A Catholic PSA

Question from John:
1. Do you know that the shroud of Turin was never confirmed as a “miracle” or “real” by Catholic Church?
2. Do you know that Catholics are supposed to believe that they ARE mortal?
3. Do you know that Catholics acknowledge many of their rituals as “tradition” only?
4. Do you know that the strongest teachings in the Catholic religion are about “Free Will” of each human?

Answer by SmartLX (who also added the numbers above):
1. The Church never makes a definite judgement on the shroud, but the last three popes have made the trip to “venerate” it. They could be called out if they said anything definite, so they make the most of it by inviting people to consider it and wonder. Certainty is hardly necessary when the goal is to reassure the faithful.

2. Of course people are mortal according to the Church. Immortality through God and Jesus is the supposed reward for devotion to the church, so they need to emphasise that people don’t have it yet.

3. Many of the rituals are merely traditional because they’re not even claimed to do anything magical, but there are some claims they can’t back down from, like hundreds of thousands of transubstantiation events every week in all the wafers and wine. See article 1376 in the Catechism.

4. Belief in free will is required to even try to justify rewarding or punishing people for obeying or disobeying God with an eternity in Heaven or Hell. It’s still not justified very well.

30 thoughts on “A Catholic PSA”

  1. All religion is a scam. Not one has ever presented a single verifiable fact to prove their assertions. Instead, they rely on false promises of a paradise and empty threats of a hell. If there had even one fact, would they need lies and threats?

    1. I just replied to you, repeating your very word beginning with an ‘s’ and I also said the word l.i.e.s, but the site said I am writing s.c.a.m.

      Why is the site refusing my word s.c.a.m but did not yours?!

      This is a question for SmartLX. This happens often to me.

      1. Are you using a phone with auto complete or auto correct? Although that seems like a pretty weird result for either. I notice I also made a typo, writing “there” for “they”.

        Spell checkers will never be any good until they can catch what you mean, not what you type. Damn computers. 🙂

  2. So, because the site refused to take my comment, saying it is spa.m, I will now be cleverer than the spa.m program of the site and write it smartly.
    Here it goes, as the answer to James Smith:

    OF COURSE IT IS S.C.A.M. EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM.
    BLOODY L.I.E.S.

    Correction.
    In my previous answer to James I typed s.c.a.m instead of s.p.a.m, because the refusal of the site to take my comment said it seemed as being s.p.a.m.

    2. i needed no correction, because i did write s.p.a.m, not s.c.a.m.
      i also believe that all religions are s.c.a.m.
      to hell with them.
      ban them all.
      oh, i just remember, since there is NO hell, then the atheists should send them all to death. because there IS death.

    1. yes but you said i wrote there instead of they
      so are you sleeping, drunk, drugged or what
      to first write that i had made a spelling error and then said you didn’t. look back at what you did write
      anyway, i will google the question ‘why atheists never see god or have any of these s.h.i.t. ‘experiences’
      i would say because one sees what one believes

      1. Here is a copy and paste of what I wrote,”I notice I also made a typo, writing “there” for “they”.” I made a typo, not you. I should have left out the “also” I see it is confusing.

        I live in João Pessoa, Brazil. It is on the easternmost tip of the Americas. Here, I am actually closer to Africa than to Peru. We have a small park with a monument to that fact about 6 kilometers from my condo. Knowing this fact and $5 will buy you a beer in many places. Here we are -3 hours from GMT. Nor do we use daylight savings time as in other places in Brazil or Arizona where I have also lived.

          1. Nope, I just checked. Here is the copy and paste again: If there had even one fact, would they need lies and threats? Note “there” after “if”. Yep I got the second one correctly.

            1. aaaaaaaaaaaa, but i thought that you had missed a ‘been’
              like, if there had been. but you meant to say
              if they had ever
              and of course you are right since english is you native tongue
              because, even if you had wanted to write if there had EVER been, it would have made sense but you did not write ever you wrote even. this makes a difference.
              but this discussion about what you wrote and what not, proves to me that we both have the same trait, tenaciousness persistence and are quite quarrelsome
              i LOVE that in you. i just finished reading you blog about how you fought your parents, this is of course amazing, but i am even more amazed and PLEASED by your character trait of fighting the wind mills blades.
              me too.

  4. by the time written at your posts it seems you are on the west american coast, because there it is 13.45 pm, 10 hours behind me, since the sun rises earlier here in greece by 12 hours, than in L.A.
    or are you in havaii

      1. ok. not my mistake about the time where you live. i had seen 1.30 or so next to the title of your first comment. so i presumed, since it is 10 hours later here than in west america, that you are there.
        brazil. hm. so who are you, woman, man, old, young, what?
        but i will go to bed soon, so answer now or never.
        also tell me how you became an atheist.
        i was born one and never changed my mind.
        i h.a.t.e. religion. yes i do. i don’t know why exactly, but my animosity to it has grown enormously since my son married a religious nut. he is no more an atheist, just a miserable agnostic. it is her bad doing. so i actually ha.te her for forcing my son into it, because if he doesn’t do what she likes or wants, then his world becomes hell, no need for religious hell.

