Slashdot Mirror

Would be replies, finish reading before reacting.

I was raised Catholic. My two sisters and I regularly argued theology with the parish priest-- mutually educational and broadening. =)

Under the contemporary view of Catholicism on marriage, marriage is a sacrament, an external sign of god's grace. Furthermore (and pay attention), Matrimonium facit consensus, i.e. Marriage is contracted through the mutual, expressed consent. Therein is contained implicitly the doctrine that the persons contracting marriage are themselves the agents or ministers of the sacrament. In other words, any two people who declare themselves married before the community have ipso facto married. However, it has also held that marriage, like other sacrements, must be performed with the approbation (spiritual approval) of the church.

Even when leaving aside questions of non-Christian faiths, not all faiths recognize the Authority of the Patriarch of Rome to give approbation. Furthermore, under the American precepts of the separation of church and state, the government of the United States lacks jurisdiction to establish whether the Patriarch has that authority or not.

Therefore, any union recognized by the state is ipso facto a civil union. Whether it is also a marriage is not a question for the courts of men, but for the court of God-- and ought be presumed valid by the state given the acceptance of any church.

Therefore, I would hold that the government has no business discriminating between ANY "marriage". Mind you, they might conceivably have some business deciding which civil unions to recognize (which is why arbitrary declarations as above may be valid canonically but not civilly without a marriage licesne), but that would be a fairly straightforward civil rights case... which neither the politicians nor the preachers like the taste of.

In short, I'd say that the problem is that the politicians aren't theologians, and that the theologians want to be theocrats. Technically, the only thing politicians can discuss by definition is whether gays (or straights!) can have civil unions, not whether they can get married! Of course, neither the politicians nor theocrats are that precise in their speaking or thinking.... which is Unhelpful in discussing the issues.

Would be replies, finish reading before reacting.

I was raised Catholic. My two sisters and I regularly argued theology with the parish priest-- mutually educational and broadening. =)

Under the contemporary view of Catholicism on marriage, marriage is a sacrament, an external sign of god's grace. Furthermore (and pay attention), Matrimonium facit consensus, i.e. Marriage is contracted through the mutual, expressed consent. Therein is contained implicitly the doctrine that the persons contracting marriage are themselves the agents or ministers of the sacrament. In other words, any two people who declare themselves married before the community have ipso facto married. However, it has also held that marriage, like other sacrements, must be performed with the approbation (spiritual approval) of the church.

Even when leaving aside questions of non-Christian faiths, not all faiths recognize the Authority of the Patriarch of Rome to give approbation. Furthermore, under the American precepts of the separation of church and state, the government of the United States lacks jurisdiction to establish whether the Patriarch has that authority or not.

Therefore, any union recognized by the state is ipso facto a civil union. Whether it is also a marriage is not a question for the courts of men, but for the court of God-- and ought be presumed valid by the state given the acceptance of any church.

Therefore, I would hold that the government has no business discriminating between ANY "marriage". Mind you, they might conceivably have some business deciding which civil unions to recognize (which is why arbitrary declarations as above may be valid canonically but not civilly without a marriage licesne), but that would be a fairly straightforward civil rights case... which neither the politicians nor the preachers like the taste of.

In short, I'd say that the problem is that the politicians aren't theologians, and that the theologians want to be theocrats. Technically, the only thing politicians can discuss by definition is whether gays (or straights!) can have civil unions, not whether they can get married! Of course, neither the politicians nor theocrats are that precise in their speaking or thinking.... which is Unhelpful in discussing the issues.

Of course the gaming community is downright disdainful of Christianity. Most gammers are [relativly] intellegent and can see through the hokum [sic]. Christianity itself is historically anti-imagination and anti-intellectual.

No. Christianity is historically anti-atheism--a distinctly different thing.

A good number of ancient, medieval, and modern scholoarly advancements and creative achievements were done by devout Christians, often with the blessing and sanctions of their churches.

Off the top of my head, both J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis--very creative persons by anyone's measure--were extremely devout christians. (C.S. Lewis is actually as lauded for his nonfiction books on religion as he was for Narnia.)

Your misunderstanding is understandable, however, thanks to the semi-humanist screed that says Galileo was tried for heresey for daring to say that the sun was the center of the universe. The truth says otherwise, of course, but "Galielo was tried for heresy because he continually provoked the Pope despite ample allowances, and had a rather comfortable life after his trial" doesn't work very well as a rallying cry to toss religion out on its ear.

(Note: I'm aware I linked to a religious site. If you prefer Wikipedia, it also delves into the heresy, but with a bit more of an anti-religious slant.)

you cannot become a doctor through self-education.

Yes the link is about anatomy, but the principle holds - who taught the first doctor? And in the days when conventional wisdom held that that bleeding the patient and waving chicken bones were the right thing to do, being formally educated in medicine was probably more harmful than helpful.

And besides Ken, you really work for the Tomás de Torquemada Institute who had connections to the Monastery of Santa Cruz! I bet you weren't expecting that!

From their methods of attempting to obtain a confession, I'm surprise that they called it the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute. Obviously they really meant the Tomás de Torquemada Institute.

Romans 1:1 Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God...
Romans 1:4: ...spirit of holiness through resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.
1 Corinthians 2:2: For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
1 Corinthians 11:23: For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over...
1 Corinthians 15:1: But if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
2 Corinthians 4:5: For we do not preach ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for the sake of Jesus.

