Draft


 * “Why isn't the resurrection of Lazarus anywhere but in the Gospel of John” Argument from silence

Colossians 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning,  𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡𝑏𝑜𝑟𝑛 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑑; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

St. John call your office!


 * Apostle just means one who was sent. It doesn’t necessarily have the same status as the 12.

Rev. 21:14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

Revelation teaches that in the age to come there will only be "twelve apostles of the Lamb".

If Paul is one of these twelve, what of the ministry of Matthias?


 * Paul believes Jesus really appeared to him. It wasn’t his imagination in his opinion because otherwise he wouldn’t have converted. And if Jesus had never died, there would be no reason to not believe him. It’s only because there is a bias against miracles here.

Christ's soteriology:

Repentance, water baptism, keeping the commandments, forgiving others, and faith in who he was

Paul's soteriology:

Faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Adding the law nullifies the grace of the first.

Looks like Paul met an imposter.


 * What’s the Church position on veganism?

That eating meat cannot be a sin because Christ did not sin (Hebrews 4:15), yet he ate of the Passover lamb (Luke 22:15) and also barbecued fish (Luke 24:42).


 * Consensus denies traditional authorship for, Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Psalms, Song of Songs, Job, Isaiah, Daniel, Chronicles. I actually don’t know if consensus would say they know with probable reasoning any of the authors of the OT. As per NT we have Fake Pauline.

True Paul (1 Thes 5:2) : "The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night."

Fake Paul (2 Thes.2:3):"That day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition."

Bonus Fake Paul (2 Thes.2:2): "True Paul is fake!"


 * Why Do Atheists Reject God’s Moral Law?

Num 15:32-35 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day...And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.


 * He's not quite right on that though. Historically speaking, the bible is true (to be trusted as the word of God) because the Church says so.

And when the Bible says some of Christ's disciples would live to see the Day of the Lord the Church simply redefines the Day of the Lord to mean the Pentecost event, which means Christ said "Some of you standing here will still be breathing in forty days." Oh boy!


 * Christians believe they exist. We just think they are demons.

Jude 1:6 "And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day."


 * He does go in depth on the word, showing that it allows a Trinity, yet one could still reconcile that doctrine with a divine simplicity.  Norman Geisler goes over many such objections to divine simplicity in his book "Systematic Theology Volume 2" (chapter 2).

Taken as a trinity God's divine simplicity fails from a quick examination of scripture. The Father has knowledge that the Son does not. The Holy Spirit has a dignity protected by unforgivability that the Father and Son do not. The Son must honor a human being (Mary) to avoid sin.


 * The god of the Bible stands up to all skepticism.

God (Psalm 147:5): "Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite."

Also God (Exodus 4:2): "And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod."


 * Which one isn’t important. We all know God exists. But when one critically understands the evidence the conclusion is Christianity

Bible evidence rules out the Christian claim the Son of Man is divine:

Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?


 * Well god is not a person. But I wouldn’t care what color God was. Jesus probably resembled a modern middle eastern person. So what?

If God is not a person, then Jesus is not God.

2 Corinthians 2:10 To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ


 * I believe in the God that comports to reality and is confirmed by the evidence.

That's not the God of the Bible, of course.

Psalm 147:5 Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.

Genesis 3:9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?


 * The "context" of the poem shows Israel speaking and the Servant as an individual. The "context" does not help you at all.

Isaiah 53:3 He was despised, and forsaken of men, a man of pains, and acquainted with disease...

Deuteronomy 15:21 And if there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame, or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the LORD thy God.

Case closed.


 * “In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.” - Hebrews 9:22 NLT

Luke 5:24 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (he said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house.

Forgiveness without animal sacrifice and before the cross. Imagine that!


 * How is saying Mary wasn't sinless limiting the power of God? Mary's sin or lack thereof has nothing to do with God's power. I don't have a problem with Mary at all. I'm just pointing out that literally the only person in the history of the world who was sinless was Jesus.

