Why Do Catholics Do That?

[Not A Communist Shill]

What I mean is that its a Protestant protest to equate our Communion with Saints to calling up the dead in Deuteronomy, even when the distinction is clear. I have never seen Jewish people make this accusation of Catholics. Never.

Could this be because Protestants (allegedly) outnumber Jews by more than 50 to 1 and because Christianity is far more of a proselyting religion?

That it has ALWAYS been widely accepted. It has stood the test of time.

As to the Book of Revelation, there is a good argument for it as the early Christians' understanding of the mysteries of the Mass. Yes. And its every Mass that this is so, though, its pretty hard to see a lot of times, particularly when the priest has lost his faith and when the congregation is poorly catechized. Yet that does not change the reality of the Mass. Even if the priest has lost his faith - the validity of the Mass does not depend on that. When the priest is pious, it is more evident. Pope St. John Paul II called the Mass "Heaven on Earth". A cogent explanation for the Book of Revelation as Mass is made in the book, The Lamb's Supper, by Scott Hahn, a contemporary Catholic theologian who was once a Protestant pastor.

You can listen here to Scott Hahn discuss the highlights of that book. You can see/hear in that video what a deep man of God Hahn is. He is a brilliantly intelligent theologian and easy to listen to. An unusual combination!

The scholarly consensus is that the Gospel attributed to the disciple known as John was not written by the same person/s who wrote the Book of Revelation, in large part because the Book of Revelation was written in lousy Greek, unlike the Gospel attributed to the disciple known as John. This is a view accepted even by fairly partial Christian scholars also, even in the days of the comparatively early church. The attribution of the Gospel to the disciple known as John was first made decades after it was written, from any evidence that exists, and the attribution of the Book of Revelation was assigned even later. They are essentially anonymous texts: Revelation may have been written by someone named John, and that is about as strong a claim you can make on the authorship of either of the books.

Yes. This is in context when he says there will be tares among the wheat. In His church, there will be weeds among the wheat; Jesus says don't pull them out. He will take care of that in the end. Just as Judas Iscariot was among Jesus' disciples and Jesus did not kick him out, there are Judas' "serving" in the Church today. In the end Jesus will sift out who belong with Him and who is on the other side, who chooses evil and to stay with evil, and He will take His own with him. Because we who are with Jesus so easily recognize some of those who are not (the pretenders among us), he gives us instruction concerning it.

Yes, there is a Hell, and its rather punishing, and its eternal. That does not make God a punishing God, though. God is good. Evil is not. In the end, evil will have its place and good will have its place. Truly, truly, it is a choice we make.

God is all good. He gives us a choice between good and evil, as we are aware of both. In the end, we go with one or the other. In the end, we go to a place of eternity. With God, in Heaven, it is all good, all joy, all love. Others choose evil. In Hell there is evil, and no good, and there is no love. Its every man for himself.

Yes. But the "lawless" can choose to repent at the last minute, and be saved. So lawless ones do make it to Heaven. If you were reading this only literally, and ignoring all else Jesus said, you could wrongly deduce that no lawless person gets to Heaven. (I am not saying you are reading it only literally. But some folks do that with scripture, well-meaning or not.)

Such a punishment is not the judgement of something that is "all good". Your idea of "all good" is that a person [i]must/i] accept your god as their saviour from sins committed in a temporal body he created flawed: your god is not a god who judges someone on whether they are more good than bad, nevermind whether they are "all good". Firstly he says that no one deserves heaven because no one is "all good"...no one is like god...then he says nevermind that, if you are my minion, but only if, I will let you in.

To cause eternal suffering to any individual is the greatest evil imaginable, because it means that you are punishing someone more severely than whatever they did in a temporal amount of time. Any such individual who imposed such a punishment would be the one deserving of it, nobody else: and then, only if the eternal damnings were reversible. It is clear to me that I am more just and more merciful than the Christian god, clearly. If you make something and it does something you dislike, you don't go and commit an even graver atrocity. To unmake that thing would be grave enough, because while you are offering eternal rewards, you are not offering your creations the chance of all eternity to atone for their actions. It should also be clear to any supreme being that decisions concerning eternity can only be made by individuals capable of understanding on such a timescale. If heaven was truly great and hell truly so awful, no living thing would want to go there: but your god will punish us for making ill-informed decisions about which we cannot possibly know anything about. How does a human being measure something like eternity, "all good", "all evil", omnipotence etc., without having improbably infinite measurements themselves? With eternity, there is no "last minute". If god is infinite in timelessness, omnipotence, grace, mercy, justness etc., he would know that.

A case for the wrath of God. People do take verses of Gods wrath and use it to frighten people, sometimes in order to make the case you must interpret the Bible they way they do. But, yes, the wrath of God exists. God is love, and He is just. Being just and good and loving, would He not have wrath at what is unjust, unloving, and evil? We ourselves experience righteous wrath when a little child is abused. You can imagine His wrath at such injustices...

You can call god your creator, you can call him "all good" etc., it doesn't automatically make him worthy of worship. A loving being would not send someone to hell and/or force them to worship them for eternity.

Routinely? Now I am skeptical that doctors have some way of doing this when there are no pupils at all. At any rate, only the miracles with no scientific explanation are accepted for the cause of canonization.

Pupils are the part that is the centre of the iris: scientists have implanted artificial irises into the eyes of people born without irises, and they have also used stem cell research to make the blind see again:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15786634
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...edicalresearch

Further, artificial hips amongst other such innovations have of course made millions walk again who would otherwise have not been able to.

In the past 20 years, doctors have cured 16 million people of leprosy: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs101/en/

Scientists have also made the deaf hear:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26784669
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-33303355
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-29089856

It is also fairly common for people with no pulse to brought back to life (most of them die still, but many thousands each year are saved). The case of Anna Bågenholm shows that doctors are able to 'resurrect' someone with a body temperature below 15 degrees Celius who had been in a state of circulatory arrest for 40 minutes with comparatively few negative side-effects.

As I've already mentioned, humans have also managed to cut extreme poverty worldwide by more than half in less than 20 years.

These incidents are far more numerous than the sketchy 'miracles' claimed by many religionists, especially considering that the body's ability to cure itself of certain afflictions is something which is consistent regardless of what religion/s are in vogue at any one time. If anyone should be canonised, it shouldn't be fear-mongers with no verifiable evidence for their claims.

Science's observations I have no question about. Its the "proofs" they claim from their suppositions of their conclusions I find suspect. But I am not one to argue it, and I lack the competence to.

Consider love. Love cannot be demonstrated with physics. Yet, the non-scientific population of regular folk can recognize love when they see it. They even base their lives on it. And most of us do not consider it foolish, but instead, we even live by it. Something that we cannot see.

Of course love can be demonstrated by physics. It is possible after all to measure the effect that love, whether as a real or an actual concept, has a person. The same goes with religion, or god, or dreams, or music. Love and Dreams may not be physically there in the same way everyday objects are, but it is of course possible to record what people experience, what they think, what they feel and so on. This does not mean however that "God" exists as anything other than a concept that is meaningful to millions of people.

[Not A Communist Shill]

Well, I have read many accounts of NDEs. Some not Christians. Some of course are fakes. There always will be imitators! The ones that seem real have a commonality. Yes, the city is mentioned in Revelation. A city is described, parts of it anyway, in "Anne"'s visions of Heaven, which I mentioned earlier. After I read Anne's visions, I realized they were familiar, like the NDEs I had read when I used to read them more, and it makes sense to me that Heaven woudl have a familiarity to us, and be like what we know. But better!

That seems rather insulting to those Japanese who have NDEs involving themselves in gardens.

He is just a famous historical person whose existence has proof and whose writings survive. He did not found a community that survived. I was referring to an unbroken community that survived 2000 years.

Oh come on. That is a lame standard which takes your own assumptions for granted. The historical evidence between Jesus and the early church is non-existent: for an impartial person, Jesus could just have readily have been as made up as Joseph Smith's 'visions', and there are a good few decades after the earthtime of Jesus and the earliest written religious records about him.

With Confucius, who apparently did not actively advocate a "school" to follow him, his house was venerated two years after his death, and his lineage and teachings were kept from his lifetime right to the modern day. There are contemporary historical accounts of Confucius life, which include his role as a government bureaucrat. These are details that are far less likely to be made up or inflated by overzealous enthusiasts: it can happen, but is less likely in regards historical accounts and individuals who are not founders of religions. Even though he lived 500 years before Jesus, there is far more evidence for his existence than Jesus, far more of his teachings, and yes, an "unbroken lineage".

I'm confused. These are carefully documented. I asked my husband where you might have gotten this and he says: Peter, Linus, Cletus, Evaristus (as in Mt. Everest, explains my husband), Alexander, Clement - they all became popular Christian names. My husband attributes the confusion to the fact that you are saying "cross" evidence. The early Popes were leading their flock, not granting bulls, dispensations, crowning kings which would put them in those histories as well. But, it doesn't make sense to say there is no historical evidence. The only history is not just political. Maybe that is not what you are saying, but I cannot imagine what you are saying.

These are the popes in order, before Eleuterus, for whom there is plenty of historical evidence. Many of these early popes were martyred for the faith, making them "Saints" of the Church (obviously not every pope has been named a Saint!).
1st Pope: St. Peter (32-67)
2nd Pope: St. Linus (67-76)
3rd Pope: St. Cletus (67-76)
4th Pope: St. Clement (88-97)
5th Pope: St. Evaristus (97-105)
6th Pope: St. Alexander (105-115)
7th Pope: St. Sixtus I (115-125)
8th Pope: St. Telesphorus (125-136)
9th Pope: St. Hyginus (136-140)
10th Pope: St. Pius I (136-140)
11th Pope: St. Anicetus (155-166)
12th Pope: St. Soter (166-175)
and that brings you to the 13th Pope, St. Eleutherius (175-189)

They are...documented...if not "well", but only many centuries later. You should look at Scandanavian kings and warlords who have lengthy lineages going back to Woden...as it is, there is a possibility there really was an individual named Woden, but of course, everything about him as we know of him is fiction. To accept these people, not only as influential Christian "saints" but as Bishops of Rome when there is no contemporary evidence for them, whether from historical or religious sources, as well as no evidence of a Bishopry of Rome even in a small-fry underground capacity (and I don't mean anything to do with catacombs), would be extremely flimsy.

Jesus does not say, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are an insignificant pebble and on this rock I will build my Church. . . . I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven."

It is clear from Old Testament verses, as well as subsequent New Testament verses after Jesus has risen that the Jews, and the early Christians, very much considered the Messiah to be the Cornerstone, and mere believers to be the (small) stones. This is why Matthew is understood to have been written from Aramaic and poorly translated into Greek. When you have other bible verses saying that you should have no faith in man, that the Lord is my Rock, Cornerstone etc., and members of the early church described as stones plural, it is obvious that Peter, a single man, was not singled out to be The Cornerstone. Jesus is the foundation of the Church, not man. The Church is its people, they are not built on Peter.

John 10:1-16

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them.

7 Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who ever came before Me[a] are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. 12 But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. 13 The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. 15 As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.

Yes, Jesus is the rock. Its both/and. Peter is the rock on which Jesus builds his Church. Jesus, our rock and our foundation. Then besides that we have the Church - which is the pillar and foundation of truth.

No. One Rock, one Shepherd, one flock, one Messiah.

Until. It seems, then, that you are saying that the use of the word "until" in scripture means that afterwards, the thing was otherwise. If that is how you interpret scripture, then also this is true:

In 2 Samuel 6:23 "And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to (until) the day of her death." Are you saying then that she had children after she died?)

And in 1 Timothy 4:13: "Until I come, attend to the public reading of scripture, to preaching, to teaching." Does this mean Timothy should stop teaching after Paul comes?

And in 1 Corinthians 15:25: "For he (Christ) must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet." Does this mean Christ’s reign will end? By no means! Luke 1:33 says, "he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there shall be no end."

I don't think you are that ridiculous. Therefore you can see, once again, that no Catholic teaching refutes scripture.

As far as I can see, that 2 Samuel verse is not "And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to (until) the day of her death." but "And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death."

also, the verse about Mary and Joseph isn't to do with Mary's death, it is to do with Jesus' birth, when Mary and Joseph were very much alive.

2 Samuel 21:8 says that Michal gave birth to five children...why would it be fruitful to continue this discussion if it keeps bringing up more problems with scripture?

I don't understand 1 Corinthians 15:25 to be at at all problematic. It simply says that Jesus [i]must[/i[ reign until he has put death under his feet. It does not say "Jesus will reign until he has put death under his feet".

When he was an angel, he did not lie. Angels made their choice. Because, unlike us, angels have full and complete knowledge, when they choose, its forever. Some are now still angels, and those others never will be again. Fallen angels are liars.

You confuse me. If he a fallen angel, that means he is an angel doesn't it?

