In the Church-State debate sidebars that have broken out on the fringes of the 2012 culture wars, a common liberal argument recurs:
"You can’t have it both ways. You can’t demand government stay out of religion, and then attempt to insert your religion into debates about government. The Wall of Separation between Church and State applies to church as well as state."
That is wrong for a couple of reasons. First, there is no such thing as “a wall of separation” in the constitution. Here is what the First Amendment says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.So, contrary to progressive arguments, it is legitimate and constitutional to bring one’s religious values to the public square. You can even bring them to the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Presidency, secure in the knowledge that you are a good American acting in accord with the US Constitution.
The second error in this statement is related to the first. The Constitution prohibits the federal government from establishing or prohibiting religion. It places no such strictures on citizens, so it doesn’t go both ways.
Consequently, We the People can have it both ways, freely exercising our religious rights in all public arenas while demanding government stay out of our business.
NY Times - Rick Santorum isn’t Crazy
Good piece, but I'm not sure that it adequately captures the essence of the current 'debate' over religion in the public square. Though perhaps you're just stirring the waters to entice more context in the comments section, which is understandable.
ReplyDeleteGovernment should indeed stay well clear of the workings of a religious institution, where that institution exists with the primary purpose of proliferating the doctrine to a specific and voluntary audience.
When a religious institution branches out to provide services for the community at large, employs persons of any/all/no faiths, takes federal/state funding, does not exist to proliferate the religious doctrine and the proceeds benefit said institution....not only are they already tax exempt, but they should be held to the general applicability of current law.
I don't agree that contraceptives should be covered by taxpayer funded health care plans, unless in cases such as the BC pill, where it is often prescribed for non-contraceptive medical purposes. But that law still falls under the general applicability rule, and as such, religiously organized community services should not be exempt, unlike churches.
Where religion enters the public square, contrary to Santorum's erroneous argument that religion is being forced from it, if a law or regulation has no secular value, it has no place being codified in a society based on liberty. This in no way negates the ability of the faithful to practice their faith and live their lives as they deem proper.
Few people seem to understand the phrase establishment of religion. Perhaps they need a history lesson.
ReplyDeleteAnd let us not ignore this part of the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law...prohibiting the free exercise [of religion].
Obama's contraception mandate does violate the First Amendment, IMO. Private religious institutions are being forced to pay for something that violates the tenets of their faith.
Of course, one could take the prohibition of free exercise of religion to mean prohibiting polygamy. Or am I wrong about that?
Backfire?
ReplyDelete...The Post/ABC poll asked Americans, "Do you think health insurance companies should or should not be required to cover the full cost of birth control for women?" It found that 61 percent of Americans think insurance companies should be required to pay for it. But if "the insurance is provided through a religiously affiliated employer that objects to birth control, however, support for this requirement drops to 49 percent (52 percent of women, 45 percent of men)." (It's worth noting that polls on this issue have varied significantly depending on how the question is asked. When a poll specifies that the "federal government" is the entity requiring employers to pay for birth control coverage, support for the mandate in general is evenly split.)...
My understanding of the Establishment Clause, as it has come to be known, tells me the government has no right to incorporate the tenets of one PARTICULAR religion in the legislative process in such a way that it nullifies the tenets of ANOTHER religion.
ReplyDeleteIn simpler terms:
Our Founders forbid the Establishment of any Official State Religion.
With all due respect to the militant "Diversitarians" and "Multicultists" among us, the Founders -- and 99.44% of our founding population -- were white people who came from places historically dominated by Christianity. Ergo, it seems unlikely that the Founders -- freethinking intellectuals, agnostics and Deists though some undoubtedly were -- intended that no particular branch, sect or division of CHRISTIANITY should be favored officially so that it might dominate or damage other branches of the faith.
The Founders wanted men and women to be free to worship -- or not to worship -- as they chose without interference from the government.
I doubt very much if it ever occurred to them that the likes of Islam, Eastern Religions and exotic quasi-religious entities such as Voodoo, Wiccan, Snake Worship, and Satanic Cults -- or even Judaism -- would ever become a significant enough factor in this basically Christian society to require legislative attention.
Our Achilles Heel from the very beginning has been the importation of African Negroes to live as slaves. It was a tragic error for the Founders to have punted that nettlesome issue to the care of future generations. Their failure to deal equitably and decisively with it according to the principles they espoused sowed the seeds of our undoing before we even became a nation.
The aggressive legalistic game-playing and twisted interpretations of language -- language perfectly plain to those who wrote it and first served under it -- by perverse, basically hostile and anomalous foreign elements, who arrived late in the game eager to benefit from the magnificent advantages established by the genius of the Founders, has had a deleterious effect on the integrity of our system of governance.
Ou Founding Fathers were not strangers to heated argument, guile and unscrupulous attacks, but basically they were all cut from the same piece of cloth, and that may have been what enabled them to achieve their initial success.
When a foreign form of "religion" attempts what-amounts-to a Hostile Takeover of OUR country, I think it's time to practice some judicious DISCRIMINATION against the insurgent force.
The US CONSTITUTION is NOT a SUICIDE PACT
When The Law fails to serve the best interests of the majority by favoring a distinctly anomalous minority, it should be reexamined, reformed or set aside. Failing that it must be DISOBEYED.
~ FreeThinke
So, how's that hope and change treating you? Let's look at the video tape. Just off the top of my head, a few of these concerning issues include: a debt crisis that has us hurdling towards a Greek-style collapse, entitlement programs going bankrupt, a credit downgrade for the first time in our history, a government takeover of the health care industry that makes care more expensive and puts a rationing panel of faceless bureaucrats between you and your doctor (aka a “death panel”), $4 and $5 gas at the pump exacerbated by an anti-drilling agenda that rejects good paying energy sector jobs and makes us more dependent on dangerous foreign regimes, a war in Afghanistan that seems unfocused and unending, a global presidential apology tour that’s made us look feeble and ridiculous, a housing market in the tank, the longest streak of high unemployment since World War II, private-sector job creators and industry strangled by burdensome regulations and an out-of-control Obama EPA, an attack on the Constitutional protection of religious liberty, an attack on private industry in right-to-work states, crony capitalism run amok in an administration in bed with their favored cronies to the detriment of genuine free market capitalism, green energy pay-to-play kickbacks to Obama campaign donors, and a Justice Department still stonewalling on a bungled operation that armed violent Mexican drug lords and led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent people.He is lobbying Israel not to launch on attack on Iran, but to sit around and wait from them to attack first. So, all and all, I'd say that this current administration is in deep doo-doo. Is it no wonder that this mornings paper showed that Obama's approval rating sunk to new low?
ReplyDeleteAnd the only thing good that I see coming out of all this is that Obama will be going..
Congress begins their sessions with prayer.
ReplyDeletePresident Obama took his oath of office on the Bible reported to have belonged to Abraham Lincoln, and regularly says "God bless America" in closing his national addresses.
President Obama has also made the plea for churches to speak of him from their pulpits and to organize support for him using church as a platform.
Jefferson told the Islamists in the late 1700's that we are not a Christian nation, meaning we do not have Christianity as a formal State religion, (the way that many Middle Eastern nations have Islam as their State religion), for if we did, the Islamists wouldn't have ended up trading with us. It's that whole 'we hate Jesus' thing the Muslims got going on.
'Separation of Church and State' is a line from the Letter to the Danbury Baptists that Jefferson wrote, and as SF pointed out, is NOT in the US Constitution.
Leftists fear Jesus, and if a non-liberal likes Jesus, there is no way they want to see that non-liberal succeed, because at any given moment that Jesus-liking non-liberal might start trying to force his/her religion down their liberal throats! Yikes!
But their President can manipulate "christian churches" and use the Scriptures to swear the oath of office upon and day God bless America, no problem.
Hypocrisy, anyone?
Silverfiddle,
ReplyDeleteI just linked to this post.
Your premise is that we still have a Constitution. "Iffy" at best these days, but you present a good mental excercise.
ReplyDeleteIf indeed we need to totally remove all references or insinuations of "religion" from government, then we need to re-write The Declaration of Independence, for it surely states:
ReplyDelete"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
So who is this Creator? It's the God of Creation, that being the God of Israel, the Father of Christ Jesus, and the One who Reigns supreme over all. Yes, it is the Judeo-Christian God that brings nightmares to the leftists.
Again, President Obama has blatantly violated this phantom concept of 'separation of Church and State' with this:
http://twoguys2012.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/obama-mixes-church-and-state-wheres-the-media/
If a non-leftist politician tried this, the leftists would tear their clothes and throw ashes upon their heads, wailing and hissing that someone is trying to force Jesus on America.
Few people seem to understand the phrase establishment of religion. Perhaps they need a history lesson.
ReplyDelete--------
I always enjoy it when the right starts on the "history lesson" bit.
The case law is firmly in place regarding school prayer and other attempts by government to establish religion. Settled law.
As far as the contraceptive issue, that might well not prevail in court. Petition the court and find out.
I still hold that it was a brilliant political move by a brilliant politician but lousy president to interject the religious crazies into the race.
You lose.
President Obama relies on his Christian faith to shape his policies. Read it and weep, leftists.
ReplyDeletehttp://legalnews.findlaw.com/article/041M8oAfkNeeI?q=Barack+Obama
The emperor has no clothes when it comes to religious manipulation. Yes, he is very naked.
I find it interesting as well as entertaining that believers think it's only leftists that desire a buffer between government and the church. Keeps the general narrative consistent I suppose.
ReplyDeleteIt's also a rather flimsy premise that acknowledging a creator in the Declaration should be the basis for exchanging concepts of liberty for theocratic influence.
When a foreign form of "religion" attempts what-amounts-to a Hostile Takeover of OUR country, I think it's time to practice some judicious DISCRIMINATION against the insurgent force.
ReplyDelete-----
OOOhhh, Freethinker sees scary Muslims.
The crack Afghan spec-ops are going to night drop and put botulism n his corn flakes.
Constitutional Insurgent,
ReplyDeleteAcknowledging a Creator in our Declaration of Independence serves to show that mankind owes God due respect when it comes to the governance of free men, and the pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Happiness.
Acknowledging the Creator is in no way implying all Americans should be forced to believe in Him. It shows all Americans, regardless of beliefs, that God is Creator and we, as a Nation, govern ourselves under that Truth.
Twoguys - I understand that, but also understand that the acknowledgement and 'truth' in question is religious, not universal.
ReplyDeleteCI,
ReplyDeleteThen perhaps you should petition the government to scrub those lines from our Declaration of Independence, since it does not seem to be a Universal Truth, totally agreed upon by the modern-day citizens of our Nation.
You say it is religious. I say it is Factual. God is indeed God over all, regardless of our belief in Him. For the Founders to acknowledge Him in governance of our Nation is deliciously wonderful.
Remember, God is surely not in Heaven sweating over whether or not we, as Americans, want to believe in Him. It is a marvelous thing that our Founders wrote Him into our early documents, but a woeful thing that today He seems to be an issue of contention.
Factual equals provable.
ReplyDeleteI truly don't understand the need to not only worship and believe in one's own life, but to foist it upon others with some sense of national acknowledgement.
"..foist it upon others..."
ReplyDeleteYou sound like a leftist.
To acknowledge God as Creator in our Declaration of Independence is not equivalent to anyone seeking to force you to believe in Him, CI.
No one with any common sense believes otherwise.
Indeed, if this is so offensive, then why stay in America? There are other nations on this planet that God made where you can live out from the forced acknowledgement of God as Creator. Venezuela, North Korea, Saudi Arabia...
You seem to appreciate the US Constitution, but it is also written by men who acknowledged God in their private lives. So why stay and enjoy the freedoms said Constitution provides, if it is so awful that God is a pivotal participant in the very founding of our Nation?
Curious.
You enjoy the freedoms, but don't like the 'God references'.
Interesting.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"You sound like a leftist."
ReplyDeleteSince I'm not, that says more about you than it does me.
I'm not offended in the least at mentions of God in early documents, partially because there are just as many references to the desire to keep that State and the Church as distinct entities. Where I get offended is when politicians or groups attempt to legislate their religious beliefs, where they have no corollary secular value.
That is an affront to liberty, and hypocritical for those who claim to pursue both. Secular legislation does not deprive the believer from worship.
And you may wish to reconsider your inclusion of Saudi Arabia in your little list.
I don't want a nation where citizens are not free to believe and worship. Claiming that I do is lazy and dare I say, bearing false witness.
Do you want a nation where all citizens are compelled by the force of law to abide by religious dictates?
CI,
ReplyDeleteYou said,
"That is an affront to liberty, and hypocritical for those who claim to pursue both. Secular legislation does not deprive the believer from worship.
And you may wish to reconsider your inclusion of Saudi Arabia in your little list.
I don't want a nation where citizens are not free to believe and worship. Claiming that I do is lazy and dare I say, bearing false witness.
Do you want a nation where all citizens are compelled by the force of law to abide by religious dictates?"
--------
1. Secular legislation does not deprive the believer from worship. --Then why was prayer removed from schools?
2. --Saudi Arabia worships and has a Theocracy that worships and acknowledges the failed moon-god of old. Allah is that failed moon-god. Not the Judeo-Christian God of Creation.
3. --No citizen in America does not have the freedom to worship as they will. You imply this, I did not. Again, it is because of God who gives us such freedoms that Americans can pursue other religions and false gods at their own discretion without violating any governmental protocols.
4. --No, I do not wish for nor desire a theocracy. I already walk in The Kingdom as it is. Man's government has little bearing on my life, other than causing me to speak out against the evils it is bringing through leftist thought. The day has come indeed where good is called evil and evil is called good. I'm here to offer a life-line out of that.
Again, you sound like a leftist. Nowhere have I said you all need to be Christians if you are Americans. No where. You imply this and in doing so it reminds me of the deflection tactic of the leftists who need to foment a victim mindset for their lies and untruths to flourish.
Read what I write and do not presume or assume upon my words. It will only bite you in the behind, CI.
I served America ala military and I did so knowing I would be fighting for leftists, atheists, and God-haters of all stripes. But they are still AMERICANS. Period.
"Then why was prayer removed from schools?"
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't; organized and recognized prayer was removed from school. That's the beauty of religious belief, one can pray wherever and whenever they wish. The primary function of public school is to learn, not to worship.
You have an odd skewing of the policial spectrum if you believe my disagreement with state acknowledgement of an invisible entity in the sky, is being a leftist. Some also might also argue that rational people do not assign an ideology involuntarily to another, based on a single issue.
Yes, clearly it's me who's defecting, since Christians haven't ben erroneously whining about being victims.....
"I served America ala military......."
As did I.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm having trouble accepting the New York Times' say-so as evidence that Sick Rantorum isn't crazy. ;)
ReplyDeleteI've heard Sick Rantorum speak about his faith. While I theologically and ecclesiologically disagree with his view that Catholicism has anything whatsoever to do with Christianity beyond starting with the same letter of the alphabet, that is not what sets me on edge against him as Presidential candidate.
It isn't Sick Rantorum's bizarre polytheistic religion that sets me on edge, but rather his religious proclamation and view that "Satan" has throughly overtaken and corrupted academia, all Protestant / non-Catholic churches, the "popular" culture, and has just now begun setting "his" sights on overtaking and corrupting our government and politicians - the implicit idea being that as President, Sick Rantorum's anti-libertarian form of statism will thwart "Satan's" attempts to overtake and corrupt our virginally pure and holy government and begin an effort to liberate and deliver us 232+ million non-Catholic Americans from "Satan's" controlling clutches and get us all back as obediently intimidated children under a parochialized but still too huge government issuing Sacraments of Unprosecuted Molestation.
Sick Rantorum is qualified to be President. He's over 35 years old and he is a naturally born American citizen.
Sick Rantorum is not, however, qualified to be taken seriously.
"They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do. Government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulation low and that we shouldn't get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn't get involved in cultural issues, you know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world, and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can't go it alone, that there is no such society that I'm aware of where we've had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture." - Sick Rantorum
ReplyDeleteI humbly submit to you that Sick Rantorum is not a traditional conservative, has no idea what a traditional conservative believes, and that his Catholic ancestors came to America well after the "radical individualist" Protestants built it as a successful culture. I notice they came to Christian America rather than Catholic Venezuela. What's up with that?
I submit to you that the short bus freaks who rant about who might be a traditional conservative are a marginal cult (just like evangelicals) who won't accept their fringe status.
ReplyDeleteDucky,
ReplyDeleteYou are wise to submit to the 'short bus freaks'. It's about time you started coming around. Good for you, Ducky! I'm proud of ya!
I submit to you that the short bus freaks who rant about who might be a traditional conservative are a marginal cult (just like evangelicals) who won't accept their fringe status.
ReplyDeleteI note that you're ranting such nonsense from the confines of the actually marginal 5% of Americans that openly consider themselves "left-wing."
