Jesus administered corporal punishment with a whip: Christ expulses the money changers out of the temple (1610), by Cecco del Caravaggio (follower of the famous Caravaggio; fl. 1610-1620s) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] ***** Today it is quite fashionable and chic to commit the “throw the baby out with the bathwater” fallacy and to believe that every form of disciplinary spanking is child-beating: as if a little swat on a butt is the same as a punch in the mouth,... Read more
The Woman Taken in Adultery (1527-1529), by Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1556) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] ***** Matthew 5:13-16 (RSV) “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men. [14] “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. [15] Nor do men light a lamp... Read more
Luke 15:7 (RSV): “. . . there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” *** Music Making Angels (c. 1628), by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] *** Ever wonder why I contend with and write about radical Catholic reactionaries? Why should I bother? This is why. I received the following communication underneath one of my Patheos posts: Dave, I want to thank you for saving... Read more
Image created digitally by Dawn Hudson from another public domain photo [publicdomainpictures.net / public domain license (CC0 1.0)] ***** Truly obscene, crude, sexually-oriented language is beneath the standards of the Bible and the Catholic Church. The way some (many!) talk today was confined to locker rooms, bars, and bachelor parties when I was in college 35 years ago (and mostly just to men). And I think that was a good thing. Oh, for sure we had Woodstock and George Carlin... Read more
Image by Philip Barrington [Pixabay / CC0 public domain] *** (6-7-08) *** Circumincession in Latin and perichoresis in Greek is the doctrine describing how all three Persons in the Trinity are contained in each other. Theologian Ludwig Ott, in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, has a lot to say on this: In God all is one except for the opposition of relations. (De Fide). From the doctrine of the Divine Relations there flows the so-called basic trinitarian law, which was... Read more
Martyrdom of St Stephen (1560s), by Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] *** (6-7-08; new introduction on 8-22-16) *** I ran across a person in one of my Facebook groups that denied the practices that I will soon show are perfectly biblical. He thought one could only pray to God the Father. And it makes sense within his own heretical views, because He went on to deny that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were God; i.e., he denied the... Read more
[Portugese translation of A Quick Ten-Step Refutation of Sola Scriptura, by Fábio Salgado de Carvalho] [public domain / Pixabay] *** 1. O “Sola Scriptura” não é ensinado na Bíblia Os católicos concordam com os protestantes que a Escritura é um “padrão para a verdade” — até mesmo o mais preeminente —, mas não em um sentido de que ela exclua a autoridade de uma autêntica Tradição e de uma Igreja. A Bíblia não ensina isso. Os católicos concordam que a Escritura... Read more
The Annunciation (1444), by Barthélemy d’Eyck (fl. 1444-1469) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] *** (8-31-06) *** This is my own original draft for a chapter that was to appear in my book, The One-Minute Apologist (2007). It’s very different from the final draft, so that it amounts to an alternate approach to arguing the Catholic position. ***** MARY * Calling Mary “Mother of God” makes her greater than God How can someone be greater or older than God? It makes no sense! *****... Read more
How much did the Blessed Virgin Mary know about Jesus? The Catholic Church teaches that the Holy Spirit revealed to Mary the knowledge of the divinity of Christ and His incarnation, from the beginning of the Annunciation: when the angel Gabriel informed her. Mary’s knowledge of Christ’s divinity from that time on is an explicitly biblical teaching: Luke 1:26-35 (RSV-CE) In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, [27] to a virgin betrothed to... Read more
The United States Supreme Court [public domain / Wikimedia Commons] *** [various thoughts of mine on various threads] *** You’re in Ohio, the ultimate battleground state (with Florida). If it’s very close there and Trump loses, and you don’t vote, then you and others like you there will have played a key role in getting Hillary elected. She would not have been able to win without you, if that happens. You can rationalize that that is not the case all day... Read more
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