Sometimes I think that many people don't take into consideration the many sacrifices a man like Father Barron makes when he chooses to become a priest. First of all, it's not an easy row to hoe. It's years of work and study and discernment and whatnot. Then, there's the matter of knowing one is choosing to forego marriage & family. And then there's the lack of riches & wealth - you don't get rich (in terms of cash) in his job. He can't be doing this for himself, b/c he doesn't gain much...
@ladylejean215 ...in terms of worldly wealth and prestige, etc. He does this for God and to reach out and make contact with individual people, real human beings, for the sake of their souls. Father Barron is no Joel Osteen with the "Prosperity Gospel" and all that. Nope. Not by a long shot. Frankly, I personally respect him more than the megachurch preachers, etc.
@ladylejean215 Believe me, I don't resond to the vast majority of comments. But some, I think, warrant a response--if only for the sake of someone else who might come along and read the exchange.
@ladylejean215 I don't know who you are referring to. I can only see the danger in automatically seeing people with different opinions as someone who's insidiously trying to lure you from the right path. Out of curiosity can I ask you if you ever question your faith? If so, what's the qualm?
@DrHowbeit In my 42 years of life I've run the religious gamut from starting out as a United Methodist, to being a feminist Wiccan, to being a Unitarian Universalist, to exploring Buddhism, to being a reconstructionist pagan, and now I am investigating the Episcopal church. I'd say I DO question things. A LOT. More than you'll EVER know. EVER.
@ladylejean215 Perhaps I need to clarify the question. When you question your faith, what part of your faith is it that you question? Is there a certain aspect about your beliefs that makes you feel unsettled? (E. g. the problem or evi or whatever).
@DrHowbeit There are entirely too many details about this to write into a short note here. It ranges from why certain groups have a total LACK of theology at all to group polity. There's always *something* to question. My questions often get me shunned by many of the groups I mentioned.
@DrHowbeit A lot of the assumptions that skeptics have are actually *faith-based assumptions* - just because it may not involve God, that doesn't mean it's not based in faith. Try reading "The Reason for God" by Timothy Keller. He is a Presbyterian pastor from Redeemer Presbyterian in NY. He addresses a lot of the faith based assumptions that skeptics have - and gives responses to them.
@ladylejean215 Thanks for the tip. I´ll have a look. It's always interesting to hear proper arguments from someone who actually gave the matters some thought. I am however skeptic. Keller, as it turns out, was steeped in his faith from childhood. Born in a Christian country he was educated in Christian schools and has served his living as a pastor and professor of practical theology. With that background would it not be interesting if he had written a book promoting Islam?
@DrHowbeit But this makes no sense. It'd be as if Father Barron wrote a book on feminist Dianic spirituality. One thing I learned long ago in public speaking & writing - you speak about & write about what you actually know. I think it'd be completely silly for pastors like Keller & Barron & others to write about something outside of their area of expertise. That's like asking your plumber to do your taxes for you.
@ladylejean215 Missing the point. The best stories are told from experience. Sure. Not the issue. Keller not only writes about C, he claims it to be the truth. (Does a plumber claim that his profession is the one true profession?) K's upbringing is right, A-L-L other beliefs (that ever existed and will exist) is wrong. The same pattern all over the world. People believe what people around them believe and view other generic and faceless tribes as deluded. That's cultural racism.
If Christianity is not about "Me", as he says, why is there a prospect of heaven? Name a single religion that does not tempt followers with a reward. Religion is always about what you get, albeit something immaterial as opposed to something material. Fine by me as long as you admit that religion is an expression of self-centrism. The solution here, for the religious, is perhaps to reevaluate the term and strip it form it's connotations. Suppose that "Ego" is at it's core a divine incentive.
@wordonfirevideo Ok, love is the reward, that confirms what I said. Religion is about what I get. I don't get money, I don't get fame, instead I get love. It still means that I believe because I want something back. On the other hand, God, according to tradition, has the same motivation. He wants OUR love. Suppose that both parties benefit, even so the force in mind is "what's in it for me?".
@wordonfirevideo Can you imagine believing in a God that gives nothing in return? When you're dead you're dead, that's it. You believe simply because you believe that what you believe is true, and the Truth is indifferent to whether you believe it to be true or not.
@DrHowbeit Well sure, we should accept things because they're true. It is demonstrably true that God exists (see the argument from contingency). And yet clinging to God in love does indeed bring me joy and fullness of life. I don't see why I should have to choose between the two.
@wordonfirevideo Even though I'm not getting through we seem to agree – love is the pay off, the reward, the return, call it whatever. In psychology the rule says that an individual doesn't do a-n-y-t-h-i-ng without getting something back. I happen to doubt that people in general turn to faith because of the contingency argument. The reason is emotional. The rational arguments are add-ons. I can understand the emotional reasons perfectly well.
@wordonfirevideo I might be getting the hang of the religious psyche. The ground rule seems to be that if my emotion is strong enough it almost certainly is true. The challenge, I would say, is that life on a grander scale tends to be counter-intuitive. When looking at at a hippo I would never presume that we were related, but that is where the evidence leads. When looking at the sun I would never think that it is standing still and that I'm moving at 1000 miles an hour.
@chesster423 Well friend, then give me another way to support my ministry! Without some donations, I couldn't make these videos. Not one penny of any money Word on Fire receives comes to me personally.
In our church here, during Sunday mass, there is this first collection and second collection.
Not only during Sunday mass but also weddings, burial mass, baptismal mass, private mass, and many more! I don't even know where all these collections will go.
Sorry if I dislike donations, it's making people lazy and helpless for themselves. It's not really easy to earn money honestly, especially here in our country.
@chesster423 Well again, give me a better way to maintain a multi-million dollar parish plant, to run numerous parish programs, to pay the salaries of parish employees, to facilitate the church's outreach to the poor, etc. I'm sure your pastor would be all ears!
@chesster423 Perhaps you should have followed Fr. Barron around when he was filming the Catholicism project. I wonder if you'd be able to keep up with him. You might not be so quick to suggest he's a lazy bum.
@chesster423 You likely acted like some kind of troll and said something rude and uncalled for. Seems to me that'd be the reason to delete any comment.
this "It's not all about the money3x sir, it is how you can express your passion to the best level you could have. I'll admit money is necessary for our survival, but when it comes to passion, it is priceless." and so on.. can't really remember the rest..
my message is all about, if you really love something, it's no longer necessary to be greedy for it. It will love you the same way you love it. Fr. Barron's response is always "gimme a way to earn multi-money" and somethng lyk that
@chesster423 Fine by me. I just thought your comment might be deleted if you posted it again. Christians censoring the field of comments is quite common. It has happened to me as well. It doesn't support their side. Only gives the impression that they have something to hide. The same goes for Fr. B I'm sad to say. He butts out if you are polemic. Preaching for the choir in other words. Too bad.
@DrHowbeit Friend, take a look at the literally tens of thousands of comments on these forums. Look at the hundreds of vigorous critics of the faith that I've engaged. I am not the least bit afraid to dialogue with a variety of interlocutors. I delete comments for a variety of reasons: obscenity, repetition, poorly formulated arguments, etc. If you object to any of this, I suggest you open your own YouTube site.
@wordonfirevideo So you have blocked posters who provided "poorly formulated arguments". Since you are the judge of "poorly formulated arguments" you can and have eliminated debate with people who confronted you withe the reality of Catholic teaching that you could not deny. You know it and I know it.
@DrHowbeit One of Barron's criteria for deleting a post or banning a participant is "repetition" I've lost count of the number of times he has avoided a direct challenge to one of his arguments by simply citing various theologians or authors i.e Aquinas, Augustine, Chesterton, etc.
