St. Januarius, Miracles, and the Proof of God.

Great Debates
101

Are you for real? There are 33,000 denominations of Christianity! Not all of them split out of the catholic church specifically, but the history of the church is filled with (often extremely bloody) schisms. The catholic church still exists as a whole, but it is not “undivided”, as literally all of protestantism, orthodoxy, and more proves.

And the fact that it is the only or oldest such institution says very little. Most other major religions do not have a clear hierarchical structure. Judaism and the rabbinical praxis have been around far longer than the catholic church, but you discount them, because they lack this hierarchical structure. This feels a bit like saying, “I trust Scientology because no other religion is quite so aggressive in sapping funds from its members” - you’re starting from a quality your religion has in order to disqualify others.

102

The Empire of Japan (whose founder was the child of a god, BTW) has about 1,000 years on the Catholic Church.

103

The early Emperors have as much historical validity as Moses.

104

If we’re granting the establishment of the Catholic Church the same amount of historic license as the mythical emperors of Japan, then Jimmu Tenno still has St. Peter beat by a number of centuries.

Even if we go by what can be historically proven, then they’re still contemporaries.

105

The Empire of Japan fell. The Catholic Church hasn’t and won’t.

106

It’s had its ups and downs, as has the RCC, but there is still an emperor.

107

Nobody tell the present emperor of Japan!

Also, you are suspiciously silent on the Schisms and antipopes. That’s telling.

108

It won’t? How do you know? Catholicism is the most dogmatic of Christian religions, its origins going back to pre-Medieval times long before the development of science as a methodology for the advancement of knowledge, a time when superstition was the order of the day. As such, its dogmatism is constantly in conflict with scientific and practical realities – on issues like abortion, gay rights, contraception, evolution, etc. In post #18 it was mentioned that a scientific analysis of the alleged “miraculous” blood of Saint Januarius was forbidden by the Catholic Church. Likewise, on one of the occasions when Stephen Hawking visited the Pope, he was cautioned not to delve into the question of the origin of the universe, as this was the exclusive domain of the Church. It seems that, as in the Saint Januarius case – or for that matter, the sexual transgressions of its priests and bishops – the Church will not tolerate the intrusion of facts and reality into its dogmas.

So perhaps for those reasons, the Catholic Church’s presence in most of the first world has been dwindling. In the US, the Catholic Church is losing members faster than any other denomination. In 1910, 65% of the world’s Catholics were in Europe. Today it’s 24%, and the largest proportions are now found in less developed or third-world areas, mostly Latin America-Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa.

The Catholic Church is practically the diametric opposite of its nemesis, liberal Protestantism. It may indeed survive for a very long time, but only if it reinvents itself to conform to modern knowledge and realities.

109

Hence my use of the words “up to.”

And according to what YOU wrote:

I would say that the accuracy of those accounts are very much 100% relevant.

110

JimB What your question fails to take into account is the fervent belief (faith?) that people have in the omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence of science. You are asking them what it would take for them to convery from the religion of science to the religion of religion. That conversion is very hard because they engage in the same disingenuous horseshit and hypocrisy as traditionaly religious people do when their faith is confronted.

DId the Catholics help out the nazis? Yup. Did they benefit? Yup. Is that wrong? Yup.
Did science help out the nazis? Yup. Did it benefit? Yup. Is that wrong? Yup.

Has science ignored or discreditted factual evidence in favour of dogma? Yup. Has science caused direct and demonstrable harm? Yup.
Has science promulgated incorrect and clearly destructive information to the detriment of the wider population? Yup.

The comparison of paralells could go on but why bother?

Now here is what will happen. A bunch of people will come in and scream that I am being unfair to science and that science is pure. They will defend science with exactly the same arguements and hand-waving that the religious employ. They will not see the similarities.

“Evils done by science aren’t aren’t the fault of science but rather it’s misuse by people. The evils are offset by the good. Of course mistakes were made, but we’re much better now.”

My personal favourite is, “If science can’t explain it it must be owing to science not having progressed that far yet. But there is n8 way that it could be supernatural because… supernaturals don’t exist (even in the absence of natural explanation) because svience tells me so.”

There will be an apotheosis of irrelevancies and a self-contented murmur of agrement by the choir

Then I will be accused of theistic blindness and bias (for the record I am militantly agnostic.)

You cannot convert a zealot whether the zealotry is snake-handling or biology.

Here is the unanswerable question: What empirical evidence do you have that science’ inability to “prove” God’s existance stems not from God’s non-existance but rather science’ current inadequacy for the task? Remember, as one example, that around 200 years ago a doctor was ruined because he put forth and defended the impossibly ridiculous - to science - notion that disease might be the result of invisible organisms. In fact, science has only “believed” in germs for a little over a hundred years.

What might science poo-poo today that it will claim is pointedly obvious a century from now?

111

Is that a parody of something?

112

Absolutely. Very astute.

113

No, if we go by what’s historically provable, rather than most likely true like Peter, the church can be attested to *at barest minimum * to those elements verified by e.g. non-Christian witnesses, like accounts of Polycarp and other Apostolic Fathers, with reliable dates. That’s 1st-3rd C. A.D. You have to go to Kinmei in the 500s to get similar verifiability with the Emperors. 100 years before that, and Ankō is the first one generally considered non-legendary at all. But “1000 years on the Church”, that is not.

Look, I get the idea that there’s nothing special about Christian historiography, believe me. But that’s no reason to give any more credence to other legendaria.

114

Japan may have a nominal “emperor”, but to say that the Japanese Empire still exists is quite a stretch indeed. Japan’s government was completely overhauled after WW2. It’s not the same institution it was before. That should be obvious. That’s like calling the current Italian government the Roman Empire.

Schisms and antipopes? What’s the relevance? Yes, people and groups have left the Catholic Church. What does that have to do with anything?

115

We’ve got it.
You follow the Catholic Church because it has some attributes that you think are unique to the Catholic church, while failing to realize that all religious sects have attributes that are unique to them, also.

116

No. I follow the Catholic Church because I believe that it is the institution founded by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ founded it as a means of dispensing salvation to whoever wants it through the sacraments. Jesus only founded one institution, so it is by definition a unique institution. The fact that other institutions have unique attributes is irrelevant.

It’s not the uniqueness of the thing, it’s who the founder is. No other institution can make a credible claim of being founded by Jesus Christ.

117

Few others make that claim, but there are claims from other sects that what they are is much closer to what Jesus intended…and so far you have completely disregarded sects that follow other deities that(as far as I can determine) have just as much evidence to support their existence.

118

I have analyzed these claims, it’s the tradition I grew up in after all, and have found them to be nonsensical.

Please give an example of one such sect.

119

Actually Mormonism also claims it was founded by Jesus - in fact it claims it was founded by Jesus twice. That has to count for something.
(Also, general question here, why do we give a flying crap about why you’re a fan of the Catholic Church again? You’re just some dude, and your opinions on this magic religion or that magic religion don’t have a lot to do with whether atheists will suddenly turn into theists the second they see christ’s face on their morning toast.)

120

I name all of them(including yours), since not a one has come up with hard evidence to support the existence of the god/goddess/godthing they worship.