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buffalo
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Are men’s inventions even capable of recording the supernatural?
Billions of people have HD video cameras in their pockets: why aren't we seeing lots of miracles on video?
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LethalMouse
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You should make a thread series
Contradictions of the church: Thread One
And so on and so forth. Put one of these contradictions per thread for simple following in case real life boggs anyone ddown from dealing with more than one at a time.
I would love to see and read on them. I searched with intent to find them in the past and came up short. I would be curious to see what you found and verify or debunk via some research or rebuttals
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e_c
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I too would be interested in such a thread series.You should make a thread series
Contradictions of the church: Thread One
And so on and so forth. Put one of these contradictions per thread for simple following in case real life boggs anyone ddown from dealing with more than one at a time.
I would love to see and read on them. I searched with intent to find them in the past and came up short. I would be curious to see what you found and verify or debunk via some research or rebuttals
Maybe we can start with usury and get that out of the way. After that it gets easy.
PC - We are accepting your challenge. Go ahead, but be open to learning!
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Monte_RCMS
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Sometimes, God chooses to be anonymous.
[Not an original thought.]
[Not an original thought.]
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estesbob
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SlaveryI too would be interested in such a thread series.
Maybe we can start with usury and get that out of the way. After that it gets easy.
PC - We are accepting your challenge. Go ahead, but be open to learning!
Galileo
The Crusades
The Inquisition
The usual rogues gallery of alleged Catholic sins.
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buffalo
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**Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History
**
As we all know and as many of our well established textbooks have argued for decades, the Inquisition was one of the most frightening and bloody chapters in Western history, Pope Pius XII was anti-Semitic and rightfully called “Hitler’s Pope,” the Dark Ages were a stunting of the progress of knowledge to be redeemed only by the secular spirit of the Enlightenment, and the religious Crusades were an early example of the rapacious Western thirst for riches and power. But what if these long held beliefs were all wrong?
In this stunning, powerful, and ultimately persuasive book, Rodney Stark, one of the most highly regarded sociologists of religion and bestselling author of *The Rise of Christianity *(HarperSanFrancisco 1997) argues that some of our most firmly held ideas about history, ideas that paint the Catholic Church in the least positive light are, in fact, fiction. Why have we held these wrongheaded ideas so strongly and for so long? And if our beliefs are wrong, what, in fact, is the truth?
In each chapter, Stark takes on a well-established anti-Catholic myth, gives a fascinating history of how each myth became the conventional wisdom, and presents a startling picture of the real truth. For example,
- Instead of the Spanish Inquisition being an anomaly of torture and murder of innocent people persecuted for “imaginary” crimes such as witchcraft and blasphemy, Stark argues that not only did the Spanish Inquisition spill very little blood, but it was a major force in support of moderation and justice.
- Instead of Pope Pius XII being apathetic or even helpful to the Nazi movement, such as to merit the title, “Hitler’s Pope,” Stark shows that the campaign to link Pope Pius XII to Hitler was initiated by the Soviet Union, presumably in hopes of neutralizing the Vatican in post-World War II affairs. Pope Pius XII was widely praised for his vigorous and devoted efforts to saving Jewish lives during the war.
- Instead of the Dark Ages being understood as a millennium of ignorance and backwardness inspired by the Catholic Church’s power, Stark argues that the whole notion of the “Dark Ages” was an act of pride perpetuated by anti-religious intellectuals who were determined to claim that theirs was the era of “Enlightenment.”
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e_c
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Yes, alleged.
Slavery starts with a conversation on Scripture’s position, then the cultural status of slavery and the interests and intents of the sacred authors, then the differences in types of slavery, and finally magisterial documents. There are no contradictions. And some slavery is a good thing - my guess is everyone reading this believe this too, unless you think “500 hours of community service” is intrinsically evil.
Galileo was a jerk in his personal and professional life. That was his main problem. Poor him, he got put on house arrest in the Lateran palace. Boo hoo. Bellarmine handled the situation well. There was never a magisterial document on the solar system, there probably never will be. It was just commonly assumed that the predominant scientific model of the heavens was a “perfect fit” with the imagery of the Psalmist and other sacred authors.
The Crusades were mostly a good thing. The Turks were mean… And only the First Crusade was a success, by the way.
The Inquisition was not an event. It was an office (and exists today under a different name, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). It too was and is a good thing. Sometimes its actions were hijacked, most famously in Spain, which actually led to an attempted papal intervention, but the king was adamant about expelling the crypto-Jews to the point of unjustified violence.
Now we’re off and running, I suppose. But the real elephant in the room is usury. But that too is cleared up with the right distinctions and contextualization.
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buffalo
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Science cannot speak to the supernatural, by definition. It is limited to material things. Miracles are beyond scientific explanation. God of the gaps or science of the gaps? In the end, there will always be at least one gap or science would be God.
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LethalMouse
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I really thought his implication was he had something better than that which are the same 4 recurring threads on CAF lol.
Tbh I was giving him credit to have something other than these and if these are what he has I will be sad for the credit I gave him
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buffalo
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1 I want to make quite clear to you, brothers, what the message of the gospel that I preached to you is; you accepted it and took your stand on it, 2 and you are saved by it, if you keep to the message I preached to you; otherwise your coming to believe was in vain.
