A heated discussion on the Apologetics thread brought forth a suggestion from one of our new atheist bloggers, that we conduct a strict debate with rules and named debaters.
Click here to read the conversation that led to this suggestion
So, here we are. Catholic Truth at the service of atheists! We do, as you know, aim to please.
This thread is devoted to debating the motion The Catholic Church a force for good in the world with Athanasius arguing for the motion and atheist, blogger phatbat, arguing against. Nobody else should comment on this thread which will be opened for posts from the two named debaters at 6 pm. After the comments from debaters, anyone else may comment.
Procedure
Athanasius, arguing for the motion will make a relatively brief (approximately four hundred word limit) post to make introductory remarks followed by phatbat (same word limit) arguing against the motion.
Then, alternately (one from each side) Athanasius and phatbat will make one post (of no word limit) amplifying or rebutting points contained in any previous posts.
Once all four posts have been made, I (as adjudictor) will decide the future direction. Maybe some topics touched upon should be separated for another time and the protagonists asked to concentrate upon a more limited range of points or I could just ask for a six hundred word post from each side to round-up the arguments. Enjoy!
Tags: atheists, catholic church, christopher hitchens, faith, stephen fry
-
Welcome to the first online debate hosted by Catholic Truth at the request of one of our atheist visitors.
This topic was first debated in London recently, with Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry opposing the motion ‘the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world’ which was defended, unsuccessfully, by Ann Widdecombe MP and a Nigerian Archbishop. There is a link to this original debate currently on our homepage.
In approximately ten minutes, Athanasius, lead Catholic Truth blogger, will kick-start the debate with some introductory remarks. Athiest, phatbat, will then follow, with his introductory remarks.
Any visitors who wish to comment on the points made by either blogger, must do so on the ‘Audience’ thread which is placed underneath this one. Please do not interrupt this thread – any intrusive posts will be deleted so take care to post your comments on the correct thread.
The Catholic Truth team is delighted to welcome everyone to this debate, which we hope will be a a friendly, if robust, exchange. So, please welcome our first blogger, Athanasius, who presents the motion: ‘this House believes that the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world’.
-
My intention here today, as noted above in the thread heading, is to prove that the Catholic Church is a force for good on earth. But I hope to go further than that by showing that it is upon the achievements of this Church alone that western society in particular, but not exclusively, stands today as an advanced culture.
My opponent, Phatbat, will doubtless agree with me that while he is indeed an atheist, his atheism is but a mere by-product of his Rationalism. Hence, he rejects belief in God (theism) on the grounds that religious belief, being supernatural and therefore beyond reason and not demonstrable in fact, must be dismissed as out of hand.
There are, however, as many schools of Rationalist thought as there are religious persuasions. Not all of these are atheistic per se, and not all proceed from a denial of the divine. Phatbat belongs to one particular school of thought, the school that does proceed from a denial of the divine. I could easily refute his position, even on the natural level, but that is not the purpose of this present debate.
Phatbat may well correct me if I have described his position incorrectly. What is certain, however, is that he will proceed on the basis of accusations against the Catholic Church, both historical and contemporary, in an attempt to discredit this institution which has been the source of much temporal good throughout the centuries.
As regards these historical allegations, allegations which I have heard recounted time and again in revisionist, non-objective style, the caution of Thomas F. Madden, associate professor and chair of the department of History at St. Louis University, is worthy of mention:
“It is a fallacy (one that historians call presentism) to judge the past by the standards of the present. In a modern, Post-Enlightenment world, religious belief is merely a personal preference, like a favourite colour. But in most pre-modern civilisations, religion is a central, if not predominant, aspect of one’s personal and collective identity. To seek to corrupt or defame a culture’s religion would therefore be equivalent to treason in the modern era. In both cases the crimes were thought to be severe enough to warrant death.”
Suffice it to say that despite all the accusations of brutality and inhumanity hurled at the Church by revisionists, the fact remains that more human beings have perished in wars and persecutions unleashed by non-believers (World Wars I & II, Communism, etc.,) than in all the historical wars between believers of every kind combined through the ages.
Furthermore, it is a fact that the Catholic Church alone stands head and shoulders above all in its consistent aid to the poorest, most wretched, abandoned and persecuted people throughout the world. And this not only for a year, a decade, a century or a millennia, but for two thousand years.
-
Thank you Athanasius for that clear introduction.
Welcome now to phatbat… apparently he was delayed at work, but is allegedly writing his post now. Hurry up, phatbat!
-
The substance of this motion is to determine whether the organisation called the Roman Catholic Church is overall a net force for ‘good’ in this world and in order to do justice to this case a few clarifying statements should be made. At no time should my comments be read as referring to any individual believer rather than the church organisation for it is that entity which is being examined here and I have no wish to trespass upon any individuals’ personal integrity or beliefs. The motion itself is quite specific and refers to ‘this world’ so I’m sure you’ll all accept that any inference, attempted justification for actions or call to authority that leans on any idea of the afterlife would be strictly and understandably ‘out of bounds’. Any point in the discussion that solely rests for its justification upon peculiarly Catholic interpretations of the physical universe; or upon dogma that is unproven; would similarly be null and void as the metric we are using here is that of the common man. This is for the simple reason that if your argument relies purely upon your own dogma, that is de facto a losing argument, as the majority of people will not find that acceptable. It is before the court of world opinion that the Catholic Church must be able to defend this charge that it is not a force for good in this world.
The Catholic Church is directly responsible for the suffering and deaths of thousands, if not, millions of Africans who are in the midst of an HIV/AIDS epidemic. Their insistence on the prohibition of condoms as a valuable weapon against the spread of HIV, against the advice of the WHO, and against the results of any properly conducted scientific study, will lead to many innocent people contracting and dying of AIDS that, in almost all cases, could have been avoided.
It is also directly responsible for the blanket abortion bans in heavily Catholic countries such as Nicaragua that is responsible for the avoidable physical suffering and deaths of living, breathing women, with family to miss them and hopes to lose. Not content with this it then excommunicates those who would save a child’s life by aborting the growing foetus that will eventually kill the girl, but not the step father who raped her.
It also insists on putting sex starved virgins in positions of care for children and then covers up the fact that they have raped children. Further more it then rewards those who have covered it up with high positions of power in the Vatican and large salaries.
Many of the Catholic Church’s “care” programs have been discovered to not be providing even basic care, even though they had more than enough money to provide much more than basic care. Mother Teresa famously wouldn’t allow pain killers to be used on suffering people in her care, as it would allow people to suffer like Jesus. For the Catholic Church suffering and pain is good, provided a cluster of cells is protected and an ejaculated sperm is allowed to complete its journey, well one of them anyway.
-
Thank you, phatbat. I now invite Athanasius to now post his first comment of argument…
-
Historical Role of the Church.
It is common knowledge that the pre-Christian world was inured with a good number of atrocious practices. These included legal Pederasty (The sexual abuse of adolescent boys by men) on a scale that puts the clerical scandals of today into perspective, human sacrifice, female infanticide (abortion), polygamy, divorce, incest, marital infidelity and slavery, to name but the worst excesses.
For Greek and Roman cultures, it was particularly common for men to take young male lovers from the age of 13 years upwards.
As regards women, it was the custom in both Roman and Athenian cultures to look upon women as naturally dependent upon the greater intellects of men. As a result, women were forbidden to enter professions and in family life only men, not women, could have lovers, concubines and prostitutes.
In addition, it was not uncommon for pagan women to be married before the age of puberty to older men, often much older.
Against this backdrop of moral corruption the Catholic Church began its mission of evangelisation and slowly, as it converted the nations to Christianity, eradicate these practices from civilisation.
Infanticide, Pederasty, divorce, marital infidelity, marriage of pre-pubescent girls, were al systematically outlawed by the Church as she gained influence, and the role of women in society was completely transformed.
Slavery was a more difficult nut to crack, since it was practiced in almost every culture, wherein it took time to establish sufficient Church presence and authority to end the practice.
Nevertheless, the Popes, through a series of Papal Bulls and threats of excommunication, were finally successful in having this inhuman behaviour stopped, although, in truth, some Catholic clergy, as well as secular leaders, consistently ignored the Church’s teaching in the matter and so gave the scandalous perception to some that the Church was indifferent to slavery.
Papal Bulls such as Sicut Dudum (Eugene IV, 1435), Sublimis Deus (Paul III, 1537), Cum Sicuti (Gregory XIV, 1591), Commissum Nobis (Urban VIII, 1639), Immensa Pastorum (Benedict XIV, 1741) and In Supremo (Gregory XVI, 1839) testify to the Church’s opposition to slavery.
This gives a brief outline of the Church’s influence in the moral sphere, how it established moral norms for human behaviour based on the dignity of the human person.
Having established this moral code based on human dignity, and further having saved the remnants of the ancient civilisation from the Barbarian invasions, the Church set about the task of education. To this end, she promoted learning and science through sponsorship of many universities, which spread rapidly through Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries. These universities were the forerunners of today’s equivalents. So the Church, by her endeavours and by her learned priests, was instrumental in the provision of education for the masses.
St. Thomas Aquinas, the Church’s pre-eminent theologian, was first to declare harmony between faith and reason and so opened the world up to intellectual development.
The Church’s priest/scientists were the leading lights in astronomy, genetics, geomagnetism, meteorology, seismology, and solar physics, becoming the “fathers” of these sciences.
Worthy of particular mention is the Augustinian Abbot, Gregor Mendel, a pioneer in the study of genetics, and Roger Bacon, a Franciscan friar, who was an early advocate of the scientific method.
Amongst the more proficient Catholic laymen of science I would name Henri Becquerel, who discovered radioactivity, Galvani, Volta, Ampere and Marconi, pioneers in electricity and telecommunications; Lavoisier, “father of modern chemistry”; Vesalius, founder of modern human anatomy; Cauchy, one of the mathematicians who laid the foundations of calculus; Copernicus who first discovered the heliocentric movement of the earth, and Galileo Galilei who supported and perfected this discovery and who invented the telescope and microscope.
In art, literature and music also, the Church is at the forefront with its Gothic architecture, which influenced buildings all over Europe; the Summa Theologica which influenced writers such as Dante, JRR Tolkien, C S Lewis and Shakespeare; and the Gregorian music of the Church which influenced the classical music of Europe. These are but a few examples.
I make mention also of the wonderful and influencing works of Michelangelo, Raphael, Bernini, Borromini and Leonardo da Vinci to emphasise the point.
In economics, Francesco de Vitoria, a disciple of Thomas Aquinas, is recognised by the United Nations as a father of international law, and also by historians of economics and democracy as a leading light for the West’s democracy and rapid economic development.
Without labouring the point and naming too many names, I will content myself with this quote from historian Paul Legutko of Stanford University, who said: “the Catholic Church is at the centre of the development of the values, ideas, science, laws and institutions which constitute what we call Western civilisation.” That sums it up.
And so to care and social justice. The Catholic Church set up the hospital system in the middle ages, the forerunner of modern health care for all. This system catered in a particular way for those marginalized by poverty, sickness and age.
Obviously, there are many examples in history of how the Church cared for such people. I mention, for example, the now-worldwide organisation called The St. Vincent de Paul Society. Also, there was the Order of Hospitaliers, the Order of St. John of God and the Orders of the Franciscans and Dominicans, which also exhibited great care for the poor, sick and abandoned.
In more recent years I can name Fr. Damien priest of the lepers, who contracted the disease and died as a result of his care for these abandoned and scorned souls. And who can omit Mother Theresa of Calcutta and her selfless life of serving the poor, sick, dying and marginalized.
I could go on quoting examples but space really only permits me to mention that the Catholic Church is the largest charitable organisation in the world today, with charity fund-raising websites in every diocese of the world.
In addition, the Church’s monasteries have preserved artistic skills and taken education to the mission lands, from which the financial powers of the world are noticeably absent. It is the Church which provides education to Africans and other Third World countries.
Which brings me to condoms and the scandalous claim that the Church, by forbidding use of these things, is costing lives.
It is well established in medical circles that condoms are no protection against STD’s (Sexually Transmitted Diseases), particularly AIDS. And it is a myth to claim that the Church’s influence is responsible for death rates from this virus.
For example, South of the Sahara, only 15% of the population is Catholic. Yet, 1 in 5 of the population is infected with HIV. The same is true in South Africa with its mere 6% Catholic population. In Botswana, a country awash with condoms and which has only a 5% Catholic population, the rate of HIV infection is 37.3%.
Furthermore, the rate of HIV infection rockets wherever condom use is vigorously promoted. In South Africa, for example, between the years 1994 and 1998, the distribution of free condoms rose from 6 million to 198 million, yet the death rate from HIV infection rose rapidly to reach 57% between the years 1997 and 2002. How can this be explained?
Here is what leading experts have to say about it:
“You just can’t tell people it’s alright to do whatever you want as long as you wear a condom. AIDS is just too dangerous a disease to say that.” Dr. Harold Jaffee, Chief of epidemiology, National centres for disease control.
“Simply put, condoms fail. And condoms fail at a rate unacceptable for me as a physician to endorse them as a strategy to be promoted as meaningful AIDS protection.” Dr. Robert Renfield, chief of retro-viral research, Walter Reid Army Institute.
“Relying on condoms for “protection” can mean lifelong disease, suffering, and even death for you or for someone you love.” Dr. Andre Lafrance, Canadian physician and researcher.
“Saying that the use of condoms is ‘safe sex’ is in fact playing Russian Roulette. A lot of people will die in this dangerous game.” Dr. Theresa Crenshaw, member of the U.S. Presidential AIDS Commission and past president of the American Association of Sex Educators.
And why are these and a growing number of other experts saying these things? Because it has been established that the AIDS virus is so small that it can pass freely through the latex layering of condoms, which are already known to carry many microscopic flaws called ‘voids’.
Dr Edward Green, a medical anthropologist with more than 30 years of experience fighting diseases in African countries, said the “best” evidence showed that widespread availability of condoms led to higher rather than lower rates of HIV infection. “The Pope is correct,” said Dr Green, director of the Aids Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Centre for Population and Development Studies, one of the world’s foremost Aids research institutes.
He continued by stating that there was a “consistent association shown by our best studies, including the US-funded Demographic Health Surveys, between greater availability and use of condoms and higher HIV-infection rates”. So there it is.
The same is true of other STD’s, which, while not passing so easily through condoms, are very easily transmitted to parts of the genitalia not covered by a condom.
Here is just one shocking statistic of STD infection. In the United States alone 56 million Americans have an incurable STD. That is 1 in 5 of the population. These figures are produced by the Centres for Disease Control (CDC).
And what does this tell us? It tells us, and it is increasingly bringing the message home, that the Catholic Church is absolutely correct when it encourages people to live chastely. The alternative is too awful to contemplate and the condom protection scheme is a myth of gigantic proportions. There is only one way to prevent the further spread of these deadly viruses and that is to return to a previous morality, the one which the Church has preached and established with exemplary success for two thousand years.
As regards abortion, I find it singularly odd that those who argue that embryos are mere lifeless clusters of cells are particularly careful to prevent, nay outlaw, videos and photographs that prove the opposite. Indeed, national conferences on abortion are held regularly in various countries, yet the Christian side of the story, graphics and all, is never allowed to be presented. Objective? Certainly objectionable.
From what I have recounted thus far it can easily be seen that, contrary to the claims of Rationalists and other enemies, the Catholic Church has been, and continues to be, the mother of the peoples of the world in every aspect of their lives. She has always provided for them and she will continue to do so without seeking reward or glory. When she condemns immoral behaviour, she does so in the confident knowledge that such behaviour marks a return to past errors and leads inevitably to suffering and death for individuals and societies.
-
Many thanks Athanasius – if phatbat would now like to post his second comment… we’re waiting patiently!
-
Athanasius has spent a lot of time so far talking about the history of the Catholic Church. I don’t see any point in spending too long talking about the past, when the present offers us so much, as it is, to deal with. But a few brief points in rebuttal.
Athanasius claims that in the past religion was more important to the public than it is today. Indeed it was – at all stages of a person’s life the church was there to stifle him. It took his income. It threatened him with Hell. It tortured him if he expressed a heresy. And since the church was all the citizen ever knew, it had all the power. It had the money, the books, the ability to influence kings. And so came the Crusades, the Inquisition, the witchburning. Where was the Church when the slave trade operated?
Athanasius also says that modern warfare has caused more death than religious warfare. Of course it has – because it has more technologically advanced weaponry. It had radio communications, making it easier to direct an army and relay information. The Vatican of the Middle Ages never had a nuclear bomb or a radio transmitter. But can anyone doubt that if the church of the Crusades had missiles, they would not have used them? And with the population explosion of today, there are many more targets. Wiping out, say, London in 1609 would involve much less death than doing so in 2009.
Ah, it will be said, but today the church wouldn’t do such a thing. The problem with this assertion is that you don’t need swords and bullets to destroy lives. Recently Ireland was shocked by an unimaginable catalogue of institutional child abuse at Catholic schools. The Child Abuse Commission’s report on the matter ran to 2,600 pages, saying in its Executive Summary -
A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys. Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from. (Conclusion 11)
It is impossible to determine the full extent of sexual abuse committed in boys’ schools. The schools investigated revealed a substantial level of sexual abuse of boys in care that extended over a range from improper touching and fondling to rape with violence. Perpetrators of abuse were able to operate undetected for long periods at the core of institutions. (Conclusion 19)
And, most shockingly, it found out thatThe recidivist nature of sexual abuse was known to religious authorities… When confronted with evidence of sexual abuse, the response of the religious authorities was to transfer the offender to another location where, in many instances, he was free to abuse again. Permitting an offender to obtain dispensation from vows often enabled him to continue working as a lay teacher. (Conclusions 20-21)
What possible restitution could be made to those who suffered on a daily basis throughout their childhood? One would think the church could make a start by helping bring the criminals to trial, but it won’t – it pressed the Commission into promising that the identity of the abusers would never be made public.If this is what we can expect from the people who are meant to educate and care for our children, why should we trust them on any other issue? Why should we trust an Archbishop of Westminster who himself allowed a known paedophile to work as a priest, letting him commit new crimes (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/840594.stm)? Archbishop Murphy-O’Connor was warned about the potential for reoffending, And then, as the Irish Commission released its devastating report on child rape and cover-ups, Murphy-O’Connor described a lack of faith as ‘the greatest of evils’, without giving a single mention to the atrocities in Ireland (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6334837.ece). The victims may well disagree.
Murphy-O’Connor was, until recently, the highest Catholic leader in the UK. If he is typical of Catholic leadership, one wonders how the Catholic Church can possibly clean the moral failures out of its own house before lecturing others on the subject.
Athanasius goes on to talk about Mother Teresa and her “selfless life of serving the poor, sick, dying and marginalized.” Yes, Mother Teresa who enforced the Catholic Dogma that people’s suffering makes god happy. She wanted to preserve the poverty these people were in, and dish it out to those who joined her congregation to help them. They would re-use needles and wash them in warm water and do their best to avoid spending a single penny of the millions that was donated to them to buy their place in heaven (http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/shields_18_1.html).
But at least she looked after herself when it mattered huh. She was particularly partial to Californian Clinics when she was ill (http://www.slate.com/id/2090083/) and at least she opened 500 convents in more than 200 countries, all bearing her name.
Athanasius also tells us how the Catholic church is the “largest charitable organisation in the world.” But it also has the most lavish head office, has billions of dollars worth of gold and is the wealthiest institution on earth. Why will the Catholic church not publish its balance sheet?
Now Athanasius states:
It is well established in medical circles that condoms are no protection against STD’s (Sexually Transmitted Diseases), particularly AIDS. And it is a myth to claim that the Church’s influence is responsible for death rates from this virus.It is not widely accepted in medical circles. This study (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3127299.html) shows that consistent use of condoms gives an approximate 87% level of protection against HIV. As a result the NIH (in the US), the NHS, the WHO, and the EU all recommend the ABC method of prevention of the spreading of AIDS. You can’t just pick a quote from a couple of scientists who disagree with the consensus and claim scientific backing for your proclamations. If you’re not an expert in the scientific matter at hand the only place you can defer your authority to is the consensus. None of the data you’ve posted has been referenced and is not even conclusive anyway. There is no mention of variables being controlled or taken into account. The fact that you think those figures on their own make your case in any way reveals the kind of scientific illiteracy that is endemic in society at the moment. If you want to go down this kind of statistic quoting avenue, why did AIDS drop in the UK when condoms were heavily promoted?
You quote Dr Harold Jaffee:
”“You just can’t tell people it’s alright to do whatever you want as long as you wear a condom. AIDS is just too dangerous a disease to say that.”This isn’t what is being suggested by the WHO, it is ABC remember.
You also quote Dr. Robert Renfield:
“Simply put, condoms fail. And condoms fail at a rate unacceptable for me as a physician to endorse them as a strategy to be promoted as meaningful AIDS protection.”
Since his conclusion doesn’t logically follow from the premise this would need some explanation. Airbags fail too, does this mean they shouldn’t be used either? Since he disagrees with the scientific consensus we would need to see the reason why and see it argued out within the scientific community.You quote Dr. Andre Lafrance:
”Relying on condoms for “protection” can mean lifelong disease, suffering, and even death for you or for someone you love.”
Again, appears to be ignoring ABC, and anyway, relying on trusting everyone to never have sex again will lead to the same outcome and leave faithful wives victims of their unfaithful husbands.Dr. Theresa Crenshaw
”Saying that the use of condoms is ‘safe sex’ is in fact playing Russian Roulette. A lot of people will die in this dangerous game.”Well then, telling them that they are better than not wearing one at all is even better. Why not tell them that they are 87% effective?
You really need to get some scientific references for you figures and proclamations.
You then say:
“As regards abortion, I find it singularly odd that those who argue that embryos are mere lifeless clusters of cells are particularly careful to prevent, nay outlaw, videos and photographs that prove the opposite. Indeed, national conferences on abortion are held regularly in various countries, yet the Christian side of the story, graphics and all, is never allowed to be presented. Objective? Certainly objectionable.”Showing graphics of embryo’s and fetuses would only server to play to the ignorance of non-scientists as to the capacity to suffer that a fetus or embryo has. A doll looks very much like a real baby, but no one cares if they fall down the stairs. What matters is the ability of the fetus or embryo to feel pain or suffer. There is no evidence to suggest early term abortions cause suffering and the ability to feel pain begins to appear between 23 and 30 weeks (http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/294/8/947).
What about mothers who are raped children (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7926694.stm) who are too small to give birth safely. What if they’re going to die through no fault of their own? Are you going to excommunicate the people who save the girls life by aborting the baby? Would you insist that the girl is given a death sentence for her promiscuity? Well you don’t have to, the Catholic church will do it for you.
Or look what happens in Nicaragua (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/oct/08/health.lifeandhealth) where the catholic blanket ban on abortions (even for rape victims who are going to die if they carry the baby full term) in this heavily patriarchal society, sentences many women to suffering and death.
Never mind the past, the Catholic Church has blood on its hands now! It has enormous influential power in many of the world’s countries. It could use this power for good and just announce that it was wrong, like it has had to do in the past. Or it can continue to ignore the scientific consensus, cherry picking its gurus from the fringes and carry on contributing to enormous unnecessary suffering and death.
-
Thanks phatbat and I apologise for the delay in releasing your post from moderation. Posts with more than two links go into moderation, so, since I hadn’t anticipated links, I didn’t think of checking the moderation box until a few minutes ago. My apologies.
Athanasius, if you wish to rebut anything in phatbat’s posts, feel free.
Same goes for phatbat, although I believe he has retired for the night.
In any event, we will regroup tomorrow evening around 8 pm for the concluding part of this…
The Grand Catholic Truth Debate!
