I am an atheist thread 4

[_A]

You’re certainly right. The Galileo affair was extremely unfortunate. The Pope (and his agents) definitely made mistakes here.

Showing him instruments of torture to make him recant what just happened to be the truth ( the observation of ‘phases’ of Venus was the evidence) was definately not a mistake. The church did that ‘eyes open’.

It seems that you misunderstand the doctrine of papal infallability. It does not mean that the Pope cannot ever make mistakes. It does not mean the Pope cannot ever sin.

You aint kidding! One pope even authorised the burning of women (pretending they were something called ‘witches’). They make HUGE mistakes. I know they can’t sin because sin is an invention of the church which does not exist in reality.

I’m not even sure it means he is “linked to god”, as you put it. I mean, he certainly is, at least in the sense that we all are. A better way to put it is that he is sometimes guided by God in a unique way, in very specific circumstances.

Interesting, that he has unique guidance by an all-powerful god and he still screws up so much.
This god of yours must nap a lot.

You just can’t tell it like it is can you? Just what prison was Galileo sent to?

House arrest.

Likewise, who says he couldn’t see his family?

Bertrand Russel, in his book ‘Religion and Science’.

Considering the times and the culture, it is reasonable to say that Galileo got off rather easily.

Right. If he had been less famous, the church would have simply murdered him. Maybe by tying him to a stick and lighting him on fire. Maybe by letting a priest use those torture devices on him.

On a lighter note, I am going to Rome for Easter next weekend, are there any recommendations for what you’d (anybody reading this) like me to see, or anything you’d like me to take a picture of to post here? I warn that I foresee myself standing in lines for the vast majority of my visit, but will try to take your suggestions on board. At the top of my list are the Collesium and St Peter’s Basillica at the moment.

Well, working with what you have, I have heard that the fashions in Rome are swell. Why not take some pictures of what unique fashions are there (which you might even be able to do in a lineup!)

Hmmm… not sure.

I’m leaving on Wednesday. No posting irrational nonsense while I’m away either

I can’t promise anything, phooney, but have a lovely time.

 

[_A]

The unfortunate part in some of this is in the approach. Believers and atheists do not use the same tools for exploring their respective positions. We are often not operating on the same wave length. Bias? Yes, we all have some. While I try to keep my biases in check, I am not always successful.

When you use words like ‘tools’ and ‘wavelength’, they make it sound like there is some real new sense that is available to you through faith. The funny thing is, there is no evidence of this sense, and faith has no real measurable effect outside of the mind of the faithful.

 

[latin_rite]

Uh… no. A scientific theory isn’t equivalent to random conjecture, which is a general layman’s definition of theory.

Yes, you’re right. There is a difference between a “scientific theory” and a general layman’s definition of theory. The later is ALLOWED to be questioned.

 

[phooney]

latin_rite

They’re BOTH allowed to be questioned. One could reaonably assert that the scientific theory is by FAR more rigorously questioned than the layman version.

Pax, I have to say I liked that post #472, overall.

 

[Pax]

Okay A let’s check out your claims about Galileo not being able to see his family after house arrest.

Please be advised that Galileo never married the mother of his children and that she eventually married someone else. She and her husband were only on “cordial terms” with Galileo.

Galileo had three children. He really only had a relationship with one daughter. He put both of his daughters in a convent at an early age and they both took the veil as nuns at sixteen years of age. They were cloistered nuns and couldn’t visit him even if they wanted to. There seems to be little in the way of records concerning his son, Vincenzio.

The one child that he had a relationship with was Maria Celeste. Galileo went under house arrest in 1633. Maria Celeste was a cloistered nun and couldn’t leave the convent to visit her father and had never left the convent prior to his arrest. She died in 1634.

Now, I don’t know exactly what Bertrand Russell had to say about Galileo’s family and visitations once he went under house arrest, but I can say that your sweeping statement leaves out enough detail to make your statement irrelevant.

Your lack of accuracy and penchant for exaggerated attacks needs correction. Your apparent lack of attention to the facts and basic truth is an important deficit in how you view things.

 

[_A]

Okay A let’s check out your claims about Galileo not being able to see his family after house arrest.

Please be advised that Galileo never married the mother of his children and that she eventually married someone else. She and her husband were only on “cordial terms” with Galileo.

