The Shroud of #Turin:it's no longer reasonable to deny its authenticity as the burial cloth of Jesus,given the accumulation of impeccable scientific evidence.I hope this Mega-Thread can act as a resource for other Catholics & others interested in maintaining integrity in science.

@ThenNowPolitix No problem, this is what I went to grad school for (foreign policy history). So I guess I'd better be able to rattle off a long-winded explanation or I didn't get my $ worth from my professors LOL ;)

In some countries it was up to a third of the land. However much of this was common land, or reclaimed wilderness etc. I think the untenable part was expecting that some generation of rulers that wouldn't arise eventually, salivating over the opportunity to seize it all for themselves - especially since there were no armies defending it. That's why Protestant princes found Luther so alluring - he gave them the excuse they needed to line their pockets. Apparently there was a saying back then, "The Church is the mother of Prosperity, and the daughter killed the mother." As soon as the incessant barbarian invasions and Black Death etc. were finally over, Europe got rich in the Renaissance - then it made some of the rulers greedy. Production actually collapsed after all these institutions were seized, as capitalists and the nobility simply took all of the land for themselves and kicked the peasants out; even at 20-33% of the land, it was still in better hands before. We also have to factor in that it wasn't all in the hands of a single monolithic organization, since it was divided up into a web of competing bishoprics, monasteries, orders, bequests with strings attached, etc. etc.

@LarrySabato @YouTube I suppose if it's dedicated to Kennedy, they ought to be playing Marilyn Monroe's hits on a loop ;) I know a girl who sings her perfect at karaoke, maybe they can bring her in ;)

Because military aid is designed to coopt Third World countries, not arm them for or against external enemies. It's used to police their own people and allow the U.S. to engineer coups when they see fit (such as when Muslim fundamentalists won Egypt's election fair and square and were deposed by the army in 2013). It also comes in handy when Third World states are forced to cede control over their budgets and economic policies in return for loans and economic "aid." The U.S. forces them to adopt capitalist policies that cause inequality and decline; so the people revolt; so the military squashes the dissent. It's a story repeated time and again across the globe since the Bolivian Revolution of 1952...

The fact that Reagan was originally regarded as an unelectable radical by his fellow Republicans underscores just how far the GOP (and the rest of the country too) have lurched to the Right since Eisenhower. It's been an inexorable slide towards fascism since at least 1980, possibly as far back as the 1950s. Trump didn't just appear from nowhere; the decay of America made him possible.

That is a mixed bag, actually. Most of that wealth was gotten fair and square, after many centuries of monks clearing swamps and bequests by the rich at their deaths. Although in some generations the clergy in control might siphon off some cash, that wasn't always true (unlike now, when capitalists siphon off every $ they can). Also, most of it was in the form of land, which provided sanctuaries for refugees (including the nobility on the losing end of wars), hospitals, colleges, churches etc. One unique aspect of the medieval economy is that the church land was used as a workfare system, where any homeless, destitute serfs, those suffering from local famines and other poor people could always go for employment. All that collapsed after greedy Protestant rulers seized the land: the hospitals, colleges, workfare system, the common lands, charities, etc. all vanished overnight. Economic chaos resulted and it took 2 centuries for the Protestant economies to recover. Most of the accusations about the "mean Church" are recognized now even by mainstream atheist historians as drastic exaggerations.

I was always surprised they didn't march on Svatove. From what I understand the Russians were in disarray and Ukraine had control over the heights overlooking the north-south valley it's situated in. If it fell, there was just one other such valley between there and the northeastern border. I expected UA to sweep across this whole area aggressively. Equipment shortages would make sense though; this explains a lot.

Yeah the Protestant witch hunts, the 30 Years War and the worst of the French monarchical repression and Spanish Inquisition all occurred then, in the 17th Century. I was about to bring up some of the good that occurred in the Counter-Reformation, but that was a century before. By that time it had already petered out.

RT @TheStudyofWar: NEW | Iran Update, February 6, 2025: Syrian interim government forces have deployed to areas previously controlled by th…

@earlymodjustice Good point. That was like the high tide of absolutist monarchs. The only democracies on the planet were a couple small town councils on the American coast, ironically

This does not surprise me now, after reading about how the original 16th Century Protestants consciously burned churches and destroyed relics. Some of the French Revolution fanatics doused the incorrupt body of St. Germaine Cousin in lime in order to desecrate it. It's prima facie evidence that the Devil is a real force in this world.

@JenniferEValent Because Americans are unhinged. They like the fact that Trump is unhinged. They enjoy it. This will not end well.

RT @mjfree:

@AmSolidarity It's worse than having no right: under international law, displacing an entire population literally amounts to genocide. Trump and all of his officials could be prosecuted before an international tribunal for cooperating and advocating this.

@darwintojesus G.K. Chesterton explained this a century ago: "Any stick is good enough to beat Christianity with." I believe that was in his book "Orthodoxy."

@EoinHiggins_ The damage has been going on since Reagan took office in 1981. It's been a non-stop nose-dive. Has anyone even recognized the problem, let alone stopped it? It just keeps accumulating because Americans are so short-sighted.

This is the problem with Trump (and his predecessors like Rush Limbaugh and Reagan). People are always in a perpetual state of "I can't believe they did this" for years on end now because they didn't stop the last evil in line. Remember that there's *always* a fresh evil on deck - like in baseball, where there will always be a new batter if you don't retire the last one. Look forward a decade from now and people will be like, "I can't believe the Trumpers actually brought back the death camps/canceled election/seized power/murdered 1 million Americans/whatever." Organize to stop them or this will happen. This has been building ever since 1980 and there's no end in sight.

All of this is true except #3. Neither Jesus nor any Old or New Testament figure nor any Church Father ever said "immigrants are free to invade any they country they like, regardless of borders." In fact, the Israelites fought several wars to prevent such invasions. Our government has a *responsibility* to use force (at the most minimal level possible) to remove them *all.* Why should we respect immigrants anyways - have they not *all* committed treason against their home countries? That's a terrible sin

@benedictus ROFL you just debuted at #2 on my Top 20 Funniest Things of 2025 List (with 330+ days to go LOL)