Original Sin?

Quote: Nareed

And yet you keep telling couples you think they should have children.

I do think couples in love with each other should have children, is that wrong?

Quote: FrGamble

There was the evil one lurking about but as the story makes clear he was hiding and only trying to talk to them when they were separated from each other and from God, which was his whole desire anyway.

Interesting retcon.

But the gist is that your supposedly omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent deity is neither.

You know, the other religions don't give their deities impossible capabilities. Maybe that's why theological discussions eventually resemble arguments about superheroes by comic book enthusiasts.

Quote: FrGamble

I do think couples in love with each other should have children, is that wrong?

I think people who believe in any kind of god should have their heads examined.

Is that wrong?

Quote: Nareed

I think people who believe in any kind of god should have their heads examined.

Is that wrong?

Yes, because it is exactly the opposite. Thinking people will always realize that there is some higher power or creator God. The idea that someone would think the universe just popped into existence without a cause or that you can have an infinite regress of material causes or historical events are who needs their head examined.

What you might mean is that you think anyone who thinks they know this God personally or has a unique relationship with him should have their heads examined. Or what you really mean is that you think anyone who disagrees with you needs to have their heads examined. I have no doubt you sadly think this.

Quote: FrGamble

Yes, because it is exactly the opposite.

Are you sure you don't think that because there's something wrong with you mentally?

Quote:

Thinking people will always realize that there is some higher power or creator God.

See above.

Quote:

Or what you really mean is that you think anyone who disagrees with you needs to have their heads examined. I have no doubt you sadly think this.

I think anyone who disagrees with me is wrong. And if they want to be wrong, it's their problem and not mine. So long as they keep from forcing their disagreements on me. When they do, they make it my problem.

I know one couple in particular who unquestionably were deeply in love with each other. They didn't want to have children, but did largely due to pressure from family, friends, society at large and people like you (with a different religion). Their relationship suffered a great deal and never recovered until after the children married and moved out.

A couple's love is no indication as to their fitness to raise children. Pushing all couples to do so gets you disasters like the one above (And yes, they were a real couple, namely my aunt and uncle on my father's side).

So, do I really believe people who believe in deities need psychiatric help?

No.

But it really made you angry that I said so, didn't it?

Quote: FrGamble

I do think couples in love with each other should have children

But how is that any of your business.
Being a priest seems to make you think
you have a say in what people do in
their private lives. It doesn't, so why
don't you just leave them alone. You
aren't god, you just think you are.

Quote: FrGamble

Thinking people will always realize that there is some higher power or creator God.

So Einstein and Twain and Asimov and
the hundred other really smart people
I could name who were atheists weren't
'thinking people', then. Your ego and hubris
never ceases to amaze. I would 100 times
over rather be associated with them than
any zealot egomaniac like you and your
holier than thou kind.

Quote: FrGamble

Sure they did. They depended on God for their knowledge of good or evil. They of course knew that disobeying God was evil.



You seem to be putting these two influences almost on an equal level. With God they walked about all day without shame or fear, they loved Him and He loved them. There was the evil one lurking about but as the story makes clear he was hiding and only trying to talk to them when they were separated from each other and from God, which was his whole desire anyway. It would be pretty easy to know which one to believe.



The Father of Lies is tricky isn't he. Dying is a process that began that day, it was like the day the death sentence was signed. From then on you are a Dead Man Walking. They also learned their own subjective version of good and evil, but they did not learn objective truth in fact they exchanged it for the type of morality that asks only one question, "Will this be good for me?"

You continue to add words to the Bible that are not there, and interpret other words that are there in a way that you like.

Quote: FrGamble

At least to get married in the Catholic Church they would be asked to be open to the possibility of having children.

So, you want everyone to be Catholic, and then would force people who did not want to, to have children.

It is clear that you are not allowed to use NFP to indefinitely postpone having children, so you wouldn't allow two people who loved each other to marry and be happy. If they did, they would be living in a state of unrepentant sin and would go to hell, or be advised to live in chastity.

Talk about disordered.

Quote: FrGamble

I do think couples in love with each other should have children, is that wrong?

They certainly shouldn't rush into it. It takes people around 2 years to really know each other. Go ahead and discuss it between each other, but be careful and not rush into that extra stress on a relationship.