...Yes, and that sort of excuse is available for all the other embarrassing stuff in the bible. It’s no wonder this book has been responsible for the creation of more atheists than any other. On the positive side though the gaffs are so many and varied that there is something in the bible for everyone no matter how odious your moral philosophy. No wonder Christianity has such wide appeal. From slave owners and misogynists through to homophobes and anti-semites there’s something in it for you.

Hint - People in glass house shouldn’t throw stones. Think before you insult atheists. They have far more amunition than you do. - Especially on the magical thinking front.

Slavery, as it existed then in Israel, was very different. It was a term that reffered to the labourers - some of whom were bonded to the boss. There were rules and a time limit to this contract. It benefitted the boss as well as the worker or slave. When the slave reached the age of 29 years (or somewhere there) the slave was a free man. Many of these people continued, by choice, to work for the boss. Jesus asked bosses and slaves to respect each other.

Oh GordonHide…(deep sigh)...did “ignorant and arrogant” hurt? Hardly an insult - just the plain truth. How about if you trouble your head with this for a wee moment: if you’re going to criticise those who believe in God, you’re going to have to KNOW what we stand for first and it’s not as easy as labelling us homophobes, misogynists and so forth. I can hardly imagine the ammunition you have when you stand for nothing!

Blessings from “Down Under” (Australia)

Let me get this straight—-your atheist friend uses the bible to justify atheism—what am I missing here????

As Father Brown said, “It is not safe for a man to read his Bible unless he also reads everyone else’s.”

“On the positive side though the gaffs are so many and varied that there is something in the bible for everyone no matter how odious your moral philosophy.”

Thanks, GordonHide, for your succinct case AGAINST Sola Scriptura and FOR a magisterium. You know, after you grow up and leave your angry atheist troll days behind you, you might just make a fine Catholic :)

The Shorter GordonHide:

“You suck—nananananana—notlistening—nananana—tu quoque—nanananana…”

I’ve found that nearly all atheists (having been one myself for a couple of decades) read the bible just as if they were Fundamentalists (not that they really read it of course, they just skim.)  To read it intelligently or contextually would require that they approach it with respect.  But they have no respect for the bible, for many, not even as a book of literature.  So, they have no recourse but to pull out the fact that thousands of years ago (as well as 150 years ago in this country) slavery was perfectly legal, that women’s rights were not recognized (although the concept of rights for just about anyone was unknown), etc. etc., etc.

They also are completely ignorant of the scholarship of Church leaders.  I heard Richard Dawkins recently tell the Archbishop of Canterbury that Pope Benedict rejected the findings of modern science, once again proving that while Dawkins might be a brilliant microbiologist (I don’t know, just giving him the benefit of the doubt), when it comes to matters of religion, he, like the rest of the atheists, doesn’t bother to come to the table with the slightest understanding of faith or religion or the teachings or religious leaders.  To them, it isn’t even worth studying.

The argument against atheists is not winnable on their empirical grounds.  They come to any argument about God already having decided that any belief by faith is inherently irrational, so no matter what you say to them, it is irrelevant. They fail to recognize that the modern worldview is itself based upon a faith in the ability of science to answer all questions and solve EVERYTHING, and that the epistemological foundations for their own beliefs is shaky at best.  Maybe they should read some Polanyi.  It might help them understand what science and faith are.  It might also help them to understand the juvenile nature of their hit and run attacks against religion.

The actual answer is that the difference between ameliorated slavery & chattel slavery. The former gives the owner the right over the fruits of the slaves labor but not his person. While the latter gives one total control of the slave’s person and life. In ameliorated slavery, a slave can acrue peronal wealth, contract marriage, have a family, and a right to his own conscience (which is how a slave could be a Christian while his master was not and vice versa). In chattel slavery, the slave owner can refuse marriage, separate families, and there is no way for a slave to eventually purchase his own freedom. Every aspect of the chattel slaves life is controlled by the master. I think it is possible to say that ameliorated slavery was similar to indentured servitude with the biggest differences being that indentured servant freely entered into contract for a fixed period of time.
The Church has ALWAYS CONDEMNED CHATTEL SLAVERY in all times and places. While the Church has tolerated ameliorated slavery and it was this form of slavery to which St. Paul refers in Sacred Scripture.
The problem is that “slavery” is commonly used as a univocal term when there is a great difference between chattel and ameliorated slaveries not to mention the various gradations between them which have existed at various times and place.
During the Pontificate of John Paul II the Vatican made a statement that slavery today must be absolutely condemned. That was based on the fact that today, where slavery exists, it is only of the chattel variety (although admitedly that detail is not part of the official statement.)

Great article, Mr. Shea. But I think that you could have gone further to also explain what it meant as well as why it was there.

Mal,
your right. And all it is is the logical extention of Chritstian Charity. God told us to love our friend/neighbor/enemy and a slaves boss could be a friend, he would definetly be a neighbor, and you could very easily be a slave to an enemy. A slave certainly can’t DO anything about being a slave, so naturally the only thing left to do is to live and love, and to respect your master just as you might respect your normal, non-slave owning boss. What, then, is the scandal at finding this in the bible?

“Oh no! Not only dose Paul BELIEVE what he teaches, but he is SMART ENOUGH to follow what it logically implies!”

Christianity is often hard, but then again, who ever said it would be easy? Take up your cross…

For the record, I completely agree with the answer and point of view of this article. However: “They mystical dogma of human equality in the eye’s of God…” They, not “the”? The eye’s (possessive) of God and not the plural (eyes) in this case? Sorry to be picky, but typographical and grammatical mistakes make apologists look like they don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s better to clean this up rather than give opposers another reason to shoot down your argument.

Great article, but:

“a practice which goes on unabated outside of all the spheres of the world untouched by the Christian tradition”

I think there may be a fairly significant typo here. Probably need untouched to touched or outside to inside. (I have no qualms about this comment being deleted, since it adds nothing to the discussion, just wanted to point this out.)

To further Mark’s analogy -
.
By your atheist friend’s logic, the existence of the Geneva Convention proves that the signatories thereof wholeheartedly and enthusiastically embrace and condone war, given that they have guidelines for the ethical treatment of prisoners of war.

Well written, thank you.

Slavery was an institution in ancient Rome, not a creation of either the Jewish or Christion religions. We had a private tour of Pompeii a few years ago and one of the ancient ‘houses’ belonged to the son of a former slave. There was a Roman legal process for a slave to gain freedom and a sign of success was that their children could own property. Our guide pointed out the signs and symbols that was a mark of pride on this home, a son of a slave. Slavery, unfortunately, still exists today in other parts of our world and many Christian organizations have been working to bring this to light and including buying the freedom of these slaves. Would love to see more ‘athiest’ organizations get involved.

Posted by Lizzie on Monday, Apr 2, 2012 9:32 AM (EST):
“. . . when it comes to matters of religion, [Dawkins], like the rest of the atheists, doesn’t bother to come to the table with the slightest understanding of faith or religion or the teachings or religious leaders.  To them, it isn’t even worth studying.”

That is true of some atheists, but not all. Many of us grew up in a religious tradition and received a religious education, but found that the belief system did not stand up against increased knowledge and experience. One problem with urging an atheist to study faith and religion is that there are many conflicting religions. Is it really reasonable to require atheists to study all the religious traditions across the globe to determine if one of them is true before concluding on the basis of experience that we have no reliable evidence of anything beyond the natural world? After all, Christian believers don’t typically criticize other Christians for dismissing Hinduism as irrelevant because they haven’t devoted long hours to respectful and intelligent reading of its sacred texts. Most believers feel quite comfortable sticking with the religion predominant in their culture, and don’t feel they have to apologize for their “ignorance” of other religions.

I agree with you that such ignorance can make an atheist look foolish,  just as Evangelicals condemning yoga classes look foolish.

“[Atheists] fail to recognize that the modern worldview is itself based upon a faith in the ability of science to answer all questions and solve EVERYTHING, and that the epistemological foundations for their own beliefs is shaky at best.”

Some atheists, like myself, would say that based on experience, we hypothesize that science has the potential to answer all the questions we can ask. This hypothesis has so far proven useful. We now understand how natural phenomena that humans used to attribute to the actions of supernatural beings can be explained in natural terms. It is, of course, as impossible to prove or disprove the hypothesis that science can answer all questions, as it is to prove the existence or non-existence of God.

I feel sorry for Athiests because it is impossible for me - a catholic - to explain that the whole religion thing is about falling in love. How do you explain falling in love? You can try but you don’t really know what it is until it has happened to you.
I feel so sorry about this. I wish i could reflect the love of Christ better so it would be more obvious to those around me.
You can’t prove falling in love, but we all know its possible.
Harden not your hearts.

Yes, it is reasonable to expect atheists, and EVERYBODY ELSE to study all religious traditions so they know what they are talking about.
That is not what Chesterton meant by the line I quoted above, but I think it is also true in that sense.
  Besides, dogmatic non-believers indeed show their ignorance when they treat “religion” as homogenous and monolithic, assuming the Christian (or their distorted view of Christian) template fits all of them, and only a few names and labels are different. (Like Maher asserting “Christians think Jesus is God and Moslems think Mohammed is God.”)
  Or, on the other hand, try to bolster condemnation of “religion” by insisting on things like Buddhism is not a “religion”, or Communism is “really” a religion. This just reduces “religion” to “whatever I dislike.”

@cowalker, what is your take on Dawkins? 
.
Because I agree with @Lizzie, he is foolish; in fact, I would say that he is outlandishly foolish on the topic of religion—he knows next to nothing about most religions I have heard or read him describe.  Worse than that, he has the distinctly un-scientific view that he needs not to know anything about it in order to talk about it.

@GordonHide, One could argue that magical thinking is a human failing to which *all* are prone, no matter what the creed one follows.  It is so….easy…and helpful…people fall into it all the time!  Persisting in it is made easier by a larger structure of some kind, but it certainly doesn’t have to be religion!  It can just be the prejudices you carry, coupled with the desire to persist and be comfy in your thinking.  Again, not exactly the sole purview of religion! Philosophies and ideologies of all kinds, groups, communities, as well as stories, literature, imagination…all offer shelter for magical thinking.

Posted by Will on Monday, Apr 2, 2012 11:39 AM (EST):
“Yes, it is reasonable to expect atheists, and EVERYBODY ELSE to study all religious traditions so they know what they are talking about.”

You are setting a high bar if you expect every person to study all religious traditions with equal effort. I’d venture a guess that even Catholic bishops and priests aren’t equally knowledgeable about Judaism, all the Christian sects, all the Muslim sects, Hinduism, Buddhism, the Church of the Latter Day Saints, Jainism, Sikhism, Shintoism, the Baha’i faith, Zoroastrianism and hundreds of other belief systems (eg. Taoism,)that can be regarded as religions or ethical systems depending on how one defines such. And priests and bishops are in the religion business.

However if you could master all this material I’m sure you would emerge with a great deal of insight into human nature, if no certainty about a supernatural element in the cosmos.

One problem with urging an atheist to study faith and religion is that there are many conflicting religions. Is it really reasonable to require atheists to study all the religious traditions across the globe to determine if one of them is true before concluding on the basis of experience that we have no reliable evidence of anything beyond the natural world?

Except that that’s a bit of goalpost moving. No, one should not be expected to study everything. But if, say, one is launching a campaign of anger and ridicule, as Dawkins has, it behooves the one leading the assault to study that which is the subject of his scorn.

Frankly, Dawkins can’t find his butt with both hands when it comes to his understanding of Christianity, and too many of his uncritical followers are in the same leaky boat.

Not only that- but the real book in which Paul dealt with the issue of Slavery- Philemon- suggested that a slave be treated just like *any other member of the family unit*- that is, like a son or daughter, not like a mere servant.  One Catholic Family in the United States taking that advise gave our American Catholic History Fr. Augustus Tolston- born a slave in 1854, he was ordained in 1886 after that same Catholic family encouraged his mother to move to Illinois after the Civil war.

Cardinal Newman was right- to understand history is to become Catholic.

To summarize:

My atheist friend, enjoying the rights of free speech and freedom of religion which were established for him by the Catholic Church’s understanding of the inalienable rights of man and inherent human dignity, criticizes the Church for not having snapped its fingers and eliminated slavery.

Same friend also criticizes the Church for not having led a violent rebellion against the Roman Empire and would have criticized the Church for having led it if it had.

Arguing with atheists is a sheer waste of time. This fact does not diminish the merits of Mr. Shea’s article, though.

I think it is safe to say that no matter how brilliant a scientist we may be, or a gifted theologian that has pondered the things of God, for a life time—we will ALL be stunned one day when we are finally able to behold the face of God. Our rudimentary grasp of reality will amuse us. Aquinas said all of his writings were “dung” when God lifted the slightest corner of reality for him to “see”. Good people of all religious persuasions seek truth in natural law.  If they are truly people of good will—this will lead them to God.  Atheists however are in a class all of their own.  They are like spoiled children who plug their ears kicking and raging against the effects of sin and reality itself. The height of foolishness and irrationality remains that atheists can stare up at the cosmos and obstinately declare that EVERYTHING came from NOTHING.  They snatch the gift of life, refusing to “serve” or feel gratitude.  How unoriginal.  “Non serviam”.  They won’t be the first to say it, nor the last.

GordonHide is right, no throwing of stones in glass houses allowed!  And no one is expecting Paul to ‘magically’ do anything, its “God” that is NOT doing anything that atheists, if I dare speak for them, are pointing to! Good heavens, I would think this obvious! Since we are to believe that “God” is leading Paul, wouldn’t he at least direct him away from tolerance of such an inhumane practice as slavery? 

And as for why atheists don’t ever mention love, etc., in the bible and always point to the offensive, that’s because Christians teach love from God, so that, if nothing else, is at least consistent…it’s the grotesque within the bible that so many “believers” conveniently ignore, and make it impossible for any thinking human being to follow.

It is a testament to the morality in the human animal that today’s idealisms are HIGHER than those outdated ones in the bible, which encourage polygamny, slavery, stoning, interance of all kinds, etc.  How anyone would deliberately choose to devolve is beyond me.

Anna - “Since we are to believe that “God” is leading Paul, wouldn’t he at least direct him away from tolerance of such an inhumane practice as slavery?”
—
Yes of course, but given that the institution did exist and could not by Christians be abolished in the area (yet! it was eventually), people who were in the situation needed to know how to behave. That is what Paul was doing with that verse. What you are doing is taking one verse (or passage) from one letter written by one author out of all of Scripture, and ignoring the Tradition in which Scripture lives, and complaining that it does not address your problem. Your problem is addressed elsewhere.
—
See the “does the geneva convention say war is a good thing” analogy posted by a commenter above.

Anna:

You don’t seem skilled at reading comprehension.  Did you not see the discussion of the epistle to Philemon above?  Another sad case of intellect worship trumping intellect use.  Keep playing those tape-recorded messages about your higher ideals you made in your sophomore year in high school.  It’s easier than thinking.

Lizzie writes above:  “I’ve found that nearly all atheists (having been one myself for a couple of decades) read the bible just as if they were Fundamentalists (not that they really read it of course, they just skim.)”

So do the Fundamentalists, I’ve found.  They’ve got their 30 or so favorite verses out of the million or so, and they build their whole theology upon it.  I consider Christian Fundamentalism to be the biggest cause of Atheism on the planet Earth.

It is a testament to the morality in the human animal that today’s idealisms are HIGHER than those outdated ones in the bible, which encourage polygamny, slavery, stoning, interance of all kinds, etc.  How anyone would deliberately choose to devolve is beyond me.

Really?  Polyamory is making inroads into acceptance these days.  And as far as slavery and ways of killing people - we seem to have “evolved” our way into enslaving and murdering on a larger and more efficient scale.  And, it seems, those who excelled at this have tended to be atheists, or, at the very least, open enemies of Christianity.

Bravo! You found just the right note of condescension. Atheists remind me of cranky teenagers, and occasionally it is right to put them in their place. Their “deep ignorance and arrogance” is very likely going to bring about the return of slavery and the destruction of what we call civilization. Our “dumbed down” society may be moving towards New Age paganism and pantheism, but there will always be a place for materialists and their childish arguments. To analyze the ancient world using the values we acquired from Christ is a typical atheist trick. Your average over-indoctrinated atheist has no idea how rough a non-Christian world can get. Atheistic technocratic dreams are much more likely to result in The Hunger Games than Star Trek.

Cowalker:  “That is true of some atheists, but not all. Many of us grew up in a religious tradition and received a religious education, but found that the belief system did not stand up against increased knowledge and experience.”

I find that for most atheists, such study ended in childhood before anything close to adult study, and like Lizzie’s example of Richard Dawkins, failed to escape even the most beginning lessons in a given religion.  MOST fields of study use allegory to teach truth that don’t hold up to further examination- do you reject Einstienian physics because the Newtonian physics doesn’t hold up in other frames of reference?  Then neither should you avoid Aquinas because you are now old enough to realize that the parable of the Rich Man and Lazerus was a made-up tale Jesus used to try to teach the concept of justice.

@GordonHide I have not met an atheist whos ammunition didnt come frmo the bible, so how do they have more ammunition than Christians. In fact, most of the ones I have met, choose their “ammunition” from stereotypes of what they think Chirstians are, and not from the bible at all.

Anna, unlike Mark Shea, I did not expect you to have read my comment above, yet I urge you to go and read it.  Then come back down for my response to this line you wrote:

“Since we are to believe that “God” is leading Paul, wouldn’t he at least direct him away from tolerance of such an inhumane practice as slavery?”

Slavery does not have to be inhumane.  In fact, at times in human history, some forms of slavery have seemed MORE humane than the other options available (leaving a child or woman to die after his or her village was destroyed in war, the wage slavery of modern multinational sweatshops in which the workers are not even compensated with enough food or clothing to survive, amorelated vs chattel slavery, etc).  Some forms of slavery, such as that practiced by the T’Chinook trading nation of the Pacific Northwest, were more like forms of adoption than slavery to begin with.

Thus, a statement such as “such an inhumane practice as slavery”, while certainly being true of say the Cotton Plantation system of the Southern United States between 1790-1865, is a universal generalization that is not useful to the discussion.

Atheists study the Bible like Creationists study biology: a superficial survey of the literature looking for anything they can rip out of context and trumpet to the world as proof positive that the object of their hatred is worthless and false.

This in the face of the continuous, often patient, attempts by those who actually spend their lives studying the issues involved to explain to them that things are actually much, much more complicated than their 30-second survey would imply and that their critiques are not nearly as devastating as they think.

[“Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic uninterestingness
as an intellectual position. Where was the ingenuity, the ambiguity, the humanity
(in the Harvard sense) of saying that the universe just happened to happen and
that when we’re dead we’re dead?”]—John Updike

@Kim;

You are doing the romans a slight disservice by not giving the full implications of the son of a freed slave being allowed to own property.

Not only could the son of a freed slave own property, but if he managed to own enough property, he could also convince the Censor to enter him into the rolls of the Senate, so being the son of a freed slave was no impediment to election to the highest political offices.

The romans were very big on being ruled by ambitious, capable men, and were not about to let a mere accident of birth prevent a capable man from ruling.

Mr. Shea I did like your answer to this in the sense that it is quite clear these groups attempt to exempt themselves from reality and history in an effort to denigrate the Church. It is equally clear that it is the Church that leads and keep people closer to reality than what we are currently finding in secular society. It is interesting to watch European and United States citizens (and as known slavery also occurred in African and other regions as well)absolutely remove themselves from any involvement in the slave trade of the past. Perhaps like the tomb builders said, “If they were there they would not have killed the prophets like their fathers.”

They start from some place with an unidentified moral doctrine, perhaps one of these alternative universes that scientist Stephen Hawkins believes exists, and locate themselves absolutely outside of humanity, reality and history. These atheist are very good at analysis but not so good at putting the pieces together in the first place. It is like those of us who can take a radio apart but fail to put it back together again with all the pieces. When we come across those forgotten screws we say, ‘Well hell, what was that there for anyway? I can leave it out because it is not important.’ When the truth is that we as humans really don’t know how all these pieces fit together into the whole. What would they for instance have told the Roman emperors to use in place of slavery? The fact that there is no, and as these events are in the past for us here in the western world,  can not be an alternative to the reality of slavery, atheist attempt to cast the Church in this negative light condemning God or Christians for endorsing slavery. Yet a world that did not require cheap labor would indeed be a miracle in itself.

At the core of their reasoning is the idea that suffering in itself should not exist and should be stamped out wherever and whenever possible. This attitude undoubtedly contributes to their sense of entitlement and vanity as it did those in Sodom and Gomorrah where there was ‘abundance of bread’. One shouldn’t beat their children, there should be no war, no disease and no hungry children in the world. Man can make a utopia on earth without God. Whereas we as Catholics and Christians see suffering as having a redemptive quality. As Fyodor Dostoevsky stated, ‘Suffering is the origin of consciousness.’. Yet, they for there own purposes don a 2012 secular world view and travel back in time with it across the globe in order to better prosecute the Catholic Church. In the same way that prosecutors in Philadelphia want to remove the statue of limitations on sexual crimes AS they are trying the priests and for the sole purpose of better prosecuting these priests in order to wedge a secular influence into the Church’s autonomy.

This cry is very similar to the sex abuse allegations because slavery was not only widely accepted but a human social institution and it still is in many parts of the world. Today in America we import goods from laborers from the poorest parts of the world who stitch together expensive clothing for far less than any United States citizen could possibly live on. In effect they are considered slave wages. Then once they prosper and start to demand higher wages the mobile capital uproots and goes to a place where the labor is cheaper, crashing the emerging nation back down into poverty where they will once again learn to be more compliant and ‘grateful’. Yet, unlike our atheist friend GordanHide, (first man on the board, an atheist)I accept my share of the guilt when I make my purchase of a new pair of sneakers or coat, I don’t exonerate myself as pure and innocent in respect to the world I am living.

After hearing of the reports of the ‘Reason Rally’ where atheist behaved completely unreasonable spewing profanity for no reason at all. I mean, there wasn’t some kind of counter force amongst them, I intend to pray for these atheist because they have demonstrated now and it is evident that as the future dawns they will be the ones who suffer most. I really think that Mr. Dawkins and his followers are suffering. I cannot understand atheist who are so rabidly oppossed to some entity they deny exists. Many of them have made their atheist promulgation their main occupation.

Posted by Corita on Monday, Apr 2, 2012 12:11 PM (EST):

“@cowalker, what is your take on Dawkins? 

“Because I agree with @Lizzie, he is foolish; in fact, I would say that he is outlandishly foolish on the topic of religion—he knows next to nothing about most religions I have heard or read him describe.  Worse than that, he has the distinctly un-scientific view that he needs not to know anything about it in order to talk about it.”

I don’t think Dawkins is a foolish man; however he would do better to stay away from detailed statements about what believers believe, because he has no knowledge beyond the stereotypes of belief, and he foolishly displays his ignorance. However, in my opinion it isn’t necessary to understand the distinction between Christians who believe in the transubstantiation of the Eucharist and those who say it’s just a ritual of commemoration in order to conclude that neither has evidence that proves there was a supernatural creator of the universe. To me it doesn’t make sense to start with various ancient and conflicting texts that are interpreted differently by different people and try to work my way backward to the origin of the universe. It makes more sense to hypothesize that we will find natural explanations all the way down, and act accordingly, until we have evidence to suggest differently.

I’m fairly sure Dawkins thinks in the same way. However he is an aggressive and witty man, and he attacks whatever he sees as irrational without confirming that the guardians of that particular tradition hold that belief as he understands it. Dawkins is wrong about Catholic bishops rejecting the science of evolution, but he is right that Christian Fundmentalists do reject it. He conflates Catholics with Fundmentalists and doesn’t think it matters.

Christians are apt to do the same with Islam, ignoring the distinctions among sects, and the range of interpretations fo the Koran. Well, frankly, I agree with those Christians to some degree. I don’t need to know all the theological arguments among Muslims to decide that the Koran has decidely hinky origins and does not contain valuable information about the origin of the universe.

Just my opinion, but I think Dawkins is all about giving encouragement to people who are intellectually ready to reject religion but still have lingering emotions that interfere with doing so. They are afraid of hell, or love childhood associations with ritual, or feel lonely and scared in a universe without a father figure. Dawkins offers them a community, arguments against religious beliefs that are accessible to non-theologians, reasons to actively dislike religion and reasons to laugh at it. In fact, his ability to offer these things is pretty much directly linked to the rhetoric Lizzie objects to as insufficiently nuanced and respectful.

Of course, the atheist didn’t put the part where Paul says to the masters that they must treat their slaves well because they have a master in heaven!

“Dawkins is wrong about Catholic bishops rejecting the science of evolution”
Dawkins knows that the Theory of Evolution clearly shows that humans are not “special”.
Catholics hold that humans are “special”.
Therefore Catholics fail to accept the fact of human evolution.

Posted by Greg Williamson on Monday, Apr 2, 2012 7:37 PM (EST):
“Dawkins knows that the Theory of Evolution clearly shows that humans are not ‘special’.
“Catholics hold that humans are ‘special’.
“Therefore Catholics fail to accept the fact of human evolution.”

Many Catholics accept that the human body evolved as other life forms did, but that God made it special by adding a soul at conception. So they don’t actually reject any of the science—they just add an additional, supernatural twist.

Also, of course, slavery is a type for sin,as in slaves to sin obey your teachers against sin, and also a type for the priesthood. Here, I cite the Missale Romanum which consisting refers to the priest’s parts as ‘minister’; that is, slave. Also, we know of religious orders (i.e. The Slaves of Mary). It is good also expand that often the word master is not translated directly from overlord but from maestro, teacher.

If I were not so lazy I would open the Vulgate and check the wording. Methinks, you answer is sufficient, but a little icing on the cake doesn’t hurt.

As an atheist, I didn’t like the billboard.  Irony doesn’t work on that scale. 

As it has been explained to me, “the church believes in evolution, but NOT Darwinian evolution” (whatever that means).  There is only darwinian evolution. 

Greg W, what is a soul?  There is no evidence of one, or any God.  Making a distinction from our relatives to make us feel special is special pleading.

Wait a minute - if atheists are so great, where are all their organizations designed to help mankind?  Where are all the American Atheist soup kitchens, orphanges and hospitals?  Haven’t atheists like Stalin, Hitler and Mao killed many more people then all conflicts caused by religion?  If you were down and out, who would you go to for help, Mother Teresa or Adolf Hitler?  Which world do you want to live in, Joe Stalin’s or John Paul II’s?  Atheism seems to do nothing but inspire people to pick apart every religious concept in an overly critical manner.

Wait a minute - if atheists are so great, where are all their organizations designed to help mankind?