I question the logic of saying things like "he cannot be an angel, as he lies", "He cannot tell lies, He is god, therefore He speaks truth", "we may not understand Him; He may seem contradictory, but He isn't, as he says He isn't". For me, something is true by virtue of being true, not on who says the statement being analysed.

Most Christians don't disagree on this... not sure what could possibly be immoral here??

I've given my thoughts on many of the issues I have, but you saying that God is worthy of being worshipped and his "philosophy" is worthy of being followed by virtue of him being "God": because he is your Creator, because he promises you good things and you believe it etc. I find this morally lousy: in addition, I also find basing a "philosophy", especially a dogmatic one, on aspects you readily admit are intangible and "seemingly impossible" as utterly repulsive: if you believe the impossible, you are capable of a great number of evils, because you have already thrown away your inner code of rationality Finally, again, an omnipotent being should be just, not merciful, and certainly not both.

Sometimes I have questioned if you are just arguing and trying to win an argument and are not truly seeking truth. But in this I see you are sincere! And I am glad; I do not feel I am wasting my time. I want to get the truth out here on the table to the best of my ability concernign what true catholic teachings are, vs. hearsay.. So if you are protesting Catholic, you are actually protesting what we actually teach - not something we don't! What a waste of time and thought that would be, right?

God is merciful and of course you should not expect to be punished for that. Many people won't believe in God because they were mis-taught what God is like, and the God written on their hearts is not like that God they learned about, and they don't believe in that one that sounds wrong. They want truth, and they will see truth in its full completeness when they die. Some people purposely don't want to know God because they think God is going to keep them from having fun, or doing what they like. They suspect God would say no to what they want, so they decide, "I would rather believe He doesn't exist". When we die, His existence is clear to us, and we know He is love, and if we desire love and truth, we will have much regret over our foolishness we lived for on earth when we could have instead lived for Love and Truth, because we will see that no earthly think we could have ever wanted is better than God. So there will be painful regret. (which does not belong in Heaven, and we will be able to work out and get rid our regrets in Purgatory first, and we will have time there for however long we think it needs).

Speaking of that moment of truth when we die. Its a moment when we see not only who God is and how He was always with us and how He spoke to us and beckoned us - we also see our own choices and the real truth behind the choices we made. That is often described by NDEs as their entire life flashing before them. The Catholic Church refers to it as "the particular judgment", vs. Judgement Day. There it is, all of it, we comprehend it all, in the light of truth. For most of us there is regrets! I have heard that that regret can be intense against the light of truth and God's love.

I merely look at the fact that, at face value, billions of people around the world follow religions that at the base level, are morally dubious. (apart from the effect their generally anti-rational outlook has on the general mindset of humanity). I find this deeply troubling. I know what I stand for, and generally, what I wish to achieve: In addition, I know how I would act if I was an omnipotent being and whether I would make people suffer for eternity. I consider it highly important to know if other individuals in my society have a savage philosophy, as these are the people who out of mercy and lack of omnipotence I allow to roam the streets. I consider it desirable to attempt to reason with some cases who are I would optimistically think as not too far gone. I do seek truth, but I think you perhaps misunderstand the extent of my position. If you were to show the Christian god to me, I would still not believe in a supernatural being (i.e. a god), because the entity you showed me would by its very appearance be a natural phenomenon, and not a supernatural one. Also, as a natural being with limited powers, regardless of whether or not you believe the supernatural exists, by recognising me as limited in powers you are only affirming that it is impossible to know god in this lifetime, and thus the Judgement on unbelievers becomes especially immoral. Finally, even if I could believe in a supernatural being such as the Christian god, or a Christian god who was limited in scope (purely a natural entity), I could never believe in an omnipotent, benevolent entity worthy of worship. But even so, such an omnipotent (or even a mere mortal) and benevolent being would not judge me as harshly for my views as you would! If you think that I would risk eternal reward just to win an argument, I think you should ask questions about your morality.

Of course you should not expect that. It would not be just. However, you might experience great shock of the truth of the extent of that limited-value crime. When our conscience tells us we are committing a crime, we'd best heed it. Because that conscience-pricking crime usually has huge ramifications not only as to how we get damaged, but how those all around us get damaged, and then those damaged others who in turn get affected. We will see what would have happened if we had not turned down that road, whatever road it was, that our conscience told us not to go down. We will regret not listening to it. We will worry for souls whose eternal salvation is in jeopardy because of a destructive path they went down due to some decision/action/inaction of ours. Fortunately our painful awarenesses and our prayers for those souls while we are in purgatory are efficacious.

If you believe that god, as you suggest, gives some people a "slap on the wrist" in purgatory when they feel bad for a stealing some candy or committing a few genocides etc., then I think you should bloody well reform your religion and not make it all fire and brimstone and generally making people worry all the time. I for one will die feeling no "guilt" whatsoever for not believing in god.
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Well, I thought I had explained this in the last post, which you are responding to here, but maybe it just went past you. God is not a punishing God. Hell is not so much a punishment as it is a natural consequence. There is not evil in Heaven, and if you hate good and want evil there is only one place for you to go! There are no 2nd chance do-overs back at earth as reincarnation purports. 'It is given unto men once to die and then the judgment." We get one choice. Choosing evil and choosing to turn our back on good here on earth truly puts us in eternal jeopardy because we may choose that, and not good, which we have learned to hate, at the last moment. Yet, yes, as you say: some who commit terrible crimes throughout their life on earth will be in Heaven. But you are not God; you do not know their life and their hearts. God does. [and, you may have done the same, or worse, had God allowed their life circumstances to happen to you]. God can reveal Himself to those at the last moment whom He knows would choose Him if they only knew the truth, and they do choose, and they are saved. But most likely they have work to do before they have any desire to fellowship with the Saints in heaven!

You seem to think that "good" can only exist with "evil". This is totally fallacious.

Heaven is not a reward for living a good life! It is a gift of God, who is loving and good. It is earned no by our works, but by the one once-and-for-all saving work of Jesus.

I know what you believe; it is deeply troubling. If heaven is not a "reward" by any measure...why by that same token does Jesus say that he will cast unbelievers into ever-burning pits of fire and brimstone? Why did he relish and warn of the the gnashing of teeth? It would have been possible to leave the dead, dead, or to "unmake" individuals, as many tyrants have done. (abominable, but still less abominable than a god that relishes torture).

Oh, yes, a decent fellow. No bones, no dust, even? Did they steal his body? Anyway, incorruptibility does not make one a Saint, and there are many, many more Saints than incorruptibles. It is a criteria they ignore, actually. Its respected as a probably sign from God, but when the cause for Sainthood is considered, incorruptibility is not considered. You woudl think it woudl be, but its not. That way they avoid the whole circus of fakes, which of course exist. Always there are imitators! But the actual cases of incorruptibility are very, very interesting. However, its acknowledged as a sign from God. That is why they get exhumed, usually. To check for that possibility. St. Cuthbert was incorruptible for many centuries, then suddenly, after being chopped up by King Henry VIII's pillagers, he corrupted. It is interesting to follow the details of all the different cases in that book, the Incorruptibles.

Ah, so you can be fast-tracked to Grade II status without the good-old incorruptibility then? It doesn't even count against you?

As I said, it is not surprising if someone who is buried in several coffin layers for hundreds years has a strong level of "incorruptibility"...and it shouldn't be surprising that when less-than-careful tomb robbers (essentially) undo that, that the bodies then decay. Consider the bodies of the many French monarchs who got an airing in 1793.

But you see, it was only on the way to go to see Padre Pio that she began to gain her sight. As you can read from the plethora pf testimonies on Padre Pio, he had a gift of knowing prayer intentions (as well as things you forgot to bring up in Confession!). It was just one of the gifts he had. He was truly obviously one of those of whom you can saw; 'It is no longer I who live, but Christ in me". And he manifested many of the things of Christ, who promised that these miracles He did and even more we could also do in his name. She had the intention of going to Padre Pio for healing, and even as she went there, she began to see. Becaseu Padre Pio, in such close communion with Our Lord, knew. Padre Pio is an example of how close of a communion we can have with God, if we truly want to live in His will, and not our own.

I did a quick look, here is Gemma explaining how at age 7, she began to gain her sight as she went to see Padre Pio to ask him for prayer for her sight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp9TgyjlnS0

Using one case, with little or no verification, is unscientific. If she had gained patchy eyesight AFTER meeting Padre Pio, before regaining it completely, you would still be arguing that it was PROOF of a miracle as a result of communion with Padre Pio.

People with aniridia for example don't necessarily have all of their iris/es missing, nor do they necessarily have consistent blindness. Only a small proportion of those who are classified as blind are truly 100% blind, and even so, those cases can or could be cured through the aid of science.

No. This is not true. You need to read further. Yes, of course there were accusers of Padre Pio, a true suffering stigmatic. Jesus had his false accusers, and his disciples are not spared that. Yes there are many fakes out there - there are always imitators, people who want attention for themselves, people who want to draw attention from the real thing. And when the real thing shows up, people want to detract. People lied and were paid well to lie as professionals that Padre Pio was a fake. It is no gift to self, to be a real stigmatic - one is sure to be persecuted by the very Church they serve! Yes, the detractors were there and yes all the accusations came up in investigations for canonization. Padre Pio was "banned" by Pope John XXIII from the faithful for a time. As was the work of the nun, St. Maria Faustina - who is, yes, now a Saint. John Paul II was devoted to her, and he officially named the Feast Day she was told by Our Lord to begin, Divine Mercy Sunday, the Sunday after Easter, truly a feast day for our times. That pope had both Pio and Faustina, now named Saints and found to be honest and true, at one time on a "forbidden list", "until further investigation". They were investigated and found to be true, and taken off the list.

I am not sure exactly what the "forbidden list", now defunct, included. I think it just said the persons on the list cannot be officially teaching or their teachings cannot be officially used by the Church until an investigation is complete. Because one is allowed to believe in living saints unless they teach proven untruths (which proves they are total fakes because a prophet of God never teaches a single untruth). No one can be named a Saint until after they die. The church will investigate current mystics and pick apart every single thing they write and say whether or not there is any little thing that is against the faith. Anne, and her ministry, Direction for Our Times, and all her mystical writings that are attributed to Jesus, Mary, God the Father Himself*** and various Saints and Apostles of Jesus - all have been submitted for rigid theological investigation and have been found to not say one single thing in opposition to scripture or to the teachings of the Church.


It must be unusual to be born without an iris.

***Word of God the Father - I will post some of them here later. I found it particularly amazing.

Sounds like an organisation with momentous bureaucracy and endless committees and loose-canons to me. It does not sound like a youthful, fruitful body full of inspiration speaking of one undeniable voice. It seems very human, without wishing to put us down!

[Eliza Thomason]

Hi Subteigh! I am going to start responding to some of this. I am still deciding if a different approach to answering is needed. I find myself wondering again: Does he really want answers to these questions, or is he just liking an argument? I realize one can misinterpret other's attitudes when just reading words vs. seeing the face and hearing the voice tone...

Could this be because Protestants (allegedly) outnumber Jews by more than 50 to 1 and because Christianity is far more of a proselyting religion?

Feeling confused on where you are coming from with this "proselytizing religion" thing? My first thought is that you attempt here to demonize Christianity with this label. It has the "feel" of something flung.

Likely you heard someone use this descriptor-label for Christianity as some reason to put it down, and you are repeating what you heard, here, flinging it down. Because you have to admit, a great many of your arguments here are repeats of Protestant "Catholic-protesting" errors, repeated exactly as heard.

Here in America, where we have a lot of influence on the world's culture, there is a misteaching that our Constitution promises "Freedom FROM Religion", when in fact the Constitution promises "Freedom OF Religion". Yet, this erroneous idea persists, and has quite a life of its own. Likely this is because those wishing to shift the culture to their way of thinking find it useful to spread that. Spread a lie often enough, and people do start believing it. Because people are like sheep, a lot of the time. But as Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time and you can fool ALL of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

Anyway, besides the question I had about your attitude and motive in using this descriptor, I immediately thought of you and your very fervent proselytizing here. You enthusiastically sing the praises of the U.N., and Science, and of the Protestant Biblical interpretations of the Bible that supposedly put down Catholicism, and I am wondering if you think its okay for you to proselytize, but not others. If others do, like Christians, then its a problem? Is it okay for you if media and the government proselytize, and tell you what they think is true and right, but not religions? This is an old idea, that the government should take the place of religion. Many dictators have tried to put this in place, and much mass murder of millions has come about to force it into place. And a government-as-religion is in place in many of places in this time, and we will certainly see more of it in the future.

Also of course you could make a case for any religion being a proselytizing religion - just some more so than others! The extreme example I see of this is the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witness cults who come knocking on the door ready to give you their canned version of religious proselytizing. Most of us have found that rather annoying at some point or another. However, I am SO GLAD that I live in a free country that has not succeeded in suppressing the religious expression of its people. I am very grateful to be in a society that allows the free exchange of ideas. Any other is truly frightening.

