"A civilization should be viewed by how it treats it's most vunerable members, on which basis America is a complete and utter failure."
Much of Europe isn't any better than America on this issue. Abortion, the murder of the unborn, the most vulnerable members of society, seems to be legal in many parts of Europe, just like in the USA.
"With John Kerry's Medal Toss you get to throw your military medals over the fence onto the White House lawn just like he did. Now you might not think it is right to throw you medals away in some kind of symbolic action, but that's okay they're not really your medals."
Next, consider Matthew 8:14 - Peter is married, and Popes are not (well... not in theory anyway).
There's nothing in theory that says Popes can't marry. It's just that now Latin-rite Catholic priests take a vow of celibacy, and the Pope tends to be one of these priests. But any Catholic male, married or not, can become the Pope.
In Acts 15, James presided over the council and Peter was merely one of those who testified to it.
Actually, Peter was the one who stated the doctrine to be followed, which is what Popes do. There had been much disputing (verse 7), then Peter stands up and makes a speech that ends the dispute. James accepted Peter's decision and said what he thought should be written in the letters sent out.
In Galatians 2, Paul condemns Peter's hypocrisy.
Even Popes can sin.
Finally, in 1Peter 5:1, Peter explicitly refers to himself as one among equals
He says he is "also an elder", which is true.
and in 1Peter 2:8 he calls Jesus "the rock".
Jesus was also the Good Shepherd, and yet Peter was given the role of a shepherd too, acting on behalf of the Great one.
You can see how the Bible wound up on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum until Vatican II.
That's not true, obviously.
If you want to conform to Christ, then you should accept personal responsibility for your own actions, so you can then admit fault completely to God and in turn receive complete forgiveness and be pointed towards a completely guileless and helpful life.
Yes. And Christ intended us to obtain forgiveness first through baptism, and subsequently through confessing our sins to a priest:
"And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.'" (John 20:22-23)
Jesus prayed that the faith of the Apostles would be preserved by Peter. (Luke 22:31-32)...who promptly goes on to betray Christ...
Peter's denial of Christ had nothing to do with a lack of faith or disbelief. Peter's faith was always intact; he knew who he was denying.
Why didn't He pray for all the Apostles instead of just Peter? He did.
Not on that occasion (Luke 22:31-32) He didn't. Peter clearly was to have a special role in preserving the faith of the others.
The bit about the rock is misleading too. Jesus said "You are a loose stone ["petros"], but upon this rock ["petra", think in terms of bedrock] I will build My church".
Jesus actually said it in Aramaic, thus "You are Kepha, and upon this kepha..." with no difference between the two words. (The name "Cephas" found in various parts of the New Testament is a Greek transliteration of Kepha.)
As far as the Greek text is concerned, I've read that at the time of the New Testament, petros meant the same as petra. But even if that weren't the case, Peter wouldn't have been called Petra even if "petra" had been the specifically intended meaning, since Peter was a man and "Petra" is feminine in form - it would have been made masculine as "Petros".
Jesus repeats the offer of the keys to all of the Disciples in chapter 18
No, He doesn't repeat the offer of the keys. He gives the keys only to Peter. In chapter 18, we see that the Church (the "Disciples") can open and close, but no keys are mentioned. The opening and closing is done through Peter's keys, which were promised to him two chapters previously.
and note that in context there the Disciples are not represented as being in any way the leaders of the church as it existed then.
Actually, I think the context does hint that here the word "Disciples" is used to mean "Apostles". In the first verse of this chapter (Mt 18), they're wondering about who is the greatest in the kingdom, and there are other mentions of this sort of thinking among the Apostles (which one of them will sit at Christ's right hand, etc.).
So what you're saying is that Jesus has already returned? The point of a steward is that he acts on behalf of the king while the king is away. So if Jesus hasn't returned yet, then the steward is still required.
The term you're probably looking for is "hocus pocus", a corruption of "Hoc est corpus meum", the Latin uttered at the climax of a Mass when the priest purports to compress God (presumably a copy) into a wafer.
It was Jesus who said the bread was His Body and the wine was His Blood:
And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." (Matthew 26:26-28)
In another interesting pierce of irony, the cross is actually a symbol of Tammuz, the sun god.
It also happened to be a Roman method of execution...
Mutating the solar disk into a crown of thorns in order to get away from the pagan implications is spectacularly ironic.
Jesus was actually crowned with thorns, mocking Him and the claims that He was the king of the Jews. It had nothing to do with getting away from "pagan implications".
