Hello

[James924]

Didn’t we already disprove the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

This is a pretty amusing portion of the atheist playbook. A few thoughts on the need to “disprove” something:

There are certain things in life that are philisophical defaults. They do not need to be proven. Because they are defaults it is reasonable to request that they first be disproven.

Let me explain. The idea of first causality establishes that a thing requires a cause. There exists not a “thing” that can exist without some cause. Thats simple sylogistic logic. It is an accepted fact within the scientific community that the universe, existance, had a beginning (as of several decades ago). If we apply the fact that nothing can exist without a cause, that something cannot come from nothing (e.g. matter cannot come into existance from no matter) then we can logically conclude that there should be no things, period. But there are things. That leads to a philosophical default: that there must be a thing that transcends the logical necessity of caused first cause. A cause that, itself, required no cause. Whether or not that transcendant entity is Yaweh, is another debate alltogether. And its a welcome debate.
But it is reasonable, using sylogistic logic, to ask that a default be first disproved before assuming that it needs proof itself.

The flying spaghetti monster, on the other hand, is not a default. Therefor it would make no sense to require it to be disproved.

 

[DavidHume]

Can you give an example of a moral principle you hold that is opposed to a Christian moral principle?

• Birth control should be freely available to all, instead of being based on ability to pay
• Gays, lesbians, transgendered, and transsexual people shouldn’t be treated as second-class citizens
• “Promiscuity” is not inherently immoral
• An embryo does not deserve the same protection as an infant

Most of Christianity’s moral teachings are fine – of course, those happen to be the moral teachings shared with pretty much every other belief system in history.

It’s usually in matters of the crotch where it becomes insufferable. And this is coming from a happily married monogamous person.

 

[Lazy8]

Yes, but evolution is a scientific theory. There is a difference, it takes time and evidence before you can call a theory a scientific theory. So, if something is a scientific theory it has evidence backing it, it isn’t blind faith. I do not believe everything science tells me, that would be foolish. Science has been proved wrong again and again. With every fail there is gain. Scientists have been narrowing down the possibilities for hundreds of years. I do not believe everything science tells me. (Science includes evolutionists, just thought I needed to broaden the category.)

Ah, but much of science is in fact taken on blind faith. There are often competing theories that each camp will fight to defend tooth and nail. That does not make them useless, or illogical. In part, science and religion share this one common goal - the search for the truth.

Annabea, I believe that much of what you are displaying is confusion. There is a huge difference between Catholicism and fundamentalist Christianity. Catholicism, like hard-core theoretical science accept that there are true mysteries in our universe, whereas fundamentalist believe that they know certain things absolutely. You are very young, at 12. Should you decided to study science formally at the university level you will find, absolutely, that the more you learn about anything, the more you realize how little we know.

In effect, the universe is truly unknowable. There are many technical reasons why this is so. For starters, until we have the means to study anything with infinite resolution, we can only theorize about what happens beyond a certain resolution.

You make a good point about science failing and making gains. The same is true for the Catholic faith. Despite some ugly history, if you look at our faith objectively, with real detailed knowledge, you will see that it has been self-correcting over the centuries. The many negative events in the churches history have real historical context based on things like politics, greed, and power. But none of those things have changed our fundamental beliefs (what we learned from the ministry of Jesus). So despite the favorite historical points of athiest, trying to convince themselves that science and religion are polar opposites, the truth is that there is no conflict between Catholicism and science. There might be conflict between fundamentalist beliefs and science, but not Catholicism. You’re really at the right place to question Christianity.

In truth, choosing to be agnostic about things (whether science or religion) might be comforting because it seems safe, but it will do little for your soul. For the most part, Catholics are primary concerned with the ministry of Jesus. Jesus added to the commandments by saying that we must love our brothers as we love our selves. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that love is the greatest gift of all, and somewhat instructs us that the goal is to perfect love. As God, Jesus said, as we treat the lessor of our brother, we treat Him.

With regards to your statistics, it’s a good example of how people (not you) lie with statistics. Just because one calls (labels) themselves a “Christian” doesn’t make it so. The name of religion is abused for convenience. Don’t forget this very important point. This is a whole topic of discussion in itself. Fundamentalist will say that belief in Jesus is enough. Catholics believe, (or should know) that while this is a necessary condition, it is NOT sufficient.

