Questions from an Agnostic

[hurst]

ReformedCatholic:

Now, now, I don’t think anyone’s going to hell or anywhere else for experiencing periods of “doubt” or developing one’s own belief and values system. Doubt, after all, is the first step toward the revelation of truth, yes?

It is one thing to “experience” doubt, but quite another to “entertain” it. We are called to overcome the mountain of doubt by our faith, motivated by our charity.

As for our belief system, we should conform to God, and He has revealed Himself in His Son, Who is present in the world through His Church. So in “developing our own” system, we should be developing it in conformity with the official teachings of the Church. I recommend “Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma” by Ludwig Ott as a good source for clearing up cloudy issues.

hurst

 

[hurst]

Hubriss:

But what is spirit? How is it at all different from the physical universe and if it is seperate how can we possibly even know it exists?

God is a pure uncreated spirit. There are also different created “spirits”, such as angels, and our own spiritual souls.

Consider a typical doughnut. It has a hole. The hole is not made of dough, but is just empty space. Yet, it is made of dough, for the dough forms the boundary of the hole, and makes the hole what it is.

In the same way, God is like the dough that surrounds us and forms our boundary, while remaining separate from us in substance. We are nothing in and of ourselves.

According to our senses and reason alone, we can know that there must be “something” that always existed. We call this God. He self-exists. Nothing else self-exists outside of God.

But then, we now exist. But we do not self-exist, we do not exist of ourselves. We did not put ourselves here, and we know we weren’t always here. All that was created must have been created by God out of nothing. He surrounds creation and gives it being! “In Him we live and move and have our being”.

He participates in every single action we make, because it is He who is enabling our every moment. But He gives us freedom in our actions, within the constraint of the virtual existence He has given us. He truly holds us in His “hands”. At any moment He could decide to unravel us out of “existence”, but He doesn’t. (Let us honor our Maker).

But in the analogy, how can a doughnut hole know the dough exists? It certainly can’t know much about the dough except what it finds on its outer boundary, which touches the dough that is giving it its form. And it thus knows it surely exists, without knowing the full nature of it, due to the inherent limitations of something held within a container.

Again, consider a loaf of leavened bread filled with many tiny air bubbles. How can any one bubble know the whole loaf, or even see the loaf? It only knows its own shape and size as defined by it boundaries inside the loaf.

In both of these cases, the hole and the bubble only exist because of the dough. In the same way, the physical universe only exists because of the spiritual, and has much less information and “being” than the supernatural God who created and sustains it.( In fact, there are even spiritual creatures beyond the physical world that are nonetheless created and infinitely less than the supernatural God). It stands to reason that nothing can possibly exist without either being God or being sustained by God.

The physical world is the passing shadow, yet somehow you think of it as the only reality. You can know that it isn’t by realizing there has to be something beyond the boundaries. It is an inherent idea that even a child would wonder about (which I did at age 5).

One boundary is that which contains the universe, whether or not the universe is physically infinite. Another boundary is what the tiniest particle consists of. Another is what holds our consciousness and control of reality within the current moment, simultaneously with all other creatures, such that we have no direct control over the past or future.

But it is also obvious that there is more to existence than the physical universe, because an idea is not physical, nor is truth. Some athiests tend to try to reduce this to something only existing in the mind, but that fails when you consider that a young child does not contain all concepts in its mind from the moment of birth, but rather that they are grasped as it grows and learns through experience and/or training.

hurst

 

[hurst]

I can say that 100% of my ideas I have come up with, although there are most likely other people that feel the same way. I have NEVER visited an athiest/agnostic website or read a book who’s intention was to disprove God.

That is really amazing, since your ideas are very close to standard atheistic stances.

I think I’ve felt that Christianity was a bunch of balogni since about 4th grade, and I have been sent to Catholic schools all my life.

Speaks volumes about the state of our Catholic schools in this country… or maybe you allowed a spirit of disbelief to enter in on account of some vice, such as spitefulness, unforgiveness, unwillingness to obey, etc…

Yes, we have been givin much from future generations, not a god. The first humans had each other and their surroundings, and they had to make due with that since we cannot control certain aspects of our lives like birth.

