Water cannot be transformed into good wine

[Spock]

Come ON Spock, you know the Church teaches you aren’t in a state of mortal sin if you don’t KNOW the sin is mortal when you commit it. At least pretend that there’s a rational argument you can impose against the Church for it’s “failure” to teach you every mortal sin in the book.

I was told, but I deny that having sex without the intent to procreate (and attempting to prevent it) is a mortal sin. Is it or is it not? It is pretty rational.

Give me 3 examples in Church moral teaching where it contradicts another moral teaching of itself. Cite Papal Encyclicals and the Catechism.

Here is one contradiction. God is perfectly just and perfectly merciful. That is a contradiction. Can you see it?

 

[Spock]

Come ON Spock, you know the Church teaches you aren’t in a state of mortal sin if you don’t KNOW the sin is mortal when you commit it. At least pretend that there’s a rational argument you can impose against the Church for it’s “failure” to teach you every mortal sin in the book.

I was told, but I deny that having sex without the intent to procreate (and attempting to prevent it) is a mortal sin. Is it or is it not? Do I “know” it when I was told, but I reject it? That is the question here. If rejecting it a good excuse, then there is no “mortal sin” since I reject even the concept of mortal sin (any sin, for that matter) and as such I must be allowed into heaven, since I am without sin at all. What is the offical teaching of the Church here? Is there one???

Give me 3 examples in Church moral teaching where it contradicts another moral teaching of itself. Cite Papal Encyclicals and the Catechism.

Here is one contradiction. God is perfectly just and perfectly merciful. That is a contradiction. Can you see it?

 

[davidv]

Gimme a break. To demand full responsibility and NOT giving out the proper information is unjust. If you cannot see that, there is nothing to talk about.

Not responsive to the question posted. What is “full responsibility”?

Ah, yes. So now I am liar.

Your word, not mine. Care to address the point?

Who says it is his creation?

It in the evidence.

You try to use the hypothesis as a supporting argument. Elementary fallacy.

Because the church’s teaching is self-contradictory.

Bare assertions are deregarded.

My intellect and the basic principles tell me that having sex without the intent to conceive (and trying to prevent it) is a rational position (and it is not necessarily a “missionary” position… on the very contrary).

Your principles are lacking in coming to this conclusion. So what you are clearly saying is that you would not abide by rules of sexual morality.

No, because that teaching always comes through the mouth of individuals. And because there is NO officially declared and endorsed list of teachings anywhere. The church’s teaching is kept ambiguous.

Unfounded assertion.

Sure it can. The teaching is full of contradictions.

I am talking about the apperent lack of “love” from God, who OBVIOUSLY does not care about our existence here and now.

Unfounded assertion.

You really should not make such knee-jerk answers. You asked if I would not like “eternal bliss”, and if I would consider the price too high. I answered that I find any kind of eternal a horrible idea - in other words (if I really have to explain in detail) I was talking about my personal opinion. It is not “binding” on anyone else. You should take it seriously, because to doubt it would call me a liar again, and in one post it is enough to call someone else a liar once. By the way, you are getting very close to get on my ignore list. Of course it should not matter to you. After all I am just a lying infidel.

Not response to the point. I did not call you a liar, you took on that lable yourself.

 

[Heuchler]

There are no “miracles”, only stories about miracles. There are no historical evidences, only stories about alleged history. You say that I believe that “every human being is going to lie” - what is your evidence for that? Just got it out of thin air, did you? There are no logical arguments, only fallacies.

My heart is nicely pumping blood, thank you very much. It has nothing to do with the question at hand, and your inane little euphemisms carry no weight whatsoever. I explicitly ask for evidence, and I get none.

1. You, believers say that God wishes everyone to be “saved”.
2. If God exists, he must know that I only accept actual, physical, observable proof.
3. He is able to provide that , according to your stories.
4. If he would care about my salvation, he would provide it.
5. I explictly ask for such demonstration. There is none. Period.

Your sniding little remark about my “hardened heart” is just another attempt to wiggle out from the fact, that your assertion about God “wishing everyone to be saved” is just another unfounded and empty proposition. And you think that I should trust you, who is not even willing to admit that? Think again.

I think that just proved my point that, he rejects all evidence we could have and will accept essentially nothing. Once again, “Atheism is a disease of the soul before it is an error of understanding.” He has found his only argument (which is incompattible with free will) and he will stick with it.