How is saying Mary wasn't sinless limiting the power of God? Mary's sin or lack thereof has nothing to do with God's power. I don't have a problem with Mary at all. I'm just pointing out that literally the only person in the history of the world who was sinless was Jesus.


 * Aquinas argues that the only "perfection" that is good enough to attract God's will necessarily is the divine perfection; and that anything God creates will be less than this, and hence cannot determine God's will. I think this seems right or at least plausible

On the contrary, it is written (Hebrews 5:9): "And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him."


 * Ten Commandments - eight ...Exodus 20:15 Thou shalt not steal

Also Exodus (3:22):

But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.


 * It does but also goes to show how needed it is for God to be in the marriage from the start. If one person converts and the other refuses, what is there to do about it? It is not right for a Christian to be in such a relationship with a secular person

1 Cor. 7:13-14 And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband...


 * John tells us why he wrote his gospel. It was to bring his readers to faith in Jesus. Let's look beyond John's gospel. Let's look at "all Scripture" (2 Timothy 3:16). "The Holy Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 3:15).

The holy scriptures also say that wisdom is not good:

Ecclesiastes 1:18 For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.


 * How dare you say you love God and hate your brother!! You are a liar! 1 John 4:20-21

Scripture:

Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.


 * Bible prophecy is being set up for future fulfillment read Daniel 9:27 Ezekiel 38 and 39 and Isaiah 17 for some insight

Ezekiel 12:27-28 Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off. Therefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; There shall none of my words be prolonged any more...


 * The foods that are offered to idols are an abomination to God.

1 Cor. 8:8 But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse.


 * Satan is the god of this world. (2 Corinthians 4:4) His purpose is to steal, kill & destroy. (John 10:10) That explains most of what you’d ask about our world on earth.

I thought God gave the Earth to mankind, not Satan.

Psalm 115:16 The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD's: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.


 * He will not destroy this world when he comes. Read the word of God.

Word of God:

2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.


 * God gave Adam dominion over the earth until he sinned. Once sin entered, Adam (and mankind) lost that position. Sin separates us from God and changes everything. Jesus is the only bridge back to God & restoration of our relationship with Him.

On the contrary, even after the flood God said (Genesis 9:2): The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given.


 * Good Lord, you're embarrassing yourself right now and proving that Paul was right to tell Timothy this. 1 Timothy 2:14 NKJV — And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. There's a reason women are forbidden from teaching, you're proving it.

If Eve was deceived and ate the apple that was not willful sin.

If Adam was not deceived, yet still ate the apple, that was willful sin.

Hebrews 10:26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins


 * 2 Peter 2: 4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment

Also Peter (1 Peter 5:8): Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour


 * that the Christ must suffer, and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to the people and to the Gentiles." -Acts 26 : 22-23

First to rise?

2 Kings 13:21 And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.


 * WITHOUT LAW. LAWLESS.

God (Genesis 1:29): "Every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat."

God, later: (Genesis 2:17): "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it."

Eve: "You change your mind like a girl changes clothes."


 * God has turned to wage war against my enemies. Rejoice

"Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth:" ~Proverbs 24:17


 * Why did Jesus send the Apostles out and tell them to baptize people “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” and tell them to go to the ends of the earth? Why did missionaries go to great lengths to spread the Gospel if it didn’t matter?

I guess Paul thought baptism wasn't as important as preaching and it started there.

1 Corinthians 1:17 "For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect."


 * Do you know that the Bible says if a person has been born again and saved from their sin, they won’t become not Christian later on? It’s a promise.

On the contrary, it is written (2 Peter 2:20): For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.


 * The only thing I say to obtuse atheist is that their Big Bang theory ≈ Let their be light. There’s so many other examples too

Except that in the Bible theory God moved over the face of the waters before he created light, but in the Big Bang theory water came millions of years after light because oxygen was built up from lighter elements in the belly of stars.


 * This is not “the Ten.” It does not purport to be “the Ten.” This is a recapitulation that occurs between Ex 20 and Deut 5 (both the Ten).

On the contrary, it's the only one that explicitly purports that it's the Ten:

Exodus 34:28 And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.


