What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Randy Carson]

I'd also like to point out that there have been times here where I've said something about what the Church teaches and have been told by another member that I am wrong about what the Church teaches.

Because you were  and -are-....as the catechism (among other -cited- examples, such as ecumenical council and a fucking pope..no less..) explained...ironically.  If you think that the church or the catechism or the pope explain things better.....then why do you not defer to their unambigous and -infallible- explanations, and why bitch and moan when someone shows you that you have misunderstood, or been entirely ignorant -of- those unambiguous, infallible, and (according to you) much better explanations?  Hell, probably ought to thank a guy...looking out for your immortal soul.......

In case you haven't held one in your own hands, the Catechism is a big book, and we're all learning all the time.

I can't speak for CL here, but if I am shown something in the Catechism that contradicts something that I think, I recognize that the error lies within my thinking...not that of the Church.

[Jenny A]

---

Randy,

Nobody missed the point that slavery was limited to six years ( as if that makes it ok). Yes the slave could leave after 6 years unless the slave owner gave him a wife which they always would do, If he chose to leave he would leave his wife and family behind who would remain slaves. If he chose to stay with his family he would remain a slave for life as well as his children and their children and so on and so on. What slave owner did was make a slave chose between his family and his freedom, which is incredibly sick. If you are going to defend this disgusting mistreatment of human beings then let me be the first to say, Fuck You[emphasis added]!

Another mature response. ^  Sheesh...I feel like I'm in high school again.

---

I'm not defending anything. I'm explaining it...and why it is not as black and white as you anti-christers seem to believe. The Israelites were a stubborn, stiff-necked people. Here are a few assessments from various points in Israel's history:

• Exodus 32:9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people.
  
• Nehemiah 9:16 “But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and they did not obey your commands.
  
• Acts 7:51 “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!
  

From Moses to Nehemiah to Stephen...you can see what God was dealing with. Consequently, God had to bring the Israelites along slowly...forming His people little by little...weaning them away from false gods and other beliefs and customs.

If god were seen to slowly move the Hebrews in the direction of being more moral I'd buy it.  But that's not the way I read the OT.  Because god orders his stiff necked people to rather odd things if that's the purpose:  senseless dietary and dress restrictions.  Not to mention actually ordering the killing of whole towns to the last person.

Here's a classic from Jesus:

Matthew 19
When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. 3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” 4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” 7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 8 Jesus replied, “[b]Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

Catch that?

Moses permitted the people to divorce but Jesus commanded us to step up our game.
[/b]

I see the change proposed by Jesus.  But I also see that Jews no longer permit divorce and they somehow got there with out Jesus.   The rules for marriage in various societies including whether marriage must be monogamous, whether and why divorce is permitted, who is allowed to marry who and so on have varied widely over human history.  The Etruscan's idea of marriage looked rather more like our modern ideas than the Hebrews did, as did the Roman and Greek idea, yet somehow they got there without god telling them to.  So mores change, but I don't attribute the change to god steadily pushing us in the right direction.

Same with slavery. It was permitted, but now it's not. We've been molded by God.

Really?  Where does it prohibit slavery in the Bible?  Didn't the Catholic church actually own slaves in North and South America?

The America abolitionist movement pitted church against church with many churches declaring slavery to be the will of god.  The earliest anti-slavery proponents were free-thinkers. http://www.freethought-trail.org/profile...use&Page=1  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought  Funny it should take atheists to get the ball rolling.

[Randy Carson]

I have addressed this several times. But I can see how you may have missed it.

Yes, He was the same God. But we have to remember that the bible was not written by the hand of God. It was written by man. And though these men were all inspired by God, they are still men and not God. I good way to think of it is that the bible represents God, but does so through the filter of man. It is not completely perfect. It is not infallible. It was not directly written by God.

Once Jesus (who is God) came we were able to gain a better understanding of God. And He debunked a number of things from the OT, namely the stoning of adulterers and the law "an eye for an eye" which He addressed specifically.

Hope that helps.

This is a cop-out, the writers of the new testament were also men why should we trust anything they wrote about jesus.

That's a separate discussion, but the short answer is that they were inspired by God.

[Mr.wizard]

Why not just make better Hebrews from the start? This idea that he had to train people by making them slaves and having them raped seems a little ridiculous when he could of just included it in his instruction manual, instead of having it say the opposite.

He instructed the Hebrews not to mix different fibers, for goodness sakes. It seems like a small thing to add, "Oh by the way, don't rape women"

lol, I know within the 613 commandments you think he could of squeezed rape and slavery in there.