 

[FurtherSuntime]

Just thinking out loud, no biggy.

I don’t want to know. No way, it leaves me without decisions which are informed through a need to express myself who I really like. Once a person would know lets say, whats left…its over. Always felt sorry for the suggested seer’s, how can they know or feel like they know who they really are.We would be zombies following a program…just like robots…I don’t think responsibility is the right word because it suggests a specific accounting, as in itemization. An invoice so to say. There are deductibles, expenses and so forth , legitimate realities… Everything must be relative. If not…I will request a rain check on the whole deal.

mortal sin by act has got to be relative. (self defence…theres no end to examples) therefore mortal sin by thought must be relative. this is logical. …therefore the only measuring stick possible would be through a god…this again would be logical…it would seem logical that mortal sin would comprise an absolute willfully maintained rejection of all common sense available to a given individual. anyone who tries to say more is up against contradiction and has a contradictory brain to go along for the ride. i’m not coming back to defend this you guys…so you’ll have to deal with this and save me from the usual treat for the day,…upside down cake.

No no I don’t think God picks and choose’s…look at the sun shining, its the god sun, always there basically …theres no baloney , man adds the baloney to the sandwich. So the god-love is really more god acceptance in the continuing shining sun. that is so interesting, we began with the sun idea…man will prob return to the common sense of it:thumbsup: Signs of god love in man is a toughie…I’ll grant that one with ease…but again if somebody rips me off…thats not my problem…i didn’t create them or the idea…thats their problem, their headache in existence and
and so easily a distraction from whatever is going on…god loving even in the small things would be picking and choosing…the sun just shines on all in available acceptance

eternal existence is not eternal…it is without hassle and therefore timeless, just like a great day or a big embrace…no thinking required…just bring your toothbrush and trunks:thumbsup:
i got other deals in this area …but not to go off topic

teaching must be translated into actual application in order to apply … common sense rules…a system is responsible to common sense, otherwise it contradicts…translation must meet common sense which shows the fundemental purpose in the system in highest regard.

highest regard then in my books or translation is
god would be available and is… love-acceptence at all times for everyone:thumbsup:

 

[tonyrey]

In other words, you ignore my posts because they refute your bias dogmatic and warped understanding of the scientific method. I am sorry if i don’t easily roll over to the irrationalities of scientism.

It’s ironic - and highly convenient - that a dogmatic atheist avoids answering posts he cannot refute on the ground that their authors are dogmatic!

 

[Pieman333272]

I was told, but I deny that having sex without the intent to procreate (and attempting to prevent it) is a mortal sin. Is it or is it not? Do I “know” it when I was told, but I reject it? That is the question here. If rejecting it a good excuse, then there is no “mortal sin” since I reject even the concept of mortal sin (any sin, for that matter) and as such I must be allowed into heaven, since I am without sin at all. What is the offical teaching of the Church here? Is there one???

If you know what the Church teaches, but reject it, it is a mortal sin (unless you repent). There are some exceptions - such as you living in a vastly different culture - but I doubt you personally qualify for any of them.

Here is one contradiction. God is perfectly just and perfectly merciful. That is a contradiction. Can you see it?

I can see that you THINK it is a contradiction, but it’s not. Justice sometimes entails somebody getting hurt. Suck it up. If you think God can be more “merciful” you are just inserting hyper-pacifist views of justice on God.

The ONE and ONLY proper defense against the problem of evil would be a case-by-case clear argument which would explain why that particual instance of suffering was logically necessary to bring forth a greater good, which would not have materialized if the suffering would have been just one iota less. That is all. Yes, you heard me, each and every one instance needs explanation. The usual nonsense, that “maybe” there was some unknown and unknowable “greater good”, if only we would have known about it, is ridiculous. William Lane Craig uses that kind of a nonsense. The funny stuff is that you cannot even explain even one instance, much less all of them.

More meaningless opinion Spock. Loaded terms like “nonsense” and “unknown and unknowable” do not constitute an argument, whatever your ego may like to think.

Why is it the believer’s burden to prove God stopping the disaster then and there was not the best method?

Why do skeptics not have a burden to go on a case-by-case basis and prove there is one way which is faster and better for each case?

Do you have a more intelligent response to the “greater good” response, or are you just throwing out what you don’t like?

I can provide multiple instances where God’s not direct intervening was the best option, all considered.

