And if you talk to a Jew and say that you eat God’s literal flesh every Sunday, and when you kneel before a graven image and light incense and candles before it that it isn’t breaking the commandment against idolatry, he will look at you like you’re absolutely mad…Without reason a person can believe any number of things based on “faith”.
-Suicide pacts to get to a space ship that is in a passing comet.
Most people in this forum I would wager see these ideas as unreasonable. Those who had faith in them, did not.
- David Koresh was Jesus.
Read “The Language of God” by Dr. Francis Collins and you can rest assured that if the head of the Humane Genome project believes that evolution from a common ancestor between man and chimps is most certainly what happened I will believe him over you (no offense I’m sure you’re a bright guy but you’re no world leading geneticist.)
You’re restating my argument: we ALL come from a ‘common’ ancestor if by ancestor you mean common genetic makeup.
That is an understanding of creation which the Church does not agree with nor do other geneticists.
Heads a scientific project with governmental funding. Hhhmmm, I’ve done that before. And my choice had to do with politics (moderate) and collegiality (I seem to get along with all types) and NOTHING to do with superior intellect.
Robert
Sorry, Luke, I should have encased Faith in quotation marks.I don’t know what that even means…
As in the Catholic Faith as opposed to mere ‘trust’ (the Hebrew word and Aramaic word of Jesus’ era on Earth)
Robert
Well, no, Jesus did NOT say “a lot of things” about neither hot nor cold.Jesus said a lot of things, you’re like the tenth person to comment on my name **what’s up with that? **
Sorry you missed the irony (being Catholic and all)
Robert
Exactly.And if you talk to a Jew and say that you eat God’s literal flesh every Sunday, and when you kneel before a graven image and light incense and candles before it that it isn’t breaking the commandment against idolatry, he will look at you like you’re absolutely mad…
Your faith that you decide on may seem like reasonable truth to you, but to many others it sounds bloody mad…
You’re restating my argument: we ALL come from a ‘common’ ancestor if by ancestor you mean common genetic makeup.
That is an understanding of creation which the Church does not agree with nor do other geneticists.
Thank you, lukewarm. You have expredssed it very well; and I think that your example from the Communion is a particularly good one, and illustrates my point very well.I gotta agree with Zerenius on this one, at the end of the day all religions are faith. When we as Catholics line up for Communion believing that the Host is literally the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of my Lord Jesus Christ, I assure you I am believing something seemingly impossible and scientifically impossible. More impossible than horses in America pre 1492…
Then factor in Christians belief in a literal Genesis until science essentially proved we came from chimps. Then we had to change our tune to make our religion made sense in light of modern discoveries.
Faith is faith, religion is based almost 100% on it, no matter which religion you are.
What “reason” do you have to believe that the bread and wine in Communion turns into the flesh and blood of Christ? Have you taken it to a scientific lab to test it?Without reason a person can believe any number of things based on “faith”.
-Suicide pacts to get to a space ship that is in a passing comet.
-David Koresh was Jesus.
Sure, people can believe, or put their faith in the wrong thing. But that does not mean that when that when you exercise faith correctly, you are using “reason” instead of faith. All religion is ultimately a matter of faith; whether that faith is correctly exercised or not.Most people in this forum I would wager see these ideas as unreasonable. Those who had faith in them, did not.
No it is not. All religious experience is a matter of faith. Paul says that faith comes by “hearing the word of God” (Romans 10:17). That means that there is no “evidence” about it. Pharaoh saw all the miracles and he did not believe. Many people saw Jesus’ miracles but did not believe. While some believed before they had seen anything. Now you can beleive in the wrong thing, like in Baal instead of God, which won’t do you any good. But whether it is Baal or God, it is a matter of faith, not miracles or scientific evidence.Exactly.
However, saying that all religions are based on faith, just to give any thought based on faith a free pass, is stinky.
Then the Catholic Church’s position has changed, because as everyong knows, she used to persecute scientists and astronomers who taught a theory of creation that went contrary to what they perceived was the biblical teaching.The Catholic Church has no position on the mechanism God used to create the earth and its inhabitants. Catholics are free to believe any scientific theory so long as we acknowledge that God somehow created our bodies, and that He created our souls immediately at the moment of our conception (i.e.: our souls did not “evolve”).
