Replies

“I am sorry that you cannot understand my objection. The Fundamentalist Protestant criticisms you so object to come from the right. The criticisms of Fundamentalist Protestantism which you and your co-religionists continuously make on this forum (simple-minded, ignorant, bigoted, etc.) come from the left.”

1. Your objection is grounded in falsehood. To wit:
a. The protestant criticisms are unsupported other than by falsehood. Falsehood and leftism are both of and from Satan. Those false criticisms, therefore, are from the left.
b. Your statement that Catholics “continuously” call fundamentalist Protestantism simple-minded, ignorant, bigoted, etc. on this forum, is utterly and completely false.

“I very much object to being told I am a simple-minded fool”

Really? When somebody says something like that to me, the first thing I do is check to see if they’re right.

“Maybe you Catholics should try criticizing Protestantism from the right some day?”

We do. Truth is of and from God, and therefore of the right.

“I wonder if the Spanish Inquisition employed your liberal vocabulary when criticizing “heretics?”

Oh, good grief, don’t you have any respect for the truth?

You make yourself ridiculous when you imply that I am a liberal or use a liberal vocabulary. Not to mention dredging up the Inquisition again.

“They’re not your separated brethren. They are a completely different religion with a completely different worldview.”

That’s not for you to say. You have no standing in the matter, and, if you understand Protestantism no better than you understand Catholicism, no basis for an opinion.

“By their standards, you are not a Christian at all.”

Some of the fringe protestant denominations, operating solely on the basis of misunderstandings of Catholic doctrine, labor under that misapprehension. If there were some way to make them understand Catholic doctrine, they would admit that they have been mistaken.

“And by your standards they aren’t Christians at all.”

Stuff and nonsense. Just another area of Catholic teaching on which you are completely mistaken.

“The fact that Catholics trumpet their liberalism by considering Protestants their “brethren” is one of the things that shows how far to the Left Catholicism has slipped.”

It’s really sad that your view has become so distorted. To see that as “trumpeting liberalism” is a gross error.

“The idea that there is some amorphous concept called “historic orthodox Christianity” to which all self-identifying Christians other than Mormons belong is garbage.

Your sweeping misunderstanding of Catholicism and the rest of Christianity deprives you of the standing to make any such statement. An opinion grounded only in misprision is worthless.

“Perhaps you aren’t up to speed on the latest scientific discoveries, so let me clue you in: A “virgin birth” is a scientific impossibility.”

How sad it is that your intellectual development is arrested at such an early stage. Science deals with what exists in the physical universe. It is by definition inadequate to make any pronouncement whatsoever on the subject of miracles.

“So is resurrection from the dead. So is “transubstantiation.” So is bilocation.”

A God who can create an entire universe, replete with clusters of galaxies beyond counting, is quite capable of accomplishing those things.

Here’s the thing: You want science to be the ultimate arbiter of all things, without exception. The notion of a God who manipulates the laws of science at His whim is unacceptable. But science is only our effort to understand things within our physical universe. It cannot be used to discover anything regarding matters outside our physical universe.

“Yet you believe in them while in utter hypocrisy subjecting the creation of the world from nothing to the scientific laws that we know today.”

So, the definition of hypocrisy is just one more thing on which you are mistaken.

There is no contradiction between saying that scientific law seems to govern our universe on the one hand, and on the other admitting that God does what pleases him without regard to those laws. After all, He created them, but is not bound by them as we are.

“There is, and can be, only one reason for this inconsistency”

There is no inconsistency.

“the former scientific impossibilities are “Catholic miracles”

1. The are not “former” impossibilities. They remain scientifically impossible. And yet, they occurred. Kind of knocks science off its pedestal.
2. Where did you get this “Catholic miracles” stuff? Miracles are God’s.

“Young Earth Creationism is “Protestant” and therefore to be treated like a disease (after all, who wants to be associated with those people in the trailer parks?).”

Is that what this is all about? Do you suffer from some sense of inadequacy arising from humble beginnings?

We don’t treat YEC like a disease. We treat it as an error.

“It’s really great to know that the “inclusive” Catholic Church has room for every kind of simple-minded piety except for that of those awful rednecks.”

I, on the other hand, would be pleased to learn that some of your apparently inexhaustible store of mistaken opinions regarding Catholicism had been replaced by the truth.

There may be Catholics who feel like that about rednecks, but that is no part of legitimate Catholic theology.

“Your attitudes are straight from the Left. And so is that of your church.”

You have failed entirely to demonstrate, or even support, such an outlandish accusation.

Do you subscribe to that “false witness” thing?

“If American Catholics voted their theology this country wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in.”

That may be true.

“The only thing keeping this country—and you along with it—from the abyss is those “ignorant rednecks” you so look down on.”

You have absolutely no justification whatsoever for accusing me of looking down on rednecks.

You want to know what makes a redneck? How about getting sunstroke working in the Oklahoma red dirt at the age of five? How about firing a shotgun for the first time that same year? How about holiday feasts with nothing bought from the store except flour, coffee, and sugar? Fried squirrel? Catfish, beans, and cornbread? Quail brought down with your own shotgun, or illegally trapped with materials a boy can find lying around a truck farm? Getting good enough with a bow to hunt rabbits with success? Old people at the table who actually came to Oklahoma in covered wagons? Scores of fistfights between 1st grade and 12th? Owning every CD and DVD by Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Engvall, and Ron White, together with a not inconsequential number of classic country CDs? Having rebuilt a car as a youth? Cases of beer and skinny dipping at the lake after football games? Knowing how to camp in heat, rain, or deep snow—comfortably? Having been called by all three names as a boy? (As in, “Elvis! Elvis Aaron Presley, you git in this house right this minute, or I’m going to have you cut a switch.”)

How about being taken to tent revivals that make “Elmer Gantry” look tame? Several hours in a 55 Ford through a tornado outbreak to hear little Marjoe Gortner give out with his signature line, “Glory jee to beezus,” and the fat guy who could sing all four parts. Gillian Welch could have written “Red Clay Halo” just for me.

Look down on rednecks? I *am* a fargin’ redneck. I can piss red dirt on command. I can slaughter a pig, produce a crop of corn, strawberries, green beans, etc., seine bait from a creek, run a trot line, and fix my own fargin’ car. When I’m fishing at night and a water moccasin goes for my minnow, I just shoot him through the head with a 22 pistol. I shake my boots out before I put them on, every day of my life.

Shame on me, for something so far off the mark that one begins to understand why you were called a simple-minded fool?

Hell no, bubba. Shame on *you* for assuming ill of someone you know not at all, and engaging in malicious calumny on that account.

Your remarks have nothing to do with anything I have said or think, and it’s getting worse. Checking out of this discussion now.