In which one political entity (the Roman Catholic Church) taught another (Islam) how to be brutal on a large scale, yes? And what does that have to do with religion?
First, as someone has already pointed out, the Muslims were already brutal and warlike. That's how Islam became so "popular" in the first place. Second, the Church did not authorize the brutality often seen in the Crusades. In fact, many Crusaders were excommunicated for participating in massacres. Third, the Church is a spiritual entity founded by Christ, not a political entity.
How about the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, in which subjects of the same political entity suddenly rose up and murdered over 70,000 of their competitors in one day, not to mention slicing the breasts off others with shears, and other such pleasantries?
Actually, it was the French court that was responsible for this. The Church had nothing to do with it.
Or the invasion of Beziers, in which about 30,000 people - roughly half of them being at least nominal adherents to the aforementioned political entity - were wiped out in one go by mercenaries at the direction of said political entity, and the famous quotation "Tuez-les tous; Dieu reconnaitra les siens" (or, in English, "Kill them all; for the Lord knoweth them that are His") was born?
First, once again, the Church was not responsible for this, the knights did that on their own. People actually do things without being given orders from above, you know. Second, there's no proof the "Kill them all" quote is authentic.
The largest "Christian" denomination in the world demands first loyalty to the head of a small European state.
Catholics are Christians; in fact, they're the authentic Christians. Christ said that He'd found His Church on the rock of Peter (it was Jesus who gave Simon the name Peter/Kepha, or "rock", in the first place). See Matthew 16:18-19. Note that Jesus says this in response to the Father communicating to Peter the truth concerning the identity of Jesus.
The above passage also mentions the keys given to Peter, which express Peter's role as Christ's steward on earth (compare Isaiah 22:22). John 21:15-17 also refers to this role: the Good Shepherd places the care of His sheep in the hands of His steward Peter, in preparation for His departure from the world.
Also, Jesus prayed that the faith of the Apostles would be preserved by Peter. (Luke 22:31-32) Why didn't He pray for all the Apostles instead of just Peter? Because it was part of the role Jesus intended for Peter.
So if you want to conform to Christ, then you should accept the steward He has given you: the Pope, successor of Peter.
I found the abstract for the paper presented by Metzger, Youngquist and Lane here.
There's no metal spheres involved, just some sort of electrostatic field:
"We have recently observed, however, that the physics and the shielding problem possess certain asymmetries which may be exploited in order to obtain the intended shells of isotropic protection without deploying radially-symmetric charge around the spacecraft. The basic concept is to leverage a multipole expansion of the fields, assigning a different function to different terms in the expansion. As shown in Fig. 1, a positively-repulsive quadrupole term may protect the region closest to the spacecraft from high-energy protons and HZE particles, whereas a weaker but slowly decaying monopole field may deflect thermal electrons away from the larger region of space. The result is that the significant fluxes of both negative and positive particles may be deflected away from the spacecraft using the same electrostatic field. This has the potential to create isotropic protection with a significant reduction in spacecraft mass."
Not only that, but Luther translated the Bible into the common tongue.
The idea that there were no Catholic editions of the Bible in vernacular languages is a myth:
Nor is it at all true that the Catholic Church was opposed to the printing and distribution of Bible translations in vernacular languages (it did oppose some Protestant translations which it felt were inaccurate). For instance (utterly contrary to the myths in this regard which are pathetically promulgated by the movie Luther), between 1466 and the onset of Protestantism in 1517 at least sixteen editions of the Bible appeared in German, with the full approval of the Catholic Church:
(From Johannes Janssen, History of the German People From the Close of the Middle Ages, 16 vols., translated by A.M. Christie, St. Louis: B. Herder, 1910 [orig. 1891], vol. 1, 56-57, vol. 14, 388)
Was the Bible unknown in German before 1466 and the printing press? Hardly. Raban Maur (c. 776-856), had translated the Bible into the Teutonic, or old German, language. Valafrid Strabon (c. 809-849) did the same, as did Huges of Fleury. Ottfried of Wissemburg rendered it in verse. So we see that the "conspiracy" of the Catholic Church to eliminate the Bible from the common man by banning the vernacular was singularly unsuccessful.
The problem is that, in Christianity, you can only have a monopoly, at least as far as Christ's intentions are concerned. Christ only founded one Church (Mt. 16:18-19), not several churches.
While it's good to correct abuses, that's no excuse for doing what Luther did, i.e. making up new theology that contradicts the teaching of Christ's Church.
