What would you do if it were proven...?

[samiam1611]

Umm…no, sam. I’m pretty sure she didn’t “call heliocentrism a heresy”.

Nuh-uh. No way. It was* never* a heresy.

Now, if you’d like to prove me wrong, please provide a source, from the Magisterium of the Church, which declared it to be so.

These words, in the document from the 17th century, would be helpful:

• heresy
• “we infallibly declare”
• “we hereby define”

or words to that effect.

OK Professor you got me :bowdown2: It seems the Church was opposed to heliocentrism as a literal explanation (Decree of 1616), prohibited books about it (Index Librorum Prohibitorum), and the experts at the Holy Office called the idea that the earth moves around the sun “formally heretical,” but apparently although the Pope passed along this message, he did not officially endorse it.

catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=559

thepastoralreview.org/cgi-bin/archive_db.cgi?priestsppl-00099

catholic.com/library/Galileo_Controversy.asp

That’s what I get for typing on my iPod instead of the computer - copying and pasting are a pain and I failed to make the distinction between the Holy Office condemning a theory as heresy and the Pope issuing an infallible statement on heresy.

So could you provide an example of the old teaching of the Church on evolution, and the “new” teaching, the case where she “came around”? Please cite your sources. Thanks.

I don’t think I said anything about an “old” or “new” teaching on evolution. It is my understanding that some of the developments in evolutionary theory were hard to reconcile with the some of the Church’s interpretation of scripture on the origin of man. The apparent contradictions delayed their acceptance of it. I base this on Wikipedia and reading threads on CAF!

 

[kingal86]

I would do one of three things or perhaps all in a proper sequence.

1. try to commit suicide

The sexual hedonism response in #2 may be a bit understandable as embracing selfish desires, reacting against depression, disappointment, or restraint in that area in the past for a deity that doesn’t exist.

But surely if there was no God, committing suicide would just lead to oblivion (which may or may not be worse than potential damnation for committing suicide in Catholicism depending on a person’s desire to exist and what hell is like) and be one of the worst things to do?

 

[tonyrey]

The sexual hedonism response in #2 may be a bit understandable as embracing selfish desires, reacting against depression, disappointment, or restraint in that area in the past for a deity that doesn’t exist.

But surely if there was no God, committing suicide would just lead to oblivion (which may or may not be worse than potential damnation for committing suicide in Catholicism depending on a person’s desire to exist and what hell is like) and be one of the worst things to do?

Hamlet summed it up perfectly:

“To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause…
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?”

From a philosophical point of view no one can be absolutely sure of the exact nature of what happens after death…

 

[PRmerger]

OK Professor you got me :bowdown2:

So we are agreed that the Catholic Church has never proclaimed a Truth that has been contrary to Science, yes?

(Regarding “Truth” vs “truth”, I wouldn’t read into it too much. Sometimes the capitalization is meant to convey “the absolute truth”; sometimes it is just arbitrary.)

I don’t think I said anything about an “old” or “new” teaching on evolution. It is my understanding that some of the developments in evolutionary theory were hard to reconcile with the some of the Church’s interpretation of scripture on the origin of man. The apparent contradictions delayed their acceptance of it. I base this on Wikipedia and reading threads on CAF!

Are you rescinding this comment you made, then?

They dug their heels in with evolution

.

If not, then please provide a source (from the Magisterium) that proclaims that evolution is contrary to Catholic teaching and that Catholics are not allowed to embrace this theory.

 

[Betterave]

OK Professor you got me :bowdown2: It seems the Church was opposed to heliocentrism as a literal explanation (Decree of 1616), prohibited books about it (Index Librorum Prohibitorum), and the experts at the Holy Office called the idea that the earth moves around the sun “formally heretical,” but apparently although the Pope passed along this message, he did not officially endorse it.

catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=559

thepastoralreview.org/cgi-bin/archive_db.cgi?priestsppl-00099

catholic.com/library/Galileo_Controversy.asp

That’s what I get for typing on my iPod instead of the computer - copying and pasting are a pain and I failed to make the distinction between the Holy Office condemning a theory as heresy and the Pope issuing an infallible statement on heresy.

Wasn’t your original contention, the one leading to this little digression, that the Church has special tendency to dig in her heels and to ignore evidence? But the links you provide appear to successfully argue that that is not the case. So what is your point at this point?

