Fear not, the world is not coming to an end. It is only the myths of Pisces that are ending.

As we come across items in the news that have an “Piscean flavor” to them, we will blog summaries of them here, along with a link to the full story. We hope you will add your COMMENTS to these blogs so that we can build a permanent record of our discussion about what is happening at this important moment in time.

Signs of Pisces Ending Archives

Signs of Pisces Ending

Churches dying out in the U.K.
(Jonathan Petre, The Telegraph, October 12, 2005)
Britain's Churches are in such serious decline that if they were shops, they would have been declared bankrupt long ago, Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, said last night.

In a bleak assessment of the future of Christianity in this country, he said that the Churches were approaching meltdown and the "last rites" could be administered at any moment.

His outspoken comments will dismay some Church leaders, who privately complain that he has repeatedly breached the tradition that retired archbishops refrain from stirring controversy.

But friends insisted that he was intending to indicate his backing for Dr Williams's Fresh Expressions initiative, designed to encourage alternative forms of worship.

Speaking at St Michael's church in Amersham-on-the-Hill, Dr Carey said that all the Christian denominations had suffered plunging congregations.

"No Anglican can be satisfied that only one in 50 people attend this national Church," he said.

posted by LoZo 6:59 AM

Catholic Church says the Bible isn't true
(Ruth Gledhill, The Times, October 5, 2005)
The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect "total accuracy" from the Bible. . . . "We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision," they say in The Gift of Scripture. . . . Some Christians want a literal interpretation of the story of creation, as told in Genesis, taught alongside Darwin's theory of evolution in schools, believing "intelligent design" to be an equally plausible theory of how the world began. . . . But the first 11 chapters of Genesis, in which two different and at times conflicting stories of creation are told, are among those that this country’s Catholic bishops insist cannot be "historical". . . . They say the Church must offer the gospel in ways "appropriate to changing times, intelligible and attractive to our contemporaries". [COMMENT by Lorenzo: Isn't this just another way of saying, "We'd better change our wild stories and make them more believable so we can capture even more simple-minded people into our cult."] . . . They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its "intransigent intolerance" and to warn of "significant dangers" involved in a fundamentalist approach. . . . As examples of passages not to be taken literally, the bishops cite the early chapters of Genesis, comparing them with early creation legends from other cultures, especially from the ancient East. The bishops say it is clear that the primary purpose of these chapters was to provide religious teaching and that they could not be described as historical writing. . . . Similarly, they refute the apocalyptic prophecies of Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible, in which the writer describes the work of the risen Jesus, the death of the Beast and the wedding feast of Christ the Lamb. . . . The bishops say: "Such symbolic language must be respected for what it is, and is not to be interpreted literally. We should not expect to discover in this book details about the end of the world, about how many will be saved and about when the end will come."

posted by LoZo 9:39 AM

Philadelphia Grand Jury Report on Pedophile Priests
The Memory Hole

On 22 September 2005, Philadelphia's CBS affilitate KYW reported: The leaders of the Philadelphia Archdiocese, including two former archbishops, actively concealed sexual abuse by priests for decades, but no criminal charges can be brought against the church or its priests because of the constraints of state law, according to grand jury findings released Wednesday. . . . Following the nation's longest-running grand jury probe into priest abuse, the scathing report documents assaults on minors by more than 60 priests since 1967, and alleges that former archbishops Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and Cardinal John Krol covered up the abuse. . . . "To protect themselves from negative publicity or expensive lawsuits -- while keeping abusive priests active -- the cardinals and their aides hid the priests' crimes from parishioners, police and the general public," the report stated.

Excerpts from pages 3-5 of the report (click the link above for the full report)

These are the kinds of things that Archdiocese priests did to children:

- A girl, 11 years old, was raped by her priest and became pregnant. The Father took her in for an abortion.

- A 5th-grader was molested by her priest inside the confessional booth.

- A boy was repeatedly molested in his own school auditorium, where his priest/teacher bent the boy over and rubbed his genitals against the boy until the priest ejaculated.