Galileo had three children. He really only had a relationship with one daughter. He put both of his daughters in a convent at an early age and they both took the veil as nuns at sixteen years of age. They were cloistered nuns and couldn’t visit him even if they wanted to. There seems to be little in the way of records concerning his son, Vincenzio.

The one child that he had a relationship with was Maria Celeste. Galileo went under house arrest in 1633. Maria Celeste was a cloistered nun and couldn’t leave the convent to visit her father and had never left the convent prior to his arrest. She died in 1634.

Now, I don’t know exactly what Bertrand Russell had to say about Galileo’s family and visitations once he went under house arrest, but I can say that your sweeping statement leaves out enough detail to make your statement irrelevant.

Your lack of accuracy and penchant for exaggerated attacks needs correction. Your apparent lack of attention to the facts and basic truth is an important deficit in how you view things.

All you have shown here is that you could not find evidence that his family was able to visit him.

Which fact did I not pay attention to?

That he was imprisoned?

That he was forced to lie under threat of torture?

That he was unable to see his family?

Exaggerated attacks? Well, they are still distressingly truthful, aren’t they?

 

[phooney]

Natural Enquirer, after a bit of googling, I think you must be referring to the Scala Santa

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Scala_Santa_1.jpg

I’ll do my best to get there and take some pics for you.

 

[Pax]

All you have shown here is that you could not find evidence that his family was able to visit him.

Which fact did I not pay attention to?

That he was imprisoned?

That he was forced to lie under threat of torture?

That he was unable to see his family?

Exaggerated attacks? Well, they are still distressingly truthful, aren’t they?

Sorry, but your presentation lacked the necessary truth to give a balanced, clear, and unbiased picture of the situation. I am trying to get you to at least attempt to apply some objectivity to your thinking. Making exaggerated claims with your penchant for sarcasm is not even an attempt at objectivity. You will never be able to glimpse a greater truth or even imagine its possibility if you cannot treat simpler truths with candor and objectivity.

I hope that you will at least consider the point I am trying to make as well as the benefits that you will reap whether those benefits lead you deeper into atheism or further from it.

 

[1234]

This is an absurd remark and is nothing more than imagined boogey man. This same accusation was dealt with earlier in the thread.

Why make such exaggerated claims?

By the way, did you read the article at the link?:
catholic.com/thisrock/1999/9911fea4.asp

It is as foolish for you to recommend that I read something posted at

“www.catholic.com”

as if I were to recommend that you check out a link at any number of atheist sights.

The RCC besmirched itself for all time with the Bruno/Galileo affair, which represent only one of many of the RCC’s terrible sins.

 

[Pax]

It is as foolish for you to recommend that I read something posted at

“www.catholic.com”

as if I were to recommend that you check out a link at any number of atheist sights.

The RCC besmirched itself for all time with the Bruno/Galileo affair, which represent only one of many of the RCC’s terrible sins.

Oh please…there is no connection between the two. Your statement was simply erroneous and without merit. If you want to contest the facts contained in an article on catholic.com then do so.

 

[Armor_of_God]

I stand firmly on my posts concerning scripture and Church teaching. I do this not so much in an expectation that I will convert someone to belief, but rather that they at least see both of these from the Catholic point of view. I take great exception to misplaced and erroneous perceptions. I am much more tolerant of disagreement with what something really says and means to the people to whom it belongs than I am to misconceptions posed by those that have no rights or ownership to the same.

Ditto, Pax.

 

[_A]

Sorry, but your presentation lacked the necessary truth to give a balanced, clear, and unbiased picture of the situation.

Funny.
Though you keep saying I lack truth, you can’t point to where. You can’t find a thing I have said about it which you can refute. The ‘spin’ I put on my version is quite different than the ‘spin’ put into yours, but that has little to do with ‘facts’ (except for the fact that we each have differernt views).
I looked in the piece which you provided and found GG threatened with torture to make him lie in public. You can say they were gentle with him all you like, they still threatened him with torture if he would not lie for them. The fact that the church keeps such devices around is pretty horrible in itself (but then again, I have heard that Catholics value suffering, so this is no surprise).
They threatened him with torture. If the same truth had been presented in the same way a few hundred years earlier, do you think your gentle, wise and loving church fathers would have burned him, or found a more ‘holy’ way to dispatch the offender?
Galileo knew, as did many, that having a course word to say about the church was very dangerous. He had the courage to speak out anyway.
We all should, every chance we get, or the courage of men such as he will be spent for nothing.
What happened to Tycho? He sounds like an interesting guy.

