lULA POSTS:

neophilim_X posts:

You don't have to assume anything rather just be willing to use your God-made noggin' and think  and you might, just might get to know something of Almighty God that you didn't know before.

First...God...the one, true and Supreme Being, an Infinitely Perfect Spirit and the Creator and Lord of Heaven and earth. God possesses all perfections without measure or number....Almighty, Eternal, Infinite in intellect; All knowing, everywhere present, All Holy, Just, Merciful, Good, True, Faithful and Unchangeable. God is the Beginning and End of all things and can be certainly known by the light of natural reason.

 Romans 11:20 "for the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." That means our idea of God is acquired from the dawn of reason.

Wisdom 13 assures the mind of man naturally rises from nature's Origin and Source, from things caused by a Necessary First Cause that always was, is and always will be, on which all things depend. The many proofs for the existence of ALmighty God comes from the fact that we humans instinctively know that we are limited in thought and activity, and feel deep in our heart that only a Supreme Being can satisfy the aspirations and longings of our soul. In short, natural law written in our heart reveals God to us, as the First Cause, the Necessary Being, the Prime Mover, and the Designer and Orderer of the universe, the Origin of Life, the Supreme Lawgiver and the Ultimate Good.

Now it would take alot of space to fully develop this and I'll only argue from causality as put forward by St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica.

Some think that evidence must be seen or touched, but not necessarily so. We all have reason and intelligence and can appreciate intellectual evidence. Even apart from the Holy Bible, reason can detect sufficient evidence to guarantee the existence of God.

The first proof is from causality. The universe limited in all its details could not be its own cause. It couldn't come together with all its regulationg laws anymore than the San Francisco bridge could just happen or a clock could assemble itslef and keep perfect time witout a clock-maker.

The end of a thing is the purpose for which it was made. The end of a clock is to keep time and the end of a pen is to write. For  what purpose was man made and if we discover that we'll know his end. Look around, everything has a purpose or an end. The soil is made for plants to grow for animals and us to eat and from this we can easily see that everything in the world was made to serve something else.

Was mankind made for something in the world? The answer is no.

We see all classes or beings were created for something higher than themselves. Plants are higher than soil because they have life and soil doesn't. Animals are higher than plants becasue they have life and can feel and plants cannot. Man is higher than animals becasue he has reason and intelligence and can understand while animals cannot.

There must be something higher than man himself but there is nothing higher than him in the world so we must look beyond to find that for which he was made. And looking beyond and considering all things, we find man was made for Almighty God..to know, love and serve Him both in this world and in everlasting life in Heaven.

On this same principle that the bridge and the clock need a maker, if there were no God, there would be no you to dispute or question His existence.

Interesting I just finished commenting on faith, truth and reality and reason on another blog...

First, Faith is not necessary to arrive at the conclusion that God exists...faith though is necessary for the full acceptance of His Revelation.

In religion, faith is a supernatural virtue and a great gift of God. It's not an antithesis to reason rather it teaches us things which are above reason for the revealed truths known only to God must be above ordinary human thought. But while faith teaches some truths wwhich so profound as to be above human reason it never teaches any single doctrine which is opposed to sound and rational principles. If you can prove any Catholic doctrine to violate correct principles of reason, I shall cease to believe it at once!

Now..by faith we believe things. Certainly you understand that. Now people don't believe with their feelings and emotions...we believe with our minds. Belief is a mental conviction. If a Marine officer tells a woman that her son has been killed, her faith in his knowledge and veracity will make her believe the truth that he's been killed. From this knowledge emotion may follow as an effect. But an effect is not the cause just as perception is not the same as or cause of reality.

Faith then is not an emotion nor is it nor is it of the senses. Faith is an intellectual admission that a certain thing is true becasue although we have not seen the reality ourselves we reasonably admit that the one who told us must be reliably informed and will not deceive us. Nor is Faith involuntary. If I see an accident I know that it has occurred, and it's useless to tell myself it didn't occur. But if you tell me of an accident, and I didn't see it occur, then I have no direct evidence and I can choose to believe you or not. I can put my faith in what you tell me or refuse.

True Christian faith cannot lead one into error. We prove that God has said a thing and believe becasue He has said it. Doubt would be possible only if God could deceive or be decieved. But He could not. He knows all things and is Truth Himself. And He also has given abundant external signs to confirm His revelation.

pretty much what the first nations peoples believed--until the christians arrived convinced their god mandated them to kill them and steal their land. 

really?

what differentiates what you believe (but cannot prove through any objective means whatsoever) god said from what the lds followers believe he said to joseph smith? 

anyone who requires or claims to supply proof of something that is essentially unprovable rebukes true faith which involves neither.

