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Old 04-02-2005, 02:45 PM   #121
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Originally Posted by John A. Broussard
So, the pope, under those conditions can say anything at all.

Right? No limitations, no prejudgment, no second guessing?

What the pope says under those conditions is true, absolutely?

If you don't agree with the above, skip the next question:

"Can the pope then say, "I am fallible?"
The restrictions/limitations are all previous infallible teachings, since God cannot contradict himself the Pope when speaking ex-cathedra cannot contradict a previous infallible teaching.
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Old 04-02-2005, 02:52 PM   #122
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Originally Posted by John A. Broussard
Let's try that 25 words or less again. How can I find out if someone is "really" following Jesus?
Some say that the Nicene Creed is a good way to determine that. Don't ask them why they accept it as authoritative tho

The same with The Bible, just ask them why they accept it as authoritative and reject all other books as non-inspired.
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Old 04-02-2005, 04:46 PM   #123
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Originally Posted by HRG
Only one ? THere are at least 100 objective standards to determine that. Ask people from 100 different denominations.


Regards, HRG.
I see, each arbitrary opinion we encounter is an standar of it's own and since none agree they are all false, that is a nice way of seeking out the truth.
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Old 04-02-2005, 05:27 PM   #124
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Originally Posted by IAsimisI
There is no reason at all to doubt the reliability of The Bible about the existence of Jesus. Just like there is no reason to doubt the external references to him.
I think that there is. Such as when archaeological fact and Biblical claims do not match. When geological fact and Biblical claims do not match. When anthropological fact and Biblical claims do not match. When astronomical fact and Biblical claims do not match...

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If you were able to fit it into a science test tube, it wouldn't be God. God's existence can be known thru the things that are made.
The "Intelligent Design" arguement? From a Catholic?

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No, the Pope is infallible when he speaks ex-Cathedra either by himself or in a Council.
So Pope Innocent III's words and deeds were the infallable word of God and not the ravings of a paranoid xenophobe?

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Obviously if you don't believe in God you do not accept a violation of his commandments as sinful and offensive to him.
I would think that some of the garbage that has been done in his name would be far more offensive. Why should I believe in God when the best arguement that God can provide is "believe in me or suffer for-ever."

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There is a good deal of evidence for this which not only come from the Gospel but from a tradition that started right in the first century and continued to this day. There is really no reason for not trusting and accepting it.
No reason...except that the "tradition" is so obviously self-serving that it begs for testable evidence. I refuse to trust such a claim merely on someone's say-so...not even the word of my best friend in the world. If God wants me to believe, then--as I've said before-- he knows where I live.

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I am not sure what you mean with this but The Catholic Church's "ideal" is God's law and it is objective not subjective, ergo, it is non-negotiable. But if your claim is that these laws are based only on spiritual commands then I think that you have an erroneous view about them because they are based on natural law.
What natural law would that be? Can it be tested and verfied? I have no reason to believe that these traditions exist save for the sole purpose of justifying the existence of an organization that seems to want to make membership mandatory for every human being on the planet.

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The Church will be the first to admit to you when it doesn't know either partially or in it's entirely an aspect of faith, she will not make stuff up just to give you answers. A good example is the destiny of unbaptized infants (just as we were discussing here), the Church does not claims any sure knowledge about this but entrusts them to the mercy of God.
The Church has made stuff up to answer uncomfortable questions. I seem to recall claims of special places besides Heaven, Hell, or Limbo for different people...a special place for people who died before Jesus, a special place for people who never had a chance to hear about Juses, a special place for aborted or otherwise dead unborn, etc... Granted, a whole lot of those goofy ideas got dropped over time and are no longer part of modern dogma...but they were once! Had you been born at a different time, it would have been heresy for you to have even questioned the ideas that seem so rediculous now.

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This is an expression of faith and in Lent we fast like Jesus did in the dessert for forty days. Fasting is a practice of self-denial and self-control which is pleasing to God.
I don't know about you, but I tend to think that if a virtuous act becomes mandatory it ceases to be a virtue. Acts of faith enforced by law stop being acts of faith and become acts of law. As far as fasting being pleasing to God, let's just say that I'm not terribly surprised since BibleGod does exhibit all the traits of a sadist.

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We have people claiming to be Christians who follow Jesus and all of what he said, we just need to see if they are really doing that.
Agreed...the major stumbling block being agreeing on the meaning of what Jesus supposedly said. Each and every one of the religious groups in the world can point to their Bible (or whatever) and explain to you exactly why their interpetation (and only theirs) is the correct one. You can claim that they are wrong until you are blue in the face, but the only reason you have to claim that they are wrong is because you claim that your interpetation is the only correct one. To measure them from the Catholic yardstick is as unfair and biased as measuring the Catholic faith from Jack T. Chick's yardstick. The Catholic perspective is no more objective that the Baptists', the Adventists', the Jews', or the Muslims'. When you take a step back out of your Catholic bias, it should be clear that there is no objective (there's that word again) method of determining the truth. All claims are equally unverifiable, untestable, and unfalsifiable.

