The catholic church has changed its position on abortion and on priest celibacy
That's not true.
Concerning abortion: in the Middle Ages, we didn't know when human life began in the womb. There were no microscopes, so there was no way of knowing. It was still considered a sin to have an abortion in the early stages of gestation, but not as grave a sin as murder, since there was no proof that a human being was being killed. Today, of course, science has proven that human life begins at conception. The only thing that has really changed is our knowledge of biology; the same logic is being applied in both cases.
Concerning priestly celibacy, it was always a tradition in western Catholicism, and not in eastern Catholicism. At a certain point it became mandatory in the West, but that's not a change in doctrine. It's a change in law, and it could change back any time. And Eastern Catholics still have married priests today.
If there were two Gods, they would have to differ in essence, but if they differed in essence, at least one of them wouldn't be God. So there can only be one God.
A mover moves something from potentiality to actuality. God is pure actuality, He has no need for a mover. But everything in the universe does need a mover. And if God - pure actuality - didn't exist, then everything would be in a state of potentiality, and so nothing would move. But things move, so God exists.
Hmm.. don't most scholars in the field believe that Aquinas seeked to prove the absense of proofs for God by exhausting the plausible avenues for proofs of His existence?
Well, just to clarify, I think what you're saying is that Aquinas didn't argue that one could deduce everything the Catholic Church believes about God through reason alone. Some of His attributes we know from revelation alone (e.g. the Trinity).
However, Aquinas did say we can prove the existence (as opposed to the attributes) of God by reason alone. He says, "The existence of God can be proved in five ways."
And the whole faster than light travel thing.... Didn't some french researchers prove that warp drive (ala Star Trek style) was possible just a couple years back?
They mention this in the article:
In 1994, Miguel Alcubierre, then a physicist at the University of Wales, proposed a way in which a hyperdrive could actually be built, without violating the rules of Einstein's general theory of relativity.
A giant mass would be dangled in front of the spaceship, pulling it forward. Then, a "negative mass," an area that weighs even less than empty space, would be placed behind the craft. Space would be warped by the intense gravity so that the spacecraft could move almost instantly from place to place.
Sure, it will lead to more AIDS. Let's say that condoms are 98% effective in preventing AIDS, assuming they're used properly. The problem is that eventually the 2% ineffectiveness will catch up to you. And that's not even counting people who don't use them properly or consistently in the first place.
Condom use gives people a false sense of security, since many will think they're absolutely safe from getting AIDS. And so they will end up more promiscuous than they would otherwise have been. But this promiscuity leads to the 2% ineffectiveness of condoms adversely affecting more and more people.
Keeping sex within marriage, on the other hand, works 100% of the time.
Maybe they would be in much better shape if they were allowed to use condoms
No, not unless you want the Africans to die of AIDS. Uganda was the one country to encourage abstinence outside of marriage as a means of fighting AIDS, and guess what? It had the greatest success in preventing the transmission of AIDS of any African country.
Just because it isn't for sale doesn't mean it's worthless.
Yes it is worthless if you have no intention of ever selling it. Imagine someone who keeps his father's ashes in a vase in his house. He could probably sell the ashes for fertilizer or something like that, but he doesn't intend to, so the ashes aren't worth anything to him.
As far as the Vatican's art is concerned, it isn't a "stockpile", it is considered something held in trust for all of humanity. If it were sold, then only the rich people who bought it could see it; but now anyone can see the art, or will be able to for generations to come.
Think of the medieval cathedrals. Back in those days, hardly anyone owned art. But there was plenty of beautiful art in the churches that anyone, even the poorest, could enjoy. And we can still see that art today.
Besides, the beauty of the art in churches (including the gilding) is meant to help us think of higher things, more spiritual things. "Man does not live by bread alone," as someone once said. If all the art in churches were sold, we'd have to start getting more, because it does serve a purpose.
Finally, the Bible says it's okay (actually, it's a command to the Israelites) to have beautiful and even valuable art in religious buildings and for religious uses: Exodus 25:8-39, Exodus 28:2-3,6,13-27.
The Catholic Church does use its money to help the poor around the world. Africa would be in much worse shape than it is now if it weren't for the Catholic schools and hospitals there.