My only advice to you Annabea is that you not confuse fundamentalism with Catholicism, because they are very different. The Bible was not conjured up magically, but rather an effort of a body of people who put a lot of thought and prayer to the task of capturing the Word of God. There are good reasons why many books were not included in the canon. Some faiths are based in part on books that did not qualify. So yes, there are real differences between faiths, but to understand those reason will require a fair amount of study.

If your point is purely to debate, then you will accomplish little in terms of understanding our (Catholic) Christian faith. If your point is to understand our faith, then you’ll have to do a lot of your own research. This is a good place to be. Be respectful in your quest, and the path will be much more fruitful.

 

[James924]

• Birth control should be freely available to all, instead of being based on ability to pay
• Gays, lesbians, transgendered, and transsexual people shouldn’t be treated as second-class citizens
• “Promiscuity” is not inherently immoral
• An embryo does not deserve the same protection as an infant

Most of Christianity’s moral teachings are fine – of course, those happen to be the moral teachings shared with pretty much every other belief system in history.

It’s usually in matters of the crotch where it becomes insufferable. And this is coming from a happily married monogamous person.

I believe every living thing belongs to a species. What species is a human embryo? I know, “silly” question. But I just want to hear you verbally affirm that a human embryo is a human. If thats the case (and it is) then do or don’t all human lives have value? If not, then please impart upon us your wisdom in reference to what types or stages of human lives have value and which don’t? And then…why? What is the factor that decides human value? Is it subjective? mrhenrik, you might want to get in on this one since you seem to believe, despite having no basis for objective truth, that human life does have value.

Also, I believe the FUNDAMENTAL right of a human is the right to live. Once it exists and is living, it has the right to continue living. If you disagree then please tell me why you don’t believe that you should have had the right, as a fetus, to continue living outside of your mother’s womb. What is the factor that makes a 2 week old human fetus (at 2 weeks it has a heart beat and measurable brain activity) less eligible for this right to live than you and I?

If possible I’d like honest answers to each of these questions.

 

[DavidHume]

I believe every living thing belongs to a species. What species is a human embryo?

Same species as a human egg.

Also, I believe the FUNDAMENTAL right of a human is the right to live. Once it exists and is living, it has the right to continue living. If you disagree then please tell me why you don’t believe that you should have had the right, as a fetus, to continue living outside of your mother’s womb.

I didn’t have the right; it was only my mother’s generosity/desire to have a child that kept me alive.

What is the factor that makes a 2 week old human fetus (at 2 weeks it has a heart beat and measurable brain activity) less eligible for this right to live than you and I?

The fact that it is utterly dependent on its mother’s bodily functions to survive.

 

[James924]

Same species as a human egg.

I didn’t have the right; it was only my mother’s generosity/desire to have a child that kept me alive.

The fact that it is utterly dependent on its mother’s bodily functions to survive.

You believe you didn’t have the right? Thats interesting.

And you think a person’s dependancy on someone else means they don’t have a right to live?
All I can say to that is, INCORRECT. That makes no sense. Please explain how you came to these conclusions. Then please do some reading on eugenics and Hitler’s implementation of your view of someones right to live and see if you notice any similarities.

Dependancy does not nullify someone’s right to live. That argument makes no sense.

Also, you only answered two. Maybe take some more time to think about them first this time.

 

[DavidHume]

And you think a person’s dependancy on someone else means they don’t have a right to live?

If you read again, I wrote “dependent on its mother’s bodily functions.”

 

[jam070406]

Hey David,
maybe this will help explain how you (or other atheists on here) lost your Faith without you even realizing:

“Secularism” is by nature and definition a movement of ideas and behavior which advocates a humanism totally without God, completely centered upon the cult of action and production and caught up in the heady enthusiasm of consumerism and pleasure seeking, unconcerned with the danger of “losing one’s soul.” This secularism cannot but undermine the sense of sin. At the very most, sin will be reduced to what offends man. But it is precisely here that we are faced with the bitter experience which I already alluded to in my first encyclical, namely, that man can build a world without God, but this world will end by turning against him." In fact, God is the origin and the supreme end of man, and man carries in himself a divine seed. Hence it is the reality of God that reveals and illustrates the mystery of man. It is therefore vain to hope that there will take root a sense of sin against man and against human values, if there is no sense of offense against God, namely the true sense of sin.

