Further questions from Mr. Laing:

"2) Ok, so it might be impossible to find contradictions between Catholic doctrine and what the Bible says based on the premise that the Bible was compiled by the RCC, but the Roman Catholic Bible has a few extra books in it (not including the Apocrypha) that my Bible does not have. When and why did this happen? And which version is closer to the original Bible compiled in the fourth century?"

Well, a slight correction to that first part. The Catholic Bible doesn't have a few extra books in it, many (not all) Protestant Bibles are MISSING some books, generally the Deutero-Canonicals.

This happened at the time of the Protestant Revolution, and was performed by Martin Luther. Here's the basic run down.

Martin Luther translated the Bible from Latin to German. The Church strictly controlled the translating of the Bible because it is a massively difficult work to translate accurately. And any inaccuracy in the Bible would be quite problematic for people's understandings. Luther, of course, needed the Bible for his premise of Sola Scriptura, and so translated it anyway (and rife with errors, some of his own intentional creation, an issue for another day).

When he translated it, he removed several books and parts of others that he believed were not Canonical, and almost removed more. Those that he did remove are called the Deutero-Canonicals, and are part of a secondary tier of Scripture in the Jewish faith. His removal was based on several variables.

Rewind to Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered much of the known world, including Palestine, and spread Hellenistic civilization and the Greek language all throughout his conquests. One of Alexander's alleged ambitions was the collecting of all the world's religious manuscripts and writings into his library in Alexandria, Egypt. To this end, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek was commissioned for 70 scholars to work on. What they produced is called the Septuagint.

Fast forward to Jesus Christ. It is widely thought, based on internal evidence from the Scriptures and supported, I believe, by archaeological findings, that in Christ's time, both the Septuagint, Hebrew versions of the Scriptures, and possibly Aramaic language scriptures were in use. Without a doubt, Hebrew and Septuagint language Scriptures were.

At Christ's time, there was no set Old Testament canon. The Jews had never developed a set canon, and instead just had varied Scriptures, much like the Christians later did. They had different translations, and those translations might have different works. For example, the Septuagint had the Deutero-Canonicals, but not every set of Hebrew Scriptures did (archaeological evidence used to suggest that NO set of Hebrew Scriptures did, but I believe they've now found some that do, so nix that, haha).

Christians largely made use of the Septuagint, particularly because, after the initial converts were all Jewish (and used the Septuagint themselves anyway), the Church had a huge influx of Gentile converts, most of whom spoke Greek (as Greek was the popular language of much of the Eastern Roman Empire, thanks again to Alex the Great). They had further support in doing so, because we know from the Gospels that Christ Himself used the Septuagint, or at least we know that Christ used the Deutero-Canonical books which the Septuagint contains.

The problem came in that the Christians were very effective at using the Deutero-Canonical books to influence Jews to convert to Christianity, a perceived threat by the leaders of Judaism at the time. So the Jews, for the first time ever, had their own Canonical "Council," the Council of Jamnia in about AD 70. There, they decided that they would not use the Septuagint, and used only those Hebrew Scriptures without the Deutero-Canons. Now, Jews could simply reject any argument from the Deutero-Canon made by a Christian on the basis of those books not being part of their Scriptures.

Likewise, at the Canonical Councils of the Church in the 4th century, the Church decided that as Christ and most of Christianity used the Septuagint and the books it contained, they kept them, and those are the books they had translated into Latin, published, promulgated, etc.

Back to Martin Luther. Martin Luther had a similar problem to the Jews. The Deutero-Canonical books contained evidence that supported several teachings of the Church that Martin Luther rejected. Of course, Martin Luther thought only Scripture was authoritative, but here in Scripture was evidence for those beliefs. Problem. So Martin Luther reasoned that because the Jews didn't accept those books, they weren't a legitimate part of Scripture, and so he excised them. Problem solved. Most other Protestant sects also removed them, though the King James Versions of the Bible kept them, but removed them to a separate section labeled, "the Apocrypha." That's why some Protestant Bible have them, and others do not.

Of course, that brings us to a whole new issue of authority, and Martin Luther's lack thereof, but I'll try to avoid that.

The Catholic Church, when it responded in Council to the Protestant Movement, re-affirmed the Canon of the Bible that it declared was inspired. This was the Council of Trent, and all Catholic Bibles must contain the Canon decided by this Council. I would argue that it is the superior compilation. But that's hardly a surprise, lol!

"3) What is the Virgin Mary's significance? Is she divinity, sort of a goddess? Or just some highly respected figure? And why do Catholics pray to her? I thought you only pray to God? And where the Bible says that Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through Him, why do Catholics pray to saints and the Virgin Mary instead of directly to Jesus?"

Mary is a very complicated subject, haha. Her significance is that she is the Mother of Christ, who is God, and thus the Theotokos. She has several distinct roles, in more symbolic and theological language, such as being the New Eve, as Christ as the New Adam. She is the Queen of Heaven (logical result of being the Mother of the King of Heaven, especially in the Davidic tradition). She is the Ark of the New Covenant, a hallowed vessel specially created to carry Christ. As a result she is believed to be ever-Virgin, born without Original Sin through a pre-emptive working of Christ's Grace, and preserved as sinless throughout her life by God's Grace and her own will working in perfect harmony. Etc., etc.

No, she is not a divinity. We believe in One God, the Father the almighty, maker of Heaven and of Earth, etc. etc. etc. Mary is not God, nor is she a goddess.

She is the most respected figure in Catholicism short of God. Catholics have three words they use for reverence and adoration. Unfortunately, they don't translate well into English, which is what causes a lot of these misunderstandings. In Latin they are dulia, hyper-dulia, and latria.

Dulia is the type of respect given to the Saints. Hyper-dulia is the reverence given to Mary. Latria is the worship and adoration given to God alone. But in English, these words could all be translated much the same way, as English often doesn't allow for nuanced meanings in translations.

You can see, just by looking at the form of the Latin that the reverence for the Saints and Mary is of the same type, but different in degree. Mary gets the hyper form of that reverence, while God's adoration is singular in type and degree.

As for why we pray to her (and to the Saints, let's not forget), this is easily answered. First, the word pray.

In English, this word simply means, "to ask." Over time, it gained the specific connotation of being for God. But if you read Shakespeare, for instance, you'll see them go, "I pray thee, tell me...." and other things like that, because that's all pray means. So, again, we have a translation problem. In Greek, we have two words for prayer which are used in the New Testament. One is deomai, the other is proseuchomai. Deomai is the kind of pray which means "to ask" the way you might ask a friend for money, or a cousin for a favor. Proseuchomai is the specific kind of prayer that is reserved for requests of the divine. So when Christ teaches the disciples how to pray to God? He uses the word proseuchomai, and teaches them the Lord's Prayer.

Catholics maintain this distinction in the types of prayer that are possible, and thus understand that we can pray to anyone in the sense that we can ask others for anything, and that we also pray to God, in a way that it unique to Him alone.

Mary and the Saints act as mediators of a sort. When we pray to Mary or to the Saints, we are not praying to them with the expectation that through their own magical powers they will aid us. Nope. Nothing like that. What we ARE doing is asking them for their intercession on our behalf.

Intercessory prayer is a powerful theme in the New Testament. Paul writes in almost every letter asking for the prayers of the Christian communities on his behalf, and offers his prayers on theirs. One of the greatest acts of Christian love is offering our prayers for others, and the Church teaches that the Saints and Mary, as glorified and perfected Christians now alive as part of and through Christ's Heavenly Communion, pray for us just as we pray for each other.

When we pray to them, we are asking for those prayers to be directed to a specific end. We don't expect any action through any power of their own, we expect that they will ask God on our behalf, and join their voices to our own, with the added bonus that they are not distracted by the problems and doubts that afflict us here, and are that much closer to Christ. It is still God who answers these supplications, and still God's power at work, and we don't consider anyone else to be divine.

You are correct that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, no doubt about that. And no one can come to the Father save through Him. Likewise, none can come to Him without the Father's calling to them, the initial spark of Grace in all conversions.

But Christ never tells us that we have to be limited in how we approach Him, and how we come to Him. Mary and the Saints help us in that task, offering us examples of humans who lived lives of amazing virtue, serving as role models who are a little closer to the humanity we know so well. Trying to live exactly as Christ lived can be a very daunting prospect, even though it must be our goal. The Saints show us various ways to achieve that, and highlight God's Grace working in their lives, so we know that it can and will work in ours. Likewise, their prayers and intercessions help to bring us closer to God in the spiritual realm as well. For Catholics, we are never alone, we are always part of God's Community, Christ's Body. We're the Communion of Souls, and I could be the only Catholic alive on Earth and still be part of a greater Body and linked to Christ.

One more thing I would like to note is that Catholics are not supposed to pray to the Saints and Mary without praying to God directly. It is not "instead of" praying to Christ, it is "in addition to" praying to Christ. ;-)

Questions from Mr. Laing

"1) You said something about the Protestant Church having changed or altered their doctrine before, implying that they were either wrong before or that they are wrong now. But according to my knowledge, the Catholic Church has changed in minor respects too. Maybe not in terms of doctrine, but there were things that they felt rather strongly about and don't anymore."

Yes, the Protestant sects altered their teachings on the morality of contraception about 100 years ago or so.

The Catholic Church has changed in minor respects, absolutely. And this is to be expected of any Institution that is alive and able to aid us. An institution that must be able to adapt to certain changes in the people it serves must be alive to do so. So yes, the Church does change in very minor aspects. It alters the form of some rituals, but it doesn't alter the substance, and we'll go into that more later.

But there are two crucial aspects in any religion that the Catholic Church will not reverse its teachings on, and those two things are Faith and Morality. Those are the two areas where the Church claims to be capable of teaching infallibly, and any such infallible teaching cannot and will not ever be reversed. Such teachings are, on occasion, added to, of course. This is because at times, actions that are new in terms of their morality appear in human history, and we must address them. Or because new questions or issues arise in issues of faith.