"At the Vatican, everything is for sale, in the popular mind," Allen said. In reality, the Vatican's annual operating budget is about $260 million. Allen contrasted that to Harvard University, which has an annual operating budget of $1.3 billion.
"(Harvard) could run five Vaticans every year and still have pocket change left over for an endowed chair," Allen said, equating the Vatican's patrimony -- all the assets it could sell -- to that of a medium-sized Catholic university. Its total patrimony is $770 million. The University of Notre Dame's endowment is four and a half times greater, he said.
Allen noted that while people often assume a significant monetary value attached to the artwork the Vatican holds, it is not for sale.
"The Holy See's point of view is that the artwork is part of the patrimony of humanity," Allen said. It is listed as having a cash value of one euro.
Does the kid see the real violence and therefore realise how fucking awful it is, or see the sanitised violence and think it's not so bad? or is it the other way round? Does all the blood and guts desensitize a perons, or does it make them sit there and think "holy shit'?
Why do lots of city kids find the slaughtering of an animal (such as a pig) horrible, while kids from the country would generally have no problem with it? It's because the latter have seen it thousands of times, while the former group haven't.
That's why violence is better than sex in films. If you're desensitized to violence, you can probably handle yourself better in an emergency situation (you've seen it all before, etc.). On the other hand, if you're desensitized to sex, it hurts your married life.
If you want to try another good freeware version of Civilization, there's C-Evo. It's a bit different in gameplay from other Civilization games, but I prefer it to Freeciv.
What would have an impact would be for religious leaders worldwide to withdraw their objections to birth control and actually promote condom use.
Actually, promoting condom use doesn't work as well as promoting abstinence outside marriage. Uganda uses a pro-abstinence strategy in fighting AIDS, and it is the most successful anti-AIDS campaign in Africa, and perhaps anywhere. Countries that promote condoms have less success in fighting AIDS...
Promoting condoms does nothing to reduce sex outside of marriage, which is the root cause of most cases of AIDS.
For the sake of argument, let's stipulate that the 90 percent "success rate" claimed for latex condoms as an AIDS-prevention device is accurate. Now imagine that your teenager assures you that playing Russian roulette is "safe" because the gun he and his friends are using has ten chambers and only one is loaded. Is this "safe shooting"? Or is it suicidal behavior? Do you encourage the teenager to play single-bullet Russian roulette, or do you grab the gun away from him immediately?
Single-bullet Russian roulette touches the moral side of the argument; there's also an empirical dimension to this debate. Thus the critics must contend with the fact that the most successful African AIDS prevention campaign is in Uganda, where a national "ABC" program stresses abstinence and marital fidelity as "social vaccines" against AIDS, with condoms recommended only as a "last resort;" Uganda's national infection rate has been reduced from 21 percent to 6 percent among pregnant women. As President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda puts it, he and his people refuse to believe that "only a thin piece of rubber stands between us and the death of our continent." Uganda's highest priority in AIDS-prevention, the President argues, is to "convince our people to return to their traditional values of chastity and faithfulness" - what Ugandans have dubbed "zero grazing."
Further, the cardinal's critics have to explain why three countries where condoms are readily available and their use vigorously promoted - Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa - have the world's highest rates of HIV infection.
Then there is the alternative expert testimony. Veteran Harvard medical anthropologist Edward Green admits that "many of us in the AIDS and public health communities didn't believe that abstinence and faithfulness were realistic goals. It now seems we were wrong. The Ugandan model has the most to teach the rest of the world." Similarly, John Richens of London's University College, an expert on sexually transmitted disease, argues that "condoms encourage risky behavior" and "increased condom use leads to more cases of condom failure." "Safe sex" campaigns, Richens is honest enough to acknowledge, have largely failed, in part because of these hard facts.
The Senate last night passed, and sent to the President, a Science Committee bill (H.R. 5245) to extend the law under which the U.S. government insures companies that launch satellites for damages or deaths sustained by individuals who were not involved in the launch. The House had passed the bill in October by unanimous consent, and Senate approval was also by unanimous consent; the President is expected to sign it.
The bill will extend the insurance, known as indemnification, for five years, until Dec. 31, 2009. The bill, introduced by Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), would also require a study by a non-governmental entity of whether indemnification could be ended without unduly harming U.S. companies, and, if so, how that should be done.
The indemnification provisions in H.R. 5245 were originally part of a larger bill, H.R. 3752, to make additional changes to the Commercial Space Launch Act.
Under current law, which H.R. 5245 would extend, satellite launchers must buy private insurance to cover injuries to third parties. The insurance must cover losses up to the "maximum probable loss" level determined by the government. The government then indemnifies the launcher for any additional losses up to about $1.5 billion per launch, meaning the government pledges to pay any claims for the private company that exceed the amount covered by private insurance.
Certain religions, notably christians and muslims, have at their core the simple fact that everyone who is not one of them is evil.
What you say is absolutely not true about Christianity. Everyone was made in the image of God, and God loves everyone. God calls everyone to him. And everyone in the world today (apart from young children, etc.) does evil now and then.
The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian, as far as goodness or evil is concerned, is threefold. First, to knowingly reject Christ is a sin, and some non-Christians have done this, while others have not. Second, Christians have received justifying grace through baptism, and so they are in a state of salvation as long as they don't commit mortal sins. It is not impossible that a non-Christian receive this grace without the sacrament, but if I'm not mistaken it would require pure love of God, a complete rejection of sin, etc., so it would be a somewhat rare occurence. Third, most Christians have access to other sacraments besides baptism, and especially the Eucharist, which gives us grace (help from God) that helps us to be good and avoid evil. Non-Christians don't have access to this, unfortunately.
The christians have mostly managed to defeat themselves to the point that it is now a very different religion then the one that went on crusades to spread the fate.
The Crusades had nothing to do with spreading the faith. They were defensive wars in response to Muslim aggression.
Type 1 diabetes develops when the body's immune cells mistakenly attack the insulin-producing islet cells of the pancreas. As islet cells die, insulin production ceases, and blood sugar levels rise, damaging organs throughout the body. In their earlier study, Faustman's team directly attacked this process by retraining the immune system not to attack islet cells. They first used a naturally occurring protein, TNF-alpha, to destroy the mistargeted cells. Then they injected the mice with donor spleen cells from nondiabetic mice. A protein complex on these cells plays a key role in teaching new immune cells to recognize the body's own tissues, a process that goes awry in diabetes and other autoimmune disorders.
The researchers expected to follow that process, which eliminated the autoimmune basis of the animals' diabetes, with transplants of donor islet cells. However, they were surprised to find that most of the mice did not subsequently need the transplant: Their bodies were producing normal islet cells that were secreting insulin.
I'm always astonished that people refuse to realize that supernatural events have never, and will never exist. No one can present to me one miracle documented by modern technology and not hearsay.
Nowadays any miracle approved by the Vatican, in the process of canonizing a saint, has had to go through rigorous scientific inquiry. For a miracle to be accepted as authentic, there must be no scientific explanation for it.
Here's an article on the process, originally from the Los Angeles Times.
I did a little search and found a case that is still pending as far as I know: a possible miracle attributed to Father Damien, the famous priest who took care of lepers on the island of Molokai in Hawaii about a hundred years ago:
Last year, the Honolulu Diocese assembled a tribunal to examine an O'ahu woman's story that her cancer was cured after she traveled to Moloka'i to pray at Damien's grave.
The patient and her family members were among those who testified before the tribunal. Also testifying was Dr. Walter Y.M. Chang, a Honolulu physician - and non-Catholic - who wrote about the spontaneous regression of the woman's cancer in the October 2000 issue of Hawai'i Medical Journal.
Chang wrote that a malignant tumor had developed in the patient's lung in September 1998 and then disappeared without the aid of therapy. The spontaneous regression of this type of cancer may be the first case report of its kind, the scientific paper said. Other doctors who treated the woman also testified.
There were a lot of miraculous healings at Lourdes in France, so that might be something to investigate if you're interested. Here's an article on one such case: Authentication of a Cure at Lourdes
Slashdot Mirror
It's mentioned in various medical textbooks; check the footnotes if you're interested.