>>I am adding a point my husband made after I read him my answer. I had thought of this but he said it better. The Jews are unique in not being "proselytizing" because they believe in self-preservation, to preserve themselves separate as a separate people of God, so the Messiah can be sent through them. [Also this is what Christians believe of the Jews, too, the only difference being we think the Messiah already came]. Jews will accept converts, but they do not believe God wants them to make Jews of the other nations [just keep the other nations out of the Jews!]. It is a very unique religion... they are a unique and special set-apart people of God.

The scholarly consensus is that the Gospel attributed to the disciple known as John was not written by the same person/s who wrote the Book of Revelation, in large part because the Book of Revelation was written in lousy Greek, unlike the Gospel attributed to the disciple known as John. This is a view accepted even by fairly partial Christian scholars also, even in the days of the comparatively early church. The attribution of the Gospel to the disciple known as John was first made decades after it was written, from any evidence that exists, and the attribution of the Book of Revelation was assigned even later. They are essentially anonymous texts: Revelation may have been written by someone named John, and that is about as strong a claim you can make on the authorship of either of the books.

So say the pseudo-religion experts on the History channel... I'm not buying it, and neither has the majority of Christiandom these 2000 years...

Such a punishment is not the judgement of something that is "all good". Your idea of "all good" is that a person [i]must/i] accept your god as their saviour from sins committed in a temporal body he created flawed: your god is not a god who judges someone on whether they are more good than bad, nevermind whether they are "all good". Firstly he says that no one deserves heaven because no one is "all good"...no one is like god...then he says nevermind that, if you are my minion, but only if, I will let you in.

To cause eternal suffering to any individual is the greatest evil imaginable, because it means that you are punishing someone more severely than whatever they did in a temporal amount of time. Any such individual who imposed such a punishment would be the one deserving of it, nobody else: and then, only if the eternal damnings were reversible. It is clear to me that I am more just and more merciful than the Christian god, clearly. If you make something and it does something you dislike, you don't go and commit an even graver atrocity. To unmake that thing would be grave enough, because while you are offering eternal rewards, you are not offering your creations the chance of all eternity to atone for their actions. It should also be clear to any supreme being that decisions concerning eternity can only be made by individuals capable of understanding on such a timescale. If heaven was truly great and hell truly so awful, no living thing would want to go there: but your god will punish us for making ill-informed decisions about which we cannot possibly know anything about. How does a human being measure something like eternity, "all good", "all evil", omnipotence etc., without having improbably infinite measurements themselves? With eternity, there is no "last minute". If god is infinite in timelessness, omnipotence, grace, mercy, justness etc., he would know that.

You can call god your creator, you can call him "all good" etc., it doesn't automatically make him worthy of worship. A loving being would not send someone to hell and/or force them to worship them for eternity.

This whole section of theological argument I will respond to in a later post.

Pupils are the part that is the centre of the iris: scientists have implanted artificial irises into the eyes of people born without irises, and they have also used stem cell research to make the blind see again:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15786634
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...edicalresearch

Further, artificial hips amongst other such innovations have of course made millions walk again who would otherwise have not been able to.

In the past 20 years, doctors have cured 16 million people of leprosy: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs101/en/

Scientists have also made the deaf hear:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26784669
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-33303355
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-29089856

It is also fairly common for people with no pulse to brought back to life (most of them die still, but many thousands each year are saved). The case of Anna Bågenholm shows that doctors are able to 'resurrect' someone with a body temperature below 15 degrees Celius who had been in a state of circulatory arrest for 40 minutes with comparatively few negative side-effects.

[As I've already mentioned, humans have also managed to cut extreme poverty worldwide by more than half in less than 20 years.

Okay then. I see no reason to question this. But do look - there you go again proselytizing about the amazing accomplishments of man! It sounds to me like you have a LOT of faith in man's ability to make everything better! Fix health problems, end poverty! I do not have that kind of faith in man. I know that man can do great good, and I applaud it. However, man can also do some horrific things. Unfortunately both those things have always been with mankind, the part that can mobilize and do great good, and the part that can mobilize and do great destruction. That's what I see.

It also seems like you are trying to say that its either Jesus or man doing good and not both. Like its a competition.

Also when Jesus cured leprosy he did it instantaneously, before witnesses, and with no instruments or medications, or months of healing. That's what made it miraculous. And yes, science can probably do some amazing things with artificial lenses to create some pupil-like thing that sees, but it is not the same as the miracle I mentioned where scientists can look at Gemma's eyes and see no artificial pupil. But my point is that impartial scientists have to actually document officially that there is no scientific possible explanation at all for a miracle in order for it to be accepted as one for the cause of canonization.

Clearly you are a great proselytizer of the wonders of man in their fine scientific accomplishments. The words of
the Blessed Mother through a modern-day prophet seem written just for you:
"Dearest little child of heaven, you are not as
intellectually advanced as you think."

Those words are taken from later in the same work that is quoted below. Here are the words of Jesus that seem written just for you, Subteigh:

December 14, 2006
Jesus
I speak today with the greatest seriousness.
My beloved one, you were created by God.
God did not create you to reject your place
in His family. You are important in this
family, which includes all of mankind. To
cast yourself out of God’s love is to cast
yourself out of your family. You object to
this, telling yourself that you do not reject
mankind, only the Creator of mankind. My
friend, this is like reaching into your chest
and removing your heart with the goal of
rejecting your heart but accepting your
body. The body will not function without
the heart. It cannot. In the same way, the
family of God cannot function without the
sustaining hand of the Father. Even the
earth would fail to exist if the Father were
to withdraw His benevolence. Your
rejection of God proceeds from anger. You
move to deny this. Perhaps you cite
scientific evidence that claims to supplant
God’s existence. When you die in your body
and you come before Me, Jesus Christ, you
will be dazzled by the extent of what
humanity does not know. The body of
knowledge on earth at this time, while
exciting for you, is miniscule when seen
against the light of the full truth that you
will be allowed to explore in heaven. I bless
all science of good will. God has been
merciful in the extreme through science.
Many men have studied science and been
brought to a profound respect for the
Creator through the knowledge they have
gained. They will continue this study in
heaven, of course, and be blessed even
more. Additionally, many men who study
science have served their family, humanity,
profoundly through their cooperation with
Me in their studies. Do you understand?
They cooperate with God and God, through
that cooperation, blesses humanity. It is
arrogance on the part of mankind to
believe that they have discovered anything
that I did not wish for them to discover.

Amen to that.

In those words of Jesus above, He says that rejection of God stems from anger. And I have sensed that in you. I have been looking, through all these posts, for you to express that anger more explicitly, which I sense to be there underneath, and name what it is. That you have not yet addressed it just has made me "wait" til you do.

...sketchy 'miracles' ... religionists.... fear-mongers

... especially considering that the body's ability to cure itself of certain afflictions is something which is consistent regardless of what religion/s are in vogue at any one time. ...

This is again where it seems you are saying it is some kind of either/or thing, this time its science or religion. Its not. Its both. Yes, God created the human body amazingly and yes, one of its wonderful functions is its ability to cure itself. I happen to be a great believer in that which is why I don't follow the western model of healthcare personally which does not respect it to near the degree it should be respected IMO, prioritizing other things, first, like profit and having authority (and monoploly!).

Of course love can be demonstrated by physics.

It is possible after all to measure the effect that love, whether as a real or an actual concept, has a person. The same goes with religion, or god, or dreams, or music. Love and Dreams may not be physically there in the same way everyday objects are, but it is of course possible to record what people experience, what they think, what they feel and so on. This does not mean however that "God" exists as anything other than a concept that is meaningful to millions of people.

Its not only a meaningful concept, its what people live and die for. They stake their lives on it.

My husband says he is beginning to question my involvement in this argument with you because it seems you are attacking Catholicism from every angle. Okay, I am typing as he talks. He says you are using Atheist arguments and Protestant arguments and Humanist arguments - and he gets the feeling that if you were familiar with them, you would be also be using Muslim and Buddhist arguments! And ANY OTHER arguments, as well.[ Its true!]. He says you are not coming at this from any one point of view. That you do not seem to be a believer in anything, and that NOR are you LOOKING for anything to believe in. That you are just a "Devil's Advocate"... He says its as if you are taking pages from every book that you can open in order to throw arguments against the Catholic faith.

He concludes, saying of you: "I just don't see an honest point of view. I just don't see a single honest point of view. He has almost admitted he doesn't have one. He'll throw around some Protestant arguments and then say 'Oh, I am not a Protestant.' He seems to be anti-religious, anti-catholic, anti-anything - just looking for an argument."

So that's my husband giving his (intelligent!) opinion. He is going back outside to use that nice amazing mind of his to work out the complexities of our big project around here: rebuilding the porch into a bigger room, with a roomy portico. And he does need my help...

And I think what he said is all true. Its how I started this post: wondering, are you just wanting to argue?? And here I am ending it with my husbands suggestion that yes: you are.

Yesterday at Mass it was all I could think of. Is Subteigh just wasting my time, arguing simply for the sake of arguing? Ought I approach it differently? But how? I did not come up with any great new approach, and plunged in here with my usual, piece by painstaking piece style, still assuming a sincerity in you that might not be there. I did try one new thing, graying-out the theological questions, to answer separately, later. I like a theological argument, but, I think why I find it unwieldy with you is because I question your sincerity. And if it is as my husband says above, then it truly is a waste of time, isn't it?

My husband, my Dual. He is not wordy like me in this, and he has that SLI simplicity where words aren't wasted, and he has cogitated those words in his fine mind and formed them carefully before he speaks them. And his conclusions speak to the things I wondered.

And perhaps these thoughts which we come to together on that he has worded are in fact complete and whole. And, as Socionics seems to claim that his head and mine together could say more than your one head... because, you know, Duals are the "two parts of a whole"... Well, maybe some LSE will jump in here and be your Devil's Advocate's Assistant...

[Not A Communist Shill]

Hi Subteigh! I am going to start responding to some of this. I am still deciding if a different approach to answering is needed. I find myself wondering again: Does he really want answers to these questions, or is he just liking an argument? I realize one can misinterpret other's attitudes when just reading words vs. seeing the face and hearing the voice tone...



Feeling confused on where you are coming from with this "proselytizing religion" thing? My first thought is that you attempt here to demonize Christianity with this label. It has the "feel" of something flung.

Likely you heard someone use this descriptor-label for Christianity as some reason to put it down, and you are repeating what you heard, here, flinging it down. Because you have to admit, a great many of your arguments here are repeats of Protestant "Catholic-protesting" errors, repeated exactly as heard.

No, I associate no negative association with the word "proselytizing". It was merely relevant to countering the specific point. If something is widespread and widely vocalised, it is not surprising if you hear a lot about it, compared to something that isn't widespread and is insular. Of course, if a negative thing is proselytizing, then I will have a negative opinion of that: but again, I have no negative association with the word.

Here in America, where we have a lot of influence on the world's culture, there is a misteaching that our Constitution promises "Freedom FROM Religion", when in fact the Constitution promises "Freedom OF Religion". Yet, this erroneous idea persists, and has quite a life of its own. Likely this is because those wishing to shift the culture to their way of thinking find it useful to spread that. Spread a lie often enough, and people do start believing it. Because people are like sheep, a lot of the time. But as Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time and you can fool ALL of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

Your Constitution only states that the government should favour no religion and that it should allow its citizens to freely practice their religion.

btw, is there any evidence that Lincoln actually ever said that commonly attributed quote?

Anyway, besides the question I had about your attitude and motive in using this descriptor, I immediately thought of you and your very fervent proselytizing here. You enthusiastically sing the praises of the U.N., and Science, and of the Protestant Biblical interpretations of the Bible that supposedly put down Catholicism, and I am wondering if you think its okay for you to proselytize, but not others. If others do, like Christians, then its a problem? Is it okay for you if media and the government proselytize, and tell you what they think is true and right, but not religions? This is an old idea, that the government should take the place of religion. Many dictators have tried to put this in place, and much mass murder of millions has come about to force it into place. And a government-as-religion is in place in many of places in this time, and we will certainly see more of it in the future.

Also of course you could make a case for any religion being a proselytizing religion - just some more so than others! The extreme example I see of this is the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witness cults who come knocking on the door ready to give you their canned version of religious proselytizing. Most of us have found that rather annoying at some point or another. However, I am SO GLAD that I live in a free country that has not succeeded in suppressing the religious expression of its people. I am very grateful to be in a society that allows the free exchange of ideas. Any other is truly frightening.

