Relationship in the gutter.

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Well, I’m not sure that the catholic church is very interested in critical thinking. From what I gather, many of you are terrified of questioning. I don’t think one should be terrified of seeking the truth.

TaraJoBean: I actually saw a debate on the catholic church with my gf (a mistake) the other day. Not very encouraging for the church, though. I thought they defended terribly, and they were absolutely decimated… I think I can find a link for it. Yes, here it is:

intelligencesquared.com/iq2-video/2009/catholic-church

If this is representative of the quality of catholic speakers, I don’t think you will be gaining much ground with the educated crowd.
 
The Catholic Church is a big church. There will be many different personalities within it therefore. Some will be content to accept the teachings of the magisterrum without question, many will not. To characterise all Catholics as ‘terrified of questioning’ and as being (by implication) lacking in critical thinking demonstrates a faulty understanding of Catholic philosophy, theology and history. You could start, Persuader, by reading some of the Fathers of the Church - such as St Thomas Aquinas. You could also consided the fact that the Catholic Church was responsible for the development of academic study and rigour in Europe by founding the very first Universities. No one is expected to believe anything without question in the Catholic Church, all of the knowledge, understanding and reasoning underpinning Catholic teaching are available to those with an appetite for the task. In addition, Catholics exercise their critical thinking in their appraisal of the secular world and how social, cultural, scientific and philosophical mores and knowledge interact with Catholicism. However, to remain within the Catholic Church one is required to abide by the decisions of the magisterium; this does not mean that one cannot question and have reservations, many do, but to remain with the Church means that we set aside those quesions (whilst acknowledging them) and remain in obedience in our daily lives. Indeed we have a responsibility as Catholics to educate ourself about our faith and to ensure that our conscience is well formed - and as Cardinal Newman (about to be beatified) said a man’s conscience (providing it is well formed) should be the final arbiter in all things.
 
Persuader said:
Well, I’m not sure that the catholic church is very interested in critical thinking. From what I gather, many of you are terrified of questioning. I don’t think one should be terrified of seeking the truth.

TaraJoBean: I actually saw a debate on the catholic church with my gf (a mistake) the other day. Not very encouraging for the church, though. I thought they defended terribly, and they were absolutely decimated… I think I can find a link for it. Yes, here it is:

intelligencesquared.com/iq2-video/2009/catholic-church

If this is representative of the quality of catholic speakers, I don’t think you will be gaining much ground with the educated crowd.
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Come to my university for a day. Meet with the faithful Catholic kids. Critical thinking and study is how we stand our ground. Considering that we are actually a minority on campus, we pretty much have to in order to survive.

I’d also point out that many of us are converts, a good portion from scientific backgrounds. Critical thinking helped us come to the Church.
 
Persuader said:
Well, I’m not sure that the catholic church is very interested in critical thinking. From what I gather, many of you are terrified of questioning. I don’t think one should be terrified of seeking the truth.

TaraJoBean: I actually saw a debate on the catholic church with my gf (a mistake) the other day. Not very encouraging for the church, though. I thought they defended terribly, and they were absolutely decimated… I think I can find a link for it. Yes, here it is:

intelligencesquared.com/iq2-video/2009/catholic-church

If this is representative of the quality of catholic speakers, I don’t think you will be gaining much ground with the educated crowd.
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I haven’t had the time to watch this, but I heard about it. The audience was packed with people who were vermently anti-Catholic and as much as I think Stephen Fry is a genius he is extremely anti-Catholic too. I wonder if it is because he is gay and it took him a very, very long time to accept that and admit it and somehow makes that the Church’s fault? Not sure. It definitely was not a neutral and openminded debate and I understand that a bishop or cardinal was verbally abused by the crowd so not even civilized.

The vast majority of people in the UK are aggressively secular so this was just an exercise in mockery.
 
Persuader said:
Well, I’m not sure that the catholic church is very interested in critical thinking. From what I gather, many of you are terrified of questioning. I don’t think one should be terrified of seeking the truth.

