Posted on 01/08/2011 4:15:03 PM PST by Natural Law
What are we to make of the anti-Catholics?
What are we to make of the anti-Catholics? How can we explain the assault on the Church by those who profess in their words the same mission of the Church, the Salvation of mankind, but through their deeds deny it? Are the fabrications, falsehoods, and lies about the supporting beliefs of the Church, about the lives of its saints and clergy, about the verifiable facts of history justified because of doctrinal disagreements? Does any of this matter in the face of the greater assault on Christ and his flock? It defies rational thinking.
In the face of a Muslim onslaught that is bombing Christmas Masses, executing Christians for a nonexistent heresy and apostasy, and a jihad against Christians of all stripes on a massive scale we get shrill unwarranted criticism of how Catholics peaceably worship the One true God. Is smells and bells really a greater sin than sawing off heads in the name of the prophet?
In the face of a secular socialist assault that is killing babies at a pace that outpaces the crimes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined there are degrading insults and accusations over the difference between worship and veneration. Corrections and explanations are ignored and the apologists are pilloried. For what purpose?
In the face of the threat of Communist China that suppresses worship of all kinds and enforces forced abortions we get feeble ad naseum criticism of the Real Presence in spite of the acceptance by Catholics, both Eastern and Latin Rite, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Methodists. All the while the anti-Catholics continue the charade of Christian unity, minus those damned Catholics of course.
So in the face of the advance of worldwide evil some would have us believe that it is the Catholic Church should be destroyed when the destruction of the Church would serve to provide aid and comfort to that evil. Why? Qui Bono, for whom the benefit?
That the Church is and has always been a target of evil cannot be denied. Neither can it be denied that the Church has never been harmed or compromised by that evil. Satan can only work in this world through the actions of his willing accomplices. Those accomplices have long ago recognized that the greatest harm can be done from within the Church and history has produced numerous examples of sinners wearing the collars of priests. Regardless of the contentions of the anti-Catholics that does not negate the good that the Church has done not diminish the saints who have served God through her. Nor does it excuse those who blame one of the victims of the evil doers, the Church itself.
Perhaps those who irrationally assault the Church daily, those who spend inordinate hours researching the internet looking for dirt, those who accept any lie or indiscretion on nothing more than its bias against the Church are consciously or unconsciously in league with evil. Lex Parsimoniae, the principle which generally recommends accepting the answer that requires the fewest assumptions, when the potential answers are equal in all other respects. Is there a simpler answer?
I reject claims moral equivalence between the modern day persecution of Jews and the modern day persecution of Christians of any flavor. Like racism, anti-Semitism under Hitler’s regime was tied to a person’s genealogy more than his words or deeds.
Ah, so you don't believe in creatio ex nihilo at all. Thanks for clearing that up.
I notice that after allowing the universe to form naturally (without any "interference," as you so quaintly put it), that your "gxd" apparently has felt the need to "interfere" over and over again once things were actually up and running: the "virgin birth," the "resurrection" of your "messiah," the Fatima "sun dance." G-d may have just stood back and watched the universe unfold without any activity on His part, but he's sure been busy lately, hasn't he? And that's not even counting that little magic trick the priests perform every single day.
The fact that young earth creationism has been all but extirpated from the Catholic Church while abortionism and homosexualism are alive and well illustrates just what the Catholic Church is really opposed to.
That is true.
Still, were anyone to refer to you or your loved ones as "backwoods, snake-handling goobers" I believe you would feel a certain amount of resentment, especially when the people doing this considered any reciprocal treatment to be a banning offense.
I just don't believe that. Of course, I am just a "simple person of rural America." Actually, your remark sounds condescending toward us "simple people."
Perhaps you have a source for that belief?
The Catholic Church despises the simple people of rural America while celebrating pompous intellectuals and third world illiterates.
I just don't believe that.
Wow. I'm utterly astounded. [/sarcasm]
Do you think that is an answer?
I am sure nothing that I say could possibly satisfy you.
But I know why I was run out of the Catholic Church. And I know what Catholic publications, spokesmen, clergy, and theologians say about people who believe in Genesis.
One of your co-religionists referred to Fundamentalist Protestants as "backwoods snake-handling goobers." What does that sound like to you?
The fact that you "traditional" Catholics have no trouble whatsoever with evolutionists and higher critics being the public face of your church (here on FR and elsewhere) and the fact that you never challenge them tells me all I need to know about you.
Thick skin is required for "open" Religion Forum debate and the RM must have exceptionally thick skin.
Thick skin is required for "open" Religion Forum debate and the RM must have exceptionally thick skin.
You have my admiration. I wish I had your patience.
It sounds like a joke. Why were you "run out of the Catholic Church"?
Why don't you do a little study about what "ab initio temporis" actually means before you make another feeble attempt at guessing what I believe or what the Church teaches.
Are you still an active participant on the Religion Forum under your Freeper name?
Moderators do not characterize themselves because it is Free Republic policy to keep our identities confidential.
“they were brought into existence from absolute nothingness by omnipotence in an act of ex-nihilation.”
By “omnipotence” I presume you mean God, so that your sentence means that the laws of science are what they are because God says so. Is that correct?
“No one dispute that G-d did not create the laws of science.”
Since that seems to contradict the previous sentence, I wonder if there is a typo. Did you mean to say, “No one disputes that God created the laws of science?”
“What they do dispute is that the laws of science are eternal”
Whereas others believe that the laws of science remain as they are only for so long as it pleases God. Is that what you mean?
“and governed the ex-nihilation event itself.”
By this, do you mean that some people believe that the laws of science predated the existence of the universe? Wouldn’t that mean that the laws of nature governed their own creation?
“People who believe that children can be born without the participation of a human male at conception have no business invoking the “laws of science.”
Wow. Talk about swallowing a camel and straining at a gnat.
Let me see if I understand what you are saying here. Are you saying that the universe and the laws of nature were brought into being by “omnipotence” in an act of ex-nihilation—which is to say that God created the heavens and the Earth, all that is seen and unseen—and yet that same God that can bring clusters of galaxies into being is incapable of bringing a single strand of DNA into being at a time and place of His choosing?
Seems to me like it would be less of a strain to create a single strand of DNA than an entire universe. But then, what do I know about big bangs?
***This Romish Mary-worshipping dogma...***
Where did you get that idea? We Catholics WORSHIP no one but Got. We ask the Virgin Mary, earthly mother of God, to intercede for us. This is why every Hail Mary ends with, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, PRAY for us, now and at the end of our life.”
“You are either joking or very sick.”
I’m joking, granted it IS a sick joke.
I happen to know that more than 9 out of 10 Catholics today are against burning at the stake for the heresy.
I see that as a positive trend from the Middle Ages, and congratulate my Catholic friends on their progress.
What makes you think that thought was involved. When one is incapable of understanding or differentiating between veneration and worship even after having it patiently explained to them many, many, many times I am not willing to acknowledge the ability to rationally think.
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