Thank you.
Nope. That is NOT Christian theology. At all.
How did you *EVER * get from the part you bolded in my post to your conclusion? God created us. We belong to Him. We can murder and kill and slaughter because in doing so we take lives that DO NOT BELONG TO US. God cannot because our lives BELONG TO HIM.
I didn’t think that you made-up anything - at least not consciously. I’ve been accused of doing that and I know what it feels like. I was hoping that you misunderstood. You obviously didn’t. But then I shouldn’t have been shocked because there are some very cruel, evil people that happen to claim membership in the Catholic Church just as there are very cruel, evil people that happen to claim membership in every other church and faith in the world.
There is one. And He is Love, literally.
Oh how I agree with you here! My sister has a history book from an elementary school that she somehow ended up with (I think the school staff decided that it wouldn’t be used again; she didn’t steal it). Over about 15 years we changed the history in that book by writing comments in it, drawing, whatever (yeah, I know books should be treated with respect but this was one awful book and it did belong to my sister; I’m not putting this statement in here for you but for anyone who thinks that what we did was wrong). I’ve probably read that book ten times. And it’s laughable. The US won the Revolutionary War because we were right and England was wrong and finally decided that their soldiers couldn’t win because we were just so good at fighting and the English marched and blew their bugles while we clever Americans hid behind trees and waited until we could see the “whites of their eyes” before firing our squirrel guns and THAT is why we won. No mention of the French. Just heroic, patriotic Americans giving their lives for freedom. And Paul Revere with his famous midnight ride that he never made. Over and over, mistake after mistake. I’m sure it’s just as bad today.
There are laws which trump man-made laws. Divine Laws are not subject to change and are not decided by consensus. Every human being, even one on a desert island, has rights. Whether she is given those rights by other human beings and whether those rights are even recognized by other human beings is one thing. But that those rights exist is fact. Certainly God does not recognize unjust laws written and enacted by fallible, sinning human beings. And Catholics are not required to adhere to unjust laws. That is definitely Church teaching (and I can find it in the CCC because I was very active in a medical marijuana thread and used that teaching as the basis for my position).
So if a group of sinning, fallible people convicted God for allegedly breaking the covenant with them that means that God broke the covenant? I don’t think so. I think it means that this group of Jews who convicted God did not understand that God does not break covenants.
ATHEIST: Isn’t that irrational?
I am very glad that you do not see the world in black and white. All your questions must be considered as valid and proper questions - because one size does not fit all. I am most willing to explore each and every one of them.
Ah, the Kohlberg’s stages. It has been decades since I encountered them, in a slightly different format. It that scenario there were 5 stages. But that hardly matters. Unlike the “collective subconscious” it is a legitimate attempt to categorize the level of morality. We can again explore them in due course.
Not just my opinion. It means “give in to the agressor”. It encourages the abusive behavior. The problem of conflict resolution is very complicated, it can be studied as part of game theory. Depending on the pay-off matrix, there must be a balance and a mixture between the cooperative and the adversarial strategies. Neither the “meek”-type of “do not resist evil” nor the “let us retaliate”-type of strategy works well.
Unfortunately he never shows his face and does not wield the sword of Justitia. So, I will have to continue my skeptic ways. As I said, it would be nice… but I don’t see either him, or his actions.
Two questions here. Where are those laws? And, PLEASE, do not say that nonsense that they are inscribed in the human heart. And second, who enforces those laws? God most certainly does NOT. And an unenforced law is not worth the price of the paper it is NOT written upon.
We are looking at the same thing and see two different things. You say that there are “rights”, but they are “violated”. I say that there are “no rights”. Where is the enforcer of those alleged “rights”? By the way, I am always willing to contemplate “facts”. How are you going to substantiate that the existence of those “rights” is a “fact”??
Unfortunately God is too gun-shy. He never comes out of his heavenly abode, and says: “ok, guys, enough is enough”. From now on, you will behave, or the retribution will happen right here and now!
Out of sheer curiousity: what was your position? I would be willing to bet dollars to cents that your position was like mine: “the prohibition of marijuana is wrong!” - even though we might disagree on certain points…
Those poor Jews - survivors of the unspeakable horror of the concentration camps were right to conduct such a trial. Too bad that God (as usual) never showed up and told “his side of the story”. Without the “defense” ever showing up, the “prosecution” automatically wins - by default. What is funny is that those Jews kept on worshipping Yahweh anyway… now that I cannot comprehend.
