“magic hat theory” of the Catholic Church is essentially your way of describing the problem you see with claims of ecclesial authority and doctrinal infallibility.As I understand your idea:The Catholic Church can sometimes act as though it has a “magic hat” from which authoritative answers can be pu
No salvation outside the catholic churchNo salvation of unbaptized people and infants No usuryDeath penalty is inherently moralSlavery is permissible. Notably newborns automatically become slaves if the mother was a slaveI know this ain't much of a catholic hangout but I thought id toss this out the
Check out the book ‘evidence for the afterlife’ by Dr Jeffrey long. It includes, among other things…Objective though not fool proof studies on out of body experiences. More than one scientific study has concluded that when out of body experiences occur, they are almost always ‘accurate or at least c
Artificial Intelligence Explains There’s No GodA compelling argument against the existence of God is the problem of divine hiddenness. If a benevolent and all-powerful deity exists, why is there a lack of clear and universally accessible evidence of this presence? Atheists posit that if God wanted t
The TrinityThis trips many people up because it genuinely doesn't make sense, but ask yourself on an axiomatic level if something can be true without being comprehensible to the human mind. If something can't be true if it doesn't make sense to you, that means you think you are intelligent enough th
The best way to approach reading the early church vis a vis Catholicism versus orthodoxy My response then ai response...theres the idea of papal infallibility which is next to impossible to actually expressly find in the early church for centuries if not well over a millennium. Theres also philosoph
Religious practice is that which we do with diligent responsibility to best of our ability. SimpleSeek truth to free us from a false narrative. Or not.Seek divine to free us from that which is not so divine. Or notLead us not into the light that blinds us. Or not.Share not with our cousins, that, wh
I tell you right now the woke theory and push for overly present 'peace' that isn't about peace but silencing all, that if 1 religion is true another that directly contradicts can absolutely be true at the same time is an evil most heinous hoax.It is thus that I state that the anti-theist atheists a
In Exodus 6:3. God speaks to Moses saying: And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them. But any reader of the Bible should know right away that this just has to be pure bollocks considering that Abraham HIMSELF
If you want to simplify, the it takes at minimum to comments, as Ive prented in few posts in last wekk.TOE = Theory of EverythingTOE = Truth of EverythingThen we can go back to various ways we an assign another identification for Universe.Universe = God-dess { X x - y X } with woman be most comple
The dangers of institutional religion on spiritual growth by Jim palmer and artificial intelligenceYears ago, I wrote about ten dynamics of organized church that I believed worked against spiritual growth. I wrote from experience after years as a pastor, including within the American megachurch worl
This post addresses only the Holy Bible, but the title is true, regardless of religion.Simply put, belief is limited by function. In particular, no function is necessary with belief. We can believe whatever we want, mainly due to our literal free agency. I can believe there are Na'vi [tall, slender,
Arguments like causality or from design are formidable points. But theres equally formidable arguments against these. In philosophy and law and science theres the concept that purely philosophical evidence isnt even evidence. When an idea presents itself like these with being consistent with a propo
The catholic church has an economically liberal biasI know many conservative Catholics will cite pope's who say socialism is bad and leave it at that as if that nullified these quotes. If a person wants to easily reconcile them, its to say socialism is bad but a basic social safety and social contra
Im not talking about translations but that is its own can of worms. Theres protestant, Catholic, and orthodox versions each with different books in them. Ive always been partial to catholic and orthodox bibles cause im more deferential to their authority structure. But ive never really been able to
NDEs, ghost stories, miracles, UFOs, the soul, all of them could be real things because people have experienced it throughout human history but it's not considered real because the people who are supposed to confirm it (scientists) don't fully understand it. Not yet.Which tells us that there is noth
Remarkable NEW Verified NDE with OBE. Happened in 2026.Friends,The new year brings new veridical data.A peer-reviewed case report published in 2026 in an Italian psychiatry journal documents a 25-year-old woman who was placed in a pharmacologically induced coma for 20 days following a severe traumat
**What is sex? Ontologically? Spiritually? Humanly?**If we don’t answer that first, moral rules float unmoored.This follow-up essay attempts to bring the strands together: Scripture’s relative silence on explicit premarital sex prohibition, the unitive and procreative dimensions of sex, the science
Many people lose their faith even after spending years in faith and devotion to him, but falter, and blame him when something bad happens to them or someone they love, wondering how a loving God can allow such suffering to fall upon them, as if suffering is deserved only by those who ignore or despi
# Confession, priestly absolution, the apostolic and institutional Churches, and the Freedom of God’s MercyConfession to a priest is one of the great spiritual gifts of Christianity. It provides accountability, humility, spiritual guidance, and the healing that comes from bringing hidden sins into t
Ive been verbalizing more lately that a big reason we are on this earth is to figure out these relational virtues... love, forgiveness, generosity, and boundaries. Of course, these virtues are often tied to christianity but they do in fact have broader applicability to everyone, right? And another t
I know its par for course to joke about this stuff. But at least hes taking a position. Its a fact... tons of credible people continually see including towns of people, spacecraft that do things contradict known physics And really this is the problem with skepticism and atheism. Its skepticism for t
yeah, holding me in his hand. He wears a hat when he's working, a Humphry Bogart style fedora.
Our now common, but non-constitutional phrase [i.e., the words are not contained therein, but, many words are absent from the Constitution that we selectively choose to include] "separation of church and state," a.k.a.. "a high wall of separation." The "separation" phrase comes from the SCOTUS decis
A review of Forum activity [the Forum home page] demonstrates that the general topic of religion has the highest commentary of any topic within Forum [with > 4,700 comments], and the second-highest number of topics [148 - where no other topic other than Politics exceeds 100]. Politics has the hig
Im correct right that this is the usual atheist position?
Debby wrote:Paul the Apostle did not call the first five books of the Bible (the Torah/Pentateuch) "crap" or "rubbish." HERE>> https://www.debatecraft.com/forum/c/religion/posts/qf/gods-mercy-and-impressions-of-non-believers-god-cant-win?page=1&comment_number=11Stephen wrote: Are you sure
Truth, Law, and the Relational Foundations of RealityModern debates about truth often collapse into a stale dichotomy: either truth is absolute or truth is relative. But both of these categories can obscure something deeper. When someone insists that “truth is relative,” they often mean that context
They are closely related, but they each emphasize a different aspect of Christian love. Together they form a remarkably coherent ethical vision."Do to others as you would have them do to you." (often called the Golden Rule)This focuses on empathy and fairness.Jesus asks you to imagine yourself in an
Beginning 19 April and over 7 full days, 9am to 9pm, 84 hours in all, at the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C., the entire Holy Bible will be read by some 84 distinguished people, and hour each, including President Trump.If you think the Holy Bible speaks only to and of Israel, ignoring all oth