Let’s revisit what you said:

Hubriss:

Is everyone that dependant on insisting that they did not come about without help from something greater than them?

Won’t you now retract your statement? For it is clear we are dependent, that we did not come about without help from something greater than ourselves, and that we cannot control where or when we or even if we are born. Whether God exists is not in your control. Whether you will still be alive tomorrow is not totally in your control.

Don’t you think the more honorable thing to do is to refrain trying to take control, now that you recognize you were never in control in the first place? Or would you be like a thief, trying to run off with something that you do not own? But perhaps you don’t think there is anyone who sees you or who would or could catch you. I am talking about your move away from humility. You have taken up a kind of attitude of control that you have no right to, and are running with it. God allows this to prove His faithful ones, and also to allow you an opportunity to repent.

hurst

 

[hurst]

“You are truly perverse if you believe doubt and doubt belief.”

• That just depends on what view you have. I could be doubting doubt and believing my belief. You doubt that the universe was not created by a superior being, and I doubt that. It’s just a play on words, everyone does it.

On the surface, perhaps. But I am speaking on a deeper level. When once you hold to something as true, then you will face challenges of two kinds - one that tests to make sure it is true, and another that maliciously accuses it of being false.

Can you detect the difference between malicious doubt and beneficial testing?

Perhaps a better way to say it is “doubt malice, and believe goodness”. It’s just that malice tends to cast doubts around, and goodness tends to believe with simplicity.

It’s funny when you say, “you have joined those who are attacking good,” and, “murderers of the supernatural soul.” Kind of buffs up your point doesn’t it?

It is not funny, because you have chosen to become the source of error for others you have influence over (if any). I say that as an admonishment to you.

If you were just searching for answers, then you would have a different attitude in your posts. But you contend things, and take a stance that opposes the Faith you grew up in. You don’t seem to be searching as much as spouting off what you have already decided to believe (or not believe).

I can only apologize for those who did not already address these issues with you (your parish, your school, and your family). But you had no control over the circumstance of your birth. Yet, you were baptized, you were sanctified, you were holy at one point. It is the sin of others that leads us down the dark road, and it is our own sins that keep us on it. But may God have mercy on us in our vulnerability to error, and may you repent for agreeing with the evil suggestions of the atheistic spirit.

Yes, I know I am heavily leaning to the opinions of agnostic/atheists (because that’s what I am) but you can not doubt that you are also biased in favor of your beliefs.

I have solid reasoning, solid evidence, the backing of centuries of Church documents, lives of saints, and the testimony of my own experience.

You might be excusable if you were born into an atheistic family or country. But you have no such excuse. You are much worse off than pagans, for you are also a traitor to your own Faith. It has been handed to you and you reject it, while clueless people in remote areas are languishing for the Truth.

However, perhaps you are better off than those who lose their faith and pretend to still have it. At least you have the integrity to act on your convictions. Jesus did say He prefered us to be “hot or cold” and not lukewarm.

hurst

 

[hurst]

“Would you assume a skyscraper has no architect until you have evidence and proof?”

• No, I know that it is impossible for the skyscraper to come about by itself according to the universal tendancy of entropy, chaos. Therefore, I must logically conclude that something created it. However, it is possible for a planet like earth to come about according to physics and quantum physics, and in fact, it is impossible for there to be life without entropy.

And where did physics and quantum mechanics come from? Is it not the result from the observable effects of the universe? Why does the universe have those particular structures? What keeps gravity acting as gravity and what keeps electromagentic waves acting the way they do? There is a solid foundation somewhere keeping everything firmly formed and in place. Otherwise everything would just be a gooey blob with no form. The entire universe not only has a design imprinted on it, but it also kept in firm order as if a law were imposed upon it.

By the way, it seems you answered this differently in another post. Perhaps that had to do with the difficulty you said you were having in quoting.

“However, we can also know that not the whole physical universe has always existed.”
-Yes, we can know that the whole universe has always existed. Matter can not be created or destroyed, therefore it has always existed.