The Church functions rather like science. It builds upon a stable foundation of infallible doctrines drawn from Revelation. It does so slowly, and only when confident of the truth of those teachings. And it cannot simply change any of them on a whim or with the times, etc. just as a scientist cannot decide he doesn't approve of the laws of gravity, and try to change those. And just like science, we do add new doctrines when we discover them or learn of them.

"For example (and I don't know any of the details, this is just some vague memory of a history class during high school) they used to do all their services in Latin and pray in Latin too, a 'rule' which they strictly abided to. But now they don't do the whole Latin thing anymore. Why did they change? The Church should not need to change because of popular demand, should it?"

Great question!

Ok, short lesson on the Rites of the Church. The Catholic Church is composed of just over 20 Rites. In the Early Church, Christianity was more locally based, each community developed largely on its own because of the difficulties of travel, especially within an empire that was hostile to one's religion, made it difficult for total unity. Doctrinally, each of these early Churches stayed together for the most part. Some heresies, like Arianism, were problematic, which is why the Church used Councils, like Nicaea, to bring together the Bishops of those local communities and address those differences.

As time went on and the Church became much more united and communication became easier, those Churches kept a lot of their cultural identity and traditions, especially in terms of their language, and the trappings of the Mass. This is when they evolved into the various Rites of the Catholic Church. Each Rite is an entity within the Church that is fully Catholic, but also has a distinct set of cultural traditions and language all its own. The Eastern Churches also have various Rites, the Eastern Orthodox foremost among them.

What most people think of as the Catholic Church is actually the Latin Rite or Roman Rite, which is why many people call it the "Roman Catholic Church." That name, however, is an insult from Anglicans, and serves to alienate the non-Latin Rite members of the Church, the Church has never called itself that.

The Latin Rite is the Rite to which I belong, and it is the largest of any Rite in the world, due to its missionary workings and origins. While in the East many Rites developed in separate communities and cultures, the Western Church was dominated by the Latin Rite from the beginning, such that France, Spain, Germany, England, Ireland, Italy, etc. were all part of that Rite from the earliest part of the Middle Ages. And as most evangelical efforts from Catholicism stemmed from those countries and their globalization efforts, that is the Rite that spread and grew the most. The other Rites in the Catholic Church are Churches that returned to the Catholic Church AFTER the Great Schism, when the Eastern and Western Churches divided over authority. Some Rites that left, then came back.

The Latin Rite, of course, had its own cultural elements and language, as you've noticed. And yes, it used to be that Latin was the language of the Mass, and Latin still IS the language of my Rite, and the Western Church. What changed some of that was a movement in the 60s and 70s towards "modernizing" some of the rituals of the Church, which culminated in the Second Vatican Council. This Council effected some changes, nothing doctrinal, but there were those in the Church who took it too far, and misinterpreted what the Council called for.

What happened was this. At one time, all throughout the world, if you went to a Latin Rite Mass, you'd have the exact same Mass in substance and form throughout the world. You could be in Portugal, the Philippines, Japan, India, South Africa, the United States, Chile, wherever. Other than the sermon, which the priest writes himself, it would be EXACTLY the same. It was a truly universal language for the universal Church, and it meant that a Catholic of the Latin Rite could be at home anywhere in the world.

But at the same time, fewer people were learning Latin, and many bishops felt that Latin was becoming a barrier to people understanding the Mass and Catholicism, because so few spoke it (never mind the fact that each Mass had a Missal book with Latin and the native language's translation so people could follow along if they didn't know Latin). So they effected a change from Latin into whatever language was the popular language in their community. In America this is generally English or Spanish. In Italy, Italian. In Spain, Spanish. In Brazil, Portuguese, and so on and so forth. With this alteration, came some other minor alterations in the FORM of the Mass, certain things said in different ways because of the differences of language, movement of one part of the Mass to another area, etc.

What did NOT change is the SUBSTANCE of the Mass. The Mass is still the Sacrifice of Christ, the Eucharist is still His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Only the language and cultural trappings presenting this Sacrifice changed. And are slowly being changed back.

After these changes, in many areas, several problems arose. Mass attendance declined drastically, sometimes as much as 75%. And vocations to the priesthood also dipped dramatically, resulting in us now experiencing a priest shortage. And at the same time, a movement began to grow in the Church to "bring back" the Latin Mass. As I said before, some bishops went beyond Vatican II in what they did, and outright forbade the Latin Mass, even though NOTHING said there could not be Latin masses, and nowhere was it decided to end the Latin Mass entirely. Some bishops simply refused to allow it.

That's why, about a year ago or more, Pope Benedict XVI issued a proclamation expressly denying Bishops the ability to deny those in their dioceses who want to have the Latin Mass.

So, thankfully, it's on its way back in.

So in summation, they changed those trappings because of a perceived communication barrier, and are now bringing it back because of the way it hurt the Church. And no, the Church should never change its teachings on faith and morals to appease popular demands. Faith and Morality are absolutes, they don't change. But again, when something new appears, like stem cell research, that humanity has never encountered, we DO have to provide the moral guidance on that issue, and thus the Church, as a living Institution, must develop teachings on those issues with its infallible authority.

Apologies

So I've been out of my writing habit lately. Just as I was attempting an ambitious writing project, a series of works on the Sacraments, I lost all my inspiration to write. Frankly, I'm disappointed in myself. Anyways, this block continues, at least in regards to my intended pieces. My ability to answer questions and so forth remains though, so for now I'll post some Q&A segments from people who've contacted me.

The First Crusade: Just War?

Yes, I know, I've only posted on article on the Sacraments. I've had a form of writer's block for much of the week, they'll come when they come, I suppose. Until then, I've decided to continue posting arguments and debates I've written for other purposes and places. Enjoy!

Ok, let's start with Just War theory in Catholicism. The Catechism, paragraph 2309 states:

"The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

* the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
* all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
* there must be serious prospects of success;
* the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good."

Now let's examine the history of what happened.

A brief overview would show us that the Holy Land was up to the Arabic invasions, part of the Byzantine Roman Empire for almost a millennium. A good 700 years at least, the Caesars had ruled Palestine. This is historical fact.

Now, Mohammed and the Arab tribes he united, waged a lot of war. The expansion of the first caliphate's empire was impressive in speed and scope. From the conquest of Mecca, Mohammed and his followers turned to the rest of Arabia, made inroads up the Palestinian coast, along the North African coast, and into Persia.

Since we're dealing with the Crusades, we'll address specifically the wars between the Arabs and the Byzantines. What we have is pretty clearly a war of aggression on the part of the Arab nomadic tribes and a defensive war on the part of the Byzantines, indeed, the Byzantines were on the defensive for almost the entirety of the time between about 700 AD and 1453, when Constantinople finally fell to the Turks.

As this war progressed, Byzantine possessions were falling everywhere, Byzantine works of art, culture, religion etc. were being destroyed, Byzantine subjects mistreated, etc. all the usual turmoil of a war not just between empires but between cultures. Remember that the battle was at least partially religious in nature, and partially commercial and territorial. That the Arabs were the aggressors in all senses cannot be denied, they were previously nomadic tribes living in the Arabian desert, continually raiding one another, and trading amongst themselves. As much as they were fighting to spread Islam and control the Dome of the Rock, they were also fighting to gain access to lucrative trade routes, and more civilized territory.

And the Byzantines were, of course, no less self-interested. They were fighting to survive and hold onto their possessions and their trade, and their culture and ways of life.

Entering into this already twisted tangle were the Turks, who worked at conquering both the Arabs and the Byzantines, and who converted to Sunni Islam. It was under the Turks that things really got interesting, as they came to dominate the aggression against the Byzantines.

So what happened? Well, as things worsened for the Byzantines, as the Arabs and Turks were proving dramatically more effective on the field than the traditional Byzantine armies, the Byzantine emperor appealed to the Pope for aid. At this point, the Schism of 1054 had already occurred, and the West and East sections of the Church had already fallen out over authority and the Filoque clause. The Byzantine Emperor appealed anyway, a significant step, given the estrangement. The Pope then appealed to the Kings and Nobles of Western Europe, asking them to send aid to the Byzantines. The possible reasons for this call to aid are many, from establishing Catholic authority in the East, to protecting a brother Christian nation, to protecting Western Christian caravans and convoys of pilgrims (the fighting between the Turks and Arabs was as much of a problem in this instance as anything else), to a fear that Muslim invasions into Europe would only grow worse if the Byzantines fell (recall that at this point, the Muslims had already invaded into Spain, Sicily, France, etc., and had only truly been turned back at Tours). They still held much of Spain, particularly in the south, and controlled a lot of the Mediterranean, and it's entirely possible the Pope was worried about further invasions. A still further possibility was the desire to send Europe's knights off to do something other than kill each other, as the collapse of the Carolinian dynasty had led to internecine warfare.

My own belief on the subject is that it was a combination of all of these factors, and no single one was likely particularly dominant. But that's speculation, of course.

So, the Crusade itself. Armed pilgrims and warriors from Europe depart for the Byzantine Empire, which, incidentally, promised aid and supplies for those soldiers, and then reneged on its arrangement (they had some cause, since a group of peasants and lesser knights had already caused massive problems for the Byzantines in terms of supply). The cooperation lasted through the siege of Nicaea, and ended after Antioch.

Finally Jerusalem, and the siege which ended when Genoese ships were dismantled to be used as siege engines. The accounts of slaughter in Jerusalem are hard to substantiate. Several are riddled with liftings of language from the Bible, and others are accounts from non-eyewitnesses. And it certainly wasn't a "kill all Muslims" sort of situation, either, there are numerous references to living Muslims, to accepted surrenders, etc. Certainly it was a bloody end to the siege, assaults on walled cities always are.

So we return at least to the prominent question: "Was this a justifiable war?"