>>I am adding a point my husband made after I read him my answer. I had thought of this but he said it better. The Jews are unique in not being "proselytizing" because they believe in self-preservation, to preserve themselves separate as a separate people of God, so the Messiah can be sent through them. [Also this is what Christians believe of the Jews, too, the only difference being we think the Messiah already came]. Jews will accept converts, but they do not believe God wants them to make Jews of the other nations [just keep the other nations out of the Jews!]. It is a very unique religion... they are a unique and special set-apart people of God.

As painful as it is to say, I think the religious should be given the right to air their views as long as they don't impinge on the rights of others. It is possible some good may come of it too.

So say the pseudo-religion experts on the History channel... I'm not buying it, and neither has the majority of Christiandom these 2000 years...

Being a Christian doesn't make you an expert on the historical evidence for the early church.

Okay then. I see no reason to question this. But do look - there you go again proselytizing about the amazing accomplishments of man! It sounds to me like you have a LOT of faith in man's ability to make everything better! Fix health problems, end poverty! I do not have that kind of faith in man. I know that man can do great good, and I applaud it. However, man can also do some horrific things. Unfortunately both those things have always been with mankind, the part that can mobilize and do great good, and the part that can mobilize and do great destruction. That's what I see.

You would have faith in your religion even if aspects could be demonstrated to be false: you believe contrary to evidence. You are unwilling to change your mind. When the scientific method works at its best, it produces testable hypotheses and practicable results. Indeed, in order for there to be a hypothesis in science, there has to be a statement based on observation which you then attempt to prove true or false. Sometimes hypotheses and (scientific) theories are thus synonymous with each other. In contrast, a god does not even meet the basic criteria to be considered a hypothesis, nevermind a theory (a model that explains observable phenomena).

The Christian attitude towards faith is best summed up with Jesus' response to Thomas, who didn't believe Jesus had risen even after seeing the miracles Jesus performed while living, being told several times that Jesus would rise again after three days, and after seeing Jesus risen again in the flesh:

Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Jesus actually criticised Thomas for doubting, for seeking evidence. In Christianity, those who believe contrary to evidence are rewarded, not scorned.

I may have "faith" in the observable and practical solutions, as you put it, but that is no small thing, and there is no arrogance in proselyting a method which has brought the greatest practical benefit to mankind. There is also no scorn for those who need evidence of measurable significance in order to determine how things are.

It also seems like you are trying to say that its either Jesus or man doing good and not both. Like its a competition.

Also when Jesus cured leprosy he did it instantaneously, before witnesses, and with no instruments or medications, or months of healing. That's what made it miraculous. And yes, science can probably do some amazing things with artificial lenses to create some pupil-like thing that sees, but it is not the same as the miracle I mentioned where scientists can look at Gemma's eyes and see no artificial pupil. But my point is that impartial scientists have to actually document officially that there is no scientific possible explanation at all for a miracle in order for it to be accepted as one for the cause of canonization.

There is no evidence that Jesus and god did any of these things: things that pale into comparison to that which is known to have achieved by science, things that pale into comparison to all those evils that god has allowed to happen. When an omnipotent being is out-performed by his creation, it suggest his followers are looking in the wrong place (and I don't mean upwards in an universe with no "up"). The few miracles Jesus allegedly performed also fail to make up his lack of moral fibre for believing that other beings deserved fiery torments for all eternity, and further, believing that he would inflict such a punishment. Some Christians say what the Romans did to Jesus was depraved and inhumane, partly to emphasise the magnitude of his three day "ordeal" but also glorify the level of his compassion, but they still ignore that Jesus would have it infinitely worse.

Clearly you are a great proselytizer of the wonders of man in their fine scientific accomplishments.

Thank you.

The words of
the Blessed Mother through a modern-day prophet seem written just for you:
"Dearest little child of heaven, you are not as
intellectually advanced as you think."

Those words are taken from later in the same work that is quoted below. Here are the words of Jesus that seem written just for you, Subteigh:

December 14, 2006
Jesus
I speak today with the greatest seriousness.
My beloved one, you were created by God.
God did not create you to reject your place
in His family. You are important in this
family, which includes all of mankind. To
cast yourself out of God’s love is to cast
yourself out of your family. You object to
this, telling yourself that you do not reject
mankind, only the Creator of mankind. My
friend, this is like reaching into your chest
and removing your heart with the goal of
rejecting your heart but accepting your
body. The body will not function without
the heart. It cannot. In the same way, the
family of God cannot function without the
sustaining hand of the Father. Even the
earth would fail to exist if the Father were
to withdraw His benevolence. Your
rejection of God proceeds from anger. You
move to deny this. Perhaps you cite
scientific evidence that claims to supplant
God’s existence. When you die in your body
and you come before Me, Jesus Christ, you
will be dazzled by the extent of what
humanity does not know. The body of
knowledge on earth at this time, while
exciting for you, is miniscule when seen
against the light of the full truth that you
will be allowed to explore in heaven. I bless
all science of good will. God has been
merciful in the extreme through science.
Many men have studied science and been
brought to a profound respect for the
Creator through the knowledge they have
gained. They will continue this study in
heaven, of course, and be blessed even
more. Additionally, many men who study
science have served their family, humanity,
profoundly through their cooperation with
Me in their studies. Do you understand?
They cooperate with God and God, through
that cooperation, blesses humanity. It is
arrogance on the part of mankind to
believe that they have discovered anything
that I did not wish for them to discover.

Amen to that.



In those words of Jesus above, He says that rejection of God stems from anger. And I have sensed that in you. I have been looking, through all these posts, for you to express that anger more explicitly, which I sense to be there underneath, and name what it is. That you have not yet addressed it just has made me "wait" til you do.

You clearly have a lower burden of proof than I, and also a substantially different code of ethics.

The words you attribute to Jesus seem to know me better than I know myself, because my rejection of god absolutely did not come from anger. You forget that for the first few years of my life, I was a Christian, until I decided I found his ethics repulsive and him utterly uncommunicative. If anyone is angry in the bible, it is god: he kills perhaps in the region of 25 million people: a figure which would be higher if he had actually bothered to communicate now.
"Everytime I look at you don't understand
Why you let the things you did get so out of hand?
You'd have managed better if you'd had it planned
Why'd you choose such a backward time and such a strange land?
If you'd come today you could have reached a whole nation
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication..."

This is again where it seems you are saying it is some kind of either/or thing, this time its science or religion. Its not. Its both. Yes, God created the human body amazingly and yes, one of its wonderful functions is its ability to cure itself. I happen to be a great believer in that which is why I don't follow the western model of healthcare personally which does not respect it to near the degree it should be respected IMO, prioritizing other things, first, like profit and having authority (and monoploly!).

There is no evidence for your opinion about there being no divide between god and science (and Jesus' attitude to Thomas would suggest the opposite), and in any case, if god is merciful, I don't see why people should go about their lives believing in things unseen when they can act more rationally...especially if it is in their nature.

Its not only a meaningful concept, its what people live and die for. They stake their lives on it.

My husband says he is beginning to question my involvement in this argument with you because it seems you are attacking Catholicism from every angle. Okay, I am typing as he talks. He says you are using Atheist arguments and Protestant arguments and Humanist arguments - and he gets the feeling that if you were familiar with them, you would be also be using Muslim and Buddhist arguments! And ANY OTHER arguments, as well.[ Its true!]. He says you are not coming at this from any one point of view. That you do not seem to be a believer in anything, and that NOR are you LOOKING for anything to believe in. That you are just a "Devil's Advocate"... He says its as if you are taking pages from every book that you can open in order to throw arguments against the Catholic faith.

He concludes, saying of you: "I just don't see an honest point of view. I just don't see a single honest point of view. He has almost admitted he doesn't have one. He'll throw around some Protestant arguments and then say 'Oh, I am not a Protestant.' He seems to be anti-religious, anti-catholic, anti-anything - just looking for an argument."

So that's my husband giving his (intelligent!) opinion. He is going back outside to use that nice amazing mind of his to work out the complexities of our big project around here: rebuilding the porch into a bigger room, with a roomy portico. And he does need my help...

And I think what he said is all true. Its how I started this post: wondering, are you just wanting to argue?? And here I am ending it with my husbands suggestion that yes: you are.

Yesterday at Mass it was all I could think of. Is Subteigh just wasting my time, arguing simply for the sake of arguing? Ought I approach it differently? But how? I did not come up with any great new approach, and plunged in here with my usual, piece by painstaking piece style, still assuming a sincerity in you that might not be there. I did try one new thing, graying-out the theological questions, to answer separately, later. I like a theological argument, but, I think why I find it unwieldy with you is because I question your sincerity. And if it is as my husband says above, then it truly is a waste of time, isn't it?

My husband, my Dual. He is not wordy like me in this, and he has that SLI simplicity where words aren't wasted, and he has cogitated those words in his fine mind and formed them carefully before he speaks them. And his conclusions speak to the things I wondered.

And perhaps these thoughts which we come to together on that he has worded are in fact complete and whole. And, as Socionics seems to claim that his head and mine together could say more than your one head... because, you know, Duals are the "two parts of a whole"... Well, maybe some LSE will jump in here and be your Devil's Advocate's Assistant...

This is unfair...I do debate with Muslims also...in addition, I more commonly converse (in opposition) to Protestants...not Catholics...as well as with those who are right-wing or notionally Labour (a left-wing party in the UK). When we did talk of Islam/Muslims, I hardly talked in a reverential light: I tried to state the facts as they are. The same when we talked of Mormons and Jews etc. ...I did mention Confucius didn't I, despite not being a Confucian? I also mentioned my slight admiration for John Henry Newman, and you mentioned Lincoln in a positive manner, even though there he most likely wasn't a Christian. I don't see why quoting from sources I am not immediately a part of is unacceptable, if at its core, it demonstrates one of your beliefs as factually inaccurate. Whether I am Confucian or Protestant doesn't change the lack of evidence for the papacy in the first two centuries A.D., the views of early historical church figures on the legitimacy of some of the books of the Bible, or the lack of solid evidence for Jesus himself (this could be said to be true of the Buddha and of Socrates also: I also ascribe to the views of neither, but even if I did, it wouldn't change the level of evidence for them, merely whether I would say "the views commonly ascribed to Socrates" etc.).

[Eliza Thomason]

Hi Subteigh. I am not confident that you value much of any of the things I have written to you in this thread, which I have put much time and thought into. It does not seem that anything I have said at all has had any affect on your pre-conceived notions about God or Christianity or even just the Catholic faith. So why would I write again here, if you really are not really interested in what I have to say? I guess perhaps it will be of benefit to the one person, likely not too many more, who might slog through this conversation of ours, and actually get this far.

...You would have faith in your religion even if aspects could be demonstrated to be false: you believe contrary to evidence. You are unwilling to change your mind. When the scientific method works at its best, it produces testable hypotheses and practicable results. Indeed, in order for there to be a hypothesis in science, there has to be a statement based on observation which you then attempt to prove true or false. Sometimes hypotheses and (scientific) theories are thus synonymous with each other. In contrast, a god does not even meet the basic criteria to be considered a hypothesis, nevermind a theory (a model that explains observable phenomena).

This is that black and white, either/or thinking thinking I have referred to. I am telling you again that its also in this case "both/and".

"Many men have studied science and been brought to a profound respect for the Creator through the knowledge they have gained.... They cooperate with God and God, through that cooperation, blesses humanity."

Both/and

...Jesus actually criticised Thomas for doubting, for seeking evidence. In Christianity, those who believe contrary to evidence are rewarded, not scorned.

No. Our Lord, Who is merciful and Who understands our human weaknesses, shows no evidence here of criticizing His beloved Apostle Thomas. I can see why you could read that into it when its not there - because you are influenced by your own false belief that Our Lord is unmerciful and harsh.

Jesus first states a simple truth, a reality of the present moment: "You believe because you have seen", and then from that truth segues right into a great truth - a prophesy concerning the multitudes to follow - the throngs through the ages who will believe without seeing. They are blessed.

That is the traditional and commonly accepted exegesis for that verse.

I may have "faith" in the observable and practical solutions, as you put it, but that is no small thing, and there is no arrogance in proselyting a method which has brought the greatest practical benefit to mankind.

I think I have already applauded that. Personally I am not as into science as you. Its your particular interest. Everyone is different. You will be one of those in Heaven who wants to learn more and more of science. I have other things I look forward to in Heaven.

What means more than just science is goodness. That and wisdom mean more than intelligence. Intelligence without these is frightening; nothing to be applauded.

There is also no scorn for those who need evidence of measurable significance in order to determine how things are.

Yes, and as to God - its out there, if you want it. God says "If you seek me, you will find me." And that means that those who need more evidence get more evidence. Like Thomas. Our Lord stretched out His hands to him. "Touch!" He stretches out His hands to us in love as well, and offers what we ask; if its what we need. And He knows us and knows what we need. He is like an indulgent, loving parent.