That statement about matter cannot be used to prove or disprove anything about the existence of the whole universe. It was a hypothesis based on observations, and makes sense, and was made into a “law” of science. However, matter converts to energy and vice versa. So one must either contend that the amount of matter always stays constant, or else the combination of matter and energy stays constant. But there could be a new discovery that shows that energy itself converts into something, who knows?

In any case, it doesn’t solve the obvious problem that you were not always part of the universe, does it?

Matter however can be changed. No, not all elements have always existed, but we have proven that elements can be created out of other elements. Many of the highest mass elements have been created by Man.

You miss the point. The very fact that matter can be changed proves it did not always exist as matter. And no element could exist prior to protons and electrons existing. So no element could have always existed. And if all elements came from other elements, then those other elements were broken to form other ones, and now do not exist. So that brings us back to the point that no element has always existed, nor could it have, based on hard evidence and simple reasoning.

The same thing can be said regarding protons - they did not always exist, for they are composed of quarks, and quarks had to exist first in order for a proton to be “built”. So they did not always exist. Furthermore, since a proton can be broken down, then we have proof that a proton cannot always remain existing, either.

But what caused protons to exist? What causes quarks to form protons sometimes, and electrons other times, and to form a certain ratio of these and stay in existence as such?

Clearly, neither elements nor protons have always existed, nor could they have. It is inherent by their design and empirically observed.

hurst

 

[hurst]

“Another thing, which I already mentioned, is that there are non-physical things that “exist” but are not part of the physical universe. In fact, they canbe shown to precede the physical universe on the basis that the physical universe contains representations of them, which could not be if the concept didn’t first exist to allow such a representation to be made manifest. I am talking about something as simple as a circle. It exists as a concept before matter can be formed into its likeness.”

-Concepts do not constitute existence. Even if a concept can be possible, it is far from meaning it is actual. I can imagine a dragon or a giant which might actually be possible, but the truth is that they do not exist.

But they do exist as a concept, and that is much more than nothing, because you use them to draw a picture or tell a story about them. So it is actually there, but not physically there. Just another demonstration that the physical universe is not all there is to existence.

“Likewise, a square circle cannot be conceived, nor can it be found in nature nor made into a physical entity.”

• Yeah, kind of like a 100% human 100% god huh?

Again, your tone does not seem one of searching, but one of sarcasm or contention.

The Incarnation is hard to describe, but not impossible to imagine, and in fact is something actually taught as real.

A square circle… what is it? Other senseless examples include such things as “This statement is false” and “If God is all powerful, can He make something that is too heavy for Him to lift”.

I am sorry if you feel betrayed, but it is not right to take it out on God or His Church. Forgiveness is the best thing. Can you forgive?

hurst

 

[Hubriss]

Alright, I’m back for a little, sorry but I don’t think I’ll be able to reply to everyone.

To Rob:
I read something about Fatima on one of the web sites I was referred to. It had a story of some children seeing Mary. Mary told them that Russia must convert and repent or there will be much suffering in the world, something like that. So the children went and told everyone and Russia ended its comunism after the Cold War. Predictions like these are what I was comparing to Nostradamus.

“Quote:
The belief that people like Aquianus and Kreeft can figure out truths given the same type of physical life we are all given depends heavily on your belief that the holy spirit or god guides them. You basically say that your argument to prove the infallability of the church is infallable. So where are we supposed to start? It’s a never ending circle.” -Me

“I’m not sure what exactly you’re going on about here. Some clarification, please?”-Rob

What I mean by this is that Catholics believe what was written in the bible and what is concluded by their major philosophers, is somehow correct and infallable because they were guided by the “holy spirit.” But Catholics get their idea of the holy spirit FROM the bible. You use an idea that was created by the bible to explain the validity of the bible. Do you now see how the church makes itself infalsifiable?

To swnunley:

“Agnostic/Atheistic belief is about sin, and the Church’s view on what it is and isn’t. The real reason for his non-belief (and what I’ve found to be all unbelievers) was that it gave him liscense to live an immoral life, and indulge in pleasures of the flesh, while not having to feel guilty about it. He said I was a fool for denying myself the pleasures of life, and not taking as much as I could possibly grab. After all, after this, there is nothing.”