-
Let me get this straight, phatbat. You want me and all other interested parties to drop the Church’s history, its foundational and continued role in the sciences, in education, in art, architecture, music, literature, etc., as well as its role in the eradication of discrimination against, and abuse of, women, young girls and boys, its part in ending slavery, human sacrifice and all those other things I mentioned earlier, and you want to close the door on tens of thousands of heroically lived lives (the saints) and their charitable contributions to the common good of society?
In fine, you want to wipe out almost 2000 years of glorious work that has resulted in the civilising of the world as we know it in order to concentrate (or is that fixate?) on the sex issues of the past 50 years? Do you fully understand what manner of debate you agreed to enter into?
Your narrow-minded view of the Church’s role in society is truly shocking and, I’m sorry to say, not in the least academic. Ok, this is going to be a lengthy post but one which I hope will put an end once and for all to this single-track side of the debate and allow us to explore other aspects.
I will begin with this quote from your post:
You said: “Athanasius claims that in the past religion was more important to the public than it is today. Indeed it was – at all stages of a person’s life the church was there to stifle him. It took his income. It threatened him with Hell. It tortured him if he expressed a heresy. And since the church was all the citizen ever knew, it had all the power. It had the money, the books, the ability to influence kings. And so came the Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch burning. Where was the Church when the slave trade operated?”
The first point is that you appear to have fallen into that error of “presentism” I referred to in my introduction and you also mention Hell, which is against your own rules. Hell involves theological and dogmatic explanation (it’s a belief thing) and you have stated already that this, for you, is out of bounds. I cannot discuss Hell without entering into the supernatural, which you reject. Besides, you quote ridiculously and well out of context. Where is the academic evidence, the historical basis for such a wild and unfounded claim? The Church does indeed teach the existence of Hell, but certainly not in the manner you portray. Her priority has always been to preach the mercy of God, the salvation of the sinner through Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, not His wrath. This is playground argument!
The second point is that you would have to explain what you mean when you say that the Church stifled people’s lives. I know the history of my Church very well and I have never come across evidence of this. In fact, I think I demonstrated fairly well in my first post how the Church expanded and enhanced the lives of the people as a champion of education and Social Justice. Again, you make groundless accusations. Facts please!
As for the Crusades, you fail to make mention of the initiating role of Islam in the Holy Wars. You give no specifics, you just accuse. Ditto your references to the Inquisition and witch burning (presentism, my friend). These are very complex subjects, not nearly as clear cut as you would make them out to be. Indeed, each subject could have its own debate. And as regards the slave trade, I think I have already given an explanation, albeit short, on slavery. I did mention that it was a complicated issue, well entrenched in almost every culture before the advent of Christianity, that had to be worked on for a good many centuries before it could finally be rooted out.
The teaching of the Church, however, was clear right from the outset as I demonstrated in the Papal Bulls. That some clerics and secular Catholic leaders may have flaunted that Papal teaching is regrettable, the vast majority abided by it and some even gave their lives in its defence.
The Church may be a divine institution, but her children are human and prone to sin. You have a strange notion of the Catholic Church if you expect it to be populated solely by levitating saints. Even Christ Our Lord had a traitor in His midst in the person of Judas Iscariot.
Despite the failings of some, it was principally through the objections raised by the Dominican Antonio de Montesinos to the “cruelty and tyranny” of the Spanish rulers against the native Indians of America that King Ferdinand of Spain issued the anti-slavery Laws of Burgos and Valladolid.
Further abuses against these Indians by the Spanish authorities were denounced by Catholic missionaries such as Bartolomé de Las Casas and Francisco de Vitoria, which led to a debate on human rights and the birth of modern international law. So much, then, for the accusation of Church-sponsored slavery. And so we move on.
You said: “Athanasius also says that modern warfare has caused more death than religious warfare. Of course it has – because it has more technologically advanced weaponry. It had radio communications, making it easier to direct an army and relay information. The Vatican of the Middle Ages never had a nuclear bomb or a radio transmitter. But can anyone doubt that if the church of the Crusades had missiles, they would not have used them? And with the population explosion of today, there are many more targets. Wiping out, say, London in 1609 would involve much less death than doing so in 2009.”
That’s quite a leap of imagination for a Rationalist! Does it seem rational to you that the Church would employ weapons of mass destruction against innocent civilians, not to mention wiping out the most sacred places on earth? You really don’t know the Catholic Church and what it stands for and I really don’t have the time or energy to waste on this fantasy war games scenario. Let’s stick to the facts.
At this point you move back to the clerical sexual abuse scandals and spill considerably more ink on this subject than any other, just as you did in your introduction.
Now I am perfectly happy (although sad at the same time, given the subject matter) to agree with you that terrible clerical sexual scandals have taken place in recent years. What I am not quite so happy about is your sensationalist portrayal of these scandals as encompassing the entire priesthood and religious orders. You must know the injustice you commit against the vast majority of priests and religious who are completely innocent of any such crimes.
When you use blanket statements such as “sex starved virgins” to describe the Catholic priesthood you do everyone a disservice, most particularly yourself and your cause. This comes across more as fury than objectivity.
Where not militant homosexual groups recently advocating for a change in the law to reduce the age of consent to below 16 years? What do you have to say about that? Also, there are many more non-celibate secular paedophiles than celibate ones in this world. So much, then, for celibacy being the root cause of child rape.
The trend I have traced in the Church is one of a minority of priests and religious in different countries (around 1.5% overall) offending in various parishes, thereby accruing a number of victims. Maybe that was their reason for entering the priesthood and religious life in the first place.
There is no historical evidence whatever that this kind of crime went on in clerical circles until about 50 years ago. Indeed, it was not a huge problem anywhere until about 50 years ago. Now it seems to be a global plague, much more so in the secular world than in the religious world. This kind of crime has nothing to do with celibacy, it has to do with the loss or rejection of Christian faith and morality, a consequent negation of restraint and a return to pagan practices.
Yes, there is an unhealthy obsession today with sex! Every argument put forward by you thus far, for example, has been about sex, whether child abuse, contraception, abortion or whatever. It seems the entire secular world is fixated on this single subject, not on the beauty of virtue but on the ugliness of vice and how best to accommodate it, child abuse obviously excluded.
As regards condom usage, the world is presently awash with condoms yet 20 million have died and at least 42 million remain infected in this global pandemic. Against this rising figure, the WHO and the UN repeatedly argue that condoms are making a difference. Surely, though, the facts should be permitted to speak for themselves? Rationalise!
The Catholic Church opposes the use of condoms primarily because they prevent life, but also because they simply don’t work as a barrier against HIV/AIDS and their free use greatly encourages sexual promiscuity with all its resultant STD’s. Remember those 54 million infected people in the U.S.?
Only since Christianity went into decline, and consequently the old moral code was thrown away by the majority, have these infections emerged in the form of deadly global pandemics. We can throw alternative statements and stats at each other from now until doomsday, but still the record will show that the HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to spread. There is only one certain way to stop it and that is to return to Christian moral values.
The bottom line, then, is that the Catholic Church is being blamed for its moral stance against sexual profligacy, yet, as I previously demonstrated, the vast majority of AIDS sufferers in Africa are non-Catholic and are not, therefore, constrained by Church teaching. So why does the Church get the blame? Simply because it stands for morality in a world largely given over to immorality. The world wants “protected” ‘free love’ and the Church cannot subscribe to such baseness. The Church stands for what is best for humanity, not what is convenient. Now I think we’ve more or less thrashed the issue of condoms to death, so, we move on again.
Mother Teresa did not deny painkillers to the sick out of some perverted notion of enforced penance, as you insinuate. She did so out of a respect for the wishes of her largely-Hindu patients. Here is an example excerpt from libraryindex.com which shows that she acted out of respect for the religious wishes of her patients:
“The Eastern religious tradition of Hinduism is founded on the principle of reincarnation—the cycle of life, death, and physical rebirth. Hindus believe that death and dying are intricately interwoven with life, and that the individual soul undergoes a series of physical life cycles before uniting with Brahman, or God. “Karma” refers to the ethical consequences of a person’s actions during a previous life, which determine the quality of his or her present life. A person cannot change nor escape his or her karma. By conforming to “dharma,” the religious and moral law, an individual is able to fulfill obligations from the past life. Life is sacred because it offers one the chance to perform good acts toward the goal of ending the cycle of rebirths. A believer in Hinduism, therefore, views pain and suffering as personal karma, and serious illness as a consequence of past misdeeds.”
Furthermore, Mother Teresa did not give her name to the 500 convents she founded, as you claim. These convents have various saints names but are generally known as convents of the Sisters of Charity. It is regrettable that you castigate so nastily a woman who litterally lifted the rat-eaten bodies of the dying from the streets of Calcutta and carried them to a place where they could die with some dignity. It seems there is no tactic a militant atheist will not employ to win others to his side.
And now to abortion. We know that abortion, while outlawed in Christian culture, was very popular in pagan culture and that the practice made a spectacular State-sponsored return under both Nazism and Communism. Is this truly what you advocate as good for humanity, a practice from the days of barbarism?
As for the old chestnut of ‘abortion due to rape,’ while I do truly sympathise with victims of such a crime as rape I am nevertheless obliged to point out that St. Ninian was the product of rape. Imagine the loss to the world if he had been aborted.
Imagine if your own mother had aborted you! Not a nice thought, is it. You got your life, yet you would deny it to other children on the grounds that self gratification without responsibilty for the act takes precedence.
Another false proposition is: ‘young girls are dying because they can’t have abortions.’ Well, a good many more children are dying in the womb as a result of abortion. Read up on the statistics on under age pregnancies and you’ll soon see that most deliver without incident.
By far the greater majority of abortions carried out in the world are on behalf of perfectly healthy women who have neither been raped nor are under threat of losing their lives. It pays, I suppose, to pick the most emotive of examples to put your case, but it isn’t reality. The killing of healthy, heart-beating, perfectly formed, thumb-sucking babies in their millions is reality. The truth, I state again, is that people want sex at all costs without responsibility. That’s the real issue here.
Here is what you stated in regard to this argument: “Showing graphics of embryo’s and fetuses would only server to play to the ignorance of non-scientists as to the capacity to suffer that a fetus or embryo has. A doll looks very much like a real baby, but no one cares if they fall down the stairs. What matters is the ability of the fetus or embryo to feel pain or suffer. There is no evidence to suggest early term abortions cause suffering and the ability to feel pain begins to appear between 23 and 30 weeks.” Now here is my response:
By the kind permission of Probe Ministries in the U.S., I reproduce the following from an article written by Kerby Anderson in 2003:
“The medical arguments against abortion are compelling. For example, at conception the embryo is genetically distinct from the mother. To say that the developing baby is no different from the mother’s appendix is scientifically inaccurate. A developing embryo is genetically different from the mother. A developing embryo is also genetically different from the sperm and egg that created it. A human being has 46 chromosomes (sometimes 47 chromosomes). Sperm and egg have 23 chromosomes. A trained geneticist can distinguish between the DNA of an embryo and that of a sperm and egg. But that same geneticist could not distinguish between the DNA of a developing embryo and a full-grown human being.
Another set of medical arguments against abortion surround the definition of life and death. If one set of criteria have been used to define death, could they also be used to define life? Death used to be defined by the cessation of heartbeat. A stopped heart was a clear sign of death. If the cessation of heartbeat could define death, could the onset of a heartbeat define life? The heart is formed by the 18th day in the womb. If heartbeat was used to define life, then nearly all abortions would be outlawed.
Physicians now use a more rigorous criterion for death: brain wave activity. A flat EEG (electroencephalograph) is one of the most important criteria used to determine death. If the cessation of brain wave activity can define death, could the onset of brain wave activity define life? Individual brain waves are detected in the fetus in about 40-43 days. Using brain wave activity to define life would outlaw at least a majority of abortions.
Opponents to abortion also raise the controversial issue of fetal pain. Does the fetus feel pain during abortion? The evidence seems fairly clear and consistent. Consider this statement made in a British medical journal: “Try sticking an infant with a pin and you know what happens. She opens her mouth to cry and also pulls away. Try sticking (with a pin) an 8-week-old human fetus in the palm of his hand. He opens his mouth and pulls his hand away. A more technical description would add that changes in heart rate and fetal movement also suggest that intrauterine manipulations are painful to the fetus.”
Obviously, other medical criteria could be used. For example, the developing fetus has a unique set of fingerprints as well as genetic patterns that make it unique. The development of sonography has provided us with a “window to the womb” showing us that a person is growing and developing in the mother’s womb. We can discern eyes, ears, fingers, a nose, and a mouth. Our visual senses tell us this is a baby growing and maturing. This is not a piece of protoplasm; this is a baby inside the womb.
The point is simple. Medical science leads to a pro-life perspective rather than a pro-choice perspective. If medical science can be used at all to draw a line, the clearest line is at the moment of conception. Medical arguments provide a strong case against abortion and for life.
Legal Arguments Against Abortion:
At this point in our discussion, we need to look at legal arguments against abortion.
The best legal argument against abortion can be seen in the case of Roe v. Wade. It violated standard legal reasoning. The Supreme Court decided not to decide when life begins and then turned around and overturned the laws of 50 different states.Most of the Supreme Court’s verdict rested upon two sentences. “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to an answer.”
Although the sentences sounded both innocuous and unpretentious, they were neither. The Supreme Court’s non-decision was not innocuous. It overturned state laws that protected the unborn and has resulted in over 30 million abortions (roughly the population of Canada) in the United States.
The decision also seems unpretentious by acknowledging that it did not know when life begins. But if the Court did not know, then it should have acted “as if” life was in the womb. A crucial role of government is to protect life. Government cannot remove a segment of the human population from its protection without adequate justification.
The burden of proof should lie with the life-taker, and the benefit of the doubt should be with the life-saver. Put another way: “when in doubt, don’t.” A hunter who hears rustling in the bushes shouldn’t fire until he knows what is in the bushes. Likewise, a Court which doesn’t know when life begins, should not declare open season on the unborn.
The burden of proof in law is on the prosecution. The benefit of doubt is with the defense. This is also known as a presumption of innocence. The defendant is assumed to be innocent unless proven guilty. Again the burden of proof is on the entity that would take away life or liberty. The benefit of the doubt lies with the defense.
The Supreme Court clearly stated that it does not know when life begins and then violated the very spirit of this legal principle by acting as if it just proved that no life existed in the womb. Even more curious was the fact that to do so, it had to ignore the religious community and international community on the subject of the unborn.
Had the religious community really failed to reach a consensus? Although there were some intramural disagreements, certainly the weight of evidence indicated that a Western culture founded on Judeo-Christian values held abortion to be morally wrong. People with widely divergent theological perspectives (Jewish, Catholic, evangelical and fundamental Protestants) shared a common agreement about the humanity of the unborn.
The same could be said about the international legal community. Physicians around the world subscribed to the Hippocratic Oath (“I will not give a woman a pessary to produce abortion”). The unborn were protected by various international documents like the Declaration of Geneva and the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
Just as there are solid medical arguments against abortion, so also there are legal arguments against abortion. Roe vs. Wade was a bad decision that needs to be overturned.
Philosophical Arguments Against Abortion:
Finally, we will conclude our discussion by looking at philosophical arguments against abortion.
A third set of arguments against abortion would be philosophical arguments. A key philosophical question is where do you draw the line? Put another way, when does a human being become a person?The Supreme Court’s decision of Roe v. Wade separated personhood from humanity. In other words, the judges argued that a developing fetus was a human (i.e., a member of the species Homo sapiens) but not a person. Since only persons are given 14th Amendment protection under the Constitution, the Court argued that abortion could be legal at certain times. This left to doctors, parents, or even other judges the responsibility of arbitrarily deciding when personhood should be awarded to human beings.
The Supreme Court’s cleavage of personhood and humanity made the ethical slide down society’s slippery slope inevitable. Once the Court allowed people to start drawing lines, some drew them in unexpected ways and effectively opened the door for infanticide and euthanasia.
The Court, in the tradition of previous line-drawers, opted for biological criteria in their definition of a “person” in Roe v. Wade. In the past, such criteria as implantation or quickening had been suggested. The Court chose the idea of viability and allowed for the possibility that states could outlaw abortions performed after a child was viable. But viability was an arbitrary criterion, and there was no biological reason why the line had to be drawn near the early stages of development. The line, for example, could be drawn much later.
Ethicist Paul Ramsey frequently warned that any argument for abortion could logically be also used as an argument for infanticide. As if to illustrate this, Dr. Francis Crick, of DNA fame, demonstrated that he was less concerned about the ethics of such logical extensions and proposed a more radical definition of personhood. He suggested in the British journal Nature that if “a child were considered to be legally born when two days old, it could be examined to see whether it was an ‘acceptable member of human society.’” Obviously this is not only an argument for abortion; it’s an argument for infanticide.
Other line-drawers have suggested a cultural criterion for personhood. Ashley Montagu, for example, stated, “A newborn baby is not truly human until he or she is molded by cultural influences later.” Again, this is more than just an argument for abortion. It is also an argument for infanticide.
More recently some line-drawers have focused on a mental criterion for personhood. Dr. Joseph Fletcher argues in his book Humanhood that “Humans without some minimum of intelligence or mental capacity are not persons, no matter how many of these organs are active, no matter how spontaneous their living processes are.” This is not only an argument for abortion and infanticide; it’s adequate justification for euthanasia and the potential elimination of those who do not possess a certain IQ. In other writings, Joseph Fletcher suggested that an “individual” was not truly a “person” unless he has an IQ of at least 40.
In conclusion, we can see that there are many good arguments against abortion. Obviously there are a number of biblical arguments against abortion. But there are also medical, legal, and philosophical arguments against abortion. The Bible and logic are on the side of the Christian who wants to stand for the sanctity of human life.”
This is precisely why, even on a natural level, the Catholic Church stands firm for the good of all humanity in this issue of abortion.
Whether it be abortion, contraception, embryonic stem cell research, partial-birth abortion or euthanasia, all of which appalling State practices have their origin in the Eugenics programmes of the cult and occult ideologies of Nazism and Communism, the Church is there to say no in the name, and for the good of, humanity.
Now, would you like to expand the debate to examine the Catholic Church’s present-day activities in the mission fields, which, incidentally, continue to grow and thrive from their ancient foundations?
We could examine the work of St. Vincent de Paul on behalf of the poor, now a universal work, or we could examine that of St. John Bosco on behalf of the orphans of Italy, also now a universal work. We could also check out other religious orders at work amongst the poorest and most marginalized in countries such as Africa, Latin America and elsewhere, or we could explore the work of Catholic adoption agencies throughout the world.
Maybe you would like to delve a little further and discuss the Vatican’s international UN and EU Social Justice initiatives on behalf of the working person, the less well off and those in poverty, it’s climate change initiatives, or its opposition to nuclear armaments, etc.
The downside for the Church-hating Rationalist is that such an expansion of the debate would rather tend to favour the Church in her role as caring Mother over the civilisation she established. It would also help to establish were all those “billions of dollars in gold” actually go.
-
Thanks Athanasius. We’re coming near the end of this wonderful (it is, isn’t it?) debate, so when you’re ready, phatbat, we’ll be glad to read your response to the above…
May I remind bloggers and visitors to this site, that a debate is about arguments, not sentiment or emotion. So please read the posts from Athanasius and phatbat, as far as possible, with an open mind.
When you’re ready, phatbat, I invite you to post your response…
-
Final post.
This debate has once again exposed the real issue for Catholics, as demonstrated on the audience thread by Petrus among others. They are more concerned with saving “souls” than saving lives and alleviating suffering in this life, or in other words, “in the world.” For this you really should be truly ashamed of yourselves. Instead of dealing with the suffering and death that is the whole reason the condom issue is brought up at all, people choose to whinge about how I’m just talking about the “sex” issue again, “so typical.” What a disgraceful reaction that is. A matter than involves sex, condoms, disease, suffering and death, and you guys choose to pick out one of those facets, the “sex” part, and say it’s just about that. That is the mark of someone that has an unhealthy attitude towards sex, when they can’t talk about issues that have anything to do with sex without thinking it dirty, and requiring a “lowering” of the tone to do so.
So we got comments such as:
Cateran:
“phatbat needs to raise his game above the navel.“
Benedict:
“Phatbat’s response is sex, sex and more sex. Yawn, yawn and more yawn.”
Editor:
“Excellent point Petrus – I noticed, too, that phatbat has centred his argument on sex.”
Benedict:
“Other than sex do you have anything else to argue against the motion?”
The issue is death, and suffering, get it?
As those against the motion have been asking for quite a while on that thread, and I would like every Catholic to answer now. Would you promote the use of condoms in conjunction with abstinence and fidelity (as in the ABC approach endorsed by the WHO, NIH, NHS and EU due to the scientific consensus on the matter) if condoms were 100% reliable?
If you wouldn’t then why bother talking about the science at all, you are admitting that it is more important for one of the approx 50 million ejaculated sperm to maybe reach an egg, in an over populated world, in areas suffering from massive poverty, just to keep your particular god happy, than it is to alleviate suffering and stop deaths, for sure, in the world, now.
If you would, then the science is important and the degree of protection that condoms do offer is extremely important.
Having rebutted Athanasius’ objections over condoms I read in the audience thread a misinformed post about gay life expectancy and an attempted rebuttal of my rebuttals by the Editor to do with condoms. She said:
“RussllTeapots, have you any idea of the dangers inherent in homosexual activity? Do yo know that homosexuals statistically live shorter lives? That those shorter lives are often disease-ridden? It is certainly not charitable to promote such a dangerous lifestyle.”
To which I responded as follows:
[“This is incorrect and comes from a myth that has been circulating around the religious right for many years. It originated with a researcher called Paul Cameron in about 1994.
This article explains as follows:
“Cameron's method had the virtue of simplicity, at least. He and two co-authors read through back numbers of various urban gay community papers, mostly of the giveaway sort that are laden with bar ads and personals. They counted up obituaries and news stories about deaths, noted the ages of the deceased, computed the average, and published the resulting numbers as estimates of gay life expectancy.”
And
What do vital-statistics buffs think of this technique? Nick Eberstadt at the American Enterprise Institute sums up the reactions of several of his fellow demographers: "The method as you describe it is just ridiculous." But you don't have to be a trained statistician to spot the fallacy at its heart, which is, to quote Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistician John Karon, that "you're only getting the ages of those who die." Gay men of the same generation destined to live to old age, even if more numerous, won't turn up in the sample.
Are you not pissed off that you were fed lies as truth?
Also, what do you mean by “promoting” a gay lifestyle? No-one is promoting becoming gay, people can’t help being attracted to members of the same sex, they don’t choose it. All the evidence indicates that people’s sexuality falls on a continuum of completely straight to completely gay and lots of people fall somewhere in-between.”]
I haven’t seen any rebuttal of that post, is that because it is about gay people, and there for dirty and not to be talked about either?
Now her condom rebuttal:
Bendigeidfran
HIV can and does pass through condoms – the HIV virus is almost 500 times smaller than sperm and since condoms are not and never have been regarded by medics as a reliable contraceptive, how can they possibly be a reliable guard against HIV?
Dr C M Roland – a leading specialist on rubber technology at the US Naval Research Laboratory has warned against condoms, arguing that contrary to popular belief it is actually irresponsible, not “responsible”, to advocate their use as being “safe”.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+barrier+performance+of+latex+rubbeg-a014089514To which I responded as follows:
[“Firstly, that study was published in 1993.
Secondly it states that it has had difficulty in getting conclusive results about the effectiveness of Condoms against HIV. But the limited results did show some increased benefits from using condoms. Meaning they are better than not using condoms.