...[God's]lack of moral fibre for believing that other beings deserved fiery torments for all eternity, and further, believing that he would inflict such a punishment. Some Christians say what the Romans did to Jesus was depraved and inhumane...but they still ignore that Jesus would have it infinitely worse...

One confusing thing about this conversation with you Subteigh is that I have already addressed this point, several times in fact. I don't know if you are ignoring what I say - maybe you just skim my words and go on developing your own thought, in which case, why am I writing here? Or maybe you are so entrenched in this false understanding that you are blinded and cannot read, or even entertain an opposing view? I don't know!

I have said it - I do not know this punishing God that you speak of. Perhaps this is the basis of the anger I sense in you. Perhaps you are truly afraid of eternal damnation, and angry and rejecting of this God who would do that. But I have addressed that here - of hell not being a punishment. Maybe more like a natural consequence?

To recap again, God's laws are written in our hearts. Perhaps there are laws you do not want to keep, and you are angry at what you think is the outcome of that? The Christian religion, like most, does have behavior guidelines, and it teaches what is right and what is wrong to do.

For example, we are told we must forgive others, and that we will be forgiven as we forgive others. But suppose you are a person who does not want to forgive? Furthermore, we are told we must not judge others, and that we will be judged by the same measuring stick we judge others. These are harsh "punishments" - yet, just ones. Yes, these simple thoughts of ours - unforgiveness, judgmentalness - these things matter to God who sees our hearts. And we know it matters because its written on our hearts.

God tells us what our thoughts should be because it aims us in a direction.

This old quote, or some version of it, might have always been with us:

"Watch your thoughts for they become words,
watch your words for they become actions,
watch your actions, for they become habits,
watch your habits for they become your character,
watch your character for it becomes your destiny."

So one who makes up their mind when young that they will never forgive, or that they will judge others if they want to and no one can stop them - they are headed in a bad direction. Its one of the many directions God warns us not to go in, because He loves us, and things will get bad for us if we go there. One thing leads to another, like in that quote, and in the end one can die a person who refuses to forgive, for example, and HATES any such thing, and WANTS a destiny where they can be forever away from such goodness. And they see ALL in the Light of Truth when they die - in other words, its an INFORMED decision - and they STILL want "bad" and the only place for that is Hell so they want that.

That is the point I have already made in this conversation - more than once I believe, which you seem to keep missing - as if I never made that point. People CHOOSE Hell. Its a natural consequence. And they have a whole lifetime to get there. Is generally choosing bad until that's ALL they want. But yet they can ALWAYS repent, even at the last minute after a terrible life. God loves us all and wants us all in Heaven. But He also made us in His image - and that includes free will. We are not puppets. But "doing it my way" - choosing to do what we know God does not want us to do, just because we want what we want, now, is not wise. It can lead to more and more not wanting what God wants, and then to not wanting what is good, because it reminds us of God. Its not a good risk to make, to choose to go in a direction that is against good.

I don't know if I explained that well but that's basically how it is. Not how you are saying ('hell is the punishment of an angry god').

I also want to say that when we have trouble following God's laws He totally understands. We have to simply want to do things His way, then He helps us get there. Sometimes we have to simply desire to desire to do things His way. And He will give us that. I have prayed that prayer! I have said, "I do not want to forgive ____, but I desire to desire to forgive", and I ask God to give me that." And He does. And He is not impatient with me while I cannot. There is nothing He asks us to do that He will not help us do. He says, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light". And how can that be, if a person whose child has been abused and murdered is called to forgive? That person will need great heaps of supernatural grace to do that, and if they desire it, God will give it to them. Or any other challenge one has in following God's laws - God gives us the measure of grace we need to do it. (Also he is patient and understanding when we are not there yet). And in these times, He is pouring out heaps and heaps of graces, because folks need a LOT.

... You forget that for the first few years of my life, I was a Christian, until I decided I found his ethics repulsive and him utterly uncommunicative.

Maybe you were praying to the angry, punishing god with repulsive ethics? I sure bet he's uncommunicative!

But I know that if you pray to the loving Father in Heaven who is Just and Merciful to the extreme - that God answers prayers. He keeps His promises. And one of His promises is, "If you seek Me, you will find Me."

:Everytime I look at you...out of hand... managed better... communication..."

You realize that's the Judas Iscariot character you are quoting?

...I don't see why people should go about their lives believing in things unseen ...

People believe in love all the time and they don't see love. Only evidence for love. And people don't see God. Only evidence for God.

Also, God is love. Where there is love, there is God.
..........................................

This is unfair...I do debate with Muslims also...in addition, I more commonly converse (in opposition) to Protestants...not Catholics...as well as with those who are right-wing or notionally Labour (a left-wing party in the UK). When we did talk of Islam/Muslims, I hardly talked in a reverential light: I tried to state the facts as they are. The same when we talked of Mormons and Jews etc. ...I did mention Confucius didn't I, despite not being a Confucian? I also mentioned my slight admiration for John Henry Newman, and you mentioned Lincoln in a positive manner, even though there he most likely wasn't a Christian. I don't see why quoting from sources I am not immediately a part of is unacceptable, if at its core, it demonstrates one of your beliefs as factually inaccurate. Whether I am Confucian or Protestant doesn't change the lack of evidence for the papacy in the first two centuries A.D., the views of early historical church figures on the legitimacy of some of the books of the Bible, or the lack of solid evidence for Jesus himself (this could be said to be true of the Buddha and of Socrates also: I also ascribe to the views of neither, but even if I did, it wouldn't change the level of evidence for them, merely whether I would say "the views commonly ascribed to Socrates" etc.).

Well, dh is snoring next to me at the moment.. I'll be waking him when I go to bed so I don't want to wake him now. But I'll assume his meaning as I respond here. Yes, you mentioned other names and religions in your arguing. Yes, I very much appreciated your appreciation for Newman; it gave me hope. You threw me a bone! Thanks. As far as his point about your being everywhere and nowhere - yes, I saw this too with you. Its like a kind of "cafeteria spirituality". A little bit from here, a little bit from there - according to - what? What works for you? What goes with how you feel? What does not offend your own sensibilities, preferences, or pride? It seems a very weak position, somehow. And apparently my husband had the same reaction.

In my faith practice, there are those disparagingly referred to as "Cafeteria Catholics", in sort of the same way, only they are sampling from the Catholic menu: a bit of this, a little piece of that - and its not a position one esteems. Its really the easy way out, the path of least resistance. A faith that costs nothing!

To me the bottom line was he thinks i am wasting my time with this discussion with you. Its his opinion. Its been an ongoing thought of mine. I definitely don't want to just argue to argue. And I did say in the beginning of this thread that the purpose of this thread is not to just Catholic bash. One is free to start one's own thread to do that if that's what one wants. And you have said things that simply are bashing. And I have tolerated it, thinking, you are just being rude on your way to a point. But, then what your point is is in question. Is it to argue? Bash?..

I have not seen any evidence ever, nor have you given any, concerning lack of evidence for our first two centuries of Popes, so I don't know what you are referring to. I have made a GREAT case in this communication for the legitimacy of the Catholic canon of books in the Bible - so that is another reason why I feel you don't read what I write. I made so many points concerning that - but not one did you acknowledge! I noticed that.

As to questioning the evidence for Jesus Himself - that's just a silly argument, to me. You could start your own thread for that. Maybe you'll find some interest in that topic.




...................................Emoticons are fun.

[Not A Communist Shill]

Hi Subteigh. I am not confident that you value much of any of the things I have written to you in this thread, which I have put much time and thought into. It does not seem that anything I have said at all has had any affect on your pre-conceived notions about God or Christianity or even just the Catholic faith. So why would I write again here, if you really are not really interested in what I have to say? I guess perhaps it will be of benefit to the one person, likely not too many more, who might slog through this conversation of ours, and actually get this far.

Your attitude seems rather one-sided, implying that you are a teacher and that you learn nothing else from others, as well as implying I only have preconceived notions god, Christianity, Catholicism etc.

In any case, it doesn't make god any less able to contact me whenever he has the time to, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

This is that black and white, either/or thinking thinking I have referred to. I am telling you again that its also in this case "both/and".

"Many men have studied science and been brought to a profound respect for the Creator through the knowledge they have gained.... They cooperate with God and God, through that cooperation, blesses humanity."

Both/and

Considering your expressly stated attitude towards miracles, your unwillingness to establish even a basic standard of proof, you attitude towards the sheer scale of well-documented, regularly occurring achievements by humanity, as well as your acceptance of doctrines such as blessing those who believe without evidence, what I said is hardly "black and white, either/or thinking".

If anything, you are rather narrow-minded, as you are only willing to accept one faith out of many, and are unwilling to consider what is true, or even, what is possible within the known laws of physics.

No. Our Lord, Who is merciful and Who understands our human weaknesses, shows no evidence here of criticizing His beloved Apostle Thomas. I can see why you could read that into it when its not there - because you are influenced by your own false belief that Our Lord is unmerciful and harsh.

Jesus first states a simple truth, a reality of the present moment: "You believe because you have seen", and then from that truth segues right into a great truth - a prophesy concerning the multitudes to follow - the throngs through the ages who will believe without seeing. They are blessed.

That is the traditional and commonly accepted exegesis for that verse/

If this was true, then billions of unbelievers would not be judged for disbelieving on account of not seeing Jesus in the flesh.
As it is clear in the bible, Jesus will judge such people, so it is hard to see Jesus as a merciful, consistent truth. Why doesn't Jesus have the logical implication of his words: "You don't believe because you haven't seen."?

I think I have already applauded that. Personally I am not as into science as you. Its your particular interest. Everyone is different. You will be one of those in Heaven who wants to learn more and more of science. I have other things I look forward to in Heaven.

What means more than just science is goodness. That and wisdom mean more than intelligence. Intelligence without these is frightening; nothing to be applauded/

ah, but Jesus didn't value the scientific method, nor did he value "goodness" over other things he consider more important like "belief" and "subservience".

Yes, and as to God - its out there, if you want it. God says "If you seek me, you will find me." And that means that those who need more evidence get more evidence. Like Thomas. Our Lord stretched out His hands to him. "Touch!" He stretches out His hands to us in love as well, and offers what we ask; if its what we need. And He knows us and knows what we need. He is like an indulgent, loving parent.

"seek and ye shall find" is an incredibly bad maxim. It is only true if god exists and is capable of being observed, and also puts the duty on mortal beings. In addition, many ideologies have been formed on such faulty sayings. It leads to indoctrination and people being made to feel bad because they cannot find. If you insist that something must be true, then you will inevitably end up finding that it is true, even if it isn't. It is a leading statement, and would certainly be considered bad science. You would be better off saying something [/i]may[/i] be true on the basis of various observable phenomena, rather than saying something is true, you just have to find it true first. You need to be able to falsifiable a statement, not state it as true in every circumstance.

One confusing thing about this conversation with you Subteigh is that I have already addressed this point, several times in fact. I don't know if you are ignoring what I say - maybe you just skim my words and go on developing your own thought, in which case, why am I writing here? Or maybe you are so entrenched in this false understanding that you are blinded and cannot read, or even entertain an opposing view? I don't know!

I have said it - I do not know this punishing God that you speak of. Perhaps this is the basis of the anger I sense in you. Perhaps you are truly afraid of eternal damnation, and angry and rejecting of this God who would do that. But I have addressed that here - of hell not being a punishment. Maybe more like a natural consequence?

To recap again, God's laws are written in our hearts. Perhaps there are laws you do not want to keep, and you are angry at what you think is the outcome of that? The Christian religion, like most, does have behavior guidelines, and it teaches what is right and what is wrong to do.

For example, we are told we must forgive others, and that we will be forgiven as we forgive others. But suppose you are a person who does not want to forgive? Furthermore, we are told we must not judge others, and that we will be judged by the same measuring stick we judge others. These are harsh "punishments" - yet, just ones. Yes, these simple thoughts of ours - unforgiveness, judgmentalness - these things matter to God who sees our hearts. And we know it matters because its written on our hearts.

God tells us what our thoughts should be because it aims us in a direction.

This old quote, or some version of it, might have always been with us:

"Watch your thoughts for they become words,
watch your words for they become actions,
watch your actions, for they become habits,
watch your habits for they become your character,
watch your character for it becomes your destiny."

So one who makes up their mind when young that they will never forgive, or that they will judge others if they want to and no one can stop them - they are headed in a bad direction. Its one of the many directions God warns us not to go in, because He loves us, and things will get bad for us if we go there. One thing leads to another, like in that quote, and in the end one can die a person who refuses to forgive, for example, and HATES any such thing, and WANTS a destiny where they can be forever away from such goodness. And they see ALL in the Light of Truth when they die - in other words, its an INFORMED decision - and they STILL want "bad" and the only place for that is Hell so they want that.