My first thought at reading this was....tell Kingbee to send his complaint to Obama...he's fixin' everything wrong ain't he?

OK...cite the source of your assertion where God mandated Christians to kill Indians and steal their land.

A)....from my reading of history, most of the trouble, killing and stealing that the Indians had was amongst themselves...I found a very good book on this, but gave it as a Christmas gift and don't remember the name.

and

...also from my reading, Jesuit Missionaries to North America by Fr. Francois Roustang we learn the Catholic missionaries tried to bring the Church to the Indians and did many of them...and many of the missionaries met a very unpleasant fate at the hands of unfriendly Indians...St.Jean de Brebeuf and St. Gabriel Lalemant were captured by Iroquois warriors. Evidently there were no parts of their body that was not slowly burnt including the eyes.

St.Isaac Jogues and Jean de la Lande were tomohawked (sp?) to death following a crop failure and outbreak of disease. St.Charles Garnier, who ministered to the friendly Huron Indians was killed by Iroquois too.  

The one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

The Bible teaches that the Chruch began with Christ over 2,000 years ago upon St.Peter, our first Pope,  not with men or women 15 to 19 centuries later! The Church was founded when Our Lord spoke the following and other similiar words:

In 33AD, "Jesus came and spoke to them saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: Teach them to observe all things whatsover I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen."

The Chruch of the LDS is not the true Chruch of Christ...and there can only be one...the one that Christ built upon Peter.

History proves that the first Protestant Church was the LUtheran Church founded in 1517 by the ex-priest apostate Martin Luther; all the other hundreds of sects, including the LDS, have been established since then.

The Bible also teaches that the rulers of Christ's Chruch have authority which must be obeyed in matters of religion...

Heb. 13:17 "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls as they that must give account; that they might do it with joy, and not with grief, for that is unprofitable to you."

St.Matt. 18:17 "And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it to the Church: but if he neglect to hear the Chruch, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican."

 St.Luke 10:16, "He that heareth you heareth Me, and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me and he that despiseth Me despiseth Him that sent Me."

The Apostles repeatedly claimed this authority Gal. 1:3; St.John 1:10; Acts. So the laws or precepts of the Catholic Chruch are founded upon the same Apostolic authority in the New Covenant. The Bible teaches that Christ taught the Apostles and they in turn taught other ministers by the laying on of hands (bishops, priests and deacons) who represent Him in this world. They are stewards of the mysteries of God. 1Cor. 4:1; 2Cor.5:20. The Bible also teaches there is a sacrifice and a priesthood in the order of Melchisedech in the New Covenant. From the prophecy of Malachais 1:11, "For the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a clean oblation." (a pure offering). Hebrews 13:10 says, "We have an altar..."

The Protestant communion is not intended to be a sacrificial act which the prophet's word "altar" connotes. Only in the Catholic Chruch here since 33 AD, do we find among Christians an altar of sacrifice (the Holy Mass) and a clean oblation which is the sacrifice of the BOdy and Blood of Christ under the appearance of bread and wine.    

Do you seriously not understand the circular logic you're using in arguing "this book is right because this same book says it is right"

Additionally, while it is true that Native Americans had wars between themselves, if you seriously cannot comprehend how that was different compared to what Europeans did to them then I'm not quite sure what to say. Moving on to your very, very tired argument about the watchmaker, aside from the fact that we've outright witnessed evolution taking place, there's the fact that your argument refutes itself: if complex things must have been intelligently designed by something more complex than themselves, then anything posited as this complex designer (i.e. God) must also have been designed by something yet more complex. Additionally, your argument about a heirarchy is flawed, because plants are alive, and in certain ways can sense external stimuli. Additionally, animals are not always emotional - other forms of life do work in collectives, controlled by pheremones, or simply have too primitive a brain to work beyond instincts. Finally, if we as humans "must" know that there's something higher than us, why can't we believe there is something above that? And above that?

Additionally, not a single believer in evolution posits that systems spring into being fully formed in their present state - rather that over vast amounts of time, through natural processes, they are gradually refined. And I only wish our bodies were as perfect as a swiss watch - the human body has a hilarious amount of flaws in it, some so basic and stupid that if someone had designed them, they need their engineering lisence revoked.

If you also do not see how a marine informing a mother that her son has died in combat differs from a human telling us that their religion and only their religion holds the sole truth in the universe, well. That's just incredibly ignorant. It's called reasoning - a marine is not simply dispatched to tell a lie about the death of other soldiers, and is an authority figure with facts and details that can be verified independently.

Though given you've suddenly brought politics into this with your little poke at Obama when none of us had mentioned him at all, a very clear picture is starting to form about what sort of person you are.