@Lyc360 I've tried a couple of times to start a discussion with Fr. B but within a pair of comments he's missing. I know that Jesus says on the topic of evangelism that it's useless to waste time on people that aren't "open to the truth". On the other hand, snake oil merchants and hustlers hold the same rule as a basic strategy. I'm not making a comparison apart from that notion. Just saying.
No, Father, don't set foot in California! That land and its inhabitants must all be burned and killed off! Steer clear! STEER CLEAR! It's hell over there! Land of the Liberals aka people who will automatically go to hell through the end of a handgun for the sport of the good crusaders who are too tired for the likes of them and their disgusting egalitarian ways! (It's shorter in Egyptian!)
But I'm serious, you should stay away from Sodom and Gomorrah.
@ThroughIceEyes For individual sodomites, they can be turned, in time. But with a whole flock of them, they have to be purged. Period. You cannot persuade so many, especially when the antichristian government is backing them up.
@ThroughIceEyes I better re-phrase that, perhaps not necessarily "purge" per se, but what we're doing these days is just not working and the general public is becoming more homo-encouraging. That's a huge problem, really.
I am a retired Catholic priest with a STL form Laval University. Each seminarian had a copy of the Summa of St. Thomas Aqunias! I studied "Grace & Nature" in Teilhard de Chardin with a comparison with Aquinas for my Doctorate. I fell short, but never regret my studies in this area. I just want to thank you Father Barron for your videos. Please persevere! I will pray for you. Keep close to Christ thru the Church & the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist! God Bless you always!
Thank you so much `wordonfirevideo` for such informative video`s and how refreshing to hear a great Priest like Fr.Barron to give us such intelligent apologetics.
If we take our morals from God the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, God help us. God the father committed genocide, God the son actually did do some nice things, and the Holy Spirit supernaturally impregnated a 14 year old girl. So, so far, we have - kill LOTS of people, do a few things, pray, and give to the poor, then impregnate very young woman and call it miraculous, no?
We have to see sin as human fallability. We will never be rid of sin by the Catholic definition that we can only be perfect with god. Is god not angry - jealous, capricious, violent, sinfull even? We need Police to deal with sin and shared societal goals and a consensual understanding of what is bad. We know this truth instinctively as human beings. Biblical teaching does not give us morality - quite the opposite. It gives us anger and a justification for wrongdoing fired by certainty!
what your saying kind of makes me think that you are telling people not to think for themselves,and let the church tell you how to think. you are infact saying it is sinful to think for oneself...i have always beleived chirstianity is the most devisive religion for controling the masses,and keeping the church powerful. life is absurd and if you dont assert your own beliefs, someone will force theirs onto you. That is just my opinion...
@chuckstar666 No. I'm opposed to people making their own wills the criterion of good and evil. The standard of good is God, and when we forget this, we drift into an ethical no-man's land. If you doubt me, look at much of the twentieth century.
Does anyone consider you a bit too "intellectual", Father? You have a very wide vocabulary and often times refer to obscure philosophers and texts. I ain't complaining, but I know many people, who can barely string sentences together online, who might.
@FarTooHuman Well, I'm speaking out of the Catholic tradition, which is smart. Read an apologist such as G.K. Chesterton and then see whether I'm using words with too many syllables!
@wordonfirevideo I took your advice and briefly looked up Chesterton, and well I found this... "The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." Lmao. Greatest thing I've read all week.
@FarTooHuman I'm glad to hear intellectualized and congniznet exegies of Scripture and Tradition...that is the way of the ancient of faith, look at Justin Marytr and many of the ancient fathers...
If the fall is what caused sickness and death then how did sickness and death exist before the fall? (Plenty of scientific evidence that shows that animals got sick and died before man came into being)
@elzoog We should be careful in identifying when the Fall occurred, or else we might end up by saying, as some have, that the Earth is only 4000 years old--obviously false. Adam and Eve were humans WITH souls, not simply materially human. Were they homo sapiens, habilis? Maybe, maybe not. We don't know when God gave a soul to the material animal of Man. There are other factors too, e.g. the age of bones/fossils does not tell us when the animals died, only how old their bones are. God bless you.
@Jitpring Fr. Corapi, though not without his gifts, does not come close to either the late Archbishop Sheen or Father Barron. I would say bshaver141 is right on- Barron is the Fulton Sheen of our time.
You do paint an impressive picture. But it is all based on grounds that I see no reason to accept.
On "perfection": it's interesting--and I think laudable--that you poke a hole in that strange and childish longing. However, the whole story of The Fall is rooted in that longing: as it goes, we were once perfect, but we screwed up, and now we need God to regain perfection. You're half-right: perfection is an unattainable mirage--but it always was and always will be. So what? We don't need it.
God gets credit for creating, love, knowledge of right and wrong, "man" gets credit for sin, for trying to determine right from wrong and expropriating " devine life"..wtf! We have lust, envy,fear,anger because life exists where suffering, death and extinction exist at a knifes edge away, where predation and survival of the fitest is the arching rule of life that God apparently created.
No one is trying to be God, but we are trying to figure out right from wrong ( is that expropriating devine life?) . What do christians think about divorse, capital punishment, social safety net, universal health care,relief for africa, first strike war, corporal punishment? Of course we have to figure it out ourselves.
@adstanra The sin is not that we took something that God never wanted us to have, but that we seized it instead of receiving it as a gift once God had prepared us for it. Christ is the gift to us which gets this system back on its axis. That's why St. Athanasius says, "Why did God become man? So that man could become God." We are trying to be God, but we receive divine life as a gift instead of trying to appropriate it for ourselves. So do we also make moral choices under guidance of the Spirit.
@sgoodfellow09 I don't think anyone is trying to be God.Why do you say we are ? Most of us humans are just trying to provide for ourselves and our families; trying to live as happily as possible and avoid suffering as much as possible. because we life in a harsh world. We are not "approriating devinity". Besides , if God really was offering us this gift, who wouldn't take it ?
@adstanra - The theory is that since God needs to be understood as the source of all that is right and good, if you deny that, you are putting yourself in God's place.
I don't buy it. For those of us who don't believe in God, it's just circular logic and begging the question.
@jontv Yes. I am unaware of anyone trying to be the source of all that is right and good. It's not a very good theory. Very vague, but I still detect some self-deprication there. We need a gift from some devine source.
@adstanra We believe that God is offering us the gift of divine life through Jesus, the new Adam. Who wouldn't take this gift? Well, there are many who do not wish to receive the gift of life in Jesus Christ. Listen to the video around 2:15. The divine life that Fr. Barron talks about is this sense of life in God. Jesus became man to show us the path back to God from which we strayed. Perfection is a reality we can't achieve for ourselves. It IS inexistent for us alone. Hence, Christ.
@sgoodfellow09 Hey goodfellow. Do you realise that for anyone not of the faith, your post makes no sense at all. To an alien reading it, it would be unintelligable. There was no fall, from which we strayed.billions of yrs before humans, suffering and death was prevalent and the world was governed by predation and survival of the fitest. Never seen a perfect person, even catholic.
@adstanra True, and you never will find a perfect person. The Church is a hospital for sinners rather than a hotel for saints. We look to Jesus as our model of perfection and we strive to imitate his life. But you're saying more about God than you are about human life when you assert that suffering, death, and violence were present at creation; either that God is not good or powerful enough to get things right at creation. That's a big statement you make in denying a Fall.
