Proving The Resurrection By the "Minimal Facts" Approach

[pocaracas]

So how do you know that your “ruler for good” or “ruler for beauty" are correctly calibrated?

Or does THAT matter at all TO YOU?

I don’t know.
Some of the calibrating procedure is genetic - provided by evolution™.
Some of it is social - provided by parents and caregivers (for the good part), friends and acquaintances, and other social venues (for everything).

A beautiful sunset is one that precedes a clear sky… the clearer, the more beautiful. The redder it is, and rarer. That may be mostly genetic for it is a way of planning the next day.
The beauty in a pretty, slim, athletic lady, on the other hand, is mostly a product of society and photoshop.
Bottom-line: it’s complex.

Perhaps the fact that it doesn’t matter to you is the reason for your fuzziness?

Perhaps you didn’t get the bit where the fuzziness is related to the human population, not myself.
Some people have their thresholds for good or beauty at a particular level, others have at another level. There is no generally agreed upon precise threshold in which everyone agrees.

AND why would it matter TO YOU in the first instance except to increase the fuzzy “enjoyment” of the fuzzy state?

You seem angry… deep breaths, man… relax.

Clearly, the “lack of underlying transcendent reality” and indifference is built into the presumptions of your presupposed “model of reality” since it is your proclivity to accept the fuzziness – "each with his own ruler “ – that leads to your indifference and inclination to accept the “lack of underlying transcendent reality.”

Not clearly, since they are not.
The indifference is an observation. For example: asteroids fall on Earth… eventually, one similar to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, 65million years ago, will fall. Do you think the asteroid cares?

Oh… now it seems you got the meaning of fuzzy - each with his own ruler. Good!
It’s not my indifference… it’s indifference of the world. Electrons will move as they always seem to have moved. Protons too… atoms too, molecules too… everything goes on and on.
No underlying transcendence appears… only an underlying uniformity.
I’ve heard it argued that such uniformity may be precisely due to that “further underlying transcendent reality”. It would make a damn busy god if he had to keep track of all sub-atomic particles… I don’t envy such a god.

Have I lost you?

Blame the “lack of transcendent reality” in your “model of reality."

You funny!

 

[pocaracas]

Apparently neither math nor biology are your strong suits.

100 years per generation assumes that the begetter only begets at the end of his lifespan of a hundred years so that the begotten life only begins at the turn of the hundred years.

Now THAT is just bizarre.

Actual generations are about 20-30 years, given that the lives of begetters and begotten overlap.

Really?.. This?..
Did I not say that I was using the round number for simplicity? (It was also to keep low the claims that I’ve heard in the past of some patriarchs who lived out to their 900’s)

I said specifically 100 years per generation. Not per lifetime. I know what I said. And I know I was aiming for a high estimate… even so, it didn’t pan out too higher than the 6000 typically claimed… odd, that.

So, no, the Church would have had to have been vacuous to propose anything like 7600 years based upon your genealogical tables.

Do you have a Church document in mind where this is actually taught?

Interesting question you pose… right after I say “Or is this not something that the Church teaches, nor has ever taught?”
Does that sound like someone who has a document in mind? Except for Luke’s genealogy, that is…

Only if he was constrained to your way of thinking this out.

You do realize that genealogies in the OT did not name EVERY individual in the lineage, but only the key or important figures, yes?

Google “telescoping of genealogies in the Old Testament,” or start here:

reasons.org/articles/the-genesis-genealogies

Again: “telescoping of genealogies” or

reasons.org/articles/the-genesis-genealogies

The choice isn’t between completely literal or completely metaphorical unless your aim is to discredit rather than understand or gain meaning.

Telescoping genealogies… how interesting… just another way of saying what I said in a subsequent post to Gorgias (you should have read the whole thing before replying ):

But it is possible that some links in the chain fall in favor of keeping just the “important” names.

 

[Bradski]

The Church has nowhere, ever, taught that the world is 6000 years old.

Why?

Because we don’t view the Bible as a book of chronological truths.

I don’t expect you now to believe the chronological information within the bible. Not least because if infers the age of the world at 6,000 years (or, since I started writing this, however many years due to ‘geneological compression’). And we know that’s not true, so we can discount the accuracy of what is written (but more on that shortly).

It is only those who read (you can take that as present or past tense) the bible literally who think that the world is 6,000 years old. Only Christians from times past because they had nothing to contradict the information. And only Christians in the present who take it as being literal.