Certainly the damage to the Byzantine's by the Seljuk Turks and the Arab caliphates before them was lasting, certain and grave. The conquests were continual, and the only respite the Byzantine's knew was through the Crusade's efforts. And equally certain is that the Byzantines were on the defensive, fighting for their provinces which had been conquered or were being conquered. And finally, it is certain that the Crusade was a response on the part of Western Europe, particularly the Frankish kingdoms, to a call for aid from the Byzantines.

As to whether other means were tried, or effective, in ending the fighting, I do not know. I suspect, however, that they were certainly not effective, if tried, that much is obvious. Whether diplomatic means would be taken seriously by anyone at the time, given the unceasing aggression against the Byzantines I find quite doubtful.

As for the serious prospect of success, the First Crusade could hardly be called a doomed effort. It succeeded in relieving the Byzantines, capturing Jerusalem, etc.

The final aspect is the most interesting. Did the use of arms promote or create a greater evil than the one being defended against? In the first Crusade, most of the war was a series of battles and sieges progressing through Anatolia and into Palestine. Did they promote or incur a graver evil than the wars already raging? No. They were typical of any war of that period in their scope and means, thus they didn't use excessive force nor involve some graver evil.

Now, if there was a whole sale slaughter of Muslim citizens in Jerusalem analogous to a genocide, then there'd be a problem. But even the most colorful accounts which revel in bloody "glory" recall stories of Muslims being allowed to surrender and live and leave, etc. I would argue that it was a siege, like any other, and the city was pillaged, but that there was no whole sale slaughter of all Muslims or anything like it.

So yes, I'd say the First Crusade represents a possibly just war.

Excuses....

So Tuesday was a waste of a day. Hoping to get to some serious writing Wednesday. Night all...

The Sacrament of Penance

Catholic teachings are so inter-related that, while I may only want to go into Confession, doing so requires an explanation of Catholic teaching on the Graces, Justification, Sanctification, Salvation, Sin, Purgatory, Contrition, Penance, etc. In other words, any attempt to explain a Catholic position on one issue requires at least some understanding of several others to grasp it. Yet another reason why we're so misunderstood I expect.

With that being said, I will now attempt to begin outlining some important points concerning the above concepts as they relate to Catholic Confession. This will be done in an expository fashion,

As previously noted, I have to explain several topics that relate to Confession before I can get into Confession itself. We'll start with Faith.

I have seen many varied definitions of Faith before. I will here provide mine, which I do not believe specifically contradicts or conflicts with anyone else's, but which I do think will illuminate a particular difficulty many have with Catholicism.

Faith is something that is believed/trusted/accepted and acted upon. I add the final part regarding action, because we are told, for example, that even the Devil believes. Yet the Devil is not saved. Moreover, we are told that Faith without "works," or in other words, Faith without action based upon it, is dead in the Letter of St. James. In my personal opinion, Faith is something that changes us, and I have yet to meet the Christian who actually disagrees with me on this. As part of that change, Faith inspires us to act in a manner different to the manner we acted before we had it. In fact, I will go so far as to say that even the act of willing to have Faith, the very choice to have Faith, is the first act of Faith. I believe it is utterly impossible to have Faith divorced from action. They necessarily go hand in hand for Faith to be legitimate, or for it to be living, as St. James says. Keeping that in mind, let us progress to the concept of Grace.

Catholics actually have several names for Grace, and understand it to work in various ways in different situations, which is why we have the seperate terminology. Here we will treat with one form in particular, that called Sanctifying Grace (not to be confused with Actual Grace, a common problem).

Sanctifying Grace is the Grace we receive in Baptism, it is the gift of God that results in our salvation. We receive it because we choose to repent and turn to God. Thus we have Faith, that Faith is what allows us access to Grace, for without both belief and acceptance of Christ's redeeming Sacrifice, we cannot access His Grace. When we perform the act of Faith and are Baptized into the Church, that is when Sanctifying Grace is poured out upon us by God, and we are freed from the power of Sin and cleansed for God. Our Faith, and our choice, are inspired by God, to turn us away from sin and towards Him. We must then choose to accept His prompting and come to Him. This is how we first receive Sanctifying Grace.

Please note that water Baptism is only one of three forms of Baptism, and is called the ordinary form. Sacraments in general are the ordinary means of receiving Grace. By ordinary we mean that they are the normal ways, but we do not say that Grace cannot be received through any other means. It's all up to God. Therefore, let's have no one taking my comments regarding any of the sacraments out of context. If someone dies on his or her way to baptism, for example, we do not believe such a person was not baptized, we consider him or her to have been baptized by desire instead of water. Likewise, if someone is martyred for his or her faith in Christ before they can be baptized, they are considered to be baptized in blood.

However, because of the above outlined understanding that Faith and Action (works, fruits, etc.) are inseparable, we do not divorce Faith from the action that the Faith prompts. Someone who says "I have faith" and doesn't act upon it to be baptized in any way (see John 3 and Matthew 28 as to why baptizing is considered so important), we would question whether they truly had Faith at all, as per James' letter. A person who claims Faith, yet chooses to not engage in the rite by which all Christians become Christians, a rite commanded by Christ, and a rite that is a visible act of Faith (at the very least) to all of us, would be suspect as a result.

Progressing onwards, then, we must now tackle the issue of sin. Sin is, in essence, a rejection of God to one degree or another. It is also an inherently criminal action, for it violates the law of God, and is evil. Catholics have an understanding of difference in degree of sin as well. Catholics do not subscribe to the idea that all sin is equivalent, and for the following reasons:

For Catholics, there are mortal sins and venial sins. Mortal sins are sins that involve Grave matter (something important, usually outlined for us in Scripture as sinful), willful rejection of God, and knowledge that what you're doing is sinful. To further go into this, let us consider the following hypothetical examples (these will be somewhat extreme, their extremity is meant to highlight the principles involved, not because I have some realistic expectation of these things happening).

#1: Let us say that I am somehow forced to commit murder, and forced in such a way that I have no way to stop myself (maybe some kind of drug, or mind control device). I have committed a gravely evil deed, that being murder, the killing of an innocent person for no justifiable reason (like self-defense). But I did not choose to commit the evil deed. Because choice is always linked to culpability, we cannot say that I am fully culpable for this action. In other words, we cannot reasonably say that God would truly be Good and Just were He to condemn me for a deed that I did not choose to commit. And likewise, I have not voluntarily separated myself from communion with Him through this act, as it was not an act I choose to do.

#2: Let us say again that I have murdered someone. But in this scenario, I come from a culture in which murder is not considered wrong, a society which teaches from birth that murder is perfectly normal and fine, warping the conscience. In other words, I do not know that murder is wrong, nor do I know that I will be punished for it, that there is a moral rule against it, etc. I am utterly unaware of the fact that killing some random person for no reason is morally wrong. In this case, we Catholics again believe that some of the guilt of this action, evil as it is, is exculpated because of the offender's ignorance of the evil nature of the act. One must wonder, if the person knew it was evil, would the person still have done it? We believe that a Just and Good God would not necessarily condemn someone who was unaware that what they were doing was wrong. In like fashion we might consider a child who does something wrong without knowing it. Do we kill this child for the offense, lock him in his room, or beat him bloody? Of course not. We teach the child, perhaps scold him a bit, etc. but the punishment is far less severe than it would be for a child who knew it was wrong to do something and did it anyway.

#3: The last situation is the most difficult. Because it involves the gravity of a particular matter, I have saved it for the end. Gravity of sin is very difficult to judge. We are very certain that some sins, namely theft, rape, adultery, murder, idolatry, blasphemy, and aposticization, are objectively grave. They are, by their very nature, objectively and totally evil as a complete rejection of God's gift of goodness, and to perform them (willfully and with an awareness of that evil nature) is tantamount to a total rejection of God, who is Good. There are more sins than those lifted above that are considered grave matter, of course. The question, however, is what sins are not considered Grave matter.

When Protestants and Catholics fight about the Catholic gradation of sin (this happens occasionally) it has been my experience that what we're really fighting about is the idea of gravity of sin, and not whether a sin might be less or worse based on our knowledge or free choice of it. So I will attempt to provide an example of an action that is not gravely sinful.

Let us say that I am being mugged, and my attacker draws a knife on me. And as a result, I break his wrist and elbow in rapid succession to prevent him killing or injuring me. I am fully aware that the techniques I would use on him (after years of martial arts training) will hurt him severely, and I am also well aware that causing physical injury to another person is bad, even with the intention that I am only protecting myself (the fact remains that I have hurt someone to an excruciating degree). Catholics would consider my sin here to not be grave matter, for several reasons. First is that my action is not, in and of itself (at least as far as I am aware), objectively and totally evil. Hurting someone is not on par with taking a person's life. Moreover, Catholics, like most Christians, understand morality to work in terms of intentions, means and ends. My intentions here were to hurt the mugger, but for the purpose of defending myself, not out of pleasure or superiority, etc. My actions were wrong in that they hurt someone, whereas the perfect Christian might gladly surrender to a mugger (turning the other cheek), and the means are physical techniques that leave our mugger severely injured, and hopefully myself unharmed. This is not an action that I believe can be seen as gravely sinful, and thus I do not think it would qualify as a mortal sin.

And so we continue to the other kind of sin in Catholic theology, known as Venial sin. Sometimes our sins are small, or unwilling, or unrealized (as illustrated in hypothetical form above), thus they cannot qualify as mortal sin, and may not qualify as sin at all. In those cases where they do qualify as sin, though they damage your relationship with God and with those against whom you sinned (if against someone other than God alone). While these smaller sins won't kill the Grace inside you, they will do other things. They will attack the charity/love in your soul for God, as well as damage your relationships, etc. And by committing many of these lesser sins you can still do so much damage that you deteriorate into a state of mortal sin as well.