Thirdly it has since been superseded by better studies not using the methods your study said were unreliable. Such as this one:from this study:
“Under test conditions, 2.6% (12 of 470) of the latex condoms allowed some virus penetration
”Conclusions: Few condoms allowed any virus penetration. The median amount of penetration for latex condoms when extrapolated to expected actual use conditions was 1 × 10-5 ml (volume of semen). Thus, even for the few condoms that do allow virus penetration, the typical level of exposure to semen would be several orders of magnitude lower than for no condom at all.
”Again, of the few condoms that allowed virus penetration, one condom accounted for 98.6% of the total amount.”
So condoms do massively reduce the risks of infection and it is improper use that contributes to most of the problems with them.
I have noticed so far reading over this thread that the Catholics seem to be constantly treating this as a dichotomy of abstinence OR condoms. The pro condom side are just promoting the use of them when people do have sex after the A and the B have been bypassed. The scientific consensus has settled on this issue and all that remains are a few quotes from people with Dr before their name and out of date, inconclusive, studies.
No one is suggesting telling people that condoms guarantee safety from infection. They are saying tell people the truth. Tell them that studies have now been done and show that they are far, far safer than not using a condom but you still stand a small chance of passing on/contracting HIV.”]Nothing has been forthcoming in response to this and there is nothing in Athanasius’ posts so far that anywhere near get to grips with overcoming the scientific backing of the effectiveness of condoms.
People have raised the issue of Uganda as an example of the AB only method of reducing HIV/AIDS since about 1991 to the present, but as I posted on the audience thread this is riddled with factors that make it inconclusive.
The drop in HIV/AIDS rates in Uganda that have been reported (around 30%-5%) were reached in quite an error ridden way, but were still very good reductions. Secondly there were an enormous amount of deaths from HIV/AIDS over the period which has contributed to the drop. Thirdly, no one is saying promoting abstinence and being faithful doesn’t have any effect, it is very important in an AIDS infested country. They are just saying tell the truth about condoms offering quite a lot of protection and tell them the chances of them failing to protect you. Fourthly, condoms were being promoted since about 1991 anyway in Uganda along with the A and B. So in other words Uganda is an example of ABC working, which is what we’ve been saying all along and why the WHO supports it.
Wiki has good info on this with several links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_in_Uganda#cite_note-6
And this BBC article details the situation comprehensively:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4433069.stmIf, after this you continue to stick your fingers in your ears as your objections are dealt with, and continue to stay silent about the dangerous position your church is taking on condoms in Africa then you deserve to shoulder the blame with them.
No one has either dealt with the blanket ban on abortions that is promoted by the Catholic church and adopted by 4 countries. The catholic church would rather see a pregnant child, who is a victim of rape (this example being in Brazil which thankfully allows abortions when the mothers life is in danger), and her developing foetus, die from carrying the foetus to full term, than for the baby to be aborted thus saving the girls life. But I guess that’s OK as Benet (on the audience thread) reminds us:
“This must be one of the hardest of the hard cases. But it is such a rare case that a raped mother would die by childbirth that the Church’s teaching on abortion can only affect a very small number of women in this situation. One could argue on that the Church’s teaching on abortion is for “net good” as it ensures that more humans are born.”
Oh what a relief, it’s only a few raped children that will, die in horrible pain from something that is preventable. Absolutely sick. The Catholic Church should be utterly ashamed of itself for this ridiculous and arbitrary rule. But then again, it’s connected to sex again, so we shouldn’t really be talking about all that should we?
As I said I have left the past out of this since we only have limited time and the title of the debate clearly states “is a force for good” and not “was a force for good.” We have detailed here so many cases of institutional rape and abuse, so many cases of deaths caused by anti-abortionist Catholics (such as Nicaragua), so many deaths from wrong contraceptive education but do you know what? Only ONE would suffice; how can the Catholic Church justify even one death caused by their direct influence that was avoidable? Just one would cast into doubt their true influence and benignity in the world. Just one. But there are too many to count in reality. How can any practicing catholic reconcile their conscience to being a supporter or an organisation that causes death?
-
Thanks phatbat.
Given the number of comments on the Audience thread, I will now close that thread and all comments (and votes) should be registered here.
-
YES
-
yes
-
Vote – YES
-
YES
-
VOTE:
NO -
YES
-
Vote YES
-
Vote – yes
-
yes
-
Vote:
Absolutely NO! -
Yes
-
I vote NO.
The great evil the RCC does in the world is to make innocent people believe things that are not true. It does this for the mindless purpose of its own propagation. From this, all other evil. Voltaire understood this long ago:
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
-
Wonderful Athanasius
Yes
-
No.
-
NO
By its own admission, the Catholic Church is *not* a force for good in the world. As reiterated by many Catholics on the audience thread, their prime concern is for *souls*. Therefore moral turpitude is to be avoided, at all costs, in preference to suffering and death in this world. And this is borne out by the *practices* of the Catholic Church around the world, and the attitudes of its followers.
Even Catholics should vote no on *this* motion if they believe in the notion of special salvation.
-
NO.
-
I expected something a little more intellectually expansive from phatbat but I see this debate was only ever intended by the atheist side to be used as a forum to attack the Church’s moral position. That’s very dissappointing, if not entirely unexpected.
I also see that phatbat has turned this thread into an extension of the comments thread, quoting the various exchanges from there to here. That’s intellectual sloth.
He did say this, though, in relation to the condom business: “The issue is death, and suffering, get it?”
Yes, phatbat we do get it. Death comes for us all and it is the Church’s intention to preserve as many as possible from eternal suffering.
I mention the supernatural here and you may accuse me of breaking the rules, but, then, you broke them from the outset when you agreed the format of this debate and then proceeded to focus solely on condom-bashing the Catholic Church.
If you break the law of the land you’ll go to prison. If you break the laws of God and nature you will likewise be penalised. HIV/AIDS only came into being when those laws were broken. It is presently killing millions and condoms can’t stop it. The real issue, however, is how many souls has the new-found freedom killed into the bargain. Freedom without boundaries is not true freedom, it’s licence!
The poll will doubtless be inundated with atheist voters to ensure that it goes in your favour, but what have you won? You have not debated here in any intellectual, objective sense the history of the Catholic Church and the many aspects of its activity in the world for two thousand years. All you’ve done, like that BBC audience, is mocked the Church on the grounds that it won’t let everyone have free love with protection and its blessing. So much for Rationalist thought!
-
No doubt in my mind – yes
-
YES – it is obvious from Athanasius’s posts that the Catholic Church definitely IS a force for good in the world, without any doubt.
-
Phatbat writes in his concluding speech:
“No one has either dealt with the blanket ban on abortions that is promoted by the Catholic church and adopted by 4 countries. The catholic church would rather see a pregnant child, who is a victim of rape (this example being in Brazil which thankfully allows abortions when the mothers life is in danger), and her developing foetus, die from carrying the foetus to full term, than for the baby to be aborted thus saving the girls life. But I guess that’s OK as Benet (on the audience thread) reminds us:
“This must be one of the hardest of the hard cases. But it is such a rare case that a raped mother would die by childbirth that the Church’s teaching on abortion can only affect a very small number of women in this situation. One could argue on that the Church’s teaching on abortion is for “net good” as it ensures that more humans are born.”
Oh what a relief, it’s only a few raped children that will, die in horrible pain from something that is preventable. Absolutely sick. The Catholic Church should be utterly ashamed of itself for this ridiculous and arbitrary rule. But then again, it’s connected to sex again, so we shouldn’t really be talking about all that should we?” end of extract from Phatbat’s speech..
The Church’s teaching on abortion is based on the commandment Thou shalt not kill. The Unborn are innocent and to abort them is killing the innocent or murder. This teaching is not arbitary – it gives a universal rule to be followed in all circumstances and it is not ridiculous as it follows a clear logic.
I did mention a utilitarian argument:
“One could argue on that the Church’s teaching on abortion is for “net good” as it ensures that more humans are born”
but this is not an argument that I would employ in favour of the Church’s teaching on abortion.
-
VOTE – YES (the Catholic Church IS a force for good in the world).
I was more convinced with the ‘professional’ argument presented by Athanasius – He gave a clear, conscise and evidenced argument that left me in no doubt that the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world.
-
Athanasius
Is that a NO?
-
Well said Athanasius.
-
Faith of Our Fathers, living still!
YES!
-
Oops! Didn’t know the debate was over. Editor, you may delete my comments above if you wish.
-
YES
-
YES. The Catholic Church is a wonderful force for good in the world, so I vote YES!
-
NO
The Catholic Church is an institution. Many do good works within it, but the institution spreads hate and fear and ignorance. There are millions of good people who are good in spite of the Church, and often because they ignore its teachings.
-
NO!
-
To Jesus Heart All Burning!
Yes
-
YES.
-
100% Yes
-
YES.
-
Athanasius mentions a good argument — it’s a pity it was not developed earlier:
“If you break the laws of God and nature you will likewise be penalised. HIV/AIDS only came into being when those laws were broken.”
Simply put promiscuity leads to STD’s.
-
And I vote “no” for much the same reasons as Quine and Steve Zara.
-
For me, there was no contest.
Yes
-
No contest for me, either – Athanasius knows his stuff.
YES!
-
VOTE YES – of course without a shaddow of a doubt the Catholic Church IS a force for good in the world and will always be Until the Immaculate Heart of Mary Triumphs in the END!!!!!!!!!!!
By that time all those rejecting the Church will be on their knees begging for forgiveness!!!!!!!!!!
-
Evil_Astronomer
Is that an attempt to vote twice?
-
Sorry phatbat.
yes
-
It is a very long time since I’ve “attended” such a good debate. I just have to vote YES and say thanks to Athanasius for such a solid defence of the Church.
I just hope Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry read this some day if not already. Puts their prejudices to bed, without a doubt.
-
Athanasius has shoveled out too much to respond to in one posting. But anyone can make a list of religious scientists, if one goes back to the 18th century and earlier. Among modern scientists, who, unlike their predecessors, have the option of not belonging to the church, it is not so easy.
And is he really saying Catholics invented universities? Hello, Pythagoras, Socrates, Aristotle.
Catholicism put an end to patriarchy? Show me a female Catholic priest. You can’t.
Catholicism ended slavery? Read Deuteronomy. It is chock-full of rules regarding the treatment of slaves and livestock (obviously regarded as the same thing).
Catholicism ended polygamy? The Biblical patriarchs are almost all polygamists.
Condom use is more common in areas where there is lots of AIDS? Well, have you ever heard of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc argument? The sun rises because the cock crows? Maybe condoms are more in demand BECAUSE there is so much AIDS.
Your knowledge of science is nonexistent, just like your god. If latex doesn’t block, or at least impede, viruses, why do surgeons wear latex gloves? As a fashion statement?
The mind reels. -
Vote – Yes
-
Athanasius: ‘Yes, phatbat we do get it. Death comes for us all and it is the Church’s intention to preserve as many as possible from eternal suffering.’
Saving souls over saving lives! Hey Athanasius – do you think that could become a catchphrase? It’s in the book! The one He couldn’t quite make – when noone could read – and when He could talk directly into their heads! It’s the whole point of the church isn’t it? Saving souls over saving lives!
I vote for Athanasius because I think he should get more publicity.
-
O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy.
Yes
-
Oops. I got so worked up I forgot to vote! I’m getting rather old. I vote NO.
-
Absolutely YES
-
“O Lady of Fatima Hail”
Yes
-
without a doubt – YES
-
NO contest YES
-
Littlejohn! You forgot the Catholic countries where there’s less AIDS! Because half of them have died!
-
Sacred Heart of Jesus I Place all my Trust in You.
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
pray for all those who reject youVOTE – Yes
-
Benet-
“Simply put promiscuity leads to STD’s.”
No, it doesn’t. Someone can be a virgin up until their marriage, and entirely faithful from then on and still end up with a life-threatening STD.
This is what I find so wicked about the Church’s attitude. It penalises those whom it considers innocents for the sins of others. STDs don’t confine themselves to the bad people.
-
my vote is yes
-
Vote – YES
Quite a debate. There is one link I would like add regarding abortion
-
VOTE – Yes – No doubts in my mind!
-
Bendigeidfran, that’s an old trick. Making it seem as if the choice is between saving souls and saving lives. That is not the case. People make their own decisions. The Church just preaches the truth revealed by God about human beings (whom He designed and created so knows what makes us happy as opposed to hedonistic pleasure) so the Church is actually trying to save lives as well as souls by waring us of the dangers of sexual promiscuity. Even phatbat admitted in his posts that nobody claims that condoms are 100% reliable – they are not, so it is not helping to save lives to recommend their use.
By the way, the answer to that question (a conundrum, really) – would the Church allow condoms if they were 100% reliable, is, of course “no” because barriers and drugs to prevent conception are directly opposed to the natural outcome of the act of sex. Not that every act will result in a baby but it is wrong to deliberately use artificial means of preventing conception.
So, I thank God for giving us the one ark of salvation, His Church and I am voting – without hestitation after reading Athanasius’s posts – a resounding YES.
-
littlejohn
If your comments above are anything to go by, I can well understand why phatbat chose to avoid the historical/intellectual aspect of this debate!
-
YES
-
Dominus vobiscum
“”I just hope Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry read this some day if not already. Puts their prejudices to bed, without a doubt.”"
Not if you look at the outside poll, it doesn’t.
2% Yes to 98% no is a numbingly bone-crushing defeat for you lot…Best not have too much ‘faith’ in polls, eh?
-
Great debate – yes
-
No is my vote.
You people are nuts and need professional medical help but you won’t get it because society will most likely continue to pamper your dangerously smug and deluded states. And please sport those lovely crucifixes, so when I see one dangling around your gullible necks, I can run away in the opposite direction so you moral folks won’t hurt me.
After being see such lunacy being revealed here, and such evilness on the part of these ‘good catholics’, not only will I have a good long soak in a tub to soak off the encrusted filth that these unthinking, unfeeling, cowards have metaphorically covered me in, I will spend the rest of my life actively campaigning against this criminal and evil institution called the Catholic Church.
-
These people are still insulting us. Very immature.
No contest.
Vote YES -
Bendigeidfran-
“I vote for Athanasius because I think he should get more publicity.”
You make a good point. I hope this debate has a wide audience, and that this will help with rejection or reform of Catholic dogma. I sadly doubt it though.
-
Vote: Yes, a definite force for good.
-
Athanasius
Unbelievable. The title of the debate is “is a force for good” not “was.” So as per the terms of the debate the past is of far less relevance than the present.
And what the hell is the relevance of the issues i am concentrating being connected to sex? What on earth is wrong with you? What would it matter if it was (through some freak of scriptural interpretation) about driving, or eating, or clothing? Why is the sex connection of such importance to you?
Simple answer.
Because you are obsessed with sex, and are using your unhealthy disgust by it as an avenue to avoid facing up to the problems. For every aspect that i have raised that is to do with sex, your church has a rule about it. Your grasp of the logic of that is as firm as your understanding of science in general.
You have also ignored the aspect of abortion that i was concentrating on, which was for children who have been raped and will die if they carry the child full term and just copied an article whole sale that talks about abortions in general, for people who had chosen to have sex. No mention of children caught up in your church’s blanket ban. I suppose they represent collateral damage to you as i said.
And you sum up your horrendous ideology quite nicely here:
“Yes, phatbat we do get it. Death comes for us all and it is the Church’s intention to preserve as many as possible from eternal suffering.”
Souls you mean, The thing that you haven’t got any evidence of existing. You put this unevidenced substance you call a soul ahead of the real, living person. Your faith truly does warp your human sense of morality.
Quite frankly, you should be ashamed of yourself.
-
No
As it is evident that the playing up of guilt, hell and suffering all play a major part in the ‘church’s’ institution.
-
a resounding YES
-
Well, I am astonished.
Vote – Yes.
Some of you should join up the dots – God help you no voters when judgement day comes for you.
-
Athanasius
When Jerry Falwell died, there was a memorable quote which could equally well apply to you.
“Give him an enema and you could bury him in a matchbox”. -
Is the Catholic Church (Roman) a force for good in the world?
No, it is the greatest evil force in the world.
-
I vote yes.
-
phatbat
“Unbelievable. The title of the debate is “is a force for good” not “was.” So as per the terms of the debate the past is of far less relevance than the present.
Tell that to the Jewsih people!
-
vote no, of course
-
Yes. The Church will prevail in the end – just you wait and see. How foolish can people be.
I will pray for the the poor souls voting no – there seems to be somthing lacking.
-
Yes Logicel lets keep this on an intellectual plane.
Vote YES. -
Yes, yes, yes
-
YES – Fabulous debate!
-
It is strange (or is it?) that this debate has centred around AIDS, abortion and clerical child abuse. Rather like the Hitchins/Fry — Widdy Widdy debate.
It is a reminder to me, if one were needed, how the abuse of boys in the care of Church Institutions has damaged the Church in the eyes of so many outside the Church and given the enemies of the Church such a powerful weapon with which to beat the Church.
I vote “Yes” that the Church is a force for good in this world as it stands up for the downtrodden and opposes the worldly values of wealth and high status and materialism and hedonism. The Church proposes the virtues of fidelity and humility and true love of neighbour which is concerned not only for his material good but also his spiritual.
I would like to thank Phatbat for his contribution to the debate.
-
I vote yes.
-
RussellsTeapot
Athanasius
When Jerry Falwell died, there was a memorable quote which could equally well apply to you.
“Give him an enema and you could bury him in a matchbox”.Not worthy of you! It’s a bad sign when insult is all you have left to offer.
-
I will pray for the the poor souls voting no – there seems to be somthing lacking.
Yes – we lack superstition. you should try it – it’s great!
VOTE NO! -
God bless you all.
Yes
-
Athanasius
After all I have had to put up with from you, it was the least I could do.
It’s not all I have left, anyway…
-
of course!
Vote – yes!!!!
-
FOR THOSE WHO VOTED NO:
Exorcism Prayer
issued by Pope Leo XIII, May 18th 1890.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.
Let GOD arise and let His enemies be scattered: and let them that hate Him flee from before His Face!
As smoke vanisheth, so let them vanish away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the Presence of GOD (Ps 67:1-2). Judge Thou, O’ Lord, them that wrong me: overthrow them that fight against me.
Let them be confounded and ashamed that seek after my soul. Let them be turned back and be confounded that devise evil against me. Let them become as dust before the wind: and let the Angel of the Lord straighten them. Let their way become dark and slippery: and let the Angel of the Lord pursue them.
For without cause they have hidden their net for me unto destruction: without cause they have upbraided my soul.
Let the snare which he knoweth not, come upon him: and let the net which he hath hidden, catch him: and into that very snare let him fall. But my soul shall rejoice in the Lord, and shall be delighted in His Salvation (Ps 34:1, 4-9).
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.
O’ Most Glorious Prince of the Heavenly Armies, St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the battle and in our wrestling against principalities and powers against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places (Ephes 6:12). Come to the aid of men, whom GOD created incorruptible, and to the Image of His own Likeness He made him (Wis 2:23); and from the tyranny of the devil He bought him at a great price (Cor 7:23).
Fight the battles of the Lord today with the Army of the Blessed Angels, as once thou didst fight against lucifer, the leader of pride, and his apostate angels; and they prevailed not: neither was their place found anymore in Heaven. But that great dragon was cast out, the old serpent, who is called the devil and satan, who seduceth the whole world. And he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him (Apoc 12:8-9).
Behold, the ancient enemy and murderer strongly raises his head! Transformed into an angel of light, with the entire horde of wicked spirits he goes about everywhere and takes possession of the earth, so that therein he may blot out the Name of GOD and of His Christ and steal away, afflict and ruin into everlasting destruction the souls destined for a Crown of Eternal Glory. On men depraved in mind and corrupt in heart the wicked dragon pours out like a most foul river, the poison of his villany, a spirit of lying, impiety and blasphemy; and the deadly breath of lust and of all iniquities and vices. Her most crafty enemies have engulfed the Church, the Spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, with sorrows, they have drenched her with wormwood; on all her desirable things they have laid their wicked hands.
Where the See of the Blessed Peter and the Chair of Truth have been set up for the light of the gentiles, there they have placed the throne of the abomination of their wickedness, so that, the Pastor having been struck, they may also be able to scatter the flock. Therefore, O’ thou unconquerable Leader, be present with the people of GOD and against the spiritual wickedness which are bursting in upon them; and bring them the victory.
The Holy Church venerates thee as its Guardian and Patron; and it glories in the fact that thou art its Defender against the wicked powers of earth and hell. To thee the Lord has assigned the souls of the redeemed to be placed in Heavenly bliss. Beseech the GOD of Peace to crush satan under our feet, that he may no more be able to hold men captive and to harm the Church. Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that the mercies of the Lord may quickly come to our aid, that thou mayest seize the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and satan and that having bound him, thou mayest cast him into the bottomless pit, so that he may no more seduce the nations (Apoc 20:3).
Hence confiding in thy protection and guardianship, by the sacred authority of our ministry, we confidently and securely begin the task in the Name of Jesus Christ our GOD and Lord, of driving away the attacks of diabolical deceit.
Behold the Cross of the Lord, flee away ye hostile forces.
All: The lion of the tribe of Juda, the root of David hath conquered
May Thy mercy, O’ Lord, be upon us.
All: Since we have hoped in Thee.
O’ Lord, hear my prayer.
All: And let my cry come unto Thee.
The Lord be with you,
All: And with thy spirit.
LET US PRAY:
O’ GOD and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we invoke Thy Holy Name, and we humbly implore Thy mercy, that by the intercession of the Mother of GOD Mary Immaculate Ever Virgin, of Blessed Michael the Archangel, of Blessed Joseph the Spouse of the same Blessed Virgin, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and of all the Saints, Thou wouldst deign to afford us help against satan and all the other unclean spirits and against whatever wanders throughout the world to do harm to the human race and to ruin souls, through the same Christ Our Lord, Amen.
We exorcize thee, O’ every unclean spirit, satanic power, infernal invader, wicked legion, assembly and sect; in the Name and by the power of Our Lord Jesus Christ (+); may thou be snatched away and driven from the Church of GOD and from the souls made to the Image and Likeness of GOD and redeemed by the Precious Blood of the Divine Lamb (+). Most cunning serpent, thou shalt no more dare to deceive the human race, persecute the Church, torment GOD’s elect and sift them as wheat (+). The Most High GOD commands thee (+). He with whom in your great insolence, thou still claimest to be equal; He who wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth (1 Tim 2:4).
GOD the Father commands thee (+), GOD the Son commands thee (+), GOD the Holy Ghost commands thee (+). The Majesty of Christ, the Eternal Word of GOD made flesh, commands thee (+); He Who to save our race outdone through thy envy, “humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death” (Phil 2:8). He who has built His Church on the firm rock and declared that the gates of hell shall never prevail against Her, because He will dwell with Her “all days even to the end of the world” (Mat 28:20). The Sacred Sign of the Cross commands thee (+), as does also the power of the Mysteries of the Christian Faith (+), the Glorious Mother of GOD, the Virgin Mary, commands thee (+); She who by Her humility and from the first moment of Her Immaculate Conception, crushed thy proud head. The faith of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul and of the other Apostles command thee (+). The Blood of the Martyrs and the pious intercession of all the Saints command thee (+).
