#i'm stealing 'anti-theist polemicist' for when I make posts about Chris Hitchens

[septemberadical]

Thanks for responding, let's get into it.

It is interesting that you bring up the Orthodox church that you are in the process of converting to. I find both it's view on NOMA and it's other beliefs very interesting. What I find most interesting is the idea that the bible, which even your helpful website acknowledges is the basis of the religion itself, can and should be interpreted by your priests in ways to align with current contexts. Tell me, who gave your church (your preists, pope, etc.) the authority to interpret it in the specific way it does? Other Christian denominations certainly don't, and it could be argued that the Evangelical Christians are the most godly of all denominations because they adhere directly to, what they see, as the word of god. Wouldn't faith incline you to believe, in the face of great evidence, that your god is actually correct and you will soon be proven right? That seems to be what the southern baptists believe, anyway.

"We understand that Scripture came to us from Holy Tradition, the oral and written Tradition of the Church. Without it, the Scriptures would not exist. Holy Tradition is also witnessed to by the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils, the Nicene Creed, the writings of the Fathers of the Church, our liturgical worship and iconography, and in the lives of the Saints." - this is a quote from your website that can be found here.

How did the eucumenical councils and church fathers come to the decisions of what should be included in the official Holy Tradition? As a scholar of Christian history I'm sure you're aware of the wealth of Christian texts that are available to include in the canon, why were these ones chosen and how can you be sure they are sent down from the divine? Or how about just believing the Jews who said Jesus simply was not the messiah, they were there after all, unlike anyone else who wrote after it! If the pope, maybe on some kind of Caligula-esque bender, said that the writing on the back of a box of Kraft Dinner should be entered into the holy scripture and every cardinal or other authority was too predisposed or laughing too hard to disagree, wouldn't that text be official church doctrine? And wouldn't it be just as valid as the Nicene Creed based on that admission? By what authority do these councils get to include their own words as the word of god and how can you be sure it really is the Holy Tradition and you are not worshipping false doctrine? Where is your 'sublime truth and facts' and how do you separate it from the meaningless chatter that surrounds both ancient religious texts and the preaching of Jim Jones? Is it all a matter of personal opinion?

In terms of your quotations, I commend Origen for his reading comprehension and realization that the literal meaning of the Genesis must be false, I only wish he had taken it one step farther and thrown out the whole thing. I also would not turn to Origen for a non-literalist interpretation of the bible or for moral footing as he castrated himself on the advice of scripture to avoid sleeping with his female students. Not the worst thing to happen in the name of faith.

And as for Augustine, I believe he was very invested in a non-literalist approach to the bible and I'm very glad you admitted his ilk is one of the most influential philosophers in the Catholic faith. Unfortunately for all Catholic women for centuries afterward his existence, he had this very sticky opinion: "what is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman… I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children. –Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo Regius (354 – 430): De genesi ad litteram, 9, 5-9. He seems to be taking that whole Adam and Eve thing pretty literally, wouldn't you agree?

Should we let a faith who, by your own admission, holds up Augustine as a pinnacle of philosophical and moral thought, write civics and philosophy textbooks? Not only that, they should flood the market! They should be best sellers! Perhaps you would prefer we referenced Thomas Aquinas: As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from a defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence. –Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, 13th century: Summa Theologica I q. 92 a. 1

This is even more damning, Aquinas is believing in some forces unspecified in men and women that give them a particular nature. Should a Catholic doctor be allowed to investigate imbalances in those masculine and feminine humours and prescribe prayer and meditation to fix it? I would argue they shouldn't. And I can argue this because science and medicine have failed on every level to prove the existence of a soul that exists within the body. I believe that a doctor who is Catholic can look beyond Thomas Aquinas and Augustine and realize that COVID requires a vaccine and an infection requires antibiotics, but that information is not exclusive to his Catholic faith it is wholly secular. So what would a Catholic textbook on say the biology of the human body include that a secular one would not? The original quote argues that Christian writers should write scientific books "with their Christianity latent". Tell me what 'latent' Christian belief should be in that textbook that is not already in one that is purely secular, and reporting purely facts? I would answer for you, the only answer that is available; lies and propaganda.

Catholics are perfectly welcome to work in any field they choose, but they are not Catholic doctors or nurses or lawyers. They are doctors and nurses and lawyers who happen to be Catholic. Don't bring your backwards and unscientific faith into explicitly secular fields, they have no place in it.

We need Catholic doctors, Catholic nurses, Catholic lawyers, Catholic teachers, and Catholic scientists. Not everyone is called to create an insulated homesteading environment away from modernism.

Catholics can't fight secularism by running away from it.