Um... this quiz is surely flawed
What Kind of Goddess Are You?
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Goddess of Innocence
You hate needless fights and love peace. You tend to like children, but of course not all children possess the innocence you stand for. You loathe fakers, liars, and abusive people. You treasure your friends more than your own life. You will never stop fighting for what you believe in; the world needs more people like you.

Okay, I pretty much agree the description fits but the title? phhht

I can't help it. Semantics fascinate me. I'm sure the reasons for what I'm about to mention have to do with a very basic etymological origin, but.... Scatology is a word meaning the study of excrement. Yeah, that. And Eschatology is a branch of theology concerning the End Times. So I reckon it's all about when and how... the shit hits the fan. *grin* Sometimes I crack myself up.

Just for fun, here's a webpage noting Failed Predictions of the End-of-the-World
TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It ;)... and I feel fine.
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Somebody was thinkin'...
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"When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands with the buttered side facing down. I propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat; the two will hover, spinning inches above the ground. With a giant buttered cat array, a high-speed monorail could easily link major metropolitan areas."
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Benediction: the short blessing with which public worship is concluded
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I'm sorry, but he's too old to last, too conservative to grow or perhaps even preserve the Church, and too much an insider to speak to the disenfranchised outside of Europe that now make up the majority of the Catholic world. At best he will be a transitional pontiff and, in my opinion, this transition marks the beginning of the end for the current Catholic bureaucracy.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if another 'Vatican' and pope sprang up in Latin America. Over 40% of the world's Catholic population lives there. I really thought Arinze would have made a good compromise, as someone outside of Europe, and being conservative but representing willingness to change and cooperate with other world religions. The Church apparently wasn't interested.

My intuitive guess is that this Benediction will last no more than three years. We'll see if St Malachy's prophecy carries on and there is only one more pope before it's all done. In the meantime, we'll also see how Benedict XVI may or may not be the Gloria Olivae, whatever that truly means. I am getting vibes which are nothing like the peace of an olive branch. I've heard that Ratzinger was a Hitler youth. The phrase Uber Pontiff comes to mind, and not in a good way. Then again, I could be wrong. The one good thing he may be able to accomplish is a crackdown on the sex scandals.

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China. Behave.
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You know, I'm starting to scare myself. (Not)

Session Start: Mon Apr 11 2005 ; Session Ident: #Wolfkeep
[01:54] * Diana gets more earthquake notices from the USGS. You know, a volcano is gonna blow in Indonesia before this thing is over
[01:55] the subduction action there causing all the quakes is generating heat and that heat has to vent sooner or later

Timestamps above are Central Time, ie about 2am Monday morning which would be Monday afternoon in Indonesia.

AP - Volcano on Indonesia's Sumatra Island Erupts, Spews Out Ash
Talang began rumbling shortly before dawn Tuesday, and then spewed out ash up to 1,640 feet into the air.

Reuters - More than 25,000 panicked residents have been evacuated from the slopes of a rumbling volcano on Indonesia's Sumatra island and officials raised the alert level on Wednesday as the mountain's activity intensified. "The status of Mount Talang is now at top alert," Surono, a vulcanologist from the Directorate of Vulcanology and Geophysics in the Java city of Bandung, told Reuters.

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I expect there will be more than some rumbling and ash. This activity is following several quakes at Padang, Sumatra which is near Mount Talang. All of which is a further result of the December 26th quake that caused the big tsunamis. The entire arc of islands on the eastern side of the Indian Ocean is in danger of continued quakes and resulting volcanoes.

That's not all. This area cannot be seen as an isolated location because the shockwaves travel around the world along tectonic plate lines and through the magma core of the Earth. Other quake and volcanic regions are being activated too.

Damn if it doesn't look like we have collectively ordered the jarring wakeup call that might finally unite humanity... not in some stupifying one-world-government, but as recognition that we're all in this together. Alas, it destroys too.

