tell me your reason
- Thread starter Knife
- Start date
You keep claiming faith is (or provides) knowledge, but by the very definition of faith, it is not. Faith is accepting something, and believing it without evidence of it, and therefore without knowledge. You claim it as knowledge because it appeals to you emotionally, and cannot accept that it's not true. I think you believe you couldn't deal with it if it weren't true. What you need is emotional maturity.
You want to believe what satisfies your emotional need, and you want to believe that that which does is true.
Your point?
Leo Volont
Registered Senior Member
Alpha said:
Yes, some of the silly Early Church Fathers -- Paulists one and all -- defined Faith, as you do, as being necessarily irrational... even anti-rational. However, they used such definitions when they knew they were straying into nonsense but wished to keep going anyway. Before they started blathering sheer stupidity, 'Faith' was not considered to be necessarily opposed to the rational.
We can see in the Story of Doubting Thomas that Christ was not opposed to proofs and demonstrations. Thomas went on to write a Gospel, and one of the points he made was that Spirituality had to be experienced and demonstrated (which is why the idiotic Church Fathers who came later rejected his canon).
Leo Volont said:
I would think that having a belief, and basing an entire life on something that is mere speculation would always be considered anti-rational. At least I do.
Leo Volont said:
Most of the stories or parables of Jesus were complete nonsense in the rational sense, in that they make no sense what-so-ever. Rationally believing that someone, a human, could raise somone from the dead, heal their blindness with a touch, or even raise themself from the dead is pure nonsense. Therefore having 'faith' in these things should have always been considered irrational.
Leo Volont said:
I may be wrong, but from what I understand, the gospel of Thomas was rejected because of his de-emphization of coming to God through Christ. Thomas said that through knowing yourself you came closer to God, and to know yourself, it helps to follow the teachings of Jesus. Thomas was ejected from the canon because his writings were considered heretical. It was considered heretical because it gave the church less control of the people, see where this is going?
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Leo Volont
Registered Senior Member
altec said:
What happened to Empiricism? Modern Science has returned to Aristotle! We have Miracles well into the Modern Era. They have been Documented. To deny that they are happening is what becomes 'irrational'.
Leo Volont said:
May I ask you to point me to some of this 'documentation'?
Also what is considered a miracle? I am almost certain that things of the caliber I mentioned have not been recorded since Jesus' time, sincd we now know that none of those things are physically possible.
Leo Volont
Registered Senior Member
altec said:
Go into any Catholic Bookstore and pick up books regarding Major Saints of the Historical Period. Flip to the back and look at the sources.
The one thing most skeptics do not consider is that the Catholic Church is theologically biased against its own Saints and any new Divine Revelations. The Council of Nicea proposed to put a lid on all Truth (just as the Muslims wanted to end all complications by declaring Mohammet the 'Last' Prophet). So when the Vatican investigates its own Saints and Miracles, it is really their goal to toss them out. From their viewpoint, they already know the Truth and do not need any new Saints or Miracles. Yet when they find the evidence overwhelming, they concede to it (not like some Western Governments who stalwartly insist on denying anything not in their interest to recognize). So, anyway, most documentation is in the Vatican Libraries.
But some of the Artifacts are available. Anybody can go and see the incorrupt bodies of the Saints that are put on display. You can visit the Artifact of Our Lady of Guadelupe -- it is on open display.
Non-Catholic Saints and Miracles are written of. Yes, one encounters stories which seem exaggerated, but then one must look at the sheer volume of the anecdotal evidence.
Science easily dismisses one implausible story as a hoax, but then dismisses the next thousand on the grounds that if it is possible that one story is a fraud then the next thousand stories can possibly be frauds also.
Miracles are miracles. At Lourdes the team of Medical Experts will not even look at a case unless it involved a well-documented Terminal Illness where death was expected to be immanent. The cure would be expected to be total, and the case would be re-evaluated once each year for several years to affirm that the Cure was total and lasting.
Miracles of the physically impossible include levitation, flying, walking on or skipping over large bodies of water, making large immovable objects weightless, changing the dimensions of large objects (Saint Francis of Paolo would saw lumber when it was too long, but then he would 'stretch' it back if it were cut too short).
Then we have the Psychic Miracles -- having a collective knowledge available. Many Saints established their reputations by being able to sit a pilgrim down and telling them their life story -- including shameful details they've never told anybody.