For Christians in time past, the church taught that the bible was the word of God. It didn’t specifically have written anywhere that the world is X years old but information within the bible which would lead you to believe it to be a few thousand years old was being taught as the word of God.

You were not a fundamentalist to believe this. A biblical fundamentalist is (and feel free to disagree) someone who believes the bible to be literally true whilst discounting evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps, you (or he - I am not choosy) could explain how a lack of belief could be stretched to serve as a “model of reality?”

We are talking in the context of religion.

 

[Bradski]

No… they trusted a particular interpretation of the Scriptures (i.e., the one that says “it literally means 6 24-hour periods”). Because they believed that Scripture was to be trusted, they were willing to believe in one particular interpretative hermeneutic; that doesn’t imply what you’re claiming.

That’s all I’m claiming. That the church’s interpretation of the time was 6 days. Worked on 6, rested on the seventh and that is why we rest on the seventh as well.

… is like expecting that the Bible is a science book. It isn’t. And the Church doesn’t claim that it is.

You keep denying something that no-one is claiming. But treating the bible as The Word Of God did lead one (and still leads some) to believe certain things about the world that are not true.

By some. Yet, you seem unwilling to notice that even Augustine warns against using it as a scientific account.

By some? Do you mean some small clued up scientifically literate section of the Christian community? And you want to quote him as a means to indicate that people did NOT think that the world was 6,000 years old? Well, over to you, Augustine ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.XII.10.html: (my emphasis):

‘They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed.’[20]

And:

But not even thus, as I said, does the Greek history correspond with the Egyptian in its chronology. And therefore the former must receive the greater credit, because it does not exceed the **true account of the duration of the world as it is given by our documents, which are truly sacred. **

And:

Further, if this letter of Alexander, which has become so famous, differs widely in this matter of chronology from the probable credible account, how much less can we believe these documents which, though full of fabulous and fictitious antiquities, they would fain oppose to the authority of our well-known and divine books.

And, in that assertion, you’d be mistaken.

Apparently not, according to someone whose opinion you trust.

Different genres of literature. Different standards of interpretation. On your bookshelf, you might have books on the history of WWII, Beowulf, cookbooks, and Emily Dickinson’s poetry. Do you apply the same standards of interpretation to all of these? Of course not. Then why do you insist on applying a single standard to the collection of books found in the Bible?

Well, two out of three. But didn’t anyone tell you that the bible is the Word of God, divinely inspired? I think Augustine made that point well enough above.

Notice two things: first, the Church’s position has always been a ‘best available knowledge’ position – at least as far as interpretation goes. Augustine taught it, Bellarmine taught it (wrt the Galileo episode), etc, etc. This position doesn’t undermine the Church’s teaching to ‘trust Scripture’, as you put it. Rather, it says that the Church will always teach faith and morals accurately; but it does not claim such authority for scientific truth.

I’m not, at present, interested in the difference between morals and facts. And I readily accept that the church has always, as far as I can understand, taught that the bible must be trusted from a ‘best available knowledge’ position. No problem with that. Augustine, as you have pointed out, was a big fan of that.

However, what we have seen, and what we have just had confirmed by no less than Augustine himself, ‘best available knowledge’ at the time was a creation lasting 6 days and the age of the world to be 6,000 years. I mean, the guy actually gives that figure himself.

Are you now going to say that Augustine can be trusted. But only if he supports your view?

 

[Bradski]

So, no, the Church would have had to have been vacuous to propose anything like 7600 years based upon your genealogical tables. Google “telescoping of genealogies in the Old Testament,” or start here:

You guys should check who you are quoting or read the pages to which you are linking before you use them in arguments. From that link re geneolgy:

‘According to Bradshaw’s research, out of 23 early church fathers studied, only two (Jerome and Theodore of Mopsuestia) were fluent in Hebrew and both lived in the fourth/fifth century AD.[25] **This means that for the first three to four centuries, the early church labored under a Greek and Latin influenced understanding of the Genesis genealogies. **

The Septuagint was the primary Greek translation available to the early Christians and was composed by Jewish theologians at around 250-300 BC. While the Septuagint was generally a reliable translation, the earliest Latin translations (prior to Jerome’s Latin Vulgate) varied considerably in their degree of accuracy.

Many in the early church held that these translations were inspired and of higher authority than the Hebrew text and so often failed to question the translated text even when it led to obvious problems.’