 * All who trust in Him for their salvation, and not anything/anyone else, are saved. There is only one gospel, whether you were born in America or India, Catholic or Hindu. Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father.

The Bible says there are two gospels:

Galatians 2:7 But contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter;


 * Okay, it was a trick question. The correct answer is...both! The gospel of the circumcision is the same as the gospel of the uncircumcision.  Same gospel, same message, presented differently to different audiences

If that is true, then Paul would not of said he was to preach the gospel OF the uncircumcision, but the gospel TO the uncircumcized. And Jewish Christians would have also been released from observing the law, rather than only gentile ones, per the council of Jerusalem in Acts 15.


 * Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree…’ – Galatians 3:13

Also Bible (Deuteronomy 11:26-28): Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God @Elishabenabuya


 * Those who teach that you still need to keep the Law, as opposed to trusting in Jesus Christ alone, for salvation are teaching a false gospel, which is Paul's point in the other verse you quoted.

I know that was what Paul taught, but it wasn't what Jesus taught in Matthew 19:17: "... if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments."


 * Have you read the book of Hebrews? It explains a lot about this.  Much of the Law was fulfilled by Jesus Christ (eg. there is no more need for animal sacrifices, they were only a temporary picture to help us understand the need and significance of a substitutionary sacrifice)

What was the need and significance of a substitutionary sacrifice? An all-powerful God could simply have mercy and forgive sins out of the goodness of his heart without blood. Jesus in Matthew 9:13 said, "Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice."


 * God cannot lie. That is not because of a lack of power, but because it goes against His character.  He is true and has no desire to lie.

On the contrary, it is written (2 Thessalonians 2:11): For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.


 * The previous verse says that "they did not receive the love of the truth". God is simply affirming their choice.  "You don't want to believe in a God who does not lie?  Okay, here you go!"

Why would God need to actively keep them from receiving the truth if they did not love the truth, unless there was a risk they would embrace the truth despite their lack of love for it? And wouldn't that be a good thing? As is typical, the scriptures do not make logical sense.


 * Chinese Government Is Rewriting the Bible with Communist Principles, Watchdog Group Warns.

Chinese communist revision of Acts 2:44-45 -

[44] And all that believed were together, and had all things common;

[45] And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

Oh, wait...


 * This is an issue never addressed by theists. They don't simply claim a designer, they claim a *perfect* designer. One imperfection should be enough to reject that claim. They also claim one designer for all life, so the fact that it is found better elsewhere is another major flaw

On the contrary, one imperfection is sufficient to reject the creator's identity as the god of the Bible:

Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.


 * You currently worship a creature, one of many, whereas you must worship one true immutable God, an uncreated God, uncaused First Cause, Supreme Being, one and only, who created everything out of nothing, without whom nothing came to be.

Scripture teaches us that Jesus increased in favor with God. So God can increase, which means he is not immutable.

you can't explain gravity, evolution of wing, Precambrian fossils or entropy but you're a brave little atheist, I give you that

Gravity:

Mass curves space-time.

Analogy: Two ships are traveling due north. They seem to move closer and closer together, but this is only because the geodesics they move on converge at the north pole, which they wouldn't do on a flat plane.


 * Falsifiability is highly overrated. Popper never intended it to be the end-all-be-all ideological virtue. It was only a way to distinguish science and non-science. Just because something isn’t science doesn’t mean it’s false, and just because it’s science doesn’t make it true

String guy: Particles are really strings vibrating in nine dimensions.

Girl: I only see three dimensions.

String guy: Six are too small to see. And each string has a partner.

Girl: I only see 25 fundamental particles.

String guy: The partners are too massive to see.

Girl: Oh


 * Kalam Cosmological Argument 1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. 2. The Universe began to exist. 3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Kalam debunked:

4. The gravitational field is part of the universe.

5. Time began to exist when the universe began to exist, because space-time is identical to the gravitational field.

6. "Before" time existed, there was no time over which a first cause could operate.


 * Theology and the Bible are not the same thing. Theology is man’s interpretation of what God wrote. That why it is called the “study of God.”