Wait a minute… let me think… wait… yes… that has to be one of the most ignorant statements I’ve ever heard.

"That’s what gets most people, as well as the stupid arguement that, “It couldn’t hurt to believe, but it sure as hell would hurt to eternally burn in flame.” -Me.

“Then I said what if I am right and you are wrong? What if there is a God, and that He is real, and that He will judge us by our lives? What then if you die? Is the possibility that something can exist without our physical perception worth the risk of your eternal soul?”-swnunly

• DID I CALL IT, OR DID I CALL IT? Thank you for that.

“You really need to listen to them, respect what say, and stop being so flip and disrespectful.” -swnunly

-That’s why I’m here.

To VociMike:
“What does that mean? The existence of the universe is just as unexplainable. The existence of the human mind is just as unexplainable.” VociMike

There is no human mind seperate from the brain. The brain is damage, the “mind” is damaged.

“I, for example, believe in God and also believe that the theories of the big bang and some form of evolution are in good agreement with the known facts.”

-Known facts? What known facts? Surely you don’t mean the existence of God?

“God is by far the simplest explanation for the existence of the universe and its apparent fine-tuning to produce life.”-VociMike

• God is not the simplest explanation because we do not know of, have not experienced and will never experience a realm other than the physical one we are already in. The belief in God will entail the belief in such a place (heaven and hell) that there is no evidence for.

To Kildare:
“THe Galileo case has been wildly exaggerated.
and it was out of character for the Church to condemn him.”
-If it was exaggerated, why did the church condemn him? And isn’t the church supposed to be infallable?

 

[Hubriss]

To hurst:
One of the definitions of concept is: Something formed in the mind; a thought or notion. Just like I said.

In fact, I say we know the Bible is true because the Church tells us it is.

I then ask the current church how it knows that the founders of it and the writers of the bible were correct in what they say. The church responds: because they were guided by the holy spirit. It’s what that first statement you quoted from me is about. Sorry, I need to clarify myself better.

"

So you openly declare that a skyscraper does not need an architect? I am not talking about maintains here. Let’s limit it to metropolitan areas.

Hah, I just used your general term of skyscraper, but it was wrong because I guess it does only pertain to buildings. In that case, no, I do not think a skyscraper can construct itself, but I do think that the world or universe. According to the principal of entropy, matter tends toward chaos. Chaos however is not a complete randomness of all matter, rather that it tends to all mix together. A skyscraper requires the reduction of entropy to make asserted parts (steal bars, bolts, glass, etc). However life is possible in the face of this entropy. In fact, in order for life to exist entropy is Required. If all the copper, oxygen, iron, carbon, and all the elements tended to all seperate themselves in their own little piles, the mixture of them to create life could never happen.

Certainly, we exist in the present moment, and do not even have any control outside of the present moment. So on that basis, I say that it is not a mere perception, but an established fact of life.

What do you mean by an “established fact of life?” Besides that last sentence I don’t see any difference between that and “We don’t exist in time, but only have that perception so that we can understand how things happen.”

Consider a typical doughnut. It has a hole. The hole is not made of dough, but is just empty space. Yet, it is made of dough, for the dough forms the boundary of the hole, and makes the hole what it is.

In the same way, God is like the dough that surrounds us and forms our boundary, while remaining separate from us in substance. We are nothing in and of ourselves.

Yeah, but there’s a big hole right in the middle of that theory.

According to our senses and reason alone, we can know that there must be “something” that always existed. We call this God. He self-exists. Nothing else self-exists outside of God.

You know you really can take your definition of God and apply it perfectly to the universe.

Again, consider a loaf of leavened bread filled with many tiny air bubbles. How can any one bubble know the whole loaf, or even see the loaf? It only knows its own shape and size as defined by it boundaries inside the loaf.

That really only applies to us 1000 years ago and before.

In fact, there are even spiritual creatures beyond the physical world that are nonetheless created and infinitely less than the supernatural God

Haha, you keep saying “fact.”

One boundary is that which contains the universe, whether or not the universe is physically infinite.

Infinite means having no boundaries or limits. I don’t know where you get the idea that our physical world must be sustained by something ethereal.