 

[MindOverMatter2]

But surely if there was no God, committing suicide would just lead to oblivion

To die is to become the opposite of living. It is to become nothing. In the absence of God, Dying, for me, only has subjective value in terms of its relationship to the act of reality. If, for me, reality is devoid of any value worth living for, then the word “oblivion” loses its negative sting, and instead becomes what some might call a kind eternal peace, because one has escaped the misery and the meaninglessness that is reality. To say that death is worse than hell has no objective meaning in the absence of God. Its purely a subjective idea, its value of which is on only relative to what we want from life. If we cannot get what we want from life, then we cease to have any reason to exist except for the fear of death, since the good of life is defined either in terms of the fulfilment we get from God or the sensory pleasure we get from the world and our social fantasies. To commit suicide is to liberate ones self from the existential knowledge of self.

 

[MarysGirls]

Ummmm…

I don’t know what you guys are talking about. However, in answer to the OP’s original question and sidestepping all the questions I could ask about what exactly ‘proven to your satisfaction’ would entail:

If I came to believe beyond a doubt that God did not exist, I would probably not commit suicide because I wouldn’t be able to go through with it, but I wouldn’t really be alive either. I’d just be existing.

Seems like I heard this quote somewhere that pretty much sums it up for me:

To the question, “How did the world begin?” Science answers, “Probably by an accident.” To the question, “How will the world end?” Science answers, “Probably by an accident.” And to many people, the accidental life is not worth living.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

I would probably not commit suicide because I wouldn’t be able to go through with it.

I hope I could commit suicide, but like you say, I doubt I would go through with it. Instead, I would be on some serious self medication and drug experimentation. If we found out there was no God, would you come over to England and smoke some drugs with me?

 

[samiam1611]

Wasn’t your original contention, the one leading to this little digression, that the Church has special tendency to dig in her heels and to ignore evidence? But the links you provide appear to successfully argue that that is not the case. So what is your point at this point?

Perhaps digging in Her heels has a different meaning to us? It doesn’t have to be official and it doesn’t have to be permament. I qualified it as relucant to change when I mistakenly used the word infallible. As I said, the specifics were unknown to me or rather it was a careless use of the word infallible.
This explained it well to me:
“Nevertheless, from beginning to end, the actions of the Inquisition were disciplinary, not dogmatic, although they were often based on the erroneous notion that it was heretical to claim that the Earth moves. Erroneous notions remain only notions; opinions of theologians are not the same as Christian doctrine: not in the seventeenth century, not even in the twenty-first century. The error the Church made in dealing with Galileo was an error in judgement; the Inquisition was wrong to discipline Galileo, but discipline is not dogma: even when the discipline is ordered directly by the pope.”
I don’t think it is unreasonable to say that the Church dug in Her heels. She made an error in judgement by favoring scripture over scientific evidence. So it wasn’t dogma, I get it. She still did what I consider digging in your heels.

 

[MarysGirls]

I hope I could commit suicide, but like you say, I doubt I would go through with it. Instead, I would be on some serious self medication and drug experimentation. If we found out there was no God, would you come over to England and smoke some drugs with me?

I’ll have to squander all of my money, but if there’s no God, who cares? Sure I’ll come.

 

[MarysGirls]

The error the Church made in dealing with Galileo was an error in judgement; the Inquisition was wrong to discipline Galileo, but discipline is not dogma: even when the discipline is ordered directly by the pope."
I don’t think it is unreasonable to say that the Church dug in Her heels. She made an error in judgement by favoring scripture over scientific evidence. So it wasn’t dogma, I get it. She still did what I consider digging in your heels.

I thought that the Church disciplined Galileo because he was teaching his theory as fact when it was still a hypothesis.

 

[PRmerger]

I don’t think it is unreasonable to say that the Church dug in Her heels. She made an error in judgement by favoring scripture over scientific evidence. So it wasn’t dogma, I get it. She still did what I consider digging in your heels.

Then you also must profess that the scientific community has dug in its heels as well, no?

 

[tonyrey]

Ummmm…

I don’t know what you guys are talking about. However, in answer to the OP’s original question and sidestepping all the questions I could ask about what exactly ‘proven to your satisfaction’ would entail:

If I came to believe beyond a doubt that God did not exist, I would probably not commit suicide because I wouldn’t be able to go through with it, but I wouldn’t really be alive either. I’d just be existing.

