We all started out as fetus therefore we had a soul and it made us humans.

Nice article, Mr. Atheist. I would like to congratulate you on presenting your arguments devoid of the hatred against Catholics and bias most – if not all – atheists and liberals suffer.

right, that’s why the media is going ga ga over the pope.

I’d like to add a few corrections, if you don’t mind, to your article:
1.- To your quote “….no more a cult than is [sic] Mormonism, Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientology, or any other religion that values faith more than reason.” While technically, it’s true, I’d also invite you to read, for example, “Summa Theologica” ( written by St. Thomas Aquinas) in which faith is debated under strict philosophical reason. As a matter of fact, the Holy Catholic Church is a fierce defender of “reason illuminated by faith”. So you see, we embrace both: reason and faith; unlike most liberals, who only embrace ‘reason’.

how about the part where Aquinas says unbaptized babies go to hell? pretty reasonable eh?

2.- “You also decry moral relativism, which undermines your pronouncements on absolutism. Yes, we generally are tolerant of other points of view coming from those who wish us no harm….” The Holy Catholic Church does NOT promote a theocratic government. Rather, it defends human rights. Unfortunately, by ‘human’ we mean unborn babies. There is an absolutism from the left when it comes to abortion, an intolerance to treat an un-born baby as a human being, to give that baby the same rights even the worst of criminals is given. The Church is tolerant; it is intolerant to those atrocities and crimes the intolerant left tries to shove down societie’s throat.

which atrocities are those? tolerating those different from us? as for criminals-how long did the church support the death penalty?

3.- “Now, Pope Benedict, I would like to suggest that you take action on a few obvious items so that a future pope ….” The Holy Church does NOT denigrate gays. It does stand against homosexuality, which is a sin. It also stands against war, injustice, murder, fornication, pornography, etc., etc. We fight the sin, not the sinner, following the examples of our Savior Jesus Christ. As far as stem cell research goes, it would be awesome if we could cure sick people, but NOT at the expense of KILLING BABIES! And sadly for you, no human being, no man, no woman, has the ‘right’ to choose whether an INNOCENT human being lives or dies. So abortion will never be tolerated by God’s Church, no matter how big your hatred is. Babies are first, since they are innocent!
Let me throw a question at the ACLU and other liberals out there: Why aren’t women allowed to look at the ultrasound at the abortion clinics before an abortion? If – as you say – tolerance is the base of your actions, why not tolerate this?

a blastula stem cell is NOT a baby, for the 12 time. I’d like to cut abortion way down too, contrary to popular belief, some of us aren’t so black and white about it-you know what a good way to do that is? BIRTH CONTROL, which you all oppose. I think people would “tolerate” you a lot more if you weren’t so hypocritical-the very thing that could cut down abortion you oppose. at least the godlessprolifers website supports birth control and education! you should take a cue from them. pro choicers and pro lifers could actually work together to cut down abortion if prolifers weren’t so dead set against birth control and sex education (btw, from personal experience: abstinence only education doesn’t work!)

shall we talk about the AIDS problem in Africa? the ultrasound might be a good idea, but it shouldn’t be b/c of religion. As for gays, the last time I went to church I walked out in disgust b/c the priest was denegrating gays, so yes, you do denegrate them. I was a member for 20+ years. I’ve heard it all.

4.- “Your Church can look rather foolish when its reasons keep changing while your conclusions remain the same.” Yes, my dear atheist Jew, this is very true. We might look foolish to atheists, but that’s because your predicaments and reasonings are based on ignorance. Why, if you only took the time to study the Bible and the Cathecism, you would soon become a Catholic. And I’m not joking when I say this. For, to know God is to fall in love with God.

I’ve added the above arguments in the hopes of promoting a friendly debate. I apologize if someone feels insulted after reading my words.

I would only like to add that the biggest mistake modern atheists make is to base their belief that God doesn’t exist in the actions of other men. Pope Benedict is only human, and the Bible says “all humans sin”. So stop basing your entire life (and salvation) on the actions of other human beings, but rather try to seek God.

If anyone has lost his or her peace after reading these words, rejoice! It’s your natural calling to become one of God’s children.

Peace, and may our Redeemer Jesus Christ bless you all.

umm, I’ve had all these catholics tell me we’re all God’s children, but according to you you have to be catholic to be so. the idea of God or a higher power doesn’t bother me so much, as an agnostic I’m quite open to it-but the idea of YOUR God scares the crap out of me. I agree modern atheists make mistakes. Everyone does. But at least when they don’t want to admit their mistakes it’s b/c of human fiobles-not some ancient holy text that is supposed to be dogma and we are supposed to blindly obey. and why are you bringing up that someone is an “atheist jew???????” If someone would only fall in love with your religion after reading your text, how come it makes me want to run away?

Mr. Dwyer: how is it that you can say that studying the Bible will make me a Catholic, when a fundamentalist Christian friend of mine says if I study the Bible, it’ll make me her flavor of Christian? I don’t expect either of you to be right, of course—I used to be Catholic.