The only thing God ever wrote was the original ten commandments, which Moses dropped and broke, and "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN".


 * ...and yet Bible prophecy is infallible while time and time again the other prophecies have not come true.

The Bible predicted that Egypt would lie empty for forty years. This never happened and it cannot happen in the future because another prophecy says Jesus will come like a thief in the night, and Egypt lying empty for forty years before that would be a dead giveaway, wouldn't it?


 * It *all* leads to Hell... the leftist atheist "paradise".

The charge is original sin. I am charged with committing sin before I was even born. I plead not guilty. If a "god" wants to torture me forever anyway, I'll deal with it. But he will get nothing but my eternal contempt.


 * Genesis 6-9 - the account of the global flood and Noah's Ark - is a critical historical event that enables accurate understanding of the earth's strata and earth history. Without this perfectly preserved account in Scripture, we could not understand history.

Trilobite fossils have the same frequency no matter if they are dug up in Kansas City or in Spokane or in Australia. Compressing 300 million years of evolution into as many days means the antediluvian world must have been wall-to-wall trilobites.


 * There is only one infinite universe, it doesn't have an outside or inside.

Nobody knows whether the universe is infinite. That's like standing in an Iowa cornfield with the horizon 16,000 feet away and concluding that the Earth has an infinite area.


 * Catechism 1857: For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: "Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent." We know what grave matter is but not someone else’s mind. Above our pay grade.

We do know that Adam and Eve did not have full knowledge of the evil of eating the forbidden fruit until after the act because that knowledge only came by eating it. Therefore by the Church's own definition Adam and Eve did not commit mortal sin.


 * Obviously a whole section would be how no, CS Lewis doesn't hate women, and everyone is misinterpreting Susan in the Last Battle. The problem is her abandoning #Narnia not getting into fashion and makeup. She could have stayed faithful to Narnia and be an absolute fashion icon

Susan and Peter are allowed back one more time, then later only Lucy and Edmund are allowed to go back a third time. Puberty seems to be the cutoff for going there, short of dying. Susan didn't abandon Narnia, Narnia abandoned her.


 * The Last Battle (The last book for the Narnia series). I hate that book with a burning passion and refuse to admit it exists. It was misogynistic with the fact that Susan didn't get to go to 'heaven' because she kissed a boy.

Susan grew up, became a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and died with her human dignity intact, as half the human race has done from time immemorial. Her brothers and sister were whisked away to a magical land for high tea with talking animals, telling them how silly Susan was.


 * The first death in the bible was because of jealousy. What y'all call love. It was for the love of God that Cain killed Abel.

When Adam and Eve realized they were naked they sewed fig leaves together for clothing, but God thought it looked too much like 1990s grunge and decked them out with fur from a dead animal instead. In fact, this is the first indication we have in scripture that God hates figs.


 * Goes back to the Aquinas idea of the unmoved mover. If the laws of physics hold true (energy is conserved) then there must be an original source of all energy that set everything into motion i.e. God

If the laws of physics hold true, then a mover cannot remain unmoved. Momentum (rotational and linear) is always conserved.


 * You explain it then. Also explain why all math and physics work perfectly in tune with set rules. Almost as if it was designed

Evolution teaches us that species may present a simulacrum of design simply because there are only so many optimal solutions to a problem. This is why sea mammals resemble fish so closely even the Word of God gets confused (ie. was Jonah in a whale or a fish? The Bible says both)


 * Ontology deals with intrinsic qualities. Things that are indivisible from the nature of the thing. Thomas Aquinas proved the existence of God five ways ontologically. God is love, truth, beginning, end, and good. The fact that he is these things proves his existence.

Love, truth, beginning, end, and good are verbs, not nouns. They only exist when interacting with another. If you do good to another person then you are good. If your beliefs are in accord with the way things are then they are true. Good and truth cannot exist in isolation.


 * As I’ve already delineated numerous times, you atheists function as if God exists by living according to a hierarchy of values. In other words, you tacitly affirm Thomas Aquinas’ fourth way.

