musiclover

no fair!! :angry: hey berrychen....perhaps we can chat on AIM when i can get on...! :wink3: i'm guessing you go by 'berrychen' on there too...

:lol: :lol: :P you typing it that way just gives me a mental picture of you that's just funny!

i just went over it...! :P

yep, i know Estherchen....she's sweet! :-)

yeah, i think it's the computer i'm on...some days it just doesn't let me get on AIM! :rolleyes:

"chen" in german is a suffix to anyone's name that's an endearing term...

AIM is screwing up....it's not letting me sign-on!! :/ :angry:

yes. shut up. I KID I KID!!! :lol: :lol: :P you're still *the* Sweet One, no matter what. :kiss:

yes, he was a pretty good catholic! :cool: it's cool how he connected with so many young folks... makes me wish more of the spiritual leaders of all faiths would try to make such connections with young people, in order to bring about a liberal, loving, next generation...

actually, i find it surprizing that me wondering what a big deal is about pope's passing makes me somehow disrespect people on here or their faith/religion. i mean, really... it's actually mistyfying how anyone with just a little contrarian view is asked to shut up and is called names.

I'm not asking you to doubt your faith in god. Since you agree that its about politics and power, I guess you do know/realize that the position of "pope" has really nothing to do with one's faith in God. I don't know if the pope equals religion to you. I know many god-fearing catholics who actually don't give a damn what one guy who people call 'pope' thinks about gays or condoms or premarital sex or anything else. I never meant to disrespect or question anyone's faith in god. On a side-note, you might be very interested in reading "Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas" by Elain Pagels (Princeton University). (03) Jesus says: (1) "If those who lead you say to you: ?Look, the kingdom is in the sky!? then the birds of the sky will precede you. (2) If they say to you: ?It is in the sea,? then the fishes will precede you. (3) Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and outside of you." (4) "When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father. (5) But if you do not come to know yourselves, then you exist in poverty, and you are poverty." it's mind-blowing stuff! :cool:

i'm obsessive. i hate that about myself. there...now you know it.

ah, that's too bad, then! i do have a good ol' penpal in sweden, and one in norway! perhaps i should have one in finland too...! :sneaky: :cool:

"If you had to wed someone from the board..." I'd remain single...! :lol: :P

^ known him for a while...nice guy! :D

this is a site devoted to a music band...and i really didn't know what else to write down and i just wanted to be done with the registration...so i picked 'musiclover' since i do love music, in general! :D

:/ R.I.P, nonetheless. let's just move on....

just to be clear, i'm just cynical about any fellow man/woman who is all powerful and is going to tell me what's moral and immoral, or what's right and wrong. this goes for leaders of all faiths who get to be so powerful. unfortunately (or fortunately), only the catholics have such a pyramid of power, on top of which sits the pope. i thought pious and religious people didn't care for earthly power...to me, true godly people are happy just to be instruments of peace and love. Mahatma Gandhi comes to mind as a great example....he even gave up wearing suits.... compare that to the pictures of the pope visiting africa in his flowing white robes while the natives are half-naked! just a side-note: this pope, thanks to him being all-powerful, may also be responsible for the spread of AIDS in Africa during his papacy (because of his policy of being anti-condom).

like i said, i realize its bad for criticizing him (legitimate criticism, not "badmouthing" like you put it) after he's dead. but my overarching point is/was that he's just some head of a religion...he did most of the things that were good for his religion and for his posterity, not out of the greatness of his heart of anything. so i just don't see what the big deal is for America to officially mourn his passing. Americans (and others) are of course welcome to privately mourn (even that is kinda weird from my viewpoint, but that's just me), but I don't know if American government should be involved the way it is. It's all G.W.'s fault!! now that's crazy!! lol

in fact, i am spiritual. and that's why i hate all this pomp and circumstance over one guy. and in fact, i know and understand it all (i heard his biography, and have read about his deeds), that's why i'm more circumspect about it and also cynical. this guy wants to plant catholicism in Asia...asks like a dozen countries to invite him...all turn him down...except for India. He goes to India. Now, in India, Catholic Portugese and Spaniards ran the Inquisition against the locals just as the Inquisition was run in Europe. Thousands upon thousands were killed in the name of the pope and of his religion. Knowing this history, and knowing how this pope apologized to the native Americans in South America when he visited there, he was politely asked that he apologize. Not only he didn't apologize, he angered the Hindus by asking his bishops and cardinals to turn his gracious hosts--the Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs and Jains and Parsis of India--into Catholics. I hate such bigots! he may have done good for his followers, but that's about it. I can understand that the (observant) Catholics will mourn him. But to me, he was just another in an unbroken line of popes...men among men just like other men, who used religion to divide humanity... and by the way, the election of a pope isn't decided by some "god" in some "heaven", but by like 100+ cardinals, who are all thinking about how to increase the reach of Catholic church at the detriment of all other religions and faiths of humanity. This last pope got elected because he was from Poland...and Poland was smack in the middle of Cold War politics. I bet you the new pope will be some guy from Africa or South America, since that's where catholic converts are being found. Or perhaps even from Asia/India....if they can have a guy that looks like those Africans or Asians or South Americans, it'll be more easy to convert those folks. I wonder why this 'God' never wants to get a female pope. I also wonder how the center of catholicism is in Rome...is it because of mere politics, that the Roman empire was where the pot of gold and the earthly power was...that's how the bishop of Rome got to be the earthly prince of "the" church... I wonder how in about 2000 years of recorded history, no dissenter's voice was allowed to come in the way of the power of the Roman bishop.

if this is true... I wonder why they all saw it fit to go to his funeral??? it's all politics, really. They all try to "see and be seen". Why else would the Iranian prez go to the pope's funeral? i also don't get why *American* flag needs to fly at half-mast because the head of some religion died?! last i checked, americans didn't pledge allegiance to Rome....

why is it such a big deal that some man died?? i don't get it, really. i mean, he was elected as pope by his fellow cardinals. nobody likes to say bad things after someone dies, but all this glorification of this pope is kinda too much, really. :dozey: i mean, this guy goes to Brazil and tells of the 7th Day Adventists and Southern Baptists and others that they're "foxes" preying on his catholic "sheep." :rolleyes: then, he goes to india and tells his bishops and others to "harvest" the souls of hindus who're living in darkness and who're heathens.... so basically, he's a partisan among all others like him, who're only concerned about increasing the numbers of their own followers.

:thinking: those were the days....