new pope pool

Paul agrees with Shacks, I agree with Paul. What IS the world coming to?

Hey, what a wonderful day! Missi: agree with that, an' we've got a full house!

I have to agree. Why? Because I do actually agree.

Umm.. it's just occurred to me Paul, how could it possibly be a full house without the blessing of the goon, mykle or the kangaroo jockey?

.. and you have to work for the 'big boss' driving, very sensibly, through the city taking out condomn machines against the clock and stopping off at various churches to stock up on holy water and beads. In the corner of the screen is a meter showing 'prayers remaining' and 'souls saved' every time you die and have to restart by jumping from the roof of the vatican through a cloud of rising black smoke.

Every time you die, you have to sit through hours of dreary news footage.

Increase your spiritual strength every time you receive communion... The bigger your bible is the more spiritual fire power you have. Increase bible size by preaching drive -by sermons... I think we're onto a winner here...the financial potential...

I have faith.

ok, you get the religious technicalities correct for accuracy and I'll work out how to twat as many people as possible and still get into heaven.

Ah I see, now THAT'S where I fall down.

Actually, I think it's a typically Missi arguement that misses the point - that it's rarely anything to do with birth-control and everything to do with human nature and machismo! Still, I'll agree it couldn't hurt ;)

The Washington Post just did an online article about the Pope's final words and actions: rather eerie, especially for those of us who actually believe that death is not our final journey. Apparently he was speaking to someone who wasn't 'there' in the literal sense, saying, "I have looked for you. Now you come to me, and I thank you", something like that. The archbishops who were in the room at the time, being good, literal minded boyz, thought he was trying to speak to all the people praying for him outside his window. The metaphysicist in me wonders, though.... did someone appear at the 'doorway' for him, to help him on his journey? I'm all weirded out now..

Does anyone really care what you think of me or my arguments, except you mykle. I know you're still smarting from the way your last tenancy here turned out viz a viz another departed user, but you behaved like a twat and ended up being treated like one. What's new?

Hmmm...I am not scared of dying (well I am a bit) but I don't want to die on my own. I don't just mean I want people around me...I want someone who can hold my hand...take me over to wherever it is I'm going. Maybe that's whom the pope saw - someone to go over with him.

It wasn't your arguement though was it George? You can tell that by the fact that it's not wholly wrong :)

That's what I was thinking. The mother of a friend of mine died recently; he was with her during her final days, and she said something very similar. An already deceased brother came to her and offered her a cookie, apparently, and then she saw people at the door, whose faces she couldn't make out clearly (and it wasn't the door in her room, which was closed!). I think the pope died a 'good death', if there is such a thing. I'm sure he was ready. He suffered a lot in his final months.

If Christians see Christ at the end and Buddhist see Buddha who do the atheists get?

perhaps like Sartre, they see a whole lot of 'nothing'!

As a more serious point - I remember reading a book about enforced death (death in a war etc.) in which the author maintained that ghosts are people who died without realising it. Is it possible that we need someone to guide us when we shuffle of the mortal coil?

*volunteers for guide job*

Here you go Liana - off the top of my head without being at home to check, here are some of my favouritef lovely sacred music (which should be downloadable) to get your spine tingling: (in no specific order) Spem in Alium - the forty part motet by Thomas Tallis Beati quorum via - Stanford Ave Verum Corpus - Mozart Timor et Tremor - Orlando di Lasso (or Lassus) Ave Maria - Bruckner The Lamb - Tavener O vos omnes - Victoria Cantate Domino - Monteverdi And I cannot recommend Rachimaninov's Vespers enough to anybody (but they have to be in Russian not English to get the full effect)

Although I often wonder if you are of this Earth, George, the job requires someone from the 'other-side'... no, I don't mean Jasper.

Maybe ghosts are those that weren't ready to follow their helpers into the light....

I tend to buy classic and choral collections...HMV are doing excellent deals right now...4 CD packs for about £6...these usually feature just one or two movements - usually the most famous from various pieces...that way you can find out what composers you like and buy or download more of their work! I love Tavener's "The Lamb" but I prefer "Song for Athene" inspired by the death of a young friend of Tavener's in a cycling accident and (tragically) made famous by being sung at Princess Di's funeral.

It's possible, archergirl, but it would rely on some mechanism, perhaps God's omnisceince, or a Guardian Angel's constant vigilance, to be certain to catch everyone at the moment of death. Perhaps, like everything else, the system is not perfect and some people die without anyone to guide them and they wander about not realising they are dead. My point being that most people are ill for a while before they die and so are more carefully 'observed', but if you died suddenly in confusing circumstances...

Interesting concept...you may have something there... I tend to think that the system _is_ perfect, or incredibly ordered to an extent that humans can't generally fathom (being prone to creating chaos themselves...), that everyone has a 'someone' waiting for them on the other side, or many someones, and that ghosts are either something like an energy 'residue' or have something to do with dimensions overlapping. My father in law is a rather well-known parapsychologist, and he's NEVER seen a ghost; but I have! Am I seeing into other dimensions? Dunno! I'm not sure I believe in 'God' as such (in the omniscient, anthropomorphic sense), but I'm quite into the idea of the Jedi concept of The Force, which contains and connects everyone and everything.