One problem with this story. Who is Chinese? Labeling the country of Taiwan "Chinese" for example, is incorrect since most of the population is Formosan not Chinese. The same goes for a lot of the various modern and ancient acquisitions. These territories weren't acquired because they were "Chinese". Only two thirds of "Chinese" speak the main language, Mandarin.

IMHO, things make much more sense if you view the culture of China not in isolation, but rather as a highly successful tool of an imperialistic bureacracy. I think the culture was created from the very begining to form an empire. For example, two of the primary religions of China were created by bureaucrats (pardon the negative connotations, but I don't know a better term to describe their careers in the government), that is, Taoism and Confusism. In each case, the religion was quickly endorsed by the state. And the concept of the "Mandate of Heaven" (basically a claim of divine sanction to rule) precedes these religions by many centuries.

My point is that Chinese culture was shaped long ago into a tool of imperialism. It's longevity and the number of adherents is a good sign of its great success over this unimaginable period of time.

I should also add that I believe a key component of this has been one of the most successful eugenics programs in the history of man. I think it's fair to say that the old Chinese empire and culture were used as tools to make the entire Chinese empire related in culture and genes to the Mandarins of the imperial court. The emperor and other high nobles were encouraged to have many children (while the closely related Mandarins controlled education and even the survival of the children). The culture was set up so that marrying a child of higher status was a good thing. Hence, they had a means for propagating the genes of a small controlled elite to the general population.

I think you should consider the reason for the existence of Chinese culture and not just what Chinese culture "wants".

You're missing the point here. Paul isn't using the term "fools" as some sort of protectionist measure. What he's saying is that the Crucifixion is a stumbling block to those who think of themselves as wise. They think they know how the world words, based on their wisdom, and then out of nowhere it is put to them that someone's crucifixion is a means of salvation. They consider themselves wise, but they don't understand this, due to their preconceptions.

The Jews wanted the Messiah to be powerful, and to make them a great nation before the world. A crucified Messiah isn't very appealing to someone who thinks along those lines... This doesn't fit into what they wanted the Messiah to do for them.

As for the Greeks (i.e. non-Jews), in general the "wise" among them tended to pride themselves on their intellect, and wanted to explain the world through a philosophical system based purely on reason. They wanted to deduce the truth from first principles, etc. But Jesus suffering on the cross didn't seem to fit into their philosophical systems. The Crucifixion has to be seen in light of God's relationship with the Jews over the centuries, but for the philosophers among the Greeks, God was often seen as a somewhat abstract philosophical being, one that didn't interact much with the world. So they found the idea of God entering history and dying out of love for us a little hard to accept.

But the Crucifixion does satisfy both groups, if they look at it in the proper context. For the Jews, they have to see it in light of the Resurrection - they look for signs, and a suffering Messiah makes it possible for God to provide them with the greatest sign of all (the Resurrection). They want a great kingdom, and they can be part of it (though not in the way they expected). And once the Greeks accept that God does love us and would die for us, then their philosophical systems actually fit very well with Christianity, as St. Thomas Aquinas showed with respect to Aristotle in his Summa Theologica.

But I think the main point is that an ordinary Christian, by accepting what the Church teaches, better understands how the world works (is "wiser") than a Greek philosopher or a Jewish scribe. And so we "shame the wise", since the wise would expect to understand things better than anyone else.

It's not clear to me if this link is actually the official catechism of the Catholic church or just one person's analysis (and there's a lot near the end that I suspect most slashdotters will take issue with), but it gives an idea of how liberal the Catholic church's views on the subject are compared to say, fundementalist Christians.

Another poster noted that there are two different senses of the word "exist" floating around here.

Exist(1) would mean something like "to have material extent", assuming that those words could be sufficiently defined. In that sense, particles "exist".

Exist(2) would mean -- to a Platonist -- "to be a form", which might or might not involve material extent; Plato was fuzzy on that point.

The problem is now to define precisely what it means to be a form. We certainly use forms in our thoughts all the time; you no doubt discussed triangles and circles in geometry, even though no-one ever actually drew one in class. Some would claim that Plato's 'forms' are simply reflections of universal human thought, while others -- Platonists -- would claim that Plato's forms are part of the underlying abstract structure of the universe.
So: Would Pi be Pi if no human ever thought of circles, or if mathematics had developed with a radically different set of axioms? Those who say Yes would deny Platonism; those who say No would be open to Platonism.

The prize of all this discussion is not simply mental mind-blowing, as other posters have suggested. Instead, it is getting at an important question: if we find other intelligence (in this case, computers, assuming that AI is or will be in fact 'intelligent'), will it necessarily be like ours? That is, will other intelligence be intelligible to us? Platonists will say Yes; others will be open to No.

A second prize would be, is there a correct mathematics, one which accurately maps to the abstract structure of the universe? Non-Platonist scientists would say that we simply create models for ourselves. Platonist scientists would say that there are underlying abstract relationships that drive physics, and those relationships can be captured by math.

Topic shift: a third prize is not a position on religion. Some religions are Platonic in flavor, while others are not. Christianity flirted with Platonism in the time of Origen, but has since mostly rejected it.

