it possible that this bribery still occurs? Is it possible that "the elite" "the bankers" "the illuminati" are just the knights, bishops, and rooks in this little game?

Is it possible that mortgage scams, homelessness, poverty, and hunger has actually been orchestrated to promote dependency on faith based initiatives? Is this how they will try to recoup their power?


Churches have lost a lot of membership; people are waking up to their lies and manipulation. They are loosing control and they have to regain it somehow. Mass dependency seems like a plan. But it won't be for everyone. Only the ones who pass their test of "judgements" will be fed and housed. Ah yes, they will say the church has entered the "Age of Judgement" and they will have a dossier on everyone, thanks to ACORN and other statistical bureaus.


Eventually, even those who have been accepted to receive the 'faith charities' will be screened more diligently as they weed out the dregs of those who are not capable of hard work. The hard work being to restore the planet to its Paradise condition.

Funny, Jesus never mentioned a planetary restoration. As a matter of fact, if you want to get technical about it, John 14: 2 quotes Jesus as saying "I go to prepare a place for you." He goes on to say 'I will come back for you so that you can be with me where I am.'...or something like that.


Sell the vatican--feed the poor?

When money is more worthless by the hour, who can eat gold?

The vatican had their chance.

The time is over.

END the Vatican!


[edit on 12-10-2009 by Alethea]

Couldn't agree more with most of this post.

Get rid of the Vatican, and the Pope, absolute waste of time.

An idiot in a white hat, probably the richest guy in the world?

Originally posted by eradown
The biggest critics of Catholicism usually are communists and socialists. They really should not point fingers at Catholicism for excomunication because the socialists and the communists have their own version of excomunication. It is difficult for dissenters in totalitarian Communist and socialist countries to obtain an education. Education and healthcare are the communist socialist version of communion. Socialists and communists need to repair their own houses before they condem other people's houses.

[edit on 13-10-2009 by eradown]

I'm neither, and personally i think Catholicism is rubbish and the Vatican a waste of space.

How much child abuse goes on and is covered up by the Vatican is a joke too.

Born into sin?

Repent your sins and all is forgiven?

I'm sorry father, i killed 2 million people today. That's ok, 12 Hail Marys and you're forgiven.

Hm. No chance.

reply to post by Lister87


Finally! A sophisticated argument enters the arena. It's about time.

So, what do you base your assessment of the Pope's intelligence on? Read some of his papers or books?

You must be quite discerning, as most objective critics believe that he is extremely learned and very intelligent. Bravo on seeing through that obvious facade!

And clearly he is the richest man on the planet. No doubt about that. It's so perfectly clear that there is no need to actually quote any sources, provide any data or back that up with any argumentative.

Nicely done sir!

Eric

I'm pretty sure she does not really mean to sell the Vatican, I think she is saying use some of that hoarded wealth to do something more productive than sitting on it.

reply to post by Lister87


Then the exact same could be said for any religion, could it not, weither it is the catholic religion, Prodestant religion, islam , jewish religion etc, they are all guilty of sin, abuse etc.

So where does it stop. Sell off every Religious church, chapel, mosque in the world to feed the hungry and starving.

Even better idea, why not target those who have profiteered, out of the resources from those countries, target the oil companies for one for the billions they have made, I betcha they would be soon in moaning about it.

reply to post by Devino

It's not like selling the Vatican would actually do any real good, I mean in the world today $500 billion isn't that much money. The point is the Catholic Church stands in contrast to their own religion.

The Church went against Jesus' original teachings or what is called being against-Christ (anti-Christ), from that we now have several thousand different religions and a myriad of churches.

The New Testament is part and parcel of the broad questions raised in religious thought that are known as: immortality and personal salvation, i.e., on escaping this world for a better heavenly life. At the same time, the NT is completely dominated by an apocalyptic world view of the future. The writers believed all will be resolved by the decisive intervention of God, the End of the Age, the Battle of Armageddon, the last great Judgment, and the eternal Kingdom of God.

The new Christology - evolving the messiah into god - that develops during the late first century, is thoroughly “Hellenistic” - Greek mythology - with Jesus as the human to be transformed into the pre-existent, divine, Son of God, who sits at the right hand of God and is the Lord of the cosmos. The whole complex of ideas about multiple levels of heaven, fate, angels, saints, demons, miracles and magic abound. In Dante’s Divine Comedy - him a devout Catholic - he merely recreated in literature what had already evolved into the Catholic catechism of the Middle Ages. See on the outside of any cathedral in Europe for examples of all those critters carved into stone!

The NT is as if all the questions hinted at in the Hebrew Bible - Christian OT - only begins to explore. Such questions about theodicy, justice, human purpose, history, death, sin - are all suddenly answered with a loud and resounding “Yes!” There is little, if any, struggle remaining to complete. There are a few haunting questions, but no genuine tragedy or meaningless suffering. All is guaranteed; all will shortly be worked out.

Beginning in 1517 with Martin Luther various attempts have been made to reinterpret early Christianity as a message for our time, but usually is limited to terms of ethics or some existential core of truth. The Pentecostal and traditional Catholics still take the Holy Bible to be literally true but no educated person could make that case today.