TaraJoBean: I actually saw a debate on the catholic church with my gf (a mistake) the other day. Not very encouraging for the church, though. I thought they defended terribly, and they were absolutely decimated… I think I can find a link for it. Yes, here it is:

intelligencesquared.com/iq2-video/2009/catholic-church

If this is representative of the quality of catholic speakers, I don’t think you will be gaining much ground with the educated crowd.
Click to expand...
I’m a lover of the mind and I love how Catholicism is so true =). There are brilliant thinkers who would feel intellectually betrayed to be anything but Catholic. Typically the reason people who are Catholic who leaves are emotional. They may give some scriptural reason but if you give them a Catholic scholar to debate with they will eventually result to emotional arguments after their claims have failed.

I am pretty sure I linked works from our late Pope on this thread. He is only one of many who are both passionate about the faith and can expound on it greatly. Brilliant thinkers throughout history have been Catholic.

Personally, I cannot imagine an open minded person who is well learned cannot check out the writings of John Paul II or Benedict XVI and not be convinced. One writes from the heart to reach the rest of the body and soul. The other begins from the intellect. Both are brilliant.

Here is a recent sermon by Father Barron who lists a number of great Catholic minds:
wordonfire.org/WOF-Radio/Sermons/2009/Sermon-469-Religion,-Science-and-the-Journey-of.aspx

Here is an audio series going deep into scripture to review salvation history by Dr. Scott Hahn and Jeff Cavins:
ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/seriessearchprog.asp?seriesID=-306548622&T1=scott+hahn

Here is a listing of works from the late Pope John Paul II:
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/index.htm
 
Honesly, you are all all morons… he made her stop believing in your God… so you all go into a rageous rampage and criticise him.

Honestly you all tried to help and you have all failed. They love each other, they can get through it if they truely do.

Heres a quote that’ll apply for this whole thread, no it has nothing to do with your bloody god.

Quote; Relationships dont work they way they do in Television or in the movies. “Will they” “Wont they” Then they will and they’re happy forever, give me a break. 9/10 of them end because they weren’t right for each other to begin with and half the ones that get marries get divorced anyway and I’m telling you now through all this stuff I have not become a Synic, I haven’t. Yes I do believe that love is mainly about pushing chocolate covered candies and you know in some cultures a chicken. You can call me a sucker I don’t care. Because I do, believe in it. Bottom line if couples were trully right for each other then they went through the same **** as everyone else but they dont let it take em down. One of those 2 people will stand up and fight for that relationship everytime if it’s right and they are real lucky, one of them will say something. - Dr. Perry Cox.; Scrubs
 
Right so… we’re the idiots and you’re the genius because you don’t believe in God and yet you’re wasting time speaking to a bunch of “idiot mouth-breathing, morons who believe in a fairy in the sky” and you’re quoting from a television show to demonstrate your keen insight into relationships.

PS - It’s “cynic,” not “Synic,” “truly,” not “truely” or “trully,” “righteous” not “rageous” and you may as well quote from Bill Lawrence since he’s the producer and chief writer of Scrubs. Or you could quote John C. McGinley since he plays Perry Cox in that series. Don’t quote a character and get spell checker for Firefox. You look like a clown, even if you are, by definition, smarter than all of us because you don’t believe in God.
 
Panthermes: You convince absolutely no one of anything when you come here and declare “you are all morons,” other than to perhaps convince some than you yourself are a moron.

After all, you come here, to a Catholic site, and state, “you are all morons,” and apparently quote…a Hollywood TV show. The depth of your logic and reasoning are, in a word, lacking, to say the least.

Persuader: Insulting Catholic thinking, without considering the history of Catholic thinking, is, quite facially absurd. Have you ever actually read extensively (not just skimmed) Thomas Aquinas? Augustine? St. Albert, a/k/a Albertus Magnus? Read Aquinas’ “Summa” then come back to us & advise if you still believe your earlier (silly) post. Such reading will take you a while, given that the unabridged version covers a rather long shelf in any library. I think anyone who compares the above-noted Catholic thinkers’ scholarly works, side by side, with the likes of noteworthy atheists like Neitzsche cannot help but be unimpressed with the latter. Come on, kid (and you are a kid…I can’t even say, “come on, man!”)…it was Catholic thinkers, and their creation of universities, who pulled Europe out of the dark ages, basically single-handedly. As a university student in Europe, one would think you’d know that by now.
 