Surely you're not chocking up to tell us what a traditional conservative believes.
Sick Rantorum despises libertarianism in total. This puts him well outside the bounds of American conservatism, and leftward towards you and the other totalitarians.
"The heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism" - Ronald Reagan
If Sick Rantorum is "conservative" then so was Chairman Mao.
Beamish - Indeed, as Santorum specifically stated “I am not a libertarian, and I fight very strongly against libertarian influence within the Republican Party and the conservative movement.”
ReplyDeleteFor this and many other reasons, I will definitely pass on a Santorum candidacy.
beamish,
ReplyDeleteGo easy on Ducky. He's worth millions which makes him part of the 1%, and being a leftist this puts him at odds with his ideals and beliefs. He pays more in taxes than most of us make in a year.
Oh, the irony!
Interesting that school prayer only applies in GOOD TIMES.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/02/27/why-is-school-prayer-only-allowed-during-tragedies/
God's only allowed at the tough times? :) Because our constitution allows for it. Or should the principal at Chardon be fired amid CNN outrage? :-)
A history lesson which really should be heeded. We want to be well rounded commenters, don't we. Nobody likes being a hypocrite.
Beamish - Indeed, as Santorum specifically stated “I am not a libertarian, and I fight very strongly against libertarian influence within the Republican Party and the conservative movement.”
ReplyDeleteTo me that's like saying "I am not a quarterback, and I fight very strongly against quarterback participation within the Pittsburgh Steelers and the sport of football in general."
Dude just doesn't get it.
Well, it's sort of appropriate if the Steelers take to the field and start playing soccer...I can find an analogy to the modern GOP in there somewhere.
ReplyDeleteGo easy on Ducky. He's worth millions which makes him part of the 1%, and being a leftist this puts him at odds with his ideals and beliefs. He pays more in taxes than most of us make in a year.
ReplyDeleteI made last week flipping stocks more than he pulled down at his community college job last month.
That's neither here nor there. Ducky merely has rape fantasies of someone pulling him out of his Saturn Legomobile and giving him the tire iron "class warfare" treatment. The only "millions" he has are in Zimbabwe dollars.
Well, it's sort of appropriate if the Steelers take to the field and start playing soccer...I can find an analogy to the modern GOP in there somewhere.
ReplyDeleteWell the analogy was directed at Sick Rantorum. He wants to play football with an accordion.
Even better!
ReplyDeletetwoguys2012 --- you forgot to add that my telephoto lens (and others) cost more than 4 figures.
ReplyDeleteShould I go with the 10,000 Leica? Now that would be self indulgent.
Oh, Ducky, Ducky, Ducky...how is it you support the OWS failed hippie movement, and yet it is you who are the villain of their opera? How can you suffer being the 1% while your brothers and sisters (well, the ones not being raped by your brothers) in the struggle against The Evil Empire Wall Street Money Lords, are going without birth control and basic hygiene products?
ReplyDeleteAnd as to being self-indulgent...pfft. You're a leftist. Everything about your mindset and character is rooted in being self-indulgent, remember?
If your photography pursuits pay the bills and allow you to accumulate money, awesome. Just don't let your Obama know, or he'll come a lookin' to get his fair share, despite the Obama Hope and Change sticker on your vehicle.
The real issue,IMO. is can government mandate private citizens or private businesses to pay for something whether they want to or not.
ReplyDelete"You can’t have it both ways. You can’t demand government stay out of religion, and then attempt to insert your religion into debates about government. The Wall of Separation between Church and State applies to church as well as state."
ReplyDeleteSilver, who exactly ever said that???
I'm a "liberal" and a "progressive" and I certainly wouldn't take such an unrealistic and unconstitutional position! Where the hell do you get this stuff from?
JMJ
"With all due respect to the militant "Diversitarians" and "Multicultists" among us, the Founders -- and 99.44% of our founding population -- were white people who came from places historically dominated by Christianity"
ReplyDeleteYep, those people tilling the fields and being shoved westerly weren't Founders just the unfortunate superfluous people who got ground up to make the White christian Promised land.
While everyone correctly notes "separation of church and State" stems from a Letter from President Jefferson and not the founding documents. The constitution does specifically prohibit a religious test for office.
Multiple states of course created there own tests for their founding documents but, that's okay because State's Rights.
So, sometimes the Constitution appears not to be the final arbiter of what is and is not in the Nation.
But, clearly the constitution is only referenced by the religious when it backs their position or seems to, to them.
The best thing about this debate has been the Right's wailing about the Collective Rights of the Church or religious institutions. Clearly, Collective Rights trump Individual Rights when it suits a conservatives viewpoint.
GeG,
ReplyDeleteWhen the left stops using the US Constitution for toilet paper, and calling it an evolving document and saying it isn't applicable for today, then maybe the left will be taken seriously when the topic of The US Constitution comes up.
Until then, the left is seeking to wax philosophical about a document they despise and revile as being out-dated and only for white Conservative rich slave-owners. How tedious and passe.
It is so ironic the left craps on The Constitution and the freedoms it provides while exercising the freedoms it provides.
Tedious. *yawn*
Silverfiddle,
ReplyDeleteIt is an evolving document I won't go hyperbolic and declare otherwise you support slavery and no amount of Beckian logic that 3/5ths was to end slavery can change it.
But, feel free to bust out some nonsense about natural rights and positive liberty v. negative liberty when all you're constitution dribble is window dressing so white Conservative rich slave-owners can crap on everyone in the country, but every election and own the nation.
I apologize silverfiddle, I only saw after I posted that twoguys2012 posted the above "retort".
ReplyDeleteTwoguys2012, I don't respect your attempts at forcing your religion on everyone.
Ducky:
ReplyDeleteShould I go with the 10,000 Leica? Now that would be self indulgent.
Sure go ahead. The Leica isn't too extravagant.
The Hasselblad H4D-200MS would probably be self indulgent.
Well said, liberals want to push this nonsense because they want to get Christianity out of the way. They know that true Christianity is really the only thing standing in the way of their regressive and ultimately destructive agenda.
ReplyDelete"Consequently, We the People can have it both ways, freely exercising our religious rights in all public arenas while demanding government stay out of our business."
Do it both ways, do it proudly and loudly, it's the only way to repel liberals.
The constitution "evolves" through the amendment process, not by government fiat.
ReplyDeleteI find it entertaining how atheistic leftists claim there are no natural rights, putting them squarely in the camp of divine right of kings, with some mob rule thrown in just for fun.
Constitutional: I mention the left because we don't hear such idiotic arguments coming from agnostic or atheistic libertarians. That is what I respect about libertarianism. They stand up for my right to practice my religion. Reason magazine is no fan of the Catholic Church, but they see this Obama overreach for what it is and they call him on it.
ReplyDeleteWhen I say people are free to bring their religious beliefs into government, I mean their religious sensibilities and their morals. I caveat that with of course they must follow the constitution, so no mandating school prayers or declaring Southern Baptism the official US religion.
Gene" The best thing about this debate has been the Right's wailing about the Collective Rights of the Church or religious institutions.
ReplyDeleteDid I miss something? As far as I've seen no one here has based an argument on collective rights, of the church or any other group. The issue has always been focused on the government exceeding it's power.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ..." is as clear an injunction against governmental interference as can be imagined.
Nothing like getting the fringe right hypocrites engaging in a little class warfare.
ReplyDeleteWhat also emerges is that they are very,very dumb. Very dumb.
Now have many people lived frugally and built up wealth to allow them to retire? Sure have. Doesn't make them part of the 1% or materialist but that's pretty obvious.
The fringe right are just sour and dissatisfied because they simply can't imagine a way for large numbers to prosper. Sour Calvinists and Randoids all.
Silverfiddle,
ReplyDeleteHow can "atheistic liberals" be "squarely in the camp of divine rights of kings"? How does that work?
Seriously, every conservative has this set of answers which they post instead of actually looking at what is written.
viburum you didn't miss something you are choosing to look past AOW's comment at the beginning of this comment page, "Private Religious institutions are being forced..."
Also, you're being obtuse since we don't allow Odinists to perform Blood Eagles to Odin now do we?
Finally, Right Wing Theocrat I want to know what true christianity is? Please post a short description here.
Ducky "...they simply can't imagine a way for large numbers to prosper."
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately we can't make everybody rich, and as the socialist utopia formerly known as the Soviet Union clearly demonstrated, trying only makes everybody poor.
Beamish...when did Santorum say the part about "all Protestant / non-Catholic churches,"? I'd like to see that.
ReplyDeleteDucky, nobody cares about your STUFF. And, do you know what your socialist bros would say about a $10K Leica? tsk tsk tsk
Gene: Also, you're being obtuse since we don't allow Odinists to perform Blood Eagles to Odin now do we?
ReplyDeleteI personally wouldn't care as long as they did it with consenting adult volunteers.
And if you can't see AOW's comment regarding "Private religious institutions are being forced to pay for something that violates the tenets of their faith." as an infringement of religious liberty I would think you are the one being obtuse. Or was that the crux of your collective rights assertion? That an 'institution' is collective?
Either way, that has not been the focus of the discussion which remains "Government exceeding it's authority"
CI,
ReplyDeleteyour using blatant hoax material as sources, disproven numerous times. "Allah" is just simply the Arabic word for God. The Moon-God theory was trashed years ago and only resurected by hate-for-profiteers - you must have bumbed into one of their websites.
Cheers
Damien Charles
Damien.....you've responded to the wrong person. It was 'twoguys'already who said that, I believe.
ReplyDeleteStrike "already"........Damn Droid.....
DeleteThe subject of religion and state is a complex one that is filled with the opportunity to abuse and with less actual benefit (in my honest opinion).
ReplyDeleteFor my part, the subject is moot because society and even our laws will always reflect the dominant views, beliefs and aspirations of the people (well those in power anyhow). Therefore our Abrahamic faith will be reflected in our laws, ie the 10 commandments are and ill always be a corner-stone of our laws (Good vs Evil, Right Wrong, Truth versus Lies, etc, etc).
When it becomes actually an integral part officially, things go wrong. I noticed how some started talking about Musim countries and Islam being enshrined, that is of course true in many cases but it is the same thing with them. In reality less than half of the 56 Muslim nations have actual Sharia Law and of those that do, again less than half have them totally, with the majority being only family law subject to a secular appeal system. Having said that, all of the Muslim countries will most certainly have laws reflecting the various levels of the faith via the views, beliefs and aspirations of thier population. Some here may disagree with me, but from my experiences, it is still following the same Abrahamic principles.
Another thing that should not be forgotten, Spain and Belgium are officially Catholic Kingdoms and both countries have many legislative problems and antiquated laws because of it. The Spanish Constitution almost collapsed last year when the government allowed gay marriages and the Constitutional Court is still debating if that law is legal because the ArchBishop of Madrid and head of the Catholic Church in this country refused to accept it. Get my drift?
My point is do not formalize it, at all, because as soon as you do it becomes exclusive.
Damien Charles
Gene: Where do your rights come from?
ReplyDeleteDucky: Calvinistic Randoids? You're absurd.
ReplyDelete"Therefore our Abrahamic faith will be reflected in our laws, ie the 10 commandments are and ill always be a corner-stone of our laws (Good vs Evil, Right Wrong, Truth versus Lies, etc, etc)." D.C.
ReplyDeleteBut except for the Thou Shalt Not Kill, Thou Shalt Not Steal, and Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness--[only under oath is it a crime], the rest of the Commandments have nothing to do with our secular laws.
We have no laws against worshipping other gods or graven images of gods, or taking a god's name in vain or keeping the Sabbath or honoring one's mother and father or committing adultery--otherwise Gingrich would be serving a life sentence. Or coveting a neighbor's goods-isn't that what drives consumerism in a capitalist society? Or coveting a neighbor's wife? Isn't there some reality show that promotes this?
Anyway, most cultures, advanced and primitive, with or without formal religions, have set up prohibitions against murder and stealing and lying.
The 10 Commandments are not the basis for our secular laws, IMO.
The visual representation of the liberal mind is a ball of yarn that cats have played with for a coupe weeks.
ReplyDeleteShaw,
ReplyDeleteIt was a generalized comment, if you want to be all picky, either way your only partially right. Our laws were not originally secular though, they became as such later on.
Modern western laws, both your and mine (based on British law) and even further back, French laws also link in, are considered Frankish and thus a set of principles turned into laws based on an agreement with the Church of Rome (ie it predates the Reformation). In those original statutes, the "Lord's Commandements" ie, the Ten Commandments were the base. I am sure in those times, idol worshoping was an offence. When the laws were reviewed, reconsidered and when Church was removed from State, some obviously were pulled out.
My point is that in fact our laws are based on faith VIA the fact that they represent the standards, faiths, beliefs, views and aspirations of the people or at least the people that made the laws.
Regards
D Charles
Just fyi,
ReplyDelete"committing adultery" is an offence in Spain (not a criminal act but an offence). It is also a prisonable offence in Mexico and most Central American countries. I understand it is also in Uruguay so my guess is other Latin Countries will have it as well. It is also similarly a "criminal" act in The Phillipines.
As I said, just for your info.
D C
Where to begin?
ReplyDelete"The Founders wanted men and women to be free to worship -- or not to worship -- as they chose without interference from the government."
Sometime's FT is dead on...
"When a foreign form of 'religion'"
Sometimes, it's left field.
2Guys, as far as Lincoln's bible:
"The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession." Abraham Lincoln
As far as "Jefferson told the Islamists...
Actually it was the US Senate ratifying the treaty of Tripoli and it said:
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion"
"So who is this Creator?"
Actually, it is not the God of Israel, it is 'Nature's God' as in "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God " (Try reading the first paragraph)
2guys: "You say it is religious. I say it is Factual."
I say it is Deist, not Christian. And to answer your questions?/Statements.
1. Public Schools are a State institution.
2. Moon-god? ROFLMAO at your ignorance. You do understand they are also an Abrahamic religion?
3. " Again, it is because of God who gives us such freedoms"... I believe it is the Constitution, or are you arguing that it is divinely inspired and perhaps we ought include the books of Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, et. al. into the scriptures?
4. "Man's government has little bearing on my life"... uh, yeah right.
Hmmm so much to say, so little space ;)
And on to Squeamish!
ReplyDelete"disagree with his view that Catholicism has anything whatsoever to do with Christianity"
You do realize your religion, like it or not, is a schismatic sect of it, no? And that the vast majority of it is identical to the Catholic one.
"bizarre polytheistic religion"
Your ignorance of Catholicism is unmatched, except perhaps by your ignorance of history.
Sick Rantorum is not, however, qualified to be taken seriously.
I might add, neither are you.
"well after the "radical individualist" Protestants built it as a successful culture."
Might I suggest you google "Maryland", "Cecelius Calvert", and "1632"... and if you are ever in Philadelphia visiting the liberty bell, that large structure across the Independence National Park on Willings Alley at 4th and Walnut is St Joseph's Church from 1733.
" I notice they came to Christian America" actually it was predominately shamanistic and animistic at the time.
Nature's God! I'm not even Roman Catholic and you piss me off to no end. Fundamentalist Christian, Fundamentalist Muslim... what's the difference?
Let me leave you with a little quote from Lincoln, whose Bible you seem to be obsessed with:
"When the Know-Nothings get control, it [the Declaration of Independence] will read: "All men are created equal except negroes, foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."
Cheers!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI just don't understand the point of this entire post.
ReplyDeleteNo liberal or progressive would want to purge all religious thought from our government. We simply think it's a bad idea for the government to legislate religious thought without regard for the un-or-differently-religious.
There's a line here, Silver, that you're not seeing.
We should not have purely sectarian services mixed with public services of the government because that would, by definition, be both unconstitutional and stupid, as congress passes laws for these services, and few modern American public services are only shared by a single sect of religious people.
It's unconstitutional, and stupid.
Now, for someone to say "we should not have religious people and thought in government" is both unconstitutional and completely unrealistic. The government can not legislate against their religion just as it can't to support it. And, most people are religious and almost everyone has been formed in one way or another by the religious culture around them.
It's unconstitutional, and unrealistic.
There's the difference, Silver, and we liberals and progressives well understand all this.
Do ANY of you conservatives understand any of that?
JMJ
On the subject of Deism and the Founding Fathers:
ReplyDeleteTHOMAS PAINE
"Here it is that the religion of Deism is superior to the Christian Religion. It is free from all those invented and torturing articles that shock our reason or injure our humanity, and with which the Christian religion abounds. Its creed is pure, and sublimely simple. It believes in God, and there it rests."
