Thanks, Mark, for providing some much-needed perspective.

This is a bright light on the gaping flaw in much of our post modern rhetoric.  Somehow, our thinking seems to have become “Now - good and smart.  Past - Bad and stoopid”.  The present folly, or inhumanity, is seems to be invisible to the present. Maybe our daily prayer should be for the grace to see and change our (my) current evil. Thanks.

“Of course, atheist fundamentalists don’t like to think too hard about the achievements of Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot, and seem uncommonly hurried in their attempts to identify their atheist regimes as specimens of “religion” in the single most implausible piece of prestidigitation in their rhetorical arsenal.)”.

Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot?  Guess what they had in common besides atheism? Their devotion to collectivism.

“coupled with marvelously naive subscription to the Darwin Mythos that we are the summit of all Progress.”

Eh?  Take a few minutes and actually try and understand evolution instead of pretending to know what it means.  Darwin doesn’t posit that we are at the summit of all Progress.  Only that currently we are the most adept at surviving in our environment.

“Essentially, the complaint is that people a long time ago were not Us.”

Nope.  We point out those things when you posit that moral absolutism based on divine commands.

“We don’t have to make the arrogant atheist’s blunder of holding St. Thomas More to 21st-century standards of justice.”

Ah, spoken like someone who doesn’t exactly know what arrogance is.  I don’t think that NOT burning people at the stake and pointing it out is showing an offensive attitude of superiority.

Speaking of arrogance:
“(Of course, atheist fundamentalists don’t like to think too hard about the achievements of Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot, and seem uncommonly hurried in their attempts to identify their atheist regimes as specimens of “religion” in the single most implausible piece of prestidigitation in their rhetorical arsenal.)”

It seems like you display a exaggerated importance of this argument, even though it is based on a straw man:)  Clue Phone:  When displaying an exaggerated importance of an argument in a arrogant way, be sure to not use a straw man device.

YR:

Take it up with Christopher Hitchens, who attempts precisely the preposterous claim that Stalinism was “religion”.  And I am perfectly aware of (and have no huge problems with) Darwinism as a biological theorem.  However, the Darwin Mythos is not that.  It is a *mythos*: an attempt to turn evolution into an all-explaining myth of “progress” in which modernity is treated as the summit toward which all history is leading.  It is a descendent of Whig history and atheists in particular are suckers for it every time they start boasting (as you characteristically do) that every religious culture before them was stoopid.  Again, Hitchens is instructive as he boast that religion is a relic of the bawling infancy of our race, etc.  Yeah, Plato, Augustine, Aquinas: morons.

Only that currently we are the most adept at surviving in our environment.

Are we?

Take a few minutes and actually try and understand evolution instead of pretending to know what it means.

I think there is a difference between Darwin’s theory and Darwin’s mythos.  “Darwinism” is not the same as believing that some sort of evolution takes place.  It’s when his theory is treated as indisputable, totally proven and the last word on all things.  It’s when you use Darwin to prove things that it can’t prove, and dismiss things that it isn’t even connected to…that it becomes problematic.  Like using Darwin to disprove God.  There are some things that evolution can explain, and some things it cannot.  When you lose sight of the difference you enter into DarwinISM or Darwins mythos, and become the very thing you accuse us of being.  Married to a mythology in the face of reason.

Sorry Mark…I see that you were addressing YR’s statements at the same time that I was…and of course, you did a much better job of refuting them.  Carry on.

“Antiquity could see clearly that some things were an offense against God that our age cannot see. Conversely, antiquity perfected such forms of cruelty as crucifixion or burning at the stake. We live in an age that cannot see the sinfulness of, say, fornication or blasphemy, but does grasp that disembowelling and drawing and quartering is evil and not public entertainment.”

So in other words, we’ve figured out that hurting people is bad, while giving people the freedom to say and do as they wish, provided they don’t objectively hurt someone. Sounds like progress on all fronts to me.

Spoken like a true chronological snob, Craig.  So long as you personally don’t see the destructiveness of blasphemy and fornication, it doesn’t exist and civilizations that did see it were populated exclusively by fools who were dumb for not being you.  Thanks for illustrating my point.

The genius of the Church in what you describe lies precisely in recognizing in each age what is good and not lumping all previous ages together.

Chesterton wrote (in The Dumb Ox): “Perhaps there is really no such thing as a Revolution recorded in history. What happened was always a Counter-Revolution. Men were always rebelling against the last rebels; or even repenting of the last rebellion. This could be seen in the most casual contemporary fashions, if the fashionable mind had not fallen into the habit of seeing the very latest rebel as rebelling against all ages at once…(snip)...they rebel against they know not what, because it arose they know not when; intent only on its ending, they are ignorant of its beginning; and therefore of its very being.”

“I think there is a difference between Darwin’s theory and Darwin’s mythos.  “Darwinism” is not the same as believing that some sort of evolution takes place.  It’s when his theory is treated as indisputable, totally proven and the last word on all things.  It’s when you use Darwin to prove things that it can’t prove, and dismiss things that it isn’t even connected to…that it becomes problematic.  Like using Darwin to disprove God.  There are some things that evolution can explain, and some things it cannot.  When you lose sight of the difference you enter into DarwinISM or Darwins mythos, and become the very thing you accuse us of being.  Married to a mythology in the face of reason.”

Just in from the department of making crap up.  Or should we say straw man:)

YR:

Because nobody has ever said, “You believe in God?  But this is the 21st Century!”  as though that constituted a rational argument.  Shouting “straw man” every time somebody points out a foible of atheistic culture that everybody has encountered a thousand times may make you feel good and give you a sense that you are reinforcing tribal bonds with your peer group.  But it doesn’t fool those of us who have listened to you guys for years.  There is indeed a Darwin Mythos and it is very popular among your little peer group, incapable of self-criticism.  Heck, you guys couldn’t even bear to hear criticism from Phil Plait, one of your own.

Mark,

You use the term Darwin Mythos as it’s an accepted *thing*, when in reality it’s something you made up.  An idea who’s sole purpose is to build up a view point solely so that you can tear it down:)

“foible of atheistic culture”.

What defines an atheist?  The only common belief of an atheist is that there is not creditable evidence for the existence of a god.  Anything beyond that point to build up a generalized belief structure is by necessity a straw man argument.

Sure thing, Yeah Right.

“The only common belief of an atheist is that there is not creditable evidence for the existence of a god.  Anything beyond that point to build up a generalized belief structure is by necessity a straw man argument.”

If you don’t believe that there is a culture and belief system surrounding modern Atheism (note the capital A, outcampaign, anyone?) you have your head in the sand.  The Hitchens-PZ Myers et al brand of atheism is more fundamentalist than christianity.

MARK-

your patheos blog is requiring login to comment, and there is no way to get a login.  You’re prob aware, but just fyi.

“The Hitchens-PZ Myers et al brand of atheism is more fundamentalist than christianity.”

Fundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology.  Since atheist have no specific theological doctrines, it is hard to believe you are doing anything more than stringing preloaded derogatory words together to vilify a specific group of people.

“If you don’t believe that there is a culture and belief system surrounding modern Atheism”.

Apparently you don’t have a grasp on the idea of atheism:  http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutatheism/a/BeginnersBasics.htm

That should help you out.

Yep.  Remarkably incapable of self-criticism.

Mark,

That’s right. Freeman Dyson called the New Atheist types “scientific fundamentalists”. What he meant by that was, just as some religious folks think that just because it isn’t in their religion, or isn’t in the Bible, it can’t be real, scientific fundamentalists believe that simply because it cannot be investigated by science it can’t be real. Both views of the world a exceedingly limited, and those who hold them sadly incapable of self-criticism.

If it is snobbery to judge More based on the standards of our time, wouldn’t it also be snobbery to judge other cultures based on our culture’s values?
This ‘chronological snob’ talk seems to be a convenient catch all way to downplay any Catholic misdeed of the past, and it mimics the ‘cultural snob’ talk that people use to excuse misdeeds of the present.
If moral truths exist, then it is just as wrong to murder in More’s time as it is to murder in this time. Talk of ‘standards of the time’ is just a distraction and excuse to call More a saint. Shea’s commentary smacks of ‘chronological relativism’ which looks pretty similar to the ‘cultural relativism’ Shea likely finds fault in.

“Yep.  Remarkably incapable of self-criticism.”

Oh, the irony:)

Today - purely for your entertainment pleasure - you can (and daily millions do) go to a movie or pop a DVD into your computer and see any brand of torture or execution you want.  Moral progress does not exist.  We are born fallen creatures, generation after generation.

From what I read, Thomas More did NOT burn heretics at the stake. In a time and place where heresy was a state crime punishable with death (remember that he was a lawyer and had to abide to the law), Thomas More allways tried to exaust every possible alternative and never, ever, directly sentenced anyone to death. At most, he signed some bureaucracies of already convicted men, which he could not save otherwise… and those were four cases in the total!

I would really like to see any other lawyer of the time (catholic or protestant) top that!!! I would even want to see some atheists from some 20th century regimes top that!!!

That is my defense of Thomas More! I will not try to spin “heretic burning” as something good! But he clearly was a saint!

Pax Chisti

Apropos of Jon D’s comment: we are born fallen creatures and every generation has to begin anew. It’s called “reinventing the wheel.” We do make progress technologically, but not morally/ethically in any significant sense. I fail to see any validity to a notion of “moral progress.” That’s simply Pelagianism.

As for the argument that murderous atheist regimes were religions themselves… that is a very common argument among atheists.

Every single atheist that I have debated (and they were lots of them), when touting their mantra “Crusades and Inquisition” and then confronted with the mass killings by atheists in the 20th century… respond that those regimes were “political religions” of some sort and not real atheism.

They do that! Every… single… atheist… every… single… time…

So, I would hardly describe that as a “straw man”

And the Darwin Mythos is an able description of the views of some particular atheists (though I must agree that not all of them have exposed such a doctrine to me).

Evidence is the basis of a scientific mind… and I have enough evidence to know that those “straw men” really do exist in atheist debates.

Pax Christi

This is a pretty weak, vacillating piece. While I agree with your thesis that our knowledge of Truth is incomplete and deepening with time (read some Hildebrand and you’ll see how truly Catholic this is), I won’t sign on to your Protestant histories.