Thus, cursed dragon and thee diabolical legion, we adjure thee by the Living GOD (+), by the True GOD (+), by the Holy GOD (+), by the GOD “who so loved the world that He gave up His Only Son, that every soul believing in Him might not perish but have life everlasting” (John 17:1-3); stop deceiving human creatures and pouring out to them the poison of eternal damnation; stop harming the Church and ensnaring her liberty. BEGONE, satan, inventor and master of all deceit, enemy of man’s salvation. Give place to Christ in whom thou hast found none of your works; give place to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church acquired by Christ at the price of His Blood. Stoop beneath the powerful Hand of GOD; tremble and flee when we invoke the Holy and terrible Name of Jesus, this Name which cause hell to tremble, this Name to which the Virtues, Powers and Dominations of Heaven are humbly submissive, this Name to which the Virtues, Powers and Dominations of Heaven are humbly submissive, this Name which the Cherubim and Seraphim praise unceasingly repeating: Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, the GOD of Armies!
O’ Lord, hear my prayer,
All: And let my cry come unto Thee
May the Lord be with thee,
All: And with thy spirit.
LET US PRAY:
GOD of Heaven, GOD of Earth, GOD of Angels, GOD of Archangels, GOD of Patriarchs, GOD of Prophets, GOD of Apostles, GOD of Martyrs, GOD of Confessors, GOD of Virgins, GOD Who has power to give life after death and rest after work, because there is no other GOD than Thee and there can be no other, for Thou art the Creator of all things, visible and invisible, of whose Reign there shall be no end. We humbly prostrate ourselves before Thy Glorious Majesty and we beseech Thee to deliver us by Thy Power from all the tyranny of the infernal spirits, from their snares, their lies and their furious wickedness; deign, O’ Lord, to grant us Thy powerful protection and to keep us safe and sound. We beseech Thee through Jesus Christ Our Lord, Amen.
From the snares of the devil,
All: Deliver us O’ Lord.
Grant that Thy Church may serve Thee in secure liberty,
All: We beseech Thee, hear us.
Deign to crush down the enemies of the Holy Church,
All: We beseech Thee, hear us.
(Holy Water is sprinkled in the place where he may be)
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the day of battle; be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May GOD rebuke him, we humbly pray and do thou, O’ Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the Power of GOD, cast into hell satan and all the other evil spirits, who prowl throughout the world, seeking the ruin of souls, Amen.
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,
Have mercy on us.
-
yes
-
I know who needs the exorcism!
Yes
-
Siobhan
“…condoms are 100% reliable – they are not, so it is not helping to save lives to recommend their use.”
But your answer to the conundrum is No, so you aren’t interested in their reliability. By your own admission, you prefer to prevent moral turpitude (as you see it) rather than suffering and death. If you cannot see why some of us find this perverse, I guess there’s no point in continuing.
Thanks for the debate guys; I had no idea this country harboured people with such shocking views, so at least I’ve learned that; I’ll try to watch out for you when visiting bonnie Scotland! You’re not anywhere else, are you?
-
Since phatbat’s post was a little late going up due, again, I’m sorry to say, to my negligence in not checking the moderation box, I’ll allow another ten minutes before closing the thread. So, around 10pm we’ll finish off.
Now, My vote. Let’s see… emmmmmm, errrrrrrr, mmmmmmmmmmmmm…
My beautiful beloved Church – a force for good? Ten million Athanasiuses could not do justice to its goodness and holiness (with all due respect, Athanasius!)
YES! I vote YES!
-
Vote Yes – I like that Exorcism Prayer – Perfect
-
I must put my hand on my hear and vote….
yes
-
Mark Jones, we’re all OVER the place!!
-
Phatbat, you are oppsessed with sex. Why do you keep on talking about it? Vote yes, it is the key to heaven!
-
Vote – Yes
-
Yes.
-
The Church is THE greatest force for good.
Yes
-
I am visiting here and stumbled onto this debate. I cannot believe the
insults hurled at a Church that has done so much good in the world.
Vote YES -
Logiciel writes:
“After being see such lunacy being revealed here, and such evilness on the part of these ‘good catholics’, not only will I have a good long soak in a tub to soak off the encrusted filth that these unthinking, unfeeling, cowards have metaphorically covered me in, I will spend the rest of my life actively campaigning against this criminal and evil institution called the Catholic Church”
I hope your campaign will contain a bit more substance than this response.
As this debate has shown, Catholics will defend the Church and there is a clear logic behind the Church’s Moral Teaching on sexual matters – especially abortion.
-
et unam, sanctam, catholicam
yes
-
YES.
The Catholic Church most definitely is a force for good in the world. We have the words of Christ, the very founder Himself as our guarantee….’And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against Her’ (Matt. 16:18.19).
-
I vote YES
-
Oh aye – absolutely. YES
-
No.
Far too much misery, grief, guilt, physical and emotional suffering, and death is the result of the teachings and prcatices of the Catholic Church. -
Anne,
“Phatbat, you are oppsessed with sex. Why do you keep on talking about it? Vote yes, it is the key to heaven!”
I have told you why, because your church has rules about sex that are causing avoidable suffering and death, and that is the focus of my “talking.” Why are you ignoring the reasons i gave and just repeating my criticism of you back at me.
-
When do the votes close?
-
Dear Editor,
Surely as the Chairman of this debate you are not allowed to vote?!
-
Dont talk rubbish, mankie frankie
Yes
-
I clearly vote 100% Yes – When I was told about this debate, I couldn’t let my vote go to waste.
Look at the state of the world today – The history of the Church and the mess of our society speaks for itself. Only those who are privilaged with Faith can clearly see that the Church is good and will remain a good Force in the world.
-
Phatbat:
“”Why are you ignoring the reasons i gave and just repeating my criticism of you back at me.”"It’s beceause they have their eyes shut and their fingers in their ears.
CATHOLICS – You badly need to be able to see yourselves as others see you.
-
You’ve all been having a great time to yourselves
Yes
-
YES
-
Vote Yes
-
If the RCC actually wanted to maximize saving “souls” it would, first, invest in medical technology to prevent the natural loss of from 50% to 75% of fertilized human eggs that do not carry to term. At a world live birth rate of about 10 million a month, this is between 10 and 30 million deaths every month, and if the RCC is correct, the loss of 10 to 30 million “souls.” Having gotten rid of Limbo, I don’t know what they are doing with the billions of those who have piled up over time.
-
I vote yes
-
Phatbat,
Since much of this discussion has concerned stats…
Avoidable suffering and death – in 2008 there were 195,269 abortions in England and Wales of which only 1% were under ground E, risk that the child would be born handicapped.
-
oh absolutely
Yes
-
Francis why dont you join Logicel in his campaign?
Vote YES -
Yes, of course
-
I vote for the Church.
Yes
-
Quine –
That would make their ‘god’ as the biggest abortionist of all time! -
Of course the Catholic Church is a good force Yes
-
Hey ed – give us until old chucking out time – 11pm. Christian charity and all that.
-
The Church is good – Vote yes
-
RussellsTeapot Needs An Exorcism
YES
-
I vote “YES”.
-
Russells Teapot
CATHOLICS – You badly need to be able to see yourselves as others see you.
Atheists – You badly need to be able to see yourselves as God sees you. With a gaze of extraordinary love, calling you home.
-
Up to a million abortions a day? Good God!
-
There is no doubt. Athanasius has carried the day. “YES”.
-
The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ Our Lord
Yes
-
YES by a mile.
-
Crossraguel votes a definite YES from the significantly colder Aberdeen. Benedict – you could have advised I bring a stock of wooly jumpers!
-
My vote is Yes
There shall be no salvation outside the Church
-
I’m not Old Nick, by the way, Yes
-
Athanasius: Didn’t try to vote twice, just wanted to say why I voted “No” so you wouldn’t think it was because of anything you siad.
A question for you:
What is 2 times 10 to the 30th power divided by 2 times 10 to the 19th power? -
If I don’t vote yes I’ll be in a bit of trouble.
Yes
-
Do any of the opponents of the Church here argue that Abortion is good?
I thought the pro-choice argument was that the mother’s rights were more important than the unborn child’s?
-
YES, DEFINITELY
-
Well done Jacinta- that must have been a great effort.
-
Yes, oui, si, ja etc. – editor do I get more votes for being a smart alec? (shame I don’t ken more languages) Well, as they used to say in West Belfast: vote early to vote often!
-
Benet
No-one, NO-ONE thinks it is good.
Some of us think that it is the lesser of two evils, and necessary to prevent such things as death at the hands of back street abortionists, or death of a 9 year old child, pregnant with twins after being raped by her own father.
This is the difference between common humanity and the inhumanity of doctrine. -
Teapot:
“Quine –
That would make their ‘god’ as the biggest abortionist of all time!”Yes, if their deity existed. But perhaps they have the wrong one, and it is Baal doing evil, as usual? Yeah, that’s the ticket!
-
THE RESULT….
THE THREAD VOTE
Well, folks, there’s good news and bad news for us Catholics.
The good news is that in the thread vote, the results are as follows:For the motion = 112 votes (I voted, but if I’m not supposed to, then the For vote is merely 111)
Against the motion = 14 votes
Therefore, the motion “This house believes that the Catholic Church is a force for good” has been carried.
A special word of thanks to the two debaters – Athanasius and phatbat – for so generously giving of their time and writing talents to contribute to this initiative.
THE WEBSITE POLL VOTE
Allan, the gentleman who suggested this debate in the first place, points out to me that a lot of people (atheists) have been following this debate who have not signed up to the blog and, therefore, are not able to vote in the thread vote.
For that reason, I have decided to reveal the results of the poll on our website.
Now, earlier today, I realised that the poll was stuck – this sometimes happens, when people email to say they are not being permitted to vote. So, I went into check it and to reset it. I sometimes have to do this – I was not attempting to cheat – honest!
At that point in the day, there had been 5,033 votes cast, the overwhelming number of which were voting against the motion that the Church is a force for good. I believe at that point it was 98% against.
I reset the poll and have just checked it again, and this time noted the exact numbers voting: 59 people out of 2,989 voted that it was TRUE to say that the Catholic Church is a force for good, with 2930 out of 2989 voting FALSE. This represents an overwhelming vote against the motion that The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world, therefore, based on which, the motion would not have been carried.
So, the atheists can draw comfort from the fact that they clearly won the website poll, and we have to presume that those voting did, at least, read some of the contents of the debate.
FINAL REMARKS
Allow me to thank everyone who took part. Thanks especially to Allan for suggesting the debate. It is a “first” for us and I believe it has been very worthwhile.
We hold different views about life and about God but I trust our new atheist friends believe me when I say that, notwithstanding our robust debating style, we at Catholic Truth, newsletter team and blogging community alike, wish you nothing but good in this world – and we hope you don’t get too much of a shock in the next!
Dare I say it ….
God bless you all!
-
Editor
Even if all the people in Britain voted that the sky is green, it wouldn’t make it so.
-
God bless you ed! And may I say thanks for having us! Some other ‘Christian’ sites ban me in one post! You are obviously more confident in your views. I think perhaps a prayer is in order!
Editor removed blasphemies.
-
Editor
Don’t you find it strange that the counter is displaying 98% exactly? We never have that. It’s usually something like 98.12% etc. Very strange. I smell a rat.
-
Thanks to the editor and posters. I want to say to the Catholic side that I understand your situation as I was also raised and educated Catholic, and have come to forgive all those who told me all those things that turned out not to be true, because I realize that they were told them as well.
-
Editor
I request that you delete Ben’s blasphemous post without delay.
-
Petrus
That blasphemous prayer of Ben’s is absolute proof that he’s no atheist. He believes in the God he’s furious with, but why he’s furious against such a loving creator is a question only his conscience can answer.
-
Athanasius
There’s a real diabolical influence going on there.
Steve Zara is no atheist either. He believes in love, moral law and SIN.
-
Good thing Ben’s deity doesn’t exist, isn’t it?
-
Athanasius, you got it in one. Which is why, with a prayer for his soul, I decided NOT to delete Ben’s very sad outburst. Pray for him, Petrus. Don’t waste your anger; that is needed for our other battle, our apostolate. 24/11/09: I have now deleted the blasphemous prayer following a complaint from a very upset blogger.
Thanks to all who voted for Athanasius. For those of you who didn’t vote, please avoid me for some considerable time.
-
editor
I respect your decision. Our Lady of Fatima, pray for him. St. Michael the Archangel, you have your work cut out with him.
-
So did anyone decide whether they would promote condoms if they were 100% reliable?
-
Thanks Petrus.
Folks, we are now due a new thread but I am unable to oblige tonight. I am reluctant to close this thread in case some people wish to continue to debate, but remember that there are plenty of other topics on offer, some threads have fewer comments than others, so I’d urge the regulars to check out the other threads if you feel “all done” here.
-
Still obsessed with sex, phatbat? If you want to use condoms go ahead, it’s your health and your eternal damnation.
-
phatbat, I think the answer to that is obvious. No Catholic could support condoms – any more than we can condone contraceptive use in any way, shape of form – because even (one might say “especially”) if they were 100% reliable they would be distorting the essential purpose of the marriage act which is procreation.
Doesn’t mean that a baby MUST result from every encounter between husband and wife, but that there must be no unnatural obstruction to conception.
I suppose nobody answered because we thought you were being a little facetious, knowing, as I’m sure you do, what the teaching of the Church is re. contraception.
Is that clear enough?
-
Athy your long quote on abortion was a real gem, although on such a ghastly subject. Well done.
-
I must go now (you’ll be relieved to hear).
Thanks for the exorcism – It feels a bit lonely without my demons. Still, I expect they’ll come back, since I’m such a godless heathen.Incidentally, you have strange assumptions about teapots, even those belonging to long-dead philosophers. (Maybe it’s the spout?)
I happen to be female.I decided not to disabuse you, since I was enjoying the robustness of the debate and thought your conditioning would probably have made you treat me differently – perhaps (even) more patronisingly.
Anyway, there it is.
Goodbye all.
Editor removed objectionable video link -
Well, Editor, I hope you have learned your lesson. If you are going to hold a debate with an atheist make sure he is an atheist. Phatbat is just another Dawkins disciple. He could take nothing on board for rational discussion. Athanasius was pointing to the murders by HItler, not enthusiastic about the Church. and by fellow atheists like Communiist Russian and China., about 160 million dead because of their religiious believes and all phabat could do was to murmurs nonsense about the weapons of the second world war. Real childish stuff. It does not matter if there are few catholics in Africa, Dawkins says the Catholic Churc h is responsible, and any figure that Athanasius quotes condemning condoms must bej wrong and phatbat right. Here is a question for Phatbat. Just suppoose all these scientists are right. Just think that many of these condoms are being introduced by people like INternational Planned Parenthood who want to contol population, just suppose they know that condoms do not work but are throwing millions of dollars into sending them mevertheless. Now can your mind grasp this – perhaps the Aftricans are meant to die. Sorry, Phatbat, go back to sleep and dream of all those nasty theists.
-
Yes! I’d urge you all to run away too! And delete my posts!
Editor deleted blaphemies.
-
Well then that is as suspected.
The reason the pope is standing in the way of condoms is because he’s concerned for unevidenced, “supernatural” issues such as souls and the creator of the universe’s preferences, and not because they aren’t safe or won’t save lives.
Just glad you clarified that for us.
-
I join with editor in thanking all who participated in this fascinating, if rather one-sided, debate. My overall conclusion from the comments of our atheist visitors is that there truly is no such thing as pure atheism.
I would also like to thank those who commented kindly in my regard and I accept, with gratitude, the various insults from others. A Catholic is in the very finest company when he is insulted like his Saviour.
My one true wish is that some of the opponents of God and His Church may have been prompted to reconsider their position after this debate. It is a great tragedy that so many have come to believe that this short life ends in nothingness. I cannot think of anything more depressing than a person who considers his existence to be no more or less than that of any animal. He forgets that he has the use of reason, a faculty that animals do not have because they are not created by God to search out the truth that will bring them to eternal life.
-
RussellsTeapot
You’ve been good value! You have given me things to think about and I hope we’ve given you something to think about.
God bless. -
Sorry, but just off the train from London. If not too late I cast my vote firmly in the YES,
I see the kids have been playing with the web vote. Multiple entries by the ton; how purile, but from today’s experience not unexpected by any means.
-
Benedict
I agree. Something fishy has been going on with the poll.
-
Benedict! God bless you! We had a question you ran away from like a brave lion-facer!
Benedict – Did I get your position wrong? I don’t know the number. Is that the question I’ve deflected? You can repost if you like. Ah was it would I rather kill an innocent infant?
Was ‘innocent’ a slip there? Do you want that move back? You’re not admitting God kills innocents by the million are you? That He tortures them first with the gruesome incurable diseases? That He aborts them by the million too? – the unbaptised ones! You didn’t mean that did you? Ask me again with the proper words. Innocent indeed.
-
He aborts up to a million a day! He must be really cross with Himself!
-
I still feel sorry for the AIDS virus, being linked to sin and all…
“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen “
-
And how many does He torture? Do you want me to type ‘Torturing children to death with gruesome incurable diseases is good!’ for you? Do you need me to help you say it?! You haven’t lost faith have you? You can say it! This is the absolute morality standard of God!
Are you having fun Benedict?! I am.
-
Editor removed nasty comment, mocking the priesthood and the moral law.
-
Phatbat,
Hey dude, a very big thank you. Two quotations from humble old me in your concluding argument. I am truly touched you thought so highly of my opinions.
Haste ye back why don’t you.
-
Petrus-
I am most certainly an atheist. There are at least a billion atheists on this planet who believe in a supernatural foundation of love and moral law. They are called Buddhists. But I am not a Buddhist, I am a materialist atheist, because I have seen no evidence of any intervention in this universe. There is not one story of miracles that has not been shown to be either an invention from history or simply delusion. Even the story of the resurrection is a repetition of a tale from centuries before.
As for love and morality; how can I not believe in love, and in morals, because I am human and respect and love other humans.
What I don’t understand is why people feel that humans need to have love and morality and even the concept of sin handed down to us from heaven. We humans are better than that.
I also can’t understand why anyone would consider the existence of animals depressing. Animals clearly show that they can reason, and love, and have morality. Anyone (like me) who has a dog can hardly deny that they feel love, and can also feel guilt! Look into the eyes of an orang-utan (as I have), or swim with dolphins or whales and then tell me that these are lesser creatures. Again, I feel that atheism occupies the moral high ground here, as it treats these animals as fellow beings on this planet, and not soul-less animals that we can forget about.
Anyway, I do appreciate this site for allowing me to participate in discussions. It has been a useful debate.
-
Benedict! Not still ignoring the evidence of two billion witnesses are you?! When 70000 counts as fact!
You’re far from humble, but you are stupid.
-
Bendigeidfran,
I’m still waiting on your supporting factual information to your original assertion or are you still running away like a cuirin timorous wee beastie (a quote from Burns)?
See how simple it is to bandy insults?
I’m still waiting my dear.
Oh by the way you kind of gave yourself away there by saying “we had a question”. Are you too intellectually challenged to say anything by yourself?
See how simple it is to bandy insults?
-
No, I don’t see it twice. My supporting factual information to what assertion?
Do you think I must be more than one person?! You and me = we! I see only how simple you are and how asinine your fatuous comments are! But I do think you’re funny! -
Steve Zara
“I am a materialist atheist, because I have seen no evidence of any intervention in this universe. There is not one story of miracles that has not been shown to be either an invention from history or simply delusion.”
Does this help? http://overcomeproblems.com/incorruptables.htm
-
my dear
-
Bendigeidfran,
Forgot to say. Looked up your fairy name and found it to mean Blessed carrion, or crow.
Why would an aethiest want a name to include “Blessed”? Carrion I can understand but Blessed? I suppose it helps me understand the split personality you have displayed today and the irrationality of your posts.
See how simple it is to bandy insults?
-
People keep talking about these “70,000″ witnesses and I don’t know where that comes from. Is there a big filing cabinet somewhere with 70,000 exit interview documents? Or, are there some other number of testimonials from people who had been at place were 70,000 people had also, at some time, been? Remember, if you are in a crowd and you think you see something, that is not grounds for asserting that all others in the crowd agree, unless each is independently debriefed.
Got evidence?
-
my dear
-
You wouldn’t be avoiding this at all would you Benedict?
And how many does He torture? Do you want me to type ‘Torturing children to death with gruesome incurable diseases is good!’ for you? Do you need me to help you say it?! You haven’t lost faith have you? You can say it! This is the absolute morality standard of God!
I’m sure your Catholic friends would rather talk about sex or wobbly suns or nuns or what my name means, but don’t you want to say it just for how good it feels? Torturing children to death with excruciating incurable diseases is good! God-good!
-
Perhaps Bendigeidfran thinks that by putting an exclamation mark after nearly every sentence, that this will somehow make the sentence true, or make make sense.
Except that it doesn’t. -
my toy
-
Rather poor grammar there Theneva, but perhaps you are stupid. But if this is not about punctuation – then what is it about?!&^^%%$$£
Editor’s note: Theneva is very far from being stupid. You, however, Bendigeidfran, are very rude. Stop it.
-
Theneva,
I think our Blessed Carrion has been on the usige bheag tonight as he seems to be missing the correct letters on the keyboard!!!!!!!
-
Goodnight one and all it’s time the old bones got to bed.
-
Bendigeidfran
If you reject the Cross and the One who suffered on it then no one here will ever be able to make you understand the true nature of suffering and the merit it brings in eternity for those who bear it patiently.
We Catholics understand the merit of suffering by the light of faith. You reject faith, so don’t ask questions whose answers you have already rejected.
-
Goodnight Benedict – don’t let Theneva see all those exclaimation marks.
Don’t forget your prayers!
God bless you!
-
I am very late to the game here to comment but I have been watching.
I have a question about pain.
Why would God create a species, a certain percentage of which would be homosexual, and then decree that the physical expression of that type of love would be a ticket to eternal hellfire?Is the pain and longing and guilt and shame of the homosexual Catholic a way for that person to gain a greater understanding of the Love of God?
It seems to me that a human being who engineered a situation where intense desires were to be created, but if fulfilled, met with the punishment of eternal damnation, would be seen as an evil, wicked monster. But with the Catholic God we are to see this as further evidence of His Goodness.
But I am looking at the situation with limited human reason.
Is it possible to free myself from the confines of my mind? -
Athanasius! They suffer for their merit in eternity!
Editor’s note: this post went automatically into moderation because it contained an obscenity, identified by webmaster as offensive.
-
Bendigeidfran
I would remind you that you are a guest on this blog and that you should, therefore, abide graciously by the rules of you hosts. Please refrain from filthy and blasphemous statements. You do no good to anyone with this kind of degrading script.
Editor’s note: I deleted the crude “prayer” from Bendigeidfran’s post above, and I have to warn you, my friend, Bendigeidfran, that if you repeat such crudity or blasphemy, I will direct your posts to the moderation queue where they will either be deleted completely, or edited so that they do not cause offence. Please try to be civil.
-
That’s okay, Bendigeidfran. I’ve been called worse things than stupid!!!!!
Benedict, If I were an atheist, I’d be hitting the uisge as well!!!!
(Though I’m sort of allergic to it. I prefer a little red wine, myself)!!!! -
Anyone who finds my swearing more offensive than your ‘suffering for merit in eternity’ pitch is mentally ill.
Editor’s note: this post went automatically into moderation because it contained an obscenity identified by webmaster as being offensive. I have removed the obscenity. However, since this is the last in the group of posts which I have had to edit due to profanity, obscenity and/or blasphemy, all future posts from you, Bendigeidfran, will automatically go for moderation. This means that your posts will not be released until I check the moderation box. If you hate us so much, it might be better for your own mental health if you desist from blogging here. You are very welcome to do so, of course, but it may not be in your own best interests. God bless.
-
Nos da.
-
Francis
There are many people in this world who suffer pain, some more than others. Indeed, none of us escape pain of some sort in this life.
