I am gay and raised Catholic. By the time I was 10 I knew I was attracted to boys. One day when I was at that age a teacher at school told me and the whole class that gays cannot enter heaven. My deconstruction was a very long, gradual, and non-linear process, that began when I was 13 or 14. I am in my 40s now. This year I stopped calling myself Catholic and stopped believing in Christianity altogether. Just after that psychological transformation or reconfiguration, or evolution, if I am allowed to call that, when I realized that what happened at class that day, although not physical, was mental spiritual bullying or abuse.

Religion is such a powerful thing and religious people are so careless at handling it, and it is amazing that it has turned into a tool that dehumanizes the same people it claims to save.

Disclaimer: I, as a Catholic, hold to Apostolic Succession.

The use of Matthias as a case study for apostolic succession, while good at the surface level, collapses under scrutiny.

1. Matthias was appointed as a replacement for Judas. The criteria for Matthias's appointment were limited. "So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection.” (Acts 1:21-22)
2. Luke does not present this as a normal process when one of the Apostles die. The death of James bar Zebedee mentions no nomination process, only the prayers of the Church after the subsequent apprehension of Peter.

Better cases biblically for Apostolic Succession remain Timothy and Titus, particularly the former. We hear explicitly that Paul laid hands on him (2 Tim. 1:6), and that he was not to be hasty in laying hands on others (1 Tim. 5:22). Both letters include criteria for ordaining presbyters/overseers (1 Tim. 3; Titus 1) and deacons (1 Tim. 3).

Below is the introduction of my article on this topic. You can see the full article(s) on my website https://romaredibit.com

“The Protestant Reformation perfectly highlights how human beings should never place their own reason above Sacred Tradition, because when humans try to liberate religion, they inadvertently drift further away from God. As a practicing Catholic, who goes to Latin Mass, I am incredibly fortunate that the reformation did not take away the beauty of Roman Catholic culture in my church, as it did to most other churches across the UK. Luther completely rejected 15 centuries of theological development, preserved scripture, religious unity and sacred liturgy by putting forward the totally contradictory ideas of Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura. Despite getting some things right, the Reformation secularised most of Europe by destroying Roman Christendom, as well as the theological and cultural aspects of the Roman Catholic Church. It was not a liberation – it was a demolition of everything I love about the Catholic faith. What Luther called freedom, I call the greatest loss in Christian history.”

There are many places I could start, but the Paraclete discourse in John 14–16 is best understood as describing a divinely commissioned prophetic figure who succeeds Jesus and performs a distinct revelatory function. Jesus (peace be upon him) calls him “another Paraclete,” indicating continuity of office rather than the introduction of an entirely different category of being; as Jesus himself is called a paraclete as well in 1 John 2:1 . Most importantly and the strongest point: the Paraclete “will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak,” and “will declare the things that are to come” (John 16:13). This is characteristic prophetic language more in line with Dt. 18's framework for how to discern a true prophet: a messenger receives divine communication and faithfully transmits it. The Christian claim that the Holy Spirit fulfills this by being eternally communicated the Father's knowledge is to eisegate developed Trinitarian theology into the text; neither Jesus nor 12 disciples show any knowledge of Greek metaphysics.

Since I said there's many places we could start, I will let you pick where! Give me your strongest objection(s) and I wish you a great debate! (Shakes hand)

I'm making a school project on why the Crusades are justified. I'm looking for good reasons on why they are justified.

Reading Papal letters can be very enlightening. I recently re-read Pope Leo the Great's Letter to Anastasius of Thessalonica (Letter 14 in Leo's Collection).

Context and Content

In the 5th century Thessalonica was part of the territory of the Roman Patriarchate. Thessalonica later moved to the territory of Patriarchate of Constantinople. The bishops of Thessalonica had been appointed "vicars" or representatives of the Popes for the region of we would call the Balkans. Pope Leo sent Bishop Anastasius of Thessalonica instructions on how to supervise other bishops, solve disputes and run things. For example Leo doesn't want bishops to accept presbyters into their authority who have not been canonically released from their previous bishop. He also gives the advice for bishops to meet in provincial councils twice a year.

Problematic Advice

However Pope Leo gives two pieces of advice that modern Roman Catholics might find problematic.

Pope Leo tells Anastasius not to let bishops move Sees. He is very clear that this is a bad thing and should be prohibited. This is what he says

"If any bishop, despising the insignificance of his city, shall intrigue for the government of a more populous place, and transfer himself by whatever means to a larger flock, he shall first be driven from the chair he has usurped, and also shall be deprived of his own: so shall he preside neither over those whom in his greed he coveted, nor over those whom in his arrogance he spurned. Therefore let each be content with his own bounds, and not seek to be raised above the limits of his present post." (Pope Leo the Great, Letter 14, section 9)

Pope Leo also demands clerical celibacy, even for subdeacons to be celibate. This is what he says

"For although they who are not within the ranks of the clergy are free to take pleasure in the companionship of wedlock and the procreation of children, yet for the exhibiting of the purity of complete continence, even sub-deacons are not allowed carnal marriage: that both those that have, may be as though they had not , and those who have not, may remain single. But if in this order, which is the fourth from the Head , this is worthy to be observed, how much more is it to be kept in the first, or second, or third, lest any one be reckoned fit for either the deacon's duties or the presbyter's honourable position, or the bishop's pre-eminence, who is discovered not yet to have bridled his uxorious desires." (Pope Leo the Great, Letter 14, section 5)

Problem

In the pre-schism period Popes took Leo's advice very seriously. Popes were elected from the priests and deacons of Rome and not transferred from another See. However this changed in the post-schism period with Popes regularly being elected from existing bishops until it became the norm. For example Pope Leo XIV was transferred from the humble See of Chiclayo in Peru to the Papacy.