That is the point I have already made in this conversation - more than once I believe, which you seem to keep missing - as if I never made that point. People CHOOSE Hell. Its a natural consequence. And they have a whole lifetime to get there. Is generally choosing bad until that's ALL they want. But yet they can ALWAYS repent, even at the last minute after a terrible life. God loves us all and wants us all in Heaven. But He also made us in His image - and that includes free will. We are not puppets. But "doing it my way" - choosing to do what we know God does not want us to do, just because we want what we want, now, is not wise. It can lead to more and more not wanting what God wants, and then to not wanting what is good, because it reminds us of God. Its not a good risk to make, to choose to go in a direction that is against good.

I don't know if I explained that well but that's basically how it is. Not how you are saying ('hell is the punishment of an angry god').

I also want to say that when we have trouble following God's laws He totally understands. We have to simply want to do things His way, then He helps us get there. Sometimes we have to simply desire to desire to do things His way. And He will give us that. I have prayed that prayer! I have said, "I do not want to forgive ____, but I desire to desire to forgive", and I ask God to give me that." And He does. And He is not impatient with me while I cannot. There is nothing He asks us to do that He will not help us do. He says, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light". And how can that be, if a person whose child has been abused and murdered is called to forgive? That person will need great heaps of supernatural grace to do that, and if they desire it, God will give it to them. Or any other challenge one has in following God's laws - God gives us the measure of grace we need to do it. (Also he is patient and understanding when we are not there yet). And in these times, He is pouring out heaps and heaps of graces, because folks need a LOT.

If God was indulgent, all-loving, merciful etc. and people were intrinsicly good, you are basically saying Jesus' life and "sacrifice" were a waste of time, as well as the lived of all humans who have ever lived. God would not need to forgive people of their sins, and he certainly would not send them to hell: all of this is his own maliciousness, not that caused by humans. He would instead judge people on their merits, without instructing them how to live with scriptures written two thousand or more years ago with the odd miracle here and there. He would certainly see no point in judging people who are only acting a certain way out of fear of going to hell, or who act purely in line with their own consciences and who place a high value on things like "evidence". It would mean also that the Church and its minions are not only wasting their time preaching, but everybody else's as well.

If god wants people to know his "merciful" side, then he should very well go and get on with it, instead of having pointless doctrines from ancient times been preached.

Maybe you were praying to the angry, punishing god with repulsive ethics? I sure bet he's uncommunicative!

But I know that if you pray to the loving Father in Heaven who is Just and Merciful to the extreme - that God answers prayers. He keeps His promises. And one of His promises is, "If you seek Me, you will find Me."

No, oddly enough, the god I was praying to for much of a time had a certain disconnect for me from the god of the bible. I later found out that this balanced, just, and all-round benevolent god was in fact my own moral code, which was superior to that of the god of the bible. It was in no doubt informed by modern society, including the more moderate teachings of some Christian sects, such as the Methodists.

I think considering that I attempted communication with god knowing what ethics he had ascribed to him in the bible as well as having questions about a possibly more benevolent image of god, it is astonishing that god has never spoken to me. I mean, I, as a mere mortal, am quite capable of communicating with others such as yourself who have some deeply unethical views, as well as Mormons, Muslims, Canadians, astrologists and Manchester City supporters...so why is god, an omnipotent being utterly incapable of responding? and why is the emphasis on starting a dialogue on me? ...I don't recall ever having certainty that god exists and you no doubt believe that god does have certainty that I exist. If he unwilling, he doesn't sound very omnipotent...benevolent etc.
It seems to me that you think I should either: i) know god exists without having communicated with him...which sounds like a very peculiar business: it doesn't not surprise me that many religionists place such importance on the attitude "seek and ye shall find" ...or ii) communicate with a god I know cannot exist within the laws of nature on the basis of "seek and ye shall find", and indoctrinate myself that god exists.

If god placed such importance on benevolence, none of this would matter whatsoever. This merely goes back to my view that religion at best has held back society foe thousands of years: think of all the unnecessary stress people such as yourselves have caused making others worry about things you claim aren't important in the eyes of an benevolent god.

You realize that's the Judas Iscariot character you are quoting?

Other than betraying someone who was formerly his teacher and friend (a betrayal that Jesus and humanity needed), Judas Iscariot was perhaps the greatest disciple with only Thomas being a contender. He cared for the poor, or at least had the pretence. I do realise it is a fictionalised Judas I was quoting, but the song makes some very good points.

People believe in love all the time and they don't see love. Only evidence for love. And people don't see God. Only evidence for God.

Also, God is love. Where there is love, there is God.
..........................................

I've already discussed that "Love", or what people attach to "Love" is measurable, e.g. whether through chemicals in the body, expressed emotions, changes in the brain, improved health levels etc.

In addition, our immortal souls are not dependent on the exactitudes or vagaries of what is meant by "Love" (although some may believe this): if you make a claim about "things unseen" that have such an important thing (another unseen thing as it happens), then you really ought to prove it.

I have not seen any evidence ever, nor have you given any, concerning lack of evidence for our first two centuries of Popes, so I don't know what you are referring to. I have made a GREAT case in this communication for the legitimacy of the Catholic canon of books in the Bible - so that is another reason why I feel you don't read what I write. I made so many points concerning that - but not one did you acknowledge! I noticed that.

Well, conversely, do you have any contemporary historical or archaeological evidence for the papacy in the first two centuries A.D.?

As to questioning the evidence for Jesus Himself - that's just a silly argument, to me. You could start your own thread for that. Maybe you'll find some interest in that topic.

There were many people called Jesus from that time, which I accept. The biblical Jesus may have been based on a real person. But I find the evidence for a historical (i.e. Jesus the teacher) Jesus from contemporary sources to be limited. I find that the evidence for the divine Jesus to be written many decades after his death by non-partisan sources, and know there is no way of proving an event that by its very nature is defines as something defined as impossible.

By the way, in the case of Socrates: he (according to accounts) didn't like his words to be written down (he placed more emphasis on spoken philosophical discussions), but he was written about by his pupils immediately after the time of his death, as well as by contemporary historians. In addition, he was mocked by the Athenian playwright Aristophanes in his own lifetime in a play, is recorded as having fought in wars, presiding over many court proceedings, and getting into many conflicts with the Athenian authorities.

There is probably not going to be any direct evidence that Socrates ever actually existed, but on the balance of the evidence, which is contemporary, diverse in range, includes non-partisan sources, and is within the realms of possibility, it would be fairly safe to say that he did exist. This does not mean that you should base your entire moral code on this conclusion though.

[Eliza Thomason]

...I'll get back to this eventually. We are solving diverse complex situations here at home, and when we get out of the weeds I'll be able to imbibe in more complex discussions...

[Eliza Thomason]

Hi @Subteigh.. I am going to get back to this thread at some point but right now we have a huge project to complete before the snow flies...Meanwhile, my husband and I just watched this interview with a Secular Jew who became Catholic - its very moving because she had no faith at all. In it, she happens to inform that "Orthodox Jews are a lot like Catholics".. and the example she gives is that "Orthodox Jews also believe in the resurrection of the body."

So there you go. That had come up in our discussion, and I wasn't sure, but I thought so. I spent a lot of years in school and teaching n a school with a big Jewish population, so I have some ideas on those things. So, the Rabbi I got an vague answer from here on this thread must have not been Orthodox. So there you have it. It is a true Jewish belief. Maybe not a reformed Jew, or a secular Jew, but a real practicing Orthodox Jew has hung onto the faith of the fathers..

Its a good program...

[Eliza Thomason]

I used to go to church services; that was my comfort and my home and what was normal worship to me. I really like good praise music, and it was always good if there was an excellent sermon, or at least, something to learn from the sermon. Also fellowship was very important. I missed many of those elements of worship when I became Catholic, as a Mass is different, but anywhere else now and I miss the worship of the Mass. I became Catholic for many compelling reasons, and they had to be very compelling because I really liked being a not-Catholic Christian and had no inclination to move myself from my comfort zone.

There are many reasons devout Protestants become Catholic, and one of them is the Mass. The Mass goes deep back in history. As convert John Henry Cardinal Newman famously said:

"To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant."

Yes. I want @DirectorAbbie and @applejacks especially to see this. I wonder if this, below, is a surprise to you. It was to me when I first learned of it. That the early church worship is pretty much exactly the Catholic Mass as it is today, 2000 years later. Still the same, the world over. Like a cross, the same going back in time and the same going across space. Essentially the very same as a Catholic Mass today. Now that is unity, which Jesus prayed for, in his Church, his visible church, visible as set high on a hill. This is only one of the many things that convinced me (I am not showing you this to convert you. That is the Lord's work. I had many protestations against Catholicism, and I did not convert and join the Church that claims to be the One True Church, founded by Jesus, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, until I had satisfactory answers to ALL.) But Abbie and Apples, I wonder what you think of this, written in 155A.D., by Justin Martyr, born 100A.D :

[Eliza Thomason]

[Eliza Thomason]

The above picture (without the words) comes from an article of the this post's title, which is well written for those who want to know. Also for me, its one of the best parts of being Catholic.
........................http://taylormarshall.com/2012/05/ho...ession-to.html

[Not A Communist Shill]

The above picture (without the words) comes from an article of the this post's title, which is well written for those who want to know. Also for me, its one of the best parts of being Catholic.
........................http://taylormarshall.com/2012/05/ho...ession-to.html

Protestants do actually have confession, it's just that all Protestants are priests.

[Not A Communist Shill]

I used to go to church services; that was my comfort and my home and what was normal worship to me. I really like good praise music, and it was always good if there was an excellent sermon, or at least, something to learn from the sermon. Also fellowship was very important. I missed many of those elements of worship when I became Catholic, as a Mass is different, but anywhere else now and I miss the worship of the Mass. I became Catholic for many compelling reasons, and they had to be very compelling because I really liked being a not-Catholic Christian and had no inclination to move myself from my comfort zone.

There are many reasons devout Protestants become Catholic, and one of them is the Mass. The Mass goes deep back in history. As convert John Henry Cardinal Newman famously said:

"To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant."

Yes. I want @DirectorAbbie and @applejacks especially to see this. I wonder if this, below, is a surprise to you. It was to me when I first learned of it. That the early church worship is pretty much exactly the Catholic Mass as it is today, 2000 years later. Still the same, the world over. Like a cross, the same going back in time and the same going across space. Essentially the very same as a Catholic Mass today. Now that is unity, which Jesus prayed for, in his Church, his visible church, visible as set high on a hill. This is only one of the many things that convinced me (I am not showing you this to convert you. That is the Lord's work. I had many protestations against Catholicism, and I did not convert and join the Church that claims to be the One True Church, founded by Jesus, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, until I had satisfactory answers to ALL.) But Abbie and Apples, I wonder what you think of this, written in 155A.D., by Justin Martyr, born 100A.D :

It is peculiar that Catholics like to have Jesus on their crucifixes because they forget that he isn't actually on a cross anymore.

The central element of a Mass is the Eucharist. It may be a surprise to you, but Protestants do actually do this.

[Not A Communist Shill]

Catholicism may have many traditions that are older than the other factions of Christianity, however it also has many traditions that are newer than the New Testament, which is usually the primary reason why there have been many sects of Christianity.

[Eliza Thomason]

[@Subteigh, please note that I edited and added to this post...]

Protestants do actually have confession, it's just that all Protestants are priests.

Catholics have always believed in the priesthood of all believers. The two types of priesthood explained in scripture are explained here: http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/apologetics/a31.htm

It is peculiar that Catholics like to have Jesus on their crucifixes because they forget that he isn't actually on a cross anymore.

Explanation from also from BibleChristianSociety.com:

Q: I had a friend ask me why Catholics have Crucifixes in our churches...don't we believe Jesus has risen? Why do we keep Him on the cross?

A: First of all, you would want to check out 1st Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 23. Paul says, "...but we preach Christ crucified..." Why does Paul preach Christ crucified? Doesn't he know Jesus has been raised from the dead? Of course he does! But, he knows that it is through the power of the crucified Christ on the cross that the bonds of sin and death are broken. As Paul says in verse 24, Christ crucified is the "power of God".
1 Cor 2:2, "For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." Again, didn't Paul know that Jesus had risen from the dead? Of course, he did.

Paul preaches Christ crucified because an empty cross has no power. The cross that bears the beaten, battered, and bloodied body of Jesus Christ, however, that cross is the "power of God". This is why, we "keep Jesus on the cross," because we, too, preach Christ crucified. The Crucifix reminds us not only of God's power, but also His love for us - giving His only begotten Son up for suffering and death.

Also, here in this life we do not share so much in the glory of the Resurrection, as we do in the suffering of Jesus on the cross; after all, we must take up our cross daily if we are to follow Jesus, as it says in Lk 9:23.

And, we must die with Christ in order to live with Him as Romans 6:8 tells us. Where did Christ die? On the cross. The Crucifix serves to remind us of these things.

