Ensign Steve

Wow, Stephen, it's amazing how much more sense that makes than the fairy tales I'd been hearing up to this point! Very well said.

Asha'man

The Catholic view is that Mary’s parents were Anne and Joachim? Do Catholics not use the “Genealogy of Mary” defense for the two differing genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke?

Amos

Thus sayeth the rationalist who hasn't got the foggiest notion of the difference between Judaism and Catholicism.

Stephen T-B

Roman Catholics think Jesus was the Messiah.
Jews don't.
Seems quite a crucual difference to me.

Amos

Very good with the only difference that this all happeded 300 years after the alledged fact and so there was nothing to recognize as a point of reference to think about.

the_cave

It's one idea, and a common one. But it's not doctrine. Obviously they can't both be right, so you can take your pick, I suppose, if you want to. They're two separate traditions.

Gemma Therese

"Faith is not an emotion, not a feeling. It is not a blind sub-conscious urge towards something vaguely supernatural. It is not a feeling that God exists. It is also not an opinion. It is not a conviction based on rational analysis.

Faith is an intellectual assent. It perfects the mind, it does not destroy it. It puts the intellect in possession of Truth which reason cannot grasp by itself."

~Thomas Merton

Ensign Steve

If Thomas Merton said it, it must be true.

Cthulhu

"We may define 'faith' as a firm belief in something for which there is not evidence ... Where here is evidence, no one speaks of 'faith'. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence." - Bertrand Russell

Amos

Yes, but Russell was an atheist and speaks as an impoverished believer and therefore has emotion mixed up with faith. In other words, he rejected the fuzzy feeling church.