Elohim is the common name for God. It is a plural form, but "The usage of the language gives no support to the supposition that we have in the plural form Elohim, applied to the God of Israel, the remains of an early polytheism, or at least a combination with the higher spiritual beings" (Kautzsch). Grammarians call it a plural of majesty or rank, or of abstraction, or of magnitude (Gesenius, Grammatik, 27th ed., nn. 124 g, 132 h). The Ethiopic plural amlak has become a proper name of God. Hoffmann has pointed out an analogous plural elim in the Phoenician inscriptions (Ueber einige phon. Inschr., 1889, p. 17 sqq.), and Barton has shown that in the tablets from El-Amarna the plural form ilani replaces the singular more than forty times (Proceedings of the American Oriental Society, 21-23 April, 1892, pp. cxcvi-cxcix).

Here the stigamta are the so called "holy wounds"

Seraphim

Here the stigamta are the so called "holy wounds"

Seraphim

The post by 'Beatles Forum' is correct: Revelation is about things that have taken place after 70AD, things that are still going on today, and things that are yet to come. For eg: Revelation mentioned an army of 200 million soldiers - there weren't 200 millions *humans* at the time Revelation was written.

Revelation is backed-up by the New Testament - for eg: in the gospels Jesus promises a second coming that will be visible around the world, in the letters of Paul, Paul talks about the anti-christ. The references to 7-hills, Rome, etc. in Revelation are correct - they map to Catholicism (whose headquarters is in Rome). Before you dismiss this out of hand, not that the Catholics have their own corresponding prophecy (made in the 11th century) of Rome being destroyed. From the Catholic Encyclopaedia (see third paragraph from the end):
"The last of these prophecies concerns the end of the world and is as follows: "In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Peter the Roman, who will feed his flock amid many tribulations, after which the seven-hilled city will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people. The End.".
IIRC, we are now at the second-last pope according to the Catholic prophecy.

[Note, I'm not condoning Catholicism - in Revelation God specifically asks his followers to "come out of" "Rome" so they don't "partake of her sins" (remember the massacres in the Inquisitions and the crusades?). If you want to know God, deal direct :) - read the Bible, tell God you're serious, love your fellow man... ]

Google here seems to come up with http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01707c.htm -- these guys don't seem like they were oppressive (though they did apparently deny the divinity of Christ)... nor do http://www.arianmusic.com/... unless you meant ARYAN or NAZI...? But back on topic, I don't quite see that ARIA went about it the right way. All they needed to do for these students it seems was to have shaken their tree enough to give the students the (figurative) runs enough to scare them, erm, rough them up a little.

Interesting how the catholics define the word monad.

Although it's easy to make the gonad jokes, the concept of monads have a long history in metaphysics dating back to the greeks. Monads were central to the philosophy of Liebniz, the co-discoverer of calculus.

According to this page, it means "ultimate, indivisible unit". Interesting. :)

Z

This is a very basic problem. In any discipline, you run the risk of falling in love with a theory. Even the physical sciences have this problem. But they at least have Experiment to poke holes in a theory that's beautiful and elegant and logical and utterly wrong. Other disciplines have to be more cautious.

Which is not to say that historical theories are a waste of time. They just have to be taken, as I said, with a grain of salt.

either God directly created us or there is no God.

You're not a Catholic are you? If you are, read this.

"In corruption," says Symonds, " he [Innocent VIII] advanced a step even beyond Sixtus, by establishing a bank at Rome for the sale of pardons. Each sin had its price, which might be paid at the convenience of the criminal: one hundred and fifty ducats of the tax were poured into the Papal coffers; the surplus fell to Franceschetto, the Pope's son." Foote and Wheeler, Crimes of Christianity, Progressive Publishing Company, London, 1887, Volume I, p. 338 (a book about the crimes of the RCC and the Pope, unfortunately titled)

For this payment, which smacked of simony, the pope would allow an indemnity, which in this case took the form of an indulgence. By this ignoble business arrangement with Rome, a financial transaction unworthy of both pope and archbishop, the revenue should be partitioned in equal halves to each, besides a bonus of 10,000 gold ducats, which should fall to the share of Rome.

Or perhaps one who is both a vegetarian and a heretic.

Thank you Pall, you have made my point for me. The Roman Catholic Church teaches, as you have just ably illustrated, that believers are in perpetual jeopardy of losing salvation, unless they perform properly.

No, what I have illustrated is that the Bible teaches this. Why don't you accept what the Bible teaches?

This is best summarized as "works salvation".

No, works salvation means that one can be saved through our own efforts. This is false. We actually gain salvation only through the free gift of God's grace. What I'm talking about (losing salvation) can happen only after we have already received the grace of salvation. It is a rejection of the gift God has given us.

Did Adam work for his salvation? No, he was created "saved" as a gift from God. But did Adam reject God's gift? Yes, he sinned and thus lost his salvation.

Biblical Christianity, in direct contrast to the RCC and many Protestant denominations, teaches eternal security. We can screw up (who doesn't?) and lose some rewards, and get chastised; but once saved, always saved.

In that case, please show me the correct way to interpret all those verses I sent you. The last explanation you gave me didn't apply to any of them.

See we Biblical Christians believe the simple, direct teaching of our Lord, as in John 10:25-29

Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

Here Jesus clearly states that he will give believers eternal life, and that we shall never perish and that we cannot be plucked out of His Father's hand.

He gives us eternal life, and we can live our eternal life in heaven if we persevere in His grace to the end. We cannot be plucked out of God's hand by anyone else, but we can freely decide to leave God's hand. God respects our free will.

As for the idea that works are required for salvation, as you have so convincingly shown the Roman Catholic Church teaches

I have not shown this, nor does the Catholic Church teach it.

Read Ephesians 2, not a verse out of context, but an entire chapter:

I agree with all of that.