But it is also obvious that there is more to existence than the physical universe, because an idea is not physical, nor is truth.

How do you know ideas are not physical? They depend on a physical brain so as far as we know, they are physical. Even if written on paper it is useless unless a brain understands it and puts it to use. Using your definition of truth, it is an idea, which is physical. Like time or ideas, truth does not “exist.” It is merely a term used by us to explain situations.

Some athiests tend to try to reduce this to something only existing in the mind, but that fails when you consider that a young child does not contain all concepts in its mind from the moment of birth, but rather that they are grasped as it grows and learns through experience and/or training.

Ah but this is simply wrong. When a child is born and begins on its earliest stages in life, it has the Potential to learn ideas and things that are true. All the brain matter needed is there, what is only required is the shaping and forming which is accomplished through, as you said, experience and/or training. As the child grows, new brain matter will be formed to compensate for the many new ideas it will encounter until its death.

 

[hurst]

“Free will is part of our nature. Faith is a (supernatural) gift.”-hurst

“Whatever that is, it is God. It is the ultimate source of anything and everything, whatever we may find. That includes the material universe, our consciousness, our memory and understanding and free will, and anything invisible.”- hurst

• Which is it? Nature or a gift? I say nature, and so is our memory, and intellect. You say memory, intellect and free will are part of the soul, implying they are from God since God created the soul.

You are confusing free will with Faith. Free will is part of our nature, as are our memory and intellect. Faith is a supernatural gift given by God by grace. Grace elevates our nature into a sharing of His life, but without taking away from our nature. Faith is also an act of the will (elevated by grace) whereby we open ourselves to the supernatural truth being extended to us by God. (And as such, someone who has fallen from grace will find it impossible to treat easily of God, but will find it easy to disbelieve and accept only earthly things).

More specifically, we have a physical body and a spiritual soul. The human nature is the union of body and soul. The soul by its very nature has memory, intellect, and will. The body by its physical nature has corresponding faculties animated by our soul, but which the soul is not dependent upon for its existence. Faith also comes from God, but is not part of our nature. We can lose faith, but we cannot lose our nature. When someone “loses” their soul, it means they are lost from God, not that they no longer have the nature of their soul. Even in hell, the soul continues to function with memory, intellect, and will, except they will not be able to will anything good, for goodness only comes from God, but they are damned to their own nature and subject to the torments of the devil and fires of hell and the worm (reproach) of their conscience.

Yes, I was confirmed, but half-heartedly, mostly because I didn’t want to confront my parents with my disbelief yet I guess. For the most part I do obey them in good faith, including most of my other elders, like teachers and my god father.

I hope you see by now that this is not something to be half-hearted about, regardless of the attitudes of others in your parish, school, or family.

I do realize this happens a lot in our country, but that is no excuse for it. I am sorry I cannot make up for the failings of those around you. I myself had to deal with the same thing.

But I must testify to the fact that God has shown me that He can and will make up for the failings of others in my life. He gave me a taste of it, and I have been strengthened. I am convinced that there is no injustice that He can’t offset by His goodness and love.

If He doesn’t show it right away, it is because we have the task of opening up our hearts to Him in faith, which can only be done with grace and while not under the influence of His glory. Those who see Him must die. But when we suffer with faith, we are enlarged for His greater glory when He does visit us. It is like the simple lesson of spending time enduring the hardship of study in order to do well on the test, or of an athlete working out over a long period of time so that he can win the 1st place ribbon, or of accepting the prick of a needle to receive the transfusion of blood to live. Preparation is needed for a good reception.

hurst

 

[hurst]

Emotions are NOT a basis for belief, even Kreeft pointed that out.

Well, right, because they don’t last.

Doubting the doubts and believing the faith is NOT the fair thing to do.

You obviously missed the point I was making. I explained this better in a previous post.

We can get no where according to knowledge with that attitude. Everyone thought the world was flat. Galileo decided to challenge them and find out whether or not their faith in their current beliefs were any valid. And guess what? HE WAS RIGHT!

He did not challenge a flat earth, he challenged whether it was the earth or the sun that was the center of the universe.