"The nations who never heard of such books, nor of such people as Jews, Christians, or Mahometans, believe the existence of a God as fully as we do, because it is self-evident"
"The Persian shows the Zend-Avesta of Zoroaster, the lawgiver of Persia, and calls it the divine law; the Bramin shows the Shaster, revealed, he says, by God to Brama, and given to him out of a cloud; the Jew shows what he calls the law of Moses, given, he says, by God, on the Mount Sinai; the Christian shows a collection of books and epistles, written by nobody knows who, and called the New Testament; and the Mahometan shows the Koran, given, he says, by God to Mahomet: each of these calls itself revealed religion, and the only true Word of God, and this the followers of each profess to believe from the habit of education, and each believes the others are imposed upon."
"But in Deism our reason and our belief become happily united. The wonderful structure of the universe, and everything we behold in the system of the creation, prove to us, far better than books can do, the existence of a God, and at the same time proclaim His attributes."
"It is by the exercise of our reason that we are enabled to contemplate God in His works, and imitate Him in His ways. When we see His care and goodness extended over all His creatures, it teaches us our duty toward each other, while it calls forth our gratitude to Him. It is by forgetting God in His works, and running after the books of pretended revelation, that man has wandered from the straight path of duty and happiness, and become by turns the victim of doubt and the dupe of delusion."
ETHAN ALLEN
"I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism makes me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not strictly speaking, whether I am one or not."
JOHN ADAMS
"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?"
"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved-- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"
"God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there will never be any liberal science in the world."
"The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history."
Religion has a great deal in common with sex.
ReplyDeleteNeither should be practiced in the Public Square.
~ FreeThinke
FinnTann, look at the way people with similar views to you differ in sectarian understanding. Now you can clearly see why prayer in schools, and every other half-cocked attempt to force religious thought into legislation, without regard to different or non-religious dissension, is a bad idea. Right? ;)
ReplyDeleteJMJ
Jersey: You're confused because you and I are in general agreement. Maybe you're arguing with some comments in this thread, but you're not arguing with my comments. Relax man, and enjoy the warm feelings!
ReplyDeleteOh and I almost forgot this gem of Adam's:
ReplyDelete"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."
Which is often misquoted by Atheists, in full context the text reads:
"Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!" But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell."
THOMAS JEFFERSON
"We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication"
"The clergy...believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
"The metaphysical insanities of Athanasius, of Loyola, and of Calvin, are, to my understanding, mere lapses into polytheism, differing from paganism only by being more unintelligible."
"But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
"My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there."
"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors."
JAMES MADISON
"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?"
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize, every expanded prospect."
"Besides the danger of a direct mixture of religion and civil government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations. The establishment of the chaplainship in Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights as well as of Constitutional principles. The danger of silent accumulations and encroachments by ecclesiastical bodies has not sufficiently engaged attention in the US"
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN:
"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it."
"I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies."
"Revealed religion has no weight with me."
". . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that they wrought an effect on my quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."
GEORGE WASHINGTON, the first political candidate, had little to say of religion, a very wise man ;)
ReplyDelete"If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mohometans, Jews or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists."
"The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institutions may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances, be made subservient to the vilest of purposes."
ALEXANDER HAMILTON was a Presbyterian.
JOHN JAY was first Anglican, later Episcopalian.
Both were very religious men.
Did I miss anyone?
Jersey, yes, we are in agreement!
What a day... You and I, SF, and Ducky, all in general agreement.
Cheers!
Beamish...when did Santorum say the part about "all Protestant / non-Catholic churches,"? I'd like to see that.
ReplyDeleteListen to him here. He bashes Protestantism around the 2:00 mark. Protestantism is corrupted by Satan, but no, not Catholicism.
::rolls eyes::
Beamish,
ReplyDeleteSantorum is singling out liberal, mainstream Protestants with a wink and nod to the evangelicals. for a few years now, the hyper-religious of both Catholic and Protestant persuasion have been courting one another to line up with big business interests. Nothing new to see here.
JMJ
On the separation of church and state.
ReplyDelete"So, sometimes the Constitution appears not to be the final arbiter of what is and is not in the Nation."
Absolutely!
It was not until after the 14th amendment that the courts started ruling that the Constitution applied to the states.
Several cases of that applicability to the states made it before the supreme court and were rejected.
In Barron v Baltimore the court ruled that the Takings Clause of the 5th amendment did not apply to the City of Baltimore or the state of Maryland. Ruling specifically "...the fifth amendment must be understood as restraining the power of the general government, not as applicable to the states."
In Pervear v Massachusetts, the court ruled on the 8th amendment's excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment clauses "Of this proposition it is enough to say that the article of the Constitution relied upon in support of it does not apply to State but to National legislation."
It wasn't until Adamson v California that the court began accepting the argument that the states must follow the protections of the Bill of Rights through application of the Due Process clause in the 14th amendment.
Massachusetts had an established religion, Congregational, until 1833.
Connecticut had a Congregational Church until 1818 and residents had to pay state taxes to support Congregational ministers unless they could prove they were supporting other ministers.
In New Hampshire, members of the legislature were required to be Protestant until 1877.
In North Carolina only Protestants were allowed to hold public office until 1835, afterwhich only Christians were allowed until 1876.
The application of the constitution to the states is a relatively recent concept, not a founding principal. After all, the amendment in question reads CONGRESS shall make no law...
I know SF likes to trace progressivism back to Roosevelt and Wilson, me... I think it began with Lincoln.
FT likes to state that the Constitution is not a suicide pact, of course it is... has been since 1861. Which is when the federal government began its long march towards total domination of the republic.
Yeah... interpreting "Congress shall make no law" as applying to the states as "due process" is about on par with not growing wheat being "commerce".
Before you accuse me of being a theocrat, allow me to point out that at the time the supreme court started applying due process to this, all the state constitutions already had protections of religious freedom.
Kind of like driving down the road and finding a federal stop sign in front of a state one, in front of a local one.
Just the humble opinion of a little "l" libertarian and little "r" republican.
Cheers!
Cheers!
And on to Squeamish!
ReplyDelete"disagree with his view that Catholicism has anything whatsoever to do with Christianity"
You do realize your religion, like it or not, is a schismatic sect of it, no?
Wrong. Christianity is nearly 3 centuries older than Roman Catholicism.
And that the vast majority of it is identical to the Catholic one.
Wrong. Christianity is monotheistic.
"bizarre polytheistic religion"
Your ignorance of Catholicism is unmatched, except perhaps by your ignorance of history.
I am neither ignorant of the polytheistic religion of Roman Catholicism nor ignorant of its historical wars upon Christianity.
Let me leave you with a little quote from Lincoln, whose Bible you seem to be obsessed with:
"When the Know-Nothings get control, it [the Declaration of Independence] will read: "All men are created equal except negroes, foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."
You take me for an anti-Catholic bigot. You are mistaken. I support Newt Gingrich, a convert from Christianity to Catholicism.
I don't mind polytheists. I have both Catholic and Hindu friends. I don't even mind that Sick Rantorum believes in over 10,000 omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deity "saints" who will hear his prayers for everything from his television set to his toaster oven. The Catholic deity Isidore of Seville, patron of the internet, has thus far proven ineffective against getting Sick Rantorum's name to not lead to some rather disgusting gay websites on Google searches, but I'm sure he's busy keeping the World of Warcraft servers up. I find it beautiful that Catholics are creative enough to create an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deity "saint" for something if they can't take one from a different religion, like Brighid, the Celtic goddess of fire or maybe take a pagan ritual or custom and make it theirs, like eating fish on Freyja's Day.
It's the hideous side of Catholicism, its long history of persecuting Christians and Jews, its inhumane and totalitarian ventures into government and judicial matters, its violence upon dissenters against its bizarre and ahistorical claims of apostolic succession (the first Pontifex Maximus, Julius Caesar, was not an Apostle) - these are the things I find disturbing about Catholicism. While it is my prayer that someday someone might present the Gospel to Mr. Ratzinger so that he may know the Christ he claims to be the temporal vicarious replacement of, I have no ill will towards Catholics.
I would be as equally critical of another candidate for President who was prone to placing his bizarre religion above the religion of others and wishing to interject it into government policy if that religion had a history of violence and persecution whenever it held governmental powers. The doctrine of separation of church and state can be traced back to Catholic purges of "heretics" (aka Christians) in the 4th Century. Those primitive congregations that refused to bow to Roman Catholic "authority" over them.
Sick Rantorum can religiously believe whatever he wants to believe - 10,000+ gods, the holiness of anthropomorphic burns on toast, whatever. Its his proposal and agenda to use government to stamp out libertarianism because he's "sickened" by it that I have a problem with.
Oh, and to echo what Jersey said... religion is the worst thing to ever have happened to American politics.
ReplyDeleteTake a hint from George Washington and keep it to yourself.
As the Analbaptist Squeamish proves, it will only earn you admiration among your own, and serve no other purpose than to annoy others. Keep talking, I'll keep shoving facts past your head and up your...
See? I can dive as deeply into the gutter of intolerance as you. As you sow, so shall you reap.
Cheers!
Santorum is singling out liberal, mainstream Protestants with a wink and nod to the evangelicals. for a few years now, the hyper-religious of both Catholic and Protestant persuasion have been courting one another to line up with big business interests. Nothing new to see here.
ReplyDeleteI disagree somewhat, Jersey. Recall that it was another Catholic polytheist, Pat Buchanan, that first presented this "culture war" nonsense, which has been absolutely nothing but a call to grow government larger and into new unconstitutional directions.
A lot of this can be traced back to the 1920s and 1930s, when Catholics introduced "social justice" theology into American politics and pretty much led the charge in turning over their functions of charity to the Welfare State. Many Protestant churches went along with them, true, but many are also finally seeing the folly of that and wanting to reclaim that social function from the government.
Rick Santorum represents a "social conservative" strain ("social conservatism" being an oxymoron similar to "tasty vomit" or "Good Sex with Dr. Ruth Westheimer") that wants to crush that libertarian spirit of getting the government out of our lives and small enough to not be able to get back into our lives. Sick Rantorum wants government in your bedroom. THIS IS NOT WHAT TRADITIONAL CONSERVATIVES BELIEVE.
Finntann,
ReplyDeleteYou're down in that "gutter of intolerance" by yourself. Perhaps you should direct your animosity towards the polytheistic bigot Sick Rantorum, maybe remind him to ask his priest what Matthew 23:9 means.
"Wrong. Christianity is nearly 3 centuries older than Roman Catholicism."
ReplyDeleteGiven that Catholic doctrine teaches that the church was founded by Jesus Christ at the Confession of Peter, that's a pretty neat trick. Unless of course you are alleging that Christianity predates the birth of Jesus by three hundred years.
"Wrong. Christianity is monotheistic"
Funny, last time I checked Baptists were also trinitarians.
Matthew 28:19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
"You take me for an anti-Catholic bigot."
No, as the founding fathers would have said...it is self-evident.
"over 10,000 omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deity "saints"
Catholic doctrine holds that the communion of saints is derived from the belief that through Jesus Christ all Christians are made brothers and sisters and that physical death on earth does not sever that connection.
It is that the Church is the one Body of Christ and that there are not two separate ones on heaven and earth. Physical death on earth cannot separate one from Jesus nor from unity in the Body of Christ (since there is only one).
I'll leave it to you to look up the definitions of worship, mediation, and intercession.
"It's the hideous side of Catholicism, its long history of persecuting Christians and Jews, its inhumane and totalitarian ventures into government and judicial matters..."
Unless of course you are not of European descent, it's a pretty neat trick to try and disassociate yourself from western history.
If you want a more accurate statement try "It's the hideous side of organized religion..."
"its bizarre and ahistorical claims of apostolic succession"
As one who does not recognize the primacy of the See of Rome, all I can say is that the apostolic succession of the See of Rome is as historically documented as say the See of Ultrecht. Many churches, Protestant included recognize apostolic succession... the only difference is through whom you chose to trace that succession.
" The doctrine of separation of church and state can be traced back to Catholic purges of "heretics" (aka Christians) in the 4th Century."
I'd really like to see you demonstate that.
So Matthew 23:9 says " And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven."
So what was mark talking about in Mark 7:9-13 when he said "And he said to them:
“You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!
For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother, and, ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’
But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”
I thought he said "And call no man your father upon the earth"
That's what I love most about fundamentalists, they're so literal.
So what was Mark talking about again?
Cheers!
Duck,
ReplyDeleteQuite early in this thread you ridiculed my comment about a history lesson. You brought up case law.
I want to point out to you that much racially-biased case law (and civil law, as well) existed for a long time in America. The existence of case law does not necessarily comprise justice.
Furthermore, legal precedent can be in violation of our Constitution. Happens with frequency in fact. Sometimes SCOTUS rules "correctly," sometimes not.
In my view, our Founders make a mistake by making SCOTUS untouchable. I do understand our Founders' reasoning at the time, but our Founders never foresaw how far away our society would move from a moral compass.
Finn,
ReplyDeleteYou are confusing the Church Jesus is establishing with the "Holy Roman Catholic Church". They are not the same thing.
Constantine started the HRCC, (making it the official religion of Rome), but Jesus started His Church hundreds of years before.
I believe it was 311 AD when Constantine began the first State-religion. 311 or 310.
Finntann,
ReplyDeleteGiven that Catholic doctrine teaches that the church was founded by Jesus Christ at the Confession of Peter, that's a pretty neat trick. Unless of course you are alleging that Christianity predates the birth of Jesus by three hundred years
You're not documenting a strong case that you possess reading comprehension skills here, as I've alleged nothing of the sort. Roman Catholicism claims Peter was the "Bishop of Rome" for 25 years and that their "papal authority" succeeds through him (save for Formosus and a few other historically inconvenient posthumously excommunicated / recommunicated "Popes"). As Peter was never "Pope," and Peter did not establish nor lead the Roman congregation to whom Paul addresed his Epistle, and Peter's first and only trek to Rome resulted in his execution rather than coronation as "Pope," both the Catholic claim of Peter being the first "Pope" and the Catholic claim of apostolic sucession of ensuing "Popes" from Peter are ludicrously and absurdly ahistorical. Further, Peter is never considered "supreme" or "first" over any other Apostles during his lifetime (see the book of Acts, and all of the Epistles). Even via the historical roots of this farcical Catholic Papacy contrivance, Roman worship of the Emperor as an Earthly Vicar of Jupiter in the Imperial Office of the Pontifex Maximus, the hackneyed Catholic ecclesiology fails as Peter was never the Emperor of the Roman Empire either.
In a sense, I suppose you could say Roman Catholicism pre-existed the birth of Jesus by some centuries, as the Imperial Office of the Pontifex Maximus didn't incorporate Jesus into its collective pagan pantheon until the early 4th Century and was placing statuary idols of the Roman emperors in temples throughout the Roman Empire well before Jesus was born.
[continued]
I fail to see the need to debunk Catholicism's wholesale farcical pretentions and contrived origins in Biblical Christianity point by point. Demonstrating that Catholic claims of "apostolic succession" from Peter are ahistorical and that Catholic claims that Peter held an authority over other Apostles much less a supreme authority that could be bequeathed to others in a line spanning from him to Mr. Ratzinger today are Biblically indefensible is quite enough. I don't have to elaborate further than that. Writing about Catholicism's 10,000+ deities is overkill.
ReplyDeleteIt is patently and offensively absurd to mistake Catholicism for Christianity. As people study the Bible translated accurately into their own languages and come to realize the farce committed by the Catholic religion, they convert in droves to Christianity, as we see in the Protestant Reformation but also in the primitive churches that pre-existed the Council of Rome in 313 AD which the Roman Empire under Constantine either assimilated under penalty of death or attempted to exterminate completely.
This is where the doctrine of separation of church and state gets it origins - from the blood-soaked history of the many refusals of primitive Christian congregations to submit to the authority of Roman encroachments into their religion.
Again, I don't care what the utterly pagan Roman Catholic polytheists believe about themselves and continuously revise their ahistorical ecclesiology to say. It is when they acquire the state means to impose their self-deluding artificial "spiritual authority" over other religions (including Christianity) is when I have a problem with them.
Rick Santorum zealously believes his pagan beliefs in Catholic polytheism enforced and imposed from a government seat upon academia, the "popular" culture, and the 232+ Million non-Catholics in America will thwart attacks from "Satan."
I simply chide that such zealotry has already resulted in enough unjustifiable violent exterminations of Jews and Christians over the past 18 centuries.
Rick Santorum needs to stop his offensive claims to spiritual superiority over the religious beliefs of others. And, if he wants to speak authoritively about Christianity, it may be helpful for him to convert to Christianity first.
I don't believe Joseph Smith was a Prophet or that my Native American ancestors that migrated here from Asia some ~16,000 years ago are "Lamanite" Jews cursed by God along with Africans to have dark skin.
ReplyDeleteDoes that make me an anti-Mormon bigot, or simply a student of history and science refusing yet another bogus revision of Judeo-Christian history?