Another reason for the disappearance of the sense of sin in contemporary society is to be found in the errors made in evaluating certain findings of the human sciences. Thus on the basis of certain affirmations of psychology, concern to avoid creating feelings of guilt or to place limits on freedom leads to a refusal ever to admit any shortcoming. Through an undue extrapolation of the criteria of the science of sociology, it finally happens - as I have already said - that all failings are blamed upon society, and the individual is declared innocent of them. Again, a certain cultural anthropology so emphasizes the undeniable environmental and historical conditioning and influences which act upon man, that it reduces his responsibility to the point of not acknowledging his ability to perform truly human acts and therefore his ability to sin.

**The sense of sin also easily declines as a result of a system of ethics deriving from a certain historical relativism. This may take the form of an ethical system which relativizes the moral norm, denying its absolute and unconditional value, and as a consequence denying that there can be intrinsically illicit acts independent of the circumstances in which they are performed by the subject. Herein lies a real "overthrowing and downfall of moral values,"and “the problem is not so much one of ignorance of Christian ethics” but ignorance “rather of the meaning, foundations and criteria of the moral attitude.” Another effect of this ethical turning upside down is always such an attenuation of the notion of sin as almost to reach the point of saying that sin does exist, but no one knows who commits it. **

Finally the sense of sin disappears when - as can happen in the education of youth, in the mass media and even in education within the family - it is wrongly identified with a morbid feeling of guilt or with the mere transgression of legal norms and precepts.

The loss of the sense of sin is thus a form or consequence of the denial of God: not only in the form of atheism but also in the form of secularism. If sin is the breaking off of one’s filial relationship to God in order to situate one’s life outside obedience to him, then to sin is not merely to deny God. To sin is also to live as if he did not exist, to eliminate him from one’s daily life. A model of society which is mutilated or distorted in one sense or another, as is often encouraged by the mass media, greatly favors the gradual loss of the sense of sin. In such a situation the obscuring or weakening of the sense of sin comes from several sources: from a rejection of any reference to the transcendent in the name of the individual’s aspiration to personal independence; from acceptance of ethical models imposed by general consensus and behavior, even when condemned by the individual conscience; from the tragic social and economic conditions that oppress a great part of humanity, causing a tendency to see errors and faults only in the context of society; finally and especially from the obscuring of the notion of God’s fatherhood and dominion over man’s life.

catholic-pages.com/morality/sin.asp

 

[DavidHume]

You are as welcome to believe that, as I am welcome to believe that you’ve fallen for superstitious nonsense.

 

[Lazy8]

Because they insist on imposing their beliefs on me and those that I love, whether through political activism or through subtle conflicts within families.

The ministry of Jesus taught that love was the greatest gift of all, that we should love our brother as we love ourselves, and as we treat the lessor of our brothers we treat Him, that religion without compassion is a dead religion. What is wrong with those beliefs?

Also, I’ve been on other websites with forums on religion. They are completely polluted with vile, nasty, mean-spirited athiest. A person cannot write a single post without a flood of personal insults. In every case, it is them who impose thier beliefs. I really don’t understand why athiest become so addicted to religious forums. Thier intent is rarely to learn to exchange ideas. It’s always about argument for the same of argument. Many of them pride themselves in being antagonistic towards people of faith, and in particular Catholics.

In truth, they never really know anything about Catholicism. They confuse fundamentalism with Catholicism, and thier “best” arguments against Christianity are always derived from stories from the Old Testament, completely ignoring the message of Jesus. Even Jesus argued with Jewish high priest about the spirit of thier religion.

And now I’m here in this forum exclusively on religion, and athiest are here to complain about the religious! Very interesting.

 

[jam070406]

You are as welcome to believe that, as I am welcome to believe that you’ve fallen for superstitious nonsense.

Your post in #935 of “moral principles” are a prime example of sins that can lead to a darkening of conscience, to apostasy.

 

[kalt]

• Birth control should be freely available to all, instead of being based on ability to pay
• Gays, lesbians, transgendered, and transsexual people shouldn’t be treated as second-class citizens
• “Promiscuity” is not inherently immoral
• An embryo does not deserve the same protection as an infant

Most of Christianity’s moral teachings are fine – of course, those happen to be the moral teachings shared with pretty much every other belief system in history.

It’s usually in matters of the crotch where it becomes insufferable. And this is coming from a happily married monogamous person.

These aren’t moral principles but are opinions on social questions. Can you tell us what moral principle these opinions are base on?

 

[DavidHume]

Many of them pride themselves in being antagonistic towards people of faith, and in particular Catholics.