The catholic church has changed its position on abortion and on priest celibacy
That's not true.
Concerning abortion: in the Middle Ages, we didn't know when human life began in the womb. There were no microscopes, so there was no way of knowing. It was still considered a sin to have an abortion in the early stages of gestation, but not as grave a sin as murder, since there was no proof that a human being was being killed. Today, of course, science has proven that human life begins at conception. The only thing that has really changed is our knowledge of biology; the same logic is being applied in both cases.
Concerning priestly celibacy, it was always a tradition in western Catholicism, and not in eastern Catholicism. At a certain point it became mandatory in the West, but that's not a change in doctrine. It's a change in law, and it could change back any time. And Eastern Catholics still have married priests today.
I must have watched too much Star Trek, because I saw four lights.
If there were two Gods, they would have to differ in essence, but if they differed in essence, at least one of them wouldn't be God. So there can only be one God.
A mover moves something from potentiality to actuality. God is pure actuality, He has no need for a mover. But everything in the universe does need a mover. And if God - pure actuality - didn't exist, then everything would be in a state of potentiality, and so nothing would move. But things move, so God exists.
Hmm.. don't most scholars in the field believe that Aquinas seeked to prove the absense of proofs for God by exhausting the plausible avenues for proofs of His existence?
If they believe that, they're wrong. Aquinas explicitly said that "The existence of God can be proved".
If the Universe is /finite/, you need something to break the rules, which is what Aquinas does. And he does that with God.]
The universe is finite.
Well, just to clarify, I think what you're saying is that Aquinas didn't argue that one could deduce everything the Catholic Church believes about God through reason alone. Some of His attributes we know from revelation alone (e.g. the Trinity).
However, Aquinas did say we can prove the existence (as opposed to the attributes) of God by reason alone. He says, "The existence of God can be proved in five ways."
Thomas Aquinas was a "religious philosopher" who was actually banished from the Catholic church because of his efforts to prove the existence of God."
This is not true at all. He was never banished from the Church.
They mention this in the article:
Here's where you can find the paper mentioned above, in various formats:
The Warp Drive: Hyper-Fast Travel Within General Relativity
Sure, it will lead to more AIDS. Let's say that condoms are 98% effective in preventing AIDS, assuming they're used properly. The problem is that eventually the 2% ineffectiveness will catch up to you. And that's not even counting people who don't use them properly or consistently in the first place.
Condom use gives people a false sense of security, since many will think they're absolutely safe from getting AIDS. And so they will end up more promiscuous than they would otherwise have been. But this promiscuity leads to the 2% ineffectiveness of condoms adversely affecting more and more people.
Keeping sex within marriage, on the other hand, works 100% of the time.
Maybe they would be in much better shape if they were allowed to use condoms
No, not unless you want the Africans to die of AIDS. Uganda was the one country to encourage abstinence outside of marriage as a means of fighting AIDS, and guess what? It had the greatest success in preventing the transmission of AIDS of any African country.
Just because it isn't for sale doesn't mean it's worthless.
Yes it is worthless if you have no intention of ever selling it. Imagine someone who keeps his father's ashes in a vase in his house. He could probably sell the ashes for fertilizer or something like that, but he doesn't intend to, so the ashes aren't worth anything to him.
As far as the Vatican's art is concerned, it isn't a "stockpile", it is considered something held in trust for all of humanity. If it were sold, then only the rich people who bought it could see it; but now anyone can see the art, or will be able to for generations to come.
Think of the medieval cathedrals. Back in those days, hardly anyone owned art. But there was plenty of beautiful art in the churches that anyone, even the poorest, could enjoy. And we can still see that art today.
Besides, the beauty of the art in churches (including the gilding) is meant to help us think of higher things, more spiritual things. "Man does not live by bread alone," as someone once said. If all the art in churches were sold, we'd have to start getting more, because it does serve a purpose.
Finally, the Bible says it's okay (actually, it's a command to the Israelites) to have beautiful and even valuable art in religious buildings and for religious uses: Exodus 25:8-39, Exodus 28:2-3,6,13-27.
The Catholic Church does use its money to help the poor around the world. Africa would be in much worse shape than it is now if it weren't for the Catholic schools and hospitals there.