Since the topic has become Catholic baiting let me point out first that I am Catholic and proudly so.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I am also a realist and as SF knows, a proponent of Kantian theory. I find no conflict in being all three as realism, Kantist and even Catholic does work hand in hand.
Considering the age of the Church of Rome, for me, it is not suprising at all that dogma and traditions exist. Any ancient regime, tradition base and cultural system has its "style" and when it comes to powerfully emotive subjects, very hard to change. Also when it comes to leadership, power and money - all important factors. The Church of Rome is not just a collection of churches, it is almost a controlling factor in the life of a billion people.
I look at it this way and how I practice my faith. Christ's Message through the Bible is there for me to read and understand. The Church represents the collective leadership of my faith and that is handed down to us. They have, in that collective fashion, the expertise and provide that leadership. Notwithstanding that point, ultimately it is up to me to accept or not accept and the responsibility for that decision is mine and mine alone. Though I might find it difficult or I may disagree with some Church decisions, I must respect them and give them all credence and value - but ultimately it is my right to decide, not theirs. An example, I do not support Gay Marriage nor Abortion but I do not suppport the decision that in the event that a mother's life is in danger that the pregnancy cannot be terminated. That for me, as tragic a situation as that, it is a sacrifice, not a "termination". With all that said, I do not support the ban on contraception as there are many reasons for it, including medical - however I understand the reasons the Church gives and thus it is the individual's responsibility to put important value on that decision.
I go regularly to my Church here in Gibraltar (St Mary's) and I am not alone in how I judge and behave in such matters. The clergy here do not consider me to be a bad Catholic and I give them all the respect that their status deserves.
Oh, just a last matter. As the Trinity is considered One with God, Catholicism is not polythiesm. Most theocratic arguments fall flat in the end because it comes down to pedantic assumptions based on what is clearly a matter of faith. The alternative, which the above arguments seem to become, is a pissing contest.
Just my two-bits worth.
Damien Charles
I noticed that in American blogs that the outdated term "Judeo-Christian" is still used. Could it be because of the Evangelical community or even 9/11?
ReplyDeleteAcademically speaking the term is "Abrahamic". What is the difference? It goes all the way back to 18th century bigotry and colonialism to try and avoid theological links to the developing world and in particular the Arab Muslim world. The Catholic Church was mostly responsible for it but over the last century grew out of that old-world-new-world bais.
Basically the term Judeo-Christian puts an unwarrented exclusion on what is really teachings and traditions based on Abrahamic laws. Since the reality is that all three are Abrahamic Faiths (ie Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and all three share such similarities based on Abrahamic laws (ie the Old Testiment, moneathism, heaven and hell, Adam and Eve, Noah, etc) that the term needs to be more clear.
For those that wish to jump down my neck and say that Islam worships some other God, let me remind you that your view is a minority, unsupported by the major Christian faiths and by almost all Jews. Rejecting Christ's divinity does not disqualify Muslims belief in the same God, in fact linking Christ and the Holy Spirit in unification with God is in technnical terms irrelevant to the point itself. Personally, I suspect such views has more to do with politics, 9/11 and the same reasons why 60 per cent of Southern Republicans still believe Obama is a Muslim - lack of a willingness to bother to aquire the knowledge.
D Charles
Thank you, Damien.
ReplyDeleteAnd with that, I'll again ask Beamish to STFU about religion.
Beamish: Your rantings convince no one. Christ charged Peter to keep his flock, and it's all debatable after that, so take your rabid preaching somewhere else.
This is the last time I will ask you. You have a gift for poisoning whatever forum you infest.
"Judeo-Christian" was invented, I'm sure, as a sop to the Jews, who had been traditionally regarded with opprobrium for centuries -- often with tragic consequences.
ReplyDeleteI, myself, would prefer to refer to The West as "Christendom." After all, Western Civilization developed from the influence of Christianity which gradually became the dominant influence after the fall of the Roman Empire.
The Old Testament of the Christian Bible is supposed to be a history of the Jewish People as well as a testament of their faith. Jesus Christ, Himself a Jew, arrived as a Supreme Gift from God to teach the Jews the error of their ways and to reveal the True Nature of God. They rejected Jesus, and allowed the Romans to crucify Him. Islam emerged hundreds of years after the Resurrection.
Islam may have historical connections to Judaism and Christianity -- both of which are distinctly separate faiths, the hyphenated amalgamation of the two is a modern, liberalized attempt to mollify the Jews for the historic mistreatment they suffered.
Since Islam identifies all non-Muslims as "infidels," who must either be converted or killed, it has considerable resemblance to ancient Judaism as revealed in the Old Testament which is filled with violence and blood lust toward most of the non-Jewish tribes who were regarded as "enemies of Jehovah."
The teachings of Christ, obviously, are intended to advance Civilization beyond primitive, barbaric notions of God-mandated conquest, subjugation and mass murder of "God's enemies."
Despite being a much younger offshoot of Judaism, Islam has much more in common with ancient Judaism than it does with enlightened Christianity.
~ FreeThinke
Beware the Know-It-All -- even if h seems to bolster yoyr own cherished notions. What he "knows" is usually just a reflection of his own adamant refusal to entertain any point of view other than his own.
ReplyDeleteAs usual the Belle of Amherst sums it up brilliantly and with great economy of language:
He preached upon “breadth” till it argued him narrow —
The broad are too broad to define:
And of “truth” until it proclaimed him a liar —
The truth never flaunted a Sign.
Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence
As gold the pyrites would shun.
What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus
To meet so enabled a man!
~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Wondering how that might apply to the discussion? THINK a little.
~ FreeThinke
PS: An adamant refusal to entertain any point of view other than one's own is the perfect definition of "bigotry."
ReplyDelete~ FT
FYI: In case the term puzzled or raised hackles
ReplyDeleteA SOP is a conciliatory or propitiatory bribe, gift, or gesture intended to placate or mollify.
~ FreeThinke
An adamant refusal to entertain any point of view other than one's own is the perfect definition of "bigotry."
ReplyDeleteI have entertained the cherished views of Catholic historical revisionists and found them wanting. It is hardly my fault Roman Catholic polytheists have invested so much of their self-appointed "authority" in religious matters in the ahistorical mythology of the Apostle Peter founding their sect and bestowing supreme ecclesiastical powers upon heirs he never even met.
There are people in this world who also believe a head of cabbage is God. It is not "bigotry" to dismiss their claims either.
Beamish: Take your own ahistorical revisionist mythology BS and cram it where the sun don't shine.
ReplyDeletePlease don't come back until you learn to stick to the topic at hand.
You are a poisonous toad.
beamish: maybe it's time to shake the dust from your sandals and move on.
ReplyDeleteSilverfiddle,
ReplyDeleteYour rantings convince no one. Christ charged Peter to keep his flock, and it's all debatable after that, so take your rabid preaching somewhere else.
Peter went to Babylon, not Rome. None of the Apostles in the Bible deferred to Peter for guidance. The Catholic mythos concerning Peter is historically and Biblically indefensible. Period. Sorry you don't like that. Even if Roman Catholic polytheists could make a credible case that Peter founded their sect, there is nothing in the Bible to support the idea of apostolic succession of authority.
Regardless, I'm not "rabidly preaching." Save for defending my own beliefs against Finntann's and Rick Santorum's actual bigotry, I really don't care if your burning a candle in fervent prayer to Isidore of Seville helps you feel your blogging accomplishes something. Freedom of religion, it's not just for Christians.
Which brings us back on topic. Rick Santorum believes he must become President to make war upon the 232+ Million Americans that do not subcribe to his polytheistic faith. Does this not disturb you?
Allow me to rephrase.
ReplyDeleteHow does the polytheist Rick Santorum intend to use the power of the Presidency to drive "Satan" away from America and reverse his self-concieved perceptions of "Satanic" corruptions of academia, non-Catholic religionists, and the "popular" culture?
Given the gymnastics "social conservatives" have contorted themselves into euphemistically calling torture something else, and the tortures the polytheistic Catholic Church historically inflicted on people they also got into their minds to "drive Satan out of," I think it is a very fair and enlightening question.
There you go, rabidly preaching again...
ReplyDeleteWhatever. My "rabid preaching" doesn't call for warfare against those who do not share my academic and religious appreciation for historical accuracy nor deem them "corrupted by Satan."
ReplyDeleteCan the polytheist Rick Santorum say the same?
Beamish: Look at the thread. You started it.
ReplyDeleteIf you're a gentleman you'll now drop it and take your jihad against polytheists to your own blog.
FT,
ReplyDeleteYou said "Since Islam identifies all non-Muslims as "infidels," who must either be converted or killed,...." .
Actually FT, it does not. Apart from the fact that the word "Infidel" is a Crusader term for non-Christians and only recently used and adopted, Islamic teachings do not say that, only radical Islamists and puritanical Salafi/Wahaabis say it and they are quoting their version of Haddiths, not the Koran.
In fact Koranic references refers to Christians and Jews as "People of the Book" and gives them a set value and credibility, let alone a place in society, thus it is not only illogical but hypocritical to thus demand their conversion of death.
What you may be referring to is the act of Muslim conquerors after the time of Mohammed.
Either way, just to inform you (and others).
D Charles
I don't have a "jihad against polytheists." I have a legitimate concern that Rick Santorum wishes to use the office and powers of the Presidency to wage religious war against libertarians, specifically libertarians who do not share his religion - a religion with a distinct history of violence against its dissenters, particularly Jews and Christians.
ReplyDeleteGiven Rick Santorum's vocal support for the President having the unconstitutional power to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial, or to extra-judicially execute American citizens abroad or on American soil, upping the ante by electing a President who believes he is making war upon Satan himself is putting tools in a zealot's hands that should never be joined. Given Rick Santorum's religion has an undeniable history of persecution and violence against those it deemed "Satanic," I don't think it is a good idea to make him the next Constitution circumventing President, particularly when his faith is more likely to guide him to call a Predator drone airstrike on a kindergarten in Skokie, Illinois than it is to guide him to make a rational argument.
If Catholics were amenable to logic and rationality, perhaps my fears could be abated somewhat. But after 18 centuries of "Death to anyone who points out Peter was never a Pope and the Church of Rome has no authority," I just don't want to venture the unlikely and hope that Rick Santorum is or could become the first rational-minded traditional Catholic to ever exist.
This blog post is not about Santorum. This blog is not about Santorum. You are the one who started ranting and raving about Santorum.
ReplyDeleteGo solve centuries old theological debates at your blog. I and others who frequent here are too smart to get pulled into useless squabbles.
Anon: Yeah. Cotton Mather's got his Papist whip out and he's swingin' it real good!
ReplyDeleteThe Founders wanted men and women to be free to worship -- or not to worship -- as they chose without interference from the government.
ReplyDeleteI doubt very much if it ever occurred to them that the likes of Islam, Eastern Religions and exotic quasi-religious entities such as Voodoo, Wiccan, Snake Worship, and Satanic Cults -- or even Judaism -- would ever become a significant enough factor in this basically Christian society to require legislative attention.
The aggressive legalistic game-playing and twisted interpretations of language -- language perfectly plain to those who wrote it and first served under it -- by perverse, basically hostile and anomalous foreign elements, who arrived late in the game ... has had a deleterious effect on the integrity of our system of governance.
Ou Founding Fathers were not strangers to heated argument, guile and unscrupulous attacks, but basically they were all cut from the same piece of cloth, and that may have been what enabled them to achieve their initial success.
When a foreign form of "religion" attempts what-amounts-to a Hostile Takeover of OUR country, I think it's time to practice some judicious DISCRIMINATION against the insurgent force -- followed by firm REJECTION.
ISLAM is not a RELIGION, it is an INVASION
Muslims do NOT assimilate, they plant FOREIGN COLONIES in other's people's lands.
~ FreeThinke
This blog post is not about Santorum. This blog is not about Santorum. You are the one who started ranting and raving about Santorum.
ReplyDeleteI see. You just linked to a New York Times opinion article entitled "Rick Santorum Isn't Crazy" to bolster some sort of "it is legitimate and constitutional to bring one’s religious values to the public square" argument with the caveat that others in the public square can not legitimately or constitutionally in turn bring their own contrasting or competing views.
So, what do you do with the polytheist Rick Santorum's absurd view that war must be waged against the 232+ Million Americans who, under Satan's alleged warfare have allegedly corrupted academia, all non-Catholic religious institutions, and the popular culture? This is the view Rick Santorum has brought to the public square, after all.
I do not deny Santorum his legitimate and constitutional right to spew such bigoted filth in the public square, no doubt groomed and acquired in a religious setting conspicuously free of Christian influences.
Shoe on the other foot and history as my guide, I do not have doubt that Santorum would deem my views illegitimate, unconstitutional, those of a "poisonous toad," or worse, "Satanic," and seek to use the Presidency as a vehicle to deny my rights and silence my voice. If Santorum's extremist devotion to the absurdity that his particularly belligerent form of syncretic paganism is the one true palliative against "Satan's war on America" in exclusion of actual sects of Christianity he deems are already "corrupted" doesn't concern you, his Catholic hatred of libertarianism ought to.
Given Catholicism's undeniably sadistic treatment of Christians in the past, are we certain we want this Torquemada wannabe affixing a contrived imprimatur upon his totalitarian religious urges if he becomes President?
Should Rick Santorum's offensive and noxious theological flatulence in the public square not be met with derision and scorn? Reminders of history? Questioning of motives? Examinations of the limits of Presidential power to impose Hitlerjugend Ratzinger's allegedly anti-Satanic agenda on academia, non-Catholic religionists, and the popular culture?
No, your post is absolutely about Rick Santorum, Silverfiddle. No one is denying him the right to bring his polytheistic nutbaggery to the public square to lambast actual Christians. But actual Christians have a say as well, as does everyone else.
The article was a jumping off point. Had I known it would spur such an idiotic rant, I would have omitted it.
ReplyDelete" and seek to use the Presidency as a vehicle to deny my rights and silence my voice."
ReplyDeleteAnd a week ago I would have vehemently opposed Santorum in any such attempt, but hell, at this point I'll vote for him just to piss Squeamish and his Westboro Baptist Church off!
Last word on the subject, I promise, there's no point in arguing with an unarmed man ;)
So your post becomes a window-dressing platitude, or perhaps an exercise in conflating the obvious with the profound.
ReplyDeleteExcoriating Rick Santorum's declaration of war on an allegedly spiritually defenseless, Satanically corrupted non-Catholic academia, non-Catholic religious institutions, and non-Catholic popular culture in the public square is just as legitimate and constitutional as Rick Santorum's absurd expressions of his exclusively Catholic bigotry in the public square.
That can be left at that, save perhaps the alarm to be sounded when an adherent of a pagan religion historically hostile to both Christianity and libertarianism enters the public square to condemn it as Satanically corrupted while at the same time positing himself as a credible Presidential candidate self-ostensibly suited to drive "Satan" out of us poor deluded and corrupted Americans.
I'm sure that with all the vainglorious gold-laden ornamentation and ceremonial self-aggrandizement the religion of Catholicism engages in, there's little room for alien, external concepts like Christian humility (not to mention monotheism and historical veracity) but seriously, there is room in the public square also for people who believe gold is something that God intends to pave heavenly streets with to be walked upon, not garishly encrusted around the mansion of an allegedly infallible guy that professes himself to be Christ's proxy on Earth.
Not many people get a paid gig claiming to be the replacement of Jesus, so I'm not knocking Mr. Ratzinger's career successes. And, admittedly, his organization is slowly but surely within the last 20 years willing to finally entertain the idea that the Earth orbits the Sun and not vice versa. Oopsie on all those persecuted and / or killed over the centuries because "Jesus' replacement on Earth" has recieved a Catholic education when all that "vehemently heretical" science stuff was going on outside Rome in the 17th Century. Better slow learners than no learners.
Let's not mess that up with a Presidential candidate hot-fired up to "drive Satan out" of academia. Especially given the academic "views of Satan" as categorized by Catholics over the centuries have largely proven scientifically testable and accurate.
And a week ago I would have vehemently opposed Santorum in any such attempt, but hell, at this point I'll vote for him just to piss Squeamish and his Westboro Baptist Church off!
ReplyDeleteIf you can live with the rejection of rationality requisite of Catholicism, more power to you.
Beamish: Without Catholicism having been instituted by Jesus Christ there wouldn't be any other Christian sects today. Martin Luther is the first one who broke off from the Church and then others followed suit.
ReplyDeleteWhy are you so immature to blame Santorum for liberals disgusting websites that pervert the term Santorum? Oh that's right you're one of those libs who enjoys a lube job so what's your problem with the website?
Peter was the first Pope.
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesare'a Philip'pi, he asked his disciples, "Who do men say that the Son of man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Eli'jah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Beamish stated "Excoriating Rick Santorum's declaration of war on an allegedly spiritually defenseless, Satanically corrupted non-Catholic academia, non-Catholic religious institutions, and non-Catholic popular culture in the public square is just as legitimate and constitutional as Rick Santorum's absurd expressions of his exclusively Catholic bigotry in the public square."