Aquinas' Fourth Way:

A bachelor has a job interview in thirty minutes. He desperately searches his apartment and finds his least smelly shirt. This shirt must therefore be perfectly clean, by definition.


 * The books written on these myths don't hold up like the Book of Mormon does which gets so much right. Such as metal plates, barley used in ancient America, the use of cement... All of which were either denied are poorly understood in his day.

2 Nephi 3:18-19 ...I will raise up unto the fruit of thy loins; and I will make for him a spokesman. And I, behold, I will give unto him that he shall write the writing of the fruit of thy loins, unto the fruit of thy loins; and the spokesman of thy loins shall declare it....


 * Yes. Look up the council if nicaea. and the nicaean creed. I might off with the spelling, but this is the event and product of what happened to the message of Jesus.

The message of Jesus was, "Repent of your sins and be baptized, for the direct rule of God on Earth is soon to come to be."

The Nicean Creed retained only the baptism message. Literally everything else describes the roles and relationships among the persons of the Holy Trinity.

So if you go back before the Big Bang - ALL matter just sat there. What acted on it to get it moving. The unmoved mover
 * Add Newton’s first law of motion: a body at rest stays at rest, a body in motion stays in motion - unless acted on by an external force.

God moves a Thing.

Thing: "Wow, look, God just pushed himself away from me!"

Galilean relativity is such a party pooper!


 * I don't deny microevolution because it's observable. Macroevolution is a theory, one that folks have had to make some amazing assumptions to defend.

What physical mechanism (other than the Earth being only 6,000 years old) prevents microevolution from going on to become macroevolution?


 * “People who say the Bible is with contradiction has never read the Bible!” No people who say the Bible has contradictions don’t understand the Bible

Man was not created until Day Six according to Genesis 1. But some animals were created on Day Five. That means some animals were created before man, contrary to the statement in Genesis 2.


 * I have nothing to lose if no God exists. You have everything to lose if God exists. I have experienced way too much proof to know God is real tho that’s why I’m constantly trying to bring people to seek and at least give Him a chance.

If the Invisible Pink Unicorn exists, I have everything to win and you have everything to lose. If the Invisible Pink Unicorn does not exist, then neither of us wins. The optimal strategy, therefore, is to accept the existence of the IPU (Peace Be Upon Her).


 * bergoglio is forming his NEW AGE RELIGION with all heretics running the Vatican. He is leading us also to the one world religion

New age? What about when you use ESP to ask Mother Mary to use ESP to put in a good psychic suggestion for you?


 * Noah's Ark has been found with high probability on Mount Ararat

Are you kidding? Goat herders broke that ship up long ago for fire wood. A man gets cold above the tree line.


 * Ah yes science. Never again will I trust anybody that says follow the science. I choose to follow the teachings of the Bible.

Bible science:

Birds:

1. Eagle 2. Ossifrage 3. Ospray, 4. Vulture 5. Kite 6. Raven 7. Owl 8. Night Hawk 9. Cuckow 10. Hawk 11. Little Owl 12. Cumorant 13. Great Owl 14. Swan 15. Pelican 16. Gier Eagle 17. Stork 18. Heron 19. Lapwing 20. Bat


 * Yup. Gravity reverses entropy by organizing matter. All of biological life reverses entropy by organizing organic matter, using the energy input from the sun.

Gravity does NOT reverse entropy. Under gravity, every second, 600 million tons of solar hydrogen are converted into 596 million tons of helium, with a mass loss of four million tons, which becomes light, drives weather and life on Earth, then escapes as heat into the night sky.


 * Gravity allows an increase in complexity and a reduction in chaos. A temporary one. The net entropy of the universe is always increasing.

You may think a cosmos uniformly filled with gas represents high entropy, but to gravity this is like a pencil balanced on its tip. Because entropy measures energy which is unavailable to do work. And black holes, the final product of gravity, are the ultimate in unavailability.


 * According to Big Bang Theory, the universe is infinite and yet it’s expanding. If we reverse the process, we get a single point of infinite density called “the singularity”.