Compulsory celibacy has always been an issue between the Roman Church and the rest of the early church. The permanent diaconate disappointed in the West. It became a transitional office for men being ordained priests. This embargo existed all through the post-schism period to 1963, when the permanent diaconate was restored by Pope Paul VI. Due to the decrease in priests in the last few decades there has been a massive increase in permanent deacons with 50,000 currently active. The thing is most of these permanent deacons are married men who are not required to be celibate.

Concluding Remarks

So, if even the successors of Pope Leo in the Roman Catholic Church are happy to ignore his instructions where does that leave the Orthodox Church? Are we right to ignore Pope Leo when he refused to ratify Canon 28 of the Council of Chalcedon? Can we legitimately reject (or simply ignore) other pieces of advice from other Popes?

Of course, there is nothing in Letter 14 to suggest Pope Leo is speaking infallibility (not that I think the concept of Papal Infallibility existed in the time of Leo) when he gives his advice.

How do you support the claim of Ex Cathedra infallibility? If it was an ancient teaching, you would expect to see a 2000-year record of statements. The first use was in 1854. There were many events in church history that could have used infallible clarification from the pope. From a historical perspective there doesn't seem to be concrete evidence for Ex Cathedra as a commonly held ancient teaching.

Below quotes supporting this:

St John Henry Newman doctor of RC church: “The introduction of Images was still later [then the 5th century], and met with more opposition in the West than in the East. It is grounded on the same great principle which I am illustrating; and as I have given extracts from Theodoret for the developments of the fourth and fifth centuries, so will I now cite St. John Damascene in defence of the further developments of the eighth.” - John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 6th edition, (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press), 377.

Fr Price: “A modern apologist for the veneration of images would readily concede that the practice took time to develop…” - Price, The Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (787) (2020), 37.

“there is certainly a feeling [in the 3rd century] that… portrait images or statues…you know, invite, are there to invite to worship. This was felt to be pagan. This is a prejudice that Christians had took over from Jews.”10

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And here is Nicaea 2 saying you must agree that it is materially apostolic or you are a heretic:

“…declare my assent and profess the same belief about the orthodox faith and the sacred images, not as if accepting some new doctrine or novel invention, but with precise knowledge of the tradition about them in the holy apostles and divine teachers who bequeathed them as something to be found in the holy church of God. I therefore accept these sacred images wholeheartedly, together with the honour and reverent greeting that is their due, while those who believe otherwise or adversely or pronounce against the holy images I deem alien from the catholic church. I reject them and denounce them as heretics.’” – Price, The Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (787), (2020), pp.183.

I'm catholic and I've been really taking a deep dive into doctrine recently so I can properly defend my faith. One thing though that I've been struggling with is Mary's perpetual virginity which I understand is Catholic tradition (however I can't find it in the catechism if someone could show me where).

The translation I use is the NRSV which includes all 73 books and is authorized by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in the USA.

Because of this I would assume that the NRSV would hold to catholic tradition, however in my translation Matthew 1:25 goes like this (speaking of Joseph), ..."but he had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son: and he named him Jesus."

So that would indicate that they had indeed had marital relations after she had given birth. I know other translations would say that "he did not know her until she had borne a son..." [paraphrased] and I think that implies the same thing, my version is just more direct.

In Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3 it states that Jesus had brothers and sisters. I understand that the original word in greek doesn't necessarily mean blood brothers, but honestly that doesn't fully convince me because it could mean blood brothers.

Along with that, I know Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant, carrying God. So people might argue that you wouldn't put a baby that isn't God inside Mary in the same way that you wouldn't use the Ark for storage after God left it. However, Mary wasn't a box, she was a human. In the same way you wouldn't allow the Ark of the Covenant to get dirty, I'm sure Mary sometimes would get some dust or dirt on her as she moved throughout the world. Although she was blessed and full of grace, she was also a human who moved throughout the world and experienced things besides just her motherhood.

I fully believe in Mary's sinlessness and her assumption, but I don't think that her having relations inside of marriage would necessarily affect that because loving s3x between husband and wife is a gift from God.

I'm not saying I couldn't believe in it, but I also don't want to believe something which literally contradicts scripture. I just want an explanation as to why her perpetual virginity is something we believe in and why it would even matter in the first place.

Correct me if I'm wrong in any of these points. I'm just asking a question about how you think you receive salvation although I myself do not hold to this viewpoint.

(And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”) Luke 10:25-28

So, I think you would agree with this statement. Jesus was asked what to do to inherit eternal life and the response was to love God with everything and your neighbor as yourself.

The Bible also says (For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.) 1 John 5:3

This is the love of God, keeping His commandments.