They did it because they wiped out their competition.
Well, most of the world wasn't Catholic, so they were free to develop science without any interference from the Church... Did they? No.
We would have vastly more and wider knowledge within collective civilisation if the Church (and not just the Church, true enough, but this is a response) did destroy modes of thinking that clashed with their own.
The point I was making was that science derives from the Catholic "mode of thinking". So a lack of Catholicism wouldn't have improved the situation.
From the crusaides
So you have a problem with the defense of Christian pilgrims who were being attacked by the Turks?
to the witch-hunts.
That was more of Protestant thing.
Arab doctors were busy doing medicine when Christian doctors were busing being butchers.
First, there wouldn't have been any such (Muslim) Arab doctors if there were no Catholic Church, since Islam is a Christian heresy (based on Arianism and Docetism, if I'm not mistaken).
Second, Muslim knowledge was based largely on what they got from the eastern Catholics they conquered in Asia Minor and the Middle East.
the Catholic church set back science for another1000 years
Without the Catholic Church, there would be no science today.
First, who was more interested in preserving the knowledge of the past, the Catholic Church or the barbarians who ruled Europe during the Middle Ages? Obviously, it was the Church. Without the Church, there wouldn't have been much writing at all in Europe. The first encyclopedia was compiled by St. Isidore of Seville. So if the loss of the Library of Alexandria set back science, the absence of the Catholic Church would have done the same thing.
Second, the whole philosophical basis of science derives from Catholic theology. Here's a quote from an article linked to in a recent Slashdot story:
"[T]o be a scientist you have to have two fundamental assumptions, so fundamental you don't even think about it. You assume that the universe makes sense, that there really is an objective reality; there really is a logic to this; it's not just chaos; there really are laws to be found. We're so used to that assumption, you don't realize it. A lot of cultures don't have that.
"And the other assumption you have to make is that it's worth doing. If your idea, if your religion is to meditate and rise above the physical universe, this corrupting physical universe, you might say, you're not going to be a scientist, you're not going to be interested in Mars. So it's a religious statement to say the physical universe is worth devoting my life to. [...]
"By religious I mean that it is based on certain fundamental assumptions you have about how the universe works and what your place in the universe is. And ultimately, that's a religious assumption. Whether it's my religion or somebody else's religion, lots of people with lots of religions are looking at science. I'm not saying it's only one religion that has that assumption. But I'm saying that there are religions that don't. There are brilliant cultures throughout history who have had fabulous mathematics and glorious ethical systems - and no science."
And lots of the early science was done by Catholic priests and monks. Another quote from the same article:
"The whole scientific enterprise really does coincide well with Christian theology. The whole idea that the universe is worth studying is a Christian idea. The whole mechanism for studying the physical universe comes straight out of the whole logic of the scholastic age. Who was the first geologist? Albert the Great, who was a monk. Who was the first Chemist? Roger Bacon, who was a monk. Who was the first guy to come up with spectroscopy? Angelo Secchi, who was a priest. Who was the guy who invented genetics? Gregor Mendel, who was a monk. Who was the guy who came up with the Big Bang theory? Georges Lemaître, who was a priest. There is this long tradition; most scientists before the 19th century were clerics."
in my confirmation interview with the woman who ran the program and the priest, I told them outright I rejected the very idea of the pope, although i agreed with some of the biblical justification of it, I just didn't think it was the best idea. Among many other things.
If you're saying that you don't think that having a Pope is a good idea, but that you accept the Pope because that's the way God did actually set up His Church, that's fine; I assume that's how the priest understood what you were saying. It's like what Cardinal Newman wrote: "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt." Having a difficulty with a doctrine, but nonetheless accepting the doctrine despite one's difficulty with it, is okay.
But if something is truly a dogma (such as something taught ex cathedra by the Pope, or something taught by an ecumenical council), we must accept it, difficulty or not. To reject a dogma would be a mortal sin.
However, just to clarify for anyone reading this, evolution doesn't fall into the dogma category. It's a scientific idea, not a theological one.
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.
what exactly has been the cause of every major war in the past 100,000 years?
Microsoft?
Re:"Church of Fools"
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SimChurch
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· Score: 2, Insightful
There were people who thought the same way back in Apostolic times:
1 Corinthians 1:18-29
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart." Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
2309 The strict
conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.
The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
Slashdot Mirror
"[...] Bush's "abstinence" programs that have managed the first rise in American abortions after a decade of decline."