Mortal sin is so great a rejection of God (again, due to it being willful, knowledgeable and grave) that it will not just damage or offend the charity/love in our souls, but kill it entirely. It does this because sin is contrary to the Will of God. By knowing something is terribly wrong, and choosing to do it anyway, you have set yourself in total opposition to God's Will, which is a Will always oriented towards Love of God and Love of Mankind, Good, and Justice. If you have rejected God's Will, you have also rejected your acceptance of God's Salvation, which is naturally part of His Will for us, I think we Christians all agree, and it is that Will which allowed us to receive Grace in the first place. By rejecting God's Will, and God's Salvation, you have cut off that force which connected you to God's Grace. You have assaulted and mortally wounded your faith. This is how we destroy our connection to Sanctifying Grace, and in so doing, place ourselves under the power of sin again.

In a nut shell, this demonstrates the Catholic understanding of salvation as a process, not as a moment. Catholics believe that our initial Faith Justifies and Sanctifies us, generally through the baptismal act, whatever form it takes. The justification of our Faith is accompanied by the pouring out of God's Sanctifying Grace upon us, this is what makes Baptism a Sacrament. It is, and this is what is meant by "Sacrament," a visible outpouring of God's Grace upon us. We believe that mortal sin, because it demonstrates that we are rejecting completely the Will of God, corrupts our souls again, removing our initial Justification and Sanctification, necessarily, as a being who sins cannot be sanctified (holy) or justified (you have sinned and not yet repented, your actions have not demonstrated faith, they have demonstrated an antagonism towards God, thus the Faith that justified you is no longer even present). To remedy the problem of mortal sin, then, we finally arrive at the Sacrament of Confession, the ordinary means by which God's Grace and forgiveness is received by a Catholic.

First and foremost, let us address a couple of things that Confession involves, its history, and then make some clarifications as to what Confession is not. Both are extremely essential to properly understanding Confession, and both result in confusion, misunderstandings and arguments on the subject.

First, the Sacrament itself generally consists of going into a small room with a screen of some kind between you and the priest. The priest recites ritual phrases, and you first express that you are repentant for your sins and wish to confess, asking for forgiveness. You tell the priest how long it has been since your last confession, and you tell the priest the sins that you've committed (I've found it's best to write them down before hand, because it can be difficult to remember once you're there). Upon telling the priest your sins, you say the prayer called the Act of Contrition, and the priest absolves you of your sins in the name of the Holy Trinity and with the authority of Christ (John 20). That is the end of the Sacrament of Confession itself. After the Sacrament, the priest usually assigns a penance for you to undertake, often some prayers said for a specific intention. This penance is voluntary, no one can or will make you do it, it is left to you to do as an individual, and it serves a several specific purposes which I will go into soon. Failure to complete the penance, however, qualifies as a further mortal sin, nullifying the Grace you've just received. Understand that the voluntary assent to penance is implicit in going to Confession in the first place, and soon we'll see why.

Before that, however, I want to address several misconceptions and the history of the Sacrament itself. First off, for some common misconceptions.

Misconception #1) It is through some power of the priest that we are forgiven, and not the power of God. This is absolutely false. In Confession we are confessing to Christ, and the priest is only there to act as a physical stand in for Christ whose physical body is in Heaven. The priest in and of himself has no special or magical powers, he merely has a special authority, vested in him by Christ through the Sacrament of Holy Orders. This is Scripturally traceable to John 20:23, where Christ tells His Apostles that He is giving them the authority to forgive people their sins. The power for this action comes from God, it is His Grace that works in us in the Sacraments, and it is on Christ's authority that priests are able to transmit this Grace.

Misconception #2) It is our act of penance that results in forgiveness or absolution, or in other words, that we are only forgiven once we've said a certain number of Our Fathers and Hail Marys. This, too, is absolutely false. As noted above, the Sacrament of Confession results in absolution for the penitent Christian, before penance is assigned, let alone completed. Penance exists for an entirely seperate purpose, and is unrelated, utterly, to our forgiveness. I wish to say this again, absolution is not dependent upon penance, though failure to complete penance just results in further sin. I am most emphatic on this subject because this is the source of several accusation towards Catholics that we think we can "earn" forgiveness. This could not be farther from the Truth, I assure you.

Misconception #3) That it doesn't matter if we are truly repentant or not, we are still absolved. This, again, is false. Contrition is necessary for the Sacrament to be valid. The priest may pronounce the words of absolution, but the power of it, the grace, comes from God, and is only going to be effective on someone who is truly penitent and sorrowful for his or her sins. Period. If you make a false confession with no actual remorse or repentance, you have only worsened your sin by lying to God about your penitence.

Misconception #4) That Confession is a license to sin and then just confess again. Of course, false. Part of the Act of Contrition, the prayer that closes the Sacrament is a solemn promise to go, and with the aid of Christ, sin no more. Part of the purpose of repentance, which as you recall is necessary for the Sacrament to be effective, is that a repentant person does not intend to just go and sin again. Such an attitude is obviously not penitent, and would render the Sacrament invalid. So no, Confession is not a license to sin, for to treat it as such would mean that a person was not repentant, in which case the Sacrament doesn't result in absolution.

And now that we've addressed some of the biggest misunderstandings surrounding Confession, let's look at the history. Catholics are often attacked on the subject of Confession, because it is allegedly not Biblically based. Or more specifically, confessing to a priest by yourself isn't Biblically commanded. And this is true, in so far as it goes. Leaving aside arguments about the validity of relying solely on Scripture, let us look at exactly how the form of the Sacrament of Confession evolved in the Church.

The Rite I described above is the "modern" form of the Sacrament. In other words, private confession with you and the priest is the newer form of the Sacrament. But by newer it should be understood that it is at least 1500 years old. Moreover, private confession with a priest has always been allowed in the Church. And for certain more public sins, like apostasy, early Christian writings are very clear that people would confess publicly before the entire church community (including the priest, of course). Moreover, the confessing of sins in general is Scripturally backed and even commanded. James 5:16 says, for example, "Confess therefore your sins one to another: and pray one for another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much." And I John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity." Note that in both of these examples, they are epistles (letters) written to Christian communities. In other words, these are instructions from the Apostles, in the Bible, to Christians who have already been Baptized, to confess their sins, in one the injunction is made to confess to each other, in the other, to simply confess, it does not specific as to whom. Moreover, early Christian writings like the Didache, the Letter of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch's writings, Irenaeus's writings, along with Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, and more support the confessing of sins. The practice of confessing our sins goes all the way back to the Apostles (who wrote the Didache) their earliest successors (like Ignatius of Antioch), etc. The history of Confession, thus, runs throughout the history of the Church, though the form of the practice has changed from being more public to being more private.

Why change from the often communal confession of the past to the more private confession of the present? Why confess to the priest still and not just to God? Why is confession to each other, important enough that James specifically commands it? What is the value in Confession, aside from the claim that it brings absolution for our sins? Well that's next, so stay tuned.

In Catholicism, Confession is considered extremely important. I like to argue that while most of the Sacraments are not considered "necessary" for salvation, they are considered "essential." Confession is not strictly necessary, in that someone may very well be baptized and not mortally sin afterwards, and then die, in which case Confession wouldn't be necessary, as Baptism cleanses us of sin. But most of us do sin, even mortally, and for us, having a means of receiving forgiveness and sanctifying Grace that we can easily access is vitally important, and thus essential to our faith lives, essential to the point of being necessary for our forgiveness in ordinary circumstances. Let's look again, in brief, at the Sacrament....

The first step, and most important part of Confession is repentance. Obviously, as without repentance, the Sacrament has no effect.

Next is the action of confessing. Again, for Catholics, Faith and Action are undeniably and unalterably linked. It is action that demonstrates and breathes life into Faith, it is action that shows that our Faith as altered us. When a person has mortally sinned, that person has willfully and knowingly rejected to follow God's Will on some gravely important matter, thus demonstrating that they do not have living Faith. The act of repenting, the act of confessing is the action that demonstrates that a person's Faith has begun to rejuvenate at the behest of God, even under the strain of his or her sin. Moreover, the act of confessing is very important in that it requires of us and allows for us to experience several critical things.

First, it lets us face them in their entirety. To confess our sins means that we must honestly and contritely examine our consciences and our past deeds, identify our sins, and vocally admit them to another person (we're drawing closer to the why of confession to another), and at the same time to God. This is an incredibly powerful experience, and it requires not only a great courage from the Christian penitent, but also an amazing quality of Faith, to look our sin in the eye, confess to it, freely admit to our guilt, and trust that Christ has forgiven us for even our most horrible actions. It brings us quite literally face to face with our own worst selves, and even better, reminds us of the ever present, and all powerful grace of God that can forgive anything we have done.

The benefits do not stop there either. Confession also encourages an amazing sense of humility, one of the most important virtues a Christian can cultivate in his or her spiritual life. Because confession demands that we admit and own up to our failings to another person and to God, there is no room for pride, no room for arrogance, no room for selfishness or conceit. You are stripped bare of all egotism and humbled before God in Confession, and then you are Justified anew and washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb. There are no excuses, and no vanities in legitimate Confession, there is only honest, humble, repentance, and the Sacrament encourages these qualities the more we partake of it. Many great Catholics, like the late John Paul II, have been known to frequent Confession monthly, weekly, or even daily. This is not because they are committing horrible atrocities every day, but because for the humble Christian, even the slightest of sins is too much, and any chance outburst of anger or lust or sin in any of its many forms demonstrates to us that we need to remain humble and loving. Confession encourages this, and those who practice it regularly are amazing examples of Christian humility in their daily lives as a result.

And now we reach the last part of this expose, that being Penance. Penance is one of the most misunderstood teachings of the Catholic Church, due mainly to its confusion with absolution by some. Penance can even be used to describe the entire Sacrament itself (it is alternately called the Sacrament of Confession, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or the Sacrament of Penance, as in the title). When this is done, penance is used in the sense of a person being penitent, not in that the action of penance is required for absolution, as I have already noted. Penance is also the purpose of Purgatory as well as Indulgences, resulting in further misunderstandings and confusion on both subjects. I will address both here.