Many of the things that you seem to be claiming as miracles may be documented, but how do you propose that we prove thier accuracy? Go to Christian (not just Christian, but Roman Catholic) texts, and take what they say for face value? I'm sorry to say it, since you seem to be heavily rooted in Roman Catholicism, but the Roman Catholics are the sect that I would ever trust the least. Everything that they have done in the name of religion, God, Christianity, etc... has their own agenda tied on (the crusades, the editing of the canon, confessions, etc...). Sure the Roman Catholics wants the citizens to believe that there are still saints that can perform miracles that are beyond our scope of imagination, they want all of the Roman Catholics to continue to come back!
I guess I will have to go and find some examples of this documentation on the internet or through other sources, since I sure as hell won't be going to a catholic bookstore to look for references.
I guess I will have to go and find some examples of this documentation on the internet or through other sources, since I sure as hell won't be going to a catholic bookstore to look for references.
Leo Volont
Registered Senior Member
Godless said:Welcome to sci-fi. LOL..
No one can convince you of your convictions, only you should choose a creed, or lack of one, my name clearly states my position.
Godless.
Inanimate objects cannot be convinced. Sentient beings, while they are open to impression, can be convinced.
For instance, Portugal in 1917 was in the throes of a Secular Anti-Clerical Anti-Catholic Revolution. After six months of Appearances of the Blessed Virgin, culminating the the Miracle of the Sun (the most spectacular Miracle in Human History) the nation became, again, securely Catholic.
The a very well-known Atheist in Enlightenment Paris experienced an Apparition of the Virgin Mary and became a Priest, despite that he was ethnically Jewish.
People can be influenced by their experience and can change their minds all the time.
Leo Volont
Registered Senior Member
altec said:
If accuracy is a problem then just take overwhelming instances. Saint Vincent Ferrer was known to perform thousands of Miracles a day. It was said of him that it would be a Miracle for him to go a day without a Miracle. This was 15th Century Europe -- well out of the Dark Ages. Even if the shelves full of documentation were created as a huge fraud on history, still, we have the de facto reality that the Regions he preached in stayed staunchly Catholic while the rest of Europe was grumbling about Indulgences.
Leo Volont said:
Miracle: An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God: “Miracles are spontaneous, they cannot be summoned, but come of themselves” (Katherine Anne Porter).
Ok So Saint Vincent performed thousands of 'miracles' a day in the fifth century. That should tell us something :bugeye:. According to the definition a miracle cannot be summoned by a person, it is spontaneous, or the work of God. So God must have really liked this fellow, or he was calling things that were not understood at the time 'miracles'.
My main question would be what these micales were. I mean was he doing something that the people of the fifth century had simply never fathomed before, and so it must have been a miracle?
I am also not saying that these things are necessarily fraud, but that we have no way to actually that these events were actually miracles. Ok, so people were finding ways to amaze people...they weren't bringing others back from the dead, they weren't healing blindness with a touch, they were not turning water to wine, they simply were not doing the things that we would still consider a miracle. So who is to say that they were doing miracles?
Back to the topic at hand: I do not have a faith is any God/Gods, and there is a great deal of reason behind it. There are many emotional reasons I do not find solace in a God or Gods, and I feel no need to. I also have done research on many types of religion (including attending a Christian High School), but have not found any of it to be logical or relevent to me in my daily life.
Religion is something for the individual. If it means nothing to you, leave it. If you feel like you need it to govern the way that you live and your moral code, then use it. I personally dont feel the need for this kind of influence in my life, so I left it.
Best of wishes.
Religion is something for the individual. If it means nothing to you, leave it. If you feel like you need it to govern the way that you live and your moral code, then use it. I personally dont feel the need for this kind of influence in my life, so I left it.
Best of wishes.
Leo Volont
Registered Senior Member
altec said:
So Catherine Anne Porter supposes that Miracles cannot be summoned. What does this say about Saint Vincent Ferrer who went from town to town and summoned miracles on schedule. How about Elijah who summoned a miracle to show up the 400 Priests of Bale who, yes, could NOT summon miracles and thus lost their challenge. Every first magnitude Saint can summon miracles. Catherine Anne Porter must be a protestant and uses her argument to explain why the amoral and rebellious protestants have no miracles at all, let alone being able to summon them.