 

[_A]

Ditto, Pax.

I have an interesting question for you both.
Is the ‘Catholic point of view’ referred to here the view as laid out in the CCC, or is it more accurate to say that it refers to what most Catholics think is the Catholic position on it?
I know that was clumsy, but most people don’t read, so the CCC does little good to the majority. What the priests say doesn’t really matter either, in my opinion.
It is what the parishoners understand that is important.

 

[Pax]

I have an interesting question for you both.
Is the ‘Catholic point of view’ referred to here the view as laid out in the CCC, or is it more accurate to say that it refers to what most Catholics think is the Catholic position on it?
I know that was clumsy, but most people don’t read, so the CCC does little good to the majority. What the priests say doesn’t really matter either, in my opinion.
It is what the parishoners understand that is important.

We attempt to present the Catholic teaching in a way that is in complete agreement with the CCC. Our modes of expression and personal foibles can sometimes get in the way of that. When my efforts to articulate Catholic teaching fall short, I am more than happy to be corrected.

The CCC is a great source and is accurate. I do not know who reads and who does not, nor do I know whether or not the average parishoner is knowledgeable. The Church teaches the truth. What the parishoners think should conform to what the Church teaches. When a parishoner’s understandings diverge from the Church’s official teaching an “important” problem emerges.

If you wish to be an atheist then one cannot be a theist. If you wish to be an Evangelical Christian you cannot be a Bhudist. If you wish to be Catholic you cannot be something else. Catholics must accept the official teachings of the Church or they are not true and faithful Catholics. This situation can be deliberate of accidental. In any event the understandings need to be improved and brought into congruence with the Church’s teachings or the person under consideration should in good conscience go somewhere else. All of this can involve a lot of struggle and difficulty, but study and an open mind works well with God’s grace.

I do not believe for a minute that the Church is a democracy. The majority of Catholics could believe something that was against Church teaching and the only “importance” that this would connote would be one of trajedy. In that example the majority view would have no bearing on the truth.

I hope I have answered your question.

 

[_A]

We attempt to present the Catholic teaching in a way that is in complete agreement with the CCC. Our modes of expression and personal foibles can sometimes get in the way of that. When my efforts to articulate Catholic teaching fall short, I am more than happy to be corrected.

The CCC is a great source and is accurate. I do not know who reads and who does not, nor do I know whether or not the average parishoner is knowledgeable. The Church teaches the truth. What the parishoners think should conform to what the Church teaches. When a parishoner’s understandings diverge from the Church’s official teaching an “important” problem emerges.

If you wish to be an atheist then one cannot be a theist. If you wish to be an Evangelical Christian you cannot be a Bhudist. If you wish to be Catholic you cannot be something else. Catholics must accept the official teachings of the Church or they are not true and faithful Catholics. This situation can be deliberate of accidental. In any event the understandings need to be improved and brought into congruence with the Church’s teachings or the person under consideration should in good conscience go somewhere else. All of this can involve a lot of struggle and difficulty, but study and an open mind works well with God’s grace.

I do not believe for a minute that the Church is a democracy. The majority of Catholics could believe something that was against Church teaching and the only “importance” that this would connote would be one of trajedy. In that example the majority view would have no bearing on the truth.

I hope I have answered your question.

It does and I understand you position, but I don’t know if I made myself clear. Lemme try again…
If the CCC says that 3+4=8, and the priests (teachers to the majority who, I believe do not read the CCC carefully) teach that 3+4=8, yet the majority of Catholics believe that, according to Catholic doctrine, 3+4=6. What I am saying here is that it doesn’t matter in this case what the church was trying to teach, what was accomplished was that the majority learned that 3+4=6.
I specifically left everyone in my example incorrect because I don’t think it is important what is correct here - my question is about what the people are learning, not what is being taught.
I hope I have cleared up what I am trying to get at…I think that what has been learned is the responsibility of the teachers regardless of what they were trying to teach.

 

[Pax]

I agree with you to some extent. I also agree with atheists when they agree with the proposition of personal responsibility. A godly person should always be seeking God and doing everything they can to learn all they can about Him. Some of this is achieved through the teachers and some of it is achieved by the seeker seeking.

