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RE: Ask a Catholic
May 20, 2015 at 6:52 am
(This post was last modified: May 20, 2015 at 7:07 am by Homeless Nutter.)
(May 19, 2015 at 9:43 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Why did Luke Skywalker turn off his computer and rely on the Force?
[...]
Because fiction writers like to pander to the intellectually impaired, by implying, that all the seemingly incomprehensible science and technology - created and mastered by scarily superior minds - can be out-matched by magic, which can be wielded effortlessly by a teenage farm-boy, apparently. Or a carpenter, for that matter. Magic and superstition are escapism for the mentally dull, so they don't feel "left out" in a complex world run by smart people.
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." - George Bernard Shaw
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RE: Ask a Catholic
May 20, 2015 at 6:59 am
"If" is the most overworked word in the apologist's lexicon. It's expected to carry the weight of all the arguments, sub-clauses, amendments and props that they suspend from it. Such a burden for a tiny word.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Ask a Catholic
May 20, 2015 at 7:47 am
(May 20, 2015 at 4:04 am)LastPoet Wrote: How can you believe to remontely understand such a powerfull thing from our backwater provincional vision of things compared with the vastness of the universe?
We don't understand God very well. There are many things about God (such as the fact that He is a Trinity of persons) that could not be known by us except through revelation. However, other things about Him may be discerned by observation of the world around us. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans:
Quote:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
He continues:
Quote:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
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RE: Ask a Catholic
May 20, 2015 at 7:54 am
Do you believe masturbation is a sin?
Has the Catholic Church taken any steps to prevent more child abuse?
How do you feel about the Catholic Church losing members in the USA?
What is your stance on the death penalty? I ask because I know religious Catholics who are against it.
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RE: Ask a Catholic
May 20, 2015 at 8:27 am
(May 20, 2015 at 6:59 am)Stimbo Wrote: "If" is the most overworked word in the apologist's lexicon. It's expected to carry the weight of all the arguments, sub-clauses, amendments and props that they suspend from it. Such a burden for a tiny word.
Stimbo, we're calling the kettle black on this one.
Boolean programmers have kept this little fellow in slavery for decades!
No God, No fear.
Know God, Know fear.
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RE: Ask a Catholic
May 20, 2015 at 8:38 am
(This post was last modified: May 20, 2015 at 8:39 am by Cyberman.)
A - I'm not a boolean programmer. I wouldn't say boolean to a goosean.
B - I wasn't commenting that they use the word; merely that their entire arguments depend upon it. Cut the word and the whole sorry mess collapses around their feet.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Ask a Catholic
May 20, 2015 at 9:21 am
(This post was last modified: May 20, 2015 at 9:21 am by Randy Carson.)
(May 20, 2015 at 6:20 am)Pandæmonium Wrote: I do love it when the god squad get into an argument with themselves.
Shine on Christian warriors.
It's a spectrum of error decreasing from left to right:
Atheism on one end...non-Catholics at various points in the middle...and Catholic Church on the other.
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RE: Ask a Catholic
May 20, 2015 at 9:22 am
Where are Muslims and deists?
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
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RE: Ask a Catholic
May 20, 2015 at 9:32 am
My wife is Catholic, and I would rather bash my head on concrete than ask a question about Catholicism. I'm definitely not a fan.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
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RE: Ask a Catholic
May 20, 2015 at 9:39 am
(May 20, 2015 at 6:27 am)pocaracas Wrote: [ugh, use hide tags when quoting such a wall of text... makes for a better forum experience!  ]
What are or how do I hide tags? I'm trying to figure out the formatting of this site, but it is VERY different from many I have used.
Quote: (May 19, 2015 at 7:46 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: Now, I have a question for you: Would you agree that IF a creator God exists, then He must be superior to anything in that creation?
Let me see: how fast can the fastest human calculator calculate 1345684423673.65267845688 * 453167785.12345 *10^-4 / 12.54546773356 + 235.678324456?
Can we agree that the humble silicon calculator can do this much faster than any human could?
The calculator is faster than a human, but God would not have to do the calculation. He knows the answer before you ask the question because he knows what you are going to ask before you do.
God doesn't "think" at all. He knows. There is no moment of discovery or arrival at a conclusion for God.
Quote:That said, I don't think a creator "must" be superior to anything in that creator's creation. It can be superior, I can think of scenarios where that would happen, but I can also think of scenarios where it wouldn't. So no, I can't agree with your statement.
(even granting that mighty big IF which will need to be assessed in separate).
Hmmm...hard to imagine how the greater thing is brought into being by the lesser.
But I asked because one of the attributes of God is that he is holy. This is a tough word to define with respect to God...normally we say that something else is holy in relation to God. So, I'll try it this way (and I do recall that you are a non-believer - I'm simply explaining what Christians believe):
If you are familiar with the scriptures, do you recall the reactions that people had when they came into God's presence?
Fear.
Adam and Eve had walked with God in the garden before they disobeyed; after, they hid from him. Why?
God told Moses, "No man can see my face and live." Why?
I could provide other examples, but I offer these as representative of the fact that a Holy God is not going to be able to interact with a fallen race in the heartwarming manner which you described in your long post because we are sinners. We are not holy. We would flee from God in terror because He is awesome.
Only after we are made righteous are we able to come into His presence because nothing impure may enter heaven.
Faith in Jesus is what makes this purification possible.
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