@sgoodfellow09 I am making a truth claim that suffering and death and predation pre-exist humans. Iam asserting this based upon evidence. even without that though, why would a Good and allpowerful God design smallpox virus. a virusr that killed 300 million people in the 20th century. you are making a huge claim asserting a good God
@adstanra Yes I am, and our views of the world hinge on how we see God, but I only brought up the 'good God' to show that you've already thrown that principle away based on the suffering you see in the world. But you seem to be asserting that just because death is part of human life, God can't be good. If God is not good, then to hell with him. As for your 'evidence,' animals that were created carnivorous will eat other animals and glorify God in the process! That's how they were created to act.
@sgoodfellow09 "thats how they were created to act". Consider a species of round worm, Ascaris sp. that is an obligate human parasite, designed to latch to the lining of the bowel and leach nutrients from humans, often kids and the poor. 1 billion people are infected. Does this "glorify God" in the process? Smallpox virus was even worse! Take a look at pictures of people suffering from this nightmare! Glorify God indeed
@sgoodfellow09 this biological world is governed by cold impersonal laws of predation and survival of the fitest, where 99.8 % of all species that have ever existed are now extinct. Parasites exist because they redroduce effectively.Humans are endowed with anger, pride, envy, fear, tribalism because the world is harsh and cares not for any persons
@adstanra Those are good issues you bring up. If you're interested, I'd recommend reading the Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis. It might help you understand the Christian understanding of pain, suffering, and evil more than a 490 character limit youtube forum will allow.
@sgoodfellow09 Yes I read that book along time ago. He talks about the laws of physics being required for individuality and free-will, and how sometimes suffering " sculps" us into something greater than we otherwise would be. This argument falls way short though as so much suffering is gratuitous for those purposes and doesn't address animal suffering either. Smallpox is not a scupturer..lol
@adstanra Lewis devotes an entire chapter to animal pain. But he focuses on how pain can be remedial. Animals don't have free will and so are not moral beings. They can't be made better or worse morally from pain. His concern is human pain.
If pain is the 'megaphone' God uses to awaken a deaf world to tell us something's not right with ourselves or the world, then the presence of incurable diseases like smallpox at least reminds us that we have the seeds of immortality written in our soul.
@sgoodfellow09 And that, my friend, is synonymous with saying that we are not meant for this world, but for what we call heaven, eternal life. We have a desire to live forever, but not with suffering. Death is a type of remedy which has been put in place to put a limit on the sufferings of life, and to return us back to life with God. So smallpox and disease are big issues in this world, no doubt, but, if we allow it, they can have that remedial effect which reminds us of eternity.
@sgoodfellow09 That is a hell of a "megaphone", that most often seems to be directed to those who are poor or happen to contract smallpox. This is not like a sculpter who meticulously and carefully directs the instrument. The 300 million people who die from this torture- how do they benefit? do you think the children are reminded that they have the seeds of immortality within them ? I think many people are reminded of their mortality.
@adstanra this world is governed by cold impersonal laws of physics and biology.we humans are a resilient species( if we weren't we would be extinct) that learns from mistakes and suffering. The strong and adaptable survive and improve, the weak are weeded out mercilessly. Smallpox does that and we are "designed " for this harsh world, replete with immune systems and livers and pain receptors.this is not to remind us of our immortality!
@adstanra we have evolved mechanisms that help us survive in this world which include not only an immune system , but emotions like anger, fear and things like lust which passes on genes. We are of this world, not some eternity
@adstanra Well, if smallpox once reminded me of immortality, it's going to remind of you from now on! But you asked me to look at pictures of the children and the poor with smallpox, and you began advocating their cause, but then reverted back to your own 'survival of the fittest' agenda. Shame! Since you're so fond of it, why do you care about the 'weaklings' with smallpox? With your mindset, smallpox is the Savior of the strong, weeding out the weak. So don't complain to me about your god.
@sgoodfellow09 I am not a worshipper or advocate of the laws of physics. They are what they are. If there is some Good God who loves us, he/she/it/they have a funny way of showing it. I am a conscious entity, who understands that this kind of suffering is " bad". Unlike God, I try to do something about it. What makes better sense, is the notion that there is no Good-God lurking behind smallpox with some unfathomable agenda. I certainly doesn't make sense to blame humans for some fall.
@adstanra Unlike God, you try to do something about it? Who are you to go against the laws of physics then? If they are what they are, why are you trying to change something unchangeable? I'll stick with my 'unfathomable agenda' of a God who, as Fr. Barron says, loves the world into being rather than your cold impersonal physics which you promote as doctrine.
@sgoodfellow09 The laws of physics are not offended. We are the ones doing all the suffering and we have evolved brains that attempt to figure out how these laws work, so we can manipulate them to our advantage.Once we discovered the mindless laws that govern smallpox, we eliminated it! God did nothing! If God created smallpox, who are you to try to eliminate it. God so loved the world, he designed smallpox. Does that make sense to you ?
@adstanra Oh come on, friend. As I've explained now a number of times, you're confusing the physical and the metaphysical levels. God is not one fussy cause among many; but rather the one responsible for the whole of existence itself. God made small pox just as he made you. Small pox fits into his overall design in a way that we can't begin to fathom.
@wordonfirevideo I am trying to explain the existence of smallpox with reason, not revelation.The "metaphysical" is a code word for religion. You can get to an uncaused cause, but that doesn't give you license to imagine anything you want, as long as there is some authority behind it. There is simply no known "reason" why a good God would create smallpox-this is why you call it unfathomable. Mindless laws of physics made us.The evidence is fathomable
@adstanra when you look at the nested heirarchial bush of life where 99% of the species are now extinct, when you consider the atavisms, vestigial organs,pseudogenes and poor design characteristics, you will see that evolution is guided by stochastic natural unguided mechanisms.We are the result of that...no metaphysical explanation required. This is why smallpox exists
@adstanra The "metaphysical" is equivalent to the religious? Tell that to Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Leibniz, Spinoza, Heidegger, Whitehead, and Levinas! That which is truly the uncaused cause of finite existence is that which exists through the power of its own essence, therefore that which has, in itself, the fullness of being. Thus, it is altogether right to speak of this reality as intelligent, provident, creative, etc. There is a level of explanation beyond the physical!
@wordonfirevideo It might be correct to call a planck sphere, " the fullness of being" at the time, but I wouldn't call it intelligent, provident, creative, or Yahweh. the first cause does not have to be intelligent or creative in the way we think about these things. What does it mean to say that God "thinks" and " creates" outside of spacetime? spacetime makes these things intelligable? Tell me how you populate the metaphysical with saints, angels, souls, a mother of God?
At one time in history, man created metaphysical explanations for physical phenomena he did not understand or could not control. Competative religions and cultures develop around these memes, that get passed authoritatively from generation to generation, and they get modified to fit the times. religions that are contra-reason are demonstratably false and are not going to survive.
IMO, you have reason to believe ina an uncaused cause. You will have to convince me with evidence and logic that it is an intelligent thing. But , even so, you have a long way to go to argue reasonably that this being is the catholic deity as envisioned by the majority of catholics. I have heard people call God " the ground of all being" ..but this could refer to laws of physics, or Brahma..
@adstanra If this reality is truly unconditioned and non-contingent, then it contains within itself the reason for its own existence: its very nature is to be. But such a reality must be perfect, for there is literally nothing that would restrict its manner of being. In technical language, essence and existence must coincide in such a reality. Therefore, it is possessed of every and any ontological pefection,including, of course, intellect, will, and personality.
