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KidCatholic1
Guest
Like I said earlier: we must get along, so thumbs up for that part of the post
. Secondly, I think there is far more gray in this area than we originally imagined. So another thumbs up .
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. Secondly, I think there is far more gray in this area than we originally imagined. So another thumbs up .
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
From your post 175
**"I am emphatically not making the opposite argument that Catholicism causes criminality - even if the statistics were strong enough to support a link, there are all sorts of ways to explain them beyond a direct causal link. **I am merely pointing out the fallacy and hypocrisy of your claim."
Stay polite please!
Thank you. 
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ThinkingSapien
Guest
I canât sat I underst and how you worked from that to saying religion and morality are the same thing. But okay.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Statistical studies are no substitute for being a first hand witness of sincerity and duplicity in the prisons. I was in the state prison ministry in Texas for five years, and now am in the county jail ministry. As a first hand witness of prisoners, I know a little more than people who write up statistics about what really goes on in the prisons.
Prisoners lie, just like the rest of us. Where they have the most to gain, they will lie just like the rest of us. What they have the most to gain is early release from prison if they can manage it. One way to manage it is to con the parole board into the belief that they are sincerely reformed. So we have prisoners who sign up for chapel attendance that have no other reason to sign up for it than to hope it gets them an early release. This includes atheists who will claim they are Catholics, Baptists, etc. and go to chapel with hope in their hearts, not hope for eternal salvation but hope for early release from prison. The extent to which this goes on cannot be registered in statistical studies, because there are no statistics for people who lie about why they go to chapel in prison. Who is going to admit to lying?
Atheists can be con artists, just like the rest of us.
This is what is meant by using common sense for a change, instead of relying on phony or misleading statistics.
Prisoners lie, just like the rest of us. Where they have the most to gain, they will lie just like the rest of us. What they have the most to gain is early release from prison if they can manage it. One way to manage it is to con the parole board into the belief that they are sincerely reformed. So we have prisoners who sign up for chapel attendance that have no other reason to sign up for it than to hope it gets them an early release. This includes atheists who will claim they are Catholics, Baptists, etc. and go to chapel with hope in their hearts, not hope for eternal salvation but hope for early release from prison. The extent to which this goes on cannot be registered in statistical studies, because there are no statistics for people who lie about why they go to chapel in prison. Who is going to admit to lying?
Atheists can be con artists, just like the rest of us.
This is what is meant by using common sense for a change, instead of relying on phony or misleading statistics.
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Kaninchen
Guest
Which would be a really clever response if you could tie it in with some historical figures and their followers - of course, it might come as an enormous surprise to you that things like the âFinal Solution to the Jewish Problemâ and âThe Liquidation of the Kulaks As A Classâ were ordered by people who really, really knew that such actions were the answer to something and undertaken by people who agreed with them.I think people who canât decide what to think are easily led into huge wars started by people who also donât know how to think.
Otherwise, it just sounds like somebody who knows what the answer really, really is who has found a problem heâs got the answer to.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Of course it might come as an even more enormous surprise to you that the people who beat the Nazis into submission at the end of World War II were the Americans who really, really believed in republics instead of dictatorships as legitimate forms of government.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism#China
How atheism will rule everywhere ⌠by the suppression of religion, if it can.
In America, where religious freedom is protected, is there any government attempt to suppress or control atheists?
How atheism will rule everywhere ⌠by the suppression of religion, if it can.
In America, where religious freedom is protected, is there any government attempt to suppress or control atheists?
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Kaninchen
Guest
It would certainly come as a surprise to the British, Russians, Serbs etc that theyâd played no part in the process.
Meanwhile, Iâd suggest that weâre back at what you said (Post 165):
At least you can challenge the ones who have answers to everything.
And I replied (Post 174):
Can involve huge wars though.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Of course they played a part ⌠I do know a little bit of history. But their part might have failed had it not been for America. This much even Churchill conceded.
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Kaninchen
Guest
Well, the problem here is that Churchill (who was half-American, by the way) more than âconcededâ the importance of the American contribution to victory, he celebrated the fact. Iâm sorry but these sorts of responses rather suggest that youâre âwinging itâ, Charlemagne.
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Al_Moritz
Guest
Nonsense. I did respond without ignoring your post, and even posted a follow-up reply. If you donât like my reply which I think was appropriate and common-sense, and even affirmed that atheists often borrow their morality, if they have it, from somewhere else, such as Christianity (which resolves the apparent contradiction), your problem.Well, for starters there is Psalms 14:1, which apparently you are very good at ignoring since I have cited it several times and you still apparently think is not true.
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Al_Moritz
Guest
And by the way, if you really disagree so much that atheists can do any good, instead of accusing me of thinking that Psalms 14:1 is not true, you might do better by accusing Pope Francis of the same:
catholicvote.org/what-pope-francis-really-said-about-atheists/
Ofc course, what is not true instead is your black-and-white literal intepretation of every word of the Bible â especially when it suits your personal purposes of the moment. That is not Catholic, it is fundamentalist Protestant.
catholicvote.org/what-pope-francis-really-said-about-atheists/
Ofc course, what is not true instead is your black-and-white literal intepretation of every word of the Bible â especially when it suits your personal purposes of the moment. That is not Catholic, it is fundamentalist Protestant.