Anyone who has accepted the free gift of Jesus is of the household of God; He does not throw us out of the house for being what we are, inherently sinful.

First, He does not throw us out, we leave of our own free will. And if we repent, we can return to Him. Second, once we are saved, we are not doomed to sin whether we like it or not. We do have concupiscence and temptations to deal with, but God gives us sufficient grace to overcome them and avoid sin. If we sin, we have only ourselves to blame. It is not inevitable that we will sin, and to say otherwise is to deny the sufficiency of God's grace.

I am indeed quite grateful for the good works of the RCC, but if you're going to cite them, you have to accept the bad as well.

I find it somewhat amusing to hear this coming from you. Did you cite any good along with the bad? In any case, as I pointed out, the fruits that the Bible are talking about are those that flow from erroneous doctrines, and not from the sins of individuals who decide to ignore correct doctrine.

And saying that Poland was the cause of the collapse of the USSR is a bit off base, even Gorby says it was the financial ruin they were facing as Reagan was getting SDI going. Socialism can't outperform Capitalism, and that's what failed them. Of course open information (through faxes and laser print

The land and the people that we call Greece and Greeks are in their own language Hellas and Hellenes. Greek is a form of the Latin Graecus, which in various modifications (grieche, grec, greco, etc.) is used in all Western languages. Graecus is Graikos, an older name for the people. Graikos was a mythical son of Thessalos. Or, since this should rather be understood as derived inversely (the person as an eponymous myth from the race), various other derivations have been proposed. Graikos (a form Hraikos also exists) is said to have meant originally "shaggy-haired", or "freeman", or "dweller in a valley" (W. Pape, "Worterbuch der griechischen Eigennamen", 3rd ed., Brunswick, 1870, s.v. Graikoi). The first people so called were the people of Dodona in Epirus, then the Greeks in general. After the common use of the other name, Hellene, this one still survived. It occurs occasionally in classical writers; after Alexander it became common, especially among Greeks abroad (in Alexandria, etc.). From them it was adopted into Latin. But in Greek, too, it lasts through the Middle Ages as an alternative name for the Hellenes of classical times (Stephen of Byzantium, about A.D. 400: Graikos, ho Hellen quoted by Sophocles in "Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods", New York, 1893, s.v. Graikos). Latins and other foreigners, as well as Greeks writing to such people, use it not seldom for any Greek, as "Graecus" in Latin.

Can you explain how the church led to the established the modern universities?

Universities developed from cathedral schools. See, for instance, Section I of this article.

The Roman view of Christians from the outset was not good. Suetonius, a famous Roman historian, called Christians "a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief" (Suetonius, p. 221). His contemporaries denounced it as superstitio parva ('perverse irrational religious awe'), immodica ('immoderate'), nova ('new'), malefica ('harmful'), among many other accusations.

There were three basic periods of the persecution. The first was from the death of Christ until right before the Great Fire of 64 A.D., which Nero falsely blamed Christians for. However, this first persecution "was a mere afterthought, and did not result in any general proscription" (Cary and Scullard, p. 487). The second period lasted from the end of the first until around 250 A.D., and the final one spanned the years from 250/251, the persecution under Decius, until 313. Up until 250, the persecution was sporadic and localized. However, from 250-251 the Emperor Decius instituted what Michael Grant, an eminent classical historian, calls a "systematic persecution of the Christians" (Grant, p. 157). During this persecution, Decius even executed Pope Fabianus, after which he supposedly remarked: "I would far rather receive news of a rival to the throne than of another bishop in Rome."

LEGAL BASIS OF THE PERSECUTIONS

Acceptance of the national religion in antiquity was an obligation incumbent on all citizens; failure to worship the gods of the State was equivalent to treason. This universally accepted principle is responsible for the various persecutions suffered by Christians before the reign of Constantine; Christians denied the existence of and therefore refused to worship the gods of the state pantheon. They were in consequence regarded as atheists. It is true, indeed, that the Jews also rejected the gods of Rome, and yet escaped persecution. But the Jews, from the Roman standpoint, had a national religion and a national God, Jehovah, whom they had a full legal right to worship. Even after the destruction of Jerusalem, when the Jews ceased to exist as a nation, Vespasian made no change in their religious status, save that the tribute formerly sent by Jews to the temple at Jerusalem was henceforth to be paid to the Roman exchequer. For some time after its establishment, the Christian Church enjoyed the religious privileges of the Jewish nation, but from the nature of the case it is apparent that the chiefs of the Jewish religion would not long permit without protest this state of things. For they abhorred Christ's religion as much as they abhorred its Founder. At what date the Roman authorities had their attention directed to the difference between the Jewish and the Christian religion cannot be determined, but it appears to be fairly well established that laws proscribing Christianity were enacted before the end of the first century. Tertullian is authority for the statement that persecution of the Christians was institutum Neronianum -- an institution of Nero -- (Ad nat., i, 7). The First Epistle of St. Peter also Clearly alludes to the proscription of Christians, as Christians, at the time it was written (I, St. Peter, iv, 16). Domitian (81-96) also, is known to have punished with death Christian members of his own family on the ch

According to Eusebius (Hist. eccl., 111, xxxix, 16), Papias said that Matthew collected (synetaxato; or, according to two manuscripts, synegraphato, composed) ta logia (the oracles or maxims of Jesus) in the Hebrew (Aramaic) language, and that each one translated them as best he could.

[...]

