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That is a gross over simplification. The Pope cannot claim infallible over anything he wants. In other words, he cannot declare infallibly that the sky is red; he can only declare spiritual truths infallible. An example would be the trinity which is a fundamental doctrine of the church. It isn't that he can just claim whatever he wants and say that it is infallible as the "word of god". Check out http://www.catholic.com/library/Papal_Infallibility.asp for those interested.

No Catholic believes the Pope is always right about everything. This is a huge misconception. I'm too lazy to sum up the answer but if you're interested in reading how the Church actually states it, go here:

http://www.catholic.com/library/Papal_Infallibility.asp

The bishop of Rome is also the Metropolitan of his Province and until quite recently the Patriarch of the West (there's a reorg brewing at the vatican). Are metropolitan and patriarch also just honorifics? If so you have a funny definition of title and honorific.

While it is true that an eastern prelate could spend an entire lifetime in the East without becoming embroiled in a controversy requiring intervention from Rome, that does not mean that when they cropped up that they did not sometimes skip their local metropolitans and seek intervention from Rome. We know of at least one action as early as AD96 in Corinth (see the link) and there are plenty of others that are pre-1054.

Catholics don't believe in throwing out the old stuff just because v2.0 came out. Prior to the creation of the Bible, apostolic authority and teaching were fairly well developed. The publication of the Bible does not invalidate any of that. Catholic doctrine is that the Tradition and Scripture are equally valid in describing the Church that Christ wants to be on Earth.

That being said, Peter has a bunch of stuff happen to him that points to a special role for him. A good argument for the Catholic view of things can be found here. Part of the argument is biblical. Other parts are historical.

Please look into some Church history before making the decision it was revisionist.

Actually Christian's believe that the Bible was written by humans who were inspired by God. Their world view will come across in their writing.

I'm not saying you have to believe, but don't take every Christian's beliefs out of context because of a few strange people who think that every single word in the Bible is literal truth.

"Unless you're Catholic. ;)"

Concerning biological evolution, the Church does not have an official position on whether various life forms developed over the course of time. However, it says that, if they did develop, then they did so under the impetus and guidance of God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.

Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man's body developed from previous biological forms, under God's guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. ...it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago

- http://www.catholic.com/

Thank you for the English lesson, but in Catholic dogma the "Immaculate Conception" refers to the conception of Mary without original sin. This is quite commonly confused by many with the "Virgin Birth" of Jesus. Catholic dogma views Mary's conception as a miraculous event all by its self and necessary in preparation for the later miraculous birth of Jesus.

Hopefully, you will be more likely to believe that the people at catholic.com were able to get it right.

Actually... the Catholic Church has pretty much said "The question may never be finally settled" so they have laid out a ground work for what is acceptable to believe. You can read more here: http://www.catholic.com/library/adam_eve_and_evolu tion.asp

The doctrinal problems you raise have all been addressed to the satisfaction of many major Christian churches, so your argument in this area is not just with atheists. See e.g. this summary of the Catholic position on the subject. For example, they address the issue of human origin with the belief that souls are created by God, independently of our physical bodies.

My point is simply that belief in evolution does not preclude religious belief in general. It may preclude certain specific beliefs, such as the belief in a very literal interpretation of the creation story in Genesis. So if that's your issue, then I agree with you, you can't believe in evolution as well as in the creation of the Earth and humanity in six 24-hour days as we know them. But that doesn't preclude belief in a Christian God, as many Christian churches demonstrate, and it doesn't have anything to do with morality.

As for "where can morality be for evolved animals with evolved behaviors", if I understand you correctly, that's an entirely unrelated question about the nature of morality in the absence of a deity. I'm not arguing that point; I'm saying that you can believe in a deity that lays down moral laws, and also believe in evolution, and that as you put it, "no, really, there's no conflict!" I don't see why that position should be worthy of less respect than a position which claims that belief in evolution inevitably removes all moral force from the Bible. The latter position has no logical basis that I can see.

I see plenty about evolution, which is basically atheist preaching

So Catholicism is atheism?
You put your faith in a book written down by men after who knows how many centuries of not-so-reliable oral traditions. And you assert that science is misguided to examine the Book of the World and decipher what's written there, that God has lied to us and planted fake evidence therein.

