An envious Dane, eh? Obligatory Shakespeare quote:
Sir, this report of his
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
That he could nothing do but wish and beg
Your sudden coming o'er, to play with him.
(Hamlet, Act IV, Scene VII)
You're right, but then again I'm pretty sure the "John Woo" demographic is already being catered to by other games already out there.
I didn't mean my initial post to be taken seriously (I don't think Barbra Streisand is the right person for this sort of thing), but maybe a movie tie-in like this might attract customers from the "Sims" demographic.
Why haven't game companies approached acclaimed film director Barbra Streisand? Surely "Yentl" and "The Prince of Tides" would translate into great games... Plus these films already have a built-in fan base!
Original sin isn't really something we are responsible for, in the sense you suggest...
Think of it this way: imagine that God had given a man a million dollars. That man goes to the casino and loses all the money. Now, how much of that money will his children inherit? None, because the man lost it. Is it his children's fault? No, but that's the way it is.
Original sin works the same way. God had given Adam and Eve sanctifying grace, but they rejected it. So the grace that would have belonged to all of humanity was rejected by all of humanity (which consisted of Adam and Eve at that point). But it goes beyond that. The very fact that sin entered into the world "tainted" the created universe, so that we have disease, death, etc. If one person poisons a village well, everyone in the village can die, even if they weren't responsible for poisoning the water.
In any case, all is not lost: we can regain sanctifying grace through baptism.
Did his Father come down with a grey beard and thunderbolts and say "yo, Peter, listen up. Jesus is Christ, the Son of the Living God. You should believe this because I say it's true." No. Peter just realized this about Jesus, because he was blessed.
I disagree with you here, I think. Apart from beard and thunderbolts part, yes, the Father did directly tell Peter (or miraculously place the thought in Peter's head, if you prefer) that Jesus was the Son of God.
Why was Peter blessed and not Pilate? Because God likes one of them better than the other? No. Because Peter had more virtue than Pilate, and thus was able to see a better Jesus than Pilate was able to see. Or, to put it another way, Peter was closer to God, and so was able to receive the blessing of being able to see Jesus as the Son of God.
Well, the way I'd see it is as follows: Peter was chosen by God to be the first Pope, and so he was given the awareness that Jesus was the Christ in order to provide Jesus with the opportunity to give Simon the name Peter ("rock"), laying the foundation for the papacy, etc.
I'd agree that Peter was "closer to God" than Pilate, he was more open to God's grace. On the other hand, Peter wasn't probably all that different from the other Apostles in terms of "closeness to God", and yet they didn't receive, at that time, the knowledge from the Father that Peter did. That's why I'd say it's a combination of Peter being selected by God to play a certain part in His plan for our salvation, and Peter's openness to God and thus his willingness to cooperate with God's plan.
Okay, I'm satisfied with your answer - you're not absolutely closed to the idea.
Modern medicine is FAR from a perfect science. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't understand it (My father is a medical school professor...) but one thing that is well known is that the mind can have amaizing effects on the body. If a patient believes that someone is coming to heal them can perform miracles, then the belief can effect the healing.
Sure, but there have been cases of eyes burned with acid regenerating themselves, and things like that. At a certain point, the improbability of such a thing occurring naturally becomes so great that a supernatural cause would seem to be the most reasonable assumption. I guess when that particular point is deemed to have been reached would depend on the individual looking at the evidence.
Something being scientifically impossible and happening anyway is proof of only one thing, science not yet perfected. Go to any large, reputable university and find the physics department, you will find many people who devote their life to refining and improving science.
The problem here is that you're assuming as a "fact" that God doesn't exist, and then interpreting the data in light of that assumption. So even if a voice called out from heaven saying, "God will now drop Australia into the Atlantic Ocean", and then Australia did drop into the Atlantic, you would ignore the possibility that a miracle had occurred, since as far as you're concerned that would be absolutely impossible.
I would hardly call the existence of a higher power a simple explanation.
Well, that would depend on the particular miracle. The miracles that the Vatican uses as evidence for sainthood generally involve an "impossible" cure (as far as modern medecine is concerned), preceded by someone asking a particular candidate for sainthood to ask God for the healing in question. They do make a strong effort to find a possible scientific explanation for any such miracle. If no such explanation can be found, it is deemed a miracle. To become a saint, one needs more than one such miracle, so that even if one miracle ascribed to a saint is actually natural in origin (although the odds of this are very low), the chance that all the miracles ascribed to a saint are naturally-caused would be infinitessimally low.