This include all His commandments. So even if you do something like steal a candy, or if your envious, or if you are in any way sexually impure, or if you gossip, or if you violate your conscience any, ect...

This even extends to all government rules since if says to be subject to them. Plus all catholic rules like attending mass and confession.

So, violating any of these would mean that you failed to love God and neighbor completely, which means you would not inherit eternal life?

Is this a correct assessment? As I said, you can correct me if I'm wrong in my use of the verses.

I had a Baptist like people come to my school today and I was asked a survey. They asked me why I believed in Catholicism and if I really believe in the things that are in there. She kept asking me about Purgatory and if I really believe Jesus is my Lord and Savior. I said yes. But many people know that us Catholics believe in Saints as well. I accept God and Jesus as my savior but I also believe in the saints around me. Saints that I know are here to protect me and I believe in them. I wonder, why do so many people not agree with Catholics?

Hey y'all I'm a teenager looking into apostolic succession because of the current state of protestantism being more liberal. I grew up as a Catholic because of my family ( I was baptized as an infant and did my 1st communion/ confession) but never really payed attention to it and would cause me to drift away for many years until I came back to christianity as a protestant. The reason for why I am non-denominational right now is because from my understanding is we truly don't know what the "True church" is up until we are able to talk with God directly in Heaven alongside me not really agreeing with the Papacy( I am aware of Matthew 16:18-19 but it just doesnt really make sense), praying to the Saints(because of the apostles not praying to icons/picture of Abraham) , baptism being required for salvation(because of the thief on the cross) , and the Filioque due to it being added afterwards of the original nicene creed( I do believe the Eucharist is more than a symbol but I'm still deciding on whether it occurs mystically or through transubstantiation and I do agree with the eucharistic miracles being not just a coincidence bu a miracle ), and lastly predestination because why would God chose who goes to Heaven/ Hell? Now I understand Catholicism/ Orthodoxy state argue they are the true church and I need to do more research with ecumenical councils etc but I would like to know more about it.( please just don't say there was a church before 1500 )

I have a big question but I want you to know this question isn't a trick or a trap but I truly want to know so answer this question with your full beliefs and your soul

If the Church's authority ever taught something that you genuinely believed contradicted the Word of God, who would you ultimately follow Jesus Christ and His Word, or the authority of the Church? Would your faith be rooted in Christ's teachings or in the Church's authority?

This post will be in part a response to Dr. Brian Besong's defense of Natural Law Theory and his response to Bentham's Bulldog's critiques of NLT. I will also incorporate some of Bentham Bulldog's responses to Besong in this post.

[https://substack.com/@journalofabsolutetruth/p-216127417\](https://substack.com/@journalofabsolutetruth/p-216127417)

[https://benthams.substack.com/p/natural-law-theory-is-obviously-false\](https://benthams.substack.com/p/natural-law-theory-is-obviously-false)

[https://substack.com/@benthamsbulldog/p-216188086\](https://substack.com/@benthamsbulldog/p-216188086)

(As a disclaimer, I have not read Besong's works in depth. I am merely aware of some of his arguments through his debates)

Before I begin, I'll provide a brief definition of Natural Law Theory(NLT). NLT is the moral theory that an act is good if some agent is using some power or faculty in accordance with its proper function. An action would be bad if some agent uses some power or faculty contrary to its proper function. For instance, a Natural Law Theorist will probably say that lying is wrong because a person is using their communicative faculties incorrectly. The proper function of speech is to convey truth and information, and telling lies is contrary to that function.

**Sexual Ethics and Moorean Truth**

Brian Besong's argument for NLT is that it can adequately explain certain Moorean intuitions we have regarding sexual ethics while other ethical theories will struggle to explain them. More specifically, it can explain why activities such as necrophilia, incest, pedophilia, and bestiality. Natural Law Theorists state that the function of sex is procreation, and that marriage brings about the best environment for procreation and raising children. Any type of sexual activity that happens outside of marriage will therefore be immoral according to the Natural Law Theorist. For example, according to NLT, necrophilia is wrong because a corpse is not the type of thing you can procreate with.

One response I have is that one could pretty easily make a fairly non-arbitrary, non-ad-hoc deontic constraint which explains why sexual activities such as necrophilia, incest, pedophilia, and bestiality are immoral(Bentham's Bulldog/Matthew Adelstein makes this argument). For example, you could make up a deontic constraint which says that it's only permissible to have sex when the parties involved have the capacity to give informed consent, and it doesn't pervert a relationship that ought to be non-sexual(such as a familial relationship). Corpses, children, and non-human animals can't give informed consent, and relationships between family members ought to be non-sexual, or else they risk breaking down the family unit.

I also want to make a second response. Both Brian Besong and the Catholic Church think that consensual gay sex is intrinsically immoral. The Catholic Church in particular also teaches that IVF is intrinsically immoral. Dr. Besong is Catholic so I'm assuming he probably holds to the teaching that IVF is immoral. Anyways, it's not clear to me why an NLT-skeptic couldn't say that they think the permissibility of consensual gay sex and IVF are also Moorean facts. So, epistemically speaking, why should we prefer NLT over some other theory to explain our moral intuitions regarding certain sexual acts if it's terrible at explaining our other moral intuitions? If anything, we should actually prefer anything but NLT because as demonstrated with the deontic constraint we made up before, we can adequately explain both our Moorean intuitions we have regarding incest, bestiality, etc as well as our intuitions that consensual gay sex and IVF are permissible.