Seems like I heard this quote somewhere that pretty much sums it up for me:

If only matter exists nothing matters!

 

[MindOverMatter2]

If only matter exists nothing matters!

Its Friday, there nothing to do, there’s no God, Lets roll up a fat dubi and get high!!!.

Just kidding guys. Forgive me God.

 

[MarysGirls]

Its Friday, there nothing to do, there’s no God, Lets roll up a fat dubi and get high!!!.

Just kidding guys. Forgive me God.

:tsktsk:

 

[tonyrey]

Its Friday, there nothing to do, there’s no God, Lets roll up a fat dubi and get high!!!.

Just kidding guys. Forgive me God.

There’s plenty to do but whether you get what you** really** need is quite another matter…

1. The more you get the more you want.
2. The more you want the more miserable you become.
3. The more miserable you become the more you detest life.
4. The more you detest life the more likely you are to kill yourself…

 

[Betterave]

Perhaps digging in Her heels has a different meaning to us? It doesn’t have to be official and it doesn’t have to be permament. I qualified it as relucant to change when I mistakenly used the word infallible. As I said, the specifics were unknown to me or rather it was a careless use of the word infallible.
This explained it well to me:
“Nevertheless, from beginning to end, the actions of the Inquisition were disciplinary, not dogmatic, although they were often based on the erroneous notion that it was heretical to claim that the Earth moves. Erroneous notions remain only notions; opinions of theologians are not the same as Christian doctrine: not in the seventeenth century, not even in the twenty-first century. The error the Church made in dealing with Galileo was an error in judgement; the Inquisition was wrong to discipline Galileo, but discipline is not dogma: even when the discipline is ordered directly by the pope.”
I don’t think it is unreasonable to say that the Church dug in Her heels. She made an error in judgement by favoring scripture over scientific evidence. So it wasn’t dogma, I get it. She still did what I consider digging in your heels.

Obviously human beings and human institutions are prone to “digging in their heels” (I think you’re doing it right now!), but so what? Adducing an instance of members of the Church doing so very clearly does not prove that this is something that particularly characterizes the Church - especially when you are adducing the Galileo case, where it is perfectly clear that Galileo - Mr. ‘Science’ - dug in his heels first (he was quite brazen and unreasonable about it), which is what brought about the reaction in kind from the tribunal examining his case. The scientific and doctrinal issues in the case were clearly not the sole or sufficient causes of the condemnation, although unfortunately the condemnation came to be framed in those terms.

 

[Mystic_Banana]

I thought that the Church disciplined Galileo because he was teaching his theory as fact when it was still a hypothesis.

Actually it’s largely been disproven, as I understand it. Galileo believed in a heliocentric universe, didn’t he? Not that Geocentricisms looking any more healthy these days…

 

[Candide_West]

To paraphrase Chesterton: *the point of having a mind is to close it on truth.

I disagree with you here. To me closed minds lead to divisiveness and conflicts. Besides, it always seems so arrogant to me. You can be quite confident of your view but still be open minded to the views of others. I think this is better than being closed minded.

So if you’re talking about <another extraneous entity which “externally enforced” a belief> then I must politely beg out of the discussion, because, I, frankly, couldn’t care less about some arcane dictator or entity throughout history who imposed his truth on another.

Sigh, I can’t help but wonder at the moment if I am the butt of some extended joke. We have gone around and around the loop with you saying about the catholic church imposing it’s views. We finally seem to have gotten past that and now you are misinterpreting in a brand new way.*

To be clear - no I am NOT talking about some other entity externally enforcing it’s views. To quote my previous post:

"…but that is irrelevant to this discussion since we are not talking about externally enforced but voluntary limitations as I am sure you are well aware. "

What we are talking about is the same thing we were talking about to start with. People imposing limitations on themselves by saying things like “if X was proven to me I’d kill myself”.*

“An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. *But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or Practical reason is idiocy. *If a man’s mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut.” *–CS Lewis

Ok, but we are not talking about the foundations of theoretical or practical reason. We are talking about subjects where people can and do have widely varied opinions. Things such as politics and religion. So your quote seems to support my point - that an open mind on these subjects is a good thing (useful).

