You come across some crazy shit on the interwebs. I was just browsing around on that wikipedia this morning, and stumbled upon on article describing the scene pictured here. Apparently, in 897 A.D., a pope dug up the dead body of his predecessor, dressed it in papal robes and put the cadaver on trial. Pope Stephen (the new pope) had deacons stationed near the throne who would mutter the correct (guilty) responses to the new Pope's questions. The dead dude was found guilty, stripped of his papal vestments (which I presume were just put on him a few hours before), and then buried, only to be taken out of the ground again and thrown into the river Tiber.This was all politcally motivated, I gather. There were several warring factions in Italy at the time and the Papacy was used as a tool to gain power. But seriously, who thinks digging up a body and having a mock trial is a good idea? Why not just give a speech damning the last guys actions, or even moving the body to a place with less prestige than the Basilica? Fuck it, why even bother with the whole religious charade and stop bothering people about it?
I know what Christians like my dad would say if I ever brought this up to him. He'd say you can't judge the present church or question the existence of God just because some awful things were done in the past. My response to that is, why the fuck not? These popes were crazy. According to dogma, they are supposed to be the corporeal link to God. Does that mean God condones digging up corpses and having a puppet show? No. It means the whole thing is a fallacy.
And I still can't understand why so many people fall for it.
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5 comments:
lonley depression, based upon a vacant need for some type of belonging, however trivial and counterintuitive...fearing that the real answer lies deep within one soul, which most humans are too lazy to explore!
B
Well, yeah, but why that drives them to ritualistic cannibalism through transubstantiation, I'll never figure out.
cause it tastes good
And to the naysayers who demanded that I cite other sources than the specious wikipedia, the Cadaver Synod is pretty well documented here, here and even here.
religion is wacky. I will never understand it. Though I have to tell you about Dave's grandmother. She is quite religious and in a chat about religion with Dave and I, she starts talking about the rapture and the end of the world. And she casually mentions that she believes that George Bush could actually be the antichrist! I love it!!!
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