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Answer the question JoC, you persistently avoid answering questions when they will void your statements viz: And how many females on the Marriage tribunal JoC, you know the committee that decides whether you can have your marriage annulled?
As soon as a hard question is asked, you, like many theists zoom off on a desperate zig zag to avoid torpedoes. Answer the damn questions.
How many females on the committee of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith?
And how many females on the Marriage tribunal ?
How many females on the many committees that are directly involved in beatification?
Direct questions, please pay the respect of direct answers.
@JoC
" Have you been in a Catholic society? "
Yep. Family are church going Catholics. Daughter-in-law's family have a key to the church's front door. I took a lady with an intellectual disability to mass every Sunday for years.
A women can't be Pope. A woman can't be head of the Roman Catholic Church. The charity arm of the church is a whole other animal- I don't care how much responsibility they have for raising funds and deciding how to spend them. I don't care how many seminars they run, either. And last time I looked, nuns - including Mother Superiors- are subject to the authority of priests.
Did you hear about the nuns raped by priests in 23 countries? It was quite a scandal when it came to light.
@Sushisnake: "Did you hear about the nuns raped by priests in 23 countries?"
Not just raped. Have you seen "The Keepers"?
Bishop Barron actually has a good answer to this which rings very true. Ultimately power in the Church doesn’t come from its heirarchy. It comes from God and anyone, man, woman, child can accept this and be more “powerful” than any pope. They can be saints. There are a lot of female saints in the church. All saints are in heaven. But not all popes are in heaven. Which of these two groups do you think is more “powerful”?
@JoC Re: "All saints are in heaven. But not all popes are in heaven."
Howdy, JoC. Hope you don't mind my asking, but your statement there simply BEGS the question, "How exactly do YOU know who is and who is not in heaven?" (Assuming heaven exists, of course.) Do you have some sort of direct phone line to God and he periodically calls you with updates? Or maybe you get a monthly "Heaven/Hell Roster" from him in the mail? (No, that would be silly. My bad. Nobody uses regular mail anymore.) Oh, I know, must be a phone app that automatically updates whenever somebody is checked in to each location. Oh well, either way, it must be nice having access to those types of records. So, is that something you can apply for directly (or maybe download), or is it like some type of "reward" you are given for doing a certain number/types of contortionist moves when explaining scriptures that only you seem to have the ability to interpret correctly? Anyway, I was just curious as to how a mere mortal man might be privy to such information. Just a humble word of advice, however: If I were you, I would keep your ability a secret. Imagine all the requests you would end up getting from people asking you the whereabouts of all their deceased loved ones. That would be a nightmare. *shudder*
The Church actually has a very stringent process for canonizing saints (ie, recognizing that they’re in heaven).
@JoC Re: "The Church actually has a very stringent process for canonizing saints (ie, recognizing that they’re in heaven)."
Well, good for them. Still not addressing the issue that mere mortals are basically taking a vote to potentially override a ruling God may have already made. Maybe I'm simply too air-headed to figure it out, but seems to me it should be the other way around. GOD should make the decision to make someone a saint, and THEN notify the Church of His decision. But, again, I'm a fairly simple-minded metal dude. What do I know?
@JoC: "There are a lot of female saints in the church. All saints are in heaven. But not all popes are in heaven"
God doesn't pick them. They're selected by a church body known as the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. How many women are on that jury? How do they decide what's a miracle? How do you know who's in heaven and who isn't, and what superpowers they do or don't have?
What are female saints doing to improve the lives of women right now? Since saints are by definition long dead, my guess is absolutely nothing. Though they may contribute to the tourist industry through sales of relics, medals, and other brummagem bric-a-brac.
@Algebe. Re: "God doesn't pick them (saints). They're selected by a church body known as the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints."
Glad you mentioned that, Algebe, for it brings up a whole new conundrum. Maybe good ol' JoC can help us out with this. Let us suppose for a moment Bishop So-n-so dies, and for whatever mysterious reason(s) only God knows, the dear old bishop gets sent to hell. Now (and somebody please correct me if I am wrong), it is my understanding that a person becomes a saint (and therefore is automatically sent to heaven) by being voted into sainthood by some delegation. So, let us say that the counsel gathers long after the bishop's death and decides Bishop So-n-so had what it takes (in their opinions) to be dubbed a saint. And, in being voted in as a saint, that would mean their buddy would be moved from hell to heaven, right? So, if that is true, it basically means they just "overruled" God's decision. See the problem here, folks? Because it sounds to me like God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and makes absolute perfect decisions...... UNLESS he gets out voted by a committee. Fascinating. *scratching chin*
@Tin-man: "it basically means they just "overruled" God's decision."
Right. God is just a district court judge, something like Roy Moore, while the Catholic church is the supreme court.
What a load of bunkum.
@Algebe Re: Supreme court
Hey, thanks for that analogy. I was trying to think of a good one. That pretty much hits the nail on the head. *big smile*
Sure. From the perspective of an atheist, they have absolutely nothing to do with us now. From a Catholic perspective, however, they’re able to pray for us and have our requests granted. That’s pretty powerful if you ask me. In fact the most powerful intercessor in the Catholic tradition is a woman, the Blessed Mother.
Now, we can debate back and forth on whether this is true or not. What I’m saying is, given someone accepts the Catholic faith, this is what we believe.
@JoC: "they’re able to pray for us and have our requests granted"
So why is intercession by priests, popes, angels and saints necessary to have god grant requests? There seem to be a lot of wholesalers and intermediaries in your supply chain. Can't people pray directly to god?