And guess what? HE WAS WRONG! The Sun is not the center of the universe, is it? Nor do the planets circle the Sun in perfect circles. So, he was wrong. Furthermore, he was wrong about what caused the tides.

All these wrong things he bought into at the cost of His Faith. And He ridiculed the Pope in his booklet, who up til then had been his friend.

In the end, Galileo bucked the Church, and that is why modern science likes him. But his irreverence is nothing to imitate.

hurst

 

[Hubriss]

Quote:

“Free will is part of our nature. Faith is a (supernatural) gift.”-hurst

“Whatever that is, it is God. It is the ultimate source of anything and everything, whatever we may find. That includes the material universe, our consciousness, our memory and understanding and free will, and anything invisible.”- hurst

• Which is it? Nature or a gift? I say nature, and so is our memory, and intellect. You say memory, intellect and free will are part of the soul, implying they are from God since God created the soul.

You are confusing free will with Faith. Free will is part of our nature, as are our memory and intellect. Faith is a supernatural gift given by God by grace. Grace elevates our nature into a sharing of His life, but without taking away from our nature. Faith is also an act of the will (elevated by grace) whereby we open ourselves to the supernatural truth being extended to us by God. (And as such, someone who has fallen from grace will find it impossible to treat easily of God, but will find it easy to disbelieve and accept only earthly things).

Yeah, you must have totally not read that second time I quoted you where you said that everything comes from God, including free will (which you said).

Quote:

Emotions are NOT a basis for belief, even Kreeft pointed that out.

Well, right, because they don’t last.

Not just because they don’t last. Because they cloud our mental processes.

 

[Hubriss]

Quote:

Doubting the doubts and believing the faith is NOT the fair thing to do.

You obviously missed the point I was making. I explained this better in a previous post.

No, I didn’t miss your point.

And guess what? HE WAS WRONG! The Sun is not the center of the universe, is it? Nor do the planets circle the Sun in perfect circles. So, he was wrong. Furthermore, he was wrong about what caused the tides.

Now you’re just being unfair to Galileo. He didn’t have the tools to judge how large the stars in the sky actually were. He had no idea many of them were actually larger than the sun. He didn’t have the capabilities to determine the exact orbits of planets around the sun, nor to judge where the tides came from. But as I said before, science has the ability to correct old theories in light of any new evidence, improving its stance on things. Unlike religion.

 

[hurst]

Hubriss:

And guess what? HE WAS WRONG! The Sun is not the center of the universe, is it? Nor do the planets circle the Sun in perfect circles. So, he was wrong. Furthermore, he was wrong about what caused the tides.

Now you’re just being unfair to Galileo. He didn’t have the tools to judge how large the stars in the sky actually were. He had no idea many of them were actually larger than the sun.

You think I am being unfair? If he had no idea about the stars, then why would he claim he had proof?

Let me share from someone else’s research:

Galileo followed right on the heels of Kepler. …

Among his other braggadocios, Galileo claimed to have invented the telescope, but Kepler and his colleagues knew it was available twenty years earlier from one of Galileo’s countrymen, Giovanni Della Porta. Records also show that spectacle-maker Johann Lippershey possessed a license to make telescopes by the mid-1580s. By April 1609 one could buy a telescope from shops in Paris, the same year that Galileo published that he was the first to see the moons of Jupiter, an event in history which is also in doubt since there is evidence that other sighters preceded Galileo, and that his brand of telescope was so small and clumsy it would have been hard to see Jupiter itself, let alone its moons (Ernst Zinner, Entstehung und Ausbreitung der Copernicanischen Lehre (Erlangen, 1943), p. 345). … Galileo rejected Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion as well as his discoveries in optics.

