12 Claims Every Catholic Should Be Able to Answer; Claim 1

CERC ^ | Deal Hudson

[NYer]

Ping!

[Vendome]

Fascinating article and apros to regular Baptists, as well....

[nathanbedford]

It is one thing to repair to a private chapel and worship an ultimate truth and quite another thing to go into the legislature and make laws to impose your ultimate truth on another citizen.

It is one thing to oppose a shibboleth like, "As long as you're not hurting others, you're free to do and believe what you like" and quite another to regulate conduct prohibiting people from doing as they like when they in fact do not hurt others. Equally, it is hardly philosophically defensible to prohibit sentinent adults from conduct which hurts only themselves. To extend the principle even further, it's is even wrong to prohibit people from doing as they like when the harm to others is less than the harm caused by the enforcement of the prohibition-a situation we have seen in our own country and under the same name.

The point, context is all and there is no warrant granted either to the left to endlessly regulate conduct for their ends as there is no warrant granted to the right, Christian or otherwise, to regulate conduct to achieve their spiritual goals by force of law.

There is a very good reason why we have a First Amendment and that amendment has two sides to it.

Is a very dangerous path which sounds good when a Christian hears familiar refrains to transform them into law but it clangs rudely against our sensitivities when the impetus is to impose sharia. Arguments adduced to impose Christian conduct upon society by the force of law can be equally maintained to impose sharia-unless some value apart from divine word becomes part of the context.

[WVKayaker]

More from the cult of persons...

[Vaquero]

This is a 100% truism for practicing Roman Catholics. Don’t claim you are a practicing Catholic on your own terms. There are rules.

I do not pretend. I am a lapsed Catholic since HS with 2 brief excursions back. I do not receive the sacraments when I do attend Mass. I respect the rules and will not defile them to put on a little show for my neighbors in the pews. I know lots of folks do.

[Tax-chick]

Summary: “Everyone is making truth claims based on some authority - even those who claim they aren’t.”

[ADSUM]

Your comment: “It is one thing to repair to a private chapel and worship an ultimate truth and quite another thing to go into the legislature and make laws to impose your ultimate truth on another citizen.”

Yes God allows us free will and does not force us to follow his rules. However, there are consequences both in civil society and on the Judgement Day.

Society has the right to establish rules based on Truth such as the Ten Commandments and what is right and just. However, they also have the power to establish unjust laws that is opposed to the Truth.

[ravenwolf]

I may say that I believe in absolute truth, but do I? or do I just believe in my perception of it.

Most believers can agree on, or at least not dare to disagree on many plain and to the point scripture such as the first , sixth, seventh and eighth commandments, but there are much disagreement about the fourth commandment and the other ones are hardly mentioned.

I believe we can ignore any thing an atheist may say so while there is an absolute truth a Christian`s concern should be just what is the truth on any given subject in scripture?

[cloudmountain]

Moral absolutes ping!

[cloudmountain]

I may say that I believe in absolute truth, but do I? or do I just believe in my perception of it. Most believers can agree on, or at least not dare to disagree on many plain and to the point scripture such as the first , sixth, seventh and eighth commandments, but there are much disagreement about the fourth commandment and the other ones are hardly mentioned. I believe we can ignore any thing an atheist may say so while there is an absolute truth a Christian`s concern should be just what is the truth on any given subject in scripture?

What you SAY is less important than what you do. My opinion only.

[ravenwolf]

What you SAY is less important than what you do. My opinion only.

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Also mine, as do unto others.

[IronJack]

This is the essence of post-post-modernism, that the rejection of absolutes is itself an absolute.

[IronJack]

But isn’t it a legitimate role of law to codify and enforce morality? And if that morality is shaped by religious tenet, then how can it — and the laws deriving therefrom — be divorced from the religion?

[cloudmountain]

Also mine, as do unto others.

Agree.

[Jim Noble]

There’s a reason that the only direct quote from Pilate is “What IS truth?”

[ravenwolf]

There’s a reason that the only direct quote from Pilate is “What IS truth?”

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I believe in Pilate`s case it was a matter of being honest about not believing in any particular thing, and really not knowing.

[Salvation]

Christ is truth. Do you believe that?

[AnAmericanMother]

But that begs the question.

If there IS an ultimate truth, then society is obligated to enforce it by encouragement and, if necessary, by law.

If there is NOT an ultimate truth, then what standard do you propose to enforce anything upon society? Because all law is based upon morality, and morality is based upon the ultimate truth.

I also would suggest that the First Amendment is not what you think it is. It has to do with the establishment of religion as state-supported - and look at all the havoc that has wreaked in German, corrupting all the bishops in their lust for the Church Tax.

Sectarianism is probably not going to be supported by any legislative body, but something along the lines of C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" is not only permissible but a very good idea. It's interesting and informative that in the back of the book he has listed examples from all over the world of what he calls "the Tao": the agreed-upon moral rules that come to their fruition in Christianity.

Sharia law doesn't enter into this not because religious belief should not inform legislation, but because sharia and the religion that espouses it is WRONG. Objectively wrong.

[Tax-chick]

That is far from the only statement of Pilate recorded in the Gospels.

The 23rd chapter of Luke records numerous quotations, and others found in other Gospels.