Persuader said:
Well, I’m not sure that the catholic church is very interested in critical thinking. From what I gather, many of you are terrified of questioning. I don’t think one should be terrified of seeking the truth.
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Well from what I gather, atheists are terrified of those how believe in God and it is demonstrative in both their vitriol towards them and how they warp history to reflect their own viewpoint that religion has always been a force for violence and ignorance. You’d could say that they are fervent in that belief. Now where else do you see zealous and fervent believers in an ideology…

Evangelical atheists, as I like to call them, are just preaching another religion. Only they don’t have to have a moral code nor do they ever have to be consistent in what they believe to be true since scientific discovery is ever-changing and society shifts constantly.
 
VonDerTann said:
Persuader: Insulting Catholic thinking, without considering the history of Catholic thinking, is, quite facially absurd. Have you ever actually read extensively (not just skimmed) Thomas Aquinas? Augustine? St. Albert, a/k/a Albertus Magnus? Read Aquinas’ “Summa” then come back to us & advise if you still believe your earlier (silly) post. Such reading will take you a while, given that the unabridged version covers a rather long shelf in any library. I think anyone who compares the above-noted Catholic thinkers’ scholarly works, side by side, with the likes of noteworthy atheists like Neitzsche cannot help but be unimpressed with the latter. Come on, kid (and you are a kid…I can’t even say, “come on, man!”)…it was Catholic thinkers, and their creation of universities, who pulled Europe out of the dark ages, basically single-handedly. As a university student in Europe, one would think you’d know that by now.
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Heck, you don’t even need to read the great saints to know about how universities preserved ancient thought, gather new ideas from the Islamic world and the Far East, and developed the idea of not only using logic and reasoning to explore the nature of the world around them but also to explore the divine. Even the Greek and Roman philosophers, at least those that truly believed in that pantheon of gods, never used their rational faculties to try and understand the nature of the divine. It was a totally new concept.

So yes, go read Augustine, Aquinas and Albert. And if you’re not inclined to trust them since they’re greatly respected by the Church, go read Peter Abelard. Go read the Peace and Truce of God. Take a course on medieval history. You’ll find that even the most agnostic medieval historians credit the Church and its universities for its work in sciences, mathematics and philosophy. Ancedotes like the ones regarding the Galileo controversy repeated so often by evangelical atheists completely distort historical reality
 
I am not insulting catholic thinking per se. My comment about how catholics are afraid of questioning was mostly based on the many replies I have gotten on this forum. Arguably, I was evil and wrong in exposing my gf to different views on religion. Her reaction to secular thinking was certainly sad, but to say that it is evil to expose her to different views stands directly in opposition to the spirit of critical thinking and free enquiry. You will also notice that my comment did not include all catholics. I qualified by saying “many of you”. If you read the posts in this thread, I am sure you will see that my comment was quite fair.

I have already said that I have read the arguments. That means that I have read the primary or best arguments for and against God. My position on this is pretty well founded IMO. I understand that you are confident in your position, but so am I. I believe in science and the enlightenment, and that is a respectable and well-founded position.

FYI, I am not an anti-theist, so I am not generally hostile to religion.
 
Oh, persuader, come off it. We know what we read in your first posts. You didn’t just expose her to your claptrap. You worked to talk her out of her religious outlook because by doing so you could talk her out of that pesky Catholic moral code. Be honest!

Most of us here have already done our questioning. We see the value in making a faith our own by testing it and studying it and looking at the other side and the people who live without it. (20 years of seeing that as an adult makes me believe in the rightness of faith MORE. Old atheists and agnostics often end up with pitiful lives. What seemed liberating when you’re young becomes empty and vacuous in your old age as death draws near and the pains and tragedies of life come along.)

The people you are mostly talking to here have already done their questioning. Our issue is of you taking your short lifetime of anti-religious arguments and turning them on a young girl who may not know enough about why she believes what she believes in order to refute you. So she tried your way and it drove her to the brink. She probably still doesn’t know the ins and outs of apologetics but she knows she MUST believe. That’s enough for her.

As for your own thinking you’re so smart… if you examine a list of converts to Catholicism, even in the modern age, you will see a list of people far smarter and far more experienced in life than you. Some of the greatest thinkers in the past 2000 years have been Catholic. Or converts. It’s actually a religion for thinkers. Though you wouldn’t know that from the outside looking in.

I defy you to read a biography and learn about Malcolm Muggeridge. Go. Do it. Then lecture about atheism to Catholics.
 