Finally, were the Logia of Matthew and the Gospel to which ecclesiastical writers refer written in Hebrew or Aramaic? Both hypotheses are held. Papias says that Matthew wrote the Logia in the Hebrew (Hebraidi) language; St. Irenæus and Eusebius maintain that he wrote his gospel for the Hebrews in their national language, and the same assertion is found in several writers. Matthew would, therefore, seem to have written in modernized Hebrew, the language then used by the scribes for teaching. But, in the time of Christ, the national language of the Jews was Aramaic, and when, in the New Testament, there is mention of the Hebrew language (Hebrais dialektos), it is Aramaic that is implied. Hence, the aforesaid writers may allude to the Aramaic and not to the Hebrew. Besides, as they assert, the Apostle Matthew wrote his Gospel to help popular teaching. To be understood by his readers who spoke Aramaic, he would have had to reproduce the original catechesis in this language, and it cannot be imagined why, or for whom, he should have taken the trouble to write it in Hebrew, when it would have had to be translated thence into Aramaic for use in religious services. Moreover, Eusebius (Hist. eccl., III, xxiv, 6) tells us that the Gospel of Matthew was a reproduction of his preaching, and this we know, was in Aramaic. An investigation of the Semitic idioms observed in the Gospel does not permit us to conclude as to whether the original was in Hebrew or Aramaic, as the two languages are so closely related. Besides, it must be home in mind that the greater part of these Semitisms simply reproduce colloquial Greek and are not of Hebrew or Aramaic origin. However, we believe the second hypothesis to be the more probable, viz., that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Aramaic.

Let us now recall the testimony of the other ecclesiastical writers on the Gospel of St. Matthew. St. Irenæus (Adv. Haer., III, i, 2) affirms that Matthew published among the Hebrews a Gospel which he wrote in their own language. Eusebius (Hist. eccl., V, x, 3) says that, in India, Pantænus found the Gospel according to St. Matthew written in the Hebrew language, the Apostle Bartholomew having left it there. Again, in his "Hist. eccl." (VI xxv, 3, 4), Eusebius tells us that Origen, in his first book on the Gospel of St. Matthew, states that he has learned from tradition that the First Gospel was written by Matthew, who, having composed it in Hebrew, published it for the converts from Judaism. According to Eusebius (Hist. eccl., III, xxiv, 6), Matthew preached first to the Hebrews and, when obliged to go to other countries, gave them his Gospel written in his native tongue. St. Jerome has repeatedly declared that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew ("Ad Damasum", xx; "Ad Hedib.", iv), but says that it is not known with certainty who translated it into Greek. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Epiphanius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, etc., and all the commentators of the Middle Ages repeat that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew. Erasmus was the first to express doubts on this subject: "It does not seem probable to me that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, since no one testifies that he has seen any trace of such a volume." This is not accurate, as St. Jerome uses Matthew's Hebrew text several times to solve difficulties of interpretation, which proves that he had it at hand. Pantænus also had it, as, according to St. Jerome ("De Viris Ill.", xxxvi), he brought it back to Alexandria. However, the testimony of Pantænus is only second-hand, and that of Jerome rem

PERFECT CONTRITION WITHOUT THE SACRAMENT

Regarding that contrition which has for its motive the love of God, the Council of Trent declares: "The Council further teaches that, though contrition may sometimes be made perfect by charity and may reconcile men to God before the actual reception of this sacrament, still the reconciliation is not to be ascribed to the contrition apart from the desire for the sacrament which it includes." The following proposition (no. 32) taken from Baius was condemned by Gregory XIII: "That charity which is the fullness of the law is not always conjoined with forgiveness of sins." Perfect contrition, with the desire of receiving the Sacrament of Penance, restores the sinner to grace at once. This is certainly the teaching of the Scholastic doctors (Peter Lombard in P.L., CXCII, 885; St. Thomas, In Lib. Sent. IV, ibid.; St. Bonaventure, In Lib. Sent. IV, ibid.). This doctrine they derived from Holy Writ. Scripture certainly ascribes to charity and the love of God the power to take away sin: "He that loveth me shall be loved by My Father"; "Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much". Since the act of perfect contrition implies necessarily this same love of God, theologians have ascribed to perfect contrition what Scripture teaches belongs to charity. Nor is this strange, for in the Old Covenant there was some way of recovering God' grace once man had sinned. God wills not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live (Ezech., xxxiii, 11). This total turning to God corresponds to our idea of perfect contrition; and if under the Old Law love sufficed for the pardon of the sinner, surely the coming of Christ and the institution of the Sacrament of Penance cannot be supposed to have increased the difficulty of obtaining forgiveness.

In the Matrix, prophecy is the same thing as calculating choices. It's like if I take some kinematics equations from physics and describe where an artillery shell is going to land, and calling it prophecy.

The Oracle is just a "prognostication engine" that knows everything (kinda like having the ability to understand a "save state" in an emulator) and can calculate choices by decision-making agents in the future.

It mattered which pill Neo took, in a way. But he never could've not taken it; every choice in life is predestined. Given a choice, and the sum of all of Neo's experiences, Neo will always choose one path.

If I didn't explain determinism well enough, here's the first relevant Google I found.

> I had assumed you were a Christian...

Don't be obscene. I actually use my mind.

It's too bad that using your mind apparently doesn't help you to address people in a more charitable manner.

Define "God."

The Catholic Encyclopedia describes God as "the one Supreme and Infinite Personal Being, the Creator and Ruler of the universe, to whom man owes obedience and worship."