We are the educated individuals that make numerous contributions that help mankind.  If you want such an organization then tell your congressman or congresswoman to give atheist organizations the same tax exempt status that your religious affiliation currently enjoys…

[An atheist is a man who believes himself an accident.]— Francis Thompson

“If you want such an organization then tell your congressman or congresswoman to give atheist organizations the same tax exempt status that your religious affiliation currently enjoys…”

You don’t have to be a religious organization in order to be a charitable organization, which also entail tax exemptions.

http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/index.html

Really, nothing really stopping more atheist soup kitchens from popping up.

It’s so much easier to sin against our brother if we are just special monkeys, acting in our monkey bodies.  Nobody watching.  Nobody caring.  Devil laughing.

Posted by New Yorker on Monday, Apr 2, 2012 8:54 PM (EST):
“If you were down and out, who would you go to for help, Mother Teresa or Adolf Hitler?”

Since they’re both dead, maybe atheist Bill Gates?

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/vaccines/Pages/default.aspx

Mr. Patton,

Anybody can create a tax exempt 501 (c)(3). If that’s all that’s stopping atheists then you’re proving our point…

Cowalker, because Bill Gates goes to the poor and actually cleans their sores… I don’t think you can compare the two. It’s fairly easy to give billions, try giving your life away.

Anna, a gentle aside. “Special apes” is preferred. Neither atheists or believers want to entertain a “Planet of the the Monkeys” scenario.

Bill Gates…with one hand he gives them bread…and on the other hand, he gives them population control programs. Nice.

I find it difficult to understand atheists at all. They seem to describe organic and inorganic things as an almost infinite collection of elaborate parts all working together in perfect harmony – by chance. Chance is not a cause or even an event, it is a probability calculation. An accident is not a cause it is the result of causes. I would like to hear them give an explaination that actually talks about causation that isn’t about how everyone else’s causation is wrong. Or how they have “faith” that one will be found.

the Theory of Evolution clearly shows that humans are not “special”.
 
I don’t understand how a theory of biological origins can demonstrate that people are not morally and philosophically “special”. Catholics don’t make any claim of physical “specialness” for human beings. On the contrary, the usual teaching was that man was a rational _animal_.

I think that arguing with atheists is pointless because any response to them relies on faith.  They don’t accept faith.

There is no way Catholicism makes rational sense. You can’t reason faith. (It’s actually in the catechism - “159 Faith and science: “Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason.) Faith is a gift that atheists don’t have, and I don’t believe that all of them choose not to have it, so I believe that many, if not all, of them will be saved. Basically, the atheist says that if we research enough factual questions, we will have all of the answers that are worthy of understanding. The believer says that we can ask as many questions as we want, but some will remain mysteries until the end of time (and perhaps even then - I’m not sure that there’s any catechetical teaching that says we will become all knowing in heaven, as is God).

Now, I could point to E=mc^2 and say that atheists accept on faith that the velocity of light is a constant, even though that makes no rational sense. They would argue that it does make sense in view of the fact that it explains a lot of observations in the cosmos (human based reason), but they have to accept the fact that they can’t really “explain” the trains in opposite direction paradox.

Saying “this is my faith, accept it or your denying reason” is not very evangelical, nor is it accurate. Arguing with people who only accept evidence within the human bounds of reason is pointless. Do the best you can, and live by your example. You will not win the unprovable argument. In fact, you will turn people further away. I know, because my son has chosen atheism. He has asked far more complex questions than anything posed here, and I simply have no answer for them. Neither do any of my confessors or bishop. I simply have to trust that God will save him.

Tom R said <i>“There is no way Catholicism makes rational sense. You can’t reason faith.<i>—-It makes perfect sense to me. I am convinced that Jesus was who he said he was. I have faith in him (some have heard that before). Therefore, what he teaches is true. Perfectly reasonable and rational. My study of his life was remote in time but I don’t see how it was any different in result than the hearing of his disciples.  Some things can be accepted on his word alone (faith in him) and not need to be reasoned towards a conclusion if you have faith in him, even if you are not fully convinced - such as transubstantiation. That I became convinced will be a mystery to some and a head nod up and down to others.

Wonderful post, Mr. Shea.

Chattel slavery was as universal in the ancient world as wage slavery is now. The primitive Church reluctantly accepted it, much as Catholic Social Teaching today tries to humanize workers’ lives without expecting to overthrow modern mixed welfare state capitalism with some utopian scheme.

Considering how atheism has been used by moderns zealots to justify every unworkable utopian economic scheme from Marxian Communism to Randian Libertarianism, I don’t think the Church’s radically compassionate yet conservatively prudent record on chattel and wage slavery is anything for atheist apologists to crow over.  This economic era will pass, and the Church will remain.

“the insistence that man is made in the image and likeness of God”
That is contrary to the fact of human evolution.
Not to mention irrational and incoherent.

“One of the things grownups understand is that things like the epistle to the Colossians were not written by a wizard who could wave a wand and eradicate an institution that had existed absolutely everywhere the fallen human lived since the dawn of time.”

So the author of the Epistle to the Colossians was an moral relativist with regards to slavery.  I thought ethical relativism is what the pope is always condemning.  You Catholics, just trying to play our simple atheistic minds again.

Greg Williamson said:“the insistence that man is made in the image and likeness of God. That is contrary to the fact of human evolution.
Not to mention irrational and incoherent.”——-Not irrational at all. God is spiritual and the image and likeness reference cannot be as you assume.

cowalker,

Thanks for that statement about Dawkins.  You’re absolutely right about what his goal is and how he is misunderstood by Christians.  He doesn’t study Christian theology no, but his goal is to help the timid atheist who grew up with a faith come out and embrace their atheism.  He’s flippant and mocking, but it is with the purpose of aiding these people become comfortable in their atheism and even become proud of it. 

I’d never articulated it that way, though that was the role that his writings have played in my life.  Very articulate cowalker!

@David and TomR: excellent posts! Thank you.
@coworker: I always enjoy your posts. You are the finest of atheists and not far from the Kingdom, I think. Thank you. I hope you are not still feeling discriminated against in not being able to take communion.

Alexandra said “Thanks for that statement about Dawkins.  You’re absolutely right about what his goal is and how he is misunderstood by Christians”.———This sounds like a film or literary appreciation class where you compete to explain the motives of the writer without really knowing.

@Howard Duncan

While my son chose atheism, there is no doubt that Mr. Dawkin’s goal is one of hate. He said, on March 12, that atheists should “mock them, ridicule them” with regard to Catholics who believe in transubstantiation.

My son, sadly to me, has chosen atheism. There is enough of God’s goodness in him, though, to know that Mr. Dawkins was preaching hate that day. He tells me he hopes he never becomes that bitter. He often tells me, “You know, the smart people who think like I do tend to become bitter about it.” Hopefully, there is a message in his last observation that will lead him to the truth.

As an Atheist, I don’t believe in magical thinking.

One of the things grownups understand is that things like the epistle to the Colossians were not written by a wizard who could wave a wand and eradicate an institution that had existed absolutely everywhere the fallen human lived since the dawn of time.

But Christianity claims that Colossians was inspired by, and endorsed by a sky wizard who could wave a magical wand and eradicate the institution of slavery. 

Why would a happy, secure, and confident *adult* atheist feel the need to *personally* spend time reading and commenting on a Catholic site?

Just curious…

Tom R, I have 3 children all grown. Not due to prodding from me because she has never listened to me (and suffered greatly), my daughter became a Catholic. She just told me one day that she had joined an RCIA class. One boy has an interest and will go to church with me when he visits. We were talking a while back and I went on and on about the virtue of marriage and told him I should probably stop preaching. And he said “That’s alright dad, I listen and I do what I want anyway”. The other is a happy go lucky person that probably will have to wait until life gets really tough before he sees any value in Christianity. God gave your children a free will as we know from their childhood. Don’t try so hard and trust in Him.

Cowalker said “Many Catholics accept that the human body evolved as other life forms did, but that God made it special by adding a soul at conception. So they don’t actually reject any of the science—they just add an additional, supernatural twist.”———I found this quote as I was trying to catch up. Interesting time line claimed.

“Holding Paul’s attitude toward slavery as one of the “givens” of the culture in which he was obliged to work as though it were some sort of crime on his part is like complaining that Gandhi “refused” to end all war on planet earth.”

I’m sorry Mr Shea, but your analogy falls flat. Paul did not just refuse to end slavery. He endorsed it. He encouraged slaves to continue being subservient to their masters. If Christianity is really as anti-slavery as you say it is and just didn’t want to tackle the institution of slavery, Paul could have just stayed silent on the matter. Instead he endorsed it.

A better comparison would be if Gandhi had encouraged war. That would be something worth complaining about.

I have read the entire Bible and the Jewish and Christian god is a horrendous being. I know some Christians will say to ignore all of the genocide, ritual sacrifice, and other inconvenient laws of the Old Testament (and the mental gymnastics involved with that) because of the new covenant, while simultaneously ignoring passages like the following: “For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished.  Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”  (Matthew 5:18-19 RSV)  Some of those laws call for the victim of a rape to marry her attacker (Deuteronomy 22:28-29).  That’s pretty twisted.  I’ll take a pass on worshiping a being like that.

I find it funny to find remarks such as “we are not misogynistic, we are not homophobes” in a Catholic site.

I know that for many of you, it is probably true, you are not really homophobes or misogynists, but that’s because you are really Catholic. You disregard the teachings of your own Church to be against Homosexual marriage (and all those speeches in which the pope talks about it as if it was the worst crime against humanity). You don’t care as much about women vaginae and their right to abort as your Church leaders.

And that’s great.

But how about, besides of not being homophobes and misogynists, you stop enabling your leaders to be those things when speaking IN YOUR BEHALF?

XeriousXev said : “,i>but that’s because you are really Catholic. You disregard the teachings of your own Church”</i>——-How does that work?

“[Paul] was not a political reformer.  And even if he had been, such reforms would not be possible for centuries.”

Yeah, such reforms simply were not possible, because your god is all-powerful.  Or something.

Let’s see, this was your reaction to PZ Myers putting a nail through a cracker:
“It is Jesus Christ, fully and really present in the fulness of his body, blood, soul and divinity.”

Oh, but WE’RE the ones using magical thinking…

Lizzie, I would point you toward this article: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/28/nation/la-na-religion-survey-20100928

The fact is, most Atheists, on average, know more about religion in general, and the Bible specifically, than do most Christians.

I see the socially skilled contingent of evangelical atheists is here to engage in their standard inability to pick up on concepts like “irony” and “humor”.  I will explain the joke.  Atheists, you see, love to indict theists as “magical thinkers”.  So when I turn the charge back on them and point out that people like, for instance, Brian Westley, are magical thinkers for complaining that a non-existent God didn’t abolish all slavery with a wave of his hand, that’s funny to people with normal social and affective skills.  New atheists, however, tend to lack these normal skills and so come off like humorless and socially clueless people who imagine that lack of elementary social skills constitutes superior intellect.

Particularly amusing is the denunciation of regarding human beings as special, coupled with the absolute conviction that Brights are the specialest people in the whole wide world and naturally deserving of recognition as supermen (or ubermenschen in a more appropriate language).

Funny stuff.

But Christianity claims that Colossians was inspired by, and endorsed by a sky wizard who could wave a magical wand and eradicate the institution of slavery.

No.  It doesn’t. Hence my suggestion that you learn to read books written by and for grownups.

Paul did not just refuse to end slavery. He endorsed it.

No.  He didn’t.  What he did was take it for granted and give some pastoral advice for how to live as a human being with full dignity despite its constraints.  If you read him sympathetically instead of just looking for ammo for your Hi Skule Sofmore Sekret Athiesm Deabator Klub, you would pay attention to my point about the letter to Philemon and you would know that he elsewhere tells slaves that if they can gain their freedom they should do so (1 Corinthians 7:21). For Paul, freedom is a good thing.  But at the same time, merely being a slave does not mean your dignity in Christ is taken away.  That is why he warns masters to treat their slaves with respect.  His attitude toward slavery is, in fact, the seed for what will eventually destroy this immemorial institution. But having the courage to acknowledge that would require the difficult investment of thinking critically about your own easy subculture of ignorant agitprop, and very few of the herd of independent minds who regurgitate what they are told by their atheist peers are prepared to do that.  There are few people more resolutely close-minded and ignorant then the atheist who worships, rather than uses, the intellect.

Gee… I’m getting the distinct impression that we don’t have any happy, secure, and confident *adult* atheists here to explain why they “feel the need to *personally* spend time reading and commenting on a Catholic site”.

What a bummer… I was looking forward to a good explanation by an adult.

Instead… it appears only the teenage misfits seem to be commenting here.

What a shame.

“So when I turn the charge back on them and point out that people like, for instance, Brian Westley, are magical thinkers for complaining that a non-existent God didn’t abolish all slavery with a wave of his hand, that’s funny to people with normal social and affective skills.”

As always, Shea has no intellectual leg to stand on, so he simply tries to insult.

What part of “all-powerful” don’t you understand?

ED, I’ll try and take a stab at your question.  I was raised a Catholic and have a better than good grasp on scripture and dogma.  Catholic dogma has caused many hardships on humanity as a whole.  I would like to see people use reason and science to make decisions for themselves.  The Pope for many years contributed to the AIDs virus running rampant in Africa by not supporting the use of condoms.  How many lives could have been saved if the Holy See had endorsed this practice?  I also wonder how any person can support the church after the entire child abuse scandal.  By continuing to support this organization Catholics are giving implied consent (and possible financial consent) by continuing to be affiliated with this organization.  If people used reason and logic instead of clinging to superstition, the world would be a much, much better place.  Moreover, people gloss over what their own holy text really contains and only highlight the nice points.  To wit: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Matthew 10:34
Oh, and Mr. Shea, nice use of ad hominem attacks.  If you would like to actually refute previous points that would be most welcome.

Wow, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I would have probably overlooked this massive logical fallacy if it wasn’t in the frigging title!

Here is a guy that believes in talking snakes exhorting atheists to stop engaging in magical thinking. Unbelievable.

Beside the patent hypocrisy of the title and the argument that follows, the actual argument is contorted and strained at best, nonsensical at worse. Why do atheists engage in magical thinking? Because we want the bible writers to do magical things?
How is that engaging in magical thinking? It sounds to me like the writer had a nice title he wanted to fit a story to and squeezed this moronic argument into it using a full jar of vaseline.

I do agree that Paul and company lived in a time of slavery and that we should not blame them for the institution and I do agree they did not have the magical power to terminate slavery as a whole. We surely do agree.

We agree so much that we consider this inability to affect the barbaric aspects of that society one of the best proof for the human origin of the christian religion and all the myths around it. We think a God that was able (through his son) to create loaves and fish out of nowhere, therefore breaking the very laws of nature responsible for keeping the fabric of reality together, but that did not find it important to use the same powers to convince the leaders of the day to outlaw the institution of slavery is either a very callous god that approves of slavery or a myth.

Out position was that it is a myth and the fact that in the whole of the Bible, the very word of God according to some Christians, there is not one single sentence against it, proves it beyond a doubt.

Sure, the Bible says “...man is made in the image and likeness of God and that Christ loves the slave as much as the master”.

Sorry, that is far from being a condemnation of slavery, it’s a justification and Jesus did not tell the master to free the slave. Who among us, having the power and influence of Jesus would not use it to end such a disgusting practice?

But Jesus did not because he is a character in a tale written by people of that era. One would think God’s morality would be more evolved than that of his followers but the bible is clear proof that it was not. In fact it reflects their bronze age ethics and morality to a tee. Just like the Aeneid and the Odyssey do.

And that’s one of the best proof of the non divinity of the bible there is. A proof that continues to make atheists out of former believers every day.

I continue to rejoice when I read articles like yours. Of course, I know many of your readers will barely go beyond the title so that next Sunday sitting in the pews can tell themselves that “atheists too believe in magic”.

But I rejoice because if this is the best arguments you have, and I have no reason to think otherwise, there must be scores of people that upon reading it will be inspired to go read your good book for themselves. And I am a firm believer that reading the Bible is the most efficient way to create free-thinkers, atheists and humanists.

This is truly a pitiful effort at justifying the unjustifiable. I don’t begrudge you the effort itself. You have a right to defend your position, no matter how misguided. What I begrudge you is the way you go about belittling atheists as people because of your inability to come up with a convincing argument against their beliefs.

If I were one of your Christian readers I would be offended by your disregard for my intelligence. But please, go on. There is no telling how many formerly religious readers have gotten the seed of doubt into their minds from reading this article. And that seed will grow.

Brian, Brian, Brian:

See, here’s the thing:  On *your* accounting there *is* no all-powerful God.  So getting angry at him for not magically getting rid of slavery is silly—which is my point.

Equally silly is putting words in the mouths of Christians by defining *for* them what they mean by such terms as “almighty” and “all-powerful”.  This is called a “straw man” argument.

Christians have never meant by “all powerful” that God promises to magically eradicate all evil (or even *any* evil) with a wave of his all-powerful hand.  The whole “watching their God die on a cross” thing made it pretty clear to them that God does not deal with evil in that way, however much magical atheistic thinkers stamp their feet and demand he does.

So: you can either grow up and face the fact that “all powerful” does not means “magically going to wave evil out of existence” when Christians use the term—in which case you will need to find out what they do mean.  Or you can continue battering them strawmen mercilessly and be a legend in your own mind in the arena of atheistic shadow boxing.  My guess is that you will choose the latter course since I can’t be the first Christian to point all this out to you.

Brian said: “What part of “all-powerful” don’t you understand?”———-I think it’s the non-existent part.

So, what you are saying Mr. Shea is that the Catholic god is a sadist.  If god is all powerful, it can do anything.  So, god could end all human suffering, destroy evil on a whim, and chooses not to do this?  This is the father you worship?  I have to tell you, if I was a father like that protective services would come and lock me up.
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?” ~ Epicurus

Brian, Brian, Brian:
See, here’s the thing:  On *your* accounting there *is* no all-powerful God.

But that’s not the grounds of the argument.  YOUR OWN explanation why slavery lasted so long was, and I quote: ”[Paul] was not a political reformer.  And even if he had been, such reforms would not be possible for centuries.”

YOUR argument presumes an all-powerful god, not mine.  I’m just pointing out that you are ALSO claiming that your supposedly all-powerful god was powerless to reform slavery for centuries.  Not very all-powerful after all.

But of course you already knew this and you’re just practicing your usual dishonest debating techniques.

And no, I’m not angry at a non-existent god, that’s yet another dishonest tactic of yours.

Please continue with your ineffectual insults, they’re more entertaining than your attempts at logic.

Let me start by stating my position: I am at the Atheist end of Agnosticism and have a fascination with the Anthropology of Religion. Whilst I have yet to see any compelling evidence for the existence of one or many Gods, but I’m open to the possibility that I may be wrong.
I find that many people confuse Religion with Faith. You can have one without the other and it is always Faith that is the most important. Religion can be and has been bent into many corrosive forms, but Faith is always pure.
I am often disturbed by the vitriol I read and hear coming from both camps. To accuse Atheists of “Magical Thinking” is as insulting as referring to God as a “Sky Wizard”.
It’s fair to say that Richard Dawkins represents most Atheists in the same way that the Westboro Baptist Church represents most Christians. He’s a fundamentalist, just like some religious people. Atheist fundamentalists should be treated with as much suspicion and disdain as religious fundamentalists.
Remember, just because somebody needs different proof for the existence of God than you doesn’t make them wrong, they just have a different Faith. Some people have Faith that God exists, some have Faith that God doesn’t exist.
It’s important to enjoy the variety in life and not hate people just because they’re different! Don’t be sad because people you know don’t have the same faith as you, be happy that they are happy.

I was raised a Catholic and have a better than good grasp on scripture and dogma. 

Ah yes.  “I was raised a Catholic”.  The classic standard preface to the ignorant rant.

Catholic dogma has caused many hardships on humanity as a whole.  I would like to see people use reason and science to make decisions for themselves.  The Pope for many years contributed to the AIDs virus running rampant in Africa by not supporting the use of condoms. How many lives could have been saved if the Holy See had endorsed this practice?

For somebody who has a better than good grasp of dogma, you don’t seem to know what dogma is.  You also don’t seem to reflect on the fact that somebody inclined to ignore the Church’s teaching on fornication is not going to suddenly get scrupulous about not using a condom.  Use, rather than just worship, reason Tom.  It will be more persuasive about your superior Brightness.  Also, you might want to familiarize yourself with what real epidemiologists who use, you know, science and stuff and not just regurgitate talking point from your peer group (See here for enlightenment).

I also wonder how any person can support the church after the entire child abuse scandal.  By continuing to support this organization Catholics are giving implied consent (and possible financial consent) by continuing to be affiliated with this organization.

Why do you continue to support Western civilization after all those wars and murders?

If people used reason and logic instead of clinging to superstition, the world would be a much, much better place.

The authors of Stalinist, Hitlerite and Maoist tyrannies all used reason and logic. These were all products of a highly scientific and technological civilization untrammeled by concerns about the God of Israel. Reason and logic can lead to infernos of horror, depending on the premisses you accept. The childlike parrot faith new atheists place in the mantra “reason and logic” is one of the most spectacularly naive and fatuous bits of rhetoric in their impoverished armory of polemics.

Moreover, people gloss over what their own holy text really contains and only highlight the nice points.  To wit: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Matthew 10:34

You’re joking, right?  You claim to be well-acquainted with Scripture and you toss *this* verse out as a Text of Terror?  You do realize, don’t you, that Jesus is not recommending jihad here.  You do grasp, don’t you, that Jesus is using an image to describe the division and persecution that will be visited on his powerless disciples?  Tell me you at least grasp that much, Mr. Expert on the Bible.

Seriously.  Stop worshipping your intellect and try using it.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/new-atheist-magical-thinking#ixzz1r0nsyvcN

Atheism-a new cult. Trying to create their own religion by undermining,destroying Christianity by any means necessary. I prefer the old atheists. The kind I grew up with told me they didn’t believe in any of the content of religions. This is ll random and there are no consequences to my actions, aside from what man Imposes on itself.

The new atheists EVANGELIZE. They seem to want to form their own cult. The want to convert. T preach. To condemn their opponents. Its curious how they behave like a corrupt evangilist.

Unlike Catholics, but much like ‘bible believing Christians’, atheists cherry pick verses to deliberately use them for a specific political or social agenda. Unlike any Christian, they try to manipulate the content because taken out of context and using current terms, they can perturb the meaning to something currently unacceptable to try to make it all seem negative. The author is correct in the importance of context and truly understanding the material, the time period, the culture and more to get the true meaning.

I’m sorry, What? You’re saying the atheists are the ones engaging in magical thinking? This coming from someone who believes in eating magical crackers inhabited by a bronze age religious leader?
My irony meter just melted into a puddle of goo. I hope you’re happy.

Tom:

You would get points if you just stuck to Epicurus.  He at least sticks to one of the only two really good arguments for atheism (Life sucks, so there’s no God). The other one is “Everything seems to work fine without God, so there’s no God”. Unfortunately, like most New Atheists, you can’t stay there. You have to try to pad the case for the new atheism with other crap arguments and fallacies.

I understand the itch to pad your case since Thomas answered your only two real arguments sufficiently a very long time ago.  But you should at least be aware, as a self-proclaimed Apostle of Reason and Logic, that your padding is fallacious.  You’re welcome.

Gee, I can post a Google search too: https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=The+pope+was+wrong+about+condom+use What was the point of that?  I find it interesting that people close to the issue like Bishop Dowling disagree with you, yet you give me a sanctimonious reply. You have a hard time grasping nuances don’t you?  Do you think that a woman who is an abject poverty and is forced into a life of prostitution just to survive wouldn’t want the moral okay to use condoms?  In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI equated temporary birth control as a moral equivalent to abortion. That’s pretty awful and coercive.
Speaking of your Straw Men you’re really equating leaving the Catholic Church to removing myself from western civilization?  That isn’t remotely the same thing.  Would you defend another organization - like NAMBLA - the same way?  I seriously doubt it.
Yes, I used that line from scripture and you didn’t refute it.  Since you don’t like that, how about the fact that Jesus endorses all of the laws and thus the cruelty of the Old Testament (Matthew 5:18-19 & Luke 16:17)
Oh, and I almost forgot, Hitler wasn’t an atheist.  He was raised Catholic and in public appearances he continued to reaffirm a belief in Christianity, but why let facts get in the way of a good rant?

Simon Burrows said:  “Some people have Faith that God exists, some have Faith that God doesn’t exist.”———-This can be true and will not produce a very strong following. Faith has more variations than belief in something that can’t be proven. Catholic faith is better described as having faith in a person. We describe Jesus as a person but not only a person. This is a much stronger faith that will sustain. How a person arrives at this faith is described as grace. Jesus said to Simon Peter, “…..flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven.”  Also, good luck trying to mediate.

Just to see how some other parent would deal with this, because I, and my confessor, are both at a loss without resorting to “you have to have faith.”

1) A loving father would never let a three year old touch a hot stove or fire, no matter how attractive the flames are. Since humans cannot understand infinity (please explain why 2*infinity = infinity if you can), they are the quintessential three year old with respect to understanding consequences. Whereas the loving father doesn’t allow the three year old the choice, God has no problem in “casting into the lake of eternal fire.” Note that Revelation does not say the goats choose hell - it says God casts them into the lake of fire.  Revelation 19:20: And the beast[5] was taken, and with him the false prophet[6] that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
  Revelation 20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
  Revelation 20:14-15 Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
  Revelation 21:8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

Casting requires an agent to do the casting. There is no mention that the sorcerers, idolaters and liars choose that fate.

2) Does the conscience of man disappear when he dies? If not, how can he be happy forever in heaven, knowing that his brethren (some of which may be his immediate family members) are suffering infinite pain eternally? Has he lost all compassion for fellow man at that point? If my son has chosen hell because of his atheism, how can I ever achieve happiness myself?

3) The Chinese civilization preceded the Hebrew one by 500 - 700 years. Did God just choose to ignore them while he chose Abraham? If God is just, why was there a chosen people to begin with? Was there a specific grudge God had against the Chinese? What about the other tribes of man, that existed for 100,000 years before Abraham? Or was Abraham older than the bible implies? The genetics of the Chinese and Abraham, given their offspring, would imply two cultures of different descent, so it would be very hard to believe that Abraham was also the father of the Chinese.

4) Why did God ordain Saul to the slaughter of the Amalekite women and children?
***
Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”
***
This is murder, not justifiable killing (with respect to the infants, at least), yet it is ordained by God in his inspired word. In fact, God punished Saul for not finishing the job!
****
” Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord and did not carry out his fierce wrath against Amalek, therefore the Lord has done this thing to you this day.” (1 Sam 28)
****

5) It’s already been argued here, but the bible never states anything about the immorality of slavery.