Generally, I'll trust the evidence of the world around us rather than what you find in a book of Bronze age goatherders' traditions.

I don't think they are entirely incompatible, if you allow non-literal interpretation. See the Catholic view. The idea is that God created the big bang, and Genesis is true in topical order but not in literal time scales. It also posits that evolution may have created the body of man, but that God created the soul (i.e. the soul did not evolve).

Not that you should/should not believe this, but just pointing out that the Bible and current scientific theory are not wholly incompatible. Many famous scientists have been religious insofar as they are willing to believe that a higher power created the universe.

I'm sorry if you saw my post as an attack on someone else's faith. I was merely correcting the statements they made about mine.

4th century control group, eh? Has someone been reading too much davinci code? That book was six loads of bull spit. (Yes, I said I wasn't catholic. I'm sticking to that. However, they wrote a really great page on how ignorant Dan Brown is.)

Christianity, in general, supports the idea of microevolution

Christianity, in general, does not oppose the theory of evolution. (Note: 2nd link does not point to a text on evolution by the German Lutheran Church specifically, but states, "The problems of genetic engineering in the non-human sphere arise first of all from the speed of the developments which are taking place; as distinct from the slowly progressing evolution of life the changes brought about by genetic engineering and its world-wide application are taking place relatively quickly". I couldn't find a more on-topic link in English, but the German Lutheran Church has repeatedly stated that they don't see a problem with evolution)

On a global scale, only fringe parts of Christianity deny evolution, it's just that they seem to have overtaken the US.

No. The Christianity teaches that your physical body is going to resurrect:

The Bible tells us that when Jesus returns to earth, he will physically raise all those who have died, giving them back the bodies they lost at death.
http://www.catholic.com/library/Resurrection_of_th e_Body.asp

Google is your friend:

• Is this ossuary proof of Jesus, or is it spurious?
• Was James' Ossuary Found In Israel? The Story Of A Really Neat Hoax
• The Stone Box
• Burial Box of St. James Found?
• Experts Say Burial Box for 'Brother of Jesus' is a Forgery

It varies from place to place. Most protestants don't view Catholics as non-Christian. However, you don't have to look very far to find examples of protestant anti-catholicism.

Case in point: Jack Chick, probably the best known Christian-tract publisher, has several tracts that are very anti-Catholic.
http://www.catholic.com/library/sr_chick_tracts_p4 .asp

"...there are still over 50 million precious people in just the U.S. alone that are deceived by Roman Catholicism's false 'gospel' and are headed for eternity in hell. World wide there are one billion looking to the pope, his Virgin Mary goddess, and their wafer god for salvation."
http://www.chick.com/reading/comics/0112/albertosd eath.asp

I can't recall my login so I'm forced to post anonymously....
That said, in regards to #2.

"I believe one of the worst idea's to come out of the Catholic Church is that the Pope determines what is heretical and not God and His scriptures. History has shown that men can be corrupted so I have difficulty putting so much trust in a man. Do I believe that you can be a Christian and believe in evolution? Yes, but that doesn't make the belief correct. I think that your walk could be crippled by such belief however; belief in creation isn't a prerequisite for being a Christian."

That's actually not what the Church teaches. It's a bit more complex than that. The Pope is infalliable ONLY in matters of faith and morals, and ONLY when he speaks "Ex Cathedra", meaning, from an official position as the representative of the Church as a whole.

There's several great articles at http://www.catholic.com/library.asp that explains some of the most commonly misunderstood ideas about the pope. It seems you might have an incorrect view of what his role is and what he can and cannot do. The articles are well written and pretty informative. :)

Hope this helps!

-Devin S.
http://www.datarefuge.com/

2) The power to forgive was granted to the apostles, and likewise their successors (re: John 20). If this were not the case regarding their successors, then could not St. Matthew and St. Paul forgive, but the other 11 could?

It all boils down to this. It is only through Christ and His Sacrifice that sins may be forgiven. He granted the apostles and their successors this gift. So in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, it is Christ who forgives the sin - but he does so through the ministry of the priest.