Of course, if one has one's heart set against the possibility of miracles, no such evidence would ever be sufficient.
Actually, there's really nothing wrong with the Crusades as such, no more than there is something wrong with the Allied invasion of Nazi Europe. The Muslims invaded Christian lands, then attacked pilgrims to the Holy Land, etc.
The problem with the Crusades was really with the crimes committed during the war, just as the Allies committed war crimes (such as the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
Your appeal to authority is weak. There are plenty of philosophers who believe god does not exist as well (Neitze, Voltaire, etc.). And anyone who is currently studying philosophy will tell you that the existance of god is still a hot topic...
I wasn't making an appeal to authority as such, but rather an appeal to the philosophical arguments by those authorities. Of course, some would not agree with those arguments, but the fact is that the Bible isn't (theoretically) the sole means through which we can learn of the existence of God.
I would say that that events which can not be explained yet happen all the time. It was not that long ago that the orbit of the planet mercury or even the daily rising and setting of the sun would have been considered a miracle by this standard.
There's a difference between something being not scientifically explainable, and it being scientifically impossible (and yet happening anyway). I see what you're saying here, but then by your standards, it would be impossible for God to prove His existence. If He were to pick up Australia and drop it into the Atlantic Ocean, you could say, "There's a perfectly logical scientific explanation for this, we just don't know what it is yet." Sometimes, though, Occam's Razor points to God as the cause of certain things that happen...
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.
The only reason anybody knows about God is because of the bible...
No, that's not true. We know God exists from philosophy (Aquinas, Descartes, etc.), and also from miracles. The Pope just canonized a few twentieth-century saints during his visit to Spain a few days ago. Miracles (which can't be explained other than supernaturally) happen all the time.
The implication is that it is the person who is relating to him that decides whether he is an ordinary man or the Son of God, not he himself. If Peter truly sees him as the Son of God, that's Peter's good fortune.
No, that isn't the case. When Peter says that Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus replies that this was revealed to Peter by God the Father.
Matthew 16:15-19
He saith unto them, "But whom say ye that I am?"
And Simon Peter answered and said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."
And Jesus answered and said unto him, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Slashdot Mirror
... sounds like the result of cost-cutting at the E3 concession stand.
My villany they
have upon record; which I had rather seal with
my death than repeat over to my shame.
(Much Ado about Nothing, Act V, Scene I)
Imperial Spain is planning to charge Sid Meier under the DMCA.
Sir, this report of his
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
That he could nothing do but wish and beg
Your sudden coming o'er, to play with him.
(Hamlet, Act IV, Scene VII)
I didn't mean my initial post to be taken seriously (I don't think Barbra Streisand is the right person for this sort of thing), but maybe a movie tie-in like this might attract customers from the "Sims" demographic.
Come on, Sega et al., give gamers what they want!
I understand your point, but I wanted to make the clarification.
Think of it this way: imagine that God had given a man a million dollars. That man goes to the casino and loses all the money. Now, how much of that money will his children inherit? None, because the man lost it. Is it his children's fault? No, but that's the way it is.
Original sin works the same way. God had given Adam and Eve sanctifying grace, but they rejected it. So the grace that would have belonged to all of humanity was rejected by all of humanity (which consisted of Adam and Eve at that point). But it goes beyond that. The very fact that sin entered into the world "tainted" the created universe, so that we have disease, death, etc. If one person poisons a village well, everyone in the village can die, even if they weren't responsible for poisoning the water.
In any case, all is not lost: we can regain sanctifying grace through baptism.
I disagree with you here, I think. Apart from beard and thunderbolts part, yes, the Father did directly tell Peter (or miraculously place the thought in Peter's head, if you prefer) that Jesus was the Son of God.
Why was Peter blessed and not Pilate? Because God likes one of them better than the other? No. Because Peter had more virtue than Pilate, and thus was able to see a better Jesus than Pilate was able to see. Or, to put it another way, Peter was closer to God, and so was able to receive the blessing of being able to see Jesus as the Son of God.