6) (I’ve seen this one on atheist sites, as well, and don’t have a great answer. Perhaps someone here does.) Why do amputees not have faith as great as cancer patients? There is not a single case (that I know of - please correct me if in error) of an arm or leg amputee regenerating a limb. Did none of them ever pray to God to regain their limbs? Yet, there are “miraculous” cancer cures at a fairly frequent pace. What makes God love cancer patients more?

I can only come up with “context” and “faith” arguments, except for point 2, to which I have not yet thought of any reasonable response. As regards scripture, my son’s take is “Context is BS - if God is truly powerful, he could inspire men to write in a clear concise fashion that doesn’t require theological interpretation. He doesn’t. Therefore, he’s cruel and doesn’t want us to understand. Besides, there are different texts interpreted different ways by different religions. Who’s to say which is correct?”

Tom, thanks for replying.  Unless you state otherwise, I’ll assume you are a “happy, secure, and confident *adult* atheist”.

If I got the point of your comment to me correctly, it appears you’re saying that you “feel the need to *personally* spend time reading and commenting on a Catholic site” to help convince Catholics to use more reason and logic, and to educate them about the wrongs of their Church, etc..etc.

Is that close?  Is that pretty much the reason you’re here?

If so… why is that so important to you personally?

ED, this article happened to be forwarded to me.  When the opportunity arises to have a discussion on religion, I generally take it, if the topic is interesting and I believe there is a possibility for an open dialogue.  This is true regardless of the forum.  I am happy to discuss Catholic, Evangelical, Jewish, Muslim, or any other belief structure.
The reasons I engage in these conversations are multifaceted, but hopefully I can give you an idea of my mindset.  In part, yes, I would like people to be aware of wrongs that are committed in their organization.  At the very least, I would hope that they would pursue efforts to make changes within their organization.  I also have a genuine interest in how individuals can believe what and how they do.  I am not being snarky in the least when I state that I truly don’t understand it.  For example, the New Testament has contradictory accounts for the lineage of Jesus.  I have heard some awful explanations that it traced through the maternal and paternal sides, but that doesn’t make historical sense, especially given the Jewish traditions.
Lastly, why is it important to me?  Because I believe people are negatively impacted by religious influence.  My Brother-In-Law is gay (and for the record I am not trying to start another war here) and as it stands now he is not legally allowed to enter into a contract that will afford him many rights with a partner.  This is the case because of the lobbying efforts of many religious organizations.  Female circumcision is an awful, awful practice that is promoted in some Muslim sects.  Some religious organizations don’t believe in practicing modern medicine (or don’t understand scientific research and want disallow any stem cells in research). For example, Jehovah Witnesses will die because they aren’t allowed to receive a blood transfusion.
Some on here have called atheism a cult.  I obviously disagree with that thought.  I came to my atheist belief through reasoning.  However, I think that religion survives in large part due to the indoctrination that occurs in childhood.  I think that many religions make children afraid.  For example, burning in hell for eternity is a scary, scary thought (an infinite punishment for a finite crime).  That fear can have prolonged psychological impact on people throughout their lives.

[Whilst I have yet to see any compelling evidence for the existence of one or many Gods, but I’m open to the possibility that I may be wrong.]

Now, IMO, that’s a very good reason for visiting this Catholic site Simon Burrows.

I hope and pray your journey to find the Truth will be fruitful for you.

[I came to my atheist belief through reasoning.]

Tom… to be honest with you, I personally can’t understand anyone being (or ever becoming) an atheist.  Just makes absolutely no sense to me at all.  So when you say you came to your “belief through reasoning”... would you be kind enough to share that reasoning with me?

ED, to me, it’s the use of the Scientific Method.  There is absolutely no evidence that proves the existence of a supreme being.  I see no reason to think one does exist unless evidence presents itself.  Again, I’m not being snarky, but I don’t believe in dragons, ghosts, elves, or unicorns for the same reason.

I like this idea that God was not “convincing” enough in his influence over the purveyors of slavery - that the same guy who could create loaves and fishes out of a bunch of scraps, raise people from the dead, etc., couldn’t find it in his heart to “eradicate” a terrible human institution.

But what would sufficient “convincing” on God’s part look like? And how would that gel with whole gift of human freedom/freedom of conscience - a freedom that is perhaps one thing both atheists and Christians share as a belief and/or aspiration.

The heart of the Christian “defense” of God in the face of the human practice of slavery is that God’s love for us entails a freedom that allows us to choose evil. The fact that God does not eradicate all of our evil institutions means at its core that He is not treating us as slaves.

You know, instead of “putting the arm on us,” maybe He’s going with the role model approach.

[I came to my atheist belief through reasoning.]
[Tom… to be honest with you, I personally can’t understand anyone being (or ever becoming) an atheist.  Just makes absolutely no sense to me at all.  So when you say you came to your “belief through reasoning”... would you be kind enough to share that reasoning with me?]

I am not Tom, but this comment made me wonder the same thing. Except that for me it’s in reverse. I cannot imagine how an intelligent, articulate and thinking person can be religious. It is completely outside the realm of the comprehensible for me.

So to read that someone has a hard time understanding atheism is certainly interesting and intriguing.

However, I’ll bet that I will have an easier time explaining myself than my counterpart.
There is a very easy exercise that I believe can illustrate non belief. What’s more, this is an exercise practiced already by pretty much everyone, religious or not. It simply involves considering a religion other than yours or any religion if you don’t have one.

Let’s take an easy one: Paganism in the form of the Roman belief in gods such as Zeuss and his cohorts. For the more adventurous ones, you can try Hinduism, a religion with a very evolved theology.

Now that you have picked a religion to look at, how does it make you feel? Pretty unbelievable right? In the case or Roman paganism, gods that come to earth and mate with mortals producing demi-gods. Gods living on top of a mountain in Greece. I could go on.

The important part to take with you from the exercise is that feeling of unbelief. That:“How could they possibly believe in that nonsense” feeling.

I have had people try to wiggle out of this in various ways, but you have to be honest and what you feel toward other people’s religion is incredulity mixed with a good deal of contempt.

Well, that’s how atheists feel toward your religion. We feel the same toward their religion as well. In fact, from our vantage point, all religions share many important traits that make them more similar to each other than different.

So, now you too know how it is possible to be an atheist. That’s because everyone is an atheist what it comes to religions that are not theirs.

The atheistic possition is more difficult to understand for you because atheist is not a religion or a cult. There is far more disagreement than agreement in atheism because we don;t have popes, rabbis or shamans. Nor we have a book or sacred texts. Most atheists, it’s true, believe in science (some don’t) as a method, but that’ss very different from religion. Regardless how many times you may proclaim that science is a religion for us, it is not.

Let’s do another experiment: let’s apply science into our lives. Pick up your cell phone and make a call to someone overseas (you can use Skype if your plan doesn’t allow you to call international).

You have just used a lot of applied science. Among other things you have used Newtonian physics, relativity (because of the satellites having their clocks adjusted to relativistic time), thermodynamics, optics and so forth. We call this technology but it would not exist without science.

Now walk into a church and try to do the same with the local saint or even with Jesus himself. Light a candle and pray for something. The odds that you’ll get a result are even with those you’d have if you didn’t pray at all.

Speaking of your Straw Men you’re really equating leaving the Catholic Church to removing myself from western civilization?  That isn’t remotely the same thing.  Would you defend another organization - like NAMBLA - the same way?  I seriously doubt it.

Clearly, when you picked up that stuff about Reason and Logic in your sophomore year in high school, nobody taught you about analogy.  Here’s how it works.  Both the Catholic Church and Western Civilization are Good Things.  Quite apart from the whole sslvation and going to heaven stuff, the Catholic Church is the author of millions of works of mercy done everywhere around the world everyday: soup kitchens, orphanages, hospitals, universities, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, sheltering the homeless, ransoming the captive, forgiving, healing, etc etc.  Only a blind man or an atheist (but I repeat myself) would be ignorant of that.  Like Western Civilization it is built for the purpose of attempting these Good Things, but also suffers from the fact that its members are sinners who sometimes do great evil.

You with me so far?  Good.

Now organzitions like NAMBLA are *not* good things.  They are not good organization attempting to do good but hampered by the corruption of their members.  They are organizations dedicated to doing evil as their founding principle.  People who grasp Reason and Logic can see that.  People like you, Tom, who worship the intellect but would not know how to use it if their life depended on it, do not.  Which is why you made that incredibly dumb statement.

There is absolutely no evidence that proves the existence of a supreme being.

Which is why Catholic theology does not speak of God as a supreme being.  Only ignorant atheists do that, usually right after announcing “I was raised Catholic and know a lot about Catholic scripture and dogma”.

Catholic theology does not call God a supreme being (as though he were one item in an inventory).  For Thomas, God is not “a being”.  He is Being.

“I think that atheists like your friend really need to break free of fundamentalist magical thinking and learn to read books written by and for grownups.”

You mean besides the Bible, which is where that quote came from?

“One of the things grownups understand is that things like the epistle to the Colossians were not written by a wizard who could wave a wand and eradicate an institution that had existed absolutely everywhere the fallen human lived since the dawn of time.”

Your god could make very strong statements against murder, stealing, eating pork and shellfish, and all the forms of sex he didn’t like.  But suddenly he couldn’t say he was against slavery because it was a cultural institution?  What a crock. 

Really, I can understand you don’t like it when people point out the unsavory parts of your Bible.  But don’t shoot the messengers.  Simply accept your Bible isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

@Howard Duncan, it’s an interesting point you make and I’d not considered it. On reflection, I can see how the focus of Faith on the person as well as the God would strengthen that Faith.

I have had people try to wiggle out of this in various ways, but you have to be honest and what you feel toward other people’s religion is incredulity mixed with a good deal of contempt.

This is what is called “projection”.  In fact, as a Catholic, I’ve always thought that C.S. Lewis had a point when he said that, as an atheist, he was bound to the proposition that 99.999% of the human race was absolutely and completely wrong about the thing that mattered to it the most, but when he became a Christian he was free to think that every religious tradition, no matter how odd, had glimpsed something of God.  So Jesus can teach about the possibility of salvation for the “nations” (meaning “those outside the covenant people—Gentiles—goyim—non-Christians) and Paul can likewise speak of the hope of a favorable judgement for Gentiles in Romans 2.  Justin Martyr can speculate the Socrates was enlightened by the Holy Spirit.  Perpetua can pray for her pagan kid brother’s soul.  Dante can have reverence for Vergil.  St. Thomas can rely on both Averroes (a Muslim) and Aristotle (a Greek pagan) and the Christian artistic tradition can be chockablock with allusions to Greek and Roman pagan myths.  Indeed, the sybils alternate with the prophets on the Sistine chapel.  Of course, where the pagan traditions contradicts the faith the Church will naturally disagree.  But no, Catholic faith does not treat paganism with the dismissive contempt atheists like you have for all religion. Chesterton’s attitude is much closer: “Paganism was the biggest thing in the world.  Christianity was bigger.  And everything since then has been comparatively small.”  Your small, and in fact cramped atheism which cannot even *imagine* something outside itself is emblematic of how puny and narrow atheism is.

Simon:

Just a note to say, “Thanks for being a voice of reason.”  Sadly, you will be drowned out by the bigots who speak for atheism.  But I appreciate you trying.

Your god could make very strong statements against murder, stealing, eating pork and shellfish, and all the forms of sex he didn’t like.  But suddenly he couldn’t say he was against slavery because it was a cultural institution?  What a crock.

Actually, he does command the freeing of slaves (in the year of Jubilee) but since Israel basically ignored that as they ignored a great many other things (including commands against murder and theft and so forth) the story gets rather more complicated.  If you read the book for more than just ammo, you’d know that.  But since you are an ignorant bigot, you made an ignorant bigoted statement instead.  Par for the course for the New Atheist.

Tom, first of all, forgive the time delays between posts.  I’m using ‘caveman technology’ and having some difficulty today getting my posts online.

Hmm… I was hoping for a bit more reasoning Tom.  There must be more? Isn’t there?

Oh well… let’s try it this way:

Tom, do you feel a Creator (if there was one) would be obligated to give his creatures ‘scientific’ (as we know it) proof of his existence?  If so why?

And… do you think that a simple creature (like you or I) would be capable of understanding our Creator (if there was one)?  If so why?

Simon, also this explains the reason we put the corpus on the cross. His sacrifice is the center of our belief. During a reading last Palm Sunday the persecutors of Jesus said out loud, “He can save others but he cannot save himself!”. That passage, though lowly, sums up the Catholic faith – if he saved himself, he would not have saved others. I was an agnostic most of my life. Catholicism has given me a beauty and richness to ponder that I have not experienced anywhere else. If you can, watch the Program series on EWTN satellite called “Catholicism”. It has been shown of some PBS and other stations. 

@Mark, thank you!  How beautiful, how expansive, how true.  Atheism is the fruit of narrow minds living in a narrow world.  @Tom, please explain the origin of the universe.

Simon:

Just a quick note on the Catholic understanding of faith.  For Catholics, the existence of God is not a point of faith.  The Church says that the existence of God is knowable by natural reason.  Faith comes in, not with acknowledge that there is a God, but precisely with the acknowledgement that God has revealed himself in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  It is precisely about the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth that the faith of the Church centers.  Quarrels about whether or not God exists are prologue to the real matter summed up on Jesus’ question: “Who do you say I am?” and core Christian beliefs summed up on the creed.  The Church was born into a world that had no problem believing in God, gods, and the supernatural.  It was theists who put Jesus to death and theists who persecuted the early Church.  Atheism is a modern phenomenon and is a function, not of the growth of SCIENCE! but of a peculiar set of modern pre-suppositions that rely, to a large extent, on fragments of the Christian worldview.  So, for instance, way up above we see somebody denouncing Christians as anti-evolutionary for the sin of thinking human beings to be special while simultaneously we see Christians denounced for allegedly not recognizing the rights and dignity of the homosexual human person.  Elementary logic would note that if homo sapiens is not special, then neither is homosexual homo sapiens, so the whole appeal to “rights” is rubbish if human beings are no more special than a bacterium.  But aggressive atheism such as we see on display here in these comboxes isn’t really as enamored of reason and logic as it claims to be.  It borrows from the Christian notion of transcendant human rights and dignity while constantly forgetting it does so.

If you have not done so, try taking a look at St. Thomas’ common sense argument for the existence of God.  You seem like a decent bloke.  If that makes sense, you might try moving on to the main question: Jesus’ “Who do you say I am?”  I can recommend some books if that would help.

Some suggested reading for the intellect worshippers in my audience.

That is some magical thinking skyhawk or you are not being truthful.  Which is it?  Here are the facts about that exemption requirements…

Exemption Requirements - Section 501(c)(3) Organizations

To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.

Organizations described in section 501(c)(3) are commonly referred to as charitable organizations. Organizations described in section 501(c)(3), other than testing for public safety organizations, are eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions in accordance with Code section 170.

The organization must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization’s net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. If the organization engages in an excess benefit transaction with a person having substantial influence over the organization, an excise tax may be imposed on the person and any organization managers agreeing to the transaction.

Section 501(c)(3) organizations are restricted in how much political and legislative (lobbying) activities they may conduct. For a detailed discussion, see Political and Lobbying Activities. For more information about lobbying activities by charities, see the article Lobbying Issues; for more information about political activities of charities, see the FY-2002 CPE topic Election Year Issues.

Mark, analogies only work when the are apt - your ‘analogy’ was not.  Moreover, show me where I pointed out that the Catholic Church didn’t do good works, because I never made such a statement.  However, those good works come with a fee.  Whether it is a soup kitchen, doing mission work, or any other good deed there is the proselytization.  I have been to many a soup kitchen that withheld food until everyone was forced to listen to a sermon and pray. 
You may think the Catholic Church is good.  I beg to differ.  No matter how you slice it, you belong to an organization that allowed systematic child abuse.  Again, these were systemic issues.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t think any organization where leadership allows this to continually occur over decades is ‘good’. I would also have to get over all of the historical wrongs of the Catholic Church.  I don’t even need to go back to the inquisition, the crusades, or even the castrati at the turn of the 20th century; I only have to go back to the 1940s and point to the Vatican hiding Nazi gold (taken and melted from their victims in the concentration camps), stolen goods and art.  Of course, this is all an aside from the vociferous attempt to deny homosexuals basic state civil rights.  Trying to say that an organization that has this many warts is simply bad rationalization.
You are absolutely wrong about the Catholic Church not referring to god as a supreme being.  In the Catechism of the Catholic Church Part One, Section Two, Chapter One it is stated “The supreme being must be unique, without equal. . . If God is not one, he is not God” (emphasis mine).  But, hey keep spitting out ad hominem attacks about ignorance.
Anna, your retort doesn’t really make sense.  If we just plugged ‘god’ into the equation for every unknown, humanity would still believe in geocentric universe.  Just because the answer isn’t known yet doesn’t mean that the answer is a supernatural force.
ED, let me re-frame your questions just a bit (and unfortunately, answer your questions with a question).  If there is a supreme being/god/higher power, that entity has given me the ability to question, use deductive reasoning and use logic to solve problems.  Without empirical evidence, isn’t ignoring the results of those gifts insulting?

“god is known by natural reason”?  God did a great job acting like he didn’t exist.  Please give me a line of reasoning that the Christian god exists thru “natural reason”. Thanks in advance.

Rover:

I gave a link in my reply to Simon, but you chose to ignore it.  Can’t fix your willed ignorance.

Tom:

Yes.  I realize you are a bigot bent on pretending that the Church is essentially evil.  Nonetheless my analogy holds, your objections notwithstanding.

Re; supreme being.  The quote comes from Tertullian.  It is not the Church’s language.  It is the language of Tertullian.  If you knew how quotes from the Fathers of the Church are used in the Catechism (to demonstrate that a particular ideas such as, in this case, the oneness of God, are attested in the Tradition) you would also know that not everything a Father says is how the later Church will formulate an idea.  That’s why you would note (if you were not a bigot just looking for ammo) that it is the one and only occurrence of the term in the Catechism. In short, your use of the quote is like a six day creationist “proving” from Stephen Jay Gould’s criticism of “just so” stories that “evolution is false”.  It’s an illiterate and ignorant reading of the Catechism that is just hunting for gotchas, not trying to understand. Seriously, you need to catch up with Catholic thought beyond one sentence from a second century writer.  The Church avoids speaking of God as “the supreme being” because God is not *a* being.  He *is* Being.  Trust me.  I’m giving you the straight from St. Thomas.  You don’t know what you are talking about Mr. I Was Raised Catholic and Know Catholic Theology.

[So to read that someone has a hard time understanding atheism is certainly interesting and intriguing.]

Really?  Well, obviously you must not mingle too much with the average American adult.

[Now walk into a church and try to do the same with the local saint or even with Jesus himself. Light a candle and pray for something. The odds that you’ll get a result are even with those you’d have if you didn’t pray at all.]

And you know this how?

Not sure what you’re driving at Tom?  Perhaps you could expound on it a bit further?

Most importantly… why not be brave enough to just answer my 2-questions with a Yes.. or a No.. or a Not Sure?

Tom:
Yes.  I realize you are a bigot bent on pretending that the Church is essentially evil.

I realize you can’t answer Tom’s very direct complaints on how the Catholic Church deliberately shielded child rapists.  Now go ahead and avoid a substantial response; just parrot some random insults.

I did answer them, Brian.  Both the perps and the bishops who shielded them did grave evil.  That Catholics commit grave sin does not make the Church essentially evil, just as the fact that members of Western civilization do grave evil does not make Western civilization essentially evil.  However, since you are a bigot, you, like Tom, choose not to grasp such an elementary proposition. 

And, um, people living in the glass house of atheistic mass murder should really not be throwing too many stones.  We belong to a murderous species.  The Christian doctrine for this is “original sin”.  The atheistic doctrine appears to be “humans aren’t special, so wipe them out like bacilli”.

Rover:

By the way, the claim is not that the Christian God can be known by natural reason, but merely that the existence of one God can be known by natural reason.  To discover that this one God is the God revealed in Jesus Christ requires supernatural revelation according to the Church.

There’s an excellent take-down of Mr. Shea’s silliness at:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/04/03/a-catholic-accuses-atheists-of-magical-thinking-seriously/

But I have little confidence that this will be posted.

So just keep mumblin’ to your invisible friend.

I’m not going to try to astonish anyone with my sarcastic, stunning, elevated, erudite, anything.  I’m just going to mention entitlement, as I sit here serving a few latecomers dinner.  I have five kids that are teens and up.  I have toddlers.  Good Lord, what a lesson in human nature.  I get mildly berated at times, for what the passionate and unruly consider important but they still expect dinner on the table, hot and to their taste… I love them.  They are beautiful “works” in process. God *must* have a sense of humor.
.
I remember when I was a kid being mildly scandalized when Jesus told his apostles that he purposely hid the meaning of his words to confound the proud.  He clearly didn’t want to make it easy for the self important and the illuminati of the day.
.
I remember when my husband was liquidating one of his businesses.  He was trying to cut a deal, he was generous, and he was simply bending over backwards to make a reasonable deal happen.  He finally looked at the man, exasperated, and said “what do you want?  Breakfast in bed?
.
Atheists are unreasonable.  They breathe the oxygen, they drink the water, they eat the food.  Sex is supremely important.  As to the origins of these things…?  “That will come later” they say with their self important sense of entitlement.
.
So here’s the thing.
.
There’s actually a test involved.
.
No, you can’t practice medicine or build thermal reactors if there wasn’t some milestone involved.
.
Keep doubting, keep “expecting”, keep demanding.
.
Develop some strange ethic about your existence, and the existence of that other random creature next to you that is another random, unspecial cosmic fart (sorry, I hang out with barbarians).
.
Then ask yourself, “What makes me happy?”  Is it dinner with the ones I love?  The way the redwoods smell when they are heavy with mist from the Pacific ocean?  The vista from the top of a mountain in Canada?  Making love (not just having sex) with the one I would DIE for?
.
What language do you actually want God to speak?  What miracle do you want Him to put on for you?  What cosmic light show do you think He owes you? 
.
If that “man”, who turned back, who went back to that city, to be tortured to death for you, who suffered more than you could ever dream of suffering, do you roll your eyes and turn away?  What could be more eloquent?  Which language could possibly convince you?
.
You won’t be forced.  Your intolerance is your own barrier in need of surmounting.  Sadly, your entitlement isn’t “new”.
.
The “banquet” is a metaphor for something else.  The invitation to a “wedding feast” are terms we can comprehend.  The “Host” is something and someone that is so remote from your intelligence it should make you burst out laughing, or blush with shame. 
.
For those who give, who struggle “deprivation” in order to give, the language of God, BEGINS to become comprehensible.

Yes D.  I figured the contingent of Napoleon Dynamites with a mean streak that are the New Atheists would fail to grasp the concepts of “irony” and “humor” and splutter “He’s saying atheists are magical thinkers!  But *theists* are magical thinkers.  He can’t say that!”

Yes, O socially and affectively impaired atheist.  I *know* it’s a standard atheist canard to say Christians are magical thinkers.  I’m *aware* of that.  I was making a humorous tu quoque point by turning your rhetoric back on you.  Normal people can grasp these difficult concepts of humor and irony.  But for the angry Napoleon Dynamites of the new atheist ubermenschen who mistake their impaired social skills for Superior Brightness, this is hard, I know.

I did answer them, Brian.

By dismissing Tom as a “bigot”.  As usual, you substitute insults for debate.

Both the perps and the bishops who shielded them did grave evil.

As Tom pointed out:
No matter how you slice it, you belong to an organization that allowed systematic child abuse.  Again, these were systemic issues.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t think any organization where leadership allows this to continually occur over decades is ‘good’.

However, since you are a bigot, you, like Tom, choose not to grasp such an elementary proposition.

As per usual, just more insults.  You really are pathetic.

Posted by Mark Shea on Tuesday, Apr 3, 2012 10:31 PM (EST):
By the way, the claim is not that the Christian God can be known by natural reason, but merely that the existence of one God can be known by natural reason.  To discover that this one God is the God revealed in Jesus Christ requires supernatural revelation according to the Church.
****
Would you provide the logic that reveals the existence of one God by natural reason? Do Buddhists and Hindus therefore suffer from lack of natural reason?

Tom:

I gave the link to St. Thomas in the comment above.

That something is knowable by natural reason does not mean it will automatically be known.  Differential calculus is knowable by natural reason.  It does not follow that everybody knows differential calculus.  It also does not follow that those who do not know differential calculus lack natural reason. The same applies to the question of the existence of God.

PS. Thomas, in fact, assumes that one of the functions of God’s gratuitous acts of revelation is to enable people to see and understand things pertaining, not merely to supernatural revelation, but even to natural revelation, since most of us don’t have time or leisure to work through philosopical proofs for the existence of God.  That’s not to say such proofs cannot be made (Thomas himself offers five), but simply that most people don’t have the time, leisure or philosphical background and are prone to make mistakes (such as, for instance, polytheism).  Still, I would say that a Catholic has far more in common with a Hindu or a Buddhist than an atheist has with any of the three.  You really are required by your cramped, impoverished act of negation to say that virtually the whole human race is totally wrong and you alone are right if you are an atheist.  It’s extremely suffocating.  Of course, Buddhism is a special case since it’s not a religion in the sense that Westerners mean it (no gods to worship).  But even Buddhism is closer to Christianity in that it recognizes that our disordered desires get us in trouble while new atheism prattles on about our “innate morality” (when it’s trying to avoid You Know Who as the ground of our moral sense) and prattles on about how humans aren’t special (when it’s trying to avoid You Know Who as the one in whose image we are made).  Buddhists recognize that cows aren’t troubled by disordered desires.  Atheism hasn’t even figured out the distinction of humans from the rest of creation yet.  It’s what happens when all you have is one impoverished negation to cling to as your All Explaining Theory of Everything.

Brian:

As per usual, you don’t seem to grasp that the Church is more than the hierarchy and that it is simply not the case that the whole (or even more than a small percentage) of the hierarchy who were involved in the abuse scandal.  So you go on pretending that a Church of a billion people is essentially evil, but you don’t say that a public school system with several orders of magnitude more incidents of abuse is essentially evil.  You can distinguish between the mission of the school and those who pervert that mission, but you will not distinguish between the mission of the Church and those who pervert it.

That’s because you are an irrational hate-filled bigot toward Christians but not toward educators.  You should try learning from yourself.

Tom R -
“Now, I could point to E=mc^2 and say that atheists accept on faith that the velocity of light is a constant, even though that makes no rational sense. They would argue that it does make sense in view of the fact that it explains a lot of observations in the cosmos (human based reason), but they have to accept the fact that they can’t really “explain” the trains in opposite direction paradox.”