Not exactly but pretty close. There is no “one size fits all” strategy. (And don’t worry too much about game theory, it takes a few years in college to learn it, but even intuitively you can grasp some of its results.)Spock, I have been searching for a post that I thought you wrote but I can’t find it. But when I read it (part of it was about game theory) I put it in the back of my mind and thought about it for awhile. I don’t know anything about game theory (sadly enough, as I should) and I googled it but I’m kind of groggy from pain meds and not thinking at my best right now.
There was something you said (and I may have it all wrong) but it bothered me. I got the impression that you believe that being kind and compassionate are good because by being that way you end up receiving what you want - more so than if you acted in a cruel, “bad” way.
Is this your position?
Very well… Let us explore this scenario. I will copy and modify the atheist’s answers, but leave the believer’s text alone… since I am not in the position to speak for them.
So you could actually argue instead of evading the arguments.If the catholic claims that he is going to give a fully rational answer and then immediately violates his own stipulation then he is not worth to consider… since he contradicted himself. Age has nothing to do with it. Rationality does - and you failed. I am most certainly willing to consider a “catholic” answer, but only if it is based on reason and not on “blind faith”. I am not interested in hearing unsupported dogma. If you cannot present a rational argument, then you have no reason to participate.You are shifting the topic, Spock. The atheist asked the Catholic what he would do if God ordered him to do this or that. That is a question about Catholic theology, and the Catholic offered the Catholic answer. The atheist then attacked an article of faith with an appeal to Scripture (as interpreted and presented by him). Here, too, the atheist asked a Catholic question, and the Catholic gave the Catholic answer. Supporting the underpinning reasoning of the answers is an altogether different topic - that of religious apologetics. The Catholic gave answers proper to the discussion, and then the atheist shifted the discussion to something else entirely.
The reason I say you hold to a caricature is because it is absolutely true. You hold to pretty asinine ideas about infallible lists and so forth, and then you comment on how convenient it is that we don’t meet your false expectations. I corrected you months ago on why these ideas are terrible, but you still cling onto them. I was not surprised to learn that you are quite an old man, so maybe I should forgive the senility.
And this is the world your supposedly loving God deliberately created (remember he’s all-knowing AND all-powerful). A world where everyone deserves to be tortured forever after they die.
God is the owner so he has a right to treat his property however he likes then?Thank you.
Nope. That is NOT Christian theology. At all.
How did you *EVER * get from the part you bolded in my post to your conclusion? God created us. We belong to Him. We can murder and kill and slaughter because in doing so we take lives that DO NOT BELONG TO US. God cannot because our lives BELONG TO HIM.
There’s the expression: die like a dog. No one shrugs that off. Any human being who is put down like a dog,even to light classical, is not a happy person Men and women constantly look ahead; dogs, only to their next meal, as far as we know.
God is the creator. He treats each creature in accordance with its nature. He treats human beings in accordance with their nature, as intelligent creatures. That is, as beings who have the ability to perceive things in way different from other animals. He owns us as he owns each minute particle and wave of matter. But there is something else: Something that enables us to move independently, in a way that things of comparable mass cannot move, and without lifting a finger. “Man is a reed, but a thinking reed,” as Pascal said.God is the owner so he has a right to treat his property however he likes then?
Like any society that has lasted a long time, there are fashions. I think the bowdlerization you observed is more of a fashion of a certain period rather than a main current of Catholic thought. There are for example, depictions of naked monks climbing up the trellis of convents, that appear in the margin of prayer books.
I meant foreigners. As you probably expect, I like Spanish American immigration because it increases the number of Catholics in the country. I hope you did not construe the comment otherwise. Immigration control is undertaken by most modern governments on secular bases. Officially, our government does not enact or promulgate immigration laws for religious purposes. Obviously, the amount of immigration is in part linked to the amount of native reproduction. The number of people in a country is a national concern of modern, secular governments. I was saying that to that extent, the Catholic regulation of sexual conduct could be viewed as acheiving a secular end.
As am I. It might be worthwhile to add that our agreement on many things does not come as a surprise. Both the thinking atheist, like you (as opposed to the doctrinaire one, like a Pol Pot or Kim Jung Il) and the traditional Catholic, like me, have this in common: whatever our disagreement on who or what is or is not God, we both refuse to worship the government or the capitalist.
See, this is where you err. No where did I claim I was going to engage in religious apologetics. You asked for the Catholic view on a question, and I gasp gave you an outline of the Catholic views. Supporting those views with religious apologetics was not part of the question.
If I answer your question as posed, Spock will (rightly) accuse me of derailing his thread.