Here is an article on God's attributes.

[Y]ou don't have to deify an idol to have it lead you away from your god, your true path.

This seems to be the main point you're making. The fact, though, is that no one is led away from God by the cross. The cross is where Jesus sacrificed His life for us; veneration of the cross is directed to Christ, not to the cross itself.

> I had assumed you were a Christian...

Don't be obscene. I actually use my mind.

It's too bad that using your mind apparently doesn't help you to address people in a more charitable manner.

Define "God."

The Catholic Encyclopedia describes God as "the one Supreme and Infinite Personal Being, the Creator and Ruler of the universe, to whom man owes obedience and worship."

Here is an article on God's attributes.

[Y]ou don't have to deify an idol to have it lead you away from your god, your true path.

This seems to be the main point you're making. The fact, though, is that no one is led away from God by the cross. The cross is where Jesus sacrificed His life for us; veneration of the cross is directed to Christ, not to the cross itself.

The Vatican never sold redemption for money. An indulgence takes away the temporal punishment for sin, but in order for an indulgence to be useful to you, you already have to be in saved (in a state of grace). So you can't be redeemed by an indulgence.

The abuses around the time of the Reformation were not sanctioned by the Vatican; they were perpetrated by certain individuals in Germany. One does not "sell" an indulgence, as if one could sell someone a contrite heart (this was what the abuse consisted of). But one can make a sacrifice as part of one's penance, such as giving alms for a good cause. But the giving of alms was never necessary for the reception of an indulgence.

In any case, the giving of alms in order to gain an indulgence was eliminated at the Council of Trent in order to avoid any further confusion on the matter of indulgences.

Here's a page on indulgences, and another, in case anyone's interested

Sorry, I meant Charles Carroll. John Carroll was related to him.

I don't know how many of the Founding Fathers were Protestants, deists, atheists, or whatever else, but at least one of them, John Carroll, who signed the Declaration of Independance, was a Catholic.

Philosophy students ridicule it too. That's where I heard it. In fact, I've since discovered that it is intentionally ridiculous. As such, it was unfair to call it a classic of metaphysics.

The phrase appears to originate in ridicule of St. Thomas Aquinas. To say that Aquinas was addressing matters of conciousness in general is generous. He wrote in particular about the nature of angels.

Phrase origin at:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_132.html

Thomas Aquinas on _Whether an Angel is Altogether Incorporeal_ at:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/105001.htm

Perhaps I should have said: "The mockery of metaphysics 'How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?' is the canonical meaningless question." That is less kind to metaphysics than I meant to be, though. My intention was not to insult metaphysics, but to argue that religion does not illuminate science. By using that phrase, I inadvertently insulted those most likely to disagree with me.

This is far from an original idea. The Pope and Roman Inquisition did the same thing back in the 1700's and 1800's. The Church published the "Index librorum prohibitorum" or "List of Prohibited Books".

Once the list got out, nearly every book on it became a best seller and eventually the list itself was put on the "Index librorum prohibitorum". So the Catholics arrived at the same point. The Catholics maintained a secret list of prohibited books but wouldn't disclose what was on the list for fear of promoting that which was prohibited.

Either this guy knows his history or it's a clear case of "There is nothing new under the Sun." I wonder if he also knows that in 1966 the Index was abolished. I suspect the list was abolished because the Catholics could no longer keep up with the volume of books being released and they had probably had their fill of p0rn too. So, if history does repeat itself, this list will fade away too. I just hope he doesn't start making claims that "heavy bodies fall faster than lighter bodies."

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

This is far from an original idea. The Pope and Roman Inquisition did the same thing back in the 1700's and 1800's. The Church published the "Index librorum prohibitorum" or "List of Prohibited Books".

Once the list got out, nearly every book on it became a best seller and eventually the list itself was put on the "Index librorum prohibitorum". So the Catholics arrived at the same point. The Catholics maintained a secret list of prohibited books but wouldn't disclose what was on the list for fear of promoting that which was prohibited.

Either this guy knows his history or it's a clear case of "There is nothing new under the Sun." I wonder if he also knows that in 1966 the Index was abolished. I suspect the list was abolished because the Catholics could no longer keep up with the volume of books being released and they had probably had their fill of p0rn too. So, if history does repeat itself, this list will fade away too. I just hope he doesn't start making claims that "heavy bodies fall faster than lighter bodies."

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

This is far from an original idea. The Pope and Roman Inquisition did the same thing back in the 1700's and 1800's. The Church published the "Index librorum prohibitorum" or "List of Prohibited Books".

Once the list got out, nearly every book on it became a best seller and eventually the list itself was put on the "Index librorum prohibitorum". So the Catholics arrived at the same point. The Catholics maintained a secret list of prohibited books but wouldn't disclose what was on the list for fear of promoting that which was prohibited.

Either this guy knows his history or it's a clear case of "There is nothing new under the Sun." I wonder if he also knows that in 1966 the Index was abolished. I suspect the list was abolished because the Catholics could no longer keep up with the volume of books being released and they had probably had their fill of p0rn too. So, if history does repeat itself, this list will fade away too. I just hope he doesn't start making claims that "heavy bodies fall faster than lighter bodies."

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "Lucifer" was Venus, and was Satan's name before his fall.