This is a very basic and rudimentary overview. If you want more meat, go here and here.

2) The power to forgive was granted to the apostles, and likewise their successors (re: John 20). If this were not the case regarding their successors, then could not St. Matthew and St. Paul forgive, but the other 11 could?

It all boils down to this. It is only through Christ and His Sacrifice that sins may be forgiven. He granted the apostles and their successors this gift. So in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, it is Christ who forgives the sin - but he does so through the ministry of the priest.

This is a very basic and rudimentary overview. If you want more meat, go here and here.

I'm not going to get into a detailed discussion of how theologically icky Mormonism is from a conventional christian standpoint. I just picked trinitarianism because I didn't want to get into the strange stuff on marriage and baptism among other areas. Essentially Mormons are not monotheists which gets you right out of the christian club by any sane definition I've heard of.

I don't know of any christian sect that permits baptism of the dead unless you count Mormons. The assignment of wives to new husbands by church elders in "covenant marriages" is also theologically out there enough for most christians to say that this isn't christianity.

Here's a debate that might prove instructive.

Actually, many catholics might argue that point.

http://www.catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolu tion.asp

Your concept of indulgences is grossy misconstrued. Here is a good place to start, quickly followed by this.

Your concept of indulgences is grossy misconstrued. Here is a good place to start, quickly followed by this.

This should remove any doubt that the fathers were far more Catholic than Protestant.

REV 5:8 And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.

Check out this for a more in-depth discussion.

Can't the ID folks consider the possibility that evolution is the tool God used to create us? Evolution does not disprove the existence of God.

The real problem is that religious fundamentalism doesn't allow for the idea that any one individual has a more complete understanding of god that any other individual. In ridding themselves of the pope, clergy, philosophical reflection, and religious tradition, they have made it impossible to view the bible as anything other than a literal document. If the creation story is false then it opens the possibility that anything in the bible might be false. If anything in the bible is false, then you need clergy to guide you into a full understanding of the bible.

The insistence that creation absolutely must have happened as descibed in the bible is a fundamentalist issue, not a Christian one. The Catholic church, for example: "does not have an official position on whether various life forms developed over the course of time. However, it says that, if they did develop, then they did so under the impetus and guidance of God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him."

"Christianity" only states that God created the earth in six literal days only if you mean some restricted subset of Christians who believe in the literal truth of the Genesis story.

Common descent of all humanity through Noah is a laughable idea. It just does not make literal sense on any number of levels, right up there with Joshua calling on God to stop the sun.

Catholics don't have to believe in such nonsense to be considered faithful Catholics, for instance, and they still call themselves Christian.

Think just of the _millions_ (literally, and we even have the records) who confessed to flying on broomsticks...

We don't, actually, have records of millions. We have records of a few thousand and the reasonable assumption that the true number is higher. The diverse lot of higher numbers not directly correlated to the records are guesses.


As Ronald Knox put it, we should be cautious, "lest we should wander interminably in a wilderness of comparative atrocity statistics." In fact, no one knows exactly how many people perished through the various Inquisitions. We can determine for certain, though, one thing about numbers given by Fundamentalists [and, I would add, many others with anti-Catholic and anti-Christian biases]: They are far too large. One book ... claims that 95 million people died under the Inquisition.

...Not until modern times did the population of those countries where the Inquisitions existed approach 95 million.

...

Furthermore, the plague, which killed a third of Europe's population, is credited by historians with major changes in the social structure. The Inquisition is credited with few -- precisely because the number of its victims was comparitively small. In fact, recent studies indicate that at most there were only a few thousand capital sentences carried out for heresy in Spain, and these were over the course of several centuries.
http://www.catholic.com/library/inquisition.asp

You are indeed out of touch with your own Church. The Pope has explicitly barred women from the priesthood, citing the very passage from Timothy that I quoted - see this for instance. I was the original poster, and I stated that the church's position on homosexuality was dangerous - your fine distinctions do nothing to convince me otherwise. It would also appear that you view the Bible as a book from which you can choose from selectively, which is remarkably self-delusional to say the least.