Actually, that's not true.
Abortions Did Not Increase Under President Bush; Researcher's Study Flawed
"A civilization should be viewed by how it treats it's most vunerable members, on which basis America is a complete and utter failure."
Much of Europe isn't any better than America on this issue. Abortion, the murder of the unborn, the most vulnerable members of society, seems to be legal in many parts of Europe, just like in the USA.
Here's a very simple flash game: John Kerry's Medal Toss
"With John Kerry's Medal Toss you get to throw your military medals over the fence onto the White House lawn just like he did."
Or maybe the humans in the crews of the Federation ships are blind.
Here's a very simple flash game: John Kerry Medal Toss (mirror)
"With John Kerry's Medal Toss you get to throw your military medals over the fence onto the White House lawn just like he did. Now you might not think it is right to throw you medals away in some kind of symbolic action, but that's okay they're not really your medals."
You do know what the technical medical term for a woman who relies on the "rhythm method" of contraception is?
"Mother".
Actually, the modern methods of NFP (natural family planning) are more effective than many artificial birth control methods:
The Effectiveness Of Natural Family Planning
Continuing my reply...
Next, consider Matthew 8:14 - Peter is married, and Popes are not (well... not in theory anyway).
There's nothing in theory that says Popes can't marry. It's just that now Latin-rite Catholic priests take a vow of celibacy, and the Pope tends to be one of these priests. But any Catholic male, married or not, can become the Pope.
In Acts 15, James presided over the council and Peter was merely one of those who testified to it.
Actually, Peter was the one who stated the doctrine to be followed, which is what Popes do. There had been much disputing (verse 7), then Peter stands up and makes a speech that ends the dispute. James accepted Peter's decision and said what he thought should be written in the letters sent out.
In Galatians 2, Paul condemns Peter's hypocrisy.
Even Popes can sin.
Finally, in 1Peter 5:1, Peter explicitly refers to himself as one among equals
He says he is "also an elder", which is true.
and in 1Peter 2:8 he calls Jesus "the rock".
Jesus was also the Good Shepherd, and yet Peter was given the role of a shepherd too, acting on behalf of the Great one.
You can see how the Bible wound up on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum until Vatican II.
That's not true, obviously.
If you want to conform to Christ, then you should accept personal responsibility for your own actions, so you can then admit fault completely to God and in turn receive complete forgiveness and be pointed towards a completely guileless and helpful life.
Yes. And Christ intended us to obtain forgiveness first through baptism, and subsequently through confessing our sins to a priest:
"And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.'" (John 20:22-23)
Jesus prayed that the faith of the Apostles would be preserved by Peter. (Luke 22:31-32) ...who promptly goes on to betray Christ...
Peter's denial of Christ had nothing to do with a lack of faith or disbelief. Peter's faith was always intact; he knew who he was denying.
Why didn't He pray for all the Apostles instead of just Peter?
He did.
Not on that occasion (Luke 22:31-32) He didn't. Peter clearly was to have a special role in preserving the faith of the others.
The bit about the rock is misleading too. Jesus said "You are a loose stone ["petros"], but upon this rock ["petra", think in terms of bedrock] I will build My church".
Jesus actually said it in Aramaic, thus "You are Kepha, and upon this kepha..." with no difference between the two words. (The name "Cephas" found in various parts of the New Testament is a Greek transliteration of Kepha.)
As far as the Greek text is concerned, I've read that at the time of the New Testament, petros meant the same as petra. But even if that weren't the case, Peter wouldn't have been called Petra even if "petra" had been the specifically intended meaning, since Peter was a man and "Petra" is feminine in form - it would have been made masculine as "Petros".
Jesus repeats the offer of the keys to all of the Disciples in chapter 18
No, He doesn't repeat the offer of the keys. He gives the keys only to Peter. In chapter 18, we see that the Church (the "Disciples") can open and close, but no keys are mentioned. The opening and closing is done through Peter's keys, which were promised to him two chapters previously.
and note that in context there the Disciples are not represented as being in any way the leaders of the church as it existed then.
Actually, I think the context does hint that here the word "Disciples" is used to mean "Apostles". In the first verse of this chapter (Mt 18), they're wondering about who is the greatest in the kingdom, and there are other mentions of this sort of thinking among the Apostles (which one of them will sit at Christ's right hand, etc.).
Finish the quote, from Luke 22:19 -
this do in remembrance of me
Not to recreate Him, not to call Him down, but to remember Him.