The universe is not compelled towards our idea of perfection. This notion exists in our minds as one end of an archetypal scale of good and bad. The universe is what it is and there is no compellation to comply to our notion of perfectly good or perfectly bad there is nothing stopping it from being perfectly "bad" either.Maybe God is Satan? the planck sphere is neither Good nor Bad as it contains no order, no information
Once the planck sphere expanded and the laws of physics came into effect such as to create order; such as planets, gallaxies, continents, seas, lakes, and sentient beings like ourselves, we began to symbolically refer to those things that increase happiness as Good and those things that increase suffering as Bad. Spacetimelessness knows nothing of this. This is the sort of logic that compells you to argue that smallpox is a good thing! why not think God is perfectly bad?
@adstanra The ontological argument has not been overly convincing. i understand Even Thomas Aquinas himslef was critical of it. There is nothing compelling Existence just because we can conceive of it. Even if i granted you the cosmological argument and the ontological argument, you still have a huge way to go to argue for the conception of this perfection believed by the majority of catholics, which includes angels, saints etc
@adstanra I haven't said a word about the ontological argument. But I have argued, on the basis of the cosmological argument, that the non-contingent ground of contingency includes within its being all perfection. That means, it (or better "he") is intelligent, personal, free, loving, etc. I can't get to angels and saints within 500 characters, I'm afraid!
@wordonfirevideo Perfection is a quality of a thing, where the quality is expressed 100 %, the ideal form of something, the perfect diamond, the perfect woman, the perfect dog. These are archetypes that exist in our minds, but despite the ontological argument, there is nothing complelling existence from these archetypes.The nessessary 1st cause does not need to be perfectly intelligent, perfectly evil.
@adstanra Is the universe contingent or necessary? Can we infer things about the whole from the parts? Is something more likely than nothing? We don't have enough background knowledge to speak about these things. The planck sphere might be the closest we get, and that was mathematically perfectly chaotic ( necessary?) Order makes "perfection" at least a possible state( even though there is no evidence of it's realisation).
@adstanra NO! This is the "scientism" I've been complaining about: the reduction of all knowledge to the scientific form. Metaphysics is a qualitatively different kind of animal than, say, physics or chemistry or astronomy. It asks about the nature of being qua being. It is not a primitive or inadequate form of science. It is something else altogether.
@wordonfirevideo yes i know, but I am questioning the epistemic validity of metaphysics to know anything. this is the sort of thing that leads people to conclude that God is perfectly good, therefore smallpox, which he designed, is perfect as well( at least part of a perfect plan). God could be perfectly evil just as well. Just becauses Dogs exist, does not mean there is a perfect Dog that is traceble to a perfect mind.
@adstanra I'm continually amazed at the number of people who want me to defend every detail of Catholic doctrine in 500 characters or less! Hold your horses. I'm just trying to defend the existence of God. We'll get to the angels, saints, souls and the Blessed Mother in other videos.
I look forward to those videos where you demonstrate the existence of angels, saints, souls and blessed mother using reason based upon verifyable premises. Like your comment on my use of "happiness" in the other video, please specifically define angels,saints, etc are. If you don't use reason as defined, then tell me how to distinguish between the validity of your beliefs and any other beliefs derived dogmatically from revelation and authority.
haha I hate it also when people ask me to summarize the entire Catholic faith in 500 characters. its as if people have an antipathy toward reading, its not like Catholics have explored all of these issues in detail
@sgoodfellow09 If this gift is real and available to everyone, and it is so good, who would not take it ? you tell me there are some who don't want it. who are these people? I've never heard of any human who doesn't accept good things for free. Have you? do you think a muslem is intentionally rejecting this good gift ?
I swear, I really need to take notes on your videos. They are so inciteful. If you ever decide to speak in Southern California, I'll be right there listening to you.
BIblical fundamentalists make the argument that unless you read the Eden story literally, all Christian theology unravels because if there was not an actual Adam/Eve/Serpent, then there was never a fall from grace and no need for divine redemption. From watching your other videos, I gather that you accept that modern science has made it impossible to perceive the Genesis creation accounts as anything but allegory, so how would you counter the fundamentalists' argument?
@sensengine Ok this was a year ago, but in case you are still looking for a response. So far as the modern teaching goes the magisterium of the Church teaches that Adam and Eve are historical persons, but that we must be careful to interpret the tales wisely due to their story being revealed rather than witnessed. Consequently we must be careful to allow for the faults of the recorder. As to symbolism, as one Augustinian Priest remarked when I was young, 'Ah 'twas no apple, 'twas a peach.'
amazing! thanks so much! My mom's a frequent speaker at churches in our area so I grew up with wonderful depth of conversation about religious subjects- and that means that, unfortunately, it is rather hard to surprise me or tell me something I haven't heard (or atleast think I haven't!)-- but you father, you help me see it in new ways, and I thank you.
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MrAzdaz 3 months ago
Sometimes I think that many people don't take into consideration the many sacrifices a man like Father Barron makes when he chooses to become a priest. First of all, it's not an easy row to hoe. It's years of work and study and discernment and whatnot. Then, there's the matter of knowing one is choosing to forego marriage & family. And then there's the lack of riches & wealth - you don't get rich (in terms of cash) in his job. He can't be doing this for himself, b/c he doesn't gain much...
ladylejean215 4 months ago
@ladylejean215 ...in terms of worldly wealth and prestige, etc. He does this for God and to reach out and make contact with individual people, real human beings, for the sake of their souls. Father Barron is no Joel Osteen with the "Prosperity Gospel" and all that. Nope. Not by a long shot. Frankly, I personally respect him more than the megachurch preachers, etc.
ladylejean215 4 months ago
Father Barron, ignore the trolls. The only reason they're being smart-asses is because they're behind a keyboard.
ladylejean215 4 months ago
@ladylejean215 Believe me, I don't resond to the vast majority of comments. But some, I think, warrant a response--if only for the sake of someone else who might come along and read the exchange.
wordonfirevideo 4 months ago
@wordonfirevideo Good point, Father.
ladylejean215 4 months ago
@ladylejean215 I don't know who you are referring to. I can only see the danger in automatically seeing people with different opinions as someone who's insidiously trying to lure you from the right path. Out of curiosity can I ask you if you ever question your faith? If so, what's the qualm?
DrHowbeit 4 months ago
@DrHowbeit In my 42 years of life I've run the religious gamut from starting out as a United Methodist, to being a feminist Wiccan, to being a Unitarian Universalist, to exploring Buddhism, to being a reconstructionist pagan, and now I am investigating the Episcopal church. I'd say I DO question things. A LOT. More than you'll EVER know. EVER.
ladylejean215 4 months ago
@ladylejean215 "More than you'll EVER know. EVER."
Calm down. This is not a war. It was a simple question, not a call to arms.
DrHowbeit 4 months ago
@ladylejean215 Perhaps I need to clarify the question. When you question your faith, what part of your faith is it that you question? Is there a certain aspect about your beliefs that makes you feel unsettled? (E. g. the problem or evi or whatever).
DrHowbeit 4 months ago
@DrHowbeit There are entirely too many details about this to write into a short note here. It ranges from why certain groups have a total LACK of theology at all to group polity. There's always *something* to question. My questions often get me shunned by many of the groups I mentioned.
ladylejean215 4 months ago
@DrHowbeit Do YOU question your OWN assumptions?
ladylejean215 4 months ago
@ladylejean215 Yes.
DrHowbeit 4 months ago
@DrHowbeit A lot of the assumptions that skeptics have are actually *faith-based assumptions* - just because it may not involve God, that doesn't mean it's not based in faith. Try reading "The Reason for God" by Timothy Keller. He is a Presbyterian pastor from Redeemer Presbyterian in NY. He addresses a lot of the faith based assumptions that skeptics have - and gives responses to them.
ladylejean215 4 months ago
@ladylejean215 Thanks for the tip. I´ll have a look. It's always interesting to hear proper arguments from someone who actually gave the matters some thought. I am however skeptic. Keller, as it turns out, was steeped in his faith from childhood. Born in a Christian country he was educated in Christian schools and has served his living as a pastor and professor of practical theology. With that background would it not be interesting if he had written a book promoting Islam?