“The church did not burn people,” replied More; “the state burned them.” This was strictly true, because the ecclesiastical courts tried heretics and the state courts sentenced them.

What the Church did was simply withdraw its good graces from dangerous heretics. This seems to me to be a reasonable thing to do. The Church gave heretics every chance to recant. The damage heresy does is obvious to everyone who is willing to honestly compare the Old World Order with the New World Order.

No one is going to claim that any world order is going to be perfect. To say it is improving is to be utterly blind. To use the fact that the old world was imperfect as your evidence for improvement is to be callow as well as blind.

One thing that isn’t clear to me: what is “moral progress” supposed to refer to? Real progress in moral behaviour? Real progress in moral understanding? Real progress in virtue, which takes both into account? Or just an intuitive sense that ‘this’ is better than ‘that’, so that we can feel justified in wagging our fingers at doers of and believers in ‘that’, while approving doers of and believers in ‘this’.

Yeah, right,

“The only common belief of an atheist is that there is not creditable evidence for the existence of a god.”

That would be the common belief of the agnostic. An atheist manages to convey the belief that there is creditable evidence that there is no God.

@Richard A =“An atheist manages to convey the belief that there is creditable evidence that there is no God.”

Of those who choose the label of ‘atheist’ is only a small percentage that proclaim there is no ‘God’ or ‘Gods’ with absolute certainty.

The majority of ‘atheist’ lean towards the position that the existence of a ‘God’ or ‘Gods’ is unlikely.

Paul Bennett:

What you call vacillating, I call common sense.  At the end of the day, I can’t escape the notion that you are trying to pretend that More didn’t burn heretics at the stake (which was the subject, not the Church’s supposed execution of heretics) and that you pine for a restoration of the burning of heretics.  Most of us don’t (including the Magisterium) and I think that’s an improvement, whatever else has degraded.

You don’t really seem to have read my piece and prefer to opt for the Standard Reactionary Narrative: “Everything was better in the past!”  Chesterton was smarter.  He said the world does not progress.  It wobbles.  The Church, however, really does progress.  Because it has the capability of learning from and building on the mistakes of its members.

“Oh, the irony:)”

What are you, YR?  Pee Wee Herman?

Interesting post, but unfortuantely completly backwards.

1: The peak of Civilization was, ofcourse, The Garden of Eden before the fall.
Everything has gone downhill since then.

2: What do you think is the greater evil?

A) Allowing people to blaspheme against God and thus not only offend God, but bit by bit turning a society from the good and Godfearing culture of the 1600`s into the 50 million aborted babies-culture of today,

OR

B) Giving the blasphemer a quick roast at the stake and thus keep his influence from spreading for possibly another hundred years or so, and thereby delaying the influence of Atheism, witch again leads to millions of abortions?

It comes down to maths. If you do the numbers it will turn out something like this:

For every blasphemous word spoken, it will have x effect on societal attitudes, wich in turn will result in Y amount of sinning (abortions included) in Z years from now.

Today it is called chaos theory or the butterfly-effect, but in short it ends up something like this:

For every atheist burnt at the stake in centuries past, the effects of Atheism (Evil) was delayed for a number of years and for every year secularism was delayed, so was Feminism and abortion.

Had you on the other hand, let the atheists/secularists/heretics/whatever you want to call them,  live to blaspheme and spread their message one hundred years earlier, Roe vs Wade would have happened in 1873 instead of 1973.

On the other hand, had you burned every single atheist/heretic/feminist/pro-choice messenger you could find, throughout both the 17th, 18th,19th and 20th century and kept it up, Roe vs Wade would still not have taken place, and would not until you stopped burning those people. And thus you would have saved 50 million lives.

So, you are looking at it from the wrong direction.

One must look forward, and think “if I burn this Heretic/Atheist/Feminist today, how many sins will thus be avoided tomorrow, a year from now, 200 years from now, 10 000 years from now?

But it can also be summed up in a much simpler way:

Do you think it was wrong of God to burn Sodom & Gomorrah?

Mark,

“What are you, YR?  Pee Wee Herman? “

I came here for the comedy and was not disappointed:)

Your whole argument (Is there such a thing as Moral Progress) was an exercise in avoiding self-criticism.

There is no such thing as moral-progress.

People will stear towards as much sin as possible, and constantly adjust their view of what sin is, to not include their current actions.

Yesterday it was homosexuality, next week it will be incest, 20 years from now it will be cannibalism, and 50 years from now it will be horrors we cannot even imagine today.

As of today, women do not even consider their unborn children as children before such and such age.

50 years from now, they will not consider their children as children before they are 10 years old.

100 years from now they will not consider their children as children at all, but rather as rare delicacies to be eaten on Christmas.

So burn an Atheist today, and save countless lives tomorrow. Or next year, or so on.

Have No Fear of God? http://www.squidoo.com/fear-of-god

Mr Widemouth:

“Do you think it is the devil who casts people into hell? If you do, you would be incorrect. It is Christ who will judge, reward and punish, all because his sacrifice was either accepted or rejected.”

B - I - N - G - O.

Mark: 1. If the Church can learn from the past, why can’t civil society (or “the world”)? Or do you just mean that the Church is better at not forgetting what it learns? 2. Intuitions and common sense are nice, but do you think these are satisfying grounds for making claims to moral knowledge? Why? Utilitarianism, for (counter-)example, seems like common sense to a lot of people: maximize pleasure, minimize pain. So anything that seems to contribute to that is intuitively plausible… But that’s obviously not good enough, just as FIRE’s consequentialist analysis is obviously not good enough.

DavidM:

You are ofcourse wrong. My analysis is perfect.

For further study of the subject you can google the term “Causality”

Causality is the relationship between an event (the cause) and a second event ( the effect), where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first.

FIRE:

Between Craig’s chronological snobbery and your reactionary hunger to reignite the auto de fe, it almost looks as though I hired you guys to illustrate my point about the lunacies that result when we ignore the Magisterium’s development of doctrine.  Should I say, “Repent” or “The check’s in the mail.”  Oh, and thanks for the “My analysis is perfect” cherry on top.  Shrill arrogance as the capper for bloodthirsty certitude.  Perfect indeed.

I wonder when it will occur to FIRE that the people who agree with him most passionately are the ones who advocate abortion because it reduces Futurecrime?

Congrat, FIRE.  You have become the monster you hate.

Nope.

The difference is that children are innocent and blasphemers are not.

But I am curious Mark, how do you like the Book of Revelations?

From what I can gather there will be a quite a few people thrown into a lake of Fire.

Do you not think it is a good idea by The Lord to throw these people into such a lake?

It has apparently only regressed in my 84 years.  We don’t have a chance unless we can convince the people to try Christianity.

If what St. Thomas More did was wrong, it was murder. If it was murder, then it was at least objectively a mortal sin. I thought the Church only honored those who did what was morally good (at least most of the time) and did not order objective mortal sin.

Morals can progress in the culture, but not in the Church. The Church has held and always will hold the same moral principles, there is no change in God. Therefore, what the Church said was wrong then is wrong now, what they permitted then they permit now.
End of story

Mr. Shea,
Were heretics really burnt <i>alive<i> in the past?

I only ask because, recently, I debated some non-Catholic, Bible-believing Christians over the subject of burning heretics. The names that came up were John Wycliff and William Tyndale. After learning that Wycliff died of natural causes I found out that he was tried, posthumously, for heresy and found to be guilty. His remains were dug up, burned, and the ashes tossed into a river. This was because Wycliff was buried in consecrated ground, and, by Canon Law, his remains could not stay interred there.

Then, I learned that Tyndale was tried for heresy and convicted, while still alive. He was hanged, or strangled, and his body burned and thrown into a river. This lead me to the trial, for heresy, of Jan Hus, who seems to have been burned alive, after his conviction. This was a different jurisdiction, though.

This practice of burning at the stake seems to come from Leviticus 21:9, where the daughter of a priest found to be a harlot was to “be burned with fire.” I believe this verse was also used to justify the burning witches.

My question is, in light of the fact that many Protestants from the 17th and 18th centuries invented huge, hateful calumnies to bash the Catholic Church, are the tales of burning heretics alive, for centuries, accurate? Or, was the practice more often like that of Tyndale, where he was executed in a more <i>humane<i> fashion, and, then, burnt at the stake?

As with the Inquisition, the truth is always less blood-thirsty than the Protestant re-writing of history. I’m just curious if this is, yet, another case.

TomD:

And yet, the Church condemns slavery, flogging, burning, racking, thumbscrews, disemboweling, drawing and quartering, beheading and various other things Catholics formerly did.  Your theory has some holes.

Nick:  Joan of Arc was burnt alive as a witch with the express approval of the bishop.

Fire,

First, it is the book of “Revelation” not “RevelationS”

Second, Where in Revelation does it say that Jesus will be throwing people into a Lake of Fire?  I ask because you have taken this line out of context and we would need to read it within the context of all of Scripture to know exactly what is meant.

Did you know, that as Catholics, we cannot know, nor do we claim to know, whether or not ANYONE is, or will be, in Hell?  They might be, they might not be.  We just don’t know.  It is entirely possible that no one will ever see hell.  Just sayin’.

Yeah Right,

Do you believe the sun will come up tomorrow?  Is this based on scientific evidence?  Can it be proven?  This is a serious question.

19. Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse and his army.

20. But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the Mark of the beast and worshiped his image.

The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

21. The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.

Goodbye.

TomD wrote: “If what St. Thomas More did was wrong, it was murder.”—I don’t see how that follows. If it was wrong, couldn’t it have been wrong for any number of reasons? It was not the intentional taking of an innocent life. It was something else, perhaps the unjustified taking of a life - but it isn’t easy to see what is intrinsically immoral about the state using the death penalty in any given case. I wonder if judgments about this kind of thing are necessarily culturally relative (which does not make all of morality culturally relative).

And just to put an end to this ridiculous debate:

If you google the word “p*rn” today, Google Inc® will provide you with about 1,420,000,000 results.

Allthough experts disagree on the exact numbers, it is generally believed that the amount was slightly less in the year 1611 AD.

