Thats it? Just a difference in productivity.
You are theorizing an ultimate power that can create ultimate powers? Such a being would be logically redundant.Thats it? Just a difference in productivity.
Both are still Atheists. Jesus should be an agnostic. A much higher power could be testing him. And the much higher power could have chosen to remain as invisible to him, as Jesus is invisible to us.
Its a ladder.
Plants —> Insects —> animals —> humans —> jesus ----> unknown higher power
this should be in its own thread.
In addition to having put in a few more hours in, He is also uncreated. There is no endless chain.
FINALLY, someone sees the Light! :clapping: :dancing: :extrahappy: :tiphat: :bounce:
Agnos, you hardly do yourself or your position any favors here with this bit of sophistry. If we define a theist as one who believes in a higher power, then yes, God must be an atheist because there is no higher power than God (definitionally) and by definition God does not believe in anything, he knows.
Peary,
Doesn’t objective research show that people were burned alive at the stake for disagreeing with the Church on some issue or another? And if a secular authority did not go along with the burning at the stake, then he was excommunicated from the Church?
i will answer this on the other thread.
I didn’t know about this. Can you please supply a bit more background or reference for this? For example, was this approved by the Greek Patriarch, the Head of the Orthodox Church, or was it an operation of a few dissidents? What type of torture was it? Did it involve burning people alive at the stake?
The historical record shows that it were the Protestants that did most of the burning, not the Church.
Personally, I am against burning people alive at the stake, regardless of who would do it. I thought I read somewhere that the Inquisition was setup primarily for Catholics who had disagreed with the Church on some issue. And that they were tortured and in some cases that they were burned alive at the stake. Later on, the Church said that some of the people were burned alive by mistake, and they were made into saints.
Provinces usually were left to their own devices. Usually, ‘penitents’ were given severe penances after they recanted their heretical views more often than not. Some went so far as public execution (i.e., Joan of Arc) who was burned at the stake. At the time, you must remember that the ‘government’ and ‘church’ law went hand-in-hand and decisions were made together by bishop representatives to these hearings and those running the towns and villages. The pope actually had little control over these situations.
One of the great causes of the Eastern Schism was over the Eucharist, unfortunately. In the west, Greek churches were ransacked and their Eucharists desecrated by fanatics who forced them to use unleavened hosts. The pope knew what was going on at the time but he chose not to get involved. In the east, however, this enraged the patriarch of Constantinople who ordered Latin-rite churches in the area to be ransacked and hosts desecrated and these churches were forced to use leavened bread with wine. During these intentional riots in both sides of the Empire, people were killed over it. I don’t think it involved public execution by burning at the stake, as this was a European form of execution in the Middle Ages (i.e., Joan of Arc) and in the 1600s in the American colonies.
Yes there were some people burned alive at the stake. I think the point was that the extent of the Inquisition and the likelihood of being burned at the stake are all greatly exagerated in the modern media. To listen to some people, you would think that the Inquisition was by far the worst atrocity in history up to the Holocaust.
More often that not people would appeal to the Church inquisition from the judgment of the local governmental official knowing that penance was better than execution.
the media exaggerates it and catholics downplay it. the truth should be somewhere in the middle.
The Church doesn’t downplay it. It is simple really, the amount of attention given to the Inquisition is totally out of proportion to the numbers actually killed or tortured by it.