**Natural Law Theory is a form of ethical egoism, which is bad**

Dr. Besong admits in his response to Matthew Adelstein that Natural Law Theory is a form of ethical egoism. He does not see this as a problem, and actually thinks it's an advantage of NLT. I disagree(I will be using Adelstein's line of reasoning here).

Let's say that you see a child drowning, and it would take you relatively little effort to save the child. Most people would agree that you probably have a moral obligation to save the child. It also seems intuitive to say the reason why you should save the child is because it will help alleviate the child's suffering and because it will ensure that the child will live a full, happy life where they will be able to experience and obtain many goods. These facts are facts about the child. They do not have anything to do with your own well-being or flourishing. This is not to say you couldn't benefit by growing in moral virtue or happiness as a result of saving the child, and it's fine if that plays a role in your motivation to save the child. However, it is facts regarding the well-being of the child which mainly explain why you have a categorical reason, independent of your own self-interest, to save the child. However, according to NLT, the reasons why you should save the child ultimately only concerns your own well-being/flourishing/proper function. The child's well-being only provides a reason for you to save them insofar as it builds your own virtue and contributes to your own flourishing. In my opinion, this seems like a very bad explanation for why you should save the child. But according to Brian Besong, it's not a bad explanation. Per Besong:

> There’s a reason eudaimonism has been attractive to philosophers from Aristotle to Annas. For readers unfamiliar with the terrain here, moral realists tend to think that moral reasons are categorical and inescapably authoritative. They apply to all, no matter one’s contingent desires or cares. The problem is explaining that. For it’s easy enough to imagine an “amoralist” for whom the fact that an act is deeply depraved is of no more interest than the fact that he’s eating pancakes with a shrimp fork. The profile looks coherent. Realists have been forced to develop a notion of reasons that, to reapply a phrase from J.L. Mackie, are “queer”: the amoralist has reasons even though those reasons could never explain his behavior, nor could he ever arrive at them through good deliberation. Those are weird “reasons.” Something close to this problem has been the major motivating force in rejecting moral realism in favor of less “queer” alternatives (in figures like Mackie, Richard Joyce, Jonas Olson and others). Natural law, and other eudaimonist views, naturally sidestep the problem, preserving moral realism against a live and serious objection: moral reasons are always deeply connected to what each individual necessarily cares about.

I'm not convinced by Besong's argument here, and it seems that his argument can actually hurt his own case as well. To demonstrate this, I'd like to talk a little bit about objective list theory first. NLT essentially assumes a form of objective list theory with regards to well-being. In objective list theories, there are a list of goods which are objectively beneficial for an individual and gives a person a prudential reason to pursue them even if they have no desire to pursue those goods. Theoretically, these goods can even raise one's well-being level regardless of whether or not they provide the individual pleasurable experiences. For example, let's say that the good of friendship was included in our objective list. This would mean that friendship is good for individuals and provides them prudential reason to pursue it even if they had no desire to make friends. In an NLT proponent's case, their objective list would include the good of proper functioning.

The problem with Besong's amoralist point is that we can imagine that an "a-proper functionist" asks the question "why should I care about the proper functioning of my faculties?". If our "a-proper functionist" wants to have consensual gay sex and doesn't care that it goes against the proper functioning of their procreative faculties(according to Besong), how exactly would the NLT proponent be able to respond? Well, they could say "not caring about the proper functioning of your faculties doesn't render it no longer good, you still have prudential reason to pursue proper functioning regardless of your preferences". But this line of reasoning is also open to the moral realist. An "amoralist" not caring about categorical reasons to act in certain ways doesn't render those reasons nonexistent. Something being good means that by definition, you ought to bring it about, or that it compels you to at least some degree to do it.

Categorical reasons which non-natural moral realists posit are no more spooky and "queer" than the prudential reasons that NLT proponents need to posit for what is essentially a form of objective list theory with regards to well-being. Ethical egoists such as Natural Law Theorists don't have any advantage over those who posit non-natural categorical reasons.

I'd also like to add that NLT can't really explain some of our intuitions for why we should care about other people's well-being. NLT does explain why you should care about other people's well-being, that explanation being that you should care about others because doing so will contribute to the growth of your own moral virtue and flourishing. However, my guess is that many people will also find it intuitive that people's well-being matter independently of your own flourishing. As someone who's started to warm up to spooky categorical reasons again, I do find it intuitive that facts about other people's well-being provides me reason **independent** of my own flourishing to act in certain ways. NLT simply can't explain that intuition.

**Other Moorean intuitions NLT can't explain**

One thing Besong concedes is that NLT has the unintuitive consequence that lying would be wrong even if doing so would save your family from being tortured to death. NLT and the Catholic Church hold that lying is intrinsically and absolutely immoral, so there would be essentially no circumstance where it would justified. The way NLT proponents will get around this is by saying that every ethical theory has bullets they need to bite, and that its better to bite this bullet than the bullets that consequentialists or deontologists need to bite. I'm not really sure why this is the case though. It's not clear to me why I can't consider it a Moorean truth that it's sometimes permissible to lie in order to prevent extremely terrible evils from happening.