"this do in remembrance of me"
So the Apostles were told to do what Jesus did. Thus, the bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the wine becomes the Blood of Christ.
So what you're saying is that Jesus has already returned? The point of a steward is that he acts on behalf of the king while the king is away. So if Jesus hasn't returned yet, then the steward is still required.
I do not believe the Crusaders were Christian.
Yes, they were Christians. Some of them were bad Christians, but they were Christians. It's the sick who need a doctor, after all. (Luke 5:31)
The term you're probably looking for is "hocus pocus", a corruption of "Hoc est corpus meum", the Latin uttered at the climax of a Mass when the priest purports to compress God (presumably a copy) into a wafer.
It was Jesus who said the bread was His Body and the wine was His Blood:
And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." (Matthew 26:26-28)
In another interesting pierce of irony, the cross is actually a symbol of Tammuz, the sun god.
It also happened to be a Roman method of execution...
Mutating the solar disk into a crown of thorns in order to get away from the pagan implications is spectacularly ironic.
Jesus was actually crowned with thorns, mocking Him and the claims that He was the king of the Jews. It had nothing to do with getting away from "pagan implications".
In which one political entity (the Roman Catholic Church) taught another (Islam) how to be brutal on a large scale, yes? And what does that have to do with religion?
First, as someone has already pointed out, the Muslims were already brutal and warlike. That's how Islam became so "popular" in the first place. Second, the Church did not authorize the brutality often seen in the Crusades. In fact, many Crusaders were excommunicated for participating in massacres. Third, the Church is a spiritual entity founded by Christ, not a political entity.
How about the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, in which subjects of the same political entity suddenly rose up and murdered over 70,000 of their competitors in one day, not to mention slicing the breasts off others with shears, and other such pleasantries?
Actually, it was the French court that was responsible for this. The Church had nothing to do with it.
Or the invasion of Beziers, in which about 30,000 people - roughly half of them being at least nominal adherents to the aforementioned political entity - were wiped out in one go by mercenaries at the direction of said political entity, and the famous quotation "Tuez-les tous; Dieu reconnaitra les siens" (or, in English, "Kill them all; for the Lord knoweth them that are His") was born?
First, once again, the Church was not responsible for this, the knights did that on their own. People actually do things without being given orders from above, you know. Second, there's no proof the "Kill them all" quote is authentic.
The largest "Christian" denomination in the world demands first loyalty to the head of a small European state.
Catholics are Christians; in fact, they're the authentic Christians. Christ said that He'd found His Church on the rock of Peter (it was Jesus who gave Simon the name Peter/Kepha, or "rock", in the first place). See Matthew 16:18-19. Note that Jesus says this in response to the Father communicating to Peter the truth concerning the identity of Jesus.
The above passage also mentions the keys given to Peter, which express Peter's role as Christ's steward on earth (compare Isaiah 22:22). John 21:15-17 also refers to this role: the Good Shepherd places the care of His sheep in the hands of His steward Peter, in preparation for His departure from the world.
Also, Jesus prayed that the faith of the Apostles would be preserved by Peter. (Luke 22:31-32) Why didn't He pray for all the Apostles instead of just Peter? Because it was part of the role Jesus intended for Peter.
So if you want to conform to Christ, then you should accept the steward He has given you: the Pope, successor of Peter.
I found the abstract for the paper presented by Metzger, Youngquist and Lane here.
There's no metal spheres involved, just some sort of electrostatic field:
"We have recently observed, however, that the physics and the shielding problem possess certain asymmetries which may be exploited in order to obtain the intended shells of isotropic protection without deploying radially-symmetric charge around the spacecraft. The basic concept is to leverage a multipole expansion of the fields, assigning a different function to different terms in the expansion. As shown in Fig. 1, a positively-repulsive quadrupole term may protect the region closest to the spacecraft from high-energy protons and HZE particles, whereas a weaker but slowly decaying monopole field may deflect thermal electrons away from the larger region of space. The result is that the significant fluxes of both negative and positive particles may be deflected away from the spacecraft using the same electrostatic field. This has the potential to create isotropic protection with a significant reduction in spacecraft mass."
The idea that there were no Catholic editions of the Bible in vernacular languages is a myth:
The problem is that, in Christianity, you can only have a monopoly, at least as far as Christ's intentions are concerned. Christ only founded one Church (Mt. 16:18-19), not several churches.