Thank you Fire.

I’m pretty sure much of those “prophecies” refer to the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.  It’s easy to read Revelation with eyes in the 21st century, but it was written for and about Christians in the years following Jesus’ death and resurrection.  It is filled with symbolism, not meant to be taken literally, that the early Christians would have understood far better than we do/can.  The Christians of that time did escape, and the Jews (over a million I believe) were killed in a great fire, and from starvation.  Rome also burned.

I just wanted to say I really appreciated Lukas’s comment about the similarity between “chronological snobbery” and “cultural snobbery”.  I thought that was a rather brilliant reversal.  Bravo!!!

@SCWJR: hmmm… That’s funny you appreciated that, because Lukas’s comment was grossly confused about what Shea wrote. Shea never suggested that “chronological snobbery” had anything to do with “chronological relativism.” Shea said the opposite: that we *can* judge others times (and cultures) by objective standards; not that we can’t, because morality is relative. Lukas’s comment was no “brilliant reversal” but rather a dismal failure to understand what he was attempting to criticize. Personally Shea’s article leaves me with unanswered questions, but I at least bothered to understand what he was saying before offering criticism.

hmmm David, it would appear that you don’t understand my appreciation of Lukas’s comment.  This can be seen from your failure to even parrot me correctly…

Mr. Shea,
Yes, I’m aware of how Saint Joan of Arc was executed. And, I’m sure many other examples may be provided. I’m just asking if this was the normal way of carrying out the sentence, or, if burning alive was the exception to the rule?
Are there any experts on the Medieval judicial system out there?
Another question comes to mind: Today, we consider stoning barbaric, but, God specifically called for stoning in Exodus and Leviticus. So, stoning cannot be intrinsically evil; only how it is used, or abused, can be evil.
I am not advocating bringing back stoning, by no means. I believe that “eye for an eye” and stoning, while they may not agree with our sensibilities today, were vast improvements to the judicial system in the days of Moses. These statutes actually limited the power of the state.
After Christ redeemed mankind, man has been given the ability to love his neighbor and treat him more humanely, as someone created in the image of God. Something that was impossible in the Old Covenant. Punishments, therefore, became more forgiving.
My only point is that arguing about the method of execution misses the bigger issue of whether, or not, our forefathers were justified in putting heretics to death. I haven’t researched this enough, so, I don’t have an answer.
I’d appreciate anybody else’s opinion on the matter.
God Bless!

The takeaway is that it’s possible for people today to reach the heights of sanctity and moral greatness, even with hands red from aborting a child (or more than one), soiled with impurities and sensual excess, and conversed in all the destructive proclivities of our time.  That’s hopeful.

I think a more useful discussion would explore how in God’s name this can be done.  How do we rise up from the stink of our day to participate in the eternal light?

St. Thomas accomplished this through clinging to the truth, in the face of fierce intimidation, relentless “peer” pressure, and threats of violence (eventually carried out).

I wonder if there’s an easier way?

@SCWJR: That’s odd. First you ignore what Shea wrote, now you ignore what I wrote (what on earth made you think I was trying to ‘parrot’ you??). That’s a bad habit you really ought to try to break.

@Nick: Good questions. First, there is no such thing as “the Medieval judicial system.” Second, I think it’s clear that heretical belief as such has always been insufficient grounds for civil authorities to punish people. It is only when heretical beliefs are expressed and translate into actions which are damaging to civil society that they can be punished, and only insofar as they are damaging to civil society, not insofar as they are simply heretical. I think it follows that if there is no (clear) distinction between civil and religious society, then certain acts in that society will objectively have a different meaning as compared to an equivalent act in a society where there *is* a clear distinction between civil and religious society. And this is not cultural relativism, just a basic datum of cultural anthropology that must be taken into account in any objective moral evaluation.

@David M. 
I really think it is you who is ignoring what people say, because you are too riled up lol. 

I originally said that I appreciated Lukas’s pointing out of the similarity between “cultural snobbery” and “chronological snobbery”.  I said this was “brilliant”, because it is true that these two things are analogues. 

You attempted to respond to me by saying that Lukas’s association of “cultural relativism” and “chronological relativism” was not brilliant. But if you can keep your heart rate down and read the words that were actually written you might notice that you are accusing me of holding an opinion that I didn’t express, and also one that I am not committed to.

It is also proper to say that you attempted to parrot me, because in your first response to me you attempted restate my opinion.  Since you failed to do this, I can say that you failed to parrot me properly. 

Your indignation is hardly becoming, and is misplaced. I do accept apologies for unwarranted accusations of intellectual incompetence.

@SCWJR: I’m afraid you’re quite mistaken again. Lukas’s so-called ‘brilliant’ analogy is obvious, not brilliant, but regardless, that was not the point of his comment: the point was to criticize Shea, as I explained. [As an aside, “chronological snobbery” would seem to be a *species* of “cultural snobbery” rather than an ‘analogue’ of it.] Again: I was not simply attempting to parrot your view; I was explaining what Lukas said and how it missed the mark. And I did correctly restate your position, which was that Lukas’s comments constitute “a brilliant reversal”; you did not simply state that he had pointed out a ‘brilliant’ (<ahem>: ‘obvious’) ‘analogy’. Anyway, that’s three strikes, so I’m afraid you are now out.

p.s. I do accept apologies for unwarranted claims to intellectual competence. ;)

There is something inherent in saying, “I’m an atheist” that implies, “You are mistaken to be a believer.” Even if you’re not saying it explicitly. Even if you couldn’t care less about persuading people out of religion. Even if you’re actively opposed to the idea of persuading people out of religion. There is no way to say, “I don’t believe in God,” without implying, “If you do believe in God, you’re wrong.”
.
Viewed in this manner, the most neutral atheist billboard you could imagine (e.g., one that said nothing more than “atheists exist”) communicates that religious believers are wrong. Wearing a t-shirt with a pro-atheist message becomes a confrontational act of sorts.
.
A Christian wearing a t-shirt with a pro-Christian message is communicating that everyone else is wrong too. This sort of message is no less confrontational, but it has the advantage of being the majority position in the U.S. (i.e., Christian privilege).
.
Nobody particularly enjoys being told that they are wrong, especially when deeply held convictions are at stake. It is reasonable to expect that this sort of communication will impact relations between atheists and the religious.
.

@ Mk:

I am pretty sure The Book of Revelation does not refer to anything that went down in 70 AD.

Infact, I am pretty sure that The Lord will return, take a look at humanity, gather the faithful, strike a deal with some petroleum-producing country to buy large amounts of Gasoline or crude oil, pour it into some conveniant pool, set it ablaze and have his follower push the condemned into said Lake of Fire.

And thus be rid of them once and for all. And then go about designing paradise. Something that should be quite easy to do without all the atheist, blasphemers, liars, coward, sexually immoral and so on.

Furthermore, punishing the wicked is not murder.
It is maintenance.

Despite your use of words in the lexicon of thomistic/aristotelian philosophy, I wonder at whether or not it is possible to really take you seriously as an intellectual expert, though you deign to speak with the airs of authority.  
By your own mouth:
“there is no such thing the Medieval judicial system.”

what a statement that was… 
I know many people who study precisely the history of medieval law.  It is actually quite an interesting field.  
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook-law.asp

Now I would imagine you would propose to make an arbitrary distinction between a “judicial system” and a “body of laws”, in order to save face, but by doing so all you would prove is that you are incapable of reading a person’s statements in the best light… 

Moving on from ancillary ad hominoms designed to deflate your pompousness, let’s then re-examine the present case:  
I stated that I thought that Lukas’s connection was brilliant, you say it was obvious.

Mr. Shea’s article was a defense of the defense of the apparent wickedness of some saints through recourse to pointing out that saints were good in the context of their own times.  
“We don’t have to make the arrogant atheist’s blunder of holding St. Thomas More to 21st-century standards of justice”

To have called lukas’s comment as a reversal was incorrect, but it does highlight something interesting; This is a blog which frequently rails against the spinelessness and incoherency of “moral relativism”, and yet now finds recourse to plead for the reasonableness of honorific titles by assuming what on a superficial level is a similar refusal to call a spade a spade.  The idea of the saint is bound up with a degree of moral perfection, and yet there are cases of “saints” doing what looks like monstrous things from our modern perspective.  But yet these persons are still called saints, because they were good enough for their time.  Correct me if I am wrong but I don’t think Mr. Shea, would allow for this sort of defense for just anybody, so there must be limits to it’s appliciabilty.  And this is an important point that mr. Shea did not address, I think that the identification of the two kinds of snobbery is helpful in bringing this tension more clearly to the surface.  The evidence for this claim is that it accomplished this for me.

So whether or not the identification was brilliant, good can come from it.  Perhaps we could saint Lukas, for his “golden mouth”?  After all he said something meritorious, and whatever error that was in it was certainly an error of the time…

You’re pretty sure of yourself, fireman.  You get pretty good internet privileges in whatever institution your stuck in?  Is your name a reference to police code 51?

mk - In your explanation of the catholic nature of the bible you fail to take into account that it is nevertheless eternal.

The Lake of Fire is Now.

I think they should change the list of saints.  Anyone who would burn someone at the stake is not a saint!!

Matt,

Eternal TRUTH, yes.  That does not mean that every word is meant for today.  Certainly what was written in Kings is not meant to be taken literally today.  As for Revelation, as I said, the passages that Fire quoted were about the fall of the Temple.

My understanding is that heretics being subject to possible execution was official, authoritative, magesterial teaching, as shown in Pope Leo X’s Exsurge Domine. Was he wrong?

As recently as 1953, the Church still proudly proclaimed that non-Catholics in a Catholic state had no right to publicly propagate, or be free from legal restriction in publicly propgating, errors against Catholic doctrinal truth, as exemplified by that year’s Spanish concordat, Pope Pius XII’s Ci Riesce allocuation, and Cardinal Ottaviani’s address on the duties and rights of a Catholic state.

I don’t think it cuts it to claim that somehow we are just more enlightened today. If so, that would seem to indicate that Western liberalism is the true fount of our faith, not Catholicism.