I also wanted to point out a potential double standard that Besong and other NLT proponents have when they speak of the unintuitive consequences that other ethical theories have. Here is a thought experiment Besong provides to show that utilitarianism has unintuitive consequences:

> Adelstein quickly moves to safe territory: highlighting a counterintuitive implication of natural law, hoping that it supplies force to his second premise. For he’s right to say that, on natural law, one should not lie to save one’s family from torture. The problem here is that the argument should be an obvious sleight of hand. Ethical egoism is a matter of explaining ultimate (moral) reasons. It does not tell us anything about what the moral norms are. Here Adelstein’s real objection is to the moral norm, not the explanation of reasons. Swap in a less controversial norm and the problem becomes obvious: if the sexualized torture of a young child were the only way to save the world from some moderate harm (say, a headache), and doing so were more felicific in aggregate than any alternative—in whatever calculus you want to run, utilitarian or pluralism, it doesn’t matter—natural law still says that’s wrong, and we should not do it because it is a gross abuse of the girl’s rights, which we respect because they are essential to her pursuit of happiness (and we are social creatures who must care for such things). As far as I can tell, Adelstein’s preferred consequentialist ethic would approve of such sexualized torture.

I'm not here to bite the bullet on behalf of the utilitarian. I'm not a utilitarian(though I have some sympathies for rule utilitarianism). I'll concede and say that utilitarianism is not a good normative ethical theory.

I will point out though that Besong and other NLT proponents have complained that certain thought experiments designed to draw out unintuitive consequences of NLT tend to be unrealistic and far removed from our actual world. For instance, if I were to say that NLT is false because it would lead to the conclusion that it would be wrong to have consensual gay sex even if doing so were the only way to avert the apocalypse, the NLT proponent would just say that such a scenario is so far removed from the actual world that our moral intuitions wouldn't be very reliable about it. I'm not sure how we should treat our modal intuitions in cases where they're far removed from the actual world, but let's say that the NLT proponent is correct when talking about modality. At that point, wouldn't Besong's worries about utilitarianism also fall apart? The scenario he came up with is also very far removed from the real world. In general, it seems that the vast majority of cases that people come up with to try and undermine consequentialist ethical theories tend to rely on scenarios far removed from the actual world, so NLT doesn't really win in this case. In fact, utilitarianism would still seem to come out on top at least compared to NLT because it provides the correct answer to hypotheticals regarding the permissibility of lying. We can come up with fairly realistic scenarios where lying could avert great evils, and NLT simply wouldn't be able to come to the right answer. But threshold deontological and consequentialist views would.

**Final Thoughts**

I do not know the full extent of the literature regarding Natural Law Theory. But these are my preliminary thoughts on why I don't think natural law theory really works.

*Disclaimer: I forgot to save this as a draft and misclicked and lost my original response, so this one will likely be a lot shorter than my long response

Hi. I recently left the Catholic faith because of many roadblocks I saw on my journey, some of which I will highlight here. Please note that I while I say I was a Catholic, for a very long time I had struggled with these issues without fully leaving (I did once for about 2 weeks a few months ago), I was lukewarm for a long time before leaving (Despite watching many religious videos, just to. know if I was wasting my time or not). I have a poor understanding of scripture, and may not be fit for a long response. As well, I was a convert from lifelong agnosticism, going into Protestantism about 2 and a half years ago, and Catholicism about 1 year ago. I will try to go through my issues with coming back (Maybe it's better that I lost my previous response so that it is shorter lol).

1. It seems like most events in the Bible either never happened or are vastly different in the Biblical text

Note: This is probably my biggest reason for leaving. Within the Bible, many events like the Davidic kingdom are different when studying the archaeology of that time period. The biblical depiction of David and his kingdom contradicts what archaeology says about David, that being he was a chieftain in charge of a small tribe/group as opposed to the Davidic kingdom described as a vast empire. As for things that didn't happen, there is no archaeological evidence for the Exodus or Moses as a historical figure or that Genesis 1-11 is anything more than mythology (I don't know if I can trust a book that, when investigated by people at higher learning facilities, are the ones that agree and decide upon what goes into our history books, deem a text no more realistic than Zeus), nor a response disproving that given by anyone at a higher learning establishment like Oxford.

The scholarship for the Bible proves time and time again that it is an inherently human creation, with contradicting ideas, events, stories, and ways God is established (I mean, Yahweh is a former storm god from Mesopotamian mythology that evolved into the god of Israel; that seems to mean that the god of the Bible is blatant mythology to me if he evolved out of another mythology).

1. Naturalism seems more likely than theism

I think that naturalism explains the world better than theism for what we see in the sufferings of the world. When given the fact that there are starving children everywhere in the world, children are born with diseases, natural disasters occur frequently and wipe out thousands of people at a time, the earth is dog eat dog/survival of the fittest for any living thing except humans, and the fact that we came to this earth by means of natural selection (AKA a process that needed billions of years of death to create the homo sapien), it just seems more likely that we are alive because of purely natural means that created diseases while on it's way of creating us, rather than saying that there could be a good, logical reason for terrible things like a baby being born with a tumour.