Lucifer
(Hebrew helel; Septuagint heosphoros, Vulgate lucifer)
The name Lucifer originally denotes the planet Venus, emphasizing its brilliance. The Vulgate employs the word also for "the light of the morning" (Job 50:17), "the signs of the zodiac" (Job 38:32), and "the aurora" (Psalm 109:3). Metaphorically, the word is applied to the King of Babylon (Isaiah 14:12) as preeminent among the princes of his time; to the high priest Simon son of Onias (Ecclesiasticus 50:6), for his surpassing virtue, to the glory of heaven (Apocalypse 2:28), by reason of its excellency; finally to Jesus Christ himself (II Petr. 1:19; Apocalypse 22:16; the "Exultet" of Holy Saturday) the true light of our spiritual life. The Syriac version and the version of Aquila derive the Hebrew noun helel from the verb yalal, "to lament"; St. Jerome agrees with them (In Isaiah 1:14), and makes Lucifer the name of the principal fallen angel who must lament the loss of his original glory bright as the morning star. In Christian tradition this meaning of Lucifer has prevailed; the Fathers maintain that Lucifer is not the proper name of the devil, but denotes only the state from which he has fallen (Petavius, De Angelis, III, iii, 4).

Considering the other popular "hobbies" among priests, it's probably a good thing he has something to do, rather than somebody's son to do.

But I won't be impressed under he can brew Holy Water and the sacramental wine. Throw in the consecrated host, and you've got Jesus in the Whirlpool. (If you believe in Transubstantiation, that is.)

Without the (U.S.) military, we would quickly fall from civilization to barbarism.

Maybe someday when all countries are stable democracies we won't need the military anymore...

It is All Saint's Day, though, and a Day of the Dead.

There is no confirmation that Jesus even existed from the time he would have lived

Have you heard of the "Anti-Stratfordians"? They believe that Shakespeare did not exist. You'll always find doubt about great historical figures. But that doesn't mean they don't exist. Most historians believe that both Shakespeare and Jesus were real people.

outside the New Testament except for Josephus' writings

There's two independent sources. Furthermore, what you're saying here is completely false. There are documents from outside the Christian Scriptures that talk about Jesus; many of them have been translated into English by the Jesus Seminar. Do a Google search for the "Gospel of Thomas", which wasn't included in the New Testament, and is believed to be independent of the canonical gospels, and contain authentic material (since it tells some of Jesus' parables in slightly different forms).

which have been embellished by monks.

That doesn't change the fact that they must have had something to start with. Since Josephus was a Jew, he probably wrote the part about Jesus being a rabble rousing prophet and his brother James being killed, while the Christian monks likely added the part about the miracles (presumably, if Josephus believed that Jesus performed miracles, then he would have been a Christian, not a Jew).

A paper putting forth the theory that Josephus made Jesus up, and wrote the gospels was published by a group called the Society of Josephus. It is frequently suppressed.

A paper saying that something is true doesn't make it true. And who are the "Society of Josephus"? Google doesn't offer any information on them. And their name hardly makes them sound reputable. Are they attached to any university?

Furthermore, this theory seems very unlikely, especially in light of the fact that there are many Gospels not in the New Testament. Furthermore, there are also Gospels written by the Jewish Christians; wouldn't it be more likely that Josephus would have written such as Gospel as these?

If Jesus really existed, and lived in the time of Herod, than our calendar system should be radically revised, as Herod was dead by 30 BC.

Please check your history. According to this source, Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. (There were many rulers named Herod, however; perhaps you have them mixed up.) And we already know that Jesus wasn't born in 0 B.C., this isn't news. Keep in mind that the Gregorian calendar was created in the middle ages, so we can't expect them to have pin-point accuracy.

And no, the calendar isn't going to change. The terms "BC" and "AD" are being switched in many places to "BCE" (Before Common Era) and "CE" (Common Era) in order to secularize the Gregorian calendar.

This site presents the evidence for and against Jesus' existence, without taking sides. If you look at the "against" information, it mostly comes down to lack of documentation by Roman historians of the time. But this should not be a surprise, because Judea (that's what Israel was called at the time) was merely an impoverished occupied territory. Many Judeans were crucified by the Romans. To the Romans, Jesus was just one more rabble-rousing Judean prophet better left forgotten.

Thank you for being so politely informative to something I put little to no thought in presenting. To redeem myself, I chose to take a look at Prima Pars, and went straight to Does God Exist? to see if I could understand what I would read.

Apparently, there are five ways to prove the existence of God, so I present to you my reactions to each as follows:

1. To my understanding, he says that for something to be in motion it must be put into motion by another, which was put in motion by another, et cetera. He states that it must have started somewhere, so he concluded that it started with God. IMO this seems to be a chicken-and-egg question where we can't explain something so we say it is God. I think it is equally possible that things have always been in motion, and that there was no begining and likewise no end.
2. My understanding brings me to believe that this proof assumes that there is an ultimate efficient cause, one that none is superior to. Be it so, I do not see how this is a conclusion of the existence God. IMO, it is more accurately simplified to the fact that if there is a God, s/he/it would be the unltimate of all things. To assume perfection exists is debatable, but to claim perfection is a diety skips too many steps in the proof.
3. If I understand this correctly, he assumes that all in existence was not in existence at some point, other than one that is necisary to start it all, which he calls God. This is the chicken-and-egg again, just as existence rather than motion. Consequently I propose the possibilty that all in existence has always existed and will always exist. He discounts infinity as though it is obviously impossible, but I am not convinced.
4. This is just like #2, except replacing efficincy with perfection more specifically. I don't see the difference, but I may very well be misinterpreting. To assume the existence of an ideal roots back to (if memory serves me correctly) the philospher Palto. I don't see how we can so easily assume the existence of an ideal, or perfect anything. There is no ideal chair because a chair is many things. Likewise there is no perfect triangle, because a triangle describes a whole range of shapes. Something may be perfect or efficient for some cause, but not necisarily all causes. Computer programmers no this all too well.
5. As far as I can interpret this, he seeks to explain why living things act as they do, posting the blame on God rather than actually explaining it. An animal eats because it is hungry, just as a plant rises toward the sun. Their hunger drives them to obtain, no diety intervening.