And I don’t see how trying to teach the opposite of what was taught in the past by official Catholicism can constitute a true development, something that should be in harmony with what came before, not a sharp break from it.

Mr. Shea should listen to Fr. Chad Ripperger’s [he’s FSSP, not SSPX] sermon on the Kingship of Christ and then tell us if he thinks such priests have made insufficient moral ‘progress’.

mk - I’m am often surprised by scripture readings I previously found incomprehensible rising up and talking to me directly with the voice of God.  I firmly believe that every passage of scripture is capable of a relevance more immediate than a newspaper.  You remember those.

The temporal conditions that gave rise to a specific passage are incidental to it’s divine purpose.  If you limit relevance to a historical context, you limit the power of scripture - not in itself, but in your ability to access that power.

I never put down fundamentalists when they’re spouting scripture verses.  They may not understand what they’re saying, but why should they have to?

Yesterday (I believe) while listening to Thom Hartmann’s radio show, I was listening to a caller rag on about the Bible and all the terrible things in it, and how religions are bad and atheism is better, etc. But when he started talking with the host about morality and how we didn’t God, Christianity, or any religion for that matter (I’m paraphrasing from memory, after all, I was doing some house work which was more important than stopping the world to heed what this guy had to say in every detail.)
  There was one short sentence he uttered that would’ve stopped a hundred fold more believing “persons of faith” in their tracks for its sheer arrogance and stupidity: “I believe I am the most moral person there is.”
  It’d been a very rough week on the home front with the gnawing emotional pain that comes to every pet lover when they learn that their dog has cancer and it may be terminal. But that guy provided this sinner a mighty dose of badly needed humor.
  I’m STILL laughing as I’m sharing this.
  He was probably the kid everybody loved to despise the most in school for all his brown nosing, playing stoolie, you name it. After all, in his mind, he’s the “most moral man” he knows.
  Must run in a small circle. LOL.

Mea culpa! I forgot that I left fellow dog lovers in somewhat of a lurch. Talk about a close-knit world-wide group of folks who’ll drop all barking for the professional barkers. When we read of another owner’s pooch in tough straits, especially if he or she’s come down with cancer, crash, boom and everthing else goes when we drop the rest of life’s stuff. Politics is definitely stuff; sometimes the kind of stuff we watch out for when cleaning up our back yards.
  We’re not sure if it’s lymphoma or the worse, leukemia. BUT he’s home today and will be for a while till his first chemo. We’re awaiting lab readings. NEVER lose hope, especially when they’re young, because as the doc told us, the stats on surviving leukemia are not as high for the simple reason that a lot of people for varying valid reasons, money and age, being some of them, besides not wanting to see their beloved pets suffer needlessly more, decide not to push through with the treatment. (Odd how that’s the kind of mentality also pushing these “let me die on my own terms” laws. Coincidence? Hmmm) Ah, but you’ll never know long and fully one can live unless he or she goes up to the plate and keeps swinging after the first few strike outs.
  The let’s keep “morality” as defined by “organized religion” out of the public market of ideas has yet to figure this commonsense approach. Which makes me even more convince dogs have souls, and live much moral lives than a lot of our “most moral” people in and out of religion.  After all, what do the atheists really know about unconditional love, which we receive from our pets, if they can’t see what one fellow human being demonstrated for them 2,000 years ago?
  My bark(s) for the night! And our dog’s gonna come back little by little, paw by paw. Anybody who wants to add some prayers, we’ll gladly take them with great gratitude.

As a the most devoted cat-person there is, my deepest love and prayers for your dog.
May the creator of The Heavens and the earth grant health to your dog.

Amen

Matt, the bible was not written so that you would need the help of some internet blog-face by the name of “Mk” to help you understand what it says.
The Lord said “let a yes be a Yes and a no a No”.
Simple as that. No “But`s, what if`s or roundabouts”
The truth is that many people does not like God as He is.
They would want Him to be different.
Therefore they invent all sorts of rubbish in order to put themselves above God.
To twist His words into something that tickles in their ears, is very common unfortunately.
The rosencreuts for instance, feels that it is not a nice thing to do to condemn someone to eternal Hell.
Therefore they find such an act to be incompatible with their view of what an all benign God should resemble.
And thus they have developed a doctrine that says everyone will be saved eventually.
They claim to have done this because their eyes, an supposedly all-gentle God could not act in any other way.
And thus they have forgotten that God, not them, decides what is good or not.
They also have placed themselves above God, and feel they have the right to pass judgement on Gods behalf.
And thus they have in all likelyhood, condemned themselves to eternal Hell for their arroganse.
Such acts are very common. Very many will not accept God as He is.
Mk belongs to a sect called preterism, witch holds that Revelation were fulfilled in 70AD.
It goes without saying that in order to work out a plausible logic to make this view ad up, you need to utterly destroy the scriptures down to the mere alfabet, and then take the individual letters and glue them together to form the words you would like to hear.
The first systematic preterist exposition was written by the Jesuit Luis de Alcasar during the Counter Reformation and was 900 hundred pages long.
Chances are if you need 900 pages to explain why The Bible has to be read in the way you want it to be read, you might as well start your own religion instead.
It would probably be both cheaper, easier and not to mention more trustworthy and believeable.
So let a yes be a YES, and a no a NO.
And read the bible itself instead of wasting time on
“The amazing preterist Bible-guide for people who do not like neither The Bible, what it says or anything about it at all”

Fire, thanks for the history lesson.  I have a question, though: besides consigning sinners to hell, does God ever speak to you directly through the holy scriptures?  I’ve heard the bible described as “love letters from God.”  What is the Almighty whispering in your ear?

Matt B

“Punish the evildoer and protect the children of the poor.”

F - although “all our righteousness is as a filthy rag,” and “no one is righteous before God, not one,” and “if the Lord were to regard our sins, who could be saved?” I can see where you’re coming from.  But just so we’re not talking in abstracts: just who are these evildoers, and what is their just punishment?  Are you sure you’re not projecting your own sense of indignation on your Maker?  After all, “he makes his sun to shine on the just and the unjust alike.”

Yeah, I`m sure.

Thomas More & I would have been a great team.

You could do worse.  You could be teamed up with Oprah Winfrey.

Kind of annoying that my comments, which were as inoffensive as milk, were removed, but Fire was allowed to personally attack me at great length and those comments are still there.  What gives?

mk- forbidden ideas require elimination

You could do better, FIRE.  You could team up with Torquemada.

The only Catholics that I know that “engage in the ridiculous attempt to say that the standards of the past were perfect” are made of straw.  Although ‘chronological snobbery’ exists, it is as mundane and obvious as any other form of vanity (including spiritual vanity).  ‘Progress’ is the illusion that we can get closer God by our own power.  Every age says “let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven” and is eventually scattered.  Pride goeth before the fall.  True progress requires the humility to acknowledge that without the vine the branches can do nothing.

“And yet, the Church condemns slavery, flogging, burning, racking, thumbscrews, disemboweling, drawing and quartering, beheading and various other things Catholics formerly did.  Your theory has some holes”

Well there are some holes in your theory
These Catholics who did some of what you have listed, are possibly in HELL, St. Thomas More is in HEAVEN and is HONORED by the Church. Catholics have committed sins, we all have, even Saints have. BUT Saints have recognized their sins and repented, and most official Saints were not guilty of objective mortal sins throughout their life, otherwise they wouldn’t be honored by the Church.

Second problem, the Church hasn’t condenmed all of what you have listed. Slavery, yes, flogging or beheading or burning… not so sure.

Third, what Catholic Saint owned slaves and didn’t repent and let them go? that might be tough to answer

Look you have only a few options:
A) What the Church teaches is a sin has been a sin and will always be a sin in which case what St. Thomas More did was ok
B) The Church has always taught against what St. Thomas did but he disagreed and the Church cannonized someone guilty of a material mortal sin
C) The Church has not always taught against what he did but does now and the morals of the Church change.
B is iffy, C is heresy.

Listen people, the saints have only tried to do both you and God a favour.

When the time comes, people are either on the right team or they will be thrown into the fiery furnace / lake of Fire / burned with a gallon of gasoline / or call it what ever you want.

However you wish to adress the Fire, it will surely suck for them.

Any witch way, people who are on the right team that day, will count themselves lucky.

So therefor amidst all this slandering of The Saints, I would like to take this oportunity to thank both The Saints, the members of the inquisition and everyone who else who has ever burned an athiest, wich, blasphemer or the likes of, and thus limiting thier influence on mankind.

I would also like to thank anyone who has ever converted someone by the sword.

Great job!

Thank you very much.

“Any witch [sic] way, people who are on the right team that day, will count themselves lucky.

I would also like to thank anyone who has ever converted someone by the sword.”

Fire:

Let me personally take the time to thank you for posting the most well-written and truly inspiring words I have ever read on any Catholic site.  Unbelievable and truly amazing!

You obviously have been very well trained and schooled in Catholic history and theology.  There is *absolutely* no doubt that the Fathers of the Church (and even our most recent popes) would be very impressed with all your emotional words and your *unbelievable* overall logic.

How in the world one person could ever acquire all the wisdom you portray here is simply mystifying.  How did you ever get so smart? 

Hopefully, you are constantly sharing your thoughts with others every single day.  Do you possibly teach at a seminary?  Have you written many books?  Are you a close adviser to B16?  Has NCRegister offered you an opportunity to join their staff of bloggers?

Well, in any case, my friend… let me just say it’s been a real honor and special *treat* to have read your words of wisdom here.

Thanks again…

sarcastic

[“sarcastic”]

Hmm-m… C’mon… now tell the truth young man.

Did ‘ya get help to figure that out… or did ‘ya figure it out all by yourself?

@ ED:

Don`t mention it. The trick is just to keep in mind two things:

A) It`s all about winning souls for The Lord
B) You cannot make an omelett without breaking a few eggs.

The Catholic church now has roughly 1,2 billion souls.

Considering it`s humble origins in a stable, I would say that is a pretty good achievement.

Sure, there`s been a few quircks and snags along the way, but like we say were I come from; ” One must always count on a little spoilage in all major corporations “.

Besides, it is not as if there is no competition.