False! He never stated that anything about a war against non-Catholics and non-Catholic institutions. He was talking about liberal secularists having driven any mention of traditional religious beliefs out of certain institutions (mainly colleges) and how many people continue to discriminate against those who hold conservative views, and thus penalizing them in various ways. He's talking about fighting back against the liberal indoctrination camps that universities have become today.
Concerning Peter:
ReplyDeleteI would recommend to Archbeemish Cranmer reading the last chapter of John.
A simple reading of Acts shows Peter taking charge at critical junctures. Of course there were disagreements, but clearly Peter is the leader.
And Also, ArchBeemish Cranmer, you should go preach to your own flock first, since they disagree with you on the founding of the Baptist Church. Maybe your pastor Fred Phelps could help you out.
Without Catholicism having been instituted by Jesus Christ there wouldn't be any other Christian sects today.
ReplyDeleteThis would certainly be news to the Montanists, Donatists, Arianists, and other pre-Catholic early Christians, if not surprising to Jesus Christ himself who never even met Emperor Constantine.
Martin Luther is the first one who broke off from the Church and then others followed suit.
And the early Christian congregations of the 1st and 2nd Centuries that never subsumed or communicated themselves to Roman Catholicism to begin with thus had no reason to "break off" from it are what? Historical inconveniences? Heretics? Satanic warfare on historical academia?
Why are you so immature to blame Santorum for liberals disgusting websites that pervert the term Santorum?
I don't blame Santorum for websites that make a crude joke with his name. Perhaps more fervent prayers for intercession from the Catholic god of the internet, Isidore of Seville, will smash these heretical expressions of free speech. Maybe not.
Oh that's right you're one of those libs who enjoys a lube job so what's your problem with the website?
I don't claim a problem with anything, save for the traditional Catholic rejection of logic and rationality you so aptly exemplify.
And even in that, I support your right to be entertainingly imbecilic as long as you don't injure yourself or others.
Peter was the first Pope.
No, he wasn't. That title of distinction wasn't even adopted from Alexandrian Christians by Catholicism's syncretic ecclessiology until the 6th Century with "Pope" John I.
He [Santorum] never stated that anything about a war against non-Catholics and non-Catholic institutions. He was talking about liberal secularists having driven any mention of traditional religious beliefs out of certain institutions (mainly colleges) and how many people continue to discriminate against those who hold conservative views, and thus penalizing them in various ways. He's talking about fighting back against the liberal indoctrination camps that universities have become today.
You need to listen to what he said again: "The next to fall [after "Satan's" alleged conquest of academia] was the Church... now you say what, wait, the Catholic Church? No! We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic, but that Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic. Sure, the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and a Protestant ethic. Mainstream mainline Protestantism. And of course if we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country - and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it."
This repugnant statement, in the context of his "Satan's war on America" speech, is nothing less than unmitigated Catholic bigotry.
Rick Santorum may have been joining Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in professing America as being Satanically controlled. He make even imagine leftists and liberals to be devils to cast out. But America's 159 Million Protestants would be likely shocked that a Presidential candidate and adherent of a polytheistic sect with absolutely nothing historically or ecclesiologically in common with Christianity whatsoever has written them out of Christendom altogether in his babbling discourse on how Satan has destroyed all American institutions except, of course, the government and politicians like himself.
Again, Rick Santorum is free to believe whatever bizarre belief he wants, and even free to express those bizarre beliefs.
Just as I am free to believe Rick Santorum is a freaking sad sack nutjob deluded by his years within a non-Christian religion to reject humility and embrace bigotry.
A simple reading of Acts shows Peter taking charge at critical junctures. Of course there were disagreements, but clearly Peter is the leader.
ReplyDeleteAn actual reading of Acts finds this not to be the case, as you can not find anywhere in that account where Peter has a command role over the other Apostles or the congregation of Christian believers in Jerusalem.
Also take a look at Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Why is Paul advising a Roman congregation of Christians? Who founded that congregation? Not Peter. His inverted crucifixion is recorded later in the Bible upon his FIRST visit to Rome, and Paul was crucified with him.
So where was Peter? (Hint: 1 Peter 5:13) He was with Marcus, the Apostle that founded the church at Alexandria in Egypt. Later he traveled to Antioch. The Christian congregation at Rome pre-existed Peter's much later visit and execution there.
The Roman Catholic tradition that Peter founded the "Holy See of Rome" and that the "Holy See of Rome" is therefore heirarchically superior over Chritianity as a whole is both historically and Biblically farcical and absurd.
If Peter was the founder of the Roman congregation of Christians and leader of Christianity as a whole, he apparently forgot to inform Paul that his advisory Epistles throughout early Christendom would not be necessary.
I knew no one would sway you. I wrote that in case anyone else was unfortunate enough to stumble upon this thread. Peter clearly took the lead in choosing a new disciple, and Jesus clearly place him in charge of his sheep.
ReplyDeleteI don't get much simpler than that. That other Apostles also wrote and taught takes nothing away from that, and where he went during his life and death don't either.
As I said earlier, the term Pope didn't even come into usage until Peter was long dead.
So keep blabbering now till doomsday. You're really accomplishing a lot!
Two Guys preached:
ReplyDelete"..anti-papist jihadists..."? LOL! That's just silly talk. But it is good to see the Catholicism Cult has such faithful defenders.
Kurt, have you actually read your Catechism of the Catholic Church? I have. There's not a one thing in there that promotes Jesus Christ, but many, many things that support The Holy Roman Catholic Church.
Odd, that. Instead of defending and supporting Christ, the majority of the followers in the Catholicism Cult will defend Catholicism. Think about that. It's totally inappropriate and eerily cultish.
Catholicism is not your friend, Kurt. It cannot save you. Why believe in anything that cannot resurrect you? Culture? Raised in it? Wife makes you be Catholic? Spiritual bondage?
Two Guys: You have obviously not read the catechism. Jesus is mentioned all the time. He is the center of our worship.
ReplyDeleteYou are free to hold your beliefs, but I will stuff you when you belittle mine.
So go on your jihad rants here on this thread, but persist in other non-related threads and you will be zapped. This is not a religious blog
I don't get much simpler than that. That other Apostles also wrote and taught takes nothing away from that, and where he went during his life and death don't either.
ReplyDeleteBut the ideas that Peter founded the Christian congregation at Rome, that the Roman congregation's leader is supreme over leaders of Christian congregations throughout the world, and that Peter can be posthumously named such in Catholicism's self-aggrandizing, self-appointed manner despite the weight of history and Biblical ecclesiology against it makes this belief irrational.
Even that Armenia became the first nation in history to adopt Christianity as its official religion some 25 years before the existence of the Roman Catholic Church argues against the Roman congregation holding sway or command over the Christian world.
The Roman Catholic traditional belief that Peter founded and led their church and was supreme to all other churches in perpetuity because of it all comes from imagination, not reality.
It's no better than those who believe a head of cabbage is God, save perhaps the cabbage-ites never took up warfare to exterminate those that disagreed.
Heck, even the Catholic history of "antipopes" becoming a Roman Catholic "Pope" (Natalius, Hippolytus, Felix II, etc.) and canonized Roman Catholic "Popes" being stripped of their title in their lifetimes or posthumously excommunicated (Novatian, Formosus, etc.) and sometimes decades or centuries later re-integrated into the "official" listings of Papal successors definitely turns the absurd and biblically unsupportable doctrine of apostolic succession from Peter (or anyone, for that matter) into an whimsical feat of historical revisionism, not a definitive lineage of a "church in perpetuity" commisioned by Christ and formed by Peter.
ReplyDeleteWell, maybe not whimsical, since the Roman Catholic religion saw fit to kill people over it.
Not exactly a "gates of Hell cannot prevail against it" sort of organization, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
While I enjoyed the original blog post and certainly agree with silverfiddle's point, I am afraid I must follow the off-topic trajectory, but only because my wife and I were invited to do so. So please excuse this foray into Catholic apologetics, and I promise that if I am asked by silverfiddle to leave I (unlike beamish) will honor the request.
ReplyDeleteI will offer only a few substantive points - beamish has dropped too many anti-Catholic cowpies for me to pick them all up.
First, Peter was the chief apostle. Everyone knows this. As silverfiddle rightly pointed out, not even a superficial reading of the Book of Acts could miss that. Our Lord gave him the keys, His Messianic keys, that is, His authority. They are the keys of the Davidic kingdom. Note Revelation 3:7 - “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of Him who is holy and true, Who holds the key of David. What He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open.” That is the authority that Christ gave to Peter and to Peter alone to exercise in His name (our Lord gave no other disciple or apostle the keys - their binding and loosing authority is the authority they have when they are in union with Peter or his legitimate successor). It is the same authority, same “key”, that God had the prophet Isaiah remove from Shebna, the steward of King Hezekiah, and gave to Eliakim son of Hilkiah, making him the new steward of the house of David (Isaiah 22:15-22). The holder of this "key" has the same binding/loosing opening/shutting authority. It is the final authority that belongs to the divine nature, properly to God alone, as Job observed (12:13-14
"With God are wisdom and might;
He has counsel and understanding.
If He tears down, none can rebuild;
if He shuts a man in, none can open") but which God may and does share with whom He will.
Secondly, Peter was the Bishop of Rome and wrote his first epistle from there. He used Babylon as a code word (1st Peter 5:13). The “Babylon” that Peter went to was Rome. It is a very old code that appears in extra-biblical sources as well (the Sibylline Oracles, the Apocalypse of Baruch, and 4 Esdras. Eusebius Pamphilius, in The Chronicle (A.D. 303) also wrote “It is said that Peter’s first epistle, in which he makes mention of Mark, was composed at Rome itself; and that he himself indicates this, referring to the city figuratively as Babylon.”
Even anti-Catholic bigots know the code: they cite the explicit identification of the seven-hilled city of Rome with Babylon in the Book of Revelation (chapters 17-18) whenever they take to calling the Roman Catholic Church “the Whore of Babylon”. Since beamish can't have failed to have seen the obvious depiction of Petrine authority in the Book of Acts and could not possibly have been ignorant of the old “Whore of Babylon” charge, I find it impossible not to entertain doubts about his (or her) honesty.
In my next comment I will address only one more charge - the polytheism charge against Catholicism based on the doctrine of the communion of saints.
Lastly, regarding the charge that Catholicism is polytheistic because we have recourse to ask for the prayerful intercession of the saints in heaven:
ReplyDelete...Sick Rantorum believes in over 10,000 omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deity "saints" who will hear his prayers for everything from his television set to his toaster oven. The Catholic deity Isidore of Seville, patron of the internet, has thus far proven ineffective against getting Sick Rantorum's name to not lead to some rather disgusting gay websites on Google searches, but I'm sure he's busy keeping the World of Warcraft servers up. I find it beautiful that Catholics are creative enough to create an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deity "saint" for something if they can't take one from a different religion, like Brighid, the Celtic goddess of fire or maybe take a pagan ritual or custom and make it theirs, like eating fish on Freyja's Day.
The biblical support for the Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox and Anglican/Episcopalian, et al) doctrine of the communion of saints, which was also held universally in the early Church and testified to by the Fathers, is copious. In Hebrews 12:1 they are called a "cloud of witnesses" who surround the believer as he runsthe race of faith. In Revelation 6:9, the souls of the martyrs who were slain for their faith in Christ cry out in prayer to God. In Revelation 8:4 we read of the prayers of the saints that go up to God with the smoke of the incense. So we know that the saints are watching us, and that they can and do still pray. So if we ask them to pray for us, that is worship due to God alone? When I ask my wife or my mother to pray with me or for me, am I worshipping them with worship due to God alone? Am I attributing divinity to them? If that were so, then why would there be scriptural support for asking each other for prayer and intercession (James 5:13-16; 1st Timothy 2:1)? Obviously if "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" (James 5:16) then the prayer of one who has already been granted the beatific vision must be very effective indeed! When I ask for the intercession of the saints, I am not attributing to them any power other than the power to pray to God, so any attribution of divinity to the saints would have to be highly qualified in order to make any sense at all, with a qualification that would render the polytheism charge absurd.
So is there any qualified way to attribute divinity to the saints? According to scripture there is:
ReplyDelete"Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires." 2nd Peter 1:4
"we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another" - 2nd Corinthians 2:17-18
"But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name. Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." John 1:12-13
I said, "You are gods, And all of you are sons of the Most High - (Psalm 82:6, cited by our Lord in John 10:34)
Participate in the Divine Nature! We are gods, made sons of God, born of God!
Theosis, the partaking of the elect in the divine nature, is a Christian doctrine. St. Athanasius said it before St. Thomas Aquinas did, and St. Irenaeus of Lyons said it before that: "For the Son of God became man so that men might become gods."
I don't expect beamish to understand this point since he thinks that Arians were Christians. They were not. They were heretics who denied the Trinity and the full divinity of Christ. So obviously we can't expect him to take the side of Arius' chief adversary St. Athanasius on anything. But at least we can know that his usage of the word "Christian" is based on his own private lexicon, with no significant conceptual overlap with any accepted meaning of the word as it is used by everyone else. Thus we can ignore it and him.
Even anti-Catholic bigots know the code: they cite the explicit identification of the seven-hilled city of Rome with Babylon in the Book of Revelation (chapters 17-18) whenever they take to calling the Roman Catholic Church “the Whore of Babylon”. Since beamish can't have failed to have seen the obvious depiction of Petrine authority in the Book of Acts and could not possibly have been ignorant of the old “Whore of Babylon” charge, I find it impossible not to entertain doubts about his (or her) honesty.
ReplyDeleteIt would seem your piecemeal gymnastic reinterpretations even reinvent the meaning of the word "honesty."
If "Babylon" were "code" for "Rome" in 1st Century Christianity, you'd find numerous examples of this usage within documented 1st Century Christian correspondence, not to mention it wouldn't be much of a "code" then or now if everyone knew what it meant.
Secondly, if we're to "decode" that "Babylon = Rome" via Revelation 17 and 18, "bigoted" or not the prophecy of the outcome of unifying church and state expressed there does not bode well for those that believe Roman Catholicism represents THE Christian Church that "the gates of hell cannot prevail against."
No, it is much easier to understand that the "Babylon" mentioned in Revelation is an allegorical reference to the post-Noahidian deluge in which a great tower was built at Babel by united efforts for the intended purpose of escaping God's judgement and ascending into heaven by own's own works (God put an end to that endeavor by confusing language...) The "Babylon" prophecy in Revelation is speaking to another, second attempt at uniting mankind towards elevating themselves above God's judgment.
And it is also easier to understand that the "Babylon" Peter refers to in his 1st Epistle is the actual city of Babylon in northern Egypt near Alexandria, where he was staying with the Apostle Mark who had founded the church there.
There is no "code." It's rather straightforward if you believe history and Biblical ecclessiology is a better source for information on the topic than inconsistent Roman Catholic spin doctoring.
Secondly, if we're to "decode" that "Babylon = Rome" via Revelation 17 and 18, "bigoted" or not the prophecy of the outcome of unifying church and state expressed there does not bode well for those that believe Roman Catholicism represents THE Christian Church that "the gates of hell cannot prevail against."
ReplyDeleteTranslation of the above: I was right - you DO know the code, and use it when it is convenient for you when you want to use it to attack the Catholic Church, and ignore it as if you never heard of it when it is not convenient and would render your arguments dubious. That's why I impugned your honesty.
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteWhen you pray to Isidore of Seville to protect your browser from pop-up ads and computer viruses, do you believe the long dead Isidore of Seville can hear you?
Do you believe the long dead Isidore of Seville can hear your prayer no matter where you are at the same time someone else in the world is beseeching his holy tech support?
Do you believe Isidore of Seville is tasked in the afterlife with protecting the internet and its users from harm and has powers to intercede from the afterlife to help your computer?
If you answered "yes" to all of these questions, you believe Isidore of Seville to be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. You have made a god of Isidore of Seville.
If you believe in the existence of any other gods alongside him, you are a polytheist.
See also Isaiah 38:18; Psalm 6:5; Psalm 115:17; Ecclesiastes 9:10, etc.
Isidore of Seville is dead. He can't hear you, can't pray for you, and sure as heck can't clear your browser cache.
Incidentally, during the apostolic age, coded references to Rome as Babylon referred to the Roman state under the Caesars, who, by the way, claimed the status of divinity and murdered Christians and Jews who refused to render the worship due to them, and not to the Church Christ founded. The Church is the stone (petra!) that God flung at the feet and toes of the statue in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, thus it should be no surprise that it found itself at seated at the center of the world where all roads lead - Rome - when it began to do what the stone in Nebuchadnezzar's dream did. Only the Catholic Church fits that prophetic description. She is the Church Christ founded, and all other Christian ecclesial communions worthy of the name derive their identity from their historical origin in and imperfect continuity with Her.