If the examples brought up are emotionally charged, that is not a problem. After all unnecessary suffering should be an emotionally chared issue.

Obviously there is SOME emotion in the issue. But the whole issue cannot ride solely on emotion as its means of concluding the Christian God and evil in the world are mutually exclusive. The least you could do is present a deductive form of the “problem”, which you, like 3 others I challenged, didn’t do.

But here is a non-emotional problem: what is the greater good coming from allowing a cockroach being burned to death in a wildfire? No one feels particlarly “emotional” about the fate of a roach, but its suffering of of a fiery death is unnecessary, even if its death might be useful.

The answer, of course, is that there is no evil in that happening. Cockroaches cannot feel severe pain beyond a tingle (at best) and have no sense of awareness, no sense of life and death, no sense of purpose and nihilism, nothing by which any suffering could be brought about by the “problem” you list.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

No, they do not. And it is not relevant in this discussion.

I believe it is relevant. Plato and Aristotle are not even Christian, Spock, yet their teachings on logic especially are quite helpful in evaluating and arguing Christian teaching. I surprised somebody as logical as you does not see the value in having a good foundation from such. And again, I see them as being relevant because their insights into reality, being, essence etc. would show you where you have fallen into error in some of your arguments you have been making about how, for example, if you THINK there is only one way for you to know or do something there IS only one way.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I was told, but I deny that having sex without the intent to procreate (and attempting to prevent it) is a mortal sin. Is it or is it not? Do I “know” it when I was told, but I reject it? That is the question here. If rejecting it a good excuse, then there is no “mortal sin” since I reject even the concept of mortal sin (any sin, for that matter) and as such I must be allowed into heaven, since I am without sin at all. What is the offical teaching of the Church here? Is there one???

Here is one contradiction. God is perfectly just and perfectly merciful. That is a contradiction. Can you see it?

No, I can’t. As human beings, all we can come up with **on our OWN merits and using nothing but our OWN brains, is IMPERFECT justice and IMPERFECT mercy concepts. **

Since God is perfect, HIS concepts of justice and mercy will be perfect --and will not be in contradiction to each other.

Next problem?

 

[wheels10]

When ever I see that question or questions like it it seems as though the person asking also views these concepts as something that have a tangible embodiment and that there exists a vessel of pure good or a vessel of pure evil from which all things that are classified as good or evil have been doused. This is much different than another interpretation that could come from the wording; "Do you believe there exist mental classifications which many people label with the words “good” and “evil” into which people will classify some things.

Fine, we’ll use your wording then. How would you classify premeditated murder? Good or evil?

 

[benedictus2]

Next time, when I will say that there are no fairies and leprechauns, you will probably ask for positive proof of their nonexistence. As soon as you will present the positive proof for the nonexistence of the Flying Spagetti Monster - I will present mine. A hint: there can be no positive proof for the nonexistence of something, unless that purported “thing” is a logical contradiction, like a married bachelor, or a God who is both perfectly just and perfectly merciful.

Exactly!!!

So therefore, that you do not believe in miracles or in God is a matter of …(drum roll)…** faith**. All that critical thinking camouflage is just that… camouflage.

 

[benedictus2]

It’s ironic - and highly convenient - that a dogmatic atheist avoids answering posts he cannot refute on the ground that their authors are dogmatic!

Too true. Succinct and to the the point! Good one!

 

[benedictus2]

I think that just proved my point that, he rejects all evidence we could have and will accept essentially nothing. Once again, “Atheism is a disease of the soul before it is an error of understanding.” He has found his only argument (which is incompattible with free will) and he will stick with it.

I think that we can safely say that that is a most valid conclusion

 

[benedictus2]

Not surprisingly, I agree with Spock and disagree with the rest of y’all

From the Catechism:

Faith is a grace:

Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. “Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and ‘makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth.’”

This says to me that if we do not have faith, it is God’s fault for not giving us it.

…so either it’s God’s fault, or God does not exist and the above section and everything based on it is written by fallible men under the delusion that the Holy Spirit was guiding them.

And I disagree with you because we can reject grace and thus reject faith. God offers the grace. Atheists are atheists by wilfull choice. Not because they have not been given the grace.

One can prove this by the fact that atheism is irrational. If one starts using reason, then one can be led to truth.