Atheism in it`s various forms, be it in the shape of Nazism, Communism or Socialism will usually come knocking on the doors of humanity.

So will polyteism, Baal-worship, Satanism, Wicca, Materialism, Feminism and so forth.
And as we see these days, Liberalism seems to be doing all right for itself.

And not to mention it`s religious off-shoot of Liberalism, namely “New thought” and “New Age”, with its culmination of all things greedy, namely the unholy publication known as “The Secret”.

All these things belong in the dumpster as far as I`m concerned.

I believe in a God that says “Listen dudes, when push comes to showe, at the end of the day it really is my way or the highway. Simple as that”.

Therefore, I do not really see the point of allowing all these other ism`s to compete for the human soul.

The human soul should not be subject to the laws of the free markedplace.
If there at least is one thing you should have learned about God by now, it is this:

He does hate competiton.

If you doubt me, try reading the 10 commandments.
If you cannot be bothered with all 10 commandments, well then read as many as you can.

And should it, after all your long and hard efforts, proove to difficult to get more than 1 of them into your tired heads, well then, let it be the 1.st of them that finally settles between your exhausted eyebrows.

God HATES competion. That is the reason the 1.st commandment is the 1.st

The entire human species fell, because Eve listened to someone other than Him.
And look were it brought us. Here.

I would again like to thank both the Saints and The Holy Roman Inquisition for their efforts to stear mankind clear of Sodom & Gomorrah for as long as they did.

Personally, I find your arrogance in critising the Saints, very distasteful.
But then again I`m not as “Morally Evolved” as you seem to think you are.

And I never will be.

@special ED
not you ya doof…FIRE!...don’t you know that he’s just trying to yank the chains of those flamming libbys that are sure that Christians are trying to subvert damocracy and establish a theocracy?...c’mon!  “Bring back the inquisition”???  “Convert by the sword”???  “Burn the witches”???  “Boycott Gillette”???  Don’t you know that FIRE stands for Fake Internet Religious Extremist?  For somebody so adept at the use of sarcasm you don’t dectect it so well.

sorry ‘damocracy’ should be ‘damnocracy’

The sarcasm exists only in your mind Craig

And by the way, not just Gilette, boycot the entire parent-company Procter & Gamble ( P & G) thanks.

Here is wisdom:

“P” is 6 upside down.
“&” is 6 on the keyboard, and if it is not on your keyboard it is still a camouflaged 6.
And “G” looks more than a little like a 6.

But I`m really curious Craig, are you so knee-deep in nationalism that you really think The Lord will aproove of your fancy-smancy system at His return?

Really?

Moses was a good government.
He did not mess around, if you will not live by the covenant, then die by it.

Pure and simple.

Well… let’s be frank Craig, shall we?

These adolescent games being played here @ NCRegister lately seem to indicate the following:

1)  Fire obviously has a very disordered God-complex.  LOL

2) Many *suspect* posters here @ NCRegister lately are obviously NOT playing with a ‘full deck’.  LOL

and

3) You seem to always be the *perfect* set-up man for all these crazies lately.

Weird… huh?

1 Peter 1:7

“These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by FIRE—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

;-)

Go to bed fire… it is obviously past your bedtime.

To me it seems like your faith has decended into a cultural-identity phenomena.
The salt has lost its power. It seems to me you will put just about anything above your faith. Modernism, Atheism, Secularism, Feminism, Free Love and The Age of Aqurius.

In my book, God is still a jealous God, who will not tolerate anything above Him.
Not culture, not fads, not fashions, nothing.

And now you are even at the point were you are starting to slander the saints of old for their achievements.

Give my regards to P & G.

Please go to bed fire… you NEED your rest.

Give up ED…FIRE is too clever for both of us. 
1.  P&G upside down = 666 is the real ‘LOL’...not your imaginary ‘guy with a god-complex’
2.  FIRE has not only got a ‘full deck’ but a sleeve full of aces…so don’t try to call his/her bluff
3.  Mark ‘sets it up’ with his blog posts…I just show up to point out that “Catholics clamoring for a return of the inquisition” is a straw man…but then along comes FIRE to prove that some Catholics really ARE insane…and then Mark thanks him for making his point.  Hmmmmm….are you thinking what I’m thinking?????  Can’t you see what FIRE’s frequently insane replies entail?

@FIRE
Well played sir…well played.  Your trollitude is truly unmatched.  Unless you’re really Mark.  In that case, shame on you!

Craig:  Please seek some *professional* help as soon as possible.  We will keep you in our prayers brother!!!

ED- you did nail one thing…they are ‘adolescent games’

Thank you for the prayers…oh wait!...you’re being sarcastic about praying…shame on you!

Seriously, that’s shameful.

No Craig… the prayers are for REAL.

My apologies then…it’s hard to tell with you sarcastic types if you’re ever serious.

Could you guys keep it down?

I`m trying to get some sleep..

But enough with the sarcasm, I have a great idea.

We are 1,2 billion Catholics. There are 1.57 billion muslims.
And there are 13,421,000 jews.

Pluss about 800 million protestants.
That adds up to 3,5 billion decendants of Abraham.

There are 7 billion people in the world.

If all of us of The Abrahamic faith; Christians, Muslims & Jews united and gave up this ridiculous notion of “National states” wich is a completely unnatural division based on geography instead of soul, we could easily conquer the other half of humanity and use them as slaves.

Then we could kick back and watch them work, as punishment for not worshipping The One True Lord Thy God.

That way, all of you who seem so opposed to throwing them in The Lake of Fire, could still feel good about yourselves, and we would STILL get them back for the slavery we endured in Egypt.

How about THAT Boys? Agreed?
Good!

Blessed are the peacemakers. Goodnight.

In 100 years or less you will *personally* know the Truth… it’s not a game young man!

ED-  But seriously in all seriousness, if it’s not a game why all the sarcastic vitriol?  If FIRE is just winding us up with his/her genius impersonation of a Fundamentalist Invoking Ribald Exhortations, then it’s done in a spirit of fun.  Malicious and scurrilous fun maybe but not genuine hatred.  When one of the earnest, sincere, loving Christians heaps serious scorn on the scoffers they come off as sour, un-loving, hypocrites.  You can’t be sincere and fight FIRE with FIRE.

If we sink to the level of the ones taunting us and use the same condescension, insults, and sarcastic tone, but NOT in a spirit of fun, what does that say about us?  Onlookers are often shocked at how mean and nasty ostensibly Christian bloggers can be.  What’s to be done about it?

I say lighten up and turn the other cheek.  If you want to play the mocking game, keep it a game.  And if somebody gets hurt, kiss and make up.  You might be surprised at who (the scoffer or the Christian) is quicker to forgive.

Peacemaker?  I always figured you for one of them “hunger and thirst for justice” (Mt 5:6) types.

@SCWJR: “By your own mouth: “there is no such thing the Medieval judicial system.” - what a statement that was…” Listen: if you seriously think that there is such a thing as “the Medieval judicial system,” please tell me: where was it? Did this “judicial system” exist everywhere? Was it the same entity, “the Medieval judicial system,” throughout the whole medieval period? Are there really historians of this entity who take themselves to be studying just this one thing: “the Medieval judicial system”? [Obviously not, there is no such entity, that term does not refer. Please try not to be so ignorant. There is obviously no more “the Medieval judicial system” than there is “the 20th-century judicial system.”]

Fire, your plan to subject half the human race to slavery, so that the other half can live in idle luxury has already been tried.  It’s called “social security.”

Craig, you’re like the geek in those horror movies who says “this can’t happen here!  This is the 21st Century!  This is America!”  After the first 10 minutes he gets swallowed by a killer vampire alien.

ED - you better feed your antagonists, before they go away and leave you with the “Craig and Ed Show,” which is starting to sound a little like Great North.

Mark, I’m sorry your good faith effort to introduce a real saint into this hall of inanity didn’t fly. However I would still recommend the practice.  The Truth will out!

zing!

Shea may have coined the term ‘Darwin Mythos’ but it is not some figment of our crazy imaginations.  If the shoe doesn’t fit you, fine, don’t wear it; but some do, and yet would call themselves fellows of yours.
It seems to be a variant of this well-documented phenomenon: http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Social_Darwinism

[“ED - you better feed your antagonists, before they go away and leave you…”]

That’s perfectly fine with me ‘young troll feeder’. 

Have you personally checked-out the prices at the grocery store lately, eh?

Moose meat has gone through the roof!

I like this “Craig” guy. He is fun and forgiving.

Well David M.

You might investigate the link I provided you with. 

You might ask yourself what informed legal theory in Western Europe during the period of time known as the medieval period.  (Hint: look at the subject headings of the sourcebook!)

You might ask yourself where people went to study law during that time period, you might find the answer to be the universities. 

You might ask yourself if there were any commonalities between the curriculums taught at these “medieval universities”. 

You might ask yourself about whether or not there were any common issues “states” had to face during this time period and whether or not we can trace any common legal “solutions” that were employed at that time.

You might ask these and other questions and investigate their solutions through the study of history.

You might discover that there is something to study here and that the same persons, places, and things keep reoccurring. 

I would expect that if you were to question an academic historian (in America at least) about whether or not they study one thing or many, they would probably say that they study a family of things that resemble one another.  They would say this because Wittgenstein is popular, not necessarily because that is the correct answer…

DavidM,

Actually, “[a]re there any experts on the Medieval judicial system out there?” was just a quip. Like, “Is there a doctor in the house?”

I’m fully aware that there were many jurisdictions, with many different laws. I was only interested in knowing if “burning alive” was the exception, or, the rule?

If heretics were executed by hanging, and then burnt at the stake, wouldn’t that change our view of these trials and executions?

Guys, take a look at this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055636/Sudanese-man-beheaded-Saudi-Arabia-car-park-sorcerer.html

This is basically what we are talking about. The guy was convicted of sorcery and beheaded in a parkinglot.

In my view it was done in accordance with Leviticus 6:27: “A man or a woman who is a medium or a wizard shall be put to death; they shall be stoned with stones, their blood shall be upon them.”

Fair is fair, and if you have a problem with that, you can complain to God.