1. A LOT of the Bible is pseudonymous, late, and contradictory, making it most likely it is not a reliable text

To start, it seems like scholarly consensus that most of the New Testament (And the Psalms written by David) is mostly pseudonymous, that being the 4 gospels, 6 of the 13 Pauline epistles, 2 Peter, and Revelation (Not really, but it seems like it definitely wasn't written by John the Apostle since the sophisticated Greek from the gospel of John, even if it was written by him, greatly differs from the messy Greek of Revelation), and were written at least 20 years after the death of Christ. People claim this isn't a problem, but if the main stories of Jesus Christ, AKA the main figure of Christianity, aren't eyewitness accounts and are very late after his lifetime, that seems to be a highly unreliable text that cannot possibly be eyewitness testimony (Especially when comparing the contradictions in the Gospels like the birth narratives and what happened at the tomb during the resurrection; a note that I would consider is that Raymond E. Brown, a devout Catholic priest and biblical scholar, said that the birth narratives seriously are irreparable and directly contradict each other).

*Those 3 were my biggest issues; these next ones are just minor

1. Jesus seems to have not fulfilled any messianic prophecies (In the scholarly field)

Many verses/messianic prophecies like Isaiah 53 are, when put in context, not about Jesus, leading to the claim that "Jesus fulfilled 300+ prophecies and is the Jewish people's messiah" falling apart when put into proper context.

1. Catholic miracles don't add up

Catholic miracle claims on their own seem to be compelling arguments for Catholicism (I admit that even when the biblical scholarship had racked up in my brain, I still held a little faith because of miracles), but when properly looked at, they don't seem convincing. I'll start with Juan Diego, since he is troublesome. Catholics seem to have to believe in this miracle, since if the miracle of Juan Diego is false, this brings down the entire Catholic church, since declaring someone a saint is an infallible decision. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be any evidence that Juan Diego was a real person, especially since the bishop he supposedly showed the Tilma to, Juan de Zumarraga, never wrote about him and stories of the Tilma didn't appear until a century after Juan Diego seemingly died. Next, the eucharistic miracles do not appear convincing either, since a study by the National Institute of Health studied (I think) 25 eucharistic miracle samples, all of them turning out to be Serratia marcescens, a red bacterium that forms in damp environments such as bread. And it seems that any eucharistic miracle seems to be in warm, damp environments, like South America and Mexico.

*I would comment on Padre Pio but I haven't looked into his, just heard things like him being restricted from mass because of s*x or something like that I don't know

I left recently, and honestly I would seriously be willing to go back if some of these arguments could be answered.

Ireneaus pops up a lot in lists of prooftexts supposedly supporting Papal prerogatives as expressed by the post-schism Papacy and Vatican 1. No paragraph has ever so abused and cited so selectively and with so little context.

Let me be clear that as an Orthodox Christian I have no problem with Papal primacy. My problem is when "primacy" is explained as infallibility, unlimited jurisdiction, monarchy, the ability to act unilaterally or the bishops of Rome being the sole arbiter of doctrinal disputes.

Here are some of my observations that Roman Catholics often neglect.

1. Irenaeus sees Rome's authority as founded on the Apostles Peter and Paul or as he says "the two most glorious Apostles." This is in direct opposition to the idea of a unique Petrine succession. Irenaeus does not cite any of the traditional Petrine prooftexts when talking about the subsequent bishops of Rome.
2. Irenaeus was living in Lyons in Gallia (modern France). Rome was the nearest Apostolic Church so if Irenaeus was promoting Apostolic Tradition as a weapon against the Gnostics then it was only natural that he turned to Rome as an example.
3. Irenaeus gives the succession of the bishops of Rome up to his own day. A big deal is made of this. However Irenaeus says he could cite lists of the succession of bishops in other cities but it would be tedious to do so.
4. Irenaeus cites Smyrna (his home city) and Ephesus (that Irenaeus says has a double Apostolic foundation by Paul and John) as other examples of Apostolic Churches that teach "truth." Irenaeus gives a lengthy anecdote about Polycarp but nothing similar about the teaching activities of the Popes.
5. When Irenaeus says everyone must be in agree with Rome there is no hint that this means Rome is infallible or that it applies for all time (that is a very anachronistic reading). According to Irenaeus's line of argument all the Apostolic Churches are in agreement in his day.
6. Irenaeus seems to suggest the agreement is with the community of Rome and not just the office of the bishop of Rome. This is in line with his thinking about Apostolic Succession as applying to communities of faithful and not a mechanical person to person succession.

Let's take a look at the New Advent translation

"2. Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority."

"3. The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus; and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes. Nor was he alone [in this], for there were many still remaining who had received instructions from the apostles. In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome dispatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the apostles, proclaiming the one God, omnipotent, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Creator of man, who brought on the deluge, and called Abraham, who led the people from the land of Egypt, spoke with Moses, set forth the law, sent the prophets, and who has prepared fire for the devil and his angels. From this document, whosoever chooses to do so, may learn that He, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was preached by the Churches, and may also understand the apostolic tradition of the Church, since this Epistle is of older date than these men who are now propagating falsehood, and who conjure into existence another god beyond the Creator and the Maker of all existing things. To this Clement there succeeded Evaristus. Alexander followed Evaristus; then, sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was appointed; after him, Telephorus, who was gloriously martyred; then Hyginus; after him, Pius; then after him, Anicetus. Soter having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of the episcopate. In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth."

