Hey FrGamble!

Quote: Wizard

*EXCERPT* What is the plural of crucifix?

Thanks. In quoting someone, please quote only the part relevant to what you're responding to.

Quote: Wizard

Thanks. In quoting someone, please quote only the part relevant to what you're responding to.

OK - I did not want to get accused of misquoting a post will correct now

Quote: aceofspades

OK - I did not want to get accused of misquoting a post will correct now

Thank you.

Quote: Wizard

FrG, I recently visited the Air Force Academy where their most iconic building is the church. Separate floors for Catholics and Protestants. In the Catholic church floor that Friday morning I was the only one there except for somebody playing beautiful music on the pipe organ. I sat and listened for a while until she finished a piece. Then I turned around (the organ was in the back), turned around, and enthusiastically applauded as the woman playing was outstanding and I love a good church pipe organ. The organist then looked at me as if I had just insulted the Virgin Mary. Is it bad etiquette to applaud in a Catholic church? If so, how much time in purgatory do I get?

There is nothing wrong about applauding an organist. If it was in a service then applause is not used, however in a practice or a recital that is fine. It is my guess that she did not realize you were there and was surprised. She gets two Hail Marys for giving you the stink eye.

In the Bronze Age, we didn't
know jack from squat. We
didn't know where the sun
went at night, or that the earth
wasn't flat, or why we got sick,
or why wells dried up, we knew
very little about anything.

We would never take any kind
of practical science advice from
someone in 1400 BC. Yet we
consider these same ignorant
people to be the absolute
authorities on religion. Flawless,
even. The most important parts
of the OT were written in the
late Bronze Age, by people
who thought the earth was
the center on the universe.
These same clueless people are
the ones you trust with the
most important parts of your
religion.

If I get sick I'm going to a 2018
hospital, not one in 1918. If
I want religious advice, I'm not
getting it from 1200 BC.

Putting aside that you are wrong about a lot of what people in that time knew, don't you think you are being a little unfair in judging them by our current understanding of science?

When you have a moral decision to make the same principals that guided many of these ancient people are used by you and our modern culture today.

Quote: FrGamble

When you have a moral decision to make the same principals that guided many of these ancient people are used by you and our modern culture today.

We aren't even the same people
morally as we were just 75 years
ago, let alone 3000 years ago.
Morality is not set in stone as
you seem to believe. It's extremes
fluctuate.

Quote: Evenbob

We aren't even the same people
morally as we were just 75 years
ago, let alone 3000 years ago.
Morality is not set in stone as
you seem to believe. It's extremes
fluctuate.

Morality is subjective.

Quote: petroglyph

Morality is subjective.

Clearly. However there is a difference between what the ancients knew and what they were permitted to say. Church dogma was the world was flat and authorities did not want to be challenged, so sailors who first saw a ships mast and then the ship itself due to the curvature of the earth kept quiet if they wanted to go to sea again rather than go to a dungeon.

No matter how often EvenBob and FrGamble to at it they will not be able to reach a common ground because the church is built on matters of faith and infallibility of priests and infallibility of the ancient works whereas in EvenBob's world everything must be rational and proven and never merely accepted.

The church provided shelter, power and a stable authority for its officials and to some extend its members. The monks knew how to brew beer and the church attendees knew how to drink it. The monks gained wealth, the churchgoers gained health. Who is to say it was an ill bargain for all. Perhaps it was a good one at that time for all.

Tetracycline was "discovered" in 1948 but it was ingested in great quantities by those who built the pyramids and received six quarts of beer a day. So is modern science necessarily so right? Tetracycline did its thing before bread was discovered, so should we worship at the altar of progress and enlightenment? Men used to consume six times the beer we now consume. Is that really progress?

No one knows what truths lie yet undiscovered. The church doesn't care and many who do care, can't speak about it because everyone is doing the Vatican Rag.