Ed - forget about moose meat.  Do you see where Groupon is valued at $10.8 billion?  And this is a company that has done nothing but lose money!  What do they think, that people are tied to their computers like a one-armed bandit - pumping in hundred dollar bills?  Shades of dot.com debacles! Shades of bubbles about to burst!  Holy Bernie Madoff, Batman.  What will be next?  Tulips?

If someone develops a particularly nasty virus, or there’s unusual sunspot activity, or Al-Quaeda figures out how to push the delete button, half of the economy disappears into network no-mans land.

I wonder what they’re expecting - that we’ll all be living underground?

“I’ve changed my hairstyle so many times now, I don’t know what I look like.”

Awww!  That’s sooo sweet!  :)  Remember me when gasoline is being poured on my head in preparation for the pit ~:O

http://www.ccel.org/print/alphonsus/uniformity/iv

Well at least Saudi Arabia is standing firm. They just beheaded some dude in a parking-lot for sorcery.
Keep that up, and there won`t be any Planned Parenthoods in their neighbourhood for at least a couple of weeks.

I’m more interested in the Saudi practice of polygamy.  Do you think it stands a chance of returning to the US?  Talk about a lake of fire!  But in the US, we don’t “possess” anything outright, since everything is owned by a cartel of narcoterrorists.  I guess the most we can expect is matrimony “on the installment plan.”  Wow, life can be sweet!

I knew it!  I could tell you have multiple mothers.

ED-
WOW!  Nice link!  A lot more to chew on than this blog post.  (No offense Mark.)

“It is true, when one offends us unjustly, God does not will his sin, nor does he concur in the sinner’s bad will; but God does, in a general way, concur in the material action by which such a one strikes us, robs us or does us an injury…”  “We must not therefore consider the afflictions that come upon us as happening by chance or solely from the malice of men; we should be convinced that what happens, happens by the will of God.”

It’s like what FIRE posted from 1 Peter.

Not exactly.

In my world there is a battle between good and evil going down.
And God`s responsibility for bad stuff usually extends no further than being the owner of existence.

Mankind does have a free will, and some of the hideous crimes that goes on (Such as Feminism, witch is The Wh*re of Babylon) happens in oposition to Gods will.

In other words, one cannot do what ever one wants to and blame it on the will of God.

For instance:

Should I, in the end, decide that Craig should burn after all, then of course Craig must take responsibility for that himself.

But as for now he´s looking good. ;-)

ED has provided a very valuable service.  You ought to read the whole article: 
“Apropos of this it is related that two martyrs, Epictetus and Atho, being put to the torture by having their bodies raked with iron hooks and burnt with flaming torches, kept repeating: “Work thy will upon us, O Lord.” Arrived at the place of execution, they exclaimed: “Eternal God, be thou blessed in that thy will has been entirely accomplished in us”

WHOAAA!!!  It’s better to be on the receiving end of the torture in this world ~;o
(btw, that’s not a wink, it’s a gouged out eyeball.)

HAPPY ALL SAINTS DAY!!!  Don’t forget to go to mass.

I did read the whole thing of course.

But there is nothing wrong with being avenging angels.
To punish the wicked is also part of Gods plan.

But such vengeance should always be poetic, and according to Gods laws

Like the dude in Saudi Arabia.

He was asked to concoct a spell that would cause the officer’s father to leave his second wife.

According to the officer’s account, Abdul Hamid agreed to carry out the curse in exchange for 6,000 Saudi Arabian riyals (approximately £1,000).

Mr Hamid thus tried to not only break the laws of Leviticus and the Quran,
but he also tried to make a profit by causing the misfortunes of others, and provoking an unjust divorce.

But instead of earning a 1000 bux on grossly immoral acts of sorcery & dark arts, as featured in Harry Potter, he ended up as Completly Headless Nick instead.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055636/Sudanese-man-beheaded-Saudi-Arabia-car-park-sorcerer.html#ixzz1cT5Np0g0

Craig - it’s interesting you should mention my mothers on All Saints Day.  My first mother was a holy saint, who tried but failed to correct my erring ways, and went to her grave without the satisfaction of witnessing my redemptive repentance.  For this courageous attempt, I have no doubt she rests in the bosom of Abraham.

In her wisdom, cultivated by patience and longsuffering faith, she consigned me to my second mother, who was after all able to convert my erring ways.  What my first mother was not able to accomplish with raps and tears, my second mother did with the assistance of angels.

And lest you make the mistake of fatuous Winfrey-style believers, know that those angels can be pretty tough hombres. 

“God bless the broken paths, that lead me straight to you!”

@Steven Wiberg: So you’re restricting the medieval period to when? After the formation of the first universities? (For much of the Medieval period there were no universities to go to to study law.) Post-Gratian? That seems a little arbitrary. Anyone who knows even a little about medieval legal history (like myself) knows that the medieval period saw a revival of Roman law and that there is no single thing to which the definite description “the Medieval judicial system” can be referred. (So you’re still wrong, but I appreciate the decrease in your snarkiness.)
@Nick: I’m no expert, but from what I remember reading, where burning occurred, it didn’t seem to matter whether the victim was alive or not.

God bless your mother Matt.

And God bless your tutalary spirit, FIRE.

[“ED- WOW!? Nice link!”]

Glad you enjoyed it. 

Considering the special day today, I thought I should send you (and others) the link to read the whole thing if you haven’t already.

IMO… “Uniformity with God’s Will” by St. Alphonsus de Liguori should be mandatory reading for all 16-18 year-old Catholics before they are thrown into this *sick* and *chaotic* world to fend for themselves.

‘Inner peace’ today is very difficult for many people to find without understanding what St. Alphonsus de Liguori wrote.

Follow the Saints… during this journey they are our *flashlights* to help us get home. 

Enjoy…

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/alphonsus/uniformity

I’ve bookmarked it.  It just goes to show that if you are going to feed the trolls anyway you might as well give them a healthy tasty treat.

Boys, you should read this:

http://www.integratedcatholiclife.org/2011/11/dr-kreeft-how-to-win-the-culture-war/

I myself am moving over to this guys place. And for the record, I was never a troll.
I just look very, very differently on the world from what you do, and I positively HATE all things modernistic.

So fare well and good luck on the days of Judgement.

Boycot P&G, and if you feel like doing worse than that to them, then by all means, do not let me stop you.

Before you go, FIRE, I was wondering…do they make you wear one of those masks like Hanibal Lecter?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWshPH_jsjQ

Have a nice day and tell P & G I said “Hello”.

Here you go Craig:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWshPH_jsjQ

Tell P & G I said “Hello”.

Google “Dogma Boardroom” Craig.

You`ll find the scene on youtube.

The difference between me and those boys, is that I do not think Miss Price is innocent at all. She participated just as much in the worship of the Golden Calf as the rest of them.

See you around Craig. And never ever buy anything from P & G.

Really? ‘Dogma’?  You get your theology from Hollywood.  And not just anything from Hollywood but the worst most sacrilegious blasphemy it has to offer.  That explains a lot.

I’m guessing the mask is optional and you just wear it because you think it makes you look cool.

What`s your Goddamned problem Craig?

We have burned blasphemers since the days of the prophets.
I think we should keep it up.

If you think “Dogma” is blasfemous,
then why don`t you seek out the producers and install the Fear of The Lord in them?

After all, why should The Lord endure blasphemous insults when He`s got you living in the US and more than capable of putting an end to their wicked ways?

Go get`em Craig.
Bye.

You’re confused.  Christians believe that God is all loving and merciful.  He even sent His son to die for us…not to condemn us (Jn 3:17).  What you want is that other religion…you know, the one that says holy war is cool and death to the blasphemers and all that.  But even jihadis probably think that ‘Dogma’ was crap.  Good luck finding your niche…assuming your parole board makes some heinous mistake.

If He even sent his own Son to die screaming on a cross,
then imagine what He`ll do to the rest of you, witch He loves far, far less.

Try reading The Old Testament from time to time, Craig.
Keeps you sober.

Well anyway, here we go:

http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/11/02/you-say-you-wanna-bomb-iran-take-a-number-and-stand-in-line/?hpt=hp_c2

I guess it`s Time.

Goodbye and good luck.

God didn’t crucify Jesus.  And anyone that says He did (and is of sound mind and body) is pretending to be Christian so they can get their jollys by scandalizing believers.  But oh wait!  We already knew that about you, didn’t we?  Do you write the same sort of drivel on Muslim websites?  I’m guessing…no.  It’s all fun and games until somebody declares a fatwa on you, isn’t it?

I never said God crucified Him. We both said “sent His Son to die”.
I added “Screaming on a cross”. Then you added the rest.

Bye.

Besides, you are getting paranoid.

In your world, it seems like wanting to establish a Theocracy is a bad idea.
While in my mind, it is the only way to go.

I do not believe in Modernism, Feminism, Liberalism or any of the other crap that you seem to be so fond of.

I`ve said it before and I`ll say it again.
Moses was a great government. Simple as that.

I do realize that modern media tries to portray Theocracy like it is the embodiment of evil. It is not.

God made His rules to be followed.
Not to be banished to the oblivion of privacy, like Modernism and Secularism would have it.

The Pope should rule Christendom like he used to.
The Sanhedrin should rule Israel, and the Children of Islam should rule themselves.

Why do you asume that everyone is a fan of “Democracy” and “United Nations”?
Cause the New York Time`s says so?

Both are modern inventions and they mean nothing to me.

I will take a good Pope over a bunch of hyped up idiots and powerhungry politicians any day.
Regardless if they`ve got “The Majority Vote”.

“If He (action)...then imagine what He’ll do…”  It’s implied. 

When a Christian says, “He sent His son to die for us.” other Christians, and even unbelievers semi-conversant in the tenants of the faith understand that the reason Christ died was to save our souls.

When a troll pretending to be Christian says “He sent His son to die.” he conveniently leaves out “for us” to imply that God is the villain responsible for killing His own son.  Pretty sick huh? 

Atheists will come right out and say, “What kind of God kills His only son?”  Fake believers try to be a little cagier so they can deny it when somebody calls them out on it.  Neither understand what their talking about.

“I will take a good Pope over a bunch of…” 
We (Catholics) have a good pope and he isn’t calling for the burning of heretics.