While our forgiveness is not dependent on performing penance, penance is important and often assigned by our confessors. Penance is oriented towards healing the damages done by sin on our lives. What damages are these that are not healed by forgiveness itself? Such problems as addiction, or family feuds are two excellent examples. While we can be forgiven for our sins by God in confession, and realign ourselves to His Will, it is indisputably true that while we are under the power of sin we develop bad habits that can easily lead us to sin again after confession. If your sins were watching pornography and masturbating, not only will you be at risk for a sexual addiction, but your psychological understanding of the beauty of sexual intercourse and the value of the opposite sex as more than just objects of lust are in danger from your sin. One purpose of penance is to repair these damages by forcing you to perform actions that are opposite to those sinful ones you were performing earlier. Thus your penance might be aimed at repairing your relationships with the opposite sex and removing from yourself your treatment of them as objects of lust.

If your sins are, for example, linked to fighting with your family members, your penance might be to ask forgiveness in person from each and every family member you've fought with, or to say prayers for them for every time you've been angry with them or upset with something they did. This is the primary purpose of voluntary penance, it is to remedy the effects of sin upon our selves, and not just our souls.

There are more purposes to penance though. The next purpose of note is that penance is indeed a form of punishment. Catholics do not deny that Christ's death on the cross removes from us the Eternal punishment of Hell that is the wage earned by our sins. However, while Christ has taken upon Himself the Eternal consequences of our sins, there are still the temporal consequences to be dealt with. That there are temporal consequences seperate from both the Eternal consequences and from forgiveness itself, we can see by looking at King David. In the case of King David, he sinned concerning Bathsheba and Uriah. When confronted by the prophet Nathan, David repented and God forgave Him. And yet, God still, despite forgiving David of his sin and not damning him to Hell, carried out the temporal punishment He had decided upon for David, that of taking his ill-begotten son from David. Scripturally, the idea that forgiveness does not relieve us of responsibility for temporal consequences for sin is quite sound. Christ takes for us the Eternal penalties of sin, that is what we know from Scripture. And we know that even when forgiven there remain temporal consequences to our actions. Penance is the action voluntarily undertaken as a form of punishment for our sins to relieve ourselves of the temporal consequences of sin while in this life.

Purgatory is, for the most part, our temporal penance for sins that remain to us from incomplete penance in our lives. While we are forgiven and we are spared from Hell, we are not spared the temporal consequences that we know from the Scriptures and reason. Penance is how we address that in life, Purgatory is how we address that in death. Thus, I hope it will be understood here that Purgatory is not performed for the forgiveness of sin. Like all forms of penance, Purgatory does not exist for absolving sins or earning forgiveness. This is a misunderstanding. One's sins are not forgiven because of completing penance, one's sins are forgiven by God in an act of Graceful forgiveness, both in this life and in Purgatory should it occur.

Indulgences, likewise, do not exist for forgiveness. You cannot buy forgiveness in indulgences (and the buying of indulgences was an abuse happily ended in the Counter-Reformation, as indulgences are supposed to be earned/worked for in some fashion). What one earns with an indulgence is a remittance of penance in Purgatory. In other words, through performing some good work or act of charity and gaining an indulgence, one has essentially done pre-emptive penance. There is no forgiveness involved, if a person has many indulgences, but dies in a state of unrepentant mortal sin, that person's indulgences are utterly meaningless. They do absolutely nothing. Period. I repeat, indulgences and Purgatory do not exist for the absolution of sin.

Now, I mentioned that it is also knowable according to reason that God requires some form of temporal punishment for our sins in addition to the Eternal punishment He Himself has relieved us of. But how can I say this? Here is the explanation:

First we must examine momentarily the Problem of Evil. We know that Evil exists as a result of human freedom (in that we choose to commit evil acts, and that is sin). I also assert that God's Love turns Evil to Good, and will soon demonstrate how and why. But right now in our examination we all perform Evil, and in doing so stain ourselves. We do wrong. God does no wrong, it is part of God's Nature. As God is Good and Just, Evil in those whom God desires a relationship with is very troublesome. While God can Love those beings (us), their ability to Love Him will always be hindered by their choices to reject Him and hurt others. Moreover, those rejections and those injurious acts to others are in some sense criminal (I believe I mentioned this before). Which means not only that humans will have a hard time returning the Love of their Creator, but they will also run afoul of their Creator's Perfect Justice. Humans reject God, and God being loving will not force humans to not reject Him. Thus humans seperate themselves from God (sin). Moreover, as perfectly Just, for our criminality against God and each other, we face Justice which coincides with our choices to spurn God and hurt others. God's Loving relationship is thus injured by us. But God loves us still, and God is also Merciful. So how do Love, Justice, and Mercy co-exist in such a tricky situation?

I submit that God, as a Loving Creator who Wills for a relationship of Agape Love with His Creation, will also Will to somehow end or take away that which threatens that relationship (sin). The question of course, is how? We already know God will not remove our wills, as that will defeat the purpose of Creation. But God can forgive sin. God can forgive the crimes we commit, the rejections and the hurts and wrongs.

As an omnipotent being, God can take away all of our faults and forgive us of all of our sins. As a Merciful God, God does just that. But God is also Just. Which means that God will not just snap His metaphorical fingers and say every thing's taken care of. Justice does not allow for crime to go unpunished, even when it forgives. We often choose to do wrong freely, knowing that such a thing, at the very least, might hurt someone else. We choose, and we choose freely, knowing that there are negative consequences for others revolving around our choices. Justice demands that we pay the consequences of our choices, it's part of the responsibility inherent in having choices.

Were God to be Just without Mercy, every single one of us would be accounted as having rejected Him. The Just thing to do would be to leave everyone of us to continue existing without Him even after we die here. This would be the very definition of Hell, existence separated from God, and is no more than the Just and logical conclusion of choosing to not Love God and not want God. Mercy without Justice would strip humanity of responsibility for its choices and destroy the very notion of a governing morality that teaches us to treat each other with love and respect. With only perfect Mercy we can do whatever we please, so long as we repent, and we never suffer any consequences for our actions. I've noticed some atheists seem to believe that Christians think there are no consequences for our actions once we ask forgiveness. This is utterly false, at least in Catholic theology, penance is always required to meet Justice. So, Justice without Mercy is not so great (kind of pointless for God to create us if we all just go to Hell anyway) and Mercy without Justice is also not so great (though perhaps better than the other) but regardless God exists as both. So how do Justice and Mercy co-exist? Justice "demands" that the natural consequences for the crime of rejecting God be mete out. And Mercy "demands" that God's Love for us is so self-less that He bring us to Him no matter how horrible we are so long as we truly repent.

The solution, is that God Himself must take on the eternal "punishment" associated with the crime of rejecting God, that being separation from God. This is not only the supreme act of selfless love (God Himself dying for the entirety of the world's sins, and taking upon Himself humanity's rejection of Himself) and satisfies God's Mercy, but it is Just, for the punishment due to humanity for its crimes is met, the eternal consequences borne, for those that let Him, by God Himself. The temporal consequences however, remain to humans themselves to satisfy through voluntary penance. Certainly no matter your sins they are not so great that God cannot forgive them (and indeed God's one sacrifice is in fact an Eternal sacrifice because He is outside time, which means your sins are already forgiven, you merely need to go to God and repent). But that doesn't mean that you will not be expected to perform penance, to work to rectify the harm you have done yourself, your neighbors and loved ones, the community and the Church and to your relationship with God through your habits and wrongs. Through our temporal penance, we also satisfy God's justice, as well as come closer to Christ in His suffering and sacrifice for us. Penance thus allows us to not only experience God's justice, but also God's merciful love to a fuller extent than we would otherwise. And so from Love in response to Evil, we find a greater Good, and Evil itself is turned to Good. It is taken away, forgiven, and we are turned towards Good and God and that relationship for which we were created.

On one final note concerning Purgatory, I would like to address the idea of a final cleansing or purification, that is actually at the root of the name Purgatory. While not expressly related to Confession, I wanted to address it while dealing with all these related concepts. Purgatory is considered, in addition to being a place for the completion of penance, it is also a place of final scrubbing of the stains of sin upon us before entering into the presence of God, where sin is inadmittable. While sin has been forgiven, Catholicism believes that it leaves a certain stain upon the soul, especially when not repented of before death (as in the case of unrepented venial sins before death). Temporal Purgatory allows us the opportunity to ask for forgiveness one last time (because it is a temporal existence, we have the ability to pray, choose, etc.) for our sins and to be scrubbed clean or purified as in fire (there is more to support this notion both Biblically and among the Fathers, but as it is merely a side note to the main issue in this essay, I will leave that aside). Hence the name Purgatory.

Returning, finally to Confession, I have one last issue to address, namely the questions of why confession to another person, especially in the Catholic case, to a priest is so important to the Sacrament. I have already noted that it increases the power of the Sacrament in terms of its effects upon us such as humility, courage, etc. (not in terms of efficacy, of course). Now I'd like to address somethings more often ignored even in Catholic apologetic writing on the subject (at least I can't recall ever having read this before I wrote it to someone else, though I believe it may be referenced in the Didache as well). And that is the difficulty, combined with the communal aspects, of Confession.

One problem often noted by critics of Confession is that confession is difficult. As already noted it requires a great deal of courage, humility and faith to properly perform. It is often described as a rather uncomfortable experience at first, and I know of many former or lapsed Catholics who never went because of this uncomfortableness. Coupled to that uncomfortableness is the idea that many people have that we're confessing our sins to some strange man, a random stranger priest, or even a familiar man. Regarding this, I have this to say: Confession certainly is difficult. And I think it should feel uncomfortable. Sin should make us feel uncomfortable! We should be ashamed of ourselves when we go into confession. I usually cry when I go to confession, I have no problem admitting, and it's the only time I can actually get myself to cry usually.