I would answer your question on homosexual tendencies with these words of St. Paul:
“There was given to me a sting in my flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me, for which thing I thrice besought the Lord that He might remove it from me. And He answered that His grace was sufficient for me.”
While it is not generally understood to have been homosexual inclination, it is generally accepted that St. Paul may have suffered greatly from sexual temptations. Note the answer to him. It’s the answer we all have to accept in our various sufferings in life if we would merit Heaven. Our Lord died in great agony on the Cross for us. Surely we can offer our little sufferings to Him in reparation for our sins.
There are greater sufferings in this world than those experienced by homosexuals, although I grant that it would be an heroic act for any homosexually inclined person to resist his/her inclinations and remain chaste, or at least repent of past activity and resolve to turn over a new leaf.
-
This does not seem as though the Church is doing good:
How is this spreading goodness in the world?
How? -
Athanasius, I take it that you do not believe in Lord Krishna, although hundreds of millions of people do. Those people do not believe in Lord Jesus, and consider you an unbeliever. However, I don’t think you bother trying to disprove the existence of Lord Krishna. Why should you? First off, you probably know enough to understand why proofs of non-existence are illogical, and given that you don’t believe in Lord Krishna you don’t “hate Krishna”, so why bother with him/her/it when there are any number of other deities you also don’t believe in?
If you understand this, then you should be able to understand that you are just like us, Atheists, except that we include the Christian deities (and demi-deities) in the long list of unbelief we share with you. We don’t hate your deities any more than we hate the Hindu deities or the Islamic deity; we just don’t think there is enough evidence to link the package of religious ideas with reality. So, when you go talking about who is a true Atheist (or true Scotsman) remember, you are very close, numerically, to being one.
-
I’m noticing a lot of comments on Fatima here and there, notably from Quine, asking for evidence of the 70,000 witnesses to the miracle of the sun. Interesting, isn’t it, that the word of atheists and Communists doesn’t seem to mean much to our “rationalist” friends. Is there any point in posting another Fatima thread? We’ve had them before, so will you vote, for or against another Fatima thread, folks.
I’ll check in tomorrow and take it from there. Right now I’m heading for the pubs and clubs…
-
Athanasius,
“Our Lord died in great agony on the Cross for us.”
What did I do wrong again?
Personally, I can’t think of what I did to get God so angry at me that He would afflict me with such suffering.Am I to pay for the sins of an ancestor, or is it a metaphorical thing?
The whole suffering thing from a loving God is inconceivable to me. You are right about homosexuals not having the worst of it. There is some pretty shitty stuff out there. Mounds upon mounds of monstrous malevolence.
From a moral human perspective, I would stop it if I had the power. No one, no matter what they did, deserves the suffering that can be seen in this world. But there I go again, using human reason. God’s wrath is indeed great and apparently Good. I am just too dim to see it.
I understand that this is my fault somehow. I chose this (although for the life of me I cannot recall when).
-
Forgot to tell you all that word has spread far and wide about our debate. Here’s the latest in a long line of websites that seem to have taken much pleasure in featuring our initiative – http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/11/truth_is_paina_poll.php
-
Francis
“This does not seem as though the Church is doing good:
How is this spreading goodness in the world?
How?”You blame the Church for the sins of Churchmen, which is an all-too common error today.
There is absolutely no good in this story you present. There is, in fact, much evil in it. That men who had vowed their service to God could abuse the trust of others in the way these men have is not remotely defensible.
The U.S. certainly seems to be the worst of all the countries of the world for these clerical abuse crimes, no doubt about it, but the Church is not to blame for those who claim adherence to it and yet either commit such crimes or defend the perpetrators. Yes, these are bad clerics.
But try to be balanced in your reading of these emotively-written articles. The one you linked was written to excite maximum passion from the reader.
Here’s the point. The overwhelming majority of priests and religious are good, honest men. Only a fraction of their number (1.5%) have acted in this wicked way. There have been wicked Churchmen for 2000 years, it’s nothing new and they will answer to God for the scandal and mistrust they have brought upon the Church.
Now is child abuse a solely Catholic phenomenon? No, clearly it is not. So why is everyone fixated only on Catholic child abuse stories? Why not the numerous cases in Protestantism and amongst the Jewish religious community? And why is it that the overwhelmingly high number of cases in the secular world hardly get a mention in the same press that loves to tell the world about the Catholic ones?
This phenomenon is universal, Francis, it’s not just within the Catholic Church. We cannot denounce the Church because of traitors within her ranks. Would you say that this is fair and balanced?
-
Francis
The mistake you make is to imagine God as a wrathful God who is out to punish you at every turn. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Biblical text reads: “God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son.” If you read the Gospels you’ll generally find Jesus administering mercy, not wrath. So it’s wrong to see God as vengeful. He’s the very opposite.
If you believed in sin and understood its truly malevolent nature before God, who is perfect, then you would understand suffering and justice. It’s a strange irony that by suffering we merit heaven.
Does God enjoy seeing us suffer? Of course not but he will not rob mankind of the gift of free will he gave to them by intervening every time someone is about to inflict suffering on another. His wrath is reserved for the Godless at their judgment. His mercy is for now, during this life.
If the Son of God chose to take an earthly human body and to suffer and die on the Cross to pay the price for the sins of men, then why is it we find it so difficult to understand that if we want to be like him we must bear our little sufferings in this life in union with his.
Original sin, suffering and the Redemption are mysteries of faith. We can’t fully comprehend them with the human intellect, yet we feel within our own nature this constant inclination to base things. That’s why virtue seems so difficult to practice and suffering so obnoxious to us. We’re much more at home with anything that gives comfort, sinful or not. Yes, it is a mystery.
But look around you and see what happens to the world when the majority says that it no longer accepts that mystery. The world goes to the dogs and chaos reigns everywhere.
If only non-believers could understand the incredible peace and joy to the soul that comes with a recognition of God and a willingness to bear all for him. I can’t explain it in human terms because it is soemthing beyond human experience.
Have a look at this link I put up earlier and see a different side to Catholic religious lives lived in suffering as much as in joy for Christ. http://overcomeproblems.com/incorruptables.htm
-
Comment: by editor
I’m noticing a lot of comments on Fatima here and there, notably from Quine, asking for evidence of the 70,000 witnesses to the miracle of the sun. Interesting, isn’t it, that the word of atheists and Communists doesn’t seem to mean much to our “rationalist” friends.
The question was simply about having 70,000 “words” not about who they were from. We can get to that, but first, even if there are (are there?) good eye witness reports of a crowd of 70,000 people at Fatima, how do we know which of these were “witnesses” if any, and to what? (I tried to find photographs from Fatima, but found none. Also, I found no data of unusual Sun-Earth relations on that day from any observatory, anywhere.) The point is that the representation of what someone thought 70,000 people saw is not the same as 70,000 individual parallel reports of a witnessed event, yet it has been falsely presented as such to make it seem more factual.
-
editor
I had a look at the comments on that ‘sciencebloggs’ link you provided. The guy who runs the blog (E Z Meyers) puts himself forward as an intellectual, yet his blog thread comments were more akin to the worst of ignorant bigots.
The academic world is indeed in serious trouble if this is an example of its alumni!
-
Quine
Miracles are called miracles because they are inexplicable. The miracle of the sun at Fatima was inexplicable for a number of reasons, most noteably that it was not witnessed anywhere else in the world at the time of its occurrence.
What do you make of this?
-
Comment: by Athanasius
Quine
Miracles are called miracles because they are inexplicable.
Does that mean the quantum double slit experiment is a miracle? It’s inexplicable. Do all things inexplicable start off as miracles and last that way until someone finds out how they work? Did you know that before Newton it was taught that the planets went around in orbits (this was after you could talk about orbits without being burnt to death for it) by the miracle of angels pushing them around?
The miracle of the sun at Fatima was inexplicable for a number of reasons, most noteably that it was not witnessed anywhere else in the world at the time of its occurrence.
If you go read Hume on miracles you will get a feel for what the laws of probability do to them (miracles). There is a psychological trap people fall into where they give more creditability to that which sounds more impossible because they think it is more unlikely to be made up. However, some things end up that way by a series of small exaggerations and errors over time such that the story you end up with is nothing that anyone would “make up” but is wrong, all the same.
What do you make of this?
Looks like slow mummification to me; see this explanation.
-
Editor
A few summary thoughts after surveying the wreckage:
-In the Philistine world of atheism, God is a fallacy. These are also fallacies: eternal life (in either direction), the soul, revelation, objective truth (as defined by the Church, that is), and all Catholic dogma. Any discussion into which one of their defined fallacies creeps is automatically illegitimate, and the bearer of the fallacy is automatically delusional.
-Yet the atheists have their own god – “science” (at least, their version of it) – and their own basis of infallibility: the five senses. So they have merely replaced the God who is not to their liking (because they are too full of pride and conceit, and that God whom they reject and despise requires humility) with another god who will serve them at their pleasure and satisfy their every appetite and whim.
-It is most curious that atheists revile the Church, with great righteous indignation, as though from some superior moral vantage point. Yet, when one considers what atheism has given to the world, one wonders how this superior vantage point came to be constructed. I refer to the French Revolution, socialism, communism, fascism, Karl Marx, the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot…..perhaps bloggers can fill in a few more of the benevolent wonders of atheism. And what was that death toll of benevolent, scientific atheism? 100 million?
-It is also most curious that this UK circle of atheists should target the Catholic Church, which is practically a non-factor in the British Isles (even more of a non-factor because of the corruption caused by Vatican II). Where are their attacks on the Anglicans? Not to mention all the other Protestant sects, the Jews, the New Agers (who pay more attention to the supernatural than to earthly life), the Wiccans, and (gasp) the Muslims? And what about the Freemasons, whose lower grades still believe in the “Supreme Architect”? What an intriguing and selective silence.
-Finally, let’s re-visit those infallible five senses. The atheists’ response to the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima was that the sense of sight of 70,000 people was deceived: they really didn’t see what they all thought they saw. Well well, it seems the five senses are not so infallible after all – that is, esp. when they provide an experience which contradicts the axioms of atheism!So this world of atheism is really solipsism, with a heady touch of narcissism thrown in for good measure. Atheists have built an impregnable – so they think – scientific fortress around themselves, able to repulse anything which smells of the supernatural, simply by labeling it a fallacy. And within that fortress, which is really a crypt, they have constructed a justification for leading a life of animals – which, when it terminates, ends in nothingness. Nothing special about the human race, life has no meaning other than life itself, we’re just a speck of dust on a larger speck of dust floating around a mechanistic universe: let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!
Why do these people even bother to get out of bed in the morning?
(BTW, I vote YES, even though you so rudely closed the thread before I had cast my weighty and deciding vote…)
-
Vote:
No -
Comment: by Tomas de Torkay
-In the Philistine world of atheism, God is a fallacy. These are also fallacies: eternal life (in either direction), the soul, revelation, objective truth (as defined by the Church, that is), and all Catholic dogma. Any discussion into which one of their defined fallacies creeps is automatically illegitimate, and the bearer of the fallacy is automatically delusional.
I don’t know what is going on with the Philistines any more. I sort of lost track of them back in the Bible at 1 Samuel 6 where they had to make golden models of their mice and hemorrhoids as a trespass offering to return with the Ark. I don’t think too many were Atheists at the time, as it was the bronze age and everything was usually attributed to the action of some kind of supernatural personage, not having the physical or intellectual tools to actually find out.
Ideas from religion are not “automatically illegitimate” they just start from the unproven state and require objective evidence to move up from there. Got evidence?
-Yet the atheists have their own god – “science” (at least, their version of it) – and their own basis of infallibility: the five senses. So they have merely replaced the God who is not to their liking (because they are too full of pride and conceit, and that God whom they reject and despise requires humility) with another god who will serve them at their pleasure and satisfy their every appetite and whim.
No, the senses are not infallible; we have plenty of cases of sense system error. Check out a book of optical illusions and you can see things that are not there. Stage magic depends on these errors to make it work. A big part of science is to get past these errors. Also, the main part of the scientific method is to keep us from fooling ourselves. It all has to be checked and repeated to be taken seriously.
I should not have to remind you, but Atheists don’t despise your deities any more than you despise Zeus or any of his family. We consider them all fiction until evidence shows otherwise. We don’t despise Harry Potter, either (even if some of us don’t like the writing style).
-It is most curious that atheists revile the Church, with great righteous indignation, as though from some superior moral vantage point. Yet, when one considers what atheism has given to the world, one wonders how this superior vantage point came to be constructed. I refer to the French Revolution, socialism, communism, fascism, Karl Marx, the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot…..perhaps bloggers can fill in a few more of the benevolent wonders of atheism. And what was that death toll of benevolent, scientific atheism? 100 million?
Atheism is the position of not believing in deities. It is not something that gives you or the world anything, it just states that you are not convinced by anyone’s religion. It puts a moral burden on each person to justify his/her actions; some fail at that.
-It is also most curious that this UK circle of atheists should target the Catholic Church, which is practically a non-factor in the British Isles (even more of a non-factor because of the corruption caused by Vatican II). Where are their attacks on the Anglicans? Not to mention all the other Protestant sects, the Jews, the New Agers (who pay more attention to the supernatural than to earthly life), the Wiccans, and (gasp) the Muslims? And what about the Freemasons, whose lower grades still believe in the “Supreme Architect”? What an intriguing and selective silence.
Look around, you will find Atheists writing against all forms of unjustified beliefs (e.g. astrology, homeopathy, etc.).
-Finally, let’s re-visit those infallible five senses. The atheists’ response to the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima was that the sense of sight of 70,000 people was deceived: they really didn’t see what they all thought they saw. Well well, it seems the five senses are not so infallible after all – that is, esp. when they provide an experience which contradicts the axioms of atheism!
There is a good example of sense data that can be in error, as I mentioned above. And, again, what did each of the “70,000″ say he or she saw? Got evidence?
So this world of atheism is really solipsism, with a heady touch of narcissism thrown in for good measure. Atheists have built an impregnable – so they think – scientific fortress around themselves, able to repulse anything which smells of the supernatural, simply by labeling it a fallacy.
A demonstration of fallacy is usually not needed; we usually just ask for evidence, and wait for those without any to go away (which they always do).
And within that fortress, which is really a crypt, they have constructed a justification for leading a life of animals – which, when it terminates, ends in nothingness.
Check your biology book; humans are in the animal kingdom.
Nothing special about the human race, life has no meaning other than life itself, we’re just a speck of dust on a larger speck of dust floating around a mechanistic universe: let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!
There is plenty that is special about humans. We are the first beings to look out and behold the Universe and have some idea of what it all is. Think of the tremendous privledge it is to be alive at this time when so many mysteries are becoming unraveled thanks to the hard work of millions of researchers around the world.
Why do these people even bother to get out of bed in the morning?
How do you expect us to eat, drink and be merry if we don’t get out of bed (at least some times)?
-
“If only non-believers could understand the incredible peace and joy to the soul that comes with a recognition of God and a willingness to bear all for him. I can’t explain it in human terms because it is soemthing beyond human experience.”
So you are claiming to have experienced something that is beyond human experience? Your real name isn’t Kal-El is it?
To be honest, there is much more peace and joy to be had in life if it isn’t spent under the heel of an eternal dictator, but I hear some people are into that.
-
And though I’m late to the party, I did read the entire thread. I vote ‘NO’ wholeheartedly. The amount of pure crap that Athanasius spewed is unfortunately all too symptomatic of a mind destroyed by religion.
-
Athanasius, if you are not too busy (and since there aren’t that many arian heretics around these days I would guess you are not), can you please answer my question: what is 2 x 10^30 divided by 2x 10^19? You can use a calculator if that helps.
Follow-up question: How old do you think the sun is? A few seconds? Thousands of years? Millions? Billions?
-
Evil Astronomer,
What is St. Thomas Aquinas cosmological argument regarding movement?
-
I apologise for the swearing and agree they should be removed. Forgive me, I’m fallen.
But my prayer didn’t contain any swearing.
What was wrong with it? Can I post it again?
Do you think God can’t read it now you’ve deleted it?
Editor’s note: you are forgiven, Bendigeidfran. Your prayer did not contain any swearing, but it contained a crudity. So, thanks but no thanks – you may NOT post it again.
As for your question: “Do (I) think God can’t read it now (I’ve) deleted it?”
Bendigeidfran – you are a theologian in the making. Yes, God knows all about your crudity, deleted or not. So, it would be an idea to apologise to Him, not just to us.
-
Evil Astonomer,
And no fair googling to find the answer. You’re an atronomer, so you should know the answer without looking it up. -
Oops, spelling mistake above. That should be ‘astronomer.’
-
Theneva, are you just asking to find out if he knows, or are you going to base something on it?
-
Theneva,
I am theologically illiterate astronomer. I just know what Newton, Einstein and DIrac have to say about movement. I vaguely recall that Aquinas paraphrased Aristotle’s argument for a Prime Mover, an argument based on flawed physics and metaphysics. I have also heard nasty modern philosophers say that Aquinas’ argument is no good. But what do I know? I can’t fly around cathedrals. I have never put my scientific papers on an altar and had them approved by god. In fact, I am so deluded that when I read Aquinas’ writings on the hierarchy of angels I found myself thinking that he was just making it up! Feel free to enlighten me, it would be really interesting if the fact that there is motion proves, god, hellfire and that choirboys are fair game.
-
Oh, and it should be “I am a theologically illiterate astronomer”. I make mistakes, and I blame Original Sin(TM) for it.
-
‘-It is most curious that atheists revile the Church, with great righteous indignation, as though from some superior moral vantage point. Yet, when one considers what atheism has given to the world, one wonders how this superior vantage point came to be constructed. I refer to the French Revolution, socialism, communism, fascism, Karl Marx, the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot…..perhaps bloggers can fill in a few more of the benevolent wonders of atheism. And what was that death toll of benevolent, scientific atheism? 100 million?’
By the standard norms of any civilised society I have a superior morality to your God.
You appear to be saying irrational dogma is a bad thing for the world. Are you having a little joke with us Tomas?
Do you think if we go through ‘Mein Kampf’ striking out ‘God’ and replacing it with ‘Darwin’ then that makes it real? Does it make it real Tomas? Can you pretend it real so well?
Are silly ideas silly Tomas? They are – but are silly ideas always silly? – even when they are? You’re not sure are you? Shall we have a genocide? I can’t tell if that’s silly – I’m mutilating my children’s genitals. I’m avoiding shellfish.
Do you think too much critical thought and not enough irrational dogma has been the problem? Too much clear thinking and not enough dressing up? Not enough dressing up and preaching at Nuremburg? Not enough faith? Is that the problem? Too much rational enquiry? Not enough blindly following holy orders?
-
Quine, here is an eyewitness account of the mriacle of the sun from someone who, in any other debate, you would regard as a reliable witness.
http://www.fatima.org/essentials/facts/miracle.aspIt is ridiculous to expect anyone to have tried to seek out the 70,000 people (and hundreds who said they’d witnessed it up to 20 miles away) to give personal statements considering there were atheists, freemasons and Communists present who testified to what they’d seen and who reported the phenomenon – with photographs – in the newspapers next day with headlines like The Day The Sun Danced At Fatima
If this miracle were attached to any other body of Christians or non-Christians, we’d be getting it coming out of our ears in documentaries and news bulletins. Because it is Catholic, and thus clear evidence of the divine nature of the Catholic Church, it is suppressed. Although, on one occasion a colleague of mine (not a Catholic) said she, being an addict of the Sky History channel, had been glued to a documentary on the subject the previous evening, and wanted to tell the staff at break time all about it. So, there is a convincing documentary out there somewhere, not repeated, notice, anything like as much as the rest.
The fact is, Quine, you do not want to believe and – as Russell Teapots said – no matter how many witnesses testify to that miracle, you won’t believe it. 70,000 individual testimonies? You would then claim they’ve been coerced by the parish priest or bishop.
Look into whatever it is you have instead of a soul. What DO atheists have instead of a soul and a conscience? Now THERE’S a topic for another day!
But you do need to to examine whatever it is you have instead of a conscience to ask why you are so determined to ignore even the most impressive and objective of eye-witnesses. People who, like yourself, were dedicated atheists previously.
-
Dear Editor,
why does god waste his energy on conjuring tricks like wiggling the sun about when he instead could prevent earthquakes and tsunamis, give us a cure for cancer or just a spine that is better designed for our upright posture? Why has he left healing the sick and caring for the poor to his fallible creatures while he himself concentrates on making statues cry?
-
I have read both this and the audience thread.
What is the Fatima obsession? This is the silliest of miracles. Why won’t the believers accept the testimony of the billions who did not see the sun move?
A billion is a large number, possibly larger than 70,000.
Amongst these witnesses were far more than 70,000 Catholics.
Can Catholics not count? Is that it?
It is, as two people have already said and been ignored, a far greater miracle than that clung to by the faithful.
But either way it is absurd and something to be hushed up rather than boasted about. Is He but some tinpot juggler?
-
Sorry for not voting last night Editor. I was in bed by 8.30pm not feeling too good at all. I just read the above comments about Fatima. John Haffert wrote an excellent book about the solar miracle called “Meet the Witnesses” in which he interviews some of the witnesses that were still living at the time the book was written (1961). I have a copy of this book. Also, the excellent trilogy “The Whole Truth About Fatima” by Frere Michel de la Sainte Trinite is now available on-line:- http://www.catholicvoice.co.uk/fatima1 http://www.catholicvoice.co.uk/fatima2 http://www.catholicvoice.co.uk/fatima3
Much information about the solar miracle and refutations of the modernist / rationalist attacks on it and other aspects of Fatima can be found in Volume 1 – “Science and the Facts”.
N.B. Fr Gruner published the above three books in the USA/Canada and recommended them at his recent talks. Frere Michel de la Sainte Trinite was due to write a fourth book in this series, which was never completed. A (sort of) fourth part has been written by Frere Francois des Anges of La Contre-Reforme Catholique which is also available to read on the same site. I do not agree with Frere Francois’ theories regarding the Third Secret in this ‘fourth part’ and I’m sure Fr Gruner wouldn’t – but ignoring this last ‘add-on’ in this series, the first three books by Frere Michel on Fatima are brilliant. -
Some quick questions about Fatima that I’m hoping the Catholics on this thread will be able to answer.
70,000 people at Fatima are claimed to have witnessed the miracle of the sun moving in the sky. According to Editor, some claimed to have witnessed it from twenty miles away.
However, at any time the sun is visible (barring cloud cover) to a significant proportion of the Earth’s surface, and the population living upon it. And the fact is that the overwhelming majority of the population to whom the sun would have been visible at the time of Fatima did not, in fact, see it move.
This seems like a difficulty with the credibility of the claim.
There are a few options:
a) God simply made the sun appear to move in the sky for the faithful in Fatima, it did not move in reality. This is why the rest of the people did not see the sun move.
b) The sun did move, but God made it appear to all those not in the area of Fatima that the sun remained in its usual place in the sky. Either that or he made sure the rest of the people simply did not notice.
c) The sun did move, everyone saw it, but for some reason the rest of the world’s population lied about seeing it, pretended that they didn’t, or were forced into silence.
d) It never happened.
I wonder if the Catholics on here would mind explaining which of the above options they believe to be most likely, or present alternate options that I haven’t considered.
Thanks in advance.
-
Kevin!
All those really smart people writing long books to prove that people really saw god wiggle the sun about. It must be really important that he did! I can see why, because if he did, we would understand why he doesn’t do anything about all the unnecessary suffering in the world. He clearly has more important things on his agenda. And when he is not breaking his own laws of physics he must devote his time to being angry at people who use contraceptives. And with Lutherans. I am so glad I am not a Lutheran anymore! He will roast them over much hotter flames than atheists, that’s why I switched. I didn’t quite manage to become a cathoholic, because all I could think about was the billions of people who didn’t see the sun move.
