Albert Cipriani

Dear Synaesthesia,
I approach the precipice of Pantheism, but do not fall for it. I agree entirely with Pius IX's condemnation of pantheism in his Syllabus of Errors and the First Vatican council as posted on the site you linked:

[quote]
There is no supreme, all-wise and all-provident Divine Being distinct from the universe; God is one with nature and therefore subject to change; He becomes God in man and the world; all things are God and have His substance; God is identical with the world, spirit with matter, necessity with freedom, truth with falsity, good with evil, justice with injustice (Denzinger-Bannwart, "Ench.", 1701).
[quote]


– Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Doug

Albert,

Perhaps the Catholic Church never actually burned a witch, but Sandalwood's point is still valid. Insert the 'Spanish Inquisition' for burning witches and you have the same argument with a more poignant example.

A Dominican priest instituted a penalty of convert or be banished to thousands of Sephardic Jews in Granada after it's conquest by the joint kingdoms of Castille and Aragon with the full support of your perfect Catholic Church. Many migrated to Muslim areas, many converted and secretly continued to practice Judaism while others were killed and tortured for their beliefs.

How do you reconcile this rather nasty history to your statement:

sandlewood

It seems we'll never get a decent definition of God out of anyone. Now you say God is material? That God and the Universe are the same thing? I thought God created the Universe? Or did God somehow create himself? He's an existentialist? I thought he was supernatural and "outside" the Universe, whatever that means. Anyone who is still buying all this is really not applying critical thinking.
Obviously not undetectable if you have detected it. Beside, what's so undetectable about a mother talking to her baby? I have ears. With the duck thing, I have no idea what you are talking about.
So not until now do I realize that you have redefined the word "communication'. I have heard people say that music is a universal form of communication. But until someone can write me a melody that tells me what I ate for breakfast, I'm not buying it. You are saying that beauty is God communicating with us? Sorry, but that's simply appreciation. When I look at a flower, is God telling me that I shouldn't have stolen that pen from work last week? Or is he telling me that I should be more understanding to the car park attendant who scratched my car? This is not what I was talking about at all in this thread.
In other words, things mean whatever you want them to mean. Whether an event is communication or whether it is not is really just whatever you feel like. You are attempting to make this sound like a valid method, when it is actually the very essence of arbitrariness. Subjectivity is not a method, and it is certainly not an accurate way to gain knowledge.

Let's say that as I am typing this, a book falls off a bookshelf in the other room. Now am I meant to think that God is telling me to read that book? Or is he telling me that I have too many books and to throw that one away? Or am I supposed to give that book to a friend to read? Or is this not a message at all and perhaps the book just fell because it was balanced precariously to begin with? According to you, I can pick any of the above and it will be the correct one. And what if the same exact event happens to someone else? According to you, it can mean something completely different. Funny how this "method of communication" is indistinguishable from no communication at all. Science is communication from God? Do you agree that humans have evolved from apes?

Do you think that God is somehow guiding your judgement to choose the correct interpretation? But then what's the point? Why have the communication event at all if he's going to coerce you to interpret it a certain way? Why not just coerce you to do the thing that the communication was meant to make you do. No free will there. Why have vague communication followed by interpretation? Why not just clear, direct communication? On the other hand, if God does not guide your interpretations, then they are subject to mistakes. He knows that we'll make mistakes in interpreting, yet he still insists on "communicating" in this vague way that is indistinguishable from no communication at all. Why play such games? Well, perhaps there isn't a God, in which case things start to fall into place and make sense.

What is scary about this way of thinking is that you have given yourself justification for thinking whatever you want. If you want believe that someone is guilty of a crime all you need to do is "interpret" any one of God's supposed messages (which can be any event you choose, large or small) however you want and you feel justified in doing pretty much anything.

You must've have forgotten you said that.


So you make my point. No matter what goes wrong, you blame it on bad apples in the church, but you still maintain that the "Church" itself is infallible.

Well, since one "pillar" of infallibility is that the Catholic Church is based on written tradition (the Bible), I guess we can throw that pillar out right off. That contradicts the above statement that Catholicism is distinguished because it is not based on ancient texts. Then, the next pillar that says it is based on oral tradition means nothing. As I said before, it simply means that things were done the same way in the old days. That's hardly proves anything is infallible. And since anyone who used even a small bit of reason would see these obvious flaws, I can't image how Catholicism can be based on reason.

Again, the only things in which Catholicism claims infallibility are morality and faith. But since they have simply asserted that morality is absolute and that their morality is the correct one, the claim of infallibility is just an additional assertion that the original assertion is correct. It is just a claim that they infallibly recognize that their morality is correct. No strength in this at all. All religions will assert that they are infallible.

I'm not going to chase around in circles anymore. All of these attempted apologetics are vague, wishy-washy, and jump from one meaning to the next. Nothing of substance.