DrHowbeit 4 months ago
@DrHowbeit But this makes no sense. It'd be as if Father Barron wrote a book on feminist Dianic spirituality. One thing I learned long ago in public speaking & writing - you speak about & write about what you actually know. I think it'd be completely silly for pastors like Keller & Barron & others to write about something outside of their area of expertise. That's like asking your plumber to do your taxes for you.
ladylejean215 4 months ago
@ladylejean215 Missing the point. The best stories are told from experience. Sure. Not the issue. Keller not only writes about C, he claims it to be the truth. (Does a plumber claim that his profession is the one true profession?) K's upbringing is right, A-L-L other beliefs (that ever existed and will exist) is wrong. The same pattern all over the world. People believe what people around them believe and view other generic and faceless tribes as deluded. That's cultural racism.
DrHowbeit 4 months ago
If Christianity is not about "Me", as he says, why is there a prospect of heaven? Name a single religion that does not tempt followers with a reward. Religion is always about what you get, albeit something immaterial as opposed to something material. Fine by me as long as you admit that religion is an expression of self-centrism. The solution here, for the religious, is perhaps to reevaluate the term and strip it form it's connotations. Suppose that "Ego" is at it's core a divine incentive.
DrHowbeit 4 months ago
@DrHowbeit Heaven isn't a "reward." It's a symbolic descsription of the state of perfect love. That kind of love is its own reward.
wordonfirevideo 4 months ago
@wordonfirevideo Ok, love is the reward, that confirms what I said. Religion is about what I get. I don't get money, I don't get fame, instead I get love. It still means that I believe because I want something back. On the other hand, God, according to tradition, has the same motivation. He wants OUR love. Suppose that both parties benefit, even so the force in mind is "what's in it for me?".
DrHowbeit 4 months ago
@wordonfirevideo Can you imagine believing in a God that gives nothing in return? When you're dead you're dead, that's it. You believe simply because you believe that what you believe is true, and the Truth is indifferent to whether you believe it to be true or not.
DrHowbeit 4 months ago
@DrHowbeit Well sure, we should accept things because they're true. It is demonstrably true that God exists (see the argument from contingency). And yet clinging to God in love does indeed bring me joy and fullness of life. I don't see why I should have to choose between the two.
wordonfirevideo 4 months ago
@wordonfirevideo Even though I'm not getting through we seem to agree – love is the pay off, the reward, the return, call it whatever. In psychology the rule says that an individual doesn't do a-n-y-t-h-i-ng without getting something back. I happen to doubt that people in general turn to faith because of the contingency argument. The reason is emotional. The rational arguments are add-ons. I can understand the emotional reasons perfectly well.
DrHowbeit 4 months ago
@wordonfirevideo I might be getting the hang of the religious psyche. The ground rule seems to be that if my emotion is strong enough it almost certainly is true. The challenge, I would say, is that life on a grander scale tends to be counter-intuitive. When looking at at a hippo I would never presume that we were related, but that is where the evidence leads. When looking at the sun I would never think that it is standing still and that I'm moving at 1000 miles an hour.
DrHowbeit 4 months ago
I'm impressed on his definition of sin, but at the ending of the video "donate to", I'm depressed again.
chesster423 4 months ago
@chesster423 Well friend, then give me another way to support my ministry! Without some donations, I couldn't make these videos. Not one penny of any money Word on Fire receives comes to me personally.
wordonfirevideo 4 months ago
@wordonfirevideo
well, just like any other human being who became successful in life, work hard, establish a legal business, and many more :)
chesster423 4 months ago
@chesster423 How do you think non-for-profits make their money?! They ask for donations.
wordonfirevideo 4 months ago
@wordonfirevideo
In our church here, during Sunday mass, there is this first collection and second collection.
Not only during Sunday mass but also weddings, burial mass, baptismal mass, private mass, and many more! I don't even know where all these collections will go.
Sorry if I dislike donations, it's making people lazy and helpless for themselves. It's not really easy to earn money honestly, especially here in our country.
chesster423 4 months ago
@chesster423 Well again, give me a better way to maintain a multi-million dollar parish plant, to run numerous parish programs, to pay the salaries of parish employees, to facilitate the church's outreach to the poor, etc. I'm sure your pastor would be all ears!
wordonfirevideo 4 months ago
@chesster423 Perhaps you should have followed Fr. Barron around when he was filming the Catholicism project. I wonder if you'd be able to keep up with him. You might not be so quick to suggest he's a lazy bum.
ladylejean215 4 months ago
@ladylejean215
he deleted my last comment, I don't know why.... that was a great response... wasted..
chesster423 4 months ago
@chesster423 You likely acted like some kind of troll and said something rude and uncalled for. Seems to me that'd be the reason to delete any comment.
ladylejean215 4 months ago
@chesster423 I'd like to see that comment. Could you send me a message?
DrHowbeit 4 months ago
@DrHowbeit
this "It's not all about the money3x sir, it is how you can express your passion to the best level you could have. I'll admit money is necessary for our survival, but when it comes to passion, it is priceless." and so on.. can't really remember the rest..
my message is all about, if you really love something, it's no longer necessary to be greedy for it. It will love you the same way you love it. Fr. Barron's response is always "gimme a way to earn multi-money" and somethng lyk that
chesster423 4 months ago
@DrHowbeit
my bad... I didn't read too far.. it's commented on the video instead of privately messaging it. Apologies.
chesster423 4 months ago
@chesster423 Fine by me. I just thought your comment might be deleted if you posted it again. Christians censoring the field of comments is quite common. It has happened to me as well. It doesn't support their side. Only gives the impression that they have something to hide. The same goes for Fr. B I'm sad to say. He butts out if you are polemic. Preaching for the choir in other words. Too bad.
DrHowbeit 4 months ago
@DrHowbeit Friend, take a look at the literally tens of thousands of comments on these forums. Look at the hundreds of vigorous critics of the faith that I've engaged. I am not the least bit afraid to dialogue with a variety of interlocutors. I delete comments for a variety of reasons: obscenity, repetition, poorly formulated arguments, etc. If you object to any of this, I suggest you open your own YouTube site.
wordonfirevideo 4 months ago 3
@wordonfirevideo So you have blocked posters who provided "poorly formulated arguments". Since you are the judge of "poorly formulated arguments" you can and have eliminated debate with people who confronted you withe the reality of Catholic teaching that you could not deny. You know it and I know it.
Lyc360 3 months ago
@Lyc360 Don't like it? Get your own YouTube page!
wordonfirevideo 3 months ago
@wordonfirevideo Touche!
Lyc360 3 months ago
@Lyc360 I replied to you on your channel because I could not find your comment on the original video that youtube said you replied to me on
laffiteaumusic 3 months ago
@DrHowbeit One of Barron's criteria for deleting a post or banning a participant is "repetition" I've lost count of the number of times he has avoided a direct challenge to one of his arguments by simply citing various theologians or authors i.e Aquinas, Augustine, Chesterton, etc.
Lyc360 3 months ago
@Lyc360 I've tried a couple of times to start a discussion with Fr. B but within a pair of comments he's missing. I know that Jesus says on the topic of evangelism that it's useless to waste time on people that aren't "open to the truth". On the other hand, snake oil merchants and hustlers hold the same rule as a basic strategy. I'm not making a comparison apart from that notion. Just saying.