-
Benndigidfran – it’s on the other thread. Are you from the land of song? I’m in Llanfihangel-y-Creuddun. God’s country!
-
Comment: by editor
Quine, here is an eyewitness account of the mriacle of the sun from someone who, in any other debate, you would regard as a reliable witness.
http://www.fatima.org/essentials/facts/miracle.aspThank you for that link; it was an interesting read. Please remember that I am not questioning that many people reported seeing something strange happen, but only that 70,000 reported seeing something strange happen, and that all saw the same thing. This is a false impression, or “spin” that is put on the report.
So let us think about what we can know. First, some group of people report seeing strange things while looking into the Sun. We know that actual movement of neither the Sun or the Earth was responsible because of the lack of kinds of impacts that would have had all over. So we know that something would have had to had happened to the light from the Sun to make a change from normal conditions.
The big question is about the presence of supernatural action. But if light from the Sun can be disturbed by some natural phenomena, then that takes away the need to resort to the supernatural, even if the chance of that happening is very small. I see that there are other explanations, as you can see at this link.
No one can prove the absence of supernatural action, but in this case, although unusual, there is no evidence for supernatural action. No laws of physics were observed to be broken. Furthermore, when any supernatural force is suspected, it tends to be attributed to the dominate religion of the area. If it had been in India, it might have been said to be the work of Lord Krishna. If something supernatural happened at Fatima, can you prove that it was not the work of pagan sun gods that were worshiped in Portugal from pre-Roman times?
It is not that I have picked something that I do not want to believe, I simply do not want to believe something that is wrong. The only way I know to keep from believing what is wrong is to stick to things that have evidence of being true. There is no more evidence for supernatural intervention at Fatima by any Christian deity than by any pagan deity, but they can’t both be right. Until there is further evidence I must conclude that they both are wrong.
Look into whatever it is you have instead of a soul. What DO atheists have instead of a soul and a conscience? Now THERE’S a topic for another day!
Yes, for another day.
-
Here it is! LOL! Where was the crudity?
Have a prayer!
Our absent, unnecessary, impotent, undetectable Father, who art ‘elsewhere’, creator of the damned planet, creator of the laws and constants of physics that assuredly guarantee the earth’s future destruction, the earth’s final solution, creator of the unspeakable cruelty of the natural world, creator of the sentient brains that must know the nightmare life-in-death from without by lacerating predators, from withing by rasping parasites, Lord of boundless pain, misery, disease and death, your laughably flawed creations with the feeble minds you gave them in your image kill each other in interpretation of your ambiguous texts, your tinsel miracles, Lord, vomitous God, have mercy on yourself, forgive yourself, for we humanity never can, Amen.
-
I would like to add my thanks for being allowed to participate in my own small way.
I would just like say a few things bothered me.
I mentioned yesterday that I had a friend who suffered and extremely abusive husband whom her church put a lot of pressure on to never divorce and her constant lack of answers from God nearly drove her mad. I heard yesterday that it apparently was ok for her to leave her abusive husband but she could never marry again. I think that is utterly cruel, evil and heartless – why is this poor lady a) responsible for what happened b) not allowed to find better love? (which she has by the way, she found a lovely man who was everything she needed)
Love is an amazing thing on this planet and yet your rules want to directly interfere in that – to actually subject women who have done nothing wrong to a life without love – there is so much wrong with this I do not know where to begin!
I also mentioned something about sin being forced upon me by God before I was born, with no involvement on my part in any crime because I was not in existence and that the only resolving this problem was to become a Catholic. Since I refuse point blank to become a Catholic because I do not think I have done anything wrong, I am being sent to a place of eternal torment.
But I was told this was right for God to do this to me, I need saving and he is the one to save me, I should love him for it.
I think that is evil, I call that dictatorship. That is an ultimatum I do not want anything to do with, I would rather burn.
Would someone please explain to me why I should live a life of fear and misery like that?
I have read some other disturbing things on here which are too long to list, but I thought I would bring these issue up again, just to confirm my conviction that the Catholic Church is not a force for good in this world
-
Hi RichardEmmanuelJones!
Did you see what I did there? I bothered to type your name correctly.
It was another prayer that had the crudity. . Anyway I’ve had enough now. Goodbye Catholics. Enjoy your ignorance.
Editor’s note: goodbye, Bendigeidfran – God bless you (excuse my repetition – “Goodbye” is really “God bless” so thanks for your “blessing” Bendigeidfran!)
-
The most damning aspect of Fatima is that not everyone of the top estimate of 70,000 (even though all the photo’s that exist of the event show far less than 70,000 people, and at the time some of the estimates by eyewitnesses were as low as 30,000) reported seeing the same thing or anything at all.
Most of the reports of spinning sun and colours coming out of it come from Father John de Marchi who spent the following years going round collecting accounts of the event to try and support the miraculous event (hardly an unbiased source). Author Kevin McClure also compiled eye witness accounts and said that he had “never seen such a collection of contradictory accounts in any of the research I have done in the past 10 years.” So it’s not looking very solid is it. Not even all the people who were there saw the same there and some people didn’t see anything.
What evidence do we have that the people you say were atheists, were atheists? How many individuals are claimed to fall into this category.
Editor says:
”It is ridiculous to expect anyone to have tried to seek out the 70,000 people (and hundreds who said they’d witnessed it up to 20 miles away) to give personal statements”
Well then it is also ridiculous to claim 70000 people all saw the miracle then isn’t it. Your explanation doesn’t get a free ride just because it’s hard to prove.
The description of the event should go something like this.
Thousands of Catholics and maybe some non-Catholics stood in the rain for many hours getting muddy because they either expected to see a miracle or had at least been told to expect a miracle, and at least some of those people said they saw something after staring at what was probably the sun for some time. The accounts of these witnesses also differed in what they saw, and lots of people described effects that would be exactly what would be expected if they had been staring at the sun, as if it was somehow miraculous.
Sorry it just isn’t very convincing.
People could have been mistaken, people could have exaggerated, people could have lied, a combination of the above, OR the creator of the universe wiggled the sun about so that not everyone could see it. Tough choice.
-
Oromasdes, you wrote:
“Would someone please explain to me why I should live a life of fear and misery like that?” referring to Catholic teaching on salvation.
There is no “life of misery”. I’m about the happiest gal you could meet, e.g. not to mention (as the others will tell you) glamorous, witty, intelligent and slimmer than one half of a KitKat.
But tell the abandoned wife whose husband trades her in for a younger model, that divorce and remarriage is a “loving” thing.
Now, I am having to go out right now, so don’t have time to read the other posts properly and respond.
I will, however, be back. Rest assured!
-
Editor
You still miss my point
You still do not explain WHY I need to be sent to eternal damnantion in the first place – what the heck have I done to deserve this?
This was from BEFORE I was born, I was branded a sinner, a criminal if you like, by your God and the ONLY way out just so happens to be becoming a Catholic and going through some bizzare rituals.
How much say did I get in this?
-
There’s a saying that the New York Police Dept have that I think is quite appropriate here. ‘if they’re shooting at you, you must be doing something right.’
If Fatima was a hoax, then these atheists wouldn’t give two hoots about it. No, Fatima represents the end of the reign of the evil one. This folks, is part of the Devil’s final battle .
-
Editor
“But tell the abandoned wife whose husband trades her in for a younger model, that divorce and remarriage is a “loving” thing.
Oh come on. If he does leave her though (which he can still do in this scenario you’ve painted), and obviously the subject of your pity, then you would deny her the opportunity to remarry someone she loves and really loves her, just because this entity you believe in says so. No reason for this suffering, just because. It really is sad what this religion of yours does to your evolved human sense of morality, very sad.
-
Petrus-
Would you mind giving your opinion on my earlier comment, please?
-
Petrus:
If Fatima was a hoax, then these atheists wouldn’t give two hoots about it. No, Fatima represents the end of the reign of the evil one. This folks, is part of the Devil’s final battle.
Who says we do give 2 hoots about it? You guys brought it up and we responded to your posts. Now you want to try and draw some kind of supernatural conclusions from that. LOL.
Why not try responding to the words i and others actually used in explaining why we aren’t impressed by the Fatima event.
It’s just like with the debate, “oh i can’t respond to that point about condoms, i know, it’s connected to sex so i can just call it naval gazing and ignore the actual points being made.”
-
Petrus
“There’s a saying that the New York Police Dept have that I think is quite appropriate here. ‘if they’re shooting at you, you must be doing something right.’”
So all your attacks on atheists suggest they must be doing something right?
-
Petrus
“This folks, is part of the Devil’s final battle”
Really?
Where are you getting your information from for this?
-
Mark Jones
I have never attacked atheists. I have corrected the many mistakes, but never attacked.
Indeed, I expressed my gratitude to the so-called atheists, particularly RussellsTeapot and Steve Zara. Steve in particular was very gracious.
-
Petrus
“I have never attacked atheists. I have corrected the many mistakes, but never attacked.”
Fine; the atheists are just correcting your many mistakes, but never attacking. Perhaps you’ll feel less shot at now.
-
The supposed miracle of Fatima does remind me of something. It makes me think of the sad situation of someone paralysed, with doctors and friends checking for signs of life like a blink or the movement of a finger.
There is this supposed almighty being; the creator of the universe, the sustainer of reality. Every day millions ask things of him, and try and talk to him, hoping he is there. What are the great signs that he gives? So far we have had mention of a funny staircase and a doubtful optical illusion. Did God blink or twitch his finger?
If God exists, he is surely comatose.
-
Petrus – perhaps you can enlighten me when all your cathoholic mates seem to just run away: why does god choose cheap conjuring tricks for his miraculous interventions? What was the point of wiggling the sun? To show that he could do it? But you cathoholics never doubted that, did you?
-
There may be some Catholic readers of this blog who realize that those who argue against the fact of evolution through natural selection (Athanasius) and have fervent convictions about the special creation of the world and all its creature about 6,000 years ago, are mistaken.
Why would someone argue so fervently for a position that is nonsense. The vast and overwhelming evidence from many branches of science prove that the Earth was NOT created 6,000 years ago, all the species of animals were NOT created, fully formed in one fell swoop.Why do I bring this up?
Athanasius is arguing from within a bubble of belief. No evidence will convince him he is wrong. The Pope, the Catholic Church, the consensus of the scientific community from around the world, all accept the fact of Evolution. There really is no debate.
There are ‘arguments’ against Evolution that fly in the face of facts and rationality. But not if you are convinced they are correct; not if you argue from within the bubble of belief.Hopefully, the reasonable Catholic readers of this blog can see this.
I argue that the same is true of other beliefs, the miracle of Fatima, for example. The seeking of evidence which confirms the belief, rather than seeking evidence which questions it, is the way to arrive at false conclusions.Look up ‘confirmation bias’.
Quine and others arguing against special miracles are not guilty of this. They are looking at the evidence in an unbiased way and their conclusions are far more reasonable.
Think about the bubble of belief. If you can step outside it, if for only a moment, you may look back in horror.
Wicked evil is not good. Love is not sinful.
-
Petrus-
Could you give your opinion on this, please?
70,000 people at Fatima are claimed to have witnessed the miracle of the sun moving in the sky. According to Editor, some claimed to have witnessed it from twenty miles away.
However, at any time the sun is visible (barring cloud cover) to a significant proportion of the Earth’s surface, and the population living upon it. And the fact is that the overwhelming majority of the population to whom the sun would have been visible at the time of Fatima did not, in fact, see it move.
This seems like a difficulty with the credibility of the claim.
There are a few options:
a) God simply made the sun appear to move in the sky for the faithful in Fatima, it did not move in reality. This is why the rest of the people did not see the sun move.
b) The sun did move, but God made it appear to all those not in the area of Fatima that the sun remained in its usual place in the sky. Either that or he made sure the rest of the people simply did not notice.
c) The sun did move, everyone saw it, but for some reason the rest of the world’s population lied about seeing it, pretended that they didn’t, or were forced into silence.
d) It never happened.
I wonder if the Catholics on here would mind explaining which of the above options they believe to be most likely, or present alternate options that I haven’t considered.
Thanks in advance.
-
I have been following the comments over the past few days, as well as posting some, and my conclusion is that debate with these people should cease.
Some CT bloggers are referring to them as atheists but these people are not atheists, they are people who know of God and have chosen to reject Him and mock him. They are driven with a hatred that I have rarely seen, even amongst non-believers.
We can present miracles, testimonies, reasoned argument, theology or any other evidence that would normally stimulate a genuine and respectful exchange of views, but these people don’t want that. They are here to mock and blaspheme. Their rage is actually Satanic.
Best let them alone in their darkness. Let them enjoy whatever they can in this short life, whether licitly or illicitly. I see no point in continuing to debate with such hateful types who are here only for reasons of gratfying their rage.
I am prepared to debate religious belief with any person who is objective. The demonic, however, are not objective and that’s why Exorcists do not debate with them, they simply command them to leave in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Catholic Truth bloggers, you’re wasting your time! Pray for these lost souls but don’t exchange further comments with them. We believe in God, we love Him and serve Him as best we can by His grace. We know the truth and so do these furious opponents. You don’t seriously think they have been on here en masse out of loyalty to some atheist cause. No, they know of God but they hate Him and they are driven by that hate. Let’s not have any more of it here.
-
Athanasius-
Would you mind giving an opinion on my comment posted at 12.38pm, please?
-
Evil_Astronomer
“What was the point of wiggling the sun? To show that he could do it? But you cathoholics never doubted that, did you?
Well the hilarious truth is that the little girl, who told everyone to expect the miracle, said that Mary told her that the miracle would convince everyone that her story was true. But since it wasn’t seen anywhere else on the planet it was a spectacular flop in that respect.
-
Athanasius
How can I hate something that does not exist?
Sure you can present all these “miracles” you speak of all you like but remember who you are typing to.
I am a historian, I need evidence to work on – some of these people you are typing to are from other acedemic backgrounds too like science – there is a way of looking at information without just blindly accepting it happens because it has the word God in it somewhere
You calling me demonic? Hehehhehhe! Cheers, I love you too!
Where are you getting your information from?
You are going to pray for me?
Why the hell would you have to do that?
What result do you expect to see?
One thing I would politely ask you to do is not to pray for me, it will do NOTHING and you will end up looking very silly indeed.
-
Athanasius is still looking for his calculator I suppose. Sorry if I asked a hard question.
And still no explanation from Theneva of how motion proves god. While I wait I think I will finish a paper. This time, instead of letting the journal pick referees I will bring it to a church and have it peer-reviewed by god. The Aquinas method of peer-review. A cathoholic church, mind you. I have been told that the referee reports you get in Lutheran churches are no good. They haven’t even got transubstantiation figured out yet. -
I think Athanasius is worried his arguments aren’t up to the job. Same old response, i’m not going to counter your arguments and points, i’m going to claim that you’re all being influenced by a supernatural entity called the devil and run away.
You could have at least come up with an original excuse to avoid this.
-
Athanasius
So the worst atheists do is to suggest you’re deluding yourself, or are wrong on matters of fact in science, and you conclude they’re ‘Satanic’, ‘demonic and ‘furious’.
It’s a sorry state of affairs when adults cannot rise above such pettifogging sentiments and consider the *arguments*, rather than resort to ad hominem attacks.
-
Athanasius.
“http://www.zenit.org/article-27351?l=english”
So what? A few scientists disagree with the vast consensus of every field of science and you believe them because they agree with your prior convictions.
How do you know they aren’t just misunderstanding things and getting things wrong? Behe demonstrated that he was unaware of masses of scientific evidence which contradicted his conclusions at the Kitzmiller trial. On what basis can you, who obviously isn’t a scientist, determine that that tiny minority of scientists aren’t just dumb and/or mistaken, and therefore wrong?
You just aren’t in a position to do anything other than defer the authority to judge to the consensus of science. If these guys are onto something then they can submit there studies for peer review and if there aren’t any faults in it they can be published.
-
Well now, you’re all being mean and Satanic. The poor Catholics are having to bravely run away. Let’s not forget there are in fact many super reasons to pretend in god. Why I can think of 5 off the top of my head!
1) The Somethingfromnothing and the genocide handbook
It must be hard to bother to make something from nothing, especially when there are no laws of Physics to prevent it happening without you. -1+1 is a tricky sum requiring a supernatural magic mind beyond our comprehension. What then if your fingers were invisible? If you couldn’t see your hands? Why then even a book would be difficult to make. Not that it wasn’t a super idea, to make a book when you can speak directly into people’s minds – the whole world at once! – to make a book when noone can read? It was a super idea, and you could have managed it, but dictator seemed more your natural role.
2) The miracle of Life
Life from non-life takes scientists many hours, yet you needed only 1 god-day to do it! And you made more than a mere virus, which doesn’t count at all. You made all the beasts of the land and the fishes of the sea. Each one sub-optimal even within the laws of physics and improvable with a moment’s thought, but nonetheless a super day’s work. And fun too! You know – when the teeth go in the zebra! When the worm goes in the eye! 0.01% species success rate! Although so far everything’s died.
3) Absolute Morality and Forgiveness
Imagine life without God’s absolute morality standard that lets us say torturing children is right! Without the God-given logic and morality that tells us torturing children to death with gruesome incurable diseases is a good thing! Why we wouldn’t know what to think! And the blessing of forgiveness. No sin can’t be forgiven – with God all is permissable – retrospectively! How would the priests have forgiven themselves on the choirboys without God’s blessing? And the bombers on the planes – how would they have forgiven themselves?
4) Pretending it real and the Hitler/Stalin/Mao
If we go through ‘Mein Kampf’ striking out ‘God’ and replacing it with ‘Darwin’ then that makes it real. But are silly ideas always silly? I don’t know – I’m mutilating my children’s genitals! Is too much critical thought and not enough blindly following holy orders a bad thing? What if I heard a voice telling me to sacrifice my son? Why without God I may as well just ignore it! If History teaches us anything it is surely that too much rational enquiry and not enough belief in silly ideas has been the problem. Hitler! Stalin! Mao! Pol Pot! The other one! Too much clear thinking and not enough faith! Too much rational enquiry and not enough dressing-up! Not enough belief that they were right in spite of the evidence! Pretending it real! This is surely what God wants us to teach children and people who can’t think very well.
5) Heaven and hell
We all yearn to go to heaven and meet God. Perhaps you are the indoors type who likes harps and angels and dreary organ music, or perhaps you are the outdoors type who prefers fields and badly drawn tigers – like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. There is something for everyone! Everything is perfect like it would be back home if His representatives had a bit more of the Earth-money God needs! And don’t they do an efficient job? Hardly a penny left for palaces! But perhaps the most super reason of all the super reasons to pretend in God is our blessed deliverance from Earthly worries. War, famine, disease and suffering, death itself – these are difficult problems to face with reason alone. And though we might eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and become as Gods attempt to solve these troubles, how much better to instead turn the other way and face upwards, wailing to an empty sky?
-
Athansius:
What, in your opinion is the age of our planet? How old do you think the universe is? Was Georges Lemaitre a heretic? What about Ken Miller?
-
Actually, while I am here, could anyone else tell me what it means when someone says they are going to pray for me?
Are you worried about something?
Will something bad happen to me if you don’t?
Will something bad happen to you if you don’t?
What do you expect to happen when you do and if it doesn’t work do you not feel the tiniest bit stupid?
I am asking this out of sheer curiousity, if you will accept I find this utterly bewildering and confusing as to why people say this to me, I really don’t know what you expect to happen as a result
-
Editor
It is time you called a halt to this farce. Phatbat and his friends have no intention of using intelligent argument. I doubt if they can approach religion with any intelligence. You just have to laugh. I loved the idea of Mother Teresa getting a Nobel Pece Prize award for takiing the dying and diseased off the streets of Calcutta and then making them suffer pain and misery – no doubt in expiation for their sins. It takes real stupidity to come out with such nonsense. Phatbat is at an age where he does not hav the intelligence to work out the existence or non existence of jGod so he just jumps onto the popular bandwaggon and through your website shows off to his friends. It is really juvenile stuff and you should have had no part in it. -
jkearney-
Would you mind giving your opinion on the questions I asked about Fatima, please?
-
jkearney
Please do not insult the intelligence of my friends and myself, that is most rude of you indeed, I would appreciate an apology.
We were allowed to come and comment here after some good, well mannered conversations with the Editor and so far I hope we have not betrayed her trust.
I have asked what I hoped were thought provoking questions and I am here to learn more about the opinions of people whose views differ from mine, if you cannot deal with this please do not resort to whinging to higher authorities to try and score points, just go and comment on another thread and leave the conversation alone.
That is most arrogant to presume you are in anyway more mature than anybody else here present, it is most insulting.
-
JKearney,
You’re not going to contribute anything intelligent then? Just throw unsupported accusations around, how sad.
Out of interest, how old do you have to be to work out whether god exists or not? Does this mean there are no children or teenagers who believe in god?
-
N O T I C E . . .
I am receiving emails and texts asking me if it is possible to rig the voting poll on the homepage.
No, it is not. The number of visitors to our website and blog has shot up in the past two days, so the high numbers voting are unsurprising.
They are not surprising for another reason, too, sad to say; it seems that our atheist friends are much more zealous in their cause, much more willing to sacrifice time and energy, than many of our allegedly concerned Catholics – and that includes our priests, none of whom participated in this debate.
Am I bovvered? Yip.
-
JKearney,
I think you are correct in saying this thread has run its course and should be closed. phatbat has brought in more of his adolescent school chumps who have no intention of debating. It is a typical ploy of the insecure to repeat themselves whilst never answering a question, ensure their topics contuinues to occupy the thread and basically engage in childish spoiling.
However they can only do this if they have an audience and one which will respond. Like all infants, after a while they get tired and go away if their little ploys and tantrums are ignored by the grown ups.
Lets leave this kindergarden for the bairns.
-
“It is a typical ploy of the insecure to repeat themselves whilst never answering a question”
What questions haven’t been answered?
-
Benedict-
“It is a typical ploy of the insecure to repeat themselves whilst never answering a question, ensure their topics contuinues to occupy the thread and basically engage in childish spoiling.”
Nobody has asked me a question. The only reason I have repeated my comments is because nobody seems willing to take a minute to answer my questions. Would you mind doing so, please? I’m genuinely interested in what the response of the Catholics on this site is to what I said.
-
Benedict,
” phatbat has brought in more of his adolescent school chumps who have no intention of debating.
I brought no one here, i was one of the people pointed here a few days ago along with all those people you refer to because that person had found your website.
“It is a typical ploy of the insecure to repeat themselves whilst never answering a question, ensure their topics continues to occupy the thread and basically engage in childish spoiling.”
A typical ploy huh? Which question are we refusing to answer? Asking questions repeatedly is also a typical response to not having your question answered but instead people posting stuff about the devil. However the some of the issues being addressed now are the Fatima event (brought up by you guys), the claim that motion proves god (again brought up by you guys). Why is it you cannot see the issues you raised being seen through? You just come out with childish accusations. What we’re doing just isn’t the sort of thing children do, but what you’re doing is.
-
Gracious ed- ‘and that includes our priests, none of whom participated in this debate.’
The shepherds have been paid. Why do more than merely watch the slaughter of their flocks from a safe distance?
Don’t beat yourself up that this is just a Catholic thing – it is typical of the cowardice of religious ‘leaders’ everywhere.
And even with the ultimate ‘phone a friend’ facility! they do not dare.
And all the world can see.
You don’t think it all might be a lie do you? Do you think it could be a business really? There does seem to be a lot of money left over for palaces…
-
Uh oh.
I suppose asking reasonable questions and expecting reasonable answers is a bit unfair.