Is that clear enough? According to a web site you seem to believe is entirely trustworthy, it is apparent that almost everyone in the early church was using Greek or Latin translations which gave time periods of, wait for it, one day. Likewise:

‘Had the early church used this (corrected) estimation, the interpretation of human history in 6,000 years would have been much less appealing to the early church because Christ’s return would have been viewed as very distant (almost 2,000 years away) rather than just a few hundred years away and in turn this would have lessoned the impetus to force an interpretation of the Genesis genealogies as being complete.’

The choice isn’t between completely literal or completely metaphorical unless your aim is to discredit rather than understand or gain meaning.

Tell that to Augustine. And the point being made, and which still will be made in due course, is that people, at various times, have treated what was written in the bible (divinely inspired no less!) was to be treated as fact.

I think that that has been suitably illustrated.

 

[Peter_Plato]

You guys should check who you are quoting or read the pages to which you are linking before you use them in arguments. From that link re geneolgy:

Brad, you do understand how the Internet works, no?

When I provide a link to a website that explains an idea such as “telescoping genealogy,” my ONLY intent is to provide a useful and coherent explanation of that idea. It doesn’t mean I agree with every statement on the website.

The main take-away point from the site was that Old Testament genealogies were compressed genealogies and didn’t need to include every person in the lineage.

Beyond that anything else is mere background noise. My linking to it does not mean I agree with every single statement or position on the page, nor that I find it “entirely trustworthy.” Will I need a disclaimer next time or are you okay with this general presumption? It will certainly save a great deal of time vetting links useful for highlighting one point but not necessarily to support an entire world view.

Obviously you were astute enough to catch that some of the content may not accord with Catholic views. Just to calm your fluttering heart, I have flagged the page for a more critical reading of it and I may respond when I find the time.

 

[Bradski]

When I provide a link to a website that explains an idea such as “telescoping genealogy,” my ONLY intent is to provide a useful and coherent explanation of that idea. It doesn’t mean I agree with every statement on the website.

I think it means you didn’t bother to read the website. I’d like to think I’m astute but if by that it means that I simply read that to which you link, then it’s not much of a plus in my favour I’m afraid.

The main take-away point from the site was that Old Testament genealogies were compressed genealogies and didn’t need to include every person in the lineage.

Which is a little puzzling in any case. Because the whole reason of raising this matter is to show that people used to (and, to a certain extent still do) treat scripture as being factual. The Word Of God! The fact that the genealogy may be out be, what…a few generations, matters not. I think, from memory, the web site said it may have been out by a factor of 10. Which STILL puts you short of reality by umpteen hundreds of millions of years.

Beyond that anything else is mere background noise. My linking to it does not mean I agree with every single statement or position on the page, nor that I find it “entirely trustworthy.” Will I need a disclaimer next time or are you okay with this general presumption?

I don’t care if you agree with everything. But one would assume that you find the authors of the web page trustworthy enough to link to it. The fact that your reason for linking to it didn’t advance your argument is neither here nor there. But the fact that it’s a trustworthy site and DETRACTS from your argument is telling.

Obviously you were astute enough to catch that some of the content may not accord with Catholic views. Just to calm your fluttering heart, I have flagged the page for a more critical reading of it and I may respond when I find the time.

Be still my beating heart…

 

[humble_catholic]

The problem here is that atheism itself is a religion and most of atheism is a cult , but not all atheists are cultists .

The recent evidences from science in the field of Nde studies are leaning towards the soul and afterlife , so much so that Nde scientists who started out as atheists like Doctor pim van lommel (the renowned Dutch cardiologist that published in lancet) and doctor Jeffrey long who has done one of the most extensive global researches on the Nde experiences of people from different regions and cultures caused them to change their worldview .

But instead of seeing where the evidence will lead them most atheists will just flatly deny the evidence , making atheism a form of religion by one of the dictionary definitions such as believing something dogmatically despite the evidence .

On a side note aware part 2 is going to start in May of 2017 and it will break the record of aware part 1 as being the largest peer reviewed Nde study ever conducted by agnostic Nde researcher doctor Sam parnia , and if one patient spots the sign on the ceiling it will be over for atheism

Aware part 1 gave some initial evidence for the soul and the afterlife and 2 should make being an atheist to essentially mean to deny science

All of the Nde evidence is leaning this way so it will only be a matter of time now.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I don’t care if you agree with everything. But one would assume that you find the authors of the web page trustworthy enough to link to it. The fact that your reason for linking to it didn’t advance your argument is neither here nor there. But the fact that it’s a trustworthy site and DETRACTS from your argument is telling.