While it's good to correct abuses, that's no excuse for doing what Luther did, i.e. making up new theology that contradicts the teaching of Christ's Church.
They did it because they wiped out their competition.
Well, most of the world wasn't Catholic, so they were free to develop science without any interference from the Church... Did they? No.
We would have vastly more and wider knowledge within collective civilisation if the Church (and not just the Church, true enough, but this is a response) did destroy modes of thinking that clashed with their own.
The point I was making was that science derives from the Catholic "mode of thinking". So a lack of Catholicism wouldn't have improved the situation.
From the crusaides
So you have a problem with the defense of Christian pilgrims who were being attacked by the Turks?
to the witch-hunts.
That was more of Protestant thing.
Arab doctors were busy doing medicine when Christian doctors were busing being butchers.
First, there wouldn't have been any such (Muslim) Arab doctors if there were no Catholic Church, since Islam is a Christian heresy (based on Arianism and Docetism, if I'm not mistaken).
Second, Muslim knowledge was based largely on what they got from the eastern Catholics they conquered in Asia Minor and the Middle East.
the Catholic church set back science for another1000 years
Without the Catholic Church, there would be no science today.
First, who was more interested in preserving the knowledge of the past, the Catholic Church or the barbarians who ruled Europe during the Middle Ages? Obviously, it was the Church. Without the Church, there wouldn't have been much writing at all in Europe. The first encyclopedia was compiled by St. Isidore of Seville. So if the loss of the Library of Alexandria set back science, the absence of the Catholic Church would have done the same thing.
Second, the whole philosophical basis of science derives from Catholic theology. Here's a quote from an article linked to in a recent Slashdot story:
"[T]o be a scientist you have to have two fundamental assumptions, so fundamental you don't even think about it. You assume that the universe makes sense, that there really is an objective reality; there really is a logic to this; it's not just chaos; there really are laws to be found. We're so used to that assumption, you don't realize it. A lot of cultures don't have that.
"And the other assumption you have to make is that it's worth doing. If your idea, if your religion is to meditate and rise above the physical universe, this corrupting physical universe, you might say, you're not going to be a scientist, you're not going to be interested in Mars. So it's a religious statement to say the physical universe is worth devoting my life to. [...]
"By religious I mean that it is based on certain fundamental assumptions you have about how the universe works and what your place in the universe is. And ultimately, that's a religious assumption. Whether it's my religion or somebody else's religion, lots of people with lots of religions are looking at science. I'm not saying it's only one religion that has that assumption. But I'm saying that there are religions that don't. There are brilliant cultures throughout history who have had fabulous mathematics and glorious ethical systems - and no science."
And lots of the early science was done by Catholic priests and monks. Another quote from the same article:
"The whole scientific enterprise really does coincide well with Christian theology. The whole idea that the universe is worth studying is a Christian idea. The whole mechanism for studying the physical universe comes straight out of the whole logic of the scholastic age. Who was the first geologist? Albert the Great, who was a monk. Who was the first Chemist? Roger Bacon, who was a monk. Who was the first guy to come up with spectroscopy? Angelo Secchi, who was a priest. Who was the guy who invented genetics? Gregor Mendel, who was a monk. Who was the guy who came up with the Big Bang theory? Georges Lemaître, who was a priest. There is this long tradition; most scientists before the 19th century were clerics."
in my confirmation interview with the woman who ran the program and the priest, I told them outright I rejected the very idea of the pope, although i agreed with some of the biblical justification of it, I just didn't think it was the best idea. Among many other things.
If you're saying that you don't think that having a Pope is a good idea, but that you accept the Pope because that's the way God did actually set up His Church, that's fine; I assume that's how the priest understood what you were saying. It's like what Cardinal Newman wrote: "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt." Having a difficulty with a doctrine, but nonetheless accepting the doctrine despite one's difficulty with it, is okay.
But if something is truly a dogma (such as something taught ex cathedra by the Pope, or something taught by an ecumenical council), we must accept it, difficulty or not. To reject a dogma would be a mortal sin.
However, just to clarify for anyone reading this, evolution doesn't fall into the dogma category. It's a scientific idea, not a theological one.
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.
what exactly has been the cause of every major war in the past 100,000 years?
Microsoft?
There were people who thought the same way back in Apostolic times:
1 Corinthians 1:18-29
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart." Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
they STILL use the ones they want to argue about homosexuality (via Sodom, etc.) and things of the like.
Homosexual relations are forbidden in the New Testament too.