Dinosaur Skull Found in Church

By Rossella Lorenzi | Thu Oct 28, 2010 10:42 AM ET

The marble-like balustrade in the Cathedral of Vigevano where the dinosaur skull was found.

Encased in pinkish marble-like slabs supporting a balustrade, this dinosaur — or what’s left of it — has for centuries been the most faithful presence in the Cathedral of St. Ambrose in Vigevano, a town about 20 miles from Milan.

“The rock contains what appears to be a horizontal section of a dinosaur’s skull. The image looks like a CT scan, and clearly shows the cranium, the nasal cavities, and numerous teeth,” Andrea Tintori, the University of Milan paleontologist who spotted the fossil near the altar, told Discovery News.

Measuring about 30 cm (11.8 inches), the skull was cut in sections as slabs of the marble-like rock were used to build the Cathedral between 1532 and 1660.

Horizontal section of the dinosaur skull. The cranium, the nasal lobes and numerous teeth are visible.
The calcareous rock in which the dinosaur remains are embedded comes from the rich fossil-bearing site of Mount San Giorgio, which is on the Unesco World Heritage List.

“It is called Broccatello and was mined in Arzo, Switzerland. We know that this type of rock dates geologically to the Lower Jurassic, about 190 million years ago,” Tintori said.

It is not clear what animal the skull belonged to. Tintori hopes to solve the mystery with a three-dimensional reconstruction of the fossilized remains.

Sarah Silverman Interview On Larry King Live 04/20/2010

She and Larry both confess being agnostics at the end of the clip.

This is the real undoctored web site

Deals to Good to Be True!  But, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch…

Millions in prizes at Corpus Christi church this Easter, but at a price.

“The Ultimate Giveaway” sounds like a promotion at a car dealership or a department store, not a contemporary, non-denominational church, but that is (in fact) the name of the Easter service series at Corpus Christi’s Bay Area Fellowship, where they’ll award $2 million to $3 million in prizes this weekend. It’s meant to sound worldly and materialistic so that they can draw in local unchurched populations, Cornelius insists. The church says it has only heard complaints over the campaign from fellow Christians. Well, you can officially register my complaint. Organized religion is already distasteful enough.  If the promise of everlasting life doesn’t do it, just give away cars!

The “twist” is that the real Ultimate Giveaway was John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
– John 3:16 (New American Bible)

Ugh…  please.  This mythology is so old and tired.  The story is fraught with so many issues, and using Easter as a marketing opportunity is giving plenty of people heartburn.  The price of course is the cheapening of everything.  Being a good Christian is now something people need to be tricked into… wait a second.  I guess things really haven’t changed, they are just more up front about it now.

Stop the madness… and don’t even get me started on the mess the Catholics have gotten themselves into.

“The problem is not in Muslims,” he continues. “The problem is with their God. They need to be liberated from their God. He is their biggest enemy. It has been 1,400 years they have been lied to.”

These are all dangerous words. Of the threats issued to his life by Islamists, he says, “That’s not the worst thing that can happen to you. I’m OK with it, I’m not afraid. . . . Palestinians have reason to kill me. Some Israelis may want to kill me. My goal is not to defeat my enemy. It is to win over my enemy.”

from the Wall Street Journal

From the geniuses at someecards.com

1. People don’t change their minds. Only rarely. Transformation is not a desirable option to our brains. It seems to require trauma, the threat of imminent death, to provoke real change of mind and bring about true transformation. Is it possible to enter death and be transformed while we are alive?

2. The greatest enemy of community is fantasy… visionary and wishful thinking. The lack of gratitude for what is, the unwillingness to appreciate what is, or the disdain for what is, erodes the fabric of community. Can we love unconditionally without coercion?

3. Our gross naiveté about the principalities and powers and their persistent desire and ability to enslave groups and individuals perpetuates the abuses institutions, including the church, are notorious for. Can all people be free?

4. Avoid naysayers as well as yes-men. You can always find complainers to agree with you. You can always find encouragers to agree with you. Can we find the courage to form our own minds independently, wisely, and compassionately?

I thought, hey… I like him.  He’s is talking about deconversion in #1, because that’s what it was like for me to step away from faith.  Constant bombardment with strange teachings in the Baptist church forced me to reevaluate the world we live in.

THEN, in #2 he nails it with typical religious thinking about the fantasy of a higher power vs. just appreciating this temporal gift of life on Earth, not just mine, but the whole human experience.  We just got here (relatively speaking), and the Earth will be here long after we have faded to extinction. I already love unconditionally without coercion and don’t know how else you could.

#3… tell me about it.

And, regarding #4, don’t “seek approval” for your point of view.  Establish it intellectually, with reason, and knowledge of the world and your fellow man. You don’t need other people to tell you what you should believe.

Holy crap, this dude’s batting 1000 in my book so far… but then came #5:

5. Listen to what the atheists are saying about the unprovability of God; discern the Christ-Principle in all things; have compassion for all beings. Is it possible to see all things as being reconciled?

Wha?! I rarely discuss the “unprovability of god”, but since you brought it up, what exactly is the evidence for God?  If you look at the sum total of the things the Christian God gets credit for in the Bible, why would you WANT to believe in him?  He wasn’t a good or just god. Jesus tried to correct all that, but please… look at the “miracles” he performed.  His teachings were in line with to Mohammad, Confucius, Buddha, Plato, etc. (borrowed, ex post facto, by reasonable men writing down “history” many years later). Other than these writings, what evidence is there for god?  For everyone good work, “divine” occurrence, or saved soul you can conjure, I can cite a dozen horrific, sad, disgusting things about the world that a good and just god would not allow… even a passive creator (with any “heart”) would not have created such a chaotic place.

