Ask a Catholic

[Randy Carson]

Ok, how do you compare the current understanding of such fields as history, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, politics... and physics with the religion's requirement of faith in a relatively powerful entity that could, if it so wished, present itself to every single thinking being on this planet and dispose of faith altogether, thus ending any and all animosity that exists and may come to exist due to divergences of belief?

There is no incompatibility. God created all those things and gave us the intellect with which to study his creation, etc.

However, if God WERE to reveal Himself in the fashion in which you suggest, such a revelation would be coercive.

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Why Does the Catholic church baptize using a Trinitarian formula (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) when Peter (whom the Catholic church claims to be the first Pope) clearly commanded to be Baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ?

(from the Catholic Bible)

Acts 2:38
'You must repent,' Peter answered, 'and every one of you must be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Paul also

Acts 19:5
4 Paul said, 'John's baptism was a baptism of repentance; but he insisted that the people should believe in the one who was to come after him -- namely Jesus.'
5 When they heard this, they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus

Excellent question. You've had some training in theology? Here's my response:

Baptism in the Name of Jesus Only

"In the name of Jesus" is a type - not a formula. More on that in a moment.

If a police officer shouts to a fleeing bank robber, "Stop in the name of the law!", is he really only specifying the authority of one thing, "the law'? Or is it really the authority of:

1) the specific code of law written by politicians, 
2) the police department who enforce the law, 
3) the entire criminal justice system

that the officer is asserting? It's all of the above, right?

Catholics have been baptizing using the Trinitarian formula from the earliest days. There is a document of early Christian practices from about 50 AD called the DIDACHE (pronounced did-a-kay) that details how the early Christians baptized:

"In regard to baptism - baptize thus: After the foregoing instructions, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. If you have no living water, then baptize in other water; and if you are not able in cold, then in warm."

 The Didache is not inspired scripture, but it is a key piece of historical evidence about what the Church thought and did in the earliest days. 

So why does this verse in Acts say we should be baptizing in Jesus' name and not in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? It is made to offer a distinction from other baptisms that were occurring during the earliest days of Christianity. There were the baptisms done by followers of John the Baptist, baptisms done in Jewish liturgies, and baptisms done in pagan rituals. Here's a verse speaking of "John's Baptism":
 

Acts 19:3 
So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism,” they replied.

Paul specifically asks what type of baptism they had received. They had received "John's Baptism"; they had not received the baptism of Jesus.

By proclaiming baptisms be done "in the name of Jesus Christ", the inspired author of Acts was merely attempting to disassociate ourselves from the baptisms done by other sects.

It was not an instruction on how to baptize.