Yes, most probably do accept that on faith.  But you know what?  Somebody can actually go and test to see if that is true, even if it is difficult do do and understand.  What tests can I perform to show that there is a god?  And not Zeus, Odin, Allah, Baal, or A’akuluujjusi, but God?

* it is difficult TO do and understand

Fliegerabwehrkanone:

Really, you should go and read this.  The fact that your extremely cramped worldview has only a hammer is not proof that everything in and beyond the universe is a nail.

@Mark Shea:
While you answer the first part of the question with a reference to Aquinas, which I will investigate, you fail to answer the key part of the question, which is are Hindus and Buddhists bereft of natural reason? Are you saying that, as a general rule, western cultures tend toward natural reason whereas eastern cultures don’t? If that is true, God certainly behaves in mysterious ways with respect to his own creation.

The analogy to learning calculus falls flat, because there is a large percentage of people who know calculus in both western and eastern cultures, but the percentage that reason God is very, very low in eastern cultures compared to western cultures, despite years of evangelization.

@Fliegerabwehrkanone:
If you would read the rest of my post, you would also see that I believe that atheists don’t accept what I believe on faith, and yet still can be moral people. That’s why there’s not much point in us arguing with each other. You will never accept what I believe on faith, and will only accept concrete evidence which I cannot provide. That said, I am riddled with doubt every day. The only difference between you and me is that I find the sacraments to be life-changing, even though they don’t release me from doubt. It is based on this abstraction, perhaps unique to me, that I continue to believe.

However, your other point does require clarification. The dual train paradox cannot, as far as I know, be tested by any means man can devise, although nearly overwhelming evidence can be provided for the constancy of the speed of light in a vacuum. (If you’re referring to the orbiting clock experiment, you are not addressing the dual train paradox, because of the lack of two observers both moving at the speed of light.) As a secondary point, can you derive the gravitational constant mathematically, or do you accept it as a constant based on empirical observation?

There is faith in the sciences, just as their is faith in God. My other son, who has remained a catholic, argues with my atheist son frequently that science and philosophy will be one at the end of time, and man will actually know God. I guess we’ll all see.

Brian:
As per usual, you don’t seem to grasp that the Church is more than the hierarchy and that it is simply not the case that the whole (or even more than a small percentage) of the hierarchy who were involved in the abuse scandal.

As usual, you make assertions without evidence.  I haven’t made any indication of scale, so you simply assume I’m wrong.

So you go on pretending that a Church of a billion people is essentially evil

You’re pretending I said that.

Again, you don’t argue properly, you just set up straw men to knock down.

That’s because you are an irrational hate-filled bigot

Hey, more insults for an atheist from an atheist hater.  Quelle surprise.

Tom, this is in response to your post above regarding the church “collaborating with nazis and storing their gold, etc”.  Where did you get this information?  I suggest you visit this web site and do more research: http://catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0002.html.  I’d also encourage you to do a little research on Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty.

“love thy neighbors”!  Remember that in before Columbus the world swore the world was flat!  Of course, that was not true and, in fact, another civilization existed.  If atheists choose to believe God doesn’t not exist, it’s OK, too.  But don’t repay hate with hate…..we are blessed to know their invisible God.  I pray that at some point they will open their eyes and see that only a Creator can create a species (the humans) in His image.  No other species on earth can create, like the humans.  That’s proof.  If atheists, still don’t believe, like many who claim to believe, God will reveal Himself at the hour of judgment.

Tom, this is in response to your post above regarding the church “collaborating with nazis and storing their gold, etc”.  Where did you get this information?  I’d encourage you to do more research, especially on Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty.

@Mark Shea:
I read the Aquinas reference (I had read it long ago in high school.) With all due respect to the defender of the faith, the logic is circular. Basically, you can reduce it to “things are, nothing can come from nothing, so God is,” which is a circular way of saying “I believe that God created all things, because no other explanation makes sense.” Now, I happen to agree with that, but a theoretical physicist may or may not. He may well invoke a hypothesis such as:

“Matter and anti-matter together are nothing. Probability theory says that given an infinite amount of time, matter and anti-matter have a possibility of separation, and something arises from that separation.” I have to admit that I don’t have sufficient grasp of this theory to understand why a mixture of “something” and “anti-something” don’t still constitute “something”, yet modern physicists are comfortable with it.

In other words, modern physicists don’t accept a priori that everything requires a cause! So, the causation that Aquinas talks about is, from the atheistic physicists point of view, nothing. Nothing is God. Well, that’s consistent with the atheist’s reasoning, and he stops there. You (we) can argue that it doesn’t make sense to you (or me) all you want, but the fact that it does make sense to a great many people implies that God bestowed natural reason upon you (us), and not them. In other words, Aquinas implicitly invokes faith in his argument.

you fail to answer the key part of the question, which is are Hindus and Buddhists bereft of natural reason?

Yes.  I did answer.  “It also does not follow that those who do not know differential calculus lack natural reason. The same applies to the question of the existence of God.”

As a Catholic, I would say that there is such a thing as a hierarchy of truth and that different human belief systems are in different places (and that the humans within those belief systems are likewise in different places).  To be aware of the existence of the supernatural is better than to be unaware of it.  Buddhism is not a “religion” in the sense westerners mean it because it is not about the worship of God or gods at all.  In this, it is more remote than Hinduism, from Catholic belief.  Hinduism, while polytheistic, has aspects which recall certain attributes of God.  And both systems have moral teachings which are rooted in the natural law and correspond with Christian moral teaching (as, of course, as moral teaching which diverge from and even contradict Catholic moral and theological teaching).  A Catholic (who is, recall, forbidden from judging the state of a person’s soul) would essentially say what Paul says in Romans 2: “For he will render to every man according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. 9 There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for every one who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11* For God shows no partiality. 12* All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13* For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them 16* on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”

So no: Hindus and Buddhists are not *bereft* of natural reason per se (though anybody, Christian or non-Christian is capable of destroying natural reason by persistent sin.  As C.S. Lewis says, “The trouble about making yourself stupider than you really are is that you often succeed.”)  I would say that the complex interplay of our cultural circumstances and our own desire to avoid too much reality (i.e. God) is manifested in what the Catholic tradition calls “concupiscence”.  The weakened will, disordered appetites, and darkened intellect that makes it hard to practice, not only supernatural virtues like faith, hope and love, but even natural virtues like prudence (which is at the heart of natural reason).  All human beings, Christian and non-Christian struggle with this.  And this, according to Paul is at the heart of the pagan blunder, which is the worship of the creature over the Creator.  So while pagans possess natural reason, they often make mistakes in their reading of natural revelation.  That’s not too surprising to me, since we Christians make those mistakes too.

In short, it’s simplistic atheistic fundamentalism (and most atheists are fundamentalists) to create a digital binary system of “capable of natural reason/bereft of natural reason”.  People are complicated: one of the many concepts that New Atheists have trouble grasping in their stunted and cramped world of a single negation.

@Mark Shea:
We don’t fundamentally disagree, but you do seem to change the subject when you argue. The fact is that a huge portion of the populations used natural reason to come up with something other than origination from one God, which was the original point you made. Whether its closer to Catholicism than atheism is irrelevant.

I also disagree that most atheists are fundamentalists. The majority of atheists I know are good people. Their use of natural reason, and not hatred, or persistent sin, led the them to their belief honestly. This is the most perplexing thing about God to me. His inspiration seems to be spread amongst all mankind pretty much equally. You can argue that the majority of mankind ignores the natural law because of Satan, and that Scripture is the only divinely inspired source, and I can’t, as a Catholic, even try to refute that, but my observations certainly lead me to a different assessment of atheism and other religions than yours.

anna lisa, let me know if you ever become available. You stand out among the pack of snarling, snapping, writhing ugly contorted faces that atheists bring here. I feel like I must spray my computer with raid to feel clean again. Not a very good sell on their part.

We don’t fundamentally disagree,

I’m glad to hear it.  It’s actually rather difficult to fundamentally disagree with somebody.  There’s usually some point of commonality.

but you do seem to change the subject when you argue. The fact is that a huge portion of the populations used natural reason to come up with something other than origination from one God, which was the original point you made.

No.  The original point I made is that God is, like differential calculus, knowable from natural reason.  It is not that God (like DiffEQ) will be thus known by anybody capable of natural reason.  In fact, whole civilization have risen and fallen, ignorant of both DiffEQ and of the truth of the One God.  Ignorance is a human reality.  At the same time, even within pagan cultures, there have been various stabs at the truth and remarkable intuitions.

Whether its closer to Catholicism than atheism is irrelevant.

On the contrary, it’s highly relevant.  As C.S. Lewis remarked, when he was an atheist he was bound by his cramped little commitment to dogma to say that 99.9999% percent of the human race through history was absolutely and totally wrong about the thing that mattered to it most.  When he became a Christian he was suddenly free to acknowledge that every religious tradition, no matter how odd, had glimpsed *something* of the one God.  I can acknowledge that Buddhists and Hindus have something on the ball.  So does my Church.  (Go here and scroll down to paragraph 16.)

I also disagree that most atheists are fundamentalists. The majority of atheists I know are good people.

It’s curious you should put it that way, since most fundamentalists I know are good people too.  To be a fundamentalist is not to be evil.  It is to be simplistic, black-and-white and binary.  It is black and white thinking to complain that Paul did not eradicate world-wide slavery.  It’s not patient of ordinary human reality.  It is, in a word, childish. So it is typically fundamentalists and atheists who read Genesis in a childish way and assume that all Christian must believe in six literal 24 hour days of creation.  Childish. But it’s not necessarily evil.

Their use of natural reason, and not hatred, or persistent sin, led the them to their belief honestly.

Not according to St. Paul in Romans 1.  It is the *misuse* of natural reason (rooted in a multiplicity of causes both culpable and inculpable) that leads the worship of the creature over the Creator.  Paul is, I think, speaking of paganism as a whole and not passing judgement on individuals, but he does say that the pagans are “without excuse” precisely because God is knowable, yet they have failed consistently to know him—due to the fact that their minds are, says, Paul “darkened”.  Paul’s not setting himself up as judge there (he will go on to say that he’s no better).

This is the most perplexing thing about God to me. His inspiration seems to be spread amongst all mankind pretty much equally. You can argue that the majority of mankind ignores the natural law because of Satan, and that Scripture is the only divinely inspired source, and I can’t, as a Catholic, even try to refute that, but my observations certainly lead me to a different assessment of atheism and other religions than yours.

The Church has a very sympathetic discussion of atheism in Gaudiem et Spes (start at paragraph 19) which I would urge you to read.  There are, in fact, many different species of atheism spring from many different causes.  My comments here have been solely concerned with the aggressive, ignorant, arrogant and obnoxious form of atheism typified by the New Atheists (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, PZ Myers, Christopher Hitchens and the herd of independent minds who perpetually parrot them while braying about “thinking for themselves”).  This form of cocksure mental shallowness is, I think, deeply guilty of profound dishonesty and is of an entirely different metal than, say, the innocent atheist who has been raised to never particularly think about God (which was pretty close to my own upbringing).

As to other religions, I don’t know how you know that we have any differences.  My approach to other religions is basically “the glass is half full” rather than the glass is half empty.  Of course, where another religious tradition contradicts the teaching of the Church, I go with the Church since I believe Jesus constituted the Church as the sacrament of revelation.  But I have no problem with the reality that God is not bound by the sacraments and so there are what the Church calls “semina Verbi” (seeds of the Word) scattered throughout the religious traditions of the world.  The Church has always tried to affirm what can be affirmed in common with all that is human, including human religious traditions.  That’s what Paul did in Acts 17 on the Areopagus.

You seem like a good egg, Tom R.  You obviously care about the good of souls.  Thanks for being a breath of fresh air.

New Yorker, I know this through independent research.  I read the article you posted and it has no sources; it isn’t peer reviewed, and doesn’t in any way contradict what I wrote.  US Treasury Agent Emerson Bigelow filed a report with the OSS (the precursor to the CIA) that stated 350 million Swiss francs in Nazi gold were transferred to Vatican held Swiss bank accounts.  Independent US Intelligence reports confirmed that 200 million francs were transferred to Vatican City or to the Institute for Works of Religion.

Basically, you can reduce it to “things are, nothing can come from nothing, so God is,” which is a circular way of saying “I believe that God created all things, because no other explanation makes sense.”

Not exactly.  What Thomas says is “Nature is fundamentally contingent.  A fundamentally contingent thing cannot account for its own existence.  Therefore, there has to be something that is not contingent.  That is what we call ‘God’”.  It’s really a very modest argument.  He doesn’t try to prove that God is Triune, or loving or any of that.  Just that he exists.  Other arguments will demonstrate other points, such as the goodness of God, or God as the author of purpose in the cosmos. But none of these things are specifically Christian or even Jewish aspects of revelation.  For that, you need supernatural revelation.

All a scientist can do is talk about the measurable properties of time, space, matter and energy.  He cannot answer the question “Why is there anything?”  That is a metaphysical, not a physical, question.  The blunder of scientism is the gigantic mistake that when all you have is the hammer of science, everything in the universe is a nail made of time, space, matter, and energy.  T’aint so.  And worshippers of science are in for a rude awakening when they figure that out.

Tom R, Matter (cause of it’s existence?) and anti-matter (cause of it’s existence?) together are nothing. Probability theory says that given an infinite amount of time, matter and anti-matter have a possibility (cause of it happening?) of separation, and something arises from that separation.———- THEORY is the important word here.

Tom,  a few things come to mind here.  First, I wonder honestly how accurate intelligence reports are.  Intelligence, allegedly confirmed by others, said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  Second, even if the report is true, we do not know the circumstances surrounding it.  Third, what about all the people like Monsignor O’Flaherty that risked their lives to save people?  What about the conversion of Israel Zolli, the chief rabbi of Rome, who converted to Chritianity after the war?  There are many other foot noted articles on the web site I listed above and on this web site here: http://www.catholic.com/documents/how-pius-xii-protected-jews.  Fourth, and this is a question for you, why do you make a conscious decision to find and magnify every bit of imperfection that you find?  You focus on Nazi gold and ignore the thousands of Jews saved by the church.  The Catholic Church has done many great things and, yes, there have been quite a number of foolish moves made by some foolish leaders throughout history.  Any organization on this earth is going to be highly imperfect because it is made up of people.

Posted by ED on Tuesday, Apr 3, 2012 6:13 PM (EST):
“Tom, do you feel a Creator (if there was one) would be obligated
to give his creatures ‘scientific’ (as we know it) proof of his
existence?  If so why?”

Obligation? I’d call it more of a rational step toward the purpose of getting its expectations realized, than an obligation. If a parent provided cryptic and conflicting versions of the household rules in various locations around the house, while remaining out of sight of the children, the children would be unlikely to meet that parent’s behavioral expectations, or to feel love toward that parent.

“And… do you think that a simple creature (like you or I) would be
capable of understanding our Creator (if there was one)?  If so why?”

I’d say we couldn’t possibly understand a Creator that was by definition outside of the natural universe. The difference between natural and supernatural, finite and infinite, is not a difference of magnitude, it is utter and complete difference. Nor could we have a relationship. It would be a greater difference than that between a human and a virus.

Posted by ED on Tuesday, Apr 3, 2012 3:09 PM (EST):
“Gee… I’m getting the distinct impression that we don’t have any happy, secure, and confident *adult* atheists here” to explain why they “feel the need to *personally* spend time reading and commenting on a Catholic site”.

I put myself in the happy, secure and confident adult atheist category.

OK, I admit it. I like to argue. I also like to present a different view of atheists. There are some crazy ideas about atheists out there, such as that we can’t experience love, that science is our religion, that we can’t be moral people or that we hate all believers.

But I truly do enjoy hearing other points of view on the topic of religion. I was a cradle Catholic who went to Catholic schools. I completed my bachelor’s degree at a Catholic university, so I was required to take religion courses as an undergraduate. As a child, I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t an unquestioning Catholic. Then I started reading books from the public library.

Mark sees Catholicism as possessing the full truth about the supernatural world, while other religions only have parts of this truth. But of course if you look at it from another point of view, you see all religions representing a supernatural world differently. How do you decide which one has it right? I, at least, then had to ask, why assume that any of them has it right? That question led me to ask questions at the most basic level, rather than to make assumptions. We can’t even know that there was a First Cause. We can’t generalize about universes, because we don’t have a selection of them to compare. When you say the First Cause is God, you are just giving a name to something that might or might not exist.  If you assume that there is a First Cause, that tells you nothing about it except that it’s something outside of everything we experience. It makes no sense to attribute human emotions such as love or grief to the First Cause, if it exists. At least that is my perspective. So far I haven’t found a reason to assume that there isn’t a natural explanation for everything I have encountered, even if we don’t know it yet.

But I am still a product of Catholic culture, and I find the church in the U.S. fascinating to observe. Back when communication wasn’t instant and cultures didn’t mix so freely, the church was able to evolve slowly and keep in step with the growth of human knowledge, while still claiming that God’s law, as they interpreted it, never changed. (Who remembers now that usury was once forbidden?) Keeping up while claiming not to change has become increasingly difficult. This has resulted in an American Catholic culture where most Catholics have wildly different moral compasses while still claiming to be Catholic. Even the Catholics most faithful to the Pope can’t agree on what constitutes a moral war, whether we should strive to end capital punishment, whether torture may be moral, or whether it’s moral to make health care a commodity like any other consumer good, available only to those who can afford it or who are lucky enough to receive personal charity. And then there are the Catholics who simply and openly follow their own consciences in every instance.

In the sixties the Catholic church avoided a major implosion over the issue of contraception by simply staying quiet about it. Now that the furor over the child abuse scandals is simmering down, the American bishops are trying to reclaim the moral high ground by speaking up on contraception and another sexual issue—gay marriage. This is a huge risk on their part and I am riveted by the drama.

I believe that if the church maintains a hard line on contraception with its parishioners, the church will get a LOT smaller—if better (meaning “purer”) as the Pope has suggested. In addition, as gay marriage is increasingly accepted in the U.S., there will be increasing conflicts with Catholic “religious” institutions that take state funds. In Europe the church has already gotten a lot smaller, and the culture has gotten a lot more secular. The U.S. is a different animal, so it will be fascinating to see how things work themselves out here.

Cowalker, Focus on the first two commandments.  That’s it.  Let others be fundamentalists when it comes to the Bible.  The Bible is a violent love story about a “stiff necked people” (who are the violent ones). What makes you think that God is not startlingly close?  The mystics say that God is. The infant in her mother’s womb can’t see her mother’s face either.

cowalker, you are right.  The church will get a lot smaller, but so will the rest of the population. many coutries are in the process of aborting and contrcepting themselves out of existence.  Are you aware of the low birth rates in Europe, Japan, and South Korea?  Birth rates are falling drastically throughout most areas of the world.  The only thing that has stopped it from being so obvious is that this phenomena has been off set by people living longer.  And, no, this is not a good thing.  Look at Greece.  Decades of low birth rates brought about by artificial contraception and abortion has resulted in a younger population that is much too small in relation to the older population to continue to support their generous social programs.  They are faced with either raising taxes on the young to support the old, or cutting benefits to the old.  Either way it is very ugly.  And, thanks to our short sighted and foolish attitudes towards contraception and abortion, we are right behind them on the learning curve.  Artificial contraception has enabled promiscuity on levels never before seen in the history of humanity.  Visit a college campus lately?  In order to understand catholic teachings on all these issues, you need to really spend some time reading and investigating to figure out the wisdom behind them.

Mark sees Catholicism as possessing the full truth about the supernatural world

No, I don’t.  The Church does not “possess” truth.  The truth who is Jesus possesses her.  You may as well say I believe the Church has God on a leash. He is not a tame Lion.

Cowalker said: ”In the sixties the Catholic church avoided a major implosion over the issue of contraception by simply staying quiet about it. Now that the furor over the child abuse scandals is simmering down, the American bishops are trying to reclaim the moral high ground by speaking up on contraception and another sexual issue—gay marriage.”———The public issue of contraception is a very cleaver tactic that has been thrust on the church. The Bishops have made it very clear that the issue is about Religious Freedom. http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/march-14-statement-on-religious-freedom-and-hhs-mandate.cfm  
————

I believe with certitude that the Church will maintain “a hard line on contraception with its parishioners.” There is another article on this site that deals with this more elegantly than I can, but the facts are clear.

Birth control does not cause abortion to be “rare, safe and legal.” It may lend itself to the legality of abortion, but it does nothing to make it rare and safe. The facts are in - abortions have exponentially increased since the widespread use of contraception.

STDs have not been prevented since the advent of contraception. Rather, the variety and number of cases has steadily increased.

People, especially women, are not demonstrably “happier”.

As I said, the arguments are better summarized here:
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/some-in-congress-defending-contraception-mandate-ask-where-are-the-women-he/

Since the Church’s goal is for its flock to achieve happiness in all forms, physical, mental, and spiritual, and since contraception seems to lead to nothing happy, it’s a sure bet the Church has got this one doctrinally correct.

You could claim that “98% of Catholics ignore the Church’s teachings” on birth control. So what? It’s a given that 100% of Catholics are sinners. Many, like me, come to realize the selfish nature of sin after its committed. Further, they have the understanding that their lives would undoubtedly be richer had they just opened themselves to the gifts of God, rather than deny them. Curiously, they are forgiven, anyway. We can all thank God for that.

cowalker said: ” Even the Catholics most faithful to the Pope can’t agree on what constitutes a moral war, whether we should strive to end capital punishment, whether torture may be moral, or whether…….”——-And this is a bad thing why? The foreward to “Jesus OF Nazareth” by the Pope. “It goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the magisterium, but is solely an expression of my personal search…..Everyone is free, then, to contradict me.”

Just as an aside, here are the reasons that this nearly 60 year old remained a Catholic, despite being well trained in science.

1) The man who developed the big bang theory, arguably the most important advance in the use of relativity theory in the 20th century, remained a loyal, steadfast Catholic until his dying day, Fr. Georges LeMaitre, S.J. I think he should be canonized, especially in light of the storm of criticism he faced positing this theory until Einstein himself came to his defense. His work is misattributed to Hubble even to this day. (Why is it still called Hubble’s constant, when LeMaitre first derived it?) It’s hard to understand how someone like Dawkins has the audacity to direct others to “mock him, ridicule him,” simply because he accepted the doctrine of transubstantiation. I would be proud to stand in alliance with LeMaitre, and neither mock nor ridicule anyone.

2) I have never read a papal encyclical that did not make sense, and I’ve read most since the time of Leo XIII. There is true wisdom to be found in them, but the published reports of them, typically by a lay press, are “excerpts with an agenda.” Try reading them in their entirety. Sometimes it requires a little effort, but they are extraordinary documents.

3) I find, without any explanation that I can reason, comfort in the sacraments.

Cowalker: reading through these comments a looking to comment in a meaningful way, I don’t think I could summarize the atheist position any better. Very well put. I no longer consider myself a Catholic, yet continue to admire the countless positive contributions of Christian thought and actions over the centuries. But at some point the inconsistencies of the bible, the immunity to reason, the moral rot within the hierarchy, the intolerance for homosexuality, and hypocrisy of many Catholics led me to realize that I didn’t believe any of it. It was a tremendous relief to finally admit it to myself.

I also think that this fight over contraception and the HHS mandate is fascinating to watch, and why I started reading articles on this website. The hard line that the church has taken is in my opinion, a losing strategy. Given the widespread acceptance of birth control by the general population and even Catholic women, it is a vocal minority that we hear from. Noteworthy is the absence of Catholics expressing their support for birth control in any of these forums or in the media, although we know that about half of them use it regularly. Doing so earns them an automatic label of “cafeteria Catholic”, and alienates them further from the church. If the hard-liners succeed in driving these Catholics from the church, what’s left will be a much smaller group of zealots whose power will be greatly diminished.

Zeke said: “I also think that this fight over contraception and the HHS mandate is fascinating to watch, and why I started reading articles on this website”——You must have missed my comment above. To characterize the fight as over contraception is only hearing one side. There is also a complaint regarding sterilization and abortifacient drugs which are not mostly Catholic issues. Also a complaint of ignoring our rights (my rights) as is currently being decided by SCOTUS.

Other information can be found here https://www.stophhs.com/stop_hhs_mandate/evangelicals-southern-baptists-rip-hhs-mandate/

Zeke, artificial contraception enables rampant promiscuity. That’s why the church has always spoken out against it.  Promiscuity is inevitable when you separate reproduction from pleasure, which is what artificial contraception does.  It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that humans will seek pleasure without having to sacrifice if given the opportunity.  As a result of this separation, we have more divorce (married people can be promiscuous too) and more abortions because of more unwelcome pregnancies, which is the inevitable result of indulging in sexual promiscuity.  This means we have more children from broken homes and, overall, less happiness. There’s also the problem of plunging birthrates in many industrialized nations.  European populations (and subsequently their economies) are actually poised for decline!!  It makes no difference whether or not 99% of Catholics agree or disagree with this teaching.  This is not a democracy.  The teachings are in the Bible and thus are true and correct.  They cannot be changed by the individual opinions of Catholics or the U.S. government or even the Pope.  There are many other churches that change their teachings per the whims of their congregants, but the RC Church is not one of them.  Suggest you read this article: http://catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0002.html

Howard Duncan: yes, the party line has become “religious freedom” which I think is also a losing strategy. To focus on the church’s prohibition of things like condoms or surgical sterilization would highlight just how dogmatic and immune to reason it remains. Not to belabor the point, but even most Catholics don’t have a problem with this, and it is certainly not and issue for non-Catholics. If it ends up in the courts, the church will have to show that the mandate somehow prevents them from exercising their right to practice their religion freely. This is much different from the mandate violating their conscience, for which there is no constitutional or 2nd amendment remedy.

Zeke, regarding your comment on the church’s “intolerance of homosexuality”, I have to ask if you ever considered the reasons why the church does not approve of same sex realtions?  It has nothing to do with hate or intollerance.  It has to do with love.  Scripture is clear that homosexuality is a sin and that God does not like it.  But, wait a minute, exactly why doesn’t God like it?  I mean he must have a reason, right?  In fact, there is a good reason.  Whether we want to admit it or not, the sad truth is that homosexuals TEND TO live short, troubled, unhealthy lives.  The very sad fact of the matter is that folks with same sex attractions suffer much more then the heterosexual population, even when they live in homosexual enclaves where their same sex attraction is viewed as totally acceptable and normal.  How do they suffer more?  They have increased rates of depression, substance abuse, suicide, and physical disease (in addition to AIDS).  The same sex attraction does seem to have a tendency to trigger other harmful emotional and physical ailments resulting in drastically lower life spans (only 38 years for men!!).  I suggest you go to the following web site and scroll half way down to “What does scientific evidence show about homosexuality?”  http://www.catholic.com/library/gay_marriage.asp   These poor souls suffering with same sex attractions need love.  But what they don’t need is a society patting them on the back and encouraging them to engage in a life style that drastically shortens their lives.  That would be evil.

