back to article Vatican mulls God particle, calls for appointment of antichrist

The Vatican hosted a conference of physicists and other boffins this week amid claims that its recent musings on the financial crisis constitute a call for the appointment of the long-awaited antichrist. Participants at the International Symposium on Subnuclear Physics: Past, Present and Future included luminaries from …

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  1. peyton?
    Angel

    Clerical head scratching

    Not that they're all Lucasian physicists mind you, but, come on, you have to give a little credit where credit is due - Georges Lemaître was no dummy.

  2. Ru
    Mushroom

    Jack Chick called it

    He always knw the Catholics were up to no good.

    But seriously... the book of revelations? Its age suggests that the writer wasn't on crack, but that's about it. Thematically, it does a very poor job of fitting in with previous material. Either the editorial staff were getting sloppy towards the end of the project, or a new writer was called in. The series had clearly jumped the shark, and no small number of the fandom suspect that the final production might justifiably be considered non-canon.

    1. jake Silver badge

      Revelation is clearly ...

      ... the work of John the Apostle.

      Written in his Cell on the island of Patmos, in the late stages of syphilis, describing what he was observing (in his addled state) through the ground-level window available to him.

      Read it for content in that light, and you'll understand where I'm coming from ...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    WTF?

    When are the fundamentalists (putting the mental into fundamental for far too long) going to catch up with the Bible scholars, who are pretty much all in agreement that the Book of Revelations is a Christian fantasy about bringing down the Roman Empire at a time when Chistians were being persecuted.

    If I never saw or heard another fundamentalist (of any persuasion) it would be toon soon.

    1. sisk

      Actually the Antichrist is more heavily discussed in Daniel than in Revelation. Not by that name, granted, but every Bible scholar I've seen equates Daniel's little horn with the Antichrist of Revelation. In fact any serious study of Biblical prophecy concerning the end times will spend just as much, if not more, time in Daniel as in Revelation.

      And no, I'm not a fundie. In my opinion you can't think your yourself (which I do, much to the annoyance of several pastors over the years) and still be a fundie.

      1. Naughtyhorse

        serious study of Biblical prophecy

        see what you did wrong there!

        it's all lies told to children - you may as well 'seriously' investigate the easter bunny.

        it's all bollocks - end your internal dialogue, go do something useful with what remains of your (only little bit of) existence.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @sisk "Not by that name, granted, but"...

        Whoda thought it? a book containing the word of god makes so many cock ups and mistakes with names and places. It's fortunate we have all these bright scholars to spot such shoddy workmanship.

  4. hplasm
    Happy

    Bring on the Antichrist-

    We could do with a laugh.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sorry, but Mr. Jobs passed away several weeks ago.

  5. BristolBachelor Gold badge
    Coat

    I'm surprised that they didn't call the meeting in order to put them all under house arrest for saying that the Earth goes around the sun!

    On a serious side though; why the surprise that everything fits together to make the universe like it is?

    "...lot of dials and turning them exactly to the right places..."

    If it didn't, then the universe wouldn't be like it is, or wouldn't be here at all. I'd be more surprised if everything didn't fit together.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Exactly...

      The argument that we live in a special place in the universe that seems tuned for the creation of life at this moment in time is just fundamentally illogical.

      We evolved to live in the surroundings available. If we hadn't evolved then we wouldn't be here to ponder the question. It's the way it is because that's the way it is.

      Somewhere, a form of life unrecognisable to us is living quite happily on a sulphuric acid soup of a planet and pondering the exact same thing, wondering how special they must be to live in such a life giving universe at that precise moment in time...

  6. Syren Baran
    Coat

    "no man might buy or sell, save he that had the _mark_"

    Gees. He´s interpreting that wrong.

    Germany´s gonna leave the Euro-zone and return to their old currency. Shortly thereafter it will be the only currency still worth anything. Then you will obviously need the "Deutsche _Mark_" to buy anything.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Vatican observatory

    For all of its faults (such as continuing to believe in God), the Vatican does do some very good science through the Vatican Observatory headquartered at Castel Gandolfo:

    http://vaticanobservatory.org/

    So talking to physicists isn't completely unexpected.

