Christians & the Stupidity of Satan (vs. Insulting Humanist)

Last updated on: November 10, 2018 at 2:32 am By Dave Armstrong

***** Cassidy McGillicuddy, who goes by “Captain Cassidy” runs a blog called Roll to Disbelieve. She describes herself and her views as follows: “I was raised Catholic by a very fervent family, converted to evangelicalism in my teens, and became a full-on fundamentalist shortly thereafter, . . . But shortly after college I figured out that my religion’s claims weren’t true. . . . I’m a humanist, a skeptic, a freethinker, and a passionate student of science, mythology, and history. . . .... Read more

16th c. Calvinists vs. Lutherans: Who Suppressed Catholics

Last updated on: November 8, 2018 at 5:52 pm By Dave Armstrong

Lutheran pastor and blogger Paul T. McCain has written a post decrying historic Calvinist iconoclasm and intolerance against Lutherans (citing in turn a reader’s translation of a German website about Lutheran history [link now defunct] ): All those Lutherans out there pining about what’s so “wrong” about orthodox Lutheranism’s supposed stubborn and unloving attitude toward non-Lutheran churches need to keep in mind that finally there is no possibility of agreement between those who deny the chief parts of the Small Catechism and those... Read more

Left-Wing “New Pro-Lifers” Are Also Pro-Life (DUH!)

Last updated on: November 7, 2018 at 5:32 pm By Dave Armstrong

A left-wing pro-lifer is a thing to discuss in and of itself (and I do quite often). I’m critical of the new pro-life movement (NPLM) in many ways (mostly when its adherents try to run down other pro-lifers, and who they vote for), and have repeatedly written about it in no uncertain terms. Here, however, I’m making the basic point that they are pro-life, which some folks want to deny. They have as much right to start a sub-movement with certain... Read more

Catholicism is More Important than Political Differences

Last updated on: November 7, 2018 at 2:06 pm By Dave Armstrong

I am so blasted tired of controversy and in-fighting among Catholics (mostly about political nonsense these days) that I could spit. While I defend Catholicism, I also defend Christianity in general over against atheism and today’s rampant cultural secularism, and I am ecumenical, too. I rejoice in the many things we Catholics have in common with other Christians, and I try my best to treat them with respect, as brothers and sisters in Christ. Hopefully, my energies are channeled into... Read more

Trump’s Inadequate Rebukes of Rocket Man & Neo-Nazis

Last updated on: November 6, 2018 at 3:29 am By Dave Armstrong

I stumbled upon this solution today in a flash of inspiration. It’s one of those moments of figuring out something that is so simple that it was overlooked. Somehow, the President’s advisors: folks like Kellyanne “Goehring” Conway and Sebastian “Himmler” Gorka neglected to give him this rather obvious advice. If he had done what I will suggest, today he’d be loved and adored by liberals and their lapdog useful idiot RINOS and Never Rational Never Trumpers, who manage to (amazingly)... Read more

Trump is Attila the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, and Stalin

Last updated on: November 6, 2018 at 2:23 am By Dave Armstrong

Trump is the worst President ever, nuts, an egomaniac and incompetent stooge who hasn’t done one good thing for the country. We need to get him out of there so we can get back to business as usual in Washington, with a Democrat who cares so much about people and African-Americans and women and Muslims and Mexicans. We need to get unemployment as high as we can again and hinder business with regulations as much as possible, so no one... Read more

Dialogue w Lutheran Historian on 16th-Century Intolerance

Last updated on: November 5, 2018 at 6:21 pm By Dave Armstrong

The following exchange was taken from comments concerning an old paper now split into two different ones: Word “Protestant” Stemmed from Intolerance of Catholic Worship / Philip Melanchthon’s Agony Over Protestant Sectarianism. “CPA” is a Lutheran professor of history, with whom I have had many fruitful, amiable dialogues. His words will be in blue. ****** If the United Nations offered the Christian world a deal whereby we agree to tolerate both Christianity and Islam as equal religions in Europe and America, but Islam... Read more

John Calvin, Early Calvinism, & Violent Iconoclasm

Last updated on: November 5, 2018 at 2:58 pm By Dave Armstrong

Calvinists and other Protestants sometimes argue as follows: 1. The Church needed reform (particularly its hierarchical leaders). 2. Traditional, crucifixes, stained glass, church architecture, organs, music, and painting and art in general are good things (hidden common assumption). Maybe statues are idols, but all this other stuff is good and wholesome. 3. These were destroyed by the so-called “reformers” because the Church (and/or the people in it) was corrupt. 4. Therefore, the primary blame for such “artistic devastation” and “excesses”... Read more

Holy Spirit, Procession, & the Father’s & Son’s Love

Last updated on: November 3, 2018 at 7:11 pm By Dave Armstrong

This is from an exchange on the Coming Home Network forum, where I was staff moderator from 2007-2010. * * * * * Yesterday, I attended a “Theology of the Body” class with workbook: Into the Heart: A Journey Through the Theology of the Body, by Christopher West, 2009. The speaker provided the following quotation without citation in her presentation: God is in himself a life-giving Communion of Persons. The Father, from all eternity, is making a gift of himself to... Read more

Can God Change His Mind?: Four Dogmatic Arguments

Last updated on: November 2, 2018 at 12:10 pm By Dave Armstrong

Church documents apparently do not specifically say that God doesn’t or can’t change His mind. It doesn’t follow, however, that God changing His mind is not prohibited by the statements about immutability and simplicity and omniscience and God’s timelessness. My argument is that it follows inexorably from simple deduction, from several Church dogmas, that God could not change His mind. There are at least four ways to demonstrate this, by straightforward reasoning: Argument Against God “Changing His Mind” from Immutability 1) God is... Read more