Zeke said: “yes, the party line has become “religious freedom” which I think is also a losing strategy.”———-The Church is not a political party. Too much mainstream TV would harden a person to think that everyone wishes to gain political office. I assure you that I am not running for office or in the church hierarchy and this is my issue also. What you think about a court strategy is irrelevant.————If it ends up in the courts, the church will have to show that the mandate somehow prevents them from exercising their right to practice their religion freely. This is much different from the mandate violating their conscience, for which there is no constitutional or 2nd amendment remedy.————The courts are already involved and so is the Religious Restoration Act. Again, what you think is a good strategy is irrelevant, even if you claim to be a lawyer. I heard a very famous constitutional lawyer (to paraphrase) claim on national TV that the courts have never struck down a law on constitutional grounds voted by congress, that it would be unprecedented. My non law brain asks then what has the Supreme Court been doing since Marbury vs Madison. This person may lose his day job as president.

New Yorker: wow, I don’t even know how to begin to respond to that. Suffice it to say that appeals to scripture and Catholic literature on homosexuality is lost on an atheist like me, just as I would expect that my reasoning would be lost on Christians. I did take the time to visit the site you linked to, and the section you reference begins as follows:

“In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of diagnostic disorders. In retrospect, this decision appears to have been inspired by political pressure rather than medical evidence.”

The medical community has had a lot more to say since 1973, and it is nearly unanimous that homosexuality is not a diagnostic disorder, or even a choice. It is something innate, or as you might describe it, how God made them. Scripture may indeed be clear that homosexuality is a sin, but you can also find scripture that advocates stoning women to death for adultery. What does that tell you? The problem is, scientific truth changes as new evidence becomes available, scripture does not.

“Slavery, as it existed then in Israel, was very different. It was a term that reffered to the labourers - some of whom were bonded to the boss.” -Mal

Like a slave? Because that sounds like the definition of slavery.

Also, where exactly in the bible does it say that slavery is wrong?

Further, if it does say so, wouldn’t that be a contradiction? And shouldn’t a perfect god lack contradictions?

“To further Mark’s analogy -
.
By your atheist friend’s logic, the existence of the Geneva Convention proves that the signatories thereof wholeheartedly and enthusiastically embrace and condone war, given that they have guidelines for the ethical treatment of prisoners of war.”-JoAnna

JoAnna, the difference is that the people who wrote the Geneva Convention are not all powerful gods. God could stop slavery if he wanted.

Howard: I’m just writing matter-of-factly, the “party line” wasn’t meant to refer to anything more than the position of bishops and/or church. But let’s face it, this is very political, I don’t see what’s upsetting about using that phrase. No, I’m not a lawyer or constitutional scholar or anything remotely like that (I had to look up Marbury vs Madison).
My position is simply this: if it was up to the general public, the church would lose, it is vastly in the minority. If or when the issue goes to court, the argument that having health plans that cover objectionable things violates its right to freely exercise religion doesn’t seem like a winning one. Sure, what I think is irrelevant to the church, but it’s relevant to this discussion, is it not.
One more thing - it’s good to have an exchange like this without it getting out of hand with insults like in the earlier comments. Cheers.

Zeke, “party line” trivializes the Church. It is the first and most used definition of the word - the policy of a political party. Your guess work of what issue would be voted this way or that or what a court should hear or not hear is irrelevant to this thread which is a conversation about atheism and church beliefs. None of those things pertain to what it’s and other companies and organizations law firms are doing or going to do. We might as well argue the best streets to take to get to the court house.

JoAnna, the difference is that the people who wrote the Geneva Convention are not all powerful gods. God could stop slavery if he wanted.

Um, you are shifting your ground, Sam.  Paul is a human being like the authors of the Geneva convention.  But magical thinking atheists like you blame him for not stopping the immemorial institution of slavery while not blaming the authors of the Geneva Convention for stopping the immemorial institution of war.  You also seem very miffed at an imaginary being for not doing magical things you declare him bound to do.  You can pretend all you like that Christians claim that God works by magically eradicating evil with a wave of a wand.  But they have never claimed that.  So you fight a straw man.

Zeke:

Your appeals to vox populi vox Dei are quaint.  The majority opinion in any given age as a gauge of truth is a notoriously bad metric.  However, you seem like a much more pleasant fellow than some of the earlier posters who were just here to indulge their bigotry.  I wish I had time to chat about your laundry list of reasons for leaving the faith but I just don’t.  My hope, of course, is that you will revisit them at some point subject them to some scrutiny.  But that’s your affair.

Touchy, Howard, touchy…...
My initial post was agreeing with another poster (cowalker?) who was responding, I think, to someone questioning why an atheist would be reading a Catholic website. I said that this battle over the HHS mandate was indeed fascinating to watch play out, and it’s interesting to speculate on the outcome, like any other court case. The first part of my post was a summary of my reasons for leaving the faith, but you chose to jump on the HHS mandate thing. What’s a curious atheist to do?

Personally, I find arguments between Christians and atheists boring and pointless. Nobody is walking away from these exchanges with a changed mind. If anything, the hyperbolic rhetoric seems to reinforce the stereotypes that atheists are all pawns of Satan and all Christians are naive zealots. The only time I get my fur ruffled is when people attempt to enact laws based on something their particular religion tells them is right or wrong.

zeke, Unrepentant sloppy use of words does not predict clear thinking. I pass.

But magical thinking atheists like you blame him [Paul] for not stopping the immemorial institution of slavery while not blaming the authors of the Geneva Convention for stopping the immemorial institution of war.

No Shea, again you’re constructing a straw man.

You’ve stated that “reforms [of slavery] would not be possible for centuries”.

I and other atheists jump on this, because your god is supposedly all-powerful, omnipotent, etc.  It literally makes no sense to say any particular social change would not be possible for centuries, unless this god that believers say exists is not all-powerful.

At best, in order to not contradict this god’s supposed traits, you’d have to say something like “reforms could have been possible, but for unknown reasons god didn’t do so.”  At least then you’d be consistent.

But consistency has never been a believers strong point from what I’ve seen.  I constantly see people insist that their god is all-powerful, but in the next breath explain why some (rather mundane) things are impossible; that their god is unknowable, but in the next breath explain what this god demands of humans; that their god is omnipotent, but in the next breath explain that their god wants something, as if an omnipotent being can want of anything.

To quote the Princess Bride, I do not thing that word means what you think it means.

Oops, “think”

Mark Shea: thanks for the respectful comment, although I must say some of your earlier comments seemed more than a bit nasty, warranted or not. Regardless, I must give you proper credit for defending your article in the comment section, most of the other bloggers on NCRegister seldom take the time or effort to do so.
I agree that the church is monarchical rather than democratic. Thought it should be noted that in all other institutions this is not a something one would brag about. The majority opinion is certainly not always the best measure of the truth (hey, this is usually MY argument!) but telling the majority that they are simply not in the position to judge the truth will eventually alienate the majority. To me, the moral decay in the Catholic hierarchy seems to be a symptom of a leadership unresponsive to its followers.

Fine Howard, have it your way. I already told you I didn’t mean anything negative by “party line”, you seem to think a formal apology is in order. If that phrase offends your Christian sensibilities, I don’t sense that an exchange with you about Christianity vs. atheism would end well.

Shorter Mike Shea: Abolishionists = Magicians

....

Which of course is ridiculous.

@ Zeke, actually I think we have made great progress since the Borgias.  B16 is a holy man.  What do you think about Pascal’s wager?

Brian:

It seems to be a habit with you to define terms for Christians and then get mad at Christians for not capitulating to your definition.  Like it or not, “Almighty” does not mean and never did mean “going to magically eradicate evil” in the Christian lexicon.  Paul, being a Christian, sees the defeat of evil in light of Christ becoming a slave/leper/victim for us and bearing the cross, not in terms of him waving a wand. He also assumes that our own struggle with evil will entail joining him on that cross, not sailing to easy victory by magic.  You can complain that you don’t like that.  I’m not crazy about it either.  But you can’t complain that Paul believes in your magical definition of “almighty”.  He just doesn’t.  Nor does the rest of the Catholic tradition.  If you are going to use terms from the Church tradition you should really learn what they mean and stop telling the Church what she means by them.

Zeke:

I don’t have a lot of patience or sympathy with bullying ignorant aggressive atheist bigots, so I tend to be blunt with them.  On the other hand, I’m quite willing to chat with atheists who are not bullies and bigots, like your esteemed self.

I’m not really making a case for the monarchical structure of the Church (though I accept it).  I’m simply saying that appeals to popular opinion on a wide variety of topics will make you popular—and wrong.  The jury is still emphatically out on the wisdom of a contraceptive culture.  We’ve barely begun that societal experiment and the data that is coming in is not at all indicative that it’s the long term Wave of the Future.  It could well be that the long term results of a contraceptive culture will be… a radically Islamic culture, as Eurabia is on the way to discovering.  A basic Darwinian principle is that a society that will no reproduce will lose to a society that will reproduce.  So I wouldn’t get too carried away with ringing the death knell for the Church yet.  She’s worn out an awful lot of hammers on her anvil.

The real paradigm for me is not the Church, but Jesus who was the first in our tradition to get the verdict that smart people had decided he was emphatically unpopular and out of fashion and executed that judgment with extreme prejudice.  Turns out that declaration was premature.  I strongly suspect that in a century or two there will still be people, of course, declaring the Church hopelessly out of step with all the Best Opinion.  But it will be people who are insisting, perhaps, that all homosexuals need to be killed, that contraception is a monstrous evil and its practitioners must be hunted down like dogs, that the Nazis were misunderstood heroes, and that the Church is too womanly, soft, and permissive for not joining in what All the Best People think.  The world, said Chesterton, does not progress.  The world wobbles.  Currently, we live in a permissive age, like Weimar.  It is quite possible for us to turn on a dime and go mad in some opposite direction at any moment (as for instance, our culture did in turning from the easygoing Clinton years to the post 9/11 police state we are now constructing).  But whichever way we go insane, we will always, in our pride, congratulate ourselves for our superiority to Christ’s and his Church.  Only the Holy Spirit can take away that veil. As to the moral decay in the hierarchy, I think you have it backwards: sin makes people stupid, not vice versa.  The unresponsiveness of the leader is the symptom: the sin of pride is the cause of this and all other sins. But since sin is the universal human condition that’s not a shock.  Nor is it the final word about the Church since no human member is.  A bishop is not the soul of the Church: the Holy Spirit is.  The Church is wounded by pervert priests and bad bishops, but she can’t be killed.  Jesus has already been there, done that, got the white garment.  Her members can and do sin gravely, including clergy.  But that’s rather the point: they aren’t the savior.  They’re the people who need saving and if there was ever a demonstration of how desperately in need of salvation they and the rest of our sorry race are, it’s their wretched response to sexual abuse.  I think, in the end, all the abuse crisis does is show that we didn’t really believe the Church’s doctrine of sin.  With that is our disbelief in forgiveness.

Okay. I’ve rambled enough.  Your turn.

@Zeke, I don’t think that there is a “trap door” underneath every atheist at the moment we meet our maker…

Brian Macker:

Your reading comprehension skills are exceeded only by your name recognition and spelling abilities.  Well played, sir!  Well played!

Posted by Howard Duncan on Wednesday, Apr 4, 2012 2:26 PM (EST):
“The public issue of contraception is a very cleaver tactic that has been thrust on the church. The Bishops have made it very clear that the issue is about Religious Freedom.”

That is how the Bishops have framed the issue. It remains to be seen whether a court will agree. Perhaps even more importantly, no matter how the court decides, will most Americans accept their framing? To me the issue is—when does an institution claiming to be religious become not religious? I think that happens when they accept government funding.

Others see the male hierarchy of a church that is just emerging from a child sex scandal trying to take contraceptives away from non-Catholic women. You can’t make people interpret a moral crusade in the way you want them to. That is why this is such a risky strategy for the Bishops.

Like it or not, “Almighty” does not mean and never did mean “going to magically eradicate evil” in the Christian lexicon.

Hey, MORE straw men.

Wake me if you ever get close to addressing an argument I actually make; I’ll probably die of shock.

[Obligation? I’d call it more of a rational step toward the purpose of getting its expectations realized…]

What expectations? 

[I’d say we couldn’t possibly understand a Creator that was by definition outside of the natural universe.]

Do you think it possible that a Creator could be outside and inside our natural universe?

Posted by Howard Duncan on Wednesday, Apr 4, 2012 2:40 PM (EST):
“cowalker said: ‘Even the Catholics most faithful to the Pope can’t agree on what constitutes a moral war, whether we should strive to end capital punishment, whether torture may be moral, or whether…….’——-And this is a bad thing why? The foreward to “Jesus OF Nazareth” by the Pope. “It goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the magisterium, but is solely an expression of my personal search…..Everyone is free, then, to contradict me.”

Hey, it’s not a bad thing to a moral relativist like me. The trouble is, believers frequently attack atheists because they say our relative morality is inferior to their absolute morality, based on divine revelation. I’m just observing that even the most faithful Catholics aren’t any better off in determining what is moral than we are, even though they have the Bible, the Magisterium and the pope.  Let’s face it, most normal people, believers or not, agree that a society can’t afford to tolerate murder, violent assault, rape, theft, or fraud. Then it gets complicated—and relative—for everybody, divine law or not.

Mark himself has eloquently spoken out on his blog against torture as an immoral practice. Some Catholics who consider themselves faithful to the church disagree with him about this. OK, guys, how are you better off than the moral relativists?  I think the guidance on capital punishment from the Pope is pretty clear.  Faithful Catholics beg to differ.  Moral relativism—I get it. None of us has more power than the power to persuade.

Posted by ED on Wednesday, Apr 4, 2012 11:21 PM (EST):
“‘Obligation? I’d call it more of a rational step toward the purpose of getting its expectations realized…’
“What expectations?”

I have no idea what expectations a creator outside the natural universe might have of creatures within the natural universe. Believers claim that humans who do not recognize and acquiesce in the creator’s expectations (divine law) will be sentenced to eternal hell. I just think it would be more rational to provide explicit and non-conflicting instructions on such expectations to the creatures in the natural universe, rather than to intervene, apparently randomly, with historical texts that could be, and demonstrably are, interpreted in different ways.

And, as a parent, I think it would help to have an actual relationship with each person within the natural universe if your goal was to realize a relationship of love.

The preceding interpretation of reality is just an actual person, judging from personal experience in the world with human nature. I do not believe in a creator who concerns itself with the human race on the planet Earth.

OK, guys, how are you better off than the moral relativists?

How is a house with a foundation better off than a house without one when the rains come and the winds beat against the house?  There’s a whole saying by Jesus about this.  At present, in this relatively peaceful hour in our culture’s history, before the disease toxins have really done a number on the body politic, moral relativism seems indistinguishable from a Church with a Magisterium.  Reality will sort that confusion out.  Moral relativism is the provincial luxury of comfy suburbanites.

Mark Shea: OK here’s my ramble:

Well, I must agree that the society that reproduces will have more success than one which doesn’t, and I suppose you are speaking directly about Christian society vs. Muslim society. Forget for the moment that atheists hope that one day there would be no religious adjective before the word society, since I doubt that will ever happen. But I fail to follow your link between a contraceptive culture and radically Islamic culture. Radical Islam (or radical Christianity for that matter) is the product of too much religion rather than too little, too much time spent poring over religious texts while ignoring the bigger messages, too much faith that a theocracy is the best form of government.

Perhaps the dominance of western culture will one day be diminished by being out-populated by the Islamist culture, who knows. From what I can gather though, it doesn’t seem that contraception will be to blame since Islam has few of the moral restrictions that the Catholic Church places on contraception. By that measure they should reproduce less. If the death knell ever does sound for the Church, I think it will be due to attrition rather than slow growth. Attrition by alienating those like me that don’t consider using a condom or getting a vasectomy a moral failure, or even think that Jesus would be against it. I’m not saying the Church considers Catholics like these heretics, but it doesn’t consider their position worthy of respect, and certainly makes them examine more closely what they really believe. I’d say that’s bad for the Church.

You kind of lost me at the part about “it will be people who are insisting, perhaps, that all homosexuals need to be killed, that contraception is a monstrous evil and its practitioners must be hunted down like dogs, that the Nazis were misunderstood heroes, and that the Church is too womanly, soft, and permissive for not joining in what All the Best People think”. I understand you’re being sarcastic and ironic, but aren’t there people out there that would find support for these things in the pages of the Bible? Forgive me for not exactly getting your point here, it’s kind of late.

You note that the soul of the Church does not reside in the hierarchy but in the Holy Spirit, and I suppose that theologically speaking you may be correct. But statements like this come across as a huge cop out Mark, now that the facts have emerged about its failings. This is the central authority of the Holy Catholic Church for crying out loud, not some secular institution, and is a huge part of what separates Catholicism from Protestantism. The task of interpreting the word of God has been entrusted solely to the magisterium, and can do so infallibly, yet now we learn that they are as much infallible sinners as the rest of us? What’s worse is that the monarchical structure is largely to blame, with its lack of accountability, secrecy, and single minded task of preserving itself. Simple reforms may have prevented much of this decay. How many fewer problems would the Church have by getting over its fascination with celibacy and allowing priests to marry?

Thanks for the chance to rant, I’ll keep reading in the morning.

[...moral relativist like me]

Hmm… moral relativist.

Well… Mr. moral relativist, I’m sure you will love the following:

[Wickedness in the will blinds the intellect from seeing the truth. For what can be known about God is perfectly plain to them since God Himself has made it plain. Ever since God created the world His everlasting power and deity, however invisible, have been there for the mind to see in the things He has made. That is why such people are without excuse. They knew God and yet refused to honor Him as God or to thank Him. Instead they made nonsense out of logic and their empty minds were darkened.

St. Paul. My friends, we better hear these words. What St. Paul is telling us is profound but terrifyingly practical. Not recognizing the one true God. God, Paul tells us, will bring those idolaters to commit the most shameless crimes. Pride of intellect leads to immorality in body and, conversely, un-chastity always blinds the intellect. When Christ in the beatitudes declared, “Happy are the pure of heart for they shall see God”, He was saying far more than most people realize.  Chastity of body is an absolute condition for light of mind. Unchastity blinds the intellect from seeing God even in the works of nature. The passage we have just read where St. Paul describes the homosexuality so rife in the first century is a condemnation of that widespread crime in our day. And may God forgive me if I say one syllable more then he wants me to. And the worst in today’s world are unchaste priests and religious. God blinds the unchaste and un-chastity always blinds the intellect. The Romans therefore of the modern who revel in their unnatural lust are bearing the fruit of their disregard of God and then their disregard of God just sinks them deeper into the quagmire of unbelief. In other words God cannot be ignored with impunity, by anyone, Christian or un-Christian. Intellectual pride which rejects God always makes a person the slave of his passions.]

http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Holy_Spirit/Holy_Spirit_011.htm

Mr. Shea, please explain why it is you believe, “The jury is still emphatically out on the wisdom of a contraceptive culture”.  Seems to me that looking at the demographic trends in most areas of the world, that we are slowly aborting and contracepting ourselves out of existence, especially in Europe, Japan, and South Korea.  Also, where as Muslims are currently reporducing at a much faster rate than native Europeans, that does not mean that they are immune to the temptations afforded by using birth control. Give them some time to discover it.  Iran, for example, has a very low birthrate after decades of the mullahs preaching population control.  I see the greater threat of artificial contraception and abortion as a threat to all of humanity.  In the decades, centuries ahead, we may see some serious demographic implosions.  If you haven’t already seen it, I suggest watching the video , “Demographic Winter”, which has played a number of times on EWTN.  I await your comments.

anna lisa: Pascal’s wager always seemed like sloppy thinking to me. How can a person make himself “believe” something?  I could no more force myself to believe in the Christian God than I could the God of Islam, Zeus, or any other invisible being. And let’s at least give God some credit here - wouldn’t an omnipotent God see right through such a selfish act of self-preservation? If such a God were to grant salvation to someone simply for professing their belief in him, rather than by their deeds, this is not the type of God I would choose to worship anyways.

Posted by ED on Thursday, Apr 5, 2012 1:01 AM (EST):
“[...moral relativist like me]
Hmm… moral relativist.
Well… Mr. moral relativist, I’m sure you will love the following:”
[followed by quote from St. Paul on sexual immorality and how it applies to today’s culture]

I don’t accept that the Bible was divinely inspired, so scripture quotes don’t convince me of the truth of a particular point of view. My post about moral relativism was a reply to Howard Duncan, who posted on Wednesday, April 4, 2012 2:40 PM (EST). I had previously posted:

“Even the Catholics most faithful to the Pope can’t agree on what constitutes a moral war, whether we should strive to end capital punishment, whether torture may be moral, or whether it’s moral to make health care a commodity like any other consumer good, available only to those who can afford it or who are lucky enough to receive personal charity. And then there are the Catholics who simply and openly follow their own consciences in every instance.”

Howard Duncan commented “——-And this is a bad thing why?” 

I replied to him that it was not a bad thing to a moral relativist. However Catholics often claim that they are not moral relativists. They claim to have THE ANSWER on what is moral directly from God, with the advantage of having it interpreted by the divinely guided Pope. Yet these same people have opinions about what is moral that are completely at odds with each other, while they claim to be faithful to the same divinely ordained law.  When moral laws can be that widely interpreted you’ve got, as the Pirates of the Caribbean would say, “... more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules.”

I don’t think this is a bad thing. Western culture has tended so far to become more sensitive to suffering, more inclined toward recognizing equality among humans and more tolerant of differences. Mark fears a backlash that will end in fascism due to moral relativism. Well, anything can happen. But we’ve been there before, when most citizens of Germany claimed to believe in absolute Christian morality. It was no protection against the rise of Nazism. Now, if everyone involved had followed the “guidelines” of Christianity it WOULD have prevented it, but as a practical matter it did not. The truth is that moral absolutists and moral relativists generally behave in the same ways because they are the product of their culture, and they interpret any guidelines they have in that light.

Mr. Shea, please explain why it is you believe, “The jury is still emphatically out on the wisdom of a contraceptive culture”.

I’m talking to an atheist who takes it as a foregone conclusion that contraception is here to stay and that the Church is hopelessly behind the times and will have to bow before it as The Wave of the Future.  I’m pointing out, as you do, that something that has only been around for 40 years and has already wrought such devastation should not be glibly assumed to have the staying power the atheist thinks.  We don’t disagree, New Yorker.

[I don’t accept that the Bible was divinely inspired, so scripture quotes don’t convince me of the truth of a particular point of view.]

Yes, I assumed that.

But… I was curious about your personal reaction to the last sentence:

“Intellectual pride which rejects God always makes a person the slave of his passions.”

If this statement is true (?)... then you must be a slave to your passions.

So, I’m curious… do you feel like a slave to your passions?

Posted by ED on Thursday, Apr 5, 2012 12:41 PM (EST):
“Intellectual pride which rejects God always makes a person the slave of his passions.”
“...you feel like a slave to your passions?”

No, I’m a pretty typical American whose habits could use some improvement, but who lives a regulated life. My family is my highest priority, followed by the work that allows me to support them. In fact, some people are very surprised when I tell them I’m an atheist. I guess they expect me to be out there raping and plundering since I don’t believe in God-ordained laws.

cowalker:

It appears by your comment(s) that you are pleased with your life and in no need of a God.

You, my friend… are obviously a better, stronger, and braver man than I.

In any case, thanks for your honest replies and I *sincerely* wish you and your family well.

Take care…

This might come off as sentimental, and protestantsh etc., but I have nothing to lose in putting something out there that’s kind of personal, and would embarrass me to tell my own brother— My first, powerful encounter with God happened when I was about eight. (Not at church, or first communion!) I had been watching something on television, and one of those shows/infomercials came on afterward, about starving children.  I had never seen such a thing before, and became very distraught, and asking God, WHY??  He very clearly, lovingly, and wordlessly told me that some day, when my life was over, I would come before Him, and He would ask me what I had done for others. For a brief moment, I experienced what it would feel like to know that my life was over, not to be repeated—and to know regret—that I had wasted my life. I was understandably moved but it didn’t discourage me, I actually didn’t feel crushed anymore. I was so happy I still had a chance to show my love, and eager not to let Him down—not to let this happen.  To say I felt inspired was an understatement, but I did beg Him to help me, because I knew (and know), that if left to myself, I would and will, regret what I do with this life that has been given to me. I know how capable I am of replacing concern for my brother with concern for *myself*. When I hear people say that they are atheists, I shudder, thinking that reality will overtake them sooner or later.@Zeke, considering Pascals “wager”, I actually do have a friend, who strangely enough is tortured by what he calls a “duality” in his life.  I find this strange, but he thinks of himself as both an “atheist” AND a Catholic.  Like Cowalker, many of the seeming shades of gray, and moral relativism,concerning what he calls “idealism” in the Catholic faith make him unorthodox. He tells me he “loves Jesus” and is moved by His sacrifice, to the point that he goes to mass every Sunday, and gets down on his knees in worship, because he says (get this) “It’s either the most beautiful lie in the world, or the most beautiful TRUTH in the world…”  Yes, this is “sloppy” in my book, but I leave him to “wrestle with God”, and respect him in his honest struggle.

Hi Zeke:

Well, I must agree that the society that reproduces will have more success than one which doesn’t, and I suppose you are speaking directly about Christian society vs. Muslim society.

Actually, I’m speaking of post-Christian vs. Muslim culture.  The former is contracepting itself out of existence. The latter is not.  A contraceptive secular culture that imagines it will own the future while “religion” diminishes is deluding itself. The future will belong to either a diseased religion like radical Islam or a healthier (though by no means perfect) one like the Church.  It will not belong to people who avoid reproducing.

Forget for the moment that atheists hope that one day there would be no religious adjective before the word society, since I doubt that will ever happen.

Correct.  The Church in the West is in abeyance.  In the global south, it has grown 7000% over the past century.  In China, it is a growing threat to the atheistic state.  The fact is, the Church is experiencing the greatest period of expansion in its history right this very moment.  The brave narrative of the folks at the Reason Rally is whistling past the graveyard for atheism.  Not a big sell outside comfy suburbia.

But I fail to follow your link between a contraceptive culture and radically Islamic culture. Radical Islam (or radical Christianity for that matter) is the product of too much religion rather than too little, too much time spent poring over religious texts while ignoring the bigger messages, too much faith that a theocracy is the best form of government.