@FIRE:Thank you for your prayers and concern for (actually, legally-speaking, Kona was my daughter’s dog, but he managed to “adopt” all of our family member’s hearts as well. Unfortunately, he developed the harshest form of Leukemia and I guess to some degree, it’s safe to say we’re grateful he went quickly. This stuff can drag out for a long time, and since this post’s thread delves on morality, ‘tis safe to say it wouldn’t be the moral thing to do, i.e. putting him through more hellish pain just to say we didn’t quit on such a loveable family member.
  Sadly, he passed away just as another hellish period began, nearly six full days sans electricity no thanks to a freakish Halloween Wknd Snow Dump on top of many trees still sporting their fall foliage. Snap, crraackle n’ poof, no juice.
  Now that I’m back on, I’m surprised to see nobody took on that guy who called himself the “most moral” person he knew. Now if there’s EVER a prima facie exemplar par none other for what egotism, vanity, pride and pure Oprah-ish mush for “moral reasoning” in our ever-so-unique-to-us-times, well, good luck finding another to bat around for fun. LOL
  Brrrrr, I’m still defrosting ... all those days living in darkness and no computer to bang on. What did the moralists of ye olden times do?
  They managed.

Steven, my friend, I am so sorry to hear about Kona.
I wished things went differently.

If it is any comfort to you, I am certain Kona died in an ocean of your love.
And we both know animals have souls that will be taken care of.

And we both know they are capable of a love and devotion humans only can dream about.

G.

Theocracy is a bad idea.  That’s because God is known through love, not coercion.  Those who exercise coercion in the name of God are most likely not representing him. 

This has proven to be true throughout the history of revelation.  Moses was not a good leader.  He was a cranky old prophet and a strange aloof levitical priest.  Not at all charismatic.  David, the fabled leader of Israel, arranged the murder-in-battle of the man whose wife he abducted and ravished.  He was never a good father either - just a doting, indulgent dad.  The history of the popes also shows that they were never meant to be worldly kings.  Excellent apostles, awful emperors. 

There’s got to be a more subtle and appropriate channel for FIRE’s admirable recourse to the power and majesty of the OT accounts.  God is the same yesterday, today and forever.  Don’t tell me he can’t part the Red Sea even today, or stand with a single lonely prophet against the assembled babblistas of network news, governmental usurpation and business greed, with ample vindication.  Maybe even some FIRE from heaven will fall. 

Craig - for someone who touts christian charity, you seem very able to abridge it for the sake of some freeflowing indignation regarding evangelicals.

People we`ll make this quick.

Craig worships some made-up fairy faggot fantasy image from the 70`s, and I worship YAHWE.

Who IS.

@Craig - I’m afraid you’re missing the boat about the crucifixion of Jesus.  The Father did indeed send him from heaven for the express purpose of experiencing this cruel death.  There are so many bible passages that attest to this, I’m afraid I must conclude you’re reading it in the “Good News for Modern Man” translation.

You are right, however, that the purpose of this divine prediliction was to redeem fallen man.  Therein lies the rub: this horrible remedy tells us of the real and immense horror of sin; and likewise demonstrates God’s enormous, in fact eternal love for us.

Don’t quail before the truth because you (or some ignorant atheist) can’t handle it.  It takes a stong and determined heart to be a Christian.

HAH!  It takes skill to out a troll.  The trick is to catch them in between their sedative doses.

@Matt

A little crusifixion never hurt anybody.
It builds character and toughens up the lad.

It was always worried around the Halls of Eternity that He might be a little too soft on sinners.

But not anymore.
Now that He has seen what they can do.

*sigh*....Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt…the ‘purpose’ was redemption part of the ‘means’ was crucifixion.  It’s hard to understand this stuff but it would help if you went to mass.  Many priests would be happy to help you understand the complexities of the Bible, Christianity, and English grammar.

@FIRE - Whether you’re the spirit of zeal for the Lord, or a careless christian typer hiding behind an inscrutable mask, I have to remind you that the 2nd Commandment proscribes taking the Lord’s name in vain.  You have clearly done that in your comment of 9:41pm.  Do you think that you can take such a cavalier approach to holy, holy things, and presume that the God of all creation can be addressed in such a way?

You are obviously not practicing what you preach.

Do you?

Craig - for someone who touts christian charity, you seem very able to abridge it for the sake of some freeflowing indignation regarding evangelicals.

EVANGELICALS????  I have NOOOO problem with Evangelicals.  It’s the pretend Christians like FIRE that say crazy stuff to make all believers look bad that I like to call out.  Next are the ‘sola scriptura’ types that don’t know scripture.

@ Matt

Besides I did not take The Lords name in vain. I was only explaining the purpose of The Passion. But it is good that you reacted on gut instinct on what you deemed to be an offense against God. Good to see there is still a little devotion left, even this secular Hellhole of an age.

Craig - you’re punting.  If I actually had a spiritual director, I would consider myself pathetically self-absorbed.  My habitual contact with priests is restricted to a handshake in the narthex after Mass, and an occasional 3.5 minute confession.  Only old ladies faced with the prospect of a long stay in purgatory would presume to impose any greater obligations on the clergy.

I wonder if God can be so haphazard about “means?”  I guess we can chalk up that whole history of Israel, the choseness of the Blessed Virgin Mary, all the things those Apostles did, and the enfleshment of faith in the historical Church - everything human in fact - to arbitrary “means” to the Father’s end of situating all mankind in nirvana after this illusory visit to temporal never-never land comes to an (end?).

Is that what you’re saying?

@Fire - I don’t think so:

“A little crusifixion never hurt anybody.
It builds character and toughens up the lad.”

How can you presume to utter such words.  Have you no compassion?  Take as your model the Mother of Our Lord - who stood by him in his bitter passion.  Would you say such a thing in her presence?

Theologically, those who drink and drive over such a mountainous terrain often drive off a metaphorical cliff.

Craig:

Why do you worry about “looking bad” amongst the heathens?

Christianity is not a popularity contest.
Your only worry SHOULD BE wether or not you look bad in the eyes of The Lord.

Not what they`ll say on Oprah.

@ Matt, yes I would.

Not only does it build character, but it also saves all who truly respects His sacrifice.
So there. Allthough I doubt She would care about that.

But anyway, His Mother will never be my model since She`s a girl.
YAHWE is my Hero.

And should I aim to have any earthly model at all, it would be John The Baptist.

Har har…I think Matt B. nailed you.  But pay no attention to that!  Unfortunately he seems to have fallen for your shtick and thinks you’re some sort of Christian.

Craig, shouldn`t you be practising for the upcoming Miss America?
Matt and I have both forgotten more about Christianity than you`ll ever learn.

By the way, how many of you would consider either John The Baptist or Jesus of Nazareth to be “Christians”?

Just curious.

zzzzzzzzzz

Well round this up now, but Matt, I`ll leave you with this:

If the crucifiction really had hurt Him permanently, God wouldn`t have allowed Him to go through with it.

Furthermore He was good as new 3 days later, apart from a few scars and holes that probably did not hurt anymore anyway.

So He got to learn abit about life and death, and a good ressurection certainly removes any remaining doubts witch was implied in the passage “Why have you left me”.

So it did build character.
See you later Buddy.

By the way CNN & Time magazine has decleared that “Britain is reagy to bomb Iran”.
So, you you never know how long these planets lasts these days.

So if this should be it, I`ll just have to see you later!
He he.

;-)

Hmmm…I think I’ll go watch the movie I got from Netflix today…it’s called “Troll Hunter”!

Thanks for your explanation.  It’s not satisfactory however - it’s fallacious.

Imagine yourself being betrayed by a good friend.  Then beat up all bloody. Then mocked and spit on.  Then marched under a unbearably heavy weight.  Then stripped naked.  Then nailed through your hands and feet, and mounted on a cross.  Then you are left to hang and suffocate for 3-6 hours.  And after you’re dead they thrust a lance through your heart.

Would it be OK for someone to call it a “learning experience,” even if it were?  And would you talk like that to the Son of God, who had undertaken this torture for the express purpose of redeeming your hopelessly forsaken soul?

Cavalier?  Ungrateful.

Okay kids… time to stop talking and go to bed.  Enough of this mindless chatter.

And Craig… please make sure you put the *food* away like a good boy so your friends will not have to come back here tomorrow.

Thanks

hehe hehehe hehe…you got deleted

@ Matt: Since you mention it…

Lets see, during this lifetime:

“Being betrayed by a good friend.”: Check.
“Then beat up all bloody.”: Check.  (got my ear bitten off too)
“Then mocked and spit on”.: Check (got my own ear spat in my face, from the guy who bit it off)

“Then marched under a unbearably heavy weight.” Check.
(Allthough not in a physical manner, but “weight” in the form of extreme mental abuse during many years of childhood) 

“Then stripped naked.”: Check
(During an unrelated icident when 6 police officers stormed my apartment) 

“Then nailed through your hands and feet, and mounted on a cross.” ; Not yet
“Then you are left to hang and suffocate for 3-6 hours.”: Not yet
“And after you’re dead they thrust a lance through your heart.”: Not yet

But I did have my home cheated from me by the banks, all of my stuff inpounded, but more importantly, my daughter was taken away.

I havent seen her in 5 years, and that sort of hurts a lot more than any brief or passing physical pain. As you can hopefully not imagine.

So there`s been some suffering like everyone else.
But yes, I would classify all of those experiences as “a learning experience”

Have a nice day, Buddy

“And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.  Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages he might show us the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindnes toward us in Christ Jesus.”  (Eph 2, 1-7)

I hope all your lessons pay off.

These are the kinds of stuff that people have to go through, in societies were The Word of God is not Law. Thats what I`ve learned.

So my hatred for Modernism is simply an effect of experiencing first hand what evils men will bring upon men in secular societies.

I simply wish that no-one else should have to go trough the same.
And they would not, in a proper and good Theocracy.

Its as simple as that.

And it will get worse. For instance:

Here were I live, Sodomites are now allowed to marry and adopt.
But ofcourse none of the countries that usually “donate” children for adoption would ever allow a Sodomite-couple to adopt one of their kids.