That’s probably because so many of us come from Catholic upbringing…

 

[kalt]

This is a pretty amusing portion of the atheist playbook. A few thoughts on the need to “disprove” something:

There are certain things in life that are philisophical defaults. They do not need to be proven. Because they are defaults it is reasonable to request that they first be disproven.

Let me explain. The idea of first causality establishes that a thing requires a cause. There exists not a “thing” that can exist without some cause. Thats simple sylogistic logic. It is an accepted fact within the scientific community that the universe, existance, had a beginning (as of several decades ago). If we apply the fact that nothing can exist without a cause, that something cannot come from nothing (e.g. matter cannot come into existance from no matter) then we can logically conclude that there should be no things, period. But there are things. That leads to a philosophical default: that there must be a thing that transcends the logical necessity of caused first cause. A cause that, itself, required no cause. Whether or not that transcendant entity is Yaweh, is another debate alltogether. And its a welcome debate.
But it is reasonable, using sylogistic logic, to ask that a default be first disproved before assuming that it needs proof itself.

The flying spaghetti monster, on the other hand, is not a default. Therefor it would make no sense to require it to be disproved.

Atheists run up against eternity and choose to ignore it. They accept that something can’t come from nothing, but refuse to consider where the first “thing” came from.

If something can’t come from nothing, then nothing can be eternal. Whatever started the ball rolling that resulted in the world as we know it couldn’t have existed forever, because it had to come from something.

Something has to be eternal–something that needs nothing to exist–nothing to come before it. So what is that something?

There answer is alway, “I don’t know.” And they say that that answer is brilliant in its simple depth. To know that you don’t know is proclaimed the ultimate in intelligence. The fact that they aren’t really searching for an answer is obvious, though, and the “I don’t know.” that they say is intellectual integrity is actually an easy answer to a difficult question that they refuse to consider.

 

[DavidHume]

Something has to be eternal–something that needs nothing to exist–nothing to come before it. So what is that something?

The… universe… ?

Is this some kind of trick question?

 

[kalt]

Same species as a human egg.

I didn’t have the right; it was only my mother’s generosity/desire to have a child that kept me alive.

The fact that it is utterly dependent on its mother’s bodily functions to survive.

But that doesn’t really answer the question. You’ve rejected Catholic morality, so you must be working with another well-defined set of principles. Can you clearly articulate the moral principle on which you base the opinion that a fetus has no right to life because it is depends on its mother?

Once you’ve stated the moral principle, can you tell us what about the dependency makes it morally acceptable to destroy it?

 

[oneGODoneCHURCH]

If you read again, I wrote “dependent on its mother’s bodily functions.”

So anyone that is dependent upon another to live does not have the right to live? That takes in a lot of people for even the baby after birth is still dependent upon others to feed and care for it or it dies. under your statement it could be killed at any point up to around 7 or eight years of age. then again if a person is in an accident/ through contracting of a illness becomes incapable of caring for its self they no longer have the right to remain a live. lets not for get the elderly that have out live their usefulness and are dependent upon other for life giving care. If life has no meaning at it most basic beginning then how can we even suppose to give it value at any other point. No one has the right to end the life of that child be it one moment after conception.

 

[kalt]

That’s probably because so many of us come from Catholic upbringing…

Intellectual brilliance or mere rebellion?

 

[James924]

The… universe… ?

Is this some kind of trick question?

I say again, scientific* fact*: The universe is not eternal.

First causality justifies the presupposition of a transcendant first cause that did not require a cause. Again, this is not “Proof” of a transcendant entity, but rather a “reductio ad absurdum” of any alternative.

 

[rinnie]

Here is a good one for you. To all who do not believe In Jesus Christ or the Church… We have HISTORY. Same as every single thing in this world to believe in.

So tell me show me a book that is over 2000 years old that can be proven that God does NOT EXIST. show me NON Apostolic Succession. SHOW me where the DEVIL himself can proove that OUR Book does not exist,

Do that amd guess what. This is no world. no history. If you want proof that Jesus existed show me proof who are first President was. Its all history isn’t it,

Now show me how history states that our first President rose from the dead!

CASE CLOSED!

I got the book too!

JESUS CHRIST IS THE KING! The Savior of the World! He did rise from the dead. May we all love you and praise your our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ,

For all the bikers out there.

Loud pipes saves lives. JESUS CHRIST SAVES SOULS!:extrahappy: