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True. However I am referring to the basic premise that 'the Pope is infallible when speaking for God'. There is no way to test for "God's Speech" in anything he says.

Awmte

Oops, my bad. I thought you meant anything the pope said ex cathedra, instead of "This is what God said"...

AnimatedMalamute

Sorry for kind of jumping in here, but there's been something I've always wondered about the whole "serpent tells Eve to sin, etc." thing that I believe is on topic with the OP...

I'm going to assume, because that's how I've always understood it to be, that Adam and Eve were indeed immortal before the fall (I believe this is the most common teaching). Now, we all know that the serpent comes to Eve and tells her to eat the fruit, but technically there isn't any indication on how much time has passed. It goes from

2:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed

to

3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

So, couldn't we assume, if A & E were immortal (or even if they weren't), that a large amount of time could have went by? Or, even if it hadn't, couldn't it of? The text wouldn't really have said anything. I'm sure if 100 or 200 or 300 years went by with A & E peacefully living in the Garden, that, as soon as they decided to eat the fruit, everything would have crashed down.

IOW, since that tree was there to stay, no matter what, sooner or later they were bound to eat from it. Especially if they were immortal.

On a bit of a side note, everyone says free will is a gift, because we'd be robots otherwise. But if we were robots, we wouldn't know that it was bad. So why is free will so good?

-AM

HRG

Only one ? THere are at least 100 objective standards to determine that. Ask people from 100 different denominations.


Regards, HRG.

Evoken

Ack.

Multiple posts to reply to, been busy as of late, will get back to them later.

Awmte

The situation here isn't exactly analogous to the million-monkeys-typewriter-Hamlet thing because the number of possible events is not constrained by any sort of criterion. So it's not exactly accurate to say that all possible events would eventually occur, given sufficient time.
Well, knowledge of the benefits of free will doesn't necessarily imply the possession of free will. It is conceivable that an entity could have the knowledge, but not the actual exercise, of free will.

Evoken

I have read about many of the atrocities and wars like the Crusades and the Inquisition, but like I told you in a previous post, this is a very broad topic and one that has a lot of bias from both sides. I am not really swayed by books like the one of Ellerbe, I see them more as New Age propaganda seeking to feed anti-Christian feelings by using shock value and conspiracy theories. If you are going to learn about history then you read a book of history, not one that is determined from the start to show you one side the history.

Those groups, like the KKK are inconsistent and they do not practice the Gospel of Christ, they serve another political agenda. It is very easy to see that. I don't known anything about Geneva tho, so I have no comment on that.

But nobody is denying this, like I said, you know they are good or bad fruits by judging them by the very thing that they profess. If I were a Satanist (which I was), if I, while claiming to be a Satanist say that I pray or believe in God (other than myself) then I would be misrepresenting Satanism and that would make me a bad fruit of Satanism. The same thing happens with everything, some abide by the rules and some do not.

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.

Then you will always end up with a distorted view about The Church. The Church is not to blame for the deviation of the churchmen or it's adherents because those are not following her rules.

The churchmen are men like you and I and they are also sinners. Also, saying that the churchmen have "built-it out" to "blame it on God's mysterious ways" is a huge misunderstanding of things. 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.

In my own personal view Judaism ended with Christ, there is no more Judaism but a "deviant" Judaism who reject the Messiah. As far as duration goes, I agree with you that duration by itself is not strong enough to establish anything. That is why we need to look also for historical validity, internal consistency, continuity,unity, immutability, etc, etc. There are many other things by which you can judge or test The Church.

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.

We will all die wether we believe or not. The only difference is what comes afterwards, you have an entire life to make the decision.

The distorted notion of "The Bible and me" is a protestant novelty and one which leads to conflict, division, scandal and ultimately to indifferentism. The Church is the sole authority with the infallibility to interpret The Bible, it was to her that the Holy Spirit was promised, that would lead her in all truth. As far as to the consequences of the Reformation, there were some abuses around, like with the sales of indulgences but this are virtually no different than the corruption of some priests we see today, The Church itself was not corrupted but some priest were just like they are today. I think that the Reformation did some good and that it helped in some ways but it went too far.

If this is the way you feel about things, and you are not willing to check their claims either by using some of the things I pointed above or others, then I am afraid that I can't help you. Saying that The Catholic Church is no different than any other group, is a huge distortion of history and the way things are and one which denies that God has spoken and made his will known to man.

No, the standard is not made into anything really. 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.

John A. Broussard

Let's try that 25 words or less again. How can I find out if someone is "really" following Jesus?

Evoken

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.

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.

No, the Pope is infallible when he speaks ex-Cathedra either by himself or in a Council.

Obviously if you don't believe in God you do not accept a violation of his commandments as sinful and offensive to him.

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.

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?"