History. I seriously doubt that St. Peter was ever in Rome. But Note: The current Church hierarchy’s occasional references to “finding” new archeological evidence supporting the claim (of Peter in Rome) must mean we are about to be treated to a rerun of the St. James ossuary “find.” End.

Back to Peter. The hazards of traveling the Mediterranean aside - well recorded by St. Paul - there would have been no reason for Peter to travel from Jerusalem to Rome. That was a month long sea voyage at best. 6 months overland with even more hazards. Only the most urgent of matters would have sent anyone to Rome. As in life or death.

My concern involves the historic “Church Fathers.” The church of the First Century AD was organized as a stand-alone autonomous congregation. The local congregational leadership followed the biblical directives. The office of bishop is also called elder or overseer (presbyter) in the NT. These senior men were to posses these qualifications: to be men of good repute, husbands of one wife and with faithful children. When installed, they were charged with the supremely important task of assuring adherence to the faith!

Another church office, the deacons did the heavy lifting and the evangelists were the ones out front doing the preaching. This is the New Testament description of the first church of Christ!

The Romans dispersed many Jews of every ilk from Judea following the crushing of the Revolt of 66-73 AD. The number of independent churches grew exponentially. By the end of the First Century AD, it is safe to say there were 1,000s of congregations. Some were larger and some were richer than the others but all of those congregations had their own bishop. The cities of Rome and Alexandria must have had dozens of congregations and consequently, dozens of bishops, all at the same time.

The next Jewish diaspora followed on Rome’s crushing of the second revolt in 132 to 135 AD. It was led by Simon bar Kochva. It was temporarily the more successful revolt of the two. The rebels actually minted coins during their short lived revolt. And again, this dispersion of people would also have resulted in the establishment of still more early Christian congregations around the Mediterranean basin. Remember that at the beginning, all Christians were Jews! That was still the case in Judea.

Alexandria, Egypt is the city having a larger Jewish population outside of Judea including Jerusalem. One of the bishops of Alexandria was Cyril, another was Clement and a third was Athanasius. The “accepted” dates of their service fit neatly into the Roman Church’s own ecclesiastical history of the world. But that’s really a chicken and egg thing. I’m suggesting that at any one time in the early centuries there may have been 10 or 20 bishops in Alexandria or Rome.

Discounting the James and Peter interview with Paul in Jerusalem around 45 or 50 AD, the first church council was called in 325 AD, by Emperor Constantine. It was NOT called by the Bishop of Rome.

The emperor was more powerful than any individual bishop. More proof Constantine was the more influential is evidenced by the response of the bishops. The Council was convened in the small town of Nicaea (which is now Iznik) in Turkey, about 43 miles from southwest of the city of Byzantium (which is now Istanbul). The council was NOT convened in Rome as you might expect if the Bishop of Rome was in fact the King of the Hill! As a fact, the bishop of Rome Sylvester DID NOT ATTEND the Council! More evidence of his LACK of standing.

Again, this demonstrates the relative insignificance placed on the bishopric of Rome as late as the 4th century AD. From the skimpy records extant it is generally accepted that about 250 bishops attended (out of an estimated 318 bishops - but whose estimate is this? Why not estimate 1,318 bishops?). The Roman Church claims a certain man named Sylvester was the Bishop of Rome. I submit Sylvester was but one of a dozen or more “bishops” IN Rome. There is no evidence he was bishop OF Rome outside the Catholic Encyclopedia.

The Roman Church designates Sylvester as “the First” which fits with their writing of history after the fact. I have come to the conclusion that the church we know today and call the Roman Catholic Church was founded around 476 AD, the year the last Roman emperor fled Rome never to return. That’s consistent with Sir Edward Gibbon’s view of history.

Epilogue. Benito Mussolini did the Church its greatest service in 1929, when he forced the Pope to sign the Lateran Treaty. That took the Church out of DIRECT and open involvement in world politics. The Church is still deep into covert involvement especially in the Western Hemisphere south of the Rio Grande River, but as younger men rise to the Curia, it is getting to be less so. The Treaty created the legal Vatican City of today. Oh, for his trouble, the Pope promptly excommunicated Mussolini for deigning to defy the Holy Mother Church and its Vicar of Christ, the embodiment of GOD on earth!

Oh, the Pope did not get promoted to “infallible” status until the Vatican Council in the early 1870s. Now alluded to as the FIRST Vatican Council following the Second Vatican Council called by Pope John XXIII.

[edit on 10/15/2009 by donwhite]

I have always hated Silverman, but this Idea is actually really good. The Vatican is quite possibly the most corrupt and evil institution to exist on the Earth. It has taken money from rich and poor alike, and used it for control.

The only way I would feel that the Catholic church isn't evil is if they in fact did sell it, and use the money to do something good.

If the pope had, oh I don't know 100k a year to do his job, that would be reasonable. If they made the contents of their library available to research by anyone, I might change my mind.

Originally posted by Lister87


I'm neither, and personally i think Catholicism is rubbish and the Vatican a waste of space.