There is an absolutism from the right when it comes to abortion, an unwillingness to treat a woman as a human being who shares a right even the worst criminals have, that of bodily integrity—the right to keep anyone from making use of any part of her body, including her uterus, against her will, regardless of the cost to anyone else. Intolerance, if you like, but putting ‘intolerance’ where I said ‘unwillingness’ screws with your grammar.

Yes, of course babies should be protected. Humans in the earliest stages of development aren’t babies until such time as it’s possible to separate the developing human and the developing human’s mama without killing the smaller of the pair.

The Holy Church is free to oppose X behavior practiced by its own members, and to oppose X behavior practiced by anyone in a manner that causes harm. Harm to the soul of anyone but a practicing Catholic does not count. Sexual behavior between adults who consent to every point in the process, none of whom is cheating on anyone else, harms…who, exactly?

The actions of other human beings are a contributing factor to my atheism, but they are not the source of it. The source of my atheism is my love for astronomy and mythology. Marvelous and beautiful as so much art is, it still had to begin existence within the confines of the artist’s mind. Most of the beauties of the sky were quite literally unimaginable until we could see them. Art with no artist, that came into existence without the limitation of needing to be imagined first, and that is therefore not art at all (because art needs an artist), merely beauty, and the more marvelous therefore. One can of course say that God imagined everything or else it could not exist, and I cannot prove one wrong, but one is therefore saying everything is art, created by an artist or an Artist. Why must all beauty be art?

And that there’s historical truth in myth I can’t deny, given Troy, but no one claims that the events of the Iliad and the Odyssey happened exactly as Homer described, gods midbattle and all. So why should I, why does anyone, assume that the events of the Bible happened exactly as their various authors/transcribers described?

Oh, and does anyone have any idea why I got an email alert for Mr. Dwyer’s comment, when I don’t know how to track comments on a thread without replying to it, and I hadn’t replied to this one?

I’d like to add a few corrections, if you don’t mind, to your article:
1.- To your quote “….no more a cult than is [sic] Mormonism, Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientology, or any other religion that values faith more than reason.” While technically, it’s true, I’d also invite you to read, for example, “Summa Theologica” ( written by St. Thomas Aquinas) in which faith is debated under strict philosophical reason. As a matter of fact, the Holy Catholic Church is a fierce defender of “reason illuminated by faith”. So you see, we embrace both: reason and faith; unlike most liberals, who only embrace ‘reason’.
2.- “You also decry moral relativism, which undermines your pronouncements on absolutism. Yes, we generally are tolerant of other points of view coming from those who wish us no harm….” The Holy Catholic Church does NOT promote a theocratic government. Rather, it defends human rights. Unfortunately, by ‘human’ we mean unborn babies. There is an absolutism from the left when it comes to abortion, an intolerance to treat an un-born baby as a human being, to give that baby the same rights even the worst of criminals is given. The Church is tolerant; it is intolerant to those atrocities and crimes the intolerant left tries to shove down societie’s throat.
3.- “Now, Pope Benedict, I would like to suggest that you take action on a few obvious items so that a future pope ….” The Holy Church does NOT denigrate gays. It does stand against homosexuality, which is a sin. It also stands against war, injustice, murder, fornication, pornography, etc., etc. We fight the sin, not the sinner, following the examples of our Savior Jesus Christ. As far as stem cell research goes, it would be awesome if we could cure sick people, but NOT at the expense of KILLING BABIES! And sadly for you, no human being, no man, no woman, has the ‘right’ to choose whether an INNOCENT human being lives or dies. So abortion will never be tolerated by God’s Church, no matter how big your hatred is. Babies are first, since they are innocent!
Let me throw a question at the ACLU and other liberals out there: Why aren’t women allowed to look at the ultrasound at the abortion clinics before an abortion? If – as you say – tolerance is the base of your actions, why not tolerate this?
4.- “Your Church can look rather foolish when its reasons keep changing while your conclusions remain the same.” Yes, my dear atheist Jew, this is very true. We might look foolish to atheists, but that’s because your predicaments and reasonings are based on ignorance. Why, if you only took the time to study the Bible and the Cathecism, you would soon become a Catholic. And I’m not joking when I say this. For, to know God is to fall in love with God.

I’ve added the above arguments in the hopes of promoting a friendly debate. I apologize if someone feels insulted after reading my words.

I would only like to add that the biggest mistake modern atheists make is to base their belief that God doesn’t exist in the actions of other men. Pope Benedict is only human, and the Bible says “all humans sin”. So stop basing your entire life (and salvation) on the actions of other human beings, but rather try to seek God.

If anyone has lost his or her peace after reading these words, rejoice! It’s your natural calling to become one of God’s children.

Peace, and may our Redeemer Jesus Christ bless you all.

Ah mybad. Back when I was a Christian I was taught that Paul was an apostle. I didn’t consider that other Christian sects might not take him at his word (seeing as much of the New Testament is attributed to him anyway). Since he claimed to be (seeing Jesus in a vision “counted”), that was enough for my parents/teachers/preacher and that’s what they told me as well. I’m not disagreeing with you, but just saying that the argument of married Jews likely would not work very well unless both parties agreed on Paul’s status. I don’t know what the Catholic view on it is, however… Not that I care.