Hard-headed sumbitches.

The End Is Near!

The death of the Pope is more fuel for the bonfire of the doomsayers. They're so hungry and quick to try to manifest their wish for the End? I read this as looking for an easy way out of present troubles. "God will save us by ending it all! Huzzah!" Um, that isn't likely. We're here to learn and we'll keep at it until we finish the whole curriculum. We literally cannot flunk out, although we certainly seem bound to repeating many courses. :)

Are we on the verge of the Apocalypse? I say yes, but before panic ensues, let's look at what that really means.

The word 'revelation' was derived from the Greek word apokalupsis, ie, apocalypse. A lot of extra connotations have been hung on that word which weren't originally there. The actual meaning is literally 'a lifting of the veil'.

This tells me that indeed all the forecasts for an Apocalypse, including the Book of Revelations, speak of "The End", but that end is merely the end of the world 'as we know it'.

In truth, the end of the world as we know it has been perpetual, because the world is always changing and we are always learning (lifting more veils of ignorance, experiencing more revelations). So the coming Apocalypse was an accurate prophecy at the time Revelations was written and it is a valid prophecy today.

When veils are lifted, we find it disturbing. New information can be unsettling, but in time we settle into it and create a new plateau, a new cliff from which to jump ;) When all the current veils are lifted, when all our illusions are put aside, we may be truly shaken, but we will finally realize what I have harped on before: That we are not separate from God, we ARE God. All is one, because all is connected. We are not only the 'creation', we are the creator.

It is my hope that this is the apocalypse, the revelation, which is at hand now. I feel our 'new world' is emerging as the veil is lifted and we begin to understand. As the truth is revealed or uncovered, what we once knew will indeed vanish, but it does not mean we will vanish or be destroyed.

We are surely on our way to the apocalypse, but the greatly feared armageddon only has to happen if we refuse to allow or accept the apocalypse... the revelation... the unveiling... without having to be prompted by catastrophe.

If it takes a global or even cosmic calamity to shake us out of our illusions, then we'll surely get it. We will be asking for it as long as we're in denial. But, we don't have to do it that way. We can choose to awaken without being jarred awake.

Even if we bring some cataclysmic 'end' upon ourselves, it will not be the End, for Creation is infinite and eternal.

I agree with this fellow who calls himself "Therapist" and whose comment I found on a Randi Rhodes Show forum via Google: "Why can't the end of the world ever be "And ye they shall go out to the sunshine and laugh and dance and partake of lambs and soft-shelled crab, or a nice salad if they're vegan, and there will be general merriment and fornication and small children playing in the sandbox. Then the Great Cosmic Goat shall come and eat the planet in one gulp without anyone suffering."?

I like the way he thinks.

It's just wrong, plain wrong, absofukinlutely WRONG. Pharmacists have been refusing to fill prescriptions based on their personal moral code?!? The governor of Illinois has apparently had to step in to remind these 'professionals' that their personal objection to birth control does not grant them the right to refuse dispensing it to patients.

As one news article about this idiocy in Illinois rightly says, "Pharmacists are supposed to assess the appropriateness of a drug." Damned straight, they are supposed to assess the MEDICAL appropriateness. Even then, if they find a problem, they are supposed to consult with the prescribing physician. They are NOT supposed to assess the MORAL appropriateness, nor take it upon themselves to negate a doctor's prescription or a patient's rights.

I worked with pharmacists for a while. I tested software for a company that created pharmacy systems and I had to coach a lot of these folks because they couldn't even follow simple instructions and screen prompts. I can tell you for a fact that while some of them love the job and do it right, the majority are doing it because they couldn't make the grades to be doctors or saw the ridiculous profits to be made in pharmaceuticals and jumped on it. With computer systems as they are now, pharmacists barely have to count pills and press on labels. That apparently gives them too much time to try to dabble in peoples' lives? Reminds me of rent-a-cops hell bent on carrying a gun but couldn't pass the training to be real cops. Sounds like some pharmacists have the god-complex for which doctors are infamous, but heaven help us they haven't the brains or good judgement to carry it.