3 The tradition I handed on to you in the first place, a tradition which I had myself received, was that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures,
4 and that he was buried; and that on the third day, he was raised to life, in accordance with the scriptures;
5 and that he appeared to Cephas; and later to the Twelve;
6 and next he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still with us, though some have fallen asleep;
7 then he appeared to James, and then to all the apostles.
8 Last of all he appeared to me too, as though I was a child born abnormally.
9 For I am the least of the apostles and am not really fit to be called an apostle, because I had been persecuting the Church of God;
10 but what I am now, I am through the grace of God, and the grace which was given to me has not been wasted. Indeed, I have worked harder than all the others – not I, but the grace of God which is with me.
11 Anyway, whether it was they or I, this is what we preach and what you believed.
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you be saying that there is no resurrection of the dead?
13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ cannot have been raised either,
14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is without substance, and so is your faith.
15 What is more, we have proved to be false witnesses to God, for testifying against God that he raised Christ to life when he did not raise him – if it is true that the dead are not raised.
16 For, if the dead are not raised, neither is Christ;
17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is pointless and you have not, after all, been released from your sins.
So the witnesses still alive could be questioned.
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e_c
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- Do you really think there would be many non-Christian sources affirming the major event of Christianity? Seriously? It would MAKE them Christian sources… unless we are talking about the cover-up noted in Matthew 28.
- No, they really don’t. Go and find 10 examples from any other primary religious text that claims contemporary witnesses to the miraculous - with the authors themselves being contemporaries as well. And most other religious traditions don’t even have a vapor of miraculous tradition outside the text.
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PRmerger
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Can you cite what you’re thinking of?
And, again, even 1 is all that’s required, yes?
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buffalo
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If God does more to prove Himself it deteriorates our free will choice to love Him. As a parent you could try to “force” your children to express their love to you, but it feels much better if they genuinely express it.
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ffg
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Sure there could be things that we can point to that are scientifically studied and given the 
/ ‘can’t explain’ treatment by experts.
What is proven though over and over is the number of witnesses, or strength of evidence can be accepted or rejected on an individual basis.
Which makes it more likely that - We experience God, or we don’t.
Which simply from an analysis perspective leads me to believe in a ‘loving God’, because if there was one that was not loving, I would think he would force himself upon me / I would be forced to know.
From an evidential perspective: If there was not a God, this wouldn’t have happened - loamagazine.org/nr/the_main_topic/eucharistic_miracle_in_buenos.html
Nor would many things that have happened in my life, but that’s just my experience.
Take care,
Mike
/ ‘can’t explain’ treatment by experts.What is proven though over and over is the number of witnesses, or strength of evidence can be accepted or rejected on an individual basis.
Which makes it more likely that - We experience God, or we don’t.
Which simply from an analysis perspective leads me to believe in a ‘loving God’, because if there was one that was not loving, I would think he would force himself upon me / I would be forced to know.
From an evidential perspective: If there was not a God, this wouldn’t have happened - loamagazine.org/nr/the_main_topic/eucharistic_miracle_in_buenos.html
Nor would many things that have happened in my life, but that’s just my experience.
Take care,
Mike
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Little_Tiger
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My friend, again you have not said why you reject Kidd’s proof, you simply say you disagree.
Also, please see the Strange Notions article again. He makes it very clear that he is not providing a 99% argument. And when he says that, I don’t think he is implying 99.9%
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Little_Tiger
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Thank you. I hope everyone on the forums knows that I wish them well and desire good for them. We are brothers and sisters in one big human familyI like how you call everyone “my friend”. That is very sweet and endearing.
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Little_Tiger
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Little_Tiger
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Oh no, I’m sorry, you misunderstood me. People may think different things about what is true, but since truth is by its nature objective, either all of them or some of them are inevitable wrong if their ideas are contradictory. What I was saying is that what I know to be objectively true, I must acknowledge as such. And I do. And again, I highly recommend those books.Adorable!
I feel the same way about not acknowledging what I know to be true. That is why I say what I say on this forum.
Thing is…we really do have different ideas of what is true. You say there is no such thing as that, but…here it is.
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As always, God bless you!
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Little_Tiger
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No, it is the philosophical definition of it, or at the least the rough sketch of a teenager who has been studying philosophy. Please see the definitions I have to PR last night, from a .edu site to which I linked him. It proves my assertion regarding demonstration.
Good, I’m glad. No, not really. It may be a series of new proofs, but it is simply an addition to the collection of such proofs that theists have been compiling for centuries, really millennia when you consider Aristotle, the most notable being St. Thomas Aquinas, may he pray for us. The proofs themselves are new, but demonstrative proofs for God’s existence are very, very old.
Sure thing my friend, the series of videos by Karlo Broussard gives us a compacted version of one of the proofs from the book (this one being demonstrative). Let me just get the link and post it in the next post.
No need for major time and in-depth investigation. Just investigation. Please see the links I have posted, including the Strange Notions one, the Peter Kreeft one (which I particularly recommend), the James Kidd one, and also you may want to browse Strange Notions as it contains a wealth of info on this subject and others. Excellent site, started by Brandon Vogt.
As always, may God bless you. You are in my prayers.
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