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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   34533 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 15, 2025

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My goodness even on the Motte Catholics are insufferable. I don't mean that mainly as a personal attack, that's my observation of every Catholic I encounter - an absolute arrogance and a tendency to twist things to support the required dogmas of the Roman church. I don't entirely blame you, since the church requires you to believe these things it's only natural to reason backwards from the dogmas to the evidence, but it's so frustrating to see here. Anyway:

  • Christ, after he returned from the grave, entrusted all of the apostles with spreading the gospel to all the nations. Peter had no unique status, indeed he was overruled by Paul, and in Acts James (the bishop of Jerusalem) clearly had the final word on disagreements. The raising up of Peter comes from much later in history when the bishop of Rome (the capital of the world at the time) sought to justify taking greater authority to himself.
  • The writings of the church fathers make it abundantly clear that the books that would be assembled into the new testament were generally accepted by the mid second century. Framing the council of Nicea as assembling the Bible is a false framing designed to push back against the authority of scripture, by pretending that its authority comes from the council rather than from scripture's nature as the word of God.
  • As to the reformation, I don't know if your nonsense even deserves the dignity of a response, but... The purpose of the reformation was to fix the errors that has risen in the church, primarily indulgences, only providing the eucharist once a year, and refusing to translate the bible so people could read it. Following from this, a whole mess of theologians identified areas of theology where the church had arguably erred. And so, the Roman church, being even then truly arrogant, decided to kick anyone out of the church who questioned them. Funny enough, in the 'counter reformation' the Catholics did in fact fix indulgences, start giving regular eucharist, and eventually supported bible translations too! Weird huh? Rome refuses to budge on the other theological issues because (and this is not a charicature) they think the church is perfect and can never have made a mistake. Of course the Orthodox (who also left because of the arrogance of the Pope) say the same about their church. It's only Protestants who believe that all these different churches can have true Christians within them - Catholics at the time of the reformation thought the Orthodox were all damned for not following the Pope.

Of the three main Christian branches, in my opinion Roman Catholicism is by far the least convincing, and its apologists by far the most annoying. Still love you guys though! I earnestly hope you will find comfort knowing that Christ's sacrifice has already justified you, and you don't need to do anything to earn his grace.

My goodness even on the Motte Catholics are insufferable. I don't mean that mainly as a personal attack, that's my observation of every Catholic I encounter - an absolute arrogance and a tendency to twist things to support the required dogmas of the Roman church.

For what it's worth, this is... not wholly consistently, but I would say overwhelmingly my experience of extremely-online-Catholics.

It is, blessed be God, not even remotely my experience of Catholics in the flesh and blood.

Same. If /r/catholicism was representative of what the average person in the Catholic Church was like, I would have walked away a long time ago. Thankfully, that is not the case and people I interact with in person in the church are kind, gracious people who are a pleasure to know.

Of the three main Christian branches, in my opinion Roman Catholicism is by far the least convincing, and its apologists by far the most annoying.

Interesting to note that miracles which can withstand scientific scrutiny are exclusively associated with Roman Catholicism.

This is backwards reasoning though. The only miracles that are investigated with scientific scrutiny are ones associated with the Catholic church, because a full investigation is required if a miracle is to be used as grounds for beatification. This is because Catholicism has a deep history of scholasticism and the supremacy of reason, where the other traditions tend to lean more towards mysticism. Not exclusively, but that's my understanding of the general trend.

Protestants don't scientifically investigate miracles to that level, period, although there are plenty reported. I would instinctively consider it almost sacrilegious to do so. Likewise with the Orthodox, and some of theirs have a similar level of attestation (look up e.g. Our Lady of Zeitoun). Could it be that... all Christians who pray to God can receive miracles?

It may be that poor orthodox organization leads to their miracles going uninvestigated, but there are also some high profile orthodox miracles which are confirmed fakes(eg thé Easter fire. Now thé odd pious fraud is not proof against, but there is AFAIK no counterbalancing from well-investigated phenomena.

Protestant miracles seem like a general mish mash, and in fact using the term ‘Protestant’ in such a way seems like a sin against proper argumentation. Y’all are a varied bunch- is there a branch/denomination/movement within Protestantism that has repeated verifiable miracles? Any equivalent to the blood of st Januarius or thé spring at Lourdes or the series of Eucharistic miracles?