Because there is the One Answer, so one need not consider the other options as having any utility.

But there is not “One Answer” or if there is then there are dozens of different “One Answers” each of which are quite confidently believed by large numbers of people.*

Take the flat earth reference. *Surely you do not believe it is a limitation to proclaim this:

[SIGN]The Earth is round![/SIGN]

No, but I would consider it a limitation if someone said “if someone proved to me that the earth is round, I’d kill myself” which would be a more appropriate example for this conversation.*

Also once again you are using something which is testable and which everyone agrees about as an example for something which is untestable and highly contentious. This hardly seems like an appropriate example.

This is true. *Opinions are merely a preference, I suppose. *As in, “It is my opinion that turnips taste great mashed.”

One would look quite foolish saying, “It is my opinion that the earth is round.”

You would now certainly, and even more so if you said that it’s your opinion that the world is flat. But back before someone tested it and everyone agreed that this was the most likely way things are, you wouldn’t have looked silly at all.

So until someone finds a way of testing religious propositions we are a long way from the situation you described above.

I would maintain that it is a perfectly un-reasonable position. *If Christianity is true, the one must believe it.

Right, yet you still say that the reverse is reasonable? On what basis is it ok for some Christian to say “if X was proven to me I’d kill myself” but not ok if someone of another religion to say “if X was proven to me I’d kill myself”.*

Your argument seems to reduce to special pleading - “I know all those other people think they’re right, but I’m right really so it’s ok for me”.

Only the insane believe that which is not true or continue to proclaim that which they know is not consonant with reality as true.

I’m sure you didn’t really mean to say that people who believe things which are not true are insane. Perhaps you would like to amend that to “incorrect”?

True indeed. *As I stated–some maps, even if they’re wrong, get some things right (i.e. “Canada is north of the US”)

Right… This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the discussion. Yes, the different religious “maps” agree on certain points and disagree on others. That doesn’t mean that hindus are suddenly going to say “oh yeah christians think murder is bad too, that means we should follow Jesus, let’s all convert”. So again the conflict remains irresolvable. Christians are 100% confident in their map, Hindus are 100% confident in theirs. Neither have a way of testing their map to standards that others agree with.

I am of the “opinion” (amend that to certainty) that women have equal dignity to men. *That is the correct interpretation of God’s creation of humanity.

And other people have different opinions which they are equally certain of. Simply restating your view does not resolve the conflict

 

[Candide_West]

I don’t understand why you’re under the misapprehension that having 2 contrary opinions necessarily means that the “situation will remain irresolvable.”

And I don’t understand why you persist in arguing with something I have not said. Once again, what I have said (and you appear to have agreed) is that the continuing religious arguments along the lines of “my religion is right. I know because God said so”… “no, MY religion is right, I know because God said so”… “NO, My religion is right…” is irresolvable. This is well supported by history because religious arguments like those above have been going on for thousands of years and are still continuing. Until that behaviour ceases, the conflict is irresolvable. If you do not agree with this then we can discuss it, but please stop arguing with a statement I haven’t made. It is futile.

There are people who have proposed opinions contrary to Catholicism–let’s take the JWs who say that humans should not receive blood transfusions. *Christianity believes otherwise.

Do you really think this is irresolvable?

The matter has been resolved! *Even if some continue to proclaim to the contrary.

That God is Trinitarian has been resolved! *Even if some continue to proclaim to the contrary.

That Jesus is God has been resolved! *Even if some continue to proclaim to the contrary.

That Mary was ever-virgin has been resolved! *Even if some continue to proclaim to the contrary…

But for each of those people who proclaim the contrary, the question has been resolved as well… But in the opposite direction.*

They are just as confident as you that their answer is correct. You keep saying “but I really AM correct”. And they keep saying “no, I’M the one who’s correct”… And so the argument continues, and remains irresolvable until this behaviour ceases.*

You seem to have agreed that this behaviour makes the conflict irresolvable and yet continue to argue about it. I really don’t understand your point here.*

Did you know about this?

news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/20110519/ts_yblog_thecutline/arnold-mistress-tk

I rest my case. *

Really? You were trying to make a case that Arnie isn’t a very moral person? Or that the media interfere in personal relationships? Afraid you’ve lost me, what case are you resting?