To one of his other rivals Galileo stated: “You cannot help it, Mr. Sarsi, that it was granted to me alone to discover all the new phenomena in the sky and nothing to anybody else. This is the truth which neither malice nor envy can suppress” (Taken from Galileo’s 1623 book titled Il Saggiatore (The Assayer). The book starts with a tirade against all who tried to rob Galileo “of the glory of his discoveries.”. …

Galileo’s deceit reached new heights in his confrontations with the Holy Office of the Catholic Church from 1616-1633. Prior to this, Galileo had made known his views of heliocentrism privately in a 1597 letter to Kepler, yet in a remarkable display of duplicity, in the intervening years between 1597 and up until 1613, he had been teaching against Copernicanism quite vigorously, complete with charts and graphs. A 1606 manuscript of his musings still survives today. Galileo was in a constant whirlwind: saying one thing and doing another, and doing one thing and saying another.

Suffice it to say, after giving him every grace and favor to treat Copernicanism as a hypothesis, not fact, Galileo refused, claiming he had proof when, indeed, he had none at all. The Church hierarchy simply could not put up with his roguery any longer. His former confidant, Cardinal Barberini, later became Urban VIII, and, as pope, made it a point to condemn Galileo for lack of proof. Urban upheld the 1616 Sacred Congregation’s verdict against Copernicanism, and after obtaining Galileo’s renunciation in 1633, sent notice of the condemnation to all the inquisitors and papal nuncios of Europe, making it an official proclamation of the Vatican and the papacy. As Dorothy Stimson reports, “Pope Urban had no intention of concealing Galileo’s abjuration and sentence. Instead, he ordered copies of both to be sent to all inquisitors and papal nuncios that they might notify all their clergy and especially all the professors of mathematics and philosophy within their districts.” (The Gradual Acceptance of the Copernican Theory of the Universe, New York, The Baker and Taylor Company, 1917, pp. 67-68).

According to this research, Galileo was in the habit of making unsubstantiated claims and taking credit for other people’s work, among other things.

But besides the issue of the Sun being the center, you think his doubts helped scientific progress. Please update your conclusions to incorporate the above-mentioned facts. It is clear he was only interested in a claim to glory, whether gained fairly or not.

hurst

 

[hurst]

Hubriss:

hurst:

“Free will is part of our nature. Faith is a (supernatural) gift.”-hurst

“Whatever that is, it is God. It is the ultimate source of anything and everything, whatever we may find. That includes the material universe, our consciousness, our memory and understanding and free will, and anything invisible.”- hurst

• Which is it? Nature or a gift? I say nature, and so is our memory, and intellect. You say memory, intellect and free will are part of the soul, implying they are from God since God created the soul.

You are confusing free will with Faith. Free will is part of our nature, as are our memory and intellect. Faith is a supernatural gift given by God by grace. Grace elevates our nature into a sharing of His life, but without taking away from our nature. Faith is also an act of the will (elevated by grace) whereby we open ourselves to the supernatural truth being extended to us by God. (And as such, someone who has fallen from grace will find it impossible to treat easily of God, but will find it easy to disbelieve and accept only earthly things).

Yeah, you must have totally not read that second time I quoted you where you said that everything comes from God, including free will (which you said).

I don’t understand your point. I am not denying that everything comes from God. I was clarifying your question about whether it (free will) was nature or a gift. I never said free will was a gift, I said Faith was a gift.

Everything comes from God, both our nature and our Faith. But we do not automatically have both. We all automatically have nature (which can be informally considered a gift, I suppose), but on top of that we are given Faith (which is properly a gift) according to whether we, in our nature, choose to receive it (i.e. exercise the free will of our nature to recieve it).

Thus the natural is made to precede the reception of the supernatural, so that it can take part of by its own choice. And the exercise of faith colors our existence, so to speak, as I mentioned before regarding how the natural and supernatural can relate if they are separate. Jesus said He came that our joy might be made complete, in Him. It is all consistent.

hurst

 

[VociMike]

Hubriss,

You didn’t answer my main question, which is (slightly expanded), what is your explanation for the existence of the universe, the existence of life, and the existence and nature of mankind? Remember, according to Occam’s Razor, your explanation for all of these things (that is, in your view, for everything that is) must be simpler than the explanation that God did it.

 

[RobNY]

Alright, I’m back for a little, sorry but I don’t think I’ll be able to reply to everyone.

The flood gates have opened. Oh and, check my post here for an explanation on quotation and hyperlinking, if you didn’t catch it.