It’s not a question of “too much religion” (whatever that means).  You haven’t even defined “religion” yet.  If too much religion is the problem, then eliminating should fix it.  Tell that to the victims of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot.  The question is not “too much”.  It’s “what is being believed?”  But that’s beside the point here.  My point is that the breezy confidence that contraception will result in a secular paradise with “religion” in retreat is nonsense.  As Europe is discovering, when a watery religion like the secular faith in contraceptive sex is faced with an inflamed religion like fast-breeding large family Islam, you don’t get a Star Trek utopia of leotard clad conflict resolution counselors in UN meditation rooms thinking Great Secular Thoughts.  You get Eurabia.

Part of the way to avoid that is to stop making thr foolish mistake of saying, in essence, “If you’ve seen one Abrahamic religion, you’ve seen ‘em all.”  Lumping Islam in with Christianity is one of the most fundamentally wrong-headed blunders atheism habitually makes.

Perhaps the dominance of western culture will one day be diminished by being out-populated by the Islamist culture, who knows. From what I can gather though, it doesn’t seem that contraception will be to blame since Islam has few of the moral restrictions that the Catholic Church places on contraception. By that measure they should reproduce less.

It’s not a question of doctrine.  It’s a simple question of demographics.  Muslims reproduce themselves at a high rate.  Devotees of the cult of sterile sex, not so much.  Hence, Eurabia.

If the death knell ever does sound for the Church, I think it will be due to attrition rather than slow growth. Attrition by alienating those like me that don’t consider using a condom or getting a vasectomy a moral failure, or even think that Jesus would be against it. I’m not saying the Church considers Catholics like these heretics, but it doesn’t consider their position worthy of respect, and certainly makes them examine more closely what they really believe. I’d say that’s bad for the Church.

The Church has the task of declaring what the Tradition says, not of editing it in order to be popular.  It has nothing to do with respect, but with preserving what Jesus and the apostles taught.  Like it or not, the biblical teaching that sex is ordered toward love and fruitfulness first and that these cannot be separated from the sexual act is part and parcel of the message of Christ.  The Church is used to people periodically hiving off in anger and declaring “This is a hard saying!  Who can hear it!” (John 6:66).  The story of Jesus is, after all, the story of a Messiah whose popularity drained away rather radically between Palm Sunday and Holy Thursday.  Navigating the faith by popularity poll is not on the table.

You kind of lost me at the part about “it will be people who are insisting, perhaps, that all homosexuals need to be killed, that contraception is a monstrous evil and its practitioners must be hunted down like dogs, that the Nazis were misunderstood heroes, and that the Church is too womanly, soft, and permissive for not joining in what All the Best People think”. I understand you’re being sarcastic and ironic, but aren’t there people out there that would find support for these things in the pages of the Bible? Forgive me for not exactly getting your point here, it’s kind of late.

I’m not being a bit sarcastic or ironic.  I’m saying that human cultures are notoriously unstable and that something which one period of history regards as obviously true and the everlasting consensus of all the Best People can, in a subsequent age, be suddenly overthrown and replaced with a consensus that is diametrically opposed to it.  We saw this in the shift from the licentiousness of Weimar to the oppression and cruelty of the Third Reich.  We’ve seen it in the shift from hyper-moralist Calvinist culture to the apostate sex-obsessed Puritanism of Britain and the US.  I call the phenomenon “Truth Cancer” though the more precise term is “heresy”.  And yes, of *course* there are biblical passages which can be read to support each heresy.  Heck, if it comes to it, the New Atheism is a heresy that owes immense debts to the biblical tradition.  Precisely the point is that, whatever the popular heresy is, whether zeal for homosexuality or zeal for murdering homosexuals (as in radical Islam or some future dystopia) the Catholic tradition will be attacked by the heretic, often in ways that directly contradict the obvious consensus opinion of some other anti-Catholic complaint.  I talk about these contradictory complaints against the Church here.

You note that the soul of the Church does not reside in the hierarchy but in the Holy Spirit, and I suppose that theologically speaking you may be correct. But statements like this come across as a huge cop out Mark, now that the facts have emerged about its failings. This is the central authority of the Holy Catholic Church for crying out loud, not some secular institution, and is a huge part of what separates Catholicism from Protestantism. The task of interpreting the word of God has been entrusted solely to the magisterium, and can do so infallibly, yet now we learn that they are as much infallible sinners as the rest of us?

If you are just learning now that the Church is composed of nothing but sinners, then it’s no surprise you were scandalized by the abuse scandal.  However, it was not, at any rate, a surprise to me as a convert to the Church.  I was acutely aware of it long before this particular manifestation of the fallenness of Catholics hit the headlines.  We do, after all, have Borgia Popes, the Synod of the Corpse (google it), the Robber Council, the massacre of Rhenish Jews, the Inquisition, death camp guards, Mafiosi, and sundry other horribles in the attic.  And it’s not just the rank and file we are talking about.  Popes and bishops have done real evil long before the scandal.  That’s why Dante, way back in the (allegedly) mind-controlled Age of Faith when (allegedly) no Catholic was allowed to speak ill of the papacy under (alleged) pain of DEATH(!) places a number of Popes and bishops in hell (and becomes the most celebrated Catholic poet of his time—by Catholics who did not get the memo that they lived in an age of cowering fear of Reason and Thought).

So the notion that the abuse scandal “reveals” something we never knew before is a major non-starter.  It is not merely “admitted” that every member of the Church, including the infallible Pope, is a wretched sinner: it is one of those rigid and unbending dogmas of the faith.  So it’s not a cop out at all to say that the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church.  It’s essential to understanding why somebody like me can say, with complete consistency, that pervert priests and their episcopal enablers should all be thrown in jail—and that this does not in the slightest make me doubt that the Magisterium, in formulating doctrine on faith and morals, is infallible.  Why?  Because infallibility (being prevented from defining as dogma something that is false) is not impeccability (i.e., sinlessness).  Peter spoke infallibly when he was guided by the Spirit to declare that we are saved by grace through faith and not by the ceremonial works of the law (cf. Act 15).  He sinned both in denying Jesus on Holy Thursday and in other ways (such as refusing to eat with Gentile Christians for fear of looking soft on the law of Moses {Galatians 2).  Indeed, the whole *point* of infallibility is that it presumes (and would be unnecessary without) the fact that our bishops are dumb, cowardly, vicious, sinful, stupid, corrupt and prone to all the sins flesh is heir to.  That is *why* it is necessary for the Holy Spirit to preserve the Tradition by the gratuitous gift of infallibility, because we yahoos couldn’t have done it for five minutes after Pentecost if it were up to us.

What’s worse is that the monarchical structure is largely to blame, with its lack of accountability, secrecy, and single minded task of preserving itself.

Nah.  The public school system has no monarchical structure and there are orders of magnitude more cases of abuse there than in the Church.  The problem is human sin, which is there whichever structure you pick.  (Why are there no Nativity stories inside the Beltway?  They can’t find three wise men and a virgin.  Democracy is quite capable of stifling accountability, labyrinthine secrecy and self-preservation.)  And besides, like it or not, the monarchical episcopacy is what Jesus created when he created the Church.  It goes back, once again, to fidelity to Jesus’ message: which is usually what the Church is charged with failing to do.  To turn your remark on it’s head: the scandal was caused by not enough Catholic faith, not too much.

Simple reforms may have prevented much of this decay. How many fewer problems would the Church have by getting over its fascination with celibacy and allowing priests to marry?

I have a running gag on my blog, wherein I link to the latest tale of sexual abuse by some public school teacher (seriously, look up the epidemic) and say, “If only teachers could marry.  If only women could be teachers!  None of this would happen!”  The mysterious conviction that celibacy causes homosexual rape is one of the strangest urban legends held by educated people.  In fact there have been reforms.  The Church has undertake a huge concerted effort and while pockets remain in the US (one thinks of Philadelphia) where the cleanup took longer and the old guard needed kicked out, things are very different than ten years ago.  But of course, the motto is semper reformanda since there is never going to be a time which corruption does not endanger the Church because sin will always be there.

None of that, however, does one iota to disprove the essence of the Church’s message, which is not “Bishops are incapable of grave evil” but “Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died for our sins and rose again for our justification and you can have life in his Name.”  Indeed, the sin of the Church’s members only ratifies the faith, because Catholics are in need of salvation, and Jesus is the Savior.

Anna Lisa, thank you for sharing your personal experience. I can tell that you approach questions about life and death and morality with thoughtfulness and tolerance. I’m glad you find meaning in your life, and that it brings happiness to you and to others. I can’t help but wonder if your friend takes seriously the saying “If it seems to too good to be true, it isn’t.” At any rate, I hope he finds peace one way or the other.

Cowalker, I wish you and the ones you love blessings and happiness too.  Thank you.

Tom R-
I said nothing of morality, so I will not address that part of your statement.  Your original statement seemed to be of the variety of “It takes more faith to believe in (the big bang, evolution, etc)...” or “atheism is a religion”.  I have never understood those arguments.  Why would somebody who values faith and religion try to denigrate the other person by trying to claim they have the same values?

I find peyote to be life-changing.  I have absolute faith that the native americans were right about their gods.  I have absolutely no evidence for this.  Why don’t you believe?

I’m not sure of what train paradox you are referring to, I did some searching and found little.  Regardless, you say yourself that there is overwhelming evidence that the speed of light is constant in a vacuum, but claim that it takes faith to accept it because it may not be explained in one special circumstance?  And I have no idea what the gravitational constant has to do with anything here.  As far as I know, there is no way to derive it (I assume you mean purely mathematically) because it is fundamental force that is not related (at least that we know yet) to the other fundamental forces.

Faith in science vs. faith in god?  When I get in my car, do I have faith that my engine is going to follow the Otto cycle and the car itself will obey the laws of physics?  No, because these things are not going to change just because I don’t believe in them.  And if the car breaks down, it is not the science that failed, everything breaks down (2nd law of thermodynamics, more science) and I understand that manufacturing processes and materials are not perfect.  But when I drive to my favorite BBQ place after getting a haircut on a sunday, do I have faith that I will not go to hell when I eat pork ribs while wearing mixed fiber clothes because an omniscient, omnipotent entitity who revealed himself only to an insignificant middle eastern tribe said it was OK now, but it wasn’t just a moment ago (relative to his infinite time scale)?  I’ll let you answer that.

Mark Shea,

We’re not asking the early Christians to magically end slavery.  It would just be nice if they’d be against it instead of for it.  There is such a thing as an unsuccessful abolishonist and it doesn’t require any magical thinking. 

Oh, and learn the difference between a typo and a spelling error.  If I were publishing a book I’d worry about proofreading for typos.  I think it is clear who is the deeper thinker here and it isn’t you.  Your thinking is so shallow you can’t even comprehend that opposition to evil does not require success.

We’re not asking the early Christians to magically end slavery.  It would just be nice if they’d be against it instead of for it.

If you read the Bible for more than ammo, you would know that Paul was against slavery. To wit, this letter written to appeal on behalf of a runaway slave to his master, Philemon:

Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our beloved fellow worker 2 and Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church in your house: 3* Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4* I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, 5 because I hear of your love and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and all the saints, 6 and I pray that the sharing of your faith may promote the knowledge of all the good that is ours in Christ. 7 For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. 8 Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, 9 yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you—I, Paul, an ambassador * and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus—10* I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment. 11 (Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful * to you and to me.) 12 I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. 13 I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel; 14 but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own free will. 15 Perhaps this is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back for ever, 16 no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. 17 So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. 18 If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. 19 I, Paul, write this with my own hand, I will repay it—to say nothing of your owing me even your own self. 20 Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ. 21 Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.

He was, by the way, successful.  Onesimus was freed and went on to become bishop of Ephesus, among other cities.

So Brian.  There’s still a thriving slave trade in the world.  What have *you* done to fight slavery?  Or do you just talk big and throw stone at other people?  I can point you to a number of anti-slavery organizations run by Christians if you want to get involved.  So step up, unless you just want to use slaves as human shields for taking swipes at theists.  How about it big man?  Anything there but empty talk?

The God-awful truth is that the Church is not against slavery in the way that all right-thinking slobbering knee-jerk liberals feel it should be (because their puny world-view dictates it).  Slavery is just another of those human predilictions that have infected the world since Adam and Eve.  God views slavery as an unfortunate consequence of sin.  However, he does not disavow us if we become immersed in it.  He continues to love the slaver with the same ardor and devotion as he loved St. John, Martha and Mary, and indeed the Blessed Mother herself.  Heightened indigation and hatred for slavedrivers indicates a complete ignorance of our own complicity, and is foreign to the mind of God (and the Church).  That’s the lesson from Romans Ch. 2.

“Wait a minute - if atheists are so great, where are all their organizations designed to help mankind?  Where are all the American Atheist soup kitchens, orphanges and hospitals?” (New Yorker posted this on April 2)

Someone needs to look up the difference between atheism and secularism. The rest of your post is forgettable, thankfully.

Juneau Alaska, if you’d like to forget the difference between Mao and Mother Teresa, go right ahead.  Only fools refuse to learn from history.  Secular does not necessariy equal atheistic.  The Roman Catholic Church is the second largest provider of aid outside the U.S. government (a secular entity, which has the power of the state to raise enormous funds from taxation).  Give a little credit where credit is due.

Fliegerabwehrkanone

You are completely misreading my posts. The only point I’m making is that atheists and catholics arguing about who is right is not productive. Faith in God requires, well, faith in God. Atheists don’t have it, catholics do and catholics are required by that faith to believe that it is “above reason.”

So, I have no answers to your questions that you will find acceptable, because they aren’t evidence based. They are “above reason.” That is the only point I’ve made.

Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis held a mandatory school assembly to talk about marriage, and potentially gay marriage. Students were anxious when they heard about the program and were suspicious because only seniors were required to go. “We put two and two together,” said [one senior]. “All of us will be able to vote next fall [on the constitutional amendment that limits marriage to same-sex couples].”
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A priest and a volunteer couple presented the information. When someone asked a question about two men being able to have a quality, committed relationship, the couple compared their love to bestiality.
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Hannah, a student who is adopted, said one of the presenters said that adopted kids were “sociologically unstable.” She called the comments “hurtful” and comparisons between gay love and bestiality upsetting.
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“My friend said, ‘You didn’t just compare people to animals, did you?’” said Hannah. “I think everyone has a right to their opinion, and I don’t judge them on it. But we don’t force people to sit down so we can tell them their opinion is wrong.”
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At one point, [a student in the audience] raised his hand and, “as politely as I could,” began to argue with the presenters. He used his knowledge of history to refute many of their points, and explained that various cultures have accepted and embraced homosexuality going back hundreds of years.
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“I think they were surprised by the history I gave them and surprised that I was so calm,” said [the young man]. “I don’t think they expected the response they got from the students.”
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They were so upset that the priest and school officials abruptly ended the assembly. Students who were angry were allowed to stay there and talk with the archdiocese volunteers. It was more civil, for a while, but the more questions the presenters tried to answer, the worse it got.
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“It was a really awful ending,” ....It was anger, anger, anger, and then we were done and they left. This is really a bad idea.”

For anyone still interested, Adam Lee has a pretty good takedown here:
http://www.bigthink.com/ideas/the-mystical-dogma-of-human-equality

What mystifies me is that people who read this one post have access not only to the entire Mark Shea library, but indeed, to the entire library of every resource connected with the Register at their disposal; yet time and time again come and beat their heads against the same walls, it seemingly having never occurred to them “Maybe this is not the first time Mark Shea has heard or addressed a complaint very much like mine.”  And I am not saying that because Mark is my absolute fave writer—I can entirely understand how he at times rubs people the wrong way (although, as I have said before, when he’s right he’s right).  Please, it would not be a waste to take the time to look at back posts to see if your problem has been well addressed.  Or find someone else who puts it in a way that resonates more with you.  Run the search function, or start in any random place, it doesn’t particularly matter, I am sure there are few matters so outre that you will a) not come across your specific one eventually, and b) not find others that you were wondering about at some other point, but had perhaps forgotten.

Some remarks on slavery that may add something new:
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Michael Hogan: If there is anything I would accuse Paul of being, I would say a pragmatist, not a relativist.  You know, I can’t help thinking how we’re currently getting raked over the coals for the perception that we want to flat-out ban things like contraceptives and IVF.  In a hundred years will we be raked over the coals for not having done so?  We tend to prefer persuasion to legal coercion (knowing that final justice is not ours); while the latter is often good and necessary, it will fail as a long-term solution without the former.
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OverlappingMagisteria: I don’t say this often (!) but you may be right.  I mean, we are talking about flawed human beings.  That said, I don’t take it as a ringing endorsement of the institution.  Let’s look at American-style slavery.  What good would disobedience do?  Much is made of the Underground Railroad but what about those who remained, or failed in the attempt?  It gave people one more excuse to indulge their prejudices and blame the slaves’ station on them, no?  I do not think that unearned obedience does not become obvious or that it causes no tension—it could very well highlight the injustice and affront to basic dignity.

Sundry other remarks…
“when does an institution claiming to be religious become not religious? I think that happens when they accept government funding.”
Why?  By what magic property of federal money?  I think it does little other than show that we will team up on a mutual goal.
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“Western culture has tended so far to become…more tolerant of differences.”
Unless you happen to have Down Syndrome, then you’re damned lucky to be alive.
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“Dawkins knows that the Theory of Evolution clearly shows that humans are not ‘special’.
Catholics hold that humans are ‘special’.
Therefore Catholics fail to accept the fact of human evolution.”
If you can explain to me why Mumtaz Mahal lies beneath a masterpiece while the apes are still in the woods, but humans are plainly not special, you’ll win the internet.  ...The apes certainly don’t especially care who Richard Dawkins is or what he allegedly knows (for which I might be slightly guilty of envying them).

Tom R-
If that is the only point you are making, why are you bringing up the speed of light, the gravitational constant, and needing to have faith in something that you admit has plenty of evidence?
So why do you believe in what you believe?  Do you have ANY evidence, or does it just make you feel good and you take it completely on faith?  Is somebody who believes differently than you wrong, even though they may have the exact same arguement, except for a different god?  If they are wrong, why is your faith/lack of evidence any greater than their faith/lack of evidence?  If you do not believe they are wrong, do you truly believe that you worship the one true god?

“Faith in God requires, well, faith in God”
That can be applied to anything and be just as meaningless.

“catholics do and catholics are required by that faith to believe that it is “above reason.””
They are required to believe that they cannot think about their faith logically?  Again, apply the statement differently.  My faith in invisible pink unicorns is beyond reason.  Why should I even have the faith that requires the faith to not reason to begin with?

As a completely unrelated aside, the phrase I have to enter to post is “further 69”  Totally awesome.

Posted by enness on Friday, Apr 6, 2012 4:50 PM (EST):
Sundry other remarks…
“‘when does an institution claiming to be religious become not religious? I think that happens when they accept government funding.’
“Why?  By what magic property of federal money?  I think it does little other than show that we will team up on a mutual goal.”

Nothing magic about it. It is a matter of legal definition to be sorted out by the branches of government. I do not think my tax dollars should go to   contractors, or educators or health care providers who do not intend to fulfill the terms of the contract. The HHS Mandate, in my opinion correctly defines basic health care as inclusive of contraceptives. They require employers to provide basic health care or pay a penalty. I’m not in favor of allowing Christian Scientist employers to refuse to provide health insurance with no penalty, or to allow Scientologist employers to refuse to cover mental health treatment either. The problem is that the goal in these situations isn’t mutual. The church wants to provide part of what is wanted, and to be excused from the rest.

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“‘Western culture has tended so far to become…more tolerant of differences.’
Unless you happen to have Down Syndrome, then you’re damned lucky to be alive.”

Obviously Western culture isn’t perfect, and never will be. But I certainly don’t wish we were back in a time when people gathered in the street to watch a traitor being drawn and quartered, or a heretic being burned, or a disfigured child being displayed for money as a freak.

You have a very pacific view of spending tax dollars, probably because your team is holding the purse strings.  On the flip side, why should my tax dollars be used to fund purposes which are obnoxious to me, and antithetical to my beliefs?  Why should my organizations, which reflect my religious beliefs and pursue my values, be locked out of federal funds, which is in part my money.  This argument goes straight to the debates upon which this country was founded, and demonstrates the marginalization, demonization and forced conversion of a major religious segment of society.  This is the end-result of a process which has been long in coming, and is now here full-blown: the persecution of the Church.

Fliegerabwehrkanone
Are you even reading this thread, or just looking for an argument where there is none? This, in part, is what I wrote.

*******
I could point to E=mc^2 and say that atheists accept on faith that the velocity of light is a constant, even though that makes no rational sense. They would argue that it does make sense in view of the fact that it explains a lot of observations in the cosmos (human based reason), but they have to accept the fact that they can’t really “explain” the trains in opposite direction paradox.

Saying “this is my faith, accept it or your denying reason” is not very evangelical, nor is it accurate. Arguing with people who only accept evidence within the human bounds of reason is pointless.
********
The point is that it is useless to argue with atheists. That’s it. Elsewhere, I posted that most of the atheists I know are moral people. In light of the that, what I believe makes no sense to you, and that’s OK with me. Why do you wish to keep arguing about it? If your purpose is to convince me that I’m wrong and you’re right, you have not succeeded, but thanks for trying.

Posted by Matt B on Saturday, Apr 7, 2012 12:02 AM (EST):
“You have a very pacific view of spending tax dollars, probably because your team is holding the purse strings.  On the flip side, why should my tax dollars be used to fund purposes which are obnoxious to me, and antithetical to my beliefs?  Why should my organizations, which reflect my religious beliefs and pursue my values, be locked out of federal funds, which is in part my money.”

I had to help fund the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which I certainly would not have done if I could have withheld the money without going to prison. We don’t get a choice about funding efforts deemed appropriate by the three branches of government.  The point is, according to the Constitution, state money is not supposed to be used to further anyone’s specific religious beliefs.  The state has an interest in making contraceptives widely available. Whether you agree with this goal or not, it is not based on religion, while refusing to provide them as required by law is based on religious beliefs.

This will be worked out through political grandstanding and calculated trade-offs on both sides. No matter how it turns out, I’m going to vote for the candidates who seem less likely to entangle the U.S. in immoral and useless wars and less likely to shred the social safety nets. In the end, this is small potatoes.

I was thinking about this thread the other day, particularly the “Bill Gates gives to the poor!!!!!” part, as I listened to the coverage of labor practices in his Apple factories.  It included how his development policies also contributed to bad practices, for instance when he changed design of the tech mere months before its release, causing those already-strained workers to have to go into “overtime” which, for them would be going from 10-12 hour days to 14-18, and even fewer days off (which is to say, none.)
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My point, I guess, is that if Bill Gates were a public Christian, his failures to be perfect as a boss and as the head of a giant corporation would be fodder for atheists to criticize him.
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And, he is to be commended for living in a real house and wearing “normal” clothing and especially for having a charity.  I think it odd that he is compared to Mother Teresa.  He certainly didn’t seem to have the charism, as she did, to clean the sores of the dying.  And that’s ok.  Not everybody is called to do everything there is to be done.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

I only ask that all who are going to use science to support their arguments on either side would come into the 21st Century of scientific inquiry. Quantum physicists have proven that the speed of light is NOT constant, then study fractal geometry, PUHLEESE!!!!  Once you’ve travelled throught the “wormhole”, take the time to research and read the history of SCIENCE, not religion. Guess just who you will find there??? Jesuit aka “Catholic” Priests! If not for the Jesuits leading the way, establishing universities and schools around world, most would still think “the speed of light is constant”. Please, atheists, join we young Catholics engaged in scientific inquiry and join us in the real world. You might be amazed at what you find there! But, first, open your minds. Scientific research is a field of “inquiry”, not engaged in with a closed mind. We question. We are amazed on a daily basis that what we thought we knew no longer is true. Gee, and I said that all without using words that the lay person can not understand. When you come to a point where you know how little you know, then you know these arguments are pointless. But, please, look into the research coming out of Stanford in the fields of Quantum and Theoretical Physics. That IS science!!! Sorry, atheists, it supports a Creator.

cowalker, it disgusts me to talk about politics, but I will respond to several of your pertinent points:

I have no love of, or romance about foreign wars.  It was our esteemed first president who advised against entanglement in foreign wars.  The recent president who knew the most about it, Dwight Eisenhower, cautioned presciently against falling victim to a “military industrial complex.”  Ironically, if you look at administrations historically, the most war-like have also been the ones who otherwise expanded and reinforced federal power in general.  Reagan, who was villified by the “peace party” actually engaged in very little war activity, and attained peace through strength - as he promised.

You aver that “the state has an interest in making contraceptives widely available,” but I think the state has an interest in making them nearly impossible to obtain or use.  The state has an interest in making food, or shelter, or work, or education or even recreation widely available, but contraception, abortion, euthanasia, and crime in general should be ruthlessly extirpated.  That’s the valid function of government.

The fact that you’re grouping contraception in with food and shelter, and not in with illicit drugs, pornography and gang wars, demonstrates to me that there is a widespread psychosis spread abroad in the land, and that next we’ll be all be beaming aboard the spaceship futon with the raelians, or hunkering down with the next Jones-like character with charisma and media backing, or jack-booting off to round up old farts like myself, who show up at Notre Dame to speak truth to power in the form of a snakeoil salesman with an honorary degree.

Blessed Easter to you!

Emma,
I said the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant. That is true by SI definition.

As I said, with respect to the rest of your posts, Georges LeMaitre was the Jesuit priest who fathered the “big bang” theory (actually, big bang was a term of derision coined by Fred Hoyle, and it happened to stick). LeMaiter advised Pius XII against using his theory as proof of a Creator.

Perhaps you could clarify your post for us. Of course, the speed of light can be slowed in different media (not in vacuo) and by extreme gravitational force, but I am not aware of any experiment where it has been exceeded. The last experiment to claim that it had been exceeded is now in doubt due to the measurement technique used.

Tom R-
Just as it is useless to argue with somebody who has no basis for their belief but faith.  I thought I was looking for a discussion, but you have not even addressed, let alone answered any of my questions.  So I will try one more time.  Let’s say I have just recovered from a terrible bout of amnesia and can remember everything I knew before, but for some reason have absolutely no concept of religion.  I ask you what you believe and why.  You briefly tell me and say it is because of faith.  But somebody nearby overhears, tells me what they believe, which is completely different and possibly contradictory, and they also believe because of faith.  Which should I choose?  No actual evidence has been presented in either case.  Am I trying to prove you wrong?  No, what I am trying to do is to see if you have any basis for what you believe beyond faith, and if not, ask if your faith is any more valid than another’s.

