Simple question?

Quote: Evenbob

What a scenario. Men establish a church,
state that god communicates with them
thru it,

God established the Church.

Quote:

yet people continue to believe a god
is running it.

No one is under the illusion God is running it. Imperfect human beings make up the Church, yet it continues thanks to the mercy and grace of God.

Quote: FrGamble

No one is under the illusion God is running it.

That's what the atheist said.

Quote: FrGamble

God established the Church. .

As provable as god himself, that's to say,
impossible. You want to believe it so you
do. Life is easy with that attitude.

Actually it is historical fact that the Jesus Christ founded the Church. There has been an unbroken succession from St. Peter to Pope Francis.

Quote: FrGamble

Actually it is historical fact that the Jesus Christ founded the Church. .

You really want to again get into how
much of the NT is true and how much
was written long after the fact to go
along with what they wanted to be
true?

I really don't care how much of the NT you believe is true or not. It is a historical fact that there is an unbroken line of succession from Francis to Peter.

Quote: FrGamble

I really don't care how much of the NT you believe is true or not. It is a historical fact that there is an unbroken line of succession from Francis to Peter.

There are families that can trace their
lineage back to 800 AD in England,
they have the documents. That's
about as meaningful as being able
to trace your church back.

I'm always astounded as to how much
weight you give to meaningless facts.
'The world has had millions of Christians,
how could they all be wrong.' 'Jesus has
had more impact on history than any
other man.' 'We can trace the history
of our church back to where it started.'

All that and $5 dollars will get you a
latte at Starbucks. You try and mask
the lack of credibility that Jesus was
the savior of anybody, let alone the
savior of mankind. Have you ever
thought about that logically? It's
exactly like the sci-fi movies where
one person has it on his shoulders
to save the planet.

It's preposterous.

Quote: rxwine

Even though FrGamble states with regularity that the Universe can't exist without a non-contingent being, I see no logical reason why he doesn't still have to disprove more than one non-contingent being existing and being coauthor of the Universe.

I think that people forget one of the most basic rules of logic. "No one can prove a negative." It doesn't matter what the subject is about.

I think we all get very confused when we use the word prove. What we are asking is what is more reasonable to believe based on logic, morality, evidence, and history? Does it make more sense to believe in things like something coming from nothing or eternal contigent beings and real infinite regress or does it make more sense to believe that some all powerful non-contingent being created the universe that through order and natural laws brought forth life and the unique personhood or human beings with a universal moral laws? Does it make more sense to believe that the many miracles and unexplainable phenomenon we have and continue to witness as human beings is nothing or that it points to the reality of the supernatural?

It may be impossible to "prove" a negative and outside of mathematics to "prove" a positive. But faith is how we live our lives in making reasonable decisions based on the information we have to believe. There is nothing I know of that would make it reasonable to believe there is no God and everything points to the reasonable decision to believe that there is a God.

If I believed there was real evidence for a god, I'd certainly admit it.

But I'm not sure FrGamble will admit what he takes for evidence is not enough for evidence. That's why religion is what it is, and not geology, or biology, or physics or some other discipline.