True about the Vatican museum. R182 per person (in our currency)

From Wikipedia:

With 109 acres (44 hectares) within its walls, the Vatican is easily traveled by foot; however, most of this area is inaccessible to tourists. The most popular areas open to tourists are the St. Peter's basilica and the Vatican Museums.

So why are those areas inaccessible to tourists. I can understand the private apartments, and the offices etc., but why the rest of it, surely the libraries and burial sites should be accessible to believers.

Agrippina wrote:True about the Vatican museum. R182 per person (in our currency)

From Wikipedia:

With 109 acres (44 hectares) within its walls, the Vatican is easily traveled by foot; however, most of this area is inaccessible to tourists. The most popular areas open to tourists are the St. Peter's basilica and the Vatican Museums.

So why are those areas inaccessible to tourists. I can understand the private apartments, and the offices etc., but why the rest of it, surely the libraries and burial sites should be accessible to believers.

I am sure you can understand that having nearly 25,000 people a day entering the building is chaos. Having a free access to the libraries and burial sites as well as the office and apartments would be chaotic and easily give chance to theft and other less savory things.

Edit to add: For comparison- the white house of the united states receives roughly 6,000 visitors a day and its not free access to the public either. And it is a well furnished house, and quite opulent as well. Damn, government.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

willhud9 wrote:

Agrippina wrote:

willhud9 wrote:

Well again as pointed out in other threads. The Church donates a lot to charity. It is the largest private donor in the United States. If it got rid of all its wealth it wouldn't have anything to give.

How much and to which charities? Probably Catholic ones, so that the recipients will grow up to be good Catholics and in turn hand over "lots" of money to the Church.

As for the opulence of the Vatican, one can say its obsessive, but remember a lot of it is historical from the renaissance where Patrons were paid to make the artwork in glory for God. If the Vatican were to up and sell it or get rid of it there goes a huge chunk of history.

So why not make it into a museum? Get rid of the corruption, and the unnecessary personal wealth and opulence. The cost of the pope's wardrobe would build a school.

What corruption? and it is free to access last I checked. Its a church after all.

The Vatican museam is not free.

No, but it is a museum with workers and expenses. The church i.e. St. Peter's Basilica is free.

willhud9 wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

willhud9 wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

Well again as pointed out in other threads. The Church donates a lot to charity.
That doesn't make even larger donations pointless.

No but how much until its good enough?

Red herring.
We were discussing whether it would be pointless or not.

You do know what pointless means right? It means...without a point. Go figure.

What does giving its money away ultimately fix? Nothing. It gives a lot. Giving more doesn't necessarily fix anything any more. There will always be poor people and there will always be disasters and tragedy no matter how much money is tossed at something.

It's in the interests of the church to keep people poor and uneducated. If they were encouraged to have smaller families, get better education and be more informed, they'd stop giving money to the Church.

So yes. Pointless. It is an arbitrary statement to demand the vatican give more based on nothing substantial.

Saying that "the poor will always be with us," is not an answer.

willhud9 wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
The OP does not say sell of all Vatican assets/wealth. And even if it did, that would still not be pointless.

Yeah it would.

Not really, people would still benefit from it.

People benefit from it now. On what objective measure do you qualify how much more people would benefit? And again how much? That is a major point and not at all a red herring as its not an attempt at misdirection. Fail fallacy use.

More people would benefit if more people could be educated without cost at their schools. If they built more schools than churches, if they went into Africa, for example, and took food, clothes, schools, and not religion.

willhud9 wrote:As it wouldn't have anything left to give.

That doesn't make it pointless, just a one-time deal.

I think Jesus said something along the lines of, Their will always be poor.

He didn't actually say that. The person who wrote the Gospel said that. Matthew 26:11

So because we accept that there will always be poor people, it doesn't mean that we should foster poverty by refusing to encourage people to use contraception.

It is a pointless gesture. They give it all away and things seem to get fixed and new problems arise and people demand more money. Cycle of life. Pointless.

That's not the point of charity. You don't just hand over money, you hand over the means for people to move out of poverty. If there were more people in "middle class" i.e. working at jobs, and providing jobs, and fewer people living in the sort of poverty you find in Catholic countries, the need for charity would diminish.

willhud9 wrote:But anyways, it gives a lot of it away.

Yea, you already said that. Doesn't make giving even more away pointless.

If it does not really solve anything major yes it is.

We've shown this in South Africa, every year that children graduate from our high schools and move on to tertiary education, the quality of their families' lives improve. I have a man who does my garden for me. He was born during Apartheid, in the 1960s. His father died when he was in high school, so he left school to support his mother and siblings, the only work he could do was gardening, so he became really good at it. His eldest daughter has just left high school with 5 As out of a potential 7. (Our school subjects are labelled under 7 main headings). She's going to university to study under a bursary granted by a corporation, and is guaranteed a job with them when she leaves there in four years. Thus in one generation, her family will move out of poverty. He has another daughter who is still at school, being encouraged to learn and follow in her sister's footsteps. See smaller family, better opportunities. And that's just one example.

willhud9 wrote:Again the demands made by the atheist are illogical and pointless.

What atheists?
And you haven't established this.
You've thrown in a red herring and some rather illogical arguments.

And apparently you didn't.

Aggie didn't make the demands. The atheist in the link did. And no wealth does not go against its preachings. Only hyper literalists and fundamentalists interpret it that way alone without actually giving the text some critical evaluation.