"The harm done by some priests and religious to the young and vulnerable fills us all with a deep sense of sadness and shame. But think of the vast majority of dedicated and generous priests and religious whose only wish is to serve and do good!"
(full text)

Read my post, and you'll see exactly what I was talking about. It was by Pope Pius XII's orders that Catholic institutions all over Italy and the rest of Europe harbored Jews by the thousands.

Is he somehow more culpable than any other leader of the time? Great Britain told Hitler, "Oh, go ahead and take Czechoslovakia - we'll just turn a blind eye." Stalin and Hitler carved up Poland between them. The U.S. sat on its thumbs until it was forced into the arena.

Pope Pius, on the other hand, was always an opponent of the Nazis. I quote from a terrific page at http://www.catholic.com/ROCK/pius_xii.htm:

On April 28, 1935, four years before the War even started, Pacelli gave a speech that aroused the attention of the world press. Speaking to an audience of 250,000 pilgrims in Lourdes, France, the future Pius XII stated that the Nazis "are in reality only miserable plagiarists who dress up old errors with new tinsel. It does not make any difference whether they flock to the banners of social revolution, whether they are guided by a false concept of the world and of life, or whether they are possessed by the superstition of a race and blood cult." It was talks like this, in addition to private remarks and numerous notes of protest that Pacelli sent to Berlin in his capacity as Vatican Secretary of State, that earned him a reputation as an enemy of the Nazi party.

Elsewhere:

While the U.S., Great Britain, and other countries often refused to allow Jewish refugees to immigrate during the war, the Vatican was issuing tens of thousands of false documents to allow Jews to pass secretly as Christians so they could escape the Nazis. What is more, the financial aid Pius XII helped provide the Jews was very real. Lichten, Lapide, and other Jewish chroniclers record those funds as being in the millions of dollars--dollars even more valuable then than they are now.

Think Jews were unknowing or ungrateful? Think again:

The Pope's efforts did not go unrecognized by Jewish authorities, even during the War. The Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, Isaac Herzog, sent the Pope a personal message of thanks on February 28, 1944, in which he said: "The people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion which form the very foundations of true civilization, are doing for us unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of divine Providence in this world."

You're damn right the Catholic Church stands ready to make him a Saint - and I say, the sooner, the better.

Abraham and Lot are both in the old testament. Before Christ came "to fulfill the law." Back before our God let us nail Him to a tree and then defied death to show us how deeply we are in His debt, He used a more worldly aproach to convincing people that He truly was the One and Only. However, it did not work, the Isrealites kept forgetting Who was in charge. So He had to reassert His Supreme authority in a rather unique way. By letting us kill Him, or try to anyway.

An excellent example of how things have changed since Christ showed up is that the ten commandments have been replaced by the 14 beatitudes.



You want answers? We have answers: www.catholic.com/answers/tracts/topical .htm (the section on sects is pretty interesting)

I think that you may wish to take a deeper look at the catholic position on abortion. It's sort of like the catholic position on euthanasia. You aren't allowed to euthanize somebody as a catholic. But it is no sin to morphine them to the point where they don't feel pain even if that point results in respiratory arrest and death.

Similarly, it is sinful from a catholic perspective to provide abortion services but if legitimate medical treatment ends up in the death of a fetus there is also no sin. I'm not an apologist or a theologian but you may wish to try Catholic Answers for a group of people who may be able to give you the full catholic position. You may still leave the church, but at least then you won't be doing it in angry ignorance of the facts.

TML

As for Galileo, let's talk about that. The Catholic church did condemn his teachings and has repented and proclaimed its error. So much for "religion can't admit when it's wrong".

Galileo pissed off a head of state (the pope), created a theological controversy when he didn't have to, and alienated his allies (the jesuits) who could have gotten him out of his predicament. He was punished by house arrest and limited to one servant. For the middle ages this is an incredibly restrained response. The inquisatorial manual of the time forbade torture and right under the pope's nose, the manual was followed to the letter.

I do agree about the problems with the literalists. But we aren't beasts and it's much more likely that ecumenism is going to educate and absorb back the literalists into the one church that Christ founded rather than evolutionary elimination.

TML