The pope has his own country!?!

To help clear up the issue of faith:

The entire idea of "faith" is that you BELIEVE in something without ever
having proof or ever being able to have proof that it is. That's what faith
is. If you knew something existed and you said it didn't, that'd just be
stupidity, on the other hand if you know something exists and you accept
that it does, that's just common sense. Faith is trusting your intuitions to
accept something that you know you may never understand.

As for the pope having his own country, Vatican City isn't really a country,
it's more of a state. The reason behind it is that the church needs to have
their own laws (Canon laws) in order to operate fully. Now anyone who is
a "citizen" of this state (meaning people who work for the church, priests,
bishops, etc) have the same sort of rights that embassadors have. If
they are found to have committed a crime, they can be tried under
Canon law or the law of the country in which they reside. This decision
is made by the church. Keep in mind that most bishops are actually a
form of lawyer. They study Canon law.
This is one of the reasons that China has many problems with Christians,
because they see all Christians as being citizens of Vatican City, and
since it is unlawful to be a citizen of more than one place in China,
there are some problems. ;\

.opt

I am glad to see that everyone seems to go into religious discussions now at this board with more acceptance of others opinions. Instead of just bad mouthing anyone and everyone else's opinion which didn't happen to agree with their own like what used to happen.

Those threads were all about 10-15 pages of pure nothing.

At least the religious threads now are actually accomplishing something.

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Way back when in 6th grade we learned about about christianity, judaism, islam, and hinduism. We learned about their history not about any of there beliefs. How they formed and stuff.

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Religious Education here in the UK (which is a compulsory subject up to age 14) teaches those things (with less about Judaism, and some about Sikhism and a cursory bit about Buddhism, reflecting the UK's different ethnic make up) as well as a basic outline of their beliefs, their practices and their culture. None of it is very indepth stuff, and you learn more about christianity than any other religion, especially later on when it turns into basic ethics. It does, however, teach kids enough that they don't fear the unknown, and some studies suggest that the better taught RE is, the more generally tolerant to minorities the school environment becomes.

One reason for the Vatican being a State, in addition to that mentioned by Optium, is that it allows the Church to wield secular power in the field of diplomacy, quite often with good results. It is one of the more active states in the UN, despite it's permanent observer status, as well as being a participant in the OCSE. It is the only European state to recognise the sovereignty of the Republic of China (Taiwan), and to refuse diplomatic recognition of China because of issues of human rights, as well as persecution of Catholics. And, believe it or not, it's a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. So we can all sleep easy knowing that there are no atomic stockpiles under St. Peter's Basilica.

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Originally Posted by Efli

So we can all sleep easy knowing that there are no atomic stockpiles under St. Peter's Basilica.

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Dan Brown would have us believe otherwise.

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Originally Posted by Doomgaze

Martyr, why not just come out and say it that you think that the Vatican is a tool of Satan, and all Catholics are going to hell, and so on and so forth? I'm sure you could post some Chick Tracts to round out the thread, and then we can all go out for punch and pie.

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Yeah, that's basically what I'm trying to say. I don't know what a Chick Tract is. Is that what Christians pass out on the street?

Anyway... I see no point in arguing any further. Not that I feel defeated, but I'm having a hard time thinking of a good way to advance my opnion before yours.
It doesn't matter though, since Doomgaze and most of you have heard the bottom line behind me wanting total Catholic cessation from Christianity anyway.
So, since I feel obligated to respond after what's been said, goodnight.

And if you want to hurl insults about my bluntness or ignorance, remember that I'm just coming out into the open here, agreeing with what's been said.
I'm also not going to read anymore of this thread.
Forums take up too much time and I'm going to ask a mod to ban me.

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Originally Posted by War Angel

You only just found out?...

Yes, the Vatican is a country, all on its own. It even has an army of some 500 VICIOUS (actually, not so much) fighters, with INTIMIDATING tights. They look cute. ^_^ I don't think the Vatican has much of other systems, most countries have... I think Italy provides much of those services, and the funding... well, let's just say there are LOTS of Catholics in the world.

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Yup but they do have a BRAND NEW helipad :D