Vincent Ferrer was 15th Century. And yes, he knew nothing of Catherine Anne Porter and so didn't know that he was not able to summon miracles. The Miracles were raising the dead, healing, multiplying food, flying... etc. One time a woman went totally beserk and killed her son, cut him up into roasts and served him to her husband, his father, in a stew. The town found out and everyone, of course, was shocked and appalled. Saint Vincent Ferrer was horrified and refuced to let the action stand. He came to the house and having nothing but one cut of meat left of the young man, brought him entirely back to life.
Saint Francis of Paolo used to bring things back to life. He insisted on being the strictest vegetarian, but people often thought it was okay to serve him fish for dinner. So he would routinely bring roasted and headless fish back to life. On time some workmen eat his pet lamb and threw the bones in a brick kiln. The Saint asked about the lamb and when told the bones were in the oven nonchalantly walked up to the flaming furnace, opened the door and yelled "Martinello! Martinello! Jump out of there before you get burnt". and the live lamb jumped out of the flaming kiln with not even a singe mark on its wool -- and this after the workman ate it for lunch.
Saint Francis's Bishop told him not to show off but only use miracles for true emergencies. A workman fell off the Church steeple while trying to set the clock. Francis frooze him in the air a hundred feet above the ground and went and called on the Bishop to ask if saving the workman from his fall qualified as a 'true emergency'. Such miracles explain the huge growth of Francis of Paolo's Cult in just a few years while he was still alive. He took his Ministry to Sicily. When the ship captain refused to give him a Religious discount, Francis spread his cloak over the water and as he stood on it -- just a piece of cloth -- it took him, skipping over the waves, to Sicily. He was at the port waiting when his followers got off the boat.
The Miracles of the Great Saints would still be miracles today. When considering the Impossible, not much has really changed.
I never claimed it as knowledge. Why do you say so? I claim it to be a gift from God, and that if it is lost, it can never be rebuilt by logic. Hence the need to pray to God in order to believe.Alpha said:
What is it to become emotionally mature?
I want to believe that God exist. Not only because it satisfies my need.
Mutations cannot cause an increase in information, which are GENERALLY harmfull to the organism. If this is the case, it would be impossible for an unitelligent single celled organism to involve into an intelligent, multi celled organism.
Knife said:this is no joke. this message goes to anyone, but if i was to be specific, it would be to randolfo (for his trigger happiness) and southstar (for his intelligence).
i have read many anti-this religion, and anti-that religion posts. most of the threads end in name calling, stubborness, pride, or just childish comebacks.
however, i have yet to hear actual real "spread the truth" intents. for example, if someone was pro-christian, pro-bhuddism, even pro-aethism, then tell me why i should believe. convince me and i will be convinced. of course, i should be allowed to question and present aurguments. and it has to make sense.
i am really interested in what others beleive and more imporatantly why they believe.
Believe that you are the controller of your world. You control your own destiny. You answer to yourself. You know what sins you have done. You know what good you have done. You have your own set of morals. When the end comes, you will only have yoyur short life to look back on, and I think hell will be the final few seconds of a hateful man with a conscience (spelling?).
I believe there there is far more to the universe than a random gathering of stardust that created man, but I would never go so far as to think there is a specific GOD up there watching what we do, checking a list, and passing out deli-counter coupons at the Pearly gates.
Something is creating, or did create, the miracle of life, the miracle of emotion, the miracle of self expression. The only thing I need to worry about is what I do with what I have. The only thing I ultimately answer to is myself. Everything that happens between birth and death is YOUR WORLD.
I think I lie insanely somewhere between atheism and agnosticism. Peering around nervously and most often just wondering :bugeye: "what the fuck?"
*Inanimate objects cannot be convinced.
Pendejo!! The guy that started asking questions and began this thread is not an inanimate object!!.
*This was 15th Century Europe -- well out of the Dark Ages.
This idiot doesn't even comprehend why these times were called the DARK AGES. He is oviously trying to bring them BACK!!
Godless.
Pendejo!! The guy that started asking questions and began this thread is not an inanimate object!!.
*This was 15th Century Europe -- well out of the Dark Ages.
This idiot doesn't even comprehend why these times were called the DARK AGES. He is oviously trying to bring them BACK!!
Godless.