Ask a Traditional Catholic

[Metis]

You have no chance of dismantling any of the arguments of the Catholic Church. We have been dealing with stupidity like yours for 2,000 years.

Actually you haven't. You've had Atheists only being able to speak up against you for about two hundred years, you've had socialists for about one hundred and LGBT (without the risk of being beheaded) and child abuse victims for about fifty. Doesn't it speak volumes that in the tiny space of time those four groups have had, all four have made the Catholic Church appear totally incompetent and have led to its influence upon Western Society evaporating?

I think it's not hard to tell which groups have the most compelling case. Even without the chance to fine tune the sophistry as you have it still makes a far more compelling case.

Bring it, sister.

Hold onna dat weave cuz dis gon b gud.

Lust (along with the other things you listed) is a sinful desire. Mary knew no sin; consequently, she did not know lust. She could have normal non-sinful desires, of course, as well as temptation. What you are claiming is that in order to be normal, Mary had to be a sinner. But God did not create us to be full of sin; that was a result of the fall.

Actually if he is all knowing he did create us to be full of sin, knowing he created Adam and Eve with a flawed natural curiosity to investigate the tree of knowledge itself is adequate proof to indicate we were made knowing the fall would take place. Indeed were Adam and Eve to reproduce in the long term it would actually be necessary.

I already told you. Mary was protected from sin so that she might be a fitting mother for Jesus.

Why? If the idea was that he was to be born as a human like us why skip around things? That's like Queen Elizabeth saying she wants to live like the common people but sleeping in a $4 million queen sized antique bed.

It's not hard to see why God might have chosen a paragon of the ideal woman, but to be born without original sin? It begs why he didn't just cleanse everyone of it and have the world exactly as he wants it. The God of Catholicism clearly does not want us to employ our free will, so why bother with the show? Just get the result he insists upon right there and then.

God did "snap his fingers" in the sense that He chose Calvary as the solution to our sin.

Exactly, a big drama which wasn't necessary if you are correct about Mary. He wouldn't needed to have died at all if he had previously demonstrated which you claim he can remove sin whenever he likes with no provocation or request.

Mary was married to Joseph under Jewish law. Hello?

God doesn't change hello? That and under Jewish law the rules remain the same, it is the sexual act that marries the pair. That's why a rape victim according to levitical law must marry her rapist, not because she needs a protector but because she in their eyes had become one flesh with him.

No sex, no marriage. It was true for the Jews then as it is for Catholics and Orthodox Jews today.

Joseph and Mary never intended to engage in sexual intercourse because Mary was consecrated to God. There was no need for such a marriage to be consummated.

Then she's in the same situation as a divorcee, she's creating scandal by claiming to be in a situation that is not truthfully so.

You've demonstrated nothing of the sort. You have simply parroted the Protestant/Orthodox objections you were taught (which you don't even believe since you are an atheist.).

Actually no, a few Orthodox don't mind the idea of immaculate conception, they just don't think it should be made a Dogma because there is no tradition backing it up. Anglicans and Methodists (who do also revere Mary) have similar concerns, although theirs stems from the absence of such a doctrine in church history and the bible respectively. Anglicans unlike other Protestants having a great deal of respect for tradition, but not to the same extent as Catholics and Orthodox. As one of my Anglican teachers said "a tradition solely for the sake of tradition with no purpose or reasoning behind it is pointless".

They would actually find many points to object to in what I have written here (largely because I'm not addressing several other things you claim that they would find heretical or simply untrue). Instead I'm agreeing and skimming over for the sake of brevity when the fact is far earlier more basic premises have flaws of their own.

So, following the tradition of the Assyrian Church of the East, it is your opinion that the NT was written first in Aramaic? Do you have any support for this from Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox scholars?

It is my opinion that Matthew was written in Aramaic, as well as the Q source from which Mark, Luke and Matthew all draw (John drawing from the other three synoptic Gospels at a much later date).

Whatever was contained in Q was translated into Greek, and then later translated into the Latin Vulgate of St Jerome of which is what was used in deciding much of Catholic Theology. The decision to revise the original texts is lest we forget a fairly recent innovation in the Catholic Church, in part spurred on by the huge leaps and bounds made by Protestant and Secular biblical scholars in the eighteenth/early nineteenth century.

Certainly you had versions like the Douay-Rheims before then (although still quite late, was it 1582?), but these were not the versions used in the official decision making.

If you have a copy of Q, we'd all love to see it.  

Considering that biblical scholarship almost unanimously accepts the existence of Q (most objections coming not from Catholics but Fundamentalists) I think this would be a rather risky move for you to doubt its existence considering even Joseph Ratizinger couldn't concoct a better theory. Instead conceded it was the most widely held theory in biblical scholarship http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congre...le_en.html

Sure he didn't say he agreed with it then outright, but I don't see anyone questioning the results of higher criticism when applied to the Odyssey or the Illiad, why does a technique that works for every other text known to man and thus far has proven itself to be a very reliable source suddenly become invalid when applied to this one book?