Well, the way I'd see it is as follows: Peter was chosen by God to be the first Pope, and so he was given the awareness that Jesus was the Christ in order to provide Jesus with the opportunity to give Simon the name Peter ("rock"), laying the foundation for the papacy, etc.
I'd agree that Peter was "closer to God" than Pilate, he was more open to God's grace. On the other hand, Peter wasn't probably all that different from the other Apostles in terms of "closeness to God", and yet they didn't receive, at that time, the knowledge from the Father that Peter did. That's why I'd say it's a combination of Peter being selected by God to play a certain part in His plan for our salvation, and Peter's openness to God and thus his willingness to cooperate with God's plan.
Anyway, that's how I see it.
Okay, I'm satisfied with your answer - you're not absolutely closed to the idea.
Modern medicine is FAR from a perfect science. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't understand it (My father is a medical school professor...) but one thing that is well known is that the mind can have amaizing effects on the body. If a patient believes that someone is coming to heal them can perform miracles, then the belief can effect the healing.
Sure, but there have been cases of eyes burned with acid regenerating themselves, and things like that. At a certain point, the improbability of such a thing occurring naturally becomes so great that a supernatural cause would seem to be the most reasonable assumption. I guess when that particular point is deemed to have been reached would depend on the individual looking at the evidence.
The problem here is that you're assuming as a "fact" that God doesn't exist, and then interpreting the data in light of that assumption. So even if a voice called out from heaven saying, "God will now drop Australia into the Atlantic Ocean", and then Australia did drop into the Atlantic, you would ignore the possibility that a miracle had occurred, since as far as you're concerned that would be absolutely impossible.
I would hardly call the existence of a higher power a simple explanation.
Well, that would depend on the particular miracle. The miracles that the Vatican uses as evidence for sainthood generally involve an "impossible" cure (as far as modern medecine is concerned), preceded by someone asking a particular candidate for sainthood to ask God for the healing in question. They do make a strong effort to find a possible scientific explanation for any such miracle. If no such explanation can be found, it is deemed a miracle. To become a saint, one needs more than one such miracle, so that even if one miracle ascribed to a saint is actually natural in origin (although the odds of this are very low), the chance that all the miracles ascribed to a saint are naturally-caused would be infinitessimally low.
Of course, if one has one's heart set against the possibility of miracles, no such evidence would ever be sufficient.
The problem with the Crusades was really with the crimes committed during the war, just as the Allies committed war crimes (such as the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
I wasn't making an appeal to authority as such, but rather an appeal to the philosophical arguments by those authorities. Of course, some would not agree with those arguments, but the fact is that the Bible isn't (theoretically) the sole means through which we can learn of the existence of God.
I would say that that events which can not be explained yet happen all the time. It was not that long ago that the orbit of the planet mercury or even the daily rising and setting of the sun would have been considered a miracle by this standard.
There's a difference between something being not scientifically explainable, and it being scientifically impossible (and yet happening anyway). I see what you're saying here, but then by your standards, it would be impossible for God to prove His existence. If He were to pick up Australia and drop it into the Atlantic Ocean, you could say, "There's a perfectly logical scientific explanation for this, we just don't know what it is yet." Sometimes, though, Occam's Razor points to God as the cause of certain things that happen...
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.
No, that's not true. We know God exists from philosophy (Aquinas, Descartes, etc.), and also from miracles. The Pope just canonized a few twentieth-century saints during his visit to Spain a few days ago. Miracles (which can't be explained other than supernaturally) happen all the time.
As I said elsewhere, Jesus not only doesn't dispute Peter's statement, He says that Peter was given this knowledge by God the Father.
No, that isn't the case. When Peter says that Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus replies that this was revealed to Peter by God the Father.
Matthew 16:15-19
He saith unto them, "But whom say ye that I am?"
And Simon Peter answered and said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."
And Jesus answered and said unto him, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
1) I think, therefore I am.
2) I cannot be mistaken about the ideas that I have.
3) There can never be more objective reality in the effect (i.e., the idea) than there is formal reality in the cause (i.e., object of the idea).
4) I have an idea of perfection or infinite substance.
5) My idea of perfection is the most objectively real idea that I have.
6) The only possible formal cause of that idea is infinite substance.
Therefore, God must exist. He then uses God's existence to show that reality does exist as we perceive it, since God wouldn't mislead us.