Albert Cipriani

Of course not. I’m saying that we are all subject to the Inquisition today and no one complains. I find your shock at the Catholic Inquisition utterly disingenuous when you aren’t equally shocked by the abuse of the Protestant witch hunts and the laws of our land today.

It’s real simple. I can disavow the Catholic religion as false or that I’m going to kill you and our Protestantized government will not lift a finger in the defense of the Catholic religion or you. But if I disavow my social security number as an unconstitutional means of search and seizer by the IRS or that I’m going to kill the president, I will be incarcerated.

Point is, we are still brought up on charges for our beliefs and intentions. The only difference is that there’s been a sea-change in sacred cows. (How’s that for a mixed metaphor?!) The authorities no longer care about our religious beliefs or actions. But they still care about our political beliefs and actions and will punish us to the hilt of today’s community standards. When released for threatening the life of the president, should you remain unrepentant, and answer their inquisition affirmatively, guess what, you’ll go back to the slammer.

All I ask for is consistency. If you are shocked and morally outraged at the Catholic Inquisition, why are you nonplused at the Protestant witch non-trials and our current government’s trials for what we think? -- Sincerely, Albert Cipriani the Traditional Catholic

HRG

Those are your definitions. Why should anyone else accept them ?
Why should sacrificing be an element of morality ? An alternative definition might be "doing no harm".
"Sense of fair play" is empty unless we are given a procedure to determine which plays are fair. You took an easy example; but such a procedure would have to give a definite answer for the difficult questions: homosexuality, abortion, death penalty, just war ....

Regards, HRG.

John A. Broussard

Congratulations on mastering a primary principle of debate--ascribe to your opponent a belief he hasn't expressed, then shoot it down.

Let's try again. The Salem witch trials, the Aztec priests removing the hearts of the Catholic conquistadores, the beheading of an American captive in Iraq are every bit as repugnant to me as the Catholic approved Inquisition.

Can we now move on the main question. "How do you justify the Inquisition? No fair saying the Holocaust was worse! Stick to the substantive matter of the Inquisition.

Obloquium

Argument fails here. It is clear the Christian conception of sin does not presuppose an ability to distinguish between good and evil; after all, we are inately sinful from womb to dirt.

John A. Broussard

A major correction is called for here. It's not from "womb to dirt," it's from "conception to dirt." The difference in numbers involved is enormous, since most human fertilized ova never get much beyond that point.

Obloquium

I'll grant your correction and move on.

Jakanapes

Let's out Adam and Eve either way. Neither were conceived, nor spent any time in the womb.

hmmm, would clones be inately sinful, then??

Obloquium

Adam and Eve weren't. However, John's definition of sin is a conscious decision to do evil. So unless he's going to assert his full support for the pro-life position in stating that fertilized eggs have the cognitive faculty to tell right from wrong and means to act accordingly then this is all academic.

Albert Cipriani

You are correct. It’s a Christian, i.e., Protestants, i.e., not-Catholic concept of total depravity that you object to. I do too. Like virtually all other concepts that pass as Protestant pretensions to having some claim to theological credibility, it fails the rationality test. – Sincerely, Albert Cipriani the Traditional Catholic

rosy tetra

Inately sinful from womb to dirt with no ability to distinguish between good and evil? Every action we do every moment is sinful? There is no such thing as a human moral act? I’m not sure if that’s what you’re saying, but it sounds like it.