Let me put it this way, the page was on a site (reason.org) that I generally find trustworthy and well-researched. Hugh Ross is one of the lead writers. He is an astrophysicist and highly credentialed and respected. I have read enough of the site and Hugh Ross to “generally” find the positions on the site (even by other writers, as this article was) quite reasonable. I recently heard Dr. Ross on the Eric Metaxas show speak on telescoping genealogies and found what he had to say interesting and pertinent. I did read the article in question but didn’t come to the conclusion that it detracts from my argument because I still think your reasoning that it does is off the mark. I will spend some time thinking about your point and will respond to it in due time.

The fact that genealogies in the OT could be “off” by a factor of ten is really irrelevant to the larger point that they can’t, therefore, be used to date “creation” with any reliable certainty. I will directly answer your claim that the site DETRACTS from my argument when I get the chance. I still don’t think it does.

By the way, the generations being out “by a factor of 10” has implications for when Adam and Eve came on the scene, not when the cosmos came into be, ergo not “umpteen hundreds of millions of years.” Your point about “days” and what they indicate in early and later translations doesn’t entail what you suppose it does.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The Septuagint was the primary Greek translation available to the early Christians and was composed by Jewish theologians at around 250-300 BC. While the Septuagint was generally a reliable translation, the earliest Latin translations (prior to Jerome’s Latin Vulgate) varied considerably in their degree of accuracy.

Many in the early church held that these translations were inspired and of higher authority than the Hebrew text and so often failed to question the translated text even when it led to obvious problems.’

Is that clear enough? According to a web site you seem to believe is entirely trustworthy, it is apparent that almost everyone in the early church was using Greek or Latin translations which gave time periods of, wait for it, one day. Likewise:

‘Had the early church used this (corrected) estimation, the interpretation of human history in 6,000 years would have been much less appealing to the early church because Christ’s return would have been viewed as very distant (almost 2,000 years away) rather than just a few hundred years away and in turn this would have lessoned the impetus to force an interpretation of the Genesis genealogies as being complete.’

I think that that has been suitably illustrated.

Well, Brad, if you go to the updated article - the PDF link at the top of that referenced webpage you’ll find the entire section citing Bradshaw on Jerome and the other translators has been removed. I wonder why? Perhaps the author found it was overstating the case in a way that distorted the conclusion or maybe the point was found to be erroneous. Check it yourself…
reasons.org/files/articles/The-Genesis-Genealogies.pdf

 

[Bradski]

Maybe we can move on to other aspects of the bible which people treated as being factual which we now know are not.

The catechism still talks of ‘figurative language’ when it comes to Adam and Eve. Not surprising, because we know, as an indisputable, undeniable, categorical fact, that there never was a single couple from whom we are all descended. I am placing anyone who would try to claim it in the same basket as young earth creationists.

Yet even Pope Pius XII denied this’ saying that original sin proceeds from:

‘…a sin actually committed by an individual Adam’.

This is a quote from someone living in the middle of the twentieth century. Would anyone seriously want to argue that people in the early years of the church did NOT consider Adam and Eve to be real people?

You can argue until you are blue in the face that Catholicism uses figurative language in regard to the first man and woman and does not teach that they were actually the direct ancestors of us all. But even with the benefit of evolutionary theory and heaven knows how many proofs to the contrary, most people still believe it today.

So we have people in the early church believing what they thought scripture was telling them was actually true in vitally important aspects of Christian belief (creation and Adam and Eve) when we know today, without any shadow of doubt at all, that what they believed was wrong.

The reason for this has been stated before. The bible is The Word Of God. It is divinely inspired. Well before Augustine or Leo XIII suggested that maybe we should take the science of the day into consideration, and well after it, right up to the present day, people took it (and take it) as being literal.

Do I have to join the dots at this point? Couple this fact with misrepresentation, exaggeration and the simple and everyday fact of Chinese whispers and we have all sorts of stories that might reasonably be accepted as being true but which are a long way from being so.

In passing, if I can briefly go back to Paul’s claim that Jesus was seen by more than 500 people. How much stronger would that claim be if Paul had said he actually did have a list of those people. If that were true, then how much more weight would that carry? Would you pass that on if it came from a reliable source? You bet you would. I mean, who would make such a claim if it wasn’t true.

