Coincidentally your posting makes emphasis to how some spent part of their personal Christmas season with friends and family, 1 of our guests on Christmas Eve professes to Atheism. I think that the Pope’s implications are that “Box” religion fails the message. Our religious hang ups seems to negate the real purpose of being here on earth…..to help man kind and not just ourselves. So if an Atheist can hope for peace, which you would rather refer to it as Prayer, does it really matter? God does hear those who do not believe in him, don’t he?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/opinio...ed=all&_r=0

He invites atheists to desire peace? Even atheists?! Like they don't already? Like the desire for peace would never occur to them, unless prompted and led by him? What bloated arrogance!

If he really wants to walk that talk, he'll stop concerning himself with atheists, show some courage, and start specifically criticizing what the USG does, because it is the main obstacle to world peace.

He should decide whether he truly wants to be a Man of God, a Peacemaker, or just another political toadie. If he pushed hard enough, he might conceivably lose that specially conferred status, that prized ambassador from the USG, but he shouldn't even think about that; he should do the moral thing, and not allow the church to be so easily co-opted.

Taking the vow of celibacy, from which, in that church, chastity follows, shouldn't necessarily imply that a man should lose his cojones.

Do you think the USG is a bigger obstacle to world peace than al qaeda and North Korea? People from Mexico and other Latin American countries are risking their lives to sneak across the US border in large numbers to be part of the American dream. This is happening in no other country that I am aware of.

Yes, by a huge margin.

"US war-murdered 20-30 million since WW2: arrest today’s War Criminals
Posted on April 2, 2012 by Carl Herman
US covert and overt criminal Wars of Aggression caused 20-30 million deaths of human beings since World War 2, according to the outstanding documentation of James Lucas of Countercurrents.org. The US use/support of armed attacks is documented in 37 countries, and in direct violation of treaties after both world wars (Kellogg-Briand and UN Charter) to forever end armed attacks unless first attacked by another nation’s government.

The end of this gruesome and psychopathic history of armed attacks and war-murders in the Orwellian names of unalienable rights and freedom will end upon the demand of enough in the 99% to arrest the obvious current War Criminals.

What will you think, say, and do at this historic moment in US history?

What would make your family and you most proud, with consideration of your relatives who sacrificed dearly in wars?

What is the future you will work to earn: the continued path of lies, destruction and death of the 1%, or building a brighter future for 100% of Earth’s inhabitants? As you know, choosing 100% demands your intellectual integrity and moral courage to help expose and end the crimes of the current 1%. So this question is more: what is your life really for?"

Leave it to good ol' crazy Uncle VM to Hijack another thread and try to turn it into just one more political proclamation.

In the same way that the Pope's lack of basic understanding of atheists does not represent all Christians, VM's paranoiac misanthropy also doesn't represent the beliefs of most fellow atheists such as myself.

Quite the contrary actually, I find most to be exceedingly discerning, educated, thoughtful, trusting and honest.

If you read the Pope's message, without your usual political spin, you might realize that he was using "desire" as a substitute for "pray", since atheists probably don't spend a lot of time praying.

Hope you guys had a wonderful Holiday. Me thinks VM has defied even his own logic just to be ornery & obstinate. Any references to the Bible will contradict VM assertions that Jesus was a Libertarian, which is the reasons he failed to offer citation.

In VM's defense he DID qualify his statement by saying that he "thinks".

Oops - Now that I think about it... never mind!