If that is true (and I am not disputing that it is), then it is a copout, because it gives the Catholic Church an unlimited latitude to interpret the Bible in just about any way they like. It allows them the freedom to question the story of creation and Adam and Eve; it allows them to question the story of the flood, or the miracles of Moses, or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the falling of the walls of Jericho, or Elijah’s calling down fire on his enemies etc, etc. . . . That is a copout.Paul,
Sorry for the deletion. But what is missing is a statement that the Church does not agree with those who believe all of life to have evolved from a single bacterium (to put it simply) without any design, intelligent or otherwise, from a God.
That is what the Church disagrees with (see Cardinal Schonborn’s essay)
Robert
Thanks for the clarification, Robert.Paul,
Sorry for the deletion. But what is missing is a statement that the Church does not agree with those who believe all of life to have evolved from a single bacterium (to put it simply) without any design, intelligent or otherwise, from a God.
That is what the Church disagrees with (see Cardinal Schonborn’s essay)
Robert
Not a copout, Z, but freedom of thought and inquiry - something Elder Packer will not allow in your church.If that is true (and I am not disputing that it is), then it is a copout, because it gives the Catholic Church an unlimited latitude to interpret the Bible in just about any way they like. It allows them the freedom to question the story of creation and Adam and Eve; it allows them to question the story of the flood, or the miracles of Moses, or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the falling of the walls of Jericho, or Elijah’s calling down fire on his enemies etc, etc. . . . That is a copout.
zerinus
From John, chapter 6:What “reason” do you have to believe that the bread and wine in Communion turns into the flesh and blood of Christ? Have you taken it to a scientific lab to test it?
Matthew 26:[48] I am that bread of life.
[49] Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
[50] This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
[51] I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
[52] The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
[53] Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
[54] Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
[55] For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
[56] He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
[57] As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
[58] This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
1 Corinthians 11:[26] And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
[27] And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;
[28] For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Ignatius of Antioch:[23] For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
[24] And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
[25] After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
[26] For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.
[27] Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
“I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire his blood, which is love incorruptible” (Letter to the Romans 7:3 [A.D. 110]).
Justin Martyr:“Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).
“We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration * and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus” (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]). *
The Real Presence in the Eucharist is what the scriptures teach and was taught by those who knew the early Apostles. I can trust something handed down century through century and preserved in the Catholic Church. It is faith which can be traced back directly to Jesus and his Apostles without the 1400 year gap in the supposed original writing of the Book of Mormon and its discovery by Joseph Smith.
I think it is much more reasonable to depend upon a faith which goes back directly to Christ and his Apostles rather than depend on a faith like Mormonism for which there is no historical evidence. The characters in the New Testament were real people, but the Book of Mormon people can’t be shown to have ever existed.
I was not asking for a theological explanation. She was implying a physical, empirical, or scientific reason.From John, chapter 6:
Matthew 26:
1 Corinthians 11:
Ignatius of Antioch:
Justin Martyr:
The Real Presence in the Eucharist is what the scriptures teach and was taught by those who knew the early Apostles. I can trust something handed down century through century and preserved in the Catholic Church. It is faith which can be traced back directly to Jesus and his Apostles without the 1400 year gap in the supposed original writing of the Book of Mormon and its discovery by Joseph Smith.
I think it is much more reasonable to depend upon a faith which goes back directly to Christ and his Apostles rather than depend on a faith like Mormonism for which there is no historical evidence. The characters in the New Testament were real people, but the Book of Mormon people can’t be shown to have ever existed.
But if you really have faith, how can you ignore the theological explanation? How can you simply disregard the faith of the Bible and the Early Church Fathers? How is that reasonable? You would rather place your faith in the sign you received that the Book of Mormon is true rather than the New Testament witness and the witness of those taught directly by the New Testament authors?I was not asking for a theological explanation. She was implying a physical, empirical, or scientific reason.
zerinus
I don’t understand why people are so judgmental of Mormonism, as a Catholic I have to believe 100 seemingly impossible things every morning just to maintain my faith.Thank you, lukewarm. You have expredssed it very well; and I think that your example from the Communion is a particularly good one, and illustrates my point very well.
zerinus