Yes.

We have found many. A list of transitional forms.

Incorrect, see above. Can I ask where you're getting that from?

We're observing Evolution in action. For example, in a normal African Elephant poplution, tusklessness occurs naturally about 2-4% of the time. But under the environmental pressure of poaching, that percentage has risen as high as 51% in some populations. In the Elephant world, being born tuskless has a survival benefit. This has happened in under 50 years.

Under poaching pressure, elephants are evolving to lose their tusks

Too many finished products... not enough species found in middle stages. To me this is the clincher.

I’m not defending Catholic Church either I’m just refuting you’re point that evolution is fact. When to me it doesn’t past the simple sniff test.

I took this class in college on origin of life at a Jesuit school and it’s kind of laughable that all life came out of the ocean. Too many missing links for me to believe in this. They can always cover their back by saying it happens over a long time. But that’s not a good enough explanation for me why we don’t have millions if not bullions of intermediary stages of all species.

Evolution comes off as “faith” based and not actual observable science.

In my experience almost all life forms I’ve ever come across seem to be finished products. Your tusk example happens over too short a period of time and goes against what evolution actually teaches. It sounds like adaptation to me or possibly is a cover for people taking the tusks?? If things change within 50 years like your example we should see millions of these examples but we don’t. You had to cherry pick one that fit your cause.

Well, you've moved from '0' to 'not enough' so I guess we're moving in the right direction. Also, your 'finished products' is another gross failure to understand how Evolution works, everything subject to evolution is either still evolving, or still subject to Natural Selection.


If only 'kind of laughable' were a reliable way to know what is right, ToE is about a firm a 'scientific fact' as it gets.

I did't cherry pick anything, I gave an example of observable evolution. I could give others, there are many.

Change over time is a fact.

Your "finished products" doesnt make sense.

I can't comment on Pope Francis's since it seems vague what he said. My understanding is that animals that are alive before the second coming of Christ will not go to heaven because they have material souls which stop existing upon their bodily death. However, the Church doesn't have a definitive teaching on if animals can exist in the new heaven after the second coming.

The scandals are horrific and we believe we are in a period of purification. I don't think that it takes away from the values that the Catholic Church stands collectively for but is rightly damaging from a reputation standpoint.

I'm not sure what you are referring to as Luciferian rituals.

I have friends and family that are protestant but what turned me away was lack of unity in beliefs and doctrines such as Sola Scriptura.

Hindus believe that cows should be revered because they're associated with Aditi, the mother of all the gods. So, you know... I'm not going to judge Catholic's beliefs about dogs... let's not worry about the fact that we made dogs in the first place, that they didn't even exist naturally. Presumably the rules extend to artifical species too and there's nothing remotely arbitrary about it.


"damaging from a reputation standpoint.".... don't even know where to start with this... that this is 'damaging' and all the horrific crimes against humanity that the CC is guilty of historically are less worthy of mention? The casual way in which you describe hundreds of years of child abuse? That the percentage of CC priests who are abusive peadophiles is so much higher than the general population? That an omnibenevolent god would allow this to occur? (Yes I know, free will blah blah... he's still allowing it to happen is he not?)...

I think it speaks directly to the values of the CC, that they try to explain away such horrific acts and simultaneously claim to stand for love and goodness etc.

I was actually referring to the fact that the Pope believes non-Christians will go to Heaven after they pass, not animals. My bad it wasn't clear.

When I was young and Bible thumping I beleived that if you did not accept Christ you could not possibly advance, Upon further study and enlightenment... if you show a positive spiritual potential, the spirit seed within your mortal body is alowed to evolve past the material plane... Something that is not afforded to the animal mind unfortunately.

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Quote taken:

There was an occasion in Jesus' life where he was able to explain why animal do not have souls or the potential of eternal existence. I hope it will add to your understanding of this topic:

130:2.8 That afternoon Jesus and Ganid had both enjoyed playing with a very intelligent shepherd dog, and Ganid wanted to know whether the dog had a soul, whether it had a will, and in response to his questions Jesus said: "The dog has a mind which can know material man, his master, but cannot know God, who is spirit; therefore the dog does not possess a spiritual nature and cannot enjoy a spiritual experience. The dog may have a will derived from nature and augmented by training, but such a power of mind is not a spiritual force, neither is it comparable to the human will, inasmuch as it is not reflective—it is not the result of discriminating higher and moral meanings or choosing spiritual and eternal values. It is the possession of such powers of spiritual discrimination and truth choosing that makes mortal man a moral being, a creature endowed with the attributes of spiritual responsibility and the potential of eternal survival." Jesus went on to explain that it is the absence of such mental powers in the animal which makes it forever impossible for the animal world to develop language in time or to experience anything equivalent to personality survival in eternity. As a result of this day's instruction Ganid never again entertained belief in the transmigration of the souls of men into the bodies of animals.

interesting note about us inventing dogs, didn't know that.

I didn't mean my comment to come off as taking it lightly. it's damaging on a bunch of standpoints and terrible. Our belief is that evil infiltrated the Church and it must be uprooted.

What I meant is by singling out "reputation" is that that the scandal doesn't alter the actual teachings of the Catholic Church.