No question.

But you only seem to consider them Theologians when they say what you want to hear.

I...I...I hope you have an opportunity to study the matter more closely. Despite the DEEPEST desires of Protestant controversialists, no doctrine of the Catholic Church has ever been proven to have been reversed. EVER. The doctrine of infallibility - properly defined and applied - is unshaken and unassailable.

Moneylending had in medieval Europe been grounds for an excomunication, that's why the Jews were so heavily relied upon for it.

Now today the Vatican owns a bank and is one of the biggest players on the stock market. It's staring you right in the face.

Having a Jew as a neighbour was grounds for punishment for yourself unless you helped drive them out of town, today Jews live in neighbourhoods with everyone else.

To read Descartes was to be excomminicated, today one can buy it from most booksellers. Shall we keep going on Catholic U turns?

I am quite familiar with James White, his sham PhD from a diploma mill, and his vehemently anti-Catholic efforts. I've listened to Catholics destroy him in debates and in print. Did you know that his sister, Patti, converted to Catholicism? Did you know that there are allegations of sexual abuse in their home when they were kids? Did you know that James has not spoken to his sister since her conversion?

Is that an ad hominem? Sure. And one that is well-justified.

I don't really know much about James White's personal life because honestly it was never of any interest to me. The fact he no longer talks to his sister is sad (and proof to me of what a negative impact religion can have) but considering what he himself believes about Catholicism it really doesn't surprise me too much. I can't say I like his beliefs but like the SSPX and the Orthodox Church some of the objections they raise do have some merit.

Books can be banned to prevent the spread of error...not just because the Church is "afraid" that the truth will get out. Given your previous assertions concerning "secret Vatican teachings" regarding transgender issues, I would recommend you spend less time on the web filling your mind with stupid conspiracy theories and more time reading good Catholic books.

If Fr. Hans Kung had preached error, he would have been excommunicated. He never has been.

This to me says a great deal. To be excommiicated for heresy, Fr. Kung would have to be proven to be in error. The Catholic Church has had ample time to present a case he is in error as it claimed to do with Fr. Feeney but curiously...It remains silent.

The Catholic Church does not want to question Fr. Kung any further because they cannot prove him mistaken, and were a tribunal ever brought against him he could prove very easily why he is right as he has numerous time around the world against an assortment of Papalist Catholic apologists.

I have an adequate supply of "good Catholic books" Randy, in fact I go to great pains to seek out ones that Catholics such as Jimmy Akin or Ratzinger recommended. The latest one I am reading through is a overview originally designed for high school students (I'm looking for material for revision sheets for some of my undergraduate students) called "Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine" by Archbishop Sheehan https://www.baroniuspress.com/book.php?wid=56&bid=52. Prior to this I was reading Chestertons "Everlasting Man" and "Heretics" (I am also teaching a course on Thomastic theology and am looking for extra works to add to the basic materials).

Do you find this choice of reading material disagreeable? I'm well aware of what "good Catholic books" constitute to members of the Catholic Answers apostolate, again I find too many reasons to disagree with them.

If you're going to argue against Catholicism, at least argue against TRUE Catholic doctrine and not what you merely want to think we believe.

Have I said anything untrue about your faith Randy? I've asked several questions you've simply refused to answer. I would assume that you would have Googled them and would have accused me of lying if I was mistaken.

Based on what I'm seeing in these posts, the time could have been more profitably spent working in a diner for all the good it has done you.

You know it might actually be, one can only make real money if one works for oneself. Perhaps it might be a future buisness idea for me, I daresay reading through what I do on a daily basis would eventually drive me mad if I did it for too long.

Nope. Mary did have emotions, biological impulses, the desire for companionship, etc. What Mary did not have was the desire for sin, but that is not a requirement for being fully human. That's just YOUR experience of being human but not what God intended when He created us.

If God is all knowing he made us knowing how we would be. He has demonstrated through Mary he could change this design any time he wanted, but has declined to.

This makes our design intentional.

Read some Catholic theology. Seriously.

I'm having to these days, of course I already have a fairly strong grasp of Thomistic theology as well as that of Newman and Belloc but alas...Have I said anything regarding your faith that is untrue? All I have done is come to a different conclusion using exactly the same materials provided.

If you have a link to the document on the Vatican's website, let me know.

Of course, I would not claim I did if no such thing existed. http://www.vatican.va/resources/resource...62_en.html

Read the first bit about instruction...Secret teachings are evidently most certainly a thing.