        1. I wonder how it got 1:30 from my time? Hell. I don’t even know how it screwed up your comments.

          I am a man, 74 years old. I became atheist when I was 13. I have a post about it at: https://slrman.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/becoming-free/
          I have often said/posted, “shown undeniable facts, I will change my mind on anything, including religion” If talking to a theists, I will then ask, “What will it take to change your mind?” On the very dare occasions when I receive any reply at all, it is almost always, “Nothing will change my mind.” Then that same person will frequently accuse me of being closed-minded. They are always too ignorant to see the irony in saying that.

          1. theists are on average less intelligent and educated from us atheists. these two facts are eating them up. ok, i understand, no one can make oneself smarter, but most of the low educated folks could get some more education. but, eating, drinking and chasing sex is more interesting to them than getting educated. pigs.

          2. Ok. It is your gender and age and my loneliness that make me say the following:
            I am in platonic love with WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
            for a few years now, but I would like to have an alive platonic lover too. You.
            I am not asking for your permission to fall platonically in love with you, after all I never had a chance to ask Wolfgang for his permission either.
            But, I need some details about your body and personality, because, my infatuation with Wolfgang is quite real.
            I am 69, but feel 29, look 49. Or 50. But not older than 59.
            It is true that he is a small body wise man and not pretty at all. But, when I listen to his music, which is ALL my waking hours at home, I get the womanly feeling about him as a man, since his music came from his brain and is very manly and masculine, the music, i.e. he was very much of man in his brain.
            So, he is away from me in time, i can’t see him next to me and maybe turn from platonic to real infatuation for him.
            You, too, are away from me, in space, so I can’t do with you what I can’t with Wolfgang, either. But at least I know his face. The rest is his divine, sublime music. It is heaven.
            So, if you want to have a platonic lover in me from afar, then please supply me with some details about your looks, education and brains.
            Note that, since I will never see you, i don’t want your picture, unless you look like Robert de Niro, you understand what I mean, so, I suggest that you LIE to me, present yourself as an ideal man, body and mental wise, for an ardent atheist and feminist that I am.
            Bu, wait until tomorrow, when I will send you a list of physical and mental traits that I want in my ideal man. Then describe yourself to me according to my wishes.
            Wolfgang did not need to do this, be like my ideal man, his music did the trick.
            You, unfortunately for you, and thus for me, too, aren’t him nor are you Albert Einstein, who adored Wolfgang, too, so, please describe yourself as an ordinary man, but with perfect manly traits. The perfect man is one I want.
            The first two traits, sharing the first place on the list of my desirable men’s traits are
            ATHEIST and PRO-FEMINIST.

            1. Hmm. My attorney (and property manager) in Rio is named Paulo Mozart. He looks nothing like Robert de Niro, though. He is a good person and a friend.

              I have yet to hear from you via the temporary email I provided. I have also noticed that the times shown on my messages have nothing to do with my local times. That could be due to another glitch in the site or one of the “mysteries of the universe.”

          3. there is another point we can argue about, just like about your or my spelling
            it is about the time in greece and in brazil
            Greenwich is 00.00. ok? OK.
            greece is two hours before it.
            brazil is 3 hours behind it?
            so, if it is 2 am in greece now, as it is, then follows that it is midnight in briatin now and 3pm in brazil
            right?
            can we agree on that one too.
            cos we finally agreed about your spelling.
            and, look at the comments in your blog.
            i left there something for you.
            i hope you will like it
            btw, what was your major at uni. mine was law.

    1. I am American of mixed heritage, mostly Scots and Irish but with a bit of American Indian (Delaware or Lenni Lanape). We can continue this via email. Here is a temporary email to use until we are established. Blospas60@fleckens.hu Yes, it is only a temporary contact, After you email me there I will respond with a stable email address. It is only good for 24 hours, but after you reply with your private email, that will not matter.

  7. John:

    1) OK. Thanks for the heads up.

    2) Catholics believe their body is mortal. Their soul is not. Their soul will be reunited with their body when the second coming happens, and then their body will live forever too. Quite the fairy tale.

    3) I would disagree with this. I was raised Catholic, and no one ever said anything was a tradition. You pretty much had to do all that stuff, and got in trouble when you didn’t. Even if that is the official line from Rome, that’s not how it is implemented at the parish level.

    4) That, and original sin, which we DON’T have a choice in, but get stuck with anyway even though we had nothing to do with what happened in the Garden of Eden. Interesting dichotomy, isn’t it? You have free will, but you don’t get to choose being born or carrying a mark against you because of what some woman ate of a tree long before you were born.

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