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StAnastasia
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People are not losing interest in our parish – the Masses are thronged.
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StAnastasia
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Tonrey, do you not believe it is possible for God to bring forth everything?
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inocente
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What I was suggesting is that since everything exists because of God, pointing it out in the case of persons alone doesn’t offer much explanation of itself, since ultimately it all gets grounded in the physical anyway. For instance, Ratzinger is talking of spirit here but can’t avoid the physical in his explanation: The clay became man at the moment in which a being for the first time was capable of forming, however dimly, the thought of “God”. The first Thou that—however stammeringly—was said by human lips to God marks the moment in which the spirit arose in the world.
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inocente
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No, in my experience God prefers hard work to incompetence and so when it comes to high-tech He likes us to work it out for ourselves.
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StAnastasia
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is talking of spirit here but can’t avoid the physical in his explanation: The clay became man at the moment in which a being for the first time was capable of forming, however dimly, the thought of “God”. The first Thou that—however stammeringly—was said by human lips to God marks the moment in which the spirit arose in the world.
Inocente, let me take exception here. In a Catholic sacramental vision of the cosmos, “Spirit” has never been absent from the world. There was never a time the world was not imbued with God’s spirit.
A student of evolutionary cosmology as astute as Cardinal Ratzinger / Pope Benedict is not going to miss the consonance between the spirituality of an ancient and dynamic universe and the words of Genesis 1:1-2: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”
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Charlemagne_II
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inocente
**But you didn’t really answer my question, which was if the CCC, the Pope and the Bible spend a lot more time on Christ than Genesis, why do you think Genesis has assumed such importance to others, even in the face of evidence that it pushes young people out of church? **
Genesis doesn’t push people out of the Church. People pull themselves out of the Church for any number of reasons, but Genesis is certainly not one of them by a long shot.
**But you didn’t really answer my question, which was if the CCC, the Pope and the Bible spend a lot more time on Christ than Genesis, why do you think Genesis has assumed such importance to others, even in the face of evidence that it pushes young people out of church? **
Genesis doesn’t push people out of the Church. People pull themselves out of the Church for any number of reasons, but Genesis is certainly not one of them by a long shot.
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tonyrey
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tonyrey
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Of course I do but that doesn’t mean God made the soul out of physical particles…
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tonyrey
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StAnastasia
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Yes it tallies!
I’m not. I’m comparing the role of plumber with the role of biologist.
I never said that; those are your words.
True.
True.
Some of these have been explained, some have not.
Again, your words, not mine. Some instances of horrible suffering not prevented by a loving God. I’m sure you will have an answer for these:
Ancient conquests that destroyed families and killed or enslaved millions of people, including young children.
The Black Death (bubonic plague) of 1348-50.
Hundred Years’ War
Thirty Years’ Wat
The Fire of London (1666)
Mayan and Aztec human sacrifice allowed to proceed unchecked for centuries.
1556 Shaanxi earthquake (830,000 dead)
Enslavement of Africans
The Hindenburg disaster
Sinking of the Titanic, Lusitania, and numerous other vessels
Soviet famine of 1932–1933 (Holodomor) 7-10 million dead
Bombing of Pearl harbor, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki
World War I
World War II
The Nazi “Holocaust”
Japanese Internment
Destruction of the World Trade Towers
Japanese tsunami of 2011
Lou Gehrig’s Disease
Alzheimer’s Disease
Huntington’s chorea
Fibrodisplaysia Ossificans Progressiva that turns all a child’s muscles into a second skeleton before it kills her
Cancers of all sorts
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nonanon
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I think the view that God needs to work through “scientifically inexplicable” events is too narrow. God isn’t limited in this way.
He who designed and created time, space, matter, and energy can surely design his plan to unfold by “natural” means just as well, including use of “chaotic” and “random” phenomena that are inevitably just beyond our ability to measure and predict.
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Charlemagne_II
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StAnastasia
****Again, your words, not mine. Some instances of horrible suffering not prevented by a loving God. I’m sure you will have an answer for these:
Ancient conquests that destroyed families and killed or enslaved millions of people, including young children.
The Black Death (bubonic plague) of 1348-50.
Hundred Years’ War
Thirty Years’ Wat
The Fire of London (1666)
Mayan and Aztec human sacrifice allowed to proceed unchecked for centuries.
1556 Shaanxi earthquake (830,000 dead)
Enslavement of Africans
The Hindenburg disaster
Sinking of the Titanic, Lusitania, and numerous other vessels
Soviet famine of 1932–1933 (Holodomor) 7-10 million dead
Bombing of Pearl harbor, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki
World War I
World War II
The Nazi “Holocaust”
Japanese Internment
Destruction of the World Trade Towers
Japanese tsunami of 2011
Lou Gehrig’s Disease
Alzheimer’s Disease
Huntington’s chorea
Fibrodisplaysia Ossificans Progressiva that turns all a child’s muscles into a second skeleton before it kills her
Cancers of all sorts ****
I expect God has the answers, even if we don’t.
Do you not believe there is a God who has the answers?
****Again, your words, not mine. Some instances of horrible suffering not prevented by a loving God. I’m sure you will have an answer for these:
Ancient conquests that destroyed families and killed or enslaved millions of people, including young children.
The Black Death (bubonic plague) of 1348-50.
Hundred Years’ War
Thirty Years’ Wat
The Fire of London (1666)
Mayan and Aztec human sacrifice allowed to proceed unchecked for centuries.
1556 Shaanxi earthquake (830,000 dead)
Enslavement of Africans
The Hindenburg disaster
Sinking of the Titanic, Lusitania, and numerous other vessels
Soviet famine of 1932–1933 (Holodomor) 7-10 million dead
Bombing of Pearl harbor, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki
World War I
World War II
The Nazi “Holocaust”
Japanese Internment
Destruction of the World Trade Towers
Japanese tsunami of 2011
Lou Gehrig’s Disease
Alzheimer’s Disease
Huntington’s chorea
Fibrodisplaysia Ossificans Progressiva that turns all a child’s muscles into a second skeleton before it kills her
Cancers of all sorts ****
I expect God has the answers, even if we don’t.
Do you not believe there is a God who has the answers?
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StAnastasia
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Elizabeth502
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StAnastasia
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grannymh
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People, who view the world through the lens of science, can easily agree and that is wonderful in itself.
However, when one uses only the lens of the empirical method, one experiences extreme difficulty in finding the spiritual soul which connects humans to our Creator God. It isn’t that our ability to measure and predict events in the material/physical domain is faulty; it is that God and the spiritual soul are in a different domain.
Obviously, our Creator God can use “natural” means to unfold His plan for the cosmos. What some, not all, people with only scientific vision may miss is that God is “supernatural” when it came to the creation of the human person, you and I. Our human nature unites both the natural domain and the supernatural domain into one single person, you, me, who belong to an unique species founded in an unique manner.
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tonyrey
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Please explain how.
Why?
Please explain when and how God intervenes in human affairs.
So science cannot explain the spiritual aspect of reality?
What evidence is there that He cares?
Can science explain in principle every apparent miracle and answer to prayer?
- Is your list of evils conclusive evidence that horrible suffering is never prevented by a loving God?
- Do you regard it as conclusive evidence that God is not omnipotent or not infinitely good?
- How do you reconcile those evils with your Christian faith - or do you think it is impossible?
- If it is impossible why are you a Christian?
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tonyrey
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- Do you believe God **never **works through scientifically inexplicable events?
- Do you reject **all **miracles?
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tonyrey
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tonyrey
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