DrHowbeit 3 months ago
@Lyc360 Oy vey. Have you taken note of the tens of thousands of comments on these forums? Man, I can't possibly respond to every one.
wordonfirevideo 3 months ago
@wordonfirevideo Well you do have a tough challenge - sort of like an outfielder trying to catch 300 fly balls at the same time.
Lyc360 3 months ago
No, Father, don't set foot in California! That land and its inhabitants must all be burned and killed off! Steer clear! STEER CLEAR! It's hell over there! Land of the Liberals aka people who will automatically go to hell through the end of a handgun for the sport of the good crusaders who are too tired for the likes of them and their disgusting egalitarian ways! (It's shorter in Egyptian!)
But I'm serious, you should stay away from Sodom and Gomorrah.
MontChevalier 7 months ago
@MontChevalier doesn't that mean that they need the most evagelisation? that this land needs the most fire of the Spirit to bring people home.
ThroughIceEyes 6 months ago
@ThroughIceEyes For individual sodomites, they can be turned, in time. But with a whole flock of them, they have to be purged. Period. You cannot persuade so many, especially when the antichristian government is backing them up.
MontChevalier 6 months ago
@ThroughIceEyes I better re-phrase that, perhaps not necessarily "purge" per se, but what we're doing these days is just not working and the general public is becoming more homo-encouraging. That's a huge problem, really.
MontChevalier 6 months ago
@3rosesred Los Angeles Religious Education Congress.
wordonfirevideo 8 months ago
I am a retired Catholic priest with a STL form Laval University. Each seminarian had a copy of the Summa of St. Thomas Aqunias! I studied "Grace & Nature" in Teilhard de Chardin with a comparison with Aquinas for my Doctorate. I fell short, but never regret my studies in this area. I just want to thank you Father Barron for your videos. Please persevere! I will pray for you. Keep close to Christ thru the Church & the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist! God Bless you always!
watchful38 11 months ago
Thank you so much `wordonfirevideo` for such informative video`s and how refreshing to hear a great Priest like Fr.Barron to give us such intelligent apologetics.
SwordofTruth33 1 year ago
If we take our morals from God the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, God help us. God the father committed genocide, God the son actually did do some nice things, and the Holy Spirit supernaturally impregnated a 14 year old girl. So, so far, we have - kill LOTS of people, do a few things, pray, and give to the poor, then impregnate very young woman and call it miraculous, no?
ItsEasyIfYouThink 1 year ago
The best explanation of sin I have ever heard!
MyMonkVlog 1 year ago
It has been said that the Christian journey is essentially the gradual realization which one of us is God and which one of us isn't.
thoughtadventure 1 year ago
We have to see sin as human fallability. We will never be rid of sin by the Catholic definition that we can only be perfect with god. Is god not angry - jealous, capricious, violent, sinfull even? We need Police to deal with sin and shared societal goals and a consensual understanding of what is bad. We know this truth instinctively as human beings. Biblical teaching does not give us morality - quite the opposite. It gives us anger and a justification for wrongdoing fired by certainty!
bigguitar22 1 year ago
what your saying kind of makes me think that you are telling people not to think for themselves,and let the church tell you how to think. you are infact saying it is sinful to think for oneself...i have always beleived chirstianity is the most devisive religion for controling the masses,and keeping the church powerful. life is absurd and if you dont assert your own beliefs, someone will force theirs onto you. That is just my opinion...
chuckstar666 1 year ago
@chuckstar666 No. I'm opposed to people making their own wills the criterion of good and evil. The standard of good is God, and when we forget this, we drift into an ethical no-man's land. If you doubt me, look at much of the twentieth century.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago 9
@wordonfirevideo well said, well said...
clarkbailey1973 1 year ago
Does anyone consider you a bit too "intellectual", Father? You have a very wide vocabulary and often times refer to obscure philosophers and texts. I ain't complaining, but I know many people, who can barely string sentences together online, who might.
FarTooHuman 1 year ago
@FarTooHuman Well, I'm speaking out of the Catholic tradition, which is smart. Read an apologist such as G.K. Chesterton and then see whether I'm using words with too many syllables!
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo I took your advice and briefly looked up Chesterton, and well I found this... "The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." Lmao. Greatest thing I've read all week.
FarTooHuman 1 year ago 3
@FarTooHuman Yes, every page of Chesterton sparkles.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago 5
@FarTooHuman I'm glad to hear intellectualized and congniznet exegies of Scripture and Tradition...that is the way of the ancient of faith, look at Justin Marytr and many of the ancient fathers...
clarkbailey1973 1 year ago
If the fall is what caused sickness and death then how did sickness and death exist before the fall? (Plenty of scientific evidence that shows that animals got sick and died before man came into being)
elzoog 1 year ago
@elzoog We should be careful in identifying when the Fall occurred, or else we might end up by saying, as some have, that the Earth is only 4000 years old--obviously false. Adam and Eve were humans WITH souls, not simply materially human. Were they homo sapiens, habilis? Maybe, maybe not. We don't know when God gave a soul to the material animal of Man. There are other factors too, e.g. the age of bones/fossils does not tell us when the animals died, only how old their bones are. God bless you.
richgr1123 1 year ago
I've always had a hard time understanding the Fall and its implications. This video helped a great deal.
hahahfilms 1 year ago
hmm, no response. Have I stumped the Father?
sensengine 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@bshaver141
"The Fulton Sheen of OUR time...."
No. Just as this impoverished age can produce no more Bachs or Mozarts, it can produce no more John Henry Newmans or Fulton Sheens.
Is Fr. Barron among the best that this age can produce? Sure. But this testifies only to the rank poverty of this age.
Jitpring 1 year ago
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Jitpring 1 year ago
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Jitpring 1 year ago
@Jitpring Fr. Corapi, though not without his gifts, does not come close to either the late Archbishop Sheen or Father Barron. I would say bshaver141 is right on- Barron is the Fulton Sheen of our time.
TELEMACUS800 1 year ago
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jontv 1 year ago
You do paint an impressive picture. But it is all based on grounds that I see no reason to accept.
On "perfection": it's interesting--and I think laudable--that you poke a hole in that strange and childish longing. However, the whole story of The Fall is rooted in that longing: as it goes, we were once perfect, but we screwed up, and now we need God to regain perfection. You're half-right: perfection is an unattainable mirage--but it always was and always will be. So what? We don't need it.
jontv 1 year ago
You are such a passionate speaker! God Bless
xtrashed 1 year ago
Where are you Father? You look more like a TV televangelist than a Catholic priest.
Beautiful talk by the way.
wood9670 1 year ago
wonderful...
hepatitis 1 year ago
@bshaver141 Nah, Mr. Sheen had a hilarious presentation.
Greynomad38 1 year ago
Awesome!
havock89 1 year ago
Wonderfully insightful as ever. Thanks gain Fr.
4theprize 1 year ago
Wow. That's what I call preaching! God Bless you Fr Barron!
MrHeatwave10 1 year ago
Brilliant stuff.
sterlingrose33 1 year ago
God gets credit for creating, love, knowledge of right and wrong, "man" gets credit for sin, for trying to determine right from wrong and expropriating " devine life"..wtf! We have lust, envy,fear,anger because life exists where suffering, death and extinction exist at a knifes edge away, where predation and survival of the fitest is the arching rule of life that God apparently created.
adstanra 1 year ago
No one is trying to be God, but we are trying to figure out right from wrong ( is that expropriating devine life?) . What do christians think about divorse, capital punishment, social safety net, universal health care,relief for africa, first strike war, corporal punishment? Of course we have to figure it out ourselves.