I like that one too.... I sort of have loads of sheet music of loads of obscure but wonderful stuff. One of my earliest memories is of when my mum first left, my dad would take me and my sister to the Bodlean (sp?) library in Oxford where we would have to wait in the reception area with colouring books, while he would scurry towards hidden tomes of unheard music, transcribing it out for his choir to sing.

>> ...to guide us when we shuffle ... << I imagine you do a lot of wondering, mykle. The rest of us KNOW things. If you take the time to read your post you will see your words indicate 'when' which I interpret as guidance leading up to and during, not 'after' the event. It's SO easy to be picky don't you think?

I think 'The Force' is just a 'rip off' of Buddhist 'Cosmic Conciousness' but I'm starting to think that Jung was closer to the truth with his 'collective unconcious' and we this determines what we see when it's to far outside our normal experience.

I know someone who works in that Library! along with the British it has a copy of almost everything...fab!

.. and this determines what we see when it's too far outside our normal experience.

I sort of imagine it is a magical place because we - being kids - were not allowed in it. My dad would get so carried away that we'd be colouring in reception from the moment it opened to the time he was kicked out. He'd always buy us KFC on the way home to make up for it.

S'okay, I got it! I agree about the Cosmic Consciousness thing, although Yoda put it so succinctly to young Luke there in the swamp whilst he levitated the X-wing outta the muck.... I'm just wondering, if it was the case that there WAS someone there with him, just WHO exactly JP2 saw before he stepped off the coil....maybe I'll find out when I step off, too!

emule working overtime. Thanks again. Jude, Im scared to buy anything that may have opera on it...

Since the Pope is supposed to be Christ's representative on Earth it was probably Jesus who came to personally retire him.

This is a good link as to who should be the next Pope. http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/warmingup.php?id=874

lol... this one is an excellent buy...no opera! HMV (in London anyway) have £5 off

Which reminds me - download Barber's Agnus Dei, you will not be disappointed

Did Jesus offer him a cookie, I wonder...?

Maybe an Angel cake...

hark at us, eh? Reunited through sacred music....who'd'a thought?

I think it will be an Italian.

I can't believe the hysteria that's surrounding his death. He was an old man fer chrissakes, and more importantly JUST a man, nothing more.

I have to confess the media circus is pissing me off a bit as well but with today's media it's inevitable.

lolol yes, its a miracle indeed (ho) Jude, have ordered it. Gosh. The kids will be even more chuffed.

Jude, You win a case of digestive biscuits. The only person to get my point.

this pope was around for so long that he appointed 98% of the present Cardinals - so they are bound to appoint another conservative, die-hard Pope - but one who won't live so long. It'll be a 75 year old Italian timeserver. that may well spell the death-knoll of the Catholic Church. It needs to grow up and it isn't doing it.

I think we will have a short pontificate next ...JP2 is too hard an act to follow. There are three problems - Following the 26 year autocratic reign of JP2 th Church is very centralised, the focus in Europe. The Americans feel out of touch. (well f**k em is what I say...they can't Americanise and rule everything!) - Poverty/ HIV crisis in Africa. Would the easing of the condom rule help? Probably not...HIV / AIDS is rampant and rising among those of other faiths in the 3rd world, in India for eg. - Falling congregations and vocations in Western Europe. It s this third point I think that will define the choice. Ask young Catholics why they are staying away and you do get criticisms of Birth control policy/ women priests/ stance of homosexuality BUT this isn't really what's keeping them away...if it was why not go to one of the many Christian churches where these issues don't apply. The real issue is the complete embracing of secular values and the feeling that the Church is out of touch. We spend 5 days a week earning money and progressing careers, Friday night and Saturday night enjoying the money, leaving little enough time to see your family let alone go to hurch. People no longer see Mass as relevent and important... Interesting given that most young catholics still want to marry in Church, bring their kids up as catholics. Ask them why and they say, the morality, sense of responsibility for one's behaviour and community they enjoyed from the Church in youth is something they want for their children. what they fail to see is that all these good things are fruits of the Holy Spirit, and central to these things is Mass and the celebration of Eucharist. So I think the next pope will be an Italian who can address this. The pope after that may be from the third world but not yet. The Church in Africa is too young and there is too much of a link to left wing commie politics in Latin America

<<- Poverty/ HIV crisis in Africa. Would the easing of the condom rule help? Probably not...HIV / AIDS is rampant and rising among those of other faiths in the 3rd world, in India for eg.>> Yes the easing of the condom rule would help. Are you telling me that being told that using a condom is against God's wishes does not have an effect? That someone can't be a good catholic *unless* they *don't* use condoms doesn't have an effect? When a form of contraception that can help prevent the spread of diseases is given a moral label, (or immoral), it sends out a terribel message to the world. I realise that the church thinks that sex itself is bad anyway (unless in marriage), so perhaps the church is saying that people who die of AIDS deserve it anyway, the sinners that they are. Where is the compassion, that's what I want to know. If you read the New testement in detail, you can see that a lot of what is now deemed as Christianity has nothing to do with the teachings of Christ. I say pick a Pope who accepts the world as it is, people as they are, and who wants to make a difference to quaility of life of EVERYONE on the planet. How silly of me- that's against what being a Pope is all about anyway. ANNNDDD.... why are people crying about the Pope being dead, when he is obviously having a whale of a time with god and Jesus right now... the lucky bugger.

having said all that...like many Catholics laity, priests and Religious, I do not agree with the official Line on Birth control...I think that part of Humanae Vitae is simply wrong