[Mr.wizard]

This is a cop-out, the writers of the new testament were also men why should we trust anything they wrote about jesus.

That's a separate discussion, but the short answer is that they were inspired by God.

She just said we couldn't trust what the old testament said because it was written by men and not god. How that doesn't apply to jesus and the new testament makes no sense.

[Randy Carson]

Okay. I don't agree with everything William Lane Craig or Gary Habermas think, either. But that doesn't mean that I couldn't learn something from them...OR from Ehrman, et al.

But maybe you see the problem here. You've been repeatedly asked what you think instead of quoting the catechism over and over. But your only answer, as well as CL's, was to be perfectly in line with the catechism. First, I don't believe that for one second, since you are human and not part of a hive mind.

A group of Americans can believe every word of the Constitution. A group of Democrats can believe every plank of their party's platform. Why can't a Catholic believe and agree with every word of the Catechism?

If I disagreed, I might not even BE Catholic.

And secondly it leads to the all too common mistake of lumping all atheists together. Yes, we might agree on some matters and yes, there are some, who take the words of prominent atheists as some kind of gospel. But otherwise the only defining feature is disbelief. So if you want to know what we're thinking, you'd have to do that on an individual level.

Yep. Makes sense. Would you agree, however, that there are SOME broad agreements even among atheists?

[Catholic_Lady]

But what if what we think is that the Church holds the answers? And that the Catechism can do a better job of putting it into words than we can? I'd also like to point out that there have been times here where I've said something about what the Church teaches and have been told by another member that I am wrong about what the Church teaches. So I went ahead and linked to the catechism in order to prove that what I just said really is in line with Church teaching.

I am sorry you feel as though we have done a poor job of sharing our thoughts and beliefs. I'll own it and say that indeed I do have a hard time putting things into words a lot of times.

You guys seem to not grasp the difference between these two ideas.

This is okay:
C_L: "I believe x and y and z because this, that, and the other thing."

Atheist: "Well that's wrong, the church teaches b and c and d."

C_L: "Nuh uh. See this portion of the catechism:

Snippet of the catechism or other document that supports your original point.

http://www.linktocatechismpage.com"

This isn't:
"This is what I believe:

ten pages of Catechism.

"

Ok.

---

But what if what we think is that the Church holds the answers? And that the Catechism can do a better job of putting it into words than we can? I'd also like to point out that there have been times here where I've said something about what the Church teaches and have been told by another member that I am wrong about what the Church teaches. So I went ahead and linked to the catechism in order to prove that what I just said really is in line with Church teaching.

I am sorry you feel as though we have done a poor job of sharing our thoughts and beliefs. I'll own it and say that indeed I do have a hard time putting things into words a lot of times.

If you think the catechism explains it better than you can, there's no reason to be here as it's a discussion forum.  No one here wants to read the catechism word-for-word, or we would just look up the catechism.  If you feel you're right about it, and someone else is wrong, it's fine to quote the part you're referring to, but you have to add to the discussion by presenting your own thoughts.  I have no complaints with you on that; you are doing fine, save for the couple of times we've had to let you know.  You haven't gotten into any official trouble over it, and you're doing just fine, even if the majority disagrees with your conclusions.

Fair enough.

[Randy Carson]

[

And I think it is fair to say that I have followed the rules since our first "interaction", becca.

Pocaracas gave me a warning, but he explained how to avoid it in the future, and I have been following his advice ever since.

CL IS a "kinder, gentler" apologist than I am, so I can see how people like her approach better.

But make no mistake, we're singing from the same hymnal.

Does it bother you that people are overall more polite to CL?

No, why? She's polite and cute. What's not to like?

I'm neither, and I'm okay with that. We all have to be comfortable in our own skin.

True confession though: I do edit my own posts sometimes to tone down the snarkiness...what I write is not always what actually gets posted.

[SteelCurtain]

Okay. Fuck off then. We have all the links to the catechism. When we have a question as to what you think, we'll search it up. No reason for you to be here.

Utter stupidity. Are you ever embarrassed by some of the nonsense you write?

Quoting a passage from Ehrman or Craig is simply grist for the mill. If I didn't want to discuss with you, I could just watch YouTube videos of Hitchens, Harris, or Krauss.

If, in the context of discussion, you see me allowing any of the above to make my argument for me, please feel free to call me a hypocrite.

My very point. It's obvious when you do it. It's shitty forum etiquette. You've been asked to stop. And then you wonder why everyone you encounter has the same response to you.

Heh...what you want is for me to stop giving good answers to bad questions.

I want you to give your own 'good' answers, not someone else's. You know, discussion.

Maybe you are happy to have the same discussion over and over, but a lot of us aren't.

