8 years ago today we have another pope ......I have little hope for the next pope, for he will still be the leader of a religion that is based upon the following tenets: Belief in an all-powerful, all-knowing (yet completely undetectable) magical genie in the sky that listens intently when you beg him for things, and has a master plan for everything in the universe including you. He might even alter his master plan for the universe if you can convince him to change his mind! They know this magical genie exists because some guys said so. Belief that this magical genie deliberately created you to be defective and evil, he then commands you to get better under threat of an eternity of torture and punishment, because he loves you! The reason he creates mankind full of evil is because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree. Belief that if you telepathically convince this magical genie that you love him, and adhere to all of his rules (and give lots of money to guys who live in palaces and condone child rape), and symbolically consume the flesh and blood of his son, you will be rewarded after you die with an everlasting life in a fabulous celestial amusement park where all of your dead friends and relatives will be waiting for you and everyone will exist happily ever after. Well, at least the believers will, all of the non-believers will suffer forever at the hands of demons in a cosmic subterranian netherland of fire and brimstone. All of these beliefs are based upon second-hand recollections of the teachings of a bronze-age uneducated carpenter (born of a virgin mother!) who allegedly created miracles, walked on water, magically absorbed all of humanity's sins by being executed, and then rose from the dead like a zombie before disappearing into the clouds! If the catholic church can sell that nonsense then it can sell anything.

 two popes actually but maybe more like 7-15 of em dopplegangers and such