This saint business makes me question the whole monotheism thing. You've got a lot of angels, saints, etc., floating around up there. Do you not see parallels between beatification and the Roman practice of deification (e.g., Julius Caesar)?
Of course we can always pray directly to God. When we “pray” to saints, we’re simply asking them to pray for us. Look at any prayer to a saint, it always asks for a prayer.
Ascension press actually has a good analogy of this on their YouTube channel. An secular analogy I can think of is when you ask someone to cheer for you when you compete in something, say a marathon. If you see people cheering you on, you get more motivation to actually finish the race. They don’t actually lift your legs and let you run. You run all by yourself. But when they cheer you on, it gives you what you need to finish the race.
@JoC: "Ascension press actually has a good analogy of this"
I'm not sure the analogy fits really. When you're running a marathon you can see and hear the spectators cheering. That encourages you draw on extra reserves of strength and determination from within yourself, not beyond. The spectators' voices don't move some other entity to give you a little push.
Prayer is essentially a silent, passive process. You ask the saint to pray for you. And then you wait for god to help. Of course, he never does. Millions of people have been visiting Lourdes ever year since the 19th century to pray for cures through Mary. The Lourdes Medical Bureau claims just 69 "miraculous" cures, though nobody has regrown an amputated limb or regained their eyesight. So much for intercession.
You'd have been tortured and burned at the stake for that but for the slow march of secular government eroding the power of your church. I think Christopher Hitchens said it best so I'll leave it him...
"“Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.”
And I intend to exercise that right, loudly, and especially every-time they sententiously pour forth about morality, with the nauseous faux humility that always precedes an emphatic deceleration of what they KNOW "god wants".
"Have you been in a Catholic society? You actually have nonidea how many women are in leadership roles in the church. Even in our local parish, most of the leadership roles are held by women."
Exactly as it was in Moses day, oh wait a minute, that sounds like human morals reshaping religious perceptions again. Almost as if it is objective reasoning that produces better morals, not intransigent doctrine from archaic male dominated patriarchal societies.
@joc
If god is the source for morality then he can say rape is good. Or can he not?
Really, the mental gymnastics and the purposely misunderstood definitions of words that theists do in the defence of this argument is amazing.
And know this:just because the argument doesn't work it doesn't mean that god doesn't exist. It just means that the argument doesn't work. Just use something else because every time you try to use it against someone who understands basic concepts of logic and logical fallacies they will point out the same flaws in the argument... They're not going to suddenly go... Oh maybe you're right... Not with this argument. Begging the question and repeatedly making assertions about something that we can demonstrate is false by definition only serves to waste time and distract from the fact that your god has not been demonstrated to exist. There are arguments that are much harder to pick apart than others. The argument from morality is not one of them. That's why I don't bother putting it in my epistemological failures set of threads. That's for the ones are are less obviously, but still very flawed.
He can’t as it would be contrary to his nature which is good. Pretty much like asking if someone could be a married bachelor
So you are sticking with the unchanging thing. Right. So slavery is cool and killing gays is a command... Well, in that case your god is a disgusting son of a bitch unworthy of worship.
I don't know how you know the nature of something that doesn't exist.
...oh yeah... The same way I know about Luke Skywalker.
Joc, you should read some dungeons and dragons books. Of you think the bible is cool you'll love those. I played it for years... You can make your own stories. Especially if you're the dm. That's how my book started.
Oh, but I don't for a minute think it's anything but fantasy. It's cool, but it is not real.
Where does it say that slavery is cool? Or that killing gays is a command? I’m sure you’re able to cite a Bible verse but I want both of us to look at them together.
Start at Exodus 21. it's quite clear. But you know this. You must. Defend slavery if you will... But see how fast the rip tide cometh.
"He can’t as it would be contrary to his nature which is good"
That is unlikely as he encourages the sex trafficking of virgin prisoners of war in the OT. He also according to the OT tortured a baby to death over 7 days, because he was sulking that the parents conceived the baby in an adulterous affair. Then there was the genocidal biblical flood.
Is this a different deity you're talking about, or have you just not read the bible?
I’m aware of those verses. I ask you though. Do you know their context? You make it sound like a sex trafficking scandal when it was actually less of that and more of slowly allowing the prisoners to be part of their society.
Re: JoC - "I’m aware of those verses. I ask you though. Do you know their context?"
*whispering commentator voice* "JoC steps up to the edge of the platform. He will be attempting an inward-reverse-triple with three and a half twists in pike position from a handstand, ladies and gentlemen. The degree of difficulty is very high for this dive, but JoC has shown incredible flexibility skills throughout this competition. Notice the look on his face. One of total focus, yet he projects a serene and confident air about him. The arena goes totally silent as he gets into his handstand position at the edge of the platform. The tension in the stands is almost palpable. And there he goes..... Oh! That was amazing! An incredible sight to see, sports fans! It was an almost flawless dive, but there was just a slight amount of over-rotation upon entry causing a moderate splash at the end. There will be a slight deduction by the judges for that, but otherwise a near-perfect dive! Once again, JoC has shown his diving skills to be almost super-human in nature. It is simply incredible to see a human able to bend and twist in the ways that young man has demonstrated throughout this competition. Now, back to you, Roy. How are things going over there at the Cow Patty Tossing Arena?"
I am so stealing this....*guffaws* I will give you credits *guffaws even louder*
@JoC Re: "He can't..."
So, being The Chosen spokesperson for God, you are admitting there is something God cannot do? Ruh-rho, Rhaggy!
Yes. He can’t do things that are contrary to his nature. Or even contrary to logic. If he did, our world wouldn’t be intelligible.
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