“But, first, open your minds. Scientific research is a field of “inquiry”, not engaged in with a closed mind.” 
You mean like saying that “Well, god must have done it, let’s look to see how we can make the evidence say that”?
“Gee, and I said that all without using words that the lay person can not understand.”
Yes, but you didn’t say anything meaningful.
“We are amazed on a daily basis that what we thought we knew no longer is true.”
Like literal 6 day creation, worldwide flood, millions of people lost in the desert for 40 years yet managing to survive and conquer other nations without leaving a single trace behind…
“Sorry, atheists, it supports a Creator.”
Even if it did, how can you prove it was your creator?

Fliegerabwehrkanone
I will fully admit that I am powerless to change your mind. Furthermore, I stipulate that, in your mind, my faith is no more valid than another’s. That’s why it’s faith. You don’t have to accept it, and I’m fully willing to let you believe that I have no reason that parallels yours.

Building entire arguments around single verses taken completely out of literary and historical context; one more way that New Atheists and Protestant Fundamentalists are the same.

Mark Shea: Happy Easter. I apologize for this late reply to your post several days ago, I appreciate your effort. Between the Masters and Easter dinners I’ve had no time to digest what you wrote.

First off, I agree with you that it’s too early to determine the wisdom of the contraceptive culture. I think consequences is a better word that wisdom here; there are many bloggers on your site that act as if the magisterium were visionaries that magically foresaw the future back when birth control was developed, and thus took the position that they should oppose it. Actually that would be a more respectable position than simply restating doctrine like casti connubii and this business about natural law. Besides, am I wrong to point out that the Church isn’t against birth control per se, but it’s only artificial methods they prohibit? You fear Christianity getting out-bred somehow, despite that its biggest competitor Islam doesn’t prohibit artificial birth control, so your fear (Eurabia slurs aside) seems unfounded. You also seem greatly concerned with the possibility of a post-Christian world, despite the Church enjoying the “greatest period of expansion in its history”. Whether religion is in retreat or not (no need to define it, there’s no confusion about what it means) you’re really stretching it with this business about “breezy confidence that contraception will result in a secular paradise” as if contraception is a political position or societal model advocated by atheists. Contraception is not to blame for all the ills of the world Mark. And even if you ignore the positive aspects of contraception, there’s no indication that it’s going to be banned, ever. The opposition to it lies mainly in a vocal group of Catholics who represent barely more than half of their own Church at best. They are in the vast minority on the planet, which doesn’t prove that they’re wrong, but preaching that others should feel the same about it isn’t going to change the acceptance of it by billions of women.

When I refered to “too much” religion I meant the difference between radicals and moderates. Too much refers to the far end of the spectrum, and the easiest way to get there is by absorbing the maximum amount of writings attributed to God rather than discarding the nasty bits that moderates do. The belief that their God created the universe and everything within it is benign by itself, but when they examine closely what these books actually say about what God condones is where the problems start. A radical Islamist who stones an apostate or adulterer to death has not overlooked, as moderates do, that this is what his God has decreed as the proper response. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church choose not to overlook the passages of the Bible that suggest that God actually does hate fags, or that He indeed is fond of sending natural disasters to level cities and kill thousands for their sins.

BTW – I’m being totally sincere when I say that the line you wrote with “Star Trek utopia of leotard clad conflict resolution counselors in UN meditation rooms thinking Great Secular Thoughts” is pure poetry. I realize we disagree, but man, that’s a great line, gotta give you props for that :)

Reading through the rest of your post about the failings of the Church hierarchy, the source of the major difference in our viewpoints suddenly struck me. The root of it, of course, is the disagreement on the existence of God, but it’s something specific to the doctrine of Christianity, and that is the doctrine of original sin. Mankind, including even the magisterium tasked with interpreting moral law, is cursed by original sin. So those that form the magisterium may be, as you note are “dumb, cowardly, vicious, sinful, stupid, corrupt and prone to all the sins flesh is heir to” and you find this understandable and consistent with the doctrine of infallibility? You have no problem believing that God heals amputees or answers prayers, but it makes sense to you that the Holy Spirit chose this method to communicate ultimate truths? Is it impertinent to observe that you and I could probably devise 10 better systems to do this over a few beers? Or better yet, why not divinely inspire the authors of the Bible to write everything down clearly and accurately thousands of years ago?

Finally, regarding the sexual abuse, I never postulated a link between celibacy and homosexual rape, you did. But is it a stretch to believe that a men’s only institution that denies heterosexuals the right to marry would attract more homosexuals that other institutions? On that basis though, yes, there would be a link between groups of men who have little interest in women and homosexuality, of that we could be quite certain. Sure none of this disproves the essence of the Church message that Jesus is the son of God, but it sure does support the argument that the message was created by mere men, upheld and administered by more men over the centuries, and fairly ordinary ones at that.

Zeke, you’re a groundling, and as such you miss the sublime in both Christian doctrine and Christian practice.  The answer to all your objections is: “yes, but…”  You account for quite adequately the clay part of human creation.  But you miss entirely the divine spark, which transforms human existence and ennobles it.  You are consigned to a life of ever more insipid latte’s and disappearing really good italian restaurants.  The proposition “come follow me” is posed to every man and woman.  Some respond, and learn and grow.  Some go away sad (and remain that way).

@Zeke, yeah, I’d say it would be impertinent.  Have you ever had to bribe your kid with a new toy to get them to do what you want?  It doesn’t work very well.  Even if the kid grits his teeth and manages to at least give the outward appearance of decorum (so you can save face, it leaves you as the parent literally holding your breath, knowing all hell could break loose at any moment…Would a teenager keep his room clean for “x” amount of days for a shiny new Ferarri?  My guess is yes.  *Would he be a better person for it?*  I’d just like to point out again that Jesus stated very clearly that TRUTH was purposely hidden from the proud, selfish, and willfully concupiscent.  This life on Earth is clearly not a numbers game.  God is not a salesman, trying to meet a quota.  Would there be more *efficient* ways to “draw people in”?  Sure.  Even Satan himself has never seen the face of God.  Could God have avoided a lot of evil and horror by just suspending people’s (and angels’) free will, by showing Himself to them?  Sure.  But they wouldn’t have *chosen Him*.  *Freely*.  Our choices made in “the dark”, our sufferings *freely endured*,for *LOVE* make us like “gold in the fire”.  They help us to “evolve”....Now I’m curious to hear what *ONE* of your better ideas over beers with Mark Shea would be.

Zeke: Happy Easter. No sweat on the late reply.  I’ve been pretty incommunicado myself.  And this will have to be brief too.  Sorry!

First off, I agree with you that it’s too early to determine the wisdom of the contraceptive culture. I think consequences is a better word that wisdom here; there are many bloggers on your site that act as if the magisterium were visionaries that magically foresaw the future back when birth control was developed, and thus took the position that they should oppose it.

Hm.  I’m not convinced that is so.  I think generally the response you are seeing come from the conservative Catholic instinct to say that when the Catholic tradition teaches something throughout it’s history, it is rash and foolish for modernity to say, “Well!  I don’t see the point of *this*!” and suddenly smash it.  As Chesterton says if you don’t see the point of something then go away and find out what the point is before you destroy it.  As a friend of mind says, “All of human history is divisible into two basic phases: “What could it hurt?” followed sometime later by “How was I supposed to know?”  Our immense cultural surge toward contraception is one of those rash decisions that constitute a triumph of will over sobriety.  We frankly don’t have clue what the consequences will be, but the consequences have so far been highly negative in many ways.  Like, for instance, this.

Besides, am I wrong to point out that the Church isn’t against birth control per se, but it’s only artificial methods they prohibit?

Actually, the mistake is to assume that the prohibition is merely arbitrary.  It’s not that it’s artificial.  It’s that it’s *contrary* to nature.  Human artifice that enhances and cooperates with nature is fine by the Church.  It’s just human artifice that it contrary to nature that is bad. That’s why the Church rejects artificial contraception, but not medicine or the other arts and sciences that enhance, rather than prevent or destroy human existence.

You fear Christianity getting out-bred somehow, despite that its biggest competitor Islam doesn’t prohibit artificial birth control, so your fear (Eurabia slurs aside) seems unfounded.

No. I don’t fear Christianity getting outbred.  Remember?  We’re the ones who get scolded for the large families.  I *warn* (not fear) secular post-Christian culture of contracepting itself out of existence.  As you rightly note, the Church isn’t going anywhere.

Contraception is not to blame for all the ills of the world Mark.

I never said it was.  I’m merely pointing out that when you indulge in rhetoric about how backward the Church is and not in touch with the contraceptive wave of the future, it’s highly dubious that the culture of contraception has a future.

And even if you ignore the positive aspects of contraception, there’s no indication that it’s going to be banned, ever. The opposition to it lies mainly in a vocal group of Catholics who represent barely more than half of their own Church at best.

And who are reproducing, not only physically, but spiritually, while the culture of contraception’s children, both physical and spiritual, tend to be self-sterilzing.

They are in the vast minority on the planet, which doesn’t prove that they’re wrong, but preaching that others should feel the same about it isn’t going to change the acceptance of it by billions of women.

The Church isn’t big on telling people what to feel.  It is big on rational arguments from moral first principle and, yes you are right, that is always a minority position.  But as atheists themselves should recognize, nobody ever went broke counting on the majority of people to behave in accord with appetite rather than reason.  The democratic wisdom of the voters in the popularity contest between Barabbas and Jesus is an indicator that, while it’s a reasonably workable system for running a western town, it’s not a guarantor of truth.

When I refered to “too much” religion I meant the difference between radicals and moderates. Too much refers to the far end of the spectrum, and the easiest way to get there is by absorbing the maximum amount of writings attributed to God rather than discarding the nasty bits that moderates do.

This means, well, nothing.  However, it requires such a massive discussion of the profound differences between the Catholic approach to Scripture vs the approaches of other religious traditions that it’s impossible to even *begin* to describe what you are overlooking.  To begin with, there is the slight difference between the Muslim view of the Q’uran vs. the Catholic view of the Bible.  For Muslims, the sacred text occupies in their piety a place analogous to the place Jesus occupies in Christian theology.  It’s not just a book: it’s *the* self-revelation of God.  So the *kind* of “fundamentalism” Islam begets is going to qualitatively different from Christian heresies (which is what fundamentalism is from a Catholic perspective.  If you want to get a sort of primer on the Catholic approach to its own sacred texts, I’d be happy to send you a copy of my Making Senses out of Scripture: Reading the Bible as the First Christians Did  Talking about the “maximum amount” of sacred writings is incoherent nonsense.  You could just as easily say the danger is absorbing the minimum amount (meaning ‘the wrong bits read wrongly” and ignoring the rest).

The belief that their God created the universe and everything within it is benign by itself, but when they examine closely what these books actually say about what God condones is where the problems start. A radical Islamist who stones an apostate or adulterer to death has not overlooked, as moderates do, that this is what his God has decreed as the proper response.

And a St. Maximilian Kolbe who throws his life away by not apostatizing, therefore being sent to Auschwitz and offering his life for a fellow prisoner is likewise not being a moderate but an extremist.  Every saint is extreme.  The problem is not being extreme, but how one is extreme.

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church choose not to overlook the passages of the Bible that suggest that God actually does hate fags, or that He indeed is fond of sending natural disasters to level cities and kill thousands for their sins.

All of which simply demonstrates that fundamentalism, both atheist and Christian is not Catholic.

BTW – I’m being totally sincere when I say that the line you wrote with “Star Trek utopia of leotard clad conflict resolution counselors in UN meditation rooms thinking Great Secular Thoughts” is pure poetry. I realize we disagree, but man, that’s a great line, gotta give you props for that :)

I aims to please!

Reading through the rest of your post about the failings of the Church hierarchy, the source of the major difference in our viewpoints suddenly struck me. The root of it, of course, is the disagreement on the existence of God, but it’s something specific to the doctrine of Christianity, and that is the doctrine of original sin. Mankind, including even the magisterium tasked with interpreting moral law, is cursed by original sin. So those that form the magisterium may be, as you note are “dumb, cowardly, vicious, sinful, stupid, corrupt and prone to all the sins flesh is heir to” and you find this understandable and consistent with the doctrine of infallibility?

I not only find it consistent, I see absolutely no sense to the doctrine of infallibility if the Church is not full of sinners.  The entire reason such a protection must be given by the Spirit is precisely because if it were up to us, the gospel would have gotten lost 20 minutes after Pentecost.

You have no problem believing that God heals amputees or answers prayers, but it makes sense to you that the Holy Spirit chose this method to communicate ultimate truths?

If you mean that I think it makes sense that God communicates to human beings in a human way, then yes, I certainly do.  The point of the gospel is that what saves us is not mere information, but the communication of the divinized human life of Jesus himself.  This means he reveals himself in a human way through human beings and human things, for all our fallenness and imperfection.

Is it impertinent to observe that you and I could probably devise 10 better systems to do this over a few beers?

No.  Just fantastically naive. :)

Or better yet, why not divinely inspire the authors of the Bible to write everything down clearly and accurately thousands of years ago?

It depends on what you mean by “clearly and accurately”.  The Church has always held that “the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures”.  The key there is “for the sake of our salvation”.  The authors of Scripture are clear and accurate about what they mean to be clear and accurate about.  They are not clear and accurate about things they have no concern being clear and accurate about. Learning to think like them and not trying to make them thinking like moderns is the first rule of trying to read Scripture (or, in fact, any pre-modern text).  The problem is, we moderns are intensely chauvinistic and impatient of people who do not think like us.

Finally, regarding the sexual abuse, I never postulated a link between celibacy and homosexual rape, you did.,

Pardon me, but when you pass from the abuse scandal to how the Church needs to let priests marry….

But is it a stretch to believe that a men’s only institution that denies heterosexuals the right to marry would attract more homosexuals that other institutions? On that basis though, yes, there would be a link between groups of men who have little interest in women and homosexuality, of that we could be quite certain. Sure none of this disproves the essence of the Church message that Jesus is the son of God, but it sure does support the argument that the message was created by mere men, upheld and administered by more men over the centuries, and fairly ordinary ones at that.

The Church doesn’t deny heterosexuals the right to marry.  Marriage is a sacrament, after all.  And several rites in the Church have married clergy.  I’m highly skeptical that the celibacy of the clergy is a slam dunk argument that the message of the gospel was created by mere men.  Indeed, I frankly have no idea how you can get from the proposition “Latin rite priests are celibate” to the conclusion “Therefore it is a merely human invention that Jesus of Nazareth is the Second person of the Blessed Trinity who was crucified for our sins and raised from the dead on third day to be seen by many witnesses”.

I left the church long ago because Catholics do not have the right attitude toward the truth.

To illustrate what I mean by this, I will explain the difference in the two sides. Those with the right attitude toward the truth are always willing to test what they teach with others. They invite those of opposite views to work together for truth and unity. They appreciate when those who differ with them point out where they think they are wrong. They have everything thoroughly tested, studying arguments both for and against, looking at both sides of the question.

Those with the wrong attitude toward the truth are not willing to test what they teach in fair and open discussion, privately or publicly. They do not invite others to point out where they think they are wrong, and do not appreciate when others try to do so. They won’t allow their members to hear both sides of an issue, and especially they don’t want them to examine opposing arguments.

Hopefully, one can now understand what I mean when I said the Catholics do not have the right attitude toward the truth. Catholics are not allowed, and especially are not encouraged to hear both sides regarding truth and error. They are not to read books which differ from their doctrine. Thus, they are encouraged by the clergy to be closed minded to anything which differs from Catholicism. We ask, “Why don’t Catholic officials encourage their members to examine opposing Scriptural teaching?” False teachers have learned that when truth and error are examined side by side, some begin to see the truth. False teachers are afraid of being exposed and of losing their members.

@Zach
I am by no means a professional apologist, but the Catholic Church has received and likely responded to more attacks and criticism than any other institution in history. Note that I say “responded.” I don’t see the evasion you accuse it of, and I am a late convert, not a lifelong Catholic. In fact, the Catholic Church’s long history of thought and response is part of what drew me to it. I’ve read many, many books that are not Catholic doctrine, and they only served to convince me further that the Catholic Church was on the right track.

Regarding examination of “opposing Scriptural teaching”: It was the fundamentalist nonsense I read from both the Protestant Fundamentalists and the Atheists (who are also Fundamentalists) which - after a great deal of research and thought on my part - led straight to the correct-teaching of the Catholic Church. There’s little point in arguing about every last passage of the Bible with someone if the premise of their understanding is fundamentally (hah!) wrong.

Mark Shea: The authors of Scripture are clear and accurate about what they mean to be clear and accurate about.  They are not clear and accurate about things they have no concern being clear and accurate about.

I didn’t realise that the bible came with footnotes. How do you know which is which? Were the parts they weren’t concerned about originally written in italics? How do you start the learn to ‘think like them’ and then apply it to what has been written? Is a talking snake a metaphor? Sid day creation? Is healing the sick? Walking on water? Water into wine? How do you tell?

I think that what you just said would read a lot more honestly if you had written: we ignore the bad bits and keep the rest. I mean, who wouldn’t…

Zach:

Are you familiar with St. Thomas Aquinas?

Brad:

This is why the copious aids of the Catholic tradition of scriptural interpretation exist.  It’s the Church’s book.  I suggest applying to the Church that compiled and edited it if you are curious about how the Church reads it.  Or you can just do the fundamentalist thing and pretend there is no interpretive community from which the book emerged.

Scratch an atheist, find a fundamentalist.

I learned a new word this week – ipsedixitism. Ipsedixitism is a dogmatic statement which assumes that no supporting evidence is needed.  It assumes that the assertion will be taken ‘on faith’.  It doesn’t mean a statement is true, it means the propagandist assumes that if they say it, nobody will bother checking the evidence.
Perhaps the bishops can take some advice from Frank Zappa:  ”Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be.”

Zach:

I repeat.  Have you ever heard of St. Thomas Aquinas?  If you are looking for somebody in the Catholic faith who is willing to consider propositions contrary to the faith and state them in their strongest form, he’s your guy.

I was going to say something . Oh Well
  So Sad

Sometimes you just have to wonder how (?) any intelligent person who reads the news today could still be an atheist.

I mean really… don’t they read the news?

For example, here’s that *shocking* news story that made all the major papers world-wide recently:

(From Definitely/NotAP/Notrealnews/Nowhere) -

[It was reported that a young atheist (with a live camcorder) was hiking through the local woods here last weekend when he heard rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned with his live camcorder still recording and saw an 8-foot grizzly bear charging towards him. He ran along the path as fast as he could, but when he looked over his shoulder, he saw that the bear was closing in on him.

Sadly, according to official reports from the U.S. Park Rangers… the only trace of this young atheist that was ever found besides his camcorder was his crushed sunglasses, his mangled gold watch, pieces of his new iPhone, and a signed copy of his favorite book “The God Delusion” (which was still amazingly in near perfect condition).]

Gee, let’s face it.. with all this *real* and *solid* proof, what else would an atheist need to actually wake-up and smell the roses?

Oh well… I guess *some* will just never get it…  :)

** [Note:  BTW…it’s very possible that some of the preceding may have been taken from other sites on the internet offering some comic relief.]

Mark Shea:
Can you name someone living in this century?

@Zach—Is that you Angela?
.
Or is it just ANOTHER person who fails to read the post and combox before commenting to display the same unwillingness to be open that they decry in the straw Catholics they have constructed?
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I would like to point out that this statement:
“Those with the right attitude toward the truth are always willing to test what they teach with others. They invite those of opposite views to work together for truth and unity. They appreciate when those who differ with them point out where they think they are wrong. They have everything thoroughly tested, studying arguments both for and against, looking at both sides of the question.”
...is a description of an attitude toward ideas that nobody can maintain 24-7 in their life, I mean, at some point you cannot be “questioning the truth” with all of your time you actually do have to pay your bills, discipline your children (with those truths in mind!), have a little fun with friends,  and decide whether or not to have that abortion before it is too late to get one at the neighborhood clinic and you would have to take a bus three states over to get the head-crushing kind and no one wants that!
.
You know? 
.
It’s also *your* description of how people with “the right” attitude act.  And according to your definition and your assessment, which may or may not see things clearly or truly. 
.
I would love to see some egregious examples of people who are Ctholic who adopt the “wrong” attitude—as defined by you—and make your argument as to how the example(s) can be extrapolated to all Catholics or—even better—the attitude of Catholicism as an Institution.

Interesting how the bible was used to justify slavery for centuries….and specifically outlines how you are allowed to beat your slaves and how much you can charge for a slave.

But those who want to believe in the god of the bible continue to insist the exact opposite.  Almost like you can get the bible to say anything you want.

Heh, Dom doesn’t read the com boxes—as if he doesn’t know he’s beating a dead horse.  Uggggggg, we’re sooooo tired of fundamentalist atheists who can only parrot that buffoon Dawkins.  You’d think that Dawkins,being the figure head of atheism with his giant ego would realize how foolish he looks getting his basic facts wrong in claiming that Darwin was an atheist, when Darwin was anything but—and the proof is in his autobiography. @ Zach, there is no single institution on the face of the planet, and in its history that has done more to further intellectual inquiry and education than the Catholic church.  Do you have *any* idea how silly your blustering is?  It reminds me of when my enraged five-year-old screams, “I’m going to beat you up!” to his fifteen-year-old brother, and the 15 y.o. patiently holds out one finger to hold him back, while trying not to laugh (which would further enrage him)—That’s an extremely generous analogy.

Corita—
What the heck was that all about? I just asked a simple question. Why so hostile?

anna lisa
I’m just asking if anyone knows of any current (21st century) Catholic spokesperson who will listen to “the other side.” So far none of you are showing that you can.

Zach:

Go here.  Your prayers are answered.

Zach—Sorry I missed your simple question from the first post.  All I read were assertion, assertion, whine whine, strawman, whine.  Also, I didn’t see any question marks??
.
I didn’t mean to sound hostile at all.  Petty, I think.  Yes, petty is how I sounded, and I realized it later.  But not hostile.  Just an indulgence of the not-so-pretty variety.
.
I hope Mark can help ya out by deconstructing your sidelong complaints.  If you think of some supporting details for the statements you made, let me know.

Corita—I made a comment because Mr. Shea’s article is titled “New Atheist Magical Thinking” and I felt my leaving the church was not due to “magical thinking” but consideration of my circumstances and feeling that I did not fit.
Mr. Shea,
I watched a couple of videos (I plan to watch more). The first one was Fr. Barron’s video on the survey of why Catholics leave the church. Many of the reasons he referred to in the survey are my reasons. It seemed that video was directed towards priests and parish workers, not someone like me who feels like they are not addressing the issues that concern me.

I’ll look at some more, and maybe come back to comment on another post. I guess I struck a nerve here and I don’t want to upset people.

Is there any Catholic who has responded to Zach on this board who can honestly say they have evangelized him, or even attempted to?

It’s one thing to express your views, but to excoriate someone simply for disagreeing with those views is counter-evangelical, at best, and vicious at worst.

The argument, “He started it” doesn’t wash, because that idea is unchristian as well.

@Zach - there are things we accept upon what we believe to be reasoned faith in the sense that faith is above reason. We reason that there is a God, and derive the rest from what we believe is divinely inspired Scripture. Now, the Dawkins argument is why invoke delusion, or invoke a God of the gaps? We claim that the production of something from nothing provides ample reason for one to invoke an infinite being. That is not any more illogical than claiming that something came from nothing, as long as you define nothing as a mixture of “something and anti-something.” As Dawkins himself points out in his debate with archbishop Pell, that approach leaves the atheist open to the argument that he is simply redefining “nothing.” Occam’s razor cuts both ways. (ie - what really is the simplest explanation of the observation, “the universe exists,” in this case?)

I think that provides evidence that one can be a reasonable person and still believe in God. It’s a lot more work, in fact, beyond the scope of my pay grade, to prove that God is the God of scripture. Without faith, you cannot possibly get there, and I grant you that. Remember, too, that we believe in a loving God who will accept you as long as you’re searching for the truth. Even Catholics can’t claim to know the will of God when it comes to the judgment of an individual.

Good luck in your search. I think the fact that you are posting here proves you’re still searching. It’s just that, for the time being, your search has you convinced that atheism is the truth. We can agree to disagree on that issue.

Tom R- Again, what the heck was that all about?
When did I claim I was being evangelized? Or say anything about Dawkins? Or that I stopped believing in God? I just said I left the Catholic church and I don’t care for any other so-called churches—Baptist, Presbyterian, etc. I don’t want to join a “mega-church,” which seem to be springing up all over.
Father Barron, in his video, pointed out that many leave the church because they don’t feel valued or don’t feel they fit. I’m one of them. I’ve met others who get upset with me, like Corita, and I don’t want to make a fuss or get on anyone’s nerves. I’m still a good person, and my habits and my life haven’t changed much since I left—except I go to the park with my kids instead of church.
I think I really better leave here—there is a lot of protesting over nothing.

Hey Zach, please go back and read the sweeping protests you made about all Catholics.  You talk to us like we are mind controlled cultists.  Personally, I’ve been surrounded by people with different views for decades.  My dearest friend from h.s. is Musim, first big boyfriend was Jewish, step brother-in-law was a Jehovah’s witness, mother-in-law an extreme feminist and atheist advocate of “free love”, my Dad is a die hard libertarian, I went to a protestant liberal arts college, I volunteered with women experiencing crisis pregnancies for years, my husband is from another country and culture (that doesn’t always appreciate U.S. policy to say the least)...Please consider for a moment that your allegations are a bit insulting.  I LOVE to feel intellectually challenged, I LOVE to question the “norm”, I LOVE my Catholic faith because it is hard-won.P.S. (I think evolution is like sexy poetry)...Hope you discover the pearl of great price.

@Zach, as a Catholic,I don’t always feel like I “fit in” concerning a million little details—as for the bigger things, I think someone said it above; God asks that we “seek” the truth with an upright desire to love Him.  He loves us.  He works with us.  He is not an exacting “taskmaster”.  I think one of the most beautiful prayers can be found in the New Testament: “Lord, that I might see.”  This *petition* is a “work in progress” for all of us. I’m leaving for evening mass right now, and offering it for you, my brother.

Wow, anna lisa,
I don’t know why I keep checking for replies. Corita made some “excuses” for her reply, but you are really angry about something.
This is my point—I ask a question and people are offended as if I slapped their faces. I don’t have the time, what with the job and the wife and kids, and worries about bills, and so on, to meditate so long on whatever is making you so defensive. You are just being an example of my point. Read my comment about Ipsedixitism.
Maybe it’s my fault on my approach in this blog, but I really have issues that are not answered by your replies. I feel I can’t talk (through email) with anyone without being treated like a stubborn child who has to be dragged to school. Being told to pray, or being prayed for is no answer for me. I am “looking to see—and your comments don’t help.

@Zach
I clearly misunderstood the nature of your posts. I had mistaken you for an atheist. My apologies.