- A boy woke up intoxicated in a priest’s bed to find the Father sucking on his penis while three other priests watched and masturbated themselves.

- A 12-year-old, who was raped and sodomized by his priest, tried to commit suicide, and remains institutionalized in a mental hospital as an adult.

Here are some incidents that exemplify the manner in which the Archdiocese responded to the sexual abuse of its most vulnerable parishioners:

- The Archdiocese official in charge of abuse investigations described one abusive priest as "one of the sickest people I ever knew." Yet Cardinal Bevilacqua allowed him to continue in ministry, with full access to children – until the priest scandal broke in 2002.

- One abusive priest was transferred so many times that, according to the Archdiocese’s own records, they were running out of places to send him where he would not already be known.

- When the Archdiocese did purport to seek psychological evaluation of a priest, the primary tool for diagnosis was "self reporting" – in other words, whether the abuser was willing to admit that he was a pedophile. Absent such a "diagnosis," the Archdiocese declined to treat any priest as a pedophile, no matter how compelling the evidence.

- Even when admitted, the abuse was excused: an Archdiocese official comforted one sexually abusive priest by suggesting that the priest had been "seduced" by his 11-year-old victim.

- An Archdiocese official explained that the church could not discipline one especially egregious abuser because, as the official put it, he was not a "pure pedophile" – that is, he not only abused little boys; he also slept with women.

posted by LoZo 3:26 PM

Christians agree with Al Qaeda: God is punishing the U.S.
(Mel Seesholtz, Counterbias.com, September 7 2005)
And what did religion offer as "reasons” for the disaster"?

Philadelphia-based "Repent America" issued a statement. Michael Marcavage claimed Katrina was God's purposeful, justified destruction of "a wicked city." . . . Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city. From "Girls Gone Wild" to "Southern Decadence," New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. . . . Let us pray for those ravaged by this disaster. However, we must not forget that the citizens of New Orleans tolerated and welcomed the wickedness in their city for so long.

A statement from a group associated with al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi agreed: "God attacked America and the prayers of the oppressed were answered. . . . The wrath of the All-powerful fell upon the nation of oppressors. Their dead are in the thousands and their losses are in the billions."

posted by LoZo 11:08 AM

United States of Shame
(Maureen Doud, New York Times, September 3, 2005)
America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it's happening in America. . . . Why does this self-styled "can do" president always lapse into such lame "who could have known?" excuses. . . . Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs. . . . Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any official who bothered to read the C.I.A.'s prewar reports. . . . Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl. . . . In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us." . . . Not only was the money depleted by the Bush folly in Iraq; 30 percent of the National Guard and about half its equipment are in Iraq. . . . Ron Fournier of The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island. . . . Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center. . . . [COMMENT by Lorenzo: Of course, thanks to the cable news networks, people all around the world knew this fact at least 24 hours BEFORE the head of our disaster relief system got the word. Our federal government is DISGUSTING, simply disgusting.] . . . Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." . . . It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode. . . . When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals. . . . When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed. . . . Who are we if we can't take care of our own?

posted by LoZo 12:28 PM

WhatDoesItMean.Com
This is an interesting Web site, and to tell the truth, I'm still not sure what to make of it. I have been following Sorcha Faal's essays for a few weeks, and I had almost come to the conclusion that this was very clever fiction (and I still think that is a very real possibility). However, as I write this blog Hurricane Katrina is about 12 hours out of New Orleans. What an interesting coincidence this storm is when taken in context of the following stories on Sorcha's site:

August 22, 2005: United States Positions Tens of Thousands of Foreign Troops Throughout America, Cancels All Military Leaves and Ousts Another Top General . . . Reports circulating among Russian Intelligence Analysts today are showing disturbing signs of an impending massive increase in US Military Manpower geared towards a rapid expansion of their current Global War for total dominance of all of the earth’s natural resources. . . . Of noted significance to these two US Army Generals is that between the two of them they controlled the entire training apparatus for the US Army, National Guard and Reserve Forces