ReplyDelete"When you pray to Isidore of Seville to protect your browser from pop-up ads and computer viruses, do you believe the long dead Isidore of Seville can hear you?"
ReplyDeleteI have never done that, but if he hears me he does so through the power of God by grace, not his own natural power, thus making him a saint, not a god.
As for whether the saints are "long dead" and therefore can't hear me, you have ignored the scriptural support I have cited for their being able to do that. When you deal with that, I will address your misuse of scripture to deny the simple truth that our Lord affirmed against the Sadducees who believed about Abraham what you believe about Isidore of Seville. Our Lord taught that on the contrary all the holy ones are alive in Him since He is the One who says of Himself truly: "I *AM* (not was) the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" -- and Isidore of Seville! "For He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive." Therefore I say to you beamish in union with our Lord that "you therefore do greatly err." (Mark 12:27)
Secondly, if we're to "decode" that "Babylon = Rome" via Revelation 17 and 18, "bigoted" or not the prophecy of the outcome of unifying church and state expressed there does not bode well for those that believe Roman Catholicism represents THE Christian Church that "the gates of hell cannot prevail against."
ReplyDeleteTranslation of the above: I was right - you DO know the code, and use it when it is convenient for you when you want to use it to attack the Catholic Church, and ignore it as if you never heard of it when it is not convenient and would render your arguments dubious. That's why I impugned your honesty.
My honesty remains unassailed, not withstanding a twit's failure to comprehend the English language. I see the Catholic religion is still adhering to its traditional rejection of reason and rationality in favor of making noise.
I did not bring up the idea that "Babylon = Rome" in Revelation. YOU did, in farcical defense of your idea that Peter was writing in "code" in his 1st Epistle, which I guess is supposed to be the measure of Catholic faith in the boldness of a church the gates of hell allegedly can't prevail against. Peter writing in Rome had to conceal his actual whereabouts from Emperor Nero's mail-reading intelligence services operating in Asia Minor?! My that's vividly... absurd.
I already addressed what "Babylon" in the Book of Revelation refers to. It is not Rome, unless you are willing to entertain the idea that a post-ressurected Jesus himself revealed to John the Revelator that the Roman Catholic Church would merge with government and become a tool of Satan. You seem willing to do so. I am not.
Needless to say, impugning my character and honesty is ALL you've brought to this discussion. Surely you've got more than that.
Needless to say, impugning my character and honesty is ALL you've brought to this discussion. Surely you've got more than that.
ReplyDeleteThis from someone who calls me a twit and casts aspersions on my ability to understand English! The irony must be apparent to anyone who has read my recent comments. I have presented well over a dozen biblically based arguments. Ignoring them doesn't make them go away. You are certainly making a fool of yourself right now, and I would pity you if you weren't such an obnoxious ass. Do yourself a favor and slink away quietly if you can't respond intelligently to the points that I have raised.
SHIT!
ReplyDeleteOur Lord taught that on the contrary all the holy ones are alive in Him since He is the One who says of Himself truly: "I *AM* (not was) the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" -- and Isidore of Seville! "For He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive." Therefore I say to you beamish in union with our Lord that "you therefore do greatly err." (Mark 12:27)
ReplyDeleteMy Lord specifically taught people how to pray (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4) and precisely like all other prayers recorded in that dusty unread book on Catholic coffee tables, none call upon an intercessory dead person (or in the case of Ste. Brighid the Celtic goddess of fire and poetry, a mythological person) to petition God on one's behalf. It's all pretty much skip-the-middleman (or middle-myth) and pray directly to God.
Our Lord never forbade us to ask each other for our prayers, and He never said that we could not address those who have gone before us to be with Him.
ReplyDeleteOur Lord was addressing the Sadducees who denied the resurrection and believed about Abraham what you believe about Isidore of Seville and the other saints. You are wrong, for you err with error of the Sadducees.
Needless to say, impugning my character and honesty is ALL you've brought to this discussion. Surely you've got more than that.
ReplyDeleteThis from someone who calls me a twit and casts aspersions on my ability to understand English!
Intellectual honesty demands I regard you as a twit, particularly in light of your hackneyed attempt to "translate" what I wrote into what you wanted it to read rather that what it actually read. In English. Be that as it may, it is hardly my fault Catholicism discourages rationality.
The irony must be apparent to anyone who has read my recent comments. I have presented well over a dozen biblically based arguments.
None of which bolster the Catholic argument that dead people (and some fictional characters from pagan mythologies) have an afterlife intercessory role between the living and God Himself.
Ignoring them doesn't make them go away. You are certainly making a fool of yourself right now, and I would pity you if you weren't such an obnoxious ass. Do yourself a favor and slink away quietly if you can't respond intelligently to the points that I have raised.
I think you misunderstand what intelligence actually is. You should speak to people outside Catholic circles to familiarize yourself with the concept. Anyway, I'll pass on the favor and respite you offer for me to recant your utter defeat in this debate and await your Catholic torture rack.
beamish,
ReplyDeleteI am going to be ignoring your comments, not because you deserve it, but for the next 8+ hours I have to go earn a living, and that does not involve wasting any of that time with you.
"None of which bolster the Catholic argument that dead people (and some fictional characters from pagan mythologies) have an afterlife intercessory role between the living and God Himself."
ReplyDeleteSo answer the arguments. Give me something interesting to refute when I get home from work. Otherwise you cede them to me. They are out there for all to see, and anyone can see that you have not dared to address them.
Our Lord never forbade us to ask each other for our prayers, and He never said that we could not address those who have gone before us to be with Him.
ReplyDeleteSet aside all the Biblical gymnastics you've so far employed to make Isidore of Seville, yourself, and perhaps me to into "gods," and dust off that book on your coffee table and turn to Exodus 20:3.
The Lord never said we could not have an intecessory "god" between Him and us?
Wow. Just, wow.
Our Lord was addressing the Sadducees who denied the resurrection and believed about Abraham what you believe about Isidore of Seville and the other saints. You are wrong, for you err with error of the Sadducees.
No, I believe the Bible, including John's account in the Book of Revelation of seeing the saints ressurected in Heaven. I also notice that no where in the Bible does anyone pray to anyone but God save for the much-maligned idolators and polytheists and sorcerers. There's even a story in the Bible of Saul consulting a necromancer to speak with the dead prophet Samuel, with much rebuked results.
I don't think you've got a Biblically defensible case for praying to the religion of Catholicism's 10,000+ extra deities as being something the God of Christianity condones.
So answer the arguments. Give me something interesting to refute when I get home from work. Otherwise you cede them to me. They are out there for all to see, and anyone can see that you have not dared to address them.
ReplyDeleteAsked and answered. While it is apparent Catholicism both lacks and discourages an intellectual component, I feel no need to defend myself from desperately flailing mischaracterizations that I share the view of the Saduccees in regards to Abraham or that Psalmist calling people "gods" rescinds Exodus 20:3 to allow Catholics to have 10,000+ deities to put before God.
Perhaps if Catholicism had something in common with Christianity you would not be so hastened to write on topics you seem obviously illiterate of.
You're pumping smoke, Beamish. He answered you and you can't accept it.
ReplyDeleteHe answered my point that Catholics have and pray to 10,000+ gods with a verse from Psalms that claims everyone is a "god," without addressing the prohibition against having gods before God found in Exodus.
ReplyDeleteI already knew Catholics believe in and worship 10,000+ deities in their polytheistic religion. All Kevin has done has cherry-picked a verse from the Psalms to lend support to his idea that Catholicism's gods are in fact actually gods.
If that's not a wholesale concession to my argument, then what is it?
...and how do you square Catholic polytheism with Christian monotheism?
ReplyDelete...and how do you square polytheistic Catholicism's arbitrary appointment of "saints" with the Biblical 1 Corinthians 1:2 that reads that EVERYONE that accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is a "saint." (Hi, I'm St. Beamish, patron of comparative theology, heh)
ReplyDeleteSince my dearly departed grandmother was firmly committed to her Christian faith and thusly (via 1 Cor 1:2) a "saint," is it permissible for polytheistic Catholics to pray to her for intercession with God (particularly in cooking peach cobbler, her specialty), or does she have to be licensed as such by the people pretending to be the successors of the Apostle Peter?
...since via Psalm 82:6 I'm a "god," and via 1 Corinthians 1:2 I'm a "saint," surely Mr. Ratzinger can find time to canonize me so that Catholics may freely worship me while I'm still alive.
ReplyDelete...see also 1 Thessalonians 5:23.
ReplyDeleteAll Christians are "saints." It's not a title arbitrarily awarded by church leaders, any church leaders.
Sanctification comes from Christ, not some yokels in Rome.
..and certainly not yokels in Rome that can't even permanently decide that one of their past Popes is not subject to exhumation and corpse desecration in a future revision of Catholicism's ever-changing hodge-podge ecclesiology.
ReplyDeleteIs te beam-brainish person insane?
ReplyDeletesome don't ever get sick and tired of mean-spirited, relentlessly combative behavior.Responsible disagreement is one thing. Intellectual marauding, piracy and hijacking of someone else's space is something else.
Hee hee hee...
ReplyDeleteThat guy scalded your ass Beamish. He schooled you. Better go read some more Chick comic books...
He quoted you chapter and verse from the Bible, so that is what you are mocking now.
He also cited historical writings. I understand you now. You are obtuse.
But keep typing. You could turn this into the longest and most useless thread in Western Hero history!
Hey Silver,
ReplyDeleteI noticed the one-man religious pissing-contest is still filling in the pages. Does it help your stats? If it does not, you have the choice of killing it off or letting it dribble a bit more.
Whatever you do, I suggest you do not start a thred on a certain Catholic politician....
Cheers
Damien Charles & a schooner of Guinness....or five
God bless you, Damien Charles, or better said since you are a Catholic, may the 45,000,000,000 gods you believe in bless you!
ReplyDeleteI've been to Southern Spain, and the wife and I dream of taking a trip there someday. If we ever make it, I'd love hoisting a Guinness with you.
And yes... Beamish's feverish jihad must be doing wonders for my numbers!
That guy scalded your ass Beamish. He schooled you.
ReplyDeleteNonsense. He was too busy eloquently building my case for me that Catholics believe their canonized saints are gods to even get the "water" hot, much less tepid.
The inability to formulate a rational, Biblically defensible ecclesiological argument does seem to be a uniquely Catholic trait.
Better go read some more Chick comic books...
Chick comics are weird. I'm more of a Denny O'Neil-era Batman fan.
He quoted you chapter and verse from the Bible, so that is what you are mocking now.
No sir, I'm mocking his hackneyed Biblical and historical illiteracy.
He also cited historical writings.
None of which were contemporaneous with the 1st Epistle of Peter. He needed to demonstrate that "Babylon" in the 1st Epistle of Peter was "code" for Rome in the time of Peter, who was excuted in Rome in 67 AD. The Sibylline Oracles are a 4th Century work. Not contemporaneous, nor do they mention either "Babylon" or "Rome" at all. The apocryphal "Apocalypse of Baruch" retroactively "prophesizes" the destruction of the Jewish Temple at Jerusalem some 600 years after the fact (written as it was in the late 7th Century); it also isn't contemporaneous with Peter's 1st Epistle, and also does not encrypt references to Rome under the code-word "Babylon." The apocryphal 4 Esdras was written in the early 3rd Century, some 150 years after the execution of Peter, thus is not contemporaneous nor demonstrative of "Babylon" being "code" for "Rome" in Peter's lifetime. Eusebius' "Chronicon" is a 4th Century work that is also not contemporaneous with Peter's lifetime, nor does it demonstrate that "Babylon" was "code" for Rome in Peter's lifetime (or ever).
As a Catholic, Silverfiddle, you may be easily persuaded by absolute bullshit, but my standard for Kevin is much, much higher.
I understand you now. You are obtuse.
No, I'm a student of history. I can see how that might confuse you.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI can't say I am surprised, let alone disappointed - no substantive engagement with my arguments, just a lame toothless denial of biblically supported theosis, no acknowledgment that asking for prayers is not worship due to God alone, nor that it attributes no divine nature or power to the saints other than the power to pray to God, no acknowledgement that statements to the effect that the saints are "dead" and thus cannot hear our prayers (I guess they do not enjoy the beatific vision either) are total denials of an essential doctrine of Christian faith regarding the relation of those who die in Christ to God. Obviously there can be no genuine dialogue with someone who ignores what I say and only uses selected quotes from my post for the purpose of vanquishing a straw man for the benefit of third party witnesses. It all seems so embarrasingly "Hey-Look-At-Me"-ish. What a vain waste of time! I feel no hesitation about withdrawing from this since I don't think beamish is convincing anyone at all with his pathetic little show. I would feel sorry for him if he weren't such a puffed up self-important little Legend-In-His Own-Mind douchebag.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who thinks Donatist, Montanist, and Arian heretics are Christians but Catholics aren't clearly has no clue what historical Christianity is. I hope no one asks me to stay and continue to school this punk. He's really not worthy of my time.
I can't say I am surprised, let alone disappointed - no substantive engagement with my arguments
ReplyDeleteOh knock it off, you relentlessly imbecilic Catholic dipshit. Take your spanking like a man and like it. Your "argument," so much as it were, was a listing of the titles of texts - the Sybilline Oracles, the Apocalypse of Baruch, etc., absolutely none of which are contemporaneous with Peter nor lend support to the absurd and uniquely Catholic revision that Peter was really in Rome but deceptively encoding his true whereabouts in his first Epistle to the churches in Asia Minor. The substance of your argument is thoroughly bullshit. I may even dare to impugn your knowledge further and say you've never even read the Sybilline Oracles or any other of your name-dropped "sources," otherwise you would have been aware that your use of them to pretend your "Babylon = codeword for Rome" had any merit whatsoever is bullshit. Who fed you that crap? I seriously doubt you came up with it yourself. You certainly didn't check the statement for accuracy.
Obviously there can be no genuine dialogue with someone who ignores what I say
I didn't ignore what you wrote. I utterly refuted it.
Anyone who thinks Donatist, Montanist, and Arian heretics are Christians but Catholics aren't clearly has no clue what historical Christianity is.
Anyone who thinks a distinctly different religion that emerged nearly three centuries AFTER Christianity has the right to declare its predecessors and contemporary rivals "heretics" is too prone to self-delusion and circular reasoning to make any hoped for rational dialogue a logical impossibility.
As I stated before, impugning my honesty and character is ALL you have, amateur.
Go bullshit your huddled fellow Catholics. Come back when you actually have a rational argument.
As for this:
ReplyDeleteno acknowledgment that asking for prayers is not worship due to God alone, nor that it attributes no divine nature or power to the saints other than the power to pray to God
Prayer to saints presumes that the said dead person (or fictional construct, as the pagan Celtic goddess-turned-"saint" Brighid) possesses the qualities of omniscience (to know who you are and what you're yammering about), omnipresence (so you can beseech them regardless of your physical location and simultaneously with someone else beseeching them somewhere else in the world) and omnipotence (to change temporal circumstances or persuade God to do so). You argued from the Psalms a belief that these dead and / or fictional entities are indeed "gods." I agree with your assessment. Catholics are indeed polytheists. Christians, however, are not.
no acknowledgement that statements to the effect that the saints are "dead" and thus cannot hear our prayers (I guess they do not enjoy the beatific vision either) are total denials of an essential doctrine of Christian faith regarding the relation of those who die in Christ to God
I do not deny any essential doctrines of Christianity. We are discussing Catholicism, not Christianity. I realize you've probably been raised to confuse and conflate the two with each other, but really it is not an "essential doctrine" of Christianity whatsoever to believe a dead or fictional character from pagan mythologies can or will launch an interceding appeal to God on your behalf upon request no matter how many iterations of incessantly babbling nonsense your priest prescribed for you to do.
silver fiddle: "But keep typing. You could turn this into the longest and most useless thread in Western history!"
ReplyDeletefixed that for you.
Monomania
ReplyDeleteFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Monomania ... is a single pathological preoccupation in an otherwise sound mind. Emotional monomania is that in which the patient is obsessed with only one emotion or several related to it; intellectual monomania is that which is related to only one kind of delirious idea or ideas. In 1880, monomania was one of the seven recognized categories of mental illness. ...
Monomania may refer to:
Erotomania: Delusion that a particular man or woman is in love with the patient. This can occur without reinforcement or even acquaintanceship with the love object.
