Ask a Catholic

[Randy Carson]

Could be. But I wouldn't want to wager my eternity on any of your options. However, I do have another thread that is more relevant to this currently underway.

But you have wagered your eternity on the truth of the model you've accepted Mr. Pascal.
Personally, I can't see any eternity I'd want to hang around for.  You suggest there is something really really good in store for (yourself) believers, but you can't say what it is.  That's a pretty suspect bet.  We call it a pig in a poke around here.

And thus you have wagered on what you admit you cannot see. Your choice.

Because lying is an imperfection, and God is a perfect being.

Says who?  You're buying the whole farm again.
Is lying an imperfection or perfection if God does it?  
    Do you contend there is a framework of perfection to which God must conform? You've got a call from Euthyphro on line 3.
If the Nazis are at the door asking if Anne Frank is in the attic?  God couldn't say, "no?"  He's that constrained?

I suppose we have to begin be defining God.

And it works on people who obviously don't even want to hear the explanations for things they have convinced themselves cannot be explained.

You're a bigger dupe than me, because at least I'm willing to listen to YOUR explanations. You want nothing to do with mine.

The reasons I'm not very interested in your explanations are that;

1. They depend on their exceptionally shaky premises for soundness.  I don't want to argue about first century "eyewitness" reports of miracles when we can't definitively figure out who shot Kennedy.  
   
2. The repetition of unfalsifiable assertions becomes tiresome after a time.
   
3. Others have fully refuted your arguments elsewhere unless they belong in 2. above.
   
4. I've seen your text walls.  Everything I've waded through depends on the 2000 year old eyewitnesses. (See 1. above)
   
   Of course you think I'm a dupe.  I disagree with some of your cherished fantasy life.

Then why bother posting in my thread at all? C'ya!

---

Then you agree that all four gospels testify that Jesus was crucified and died upon the cross? Gee, that doesn't square with what the other members of this forum are claiming to be true.

But if you place all of the gospels side by side, you will see that it is most likely that they were, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."

Gotta love the dishonesty.. I think I'm done wasting my time here.

If I have answered your question dishonstly, please show me how I did so.

Those were Jesus' last words.

[dyresand]

But you have wagered your eternity on the truth of the model you've accepted Mr. Pascal.
Personally, I can't see any eternity I'd want to hang around for.  You suggest there is something really really good in store for (yourself) believers, but you can't say what it is.  That's a pretty suspect bet.  We call it a pig in a poke around here.

And thus you have wagered on what you admit you cannot see. Your choice.

Says who?  You're buying the whole farm again.
Is lying an imperfection or perfection if God does it?  
    Do you contend there is a framework of perfection to which God must conform? You've got a call from Euthyphro on line 3.
If the Nazis are at the door asking if Anne Frank is in the attic?  God couldn't say, "no?"  He's that constrained?

I suppose we have to begin be defining God.

The reasons I'm not very interested in your explanations are that;

1. They depend on their exceptionally shaky premises for soundness.  I don't want to argue about first century "eyewitness" reports of miracles when we can't definitively figure out who shot Kennedy.  
   
2. The repetition of unfalsifiable assertions becomes tiresome after a time.
   
3. Others have fully refuted your arguments elsewhere unless they belong in 2. above.
   
4. I've seen your text walls.  Everything I've waded through depends on the 2000 year old eyewitnesses. (See 1. above)
   
   Of course you think I'm a dupe.  I disagree with some of your cherished fantasy life.

Then why bother posting in my thread at all? C'ya!

---

Gotta love the dishonesty.. I think I'm done wasting my time here.

If I have answered your question dishonstly, please show me how I did so.

Those were Jesus' last words.

1. Pascals wager itself is flawed i take the standard default stance of no god. Because there is no evidence. 

2. Define god...hm..... Lair, Vengeful, Hateful, Arrogant, Homophobic, Xenophobic, not all loving, Bigot, overall not a nice being, Murderer, Pedophile (because Mary)

3. It's dishonesty i already covered all basis of jesus pretty much not existing the writers more than likely seen other jesus like characters and were like oh we need one of those fucking people in the bible let's add him and they did it was pointless really pointless. The only real reason why they added him along with hell was to spread the belief and oh boy did it work. 

[LastPoet]

I suppose we have to begin be defining God.

Yeah, that would be a good start.

[robvalue]

The definition Randy gave before began with "Cannot fail to exist". If that isn't completely begging the question, I don't know what it is.