I'd like to reiterate again that we're not confessing to "a strange man." We're confessing to Christ through His Body the Church, and the representatives He gave the authority to absolve sins to. You're not telling your sins to any old man, you're telling them to Christ, and you're telling them to the Church. And therein lies the necessity of telling them to someone else. Sure it feels uncomfortable and scary and strange. But that's a good thing. If you don't feel uncomfortable confessing your sins, something is wrong! In the early Church, as I noted before, Confession often took place before the entire community. Now that would be uncomfortable! I don't say this just to make that comparison though (indeed, that'd be a waste of time). James didn't exhort the people to confess to each other just because it would make them unbearably ashamed. No, James did it because there is value in confessing, not just in prayer from yourself to God, but in confessing to the Church, to physically present oneself as sinful and sorrowful, and go to the Living Body of Christ in person to receive absolution. Part of that I noted before, in that it has personal value for us in our spiritual development, but there's more to it, and to finish the tale, we must return, again, to sin.

Sin is not just a crime against God, or against our own souls, it is a crime against the Church. It is a crime against the body of believers. Your sin affects others, hurts others, could even destroy others. When the burglar steals, certainly he offends the laws of the land and God, but it is the person he steals from who is most aggrieved and who seeks justice. When the murderer strikes, certainly he offends all society with his crime and God Himself, but it is the victim who suffers the most. And it is to the victim that the first and greatest apology should always be given.

The glory of Confession in Catholicism isn't just that it is the means appointed by Christ of receiving the Sacramental Grace of forgiveness (though that's certainly the biggest part), it's that in Confession, we do not confess just to God, we confess also to the Church, to the Body of Christ, and thus to all our brothers and sisters in faith against whom we have sinned. We are a community of believers, we're together as one body in the Church, and we must seek forgiveness from that community for our evils against it just as we seek forgiveness from God for our evils against Him and again just as we seek forgiveness from ourselves for the harm we do our own immortal souls. Thus, why confess to someone else, especially some priest? Not only because of the nature of the Sacrament, the authority granted by Christ, but also because that priest, that person, is a representative of the entire Church, the entire Body that we are a part of, and our interaction with that person, our confession and contrition, allow us to beg forgiveness not only of God, but of our Brothers and Sisters whom we have failed in our sin.

And that is the Sacrament of Penance in a formidably large nutshell.

This week's introduction.

So we've entered the Easter Season, and I believe it fitting and appropriate to spend each day this week writing on a different Sacrament. Seven days, seven Sacraments, should work out well if I can keep on track. I find it fitting since this is period is a major time for the Sacraments. Baptism, Communion and Confirmation at Easter Vigil, and for the kids of my parish, they'll be having First Communion soon as well. Confession before Easter for everyone who is receiving. I can't speak of any ordinations, unfortunately, but my brother's one year anniversary of marriage has just past, and my own wedding presses upon my mind. And for myself, this past weekend was my first confession and reception of the Eucharist in something like half a year.

Seeing as this is an apologetics blog, I will begin with one of the most hotly debated apologetics subjects among the Sacraments, and end with the most hotly debated. I will begin with the Sacrament of Penance, and end with the Sacrament of the Eucharist. In between, I'll tackle the others as the dual masters of whim and inspiration dictate. I am not entirely sure what form these essays will take, other than explanatory. Some will assuredly be more mystical than others, and some longer than others. And some more fully and elaborately written. I make no claim to impartial bias, I am sure Confession and the Eucharist will probably be the longest and best.

And I'll admit also that the one on Confession, at least, is already complete. I wrote just such an essay some time ago for apologetics purposes, and I shall post it presently.

To a beautiful first week of the Easter Season, a deepening in all our hearts of the hidden Joy of Christ, and the growth in depth of our live for God and each other, I dedicate this week's writing.

Epicurus

Been seeing a bit of Epicurus popping up, so I thought I'd post an old analysis of his classic argument and take on the problem of evil.

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent."

No problem, logically speaking, with this part.

"Is he able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent."

This, however, is a logical fallacy. Epicurus assumes that if God does not will to prevent Evil, that God is evil. What Epicurus fails to understand is that there may well be a reason that God allows Evil, and in fact, there are several.

First is that we exist to Love and to be Loved. But Love can only be given freely, it must be chosen by the persons who love. Which means that we must have choice to love God. Evil is merely the other option of that choice. We can choose to be with God, or we can choose to reject God. That is evil, evil is the absence of God. God allows Evil for the greater purpose of allowing us to truly Love, for the purpose of allowing us to be free to follow Him. Malevolent? No.

Second, God does not merely let evil sit and fester on the Earth, He does not leave us to rot in it. God is able to prevent it, and this is part of His omnipotence, as Epicurus pointed out in the first part. But God being omnipotent, He can not only prevent it, but He can in fact create Good from Evil. He can take our sins, and He can bring about such Good from them, that we, who are the source of it, can still be united with Him. In short, God can be Christ, God IS Christ. The Lamb of the World, who even while being tortured, mocked and murdered, still managed to forgive the world, to forgive all of our sins, and to take them upon Himself. So yes, there is evil, and God can prevent it, at the cost of destroying our ability to love Him. Or God can let us have that Love, and God can Himself take up the burden of sin for our sakes, that we might know even MORE Good, that we might know the Good of Christ.

And that, I would argue, is not only NOT malevolent, but is the greatest act of Good imaginable.

"Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?"

Epicurus here engages in another fallacious argument, this time he assumes that evil comes from God. This is false. Evil comes from us, specifically, it comes from our ability to choose something OTHER than God. What God made is the potential for us to Love, and thus the potential for us to not Love, the potential for us to do Good, but with that came the potential for us to do Evil. WE are the ones who choose to do evil, not God, and God is the one who choose to forgive us, redeem us, bring good from evil and right from our wrongs, and even to help us to sin no more.

Remember that, fundamentally, we are Good. We are not evil creatures, even if we do evil, and we should never despair of God's Love for us, He has already shown it, He has already promised it.

"Is He neither able or willing? Then why call Him God?"

Indeed, we'd be wiser to call such a being Epicurus...

Is Christianity Fake?

The following is a transcription of my response to an atheist who claimed Christianity is fake on a major discussion board. Follow the title link to see the original. He started with a supposed 9 premises that were to demonstrate that Christ was a fictional character. Let's see how he fared!

"1. On Proving the Bible True Or False

"Much, if not most, of the Bible is arguably fiction."

This is an assertion, not a logically founded premise. Your argument has already failed.

"Quit being so intellectually dishonest, Christians!"

This isn't even relevant.

"This is the twenty-first century."

Nor is this.

"That means the burden of proof is on YOU."

Burden of proof is on the asserter. You being the one asserting in this argument, burden of proof rests upon you. Good luck.

"If you make a claim about the universe, it is up to you to prove it, not the other way around."

In this argument, you're the one making assertions. This isn't a reply to anyone. Stop being intellectually dishonest.

"It is not up to us, the rest of the world, to prove that your claims are false; that is not scientific thinking, that is anti-scientific thinking."

Strangely, this has nothing to do with your initial assertion, nor with the Bible...

"Because I am a man of my times, and believe in correcting ignorance, what I am doing here is out of courtesy to YOU, just as if I were to publicly argue that there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster orbiting Venus, preparing to blow up Earth with a death-ray, at least ONE of you would probably, out of simple human decency attempt to correct me and point me towards the truth. This is my way of doing that."

You choose a strangely illogical way of doing so.

"Now, back to the Bible being fiction..."

Yes, one must wonder why you ever left...

"that part's easy."

This will be very funny.

"Find me a snake with vocal chords,"

You've now demonstrated that one part of one book, a part acknowledged by nearly every serious Bible scholar as myth, to be fictional. BTW, most Christians agree, it's a myth, and not history or science.

"water that's dense enough for a human being to walk on,"

I'm curious why you believe that people walked on water due to the water's density?

This doesn't prove anything regarding a miracle. The account is either true, or untrue, and no one has suggested that it was a natural event, but rather a supernatural one. Which means that to DISPROVE it, your stated intention, you need more than a disbelief in the miraculous. If your only opposition is simply that miracles cannot happen because you don't believe they can happen, then I'd have to ask, do you have a real argument, or just further dogmatism?

"or a chemical process that converts complex carbohydrates to fish."

You're joking, yes? You do realize that both loaves and fish were present in the baskets, right? Now, you might ask about a process that converts bread into more bread, or fish into more fish, but then you'd fail to the same problem as in the one above.

"Until then, you're out of luck... the evidence wins, and the evidence sides with me."

You haven't offered any evidence. You've simply claimed that certain stories are not possible empirically. You haven't demonstrated this is true, nor have you even demonstrated why anyone would think they were empirically accomplished.

"Wake up, people - these are invented stories! Fictional dramas meant to impart some moral lesson! THEY ARE NOT REAL!"

Here's some news for you. The Bible? Not a monolithic work of literature. It's seventy some odd books, with multiple authors, intents, literary styles, etc. The book of Genesis alone has 5 authors, and several literary styles, including the epic poetic, mythical and historical narrative. Chapter 27 of Genesis is not the same style or author as chapter 7. Certainly the Bible contains myth, allegory, prophetic writings, poetic writings, parables, etc. But it also contains historical narratives and more biographic information as well. It doesn't discredit the Bible to call a myth a myth, anymore than it does to call a miracle a miracle.

Your first "premise" fails.

And would fail regardless, technically, since Christianity didn't come from the Bible.

"2. On Bible Claims vs. Scientific Claims

From an objective, scrutinizing view, there is no reason to believe one story in the Bible over another. We cannot honestly engage shades of truth here. Either the books in the Bible are historically true or they are not. Since they almost ubiquitously contain material which would make the scientific person skeptical, we can chance to say the same standard applies to the book as a whole; either it happened, or it didn't. Therefore, it is no less plausible to disbelieve the Jesus myth than the myth about Enoch (the nine-hundred year old man) or Adam and Eve (the creation myth wherein God pats the first humans out of clay).

Here's a hint: humans, like all other complex organisms, reached their present condition by millions of years of natural selection through the self-preservation of certain greedy genes. We can observe this happening today. Anti-biotic resistant bacteria are a good example. Ever have an older relative in the hospital who got a staph infection? Then you know what I'm talking about.