“It’s a mystery” should suffice.
Even “here is some shoddy, easily disproved ‘evidence’ to support my claims” should be enough.
I should stop seeking truth.I apologize most sincerely, not only because my questions have lost me all rights to Heaven but earned me the everlasting torments of Hell, but especially because I have displeased the All Knowing, All Loving, and All Forgiving God. I firmly resolve with the help of Thy Grace, never more to offend Thee, but to amend my life, and never ask reasonable questions and expect reasonable answers again.
Amen.
-
Benedict
I have been more than polite to you and the others here, why are you so upset and intent on insulting people?
I repeat as I told JKearney, I have only been asking questions about things I saw as wrong and illogical with your arguments, what you are saying about me and my friends is quite rude indeed.
If there is a subject you feel that has not been discussed properly or you want to answer any of my questions without resorting to petty taunts, then come along, it is why I turned up here.
I didn’t come here to swap sarcastic taunts, I could if you want, but I would rather discuss things about your religion which I think are harmful and not a force for good.
-
Benedict & jkearney
The main debate on this thread was won by the Catholic side. There is no need for us to debate further. The neutral can see for themselves the result of the debate thread vote. The main page poll was clearly just childishness by the Godless of many other websites who were all tick-tacking each other to create mayhem.
Bottom line: The debate was won. No need to carry matters further.
-
Athanasius-
So you have no interest in answering my questions about Fatima?
-
Yes Athanasius, the debate is over, now we’re asking other questions. Why are you coming out with posts like that?
You seemed so confident when we first arrived with all your talk of science, now you seem to have slumped into an evasive paranoia, calling things childish in a completely inappropriate way, what’s going on?
-
Athanasius,
Yep I agree. It had some interesting moments, unfortunately the ‘against’ team restricted their arguments so narrowly that it prevented other aspects being explored and honestly debated.
May I congratulate you on a sterling effort which most certainly won the day.
Nuff said.
-
I do hope editor will delete and ban these “atheist” bloggers. They flood Catholic forum boards and blogs in other countries and seem to have done the same thing here on Catholic Truth.
Catholic Truth are going to waste more time deleting posts with drivel or foul language or links to their propaganda.
The tactic of flooding the forum has worked here for them. I’m sorry to see people waste time with their drivel.
The debate is over.
-
Athanasius
Do you not think that by having to register on this site in order to vote would mean more of the regular members would outnumber the people who didn’t?
-
“I do hope editor will delete and ban these “atheist” bloggers”
Your tolerance is remarkable.
Can anyone hear tell me what was wrong with the questions I askes bout Fatima? The post is at time 12.38pm. Please point out where I have included drivel, foul language, or links to propaganda?
Where is the drivel in what I have asked, Credo?
-
Credo
Is that what you would do with someone who disagrees with you?
Can you kindly point out examples from my posts that deserves my being banned from this site?
-
I agree that it’s pointless to debate with them. They mostly have no intention of taking seriously anything provided from a Catholic perspective. And they are obnoxious.
-
Crdeo,
“drivel” ? “propoganda”?
I thought questioning was the piety of thought.
But I suppose if the answers lead to uncomfortable places it is best to run away and hide.
If you have answers to the questions, asked without ‘bad words’, then why not answer them instead of name calling?
Or is it all too obvious that there are really no answers to be had?I believe Jonathan asked a very simple question at 12:38 PM that is yet to be addressed.
Why is that? -
I have no problem with debate or discussion but was just pointing out a tactic that “atheists” and aggressive secularists use.
A genuine truth seeker should be welcomed but I would question the motives of those who signed up just to post drivel.
-
Theneva-
It’s rather rude to ignore people and insult them at the same time. Please point out what is wrong with the questions I asked about Fatima.
-
Theneva
I agree that it’s pointless to debate with them. They mostly have no intention of taking seriously anything provided from a Catholic perspective. And they are obnoxious.
Yet more prevarication. What constitutes “taking seriously?” Are you conflating “taking seriously” with “agreeing with?”
If we didn’t take your posts seriously we wouldn’t respond to them with probing questions and counter points. It is because we respect other human beings ability to reason that we do persist with these questions.
Now where did we go wrong with our summaries of Fatima?
-
Credo-
“I have no problem with debate or discussion but was just pointing out a tactic that “atheists” and aggressive secularists use. ”
If you have no problem with discussion, then would you mind taking a look at my comment from 12.38pm? Thanks in advance.
-
Jonathan,
Just like the other obnoxious atheists here, you will not seriously consider any answer provided to you, so what’s the point in giving one? -
Theneva-
On the contrary, we have been taking Catholic points of view very seriously indeed, because we believe that some of them cause so much suffering in the world.
And as for obnoxious? I don’t believe that is fair. It may be that from your position having rational questions asked firmly but politely is obnoxious, but that is what one should expect when you engage in debate.
-
Theneva-
“Jonathan,
Just like the other obnoxious atheists here, you will not seriously consider any answer provided to you, so what’s the point in giving one?”Why do you assume I will not seriously consider an answer? Isn’t it a bit arrogant of you to tell me how I will react, and to call me obnoxious too? What have I, personally, done to warrant such an attack?
-
Theneva
“They mostly have no intention of taking seriously anything provided from a Catholic perspective.”
That is true.
You must demonstrate that your assumptions are reasonable from any perspective.Here is a link to some interesting ‘propaganda’:
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain_explanation.html
It is only about 15 minutes long and then end of the talk provides some real insight into what it means to ‘explain’ something.
-
No, you lot are not polite…far from it. You do not consider the answers provided to you.
-
Theneva-
What have I, personally, done to warrant being called obnoxious? What, from my comments, makes you think I will not consider any answers given to me?
-
Theneva-
Could you please give an example of such an answer.
Francis – that is a very good talk by Deutsch. Really excellent explanation of why scientific rationalism is so successful.
-
Steve Zara wrote:
“On the contrary, we have been taking Catholic points of view very seriously indeed, because we believe that some of them cause so much suffering in the world.”
It is precisely that bias which is making it very difficult to conduct any kind of meaningful debate here.
You ignore completely all the good work done in the world, past and present, by the Church choosing, instead, to focus on our recent tragic secular-atheistic culture with its shocking history of sexual permissiveness, and, illogically, to denounce the Church for not condoning and promoting condoms under guise of “protecting” people from STDs – admitting all the while that even their staunchest promoters admit that condoms are no guarantee of safety.
Rational? Open-minded? Fair? Gimme a break.
-
editor-
“Instead, to focus on our recent tragic secular-atheistic culture with its shocking history of sexual permissiveness”
“It is precisely that bias which is making it very difficult to conduct any kind of meaningful debate here.”
Indeed.
-
Theneva
If you are offended by the way you are asked a question and then get even more upset when you are disagreed with, how are we supposed to then attempt communication with you?
I do consider what you have to say, I came here to learn remember?
I am a history and English graduate, I am used to far more ferocious debate than this! I assure you I am not deliberately wanting to be obnoxious.
I would ask you consider this and not get so offended by those who only disagree with you.
-
editor – That’s quite a convincing argument you’ve got there.
The more condoms are used, the more pregnancies there will be.
If no contraception is used, there will be far fewer pregnancies.
Perhaps I should have said killer argument.
And all the time your invisible pal aborts a million a day!
-
Editor,
” It is precisely that bias which is making it very difficult to conduct any kind of meaningful debate here.”
Bias? What on earth are you talking about? If that is a bias then so is your view that the Catholic Church is a force for good, and it is just as much that bias that is making it difficult to conduct any kind of meaningful debate.
” You ignore completely all the good work done in the world, past and present, by the Church…”
I ignored the past and I did it for the reason that I explained in my debate posts, because the wording of the debate title, and because there was limited time. We could also talk about all the good work Harold Shipman did too, why does everyone just talk about the people he caused to die, people are so ungrateful.
” choosing, instead, to focus on our recent tragic secular-atheistic culture with its shocking history of sexual permissiveness, and, illogically, to denounce the Church for not condoning and promoting condoms under guise of “protecting” people from STDs”
As I said repeatedly, which everyone likes to keep blanking and changing back to what you’ve now said again, I was focusing on all the people that are going to die from AIDS because they have been told condoms don’t stop AIDS and had sex without one. It is not illogical, again for the reasons I’ve given (particularly in my final post) that have so far not been countered by anyone from your side. Condoms have been proved to stop AIDS except in a small minority of occasion if correctly used. Therefore it is morally reprehensible to tell people not to use them if they have sex. Stop ignoring the issue of them working nearly every time.
” admitting all the while that even their staunchest promoters admit that condoms are no guarantee of safety.”
The fact that they are no guarantee of safety is exactly why an ABC approach is needed and that extent to which they are reliable is why it is without any shadow of a doubt better to wear one if you do have sex, than to not wear one.
If your own son or daughter was going to have sex with someone they had started going out with and for whom they didn’t know the sexual history of, would you want them to use a condom?
Just saying you wouldn’t want them to have sex at all in this situation is not the point here. In this thought experiment we are working on the basis that your son or daughter has decided that they are going to, or has got drunk and is about to.
Would you want them to use a condom?
If not, why not?
-
Been thinking about something (miracles)…
It would truly be a miracle if, for just 1 year, every attempted (that keeps the freewill aspect intact) abortion failed, and that the baby came out alive and well, and went to a loving home, via adoption or whatever…
It would sure beat out a spinning and moving sun any day…
Pity your god hasn’t thought of that…
-
You preach death for non-subscribers
You preach death for sin – it’s in the book.And you practise what you preach.
By lying. And by actively thwarting condom distribution.
Because of your actions they die.
If they had used condoms – what percentage do you want to claim? – Nearly all of them would have been spared death. And their families and children too – not innocents of course! all guilty in the eyes of the dark sub-satanic church of Rome. Look closer at Herr Ratzinger! Can you see the rictus grin of Death?
-
My question above to Editor is open to everyone else of course.
“If your own son or daughter was going to have sex with someone they had started going out with and for whom they didn’t know the sexual history of, would you want them to use a condom?
Just saying you wouldn’t want them to have sex at all in this situation is not the point here. In this thought experiment we are working on the basis that your son or daughter has decided that they are going to, or has got drunk and is about to.
Would you want them to use a condom?
If not, why not?”
-
phatbat, I do have an adult daughter, and want her to take care of her health and life. You got me thinking, and I also want her boyfriend to do the same. As a father, I don’t like thinking about the possibility that he would be having relations with others, but worse would be for him to then bring something that would hurt my daughter. What I gather from the Catholic position is that were he to have sex with another woman, use of condoms would be wrong (thus putting my daughter at higher risk) because of the interference with a purported divine option for pregnancy, however, if he goes off to have sex with another man (or boy or even a girl younger than puberty) the use of condoms would not be wrong (thus reducing the risk to my daughter) because no chance of pregnancy exists. I think you can see that common sense, again, doesn’t fare well when up against dogma.
-
phatbat,
Catholics who are educated in the faith would definitely not want their children to use condoms. If they have rejected their faith and are having sex outside marriage, my message to them would be “you will take the consequences of your actions”.
If they told me they were going to rob a bank, I wouldn’t hand them what I thought was the best tool to use or give them tips on how to not get caught. Robbing banks isn’t linked to catching diseases, is it, so if I won’t help them to escape the possible consequences of serious crimes against society, which is not medically risky to them, why would I “help” them by suggesting they use a condom, when nobody claims it is totally reliable?
If I would not help my children to break the law of the land, why should i help them to break God’s law? That just would be inconsistent.
I think this would be the only possible attitude for any Catholic but if editor corrects me, I’ll be interested to know if and where I’m wrong.
-
Quine your comment went up with mine and I have to say it made me laugh to think that anyone who is breaking God’s law by having sex outside marriage would worry about not using a condom because the Church says so. That’s unbelievable.
-
I was going to stay out of this today, but this is too much.
Let’s see if I can simplify this by using a parallel analogy:
The question is:
“”In this thought experiment we are working on the basis that your son
or daughter has decided that they are going to, or has got drunk and
is about to.
Would you want them to use a condom?
If not, why not?””"No NORMAL human being should have any problem with this. It’s almost a
no-brainer!Try this equivalent question:
- “If you are going to drink from a possibly contaminated well, would
you use a filter?” –Take away the dogma — suddenly, no problem…
Do you see now ?
-
RussellTeapots, if you really are a lawyer, I won’t be hiring you, believe me (if “belief” is not an offensive term….)
It may have escaped your notice in your desperation to savage God and the Catholic Church, but nobody has ever suggested that drinking water from a well offends God.
Abusing His gift of sexual intercourse, does, however, offend Him. That’s because this gift is designed in order to allow us to co-operate with Him in populating the earth, so if we think we know better and work out ways to hinder and thwart His purpose, that is what we term “sinful”.
So, don’t be daft. That was a ridiculous analogy. If I’m ever up on charges of…. let’s see…. say…. expressing an opinion that the government doesn’t like, just you let me me. I’ll take my chances with Inspector Clouseau…
rebel,
Absolutely spot on. phatbat, consider rebel to have answered your question on my behalf – we are supposed to take responsibility for our own actions. If children renounce the Faith and choose to defy God’s law on sexual morality or any other kind of morality, then they must accept the consequences.
That’s why God called the “rules” the Ten Commandments and not Ten Suggestions…
He “commanded” us to behave in certain ways, because He knew we would suffer otherwise. That’s because he designed us, body, mind and spirit, and He knows what makes us truly happy.
And we have the likes of Michael Jackson and Stephen Gately, among many others, to help prove that He was right. Bigtime.
-
That is not an answer to the question.
Your child…
1.Condom?
2.No Condom?
Go on -say it.Editor’s note: I thought I was pretty clear. No condoms – under any circumstances. Ever.
There, I’ve said it – and how’s that for “clear”?
-
rebel, it is a thought experiment in which the contrast is used to focus on a moral question. Here is another: would you support condom distribution in a community if you were shown that it would reduce the number of abortions?
-
I am not sure if this was presented, but the Catholic Church in Washington, DC has just announced that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111116943.html?hpid=topnews
So much for helping people…
-
editor – as the absolutely ‘spot-on’ rebel so touchingly would sacrifice his children to a tinsel god, you state happily millions should die if they break his imaginary laws.
And die they do!
How pleased you must feel with the work your church is so effectively doing.
We see what you mean by a force for good. Death is your business and business is good.
-
Xlyce,
Well go you and do it then. -
You know something?
I think that the majority of ordinary people in your church would answer these questions very differently. I just cannot believe that most catholics are as cruel and inhumane as you are.I think that you lot on this site are hard-line nutjobs who have lost your humanity and that this site is for nutters only.
If there are ordinary catholics ‘lurking’ and reading this – be relieved.
I have decided that you simply CANNOT all be as bad as this.After all, let’s face it – the average catholic family in this country does not have 10 to 15 children. There is a lot of contraception being used by those who realise that those sinister senile old virgins in the vatican know sod all about real sex and real life.
That’s it – I’m off for a nice night out with my family.
-
Theneva-
Still no comment from you on what I’ve done to warrant being called obnoxious, and to be told that I won’t listen to answers offered to me. If you won’t substantiate your insult, I would like you to withdraw it, please.
-
Grignion
I already support homeless people, if your “force for good” is only going to do it if they have the ability to force laws their way, they are not really a force for good are they? The RC Church seems to be more of a “gotta force everyone to do it my way, or else”.real nice
-
Quine elaborates on PhatBat’s thought experiment by adding:
“What I gather from the Catholic position is that were he to have sex with another woman, use of condoms would be wrong (thus putting my daughter at higher risk) because of the interference with a purported divine option for pregnancy, however, if he goes off to have sex with another man (or boy or even a girl younger than puberty) the use of condoms would not be wrong (thus reducing the risk to my daughter) because no chance of pregnancy exists.”
I think the first thing to state is that the Catholic teaching on sex is that outside of marriage all sexual relations are sinful.
You raise an interesting point about your putative daughter’s boyfriend. if he were to have sex with a man there is no need for contraception. The Church’s teaching on this is clear: that this intercourse would be unnatural and gravely sinful whether or not condoms were used.
But I wonder would you be happy to see your daughter going out, and possibly, having sexual relations with a man who was promiscuous with other men?
Do you not think this scenario (regardless of the use of condoms) is highly immoral and one that any father would warn his daughter against?
Your second scenario here is that your young man ha sexual relations with a pre-pubertal girl. Again this is clearly immoral and gravely sinful:
1st: as they are not married, and could not be married since the girl is not of marriagable age
and 2nd: this is surely child-abuse.
Again if you knew your daughter’s boyfriend was having sexual relations with an 8-year old girl would you not contact the Police?
Don’t get hung up over the question of condoms – the scenarios you describe here are immoral regardless of condom use.
-
Seven Billion next stop. And the planet, our lovely home is raped of its places of peace and tranquility, its resources ever more rapidly depleted, in the arms (and legs and bodies!) race between the most dismal and depressing purveyors of religious dogma, Islam and Catholicism. World domination no less at the cost of our world. But hey, its only a place we’re renting. Onward and upward!
The problem is of course, lifespan. Its too long. That’s where our excess population is coming from. If some disease, say, were able to allow people to reproduce but die shortly thereafter, then we could maximise the total number of souls created before killing the planet. What’s not to like?
Its a numbers game, baby. 1 soul good, 10 billion souls, 10 billion times better. The Devil wears latex.
-
RussellTeapot writes:
“You know something?
I think that the majority of ordinary people in your church would answer these questions very differently. I just cannot believe that most catholics are as cruel and inhumane as you are.”Surely that’s the 10,000 Frenchmen fallacy.
If as we believe the Church is the teacher of truth and teaches an objective morality the fact that some, indeed many, Catholics, ignore the Church’s teaching on contraception does not make that moral teaching untrue.
Following Christ is not an easy path and keeping to the Church’s teaching on marriage is not easy either.
Use of contraception has led to promiscuity and the devaluing of marriage and the misery of divorce and the treatment of women as objects for men’s pleasure.
Teaching that marriage is for the getting and bringing up of children is neither cruel or inhuman – rather the reverse.
-
Quine your question is excellent:
“Would you support condom distribution in a community if you were shown that it would reduce the number of abortions?”
and shows, if I may be bold, that you are beginning to understand the Catholic viewpoint. I said “understand” not “agree” note.
So would a Catholic support the lesser evil of distributing condoms to prevent the greater evil of abortion. A utilitarian might agree that this was a sensible way of increasing overall good as it reduces the rate of killing of the unborn.
However this question relies on the logical excluded middle fallacy. It is not simply an either / or.
Either one distributes condoms to reduce the number of abortion
OR
one refuses to distribute condoms and sees more abortion.
This, might I say, is a contraceptive mentality where all questions turn on gaining the pleasure of sexual relations and forget the primary purpose of them – procreation.
It is interesting to note that the abortion rate in this country has risen year on year despite the best efforts of the NHS and Govt. I recall that when I went to College each student had to go to register with the College GP. This entailed a consultation with the GP. Each girl who went to see him was advised to start taking the “Pill”. There is an official policy in the UK to ensure child-bearing women are taking contraceptives but none to say that marriage is the best option for all.
-
Benet – What do you think about your god’s million a day abortion habit?
-
Benet, it is a fallacy to argue that condoms reduce abortions. The Brooke Advisory centres have admitted that wherever they made contraception freely available (and they hand out pills and condoms like sweeties) the abortion rate rises. They admitted themselves to be perplexed about this but then they’re not exactly the brightest buttons in the box.
The Catholic Church condemns evil. End of. It is not permissible to do evil, ever.
So, no, no, no. Condoms (once the preserve of old men in dirty raincoats hanging around back street chemist shops) are not reliable as a contraceptive and were only resurrected to give the illusion of action over the HIV/AIDS virus.
They don’t work. And apparently, they are not popular with an awful lot of people – for less than religious reasons. Go figure as our American bloggers would say.
Which remids me. Theneva lives in the USA, Jonathan, so is at least 5 hours behind us, and although I haven’t read any of her posts where you are described as “obnoxious”, may I suggest that you let the matter drop and/or do what a traditional (i.e. fully believing) Catholic would do, and offer up any perceived offence.
Not only will it please God (which you don’t care about) but it will stop eating away at you. Peace, perfect peace – an attractive, if elusive, state of mind for any atheist, methinks!!
-
It is interesting to note that His abortion rate has risen year on year as the population rises, despite the best efforts of contraceptive advocates.
-
Got it in one, RichardEmmanuelJones. Got it in one. They do not work. Isn’t Holy Mother Church so wise?
-
editor – I see you’re sticking with your contraception increases pregnancy line.
-
Yesterday evening RussellsTeapot wrote in answer this following in answer to my question whether the opponents of the Church thought that Abortion was good. I was composing a reply when the comments were closed. Therefore I hope, RussellsTeapot will excuse the delay.
“Benet
No-one, NO-ONE thinks it (viz. Abortion) is good.
Some of us think that it is the lesser of two evils, and necessary to prevent such things as death at the hands of back street abortionists, or death of a 9 year old child, pregnant with twins after being raped by her own father.
This is the difference between common humanity and the inhumanity of doctrine.”I did not expect that anyone would say that Abortion was good but from the way the scenarios were being devised I thought it was useful to draw attention to the fact that no-one should believe that Abortion is good.
As we all know 99% of abortions in this country (I quoted the statistics for 2008 yesterday) are of healthy unborn children. For a Utilitarian there would have to be a fairly compelling reason for a woman to seek an abortion.
You suggest the 9-year old, carrying twins, who has been raped by her father who will die if there is no abortion. That is a very hard case if ever there were one. It is terrible to even consider such a situation but I would say that even in this case an abortion is not justified. The abortion would entail the deliberate destruction of the unborn twins and that is simply murder. The life of the 9-year old mother is not more important than the lives of the unborn twins.
-
Holy Mother Church is not wise, but is successful in thwarting the contraceptive advocates.
-
Jonathan,
My apologies for lumping you in with the atheists here, most of whom are obnoxious. I looked back over your posts, and you have been civil and reasonable. Again, my apologies. -
Benet – Aren’t you missing someone out from your stats? Someone who aborts a million a day?
-
Editor,
“Benet, it is a fallacy to argue that condoms reduce abortions.”
Agreed – and that was what I was trying, but failing, to express in my last paragraph describing how the doctor prescribed the “Pill” for the women-students.
One of the major arguments, let’s recall. put by Mr David Steele MP as he gained support for the Abortion Bill was that rates of abortion would fall due to more effective contraception. It has not worked like that…
-
The countries with the greatest population growths would then be the ones using the most contraception? Is that it? Because contraception increases pregnancies?
-
RichardEmmanuelJones,
It’s not my line, that contraception increases abortion – check this out
http://www.pop.org/00000000267/contraception-reduces-abortionOh and what went wrong here, then? Very very far – in every sense of the word – from Catholic Church, Pope and Vatican…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/10/AR2009111013891.html?wpisrc=newsletter -
Dear Mr Jones,
I think you are referring to what is called a “chemical pregnancy” where the less than three month embryo is spontaneously aborted.
As I see from http://www.babyhopes.com/articles/chemical-pregnancy.html
this can be for a variety of physical reasons and is common in first pregnancies.
No I do not think that chemical pregnancies indicate that God is an abortionist. Rather they show that the body rejects an embryo due to chemical and physical reasons – there seems to be a law of nature here – that the body wishes the embryo to develop in the best conditions.
-
Xlyce,
Well done you! One chocolate watch for Xlyce! You truly are a force for good in the world.
What makes you think that I don’t? Is it because I’m a Catholic and Catholics can do nothing right in your eyes? -
Dear Mr Jones,
You write:
“The countries with the greatest population growths would then be the ones using the most contraception? Is that it? Because contraception increases pregnancies?”