One other passage to keep in mind is Galatians 3:1, "O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?" Did you catch that? Jesus was publicly portrayed, before their "eyes", as being crucified. Sounds kind of like they may have been looking at a Crucifix, doesn't it?

The central element of a Mass is the Eucharist. It may be a surprise to you, but Protestants do actually do this.

No it doesn't surprise me since I was Protestant and active in various Protestant denominations. But most Protestant services are not like Masses, and not like the early Christian churches. They are sermon-centered, some praise-music centered (which I like), with the Anglican being the clearest exception. And then there are the High Anglicans of whom is said they are more Catholic than Catholic, and there is a sort of truth to that.

Catholicism may have many traditions that are older than the other factions of Christianity, however it also has many traditions that are newer than the New Testament, which is usually the primary reason why there have been many sects of Christianity.

There have always been break-offs and heresies. The first big schism was with the Orthodox whose traditions today still reflect the church described by Justin Martyr above. But the big explosion of sects and splinters came after Luther...

You have not named the new traditions you speak of, but I have probably heard of them because I studied in order to determine the truth on those. That is the sort of extensive study that most Protestant converts to Catholic find a need to undergo. Most, or as I found all, the Catholic traditions accused of being "new inventions" are in fact traced to the days of the earliest Church. I will be glad to give you links with extensive historic and scriptural support for probably any of the allegedly "newly invented traditions" because they are likely the same ones I and many, many others who wanted to know what was true have already researched. Because the truth is there, for anyone who wants to seek it.

[Not A Communist Shill]

Catholics also believe all believers are priests.

Your implication was that Protestants do not confess their sins to each other. The Catholic ritual is a invented tradition that is not in the Bible.

I object to Christianity in general, but Catholicism is generally especially objectionable.

[Eliza Thomason]

Your implication was that Protestants do not confess their sins to each other. The Catholic ritual is a invented tradition that is not in the Bible.

I object to Christianity in general, but Catholicism is generally especially objectionable.

I myself would not imply that though, since I was Protestant, and well-read as one, stumbled on the idea of practicing a sort of confession at a particular time of faith crisis and it was truly one of the greatest helps in deepening my faith walk. This is not something that was ever taught as a practice in any church or class or Bible Study, but had been impressed on my mind as a mention in the autobiographies of more than one Protestant Christian I knew. I recall one was Catherine Marshall...

Yes, those outside the church often find Catholicism to be the most offensive! But, if you came inside, you would not find it so. It is full of treasures! The greatest treasures on earth! It is a pearl of great price! And I am not talking about art... More like St. Laurence:

"The Prefect of Rome, a greedy pagan, thought the Church had a great fortune hidden away. So he ordered Lawrence to bring the Church's treasure to him. The Saint said he would, in three days. Then he went through the city and gathered together all the poor and sick people supported by the Church. When he showed them to the Prefect, he said: "This is the Church's treasure!"

And he spoke the truth, but you can be sure it was not truth the Prefect was looking for...

[Not A Communist Shill]

I myself would not imply that though, since I was Protestant, and well-read as one, stumbled on the idea of practicing a sort of confession at a particular time of faith crisis and it was truly one of the greatest helps in deepening my faith walk. This is not something that was ever taught as a practice in any church or class or Bible Study, but had been impressed on my mind as a mention in the autobiographies of more than one Protestant Christian I knew. I recall one was Catherine Marshall...

Yes, those outside the church often find Catholicism to be the most offensive! But, if you came inside, you would not find it so. It is full of treasures! The greatest treasures on earth! It is a pearl of great price! And I am not talking about art... More like St. Laurence:

The Prefect of Rome, a greedy pagan, thought the Church had a great fortune hidden away. So he ordered Lawrence to bring the Church's treasure to him. The Saint said he would, in three days. Then he went through the city and gathered together all the poor and sick people supported by the Church. When he showed them to the Prefect, he said: "This is the Church's treasure!"

And he spoke the truth, but you can be sure it was not truth the Prefect was looking for...

Christianity's central doctrine is that you if you do not follow Christ, you will be tortured in hell. I find this utterly immoral, and not something I could follow. The distinction between Catholicism and Protestantism is rather irrelevant, except that anything "not Catholic" is more likely to not believe in the doctrine of Damnation.

You talk of Catholicism having the oldest traditions, but ignore that Protestants tend to believe that their particular sect follows the core of Christ's teachings as they are written in the New Testament, without all the obsession with gilded treasures and invented rituals of Catholicism. When Christ told his followers to eat and drink in remembrance of him, it was not at a formal ceremony in Latin with the disciples clothed in fancy dress and drinking from silverware.

If the Catholic Church sold off all its treasures that it doesn't actually use, poverty could be immediately eradicated. Instead, we have to wait another couple of decades or so. That tells you all you need to know about the Church's level of concern for the poor.

[Eliza Thomason]

My husband says: Holy objects and holy art that may be of great value were created for the glory of God and it would be wrong to sell it off to private collectors and into whatever hands it might...

[Not A Communist Shill]

My husband says: Holy objects and holy art that may be of great value were created for the glory of God and it would be wrong to sell it off to private collectors and into whatever hands it might...

We only need $30 billion a year to eradicate world poverty, something that Jesus said was impossible. The Catholic Church could easily give the money needed, but it seems you consider objects more important than people.

Perhaps you agree with individuals like Anjezë of Üsküp, who saw poverty and suffering as a blessing, because she believed they made it easier for her to indoctrinate children with Catholicism.

[Not A Communist Shill]

“If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” ~ Jesus, Matthew 19:21

[Not A Communist Shill]

My husband says: Holy objects and holy art that may be of great value were created for the glory of God and it would be wrong to sell it off to private collectors and into whatever hands it might...

Jesus didn't ask for church buildings to be built: rather, in the New Testament, he said: ”Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

You may believe that human buildings are more beautiful than nature, and that people need superfluous ornamentation in order to believe in something that has no substance. However, I would say that people do not need religion, they need bread and water.

You give figures on Catholic charitable giving as though they are impressive. They are not at all impressive, considering that there are supposed to be 1.2 billion Catholics in the world. It also does not address the issue over the Catholic Church having hundreds of billions of dollars in assets that it simply does not use (nevermind the assets that it does use), nor does it take into account the amounts it takes away in tithes and other payments from people who really ought to be spending their wealth on more pressing priorities, such as bread and water.

I've said this to you before, but in 1820, 94% of the world's population was in extreme poverty. In 2015, the figure was 9.6%, which meant that the UN had more than halved extreme poverty since 1990, 5 years ahead of target. It plans to eradicate poverty worldwide by 2030. In two hundred years, secular organizations have done far more to eradicate poverty than the Catholic Church (with its "The poor will be with you always" attitude) has achieved in the last two thousand years. So don't try to claim that what the Catholic Church has done even remotely compares.

[Eliza Thomason]

“If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” ~ Jesus, Matthew 19:21

That is quite a challenge, isn't it? And many do take this challenge, and take vows of poverty for life. And not only that, but even to obedience, as their way to follow Jesus, and to live lives of purely serving others and/or praying for the world. Spending their lives doing what Jesus would do. Their doing that really makes a difference in the world. Their example changes more lives than any theories or lectures.

I appreciate and recognize the humaneness of your concern for poverty and I wonder: are you willing to sell your house/not rent an apartment, but live on the streets, but maybe rent someone's shed, so that all the money you make can go to the poor? Its easier to look at big institutions and say they are wrong, that they shouldn't exist, instead of looking at yourself. Should nothing you own exist, and all it be given to the poor? Except your work suits, of course, so you can keep working for the poor. Really, because that is the only thing you can change. You. Its not that useful to rail against others (or institutions), but it is useful to do what you can yourself to try be what you are telling others they should be.

I am not doing that myself, but I am also not railing that others should, since I do feel I need to work on me. But, maybe, what if we all gave away 10%? What would that do?

For myself I am not so good as many I know and am not consistent with 10%. I endeavor to be...

I just watched this, and, wow. What a story. In it, there are people living not for themselves but to serve the poor. You would like it:

[Eliza Thomason]

Jesus didn't ask for church buildings to be built: rather, in the New Testament, he said: ”Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”.

As you can see in the above pictorial layout on church spending, it is scriptural to build beautiful places of worship for God. This is yet another of "both/and", meaning that the church is not so narrow. Jesus did not preclude his command, above, with, "Do not build any buildings, but instead..." No, He never said that. Sometimes the gospel preaching has to be at home. Its not either/or - its both/and.

People like to build and create. Man is created in the image of God who is a Creator so then its no surprise. In reports of Heaven there is always told that people continue to create things. Building, weaving, gardening are some of the things I have heard about going on in Heaven, as well as endless scientific research for those who like that. God gave us minds and the desire to create. The endeavors we truly enjoy here we will be able to continue in Heaven, except in great peace and joy and love***. In one of my favorite reports of Heaven, the person with the visions saw her grandmother (who had died before she was born, but she recognized her immediately) in a room in a city building (a very beautiful city) and she was organizing things. The visionary asked, "Are things disorganized in Heaven?" and her grandmother laughed and said no and explained that she always liked organizing things and so she likes to do it now....

We have material bodies and need and do material things. Some for the sake of their vocation live like angels, but that's not most people. God gives the graces people need.

You may believe that human buildings are more beautiful than nature, and that people need superfluous ornamentation in order to believe in something that has no substance. However, I would say that people do not need religion, they need bread and water..

People need religion. We have souls, eternal souls that long for God. We have hearts that are restless until they find their rest in God. "Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord." Again, its not either/or, but both/and.

Will a starving person's heart thrill over the souring beauty of a cathedral? Probably not. Probably not over the stunning sunset either. But, once fed...

I love beauty. "Beauty is truth", has been said, and I believe it. My husband and I like to design and build and we have had some modest opportunities to do this around our home. I like a touch of "superfluous ornamentation" myself.... But I do pray that I can keep my life in balance and not go overboard on this or on anything else and I appreciate reminders you give to remember the poor.

I love nature! I do not think its has to be either nature or buildings. Its both/and!

Buildings aren't bad in themselves. In that movie I linked above the people live in what we would not call buildings. But, in the end, there is a particular building that is introduced (I won't give it away), and its not a bad thing...

You give figures on Catholic charitable giving as though they are impressive. They are not at all impressive, considering that there are supposed to be 1.2 billion Catholics in the world. It also does not address the issue over the Catholic Church having hundreds of billions of dollars in assets that it simply does not use (nevermind the assets that it does use), nor does it take into account the amounts it takes away in tithes and other payments from people who really ought to be spending their wealth on more pressing priorities, such as bread and water..

That is so true, Subteigh, its truly not that impressive considering how things could be if people were half as generous as they easily could be, and if people placed in positions of power and control were not tempted to be corrupt! Those are sad realities. However, at least, the truth is an improvement over how things are falsely made out to be in the urban legend...

I've said this to you before, but in 1820, 94% of the world's population was in extreme poverty. In 2015, the figure was 9.6%, which meant that the UN had more than halved extreme poverty since 1990, 5 years ahead of target. It plans to eradicate poverty worldwide by 2030. In two hundred years, secular organizations have done far more to eradicate poverty than the Catholic Church (with its "The poor will be with you always" attitude) has achieved in the last two thousand years. So don't try to claim that what the Catholic Church has done even remotely compares.

Yes, I know you have said that before, and I respect that you have faith in those stats, but I don't trust them, Subteigh... I just cannot believe that human nature - churched or unchurched - has improved so much since 1820. I just can't believe it. And I certainly do not believe that the UN has done more to serve the poor than Christian Churches or even just the Catholic Church. I'm not surprised that they claim it, but I believe its a falsehood and they know it. I see that you expect the truth out of the UN. But I do NOT. And I would not believe that plans to eradicate world poverty by 2030 world not include a one-world government with a small privileged elite at the top who have all the power, and live an extremely rich and highly privileged life that ONLY they are allowed to enjoy, with the vast majority of the world living as workers to serve them, living in government slums under oppressively restrictive dictatorship, in a police-state, where people work 12+ hours a day in exchange for government-issued dry-food rations (GMO of course -while the government elite eat from organic farms) to take home to their hovels... call me a Negativist but that's how I envision the UN's 2030 plan playing out...

But that's why I usually do not comment on politics, Subteigh. I just don't have that faith in what human nature devoid of God can do. I do not think that government or political leaders or political parties or movements are going to lead the way to an infusion of goodness in the world. I think that has to happen with religion, one heart at a time. Changed hearts. The grace of God. That is real.

____________________
***Because there won't be people there who like to prey on others. Those who want to do that have a place they can do that forever. Except it won't be so fun, because all the innocent trusting people that were the most fun to prey and "win" against on will be out of range, forever....

[wacey]

Why do catholics refuse birth control? Why are women not allowed to become priests? Why are the bishops super rich? Why is sex forbidden for clergy? Why is baptism essential to get into heaven?