How much child abuse goes on and is covered up by the Vatican is a joke too.

Born into sin?

Repent your sins and all is forgiven?

I'm sorry father, i killed 2 million people today. That's ok, 12 Hail Marys and you're forgiven.

Hm. No chance.

I divide the people who want to sell the Vatican into two groups: the envious and the hypocritical.One of the groups just wants the Catholic church out of international banking. They want the Vatican gold sold. I do not know enough about the Catholic Church's involvment in international banking to say for certain if they should get out. I am not so sure that the people who intend to buy that gold with fiat currency have good intent. I am sure there is more poverty and ignorance in the world because of the few families who control most of the wealth in the world than as a result of Nuns Monks ,and Priests. Giving those few families the Vatican gold for funny money does not seem like a good idea to me.Most of the bankstirs robbing my country blind would be better off getting out of banking.

The group that just hates the Catholic Church is hypocritical. Most of them shut their mouths on all the sexual abuse foster children have endured in state custody. Most of them do not rant and rave against Medicine or Education when some professionals in those fields are shown to be molesters. They want to sell the Vatican art so the Rockefellers can add Michael Angelo's statue of David to a private collection and keep the riff raff who are now allowed to gaze at it away. If those people want art and beauty they should create it and not take it away from others.

I admit confession is weird ,but many denominations of Christianity believe that if you accept the Lord Jesus as your saviour all your sins will be forgiven. Outsiders of Christianity do not understand either doctrine. In their eyes Christians are too easy going on wrong doers.





[edit on 15-10-2009 by eradown]

reply to post by eradown

I am not so sure that the people who intend to buy that gold with fiat currency have good intent. Giving those few families the Vatican gold for funny money does not seem like a good idea to me. Most of the bank-sters robbing my country blind would be better off getting out of banking.

Get over it. There is not enough GOLD to run the world on. The US dollar has about 35% of the so-called fiat money in the world. I say “so-called” because there is NO other kind. That argument was OVER in 1913. And will not be raised again. EVER.

Once upon a time we had 65% of the fiat money on the planet but our position is gradually declining. NOT because we are doing badly but because the rest of the world is GROWING.

Most of them shut their mouths on all the sexual abuse foster children have endured in state custody. Most of them do not rant and rave against Medicine or Education when some professionals in those fields are shown to be molesters.

But NONE of those groups claim to be SPECIALLY authorized by GOD through the ONE and TRUE HOLY MOTHER CHURCH and its APOSTOLIC SUCCESSORS to have special status and the capacity to FORGIVE sins that could prevent you from entering into Heaven! Children are taught from infancy that a PRIEST is a PRIZE of GOD and he is due REVERENTIAL treatment! That is a bit different, wouldn’t you agree?

I admit confession is weird, but many denominations of Christianity believe that if you accept the Lord Jesus as your savior all your sins will be forgiven.

Confession is the most EXQUISITE form of CONTROL ever devised by man! Prior to around 1100 AD confession was a congregational ritual but sometime in that era, the Church instituted the individual or private confessional. And thereby guaranteed itself another 1,000 years of DOMINANCE over its communicants.

[edit on 10/15/2009 by donwhite]

Originally posted by donwhite




Get over it. There is not enough GOLD to run the world on. The US dollar has about 35% of the so-called fiat money in the world. I say “so-called” because there is NO other kind. That argument was OVER in 1913. And will not be raised again. EVER.

Once upon a time we had 65% of the fiat money on the planet but our position is gradually declining. NOT because we are doing badly but because the rest of the world is GROWING.

If gold were not so important, China and India would not be collecting it. The people at the FED would be delighted to give Germany back its gold. They would also make a full accounting of what happened to the gold at Fort Nox. Let me guess it is no longer in the country.There also would not be this rumbling from insensitive non Catholics to sell the Vatican.



[edit on 15-10-2009 by eradown]

Why don't they sell mecca so everyone can come home.

Ridiculous.

Originally posted by donwhite
reply to [url=http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread509622/pg2#pid7341645]

Most of them shut their mouths on all the sexual abuse foster children have endured in state custody. Most of them do not rant and rave against Medicine or Education when some professionals in those fields are shown to be molesters.

But NONE of those groups claim to be SPECIALLY authorized by GOD through the ONE and TRUE HOLY MOTHER CHURCH and its APOSTOLIC SUCCESSORS to have special status and the capacity to FORGIVE sins that could prevent you from entering into Heaven! Children are taught from infancy that a PRIEST is a PRIZE of GOD and he is due REVERENTIAL treatment! That is a bit different, wouldn’t you agree?

Try telling that to someone who is about to lose their life for a murder he did not committ. Try telling that to someone whose children were murdered by a foster parent. Some of the statists rival the inquistition in terms of cruelty. The God complex ,the thrill of abusing absolute authority would still be on this earth even without the Catholic Church. Without the Vatican, the world would just be uglier. I am sure whatever culture and creed you are a part of is capable of creating beauty also. I would dislike the idea of destroying the beauty your people created on account of evil people who exist in all the families of man.



[edit on 15-10-2009 by eradown]