Those that do not seek the Lord cannot know Him or know much about Him. I hold myself to be accountable as well as my teachers. This holds true for religious training and doctrine as well as secular education in math, composition, history, and science. A person can have a knowledgeable and gifted teacher and never listen, pay attention, or even attend class. Such is sometimes the case with the Catholic. Likewise, we also have poor teachers in the faith and in our secular schools. They too are accountable.

 

[Camron]

I think that there is an older version of atheism that I am comfortable with when engaged in these discussions, the more archaic one that indicates immoral. I think in some sense that many atheists do believe in God by their actions even if they do not formally recognize God or His hand in their lives.

When I, a Catholic, sin against God, I am an atheist. My actions mean that I do not believe in God, it means that I have not trusted God. If the sin I commit against God is a mortal sin, then I have blasphemed God and have damned myself from Him until I open myself to His restitution via His mercy.

When an atheist does what God decrees as good, their actions do, in my opinion, indicate a belief in God even if they do not recognize their belief in Him. Whether or not this “subliminal faith” will be recognized by God is debatable. But I think He can see it though, specifically the hearts of all people and the specific reasons why they may not “believe”. But I do think that a person confesses their faith more by their actions than their words.

 

[Armor_of_God]

I have an interesting question for you both.
Is the ‘Catholic point of view’ referred to here the view as laid out in the CCC, or is it more accurate to say that it refers to what most Catholics think is the Catholic position on it?
I know that was clumsy, but most people don’t read, so the CCC does little good to the majority. What the priests say doesn’t really matter either, in my opinion.
It is what the parishoners understand that is important.

The Catholic point of view is the official teaching of the Catholic Church which has been passed down from the beginning of the Church, before any Catechism was written up, and it is reflected in the Catechism. When I refer to belief, it is based on what the Church teaches, not on what I think it teaches. If I am uncertain, I will refrain from making a statement, or say that I am uncertain, then do some homework before speaking further on the subject. I welcome any correction from those who are more knowledgeable on a particular subject.

I realize that there are many places in the world where people don’t read. From my experience, in the part of the world where I am from, about 99 % of the parishioners who act or speak in opposition to what the Catholic Church teaches are fully literate and completely capable of asking questions and doing research on their own. I would suggest that in most cases, the reason they appear to have an understanding contrary to what the Church teaches is either because they don’t want to accept the true teaching, or they have been poorly catechized.

As for those people who don’t read: The Catholic Church has always been a “teaching Church”. Jesus’ teaching of the Apostles was mostly oral, whether in the Temple or on a mountain or on a windswept shoreline. When the Apostles set out on their missions, they certainly were not packing the Scripture scrolls with them. They also definitely did not have a Bible with them, as the Bible had not been assembled yet. The teachings were passed down by word of mouth, worship, example (ie. acts of charity), and some letters that were sent out to newly established churches and likely read to the congregation.

Today, it is the responsibility of all Church members to be informed. Those who are able pass the teachings on to those who are not able to read. Yes, priests, bishops, archbishops, and cardinals have been given a special responsibility to faithfully uphold the teachings proclaimed by the Pope, as they are essentially “shepherds” of the people.

I am working my way through a book entitled “The Deposit of Faith: What the Catholic Church Really Believes” by Eugene Kevane, Ph.D. I am hoping this will increase my understanding of the role of the Church as a Teaching Body. (I’m on page 88 of 430, so it might be awhile…).

 

[Armor_of_God]

Hmmm… not sure.

I’m leaving on Wednesday. No posting irrational nonsense while I’m away either

Do we have to take a vow, Phooney?

 

[_A]

The Catholic point of view is the official teaching of the Catholic Church which has been passed down from the beginning of the Church, before any Catechism was written up, and it is reflected in the Catechism. When I refer to belief, it is based on what the Church teaches, not on what I think it teaches. If I am uncertain, I will refrain from making a statement, or say that I am uncertain, then do some homework before speaking further on the subject. I welcome any correction from those who are more knowledgeable on a particular subject.

I am not talking about what the church is teaching exactly, but more about what is being learned…
If the church is trying to teach that 3+4=8, but when you ask all the parishoners they say that they learned that 3+4=9, clearly the church, while trying to teach one thing, has succeeded in teaching another.
They are responsible, in my opinion, for teaching that 3+4=9. Even more so if they see this result and continue teaching in the same way.
What most of the parishoners believe is what the church is successfully teaching.