Furthermore, we've mapped the entirety of the human genome - it happened at the school where I earned my Bachelor's Degree, UC Santa Cruz, and some of my very own professors in genetics and chemistry took part in the project. I can say with some authority that we (humans) now know our ancestry beyond a doubt, and it's simian.

Even Pope John Paul II said evolution is a historical fact. People did not come from clay."

This is a pathetic argument. That John Paul II endorsed evolution should have given you a clue that your approach to Biblical hermeneutics was flawed.

You're attempting to treat multiple works of literature as mutually dependent when those works are not even individually dependent. That one section of a book is myth doesn't make the entire compilation mythical. Your entire "premise" here thus fails.

"3. On Correct Argumentation

By definition, intellect, or "reason" is the ability to revise one's beliefs in light of a superior argument. Human beings have reason. It is what sets us apart from lower animals. If you do not use your reason, you are not participating in any kind of human activity."

This is problematic on several accounts. First, by definition "reason" is the ability to form conclusions through facts and inferences, etc. This can involve revising belief, but doesn't necessarily. And your definition lacks the actual substance of reason.

Also, not using one's reason is impossible. Everyone uses it. And human activities are not solely delineated by using reason, indeed, one could argue such a philosophy leads to madness, not humanity. Poetry, for example, is not "rational" as you would say, but it is sublimely human.

"Taking simple, empirical data from the world around you should make it easy to determine that the physical laws of the universe do not change. Measure things. Perform experiments. Find out for yourself."

David Hume adequately demonstrated the flaws in an empirical world view long ago. Empiricism says NOTHING certain about the future, it only tells us that certain things have happened in the past, and are likely to happen in the future. And that's only if one axiomatically accepts it, which is, in itself, an illogical presupposition.

"Miracles, as they appear in the Bible, can only possibly be one of three phenomena. A, that an outside (or "supernatural") force actually interferes with the laws of the universe; B, that someone witnessed a coincidence and hyperbolized it in the reporting; or C, that the event was made up entirely, and is fictional."

I cannot think of a fourth option presently, so I will grant you this.

"Considering the Bible was written in a time when allegory was the most common form of journalistic reporting and most people still believed spitting on a wound was an appropriate way to cure it, it is far more reasonable to assume one of the latter two."

This is a major problem. You haven't proven anything regarding any of these points yet. I could easily rejoin that it was also a time when people were paranoid about false prophets and magicians, and so wouldn't believe any such event lightly.

You've failed to remove the first option, so far.

"Seriously Hoss, let me clue you in on something: things that are impossible to do now - again, such as walking on water, resuscitation after days of true biological death, and wine magically turning into blood - were just as impossible 2,000 years ago. The miracles in the Bible were written in a time when people would actually believe these stories upon hearing them without demanding further proof. Unfortunately today, we have inherited these stories from our parents and must break out of the cycle of our own volition."

This assume materialism to conclude materialism. Circular reasoning.

"Just because you were taught to "believe" something, doesn't make it true. There's a much greater power in the universe than belief; it's called observation."

Just because you observe something doesn't make that observation true. Radical skepticism defeats all.

"4. On Self-Deception and Intellectual Dishonesty In Christians

To believe the stories in the Bible, you must create strange rationalizations that do not hold up to true intellectual scrutiny. This brings us to the issues of self-deception (delusion) and intellectual dishonesty in Christians."

To qualify as delusion, an individual must hold to a false belief in light of invalidating evidence. To prove anyone is delusional, you must prove their belief to be false. Good luck.

"I challenge you to answer, honestly, the following questions:"

Ok.

"Why doesn't God heal amputees? He heals everyone else miraculously, right? But neither you nor I have ever seen an amputee grow back a leg."

No, actually He doesn't heal everyone else. Healings are quite rare. And it's nonsensical to speak of "healing" amputees. Amputation is a medical process designed to save someone's life, not an illness or injury in and of itself. And amputees still alive for us to talk about have already healed, their wounds have closed, and their lives are not in danger. Unless you're suggesting that amputees are somehow less capable of living a long and full life?

"Isn't he supposed to be loving and just? What's with the discrimination? Does he hate amputees - are they one of the "abominations" he forgot to mention in Leviticus?"

He is loving and just. Since amputees are not prevented from living life, or from being happy and fulfilling their telos, there's no issue in regards to either.

"How about Jonah surviving in the belly of that whale? Wouldn't he be partially digested after three days?"

LOL. God gave him a magical forcefield.

"How come nobody wrote about Jesus until forty years later?"

No one actually knows the exact dates of writing of any of the epistles or Gospels. I see you like to take the later dates for your points, but as you cannot demonstrate it, there's no point in continuing.

"How come none of the Gospel authors were people who actually met him?"

You don't actually know this, you do realize that, correct? Why, I expect later on you'll make an argument about how the authors' names aren't in the books, so we don't know they wrote it.

But by the same token, we don't know that they weren't written by people close to Christ, etc. Your own skepticism defeats you.

"5. On Christian Plagiarism Of Earlier Religions

This one is my favorite. There are no less than two dozen pagan gods of the ancient Mediterranean region who predated Jesus, and yet somehow had many of the same traits as him. Early Christian apologist Justin Martyr claimed this was the work of the Devil - that he foresaw Jesus' birth and implanted false gods in history to draw people away from the True Messiah."

Justin Martyr had an excellent underlying point, though few realize it. There's no reason why those figures cannot be archetypes or prefigurations or even deceptions. The only argument you've mustered against it is one of ridicule.

"Makes total sense."

As I said, all you've said against it is an argument from ridicule, a logical fallacy.

"On a more serious note, I can name for you more than twenty gods of that region and period whose mythologies claim they were born of a union between God and a human female, whose birth was heralded by a bright star in the East (Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, for those who don't practice astronomy), who were adored by wise men, who walked on water, who fed the hungry, who resurrected the dead, who were crucified and rose again, or who even had the same birthday as Jesus - December 25th - the pre-Christian Roman holiday of Saturnalia!"

LOL. No, you can't. To start, because Christ's birthdate isn't December 25. And I'll happily go through every single one of those with you, if you'd like.

"I'm not going to name all of them, but I will name a few:Mithra of Rome,"

Mithras was not born, he spring out of a rock. He didn't have apostles, nor was he attended by wise men, but three shepherds did pull him out of the rock in a cave, which is where similarity with Christ ends. He didn't die, nor was he resurrected, instead he killed a bull with some zodiac figures. And since his Roman mystery cult forbade the writing down of its secrets, that's about all we know of Roman Mithras.

"Attis of Frigia,"

Not associated at all with Dec. 25, technically is a story about a shepherd boy, and son of the Lydian king who is killed by accident on a hunt. Nothing to do with Christ. The myths that do bear some resemblance POST-date Christianity by some two hundred years. And technically, we know nothing about whether his mother was a virgin or not, nor does he match up with Christ after that.

"Hercules and Dionysis of Greece,"

Neither was born of a virgin, neither was crucified, neither was resurrected, neither had wise men or apostles, etc. No theological similarities, or even superficial similarities here.

"Krishna of India,"

No entity in Hinduism matches Christ, since every thing is merely a dream of Brahma, destined for death when Brahma awakes. But putting that aside, Krishna is just one aspect of Vishnu, and while he has a saving role, he certainly is in no way theologically similar to Christ or Christianity.

"and Horus of Egypt.."

LOL. The worst of the worst. Horus was the son of Osiris and Isis, conceived by Isis after she had sex with Osiris' dead body and a dildo she constructed to replace his dismembered member. Definitely not a virgin. Nor does Horus die, though Set does blind him. He is resurrected, but he does have his sight returned to him (the whole day and night bit, the sun being his eye and all). Etc. etc.

"Surprise!"

Surprise! You've relied almost exclusively on the scholarship of Freke and Gandy, two scholars who are the laughing stock of modern ancient religious study.

"Christians plagiarized earlier religions."

Even in the ones you've posted here, quite a few are the other way around.

"I cannot spell it out any clearer than that. Knowing this, how can one believe anything Christian doctrine teaches?"

Even someone as demonstrably ignorant as yourself should realize that every similarity claimed in these instance is a superficial one. Christian THEOLOGY is vastly different from the beliefs presented by these myths. Thus Christian doctrine is rather different as well. But you, of course, don't know anything about Christian theology, concerned as you are solely with appearances...

"How do you even begin to separate what was invented from what was borrowed? You can't. It's too muddled together. I will expound this point further in the next section."

Actually, it's pretty easy. We analyze the periods, the dates, the myths themselves, and then use proper scholarship.

For example, Mithras? Attis? These were, prior to the Romans, religions with absolutely no similarity to Christ. The references we have to anything at all that could be called, "Christlike" comes after the dawn of Christianity. And even in those cases, these were mystery religions. Mystery religions were called that because their rites and beliefs were only known to the fully inducted, never to initiates and never to be written down. Half the things claimed about them are supposition, the other half bald faced falsehoods.

"7. On Messianic Archetypes

If you are skeptical of the aforementioned information, and you should be, as doubt is the seed of all knowing - feel free to investigate the matter for yourself. One hugely recurring problem I find when debating with Christians is that they either know very little about other religions or are ignorant of their existence entirely."

Try me.

"This seems counter-intuitive to me, as it strikes me as terribly important that one make the most educated decision in choosing a religion, if practicing the "right" religion is important to that person."

For once, we agree.

"For example, you wouldn't want to choose a religion based on plagiarism, would you? Or one that literally absorbed every earlier belief system it encountered through endless politicizing and the diplomacy of the sword?"

Lol, no indeed. Ironically, there's no account of "diplomacy of the sword" from Christianity until well after every religion you've mentioned. And Christianity, interestingly, rejected every syncretic movement that attempted to blend it with other religions, like Manichaeism. Hence all those declaration of anathema and heresy that came out of the early Councils.

"Well, the truth is, that is exactly what happened. Religion is alot like language. The reason languages from the same general regions bear many similarities (such as Portuguese and Spanish, or French and Italian) is because they ARE very similar. Words and ideas are exchanged across national and ethnic borders just as often, if not more so, as material goods, and their impact is often much greater. Yet somehow, people tend to think the ideas they were raised to believe in belong solely to them."