Then don't post. Sheesh, how hard is that?

So, your two options are to have the same conversation over and over or none at all?

We're here for discussion, and when Christians come in here and want to have the same conversation we've had 100 times before, acting like it's completely new information for all of us and playing the "gotcha" game, you'd be happy if we all trotted out the old Word files and posted pages at each other? What kind of twisted version of discussion are you interested in? So if you want to see our responses to the very same questions you are asking, search it up. If you want to spin off a thread from a response, by all means go ahead.

First, I'm the new guy. How do I know what you have and haven't discussed before? Second, so what if we are making the same arguments that have been made a hundred times before? Ever play chess? Think you're inventing something that Grand Masters haven't considered?

I'm developing MY skills as a player while simultaneously challenging yours. That's why we play the game, Mike.

First, there is a search function. Second, if we deign to respond, then we'll have the conversation. That part's not up to you. Sorry.

There is a fundamental difference between our approaches to this forum. I don't see it as an adversarial pissing match.

I did not say she hasn't been speedbumped or sent unofficial warnings. I said I hadn't had to. How many times were you PM'ed your first week? How many times did we have to explain our rules here? How many times were you publicly adamant that we are doing it wrong and we should play by your rules instead?

A lot. Because I didn't initially understand the 30/30 rule. Later, it was because you guys have posted a 30/30 Exception, but you don't allow newbies to actually invoke it. So, I waited it out. CL will do the same.

I don't think you had as much trouble understanding the rule as agreeing to follow it. It is simple. The link cannot do your arguing for you. It can support your own thoughts and ideas, it can be a cited source, but it cannot be the majority of your post.

The part that gets lifted when you are an established member is linking to personal sites like a blog or starting a thread with a link or video and some discussion.

Also, are you implying that we didn't know that Catholic_Lady was a woman before she posted her avatar? Or are you just attracted to her and projecting like you usually do?

Another mature response. Really, when you get mad, you ought to log off instead of posting.

Don't confuse my emotive language with anger, Randy. I am legitimately confused as to why you perceived that we changed our tact when posting at C_L when she posted her avatar. It revealed nothing surprising about her.

I am implying that you are shitty at this. You have presented us with a Catholic automaton who will repeat catechism and prepared dialogue on demand, and thence have done more for atheism on these boards in the last month or so than anyone in a while.

Spoken like someone who would like nothing more than to see fewer, solid Catholic answers posted in his atheist haven.

As if you would be MORE likely to consider Catholicism if I were silent. Really? I don't think so. But it was a nice try, Mike.

I welcome ANY voice here, so long as you are respectful about our rules. You have flouted the rules since day one. You continue to imply that the way that we run our own forum is wrong, and you continue to act baffled at the rules and break them. I was very diplomatic with you, giving you the benefit of the doubt for your first two weeks here. You've exhausted that.

You have not presented a single thing that I hadn't considered before you came to this forum. You have, however, given me a little insight into the lack of self that a Catholic must have, and the lack of ability to think independently and have one's own voice. So thanks for that, I think.

[Randy Carson]

I'm saying that God worked with the Hebrews based on what they could handle at the time...not based on what you think of it several thousand years later.

Things that WERE permitted at various times in the past are no longer permitted. God was more lenient with the Israelites early on than he was later.

Even rape, Randy?  God said that Hebrew warriors should kill entire villages and keep the virginal girls for sex toys. I've quoted that verse about three times in this very, very long thread. Why would god not just permit these things from happening but condone them? What good came of raping young girls who might have seen their entire family murdered by the same men that used them for sex?

Deuteronomy 21:10-14 NAB)

   "When you go out to war against your enemies and the LORD, your God, delivers them into your hand, so that you take captives, if you see a comely woman among the captives and become so enamored of her that you wish to have her as wife, you may take her home to your house.  But before she may live there, she must shave her head and pare her nails and lay aside her captive's garb.  After she has mourned her father and mother for a full month, you may have relations with her, and you shall be her husband and she shall be your wife.  However, if later on you lose your liking for her, you shall give her her freedom, if she wishes it; but you shall not sell her or enslave her, since she was married to you under compulsion."

This is from Deuteronomy, a book of god's laws.

Rape? Sex toys? Did I miss that in the passage you quoted?

It seems to me that God was very specific about how the women would be treated by the Israelites. They became wives...not sex slaves. They were permitted a period of mourning before marriage. And if divorced, she was give freedom...not slavery.

Is this the way that other nations treated the Hebrew women that were captured?

So, God's standards for His people WERE higher than those of the nations with whom He had no covenant.