    1. BristolBachelor Gold badge
      Joke

      "...(such as continuing to believe in God)**....."

      ** Citation needed

  8. Archimedes_Circle
    Holmes

    You send us to Revelations for clarification AND information? For shame. Next you'll send us to baptists for advice on breweries.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_Craig

      Rev. Elijah Craig (1738/1743 – May 18, 1808) was a Baptist preacher in Virginia, who became an educator and capitalist entrepreneur in the area of Virginia that later became the state of Kentucky. He has sometimes, although rather dubiously,[1] been credited with the invention of bourbon whiskey by improving the locally made distillate from an un-aged corn liquor to the familiar reddish-brown drink through barrel-aging in charred oak casks.[2]

  9. Alister
    Coat

    Chris Perver of the Bible Prophecy Blog

    snorfle...

  10. Stumpy
    Devil

    Oh please...

    Raphael Bousso, from the University of California Berkeley, told the Catholic News Service that what should be a generally hostile universe might "appear rather carefully tuned to us at first sight".

    "Naively it looks like somebody was playing with a lot of dials and turning them exactly to the right places to end up with this large, complex-rich set of phenomena that we see when we look out the window and that, from a scientist's point of view, is a very bizarre situation to be faced with," he said.

    ... or, you know, perhaps, just maybe ... the fact that the Universe has been around for many billions of years before us and we evolved within it's confines means that rather than it being tuned just especially for US more that we're especially attuned to IT. After all, if our environment were completely hostile to us, we wouldn't have even got out of the starting blocks.

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Anthropic Principle

      Not to mention that Bousso is rather late in jumping on this particular bandwagon. The so-called "Anthropic Principle" was a favorite pop-sci idea among the middlebrow about, oh, ten years ago. I doubt there's anything interesting left to be flogged out of this particular dead horse (unless you're Jasha Lottin, maybe).

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  12. Elmer Phud
    Alien

    Enter the Ike

    "Google Translate renders his surname as... "dragons"."

    This is the sort of seriously wierd shit that is David Ike territory.

    Anyone asked the Thetans for thier opinion?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Whoever gets the job of global financial czar, better have a darn good security team. The Evange-nuts will be blowing the dust off their M-72 stashes.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's called the Book of Revelation, not the Book of Revelations.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      When it's read from at Mass

      we get 'the Book of the Apocalypse'.

  15. Graham Marsden
    Trollface

    Don't the Vatican...

    ... have a Patent on the God Particle...?

    1. Svantevid
      Angel

      @ Graham Marsden

      I believe they have a patent on a particular God.

  16. Figgus
    Coat

    The Vatican is behind the times again....

    America already elected the antichrist in 2008!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "America already elected the antichrist in 2000!"

      There, fixed that for you.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bah

    There are multiple Bible interpretations that peg the Papacy itself (that is the office of the Pope, rather than the man) as the antichrist. It lines up neatly if you take the view that a prophetic day equals a realtime year, which is well backed up in other Biblical prophecies. Of course a full explaination requires a) a tedious lesson on chuch history dating back to the fourth century, b) an in-depth examination of multiple Biblical prophecies, and c) a willingness to piss off the whole of Catholism, which treats the Pope as though he were God on Earth (which, in itself, is one piece of evidence for that teaching, but meh).

    Feel free to downvote away. After all, how dare I bring a contridictory religious view into a discussion of the Vatican.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      And most of them

      from raving Protestant fundies that are far more batshit insane than anything the Vatican has come up with in recent years.

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      You forgot...

      d) A willingness to believe that an awkwardly-assembled anthology of superstitious natterings, nation-building propaganda, apocryphal legends, and notably one big fat piece of political commentary written as dream-logic allegory is some sort of magical repository of truth.

      Personally, I keep hoping some group of religious nitwits will latch onto Spenser's Faerie Queene as a sacred text. That'd at least give us some variety. "No, the European Bank is that snake thing that's full of paper!"