Running the movie backwards you can't get to a finite point from an infinite universe. What is infinity divided by two? What is infinity divided by anything? So if the universe is infinite now, it must have always been infinite.


 * It’s a moral problem. Removing the act of sex from the creation of the child is disordered because sex is ordered towards that very thing. It has all sorts of other corollaries that lead to things like treating it as a manufacturing process rather than love.

The concept of "manufacturing process" is implicit in the phrase "sex is ordered toward the creation of the child". Another implication is that sterile individuals should not be permitted to wed because it violates the teleology of sex, which is "ordered" to manufacture a child.


 * Well, miracles are a good way of convincing us that the message is from God.

Jesus feeding the five thousand with two fish and five loaves would certainly convince us his message was from God, if you could convince us the miracle actually happened. Otherwise you're back to "it's a matter of faith" and the miracle is moot


 * When he say eternal law he's referring to a law of nature. This is apart of his metaphysics which he uses to inform his theology.

Certainly things like the law of reciprocal action are not eternal natural laws, since Aquinas allows an initial violation of this law with the Unmoved Mover.


 * A gentle reminder that Aquinas' First and Second Way is not trying to prove the universe has a beginning. Just in case another New Atheist makes the *claim* that it has been refuted.

On the contrary, it is written (Summa IQ2A3)

I: "..this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover..."

II: "...it is impossible to go on to infinity in necessary things which have their necessity caused by another..."


 * Aquinas’s first demonstration of God’s existence is the argument from motion. He drew from Aristotle’s observation that each thing in the universe that moves is moved by something else.

If you sit on a sled and throw bricks, your sled moves in a direction opposite from the moving bricks. This is the conservation of linear momentum. An "unmoved mover" violates this law.


 * Aquinas is getting here at per se (essentially ordered) series, and, guess what, they don't occur through time. They occur here and now. Like gravity causing everything to fall to the ground here and now. This kind of causation is simultaneous. You might want to research more

We have detected gravitational waves with LIGO/VIRGO and confirmed they move at the speed of light. This observation rules out simultaneity and "action at a distance" for gravity. Newton suspected this when he wrote the Principia, but he didn't know the details.


 * My mistake, but I think you get the point. An essentially ordered series occurs simultaneously even though the example was imperfect. The problem with the example doesn't change the fact that Aquinas' First and Second Ways are not concerned with explaining how the world began.

The First and Second Ways arrive at God by the intermediate step of ruling out the claim that the world did NOT have a beginning. It assumes time is both infinite (allowing Aquinas to object to a boundless regression) and an independent arena wholly other than the world.


 * Vatican II is a failed council.

Jesus, to his Apostles: "He who receives you, receives Me, and he who rejects you, rejects Me and the One who sent Me."

Good luck explaining your rejection on Judgment Day.


 * "I answer that, By faith alone do we hold, and by no demonstration can it be proved, that the world did not always exist....The reason of this is that the newness of the world cannot be demonstrated on the part of the world itself. "

WP: "...Archaean lead ores of galena have been used to date the formation of Earth as these represent the earliest formed lead-only minerals on the planet and record the earliest homogeneous lead–lead isotope systems on the planet. These have returned age dates of 4.54 Gyears..."


 * So do you agree that the first and second ways do not aim to prove that the universe has a beginning? The rest I will leave out for y'all scientists to work out. One could also object whether the universe we speak of did have a beginning, it might just be an infinite regress.

Assuming that time exists independently of the universe, prior to the first movement a universe, although extant, would exist in a state such that any one moment would be indistinguishable from another. So the action of a First Mover does indeed represent a cosmic beginning.


 * The Kalam and Aquinas' Ways are very different. To refute the Kalam is a piece of cake. To refute Aquinas' Ways is impossible.

Third Way. I answer that, we observe that matter may be created or destroyed. Still, the mass and energy associated with such matter remain unchanged in quantity after the transformation. Put simply, while matter or energy is contingent, the composite mass-energy is necessary.