Liberanosamalo said:
Oh, persuader, come off it. We know what we read in your first posts. You didn’t just expose her to your claptrap. You worked to talk her out of her religious outlook because by doing so you could talk her out of that pesky Catholic moral code. Be honest!

As for your own thinking you’re so smart… if you examine a list of converts to Catholicism, even in the modern age, you will see a list of people far smarter and far more experienced in life than you. Some of the greatest thinkers in the past 2000 years have been Catholic. Or converts. It’s actually a religion for thinkers. Though you wouldn’t know that from the outside looking in.

I defy you to read a biography and learn about Malcolm Muggeridge. Go. Do it. Then lecture about atheism to Catholics.
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I have admitted that I thought it was nice that she would have sex. Sex is a natural, human instinct, and it gives great pleasure. Of course I am going to say it was good that I could have it with her. But I didn’t push her into it, and I didn’t push my views on her. That is your imagination supplying the information.

You seem very hostile and disrespectful of my views - saying atheists often end up with pitiful lives. Where did you get that from? Sounds like something you pulled out of your own backside.

Have I said I think I am very smart? Again, it seems like a case of projection. You are able to identify certain qualities making themselves evident in what I write, then you project your perception of my personality to make your conclusion that I think I am so smart. Does that mean that you think I am so very smart? 😛 It would certainly seem so. Thank you for the compliment in that case 😉

BTW, I am not doing any lecturing.
 
Persuader said:
I am not insulting catholic thinking per se. My comment about how catholics are afraid of questioning was mostly based on the many replies I have gotten on this forum.
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I agree with you, and I am surprised that some people want to debate that. Catholicism is a revealed religion. The belief is that the teachings of the Church have their source in God, so yeah, Catholics really aren’t supposed to question them or think critically about them.

To be sure, there are plenty of Catholics that do, but the orthodox position might consider them disobedient.
 
Persuader:

“I didn’t push my views on her.”
–Balderdash. You have admitted, early on, how you tried to do this.

“You seem very hostile and disrespectful of my views”
–No, but some of us are hostile and disrespectful of your ACTIONS, because they are vile and despicable in the eyes of the Catholic Church, which we believe (rightly) to condemn your actions. You took great delight in forcing your views on your girlfriend. You stole her virginity. You turned her into a psychological wreck…then came here, and got (rightfully) excoriated for such actions.

As to atheists having “pitiful lives,” just look at the wreckage well-known atheists like Jean Paul Sartre, Neitszche, Schopenhaur, Madelyn Murray O’Hare, etc., made of their own lives and the lives of those around them. Neitzsche died insane, most likely of syphlis. O’Hare disappared and was presumed murdered. Schopenhauer a) died a bitter old man whose lectures were frequently unattended, who b) left behind younger women who spurned him. He also fathered a child out of wedlock and spent many years paying a civil judgment to a woman who successfully sued him after he assaulted her.

Are those really people we can emulate?

“Have I said I think I am very smart? Again, it seems like a case of projection.”
–You have trumpeted your belief in your own intelligence over and over…that’s right, all that knowledge you acquired in your 22 years, and in your career as a university student.

So, no, for the record, I think based on your own statements I do not think you are very smart. In fact, I think you are very, very foolish, and very childish:
  1. You are 22 (a kid, here in the USA).
  2. You are a student. We have no basis to believe you even support yourself, let alone support others.
  3. Your sole motivation appears to be sex. You have boasted of repeated sexual escapades with others, which is unseemly and juvenile. You talk about sex with your girlfriend CONSTANTLY, in many, many posts, with lots of sordid details, but which impresses no one, and which is curious given your refusal to even say what country you are from. You have refused challenges to give up sex for any length of time.
  4. You have never seemed to understand the cause-and-effect of how your own actions harmed your girlfriend. You turned her away from God, then wondered why she had changed so much for the worse. Anyone with any intellect would conclude that it was because of you than she changed.
  5. You trash Catholic thinking…then snivel, “uh, it was just posters here!” when challenged to actually READ some Catholic theologians.
So, no, on the whole, I’m pretty unimpressed. If you want to be impressed with some aspect(s) of your life, fine, but just don’t expect the same from us.
 
There are several instances of uncharitable behavior in this thread, so it is now closed.
 
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