Idée fixe: Domination by an overvalued idea, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Kleptomania: Irresistible urge to steal
Paranoia: Delusions of persecution
Pyromania: Impulse to deliberately start fires
Sadistobullimania: Uncontrollable impulse to force one's ideas on others unceasingly
In literature and film
Honoré de Balzac describes monomania in Eugenie Grandet:
"As if to illustrate an observation which applies equally to misers, ambitious men, and others whose lives are controlled by any dominant idea, his affections had fastened upon one special symbol of his passion. The sight of gold, the possession of gold, had become a monomania"
.
Additionally, in Balzac's novel Lucien De Rubempre, the title character is referred to as in a Hallucinatory state similar to that of a monomaniac.
Monomaniacal fear is explored in great depth in M.E. Bradon’s novel, Lady Audley's Secret, through the protagonist Robert Audley, whom the guilty woman accuses of monomania in his relentless attempt to prove her guilt. She describes monomania thus:
ReplyDelete"What is one of the strangest diagnostics of madness—what is the first appalling sign of mental aberration? The mind becomes stationary; the brain stagnates; the even current of reflection is interrupted; the thinking power of the brain resolves itself into a monotone. As the waters of a tideless pool putrefy by reason of their stagnation, the mind becomes turbid and corrupt through lack of action; and the perpetual reflection upon one subject resolves itself into monomania."
In Emily Brinte’s Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is described as a monomaniac, obsessed with the hope of reunion with Cathy in the final chapters of the novel.
In Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Doestoevsky the main character, Raskolnikov is said to be a monomaniac on numerous occasions.
It is said that Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary expressed his hatred of the Bourgeoisie and their bêtise (willful idiocy), that began in his childhood, developed into a kind of monomania.
In a 1993 Outside magazine article about Christopher McCndless that he later expanded into the best-selling book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer summarizes the portrait of Christopher painted by friends, family, and schoolmates thusly:
"McCandless could be generous and caring to a fault, but he had a darker side as well, characterized by monomania, impatience, and unwavering self-absorption, qualities that seemed to intensify throughout his college years."
In Melville’s Moby Dick (1851), Captain Ahab’s monomania is shown in his obsessive quest to kill Moby Dick. The crew's first encounter with the whale, clearly describes Ahab’s monomania:
’But, as in his narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of Ahab's broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished. ... so that far from having lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a thousand-fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon any reasonable object.”
The 19th century writer Edgar Allen Poe would often write tales in which the narrator and protagonist would suffer some form of monomania[citation needed], becoming excessively fixated on an idea, an urge, an object, or a person, often to the point of mental or physical destruction.
ReplyDeletePoe develops themes of monomania in:
1. "Berenice" (about a madman who gets obsessed with the teeth of his cousin and fiancee Berenice)
2. "The Black Cat" (a man fears his cat and kills it, adopts another cat, kills his wife, and is then punished by the cat)
3. "The Fall of the House of Usher" (The main character Usher is obsessed with the fear of death)
4. "The Masque of the Red Death" (a prince fears a terrible disease but finally gets ill from the red death and dies)
5. "The Oval Portrait" (about a painter who is obsessed with painting his wife)
6. "The Tell-Tale Heart" (a madman is obsessed with an elderly man's "vulture eye"
7. "The Man of the Crowd" (the narrator follows an old man wherever he goes)
8. "The Cask of Amontillado" where the narrator is obsessed with wreaking a terrible revenge on Fortunato, himself obsessed with a desire to taste a rare sherry, but whose quest ends with his being imured behind a newly bricked in wall in the cellars of the narrator
In H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, the time traveler says, "To sit among all those unknown things before a puzzle like that is hopeless. That way lies monomania."
See also
▪ Idée fixe (psychology)
▪ Moral insanity
▪ Psychology of Addictive Behaviors
"What is one of the strangest diagnostics of madness—what is the first appalling sign of mental aberration? The mind becomes stationary; the brain stagnates; the even current of reflection is interrupted; the thinking power of the brain resolves itself into a monotone. As the waters of a tideless pool putrefy by reason of their stagnation, the mind becomes turbid and corrupt through lack of action; and the perpetual reflection upon one subject resolves itself into monomania."
ReplyDeleteThe term MORAL INSANITY sums it up perfectly.
What I want to know is, where is the historical evidence Peter went to Babylon? Where in Babylon was he?
ReplyDeleteWe have early church writers stating he was in Rome and referred to it as Babylon, yet Archbeamish Cranmer has offered nothing about his supposed stay in babylon.
Gotta give Beamish credit. He ignores thousands of years of scholarship and firmly declares that he has all the answers! And he's posted his thesis in that most auspicious of places, a comment thread in an obscure blog.
Gotta give you credit Beamish, you are stubbornly averse to facts presented to you. Your pastor Fred Phelps is proud of you.
Here Beamish. This man is a Baptist minister. He rejects the Papacy as you do, but concludes (like most other non-catholic Biblical scholars) that Peter indeed was in Rome.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.biblicalstudies.com/bstudy/miscstudies/peterrome.htm
Better get your whip and go get your own flock in line.
Seien Sie vorsichtig, mein gemuetliches Host, lest you too be sucked down into the whirlpool of Monomaniacal Compulsion.
ReplyDeleteWe'd be lost without you.
~ FT
Das is Wahr, meine freunde.
ReplyDeleteDer Geisteskranker ist urkomisch!
No he isn't.
ReplyDeleteJez,
ReplyDeleteYou appear unusually cryptic today.
Just out of curiosity I wish I could tell what you were talking about and to whom you have addressed your brief remarks?
What have you fixed for Kurt?
And who isn't what?
Sorry if I appear dense.
Hope to hear from you.
~ FreeThinke
Jez: My German is pretty limited and it was first thing in the morning. That was all I could come up with...
ReplyDeleteAnd I do like your fix.
Silver,
ReplyDeleteas you know, speaking to a zealot that an apple is an apple when he believes it to be an orange is a waste of effort. To much indoctrination and acromony, as I have said, becomes like a school yard pissing contest that only in the end leaves a smell of urine on the floor.
As for the rediculous tak that Peter was never in Rome is beyond logic, the historical evidence is there clear enough.
Tertullian wrote numerous references regarding Peter's presence in Rome in "The Demurrer Against the Heretics" (A.D. 200). He not only refered to the actions of Peter and Paul but even confirmed Peter passing on the Church to Linus, Anacletus (also known as Cletus), and then Clement (the first three "Popes").
If that is not enough, Ignatius of Antioch in his "Letter to the Romans" (A.D. 110), as well as it being even more clearly spelled out by Irenaeus, in "Against Heresies" (A.D. 190).
But somehow, there is some agenda amongst evangelicals to demonize anything other then their own interpetations because they like to count "souls saved" - or "born again" or something like that. Anything remotely giving value to being Catholic, or even Muslim in recent times, must be from the Lucifer himself!
Anyhow, even now I have contributed to this. You and your wife are more than welcome, if the weather is good I have boat, we can cruise the harbour drinking a number of dark smooth ales and my wife can prepare a huge paella whilst singing songs to Peter and with enough beers a song or two for Westbro and by then our bladders will even demand a pissing contest!!!
Damien Charles
What I want to know is, where is the historical evidence Peter went to Babylon?
ReplyDeleteIn that dusty book on your coffee table. (1 Peter 5:13)
Where in Babylon was he?
Here.
We have early church writers stating he was in Rome and referred to it as Babylon
No, you have early Catholic writers trying to reinforce their religion's absurdly ahistorical apostolic succession from Peter propaganda by claiming (as Eusebius did) "It is said that Peter’s first epistle, in which he makes mention of Mark, was composed at Rome itself; and that he himself indicates this, referring to the city figuratively as Babylon." This is no better than saying that proof Santa Claus delivers presents at Christmas to all the good little boys and girls is valid because "it is said Santa Claus comes down the chimney on Christmas eve." In his first Epistle, Peter does not "figuratively refer to Rome as Babylon," he claims to be in Babylon WITH Mark (the Apostle that founded the Church at Alexandria). To make the Catholic confabulation "true" you have to place the Apostle Mark in Rome at the time of Peter's first Epistle as well, which is egregiously incompatible with the history of Mark leading the church in Alexandria (in Egypt) and later leaving to accompany Peter in his ministry and travels to Corinth and the churches in Asia Minor and finally to Rome where he was executed around a year after Peter was. Catholic propagandists are so driven to place Peter in Rome founding their religion that they have him nonsensically encrypting his allegedly Roman whereabouts WITH Mark in an epistle to the churches in Asia Minor including greetings from Mark's church in Alexandria. Of course, Alexandrian Christian records of Mark being in Alexandria at this time (before leaving with Peter later to Corinth) do not fit the Catholic narrative so they are ignored. Catholics are ignoring inconvenient early Christian history, not me.
[continued]
yet Archbeamish Cranmer has offered nothing about his supposed stay in babylon.
ReplyDeleteSurely the Protestant Reformation led to an accessible copy of Peter's first Epistle in your own language. Have you tried that dusty book on your coffee table?
Gotta give Beamish credit. He ignores thousands of years of scholarship and firmly declares that he has all the answers!
Kevin's listing of the titles of apocryphal works and self-justifying ahistorical propagandist tomes he's never actually read composed centuries after the death of Peter which contain absolutely no support for Kevin's silly assertion that Peter "encoded" Rome as "Babylon" is not "thousands of years of scholarship." In all likelihood, it only took Kevin ten minutes to type that contextually unmitigatable bullshit. Maybe it took another 30 seconds for you to read it and become ignorantly impressed with it.
Given that the religion of Catholicism is just now within the last 20 years beginning to allow the idea that the Earth orbits the Sun to be entertained alongside their official view that the Sun orbits the Earth, let's just charitably say the Catholic idea of what passes for "scholarship" needs some work. Perhaps Rick Santorum's "Satan" should press harder to get Catholic academia to surrender more ground in its indefectable stupidity and catch up with the rest of us.
And he's posted his thesis in that most auspicious of places, a comment thread in an obscure blog.
Here there be ignorants to educate.
Gotta give you credit Beamish, you are stubbornly averse to facts presented to you. Your pastor Fred Phelps is proud of you.
Fred Phelps is not my pastor, nor is he affiliated with any actual Baptist organizations nor a graduate of any Baptist seminary or Christian theological school.
Your appreciation of hurling insults and mistaking bullshit for "scholarship" would do Hitlerjugend Ratzinger proud, but isn't impressing anyone outside yourself. Even your tag team partner Kevin has fled the arena exposed as a historically and Biblically illiterate boob, a fraudulent knave.
Surely Catholicism doesn't always have to resort to insults and / or violence to impose its bizarre reinterpretations of history and ecclesiology on others. You'd think, at least, that the last 600 years of Catholicism being laughed out of academia would have inspired a more serious effort at scholarship on their part.
Perhaps the world's standards are just too high.
beamish,
ReplyDeleteYour infantile taunts may be working. Silverfiddle has given me the green light to continue, so I might just do that. I think a tally or scoreboard would helpful now. It would discourage either of us from ignoring the other's points and declaring victory prematurely while making it easier for those following the discussion to keep track of what has been addressed, how adequately it was answered, and what was ignored or expressly dismissed as unworthy of reply. I am willing to expend the considerable labor to produce this frank assessment and go over all the arguments objectively and disinterestedly. You would probably be surprised at how critical I can be of my own arguments and charitable I can be to yours if you gave it a chance. What I need from you up front before I go to such trouble to summarize and evaluate what has already been said is an apology for being the first to start with the uncalled for ad hominem attacks and name calling (my impugning of your honesty was not uncalled for - I gave specific reasons for it, and you deserved it, so that will not be apologized for by me). If you can bring yourself to be the first to apologize for your failure to be civil, I will apologize for my response in kind and get to work on the summary, and we can proceed from there on a more Christ-like basis, wit no more name-calling or personal attacks.
How about it, beamish? Do you have enough character to swallow your pride and be the first to take the high road? Are you up to the challenge of conducting yourself in an exemplary Christian way far better than you have up to this point?
Damien Charles,
ReplyDeleteAs for the rediculous tak that Peter was never in Rome is beyond logic, the historical evidence is there clear enough.
I have not argued that "Peter was never in Rome." Clearly he was executed there, his martyrdom is recorded in the Bible.
What is contention is the Catholic confabulation that he was there when he wrote his first Epistle (he wasn't) and that he founded and led the Christian congregation at Rome (which he did not found, as that congregation was there recieving Epistles from Paul well before his arrival). The carelessly fabricated mythos that Peter founded the Church of Rome and thusly that the See of Rome is supreme to all other Christian churches is pure bunk.
If you can bring yourself to be the first to apologize for your failure to be civil, I will apologize for my response in kind and get to work on the summary, and we can proceed from there on a more Christ-like basis, wit no more name-calling or personal attacks.
ReplyDeleteI humbly apologize that my accurate assessment of your rampant imbecility has induced in you a stressful self-evaluation of your meritless indignations.
How about it, beamish? Do you have enough character to swallow your pride and be the first to take the high road?
Still waiting for you to get up here with me.
Are you up to the challenge of conducting yourself in an exemplary Christian way far better than you have up to this point?
I will not tire of making you cry, no.
I do concede to you Kevin, that I am ready and willing to partake in observing any miraculous transfigurations of yourself from a historically and Biblically illiterate nincompoop into someone well-suited to engage with me on the topic of polytheistic Catholicism's bizarre and irrational claim to be an organization founded by the Apostle Peter some 200+ years after his death.
ReplyDeleteSo you won't man up then? Very well, so you have no balls. Maybe that's not your fault - the real possibility that you may be a woman, or at least gender confused, cannot be ruled out by any of what you have written here, or in your crankfiles blog, or your profile. The name, the photo you use, your writing, it is all very gender ambiguous, like Julia Sweeney's Pat charcter from the old 90's Saturday Night Live skit. So it may be a lost cause to urge you to act like a man. But is it so far out of character and beyond your capacity for you to act like a Christian (the real kind, not the bizarre Donatist/Montanist/Arian /Bapist hybrid that you have conjured from your own imagination)?? If so, you have finally succeeded at disappointing me.
ReplyDelete"I do concede to you Kevin, that I am ready and willing to partake in observing any miraculo"... blah blah blah (omitting blithering idiocy)
ReplyDeleteYou know what you have to do to make that happen.
The historically puerile and homoerotic Catholic obsession with male genitalia being already a given factor, I'll just assert here, again, that ALL you have is insults and bluster. The last 12 hours do not appear to improved your command and apprehension of history or Christian literature, nor freed you from Catholic prohibitions from being rational.
ReplyDeleteI can hardly express disappointment at your meeting my pre-existing expectations, Kevin.
Perhaps I should be canonized as a Catholic "saint" god for my accurate prophecies of your utter failures, and worshipped thusly.
You may print copies of my Blogger avatar to carry in your pocket as needed.
Suspicion confirmed. Have a nice life, Pat.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget to report to your priest for further molestation.
ReplyDeleteWhile you're there confessing through the glory hole, don't forget to ask him about St. Beamish.
"Don't forget to report to your priest for further molestation."
ReplyDeleteWhoah! I think we may have gotten to the root of your insane rabid mouth-foaming hatred of all things Catholic as well as the sexual confusion that is clearly at the root of your gender ambiguity. So that's how it all started with you! I am actually starting to feel a little bit sorry for you, Pat. I think I will leave you alone now.
Poor guy...or gal...whatever.
Or you could be honest with yourself and others here, and admit that you're tossing insults because that's all your historical and Biblical illiteracy leaves in your arsenal.
ReplyDeleteGo argue with your "sedevacantist" enemies. They're only half as wrong as you, believing there was a Catholic seat of apostolic succession through Peter to "vacate" in the first place.
Again, I don't hate "all things Catholic." I just see no reason to confuse or conflate their religion with Christianity.
ReplyDeleteIf the writings of the early church fathers won't convince Beamish, nothing will.
ReplyDeleteThose writings cited by Kevin are the basis for theological study of protestants and Catholics alike.
Well, at least we got Beamish to admit Peter was in Rome, that's a start...
And Beamish, lest you bring up "The Bible doesn't say so" I'll spare the lecture in logic on the fallacy of that. The Bible never calls itself "The Bible" either, and there are many things about the early church that we know only through early writings, not the Bible.
ReplyDeleteLook at all the crap you have churned out, and how many people have you convinced?
I'd say you've repulsed people from wanting to waste their time listening to you. That's what a lack of charity does.
You mentioned St. Paul alot, you've read The Acts of the Apostles, but you apparently learned nothing from him about debating with others.
You may want to read 1 Corinthians Chapter 13:
1Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
If the writings of the early church fathers won't convince Beamish, nothing will.
ReplyDeleteSave for Eusebius, Kevin hasn't mentioned anyone considered any "early church father," and even in that context he failed to show the word "Babylon" was ever in 1st Century Christian usage a coded reference to "Rome." Added to his listings of the titles of apocryphal works written centuries after Peter's death that also do not reveal the word "Babylon" was ever in 1st Century Christian usage a coded reference to "Rome," it's a pretty solid conclusion that Kevin is full of shit.