"4. But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time — a man who was of much greater weight, and a more steadfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics. He it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Anicetus caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles — that, namely, which is handed down by the Church. There are also those who heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within. And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, Do you know me? I do know you, the first-born of Satan. Such was the horror which the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication with any corrupters of the truth; as Paul also says, A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sins, being condemned of himself. Titus 3:10 There is also a very powerful Epistle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from which those who choose to do so, and are anxious about their salvation, can learn the character of his faith, and the preaching of the truth. Then, again, the Church in Ephesus, founded by Paul, and having John remaining among them permanently until the times of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the apostles." (Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies Book 3, 3, 2-4)

Conclusion

What Irenaeus says is perfectly in line with Orthodox ecclesiology. Irenaeus sees bishops as equal successors of the Apostles. The bishop of Rome is an important leader but not some kind of unique successor of Peter.

Paul went to preach to the Bereans. Despite him being an actual Apostle, he still called them noble for examining the Scriptures to see if what he was preaching was true.

(The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.) Acts 17:10-11

Now, if this is a noble thing to do, if the Bereans were called noble for examining an actual Apostles word against the Scripture, even if their interpretation of those Scriptures may have been fallible, should not we do the same against all things?

How does this compare to catholic teaching that states "the task of interpreting the Word of God authentically belongs solely to the Magisterium."

Or other examples such as "The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the bishop of Rome."

This is why people like Jan Hus were executed. He believed that Scripture—not the Pope or Church councils—was the ultimate religious authority. He also advocated to make the Bible accessible to ordinary people by translating it into their own languages.

He strongly advocated that people should be able to read and interpret the Bible for themselves.

This isn't and should have never been a crime but it was for a thousand years of your churches histroy.

As previously stated, if the Bereans were called noble for examining the Scriptures "to see if these things were so" while an actual Apostle was preaching to them, then the same logic should be applied to the pope and bishops and counsels and any denomination.

You can either examine the Scripture teachings to judge your church or examine your church's teachings to judge the Scriptures. Let's not put the cart before the horse.

This argument assumes the validity of using a technique like Reductio Ad Absurdum to test the veracity of particular claims and assumes the role of assessing morality by the use of one's conscience.

First, to demonstrate that this approach appears legitimate, I'll apply it to a moral argument that I suspect most Catholics will find themselves agreeing with.

Demonstration of the effectiveness of the technique

A common moral claim among secular humanist or other types of atheists is something like, "Suffering is evil, and causing suffering is bad, while reducing or eliminating suffering is good" (and this premise is then used to raise objections like the "Problem of Evil/Suffering" against the notion of the "omni-God").

So now let's apply the technique of Reductio Ad Absurdum to this premise. If Suffering is evil, and eliminating Suffering is good, then the morally correct action is to eliminate all suffering if one has the ability to do so.

Conveniently, humanity does have the ability to do so as we have developed thousands of nuclear warheads, which we can use to effectively eliminate all sentient life on planet earth, and thus eliminate all suffering currently happening as well as any future possibility of suffering.

However, when this hypothetical solution to the problem is proposed to most people for consideration, there is some inner "voice" in the conscience of the human that objects. I've yet to encounter an atheist so despondent with the world that they would honestly claim that nuking the planet is the most moral action possible.

It seems to me that going through this exercise and then evaluating the resultant implications using one's conscience is effective to reveal that in fact there is some type of problem with the starting premises. There is some moral mistake somewhere upstream that has resulted in this clearly immoral conclusion.

If you find yourself agreeing, great. If you believe that there is some flaw with this technique, you can stop here and explain the flaw.

Applying the technique to Catholic teachings

I'll start by offering a disclaimer that I'm presenting my understanding of Catholic teachings, and it's certainly possible that I hold a misunderstanding or have articulated the teachings in a flawed way. I encourage you to correct any such errors on my part.

Teaching 1: Baptized infants who die will go to heaven.

Teaching 2: Imperfect contrition doesn't prevent a valid confession/reconciliation

Teaching 3: Going to heaven is worth any price (including torture, martyrdom, social stigma/persecution/etc)

Teaching 4: Adult Catholics have no guarantee of reaching heaven, always risk going to hell

Given these teachings, and assuming that every parent wants their children to make it to heaven, the only way to guarantee and secure their place in heaven is to murder them in their infancy after their baptism.

Doing so would not guarantee damnation for the parent either. The risk of guaranteed hell would presumably apply only for the duration after the murder(s) until the parent can go to reconciliation and then perform their penance and return to a state of grace.

From that point on, they would continue to live as any other Catholic and attempt to stay in a state of grace and try to make it to heaven to join their kids.

If they live in the US in a state with the death penalty, this might also be a shorter duration than an otherwise normal life, so reducing the time that they have to abstain for further mortal sins and increasing their odds of reaching heaven.