U.S. journalist debunks myths about Vatican
The myth of Vatican wealth
"At the Vatican, everything is for sale, in the popular mind," Allen said. In reality, the Vatican's annual operating budget is about $260 million. Allen contrasted that to Harvard University, which has an annual operating budget of $1.3 billion.
"(Harvard) could run five Vaticans every year and still have pocket change left over for an endowed chair," Allen said, equating the Vatican's patrimony -- all the assets it could sell -- to that of a medium-sized Catholic university. Its total patrimony is $770 million. The University of Notre Dame's endowment is four and a half times greater, he said.
Allen noted that while people often assume a significant monetary value attached to the artwork the Vatican holds, it is not for sale.
"The Holy See's point of view is that the artwork is part of the patrimony of humanity," Allen said. It is listed as having a cash value of one euro.
Does the kid see the real violence and therefore realise how fucking awful it is, or see the sanitised violence and think it's not so bad? or is it the other way round? Does all the blood and guts desensitize a perons, or does it make them sit there and think "holy shit'?
Why do lots of city kids find the slaughtering of an animal (such as a pig) horrible, while kids from the country would generally have no problem with it? It's because the latter have seen it thousands of times, while the former group haven't.
That's why violence is better than sex in films. If you're desensitized to violence, you can probably handle yourself better in an emergency situation (you've seen it all before, etc.). On the other hand, if you're desensitized to sex, it hurts your married life.
The name of one of the third-place winners is Stine Jesperson, not "Vesperson" as in the quote above.
Anyway, I found some photos of their lace-concrete lampshades:
1
2
Your link doesn't work. Try this instead: segmentation
The link in the article ("launched a Yellow Pages service") doesn't actually link to the Yellow Pages service.
Here's a direct link.
If you want to try another good freeware version of Civilization, there's C-Evo. It's a bit different in gameplay from other Civilization games, but I prefer it to Freeciv.
Actually, promoting condom use doesn't work as well as promoting abstinence outside marriage. Uganda uses a pro-abstinence strategy in fighting AIDS, and it is the most successful anti-AIDS campaign in Africa, and perhaps anywhere. Countries that promote condoms have less success in fighting AIDS...
Promoting condoms does nothing to reduce sex outside of marriage, which is the root cause of most cases of AIDS.
From Latex and Life:
Certain religions, notably christians and muslims, have at their core the simple fact that everyone who is not one of them is evil.
What you say is absolutely not true about Christianity. Everyone was made in the image of God, and God loves everyone. God calls everyone to him. And everyone in the world today (apart from young children, etc.) does evil now and then.
The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian, as far as goodness or evil is concerned, is threefold. First, to knowingly reject Christ is a sin, and some non-Christians have done this, while others have not. Second, Christians have received justifying grace through baptism, and so they are in a state of salvation as long as they don't commit mortal sins. It is not impossible that a non-Christian receive this grace without the sacrament, but if I'm not mistaken it would require pure love of God, a complete rejection of sin, etc., so it would be a somewhat rare occurence. Third, most Christians have access to other sacraments besides baptism, and especially the Eucharist, which gives us grace (help from God) that helps us to be good and avoid evil. Non-Christians don't have access to this, unfortunately.
The christians have mostly managed to defeat themselves to the point that it is now a very different religion then the one that went on crusades to spread the fate.
The Crusades had nothing to do with spreading the faith. They were defensive wars in response to Muslim aggression.
What the Crusades Were Really Like
Part 2
Regeneration of insulin-producing islets may lead to diabetes cure
Nowadays any miracle approved by the Vatican, in the process of canonizing a saint, has had to go through rigorous scientific inquiry. For a miracle to be accepted as authentic, there must be no scientific explanation for it.
Here's an article on the process, originally from the Los Angeles Times.
I did a little search and found a case that is still pending as far as I know: a possible miracle attributed to Father Damien, the famous priest who took care of lepers on the island of Molokai in Hawaii about a hundred years ago:
There were a lot of miraculous healings at Lourdes in France, so that might be something to investigate if you're interested. Here's an article on one such case:
Authentication of a Cure at Lourdes