I mean, I can define super-atheism as, "The position, which cannot fail to be true, that gods do not exist." How can I prove its true? Look at the definition!

[Randy Carson]

You don't like faulty assumptions?
Oh... I wonder why you are a "believer", then...

Empty rhetoric. Surely you can do better....

Atheist Tim O'Neill address the problems with the mythicist view in a devastating two-part article entitled "An Atheist Historian Examines the Evidence for Jesus". Part one covers this, but you'll want to read the whole thing, I'm sure.

This is not the "mysticist view". It seems you have some reading comprehension failure there... Maybe you just skimmed through the text... .yeah, I'll go with that.

You can go with whatever you like. Is there a more interesting question about Catholicism anywhere in our future? This is "Ask a Catholic", remember?

Why must I spell everything out?

Because many of the high schoolers who hang out in this forum membership can't? Just a guess...

[Angrboda]

Since you were raised Protestant, what would you say had the most impact in swaying you to become Catholic?

[Randy Carson]

I used NFP... and am now the proud father of 2 failures of that method. (My first kid wasn't included in this experiment).

And how many parents were using "protection" that also failed?

---

Since you were raised Protestant, what would you say had the most impact in swaying you to become Catholic?

Apart from the grace of God? Thinking about history.

I know you are not a Christian, but consider the following which explains what I mean very well:

John Henry Newman on History’s Judgment of Protestantism

 
[Some Protestants say], "There are popes against popes, councils against councils, some fathers against others, the same fathers against themselves, a consent of fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age, the Church of one age against the Church of another age:"—Hence they are forced, whether they will or not, to fall back upon the Bible as the sole source of Revelation, and upon their own personal private judgment as the sole expounder of its doctrine. This is a fair argument, if it can be maintained, and it brings me at once to the subject of this Essay . . .
 
“Before setting about this work, I will address one remark to [these people]:—Let them consider, that if they can criticize history, the facts of history certainly can retort upon them. It might, I grant, be clearer on this great subject than it is. This is no great concession. History is not a creed or a catechism, it gives lessons rather than rules; still no one can mistake its general teaching in this matter, whether he accept it or stumble at it. Bold outlines and broad masses of colour rise out of the records of the past. They may be dim, they may be incomplete; but they are definite. And this one thing at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth, it is this.
 
“And Protestantism has ever felt it so. I do not mean that every writer on the Protestant side has felt it; for it was the fashion at first, at least as a rhetorical argument against Rome, to appeal to past ages, or to some of them; but Protestantism, as a whole, feels it, and has felt it. This is shown in the determination already referred to of dispensing with historical Christianity altogether, and of forming a Christianity from the Bible alone: men never would have put [history] aside, unless they had despaired of it … To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.” (John Henry Newman, Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Introduction, 4,5)

[pocaracas]

You don't like faulty assumptions?
Oh... I wonder why you are a "believer", then...

Empty rhetoric. Surely you can do better....

Why? You started it!

This is not the "mysticist view". It seems you have some reading comprehension failure there... Maybe you just skimmed through the text... .yeah, I'll go with that.

You can go with whatever you like. Is there a more interesting question about Catholicism anywhere in our future? This is "Ask a Catholic", remember?

Well, you see... In the great order of things, you stand like this:
Quarks&Muons -> protons/Neutrons&electrons -> carbon/hydrogen/Oxygen -> molecules -> cells -> organs -> humans -> believers in woo -> abrahamists -> christians -> catholics.

So, just like a programming object, you inherit everything else that comes before your being a catholic object.

My question remains the same: How do you fit in your head the information that a writing exists, predating the canonical date of the birth of Jesus, which presents a figure whose life contains details that match very closely to the life attributed, in the canon, to Jesus?

This question is about YOU. What is your personal take on this.
Had you ever come across this detail of 1970's archeology?

Why must I spell everything out?

Because many of the high schoolers who hang out in this forum membership can't? Just a guess...

Oh, look... a mirror!

[pocaracas]

I used NFP... and am now the proud father of 2 failures of that method. (My first kid wasn't included in this experiment).

And how many parents were using "protection" that also failed?

Statistics claim less than 1% failure when properly used.
10% failure when improperly used.
I could look it up to give you a proper citation, but I'm sure you know how to use google.

AS for me, 2 failures in 3 years is too much...
Rubber's been working quite well for the past 6 years.

[Chas]

Why would anyone want to be catholic?

Because it is true. 

And your evidence for that assertion is ... ?