I find Theology and Philosophy both quite interesting, but these "proofs" don't conform to logical patterns. There are too many assumptions made, many which are the precise concept we seek to prove. It is absurd to base a proof on an assumption, so each assumption must therefore have a proof, the ultimate assumption being what all men know of as God.

Of course, I could be wrong.

How do you know your God exists? The Bible says so.
How do you know the Bible is accurate? Because it was inspired by God.

I wholehartedly agree with your condemnation of the above. Unfortunately for your argument, neither of those are the historical Christian arguments for either.

Every religion is a cult. At least science can be supported or disproven by use of logic.

Well, traditionally speaking, Theology is a science (in fact it's called the "Queen of the Sciences") though the meaning of the word "science" has come to mean something different in more modern times. What we call "science" today used to be called "natural philosophy", merely a sub-branch of all certain knowledge.

Science is simply what we call things that we can know for certain, and that do not change. These things are known for certain because we begin with premises that cannot be denied (like the principle of non-contradiction, and other propositions that you might call "very obvious", silly modern philosophy aside), and proceed syllogistically (that is, logically) to greater and greater truths. Euclid's Geometry (in 13 Books) is a very simple example of such a science.

Theology (as put forth most succinctly by the medieval Christian Scholastics like Thomas Aquinas) is just such a science because it begins from self-evident premises (like the facts of existence and motion, which no modern scientist would deny), and argue logically for the existence of God. Read the first 13 Questions of the First Part (Prima Pars) of Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica for the arguments, keeping an open mind, because your modern notions and word usage might differ drastically from what you find written there.

Belloc

Tradition and Living Magisterium

If you look at the first page of the powerpoint file, it contains a picture (Bruegel) that shows the likely outcome of this project. An ambitiously large tower, abandoned and crumbling.

The picture was obviously taken from a painting of the Biblical Tower of Babel story. Given the state of AI, I predict about as much success for this project.

Well, your honest, but wrong.

"Fifthly, almost every developed culture since the ancient Greeks practiced abortion or infanticide right after birth--this includes Christians up until the last couple of centuries;"

You are correct that cultures such as the Roman Empire practiced abortion, but perhaps you have not actually read what the actual Christians actually thought about it:

"...you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born..." - Didachecirca 100AD

"Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born." - Epistle of Barnabas circa 74AD

"And near that place I saw another strait place into which the gore and the filth of those who were being punished ran down and became there as it were a lake: and there sat women having the gore up to their necks, and over against them sat many children who were born to them out of due time, crying; and there came forth from them sparks of fire and smote the women in the eyes: and these were the accursed who conceived and caused abortion." - Apocalypse of Peter circa 130AD

...and so forth. If you are interested in more, searching for 'church fathers' and abortion on google would do you well.

The Church never defined when life began. The only discussions one could enlist on this point would be some musings on when ensoulment happened, but even then, it was agreed that it is still murder. This is often trotted out by pro- abortion Christians, but if you actually read the documents they point to(such as the 25th chapter of Augustine's Enchiridion) you find a different story.

"no one can say with any real meaning when human life begins."
"[it] can have no definite scientific answer"

Only if one has an idealogical axe to grind. Read an intro to biology textbook sometime, and you will find a fit with the definition of life.
Secondly, your opinion that this ok's abortion would be criminal negligence in any other case. Third, you obviously don't believe it, or at least you act that way, because you willing to risk the possibility of a loss of human life. It would only be unimportant if you have already decided that it isn't a human life.

"abortion serves a useful practical purpose of population control, which is important in the modern world"

I suppose when one lacks a basic respect for human life, one can come to conclusions like this. Despite the fact that even the UN is starting to worry about population decline, talking about such things as raising fertility and adjusting migration laws(read the PDF at that link).

"Thirdly, I value sex and see it as an essential part of the human experience"

Ah, the crux of the issue. "Who cares if it might be a human life? It's in the way of my rutting." I'd laugh if this weren't so damn pathetic. It's exactly this type of idiotic lack of self control that leads directly to the type of STD epidemics we see today. Essential? Go ask an AIDS patient if they still think their sexual activity was "essential." Or wait until you get the news that you have the honor of living with herpes the rest of your life, and then contemplate whether it was "essential."

"it's almost impossible for young people to both care for a baby and go to school"

Well, then, I am the master of the nigh impossible. I did it twice. And I am not alone, nor am I exceptional in that regard. I was a full time parent, a full time student, and I held down a part time job on the side. It didn't require "killing one's child." But it did require "personal resposibility," a concept that is probably lost on many /. readers.

"I'm also pro-abortion, finally, because it's not my damn business to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her own body"

Of course, that isn't the issue. The issue revolves around whether or not that woman is harming someone else's body. The location of that body is immaterial. If that baby is human, she has no damn business killing it.

Creedo