 * By First Mover, Aquinas refers not to (again, repeating what I said) the mover first in TIME. He refers to the First Mover in the per se causal series. Prime Mover, therefore, would be more accurate.

Excellent. And my argument is that a universe that does not move is represented by the first element in a series of states in phase space. While universal time may move independently of this series, there will not be a second element in the set of states until there is movement.


 * That makes literally no sense. Aquinas, trhough the Third Way gets to the fact that his opponent must concede that something eternal must exist. That 'might' be matter.

According to the regularities of succession we observe, transformations of the composite entity known as mass-energy are absolutely symmetrical in time. This is known as a conservation law and implies that it is ex nihilo creation that demands an explanation rather than the law


 * The thing about metaphysics (and arguments for God) is that one must stop thinking about scientifically proven 'laws' and switch to 'laws' whose very denial is irrational. Scientific 'laws' are based on mere empirical observations.

Laws based on mere empirical observations have the advantage over laws derived by pure reason in that any two persons will agree on the former, since they are derived from the world itself, whereas Humeans disagree with Thomists whether the laws are prescriptive vs. descriptive.


 * Laws of nature can be denied precisely because they are based on experience and their denial does not entail an impossible conclusion.

That's very true. We have seen believers deny radiocarbon dating, by three different laboratories, of sections of the Holy Shroud of Turin because the 14th Century BCE result conflicts with the tradition the relic is from the 1st Century.


 * It is possible for the laws of nature to be broken. It is impossible for the law of non-contardiction to be broken. A circle-square is *impossible* because it is a contradiction. Inertia being denied is not.

The law of Newtonian gravitation was broken by the 43 arcsecond-per-revolution rotation of the perihelion of the orbit of Mercury. Einstein amended the law of gravitation with a better law that incorporated the contradiction. Truth is when our model is in accord with the world.


 * Laws of nature can be broken: agree or disagree? ('Can' is used in a very wide sense

Laws of nature can be broken because they are in the same category of laws of men. They are descriptive of regularities of succession. Those regularities, however, are precisely that.


 * Evil spreads like an infectious disease if not stopped.

Aquinas: "Evil is a privation: the lack of being in something good which does exist."

How does non-being spread unless being willingly or by design vacates where it spreads?


 * In his Summa, St. Thomas Aquinas clearly states that Holy Communion should not be given to such public sinners: “Holy Communion ought not to be given to open sinners when they ask for it.” He explains why “Holy things are forbidden 2b given to dogs, that is,to notorious sinners.”

Pope Francis: “[Jesus] knows we are sinners; he knows we make many mistakes, but he does not give up on joining his life to ours. He knows that we need it, because the Eucharist is not the reward of saints, but the bread of sinners."


 * Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways to Prove the Existence of God: The First Way: Motion. The Second Way: Efficient Cause. The Third Way: Possibility and Necessity. The Fourth Way: Gradation. The Fifth Way: Design.

1. An unmoved mover violates the law of reciprocal action.

2. Radioactive decay is uncaused.

3. Conservation laws point to mass-energy being necessary rather than contingent.

4. The best item of a set may not be objectively good.

5. Evolution presents a simulacrum of design.


 * Right, according to his humanity. According to his divinity “he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb 1:3).

Doesn't that border on Nestorianism, to split the being of Christ in twain like that? I've heard Protestants deny Mary as theotokos by claiming she only gave birth to Christ according to his humanity.


 * The Christian gospel message: If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord,and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (i.e. saved into spending an eternity w/ him).

Half of eternity, maybe. The first half is already gone and we spent it without him.


 * I’m not assuming you’d think he’s right just because he’s Aquinas, if anything I’d think you’d assume he’s wrong because it’s Aquinas. Evidence, how about the Big Bang (formulated by a Catholic priest)? That the universe is not infinite in time is evidence of a first cause.

A First Cause is "evidenced" by incredulity over a chain of cause and effect existing in a universe with infinite time. Infinite time is assumed as an initial condition. In a universe without infinite time, there is just a moment with no prior moments, and no cause required.