Those writings cited by Kevin are the basis for theological study of protestants and Catholics alike.
Yet none of those cited by Kevin prove or even touch upon the subject of the absurd confabulation Kevin made that "Babylon" was code for "Rome" in Peter's time or his Epistle.
Well, at least we got Beamish to admit Peter was in Rome, that's a start...
The impenetrably obtuse manner in which polytheistic Catholics boorishly immunize themselves from speaking rationally when debating actual Christians never ceases to humor me. It's as if you all adamantly refuse to be considered intelligent.
Be that as it may, my argument was never a denial that Peter went to Rome (he did eventually, and was executed there) but rather a denial that Peter himself founded the Roman Catholic Church (or even an apostolic successional order there) from the Christian congregation in Rome that existed well prior to his arrival.
You have three problems.
1.) Proving the doctrine of apostolic succession has a Biblical basis whatsoever.
2.) Proving Peter founded the Roman Catholic Church and led it as Pope.
3.) That Hitlerjugend Ratzinger fits the Biblical qualifications to be known as a Apostle, proper or successional.
You're going to have an epic failure with #1 and #2. #3 is self-refuting in its preposterousness.
I have no problems because you are full of it. The scholarly historical case for all three of your points are out there, libraries full.
ReplyDeleteYou are also full of it about Babylon as code for Rome. Read that piece by the Baptist pastor I provided you. It's an accepted theory by biblical scholars.
You're willfully ignorant, but keep typing, I need this thread to get over 200 comments to break the Western Hero record.
I'd say you've repulsed people from wanting to waste their time listening to you. That's what a lack of charity does.
ReplyDeleteI apologize that I am not "charitable" enough to entertain Kevin's uniquely and typically Catholic homoerotic contemplations on the shape and manner of my genitalia. Frankly it's admirable that the Catholic Church was first to create a jobs program for homosexuals.
I though we would instead engage in an honest dialogue on the stark and irreconciliable differences between the monotheistic religion of Christianity and the polytheistic religion of Catholicism, beginning of course with the absurd notion that Peter founded the Catholic religion some 200+ years after his death.
I have no problems because you are full of it.
ReplyDeleteOne would think someone drenched in Catholic mutterings of Latin would have come across the definition of an ad hominem fallacy by now.
The scholarly historical case for all three of your points are out there, libraries full.
Yet the doctrine of apostolic sucession remains contestable even among denominations that proclaim it for themselves and not others. Yet Peter was imprisoned and executed at Rome during his first and only visit with the extant Christian congregation he did not found. Yet Hitlerjugend Ratzinger is not an eyewitness of Jesus' ressurection, nor has he performed any miracles in the Holy Spirit.
Man that book on your coffee table sure is dusty.
You are also full of it about Babylon as code for Rome. Read that piece by the Baptist pastor I provided you. It's an accepted theory by biblical scholars.
Why don't you read it first? The second sentence there is "The focus of this study is not to determine whether or not Peter was the first pope or bishop of the Roman church; this is assumed to be in error."
I have never questioned that Peter was ever in Rome, so your link was pointless. Of course Peter was in Rome when was executed there.
But he was, as he wrote, in Babylon, Egypt near Alexandria with the Apostle Mark, founder of the Church of Alexandria, when he wrote his first Epistle.
You're willfully ignorant, but keep typing, I need this thread to get over 200 comments to break the Western Hero record.
I'm certain your reading comprehension failures and subsequent Catholic needs to demonstrate a lack of rationality and display a penchant for intellectual dishonesty will get you there as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, I'll just keep slapping you fools back to the drawing board.
Beamish,
ReplyDeleteIt is clear that you are not interested in a debate based upon intelligence, candor and goodwill. You start by poisoning the water, you assert conclusions that do not logically follow, and you discount all sources except your own.
You are a bombthrower, but your bombs don't go boom, they just fizzle and stink, emiting noxious contaminants.
You claim to be a Baptist, but you reject scholarship that Baptist theologians base their work upon.
But keep typing, I need to break that record and we all need the laugh!
It is clear that you are not interested in a debate based upon intelligence, candor and goodwill.
ReplyDeleteSays the illiterate Catholic who desperately needs my argument to be "Peter was never in Rome" instead of, you know, addressing my actual argument that Peter wrote his 1st Epistle from Babylon, Egypt and did not found the Christian congregation in Rome he visited later. You know, the Christian congregation in Rome that Paul wrote his Epistle to, the Christian congregation that existed some years before Paul and Peter first went there.
You start by poisoning the water, you assert conclusions that do not logically follow, and you discount all sources except your own.
I discount sources that are irrelevant or otherwise do not make the case they are claimed to allegedly make. Kevin's "sources," the Sybilline Oracles and Apocalypse of Baruch for example, do not make the case for his "Babylon = Rome" absurdity. He may as well have cited the 1972 Dodge Challenger Owner's Manual in passing, for it too lacks support for his absurdity.
My sources are the New Testament texts themselves. Peter claimed to be in "Babylon" with Mark when he wrote his 1st Epistle. Mark was the founder of the Church of Alexandria, and there is much historical and ecclesiological documentation dating back to this time that confirms that Peter came to Alexandria, and Mark accompanied him to Corinth and Asia Minor before heading to Rome. Paul's Epistle to the Romans was written to a Roman congregation of Christians that neither he nor Peter had met with. They later did, and were executed there. Christianity was being practiced in Rome long before Peter or Paul got there. Peter did not found this congregation. Peter was not the "first Pope." This Roman congregation does not have an apostolic sucessional claim from Peter even if the doctrine of apostolic succession itself was not dubious bunk. QED.
You claim to be a Baptist, but you reject scholarship that Baptist theologians base their work upon.
There are no Baptist theologians that subscribe to the ludricrous doctrine of apostolic succession.
There are no Baptist theologians that subscribe to the ludricrous Catholic mythology that Peter founded the Christian congregation at Rome.
There are no Baptist theologians that subscribe to the bizarre retroactive appointment of the Apostle Peter as Catholicism's "first Pope."
There are no Baptist theologians that subscribe to the efficacy of Catholicism's polytheistic rituals.
Now, if we can turn our attention away from your clownish attempts at misdirection and address the clear distinguishing differences between the religion of Christianity and the religion of Catholicism, you will finally be actively participating in a rational discussion.
That is, if rationality is not still forbidden to Catholics. I'm pretty sure you're safe from Hitlerjugend Ratzinger's still open Office of the Inquisition here in America, but you can use a psuedonym if you're not.
Beamish,
ReplyDeleteJesus charged Peter to tend his flock, and he did so. That Leadership passed from him to others after he died.
Christ's church grew and became more formal as time went on, and so it goes down to today.
That's the story, I am not a scholar and cannot "prove" it beyond what has been written down.
This belief is based upon The Bible, History and early church writings.
I know you disagree.
Now, tell us what you believe.
I know you don't care about these sources, but I put them here in case some poor soul stumbles into this foolishness...
So, what do you allege?
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03449a.htm
http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=5358
Okay, rolls eyes, here we go again.
ReplyDeleteFirst:
The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you - It will be seen at once that much of this is supplied by our translators; the words "church that is" not being in the original.
The Greek is, ἡ ἐν Βαβυλῶνι συνεκλεκτὴ hē en Babulōni suneklektē. Only the Arabic, Syriac, and Vulgate supply the word 'church', which has been carried over into the English translations.
This interpretation seems to be confirmed by the word rendered "elected together with" - συνεκλεκτὴ suneklektē. This word would be properly used in reference to one individual if writing to another individual, but would hardly be appropriate as applied to an individual addressing a church.
Barnes Notes on the Bible
"The church" The word is not in the Greek, but is supplied with the feminine definite article ἡ. There is, however, a difference of opinion as to the meaning of this feminine article. Some suppose a reference to Peter's own wife; others, to some prominent Christian woman in the church.
Vincent's Word Studies
The church that is at Babylon. She that is in Babylon (Revised Version). The word church is not in the Greek. Peter probably referred to his wife. The salutations are from individuals.
People's New Testament
"She that is elected together with you in Babylon," namely, Peter's wife, whom he led about with him in his missionary journeys.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
So what we have is:
She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark.
NIV
She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings
English Standard Version
She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you greetings.
New American Standard
She that is in Babylon, elect together with you , saluteth you;
American Standard
She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, greets you;
World English Bible
So, whoever is in Babylon, it obviously isn't Peter!
Perhaps several examples will help illuminate the Catholic relationship with Saints.
ReplyDeleteAnd since tomorrow is the 17th:
God our Father, you sent Saint Patrick to preach your glory to the people of Ireland. By the help of his prayers, may all Christians proclaim your love to all men. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Prayer to Saint Anne:
Saint Anne, the reason for your holiness
is your closeness to God.
You are the privileged one
who has been chosen to be the mother of the Mother of God.
Dearest Saint Anne,
pray for me and for all my fellowmen. Have speical prayers and blessings for the sick and affliced, for the hungry and needy.
Prayer to St. Dymphna
You are celebrated St. Dymphna, for your goodness to others. Both in your lifetime, and even more in the ages since, you have again and again demonstrated your concern for those who are mentally disturbed or emotionally troubled. Kindly secure for me, then, some measure of your own serene love, and ask our Lord to give us a share in His life and boundless charity. Amen.
Prayer to St. Martin de Porres
To you Saint Martin de Porres we prayerfully lift up our hearts filled with serene confidence and devotion. Mindful of your unbounded and helpful charity to all levels of society and also of your meekness and humility of heart, we offer our petitions to you. Pour out upon our families the precious gifts of your solicitous and generous intercession; show to the people of every race and every color the paths of unity and of justice; implore from our Father in heaven the coming of his kingdom, so that through mu tual benevolence in God men may increase the fruits of grace and merit the rewards of eternal life. Amen.
Judge for yourselves.
When you walk through a storm
ReplyDeleteKeep you head up high,
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of the storm
Is a Golden Sky
And the sweet silver sound of a lark.
Walk on through the wind;
Walk on through the rain;
Though your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on. Walk on with hope in your heart,
And you'll never walk alone.
You'll never walk alone.
~ Oscar Hammerstein, II
Submitted by FreeThinke
Now, tell us what you believe.
ReplyDeleteI'll use an old "Sunday School" acrostic that spells out "BAPTISTS." All of these are intertwining, mutually complimenting beliefs.
Biblical authority - As a Baptist, I believe the text of the Bible is the final authority on matters of Christian faith. If a church leader, council, tradition, and / or ecclesiology claims something contrary or contradicting what is clearly written in the Bible, that church leader, council, tradition, and / or ecclesiology is simply wrong. Period. End of story. If you have to leave the Bible to make a case for your Christian religious beliefs, you're not Biblically grounded, and likely outside Christianity. (2nd Timothy 3:16-17; 1st Peter 1:23-25)
Autonomy of local congregations - I believe in the autonomy of local congregations, free to govern itself and manage their own affairs within guidelines as strictly laid out in the Bible. We have the Bible. We don't need a hierarchical organization going to an overseer in Rome or Timbuktu or Washington DC or wherever to tell us what it quite clearly and plainly means. Given the violent persecutions of Christianity by the Romans and continued even after the official Roman Pontifex Maximus included Jesus and other Biblical figures into its ever-growing polytheistic pantheon up until just a few centuries ago over religious doctrine dictated by a governing authority, it is perhaps this tenet of Baptist belief and ecclessiology which drives the doctrine of seperation of church and state which Baptists also introduced into Western civilization.
Priesthood of believers - I believe in the priesthood of Christian believers. There is nothing between me and God. No intercessory "saints" or intermediate heirarchies are necessary for me to pray and fellowship with God or God to act through to communicate or fellowship with me. If you can't find God in the world, you sure as hell won't find Him in a building with a steeple. (1st Timothy 2:5; 1st Peter 2:5-9)
Two ordinances - I believe that there are only two things ordained as acts to be carried out by Christian believers. 1.) Baptism (full immersion) as a public testimony and confession of faith symbolizing the salvation and ressurection that comes from God through his Son. And 2.) The Lord's Supper (Communion) the partaking of unleavened bread and wine (or grape juice, as some abstenant / prohibitionist Baptists have it) in memory of Christ's sacrifice for our sins. Neither of these acts are "necessary" for salvation, they are not "sacraments" (as there are no works that can make a sinner worthy of Heaven anyway) They are simply symbolic demonstrations of Christian faith, both with evangelical meanings that of course can be shared in witness to non-believers. (Acts 8:36-37; 1st Corinthians 11:23-31)
Individual freedom of will and soul - I believe in individual free will. I freely chose to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and the blessings God has offered to EVERYONE that does so. I was not destined or pre-ordained or elected to do so. My freedom, my choice, my testimony, my salvation. I answer to God for my choices, not a church, and certainly not a government-backed compulsory Catholic Inquisition torture rack. I am going to Heaven because I chose to accept God's grace and offered forgiveness through Jesus. There is no other way to get to Heaven in the Christian faith. (Matthew 16:27; 2 Peter 3:9)
[continued]
Seperation of Church and State - As I mentioned before, this is one of the huge defining characteristics of Baptists, given our history and that of other Christian sects of being persecuted by the unholy marriage of church and state under the alien religion of Catholicism for over 18 centuries. Separation of church and state is a doctrine thoroughly Baptist in origin in its influence on Western civilization, but it too is rooted in the Bible. We do not want to rule the world, we do not want the world to rule us. (Acts 5:29; Romans 13 - the whole chapter)
ReplyDeleteTwo Officers - I believe there are only two positions of proper church congregational leadership - Pastor and Deacon. "Elder" and "Bishop" are interchangeble terms in the Bible that both equate to "Pastor." A Deacon is simply an assistant to a Pastor. Both Pastors and Deacons are elected by the congregations they serve (which makes the dubious doctrine of "apostolic succession" as moot as it is biblically indefensible). Like the New Testament 1st Century Christian congregations they theologically descend from, Baptist churches are egalitarian, not heirarchical. Ironically to most, the lowest ranking position one can have in a true Baptist church is Pastor. The congregation hires and / or fires the Pastor. The Pastor serves the needs of the congregation. The Deacons assist him (or her) in this role. Believing the Bible is complete and enough, we don't need a "Pope" creating and retracting new doctrines on the fly. You shouldn't be kissing the Pope's ring, he should be washing your feet. (1st Timothy 3:2-13)
Salvation by grace through Faith - I believe there is nothing anyone can do to redeem themselves from sin. Salvation comes through accepting the gift of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. Period. Nothing else need be done. Nothing else can be done. How can you top the Son of God dying for you? We are saved by His grace, not by our works, sorry, Catholics. (John 3:16; Ephesians 2:8-9)
These are my Christian / Baptist beliefs in a nutshell, and you can see how they run counter to the religion of Catholicism in all aspects. Hopefully you can use these to deny the claims of being Baptist by idiots like Fred Phelps. We may not have a centrally planned "church government" outside the Bible, but the Bible is all we need to dismiss Fred Phelps as both Christian and Baptist.
Thank you for the explanation.
ReplyDeleteSo how do you explain going to Church on Sunday instead of the Sabbath?
Do you celebrate Easter?
Fintann,
ReplyDeleteSurely you don't believe Peter was claiming to be in his wife with Mark in 1 Peter 5:13 LOL
Who was the first Baptist, and how did this religion propagate itself? Who were the early personalities, and what were their writings, or the historical writings that tell us this is so?
ReplyDeleteWhat did the early Church do before it had the New Testament?
Pat, you had me feeling sorry for you when it became tragically clear why you have been behaving the way you do. I was ready to cede this area of cyberspace to you and let you rant and rave all you wished about Catholicism. But how can I do that if you keep attacking me personally? Look, I'm sorry about what Father McFeeley did to you, but I am not going to let you work out your anger and sexual self-loathing at my personal expense.
ReplyDelete"he failed to show the word 'Babylon' was ever in 1st Century Christian usage a coded reference to "Rome."
I did mention the Book of Revelation. That's a 1st Century Christian work. We are back again to the very reason I first began to suspect that you, "beamish", were, as you colorfully put it, full of shit. You are doing it again - pretending to be ignorant of Revelation 17-18, and pretending that I did not mention it. No one is convinced that you are that ignorant, stupid or forgetful, so you out yourself as the kind of liar who would rather be thought of as a mentally deranged ignoramus and a blithering idiot than as the bitterly angry, sexually wounded victim that you are. Sorry, Pat, but no one is buying your act. You have read the Book of Revelation in which it is fairly clear that Mystery Babylon is pagan Rome. We all know you have. Everyone reading this also knows that I already brought up the Book of Revelation. You can't be hoping to convince anyone who can actually read this thread, so what is this sad sorry little display for? Who is it benefiting? Why not give it up and go go get the professional help you need?