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I see, each arbitrary opinion we encounter is an standar of it's own and since none agree they are all false, that is a nice way of seeking out the truth.
Would it do me any good to point out that your own opinion about religion is as arbitrary as any other because they are all equally unprovable? Just asking.

Whew. I'm tired. Please excuse me for a bit. Strange as this sounds, I actually am enjoying this...don't ask me why. :huh:
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Old 04-02-2005, 05:44 PM   #125
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Originally Posted by IAsimisI
Some say that the Nicene Creed is a good way to determine that. Don't ask them why they accept it as authoritative tho

The same with The Bible, just ask them why they accept it as authoritative and reject all other books as non-inspired.
I'm still confused. If someone says the Bible's authoritative, that makes her/him a christian?

I don't know why this is so difficult. I keep asking this question and never seem to get a direct answer.
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Old 04-02-2005, 07:20 PM   #126
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Originally Posted by Avatar
The "Intelligent Design" arguement? From a Catholic?
"Intelligent Design"? I said nothing of the sort, by saying that God can be know thru the things that are made I simply expressed a statement of the faith. To me it boils down to "Existence exists therefore God exists". Or something more detailed like Aquinas's five proofs among other things like the nature of humans.

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So Pope Innocent III's words and deeds were the infallable word of God and not the ravings of a paranoid xenophobe?
To what words and deeds are you actually referring to? Please specify.

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No reason...except that the "tradition" is so obviously self-serving that it begs for testable evidence. I refuse to trust such a claim merely on someone's say-so...not even the word of my best friend in the world. If God wants me to believe, then--as I've said before-- he knows where I live.
"But without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is: and is a rewarder to them that seek him." Heb. 11:6

I cannot help you more than what I have been trying to do in this topic.

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What natural law would that be? Can it be tested and verfied? I have no reason to believe that these traditions exist save for the sole purpose of justifying the existence of an organization that seems to want to make membership mandatory for every human being on the planet.
But of course! Here is a good link with information about it:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09076a.htm

Like I said, there is no conspiracy, there is only truth.

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The Church has made stuff up to answer uncomfortable questions. I seem to recall claims of special places besides Heaven, Hell, or Limbo for different people...a special place for people who died before Jesus, a special place for people who never had a chance to hear about Juses, a special place for aborted or otherwise dead unborn, etc... Granted, a whole lot of those goofy ideas got dropped over time and are no longer part of modern dogma...but they were once! Had you been born at a different time, it would have been heresy for you to have even questioned the ideas that seem so rediculous now.
These claims have never been defined officially declared by The Church and those that were declared officially have never been discarded or replaced once they were declared. You are failing to make the distinction between theological speculation and official Church declarations, they are not the same thing, the later is authoritative, the other is not.

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When you take a step back out of your Catholic bias, it should be clear that there is no objective (there's that word again) method of determining the truth. All claims are equally unverifiable, untestable, and unfalsifiable.
I was an atheist before I was a Catholic and before that I was a LaVeyan Satanist, an agnostic, a deist (for a short time) and a Gnostic Christian. I have been outside the Catholic "bias" for quite a while, I know what is out there.

Like I told you before, if you think that there is no objective method to determine this then I can't help you anymore than what I have tried to do here.

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Would it do me any good to point out that your own opinion about religion is as arbitrary as any other because they are all equally unprovable? Just asking.
I am not stating my own opinion nor do I try to pick and choose or distort and reinterpret anything, I take everything The Church teaches and I am simply repeating it here in the answers that I am giving to you.

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Whew. I'm tired. Please excuse me for a bit. Strange as this sounds, I actually am enjoying this...don't ask me why. :huh:
No worries. Well, I am glad that you are enjoying it(not use if you meant it as a form of sarcasm), I am enjoying the exchange too.
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Old 04-02-2005, 07:53 PM   #127
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Intelligent Design"? I said nothing of the sort, by saying that God can be know thru the things that are made I simply expressed a statement of the faith. To me it boils down to "Existence exists therefore God exists". Or something more detailed like Aquinas's five proofs among other things like the nature of humans.
It is the same rationale of ID...the idea thjat life and the universe are so complex that only a deity could have created it. It is an assumption without data, and therefore irrelevant.