Also, how would I find the “Christ-Principles in all things”?” As I understand it, the Principles of Christ are roughly, first, Faith in the Jesus Christ; second, Repentance… it really doesn’t matter after that because I get hung up on the FIRST one. I have faith that the human race has been duped for several millenia, for sure.  With regard to “sin”, seriously, Catholics (et al), get a grip and just be good people… forget about all the EXTRA rules and regulations that the church has piled on. It’s not a “sin” to eat meat… ever. Weird.

How about we all just skip ahead to “have compassion for all beings”? I can get on board with that… why make it sound like I need belief as a crutch.  See “The Golden Rule“.

The last sentence is stupid… no, we can’t reconcile all things, particularly mystical belief with intellectual reason.  They are incompatible.  Even less likely, reconcile your Christian mythology with a Islamic stranger an ocean away. Good luck.

However, abandon your fantastical beliefs, and then living with your fellow man, particularly the ones not like you, becomes much easier.  I guess his thoughts were pretty random after all.

It’s like Judge Dredd meets the Matrix meets World of Warcraft meets the Terminator meets Ted Haggard (with a dash of Denzel Washington).

Take a look at the SharperFX web site… look for the “WEBSITES” link — it has a “NEW SITES” sign sticking out of it with a pop-up laser shield behind THAT (wait for it…) contains eight pages of MAXIMUM FLASH… for God. Crowd favorite seems to be ICCM-1 (dash 1?). Ah, turns out all the other “good” ICCM website URLs were taken.

What would be amazing is if someone spoofed it and went WAY over the top — with flash animation, spinning logos, swords, lightning, voiceovers, random steel foundry noises…  aw crap.  He already has all that in there.  How do you spoof a caricature?

Anyway, in the spirit of the WWE, please to enjoy some wacky propaganda for… The Holiest of Holies… The Alpha and the ChrOmega… The Master of the Universe… The reigning Heavyweight champion of the world… (closest challenger is Islam the Destroyer)…  the ONE… the ONLY…  CHRISTIANnnnnn… FAITHHhhhhhh….  [CROWD CHEER].

In case you are curious, this is by no means the only account of Valentine’s Day’s origin, but it’s probably the most agreed upon by secularists and religious folk (secular version first):

Roman emperor Claudius II imposed a ban on marriages because too many young men were dodging the draft by getting married (only single men had to enter the army). A Christian priest named Valentinus ignored the ban and performed secret marriages. He was caught, of course, which meant that he was imprisoned and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, young lovers visited him with notes about how much better love is than war — the first “valentines.”

As you might have already guessed, the execution occurred in 269 CE on Februrary 14th, the Roman day dedicated to celebrating love and fertility. After a couple of centuries (in 469, to be precise), Emperor Gelasius declared it a holy day in honor of Valentinus instead of the pagan god Lupercus. This allowed Christianity to take over some of the celebrations of love and fertility which had previously occurred in the context of paganism.

Another similar version (written by a Christian zealot):

The Emperor’s ban on marriage for his soldiers was soon lifted when it became impossible to enforce. But this story now takes an odd turn. A short time after the execution of Valentine, the Roman Church came under the leadership of a priest named Augustine. Strange as it may seem, he formulated a church doctrine on marriage that resembled the edict of the former emperor Claudius. As can be seen by his own writings, Augustine was a man tormented over the whole subject of human sexuality. He finally came to the conclusion that for a man to be truly a “good soldier of the Faith,” he must not be distracted by any “carnal thoughts” like marriage. He thus instituted a practice that is still observed today, called the celibacy of the priesthood. Predictably, as with the soldiers of Emperor Claudius, this rule of celibacy brought much trouble upon the church, and has been a violently debated topic down through history. But if the decision had been left up to old Saint Valentine, you can be sure what his verdict would have been. Had he known what the future held for his own church perhaps he could have warned them. It seems odd indeed, that though Valentine had given his life in protest of the injustice of forbidding marriage, becoming a martyr, and being proclaimed a “Saint” by the church for his courage to stand for what was right, only a hundred years later to again see that same prohibition imposed within that very church… and so goes the great love story of Valentine… The legend of Valentine is an interesting one, and gives us some valuable insights… In these confusing days we live in, we are looking for a new day when there can be a restoration of pure love relationships. 

Step away from God and it becomes much, much easier to restore pure love to your relationships.  I promise.

MONKEYS TALK ABOUT RELIGION

Monkey Son: Dad, today at school my teacher said we evolved from other animals. That’s not true, is it?
Monkey Dad: Of course not, Steven. We were created by Monkey God in His Monkey image.
Monkey Son: But how do we know for sure God’s a monkey?
Monkey Dad: Well, do you think God throws his own poop and enjoys jumping up and down in place?
Monkey Son: Yeah…?
Monkey Dad: And do you think when he’s eating bananas, he periodically stops chewing and looks around with an angry expression to make sure no one’s plotting to steal them?
Monkey Son: Yeah…?
Monkey Dad: And do you think his ass is slightly less hairy than the rest of his body?
Monkey Son: Yeah.
Monkey Dad: Then, there’s your answer, champ.
Monkey Son: OK… but how do we know God really loves us?
Monkey Dad: Because his Son died for our sins. Monkey Jesus could have ripped off the Roman’s arms and masturbated all over their bodies, but he chose love instead. And I think that makes Him pretty darn special.
Monkey Son: Cool! Thanks, Dad!
Monkey Mom: How’s our son doing?
Monkey Dad: He’s going to be OK, Paula. He’s going to be OK.