If I had any real influence, I would make the demands, unfortunately no one is interested in listening to what I have to say.

willhud9 wrote:

Agrippina wrote:True about the Vatican museum. R182 per person (in our currency)

From Wikipedia:

With 109 acres (44 hectares) within its walls, the Vatican is easily traveled by foot; however, most of this area is inaccessible to tourists. The most popular areas open to tourists are the St. Peter's basilica and the Vatican Museums.

So why are those areas inaccessible to tourists. I can understand the private apartments, and the offices etc., but why the rest of it, surely the libraries and burial sites should be accessible to believers.

I am sure you can understand that having nearly 25,000 people a day entering the building is chaos. Having a free access to the libraries and burial sites as well as the office and apartments would be chaotic and easily give chance to theft and other less savory things.

That's easily controlled in the way they do with other tourist sites, allow a limited number of people in at a time.

Edit to add: For comparison- the white house of the united states receives roughly 6,000 visitors a day and its not free access to the public either. And it is a well furnished house, and quite opulent as well. Damn, government.

The government is entitled to the money. The money is used for the running of the country. It's not using the money to sell religion.

willhud9 wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

willhud9 wrote:

Agrippina wrote:
How much and to which charities? Probably Catholic ones, so that the recipients will grow up to be good Catholics and in turn hand over "lots" of money to the Church.


So why not make it into a museum? Get rid of the corruption, and the unnecessary personal wealth and opulence. The cost of the pope's wardrobe would build a school.

What corruption? and it is free to access last I checked. Its a church after all.

The Vatican museam is not free.

No, but it is a museum with workers and expenses. The church i.e. St. Peter's Basilica is free.

Big whoop!
They could use the money they extort from their believers to pay for the "workers and expenses."

willhud9 wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

willhud9 wrote:

Agrippina wrote:
How much and to which charities? Probably Catholic ones, so that the recipients will grow up to be good Catholics and in turn hand over "lots" of money to the Church.


So why not make it into a museum? Get rid of the corruption, and the unnecessary personal wealth and opulence. The cost of the pope's wardrobe would build a school.

What corruption? and it is free to access last I checked. Its a church after all.

The Vatican museam is not free.

No, but it is a museum with workers and expenses. The church i.e. St. Peter's Basilica is free.

It's an orginisation that has literrally billions of dollars in money.

If a pope did come along who chose to give away the majority of the Vatican wealth, the church would probably see a great boost to its popularity, higher congregation numbers, increased evangelical power, increased perceived moral authority and the ability to push it's agenda, and of course increased donations. I'm sure all the people here would be very pleased with such an outcome

Panderos wrote:If a pope did come along who chose to give away the majority of the Vatican wealth, the church would probably see a great boost to its popularity, higher congregation numbers, increased evangelical power, increased perceived moral authority and the ability to push it's agenda, and of course increased donations. I'm sure all the people here would be very pleased with such an outcome

I don't care what people believe, and if their money is going towards bettering the lives of the people who have historically been harmed by the Church, then I'll happily see them increasing their numbers.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

willhud9 wrote:

Agrippina wrote:

willhud9 wrote:

Well again as pointed out in other threads. The Church donates a lot to charity. It is the largest private donor in the United States. If it got rid of all its wealth it wouldn't have anything to give.

How much and to which charities? Probably Catholic ones, so that the recipients will grow up to be good Catholics and in turn hand over "lots" of money to the Church.

As for the opulence of the Vatican, one can say its obsessive, but remember a lot of it is historical from the renaissance where Patrons were paid to make the artwork in glory for God. If the Vatican were to up and sell it or get rid of it there goes a huge chunk of history.

So why not make it into a museum? Get rid of the corruption, and the unnecessary personal wealth and opulence. The cost of the pope's wardrobe would build a school.

What corruption? and it is free to access last I checked. Its a church after all.

The Vatican museam is not free.

It is on the last Sunday of every month.

Big woop.

Indeed.

And the Vatican museum is free on world tourism day too. There's lots to see, it's worth the visit.

I've been to the Vatican. There were actual nuns on market stalls flogging plastic rosaries.

Fallible wrote:I've been to the Vatican. There were actual nuns on market stalls flogging plastic rosaries.

I didn't see any nuns flogging themselves with rosaries. I'm pretty sure that's not allowed. I have seen plenty of nuns flogging little children though.

I thought my jokes were unfunny.

We need a new thread.

Talk about a de-rail.

Could not give a toss about the Vatican wealth. It is not the point in question.

Frankie is just the honey pot. Benny was the vinegar.

Further nothing has changed or will until the whole catholic church is dismantled.

John Platko wrote:

Fallible wrote:I've been to the Vatican. There were actual nuns on market stalls flogging plastic rosaries.

I didn't see any nuns flogging themselves with rosaries. I'm pretty sure that's not allowed. I have seen plenty of nuns flogging little children though.

"Flogging" means something else in English John Platko! It means selling but not as "would you like to buy this" but as "you're going to hell unless you buy this!" The way that JWs "flog" their religion by going from door to door.

Scot Dutchy wrote:Talk about a de-rail.

Could not give a toss about the Vatican wealth. It is not the point in question.

Frankie is just the honey pot. Benny was the vinegar.

Further nothing has changed or will until the whole catholic church is dismantled.

For me, that would be equal to winning the Nobel Peace Prize. I would like nothing better than to see all religion banned completely. It should be done behind closed doors, with the curtains drawn and the lights turned off. In fact I'd rather see people having sex in public, than flogging their religion. And I'm not into voyeurism at all. Yet, as long as they keep it to themselves, I don't mind what people worship.