Atheists who have not been exposed to a rational defense of the faith, well fair enough if they don’t believe. Those who have been exposed and who claim to be “critical thinkers” then that is another matter.

There is another atheist member here who after thinking things out realized that the position is wrong so he called himself a “metaphysical naturalist” instead. But even that term is contradictory. Metaphysical means “beyond physics” so how can a naturalist conceive of what is “beyond physics” if nature is all there is.

 

[greylorn]

No question about that. But that does not mean that we merely discover stuff, which is “aready out there”. We actively create brand new “worlds”, so to speak. Your proposition already includes the minds, who do the “enumeration”, and “manipulation” of numbers.

I’m delighted to find someone who regards this kind of topic as worth discussion, and is equipped to discuss it. Let us enjoy this. I put a libation in hand before replying and propose that you do the same, using your mind to create a world in which we are sitting in some form of body around a campfire in the autumn woods, imbibing a fine cognac and smoking Cuban cigars to keep the mosquitoes and women away.

Kindly allow me to soften you up by agreeing completely with your first proposition.

Then I would add, are the inventions of our minds which are original to us, original in an absolute sense? I believe that this is possible, yet my experience says otherwise. Upon first developing some of the ideas which I’ve expressed on CAF, I did nothing with them, figuring that someone else had long ago come to the identical conclusions and published them. They seemed so obvious and logical to me that I could not imagine otherwise. Yet I’ve not found them anywhere.

(I am certain that if I publish them to some measure of success, the woodwork will explode with others claiming my notions for themselves. If my presentation fails, we won’t hear a peep, twitter, or scraping of cockroach legs from the same smarmy lot.)

History shows us many examples of duplicate complex ideas— Newton and Leibniz both discovering calculus, Darwin and Wallace getting a similar handle on critter changes.

This raises the arcane question, where is the stuff we discover? The automobile exists in physical space, but in mental space, the Egyptians or some other old culture invented it. We simply added an extra pair of wheels, moved the horses under a cabinet at the front, replaced the reins with steering gear, and added seats.

I now believe that it is possible for any mind to invent a concept which has not been previously invented by another mind. This appears to be true if the number of possible concepts is infinite, as I suspect. Yet I don’t think that there are answers to the question, but it certainly raises other questions.

For example, I believe in a Creator, and as a consequence that this Creator is either directly or indirectly responsible for the biological machine through which I explore and interpret the universe, the planet providing its support system, the atoms from which it is constructed.

Like many others I’d like to learn more about the workings of these things, but rather than take the scientific approach of trying to figure them out by ripping them apart, I believe that a better approach is to understand their workings by reinventing them. This would involve, in effect, the discovery of something which already exists in mind-space.

And, since the Creator in Whom I believe is not omniscient, I can, and have adopted the conclusion that even I can think of things which He, She, It, or They have not yet thought of.

This is not a big deal. I assume, with one exception, that most of the innovations I might discover are there for discovery only because greater minds neglected them.

Of course I agree that the property of “enumerable” exists objectively. But the numbers to do the “enumeration” are “created” by the mind. In mathematics the theory of prime numbers is one of the most beautiful concepts. There is the theorem, which says that every positive integer can be factorized by multiplying its factors (prime factors) in one and only one way, disregarding the order of the factors (for example 6 = 2 * 3). An awesomely beautiful theorem… but is it really “universally true”? No, it is not. If those hypothetical mathematicians from the Arcturus would happen to use a different notational system, like defining integers as “a + b * sqrt(-5)”, then the prime number theorem does not hold any more. In that system 6 would be either “2 * 3” or (1 + sqrt(-5))*(1 - sqrt(-5)), two different factorizations.

While we commonly speak of the theory of prime numbers, do we not really mean, The Theory of Prime Integers? Of course I would not expect a theory of integers to apply to fractions, complex numbers, or vectors.

My sense of things is far more basic. I believe that minds naturally discover certain basic mathematical concepts. So far as I know, even primitive societies of men know how to count. I also believe that the same concepts we are so proud of discovering have been found by more advanced beings, long ago because they are available for discovery.

(Submitted w/o edits to beat the coming power outage.)

 

[greylorn]

So non-churgoers are exempt from rational discourse? Hmmm

Of course not. Only nitwits, dogmatists, and combinations thereof—

and those who cannot spell competently yet are too full of themselves to bother paying attention to spell-checker feedback.