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra The sin is not that we took something that God never wanted us to have, but that we seized it instead of receiving it as a gift once God had prepared us for it. Christ is the gift to us which gets this system back on its axis. That's why St. Athanasius says, "Why did God become man? So that man could become God." We are trying to be God, but we receive divine life as a gift instead of trying to appropriate it for ourselves. So do we also make moral choices under guidance of the Spirit.
sgoodfellow09 1 year ago
@sgoodfellow09 I don't think anyone is trying to be God.Why do you say we are ? Most of us humans are just trying to provide for ourselves and our families; trying to live as happily as possible and avoid suffering as much as possible. because we life in a harsh world. We are not "approriating devinity". Besides , if God really was offering us this gift, who wouldn't take it ?
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra - The theory is that since God needs to be understood as the source of all that is right and good, if you deny that, you are putting yourself in God's place.
I don't buy it. For those of us who don't believe in God, it's just circular logic and begging the question.
jontv 1 year ago
@jontv Yes. I am unaware of anyone trying to be the source of all that is right and good. It's not a very good theory. Very vague, but I still detect some self-deprication there. We need a gift from some devine source.
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra We believe that God is offering us the gift of divine life through Jesus, the new Adam. Who wouldn't take this gift? Well, there are many who do not wish to receive the gift of life in Jesus Christ. Listen to the video around 2:15. The divine life that Fr. Barron talks about is this sense of life in God. Jesus became man to show us the path back to God from which we strayed. Perfection is a reality we can't achieve for ourselves. It IS inexistent for us alone. Hence, Christ.
sgoodfellow09 1 year ago
@sgoodfellow09 Hey goodfellow. Do you realise that for anyone not of the faith, your post makes no sense at all. To an alien reading it, it would be unintelligable. There was no fall, from which we strayed.billions of yrs before humans, suffering and death was prevalent and the world was governed by predation and survival of the fitest. Never seen a perfect person, even catholic.
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra True, and you never will find a perfect person. The Church is a hospital for sinners rather than a hotel for saints. We look to Jesus as our model of perfection and we strive to imitate his life. But you're saying more about God than you are about human life when you assert that suffering, death, and violence were present at creation; either that God is not good or powerful enough to get things right at creation. That's a big statement you make in denying a Fall.
sgoodfellow09 1 year ago
@sgoodfellow09 I am making a truth claim that suffering and death and predation pre-exist humans. Iam asserting this based upon evidence. even without that though, why would a Good and allpowerful God design smallpox virus. a virusr that killed 300 million people in the 20th century. you are making a huge claim asserting a good God
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra Yes I am, and our views of the world hinge on how we see God, but I only brought up the 'good God' to show that you've already thrown that principle away based on the suffering you see in the world. But you seem to be asserting that just because death is part of human life, God can't be good. If God is not good, then to hell with him. As for your 'evidence,' animals that were created carnivorous will eat other animals and glorify God in the process! That's how they were created to act.
sgoodfellow09 1 year ago
@sgoodfellow09 "thats how they were created to act". Consider a species of round worm, Ascaris sp. that is an obligate human parasite, designed to latch to the lining of the bowel and leach nutrients from humans, often kids and the poor. 1 billion people are infected. Does this "glorify God" in the process? Smallpox virus was even worse! Take a look at pictures of people suffering from this nightmare! Glorify God indeed
adstanra 1 year ago
@sgoodfellow09 this biological world is governed by cold impersonal laws of predation and survival of the fitest, where 99.8 % of all species that have ever existed are now extinct. Parasites exist because they redroduce effectively.Humans are endowed with anger, pride, envy, fear, tribalism because the world is harsh and cares not for any persons
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra Those are good issues you bring up. If you're interested, I'd recommend reading the Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis. It might help you understand the Christian understanding of pain, suffering, and evil more than a 490 character limit youtube forum will allow.
sgoodfellow09 1 year ago
@sgoodfellow09 Yes I read that book along time ago. He talks about the laws of physics being required for individuality and free-will, and how sometimes suffering " sculps" us into something greater than we otherwise would be. This argument falls way short though as so much suffering is gratuitous for those purposes and doesn't address animal suffering either. Smallpox is not a scupturer..lol
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra Lewis devotes an entire chapter to animal pain. But he focuses on how pain can be remedial. Animals don't have free will and so are not moral beings. They can't be made better or worse morally from pain. His concern is human pain.
If pain is the 'megaphone' God uses to awaken a deaf world to tell us something's not right with ourselves or the world, then the presence of incurable diseases like smallpox at least reminds us that we have the seeds of immortality written in our soul.
sgoodfellow09 1 year ago
@sgoodfellow09 And that, my friend, is synonymous with saying that we are not meant for this world, but for what we call heaven, eternal life. We have a desire to live forever, but not with suffering. Death is a type of remedy which has been put in place to put a limit on the sufferings of life, and to return us back to life with God. So smallpox and disease are big issues in this world, no doubt, but, if we allow it, they can have that remedial effect which reminds us of eternity.
sgoodfellow09 1 year ago
@sgoodfellow09 That is a hell of a "megaphone", that most often seems to be directed to those who are poor or happen to contract smallpox. This is not like a sculpter who meticulously and carefully directs the instrument. The 300 million people who die from this torture- how do they benefit? do you think the children are reminded that they have the seeds of immortality within them ? I think many people are reminded of their mortality.
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra this world is governed by cold impersonal laws of physics and biology.we humans are a resilient species( if we weren't we would be extinct) that learns from mistakes and suffering. The strong and adaptable survive and improve, the weak are weeded out mercilessly. Smallpox does that and we are "designed " for this harsh world, replete with immune systems and livers and pain receptors.this is not to remind us of our immortality!
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra we have evolved mechanisms that help us survive in this world which include not only an immune system , but emotions like anger, fear and things like lust which passes on genes. We are of this world, not some eternity
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra Well, if smallpox once reminded me of immortality, it's going to remind of you from now on! But you asked me to look at pictures of the children and the poor with smallpox, and you began advocating their cause, but then reverted back to your own 'survival of the fittest' agenda. Shame! Since you're so fond of it, why do you care about the 'weaklings' with smallpox? With your mindset, smallpox is the Savior of the strong, weeding out the weak. So don't complain to me about your god.
sgoodfellow09 1 year ago
@sgoodfellow09 I am not a worshipper or advocate of the laws of physics. They are what they are. If there is some Good God who loves us, he/she/it/they have a funny way of showing it. I am a conscious entity, who understands that this kind of suffering is " bad". Unlike God, I try to do something about it. What makes better sense, is the notion that there is no Good-God lurking behind smallpox with some unfathomable agenda. I certainly doesn't make sense to blame humans for some fall.
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra Unlike God, you try to do something about it? Who are you to go against the laws of physics then? If they are what they are, why are you trying to change something unchangeable? I'll stick with my 'unfathomable agenda' of a God who, as Fr. Barron says, loves the world into being rather than your cold impersonal physics which you promote as doctrine.
sgoodfellow09 1 year ago
@sgoodfellow09 The laws of physics are not offended. We are the ones doing all the suffering and we have evolved brains that attempt to figure out how these laws work, so we can manipulate them to our advantage.Once we discovered the mindless laws that govern smallpox, we eliminated it! God did nothing! If God created smallpox, who are you to try to eliminate it. God so loved the world, he designed smallpox. Does that make sense to you ?