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To what words and deeds are you actually referring to? Please specify.
Use against heretics the spiritual sword of excommunication, and if this does not prove effective, use the material sword.
-- Pope Innocent III, reiterating the death sentence which the Christian Church had meted out to all heretics and unbelievers for many centuries and which would continue to be endorsed by Christian denominations for centuries to come, even in the twentieth century by Pope Leo XIII (attributed: source unknown)

If it shall be necessary, through sentences of excommunication against their persons and of interdict against their lands, all backsliding being put an end to, they compel them to fulfil their vows.
-- Pope Innocent III, explaining where much of the land that formerly belonged to our philosophical forebears went to: land was confiscated from any person suspected of heresy, "Bullariulii Romanum, editio Taurinensis," the Bull summoning the Crusades (December 14, 1215)

We believe that the Greeks have been punished through [the Crusades] by the just judgement of God: these Greeks who have striven to rend the Seamless Robe of Jesus Christ ... Those who would not join Noah in his ark perished justly in the deluge; and these have justly suffered famine and hunger who would not receive as their shepherd the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles.
-- Pope Innocent III, to the Greek (Byzantine) Emperor, after sending a group of crusaders to Constantinople in 1204 in humble obedience to the edict of Christ in Luke 19:27: "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me" (the chronicler Geoffrey Villehardouin said that never since the creation of the world had so much booty been taken from a city), in G. G. Coulton, Inquisition and Liberty (1969), p. 164-5, quoted from Helen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History

Pope Innocent signed in legistature on the Catholic Church that unleashed violence across Europe...until his Bull against witchcraft in 1484, ("Summis desiderantes affectibus" )it was considered heresy to believe in witches. By the time Pope Innocent III was done, it became heresy to not believe in them...and the practice of killing them upon "discovery". Pope Innocent publicly backed the "Malleus Maleficarum", a "hunter's manual" for witch-slayers to use to justify the murders of innocent people. He also contributed directly to the corruption of the church by creating new offices and granting them to the highest bidders--and then turned right around and commanded the execution of people who did the same thing.

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"But without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is: and is a rewarder to them that seek him." Heb. 11:6
So I have to believe without any kinjd of evidence whatsoever except the Chruch's say-so...and then I'll get the evidence? I don't think so. I prefer to make objective decisions of my own without a church's help, thank you very much.

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But of course! Here is a good link with information about it:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09076a.htm
This is not provable, it is simply an assumption based on dogma. Explain how it can be tested.

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These claims have never been defined officially declared by The Church and those that were declared officially have never been discarded or replaced once they were declared. You are failing to make the distinction between theological speculation and official Church declarations, they are not the same thing, the later is authoritative, the other is not.
Funny how the Church fails to make the distinction when it lets its speculations get out to the masses...loads of such "speculation" have become practice...like squishing the left hands of people who dare to write in a left-handed manner. (Think it doesn't happen anymore? I've seen the hands of these people. Believe me when I say that the superstition is alive and well.)

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Like I told you before, if you think that there is no objective method to determine this then I can't help you anymore than what I have tried to do here.
You've been telling me to use the Catholic interpetations of the Bible as a yardstick to measure the "truthfulness" of other religions. I've pointed out why it is not an objective method. Surely you have something better than that.

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I am not stating my own opinion nor do I try to pick and choose or distort and reinterpret anything, I take everything The Church teaches and I am simply repeating it here in the answers that I am giving to you.
So it's the Churchs' distortions and interpetations, then. The counter-argument still stands.

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No worries. Well, I am glad that you are enjoying it(not use if you meant it as a form of sarcasm), I am enjoying the exchange too.
No sarcasm. I meant it. :thumbs:
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Old 04-04-2005, 12:26 AM   #128
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Originally Posted by IAsimisI
There is no reason at all to doubt the reliability of The Bible about the existence of Jesus. Just like there is no reason to doubt the external references to him.
External references? Other than passing mention by Flavius Josephus and Eusebius (neither the paragon of unprejudiced historians), what other non-canonical external references would these be?

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Originally Posted by IAsimisI
If you were able to fit it into a science test tube, it wouldn't be God. God's existence can be known thru the things that are made.
God might not fit into a test-tube, but evidence of His works should have no problem. These would have the added benefit of being generally available...
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Originally Posted by IAsimisI
Obviously if you don't believe in God you do not accept a violation of his commandments as sinful and offensive to him.
Now this I really hate. Why, oh why, do Christians perpetually act like Atheism equates to complete immorality? I find this an extremely judgmental and ill-advised statement.

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Originally Posted by IAsimisI
There is a good deal of evidence for this which not only come from the Gospel...
I might possibly be mistaken, but I don't think the Gospels include a genealogy of Popes…
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Old 04-04-2005, 12:33 AM   #129
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Originally Posted by Avatar
No sarcasm. I meant it. :thumbs:
Yeah, the general level of intelligent thought (and scholarship) in these forums is pretty impressive (excluding the occasional fundie troll). In particular, the Biblical discussion forums are outstandingly erudite.

I love this forum.
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Old 04-04-2005, 04:46 PM   #130
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...I don't think one should base their obedience to God solely on what reward one will get out of it... One should love God and obey him, freely and without interest.
I don’t think God should base his creative efforts solely on what HE gets out of it either or at all.
I think that a Creator of a living creature that only has existence because of HIS meddling, in fact has a total responsibility and duty to take full good care of the creation. Further I see that we may imagine God has the power to make demands on the created but I fail to see where He could ever have the moral right to do so. As Paul said "who is the clay to talk back to the potter" , so I say Paul was potty to make such a silly argument. Clay can’t talk ,feel etc. but if clay ever started to complain to me, I would not just declare my elite status means shut your mouth.
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