You also posit that all humans instinctively know that a single divine creator is responsible for us. Nnnnnno, that isn't how things work. I'm sorry to disappoint you. And yes, God does decieve in the bible. Consider the whole "Yo, Abraham, go kill your son to prove your loyalty" followed by "Whoa ok don't kill him, that's close enough". If God was omnipotent, why would he need to test Abraham like that?

And of course "True" christian faith can lead one into error. Consider how long it took for a pope to apologize about a certain incident regarding the refutation of geocentricism.

Finally I ask why you have not tackled any of my other questions regarding the morality of your lord. I see no further reason to continue replying to you if you are willing to ignore a valid point regarding the ethics of your god, while bringing politics previously completely unrelated and unimplied into it, along with taking a very, very narrow view of who was worse between Native Americans and Europeans on the grounds that conversion efforts were not well recieved.

It's not circular logic, but a lawful spiral argument of which the ends do not meet.

I'll admit that arguing from the inspiration of the Holy Bible to its authority does get some hairs to stand on end. However, a book that is inspired Word of God would be expected to say so, and the Catholic Chruch supplies the further evidence required.

Now, with you, something tells me that the fact, that the Jews always accepted the Old Testament as inspired and the Christians have also accepted both the Old and the New Testaments as inspired for sooo  many centuries without question also argues to the truth of their inspiration, won't hold much water!  

So we will move and I'll ask you to take the four Gospels and consider them for the moment as if they were not inspired. I don't deny their inspiration, but just for the moment we abstract from it, and make no use of it.

Let's subject the Gospels as books to all the laws of historical criticism --that very same laws that we apply to other books. they prove to be reliable historical documents....indeed, there is no genuine historical document in existence if these are not so. Now these historical documents tell us of a certain historical person who declared He was God, justified that claim by works which no ordinary man could do, and said that He would establish an infallible Church---a Chruch that was here in 33AD when He was here and a Chruch that is still here in this world.

So, with this we prove Christ's life and works from historical documents. We prove His divinity from His life and works. We prove the infallible Church from the promise of this Divine Person. But we do not yet say that the Holy Bible is inspired, though of course we know that it is. But our rational grounds for that belief come from the fact that the infallible Church of Christ teaches with her authority that the Holy Bible is inspired and the Word of God, and also tells us what Books comprise the Holy Bible.

That the Bible in infinitely superior to the sacred books of other religions becomes at once apparent. The most rigid criticism shows the strictly historical character of the Bible. Fabulous narratives cannot stand this test. The supernatural character of the Bible stands out in vivid contrast when compared with the teaching of other religious documents. The Catholic Church whose very existences in the world today cannot be explained by natural forces, guarantees the Bible as the Word of God.

Taking the Scriptures as historical documents only, the Chruch proves the historical fact that Christ endowed her with infallibility. Then using that infallibility (which btw means that the CC cannnot err when teaching ex cathedra in matters of faith and morals) the Chruch throws new light on the historical books by assuring me that they are inspired. So, I begin with historical books and finish with inspried historical books. But I did not use inspiration as the basis of my first premise. 

In the 4th century, St.Augustine rightly said "I could not accept the Gospels unless the authority of the Catholic Chruch impelled me." I couldn't agree more.

Nephilim_X posts:

Guess that depends on how you define "evolution"...if you mean evolution as small change over time within kind then that doesn't refute anything as that is part of God's loving Creation, something called secondary causes. If by "evolution" you mean Darwinism Evolution Theory, that is, change over eons of time from one species into a completely different species as in reptiles to birds and apes to mankind, then I would point to God's creation and intricate, irreducibly complex design barrier of DNA and say impossible.

But hey, if you want to think your ancestors were ape-creatures, then what can I say...except mine go back to Adam and Eve. (Talk about wisdom from the past!).

Besides that, the human soul is directly created by God. God gives existence to the soul at the very moment when it is to be united to the body produced by generation, becasue it is designed by God to form with that body one human nature. The Council of Vienne in 1311 defined that "the rational or intellectual soul is directly and essentially the form i.e. the life giving principle of the body." The Divine origin of the soul is an infallible doctrine of the Chruch, which gives the lie direct to the theory of atheistic evolution and invests paternal authority with a religious and a sacred character.

Again, talk about wisdom from the past! 

Aaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahaha. Hookay, let's take it from the top.