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra Oh come on, friend. As I've explained now a number of times, you're confusing the physical and the metaphysical levels. God is not one fussy cause among many; but rather the one responsible for the whole of existence itself. God made small pox just as he made you. Small pox fits into his overall design in a way that we can't begin to fathom.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo I am trying to explain the existence of smallpox with reason, not revelation.The "metaphysical" is a code word for religion. You can get to an uncaused cause, but that doesn't give you license to imagine anything you want, as long as there is some authority behind it. There is simply no known "reason" why a good God would create smallpox-this is why you call it unfathomable. Mindless laws of physics made us.The evidence is fathomable
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra when you look at the nested heirarchial bush of life where 99% of the species are now extinct, when you consider the atavisms, vestigial organs,pseudogenes and poor design characteristics, you will see that evolution is guided by stochastic natural unguided mechanisms.We are the result of that...no metaphysical explanation required. This is why smallpox exists
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra The "metaphysical" is equivalent to the religious? Tell that to Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Leibniz, Spinoza, Heidegger, Whitehead, and Levinas! That which is truly the uncaused cause of finite existence is that which exists through the power of its own essence, therefore that which has, in itself, the fullness of being. Thus, it is altogether right to speak of this reality as intelligent, provident, creative, etc. There is a level of explanation beyond the physical!
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo It might be correct to call a planck sphere, " the fullness of being" at the time, but I wouldn't call it intelligent, provident, creative, or Yahweh. the first cause does not have to be intelligent or creative in the way we think about these things. What does it mean to say that God "thinks" and " creates" outside of spacetime? spacetime makes these things intelligable? Tell me how you populate the metaphysical with saints, angels, souls, a mother of God?
adstanra 1 year ago
At one time in history, man created metaphysical explanations for physical phenomena he did not understand or could not control. Competative religions and cultures develop around these memes, that get passed authoritatively from generation to generation, and they get modified to fit the times. religions that are contra-reason are demonstratably false and are not going to survive.
adstanra 1 year ago
IMO, you have reason to believe ina an uncaused cause. You will have to convince me with evidence and logic that it is an intelligent thing. But , even so, you have a long way to go to argue reasonably that this being is the catholic deity as envisioned by the majority of catholics. I have heard people call God " the ground of all being" ..but this could refer to laws of physics, or Brahma..
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra If this reality is truly unconditioned and non-contingent, then it contains within itself the reason for its own existence: its very nature is to be. But such a reality must be perfect, for there is literally nothing that would restrict its manner of being. In technical language, essence and existence must coincide in such a reality. Therefore, it is possessed of every and any ontological pefection,including, of course, intellect, will, and personality.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
The universe is not compelled towards our idea of perfection. This notion exists in our minds as one end of an archetypal scale of good and bad. The universe is what it is and there is no compellation to comply to our notion of perfectly good or perfectly bad there is nothing stopping it from being perfectly "bad" either.Maybe God is Satan? the planck sphere is neither Good nor Bad as it contains no order, no information
adstanra 1 year ago
Once the planck sphere expanded and the laws of physics came into effect such as to create order; such as planets, gallaxies, continents, seas, lakes, and sentient beings like ourselves, we began to symbolically refer to those things that increase happiness as Good and those things that increase suffering as Bad. Spacetimelessness knows nothing of this. This is the sort of logic that compells you to argue that smallpox is a good thing! why not think God is perfectly bad?
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra The ontological argument has not been overly convincing. i understand Even Thomas Aquinas himslef was critical of it. There is nothing compelling Existence just because we can conceive of it. Even if i granted you the cosmological argument and the ontological argument, you still have a huge way to go to argue for the conception of this perfection believed by the majority of catholics, which includes angels, saints etc
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra I haven't said a word about the ontological argument. But I have argued, on the basis of the cosmological argument, that the non-contingent ground of contingency includes within its being all perfection. That means, it (or better "he") is intelligent, personal, free, loving, etc. I can't get to angels and saints within 500 characters, I'm afraid!
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo Perfection is a quality of a thing, where the quality is expressed 100 %, the ideal form of something, the perfect diamond, the perfect woman, the perfect dog. These are archetypes that exist in our minds, but despite the ontological argument, there is nothing complelling existence from these archetypes.The nessessary 1st cause does not need to be perfectly intelligent, perfectly evil.
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra Is the universe contingent or necessary? Can we infer things about the whole from the parts? Is something more likely than nothing? We don't have enough background knowledge to speak about these things. The planck sphere might be the closest we get, and that was mathematically perfectly chaotic ( necessary?) Order makes "perfection" at least a possible state( even though there is no evidence of it's realisation).
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra NO! This is the "scientism" I've been complaining about: the reduction of all knowledge to the scientific form. Metaphysics is a qualitatively different kind of animal than, say, physics or chemistry or astronomy. It asks about the nature of being qua being. It is not a primitive or inadequate form of science. It is something else altogether.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo yes i know, but I am questioning the epistemic validity of metaphysics to know anything. this is the sort of thing that leads people to conclude that God is perfectly good, therefore smallpox, which he designed, is perfect as well( at least part of a perfect plan). God could be perfectly evil just as well. Just becauses Dogs exist, does not mean there is a perfect Dog that is traceble to a perfect mind.
adstanra 1 year ago
@adstanra I'm continually amazed at the number of people who want me to defend every detail of Catholic doctrine in 500 characters or less! Hold your horses. I'm just trying to defend the existence of God. We'll get to the angels, saints, souls and the Blessed Mother in other videos.
wordonfirevideo 1 year ago
I look forward to those videos where you demonstrate the existence of angels, saints, souls and blessed mother using reason based upon verifyable premises. Like your comment on my use of "happiness" in the other video, please specifically define angels,saints, etc are. If you don't use reason as defined, then tell me how to distinguish between the validity of your beliefs and any other beliefs derived dogmatically from revelation and authority.
adstanra 1 year ago
@wordonfirevideo
haha I hate it also when people ask me to summarize the entire Catholic faith in 500 characters. its as if people have an antipathy toward reading, its not like Catholics have explored all of these issues in detail
AbdielAbiram 1 year ago
@sgoodfellow09 If this gift is real and available to everyone, and it is so good, who would not take it ? you tell me there are some who don't want it. who are these people? I've never heard of any human who doesn't accept good things for free. Have you? do you think a muslem is intentionally rejecting this good gift ?
adstanra 1 year ago
nice one Father - thanks a lot
jeravincer 1 year ago
I swear, I really need to take notes on your videos. They are so inciteful. If you ever decide to speak in Southern California, I'll be right there listening to you.
Great Video.
Stitchman3875 1 year ago 8
BIblical fundamentalists make the argument that unless you read the Eden story literally, all Christian theology unravels because if there was not an actual Adam/Eve/Serpent, then there was never a fall from grace and no need for divine redemption. From watching your other videos, I gather that you accept that modern science has made it impossible to perceive the Genesis creation accounts as anything but allegory, so how would you counter the fundamentalists' argument?
sensengine 1 year ago
@sensengine Ok this was a year ago, but in case you are still looking for a response. So far as the modern teaching goes the magisterium of the Church teaches that Adam and Eve are historical persons, but that we must be careful to interpret the tales wisely due to their story being revealed rather than witnessed. Consequently we must be careful to allow for the faults of the recorder. As to symbolism, as one Augustinian Priest remarked when I was young, 'Ah 'twas no apple, 'twas a peach.'
MrWildbill20056 8 months ago
amazing! thanks so much! My mom's a frequent speaker at churches in our area so I grew up with wonderful depth of conversation about religious subjects- and that means that, unfortunately, it is rather hard to surprise me or tell me something I haven't heard (or atleast think I haven't!)-- but you father, you help me see it in new ways, and I thank you.
Nzie 1 year ago
Yet another masterpiece! Excellent and great just to listen to in bits and digest slowly! :)
KaiseRex42 1 year ago