[FDG]

Why do catholics refuse birth control?

Do they?

[idontgiveaf]

Because it's illuminati. I've been raised in a Catholic family too.

My grandmother swears as us just because we swear as a child.
She also swears at us calling muslims and sons of satans after not wanting to go with him in the Catholic Church.

She always go to church every week and serves the church as well.

[wacey]

Do they?

Until the recent Pope allowed condoms, yes they did. And the pill is still out of the question. But I'm supposing since you live in the homeland of the Catholic church, you would know the answer, because I' not so sure.

[End]

Why do catholics refuse birth control? Why are women not allowed to become priests? Why are the bishops super rich? Why is sex forbidden for clergy? Why is baptism essential to get into heaven?

Ok now I'm ready for a rant. Birth "control" encourages the worst aspects of mankind in the sexual realm. Look, I harp on r/K selection for a reason and one of the main reasons is that, without birth control, K-selection would be greatly favored. It is BEST that women fear every sexual encounter as likely resulting in a pregnancy. That encourages them to be quite picky with whom they consent to fuck (i.e. they get very K-selective in regards to dates and partners). Thus, best for us all if it was never invented. Otherwise the r-selected can act and fuck like rabbits without the logical outcome of them having 5 kids by 4 fathers and having most of them starve to death. I grew up next to such a woman, small wonder I hate em' so much. I saw first hand how screwed up her kids were and forgive me for not wanting others to suffer their fate!

As for why women aren't allowed to lead the congregation, well, just look up how well "liberal" churches are doing. Sadly the 2nd law of politics has already played out in regards to the Roman Catholic church and we're currently under the thumb of the evil clown Francis and his hard on for communism. Pope John Paul II is turning in his grave at supersonic speed given his insane heresy supporting the very ideology he hated so strongly! Thing you must remember is is that "patriarchy" is thing in every currently major religion for a reason. MEN are the ones who fight and die for causes as women sit back. I may want the opposite to be true, but from a strictly logical sense it is no wonder I am the disposable one in this timeless equation... I got a billion sperm, women only have a few hundred eggs. Not hard to see who is more expendable in that equation...

(note: quite drunk, just rambling on, will try to make better sense of this once I sober up if someone replies to this)

[Eliza Thomason]

LOL, @End, you put things out there strongly! You have good points. I am going to comment on the other things like @wacey's good Q's later in week...

[Not A Communist Shill]

That is quite a challenge, isn't it? And many do take this challenge, and take vows of poverty for life. And not only that, but even to obedience, as their way to follow Jesus, and to live lives of purely serving others and/or praying for the world. Spending their lives doing what Jesus would do. Their doing that really makes a difference in the world. Their example changes more lives than any theories or lectures.

It isn't a question of what some self-appointed Christians are willing to do: the issue is that the Catholic Church has a later "tradition" of spending material wealth on lavish buildings, jewellery, art, robes, metalwork etc., and tonnes of money simply accruing interest in bank accounts: which is not what Christ taught his Church to do. Taking money from people who need it more than you do is also fundamentally immoral.

I appreciate and recognize the humaneness of your concern for poverty and I wonder: are you willing to sell your house/not rent an apartment, but live on the streets, but maybe rent someone's shed, so that all the money you make can go to the poor? Its easier to look at big institutions and say they are wrong, that they shouldn't exist, instead of looking at yourself. Should nothing you own exist, and all it be given to the poor? Except your work suits, of course, so you can keep working for the poor. Really, because that is the only thing you can change. You. Its not that useful to rail against others (or institutions), but it is useful to do what you can yourself to try be what you are telling others they should be.

I am not doing that myself, but I am also not railing that others should, since I do feel I need to work on me. But, maybe, what if we all gave away 10%? What would that do?

For myself I am not so good as many I know and am not consistent with 10%. I endeavor to be...

I just watched this, and, wow. What a story. In it, there are people living not for themselves but to serve the poor. You would like it:

This thread is about Christian hypocrisy, not about what I do. I believe that Christ's ideology is unrealistic: for the world to have the best chance at helping the world's poor, the world needs to be capitalistic with a conscience. If people had no material incentive to work, like in a Communist state, that would be the road to ruin.

The United States apparently has a tax revenue of 26% of its GDP, which is far more than 10%. Secular institutions have done far more to eradicate poverty in 20 years than religious ones have achieved in 200,000 years. Simply by paying taxes and supporting organizations by the UN I am helping to eradicate poverty, which the UN hopes to achieve by 2030.

[Not A Communist Shill]

As you can see in the above pictorial layout on church spending, it is scriptural to build beautiful places of worship for God. This is yet another of "both/and", meaning that the church is not so narrow. Jesus did not preclude his command, above, with, "Do not build any buildings, but instead..." No, He never said that. Sometimes the gospel preaching has to be at home. Its not either/or - its both/and.

Those quotes are from the Old Testament. The New Temple is supposed to be the body of Christ, which is everywhere. Christ did not ask for the Temple in the Jerusalem to be rebuilt.

13 Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. 15 When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. 16 And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” 17 Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.”

18 So the Jews answered and said to Him, “What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?”

19 Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

20 Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?”

21 But He was speaking of the temple of His body. 22 Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.

~ John 2:13:22

Again, he did however say: ”Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”.

[Not A Communist Shill]

People need religion. We have souls, eternal souls that long for God. We have hearts that are restless until they find their rest in God. "Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord." Again, its not either/or, but both/and.

Will a starving person's heart thrill over the souring beauty of a cathedral? Probably not. Probably not over the stunning sunset either. But, once fed...

I love beauty. "Beauty is truth", has been said, and I believe it. My husband and I like to design and build and we have had some modest opportunities to do this around our home. I like a touch of "superfluous ornamentation" myself.... But I do pray that I can keep my life in balance and not go overboard on this or on anything else and I appreciate reminders you give to remember the poor.

I love nature! I do not think its has to be either nature or buildings. Its both/and!

Buildings aren't bad in themselves. In that movie I linked above the people live in what we would not call buildings. But, in the end, there is a particular building that is introduced (I won't give it away), and its not a bad thing...

The soul doesn't exist.

People may believe they need religion, in the same way they believe they need to follow a particular sports team or a leader of a cult. But this is only because they have made religion their whole life, and consider their religion to be even more important than their mortal life. This generally leads to heinous acts being committed in the name of religion.

No one needs religion in the sense of it being something they absolutely must have in order to be physically and mentally fulfilled. I certainly do not need it, so how can you act as though it is a common need for all humans?

[Not A Communist Shill]

Yes, I know you have said that before, and I respect that you have faith in those stats, but I don't trust them, Subteigh... I just cannot believe that human nature - churched or unchurched - has improved so much since 1820. I just can't believe it. And I certainly do not believe that the UN has done more to serve the poor than Christian Churches or even just the Catholic Church. I'm not surprised that they claim it, but I believe its a falsehood and they know it. I see that you expect the truth out of the UN. But I do NOT. And I would not believe that plans to eradicate world poverty by 2030 world not include a one-world government with a small privileged elite at the top who have all the power, and live an extremely rich and highly privileged life that ONLY they are allowed to enjoy, with the vast majority of the world living as workers to serve them, living in government slums under oppressively restrictive dictatorship, in a police-state, where people work 12+ hours a day in exchange for government-issued dry-food rations (GMO of course -while the government elite eat from organic farms) to take home to their hovels... call me a Negativist but that's how I envision the UN's 2030 plan playing out...

But that's why I usually do not comment on politics, Subteigh. I just don't have that faith in what human nature devoid of God can do. I do not think that government or political leaders or political parties or movements are going to lead the way to an infusion of goodness in the world. I think that has to happen with religion, one heart at a time. Changed hearts. The grace of God. That is real.

____________________
***Because there won't be people there who like to prey on others. Those who want to do that have a place they can do that forever. Except it won't be so fun, because all the innocent trusting people that were the most fun to prey and "win" against on will be out of range, forever....

The definition of extreme poverty according to the UN is: "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services."

That covers a very comprehensive list of needs, and shows that when the UN say they wish to eradicate poverty worldwide by 2030, that is an even higher minimum standard than what most people would assume.

Eradicating poverty at about $30 billion a year is extremely cheap considering that most of the worlds problems are caused at some significant level by the lacking of one or more of what the UN considers basic human needs.

I don't think introducing God will help: in general, the poorest areas of the world are the ones that are the most superstitious and poorly educated.

What the UN is doing is certainly better than the approach of Anjezë of Üsküp, who took money from benefactors, kept ill children in crowded rooms that spread disease with no intention of making them better but she gave them trainers and other presents in order to indoctrinate them to Christ because she considered children easier to indoctrinate and saw suffering as beautiful, and then gave any remaining money she should have spent on the welfare of the children to the Catholic Church.

[wacey]

Ok now I'm ready for a rant. Birth "control" encourages the worst aspects of mankind in the sexual realm. Look, I harp on r/K selection for a reason and one of the main reasons is that, without birth control, K-selection would be greatly favored. It is BEST that women fear every sexual encounter as likely resulting in a pregnancy. That encourages them to be quite picky with whom they consent to fuck (i.e. they get very K-selective in regards to dates and partners). Thus, best for us all if it was never invented. Otherwise the r-selected can act and fuck like rabbits without the logical outcome of them having 5 kids by 4 fathers and having most of them starve to death. I grew up next to such a woman, small wonder I hate em' so much. I saw first hand how screwed up her kids were and forgive me for not wanting others to suffer their fate!

As for why women aren't allowed to lead the congregation, well, just look up how well "liberal" churches are doing. Sadly the 2nd law of politics has already played out in regards to the Roman Catholic church and we're currently under the thumb of the evil clown Francis and his hard on for communism. Pope John Paul II is turning in his grave at supersonic speed given his insane heresy supporting the very ideology he hated so strongly! Thing you must remember is is that "patriarchy" is thing in every currently major religion for a reason. MEN are the ones who fight and die for causes as women sit back. I may want the opposite to be true, but from a strictly logical sense it is no wonder I am the disposable one in this timeless equation... I got a billion sperm, women only have a few hundred eggs. Not hard to see who is more expendable in that equation...

(note: quite drunk, just rambling on, will try to make better sense of this once I sober up if someone replies to this)

So do you plan on loosing your virginity this summer?

[ashlesha]

yea, someone who doesn't rely on the short term, relatively simple solution of birth control is DEFINITELY going to revert to the long-term, highly speculative, difficult solution of proper mate selection if birth control were eliminated. also having the right man will prevent them from having too many children, but birth control won't. it's impossible to have too many children when there's a husband around. genius. rape isn't a thing either.

[Aylen]

So do you plan on loosing your virginity this summer?

In a world without birth control that might not be an option for him. Although I think he said he did it once just to see what it was like. Now I wonder if he used a condom.

yea, someone who doesn't rely on the short term, relatively simple solution of birth control is DEFINITELY going to revert to the long-term, highly speculative, difficult solution of proper mate selection if birth control were eliminated. also having the right man will prevent them from having too many children, but birth control won't. it's impossible to have too many children when there's a husband around. genius. rape isn't a thing either.

It seems obvious to End that the invention of birth control is the reason his neighbor had 5 kids, she couldn't feed, by 4 different men? Maybe she was catholic and couldn't use it without risking damnation.

Thus, best for us all if it was never invented. Otherwise the r-selected can act and fuck like rabbits without the logical outcome of them having 5 kids by 4 fathers and having most of them starve to death. I grew up next to such a woman, small wonder I hate em' so much. I saw first hand how screwed up her kids were and forgive me for not wanting others to suffer their fate!

I can't make sense of this sentence. It would have been best if not invented so r-selection can lead to starving children? Drunk posting...

https://thinkprogress.org/on-world-c...l-e51b5940bc4a

You should stop worrying about what other people are doing with their bodies @End and start worrying about how you will defend yourself during an apocalypse if you destroy all your brain cells by age 30. You should probably be more grateful for "r-selection" whatever it is.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywo...-walking-dead/

[FDG]

Until the recent Pope allowed condoms, yes they did. And the pill is still out of the question. But I'm supposing since you live in the homeland of the Catholic church, you would know the answer, because I' not so sure.

The only people I know who wouldn't use birth control are neocatecumenal ppl i.e catholic "fundamentalists". It's not like if the catholic church has a specific opinion about something, every catholic person is going to do it?

[FDG]

Ok now I'm ready for a rant. Birth "control" encourages the worst aspects of mankind in the sexual realm. Look, I harp on r/K selection for a reason and one of the main reasons is that, without birth control, K-selection would be greatly favored.

I think most people who use birth control still use it during a "long term" relationship - I mean a stable relationship. You may be careful about choosing your mate but having 7 kids even with the same guy-girl may not be your dream life.

[Adam Strange]

Seven kids may be ideal in an agricultural society, but in today's developed world, that is a financial catastrophe for most people.