The fact that you're already going on about some sort of "immediate" revelation upon reading the bible that it's "the truth" speaks very poorly of it. If you are correct, then your god truly is a vindictive sort for his punishment of his creations for flaws he created in them, when they did not willingly ask for any of this - again you have ignored the problems which I asked about earlier. And yes, your church and its saints can indeed be wrong on a great many things. Consider:

"To embrace a woman is to embrace a sack of manure."
-St Odo of Cluny

"As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbeggoten, for the active power of the male seeds tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power."
-Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

"That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell."
-Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

"Cursed be the man who holds back his sword from shedding blood."
-Pope Gregory VII, Roman Catholic Pope

"Use against heretics the spiritual sword of excommunication, and if this does not prove effective, use the material sword."
-Pope Innocent III

Now, onto evolution. There is no such thing as micro and macro evolution; they are the same thing - "macro" is simply the aggregate of many, many small changes over a long period of time. Evolution works almost exclusively by gradual change. Simply going by the fossil sequence and biogeography we have evidence for "macroevolution". And given that we've found what you might term as transitional fossils between reptiles and birds, well. Sorry. Nor is DNA irreducibly complex; we have an excellent understanding of how DNA operates, and we -have- decoded the human genome. Have you ever even taken science classes, or do you just ignore whatever you disagree with? Before we go on, I may as well point you towards this: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

Don't bother with more arguments about evolution unless it's not up there. And you do know the catholic church no longer rejects evolution, right? That they actually do endorse it, provided it doesn't seek to provide a materialistic explanation for the soul? Or do you simply prefer to be extremely selective with your interpretations of your mother church?

As to your blurb about the soul, that's what you believe on the grounds that that's what you've been told.

I ask you one last time. Why are you ignoring the moral quanderies I've pointed out in the bible itself? Why does god mutilate over a mere insult? Why does god demand a sacrifice he should logically know is not necessary? Why does God harden Pharoah's heart, other than to inflict more sorrow and misery against the Egyptians, including babies whose only crime was being the first born? What on earth does god have against clothes made with multiple types of materials? All of these are in the bible, and you have responded to not one argument - you simply parrot the same thing over and over, that the bible is right and the true word of god because it says it is, and because there is a (non-existent) immediate revelation upon reading it.

Regarding the highlighted......With all due respect, this is not a rational statement....but it is typical gibe following your comment on evolution as responsible for creation of all life instead of Almighty God.

I've said the universe is obviously created and that what is created supposes a Creator, I call Almighty God who is uncreated or the problem goes on forever, the whole endless chain of dependent beings as unable to explain itself as each of its links. It is rational to argue to an uncreated Clock-Maker. It is not rational to ask "Who created this uncreated Clock-Maker?"

In order to explain simply..look at God as I hold Him to be...the First Cause. The first is first, is that not so? Of course it is. If there were such an impossible thing as the cause of the First Cause, it would not be the First Cause. Almighty God was not created. If He were, He would be a creature and would have a creator. God always existed. He never began and will never cease to be....He is eternal...He is the Maker of the made.

As to the Chruch being wrong on many things, yes that's true. Again, the CC is infallible only in her official, ex cathedra, teaching on faith and morals..that is when the Pope and bishops in union with him officially speak for the whole Chruch. But she does not claim to be infallible in making us live up to those teachings. Her infallibility does not deprive her subjects, including the Pope, of their freewill. And all Catholics are sinners, including the Pope...and we are all obliged to repent, confess and make penance for our sins.

God alone is infallible of His very nature. But God can certainly safeguard a particular man so that he will be also infallible in certain matters on certain occasions....(don't confuse infallibility with being perfect or sinless, but infallibility is charism given by the Holy SPirit to the Pope and or bishops to be free from making doctrinal error in matters of faith and morals).

Christ guaranteed that St.Peter, our first Pope of a succession of 265, would not fail in his teachings of the Faith. And if an infallible God says that He will make a certain man infallible, then that man will infallibly be infallible. This doesn't make the Pope like God...it's just God's way of assuring us here on earth of His Truth and something that God insists upon for the good of His Church.

Ya, infallibly told by the Chruch as I've just explained. So for me, it's absolute Truth. Why wallow around in relativity land and be indifferent to Truth?

NEPHILIM_x POSTS #5

Our rights come from God as He is our Creator and we are the created...and God didn't give us a "right" to believe as we please...He gave us free will to make our choices of what we believe.  

Ok, gonna call troll on this one. I can't believe a person would be unable to see the circular logic in saying "this church is infallible, because their book said they granted infallibility", particularly while dropping points they have been called to respond to repeatedly. Your god may apparently cause charism, but he didn't do such a good job with charisma or intellect.

I've haven't responded to you becasue you clearly don't understand much about the Bible and with all due respect, it would be a total waste of time...for example this one:

God didn't harden Pharoah's heart, Scripture says he hardened his own heart...8:15, "And Pharao seeing that rest was given, hardened his own heart and did not hear them, as the Lord God had commanded."

God wasn't Himself the efficient cause of his hardness of heart, but He permitted it and by withdrawing grace from him, in punishment of his malice, which alone was the proper cause of his being hardened.