  18. Beelzeebub
    Flame

    Look

    God does not exist, and neither do I pfft!

    Hell has been scientifically proven not to exist, by the laws of thermodynamics.

    My father had less rooms than me.

    We are born, we live, we die, thanks Mr Universe.

    Meh.

    1. DavCrav

      "Hell has been scientifically proven not to exist, by the laws of thermodynamics."

      Hang on: in order to use thermodynamics, you have to know whether Hell is expanding faster or slower than the speed of souls entering it. If it's slower, the density will increase and Hell will heat up; eventually all Hell will break loose. Alternatively, if its faster, the density will drop and Hell will freeze over.

      1. sisk
        Joke

        Actually that my be why the devil recruits so heavily: he's not bringing souls in fast enough to prevent the freezing over of Hell, and we all know how much he hates snow.

        1. Santa from Exeter
          Devil

          According to Dante he's too late. In the Divine Comedy Satan is trapped waist deep in ice on the ninth level.

    2. jake Silver badge

      @Beelzeebub

      Here ya go:

      http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/hell.htm

      HTH ;-)

  19. raving angry loony

    So we have an article about how one group of magic-man-in-the-sky worshippers are being called out for a rumble by another group of magic-man-in-the-sky worshippers, even though it's technically the same magic man, but completely different.

    Yah know, it's stuff like this that gives humans a really bad name on the interstellar circuit.

  20. Fred 3
    Coffee/keyboard

    "Hell has been scientifically proven not to exist, by the laws of thermodynamics.

    Brilliant !!!!!!! Thank you DavCrav !!!! :D

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "financial crisis constitute a call for the appointment of the long-awaited antichrist"

    The Vatican only raked in £1b last year from the poorest gullible people who can hardly feed their family. With such a low amount, how can one keeps on gold plating the Vatican's marble palaces, as per the teachings of Christ, the lord?

    Time to creep out these poor gullible sods and milk them until they starve to death. The coming of the antichrist will do nicely.

    The Vatican shall then call for everyone in the world to help poverty, while they themselves sit on their safely locked coffers gorged with money.

    Yup, the usual stuff *yawn*

  22. The last doughnut
    Devil

    "no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name"

    Clearly this is referring to an IP address.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    mis conceptions about catholicism

    I'm a believer and have attempt to strengthen my faith over the years by learning as much as possible about Jesus and about my Christian faith, so i can try to defend it from mis conceptions, and after many years of getting involved in conversations, discussions and research trying to explain to others what the apostolic church actually teaches in particular topics, i came to the conclusion that only GOD can implant in peoples hearts the real truth.

    Being in a state of sin certainly clouds our minds when it comes to understanding how pure the word of GOD is (BIBLE).

    One parable comes to mind that describes how we differentiate good from evil:

    "You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?"

    and many other parables also repeat very much the same message

    http://bible.cc/matthew/7-16.htm

    The miss conceptions i sometimes hear and read about catholicism often reminds me very much of some negative reviews seen in the shopping site amazon, where if you can read negative reviews against a product but quickly realize the negative review is not actually related to the product but to some other factor, for example maybe the goods were purchased from some dodgy vendor who failed to deliver the expected goods but not a review about how the product performed or its characteristics.

    But amongst those reviews sometimes you get true negative reviews about a product, how badly it performed or about its bad characteristics and is those reviews I find gives me a true insight of the product, just like when i need to understand something about the bible/religion i always refer to trustworthy resources that follow the teachings of apostolic church.

    One such trustworthy resource is the EWTN library archives.

    1. jake Silver badge

      So, AC 17:15, please enlighten us ...

      Which version of "creation" is actually god's real story? The version from genesis 1:1 through genesis 2:3, or the version from genesis 2:4 through 2:25? They are clearly quite differrent accounts, and can't both be accurate. Was god confused?

      To quote your Matthew: "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." (7:5, I think. I can't be arsed to look it up.)

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    additionally there is a video floating around on the web relating the current financial system that i would recommend everyone watches called money as debt.

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