August 25, 2005: United States Warns Foreign Governments of 'Impending' Internal Crises While Massive American Troop Movements Continue . . . Russian Intelligence Analysts are reporting today that the Military Leaders of the United States have communicated to many of the worlds leaders that a ‘crises’ is about to occur in their country and further warning that any ‘outside’ interference into the internal affairs of the United States will be met with ‘swift and sure’ action. . . . This unprecedented warning comes at a time when multiple threats are confronting not only the United States, but also the entire world, and which include; 1.) An impending flu pandemic estimated to kill upwards of 1 billion people; 2.) An acceleration of Global Weather Changes destroying up to 20% of this years crops in many Western Nations; 3.) The skyrocketing costs of oil threatening the stability of the Worlds Financial Markets; 4.) The impending crackdown on American citizens and imposition of Martial Law.

August 26, 2005: The Camps of ICE, Americas Road to Fascist Rule Nears Completion as US Government Accelerates Building of Concentration Camps . . . The American Secret Police Organization tasked with the building and maintaining of these camps goes by the most chilling of names, ICE, and which stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Even more frightening is ICE's 'blueprint' for their citizens, and that they do not even hide, and which they have titled "ENDGAME: Office of Detention and Removal Strategic Plan, 2003-2012" . . . Like the Germans under the Nazi Regime had done, the United States Military Leaders are likewise utilizing their citizen's fears of foreigners to construct a series of Concentration Camps that by ICE's own estimates are able to hold upwards of 5,000,000 human beings!

August 29, 2005: 'Unprecedented' Super Storm Threatens American Economy as American President Declares Martial Law . . . The significance to these State of Emergencies being declared, according to Russian Intelligence Analysts, is that the Americans Presidents declaration of Federal Rule (Martial Law) over these regions came before the Governors of those States most affected had requested assistance from their Federal Government and is extremely rare in that country. . . . The destruction of this Region, and its importance to the American Oil Economy, cannot be minimized as these losses represent nearly 20% of their daily capacity, and with no resources available to make up for this massive loss

posted by LoZo 12:41 PM

Mythology in the White House
(The Independent, August 5, 2005)
The theory of "intelligent design" was once dismissed by a Kansas professor as "creationism in a cheap tuxedo." Yet, the tuxedo in question appears to be hanging in George W. Bush's wardrobe. . . . President Bush was asked this week whether he thought U.S. schoolchildren should learn about Charles Darwin's theory of evolution or the theory of intelligent design. . . . Proponents of the latter maintain that life on Earth is too complex to have developed through evolution, implying that a "higher power" must have had a hand in creation. That power is naturally presumed to be God. . . . Astonishingly, the president answered that both theories should be taught side by side. Why? "So people can understand what the debate is about." There is, of course, no "debate" between the two theories on scientific grounds. And it is astonishing that this struggle is still going on 80 years after the Scopes Monkey trial. . . . The fact is that Darwinism has been subjected to empirical scrutiny and accepted by every serious biologist in the world. Intelligent design, on the other hand, was devised by a group of Christian fundamentalists to bolster their literal interpretation of the Bible's creation story. . . . There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to back it up. . . . According to the president, "Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought." This is true. But it is unjustified to introduce this theory in a science class -- let alone set it in opposition to Darwinism. It is also potentially damaging to the United States' separation of the functions of church and state, since intelligent design is a religious viewpoint. . . . One remark by the president is, of course, not going to change U.S. government policy. . . . But there is a symbolic value in getting the head of state to acknowledge your view, as the Christian right understands. . . . All this is a worrying echo of the administration's refusal to recognize the evidence of how the burning of fossil fuels contributes to global warming. . . . The depressing reality seems to be that the White House is more at home with Christian literalism than scientific fact.

posted by LoZo 11:47 AM

[Home] [About] [Great Ages] [Astrology & Myth] [Incredible Moment] [Links] [Science & Philosophy]