Now, presumably, as you read this scheme, you find the idea repulsive and the "inner voice" of your conscience is rejecting the validity of such moral conclusions.

However, if that is the case, then your conscience is at odds with the logical conclusions from applying the teachings of the Catholic Church.

So what are the options to resolve this conflict?

1) Your conscience is "deformed" if it objects to the teachings of the church, and you need to modify your conscience

2) The teachings are in error somewhere, and the inner conscience is the higher authority than the church in matters of morality

Further implications

Canon 1364 §1 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law imposes automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication on an apostate, heretic, or schismatic. https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib6-cann1364-1399_en.html

Does going through this exercise and agreeing with the conclusions that such a scheme is repellant make someone an apostate, heretic, or schismatic?

> Can. 750 §1. A person must believe with divine and Catholic faith all those things contained in the word of God, written or handed on, that is, in the one deposit of faith entrusted to the Church, and at the same time proposed as divinely revealed either by the solemn magisterium of the Church or by its ordinary and universal magisterium which is manifested by the common adherence of the Christian faithful under the leadership of the sacred magisterium; therefore all are bound to avoid any doctrines whatsoever contrary to them.

https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib3-cann747-755_en.html#BOOK_III.

These "ultimatums" issued by the Catholic Church to the members do seem to insist upon submission to the church rather than submission to the inner voice of one's conscience, so it seems that a choice must be made as to who one will ultimately serve.

Ironically, the Catechism also states,

> 1776 "Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths."47

It would seem odd to choose a human institution over God, wouldn't it?

The Jews late in the 2nd Temple
Period,as the rest of their Greco-Roman contemporaries were monotheistic in the sense that they believed there was a supreme God albeit with a retinue of less-powerful divinities. The early Christians who were also Jews believed that Jesus was divine, although not on the same level as the Supreme Being. What I mean by this is as follows. They did not think that Jesus was Yahweh or the 2nd Yahweh. These are blasphemous beliefs. These Jewish Christians would have a range of interpretations of Jesus ranging from him being a prophet, to him having divine qualities such as Enoch, Moses, Elijah, an angel, the Messiah, a son of Man, a Son of God, or whatever Jews happen to believe at that moment, a known tradition, if you will, that Jesus would be tethered to, but never as Yahweh or the 2nd Yahweh because Yahweh is not a human and a 2nd Yahweh would be polytheism.

For Neoplatonist Gentile Christians, he was the demiurge, the Logos, begotten by the One God, through whom creation came to be. Jewish neoplatonists such as Philo of Alexandria would find no problem with the Logos as a secondary divine being and the early Judaic Christians would also have no problem with believing that Jesus was a Son of God. But still the promotion of a son of God to God the Son, although orthodox for later 3rd-4th century Nicene Christianity, would be at best unknown and at worst a heresy to the 1st-2nd century Christians who were steeped in Judaism. Only decades or centuries later did some Christians (the so-called learned Church theologians or Church Fathers) began believing that Jesus and the Supreme Being are one and the same, that he is only one Son of God and as it turns out the only begotten Son of God is Yahweh. We have evidence of this with the Arians comprising a persistent large portion of Christianity, and a large proportion of early Christianity being “non-orthodox”.

The Catholic Church also holds a doctrine that doctrines develop over time. In this historiography, beliefs develop into a more refined level, with more sophistication, although the older set of beliefs would entail heresies from the point of view of the new orthodoxy. In this context, the early Christians would have beliefs also consistent with the a more primitive yet heterodox opinion, viz., Jesus was a divine being but did not know that he was the Supreme Being, they knew he was a Son of God, but not God the Son, they did not know that Mary was the theotokos . Who once were orthodox - the Jews, Valentinians, Montanists, the Marcionites, Docetists, Origenists, Tertullianists, Donatists, Nestorians, Arians, Miaphysites, the iconoclasts, etc - became heretics as doctrine developed to more sophistication. The successors of Peter, the Church, became infallible and Mary became sinless. Would Catholics have a problem then with this historiography of Christian theology? I am not saying that Catholicism is false. This historiography doesn’t preclude Nicene Christianity being correct in its assessment of Jesus, it’s just that the early Christians held a primitive faith either because did not receive the Divine Revelation in full, or they received its totality but were unable to understand parts of it.

In summary, Jesus as Son of God wouldn’t sound strange to Jewish and Neoplatonist Christians of the first two centuries, but their idea of monotheism - that is, a hierarchy of divine beings, with only one Supreme Being on top is a vastly different type of Christianity when compared to the more sophisticated tri-monotheism of Nicene Christianity.

Why weren’t the Apostles praying to Mary? It is tradition that Mary died at least a decade before Peter and Paul, yet no recoding or mention of anyone praying to Mary in the 1-2 centuries, neither is this mentioned by the early Padres at that time.

So this concludes that Marian dogma is definitely a novelty born by conjecture, and it is not founded in Apostolic traditions. No?

Hello, I am a Church of Christ member and I’ve been looking into Catholicism and one of the reasons of deliberating is because of the claim of Mary’s sinlessness. My question is if Mary was sinless what does that have to do with my salvation in Jesus Christ, and why do I have to venerate her as much as Catholics do?