To your point about God allowing it to happen. God can pull a greater good things from bad situations and suffering even though we may not fully understand it. The goal is to die a holy death and spend eternity in Heaven and not to never suffer in this world. Suffering and evil can actually provide us the means for sanctification when we battle against it and strive to become more Holy. We are in a spiritual war right now.

Is this the Urantia? This is not an authoritative religious text for me. And I don't want to have an internet fight about the cannon and authority, it's not the point of this thread. And it's more complicated than the RC picked em and Luther ripped a few out.

No its all good.. for me its my go to. Luther was correct on most points but it seems the catholic church is moving towards the more inclusive universalist theology of the UB in its later years historical contradictions aside.

Dogs have been selectively bred from wolves. I consider most dog breeds to be a crime against the animal kingdom, I'm not even kidding

This is what I've come to think of as 'the mysterious ways' explanation. I find it entirely unsatisfactory. If I were a theist, I think I would believe much more easily that God is simply a monster. A great many things make sense in that paradigm.

I understand where you are coming from by thinking "mysterious ways" a cop out. That's why our beliefs are not on logic alone and it's a combination of faith and logic. I'll try to break it down a bit further on how I view it even though it may still not work for you.

We know that suffering can build towards good things happening such as accomplishments in this world. For example, a marathon runner suffers by putting themselves through a bunch of pain to eventually be able to run a marathon There is suffering behind virtually any accomplishment worth noting such as long marriages, business success etc.

If there was no suffering there would be no point to achieve anything. We'd be feeling okay all the time and essentially dilute ourselves into being robots. We wouldn't be happy or sad but always in a normal mental state.

God doesn't want us to be robots but wants us to freely experience joy and love and be united to Him. It's through experience suffering can this happen.

He loves us so much that that he sent His son Jesus to us knowing that he would suffer the worst death possible to restore the bridge to heaven and save us from our sins/fallen nature.

So as a Christian, the mindset is to nail ourselves to our own cross and align ourselves with the suffering of Jesus Christ to grow and love Him more. That is why we mediate often on the Sorrowful Mysteries: Agony in the garden, Scourging at the pillar, Crowning of Thrones, Passion, and Crucifixion.

In this I think you forget one vital thing, that god made everything, it was (is?) in his power to have made us so that we feel accomplishments, pride, love, whatever... in any measure he decided, and for us not to have suffered or suffer, ever. He could have made us happy, and to never know anything else.

In my eyes, you're simply seeking to explain something that makes no sense, retrofitting values that we have to what you observe, and you forget that god decided those values and could have made them entirely differently.

Far far simpler an explanation, is that god is simply malicious, spiteful, vengeful, and cruel. I could use your logic (i.e. have faith) to prove that those are necessary characteristics of god, because.... I say so and I really really believe it and it explains everything. How do you know that 'loving' is actually the 'best' value a god could have? That's simply a very anthropomorphic assumption on your part.

Yes, God could have made us and this world however He wanted but here we are. We can only make decisions based on what we can interpret as humans and gives us a choice to accept Him into our life or not.

"but here we are"..... as god chose to make us.

So yeah... the answer to any of your questions about why anything occurs is 'god chose to allow it' including suffering, and whilst you might be satisfied by 'who knows... but I'm sure there's a good reason'... I prefer 'god is a monster' because that explanation... explains everything and can be supported by what we observe.

If god is real, then you worship a monster. That's my view. But an even simpler explanation is .. there are no gods.

"god is a monster" does not "explain everything" any more than "god is benevolent" does

I don't have any supporting context to add to this. I'm not sure what this event was. But at any rate, as a Christian man I have a problem with pretty much everything that went down here. I'm not perfect by any means and I have a lot be thankful for vis a vis my salvation, but this is beyond sinful imperfection. This is weird, unsightly and the optics are confusing at best.



Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...ture=emb_title

What doesn't it explain?

quarks?

I realise that you might think that a throw away answer, I suppose it depends what you mean by "everything". Even if by everything, you mean everything to do with religion, I still dont think "god is a monster" explains everything

'God is all loving' poses a problem, why is there evil? We have to just take it on faith that god has a good reason for evil existing, a loving reason.

God is a monster explains why there is evil and doesn't present the same problem for 'why is there good'.

"God is all loving" would indeed be problematic when coupled with the existence of evil.

But since the Bible nowhere teaches that God is "all loving", that isn't an issue that a Christian needs to grapple with.

I think the notion that the Christian God loves anyone at all is complete BS. No loving God of any intellgence would conclude that eternal torture was the correct punishment for even fairly minor transgressions. Now, if God has the intelligence of a toddler, maybe that explains it.

And really, that's my problem with Christianity. I don't mind positing the existence of some sort of creator. Doing so addresses some significant philosophical problems. It's the next step- presuming that anyone who created *ME* must be supremely good and supremely benevolent and breathakingly intelligent and powerful- where the problem lies. That view, of course, is incredibly egotistic. And it is also just wrong.

Far more likely that if there is a creator, that creator, whatever it is, is not some perfect intelligence with perfect ethics. There's just no reason to conclude that. And certainly, the Christian God as portrayed is just a dimly witted sadist.

Perhaps God first created the ultimate adversary and the two co-created a world in which each believed their side would prevail. Perhaps God doesn’t intervene more because that was not part of the original agreed upon rules. Perhaps human beings are central to the story in determining which side ultimately prevails.