I was already frustrated with the nazis in the Religious Right. My kneejerk reaction is to say "Ban Catholics and other Right-to-Lifers from being Pharmacists." But hey, I'm not insane like the zealots. Why the hell did we break off from the Old Rule and start this new country with the ideals of FREEDOM if we're going to start hacking away at them? WHO THE FUCKING HELL HAS THE RIGHT TO TELL ME WHAT I CAN AND CANNOT DO WITH MY OWN FUCKING BODY?!?

Dayam I wish Mercury would straighten up and get the hell out of Aries. It's got me pissed off and vocal about it.

I also have to say this about the Catholic Church, the Pope, the elevated status of Mary, etc... The Catholic Church invented itself. They invented the significance of their own pomp and circumstance. The papacy is not biblical, nor is the worship of Mary or her role as intercessor, nor is the priesthood and their celibacy, nor are most of the sacraments or rites as practiced. I don't see a problem with any of it, other than claims that what they do and how they do it comes from the bible, or arrogance about it being The way to conduct a relationship to the divine. Men made it up. They elaborated themselves into their current hierarchy. Cardinals, Bishops, and so on, ad nauseum... it has all been manufactured for the Church, by the Church.

All religions are the invention of humans: Catholicism, Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, etc. The christian bible is only one among many other documents and traditions serving the same purpose, trying to describe divinity and how mankind may relate to it. None of them are THE Truth. They are all examples and methodology. Even more nature-based and alternative religions such as Native spirituality and pagan versions are all invented. They are different ways for people to try to connect with divinity, and the ways are different because people are different, cultures are different. Divinity, Creation, the Universe, the Power that's All There Is... whatever one chooses to call it, we should all remember that we do CHOOSE how we each relate to it. And thus, ALL versions can be valid. ALL.

From my understanding, none of us needs any artifice or ritual or hierarchy to relate to divinity because it resides within each of us. There is no duality. If "God" is everything, is IN everything, then it is only logical to conclude that we are inseparable parts of God, that God is in every one of us, and therefore we don't need anything to 'reach' God. We ARE God. Our only challenge is to reach into ourselves, through ourselves, and thus touch the infinite and eternal.

From my way of thinking, what we describe as God may only be the gestalt of who we are, the summation of our collective consciousness, and that not only includes humanity but all things and all no-things, ie, All That Is.

The rest is detail on how we get ourselves to touch the divinity within, and by divinity I mean our connection to each other and to Everything. Some of us may need an external hierarchy to help us achieve the connection, although I find it sad that such artificial measures are needed. Such methods perpetuate a separation which does not exist. Some of us may need to imagine an overriding presence so we can feel more comfortable with the order of the universe, rather than knowing we are integral parts of that order, each and every one of us. Maybe we fear the responsibility, but in doing so we also relinquish a certain amount of freedom. The worst, the absolute worst aspect of these various methods is that too often we use them to divide ourselves from each other.

I have no problem with how individuals CHOOSE to relate to the creative process of this universe, as long as they know it IS a choice and they should never NEVER try to force another person over to their own choice. Each must find his or her own way. Period.

And to conclude my sermon :) ... Love one another, or at least be kind to one another, or at least respect one another, or at least tolerate one another... or if you cannot, please exit the planet now and let the rest of us get on with it. Thank you.

I'm not catholic and I don't personally understand the attachment to any pope, but I do understand that there IS an attachment for so many people. Despite anticipating John Paul II's death and commenting on the Catholic Church needing change, I do recognize that he played an important historical role during his 26 yr papacy. I do also believe that he may have made as much change as he could within the Church, giving them a clearer image from which to effect future changes. I think he could only move the behemoth so far and so fast in his environment. I'm sure that his spirit passes on in favorable stead, and I honor his passing.