Really, why does the Vatican have a status of a state, although it has no permanent population, industry, transport, utility system, currency, or any other of the distinguishing features of a true state? And yet its statehood lets Vatican send its representatives to deliberate on committees of the United Nations, where it wields its vote and influence against even mildly progressive policies like the distribution of condoms to fight HIV/AIDS.
So isn't Vatican's statehood absurd?
So isn't Vatican's statehood absurd?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