Mormonism’s supernatural claims have been investigated and falsified. The golden tablets are, per their own internal investigation, gobbledygook.

I can only speak to my experience. I grew up Catholic and was part of the RCC until I was about 33, at which point I left for essentially non-denominational Protestantism. Not for a specific doctrinal reason, but because it's where God was drawing me. That's where I met my wife. Now we attend a Calvary Chapel, which is nominally non-denom but with its own specific distinctives.

In my entire time in the RCC, I never encountered anyone who had experienced a miracle (as far as I know, they may have just kept quiet about it). In contrast, in the evangelical world I hear quite often about miracles taking place in people's lives, healings, financial provision, frankly I consider my marriage a miracle but I won't go into the details that convince me of this. But if I were to suggest to someone at my church that we should bring in some scientists to prove these were miracles, they would (I think rightly) consider that ridiculous and sacrilegious. In the same way that doing a double-blind study to determine if prayer works at improving health outcomes is both ridiculous and sacrilegious. To quote Jesus quoting the OT: you shall not test the Lord your God.

Catholics just have a different mindset about these things. They want to understand everything. That's what leads to thinks like trans-substantiation (we have to know exactly how the Eucharist works, it can't be a mystery).

What you're referring to is what Catholics would probably call 'guardian angel stories', which nobody's going to investigate. 'My guardian angel got me this job interview or stopped a car accident or whatever'. Do evangelicals point out miracles that didn't happen to them, more than on the level of FOAF tales, like Catholics or Orthodox do?

That 'didn't happen to them'? Of course. I'm not sure what level of attestation you're looking for specifically.

Here's an interesting question. Do you consider gifts of the spirit to be miracles? Most Evangelicals believe that gifts like prophecy and speaking in tongues are still extant among the church, and I've heard pretty credible anecdotes of these gifts - for instance, a pastor at a conference spoke in tongues, but there was no interpreter so they all moved on, only for the Iranian bartender to come up afterwards and reveal the man had been praising God in Farsi (he ended up converting). That's the kind of miracles I hear about, multiply attested but still personal, and oriented towards people's salvation and faith. Maybe Catholic miracles are the same? I'm not entirely sure. Seeing a ghost, to me, wouldn't be something that reinforced my faith or built my relationship with God. I wonder if Hispanic populations are more likely to be moved by things like apparitions which is why they all seem to happen in Hispanic countries?

What miracles can withstand scientific scrutiny?

An incomplete list would start with the tilma of Juan Diego, thé healings associated with Lourdes, and the consistently similar Eucharistic miracles. There are lots and lots of others, these are just unusually well studied(and in some cases repeated) miracles.

The existence of the universe?

Exclusively associated with Catholicism?

Serves me right for replying from the raw comment feed.

Creation myths have a pretty terrible track record for scientific scrutiny.

If you’re suggesting that being unverifiable counts as “withstanding scrutiny,” then I have a bridge to sell you.

I'm saying the exietence of the universe will never be answerable by science. You can't get an answers for "why is there something rather than nothing" by looking at it from within the something.

It's not even a particularly controversial observation from what I understand.

Okay, sure. I still can’t see what that’s got to do with @2rafa’s request.

If I try to sell you a bridge, and I don’t allow you to see it, if I insist that it cannot be seen at all, I’m not withstanding your scrutiny. I’m avoiding it.

still can’t see what that’s got to do with @2rafa’s request.

I do have a bad habit of replying directly from the comment feed.

To my layman understanding of miracles there has to be an established understanding of a secular mechanism which is then defied by the alleged miracle. The existence of the universe does not match this because we have no established understanding of a secular mechanism according to which the universe couldn't (or could) exist.

Can that which encompasses all ever be extraordinary?

I don't think that this is the definition of "miracle" used by the Bible, or any other religious text, written before the scientific method was established.

Can that which encompasses all ever be extraordinary?

Isn't that literally what secular humanism was trying to sell as an alternative to religion?

Isn't that literally what secular humanism was trying to sell as an alternative to religion?

I do not think "you can't explain what is literally beyond known existence" is a criticism that destroys secular humanism.