Zach, why don’t you narrow the question down?  I withdraw my prickly reactions for being told we don’t think outside of our Ipsedixtistic box (heh).  I wasn’t looking down on you when I said I’d pray for you at mass.  I get it—you’re sitting on a fence wondering if anyone hears your prayers—won’t you accept my good will for you, a searcher?  I guess I forget that saying that one will pray for someone, offends some people, because I’m a spiritual beggar myself, and ask for people to pray for me and my family all the time.  It really helped(s).  Things were really sucking there for a while, and we’re in a much better place now.  (Thank God).  Wishing you and your family well.

anna lisa
Narrow the question down? My problem is that no one will discuss my questions. Mark Shea did give me a link to some videos that might have some reasonable answers, but it will take some time to watch them. How can I “narrow it down?” It’s an overall question, not something that can be narrowed down—unless you can give an example.
I’m sorry if it sounds rude, but “searching” is too general. It’s an overall feeling that people are uncomfortable with me, and I am uncomfortable with them. How can you narrow a tsunami to a river?
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I really should not look here anymore. I’ve already been lashed by Corita, Tom R, and you—anna lisa. At least. Fr. Barrons’ videos are worth the view—he is giving arguments instead of just suggesting I’m corrupt.

@Zach
If you interpreted anything I wrote as a “lashing”, again my apologies for the mistaken assumption that you were an atheist. Even with that assumption, I was trying to be supportive of you.

So that I don’t repeat the mistake, may I ask which part of my post you consider a lashing? I thought I was saying that we need to evangelize, that we aren’t doing a good job of it, and that excoriating you served no purpose. Apparently you didn’t interpret it that way.

Again, sorry.

@Corita, I salute your feminine intuition on April 12!@“Zach” I haven’t stopped praying for atheists since “Angela-Barbara”.  I wish you happiness and blessings, who ever you are what ever your situation is.  Really.

Zach, start by acknowledging that the truths of the faith are true.  Like that thing about slavery that started this whole string.  Stop backing off it, stop rationalizing it away.  Accept.

If you’re tied to an agenda, it will soon become clear.  The truth will provide a leverage that will demonstrate your tied-in-ness.  Don’t feel bad.  We all have to deal with this over and over again in our lives.

Finally, your burgeoning knowledge of the truth will impel you towards action.  You will be scared.  But the same Spirit which revealed the truth to you will give you the courage and strength to respond.

Responding in faith to the promptings of truth is the greatest exhilaration in the world.  It is also the most fruitful and productive.  It is, in reality, what all the drugs and placebo’s aspire to, but cannot counterfeit.  You will want to respond in faith to truth again and again.  Soon it becomes a habit, a way of life, a witness, a testimony.

Of course, there will be battles to be fought: count on it.  But with God’s holy Spirit, we are the conquerors.

See you in a year!

Everyone seems to think I turned atheist and try to tell me why I should believe in God, when they don’t need to. Corita and anna lisa wrote as if they were being attacked. No one in my parish “evangelizes” me, but they don’t talk to me anymore either and they seem to feel uncomfortable.
I happen to like some of Dawkins’ books and am not really bothered about any of the other “new” atheists. Some of my friends who still go to church say awful things about them, and I just don’t get why they’re angry.
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People here are angry too. I’m really backing off this time.

Oh, Zach, I can certainly be a right ass sometimes (as in dumb, and a donkey) but certainly am not angry.  annalisa isn’t either, but perhaps you wouldn’t know unless you hung around a while.  I was being obnoxious and playful, and perhaps in the wrong way, and I bet she was just being tart and (alternately) heartfelt, nothing serious.
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Maybe also you might consider examining *why* you made people angry with what you wrote.  You certainly did not start by writing “a simple question.”  Your post was a multiple-paragraph description of suggestive-but-unspecified persons who failed the “right way to think” test as you were describing it. 
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If you didn’t mean it to refer to, say, the Catholics reading the comment, it would help if that were made clear.

Lol Corita, my husband loves it when I act like a heartfelt tart.  He thinks those are some of my better qualities! :)

Zach- I think your real problem (and the problem of most of the people commenting against you on this thread) is that you’ve yet to separate *the church* from *the people who go to a particular parish*.

I quite believe you that many Catholics take their belief entirely on faith, rejecting reason.

But an equal number of Catholics take their belief on reason AND faith.

Shouldn’t you go out and read what some of the later had to say, before your reject the church based on the former?

Otherwise, aren’t you just committing the same sin you’re accusing others of, refusing to test what you are preaching?

@annalisa!!  You are a scream.!!!  I am dying over here..lol
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@Ted, thanks for saying it properly.  I am too short-tempered and too suspicious of random critical commenters (I know you aren’t gone, Angela-Barbara-Consortium!) to do it properly.  I need to keep my mouth shut, maybe around some leftover Easter candy.  Cheers!

Ted, et al., I don’t think you get that these people are my family and friends. I feel we’re being separated by religion, not coming closer to each other. I listen, but sometimes when I feel they need cheering up, I say something that either sets them off or makes them change the subject. I can’t be dishonest about my feelings with them, and I can’t agree with everything.
I guess that’s why I wrote about Catholics in general. The people closest to me are acting this way.

@Zach- I understand perfectly well, 25 years ago I used to BE you.  But there are three things you NEED to learn:
1.  Most people have IQs below 110- by definition, because the normal of the bell curve that is IQ is 100.  That doesn’t make them bad people, but it does mean that they have to base their faith on something other than reason- because they can’t understand the higher mathematical proofs that a Fr. Spitzer, a St. Thomas Aquinas, or even a Fr. Barron.

2.  The Church isn’t for saints, it’s for sinners- and that means it has to reach everybody, not just the highly intelligent.  Efforts WILL be centered on the middle of the bell curve, like with any other human institution on the planet (I’m sure you’ve noticed a similar problem with the public school system).

3.  Neither #1 or #2 means that what the Church teaches is outside of what can be known from Human Reason and Natural Law alone; revelation and “blind faith” is just a shortcut crutch most people need to get by.  If you do not need that crutch, more power to you, but you should recognize that your friends and family DO need that crutch.

4.  You sound rather young, with a limited experience of the Church.  That too is not a sin, but you should NEVER judge the whole by a part- of anything.  Doesn’t matter if you’re talking Catholics, Gays, Democrats, Republicans, Muslims or any other bogus category of human beings.

5.  When you’re done with Fr. Barron, the next most approachable I know about is the Magis Center of Reason and Faith, and Fr. Robert Spitzer’s New Proofs book.  He’s the direct response of the church to Dawkins.

6.  You wrote above that you don’t understand why people are angry at the New Atheists (or as I call them, the ANTI-THEISTS; because Dawkins is as irrational in his denial of God as Rev. Phelps is in his denial of gays- and anti-theists often use the same techniques as the Westboro Baptist Church).  It’s because they not only deny the existence of God (against all evidence to the contrary) but because they also deny the existence of the evidence, and willfully use the law, the courts, and the armed forces to enforce their censorship of the evidence.

OK, those are overall answers. But practically, if I make the effort to go to another parish, a few miles away, my friends and family will be offended. Am I supposed to accept that they are “not as intelligent” or “irrational” and just go along?

Already my kids (probably at the suggestion of my wife) are asking why I won’t go to church, and sometimes they want to stay home with me. My kids are young, but very bright and can tell when there’s tension. My wife is very intelligent too, but is more involved with church activities than I am.
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I wrote before that I like some of Dawkins’ books, but not all his views, and that I don’t really care about the others either way. I also don’t recall writing anything about politics, gays, or sin. It’s just the personal conflicts I’m having with the way my family and friends are dealing with me not being “involved” with our church.

Zach, speaking as someone whose husband does not go to church with the family, I just want to say that there are two aspects of that situation to consider: (1) Your responsibility to your wife and children and (2) your own personal spiritual journey.
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As far as (1) goes, esp. if you married a Catholic, there is the promise that you made to facilitate raising them in the Church.  So not keeping that promise is not something to take lightly.  I personally believe that attending Mass with the family falls under that promise.  (2) is something else entirely, and should be worked on in your own time, even if it means going to *other* services or meetings or classes, or whatever.  Personally, if my “friends” were bothering me about my church habits (really??) I would ignore them.  Or tell them thanks, but no thanks on the opinions.  Same with family, only you can say it more bluntly—or more politely—depending on the family you have.
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Switching parishes, I think, depends a lot on what is best for your family, too, as far as geographic distance, parish programs, etc.
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I still am not sure what you mean by people “giving you looks” or whatever in Mass.  Who cares about them?  Was there some sort of incident?  Why is that even happening?  It doesn’t sound like you have told the whole story there.

Zach:  “Am I supposed to accept that they are “not as intelligent” or “irrational” and just go along?”

Yes. Like every other person in the world with an IQ greater than 110 has had to, for the last 2 million years.

“Already my kids (probably at the suggestion of my wife) are asking why I won’t go to church, and sometimes they want to stay home with me. My kids are young, but very bright and can tell when there’s tension. My wife is very intelligent too, but is more involved with church activities than I am.”

Then your DUTY is clear, at the very least.  For the sake of your marriage, for the sake of your children, you must go and become involved regardless of your own irrational beliefs and feelings.

“I wrote before that I like some of Dawkins’ books, but not all his views, and that I don’t really care about the others either way. I also don’t recall writing anything about politics, gays, or sin. It’s just the personal conflicts I’m having with the way my family and friends are dealing with me not being “involved” with our church.”

So get involved.  Regardless of what else you may think or feel, the Church does good work in and of itself, for the sake of good alone.  More than any irrational atheist like Dawkins ever has at any rate.

One reason I have a tendency to disagree with atheists in general, is because they have a rebel attitude against authority.  I see everything we have in this world, all of civilization, all of science, all thought, as based on authority.  I wonder, Zach, if part of what you are running away from with religion, is authority.

**WARNING**

IMO, there has been a considerable amount of *dishonest* role-playing by immature individuals (some working together) on some of the most popular threads here @ NCRegister lately.

Please be careful people.  Try your best not to just naively ‘take any and all bait’ and fall into a silly child’s game.

Time to *test* a bit more…

@ED:
2 ideas:
1.  record Ip addresses with userids.  Do not allow multiple accounts from a given ip address.

2.  I do not believe this is happening in this thread- Zach’s tone is different from the anti-theists.  Having said that- it is important to remember, when commenting in any thread online, that your audience is not just those participating, but lurkers as well who feel no need to comment.

Zach is on the level.  Cut him slack.

[I do not believe this is happening in this thread- Zach’s tone is different from the anti-theists.]

It’s not *just* anti-theists Tom… it’s anti-Catholics.

FWIW… the role-playing has gotten quite creative, so don’t let your guard down and don’t ever assume that a very good ‘role-player’ couldn’t tug at your heart.

Ted - hope the name mix-up (Tom vs Ted) didn’t bother you. Just be careful…

Gordonhide seems awfully angry about this. it seems he lives in a glass house. A faithful christian certainly understands the fragility of a persons ego but we have a solid foundation on the rock of St. peter, the church. If an atheist would actually use reason to understand that the fragility represented in the bible is an equal component of Gods plan to show us that our humanity is what separates us from God, but equal to that our capacity to Love gives us a glimpse of that Glory of God that is the key to our salvation.

I’m outta here—stopping the notices of updates to this post. People here are aren’t even sure I’m honest—so what’s the point? I’m going to try the National Catholic Reporter and other forums.

@ED- I believe Zach is on the level because I have seen his posts elsewhere.  Not so much for the anti-theist crowd Mark’s post was originally about.  And I see a good deal of overlap between anti-theists and anti-catholics, right up to taking the Bible in vain.

“the insistence that man is made in the image and likeness of God”
This statement is contrary to “science” if the words “image” and “likeness” have any reasonable meaning.  But theists write in coded language so that only they are allowed to say what the words really mean.
[Slavery is] “soon to return to the West if the New Atheists succeed in suppressing the Christian tradition.”
Places like Scandinavia?  Almost completely secular?  I don’t think so.
“Particularly amusing is the denunciation of regarding human beings as special”
Of course humans have much better reasoning powers compared to other animals, but that is simply a result of evolution.  Claiming that humans are “special” because they have a “soul” is simply contrary to science.

@ Greg Williamson-  Good example of anti-theist magiical thinking!  I can tell you are not a real scientist because you claim that observed phenomena are contrary to science.  Sorry to burst your bubble, but poetry and beauty and the existence of a soul or God are outside of science, not contrary to it.

NOTHING can contradict science, because when something does, you change the hypothesis to fit the reality.  You, like all new atheists, are failing to change your hypothesis when presented with forms of evidence that you claim not to respect.

A good example is your hypothesis that Scandanavia can never fall into slavery because the culture is very secular.  Can you not see how a very religious man might look at the loss of religiious freedom in a secular nation as a form of slavery?  And thus see such a country as a slave nation?

You complain that the theists writ in code and define words, so what of itt?  Every philosophy on the Earth, even your vaulted science, does that.  The proof is in the contradiction in your own last statement, whwere you admit that Human Beings have reasoning beyond any animal, and yet do not understand that it is a man’s soul that gives him this ability.  The proof isright in front of your nose (or rather, behind it) and you still refuse to see!

My advice to you sir is to become mor skeptical of your own assumptions.

@Zeke- I was re-reading the above and saw: 
“Reading through the rest of your post about the failings of the Church hierarchy, the source of the major difference in our viewpoints suddenly struck me. The root of it, of course, is the disagreement on the existence of God, but it’s something specific to the doctrine of Christianity, and that is the doctrine of original sin. Mankind, including even the magisterium tasked with interpreting moral law, is cursed by original sin. So those that form the magisterium may be, as you note are “dumb, cowardly, vicious, sinful, stupid, corrupt and prone to all the sins flesh is heir to” and you find this understandable and consistent with the doctrine of infallibility? You have no problem believing that God heals amputees or answers prayers, but it makes sense to you that the Holy Spirit chose this method to communicate ultimate truths? Is it impertinent to observe that you and I could probably devise 10 better systems to do this over a few beers? Or better yet, why not divinely inspire the authors of the Bible to write everything down clearly and accurately thousands of years ago?”

I think what you’re failing to see is that there is no such thing as perfect communication- for anything or anybody.  That’s why the Internet Protocol, the most advanced communication system mankind has ever invented, has 7 layers of error checking and 3 layers of acknowledgement to prove that communication happened- and it still fails from time to time.  NO, you could not find a better way than divine inspiration, not even “10 ways over a couple of beers” because the second half of divine inspiration is man listening, and man doesn’t listen very well.

The worst part of human communication- or communicating anything with human beings- is the illusion that communication has in fact occurred.

@cowalker- you wrote “Believers claim that humans who do not recognize and acquiesce in the creator’s expectations (divine law) will be sentenced to eternal hell.”

But that is highly incorrect.  Believers claim that humans who, of their own free will, decide that God isn’t right for them are given a place *apart from God* and *outside of this universe and the rules that exist in it* to spend eternity.

To the person who hates God, Hell is Heaven and not a punishment at all, for it separates you *permanently* from God.  To the person who loves God and has his life ordered and ordained, Heaven is the just reward of the fruits of his labor.  It’s downright karmic.

@Greg Williamson
This statement (that man is made in the image and likeness of God) is contrary to “science” if the words “image” and “likeness” have any reasonable meaning. 
...
YOS:
I note you placed science in scare quotes.  Is there a difference between science and “science”?  I note also the fundamentalist obsession with individual words rather than with the sense of the entire utterance.  Remember, the folks who developed the notion of “imago Dei” were speaking in Latin, and the Latin words are not always perfectly coincident with English.  (Imago for example may also mean “statue” or “ghost/spirit.”)  I agree with you that the people who use the words are entitled to specify what they mean by them.  Otherwise, what are we to make of the topologist’s claim that a maze is a “simple” curve while a figure-8 is a “complex” curve? 
If what was meant by “Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram” was well-known to grade school children in the 1950s—and I assure you, it was—it is easy to see how it might be a mystery to an epigone of this benighted and ill-educated era. 
...
Your implication that scientists (or perhaps “scientists”?) are incapable of dealing with metaphor or analogy, thus making them rationally inferior to artists, is an insult to scientists.  A cosmologist I know plays both violin and jazz saxaphone and is an accomplished painter as well. 
+ + +
@Greg Williamson
[Slavery is soon to return to] places like Scandinavia?  ...  I don’t think so. 
...
YOS
Perhaps you confuse slavery with the sort of chattel race-slavery practiced in the US South a century ago, working in the fields under the whip.  But that is not what slavery means in this context.  One may be a slave to a smiling and polite bureaucrat.  What matters is that you must do as he says.  What matters is that the will is bent or even broken by what Tocqueville called the “net-work of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided…” 
+ + +
@Greg Williamson
Of course humans have much better reasoning powers compared to other animals, but that is simply a result of evolution. 
...
YOS
Of course the Moonlight Sonata has much better harmonic powers compared to white noise, but that is simply a result of vibrating strings.
...
It is not well to confuse instrumental causes with root causes.  I congratulate you, however, since most of your kind take the stance of denying human reason in toto.  Some go so far as to deny the existence of the will or even the person himself.
+ + +
@Greg Williamson
Claiming that humans are “special” because they have a “soul” is simply contrary to science.
...
YOS
How so? 
1) The word translated as “soul” is anima, which simply means the principle by which animate beings are alive.  “Does X have a soul?” translates as “Is X alive?”  This is actually something that science can and does verify. 
2) People are not “special” (whatever that means) because they have a soul.  People, puppies, and petunias all have souls.  What makes people special are the powers of the rational soul over and above those of the sensitive soul or the vegetative soul. 
3) The soul is thus whatever principle a live being possesses that the corpse does not.  The difference is that one is growing/moving/thinking while the other is not. 
4) You may be thinking of the Modernist notion of the soul as a distinct substance from the human substance.  But the res cogitans was something made up by the Scientific Revolution perforce because they had denies the existence of formal causation.  But in this, as in so much else, the Scientists were wrong. 
5) The soul is the substantial form of the body.  If triangles were alive, “geometric figure” would be its body and “three-sidedness” would be its soul.  Animate forms, of course, are much more complex than inanimate forms. 
6) Since you have already stipulated that human beings have rational powers, you have already recognized the principle of the rational soul.  But you must also add the animal powers, such as imagination, and the vegetative powers, such as reproduction to get a complete picture.

Mark Shea: Meant to reply back to your comments last week, but the thread seemed to have blasted off in a different direction as everyone piled on Zach (the fellow Christian), who you rightly defended.

As far as contraception goes, I understand the basis for the Catholic opposition to it. The Church position has remained consistent all these years, it’s contrary to its position on natural law, remaining open to life, complexity of the faith, yada yada, I get it. I didn’t mean to imply that the difference between advocating contraception using NFP while prohibiting artificial methods was arbitrary, just unreasonable hair-splitting. Granted, I don’t believe in the Christian God, although if there is indeed a supernatural supreme being that created the universe (I do not rule it out), I simply cannot imagine that He would make such a distinction between methods to achieve the same end result. And I think you basically missed my point - you spent some time warning about self-sterilization and contracepting ourselves out of existence, when there is nothing doctrine-wise preventing Catholics from having only 1 child.

But here we are in 2012, the birth control pill has been around for over 50 years, with not so much as a blip on the on the graph of world population growth since it became widely used. Sure, you can point to some of the negative consequences, like your link to the study suggesting that high estrogen levels in water are inhibiting fish reproduction, but so what? Even if we develop birth control pills that make fish reproduce faster, make them tastier, or make them leap from streams to mow our lawns for us, the Church would still prohibit it. If my religion taught that chemotherapy was unnatural and contrary to God’s plan for us, and I point to negative consequences like increased life expectancies causes a drain on the health care system, it does not lend any credence to the truth of my belief. That’s the problem - the ban on contraception isn’t based on real world consequences but rather on your faith that the magisterium (staffed by flawed sinners) has correctly interpreted God’s wishes.

Having many children is wonderful, rewarding, and even admirable, in my opinion. What does the Church gain by stigmatizing faithful Catholics who have several children, perhaps struggle with NFP, remain open to life, but use artificial birth control? Yet you claim, without a trace of irony that “the Church isn’t big on telling people what to feel”. Blogger, please.

You mentioned Aquinas in some of your other comments last week and you seem to be an admirer. But I think that 13th century interpretations of natural law by people like Aquinas seem to be a big part of the reason for the Church’s unhealthy preoccupation with sex. I’m certainly no Catholic scholar, but I think it’s fair to say that he viewed sex is a necessary evil to propagate the human race. Ideally, even sex with one’s wife is to be avoided since sex within marriage “carries with it a certain shame”. He also reckoned, through scripture, that female babies result from defective seed and women are therefore defective. I’m quite certain that you (or any other Catholic) would disagree with this. So is he wrong about this?  Obviously yes, we can easily dismiss ridiculous statements like these. But when the basis of the position on birth control is on unassailable human interpretations of “natural law” there’s no wiggle room. This is the “too much religion” problem (fundamentalism) that I have a issue with; it becomes exceedingly difficult to retract a Church teaching without calling into question the wisdom of the rest of it.

Related to this, I hear and read many comments that you seem to agree with, that atheism is somehow fundamentalist. This is pure nonsense. Atheists simply don’t believe in the presence of a supernatural being, full stop. Pointing to the monumental evils of certain twisted atheists, or suggesting that their atheism is directly responsible for their behavior does not lend credence to the existence of God. This is just as false a claim as that the weirdos in the Westboro Baptist Church or whackjobs who gun down abortion doctors are representative of Christian thought. We’re all sinners, as you say, believers or not.

To my point about celibacy, you replied that ”the Church doesn’t deny heterosexuals the right to marry” – that was clearly not my point, I was referring specifically to clergy, who are denied the sacrament of marriage. Is it really such a stretch to propose that homosexuality would be more prevalent in a population that consists of only men that would not find this requirement onerous? I admit I have zero data that there are more homosexual priests within the Latin rite that within those where marriage is permitted, but I would bet my last dollar that it is true. Of course this data is unattainable, since it would require gay priests to risk their entire careers by admitting this. But even if a Vatican study showed this to be true, and there was vast agreement in the hierarchy that it was detrimental to the Church, would they change the rules? Could they? Lots of anecdotal evidence that homosexuality is indeed common in the clergy here:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/03/they-cannot-even-speak-our-name-ctd-.html

I’m confident that we will never agree on my statement that we could come up with “10 better ways” to communicate God’s true intentions, as entertaining an exercise involving beers that might be. However, I suspect it would not be fruitful, mainly because you (and other commenters) are confident that there *cannot be* any possible better way. I think that Sam Harris put it best when he pondered “why would God rig a silly game in which only the poorly educated and mentally unbalanced are perfectly tuned to glimpse the truth of (his) existence, while smart, well-adjusted, and well-educated people (like yourself) must wrestle with doubt, barricade themselves behind euphemism, and cling to spurious “mysteries” to keep from tumbling into unbelief?” My point is that if scripture was indeed divinely inspired writings, why aren’t they clear on the really big things? Why must there be a team of mortals to interpret them? It seems to me that it would have been ridiculously easy for an omnipotent God to avoid problems arising over different interpretations of the same scripture.

Sorry again for the late reply, work just raged out of control in the last week or so. It’s good to argue about these things, even without the possibility of either of us changing their mind. Thanks again for your willingness to discuss these things and for the opportunity to share my thoughts. Cheers.

I’m sorry, WHEN WAS IT that slavery was “extirpated?” Sadly, slavery is alive and well in many parts of the world, even those that have been brought to Christianity by the wonderful missionary work that has been done.
Also, I’ve never met an atheist who was interesting in “suppressing” Christianity. Some of my dearest friends are atheists, and we care for each other on just as deep a level as my Christian friends. What happened to loving and forgiving? What happened to tolerance and acceptance, listening and caring, getting in there and really doing the difficult work that Jesus Christ did? True Christians do not shoot themselves in the foot and dishonor the Lord by letting their egos get in the way. Do you really think God is impressed when you start a battle of wits over the internet? I think if you are really honest with yourselves, you might admit that the battles you wage are about you and your own pride more than Christ’s teachings and the glory of God.
Try to remember what Christianity is really about. When you claim you are a soldier of the Lord, can you honestly say that He would be 100% supportive of your methods and attitude? Are you really honoring Him, or is this about you?
Let’s be true followers of Christ! IT’S NOT ABOUT US. God is far happier when you show a simple act of kindness to someone less fortunate than yourself, than when you engage in self-serving, solipsistic debate. Try feeding someone who is hungry (it’s not hard; just hand someone a sandwich for goodness sake), forgiving someone who has wronged you, or holding the hand of someone who is lost, homeless, helpless, or just unhappy for a moment to let them know they are loved by God and you, rather than starting a childish fight on line. See which feels better. Feel which one fills you with the presence and love of God.

Linda- if you’ve never met any of the New Atheists like the “Freedom From Religion Foundation” which seeks to remove all expression of religion from public life, or the Obama Administration which seeks to limit churches to only talking about the poor and sick and doing nothing for them (because, that’s now the realm of the federal government alone).  You aren’t allowed to feed the hungry in many cities now- you can get arrested for that.  Don’t you dare pray for your enemies- all prayer is banned.  Don’t speak up for the unborn or build a hospital for the sick- that will land you in a FEMA camp for “reeducation”.

The attacks are real.  May we respond not in kind- but better.

Hey linda,

in your attempt to ask people to be humble you “arrogantly” assumed we never acted on our faith through CHarity. Do you think that some of us are engaged only in apologetics? why do you suppose such conversations take place. The church has engaged in apologetics from the beginning, and while the condescension is certainly a big part of it when dealing with people who think we believe in “fairies”, it also about helping atheist see that Reason is a big part of our faith. To be a true follower of Christ IS all about us. we are the body of christ , we are supposed to go out and make disciples and one of those means is via the internet and sometimes to get atheist’s into the conversation is to force them in with a little condescension as well. the fact that they are engaged in this discussion is a very good thing. most of the time they only wish to insult but they are engaging by the grace of God. Don’t discount preaching as an unviable means to reach people. you say “see which feels better” why is it either or for you? ask yourself what makes it so hard for you to express your inner faith to your atheist friends? are you merely a works righteousnes kind of woman? if so , Join the rotary club? but if you are faithful then share that faith by word and the traditions you have learned: charity. Its not either or. we are saved by grace through faith and that faith is shown through word of mouth and charity. dont presume those of us engaged in discussion, because it gets ugly at times, that we are without charity. sometimes you have to prune the roses for them to blossom. conversion is difficult and sometimes ugly. this is the reality of our day but love is there even in these condescending sounding conversations. If you really believe in christ and his church you will respond with conviction around your many atheist friends, and if they are your real friends they will respond with respect for your views at least. otherwise you will need to find new friends.