To Rob:
I read something about Fatima on one of the web sites I was referred to. It had a story of some children seeing Mary. Mary told them that Russia must convert and repent or there will be much suffering in the world, something like that. So the children went and told everyone and Russia ended its comunism after the Cold War. Predictions like these are what I was comparing to Nostradamus.

Ok. I understand.

Fatima is actually composed of several events, revelations and miracles, so I see where you are coming from. My knowledge of it is fairly hazy itself, so I can see where you thought I was referring, perhaps, to the children. But, besides the appartion of Mary to the children, there was also the miracle of the sun, which thousands allegedly witnessed, and among whom was the athiest editor of certain local paper. The fatima site they provided reproduces the eyewitness account of Dr. José Maria de Almeida Garrett. I can’t seem to locate the other site I am more familiar with which gives a general overview including the quotes I was telling you about. If I find it, I’ll show you.

What I mean by this is that Catholics believe what was written in the bible and what is concluded by their major philosophers, is somehow correct and infallable because they were guided by the “holy spirit.”

To be painstakingly precise, we believe the charism of infallibility extends to the magisterium and to the pope. The pope may use his charism of infallibility when making pronouncements on doctrine related to faith and morals, and the Bishops may do so together when in union with the Pope (i.e., a Church council). No individual Fathers, Doctors or philosophers are infallible in and of themselves.

But Catholics get their idea of the holy spirit FROM the bible. You use an idea that was created by the bible to explain the validity of the bible. Do you now see how the church makes itself infalsifiable?

The best place to start is with the divinity of Christ. This gives credence to the bible and to the Church. (One does not have to take the bible as inspired to get a wide enough view to make an informed decision on whether Christ was God or not. That is, looking at the issue of Christ as God as a more historical question.)

 

[Crumpy]

Hubriss:

I am interested in what any of you devout Catholics have to say and your mainstream answers to these questions.

This is a great question. The answer to this question and many others like it, for those who have questions about or objections to Catholic beliefs and practices can be found in Karl Keating’s book “Catholicism and Fundamentalism.”

A wealth of information is also available in the Catholic Encyclopedia at www.newadvent.org.

 

[Hubriss]

I don’t understand your point. I am not denying that everything comes from God. I was clarifying your question about whether it (free will) was nature or a gift. I never said free will was a gift, I said Faith was a gift.

You said free will comes from God. Therefore, it is a gift. You said before that that it was our nature.

You didn’t answer my main question, which is (slightly expanded), what is your explanation for the existence of the universe, the existence of life, and the existence and nature of mankind? Remember, according to Occam’s Razor, your explanation for all of these things (that is, in your view, for everything that is) must be simpler than the explanation that God did it.

We have none.

The best place to start is with the divinity of Christ. This gives credence to the bible and to the Church.

In order to start there, I must assume that Jesus was divine. Something you are trying to prove.

 

[RobNY]

Hubriss:

In order to start there, I must assume that Jesus was divine. Something you are trying to prove.

You miss my point.

Rather than take the Bible as an inerrant authority to establish the Church, or the Church as an infallible authority to establish the Bible, you can examine first the relative merits of believing whether or not Christ was God. Therefore, your problem of circular belief is eliminated, because you do not have to hold the Bible or the Church to be infallible to examine them in this method. You first examine whether or not Christ was God, and then that in turn buttresses the support of the Bible and the Church. (Well, you’d start with Christ’s existence, as shown through historical documents and the gospels. Then you’d examine Christ’s character as portrayed by the Gospels and his claims-- again, this doesn’t necessitate inerrancy. And then you’d examine the actions of the Apostles based on the claims they wrote, i.e., that they willingly were martyred for the truth of the faith, that is, God as Christ and the Resurrection. And both from the Trilemma and the actions of the apostles, confirming the truth of their testimony about the Resurrection, you can reasonably conclude that Christ is God [or at least that the apostles were truthful witnesses of the Resurrection]. This is all very abbreviated, of course.)

 

[Contarini]

Hubriss:

You said free will comes from God. Therefore, it is a gift. You said before that that it was our nature.

And where do you think Christians believe our nature comes from?

Edwin