 

[Credo_in_Deum]

In order for water to be changed into wine, carbon atoms must be created. Water is made of oxygen and hydrogen— H[sub]2[/sub]O. Ethanol, an essential ingredient in all booze requires carbon. Its formula is C[sub]2[/sub]H[sub]6[/sub]O. But wine is more than a mix of alcohol and water— it includes complex tannins, esters, and unidentified exotic hydrocarbons, A fine wine will contain more than 1000 different chemicals, all sensitive to temperature and pressure. As any pretentious snob knows, fine wines will be destroyed by excessive temperature.

It is chemically impossible to manufacture ethanol from water because water has no carbon. However, it is atomically possible. Three water molecules could supply the necessary atoms. If two Oxygen atoms (each with 6 protons and electrons) were stripped of a pair of protons and electrons, they would become two Carbon atoms (4 protons and electrons). Unfortunately the extra parts do not disappear into la-la land, but will probably end up as a pair of Helium atoms, plus the excess binding energy which held the original Oxygen atoms together.

That excess binding energy is described by the simple equation, E=mc[sup]2[/sup].

Much of this excess energy will be released as ordinary heat. It turns out that the splitting of Oxygen into Carbon and Helium will have a similar effect as the splitting of Uranium-235 or Plutonium into other stuff. This will cause a sudden and violent release of nuclear energy, commonly referred to as nuclear fission, as what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the nuclear reduction of only a few pounds of material.

A 10-gallon cask of water, enough to finish off a good party if it was transformed into wine, would weigh about 83 pounds. I’m too far away from my last atomic physics class to do the calculations, but given that a good wine needs at least 10% ethanol, converting 10% of a 10 gallon (83 pound) keg requires the nuclear fission of about 8.3 pounds of matter, roughly the amount in the Nagasaki bomb,

The heat would have surely ruined the wine.

If it could have been explainable by science then it wouldn’t have been a miracle.
[SIGN]
mir·a·cle

**noun **

1. an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.
2. such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God.
3. a wonder; marvel.
   [/SIGN]

 

[greylorn]

We tend to take for granted that multiplication is “commutative”, that is “a * b = b * a” and tend to think that it is universally true. Again, it is not. We can create a generalized type of numbers (called vectors and matrices) where “a * b” is perfectly well defined, but “b * a” cannot be defined at all - or, if it can be defined, it will yield a different result from “a * b”. (I am sure you as a physicist already know all that, but I just wanted to point it out for the sake of clarity).

I think that most people who actually know how to multiply simply learn the rules. I grew up solving math problems without ever having heard the word, commutative. I recall struggling with the abstract definitions and theorem of commutativity until I realized that it was about something I already knew.

And again I’m the last person in the world to be surprised that it does not apply generally. I am as unwilling to accept the belief that all forms of numeric expression are commutative, as that all women know how to dance (as I believed before learning to dance).

It is not that simple. In Euclidean geometry the sum of the angles in a triangle is exactly 180 degrees (or “pi”), but in the Riemann geometry the sum is always greater than that, and in the Gauss-Bolyai-Lobatchewsi geometry the sum is always less than that.

Agreed. Yet, would it not be fair to expect that a mind capable of mastering Riemann geometry would have learned Euclidian forms on its path to understanding, and therefore recognize them immediately?

The point here is that mathematics, geometry and all the other abstract systems are based upon arbitrarily chosen axioms. Not all axiomatic systems are equally useful, of course, but as long as they are without internal inconsistencies, they are all “valid” - and they are all creations of the mind. Some can be “mapped” quite well onto the physical reality, but that is just a lucky incident.

Yes! They are based upon axioms of variable usefulness, Yes, internal consistency is a measure of validity— but not necessarily a measure of immediate usefulness. Yes they are creations of the mind.

Yet, when the axioms are chosen by a mind which is normally focused upon short-dimensional examples of particle-based reality, it seems to me more inevitable than lucky that the resultant mathematical forms apply to that reality.

 

[benedictus2]

Of course not. Only nitwits, dogmatists, and combinations thereof—

Is that why you think you are exempt?

 

[benedictus2]

and those who cannot spell competently yet are too full of themselves to bother paying attention to spell-checker feedback.

Hey, it’s no news that my posts are full of typos. Even my friends have told me off. So deal with it.

But here’s an interesting fact, intelligent people can still understand what’s being said despite the typos.