Well, you can ask Peter. He made the claim. See how easy it is for a story to gain much greater traction by the simple and inadvertent inclusion of a word here or a phrase there?

 

[Bradski]

All of the Nde evidence is leaning this way so it will only be a matter of time now.

Maybe you are not aware that the N in NDE stands for ‘near’.

 

[Bradski]

By the way, the generations being out “by a factor of 10” has implications for when Adam and Eve came on the scene, not when the cosmos came into be, ergo not “umpteen hundreds of millions of years.” Your point about “days” and what they indicate in early and later translations doesn’t entail what you suppose it does.

It has no implications for when A and E came on the scene. It relates to the time from which they were considered to be our direct ancestors up to the time of Christ.

Prior to their arrival was creation. Which, I think, has been illustrated beyond any reasonable doubt, was considered to be 6 days.

And a point which may save you some time. What I think the days mean and what I think the genealogy shows is utterly irrelevant. I am pointing out what early Christians (and not to belabour the point, a lot of present day Christians) believe they meant.

That is, they believed the bible was telling them something which they could trust. When that was not true. Again, I shouldn’t have to join the dots.

 

[pocaracas]

The problem here is that atheism itself is a religion and most of atheism is a cult , but not all atheists are cultists .

The recent evidences from science in the field of Nde studies are leaning towards the soul and afterlife , so much so that Nde scientists who started out as atheists like Doctor pim van lommel (the renowned Dutch cardiologist that published in lancet) and doctor Jeffrey long who has done one of the most extensive global researches on the Nde experiences of people from different regions and cultures caused them to change their worldview .

But instead of seeing where the evidence will lead them most atheists will just flatly deny the evidence , making atheism a form of religion by one of the dictionary definitions such as believing something dogmatically despite the evidence .

On a side note aware part 2 is going to start in May of 2017 and it will break the record of aware part 1 as being the largest peer reviewed Nde study ever conducted by agnostic Nde researcher doctor Sam parnia , and if one patient spots the sign on the ceiling it will be over for atheism

Aware part 1 gave some initial evidence for the soul and the afterlife and 2 should make being an atheist to essentially mean to deny science

All of the Nde evidence is leaning this way so it will only be a matter of time now.

I had never heard of that Pim doctor… the wiki helps with those things…

“Pim van Lommel (born 15 March 1943) is a Dutch author and researcher in the field of near-death studies. He studied medicine at Utrecht University, specializing in cardiology. He worked as a cardiologist at the Rijnstate Hospital, Arnhem, for 26 years (1977-2003).”

“Jason Braithwaite, a Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience in the Behavioural Brain Sciences Centre, University of Birmingham, issued an in-depth analysis and critique of Lommel’s prospective study published in the medical journal The Lancet, concluding that while Lommel’s et al. study makes a useful contribution, it contains several factual and logical errors. Among these errors are Lommel’s misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the dying-brain hypothesis, misunderstandings over the role of anoxia, misplaced confidence in EEG measurements (a flat electroencephalogram (EEG) reading is not evidence of total brain inactivity), etc. Jason concluded with, “it is difficult to see what one could learn from the paranormal survivalist position which sets out assuming the truth of that which it seeks to establish, makes additional and unnecessary assumptions, misrepresents the current state of knowledge from mainstream science, and appears less than comprehensive in its analysis of the available facts.””

Can you spot the difference in background of these two researchers?

Now, the other guy has no wiki page, apparently, maybe this will do:

"Jeffrey Long, M.D., is a physician practicing the specialty of radiation oncology (use of radiation to treat cancer) in Houma, Louisiana. Dr. Long has served on the Board of Directors of IANDS (International Association for Near-Death Studies), and is actively involved in NDE research. "

Again, an odd background for such research, wouldn’t you say?
I’d put my money on the guy who studies “Cognitive Neuroscience” over the oncologist and the cardiologist… any day!
Specially, when people point out faulty methodology by the proponents of NDEs.

 

[PRmerger]

Maybe we can move on to other aspects of the bible which people treated as being factual which we now know are not.

No.

You need to move on to aspects of the Bible which the Catholic Church treated as “factual” which she now knows are not.

The catechism still talks of ‘figurative language’ when it comes to Adam and Eve. Not surprising, because we know, as an indisputable, undeniable, categorical fact, that there never was a single couple from whom we are all descended. I am placing anyone who would try to claim it in the same basket as young earth creationists.

Yet even Pope Pius XII denied this’ saying that original sin proceeds from:

‘…a sin actually committed by an individual Adam’.