Which argument do you base this on?
I cannot imagine that anyone here, pro or anti Church, has argued that contraception is causally linked to a rise in pregnancies.
-
editor – Forced suffering! Not so far then. And God watching.
Do you like articles with pictures then ed? Would you like to see pictures of some of the excruciating incurable tortures God inflicts on innocent children? ooops! ‘innocent’! – how careless of me. Do you think I will run out of pictures first? There’s some really intricate ones – He’s spent some time on them.
And did I mention his abortion fetish? He’s insatiable!
-
Benet – Are we pretending He doesn’t kill them after three months?!
Are you two drunk?
-
Here’s one that Christians always find difficult to answer:- ‘Is torturing children right or wrong?’
Feel free to use your God-given absolute super morality standard in your workings out.
I always get this one wrong!
-
Do take your time! It’s a hard one isn’t it? ‘Is torturing children right or wrong?’. I wonder what a ‘force for good in the world’ would say?!
Perhaps I should rephrase it. ‘Is torturing children wrong or right?’
Such a difficult question when one’s mind has been muddled!
-
It’s not a difficult question to answer. I’m just not playing your stupid little games.
-
Dear Mr Jones,
I do not understand why you are asking this question: ‘Is torturing children wrong or right?’. You might receive a response if you show how it is relevant to this discussion.
-
Benet – But I did! I said I wonder what a ‘force for good in this world’ would say. Grignion has an answer, he’s just not able to say. Do you find it a difficult question Benet? Should I have said ‘What does someone who sees themselves as part of a force for good in this world think – is torturing children right or wrong?’
-
I don’t know of many people who need an hour to answer this question. Is there something keeping the Catholics from their humanity? Have they become as psychopaths, like their God, or can they still hear the distant echo of their ancestors?
-
It was too hard, wasn’t it? the question a child could answer. Too hard for the Catholics because something has muddled them. They’re not sure if torturing children is right or wrong. They need a bit more time to think about it. It’s not a question you can just answer straightaway is it? You need a little think, and perhaps a little prayer. Pray to your God – He is there – really! He’ll give you the answer won’t He? Anytime now…
-
Sorry I have been away from this discussion. I regret I am still lost Mr Jones. Who is torturing children? Are you referring to the Clerical abuse scandal? I genuinely do not understand.
-
Benet – No. I’m pretending your god exists – silly as it may seem. As I posted:-
Do you like articles with pictures then ed? Would you like to see pictures of some of the excruciating incurable tortures God inflicts on innocent children? ooops! ‘innocent’! – how careless of me. Do you think I will run out of pictures first? There’s some really intricate ones – He’s spent some time on them.
Your clerics abusing children is less supernatural. Although the facility to diffuse responsibility – to deflect upwards to an empty sky – the blessing of forgiveness – you must know any sin can be forgiven?! – this facility to forgive themselves led them and countless others to commit crimes they otherwise would not have committed.
-
Bedtime for me. But it looks like the Catholics are so lost they may indeed need a night at least to think about whether torturing innocent children to death with gruesome excruciating incurable diseases by the million is right or wrong.
-
It’s right of course, I just want you to type it.
-
REJ,
Why so much extreme hate for the Church? Have you had personal experience with anything that you’ve mentioned above? If you’ve been a victim, yourself, somehow, then I’m truly and sincerely sorry.
But we can’t hate the Church, as you do. -
Theneva
Believe me, there is some other reason for REJ’s anger but only he knows what it is.
-
Perhaps you’re right Athanasius. But I don’t think the problem is with the children in Africa who are suffering from AIDS. I’ve been looking for evidence that Africans themselves (not westerners) have blamed the Church for the HIV/AIDS problem there, and I can’t find anything.
A wife of a friend of my husband is a retired nurse, who, until three years ago, would go and work as a nurse in Africa, about six months out of the year for many years. She worked in women’s health, and family planning, and had no problem with giving out contraceptives there. She went to various parts of Africa.
The last long conversation I had with her about her work was 5 years ago, and she never mentioned that it’s the Catholic Church’s fault for the suffering of HIV/AIDS. She said nothing at all about the Church. And I wasn’t Catholic at that time, so she would have said something if it were a problem.
-
RichardEmmanuelJones, your lack of elementary common sense, let alone anything so high-flown as logic and rationalism, beggars belief.
You talk about God torturing children when it seems you are referring to criminal clergy. So, don’t be daft.
Take time out from hating the Catholic Church to ponder on all the atheists who have tortured children and adults alike: why not start with your pals in Communist Russia and China (who continue to torture and imprison innocent people to this day) and stop worrying yourself silly about a minority (albeit scandalous and reprehensible) of priests who should never have been ordained in the first place.
I believe Grignion got it right when he said that you atheists just don’t like Catholics and think we can do no good, nothing right. Sadly, I am coming to that conclusion myself.
This thread is approaching the 400 mark. I’ll close it when it reaches that point or thereabouts. It has really served its purpose now. In the meantime, try REJ, to cut us a bit of slack. We mean well, even if we’re not quite as clever as your goodself. Incidentally, hovering my mouse over your username in an effort to copy it (save me all that typing, lazy beggar that I am) I found myself transported to your very own blog. Quite an experience.
You don’t like us and that is sad. We’d still like to part company with you on good terms so consider yourself always welcome here – just don’t be too hard on us and please, do not speak disrespectfully of the God who made us all and who loves you, REJ, more than anyone on the face of this earth.
-
Theneva & editor
Since all religious persuations have their individual religious holidays, I think it only fair that the Godless should also have a day reserved to them. I suggest April 1st (April Fools Day)!
-
Actually, do you know what the arguments of these Godless people remind me of? They remind me of the Pharisees in the Gospels who ignored Our Lord’s divine truth and goodness and sought instead to trip him up with cleverly-devised questions in order to accuse Him. And when He confronted them with their wickedness they gnashed their teeth and insulted Him. Has anyone else noticed this striking similarity?
-
Here’s a very revealing article for the Godless.
-
editor – I am not referring to clergy at all! I am referring to God torturing children with excruciating incurable diseases.
That seems to be a tough one for the Christians. Is it right or wrong?
What about aborting a million a day? Is that right or wrong? Good or bad – to stay on topic?
-
What about death for sinning? Is that right or wrong? I do believe we’ve actually had an answer for this one! – it’s right! it’s good!
Well it’s in the book isn’t it?
The book He couldn’t make.
When He could talk directly into people’s heads
When noone could read.
I wonder if you’ve heard the one about false prophets? I don’t particularly like them.
That’s the trouble when you’re hearing voices. Who is it speaking? He’s the one saying torturing children is good. He’s the one saying aborting a milliona a day is good. He’s the one saying death for sinning is good. Death is His business and business is good.
Do you think you all might have been duped? Are you feeling the wrong one? Is it the wrong voice? How can you tell?
-
I don’t remember saying I was an atheist. That would be a funny thing for me to say!
-
Athanasius,
It is indeed a similar situation to that of the Pharisees, and no doubt the scenario has been played out countless times and in many places in the last nearly 2000 years.I think it was Chesterton who once said something about the pagans of old being easier to reason with than the new pagans (except maybe for Rome in the first three centuries, and the pagans in Scotland were probably not much fun to deal with, either).
The article about the conversion of Vittorio Messori is good, I’ll look forward to reading part two tomarrow.
-
Theneva – Yes it must be harder now. You used to be able to reason with fire! You used to kill the heretics. Now you only have ‘delete’ and ‘close thread’ and ‘talkaboutsomethingelse’.
Your reasoning seems somewhat feebler without the fire doesn’t it?
Do you like relics Theneva? You do, don’t you. Genuine Catholic relics.
They’re in the medieval torture museums.
-
My posts at 6:39 & 6:45 Theneva. A chance to show off your reasoning! No fire though…
-
editor – I think you should close the thread now too. Perhaps with a little note about how you won really, and how noone ran away or avoided any difficult questions.
-
RichardEmmanuelJones,
I think the clue to your state of mind is found in something Messori said about his conversion from unbelief to Catholicism. He said he still used his reason, of course, but that his mind is now open to “mystery”. That’s why Messori can see what you cannot see. Your mind is closed to the possibility of anything that you cannot immediately see, feel, touch, taste of hear.
I see I wrongly interpreted your remarks about torturing children – probably because it is inconceivable to me that anyone who claims to be a rationalist could possibly make such a fundamental mistake about the nature of God – whether or not you believe in His existence. A rationalist should seek to know the nature of a thing and then argue accordingly. Since, by his nature, God is all goodness, it follows that He cannot possibly torture – or will the torture of – children (or anyone else for that matter). Therefore, any creatures created by God who do torture others, are patently being unfaithful to God’s will. God does not will the torture of human beings. You will counter that in times of religious persecution people were tortured and put to death, but, as Athanasius pointed out in the debate, it is a mistake to judge earlier periods of history by our standards. Also, the problem with selecting one issue to discuss out of its complete context, means we cannot fully explore all related matters. So, e.g. God delegates His authority to others for the purposes of good national governance and the Church’s response to heresy, for example, is on a different level to what you describe as “torture”. Maybe that would make a good topic for another day. Essentially, though, the whole question of making others suffer per se is not God’s fault.
The mystery of iniquity, we call it, REJ. Man’s inhumanity to man (and children). God doesn’t cause it unless you really believe that God should have made us puppets without any freedom to choose to do good. That’s why God gave us freedom. Not, as some mistakenly say, so that we may choose either good or evil: that is ridiculous. God made us free so that we WOULD choose good. A bit like a proposal of marriage, if you think about it. The would-be husband (or in these crazy times, the masculine feminist) asks his would-be spouse if she’ll marry him. Obviously, he wants her to say “yes” – and does not want her to decline – but he cannot force her, in the nature of things. Then, it wouldn’t be a proposal, it would be an instruction (you WILL marry me….)
Not a great analogy but then nothing really is when we are speaking about God, who transcends our human analogies, words and thoughts. Still, I hope it helps to drive home the theological fact that God does not torture children just because the human beings He created choose to abuse His laws. God doesn’t abort babies in China (or anywhere else) – human beings wrongly exercising the freedom that God gave them, do so.
Thanks for being the latest person to issue instructions to me on how to manage the blog, but – with all due respect, REJ – I will stick to my original plan and close it around the 400 comments mark. That doesn’t mean you have to keep blogging – feel free to bow out at any time. I’ll supply the rest of the bloggers with paper hankies, so worry not.
As for your suggested editor’s note: without any doubt, the debating argument was won by Athanasius. Objective readers could see the substantial arguments presented by him and many who had never blogged here before, signed up to vote in favour of the motion presented and defended by Athanasius.
However, there is no sense of triumphalism here, REJ, mostly sadness given the palpable hatred for the Church which your good self and others have displayed these past few days.
And, for the record, none of the Catholic Truth bloggers ran away or avoided any difficult questions. All of your questions have been answered. You just don’t like the answers so hit back, in the time-honoured way, with more (and ever more) irrelevant questions – such as your questions about God torturing children, designed to mock and offend.
Now, there’s a thread just posted on the morality or otherwise of government plans to make everyone take the Swine Flu jab. Why not enlighten us with your opinion on that topic. There’s no “Catholic” position on that, so we might find ourselves agreeing on that topic.
See you there!
-
Editor-
“And, for the record, none of the Catholic Truth bloggers ran away or avoided any difficult questions. All of your questions have been answered.”
Nobody has answered my questions about Fatima. Would you mind having a look at them, please? I’ve reposted them below:
70,000 people at Fatima are claimed to have witnessed the miracle of the sun moving in the sky. According to Editor, some claimed to have witnessed it from twenty miles away.
However, at any time the sun is visible (barring cloud cover) to a significant proportion of the Earth’s surface, and the population living upon it. And the fact is that the overwhelming majority of the population to whom the sun would have been visible at the time of Fatima did not, in fact, see it move.
This seems like a difficulty with the credibility of the claim.
There are a few options:
a) God simply made the sun appear to move in the sky for the faithful in Fatima, it did not move in reality. This is why the rest of the people did not see the sun move.
b) The sun did move, but God made it appear to all those not in the area of Fatima that the sun remained in its usual place in the sky. Either that or he made sure the rest of the people simply did not notice.
c) The sun did move, everyone saw it, but for some reason the rest of the world’s population lied about seeing it, pretended that they didn’t, or were forced into silence.
d) It never happened.
I wonder if the Catholics on here would mind explaining which of the above options they believe to be most likely, or present alternate options that I haven’t considered.
Thanks in advance.
-
editor – No, I didn’t mean religious persecution. No, I didn’t mean people aborting.
-
Jonathan
Yes, the sun moved by the power of the one who created the laws of nature. And He breached those laws a second time by ensuring that only those 70,000 witnesses say it. This is not impossible for a God who created the universe and the very laws you appear to think He could not temporarily alter. But since you reject God, you will clearly deny that this ever happened. That’s your choice.
Now, you prove to me, and not with a load of old scientific specualation that amounts to nothing more than a mad theory, how the universe was formed, how it all came from nothing and how life came form nothing.
You can posture you scientific theories all you like, but you can never answer, with solid evidence, the question of how life originally came from non-life or the order of the universe came from the chaos that came from nothingness. And you think we’re mad for believing the miracle of the sun!!
-
Athanasius-
A few clarifying questions: what makes you so sure that he actually moved the sun, rather than making it appear that he moved the sun? The witnesses at Fatima wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference, since presumably according to your own argument everyone else couldn’t tell that the sun had moved.
Also, why do you think he only allowed the people at Fatima to see? Why did he deliberately hide this miracle from everyone else?
-
Editor removed offensive comments
-
Editor removed offensive comments
-
REJ,
Where is the evidence that the Africans themselves believe that HIV/AIDS in Africa is the fault of the Church? The Africans aren’t stupid, though George Soros and his merry band of social engineers think otherwise.
-
Theneva – Where is the evidence you can read?
Editor removed offensive comments
-
REJ,
What have you personally done to help the children in Africa?
Bashing the Church and staring at pictures of children who are suffering from “horrible, gruesome, and excruciating” disease doesn’t count. -
Mornin’.
Did you guys/gals happen to catch this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111116943.html?hpid=topnews
If you don’t want to bother reading it I’ll summarize: the Catholic Church is doing a lot of charity work in Washington, purportedly helping tens of thousands of people in various ways. However, the church has threatened to remove all of this charity work if a proposed same-sex marriage law is not changed (a proposed law; what happened to separation of church and state?). I know that the church loves to hate “them gays”, but who is getting punished here?!? The tens of thousands of people who rely on this assistance, that’s who. People (kids!) might starve or even die! Innocent people. How does assistance to a sick kid relate to same-sex marriage at all?!? It doesn’t. And this is a prime reason why so many many people hate the Catholic Church (the institution, not the people). Assistance (love!) should be unconditional.
-
Rebel & Editor,
Wow, just wow. I really didn’t think you guys would be so cruel and inhumane. At least you’ve demonstrated with out a shadow of a doubt who is the more moral of us.
Rebel says:
”Catholics who are educated in the faith would definitely not want their children to use condoms. If they have rejected their faith and are having sex outside marriage, my message to them would be “you will take the consequences of your actions”.
In other words, if you have sex outside marriage then you deserve to die, even if you are my own son/daughter. Also, surely the consequences of breaking god’s laws are this supposed punishment of hell in the afterlife, why would you want your children or anyone to have additional punishment in this life too? The consequences of which you speak (AIDS), don’t have to be the consequences, they can be avoided. Then you’re still left with the consequences of breaking god’s laws if that makes you happy.
Here comes an analogy from Rebel:
If they told me they were going to rob a bank, I wouldn’t hand them what I thought was the best tool to use or give them tips on how to not get caught. Robbing banks isn’t linked to catching diseases, is it, so if I won’t help them to escape the possible consequences of serious crimes against society, which is not medically risky to them, why would I “help” them by suggesting they use a condom, when nobody claims it is totally reliable?The problem with this analogy is that robbing banks actually harms other people and takes other people’s belongings. It is not a loving, enjoyable consensual act for everyone involved, there is intentional harm involved with a bank robbery. In other words it’s against the law for a very good reason and that law was negotiated between the moral agents involved, humans for those reasons. Where-as to even be aware of your god’s law you have to suspend the very incredulity you are required to use to stop yourself believing in every other god and every other liar that has ever been or lived. You can’t just choose to believe in your god’s existence and rules, believing is an involuntary reaction to evidence, it’s a compulsion over which you have no control.
I notice on another thread that you don’t seem to have a problem thinking that that Bishop doesn’t deserve to go to prison for breaking the law in Germany by denying the holocaust. If your argument is that if something’s against the law then you deserve the consequences then you should just accept the Bishop’s punishment shouldn’t you? But suddenly your rigid “break the law, take the consequence” disappears when it’s about something you disagree with. It sounds to me like you just have a problem with sex, and don’t think other people should be enjoying it.
The issue of total reliability that you guys keep using to fall back on is irrelevant. Seat belts in cars aren’t totally reliable either, and neither are air bags or side impact bars, just like condoms. The point is that it massively reduces the risk of spreading contagious diseases and viruses, just like the safety features of cars do the same.
Would you also encourage your children to not wear a seat belt if they were going to break the law and drive over the speed limit? Or would you hope they were wearing one?
-
ProudMonkey,
How much assistence have you personally given those children who may starve and even die?
And there’s another worthy cause that I recommend that you donate to. It needs your help. It’s to support the mission of the Church in third world countries. It matters not that you don’t agree with the principles of the Church…you should be donating anyway, right?REJ,
Still waiting to find out what you are doing to personally help the children in Africa. -
Editor removed offensive comments
-
REJ,
I take it, then, that you have not helped out those children in Africa? -
Theneva,
You didn’t even come close to refuting the point that the church is behaving inappropriately/unethically/inhumanely/etc. Your example of Africa is similar (this list is great; you keep making my points for me!); much aid is conditional on christian-conditioning. No bible? No food. This is appalling. Absolutely appalling. I applaud the good work that is being done, but I wretch at its conditional nature.
And yes, I do perform charity work. Believe it or not, god-less/soul-less atheists care for people. And what is more, we do it without the fear of being punished in the afterlife. Our assistance is genuine and sincere.
-
ProudMonkey,
I believe you when you say that you do charity work. But do you believe that you should be forced to do charity work, or donate to, a cause which does not completely concur with your own principles?
-
Theneva,
Helping sick kids; what principles exactly are involved? They are suffering. You help. Very simple. They are not involved in the same-sex marriage debate. At all. Don’t punish them.
-
ProudMonkey,
If no principles need be involved, then why haven’t you donated to any Catholic charities?
-
Theneva,
The question is, why are your principles not based entirely on harm and the prevention there of. For atheists like Monkey, Richard and me if we are going to consider helping someone or deciding whether something is wrong or right, we only take into account the suffering and harm that is actually happening and how to minimize that in this world, so there aren’t really any charitable acts that would conflict with our principles, this only seems to happen to religious people, in particular Catholics it seems. But for you, you include this 3rd party’s whims and wants in all your moral decisions, and not only that but you rate his whims and wants above earthly suffering. You would rather people suffer here on earth than do something that god doesn’t like, even though that thing does no harm to anyone.
This is what it is about religion (principally Christianity and Islam these days) that so strips a lot of humans of their humanity and hi-jacks their moral sense.
-
phatbat,
Let me see if I have this right.
You believe that you have the right to be selective about whom you will help. You also believe that the Catholic Church should not have this same right, correct?
-
I am not an atheist. That would be a very odd position for me! I have found the catholic church an unworthy opponent. Editor removed offensive comments
-
REJ wrote:
“I have found the Catholic Church to be an unworthy opponent.”
And yet the Catholic church still stands, REJ.
-
Theneva,
No, if someone needs help then i would help them, i would not be selective.
-
Today I am merciful Theneva. But I am a fickle mistress. Do not raise my dander.
-
phatbat,
May I provide you with a list of Catholic charities to donate to? The SSPX mission in Asia is particularly needy at this time. I’ll be back with a list of Catholic pro-life groups that you can also help. Will you donate to these?
-
Here’s Randall Terrys’ group called Operation Rescue. I remember when he was still a Protestant, and he converted a few years before me.
http://www.operationrescue.org/
Here’s another good one, Lifesite news. The ‘donate button’ should be easy to find on each site.
-
Can I ask a question? How do you weigh up harm caused by the sin of contraception as against the dangers of HIV? It surely isn’t black and white.
Sins can be forgiven, but HIV is for life.
-
Gonna repeat my previous comment…
Been thinking about something (miracles)…
It would truly be a miracle if, for just 1 year, every attempted (that keeps the freewill aspect intact) abortion failed, and that the baby came out alive and well, and went to a loving home, via adoption or whatever…
It would sure beat out a spinning and moving sun any day…
Pity your god hasn’t thought of that…
And I’ll add another point. Your god has surely thought of that miracle now, since he ‘knows’ everything, therefore he ‘knows’ that this miracle has been thought of…
It’s a better and more to the point kind of miracle…
-
Birdwatcher,
I understand the argument that all children should be wanted, and loved. Of course, that’s what we all want. But there’s an underlying idea here that presumes that it’s better to kill the child, rather than risk the child going to bad circumstances.
Here in the U.S., there aren’t enough children to adopt, because of abortion. Couples wait on waiting lists for years, and then they usually adopt a child from a third world country, which isn’t a bad thing, though.
And some women become infertile from having used contraceptives, or from having abortions, so the fertility rates have declined further from this.
-
Editor removed offensive comment
-
Hey folks, it’s been an interesting day here, but I have to go to work now. I’ve actually enjoyed the debate with the atheists/pagans today, since it’s been mostly civil.
God bless everyone here!
Feasgar math (good afternoon, in Gaelic)!
-
Theneva,
I’m from the US…
There are plenty of children to be adopted, but unfortunately, they’re ‘problem’ children…
And you completely missed my point…
It was about miracles, not abortion…
-
Prynhawn da Theneva! I think you will find that Welsh is in fact the language of heaven.
BW – they do that.
-
“And some women become infertile from having used contraceptives”.
I understand the Pill does not make women infertile, it’s down to age.
-
Jonathan
“Athanasius-
A few clarifying questions: what makes you so sure that he actually moved the sun, rather than making it appear that he moved the sun? The witnesses at Fatima wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference, since presumably according to your own argument everyone else couldn’t tell that the sun had moved.
Also, why do you think he only allowed the people at Fatima to see? Why did he deliberately hide this miracle from everyone else?”
I am sure the sun was moved because it was reported that after the event the sodden ground was dry and the wet and muddy clothes of the witnesses dry and clean. Remember, it was raining very heavily for hours before the miracle.
God only allowed the witnesses to see the miracle because to show the miracle to all humanity would have meant that they were forced against their free will to accept the divine message of Fatima by faith. God doesn’t coerce us into listening to him. He gives us his message backed up by witness testimony as to its divine nature and then leaves the decision to accept or reject entirely to us. God does not interfere in the free will he has given to man, but he will judge them on their use of it when they die.
-
Benet,
The pill is a major contributory factor in infertility in women.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3350809/Pill-can-delay-a-baby-far-longer-than-you-want.htmlFor the most part the “research” says there is no correlation between the pill and infertility, but can you think of a lot of women who’d use it if they thought that their “family planning” might result in no family at all?
The peddling pill business in big business. Don’t believe a word they say.Now, we’ve passed the magic 400 comments so I am now going to close this thread, once again thanking everyone who participated in the debate. A special word of thanks, again, to phatbat and Athanasius for all their hard work.
God bless.
Comments are now closed.
409 comments