Interesting theory. Proof?

"A good example is American junk food. What is American about hot dogs, pizza, and hamburgers? Literally nothing - all of these foods originated in Europe. Yet Americans have put simple twists on them and patented them as wholly original to the United States. Is it beyond you to think the same couldn't happen to gods?"

It's not beyond reason. In fact, the entire Mediterranean pantheon likely arose in just such a fashion. The problem, of course, being that the Jews and Christians condemned and eschewed all such attempts to make their God just one of the many.

"Well unfortunately for you, it does, and did. The development of the Jesus character is not difficult to trace, even two thousand years after the fact. It would behoove you to research the exchange of Mediterranean deities in that time period... again: see Mithra of Rome, Attis of Frigia, Hercules and Dionysis of Greece, Krishna of India, and Horus of Egypt."

All dealt with. Haven't you got anything new?

"The last should be of particular interest to you, as his mythology is the most similar to Jesus', to a chilling degree. This should come as no surprise to you, as it's written right in the bible that the Hebrews came out of Egypt."

Lol, Horus is almost as far from Jesus as you can get.

"The cold, hard truth is, it was an old story then, and it's an old story now. These messianic archetypes - the man that is god, the man who conquers death - existed long, long before Jesus came around. They were old news when soap was a cutting-edge technology, before written language was even invented. They are ancient fucking history. Jesus was not the antitype of these messianic figures, he was their distillation."

And Jesus was indeed the anti-type, for the ones that actually did pre-date Christianity, which was a scant few.

But most of those aren't "messianic" in any sense, regardless. None of them had anything to do with salvation from sins, for instance.

"8. On Christian Ethics

Western civilization may have been "built" on Judeo-Christian values - at least the "don't kill" and "don't steal" parts - but we have become a modern society and have adopted the scientific way of thinking. These values were purposefully left out of the founding documents of the United States of America, over two centuries ago - and replaced by secular, Enlightenment values!"

Is this seriously your next argument? Your thesis was to demonstrate that Jesus is a fictional character. How is this at all relevant?

"While Christian ethics have indisputable merits, maintaining the dogma in its entirety is no longer necessary, especially when we consider the violence and segregation it has caused throughout the ages."

Claims without evidence bore me.

"Furthermore, philosophically speaking, Christian ethics are severely outdated."

Not at all.

"Since the Enlightenment, the Western World has seen far superior ethicists to Jesus of Nazareth."

Not really.

"Kant and Mill, for example, created life-affirming ethical systems that can be applied to a wider range of people without destroying their culture or beliefs about where the universe came from and what kind of sex they should consider perverse."

One major problem with your analysis. If sex is a matter of morality and ethics, then you've just contradicted their systems as more ethical.

More important than that is that you've changed standards. These men didn't create a more ethical or moral system, they merely changed the standard by which ethics are judged. If you change the standard, no comparison is possible. I cannot say that Churchill was funnier than a dog is hairy.

"Truly, there is no reason to cling to the old way any longer. We have adopted science and reason in every other aspect of our lives... why have we retained the ethics of the Bronze Age?"

This is rhetoric, not reason.

"It makes no sense. Why should we continue to believe it is better to be tribalists than to be humanists?"

Humanists haven't added anything to the Christian moral scheme that wasn't already there, and they've lost something important. The community. I'd rather have a tribe than be alone.

"This mentality is not compatible with a just, egalitarian society."

Define "just" for me. :-)

"Besides, Jesus may tell us to love one another, but he also says we should maintain the Old Testament in its entirety - no cherry-picking - which means we technically must condone rape, incest, slavery, and genocide (!)."

Actually, He said He came to fulfill it. When you understand what that means, your point will not longer apply.

"If we can do away with these parts (and we have), why not do away with the whole thing?"

Actually, in strict point of fact, it was the Church in western Europe that destroyed slavery between 500 and 1500 AD. And it was the Church that battled rape, incest, and genocide.

It wasn't until the "enlightenment" that human chattel in particular became acceptable again, for the supposedly scientific rationalization that Africans couldn't be human.

"9. On Doing Away With Past Fictions And Looking Towards The Future

In the grand scheme of things, it would generally be permissible for one to believe in Christian ethics if it were readily understood that Jesus was not a historical person, that the story is allegory. However, if you are a Christian, you probably do believe that Jesus was a real human being. This is a threat to both the advancement of science and the absolution of religious conflict in the world, two issues that are paramount to our survival as a species as our planet nears carrying capacity and is dangerously on the brink of overheating."

You haven't proven your thesis yet, are you going to attempt to, or waste another "premise" talking about an ethical system you clearly don't understand?

Christianity and science are not mutually exclusive, thank you for the straw man. If what you said was true, Gregor Mendel wouldn't have discovered genetics, LeMaitre wouldn't have discovered the Big Bang, etc.

"Why, you ask? Because believing these stories, of which the Jesus character is the paragon, creates too slippery a slope for other theocratic nonsense to take hold in society. For example, the mindset that human beings can literally survive death. How many soldiers would we send to die if everyone believed this is the only life?"

The slippery slope is a logical fallacy. Try again.

"Or, what about the philosophy that preserving the existence of cell clusters which bear no conceivable human traits is somehow a better aim than alleviating actual human suffering?"

No conceivable human traits aside from a complete set of human DNA, the only thing that determines one's species?

And what's wrong with suffering?

"Or that sex is harmful - but killing, bigotry, and total obedience to clandestine authority are healthy practices?"

Sex isn't harmful. Maybe you should get a clue as to what Christianity actually teaches? Try reading Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body.

"Or that blood sacrifice is a value modern societies should endorse?"

Ironically, Christianity states that sacrifice is not needed at all in modern society.

"But Jesus WAS a real person, you say! There's a plethora of evidence! No, not really, unless you count the Gospels. In which case you are practicing intellectual dishonesty and should revisit section 4."

I've never found that claiming something makes it true. That goes for theists and atheists. Remember your lecture about how believing doesn't equate to truth? Your beliefs here? Don't equate to truth. Put up or shut up, kid.

"The Gosepls are secondary sources at best."

Unknown.

"Here's why: if a historical Jesus really lived between 0 and 33 CE, then we know beyond a doubt that at least forty years passed before the earliest Gospel, the one written by Mark, was scribed. Because the aforementioned gospel discusses the destruction of Solomon's temple, we know it was written in or sometime after 70 CE."

Not only is it not known that Mark's Gospel was written first, it certainly isn't accurate, nor intellectually honest to claim that the writing date is 70 AD. We don't know the writing date, and what's ACTUALLY offered is a range, with 40AD being the low end, and 70 being the high. You're being intentionally deceptive.

"Given the average lifespan of the period, it is most likely the author or authors were infants or young children when Jesus of Nazareth was supposed to have lived and been crucified."

Technically, we don't know the ages of the Apostles, though we do know that John, at least, was a child.

"Moreover, the Gospel writers are not themselves mentioned in the Gospels, and they make no claim to actually having met Jesus."

Bravo sir, you've shot yourself in the foot. The authors don't speak, so from the works themselves, we know nothing of them. Of course, if the books claimed to be written by someone, you'd just argue that anyone can write a book claiming to be written by someone important, and that proves nothing.

Thankfully, Christianity is not a "religion of the Book" a la Islam. We have outside sources and Tradition which guide our understanding of such things, which is where we got the names of the authors.

"None of the apostles who walked with Jesus nor anyone who even met him wrote accounts to that effect."

As I said before, if you don't know who wrote the Gospels, how do you know this is true?

"Granted, there are certain mentions of a "Christ" in the writings of Mediterranean historians from that time - not Justin Martyr or Pontius Pilate, sorry, but those are proven forgeries -"

You're referring to Josephus. Unfortunately, what's proven about Josephus' work is that certain parts are forgeries, not that the whole account is a forgery. Enough remains outside the forgery to substantiate Christ.

"yet if are a serious Christian, you know "the Christ" simply means "the Anointed," a title taken up by many rabbis of that time. In not ONE of these documents is a man named Jesus, or Yeshua of Nazareth mentioned.""

No, the "Christ" refers to the Messiah, a title not taken up by many rabbis of that time, since they knew better. The anointing of a chosen one of God was a mark of Davidic Kingship, the Jewish Kings were always so anointed. Any rabbi taking that title would be proclaiming himself king of the Jews.

And as Jewish rabbis would not likely be calling themselves by the Greek word "Christus" as opposed to their OWN word, "Messiah" your theory has another problem.

"In conclusion, the Gospels which discuss the life of Jesus of Nazareth are at best hearsay, almost certainly hyperbolized, and at worst complete fabrications."

You've failed utterly in your attempts to demonstrate this.

"What we can determine beyond a doubt is that for at least four decades after his death, everyone in the world, including his sworn followers and students, simply forgot their Messiah existed."

No. False. Completely false, and utter non sequitur.

What we can determine beyond a doubt is that for at MOST four decades after His death, a Gospel was not yet written.

Paul's epistles, however, predate that Gospel, and that's assuming the latest possible date for Mark's Gospel.

And since the epistles and Gospels were written for already existing Christian communities, I'd say they didn't forget anything. Sounds more to me like they were so busy running around the Mediterranean converting people, they didn't take time to write as much down.

Forgetting? Hardly.

"If that doesn't cast upon you a serious shade of doubt, then nothing will, and perhaps I'm not "the fool"."

No, unfortunately you're definitely a fool if you think anything you've written here would cause us doubt. This was not only poorly researched, filled with vague conjecture and non sequitur, it was terribly written as well. You never demonstrated your thesis, you simply assumed it, and used that assumption to try and prove it! Then you abandoned your thesis to talk about completely unrelated nonsense for two sections, then returned to restate the same fallacious crap, and finished without even a proper conclusion.

If you turned this in in a class on religion, I'd fail you.