Now we’re talking.

So now you need to quote where the Church says that there was no sin committed by an individual Adam.

 

[AmbroseSJ]

humble_catholic:

The problem here is that atheism itself is a religion and most of atheism is a cult , but not all atheists are cultists .

That’s false.

Atheism is the Opposite of a religion. It would be like saying sleeping is a sport. Just because people say something over and over doesn’t make it true.

REAL Atheists, like those represented by FFRF (Freedom from religion foundation) at least are honest.

 

[Bradski]

You need to move on to aspects of the Bible which the Catholic Church treated as “factual” which she now knows are not.

So now you need to quote where the Church says that there was no sin committed by an individual Adam.

You are missing the point completely.

It doesn’t matter that the church taught anything as a fact or not. In fact, the church seems to distance itself from almost all factual aspects of the bible, apart from the resurection.

Nevertheless, and this is the critical point, it treats the bible as the Word Of God and THEREFORE, people used to, and a lot still do, treat it as factual. Notwithstanding that we have quotes from Augustine that shows that they DID treat aspects of the bible as factual whereas we now know that he, and the church, were wrong.

I will put that in another way: Early Christians, including Catholics, trusted what the bible told them as being factual accurate. That is because they had no way of knowing that it wasn’t true as they understood it and there were, in any case, limited opportunities for other options.

I don’t have to show that the church taught that the bible should be read literally and that is not possible in any case. Because, as you say, they never did. However, they taught it as being the Word Of God and THEREFORE people read it literally. As we have seen.

It seems perverse to deny that.

 

[PRmerger]

You are missing the point completely.

It doesn’t matter that the church taught anything as a fact or not. In fact, the church seems to distance itself from almost all factual aspects of the bible, apart from the resurection.

Really?

Even the fact that Jesus established a Church? That’s not treated as factual by the CC?
Or the fact that the Eucharist was established by Christ?
Or the priesthood was established by Christ?
Or that marriage is between a man and a woman?
Or that divorce and re-marriage is adultery?
Or that Christ was crucified?
Or that Peter denied him 3 times?
Or that Peter was given the papacy?
Or that Jesus appeared to women after the resurrection?
Or that Scripture is inspired by God?
Or that Jesus is our One Mediator?
Or that Mary was a virgin?
Or that Joseph was her husband?
Or that God created ex nihilo?

You know, Bradski, when you come to a Catholic forum and discuss with knowledgeable Catholics you really need to think (and research with Fr. Google) before you make assertions about Catholicism.

Now, I’m thinking that you probably do know more than your average Catholic in Australia.

And I find it amusing imagining your correcting a lumpinthepew Catholic about what the Church actually teaches…

but I suggest you do a bit more reading of the Catechism before you post such things as what you’ve been posting.

scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

Until now, you’ve seemed to have judiciously stayed away from talking about Church teaching here.

I figured it was because you were really unfamiliar with the teachings and didn’t want to show your ignorance.

Now? If you’ve done a bit of reading on the teachings, good for you!

Keep it up, brother! Keep it up.

But make sure you know what you’re talking about first before you assert what the Church teaches.

Otherwise, you’re in the same camp as the fundamentalists here who give us the old canards, “The Catholic Church worships the pope!” Or “The Catholic Church says that Mary is divine!” Or “The Catholic Church teaches that all Baptists are condemned to hell!”

 

[PRmerger]

That the church’s interpretation of the time was 6 days.

If you want to assert that the Church professed that the world was created in 6 days, then let’s see where you got this info.

Please provide your source.

Which, I think, has been illustrated beyond any reasonable doubt, was considered to be 6 days.

Was considered by whom?

If you mean by some Catholics, ok. Conceded.

But if you mean by the CC, then please provide your source, esp. if your claim is that it was “illustrated beyond any reasonable doubt.”

That should be quite easy to do.

 

[Bradski]

Let’s take one of those. That Jesus is reported to have been seen by women after his resurection.

Does the church teach that as a fact? Is it written somewhere that there is no room for doubt here? Doesn’t 500 people trump a few women? Why would Paul lie about what he said? Shouldn’t the church say that his report should be treated as much of a fact as a few women seeing Jesus?

Let me know if the church teaches this as something that must be accepted as true. Let me know that they have put their cards on the table and said: Yes, this DEFINATELY happened. And if it have (and I will admit it will come as a surprise to me), then does it teach that Paul was correct as well?