So there will be a growing demand for children of adoptable age, to supply these Sodomite-couples with. So they`ll turn to child-services, and child services will go out looking for parents who raise their kids in an politically-uncorrect fashion, take their kids and give them to the Sodomite-couples.

This is just one example of many, but once a society starts to deviate from The Word of God, all Hell breaks loose, bit by bit. So there`s Liberalism for you.

Goes without saying that if the way of Jesus is The Truth, The Light and The Way, and it is, then all other ways are Lies, Darkness and The Wrong Way.
 
Regardless of peoples “Beliefs”. One does not have to “believe” in Jesus for His ways to be The Truth, The Light and The Way.
His ways will be The Truth, The LIght and The Way, anyway.

Wether people belive it or not.
So a good Theocracy witch enforces all the Laws of The Old Testament witch Jesus came to fulfill, and in addition His own Laws witch werent many.

Simple as that. And what people may “Believe” or “Not Believe” is their own problem.
It has no effect on The Truth.

FIRE, I understand your desire to impose the truth on people “whether they want to accept it or not.”  Moreover you have a point, that “the truth is the truth, whether you believe in it or not.”  However there are a few problems with this view in practice.

The first problem is that the kingdom is about God waiting to rain down blessings on those who believe him, and believe in him.  Access to the kingdom is reserved to those who “say yes.”  There may be an element of kingdom glory in this world, but the fullness is reserved for “kingdom come.”

If things seem unacceptable in this world, on a personal level and in the aggregate, it’s because “the earth” is not our end, just a passing-through place.  And in fact, the “moving on” is all about believing in God even when things are not working out, are terribly wrong.

So to coerce large swaths of humanity into putting into a practice the dead letter of the law would be defeating God’s purpose, right?  You can’t push a string.  You can pull it by example, witness, living the faith, and by praying “the world” will be convicted and come along; but you can’t force someone to believe.

Those first blessed martyrs being eaten alive in the Roman Coliseum by wild animals - and indeed all martyrs - died after all.  They could be viewed as colossal failures.  And Jesus is the “leader and perfecter of our faith.”  He had the greatest crash of all.  But we know that he was the victor after all.

So too you and I.

“So to coerce large swaths of humanity into putting into a practice the dead letter of the law would be defeating God’s purpose, right? “

Wrong. If I impose rules, I do so for them to be followed and down to the letter.
God has not given rules that are meant not to be followed.

Neither are they optional. For instance. We are to be our brother`s keeper. From that follows it is not in our right to look the other way when our brothers are killed by their mothers, through abortion.

Betty Friedan and the rest of her Godless wh*res, has made murder out to be “a womans personal choice”. Wrong.
It is not “a personal choice”.
It is our brothers and sister they are killing. Simple as that.
Modernism has as it`s main aim, “to make religion a personal matter”.
It is not “a personal matter”.
God is supposed to judge “by the nations”. Not by the individual. Modernism and Individualism is thus imposing more work on God.

To put it in simple terms:
If my mother had ever had an abortion, I would report her to the police for murder in the 1.st degree of my sibling.

And if they refused to invetigate, I would sue the police-department for discrimination, as they investigate other murders.
After that I would sue my motherfor willfully causing the death of my relative.
These are examples of making the Laws of God a public matter, and get worship out of the bathrooms and cupboards.

Fear God and keep His Commandments.
There is nothing more to discuss. So there is no reason for any of you to reply.
Good bye.

I hate to say good-bye on an angry note.  I fully support your indignation with a world which can be loathesome and disgusting.  There’s more than enough blame to go around.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.  In fact, if God is to be present in this depraved and vicious world, it’s in your words and actions.  Are you brave enough to be hopeful in a world deprived of hope?

God may come weilding a sword of fire.  And sooner than the worldlings think.  But don’t be consumed by his fiery wrath in the lead up to destruction.  Be like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who “walked about as in a dewy breeze” among the raging FIRE.

Sincerely.

There is no anger towards you my friend Matt.
But there has been some development to my dark predictions made here on this site,
on Nov 4, 2011 5:05 PM, (see my posting above.)

TODAY, in my country, there is an article in the nations largest online-newspaper called “VG”.
There, Sodomites are complaining about having to few options to get children of their own. At the present, they get kids through surrogaty.
Then suddenly:
Unsurprisingly, State Secretary Henriette Westhrin from the Department of Children, Equality and Inclusion, answers by “reccomending all Sodomite couples who want kids, to contact Childservices, to register themselves as Fosterparents and thus be able to adopt children”.
Children who have been taken from their parents.
Just like I fortold would happen, two days ago, on Nov 4, 2011 5:05 PM.
So there is no anger towards you, my friend Matt.
Only sorrow for the families who will be broken apart, and have their kids kidnapped by Childservices, so that the Sodomite couples can have their children.

These are the consquences of Secularism and Modernism.
The Horror.

Here is the link to the article, if you want proof that my words are true,
use Google translator to translate from Norwegian to English:
http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=10023413

There has been some development to my predictions made here on this site,
on Nov 4, 2011 5:05 PM, (see my posting above.) They came true.

TODAY, in my country (Norway) there is an article in the nations largest online-newspaper called “VG”.
There, Sodomites are claiming they are “great parents” and are complaining about having to few options to get children of their own.
At the presently, they get kids through surrogaty.
Then suddenly:
State Secretary Henriette Westhrin from the Department of Children, Equality and Inclusion, answers by “reccomending all Sodomite couples who want kids, to contact Childservices, to register themselves as Fosterparents and thus be able to adopt children”.
Children who have been taken from their parents.
Just like I fortold would happen, two days ago, on this site.
So there is no anger towards you, my friend Matt.
Only sorrow for the families who will be broken apart, and have their kids kidnapped by Childservices, so that the Sodomite couples can have their children instead.

These are the consquences of Secularism and Modernism.
Pure Horror.

There has been some development to my predictions made here on this site,
on Nov 4, 2011 5:05 PM, (see my posting above.)
They came true.

TODAY, here in Norway, there is an article in the nations largest online-newspaper (VG).
There, Sodomites are claiming they are “great parents” and are complaining about having to few options to get children of their own. Aparently, Sodomy does not produce children, so they get kids through surrogaty.
Then suddenly:
State Secretary Henriette Westhrin from the Norwegian Department of Children, Equality and Inclusion, answers by “reccomending all Sodomite couples who want kids, to contact Childservices, to register themselves as Fosterparents and thus be able to adopt children”.
Children who will be taken from their parents.
Just like I fortold would happen, two days ago, on this very site.

These are the consquences of Secularism and Modernism, Matt.
Pure Horror.
There is no moral progress. Only decay.

FIRE, I don’t know what are the consequences of secularism and modernism.  I’m not sure if the current state of affairs is adequately characterized by recourse to any specific “ism” or set of “isms.”  My own analysis, a result of prayer and reflection, leads me to believe that we will soon see a massive intervention on behalf of Our Creator and Savior, similar or identical to the scenes envisioned in Gen 19 and Mat 24.  Why call it prophecy?  It’s happening now. 

But you seem to be a prophet.  Maybe you can tell me what will happen next.  It probably doesn’t take much foresight to expect the worst.  But I wonder what quality or qualities it takes to envision a positive outcome, and to bring it about.

Imagine there’s a minute to doomsday.  You have sixty seconds.  What do you do?  Of course you ask the Lord for more time.  Now you have a day, then a week, then a month.

You would be foolish to forget, no matter how much time the Lord allotted you, that the doomsday clock is ticking; that you have no more urgent task then to prepare yourself and your loved ones for the impending moment; that the time you have received is probably not enough.

And you would be the world’s biggest fool to forget entirely that you’re living on borrowed time.  You would be crazy to immerse yourself in the ways of the world as if the end were not coming.  You would be completely insane to disregard the seminal warning and behave as if it were a fantastic dream, a pathetic myth, a deluded paranoia, something to “free yourself” from.

That’s why the Lord is coming “as a thief in the night.”  But you, spend all your energy and every moment of your time preparing, because the end *is* near.  Take comfort and prepare.

Matt & FIRE:

Since it seems that you both NEED to continue this conversation… let me make a suggestion to you.

I’m sure that Mark Shea will be glad to furnish each one of you with each other’s e-mail address if you both e-mail him.

Try that… it will END this thread and be a win-win for you and for all of us too!

Thanks

Ed, I didn’t know you were keeping count.  What is this, Vegas-style pool action?

I’m happy to sign off!  You’re now responsible for the soul of the person who calls himself FIRE.  It’s apparent he’s distressed, perhaps despairing.  Maybe he’s in danger of committing mortal sin?  From his comments he seems capable of it.  What are you supposed to do, let him jump?

But as long as you’re on the job, Ed, keeping the world safe for distressed humanity, my heart will be at peace.

Matt, are you on crack?

I am responsible for my own soul, and I am neither distressed nor despairing.
I watch and acknowledge the state of affairs.

I analyse and weigh, and I learn about humanity.
And for the future I will be buzzy studying the reconstruction of The Third Temple.

So goodbye, and try to get into a rehab clinic Matt.
And of course The End is near. What did you think? That it was just a joke?

There is no such thing as “Moral Progress” because “morals” are based upon the the unchanging character of God. What you deem as “Progress” is not really progress at all, it is a matter of synthesizing situational ethics into the equation. In addition to this you fool yourself into thinking that the world has progressed and we are all the better for it. You are wrong. Within the past 100 years there have been more martyrs than at any other time in history. More mass graves dug by tyrants and more genocide than at any other time. All this has been done by formerly Christian countries, as well as Islamic countries. We have not progressed at all. We here in the U.S. murder more children in the womb. We export more pornography and have began trafficking in human slavery at a level that is off the charts. Human slavery is at an all-time high in the world and the list grows. God’s word the Holy Bible tells that we will all be judged by the unchanging moral law set forth in the Torah. Thank God for Jesus Christ who died and rose again that we might not have to face that judgement. I for one plead His blood.

This article on www.ncregister.com is bookmark worthy in my opinion. It’s worth saving for future reference. It’s fascinating reading with many valid points for contemplation. I have to concur on almost every point made within this article.