I'm saying that "existence is amazingly extraordinary" (backed by hours of hypnotic monologues by Sagan, Dawkins, or Tyson) has been literally what secular humanists were saying in order to generate a sense of awe similar to that of religious epiphanies.

Your particular argument destroys any such attempt. Even if secular humanism remains ubdeboonked, it's left barren of any higher goal.

I don't know about lectures, but I've heard the vastness of the universe as a kind of awe. I don't think most secularism is sold on miracles anyway and when most people say miracles they are more talking about supernatural feats of wonder.

Regardless multiple faith traditions are filled with people having religious epiphanies indeed many religions have been started based on religious epiphanies so those don't seem very useful in discerning Truth.

I see. Personally, it's plenty good enough for me. I notice a pattern where I get into an argument with someone who is against secularism/materialism, and every time it's some variant of "those guys back then made all those promises about it". I never needed to hear those promises or believe in them to prefer secularism to religion.

Conversely, if the promises of religion about eternal life in heaven are not true, then is the preaching and the faith not completely in vain?

And God said, "Let there be a Big Bang."

"Let there be several Big Bang."

according with recent Webb observations

James (the bishop of Jerusalem) clearly had the final word on disagreements

I earnestly hope you will find comfort knowing that Christ's sacrifice has already justified you, and you don't need to do anything to earn his grace

Catholics don't believe that grace is earned (and neither do Mormons), but that doesn't negate the need for works. James would heartily disagree with you as well, but I'm already quite familiar with the tortured exegesis Protestants use to disregard the blatantly explicit condemnation of sola fide provided by James:

14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? 17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. 19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? 23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. 24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

If good works are a natural result of having faith, then why don't the devils, whom James explicitly states believe, perform good works as a result?

Bonus question on an unrelated topic, the "priesthood of all believers" that many Protestants believe in: If Simon the magician in the book of Acts believed (as it explicitly said he did) then why didn't he automatically have the same power and authority as Peter and the rest of the apostles? Ditto for women who believe (I assume you're part of a denomination that does not have female clergy).

The devils don't have 'faith' my man. Faith is not 'belief in the mere fact of God's existence'. Which is James' whole point! His letter was to a specific congregation warning them against claiming to have faith but not actually following Jesus' commands. Your comment about the devils is actually pretty revealing, it indicates that you're working under or at least influenced by this false conception of faith == propositional belief.

I'm actually pretty well convinced that the Protestant 'sola fide' and the Catholic 'works + faith' are actually the same when properly understood - Catholics will be quick to clarify that although you 'need works' you also don't strictly need works for grace/salvation (as you yourself admitted), and Protestants obviously don't deny the letter of James. If James actually clearly refuted a proper understanding of sola fide I'm pretty sure someone would have noticed. Rather, I think the two conceptions are two sides of the same coin, which just have biases that cause them to fail in opposite directions. A Protestant could take sola fide to the extreme by saying 'I'm saved so I don't need to worry about my actions' which I guess you sort of see from certain casual Christian types (although I think it's pretty rare for a Protestant to think they don't need to do good deeds). Meanwhile many Catholics take works to the extreme by saying 'I'm a good person and I go to church so I'm going to heaven' while completely missing having any relationship with God. Protestants arrived at sola fide as a reaction to ritualism and legalism in the medieval church, i.e. the failure mode of the Catholic conception, but nowadays sola fide also has some pretty blatant failure modes. The gate is narrow that leads to eternal life.

On your last question I have no idea what you're asking. The apostles have more authority because Jesus gave them more authority. Not sure what that has to do with the priesthood of all believers, whatever you meant by that.

Anyway, God Bless and I hope you find this explanation useful!

This seems to misunderstand the concept of faith. Having faith in the Protestant conception isn’t merely believing that Jesus is lord but accepting and recognizing his lordship. The devils may understand that Jesus is lord but what makes them devils is that they reject his lordship. Indeed, the story of man’s fall is about lordship. God told man do not eat from the tree of good and evil. The tree stands for the ability to determine what is in fact good and what is evil. God keeps that for himself. The devil tempts eve to instead determine for herself what is good or evil (ie a rejection of god’s lordship).

Works is a natural outcome of following the kingship of Christ.

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