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BrassAnkles
Guest
The Pope is right, if an atheist has not received the Gospel fully he would not judged by the same measure we would and as such could go to heaven.
However, the situation of an atheist who has received the Gospel adequately but still rejects Jesus would be more precarious:
âBut whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.â
As far as the claim that atheist are not capable of good that would be wrong as they are as much of a work of art as anyone else given that they were made in the image of God. Our hope as Catholics is that they realize this at some point and embrace what God has made as good before itâs too late, assuming they received the Gospel that is.
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Hee_Zen
Guest
I donât want to derail this thread, so this is just a passing thought, to be explored elsewhere: âwhen can you say that the atheist HAS received the gospel fullyâ? Just food for thought, not for conversation within this thread.
If anyone would open a new thread about this subject, it would be fun to explore it.
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cena
Guest
We canât fully determine that only God can, but if someone grew up Catholic and they ended up as an atheist is an example.I donât want to derail this thread, so this is just a passing thought, to be explored elsewhere: âwhen can you say that the atheist HAS received the gospel fullyâ? Just food for thought, not for conversation within this thread.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Not winging it so much as trying to clip your wings a bit.
Though I have no doubt you are still soaring in the realms of uncertainty.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Yes, everyone is capable of good, both atheists and theists. The question is not whether they are capable of good, but whether they are capable of being saved. The theist is capable of being saved, though many theists doubtless are not saved because they die with great sins on their souls and are unrepentant.
But the atheist who has denied the God who has offered himself to him, and dies therefore unrepentant because he doesnât believe there is anyone he must repent to, is likely to be denied his salvation. This is what we are told in scripture, which you cited.
But of course Al will say that Jesus didnât really mean what he said, and that my interpretation must be wrong because his (Alâs) must be right. And Al will invoke Pope Francis as being on his side against Scripture and the saying of Jesus you cited above, which is about as plain and obvious as a saying can be.
Then Al will call me a fundamentalist Protestant, just as inocente has called me a raging relativist.
Go choose between what Jesus says and what Al says Pope Francis says, though Al never gives us the precise sentence he means to be Pope Francisâ refutation of what Jesus says:
"But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father." Matthew 10:32-33
âHe who believes and is baptized will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned.â Mark 16:16
âIf we have died with him we shall also live with him; if we persevere we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him he will deny us.â
2nd Timothy 2:11-12
So Al, please give us the sentence where Pope Francis refutes Jesus. Thank you.
Has Pope Francis also refuted Mark and 2nd Timothy?
.
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Kaninchen
Guest
Ah, thatâs your problem, while you might be really, really sure that we have them, rabbits really, really donât have wings so a different policy might be indicated. Except that, being really, really sure, youâre doomed to carry on carrying on with the clipping the wings off rabbits policy: âComrades/Kameraden Achieve The Clipping Wings Off Rabbits Five Year Plan In Four Years!âNot winging it so much as trying to clip your wings a bit.
Rather than doing that, sitting down with a good academic biography of somebody like Robespierre, or Stalin, or Hitler might teach you something about the quest for certainty.
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BrassAnkles
Guest
For what itâs worth I see what he does not to mention many others who would undermine Godâs word. Keep up the good fight.Yes, everyone is capable of good, both atheists and theists. The question is not whether they are capable of good, but whether they are capable of being saved. The theist is capable of being saved, though many theists doubtless are not saved because they die with great sins on their souls and are unrepentant.
But the atheist who has denied the God who has offered himself to him, and dies therefore unrepentant because he doesnât believe there is anyone he must repent to, is likely to be denied his salvation. This is what we are told in scripture, which you cited.
But of course Al will say that Jesus didnât really mean what he said, and that my interpretation must be wrong because his (Alâs) must be right. And Al will invoke Pope Francis as being on his side against Scripture and the saying of Jesus you cited above, which is about as plain and obvious as a saying can be.
Then Al will call me a fundamentalist Protestant, just as inocente has called me a raging relativist.
Go choose between what Jesus says and what Al says Pope Francis says, though Al never gives us the precise sentence he means to be Pope Francisâ refutation of what Jesus says:
"But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father." Matthew 10:32-33
âHe who believes and is baptized will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned.â Mark 16:16
âIf we have died with him we shall also live with him; if we persevere we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him he will deny us.â
2nd Timothy 2:11-12
So Al, please give us the sentence where Pope Francis refutes Jesus. Thank you.
Has Pope Francis also refuted Mark and 2nd Timothy?
.
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Zincman
Guest
Those so called new atheists arenât really atheists, just fashion fan-boys. As a matter of fact due to the structure of humanâs brain I really doubt there is or there was even a single atheist in time.
A world without religion cannot exist, something else will take its place, like science is doing these days. And do not mis-understood me, I LOVE science.
A world without religion cannot exist, something else will take its place, like science is doing these days. And do not mis-understood me, I LOVE science.
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