Catholics argue that if certitude in mathmatics is necessary in order to make proper calculations, why not certitude in religion in order to make proper religious and moral judgments?
There you see. Here is your miconception (as far as I'm concerned) - If I hold up my fingers and count them, they are five (I still got all of them). If I take two away, 3 remain. BAM - Mathematics
If you take your god and ... wait a second, you can't because he's just in your mind/heart/soul/whatever. You cannot compare science with religion. They are grounded in two completely different worlds. Science is to understand and describe processes and predict results from experience using deduction.
Religion is not bound by any rules and can contain whatever the believer chooses. There need not be ratio (though it helps to get a moral point across) but its to help people who have doubts (emotional, moral doubts) get comfort and a sense of direction. But since it contains whatever the believer decides it should contain the real amount of different religions would be almst 8 billion me thinks.
I have and continue to do so. This is some of what I have learned from reading the New Testament.
The Catholic Church is a teacher commissioned by Christ Who is Truth, to teach what He commanded to be taught with the promise that He Himself would remain with His teaching body until the end of the world. Into that teaching body, Christ promised to send, and did send, the Holy Spirit to bring to its mind whatsoever He desired to be taught.
This belief, that the Catholic Church is safeguarded from doctrinal error in matters of faith and morals, accounts for the certitude you noted in me. Catholics alone have this certitude that enables us to give undoubting assent to what the CC teaches.
Certitude is what man desires. Certitude in matters of faith and morals is what the CC gives her children...God's children.
There is no Catholic Church in the new testament. It didn't even exist when Jesus lived!!!
What does Christ teach when He changed Simon name to Peter (meaning rock in Greek) and told him that He (Christ) would build His Church on this rock?
What does Christ teach in St.John 6:51-52? "I am the living Bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the wrold."
What does Christ teach when He changed the bread and wine into His body and blood and told His Church to do this in remembrance of Him?
If Christ was just a mere Man, then what does St.Luke 1:35 mean? When the ANgel Gabriel appraoched the BLessed Virgin Mary and said, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee, And therefore also, the HOLY which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God"?
If Christ is just a mere Man what does St.John 10:30 mean when Christ says that "I and the Father are one"?
Tell me, what do you think he meant? You do no allegories and methaphors, don't you? And reciting religious speakers telling stories about jesus mother when they weren't even at the event they are talking about - how much credibility have they? If I told you that the lord was impregnating my mother while still being a virgin but married for years and I was the son of god - would you believe?
If all in the bible (the official part you believe in) were true and your Lord Jesus would in fact return your church would be the very first to condemn him and brand him as heretic and blasphemer.
While creating wives, God promised men that obedient wives would be found in all the corners of the world.
And then He made the earth round....
Good one!
Another: As Adam was wandering in paradise alone and becam lonely god came to him and told him "If you give me your heart I will form you a wife from it who is obedient and caring and fulfills every of your wishes" to which he replied "What do I get for a rib?"
Ya, the Books that make up the canon of the Bible were 'cherry-picked' by the Holy Ghost who guided the Churchmen at her Councils.
How did they know which books? Christ had promised to send the guidance of the Holy Spirit and Christ keeps His promises. In Acts 15 we learn that St.Peter had the same guidance of the Holy Spirit in making infallible decisions at the Council of Jerusalem thereby establishing Sacred Tradition.
These are no arguments and here we come to the fact that you have no mind of your own. I've dealt with you kind before and it always boils down to this: There comes a question that cannot be answered by you so you say "god made it so". That is neither an argument, nor proof of anything but only shows your inability to think for yourself. I will now part with this thread because once and for all you showed how useless it is to try to have a intelligent discussion with a religious zealot.
Smoothseas and Tobi--we are pretty much in agreement.
No one can dictate another person's decisions based on their own experiences--all we can do is share our experiences and leave it to the ones that hear to finally decide what (if anything) they will do with them.
I try hard not to be religious Tobi--about anything. If there is a God (and it's obvious I think there is) then the onus is on Him/It to show that He's there. I happen to believe it's His intention that we participate in that process but the evidence and proof of existence are on Him--not us. If I point to a God that is only knowable through my words and opinions and conclusions, then there isn't much to conclusively recommend Him. If I thought that the God I feel I know were limited in this way, I'd be disinclined to share with others about it.
Your comments on the distortion of the bible due to being written by men and over time is--I believe--correct. The bible is described in it's own text as a "glass seen through darkly". If there are only old words and philosophical concepts to be found in the bible then it is no more or less valuable by anything written by Jalil Gibran, Socrates, Freud, Deepak Chopra, Lenin or Immanuel Kant. I happen to think there is more to it but that isn't something to be addressed quickly here and I'll simply state that and not attempt to prove or defend it.
My bigger interest in the forum conversation is that the market of ideas remains open. This is something that has always been present in conversation until the emergence of the internet. Now both sides often resort to pre-scripted, formatted rhetoric and simply repetitiously repeat the same accusations and criticisms with no room for rebuttal and with no original and personal viewpoint. Telling a skeptic, "Because the bible says!" is not better or worse than a skeptic refusing to listen to a person of faith "Because science says!" or, to be more accurate, "Because people quoting science on the internet say!".
We all have to make our life decisions based on our personal experiences and we all fall into recognizable patterns and circumstances on occasion. But to out of hand dismiss all the experience of thousands or even millions of people on either side of the argument is unfair.
I'd never knock a skeptic for being skeptical--just their methodology if it's not thought out. But I'd also never reject hearing another person's experience because there is always the chance they may have learned or encountered something I have not. This is the wonder of life and the joy of living--to not be so sure you "know it all" that you learn nothing. That's a big part of the ease I have with my faith--the God I know embraces that concept and isn't threatened by it.
Thats the way. Believe in what is right for you. Keep your mind open. Never postulate your believings as facts. Your believe is a sum of your personal experience and therefore your own. You can share your experience but not your deducted believe because if you would tell all your experiences to someone else they might and will deduct a different believe from them.